TRAVEL & CULTURE
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SOUTHERNLIVING.COM / NOVEMBER 2019
55
MOST OF US BANK ON spending the holidays at home,
but for firefighters and other public workers, being on the
clock—while the rest of us are sitting around the table—is
part of the job. Chris Shepherd thought about this rough
justice in 2008. Then a chef at buzzy Spanish restaurant
Catalan, he was already preparing his family’s Thanksgiving
feast in the ample space of an industrial kitchen. It would
be easy, he figured, to knock out extra food for his local
firehouse. “I remember thinking, ‘I have the ability to do
this; why wouldn’t I?’ ” he says.
That initial gesture led to a tradition that the award-
winning Houston chef has relished for over a decade. “It’s
one of my favorite days of the year,” he says. Shepherd used
to get up early to make everything himself. But now that his
HOLIDAY TRADITIONS
A Texas-Size Thank-You
Chef Chris Shepherd prepares a feast of gratitude for local Houston firefighters
TEXT BY PAULA DISBROWE | RECIPE BY CHRIS SHEPHERD
Chef Chris Shepherd
makes the case for
frying the turkey:
“It cooks in half the
time, the results are
delicious, and you
get a crisp skin that
seals in moisture.”
