Feast at the firehouse

The aroma of fresh roasted turkey wafted through the air, gravy boiled on the stove and cooks bustled in the kitchen to prepare a Thanksgiving feast.

This may sound like grandma’s house, but it was the scene Thursday at Spokane’s Fire Station No. 1.

Daryl Williams tended to gravy cooking on the station’s stainless steel stove while Doug Dodson carved the turkey nearby. Despite the labels on the kitchen drawers, utensils were still hard to find. And verbal exchanges included: Do you need more turkey drippings? Can you pass me the Worcestershire? Is this stuffing done?

“Usually our kitchen isn’t like this,” Lt. Bill Schaich said. “I made stuffing. It’s sort of my specialty, an old firehouse recipe.”

For firefighters stuck working a 24-hour shift on the holiday, preparing the meal is a tradition. The downtown station had nine firefighters on duty. By the time a battalion chief and a few family members joined in, the gathering had grown to 17.

The multiple conversations echoed off the walls as everyone meandered around the dining area.

And there was no shortage of food. The feast included two kinds of stuffing, two sweet potato dishes, two green bean casseroles, mashed potatoes, a ham, a 20-pound turkey and desserts.

“If you’re hungry in a couple days, just come down,” Lt. Mike Giampietri joked about the leftovers.

And not one woman did the cooking. “We have a lot of good cooks at the department,” Giampietri said.

Just about everything was made from scratch, including the whipped cream for the pies.

While the crew at Station 1 responded to six calls before 12:30 p.m. Thursday – busier than usual – no emergency interrupted the 1:30 p.m. feast.

Lt. Andy McLeod put on some easy listening music “to mask the chomping,” and the group dished up – guests first. The usual sounds of a football game were absent, despite the large television in the other room.

Just after the first helping, four firefighters were called to a water line break on East Sprague Avenue.

“I have cooking grease on my shirt,” Williams said on his way to the fire engine.

On their way, the men continued talking about the meal and complimenting each other’s dishes.

“We’re very family-like here,” Schaich said. “We work together. We go through a lot together.”

And they eat together. The big meal for Spokane Fire Department personnel is lunch, which is about when Thanksgiving dinner was served, Battalion Chief Bruce Moline said.

“It’s tradition,” but it’s also a good time to sit around the table together, Moline said. “A lot of problems get solved over lunch.”