Food was love, not a transaction to late soul food chef
The late Eric Austin, known as Chef E, worked in the Oak Park Community Center kitchen from 2013 to 2016. Facebook photo
By David Pierini, Editor
Eric Austin ran a Minneapolis soul food restaurant, and for those nine years, his reputation for elevating classic dishes drew visiting celebrities from Shaquille O’Neal to Angela Basset.
“Chef E” brought that same care to the free meals he prepared and served out of the kitchen at the Oak Park Community Center from 2013 to 2016.
When news of his passing on Feb. 25 began circulating on social media, friends, family, and former customers wrote messages of love, fondness, and farewell.
Big E’s Soul Food was the southside restaurant Austin ran to much acclaim for nine years before it closed in 2009.
He was good at remembering his regulars, not by name, but by their favorite dishes – “Pork chop with extra gravy, no onions. Jambalaya for the kids?” – he said in a 2018 interview with WCCO when the station reported on his plans to re-open in another location.
But if a legacy lives on in Austin’s name, it is in the three years he spent in the kitchen at the Oak Park Center, operated by the non-profit Pillsbury United Communities.
During that time, he partnered with Project Sweetie Pie, the Northside Fresh Coalition and other organizations to run the Youth Café, where teen-agers planted a garden in the center’s backyard, harvested what grew and used the produce to cook.
He would give all the credit to the young chefs in training, said DeVon Nolen, who helped secure a grant for the Youth Café. She said Austin was especially good at getting the boys in the group to focus and take pride in the work, from chopping carrots to plating a dish, she said.
“He was keen on understanding their strengths and encouraging their natural leadership and harnessing that energy that most young boys have that sometimes folks try to quell,” Nolan said. “He would stoke that and show them where to put that energy.”
There was one girl in the group that now carries Austin’s light and shines in the Oak Park kitchen, serving hundreds of meals three nights a week to hungry neighbors.
Dede Fuller, today widely referred to as Chef Dede, was part of the Youth Café and eventually volunteered to cook with Austin in the Oak Park kitchen. Now in her sixth year at Oak Park, Fuller expressed gratitude for him having passed on his exacting kitchen skills and heartfelt service to her. It guides her work today, she said.
“I would say he is a great influence on my life, my culinary career, and my dishes,” Fuller said. “He taught me how to do things right. We would cut little triangles into our bell peppers for sweet-and-sour chicken; we weren’t just dicing. He taught me how to sear beans properly. It’s not just about the dish looking or tasting good. It must be done properly.
“His food was delicious, soulful, and nutritious. He was a chef in a soup kitchen.”
Austin was born in Indianola, Miss., in 1963 and learned to appreciate how food brings people together by the way some of the mothers cooked for him and his friends, one boyhood friend wrote in an online tribute.
Nolen observed this about Austin. Food was not a transaction to him, but love.
“He could feel the soul and the vibe and put it in hi food,” she said. “It’ hard to quantify. He will be missed.”
A celebration of life is being planned for July.