Chef Kelly Wambach

Mrs. Frida Randa sold lutefisk from a barrel in Georgetown’s first general store, established by S.S. Randa in the late 1800s.

Lutefisk was 45 cents a pound when little Lonnie Wambach was photographed in 1966.

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Kelly Wambach never intended to be a chef. Yet, thanks to a twist of fate, he built a career that has raised him to the upper rank of Moorhead’s culinary wizards.
“When I got out of high school, I signed up at Moorhead Tech (now known as M State) to be a commercial artist,” the Georgetown, Minnesota, native remembers, “but its art program was full. I had to come up with something else on the spot. I’d been cooking since I was knee high, so I thought, ‘I’ll do that for a year, and then see if I can get into commercial art.
“Well, I’m glad that didn’t work out. I saw that I could make a career out of cooking, and I love to cook. Cooking is my therapy.”
Kelly has spent much of the last five decades years delighting Moorhead and Fargo diners with his creations. Now semi-retired, he looks back at a lifetime that has nourished his appetite for good food, good friends and a steady flow of opportunities to learn, experiment and delight the community’s diners.
He credits Chef Rudolph Sommer, the executive chef at the Tree Top, for shaping his culinary direction. Sommer hired the college student to work in the finest of fine-dining restaurants of its day. The white-tablecloth eatery long looked out over the city from the top floor of the FM Hotel, where graceful servers prepared many of its most popular dishes at tableside. “Rudy was one of the best,” Kelly recalls. “He was very, very high end.” He eventually replaced his mentor in the fabled establishment.
But like many chefs, Kelly was restless, moving from one restaurant to another, trying new things along the way. He has always kept advice of one of his Moorhead Tech instructors in mind. “He was a tough old former Army cook,” he remembers fondly, “and I never forgot what he told us: It’s not how long you stay at a place, It’s what you learn while you’re there.” He adds, “Every job is an education.”
Kelly went on to become the executive chef at the fabled Viking Oaks, the popular restaurant located in the classic Depression-era stone structure at the Moorhead Country Club. Later, he and his former boss Evy Hanson would buy and reopen it as the Northwood Chalet. (Built by the WPA, the classic stone landmark was demolished after the flood of 1997.) He went on to work with Clint Stacy, another of the city’s fabled chefs, at the then-new Ramada Inn. He later spent several years as the Doublewood Inn’s executive chef.
But he has also satisfied his taste for trying new things. Over the years, he has sold furniture at Baer’s House of Quality and Conlin’s; cooked for the Kappa Delta sorority at NDSU and Lilac Homes; operated Old Market Antiques in south Moorhead; and worked in the Cashwise deli. A former member of the board of the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County, he managed its Heritage Gift Shop and the Snack Shack, where he served original takes on soups and sandwiches, all with a historical twist. Today he spends several days a week working as a prep cook at the Barnesville Grocery.
He remembers his chef days fondly. “It’s a very close-knit business. You work long, hard hours together. Your social life is after the restaurant closes. You make really, really good friends. Some of the closest I’ve ever had are people I cooked with way back at the Tree Top.”
Kelly was raised, he says, by two excellent cooks, his father Allen and mother LeDonna. “Mom was a good, good cook. She followed recipes to the letter. Dad’s good, too, but he has a different way of doing things. He puts the pot on the stove, adds whatever he thinks needs to go in it … and then, most of the time it turns out good,” he smiles, “but sometimes it doesn’t.”
Their son describes his own style somewhere in between them. Many of his favorite dishes start with his mother’s precise instructions: “But I always tweak her recipes a little bit here and a little bit there. I do it my own way.” He remembers watching her carefully sifting and measuring flour, then leveling it off with a knife. “I just dip the cup in the flour bin and shake it off.”
He especially enjoys the holiday season and its traditional recipes – especially those that reflect regional tastes and memories. He spotlights some of his favorites – like this lutefisk feature – in the columns he writes for the FM Extra’s Extraordinary Living magazine.
When it comes to his own dinner table, Kelly characterizes himself as a meat-and-potatoes man. “I’m more salty than sweet, I’d say. I enjoy putzing around the kitchen, adding a little taste of this and a little more of that and seeing how it all turns out.
“Nothing in my kitchen comes out of a box. I love to cook. I mean, it’s what I do,” he says. “I’m happiest when I’m cooking something different every single day.”