FL Firehouse Chef: Some Are Better Than Others

At Seminole County Fire Station 42 in Geneva, everyone cooks.

“Some are better at it than others,” says firefighter/paramedic Jose Neluna, who like all his brothers and sisters in the department has been taking his turn in the kitchen since he started on the job back in 1994.

“The newer kids, a lot of them aren’t used to cooking anything beyond hot dogs, hamburgers, spaghetti. And the first time people sit down — if their food isn’t good — they’ll get roasted.” He chuckles.

“But then everyone will pitch in, show them a few things. They’ll improve over time. In 28 years, I’ve seen a lot of people grow up in the fire department.”

And grow together.

Much of that happens in the thick of the job, but so, too, do bonds form across the table, during what many in the department affectionately call “family hour.”

“Sharing a meal with someone is a very special time,” says Rebecca Ward, assistant chief of fire support for the Seminole County Fire Department. “And we don’t always get that time.”

Alarms come in at all hours. Food is often left on the counter, the stove, the dinner table.

“Sometimes the rescue is holding the wall at a hospital for three or four hours,” she explains. “Sometimes an engine is out on a brush fire, and they’re gone six or seven.”

As a battalion chief, Ward has gone out to convenience stores to purchase sandwiches for crews stuck at alarms for as many as nine hours to ensure they’re fed, hydrated and ready to work.

“So, being able to sit down at the station and have that time together is important to us.”

So special that one lieutenant, recently retired, would take away his team’s cellphones during mealtimes, she notes.

“He’d say, ‘It’s family hour, we’re not doing phones,’ And he was highly respected, so if he said put your phone down, you’d put your phone down.”

Firefighters pay for their own meals on shift — something many civilians don’t know. They also must shop together, as a crew, when picking up groceries. The truck goes with them, too.

“When we’re assigned to a truck, it’s almost like a ball and chain,” Neluna explains. “We are always available for calls. The entire team assigned to that truck has to stay with the truck. Even at Publix. Someone stays with it while others do the shopping. And the radio is always on.”

Sometimes, says Ward, shoppers will make comments at the grocery store.

“They’ll see firefighters shopping and say, ‘those are my tax dollars.’ But it’s not.”

Ward says it’s often a matter of gentle education.

“We’re there for 24 hours at a time, sometimes 48. We don’t get a lunch hour. On-shift, you eat when you can. You have to be response-ready at all times. And we have to provide our own food.”

Neluna says they try to keep the kitty down to $6-10 per crew member.

“If it goes to $15 there better be steak in that bag,” cracks Neluna, whose colleagues call him ‘the Iron Chef.’

Born in the Philippines, he moved stateside at age 10 but began cooking alongside his mom even earlier. He enjoys sharing the dishes of his childhood — pancit, caldereta — with the crew.

“I’ve always loved to cook, and it’s nice to be able to share a part of my culture,” he says, noting that each crew member has dishes they’re known for at the firehouse.

One of Ward’s specialties is shrimp and grits. He also enjoys cooking for holidays. Fat Tuesday saw her team cooking shrimp creole and gumbo, king cake and beignets.

“When we can, we go all out,” she says. “During holidays, we like to go the extra mile, too. We’re on duty and we try to make it special. Sometimes family members will join us, and we’ll set up extra tables for Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving. And one or all the units may end up out on an alarm and not get to see their families at all. You just go with the flow.”

The nice part is that firefighters don’t forget to shut off the stove.

“Yeah, they do,” Neluna says, regaling me with a tale from Station 42. “The guys there went out on a call in the middle of cooking and then you hear on the radio that there’s a commercial structure fire.”

I chuckle. “Well, I don’t want to say that’s funny, but... "

“Oh, no, it was funny,” he says. “They didn’t hear the end of it.”

“Embarrassing but true,” says Ward, when I bring it up.

She’s quick to point out that Station 29 — the newest in the SCFD family — has a stove that shuts off the gas automatically when an alarm comes in. Once back at the station, it must be manually reset to allow cooking to continue.

“Food is something we all bond over,” she says. “There are so many different people, personalities, backgrounds in the fire department.”

Neluna concurs.

“Any firefighter, any department, we’re pretty much unrelated siblings,” he says. “We have to get along. We know each other’s triggers. We live with each other for 24 hours and longer.”

Ward says those moments at the table are vital for a multitude of reasons.

“Some calls…” she says carefully, “they can weigh heavy on your mind. On your soul. It’s nice to be able to come back, share a meal, talk about it or joke around to get your mind off it. We sit around. We talk it out — the good and the bad — and figure out what we can fix. It’s a family.”

Caldereta

Recipe courtesy Jose Neluna, Seminole County Fire Department. Serves four.

Ingredients

• 2.5 pounds chuck roast, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
• 6 small red potatoes, peeled and cut 1 1/2-inch cubes
• 3 carrots, peeled and sliced approx. 1/2-inch
• 1 green pepper (1 1/2-inch triangle cuts)
• 1 red pepper (1 1/2-inch triangle cuts)
• 1 medium onion, quartered
• 1/2 cup green peas
• 4 bay leaves
• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
• Vegetable oil for frying
• 2 cups water
• 1 package Mama Sita’s Caldereta mix

Directions

1. In medium/large bowl, marinate beef with vinegar, soy sauce, peppercorns and bay leaves approximately one hour.
2. Fry potatoes in vegetable oil until golden brown. Remove from oil. Set aside.
3. Place meat, marinade and spices — entire contents of bowl — in warmed oil (same used for potatoes). Cook until brown. Add 1 cup water, cover and simmer until tender. Add more water if necessary.
4. Once beef is tender, mix one cup cold water with caldereta mix. Stir into meat. Add potatoes and carrots and simmer 5-10 minutes. (Sauce will thicken.)
5. Add rest of vegetables, cook to desired tenderness.
6. Service hot with rice.

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