Good Cooking
After retiring, Dave Beuoy hits the spot cooking up a new dream Story by Jacquelyn Hall Photos by David Moore
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n attorney turned home chef, Dave Beuoy is proof that dreams can be achieved after retirement. He was born in Chicago. His father, Everett’s air defense job required the family to relocate from time to time. The opening of the Marshall Space Flight Center brought them to Huntsville when Dave was 14. Growing up, Dave’s mother Pat insisted on having him in the kitchen so she could teach him how to cook. She wanted to set him up for success in this area of life, he laughs, because Everett “couldn’t even boil water” and she wanted to make sure I didn’t follow suit. “I enjoyed it,” he adds. Pat extended the same experience to his younger siblings, Susie McLaughlin and Ed Beuoy. Dave’s law career was full and fulfilling. He had his own practice in Russellville for 10 years and then partnered in Arab with the former Burke and Beuoy, later Burke, Beuoy and Maze, for over 30 years. During that time he also served several years each as Arab prosecutor and city attorney. Rounding out his roles in the city, he was the municipal court judge for just shy of a decade. Retiring from his law practice in May 2017, Dave soon found himself bored and desiring to learn something. He found inspiration in the skills his mother taught him and the love he has for cooking, so he decided to go to culinary school.
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eighing his options between
Dave and Marsha Beuoy in their Arab kitchen with Juliet. Wallace State Community College in Hanceville and Drake State Community and Technical College in Huntsville, he decided on attending Drake State. “The Drake programs looked more interesting,” he says. “The way the courses were described was more intriguing. Drake also has vocational classes and certificates – you don’t have to get a full diploma.” He started in August 2017. The classes were hands on, cooking dishes with guidance from the instructors. There were generally no recipes. One instructor in particular would prepare a dish or full meal while the class observed and took notes. “Once he was done, the instructor would give us trays of ingredients and then tell us to go make a meal,” Dave says. His favorite classes were ones in which he was able to learn and hone specific skills and techniques. “We learned about all the uses of a chef’s knife,” he explains. This ranged from crushing garlic to the proper and most practical way to dice an onion. The most enlightening course, he says,
was the first one on meat preparation, and he now uses those skills as his go-to way of preparing meat dishes of all varieties. “It’s really easy,” he says. “You just brown the meat on the stovetop and then cook it the rest of the way in the oven.” This method is particularly useful for preparing chicken, so that it is cooked thoroughly. Dave utilizes the technique when preparing his crab-stuffed chicken breasts. Of the crab stuffing he says, “it’s so good, you can use it in pretty much any dish.”
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uring his three-year, part-time attendance at Drake State, Dave gained some real world experience cooking for some of the general public. “We had some classes that would cook a meal for sale,” he says. “One day a week, Drake would open up the cafeteria and anyone could go in, and, for a reasonable fee, you could get a meal.” The school also provided opportunities to learn via hands-on experience what the world of catering is like. “Once a year we would cater for the Early Works Museum, which was an MAY | JUNE | JULY 2022
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