Lost some arm hair, gained some perspective

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This article was published 26/09/2018 (2851 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It looks like I will be keeping my day job.

That’s what was going through my brain Monday night as I sweated over a hot grill, flames scorching my arm hair, helping an award-winning executive chef churn out kid-friendly food for 60 special-needs children and their parents/guardians.

I’m not trying to exaggerate for comical effect when I tell you I have not felt this far out of my league since the time I agreed to work the drive-thru window for charity on McHappy Day.

Chef Wayne Martin’s newest restaurant, Capital Broadway, at 275 Broadway, doesn’t formally open until Oct. 8, but he volunteered to throw open the doors Monday night as a special treat for families supported by Variety, the Children’s Charity of Manitoba.

Other than singeing my arm hairs and eyebrows — and we’ll talk about that in a minute — I am pleased to report I escaped with most of my medically important organs intact.

Joining us in putting their culinary skills and limbs on the line were our philanthropist buddy Louis Trepel, a founding member of Variety who organized the evening, and Jeff Liba, the chief executive officer of Variety, which provides specialized equipment, programs and services for kids with special needs in Manitoba.

The first thing we were required to do was decorate our professional-style chef hats with felt markers — I drew a basset hound on mine — and then, Chef Wayne dragged us to the kitchen sink to give us a pro tip on washing our hands. “You’re supposed to sing Happy Birthday twice — that lets you know how long to wash them for,” the longtime chef said as we scrubbed our mitts.

Next, he held up the largest knife I have ever seen in my life and explained we should probably not go near it if we expected to leave the kitchen alive. “This is a $450 knife, so don’t do anything stupid with it. I’m just saying,” he said.

It would be safe to say Louis, Jeff and myself were the culinary equivalent of the Three Stooges, but we tried to pay attention as Chef Wayne taught us how to prepare the first item on the menu, mini pizzas.

What this involves is picking up a baseball-sized lump of dough, flattening it, then spinning it around in your hands while simultaneously stretching it out. “You don’t want to roll it because it takes the air out of it; you want to stretch it,” he said.

We used an oversized lid from a mayonnaise jar to determine when our pizzas were the right size, and then we slathered on the toppings, including pepperoni, cheese, sauce, mushrooms and (I hate to say this) pineapple.

“I love pineapple on my pizza,” is what Louis chirped as we worked.

“You are a MONSTER!” I replied, because I believe putting fruit on a pizza should be punishable by death.

We also were carefully trained in the art of making mini hamburgers, which involves 1) putting on creepy surgical gloves; 2) seasoning the meat; 3) making a ball and weighing it; 4) adjusting your ball so it weighs three ounces; 5) squashing the patty; 6) watching the chef take all your hard work and squish it back into a single gigantic ball so that the kids can make their own burgers.

When the kids arrived, they first had to decorate their own chef hats, aided by volunteers such as my beloved spouse, She Who Must Not Be Named, then we marched them into the kitchen to try their hand at cooking.

One of the kids to whom I passed on my pizza-preparation tips was eight-year-old Jaerden Peters, a Grade 3 student at Princess Margaret School, who decorated a pair of pineapple-intensive pies and helped shove them in the convection oven.

“I loved it!” is what a flour-coated Jaerden said while chowing down on one of his creations. “It was really fun. I liked putting the toppings on. I like the pineapple and pepperoni. No mushrooms! I hate mushrooms.”

My pint-sized pal, who arrived with his sisters Maliha, 7, and Carissa, 5, couldn’t decide whether he preferred eating pizzas, or making them.

“I actually thought this was going to be boring, but when I came in here, I thought it was awesome,” he told me between bites.

Forgive me for getting a bit mushy, but it was hard not to become misty-eyed when Jaerden’s parents, Jules and David, explained how much of a difference Variety has made in the lives of their autistic son, whose name means “one who enlightens others.”

“This is an amazing experience,” Jules gushed. “I expected to just come in and eat, but then I discovered the kids got to cook. It’s something we don’t get to do at home. I have to race home from work and start preparing food and I often do that alone.”

Which is when they explained how Variety has provided music therapy for their son. “Through that, he’s learning how to socialize,” his mom noted. “He’s learning how to interact with other kids. Instead of just going up behind them and tapping them with a toy, he will actually ask to play. He engages in play with the other kids and he didn’t do that before.

“We are extraordinarily grateful and thankful for the time and energy and financial means to make our lives better.”

Chimed in David: “He entertains, too. He can use music to express his emotions now instead of screaming and yelling.”

“He can go to the piano and say, ‘This is how I feel,’ and then pound away on the piano. You are one talented kid, bud,” Jules said, hugging her son.

Back in the kitchen, I saw how busy Chef Wayne was, so I persuaded him to let me try my hand at cooking the sliders on his state-of-the-art grill. As a regulation guy who spends most of his non-couch time in front of a barbecue, I thought I could handle this. I started to think otherwise when, as I tried to flip the burgers, the grill erupted in a wall of flames, and caused much of my arm hair to go up in smoke.

“Um, chef? Um, I might need some help flipping the ones at the very back,” I whined, which is when Chef Wayne strolled over, reached his asbestos arms directly into the flames, flipped the last two sliders, then sauntered away.

When Louis looked at me after my stint on the grill, I saw horror etched on his face. “Are you OK, Doug?” my philanthropist pal asked. “Your face is all red and you’re sweating like crazy. You really stepped it up on the grill.”

Taking a quick breather, I leaned against the dining-room bar and asked fellow sous chef Jeff how he felt about working in a professional kitchen.

“This is awesome,” he said. “It’s wonderful to see how much fun the kids had learning to make the pizzas and burgers. It’s a nice night out for the families. They can let their guard down and enjoy themselves.

“A lot of these families don’t get a chance to do that very often. When you have a special-needs child, the costs are extremely high. That means you don’t have disposable income to do the things the rest of us take for granted.”

At the end of the night, as we stood in the kitchen, an endless stream of kids and parents wandered in to thank Chef Wayne for the food and kindness. “That was the best pasta I ever had,” one little girl said.

The chef smiled beneath a sheen of sweat. “That’s why I do this,” he said, sighing. “It feels so good when people do that. You know you’re never going to be a millionaire being a chef.”

When I left the restaurant, I have to tell you, there was definitely something special in the air. It might have been a feeling of contentment, but it was probably just the smell of sizzling arm hair.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca