Food is life for Ryan Morris

KI member working as head chef for Thunder Bay restaurant
When times were tough, the only thing that kept Ryan Morris going was his job in a kitchen.
“When I lost my aunt to cancer, I started drinking,” he said. “I didn’t know where my life was going. The only thing that kept me going was my job.”
Morris, a Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug band member, has channelled that drive and passion into a position as executive chef at Thunder Bay’s Ruby Moon Restaurant.
“I’ve always loved food, working with food,” Morris said during an evening in his honour where his recent promotion to executive chef was celebrated Dec. 6.
“It started when I was young. I watched my grandma fillet fish and prepare moose. I knew I would eventually work in a kitchen and find a career in food. I wanted to handle plates, multi-task and take responsibility.”
That’s exactly what he’s done at Ruby Moon, said owner Lori Paras.
“Ryan has such a high standard of work,” she said. “He has the passion and compassion for this job. I knew if someone didn’t show up or quit, I could count on Ryan to help me.”
Paras saw something special in Morris and began training him for greater responsibility early on.
“I started to teach him more skills ... and he was a natural,” she said. “If he watches you do something once, he can repeat it. The second time he repeats it, it is well done and the third time, he does it with his own flair and makes it special.”
Paras has now depends on Morris.
“I couldn’t run this restaurant without him,” she said.
While she sees the restaurant as a family legacy, because her own children are away working on their own careers, Ruby Moon could one day be Morris’.
“I could see myself leaving it to him one day,” she said, fighting off tears. “He’s earned it, my respect, my admiration and my trust.”
Morris, 24, began his culinary career at the Grand Portage Lodge and Casino in Minnesota, as a breakfast cook.
It was then, at age 20 that cooking was no longer a job for Morris.
“It was a career,” Morris, a father of three, said.
He would eventually move on to a new kitchen in Thunder Bay, serving a full menu at two restaurants out of one kitchen. He did that for three years in a Port Arthur establishment that later went under.
Needing a job to support his family, Morris applied for a job at Ruby Moon and starting working for Paras Feb. 13.