Photo by Zack Bowen
The waiting room outside the cardiac intensive care unit on the 9th floor of Maine Medical was packed. No one took an exact tally but one of the nurses said that she'd never seen so many people waiting for just one person. Family members and old friends had driven in from California, DC, New York, and Canada. There were dozens of friends and co-workers from throughout Maine floating in and out to keep watch between Saturday afternoon and Tuesday when he was removed from life support, his kidneys donated to someone in need of a transplant. A 2 am phone call to 911 early Saturday was the last time anyone had spoken with him. Five year-old neighbor Isabella Barnes summed up what hundreds of adults are struggling to come to grips with: "Chef Bob can't go away, he's my friend."
He was 49 years old. Symptoms of atrial fibrillation that he first experienced a year ago had worsened in recent months. Medics found him unconscious. Although emergency room doctors were able to resuscitate him, he never regained consciousness. Chef Bob breathed his last on December 14.
Generous, vivacious, energetic, hilarious; those words come quickly when people speak of Bob Smith. "I see him in his white t-shirt with a flannel shirt over it, jeans and a pair of clogs, moving a million miles an hour. His goatee, perfectly parted hair and those signature eyebrows. Nobody had more passion for life than Bob had," said Marc Doiron who worked with him at the Commissary. "My experience of Bob is seeing him come up to the house with overflowing bags of groceries saying something like 'I've got dinner,'" recalled Steve Gerlach, who first met Bob in 1979 when the two were assigned dishwashing duties as part of work-study at the University of Rochester. There were food fights almost daily, he laughs, and late night conversations and glee club practice, where Bob sang tenor.
Bob's passion for learning led him to double major in psychology and French. He was a voracious reader of novels, poetry, history and thought seriously about academia as a career. He was working on his PhD in Physical Anthropology when he took a job as a waiter at a restaurant in Sherburne, New York working for Sue Wright. Bob's passion for food was ignited and his dissertation got put on the back burner. Before long he and Sue had opened their own restaurant in nearby Greene called Gabby's, which they ran for five years before both deciding to move East- Sue to Maine and Bob to Boston. It wasn't long before Bob joined Sue in Ogunquit, where she was managing Jonathan's Restaurant. Bob waited tables for awhile then was drawn back into the kitchen to sous. After almost 5 years there, he took a position as the assistant GM at the Commissary, the lunch and dinner place at the Portland Public Market.
Kyle Rankin, now a filmmaker in Los Angeles remembers working for Bob. "I waited tables... or tried to... I was terrible at it but Bob made that job the best non-film gig I've ever had. He was warm, kind, hilarious, and okay with the idea I was never meant to be a waiter. From him, I learned one can lead while being tender at the same time. I've brought that into my work directing actors and crew. I worked harder for Bob than I ever have for anyone else. I wanted to work well for him, because he was so good to me in return."
When the Commissary closed, Bob became Executive Chef at The Kennebunkport Inn, moving from there to working as Executive Chef at the Coastal House. Anyone who worked with him, found his work ethic remarkable. "He would get down on his hands and knees and scrub a floor because he thought that was the professional way to do it," said friend and colleague Leslie Oster from Aurora Provisions. "He was a consistant volunteer for Slow Food Portland events, Twilight Dinners and 20-mile meals at Turkey Hill Farm , Food Films at Longfellow Square and EastOver, the gathering of "foodie friends, chefs, wine geeks, farmers, teachers and artists to celebrate Easter & Passover together with a feast fit for the gods."
In 2009 Bob and friend Kim Macdonald tried their hand at cheesemaking, making a stinky washed rind called Curmudgeon and a bloomy soft cheese called Essence that made their way onto menus at Fore Street, Street and Company and Vignola as well as at cheesemongers like K. Horton, the Cheese Iron and Rosemont Markets. When the venture didn't fly, Bob became Executive Chef for Kitchen Chicks Catering in Kennebunk.
Bob was born and raised in Beaver Meadow, New York, a community that had taken on mythical qualities among his friends. Without traffic lights or commerce to speak of, some call it a hamlet. The census bureau calls it class code U6: A populated place that is not a census designated or or incorporated place having an official federally recognized name. Bob often spoke of his colorful Uncle Nate and his parents, sister Joanne, her husband George and his nephews. His family and friends are planning a gathering there next July on what would have been his 50th birthday. "He loved his family dearly and never failed to mention that," said Ian Brown, a friend from South Portland whose wife Krista is expecting what would have been Bob's godchild. "Bob was one of those great friends. I remember one time we were coming back from a memorial service for my wife's grandfather and we passed him on the Casco Bay Bridge as we were coming home. What's Bob doing coming from South Portland? When we got home we found a roasted chicken under tinfoil on the dining room table with a bottle of wine waiting for us. That was so typical of Bob, always in touch, always checking in to see how we were doing."
Bob was also attentive to his four-legged friends, carrying dog biscuits in his pockets in case he ran into one and often offering to petsit when human friends went out of town. Knowing his friend Sue's love of dogs but her partner Lisa's resistance to them, Bob conducted a steady campaign to wear Lisa down, finally convincing her to let him buy Sue a golden retriever for her 50th birthday. "It's hard to believe that Parker is here and he's not," said Wright. "He was a very caring soul with the biggest heart I've ever experienced. He would talk about people saying things like 'I love that guy, I'd give him a kidney if he needed one.' And in the end that's what he gave."
"I never saw him without a smile. He was so warm and friendly amazingly generous with an astonighing work ethic. With so many mean people in this world, it's not fair that such a good person is gone. Sometimes the universe just sucks," said friend Samantha Lindgren, co-owner of Rabelais Books.
"Working with Bob was like being with a child on Christmas morning. Whether we were working at Turkey Hill, or exploring Terra Madre in Torino, Italy, or even trying a new cheese, his joy was just so infectious," said Oster. "I don't know what I'm going to do without him."
God rest You, Merry Gentleman
(published in the Portland Daily Sun, 12/21/2010
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