The Legacy of a Nurse-Chef

The Ochsner ICU nurse who devoted her life to caring and cooking for others

By Gary Michael Smith | Photos: Courtesy of Gary Michael Smith

After 17 years as an ICU nurse, my wife, Brenda Joy Floyd, decided to pursue an additional passion: Chef! During her research into culinary programs, she discovered that one of the only seven universities in the country at the time offering a four-year degree was just 60 miles away. Nicholls State University in the Cajun town of Thibodaux, Louisiana offered a Bachelor of Science in Culinary Arts. As this was my undergraduate alma mater, I was excited that she would be spending time here since, even though it is only an hour from New Orleans, it’s a different world.

As a Bachelor of Science Registered Nurse, she already had all the required math and science prerequisites, so an entire year was waived. After earning her BSCA and working in a few high-end restaurants such as Brigtsen’s, Sporting House Café and the Chef John Folse Test Kitchen, she realized that this is a young person’s vocation. Seventeen hours in a commercial kitchen filled with hot liquids and sharp objects demonstrated that it would take as many years as she’d already spent in critical care nursing to reach a similar pinnacle of expertise.

Brenda J. Floyd, BS RN, BSCA

Brenda had already gained respect as a creative and talented chef among her peers and instructors, with wins in multiple competitions and representing the university’s culinary school by giving cooking demonstrations at various events in and out of town. She had even penned a recipe book titled Southern Baking for an independent study for the new baking instructor who recently had relocated from a northern state and knew little about the nuances of baking with southern flour in an extraordinarily humid environment. Nonetheless, after graduation, she moved from part-time nursing back to full-time, but kept cooking for the two of us as well as for some epic parties for which our friends lavished accolades for years—the most wonderfully imaginative and inspired gourmet meals conceivable.

Spreading love through food

Recognizing my lack of kitchen competence and culinary proficiency, I wisely stayed out of her way as I would be more a hindrance than a help as she darted here and there, seasoned this, stirred that, set multiple timers, took temperatures, and removed something from the oven to turn it before returning it. One thing I did learn from watching her is that much of cooking is about timing and mise en place—“putting in place” everything in preparation to cook. But the kitchen, like the ICU, was her domain, and so I was relegated to sous chef, whipping and stirring, and cleaning and chopping—the latter at a glacial pace with pathetically slow knife skills.

We’d had dreams of opening a bed and breakfast—not one where the second “b” is silent—a real one where Brenda would do what she loved most: cook for others. We even had our eye on a beautifully maintained antebellum riverfront Victorian mansion in her hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, but it eventually was bought and used for something similar. So her culinary creations stayed in our home for numerous elaborate dinner parties fit for royalty.

Brenda at a cooking demonstration at a Nicholls State University sponsored event in Houma, Louisiana.

Leaving a dual legacy

Brenda had catered some events, but these proved more labors of love than revenue generating as, being the culinary perfectionist, she used high-quality ingredients for extravagant multi-course endeavors, so it was impossible to make a profit, if not actually breaking even. Nonetheless, she would make the sacrifice for her art, and she glowed when those lucky few diners would rave years later as they pined for more of her smoked tomato salsa, dry rub ribs, and large selection of cakes, pies, cobblers and multi-fruit ice creams. When we bought our first home in 2003, she planted blackjack fig, lime, Meyer lemon and blood orange trees—all of which I’m still harvesting today.

Just before Thanksgiving2009, a terminally dark cloud consumed us as she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. Having lost many patients over the years with the same illness, she knew her time was limited. So she attempted to teach me some of her craft; before this, I was strictly a survival cook, mostly from what I learned while working on off shore rigs and oil field work boats in my pre-college youth. But as she was soon to learn, I was more bituminous rock than a diamond in the rough; that Thanksgiving she guided me through the steps of baking a rosemary chicken, complete with garlic infused under the skin. It was beautiful, but as dry as warm sawdust. She praised me, as always, but I knew it was more from hopeless pity.

Forty months later in the spring of 2013, Brenda succumbed to the disease she had fought to the end. She never gave up hope, an attitude that I think was more for my benefit, and as a tribute to her, I published Southern Baking soon after her passing. I donate 100 percent of profits to Ochsner’s breast cancer oncology research and patient assistance for the hospital where she worked for more than three decades.

I think Brenda would be pleased.