Natalie Jayroe has money she can't figure out how to spend so she approaches me suggesting we start a culinary arts program in a homeless shelter.
It's not the kind of idea you hear every day ... so I'm in!
Some food company I can't recall has given her $10 Grand to teach the hungry to feed themselves and time's running out because whoever it was wants their money back if she doesn't deliver.
A couple of weeks later homeless people in a homeless shelter kitchen learn to become culinary experts under the supervision of Chef Mike ... a culinary instructor at Savannah Technical College AND ... a Catholic Priest ... you don't see that combination very often either.
Everybody graduates the class and ... totally shocking all involved ... every single one is immediately hired.
CNN shows up to do a story which repeatedly runs over a holiday weekend and suddenly we're all rock stars.
We continue repeating the class and homeless people continue to get jobs!
What does one do with such a successful beginning other than lose their minds and decide to open a restaurant?
Which is how "The Starfish Café" came to be born.
It's a wickedly wonderful showcase of teaching, helping the poor by eating a great meal, in a tremendous ambiance with rotating funky art.
The TODAY Show does live broadcasts.
What do we do after opening a successful restaurant other than lose our collective minds and decide to publish a cookbook?
Which is how "The Starfish Café Cookbook" was published.
It's my idea because I've learned cookbooks outsell every other genre except the Bible.
The students and Chefs come up with recipes, I write stories about the students, John Zeuli takes pictures and we pay a boatload of money we don't have to be published.
Immediately "The Tabasco Company" gives it an award for being the most innovative cookbook ever.
THEN ... nobody buys it.
I mean it really tanks and we're using it to stick one under the short leg of the kitchen table to keep it level or to throw at feral cats who come too close.
THEN ... the story gets even better!
I was the first owner of "The Starfish Café" ... my wife Sarah was the last ... well I think there was somebody else after her but they just shut it down.
The Starfish Café is a wonderful idea that has a great run but ... nothing last forever.
The building remains, looking remarkably as it did then but ... it's just a shell of things which no longer exists.
Sarah and Chef Paul are having lunch today ... Paul was the last great instructor of "The Starfish Café" and the two remain very close as everyone's moved on to other things.
Though Sarah and I do have a copy of this award winning cookbook that nobody bought to remind us that the best things ... like us ... often come out of the worse circumstances.
