Milo is back in the kitchen – at the Elks

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Something good is almost always cooking at Port Townsend Elks Lodge No. 317.

When the lodge was opened in 1997, its volunteer builders made sure it had a large commercial kitchen, so that good food could accompany the good works and good friends that populate the Elks and their many activities.

For the past 13 years, the hands that often prepare the food for Elks special events are those of Milo Vandecar, 77, with his wife, Roberta (Bobbi), at his side.

In recognition of those years of work, Vandecar has been named the lodge’s 2016 Elk of the Year and is to be celebrated at a gathering set for 5:30 p.m., Friday, April 8.

“A lot of the activities and events we do center around food,” said Dave Backman, the new exalted ruler of the lodge. Great food makes a difference in so many ways, because people come for the cause, the company and the food. “[Vandecar] always comes up with something different that always matches the event,” said Backman.

For example, more than 100 enjoyed Vandecar’s corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day. On Western Night, they enjoy cowboy fare. This year, Vandecar also is helping high school senior Aija Thomas put on a dinner for more than 200 military veterans, part of the Vet Connect program and Thomas’ senior project. And for the past six years, said Bobbi Vandecar, Milo has been running an annual Elks meal for vets.

Vandecar is best known to old-timers as the restaurateur behind the popular Milo’s at Fort Worden and another Milo’s restaurant – the Boarding House of the mid-1980s, which is now the Highway 20 Roadhouse.

BEAUSITE PIONEERS

Vandecar has been an Elk for only 13 years. “I would have started earlier, but my antlers weren’t big enough,” he said.

But he has been a Jefferson County resident since before forever. His grandfather homesteaded at Lake Beausite. His parents also grew up there, and Vandecar was born in a small cabin near Lake Beausite in 1939. He grew up in Chimacum and attended school there, went to Port Townsend schools briefly and graduated from Renton High School in 1959. He worked steadily in restaurants during his high school years.

Vandecar then joined the U.S. Navy, where he worked as a submarine sailor and cook. He served, in active duty or the reserves, for eight years. That service led to a string of jobs at top hotel-connected restaurants, first in San Francisco, where he apprenticed for two years with a Swiss chef, and then in the South Seattle area in the mid-1960s. He also taught cooking at the Renton Vocational Culinary School.

In 1977, he married Bobbi; between the two of them, they have six children and 15 grandchildren.

In 1980, Vandecar returned to Jefferson County, first cooking at the Discovery Bay Lodge and then contracting for food service at Fort Worden State Park. There, he operated Milo’s, and the Picnic Basket eatery on the beach, for 13 years, retiring in 1991.

“We worked seven days a week, 10-14 hours a day,” recalled Bobbi. Milo handled the kitchen and kitchen staff, ordered food and other “back of the house” tasks, while Bobbi supervised the waitstaff, met the customers, handled the money and did the books – “front of the house” work.

“I couldn’t have done it without her,” said Milo.

Bobbi Vandecar was also a reserve police officer during some of those years, and she recalled that she did crowd control during the filming of “An Officer and a Gentleman,” much of it at Fort Worden.

After the Vandecars left, Milo’s at the Fort was renamed Blackberries, and then the dining hall was torn down to make way for the new Commons eatery, operated for a few years by Bon Appetit, and now by the Fort Worden Public Development Authority.

BACK IN THE KITCHEN

Putting his capable hands back to work as a volunteer for the Elks, Vandecar said today that his good food is almost always related to making something good happen for the community.

“I want to bring people in, because getting them here is the basis for making some money for something needed in the community,” he said. “If the food is good, people will come and spend their money on an auction for scholarships or something else.”

He added: “It’s an honor to be able to participate like this. It’s the Elks’ way of giving back to the community.”

Besides helping the many charities that use the Elks Lodge to raise funds, he has also helped Elks Lodge No. 317 itself – which this year celebrates its 140th year as a lodge. Funds raised by Vandecar’s meals have contributed to replacing some of Elks’ old kitchen equipment with a new grill, convection ovens and a fryer.

Backman, himself a Port Townsend native who moved back to town after retirement, said Milo and Bobbi Vandecar are like a lot of Elks who devote many hours to projects that support dozens of charities and community causes without fanfare. “We don’t always do the best job we can to toot our own horns. People don’t have any idea how deeply our people are involved in all of these things,” he said.

Backman added that the Vandecars are just great people to be around. “As important as they are to the lodge, they’re also important to us as friends,” he said.

Said Milo Vandecar: “At my age, I don’t want to steer the ship. I just want to shovel the coal.”