Why I do what I do: A Vagabond Story

Now with two little ones under the roof, I am on a mission here.

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My first real cooking job was in the West Liberty University Cafeteria. I had already graduated from art school and learned a crucial lesson, namely, I didn’t want to do art for a living. But what did I want to do? Hell if I knew.

I went to art school in Pittsburgh. I had moved there two months after graduating from high school and turning 18. I was excited to get on with my life and explore the world, and I loved the idea of living in Pittsburgh. Art school was fun and I met a lot of great people -- friends I still have to this day -- but it didn’t provide the direction I’d been looking for. The only real reason I went to school there was because I didn’t know what else to do.

My degree did provide me one thing, though: a sense of completion. I had done the thing. I had gone to, and graduated from, a post-high-school kinda thing, and now that I had, I felt like I had fulfilled my obligations as a young human and son. Now I could forge my own way. 

The only problem was, I didn’t know where I wanted to go, nor how I wanted to get there. I was directionless.

I lived in Pittsburgh for another couple of years. Squatting in Oakland in a couple different places, taking those life lumps, and learning something more, and I just kind of went with the flow. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t know enough. Even though I had indeed done the thing, I was left without the stuff. Whatever that was.

I had always been a fan of reading, and I began delving into “classic literature”. The kind of books that would be on a list somewhere. I was looking for truth, and I found Quality. This is when I first read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This book by Robert Pirsig changed my life. More than Walden, more than all the Kerouac and Miller, more than Jack London and Hatchet and anything else. I learned from Camus that I wanted a meaningful death… and I learned from Pirsig how to go about that. Engage in Quality.

I learned, though, I needed help.

So I started looking at going back to school. I looked at a bunch of different schools and programs, and I decided on West Liberty and studying English Literature and Philosophy.

I was paying my own way, and my second year of school found me walking into the kitchen of the West Lib caf’ looking for a gig. I had a blonde “devil-locke” at the time, in the style of punk band, The Misfits, and when my soon-to-be boss walked out to interview me, I saw he had “Us” tattooed on his knuckles. “This is going to be just fine,” I thought. I might fit in here.

Anyway, I worked my way up from the dish pit to the grill line and I helped open up the “new” caf in Rogers Hall. I captained the short-order grill line, so burgers and fried things mostly. And my station was next to the “Mongolian Grill” -- a large, circular flat top griddle. This sort of concept was popular at the time. Pick your meat, pick your veg, pick your sauce, and the chef would grill it up on the circular griddle for you.

The Mongolian Grill was captained by a man from China. Wonderful fellow. Very talented. Hard working. One day, he asked me in slightly broken English if I had ever done something and not known why I did it. I told him sure -- but it got me to thinking.

I had not know why I had done most of what I had done in my life up until then.

After I graduated from WLU, I took a job in Canaan Valley taking adjudicated kids on a month-long camping trip ostensibly teaching them survival and Search & Rescue skills, which served as the basis for a therapeutic model. I spent a month in the field with them at a time. 29 days. No running water. No tents. We slept under tarps, hiked almost every day, and lived in the elements, eating primarily rice and lentils cooked over a campfire.

The job was intense… except we didn’t have any tents.

I did that job for two years, spent 365 days in the field, and paid off my school loans. I was even able to put a little bit of money away. Some of that money, no lie, helped start Vagabond Kitchen 10 years later.

During that time, I spent 6 weeks backpacking Europe. Afterwards, I spent a month in the Dominican Republic. I moved to Chicago. I moved to Utah. I moved back to Chicago. I moved back to Wheeling. I went to Japan for a month. I moved to Idaho. All along -- just kind of going with the flow. Just seeing what’s out there. Just curiously directionless.

I still didn’t know why I did what I did.

In Idaho, I started cooking seriously, and after some setbacks and course correcting, I decided to give this cooking thing a serious shot. Maybe I would have some sort of a “career” after all. 

After close to 5 years cooking in Idaho, I got antsy, took off on my motorcycle, and started a culinary travel blog called -- you guessed it -- “Vagabond Chef”.

After a year doing that, I ended up back in Wheeling… and several months later, opened Vagabond Kitchen.

That was 11 years ago this June, and I still wouldn’t say I knew why I was doing what I was doing. I was just doing. I figured I’d figure it out.

As time went on and the restaurant started to come into its own, I started to have a reason. In 2015 I took a 10-day trip through West Virginia, and I fell in love with our state all over again. Then in 2017, I got the call to compete on Guy’s Grocery Games, something I absolutely did NOT want to do. But, I thought, I had the chance to represent Wheeling and WV and show these Hollywood SOBs and the country that there were good things, great things coming out of Appalachia.

This was only a year or two after a horrible crime drama TV show had come out involving WV and incest, and I was mad about it.

So, with an axe to grind, I went to California and I won Guy’s Grocery Games. I didn’t do it for me. I did it for my town, my state, my freaking people, man. I was there to represent.

Throughout my 11 years back in WV, I’ve gotten better and better at representing us. I do it for us, so we have something to be proud of: our heritage, our cuisine, our hard work and the goods we have to show for it. And I do it for the rest of the world to see. I’m determined to change the tune people sing when they think of WVa.

Then, 4 ½ years ago, things got personal. My wife and I had our first kid. Suddenly, my axe to grind had to be put to use. It was sharp now, and it was time to work. Ever since my firstborn, I have been more focused and worked harder than ever.

Now with two little ones under the roof, I am on a mission here.

I know now why I do what I do. It’s for Appalachia. It’s for West Virginia. It’s for Wheeling. And it’s for my family.

My folks did a great job at providing me more opportunities than they ever had, and I aim to do the same for my boys and -- hopefully -- for their boys and their boys’ boys, and so on.

I grew up punk rock. I grew up in the grunge era, and I’ve always believed that we work together and we all raise each other up. Even more than that: I’m audacious. I believe in a level of success for me and mine, for us and them, that would make my poor, Irish immigrant ancestors downright blush.

What you’ve seen in the past 11 years is just a taste of what’s to come.

- Chef Matt