By Jan Norris
Sun-Sentinel
DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. — Deerfield Beach firefighters Penny Suzuki and Sebastian “Seabass” Lucurdo stand in the pasta aisle at the grocery store discussing their options. It’s about 11:30 a.m. and they are shopping for today’s meals.
Lucurdo picks up a box of whole-wheat angel hair pasta. “Don’t get that — it’s awful.” Suzuki says. “Get this one — it’s much better. It’s got a lot more fiber.”
He has already tried to convince Suzuki to purchase frozen shrimp instead of those from the fish counter. “They taste the same after they’re cooked ... And the frozen ones are cheaper.”
Price and freshness matter to them both as good cooks — no, the best cooks — at Deerfield Beach’s Fire Station 4.
Tom Magrann, the engineer-driver at the station, is happy to ante up when Suzuki is cooking. “We don’t even ask what she’s making — we just chip in ‘cause we know we’ll get something really good,” he says .
And Lucurdo is well known for his food among the city’s firefighters. Deerfield Beach Fire Chief Tony Stravino is a big fan of his drunken spareribs marinated in beer.
“Penny’s the frou-frou cook.,” Lucurdo says. “I do a lot of Italian and make up my own stuff,”
Time to cook
It’s a slow Sunday back at Station 4 — no calls for help yet.
“Don’t upset the rescue gods,” Lucurdo says, putting a finger to his lips at the mention.
After shopping for the day’s food, while others on this shift test hydrants or study for tests, Suzuki and Lucurdo prep food.
There are two kinds of chicken wings for lunch. Snacks are Fried Pizza Turnovers. Dinner begins with shrimp in a red pepper sauce. Then there’s “Kim Chi” Cole Slaw, Orzo Spinach “Risotto” and Chicken Bruschetta. Although they are eating lighter, and usually skip dessert, tempura bananas are on today’s menu.
Several of the department’s members have joined a nutrition and fitness challenge. It ends this month with a weigh-in and body-mass measurement. The one with most weight loss and least body fat wins bragging rights.
“We’re all competitive, of course, and we want to win,” Suzuki says.
She makes the Asian chicken wings, which she calls “Scooby snacks” because, “If you don’t give them something to eat while you cook, they’re in here drooling like dogs.”
For the marinade, she combines Korean barbecue sauce and hot chili-garlic sauce she buys at an Asian market — her favorite place to shop. Suzuki was introduced to cooking by her mother, a caterer in New Hampshire, but was married to a Japanese man for 15 years. “I learned to cook his style and love Asian flavors. It’s so much healthier, too,” she says.
Suzuki preps the slaw using bags of vegetables she fixed at home. “I do everything from scratch,” she says. She’s also writing a cookbook of healthful firehouse recipes.
Lucurdo has family cooking experience, too. His father was a meat salesman in Manhattan. He’d follow his dad to big restaurants where he’d see what the chefs were doing and learned their tricks of the trade.
Fire Station 4 was built in 1958, but the kitchen has a six-burner commercial gas range and a 24-inch griddle, which they rarely use because it’s too difficult to clean.
Emergency, emergency
A call comes over the speakers that someone is suffering abdominal pains. Firefighter Billy Wright drives with Lucurdo up front and Suzuki in the back. They are a team.
The patient was released from the hospital the previous day, but is in severe pain. She’s assessed, loaded for transport and taken the two blocks to the North Broward Hospital.
No matter the circumstances, every call brings an adrenaline rush.
Back at the station, the cooks get back to work. Suzuki fries chicken wings as the hungry crew helps themselves. Lucurdo punches down the pizza dough he’s purchased and rolls it out on a floured board. He’s making what are really mini calzones that he fries instead of bakes.
“You can bake them if you want, but it’s quicker this way,” he says. Getting food on and off the stove quickly is important because he’s cooked only half the turnovers when another rescue call comes in. This time it’s a fall with injuries. Once again, cooking is abandoned and they’re off.
An 89-year-old man has fallen in his sixth floor condo. At first, he refuses to go to the hospital, but Wright and Lucurdo convince him to be checked out.
Busy night
Now it’s raining, and the hospital’s emergency room bays are full of ambulances and trucks. The team wheels their patient inside then heads back to the station.
Firefighters who remained at the station dipped into the pizzas while the crew was out. “I admit — I was hungry,” says John Dwyer, a dispatcher who sits sealed off in the radio room with switchboards, maps and microphones.
Back at the stove, Lucurdo heats the oil for the second time and finishes frying the pizzas. Everyone dives in because it’s 6:20 p.m. and dinner is late.
They preheat the gas grill that sits inside the truck bay out of the rain. But once again, a call comes over the speakers: “Signal four: I-95.” That indicates a traffic accident. The mood changes and the adrenaline pumps.
The grill and the stove get turned off, and the trucks pull into the night with sirens screaming and lights flashing. This is more intense than the other calls. Suzuki pulls on her protective boots and pants in the back of the truck as they speed along.
“These are the calls that get your heart racing,” Suzuki says. “We don’t know what we’re going to find once we get there or how bad it really is yet.”
Accident report
They find a car in the grassy swale with the door flung open. The firefighters fan out in a line and walk along the grass with their flashlights to make sure no one was ejected in what appears to be a spin-out.
Lucurdo returns to the truck explaining that the driver had an Alcoholics Anonymous book on the floorboard along with a bunch of alcohol bottles and a woman’s personal items. “She crashed and ran,” he says.
Once more, the crew returns to the station.
Lucurdo fires up the grill, and Suzuki puts the water on to boil. The chicken is breaded and the orzo cooked when they’re interrupted again.
It’s another rescue call for a car wreck on I-95 — this one with injuries. “This could be bad,” Suzuki says. It’s still pouring rain, and she’s surprised they haven’t been called to more accidents.
It’s a man in his 20s who lost control of his car, hitting the retaining wall that divides the lanes of the highway. His car is a mess, and traffic is backed up. But he’s walking around and refuses their help.
For the fifth time in five hours, Wright backs the rescue truck into the station. There’s a dip in collective energy after each run as the team comes down from adrenaline rushes.
Dinner prep picks up again and, at long last, is served at 8:23 p.m.
They’re almost frantic to eat while they have a chance. Filing past the kitchen’s pass-through window, they fill their plates, sit down and eat. They’re done in 10 minutes.
“That’s it for the day,” Suzuki says. Lucurdo is ready to relax. “Now we hope we have a whole night with no calls so we can sleep this off,” he says.