Kevin Diez is an old friend.
I first met him fishing. We were both belly deep in the water at Elmer’s Island, clobbering speckled trout and white trout.
We were the only two on the island and the fishing was easy, so we started talking.
But I really got to know him over food. We cleaned the fish on the tailgate of my truck. Kevin’s ride was a well-worn white panel wagon with “Diez Seafood” painted on the side.
It was built like the chuck wagons used on the old-time cattle drives. He opened the back and started cooking, right there on the beach.
Fish never tasted so good.
Our paths have crossed many times since that day 35 years ago.
The man everybody now knows as “Chef KD” grew up in Dutchtown. He is still slender and youthfully handsome, although at 61 he is not quite the cherub I met surf fishing.
Diez grew up fishing and hunting. His father, Sterling, would take him and his brother Dale bass fishing in a 14-foot homemade plywood boat.
“He would scull the boat with one a wooden paddle held in one hand,” Diez reminisced. “He would discipline us with the same paddle.”
The Diez family went to Grand Isle every summer. They raised and sold tomatoes; that was the money they used to go to the island.
“I always had a passion to fish and hunt,” Diez said. “We would ride our bikes to catch pollywogs (aka bullhead catfish) in ponds and set nets for crawfish in the Bluff swamps. I would leave in the morning with a gun, matches, and salt and pepper. Whatever I would kill I would cook.
“When I was 10 or 12, me and friends went camping, and I cooked a Vienna sausage jambalaya. It was disgusting.”
In spite of the heritage, he drifted away from the outdoors after high school, when he traveled as a construction worker.
His travels did one thing.
“I realized how special our cooking was,” Diez said. “When I got the envie for something, I would call Mom and Dad.
“Everywhere I traveled, I always cooked. While I was home between jobs, I visited my parrain’s old-timey grocery — Diez Grocery — on Highway 74 in Ascension Parish.
“He told me the place was for sale and his kids didn’t want it. I decided that I wanted a restaurant and bought it. That night I went out to celebrate and met Collette DeGrue. She became my wife.”
The restaurant, Diez Seafood, opened in 1983. It was popular, but his inexperience showed. Running a restaurant, he learned was about a lot more than cooking. It was unprofitable. A hired restaurant consultant found that the mathematics of making a profit in his location was poor.
It was during the stress of running a restaurant that Diez started to fish again.
“It gave me peace and quiet,” he said. “My prayer closet was in the outdoors.
“A friend explained to me about Pro-Am Bass Circuit. I did well enough to think I could compete, and I bought a small bateau. I made enough out of it to buy my first bass boat. It was the last profit I ever made from fishing.”
What was profitable, though, was the catering business (Chef KD Louisiana Legends, 225-673-8801) he founded at the same time as his restaurant.
Diez parlayed the fishing and cooking connection into more. For eight years, he hosted a television show, Chef K.D.’s Outdoors and More, which he described as being “about living life in Louisiana — hunting, fishing, and cooking.”
Gene Hoover met Diez in tournament play and teamed up with him on the Fishers of Men National Tournament Trail, which Hoover described as “much like BASS but designed as an outreach ministry to promote nondenominational Christian values in tournament settings.”
A retired teacher, coach and for seven years a principal at Lutcher High School, Hoover is an imposing man. His 6-foot, 1-inch, 280-pound stature and silver goatee are considerably softened by his quick smile.
Like Diez, he began fishing young.
“My Uncle Max Catoire took me under his wing and got me hooked on fishing,” Hoover explained. “In high school, we would leave Laplace at 2 p.m. and drive to Venice to fish Southwest Pass.
“We would spend the night in a tent or in the boat at Burrwood; then fish the next day till noon. On Monday, we would sell them — white trout. The average trip was about 1,000 pounds. Schwegmann’s (a New Orleans grocery chain) would buy them at 30 cents a pound.”
After he began teaching, Hoover befriended Terry Bergeron, one of his students who was into competitive bass fishing. They started fishing together and had success.
He has been bass fishing ever since, and currently is youth director for Louisiana Bass Nation. Hoover bass fishes three or four days a week.
“I never get tired of it,” he grinned. “I don’t eat them, though. I eat speckled trout and sac-a-lait.”