Captain Steve's Kitchen

'If you can't take the heat, ...'

Captain Steve’s Kitchen

         Salt breezes used to wash in from the Atlantic, flowing over Interstate 13 and the Bay Bridge Tunnel spanning north from Norfolk to the Delmarva Peninsula, its white, sandy beaches running up into New England and on up to Canada; I take for granted they still do. With a flat landscape of wheat and cornfields, sparse forests and townships made up the Eastern Shore of Virginia, dangling down from Maryland like a giant ragged ribbon, relatively untrammeled by the onslaught of suburbs, super-malls, and metropolitan progress in 1999. Just before crossing into the state of Maryland there was a sign that said ‘Wattsville’ and a turn east led to Highway 175. The road passed through several stands of ancient Oak and the old NASA flight facility of Wallops Island where huge satellite antennas lined the runways behind tall fences topped with barbed wire. The road bore to the right and the forests dropped away, down into a salty bay, rolling on a few feet above the water on both sides until reaching an archaic drawbridge, the other side of which lay the resort town of Chincoteague.

         Sitting on a small rocky island, located inside one of many inlets from the sea, Chincoteague (pronounced “sheek-o-teeg” by the locals) was said to have once been a haven for pirates before the Revolutionary War and for the Union Army during the Civil War. In modern times it became the host of hotels and motels, bait shops and boat rentals, sandy beach tourist shops and nautical antique stores where fantastic treasures and baubles of the deep could be purchased for a song; at sale price in early September. Business pretty much dried up in the fall when the tourists went home; back up into the Baltimore, Pittsburg, and Washington DC areas for the winter. One of these quaint havens that served up the spirit of the sea to all the apparent sailors dressed in holiday khaki shorts, tank tops, sun dresses, and wide hats was the seafood restaurant and bar called Captain Steve’s.

         Sitting about two blocks from the old drawbridge, the place sat right on the Chincoteague Bay, the floorboards of its dining room elevated well above the water at high tide. The bar itself was made of antique oak, and the numerous tables were closely arranged to accommodate the large number of customers. The restaurant was open for lunch, but the real deal was the evening meal that professed lobster, shrimp, blackened tuna, clam dumplings, and flounder caught fresh from the bay by local fishermen. There was a sign propped up at the front of the parking lot; a copious pirate with a peg leg, a missing tooth and an eye-patch that smiled and welcomed all sailors and landlubbers to enjoy ‘the best seafood on the Eastern Shore.’ The restaurant was very successful, during that particular summer the dining room was normally packed from four in the afternoon until the kitchen closed at midnight. It seems that with all the other eateries on the island that a need of short order cooks arose, and that’s where I came in.

         I arrived at Wallops Island at the end of 1998 after arduous sea duty on a Navy warship out of Pearl Harbor, dealing with an unsuccessful marriage and working with a change in military duty. By the summer of ‘99 I was well into qualifying as a radar instructor at the NASA training base. I was used to being busy all the time on a ship of the line Monday through Sunday, so there was a lot of time on my hands on the weekends. I got a tip that Captain Steve’s was looking for part time help and put in my application, figuring that I could raise a few extra dollars washing dishes or bussing tables, maybe even bartending. But the manager only wanted somebody that knew how to fry fish on the grill and fry shrimp in the deep fat. I worked at places like Burger King and Arby’s when I was a kid, and did my duty of mess cranking (the Navy version of KP) a few times, so I accepted this position that later proved to be the worst job I ever had.

         The kitchen of Captain Steve’s was a great deal different than the tables alongside the water where the tourists sat with drinks in their hands, watching the pelicans swim around with their beaks in the water, sniffing for prey. Not only did the place cook fried shrimp and clams, but they steamed them too. There were four big steamers, two at the front of the kitchen near the bar and two more in the middle, and these two were bigger, always boiling away; steaming and cooking and saturating lobster and shrimp and clams. Captain Steve’s catered, and a great deal of seafood was processed in that kitchen. When I first walked in to be trained the odors were intoxicating, but with the smell came the heat: a proverbial one-two punch. The enticing aromas were a deceptive jab while the steamy condensation was the second punch in the form of a right hook, instantaneously breaking my body into a severe sweat like a sophomore’s first journey through a Dixieland campus on a mid August afternoon.

         As profusely my pores exhaled, I worked and learned and showed the staff that I could at the very least operate the dishwasher, another source of exorbitant steam. Eventually business picked up that night and I was asked to fry tuna on the grill, blackening the patties of fish with spice until the orange color changed to pink. I endured the heat that first Friday night, and I was able to endure the heat the next night too, especially after putting up ten dollars for a sample of the blackened tuna, the precursor for a perspiration wrenched Saturday night.

         The tuna was served on a hamburger bun with French fries and cocktail sauce. As I cut it with a steak knife, it seemed to be like turkey breast instead of fish, fish wherein I searched for bone yet found none. Instead of eating the blackened tuna sandwich like a hamburger, I took a chunk with a fork, and after setting it on my tongue there was the sensation of sublime, crisp delicacy of the deep blue ocean. It was not fishy and gamey like freshwater fish, but smooth and refreshing and delicious, especially when the arid spice kicked in, so delectable to my palate. The slab of tuna was about three quarters of an inch thick and the size of a McDonald’s regular hamburger. I tried to eat the incredibly tasty meal slowly, to revel in its flavor, but I could not keep from gobbling it down, as anyone starving for perfection would.

As the tasty meal was finished the crowd in the dining room seemed to call to me for the same ambrosial delight, aptly fried on the grill. So I went to work, frying the tuna two at a time to begin with, then four at a time as business increased. When the busiest hour came I was frying eight patties on a grill the size of a school desk. The steamers were going full blast, pushing out steamed clams and shrimp and lobster. The deep fat fryers were bubbling away on clam fritters and flounder. I fried blackened tuna, grilling them to resemble as close as possible the sublime meal I consumed earlier. And it was steamy, hot, excruciating to my senses.

My body did not relent from the discharge of perspiration until well after I was released from the hellish sauna of Captain Steve’s kitchen. I drove my Ford Probe with all the windows open beneath the stars alongside the salt water of Chincoteague Bay to get to my room in the barracks of the NASA base, and took two cold showers. The next day I took it easy and drank lots of coffee. I did not have to fry up any more tuna until the next Friday. During that week I focused on being an effective instructor in radar operations and getting ready for an upcoming test where I had to do so many pushups and sit-ups, and run a mile and a half within so much time. Friday night came and I started the shift by eating another one of those exquisite blackened tuna sandwiches.

I got to the restaurant about forty-five minutes early, and the lady who hired me offered me a beer before the ‘rush’ started. So as I cut into the blackened tuna before I had to dive into the steamy sauna, I took a big drink of beer. This portion of fish was not as impeccably prepared. It was not like cutting through white meat turkey for my knife and it did not melt into the same ambrosia in my mouth, at least not until the spices kicked in again. As I chewed it was good, very good, but not as remarkable as my first sample was. This slab was kind of rubbery, chewy; obviously the person that cooked the first one for me was now steaming lobster or shrimp or sipping a mai-tai, watching the pelicans sniff for prey in the bay from the dining room floorboards.

As I walked into the kitchen the perpetual steam modified its normal flow along the ceiling on the way to the vent in the roof of the restaurant, and magically diverted its flow to douse me in hot, steamy malevolence. I stepped in front of a fan and the offending onslaught raised its reptilian head and roared until I stepped into the back room where the steam driven dishwasher had just pushed out a tray of clean dishes to be stacked and put away where the chefs could get to them. The superb taste of blackened tuna was replaced with the rancid smell of an open tub of raw clams on the floor near the deep fat fryer. I watched as batter was mixed and invaded with canned clams, which was ladled into hot grease to make clam dumplings. The big steamer bellowed at me as it was opened, chock full of sizzling shrimp, clams, and scallops that added to the inferno of the nefarious steam. An almost hell-like heat erupted in my torso as the rubbery recollection of the undercooked tuna beckoned from within my belly. Still I endured the steam as I was attacked from all directions; the dishwasher and the steamers and the griddle and the deep fat fryer.

Finally it came, a request for me abandon the dishwasher and to fry up some blackened tuna and blackened chicken using the same process on the grill. So I did my thing, sliding the expensive patties of tuna onto the grill just long enough to unfreeze the surface, then flipping them over and applying the blackened spice; a patented concoction in a small plastic jar with a picture of what looked like Dom Deluise gracing the label. As I stood there, waiting for the fish to turn from orange to pink for tourists in the dining room, the evil steam readdressed my dehydration and perspiration from the ceiling, pushing itself angrily down the sides of the walls on a mission from the netherworld, beguiling additional heat from bubbling deep fat fryers and the frantically rumbling steamers. The fiendish steam slipped between my legs and worked its way up my body, invading my eyes and my ears and the top of my head. I became a sweat-saturated candle as the heat rolled up my dismal smiling face, from my back up to the top of my saturated hair in evil flame above my head. The steam subsequently made its way up to the ceiling, out into the night through the top vent of the building.

Inasmuch as I was cursed with the invasion of evil steam, my inability to endure the heat of Captain Steve’s production of the best seafood on the Eastern Shore produced a volcano that erupted from my belly, exploding well behind the smiling, one eyed pirate that welcomed all sailors and landlubbers to its quaint dining room. The heat transformed me to a thick rubber band and zapped me out of the back door of that kitchen to empty my supper onto the pavement of the parking lot. No, I did not befoul anyone else’s blackened tuna that evening, only that of my own.

I suppose that you have to overcome issues like undercooked fish or the air conditioning being on the blink the best that you can with whatever resources you can muster. Consequently my embarrassment prevented me from ever venturing into Captain Steve’s again to have a beer and watch the pelicans, or to seek any measure of wages. Eventually I landed a better job reading the news for a country radio station, losing myself in college and the mysterious pursuit of romance. In retrospect I still like tuna salad and spicy chicken. Ironically I did not endure that badly at all in other parts of the world like Death Valley, the Persian Gulf, and the Equator where putting up with extreme heat was not really that difficult a norm to live up to. Still, I sometimes wonder how many other short order cooks got zapped out of Captain Steve’s by the heat and the wicked steam of the kitchen that prepared the best blackened tuna I ever had.

 

SR Urie

Reviews

[lissalovesyou]

Oh dear, does the name Steve have bad luck or something? First Steven injured down there, and now Captain Steve's has brought it down on a whole other level. Write on!
lissalovesyou:)