A chef's t A le

Randy Graham was happily working as a server at an upscale hotel/restaurant when he was given an offer he COULD refuse

Vegetarian chef extraordinaire, Randy was raised in Hayward, California in Alameda County along with his brother, John, and sister, Donna. His dad, Bruce Graham, worked in the Geary Ford Parts Department and mom, Marie Graham, neé Eidsmore, was a manager of a dental office.

As a kid, Randy discovered the Tom Swift books and devoured them all. At 15 he moved on to short stories in pulp fiction magazines, such as Amazing Stories and Analog Science Fiction Heinlein, Asimov and Bradbury became his favorite writers. He loved the way they used language to create tales that inspired his imagination.

After graduating from Hayward High, Randy moved south to attend U.C. Santa Barbara, then returned north to graduate from U.C. Berkeley with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science. Hitting the southbound freeway again, Randy earned a Masters’ degree in Public Administration at San Diego State University.

While at SDSU his life took a culinary turn when he became a vegetarian. He was working part-time in a small library on campus and learned that his co-workers eschewed meat. He had taken a nutrition course in Berkeley, and had attended lectures focused on vegetarian diets, “how to combine foods for ‘complete’ protein, where to find foods with essential fatty acids, and the importance of taking vitamin B-12 supplements if you didn’t eat meat or fish.” He took that class because his roommate didn’t have a lot of cash to buy food, and meat rarely resided in their refrigerator. “We got our beef fix if we went home for the weekend.” Or when they visited friends for dinner.

With the support of his vegetarian co-workers at the campus library, he decided to commit to a meatless/fishless lifestyle. It wasn’t always easy. Eyebrows shot upward. Even his brother, who had just moved to Texas, was taunted mercilessly about his “California flake of a brother.”

While a graduate student in San Diego, Randy got a job as an assistant for the California State Department of Education, working five days a week in the Los Angeles Basin where he rented a room by the week at a low-cost motel. “By low-cost, I mean sleazy,” he explains. By doing so, however, he was able to stretch his per diem and enjoy excellent vegetarian meals, which weren’t always easy to find back in the ‘70s.

Still in school, Randy also worked in various restaurants as a busboy, dishwasher and server, though never as a cook. To this day, that server job in an upscale hotel/restaurant on the I-5 just over the hill from La Jolla remains a vivid memory. He loved the job. He loved the tips.

But, after four days, he quit when he got that offer he could refuse. As Randy tells it, “The hostess and her crew of three males and three females (which included the hostess) gathered around and eyed me for at least 30 seconds. I thought I was being fired. The hostess said, ‘Randy. You are a great fit here. We love working with you. We’d also love for you to join our coven and orgies. Are you in?’” He has no memory of responding, just that he had to get out of there. He ran to his motorcycle and took off, never to return, not even to pick-up his four-day paycheck.

After graduating from SDSU in 1977, Randy found employment as an analyst in the California Department of Education. “It was a fair-paying job with good benefits … but my secret ambition was to become a writer of short stories” he says. It was also the year he met Robin Fisher “on a sunny day at my apartment building.

“It was love at first sight. I was reading a newspaper by the pool, and when I looked up, I saw this vision of loveliness.

That’s a trite expression, but it’s true. Kind of like Michael Corleone meeting Apollonia in Sicily for the first time (The Godfather — Part 1). That was April, 1977. We married the following January.”

Randy and Robin moved to Roseville in Placer County, California. While Robin started her career as a Redevelopment Agency consultant for cities and counties, Randy commuted to work in downtown Sacramento where he worked for 36 years for various state and local governments, including CalPERS, which builds retirement and health security for state, school and public agency members, and manages the largest public pension fund in the country. During his government career, however, he also had a “side hustle as a small event caterer on the weekends,” he remembers.

Though Randy never went to culinary school, he developed a passion for cooking and learned to do it really well as a young adult, a la Ina Garten and

Rachael Ray — “more of an unschooled celebrity chef than a serious Next Level Chef … I reinvented myself as Chef Randy when I moved to Ojai.”

He and Robin fell in love with Ojai when they visited one of Randy’s best friends and former college roommate who was living in the valley. That was enough for them to pack their bags. Now retired and living in Ojai, Robin wanted to know how Randy would fill his days, besides getting in her way. “I’ve always wanted to write,” he answered, and Robin suggested that he should finally write that cookbook he’s always talked about. “And that was how I began writing cookbooks.”

His first was self-published in 2011, and the final in the series was published 10 years later. He also started writing the short stories he’d dreamed of putting on paper. “I may not be good at it, but I am at peace when I’m in the groove. Writing makes me smile.”

Randy has also taught at the Ojai Culinary School at the Lavender Inn where Ojaians and tourists learned some of his cooking techniques. “I taught 20 classes over a four-year period prior to the pandemic,” he says. His pizza classes were top-rated.

Chef Randy’s choice to be a vegetarian has not only influenced his own life, but many others who have become aware of that lifestyle through his books and classes.

And the choice to turn down that offer to join an orgiastic group?

Clearly, he prefers ovens to covens.

You can find Randy’s books locally in the Ojai Museum, Poppies Art and Gifts store, and Bookends in Meiners Oaks. They are also sold online at Amazon.

Or you can find him at: randygraham@ valleyvegetarian or on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ valleyvegetarian/?hl=en

Bon appetit!