The Roanoker - February 2014 - 32

and doesn't have a great deal of time to go tom-cattin'.
"I have a girlfriend," he says, as if admitting it.
He joined the Square Society, a group of young professionals that involves itself in projects, parties briskly
and squeezes the fullness from Roanoke life. "Seems
to me that every week there's a festival downtown in
Roanoke," says Deal. "I like that and I try to take advantage of what the city has to offer."
The restaurant provides just what he'd hoped for - as
its chef/operator: "We push the envelope for dining," he
says. "We set a different standard and people embrace
it." Pushing this particular envelope means fresh, local
food beautifully and scrumptiously prepared, which is
what the foodie clientele expect in the age of Chef TV.
Deal says that the 2000s celebrity of chefdom has its
perks. Chefs were once "cooks in the basement," but
that's radically different at a time when the chef 's hat
and scarf are signs of status. He's called "Chef Deal" in
the kitchen, the cooking version of "Your Highness."
The food networks, he says, "introduced people
to the concept that 'you, too, can cook like this.' Julia Child, of course, was first, but with the sharing of
interest there grew a genuine interest in food." And,
of course, in America that leads to status and even
stardom.
Deal discovered after two years in compu-sci that he
didn't want "to sit at a computer screen all day. It just
was not for me. Cooking was a creative outlet" and so
he went to cooking school. Now, he's hoping to find the
time to teach at Roanoke's own culinary institute, but
that opportunity hasn't opened yet, so he instructs in
his own kitchen, some of which is directed at externs
from the institute.

TAKING THE RIGHT STEPS

Aaron Deal at The River

A PERFECT FIT

& Rail in South Roanoke:

Aaron Deal doesn't have to think for an instant when
the question is "How did you land in Roanoke?" He
points to the table. "This restaurant in this city," he
says. "I wanted the southeast, a restaurant with food I
wanted to cook. Concept, size, space, history. All here."
The restaurant is The River & Rail and he and it arrived about the same time a year or so ago. He's from
Morganton, N.C. (Appalachian State, computer science; Johnson & Wales Culinary Arts School) and has
cooked in Charleston, S.C., Boston and Chicago at
restaurants that gave him valuable experience, but left
him longing - at 31 - for a better quality of life.
"I reached a point in Chicago," he says, "where I
wasn't cooking and I wasn't happy. I promised myself
I would always be in the kitchen."
What he found was "a good life" even for a young,
single man who admits "I work a lot" at odd hours

"Seems to me that every
week there's a festival."

32 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014

It boiled down to a magazine asking, "Know where
you want to retire?" Robert Stutes was 48 years old and
needed to start thinking along those lines. He'd been a
United Methodist minister since seminary and moved
around east Texas occasionally, but hadn't really lived
far away. The seed was planted and the subconscious
watered it.
"I started reading and got up a list," says the new
pastor at Mt. Pleasant United Methodist Church in
Roanoke County. He and wife Betsy, a former physical therapist turned special ed teacher, wanted a bigger
place than Bellville, Texas, and they wanted to be able
to walk it. You don't walk in Texas, he says. "I had my
head in the list and my heart followed." The couple even
took a two-month sabbatical to Roanoke to try it on.
"It fit," says Robert.
That was 10 years ago and the Stuteses are now indeed in Roanoke, settled and finishing out the work
string before retiring. They got what they wanted on
every level.
THE

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