Army Staff Sgt. Aaron Hale stood, somewhat out of place, in the kitchen of the famous Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steak House, the busiest steakhouse in Manhattan.
Hale, 35, is at ease in a kitchen — it was one of the first places he went to begin his recovery after he was blinded by an improvised bomb in Afghanistan in late 2011 — but he hadn’t been in a professional one for many years.
Earlier this month, on the kitchen line, Hale was handed a huge loin of meat and got to work.
See photos of his visit. >>
“I was very excited about it,” said Hale, who lives in Santa Rosa Beach. “But I wasn’t going to get in any of the professionals’ way, God forbid slowing down the paying customers, the blind guy stumbling around in the kitchen.”
There wasn’t any stumbling, though.
Hale adeptly butchered, trimmed, seasoned, broiled and sliced steaks for his wife and children to eat. And, he said, they were delicious.
Using a code word, the restaurant’s general manager, Scott Gould, signaled to the 125 kitchen employees when Hale’s steak was soon to come off the broiler. Quietly they all gathered around.
When Hale pulled the meat off, he asked how it turned out, Gould said.
Everyone burst into applause and cheers.
“That emotion, it was an amazing experience, not only for him, but for everyone else in our restaurant to see something so touching,” Gould said.
Hale, an explosive ordnance technician, was injured after he uncovered an improvised bomb in Afghanistan on Dec. 8, 2011. The bomb exploded, sending Hale high into the air.
When he landed, he had shrapnel lodged in his face and neck and could no longer see. He also lost his sense of smell.
Almost from the very beginning, though, Hale’s spirit remained high. He was joking with medical attendants even in the first days after the injury.
While recovering at Walter Reed medical center, he found an occupational therapy clinic that had a fully functioning kitchen.
He already had the cooking bug, caught while working in kitchens to earn gas money through high school and college and then serving as a cook in the Navy for eight years.
In between surgeries, Hale started cooking again.
After relearning how to tell if the stovetop was hot and some other techniques, he began serving up meals to the other wounded service members.
Now, he is the primary cook for his wife and three children.
“Cooking is really all about touch,” Gould said. “If you know how to cut something and dice something, that will always stay with you. Knife handling skills are kind of like riding a bike, it’s something you’ll never forget.”
Gould and Del Frisco’s are big supporters of Building Homes for Heroes, an organization that works to provide housing for injured service members and their families.
The organization built Hale’s home in Santa Rosa Beach and he has been working on fundraising efforts with them ever since.
The organization and the restaurant partnered to get Hale into the kitchen.
Gould said Hale looked right at home on the kitchen line, confident and joking with the kitchen staff.
“We asked if he was going to be OK with that big chef knife in the busy kitchen,” Gould said. “He said, ‘I came back with all my limbs in place. Granted I can’t see anymore, but I think I’ll be just fine chopping up a couple steaks.’
“That kind of attitude was just unbelievable. As bad as somebody thinks their day is, then you get chef Sgt. Hale in the kitchen making jokes and carving steaks.”
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Lauren Sage Reinlie at 850-315-4443 or lreinlie@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @LaurenRnwfdn.