HNSP's Dempsey shares her food with wider audience

Sep. 17—Samantha Dempsey is passionate about her job. And she wants to share that passion with a broader spectrum of folks in the region.

Dempsey is the food and beverage director at Overlook at the New River Gorge Restaurant at Hawks Nest State Park in Ansted. She has worked at the state park for 18 years, and she doesn't have far for her commute to work as she lives just across U.S. Rte. 60, a stone's throw away.

This past weekend, Dempsey and HNSP had the opportunity to introduce their food to a larger audience outside the restaurant's walls. According to park representative Keith Richardson, Hawks Nest was one of four West Virginia State Parks to participate for the first time in the West Virginia National Hunting and Fishing Days Celebration. The celebration this year occurred at the Summit Bechtel Reserve on Sept. 9-10.

"This year during the Hunting and Fishing Days, state parks got involved," Richardson said. "So all three legs of the DNR were represented. We had law enforcement, state parks and wildlife there.

"The state parks participated for the first time in the Taste of West Virginia State Parks."

Visitors were able to purchase tickets and sample wild game and farm-fresh food at the new station featuring signature dishes prepared by West Virginia State Parks chefs, according to the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources.

Besides Hawks Nest, other parks represented in the food event from 2 to 4 p.m. on Sept. 9 were Cacapon, Chief Logan and Twin Falls, he noted.

"The gist of it was that each park bring a specialty dish, and then let the folks decide," Richardson said. The event operated much like the ticketed The Taste of Bridge Day activity, for which visitors buy tickets and sample various foods.

That's when Dempsey went to work. And her efforts were recognized, as Hawks Nest State Park captured the first place award of excellence on the strength of the public's response to the park's dishes.

Of Dempsey, Richardson said, "She's amazing and put on a really nice menu."

With a staff of one (herself), Dempsey settled on three dishes to prepare for the special event.

"We had three dishes," she said. "One was a barbecued chicken loaded baked potato, and it had two different cheeses (Swiss and cheddar) on it." That dish also featured chives and scallions and fresh cilantro as a topping, plus a dash of barbecue sauce.

The second dish was apple pie baked beans, which is a "spicy and sweet" concoction to which her husband introduced her. "I just fell absolutely in love with it, and I told him I was never going to eat another baked bean ever again," Dempsey said.

"That's the weirdest thing I ever thought of being together," she added. "It's meant to be on a smoker, as well.

"Anything on a smoker is absolutely divine."

For dessert, Hawks Nest offered an apple pie cheesecake with cinnamon strudel. "That was a big hit; we ended up actually selling out of that."

There were numerous repeat customers throughout the event at the HNSP table, Dempsey and Richardson said. She said she only carried a small amount of the beans back to the restaurant.

The three specialty dishes are used for catering or weekend or holiday scenarios, but Dempsey says, "It is something that we're going to try to add to the menu for next season."

"We just wanted to honor all the parks and put our names out there and tell the public you can come and eat at our restaurants; you don't have to be a guest here," she said.

Dempsey says she bases a lot of what she cooks on recipes passed down by the grandmother, Josephine Hall Williams. "That's the type of food I love is old southern cooking," she said with a laugh. "Along with Italian.

"I just like to play around with it. You can learn something new everyday. I was just trying to honor something that went along with the history of West Virginia.

"I live right across the road from this park, and I have all my life. And I live on Orchard Street. It's named Orchard Street because of all the orchards that used to be up through here on my family's property.

"I just figured anything that could go along with the apple would be something that would be pretty cool to go along with it."

Dempsey was thrilled that her work was well-received by the public.

"It means the world to me," she said. "It's an honor for me to go over there and represent my park, because I love this park, whether I worked here or not.

"I've been on Cloud 9 since this happened. Just trying to do a good job, that's all."

Richardson said he could see — and hear — Dempsey's excitement after the event. "She let out a whoop that you wouldn't believe," he said.

"I was very excited," she replied. "Very humbled."

And, Dempsey invites the public to stop by and eat at Overlook at the New River Gorge Restaurant any time.

"We do have good service, we do have good food," Dempsey said. "We do have wonderful, wonderful state parks.

"I think because it being in a state park people think it's like a private club. It's not. We are all family, and we want you to come here and enjoy our meals."

The award "reflects what we do on a daily basis here at the restaurant, and it shows that we are top quality and very innovative in our menu and our food selections, and that's all because of Sam," Richardson said. "I think it's great, especially now that State Parks is getting involved. I hope to see more involvement like that.

"There's already talk about doing it again next year and expanding it to other parks and having more parks involved, but it was well-received by the participants."

"When this event first came about as an idea, the assistant superintendent here at Hawks Nest, Jennifer Amick, ran the whole event (merchandise booth, taste, etc.) on State Parks' behalf," Richardson added.

For more on the restaurant, call 304-658-3639 or visit the park website.

In addition to the taste event and the popular Outdoor Youth Challenge and other familiar activities, the two-day event at the Summit Bechtel Reserve also featured an appearance by the hosts of Fly Rod Chronicles, The Chase, and Whitetail Frenzy.

West Virginia's National Hunting and Fishing Days was co-sponsored by the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, the West Virginia Wildlife Federation and the Summit Bechtel Reserve.

Email: skeenan@register-herald.com; follow on Facebook