For world traveler, there's no taste like home

By Theresa Curry

Correspondent

He’s traveled everywhere and noticed everything. Barry Drude moved up and down the East Coast as a child with his Navy family. He settled in Louisiana as a college student, lived off and on in Virginia Beach, was stationed in Florida and Georgia, was sent to military trouble spots and worked for Boeing in rural England.

From his home in the Cotswolds he kept traveling, exploring villages and marketplaces in Italy, Greece and Spain.

Different reasons – work, the Navy, family, college – sent him forth, but there’s a common thread to his exploration. Drude, now 47, is an adventurous diner, whether sampling shrimp in a Spanish seaside village or growing tomatoes in his yard in Cape Story by the Sea in Virginia Beach.

It all started at home. One constant was his grandparents’ house in south Louisiana, where the Drudes had a strawberry plantation in Ponchatoula. The strawberry cake recipe he shares today is from his Great-Aunt Helen.

Drude, one of four children of a Navy captain, learned to cook when he was very young. He remembers frying eggs for breakfast. “In a large family, it’s sometimes faster to do it yourself than to stand in line.”

Practicality and hunger prompted his early interest in food, but he discovered a whole new level when he enrolled in Louisiana State University and sampled the cooking of his grandmother, Clothilde Drude. She had grown up in New Orleans before marrying and moving to Ponchatoula. “That south Louisiana cooking – it really takes a special touch,” Drude said.

His grandmother took simple things – cabbage, tomatoes, pork chops, okra – and infused them with such flavor that her grandson was forever trying to duplicate the meals he had in her kitchen.

It wasn’t so easy without a regular kitchen. In his dorm at LSU, Drude crammed a Cajun boiler and a makeshift grill into his bathroom. He made barbecued baloney and grilled cheese sandwiches for his starving roommates. He learned to make spaghetti in a popcorn popper and turned out gumbos, étouffée and spaghetti Bolognaise for larger parties.

“Necessity really is the mother of invention when you’re in college, broke and hungry,” he said.

His interest in cooking continued when he returned to Virginia and graduated from Old Dominion University.

As a Navy lieutenant, Drude flew E-2C Hawkeyes and was stationed in Norfolk, but he also traveled the world and had his share of exotic dishes.

These days, Drude is the experimentation director for the new Boeing Virtual Warfare Center in Suffolk. He still finds time to cook for friends, and he’s likely to fix the garlic shrimp (see recipe). It’s a simple Spanish dish called “gambas a pil-pil” that he enjoyed in the village of Nerja .

“It’s a great ice-breaker,” he said, “because everyone just dishes the shrimp from the platter and mops up the wonderful juice with bread.” He also likes to make a big paella and serve it, along with sangria, for a special meal.

Despite all that, Drude watches what he eats. “I’m not trying to eat large these days.” He’ll make insalata caprese with his tomatoes and the fresh mozzarella he buys at the Old Beach Farmers Market, dressing it with a concentrated balsamic vinaigrette.

He might have grilled seafood with fresh vegetables, and he’ll substitute a protein supplement for breakfast, lunch or both.

He’s been successful, he said, losing more than 100 pounds the past year or so. Drude piled on the weight when he hurt his back and couldn’t pursue his normal, active lifestyle.

He’s back to running marathons and scuba diving, and he’s turned his yard into a productive source of his favorite flavors. There are peppers – sweet to the hottest possible – tomatoes, basil, mint, rosemary and dwarf okra.

Theresa Curry, flavor@pilotonline.com