Chief is also a Chef

Multifaceted Walter O’Malley had interests well beyond the law, engineering and baseball. He was known around the house as a competent chef. He thoroughly enjoyed cooking sourdough French bread.

“I like to cook,” he said. “Sometimes, my family is quite complimentary. Actually, it is something for me to do that keeps me on my feet and keeps my mind off a lot of problems. It is good recreation. Very few people today bake bread. I think there’s nothing more interesting in a home than to smell bread baking in the oven. I keep a sourdough pot going all the time and we can always dip into it and make sourdough pancakes or waffles, or sourdough French bread, which I think is pretty good bread.”

O’Malley was so serious about cooking and his love for it that he once designed his own O’Malley Charcoal Grill. The flyer for the grill said it “was designed by Walter F. O’Malley, prominent New York Lawyer and Sportsman, with the desire to furnish a more substantial, better size, practical charcoal broiler for home and outdoor use than those on the market. You can entertain your friends with the O’Malley grill broiling or barbecuing in the garden, in front of your fireplace and at the beach. You can broil on this grill in the same manner as the finest Hotels do.” The price of the 9 7/8” x 20 1/2” grill was $15.

SOURCES: LOREN PETERSON, KFI RADIO INTERVIEW WITH O’MALLEY, FEB. 27, 1965; O’MALLEY CHARCOAL GRILL FLYER