» Christmas feast:
He steps in to oversee massive holiday event
The chef who oversees the Salvation Army Christmas Family Feast carries on after the death of a fellow chef for the event. After so many years working together, the men were like brothers.
46-year friendship was forged in food.
They were chefs, business partners and colleagues at Milwaukee Area Technical College. When they cooked at Summerfest or Irish Fest or catered events for businesses, they’d bring their kids to work, forming a bond as they watched their families grow together.
Even after they retired, Bob Ilk and Gus Kelly managed to serve up food, especially at this time of the year as they oversaw the massive preparations for the annual Salvation Army Christmas Family Feast at the Wisconsin Center.
In September, Kelly, 76, died after a four-year battle with cancer. Ilk carries on.
On Friday, Ilk oversaw a kitchen crew that was turning out 2,400 pounds of turkey and 1,944 pounds of ham. More than a dozen people removed meat from the turkey carcasses. Others ground up corn meal for dressing, or prepared yams.
“Every day, I think about Gus,” Ilk said.
Their backgrounds were so different — Ilk, a white man born in Wisconsin Rapids, and Kelly, a black man from Mississippi.
It wasn’t just food that brought them together, but a shared passion for hard work.
“We were joined at the hip when it comes to working together,” Ilk said. “We had so much in common, our work ethic. We were taught by the same culinary faculty. We shared so much in our philosophy and how we approached food and serving.
Kelly, Ilk and a third chef, Mike Koehn, now retired, formed a catering business that thrived.
“We’d reminisce, what was the magic? It was the profession, the training we had,” Ilk said.
For a big event like the Family Feast, there are no shortcuts.
“Plan, organize, do it, clean up, that’s the key,” Ilk said.
In 2012, after being diagnosed with stage four mesothelioma, Kelly said he would hang up his apron as executive chef of the Family Feast.
But every year, he kept fighting the cancer and coming back to oversee the kitchen for a bountiful Christmas meal.
In 2014, Kelly brought in Ilk to cook for the Family Feast, and it was just like old times, the old chefs working side by side. The two men discussed ways to streamline the cooking process, store the goods. They wrote a blueprint.
“You could see his health was doing pretty well up to a year and a half ago,” Ilk said. “It steadily declined.”
Sometime in the last two years, Kelly suggested to Ilk that he consider taking over the cooking.
After Kelly died, there was no question that Ilk would become the feast’s executive chef.
Between the planning in late fall and the cooking for a frantic few days in late December, Ilk puts in up to 200 hours.
There are plenty of other vol- unteers, 1,600 in all, who perform dozens of tasks from serving food to waiting on tables to distributing gifts.
In all, some 8,000 meals are prepared for those who come to the convention center on a joyous day, and others who are fed at shelters across the area.
Herman Washington, 81, and Earl Mays, 61, recalled Kelly’s warmth and generosity.
“We definitely miss him,” Mays says. “Bob was Gus’ righthand man.”
More than once this week, the men said they called Ilk, “Gus.”
And Ilk would respond. After so many years working together, the men were like brothers. So many people knew Kelly, and for Ilk, their shared memories are a gift.
“It just brings him to life,” he said.