Published: Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Five-alarm fare
Everett 1 firefighters enjoy family-style meals with side order of ribbing
By Debra Smith
Herald Writer
The firefighters at Everett Fire Station 1 have three rules when it comes to dinner.
It needs to be cheap.
There needs to be enough.
If it happens to taste good, all the better.
Mike Calvert, 45, is known around the station for mastering all three. He can whip up a mean white chicken chili, a tender London broil, a flavorful chicken Marsala. He doesn't have any formal culinary training, just seven years of cooking hearty fare for a dozen hungry firefighters who kibitz about his dinners louder and more enthusiastically than any mother-in-law.
The firefighters work 24-hour shifts, and during that time, the station house becomes a second home. Along with a fire pole that is rarely used by anyone but schoolchildren, this station is equipped with a weight room, a sleeping loft, a dining room and an industrial kitchen equipped with two ovens and Shrek-sized cookware.
Dinner preparations start about 4 p.m., when Calvert and the rest of Engine 3 climb into an 18-ton, cherry red truck to drive to the supermarket. The firefighters are ready to respond to a call at a moment's notice. Sometimes that means abandoning a cart full of groceries and running back to the rig.
The three grab baskets and head to the meat department, where Calvert loads his basket with three value packs of $1.99-a-pound chicken breasts. He's planning chicken Parmesan.
Anybody cooking for a crowd on a dime could learn a few things from Calvert. He scans the supermarket fliers for deals ahead of time and plans the menu around a good deal on meat or poultry. He gets choosy in the pasta sauce section, checking different brands for the best deal. In the produce section, he hems and haws over buying high-priced tomatoes. He avoids recipes with too many ingredients or pricey spices, since those drive up the cost.
In the supermarket, the men in their uniforms attract greetings from grocery clerks, stares from shoppers and sometimes hero worship.
"Oh, firefighters," says one shopper, pushing her cart by the men in the produce section. "My favorite people to shop behind. I just love your buns."
Nary a bread product is in sight. They do fill baskets with pasta, sauce, cheese, salad fixings, ice cream and brownies for a dozen. The bill: $81.08. The grocery bags get tucked on a side compartment of the truck next to the orange safety cones and below a water survival suit.
On the ride back to the station, the men decide the bun-loving shopper must have been ogling Capt. Jim Nagle. This isn't the first bit of ribbing to take place today and far from the last. Firefighters are constantly needling each other, and it wouldn't be dinner if someone wasn't complaining about the food or how much they have to chip in.
Back at the station, the firefighters' names are listed on a white board in the kitchen, along with the price of the night's dinner: $4.75. Those working overtime pay more for dinner because they're earning more.
"$4.75 -- that's crap," says one firefighter loudly when he sees the white board. Later, the chief wanders in and complains in a deadpan tone about the smell.
"Humor is a big stress reliever," Calvert explains. "We kid each other a lot. It's kind of like family, like how you'd give your siblings a hard time.
"That guy who said, 'That's crap, $4.75,' he's renowned for that. One time dinner was a dollar and he said it was crap."
The irony is that firefighter food can be tasty and affordable, depending on the cook. And many of the firefighters become accomplished cooks over time. Newbies pick up skills and recipes from the veterans. Calvert says it's almost like an apprenticeship. Those with a knack end up taking the lead more often in the kitchen. Although Calvert describes his own ability as merely adequate compared to a few who are practically pros, he cooks often.
"Half of being a good cook is stepping up and doing it," Calvert says.
Before Calvert became a firefighter, he worked in the biotech industry as a scientist. His only cooking experience was for his family. He soon learned making dinner for 12 ravenous firefighters isn't the same as putting together a meal at home.
"You're cooking for your wife, your kids, who aren't going to eat much of anything, anyway," he says. If it doesn't turn out, it's no big deal. Part of the stress is you're spending someone else's money. They're putting in their five bucks for you to come up with something decent."
Calvert's co-workers expect plenty of food and they expect it fast. Take too long, and the crew might get called away and not eat dinner for hours. Since the cook generally doesn't clean, he also has to watch that he isn't leaving a heap of dirty dishes for others.
Cooking for a crew has sharpened his culinary skills, says his wife, Raili Calvert. In the beginning, he worried his cooking wouldn't be good enough or cheap enough. Now he snags a good London broil on sale and marinates it in their fridge three days before his shift.
"He would pore through cookbooks, look for specials so they could have two-dollar steak dinners, bargain shop, clip coupons," she says. "That's what he's like."
Calvert takes the lead in the kitchen tonight, deboning and pulling the skin off several dozen chicken breasts. It's a slow night, and men wander in to the kitchen to lend a hand with dinner, to talk, to pull up a chair at the nearby dining table and watch a college football game on television. Once in a while, a dispatcher's voice floats down from speakers in the ceiling. A pager is checked.
Dinner is a chance to gather, to laugh, and to take a deep breath from a sometimes difficult job, Capt. Nagle says.
"There's a real sense of family, of camaraderie among firefighters, and the group dinner is a central part of that," he says.
"I spend a lot of time with these people," Calvert says. "We're here for 24 hours together. We sleep in the same room at night. We do things and see things that probably you'd rather not. You bond with these people in a basic way. It's a human thing; you break bread together."
Once the chicken, pasta, garlic bread and salad hit the table, the men gather around a long table in the dining room, plates heaped, and dig in. Calvert's chicken Parmesan, coated in bread crumbs, pan-fried and baked with marinara sauce, is tender and tasty.
Calvert doesn't wait for a compliment.
He says the best is when he gets a pat on the back, a "nice job."
"That's really all you can ask for."
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.comFirehouse chicken and black bean chili (scaled-down, of course)
2-3 pounds chicken (before cooking, whatever is on sale), cooked cleaned and shredded
2 large white or sweet onions chopped
6 cloves crushed garlic
3 16-ounce cans of chopped tomatoes with liquid
3 cans black beans, drained
3 8-ounce cans tomato sauce
3 6-ounce cans tomato paste
1-1/2 teaspoons basil
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon pepper
3 tablespoons chili powder
Add ingredients, bring to boil and simmer for 30 minutes or so. The spice amounts are just starting points -- adjust spices to taste. Chili powder amounts should be adjusted to taste and to color ... if it doesn't look like chili, it won't taste like chili, so add more. Serve with chopped onions, sour cream and shredded cheddar and corn bread on the side.When-it's-$1.99-a-pound-you have to make it London broil marinade
