By Anndee Hochman
Photographs by Gregory Cherin
A midlife career change took David Shea from the frying pan into the fire.
For most of his adult life—ever since he talked his way into a cooking job on the Lower East Side in 1993—Shea built his career in restaurants. He and his wife, Laura, owned Applewood, a farm-to-table bistro in Brooklyn, from 2004 to 2016. When the couple decamped to East Chatham, they ran a casual bar-and-grill, East Chatham Food Company, until COVID quashed that project.
Shea began volunteering as a firefighter and loved the work; now, at 56, he’s a career firefighter in Albany. But he hasn’t given up cooking. During any 24-hour shift, he can be found at the firehouse’s six-burner gas stove, stirring the red sauce for chicken parm or sautéing a pan of house-made meatballs.
There’s a conventional image—calcified in movies and fast-paced television dramas—of firefighters glugging bad coffee, opening cans of chili or wolfing Subway sandwiches on their way out the firehouse door.
But today’s firefighters do it differently, Shea says. There’s more consciousness of cardiovascular health, the kind of stamina needed to scale a ladder or beat back a wall of flames. There’s more attunement to eating locally sourced food. And there’s increased emphasis on the firehouse kitchen as a nexus of community.
“The kitchen, and the kitchen table, is the focus of the firehouse; it’s where everybody meets and sits and shares stories, and talks about the day,” Shea says.
First, crew members need to decide what they’re going to eat. That typically happens over a casual breakfast—coffee, yes, and whatever the guys have brought from home—when they look at the on-sale fliers from local grocery stores and discuss menu possibilities.
Then they head to Price Chopper to fill the cart, wearing their regulation blue pants and polos, and driving the rig in case their radios crackle with a call. Each firefighter ponies up $20 or $25 per day to pay for groceries; if they go under budget, the crew saves the extra cash to splurge on lobster or steak for a holiday meal.
As one of the older students at the recruit academy for Albany’s fire department—Shea turned 52 while he was there, and his youngest classmate was 22—his reputation as a chef preceded him. “I was warned to keep it simple,” he says, “and not try to be fancy.” Meals like chicken parmesan, meatballs, and mac and cheese are reliable staples. Favorite lunches include a big salad with cucumbers, artichokes, olives, red onion, feta, and a protein such as grilled tri-tip steak.
Other firefighters sometimes defer to his expertise. But Shea says firehouse culture—whether the call is a four-alarm blaze or a shout that dinner’s ready—demands collaboration and mutual attention to detail. “If you’re lazy and don’t put stuff away properly,” he explains, “or don’t take care of the equipment or pick up after yourself, somebody else has to do that work.”
And while a firefighter’s day may be punctuated by enormous stress, Shea says his time at the stove, cooking for and with his colleagues, is a cakewalk compared to the demands of a busy restaurant and the scrutiny of critics.
“Restaurant work is hard and taxing and all-consuming,” he says. “But to sit with friends or family or people you care about and have them genuinely enjoy the food, that’s a super-gratifying thing. It brings the group together.”
David Shea’s Grilled Tri-Tip Steak with Feta-Cucumber Salad
Tri-tip steaks
Olive oil
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Red chili flakes
Smoked paprika
Salt and pepper
Whisk spices (amounts to your taste) into olive oil and marinate steaks at room temperature, covered, for at least 1 hour. Grill steaks to desired doneness; let rest at least 10 minutes before slicing.
Salad ingredients
6 Persian cucumbers, medium dice
½ small red onion, sliced thinly
4-6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
One bunch curly parsley, chopped
Capers
Spicy pickled hot peppers, sliced
Olive oil
Red wine vinegar
Fresh lemon juice
Combine all salad ingredients; add salt and pepper to taste. Slice steaks and place meat on top of salad.
Proving his chops: Josh prepares lunch for the crew.
Josh Healy learned to cook by watching his mother: spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna from his grandmother’s recipe, garlic by the fistful, and nary a measuring spoon in sight.
In college, he worked in a pizza shop; as a fireman in the Air Force, he often cooked for his crew. And as a 19-year veteran of the Pittsfield Fire Department, he takes his turn in the newly renovated firehouse kitchen—their equipment includes a gas grill and a Blackstone smoker—to whip up venison tacos or ginger-inflected Mongolian beef.
For the three-person crew of Engine 6, cooking and eating together is part of the day’s work. “Everyone’s here at 6:45 a.m.,” Healy says, “and we start talking: what would you like, what’s on sale; we try to figure it out together as a group. Sometimes that’s the hardest thing, just like at home.”
After a jaunt to Big Y market—provided there’s no alarm that means jumping back on the rig to rush to a fire—the crew launches into collaboration. For a recent weekday lunch of sausage with peppers and onions, one man grilled up the brats and vegetables, Healy chopped salad ingredients, and the third guy handled clean-up.
The crew tries to navigate dietary quirks. “We have one person in the department who’s allergic to peppers or anything spicy,” Healy says. “We have fish allergies. I personally don’t eat mushrooms,” an aversion that led to a notorious cooking disaster, years ago, when they attempted beef stroganoff with ranch dressing in lieu of mushroom soup. “It came out awful, and we ended up ordering pizza.”
When the time is ripe: Josh Healy shops for the day’s meals with crew members at Big Y.
But, for the most part, the kitchen choreography works. Their menus blend familiar favorites with contemporary twists: venison/beef smashed tacos, cooked on the flat-top grill for a recent “taco Tuesday,” bundled in flour tortillas and drizzled with a jalapeno, cilantro, and lime crema.
In summertime, Healy’s home garden yields enough chives, garlic, and tomatoes to share with his crew. Some people hunt and bring in fresh venison. And as in other firehouses, the firefighters pay for the rest of their groceries—about $25 per person for lunch and dinner on weekdays or brunch and dinner on weekends.
Last year, thanks to the advocacy of their department’s chief and the support of Pittsfield’s City Council, the firehouse kitchen got a glow-up: new stainless steel counters, cabinets, and flooring; oven with a built-in air fryer; and a fridge, dishwasher, and microwave. The firefighters pooled money to spring for the gas grill and smoker.
“We have a table right in the middle,” Healy says. “After we cook, we sit down together and eat. We share stories. You kind of bond with everyone over food, just like a family at home.”
Flexibility is key: they might toss pasta into boiling water, then rush from the firehouse on a call and return to find the noodles have turned to mush or the chicken left roasting in the oven has dried to shoe-leather consistency.
Healy doesn’t measure or use cookbooks. He does hoard spices—each group at the station has a locker to store condiments and snacks—including his current favorites, Dan-O’s seasoning, especially the original (green top) blend with rosemary, garlic, onion, and citrus peel.
Cooking and eating together doesn’t only forge bonds among the firefighters, Healy says; it’s also better for their health and their wallets. “We’re able to put forward a better meal versus grabbing a can of chili. And it comes out cheaper.”
At times, Healy and his colleagues joke that they eat better than they would at home. “Our wives will be home, with children or not, having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” he says, “and we’re having these elegant meals.”
Josh Healy’s Mongolian Beef
Ingredients
2-lb flank steak, cut into thin strips
1 tsp sugar
4 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp rice wine vinegar
½ tsp baking soda
Dan-O’s original seasoning (green top)
Avocado or olive oil
For marinade: Combine sugar, cornstarch, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and baking soda. Toss steak strips in marinade and lightly coat. Refrigerate overnight or at least 4 hours, stirring occasionally. Remove from fridge and allow steak to warm to room temperature, approx 30-45 minutes.
To cook: Remove steak strips from marinade and lightly coat with Dan-O’s seasoning. Sprinkle cornstarch over steak strips to coat completely. Heat ¼ inch of avocado or olive oil in a pan until a small piece of steak sizzles when you put it in. Place steak strips in pan and cook 4-6 minutes; turn to cook on other side (remember that the meat will continue to cook in the sauce). Remove cooked steak from pan and place on wire rack to drain; repeat if you still have uncooked steak strips.
Sauce ingredients
4 tsp sesame oil
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup water
1⅔ cup dark brown sugar
1½ tbsp Cornstarch
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
Optional: 6-8 scallions; seasoned sesame seeds
Combine sesame oil, soy sauce, 1 cup water, and brown sugar in saucepan; whisk on medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Add water to cornstarch to make a slurry. Add to sauce to get the consistency you like (you can add more cornstarch if you like a thicker sauce). Add chopped garlic and grated ginger; cook for 5 minutes as sauce thickens. Add cooked steak to the sauce for a few minutes, then turn off heat. Let steak sit in the sauce to finish cooking. Optional: sprinkle 6-8 chopped scallions and/or seasoned sesame seeds over top; stir to mix in. Serve over rice, mashed potatoes or mashed cauliflower.
For most meals at the Monterey Fire Company, even on overnight shifts, Felix Carroll is the king of microwaving leftovers. He’s quick to point out that, unlike one member of the company, he’s not a professional chef.
But once a summer, for the annual fundraising steak roast held on the last Saturday of July and now in its 49th year, Carroll, a firefighter with the company, summons his skills as a former line cook and his equipoise under stress to join his colleagues in cooking and serving a full-tilt feast that brings out half the town.
The meal, Carroll says, is no bottom-shelf banquet. Firefighters cook steaks and marinated shrimp on grills made from steel barrels sliced in half. They also grill green peppers, red peppers, and onions. There’s Harpoon beer, brewed in Boston, an indulgence only for the steak roast; the rest of the year, the firehouse is a no-alcohol venue. The meat comes from Wohrle’s in Pittsfield; fresh corn and salad ingredients are locally sourced.
The firefighters set up picnic tables behind the firehouse, along with a small bandstand; this year, the music will be from Peter Poirier, a New England-based blues guitarist, and his band.
They split the labor: one guy in charge of beer taps; six men on the grills, with loads of friends and family helping out by their side. By 4 p.m., when the firewood has smoldered down to coals and the line of eager eaters snakes around the corner, Carroll says, there’s a moment of anxious reckoning. “The heart flutters a bit: holy shit. It’s fast and furious for two or three hours. Line-cook-level, air-traffic-control-level stress. And then it’s over.”
Working as a line cook in high school at Scituate fish-fry joints taught Carroll to “keep calm in the face of absurd adversity.” And the spirit of the steak roast makes the effort worthwhile.
“It’s the one time in the year when the town of Monterey actually gets together,” he says. “By the time it’s over and people are just hanging out for several hours, music’s playing, and we’re done with the cooking and can enjoy a beer and a steak ourselves, it’s pretty good.”
Felix Carroll’s Marinated Shrimp for a Crowd
Shrimp, shelled and deveined
Honey
Garlic, minced
Olive oil
“We marinate the shrimp for 30-45 minutes. The secret recipe is honey, minced garlic, and olive oil. What’s the ratio? Honestly, we just wing it.”
Put shrimp directly on grill fired by oak with some apple wood.
“Somehow it all works out and the diners are happy. We toss it all together until it seems right and then we cook everything for a few hours, have a few beers, clean up, and resume our regularly scheduled lives.”
