Sean and I lived together for something like 6 or 7 years. We had been friends since 5th grade, through high school and the late teens and early twenties, but it was during this time of sharing a house (I believe it was between the age of 22-30 for each of us, with a two year gap between 2003 and 2005) that I really became close with Sean. We spent a lot of time together. It was activity after activity after activity for us. To try and tell each story would take me years. As I think of all the stories, I keep remembering new stories that had buried themselves in the depths of my brain.

The story I’m going to tell now is about Sean’s amazing appetite. When I mean amazing, I don’t mean amazing in the regard to the amount of food he would consume. I mean amazing in the unusual combinations of food, and the methods with which he would come up with something delicious to eat at the most unusual times:

Sean was notorious for his late night meals. We would come home from whatever shenanigans we h ad been involved in (by the way, I think “shenanigans” might have been Sean’s favorite word), and Sean would get to work on cooking up a storm. He would rifle through the cabinets and find whatever ingredients seemed especially delicious at the time, and he would put together a meal for whoever was awake. The first couple times, we would ask him what he was cooking, and he would just look at us and say “oh, you’ll see.” He was like the mad professor in the lab, throwing things together that you would never think of putting together. After the first few late night meals, we stopped asking what he was making. We just let him do his thing, knowing that in the end we were going to have a feast, knowing that somehow, it would end up being delicious.

The “Gut Bomb”
One of his recipes was simply called the “Gut Bomb”. The gut bomb was some assortment of beans, cheese, eggs, ranch dressing, Tapatio or El pato, lettuce, and pepperchinis (or jalapeños, or whatever other kind of peppers we had at the house at the time), thrown into a tortilla. Sometimes he would add potatoes, sometimes he would add fish instead of eggs and tartar sauce instead of ranch. Sometimes he simply threw everything we had in the fridge into a tortilla and served it up. These were SO GOOD. Words can’t sufficiently explain how he was able to make the most delicious tacos out of God-knows-what.

Spaghetti and Eggs
We were in Mammoth one night and he took some left over noodles and marinara sauce and threw it in the frying pan. It looked and smelled good. I sat at the bar stool and watched with a drooling mouth, waiting to eat. I was hungry after a long day of riding. I left the kitchen area for a little while, then came back to see if the feast was ready. I looked at the frying pan and saw that he had cracked an egg on top of the noodles. It wasn’t all that uncommon for Sean to be cooking complete opposites like spaghetti and eggs at the same time. But to see the egg on TOP of the noodles (with marinara sauce!)…I couldn’t believe it. I thought Sean maybe did it by accident. He insisted for years later that he did it on purpose. “It was the perfect combination!” I still can’t believe he did that. Bobby and I laugh with each other about this night. Sean was simply hilarious.

Ranch Dressing
Anyone that knows Sean knows that he likes his sauce. Everything tasted better with a big helping of ranch dressing on top. Pizza, sandwiches, burritos, eggs..you name it. Everything was swimming in Ranch Dressing. I should have bought stock in Hidden Valley Ranch once I saw how much ranch dressing he went through. He would pour a ton of ranch on his pizza…so much that you couldn’t even see the pizza. You needed a spoon to eat the ranch and then a fork and knife to eat the soggy pizza underneath. We would always have a gallon of ranch in the fridge, and a couple more on reserve in the cabinet.

Hibachi on the beach
Sean was legendary for his on-the-beach meals. He kept his hibachi in his truck, next to his wetsuit and surfboard and guitar and cooler-bag that his dad had given him as a Christmas gift one year. He had extra disposable propane bottles in case he ran out of propane in the midst of a fish taco or tri-tip post-surf feast. He kept little packages of hot sauce from Taco Bell in his glove compartment, ready to be added to the meal on the beach. There were many times when a bunch of us would be sitting on the sand, and Sean would disappear for 10 minutes. We would look at each other and ask each other where Sean went. Then we would look up above the seawall and see smoke pouring out of Sean’s hibachi. Of course, we would think, Sean is cooking us all a delicious treat. Minutes later, we would all grub down, thanks to Sean. His hibachi should be enshrined in the BBQ hall of fame. When Sean moved out of the house, I bought my own hibachi, but I was never able to replicate what he did with that thing. He is a legend for his improvisational cooking skills.

Barbecued Nachos
One summer we were camping up at Refugio beach with some friends. We had a campfire going, and it got to be late. Of course, we were all hungry. We didn’t have much to eat. Sean always found a creative way to have a nice snack. He busted out the Ritz Crackers, some tortilla chips, and some slices of cheese and made nachos, yes nachos, on the open flame fire. One of the zillion things that I learned from Sean is that anything, and I mean anything, can be cooked over an open flame. I have a photo of Sean giving the thumbs-up next to the nachos cooked on the open flame.

Sean’s first big catch
When Sean started to get into fishing about 4 years ago, he started by standing knee deep in the ocean and throwing his line into the surf. The first couple times he didn’t have a whole lot of success. He adjusted his technique and his lures, and eventually, he caught a fish. He was STOKED when he brought home his first nice catch. He worked so hard to catch that fish. He had been trying for hours, or days, to catch something, and he finally reeled a nice one in. By the time I got home from work that day, the fish was already on the BBQ. He had all the fixings ready to go: lemon, tartar sauce, cabbage, tortillas, cheese. He didn’t know exactly what kind of fish it was when he caught it, but he did know that he was going to eat that fish. When it was cooked, we sampled the fish meat and learned that it wasn’t the most delicious fish ever. It was actually kind of gnarly if you want to know the truth of the matter. But we celebrated Sean’s catch and doused that fish with plenty of tartar sauce and had our meal. He always had goals for himself. His goal that day was to bring home dinner. He accomplished that goal, despite how ugly that fish was and how bitter it tasted in those tacos. In later fishing expeditions, Sean came back with some real edible fish. He also came back with some great stories of his adventures on the water.

I could honestly write a book that details Sean’s adventures (at least the adventures that I witnessed or was a part of). It was fun for me to write these memories down so that I could re-live these good times, so that our other buddies that were there could remember these times, and still others could say “yep, I could see Sean doing that” or “uh huh, Sean made me the Gut Bomb too.” I know he made so many people in this world laugh, so many people smile. He made so many people feel good about themselves. And I also know that Sean made a solid contribution to our society. He certainly made me laugh, he made me smile, and he made me feel good about myself. He contributed to my life in many ways. I thank him for that. Sean, I miss you bro. See you on the flip side.

Love, Rob