Once I was out of the Army, that didn’t change.  I still made the hours-long trek back to Rochester for the holidays especially Thanksgiving, because that always meant “Mom’s Waldorf salad” A Staple. Then disaster struck. (so dramatic) I think it was Thanksgiving of 1993, a day or so before the great voyage home to pure stomach-filled bliss.  My car broke down. What do I do??! I think rental cars at that point were around $11,500 per day.  (probably more dramatics, but you see the problem). So there I was, stuck in Virginia, at the firehouse.What to do? We could go see our buddy Bir at 7-11 and get our fill of Big Bites and Nachos. No, I had a better idea that. It could have been a moment like in the Blues Brothers when Jake “sees the light”.  But, I decided we needed to bring the VanDeusen family Thanksgiving to the firehouse. I called my soon-to-be-disappointed mother and informed her of my predicament. This is only a sliver of how awesome my Mom is. She wrote out complete instructions for every piece of a magical Thanksgiving dinner, including what is now known as “Mom Doozer’s Waldorf Salad. And then went to Kinkos and faxed it to me. That’s when it hit me.  I was meant to cook.  Who knew that a broken-down Buick would spark the fire within me. I have to be honest. They weren’t all culinary gems.  I’m pretty sure that more than one dish had been set on the table as a questionable item. But hey, trial and error, right? The main take from this long and drawn out alternative to NyQuil is that I was meant to cook.

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In probably 2002-2003, we were gifted a drum barrel smoker at the firehouse. This added a whole new element to the 10-years-strong VanDeusen takeover of all things Thanksgiving. We. Burned. So. Much. Food. Big Pun, aka Chris Valentin and I were infatuated with our new toy.  I have to say, Chris probably had that thing figured out better than any of us.

In the ways of natural progression, the barrel kind of got left behind.  We bought a cabinet smoker that gave us more cooking space and more opportunities for experiments. So. Many. Smoked. Things. It got to be the standard of any weekend firehouse duty with Josh and I, that it wasn’t if we would smoke something, but more of what we were smoking. So many ambulance crews grew tired of this quickly, but we were on a mission.

So, when my local watering hole built a massive barbecue pit, obviously it piqued my curiosity.  I entertained thoughts of taking on a job at the restaurant.  Yeah. The thing I swore I would never do again. But this was an amazing setup.  They just knew how to get me. I sort of knew the guy they put in charge of the pit. So when he was out working on it I would go an BS with him.  I finally got up the nerve to ask him if he needed help on it.  Much to my surprise, he said “Yes”! And there I was, back in the thing I had sworn off. So. Much. To. Learn.Since I had never really been in the position of “feeding the paying people”, this was a whole new animal to me. I learned very quickly that people do not want to wait for their food! No pressure. I eventually figured it all out. And when James left, I was left in charge of all of it. I proudly ran what was dubbed “The Beast” until the day it closed. I was very thankful for the experience I gained.

I jumped back in when another opportunity presented itself with the opening of a brand new BBQ restaurant. Same as before, it has been an amazing learning experience.

I can’t say enough about those that have helped me along the way and taught me so much.