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Business & Tech

Firefighter Cooks up a Storm at Station 65

Marvin Blandon is a certified chili champ, and the firefighters at the Hamilton firehouse are the beneficiaries.

If there is a new Food Network star lurking in Novato, firefighter/engineer Marvin Blandon just might be the guy. Blandon is medium height, curly-haired and carries a little extra weight. What is most striking about him is his effervescent personality.

Yes, he’s a firefighter chef for the ’s Engine Company 65 based at Hamilton, but he also has been a competitor at some cookoffs.

But I’m getting ahead of the story.

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Blandon was born in Jinotega, Nicaragua and came to Los Angeles when he was 4 ½ years old because of the conflict between the government and the Contras.

“I remember the tanks, the bullets on the roof and my mother being upset,” he explains.

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Their mother raised him and his older brother Rollando, older sister Kenya and younger sister Alexa for a while in Los Angeles and Indio, near Palm Springs. She then moved them to the East Bay town of Moraga for the schools. She worked as a CPA and lives in Walnut Creek these days.

“Mom was not in the kitchen, so it was learn to cook or starve,” he says with his ever-present chuckle.

“I remember the first thing I ever made — it was a box of mac ‘n’ cheese — and I was 10,” Blandon says.

His first job at 14 was at Jack in the Box. He says he used to make enormous sandwiches with six pieces of bacon, three patties and the works. They were gigantic — just right for a growing teenager.

After high school, he and his brother moved out of the family home and got a place in Concord. They had a lot of fun cooking together.

In fact, his brother went into the U.S. Army Reserves as a cook. Today they often compete together in local cooking contests.

In what is somewhat bizarre, Blandon has no cookbooks. He gets his recipes from the Internet and in his words, “can soak up recipes from shows he sees on the Food Network.”

He also said that he has gone to a bookstore, looked up a recipe from his favorite chef, Gordon Ramsey, and memorized it.

“I just soak up recipes,” he said. 

One recipe he obtained was for nacatamales, steamed Nicaraguan tamales, from his sister.

The corn masa, to be good, has to be made with lard. The filling includes meat, vegetables and green olives.

Besides all of Ramsey’s shows, Blandon also enjoys “America’s Test Kitchen.”

The first time he competed in a cooking contest it was 1997 at the Posco Steel Mill in Pittsburgh. He recalls he made a chocolate-cream pie with a pecan crust, but didn’t win.

In 2010, he entered a chili cookoff at here in Novato. There were 20 competitors; people who work at Fireman’s Fund plus firefighters from Petaluma and Marin. 

Of the three first prizes, he got two: Best Firehouse and Peoples’ Choice. He lost on the blind judging by two votes. The contest happens again in September.

His chili has some unique ingredients: ground sirloin, flap meat (bottom of the sirloin) that he smoked over oak and some Applewood bacon made up the meat component.

The rest of the recipe includes grilled onions, fresh heirloom tomatoes, he crushed, fresh grilled Anaheim, California, jalapenos and red bell pepper, plus ancho chili powder. At the end he added kidney beans. The chili was not spicy-hot.

For his efforts, Blandon has his name inscribed on an ax at the Fireman’s Fund offices.

In early May he is looking forward to a firefighters competition that revolves around chili-salsa and beer.

He applied for one of Ramsey’s shows, sending along a DVD; he and his brother also tried to get on “The 24 Hour Restaurant Battle.” His long-range plans might include a restaurant with his brother.

When he is at home in Brentwood, he’s also the cook for his wife, Natalie, and his two daughters, Isabella (5 ½) and Sophia (3 ½).

“I cook, my wife cleans,” he says simply.

At Station 65, he works 48 hours on and four days off. He cooks for the crew when he is there.

“Their No. 1 favorite is beef, followed by chicken, but recently I experimented by cooking a Chinese stir fry,” he says. “They always love Mexican and anything from our gas grill.”

With a laugh, he introduces his “taster,” firefighter Mark Teldeschi.

“He tells me if things are too salty or too sweet,” Blandon confesses.

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