Woodfired Wonderland: Chris Varela has built something big at Settlers Creek
Woodfired Wonderland: Chris Varela has built something big at Settlers Creek
BY MORGAN MARIEThere’s always a level of excitement when you finally get your hands on something you’ve been admiring for a long time. Sometimes it’s tickets to a much-needed weekend getaway. Other times, it’s planning a menu and inviting friends, family, and neighbors over to enjoy a meal made on the shiny new barbecue in the backyard.
Chris Varela is like that, too, but he doesn’t have your average new grill…or your average backyard. Varela and his family own Settlers Creek, a sprawling events venue situated on the rolling pastures of a former dairy farm in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
And that new grill? He started designing it back in 2009 and after a decade of setbacks, it is finally ready for its debut.
It’s 24 feet long, 6 feet wide, uses half a cord of wood to fire it up and it’s lovingly named “The Terminator.”
“The bigger the better. Think about it like this: refrigerators, kitchens and decks. There is no such thing as too big, right? Have you ever had a refrigerator that was too big? No. Have you ever been on a deck on a summer day and said, ‘Wow, this deck should be smaller? No!’ Why not do that with barbecues too? “Because you need real estate to spread your stuff out and do your shit right?” Varela says of his new toy.
With its elevated cooking platform, warming racks that can hold up to 500 pounds of meat and dual two-horsepower motors to raise and lower the lid, The Terminator is close to 250% bigger than what Settlers has been using to turn out wood-fired food for weddings and events for over 15 years—his existing grill with a 60-square-foot cooking surface and a lid that is lifted hydraulically that Chris calls “traditional.”
And in traditional fashion, Chris intends to break in his new toy the same way you might at home, by gathering together friends and hosting a backyard barbecue to kick off the summer!
Since Settlers Creek boasts the largest collection of woodfired cooking equipment in the Western US, some of those friends have included big names in the world of smoked meats including Anthony DiBernardo of Charleston’s Swig & Swine, Arnis Robbins from Evie Mae’s in Wolfforth, Texas, Louisiana native Jean-Paul Bourgeois, and others to join in the fun and show off what they do.
From the Ashes Idaho, a public event with local, regional and national chefs using the equipment at Settlers Creek to prepare standout dishes complete with beer and wine, live music and games for the whole family, all benefiting the Wishing Star Foundation will take place this summer, Friday, June 17 and Saturday, June 18 (for tickets and info, visit fromtheashesidaho.com).
But don’t call it a barbecue event.
“We call it a ‘wood-fired festival as the wood-fired process adds so much more flavor than the word “barbecue” embodies,” Varela says about From the Ashes because the cooking is as much about the wood as it is the fire. A recent trip to Oregon with a thirty-foot trailer in tow netted Settlers with 38,000 pounds of white oak. Local cherry, apple and maple woods will be added to this year’s haul. “When you're using wood fire as a fuel, and only wood fire, it does to food what the barrel does to wine.”
Varela says although he enjoys traditional BBQ cooking methods, he prefers a live-fire cooking style with equipment designed to take advantage of many cooking methods all within the same cook. He says in some sense, you never really control the fire, you’re forced to work around it to achieve different styles of cooking.
Grilling, searing, smoking, baking and resting are all possible with a wood fire, but only mastered through repetition and practice. Cooking over an open flame is about as old-school as it gets, and it is arguably the best way to prepare certain types of meats and specific cuts. He says it’s a never-ending learning process, which he considers fun.
“It's neat because there are a ton of venues in the world, regionally and locally, but nobody has what Settlers Creek has because it all comes from Chris's brain and his background in construction,” says Wendi Haught, official Event Wrangler of From the Ashes Idaho. She calls Chris the “Tim the Toolman Taylor” of catering equipment. “In 30 years in the catering industry, I’ve never worked at a venue where the creative vision and the perfectionist where the creative vision and the perfectionist delivery have matched. Normally, you go into a venue saying ‘we’ll have to hide this and bring this in there’—he builds it.”
Haught, Varela and DiBernardo teamed up to start From the Ashes Idaho in 2018 after a fire destroyed the barn that served as Settlers Creek’s main event venue the prior summer. Many assumed that the entire property had burned down, so the trio sought to put together a fun day of eating and drinking to show that the venue, its collection of event spaces, including their 7200-square- foot-tent, complete with its six peaks rising 30 feet into the air, and the cooking equipment were alive and well and ready to welcome guests for years to come.
The event was a hit, and in 2019, From the Ashes Idaho was expanded to a 2-day event, inviting guests to a party to “Light the Fires” on Friday evening and then to return Saturday to experience and celebrate what the pitmasters and local chefs who finish all of the dishes worked so hard overnight to create. After Covid forced them to cancel the event in 2020, the planning team decided to put together a scaled-down version in 2021, and this summer, From the Ashes returns in full force.
The 2021 Cooking Gang at From the Ashes Idaho (Lacey Green Photography)
“For us, it has been very fun working through this each year, just kind of changing things. Because as soon as we get some batshit crazy idea, Chris is already one step ahead. He's like, ‘Oh, I've been building that now for about 12 months. Let me show you some pictures.”
Going forward, Varela and Settlers plan to introduce a “Culinary Stadium” and supplement their wood-fired collection with a 40-foot, three-tiered rotisserie capable of cooking up to 90 chickens at a time, a series of 15-square-foot “Texas Hold-Em’s” flipper grills and his new “Rocket Stoves” that concentrate flames to facilitate cooking on 24” diameter, 40-pound pans, wok-style.
Settlers Creek draws events and visitors from around the country, but residents of the Inland Northwest are uniquely fortunate to have this mecca of wood-fired cookery in their collective backyard. The addition of the Culinary Stadium reinforces Chris’ feelings that live-fire cooking is itself a form of entertainment, and one that results in great food to be enjoyed with others along with some good beer and wine.
“Cooking with a live wood fire is a funny thing–trying to get your intended result from a fire that gives you what it wants, not necessarily what you need. It’s like an exciting but slightly nervous dance,” says Varela. And because every good dance needs a partner, Chris and the Settlers Creek team are eager for you to join them on the floor for an experience that will light your fire.
Settlers Creek sits on what used to be a dairy farm.
In the late 1970s, Chris Varela ran across a farmer in a field with a broken-down baler while on a walk through the woods near his family home. Their conversation led to 16-year-old Varela running home to tell his parents to buy the property. After two weeks of hounding his parents, the Varelas purchased the 160-acre farm, originally homesteaded in 1907. Years later, Varela’s father made the tough decision to break off a 10-acre portion, allowing him to pay off the balance of the land and retire to the back of the property. Chris and his wife bought back those 10 acres in 2002, eventually converting it into the venue it is today.
FOR MORE ABOUT THE PROPERTY, VISIT WWW.SETTLERSCREEK.COM
