Thanksgiving chef
is giving thanks—
and giving back
Once down and out, Ah Nee
By Mary Adamski
will help feed an expected 550 at the
River of Life Mission
Star-BulletinLAST Thanksgiving, Guy Ah Nee and his fiancee stood in line at River of Life Mission for the turkey dinner.
Tomorrow, Ah Nee will be back at the Chinatown location -- in charge of cooking the traditional Thanksgiving feast for 550 expected guests.
"They deserve the best of the best," said Ah Nee as he watched the mission's cramped dining room fill up for the late afternoon meal yesterday, one of three daily sittings that feed more than 150 people each day.
This isn't simply a sincere volunteer speaking. Ah Nee brought 10 years of experience as a chef to the job. He started cooking at the mission eight months ago when a previous chef left.
"At first, I only came here for the meals," he said. "The Lord worked on me; he softened my heart. I started volunteering for night operations. It's an honor to be a servant of the Lord."
Ah Nee and his fiancee, Wendy Medeiros, responded to the Christian evangelizing that is a key facet of the River of Life Mission. The Gospel message is dished up with each meal. Both were baptized at the mission and consider it the center in their spiritual life.
"What the mission has done for Wendy and I, I could never replace. I've never, ever seen a place with such loving people," said Ah Nee. "There is always someone here to talk to, a shoulder to cry on."
What River of Life Mission got was a professional with a network of connections in the food industry. Ah Nee called on those connections to bring about the feast tomorrow.
RICHARD Viernes, chef at the Dole Cannery Ballroom, and chef Glenn Chu of Indigo restaurant agreed to roast the turkeys. The pies come from Costco, a "special request," said Ah Nee, referring with a grin to his networking tactics. Other resources donated the potatoes, yams, stuffing, fresh fruit, Caesar salad fixings.
Ah Nee plans to start work just after midnight tonight. Before he even starts cooking mashed potatoes and gravy, he has to put final touches on about 800 pounds of "nontraditional" Thanksgiving food -- stir-fry noodles, chicken, macaroni salad -- which will be picked up for service to the homeless at Ala Moana Beach Park and on the Leeward Coast.
Again, the chef network came into play. Former chef Mitchell Kaeo is a pastor at Waianae Pentecostal Faith Mission, which will distribute the meals in Waianae, and Duane Makalena, a chef with A&B Catering, is overseeing the Ala Moana meal being presented by Word of Life Christian Center.
"I invited my brothers in the culinary arts to come down and see what they're a part of," he said. There'll be 36 volunteers on the kitchen assembly line and a maitre d' for each table of diners to provide second helpings. "It's a good chaos."
The holiday feast isn't setting a rare high standard of free cuisine. Hotels, restaurants and other donors often provide food left from banquets or unused by restaurants. "If I can go out and scrape up prime rib, that's what I'm going to do. If the hotel food doesn't come through, I can cook something from scratch," said Ah Nee, who proudly claims he's never had to dish up a meal of beans.
YESTERDAY, for example, the lunch for women featured beef stroganoff, broiled mahimahi and pasta salad. At midafternoon, there was chicken in cream berroin sauce, blackened marlin and stir-fried vegetables. The late afternoon meal included teriyaki duck, broiled chicken in gravy and a Caesar salad.
Ah Nee left cooking and worked for several years in his family painting business until a back injury ended his ability to work on high-rise projects, he said. He is reluctant to talk about the bad times -- the injury, a divorce, deaths in his family -- that put him on the line for a free meal last year. "Everything rained down on me. I went down into poverty."
Medeiros said they were homeless for nearly a year before they got into low-cost housing in May. Ah Nee describes himself as "on a fixed income," receiving disability pay because of the back injury.
The title may be chef, but he's an unpaid volunteer at River of Life Mission.
"A chef could be making $18 to $27 an hour. Chefs get praise, fame and glory. This is my high here. The way these people are living their lives is so simple, but in a powerful way."
Battalions of volunteers are mobilized this week to get Thanksgiving dinner to people who are hungry, disadvantaged or alone: Holiday fare for the hungry
Entertainment will begin at 9 a.m. tomorrow at the Neal Blaisdell Center exhibition hall at the annual feast sponsored by the Salvation Army. Free tickets will be available at the door. About 2,300 people are expected at the meal, to be served at noon.
