Neely “Davis” Butler IV was a Louisiana native. That showed through his devotion to classic Cajun cuisine. Despite his “foreign” roots, his community at Life’s Kitchen embraced him as one of their own.
Butler, known as Davis to his friends, “was the one we mentioned nearly every week to current students,” said Life’s Kitchen director Kurt Alderman. “With his drive and ambition, there was no doubt in his mind, or anyone else’s that he would become a chef.”
Alderman calls Davis one of the program’s most accomplished graduates. The program offers food service and life skills training for at-risk young people. Butler completed it earlier this year, earning his GED in the process. He then became what many participants in the program — and in the world, for that matter — long to be: fully employed in a field he loved.
He was only 21 when he died in a car accident in October. But he had found a job, working as a sauté/catering chef at Redfish Lake Lodge near Stanley.
Davis’ mom, Brenda Barlow Butler, said he had been celebrating with some friends at the end of the season. They were driving back to the lodge when their car went off the road. Davis was riding in the back seat. Paramedics worked on him for 45 minutes, trying unsuccessfully to save his life, Brenda Butler said.
Police say alcohol was a factor in the crash. Brenda Butler doesn’t sugarcoat it. Davis had his struggles.
Before starting Life’s Kitchen, he dropped out of high school. He had minor brushes with the law.
The first time he enrolled in the Life’s Kitchen program he missed the first day of classes and had to wait until the next round of classes to start again. But he did. And he became a model student.
He had worked in the food industry before.
“He had a good skill set. He knew how to use a knife. There was a shorter learning curve for him,” Alderman said. But it was the “intangibles” of Davis that mattered.
“It was a quality of really wanting to be a chef,” said Alderman. “It was infectious. He brought others up to his level.”
That ability may have come from one of his mother’s early lessons for Davis, his brother, Thomas and his sister Katherine.
“I always tried to teach them to find at least one thing they liked about everyone they met. Davis lived up to that, and it made him a better person,” she said.
He was an extrovert, filled with creative energy, and generosity, she noted.
When Butler’s great-aunt turned 100, Davis did the catering, enlisting his fellow chefs to help. Brenda Butler recalls the time Davis harvested lavender from the yard and concocted a dazzling creme brulee — infusing milk with the herb.
He dirtied every pan in the kitchen. “But I’d never tasted anything better,” she said. She didn’t mind cleaning the mess.
After he died, she wished he’d left the recipe behind.
Davis’ friends and teachers at Life’s Kitchen held a memorial celebration for him.
They also found a recipe for lavender creme brulee and framed it as a gift for his mother.
In Remembrance is a weekly profile on a Treasure Valley resident who has recently passed away. To recommend a friend or loved one for an In Remembrance, email newsroom@idahostatesman.com.
