Veteran chef at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church ensure meals make it to their destinations in spite of 7.0 earthquake

WASILLA— Many stories have surfaced in the weeks following the historic 7.0 earthquake that shook the Mat-Su Valley on Friday, Nov. 30. This story is about food. It’s about hot meals that nourished more than rumbling stomachs on day of uncertainty.

On Friday, Nov. 30, head chef Michael Gordon worked busily inside the Five Loaves Two Fish Kitchen like any other morning. Down on the bottom floor of the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Gordon scurried around the commercial kitchen when the shaking started.

“When it first started, I thought it was a semi coming,” Gordon said. “When it really hit, the lights went out and I was completely in the dark.”

The quake took out the power and it took seven minutes for the emergency lights to switch on, according to Gordon. The power was out for two hours that day. He said that cans of food, pots, pans and everything else flung all over the floor.

“He was in a bit of a warzone,” Pastor Rick Cavens said.

Cavens said the Five Loaves Two Fish Kitchen opened in 2014. He said the church’s original kitchen was remade into a commercial kitchen that serves meals to non-profits. They serve about 200 meals each week for places like the Knik House, Family Promise, and MyHouse, the homeless teens resource center.

Gordon said that the only thing that broke was one jar of relish. He said he used his phone’s light as a lantern to scurry from one to spot to the other, cleaning up the piles of mess.

“And I was still cooking,” Gordon added.

Gordon served in the U.S. Air Force and Army National Guard and has over 33 years of experience in the cooking industry. His first priority was a safety check, particularly the gas line. Once he verified there were no gas leaks or other concerns, he got back to cooking.

“It’s probably military instinct,” Gordon said. “The ground was shaking and it doesn’t make any difference how the ground shakes; you’ve still got a job to do. That’s what I did in service,”

Cavens told Gordon that he had a “servant’s heart.”

Gordon said that the meal was a plan from the day before. He slow-cooked the pork in a crock pot overnight. He said that the pork was essentially done when he showed up the next morning and he was just going to brown it off. He said the pork was getting its crust in the oven when the shaking started.

“All I had to do is get the stuff panned up and get it out the door,” Gordon said. “I had to wait for the potatoes to cook, the green beans to heat up. That kind of stuff, stuff that was already in the warming oven.”

Michelle Overstreet said she was at MyHouse when the quake hit. It took out their power, too. She said that within an hour-and-a-half, 30 homeless kids showed up for shelter because they didn’t know where else to go.

“Every chair in there was full,” Overstreet said.

On a normal day, they would be expecting a supper shipment from the church. Overstreet said that she was not expecting a delivery because of the quake. She said they had soup prepared and they were serving that and starting to brainstorm options to feed the full Gathering Grounds Café with something like peanut butter jelly sandwiches when Duane Hanson, one of the volunteer cooks from Five Loaves Two Fish Kitchen arrived with hot meals ready to go.

“We couldn’t believe they still did food and you couldn’t believe the look on those kids’ faces when they realized somebody was bringing hot food so they weren’t hungry,” Overstreet said. “It was a pretty amazing feat.”

Overstreet said Hanson tried to call the office to let them know they were coming but the power was off so they didn’t know they had food ready and were on their way. She said it was a total surprise.

“Who does that? That’s amazing,” Overstreet said. “Having basic needs met for homeless kids is so crucial to begin with, but to have that on a day when they’re really in crisis and uncertain about what’s gonna happen next... having hot food and hearty food was such a great benefit.”

Hanson said that he was taking care of the aftermath at his house while corresponding with Gordon. He said that Gordon had the situation under control but by 11 a.m. he headed to the church.

“I had to see what was going on,” Hanson said.

Hanson said that when he arrived, he found most of the mess was picked up and the food was ready to go out the door. He tried to contact MyHouse and the Knik House but due to the power outage, he didn’t connect. He decided to load up the food and head out anyway.

“I took it to MyHouse and they were glad to see me and I took it over to Knik House and they were also glad to see me,” Hanson said.

In addition to regular meal service, the kitchen also serves as a classroom, according to Hanson. He said they regularly teach young adults (ages 18 to 25) how to cook through their Next Step program. They’ve also trained MyHouse clients on several occasions, even helping them obtain their food handler cards.

“It’s an incredible community resource,” Overstreet said.

Hanson said that the meals typically come with deserts. Cavens said that the cookies that come out of the kitchen are famous.

“They are in our building,” Overstreet said.

Overstreet shared a sentimental story about the positive effect the Good Shepherd cookies had on one of her clients. She said that a case manager wrote up an anecdote about one of her children who refused to smile, “just a sad, lost boy.”

The boy came to the café one day and saw cookies in a bag that were left over from the previous day. He was offered a chance to try them. He requested to have them heated up in the microwave. The boy sat at the table with warmed up cookies and the case manager asked him if he wanted anything to drink. The boy said, ‘if I could have a glass of milk, that’d be awesome.’

“He sat there and ate warm cookies and milk and smiled,” Overstreet said as tears welled up in her eyes. “And it was one of the first times the case manager had seen him smiling.”

Overstreet called this the “cookies and milk story” and reiterated what the case manager said about the powerful role food plays in “helping people feel loved and cared for.”

“For him [the boy], that feeling that ‘people care about me’ and the smile came from that was directly related to cookies and milk — warm cookies and milk,” Overstreet said. “I think we underestimate that as a society. We forget that.”

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at jacob.mann@frontiersman.com