Local firefighter teaches second cooking class at A Southern Season

The fire truck at University Mall on Tuesday night was not responding to an emergency.

It was there for a cooking class.

Captain Byron Greeson of the Chapel Hill Fire Department Station 4 taught his second cooking class at A Southern Season to about 30 people.

Tuesday’s menu, inspired by game day finger food, included cumin tortilla chips, fresh pico de gallo, cornbread, Cincinnati-style chili and “the World’s Best Cookies,” a recipe of his wife’s.

“This is not your typical 3 a.m. fire alarm chili,” Greeson said. “We put cocoa in the chili. It gives it a really good aroma.”

Though Greeson was an expert on chili and corn bread, his day job was apparent.

Greeson interlaced cooking advice with fire safety tips, reminding participants to not only brown beef before putting it in the crock pot but also to stop, drop, and roll.

“I figured while I was at the cooking class, I would throw some fire safety plugs in,” he said.

Greeson said he regularly teaches about fire safety, but last summer marked his first cooking class.

He started the class after being approached by a chef from A Southern Season after a firefighter who inspected the store recommended his cooking. According to a press release, his first class in June was so well-attended, he was asked to teach another one.

Firefighter Heather Robinson rode the fire truck to the cooking class with Greeson and stood in the back of the class. Sounds of clinking forks were occasionally accompanied by voices on walkie-talkies.

Robinson said she had never attended a cooking class taught by Greeson previously, but she has enjoyed his cooking at the firehouse often.

“I have not met too many of his meals I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed,” she said.

The firefighters at Station 4 go to the grocery store each evening for dinner ingredients.

“Hopefully we get to cook uninterrupted,” Robinson said. “Sometimes it goes better than others.”

During the latest Super Bowl, for example, the firefighters had to abandon chicken wings to put out someone’s stove-top fire. They finished the wings when they returned.

“They were still delicious,” Robinson said.

Greeson said he has enjoyed cooking most of his life and grew up watching his mother and grandmother in the kitchen.

Greeson’s two sons, ages five and nine, have shown interest in cooking, which the family might make a tradition, he said.

“When we’re in the kitchen, they both want to help,” Greeson said.

Matt Verber , an electrical engineer in the UNC chemistry department, went to the class with his wife Cara as a post-Valentine’s date.

The couple is new to the area and was looking for fun things to do, and the fire safety tips were just an added bonus, Cara Verber said.

The cooking advice did not stop at the event’s attendants. Greeson had tips for UNC students, too.

He said the fire department is often called to dorms because students burn pans. “Salt and baking soda work well as a fire extinguisher in a bind.”

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