Jim Edwards (center, in chef's hat) was the executive chef from 1966 to '72 at the French Lick Sheraton, which is now French Lick Springs Hotel. Jim's son Harvey Edwards (below) has plenty of memories of his dad's time in the kitchens here, especially since Jim was also a college student at the time and attending Northwood Institute in the West Baden Springs Hotel building. In this photo, Jim and his staff are showcasing ornately decorated salmon, hams and cakes that they would enter in contests.
Give Harvey Edwards a few minutes, and he can tell you how things are done big.
These days for Edwards, that involves booking functions as the vice president of sales at
Patoka Lake Marina. (Which, incidentally, is a fantastic idea for a day trip at Patoka Lake's
outdoor attractions or
winery if you’re visiting French Lick Resort this summer.) Back in the day, it meant balancing school and work when Edwards was busy seven days a week while attending Northwood Institute in what is now West Baden Springs Hotel. And thinking even bigger, has Edwards ever told you how much bacon and eggs he cooked each morning for French Lick Springs Hotel guests when he worked in the kitchen there almost 50 years ago?
“Every morning at 5:00, I had to be there to start the bacon. You know how much bacon we fixed every day? It came in 12 to 14-pound boxes, and we would do anywhere from 12 to 20 boxes a morning. That’s a lot of bacon,” Harvey said with a chuckle, and the routine was the same for cooking eggs atop the gigantic flat-top griddles. “I did the fried egg station, and the man next to me did the scrambled egg station. Every morning we had to break eggs to cook. Enough to feed 1,000 people … we had a lot of eggs,” Harvey added with a wry smile.
Harvey is eager to share all the recollections he has stored in his mental rolodex since he wants to keep alive the history and tradition of food service. It’s a trade that runs in his family, after all, as Harvey’s father Jim served as the executive chef at French Lick Springs Hotel between 1966 and 1972 when it was a Sheraton-owned facility. Jim Edwards held the same position at the Sheraton Biltmore in Oklahoma City prior to that, and not only did he possess a flair for cooking, but he did so with a remarkably efficient food cost — meaning his kitchens produced food for the least amount of cost and most profits.
“That’s why Sheraton wanted him to move up here, because they wanted to see they could keep this place a profitable situation, because it was such a big, magical place,” Harvey explained.
It wasn’t perfect, but that’s where Jim Edwards flexed some of his influence when he got here.
In 1969, Harvey said, the profits from Jim’s kitchen went toward installing air conditioning in the kitchen. “And it was still hot,” Harvey joked, but any relief was welcome with ovens cranked up to serve as many as 1,000 people at a time. And Jim enacted another significant change not long after he first arrived in 1966 and first stepped foot in the kitchen, which was located where the pool complex is today.
When Jim Edwards arrived at the French Lick Sheraton in 1966, the hotel was still using coal ovens like these to cook food for hundreds of guests every day.
“The kitchen, it looked like a barn. I mean, it was huge. One of the stories I remember the most, when dad first came, they had coal ovens. 1966. Coal ovens,” Harvey repeated for emphasis, as modern ovens were the norm by then at other industrial kitchens. “So to cook, they had to start early that morning, building coal, building heat to fix the breakfast. They had people coming in at 4:00 a.m. fixing all this coal and getting the ovens going before the cooks came in.”
It just so happened that the head of the local gas company was an Oklahoma boy just like Jim, and the two put their heads together to get a gas line installed over the winter so that new gas ovens were ready to use the following spring when the hotel’s busy season fired back up.
Jim led the creation of a gingerbread village for the hotel during the holiday season.
Jim kept on establishing himself as a rock star in culinary circles. Consider this résumé: He won the Golden Toque (regarded as the highest honor an American chef can receive), was instrumental in starting the culinary program at Sullivan University, and was invited to Washington D.C. for a commendation from John F. Kennedy for his emphasis on hiring people with special needs to work in his kitchen.
And while Jim was busy establishing his fingerprint on the French Lick Springs Hotel kitchen, Harvey was also nearby getting acquainted with the industry.
He finished his schooling at Northwood Institute, where he collected two degrees in business administration and hotel and restaurant management. His schedule kept him moving. Days in the classrooms and test kitchens and banquet rooms at West Baden. Weekends and summers working in the live kitchen at French Lick. Early mornings on cleanup duty.
“Part of my tuition was I came in at 5 in the morning and I cleaned restrooms. I had to be in there early enough to get everything clean before (the students) started their day,” said Harvey, who also pointed out how Northwood had bathrooms that were communal style just like a traditional college dorm. “Then I would come down here and work in the kitchen (at West Baden) and then go to class. Then on weekends I worked at the (French Lick) hotel in the kitchen for dad.”
The dining area at Northwood Institute (below) was far more modest than the elegant settings at the French Lick Sheraton (above). The dining room in the top photo is where 1875: The Steakhouse is located today.
Of course, there was still time to be a college kid, too.
Like splashing through the water and mud in makeshift rafts. It was some good ol’ small-town fun after heavy rains, as Northwood students found some use for the huge sheets of Styrofoam that were unused and being stored in the basement, taking them to a low-lying spot in town and cruising around in their Styrofoam rafts. And when your home is a historic hotel property, there’s plenty of room to spread out and mark your territory — just as Northwood students did by finding a new use for the former bowling and billiards pavilion that was sitting empty outside the hotel.
“We made that into a union station. Everybody would congregate there. That was our place to hang out instead of hanging out in town. We didn’t have a lot of money; we were innovative enough to do a lot of things in there to make it where you had a snack bar and a jukebox and play records. That’s what we did.”
Northwood Institute graduation ceremonies in the early 1970s.
A college then; a National Historic Landmark hotel today. Harvey marvels at the timeline of events he’s witnessed at both of French Lick Resort’s hotels.
“I got to see a lot of changes, a lot of things happening. That’s why the history of this is so exciting to me, to see all the different changes over the years of how bad it got, how great it is today, and see the re-innovation of the business coming back around.”
