CHEFS OF THE KAWARTHAS
By Karen Irvine Reprinting for our One Year Anniversary and Chef Brian is AWESOME!
CHEF BRIAN HENRY I sat down with Chef Brian Henry at his new restaurant, Angle Iron Kitchen, in Lakefield.
I heard that Brian was a Deadhead and, of course, that intrigued me. A Deadhead is a hard core fan who shadows the band, The Grateful Dead, selling tie-dyes and beads. But in Brian’s case, it was selling pizza. Brian elaborated, “I had a restaurant, I was in my early 20’s, and it was pretty stressful. I was probably in a little bit over my head for my age at the time, and the stress got to me. So I tagged out on the restaurant, bought a school bus, started traveling around, and before I knew it I was following The Grateful Dead on tour across the States selling pizzas out of a big old schoolbus.” He did this for a few years. Brian continued, “And then the bus broke down, so I hitchhiked down to Mexico. I was in Tijuana for awhile.” Ok, so now you get why I am so intrigued by Brian. We continued the interview. “I travelled further into Baja to Agua Caliente and Santiago, and spent a lot of time learning proper Mexican cuisine from the villagers. The Village Elder, Oscar, would send his son to get supplies for me. I would get these beautiful wheels of cheese. One day Oscar sent me with his son, and I exchanged items with the cheese maker and he taught me how to make the cheese. That’s also how I learned to make Mexican cuisine. It was a lot of fun. We were doing a lot of adobe style cooking using the large clay ovens. It was a great experience. I spent my spare Page 8
time making leather things and would walk up and down the beaches selling it to tourists. I did that on and off for a year or so.” Chef Brian has worked in the Caribbean, Bahamas, the Gulf Islands and Turks & Cacos. Brian and his father got involved in a project getting medical equipment and supplies to a nursing home in Belize. The building was in dire need of a new roof, so they did a fund raiser called “Raising the Roof”. They ended up building such a great roof that the facility became a hurricane refuge and still is to this day. So what was Brian like as a child? “I was raised by my father, and we ate out quite a bit. So I spent a lot of time
