methadone supply down the drain. I said to my best friend, “I’m
about to go through a lot of horrible stuff,” and I locked myself
away for 17 days. I’d sleep for maybe 15 seconds at a time, think-
ing it was an hour. God bless my drug dealer for turning me on
to that doctor. I’ve been clean for 10 years now.
In 2008, I got an offer to spend the winter cooking at a five-star
hotel in Mexico in a fishing village by the ocean near San
Patricio. Mexico was a gift. The people there aren’t driven by
money like they are here. For the past seven years, I’ve been
going down there every winter for three months and cooking at
a boutique hotel near Manzanilla, and mentoring Mexican kids
in the kitchen.
In 2017, the people at Bellwood Health Services, a rehab
facility in the ravine south of Sunnybrook hospital, approached
me about taking over their kitchen. I thought someone was
pulling my leg. Who would want me working at a rehab hos-
pital? They had hospital-style food and wanted something
better. I said sure, and tried to make the place more Scara-
mouche and less jailhouse. I’ve been working at the Bellwood
kitchen for nearly a year now. The people who come in have
eating disorders, OCD, PTSD, and addictions to gambling,
sex, and my two old standbys, drugs and alcohol. When they
arrive, they’re poisoned from the inside out: eyes, skin, smell,
body. They’ve just been killing themselves. I see myself in
every one of them.
It’s beautiful at the facility. We’re on six acres of woods. It’s
like being up north. Very Bambi. We’ve put in a garden whereclients and their families can grow herbs and tomatoes and stuff
like that, and we’ve got two huge barbecues to get people inter-
ested in cooking. They can help out with peeling and chopping
and experience the camaraderie of working in a kitchen. I find
cooking therapeutic, and seeing other people go through the
shit that I’ve gone through helps keep me straight. Plus, there’s
no alcohol on the premises, so if I’m having a bad day, I can’t
sneak off and drink the cooking sherry.
I love feeding our clients. I love seeing the look on their faces
when they’re immersed in the flavours, the textures of a dish
I’ve made, as if they’ve forgotten about their situation for just a
few moments. I’ve seen the most amazing things. Often, after
clients clean up and sleep and eat well and exercise and get their
mental shit together, they leave like new, and I feel some tiny
flicker of pride for helping in my small way.
I don’t worry anymore about being called out as a fraud,
though to this day, I’m still amazed that the dishes I think up
turn out the way they do. I’m still in love with food—the smells,
colours, tastes. It’s one of my favourite addictions. Food talks
to me. Or maybe I’ve just done too many drugs.
I have no desire to use coke or smack now. It’s grown old on
me. People are shocked that at 65, I’m healthy and hale, except
for a few little nicks and dents. Maybe it hurts a bit more these
days to get out of bed, but everything still works. I look good
and feel good. And in the kitchen, I can still dance the dance.
At the end of the day, I always know I can cook. ∫
—As told to Edward Kay.Get on the list.
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