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Cooking catfish cakes only minutes after almost blowing up the kitchen.

Luck, a knack for seizing opportunities, a Midas touch, a flair with flavors, and the ability to stretch a line of bullshit from here to yonder were Spears' strong points. Working as a waiter led to a job in 1988 managing Moveable Feast, a Houston vegetarian restaurant. "I had no business even applying for the general manager's job," Spears said. "I had just waited tables. They must have been desperate because they hired me on the spot."

Going from cattle-castrator to waiter to managing a million-dollar veggie restaurant in a strange city was intimidating. "I had transvestites who were cooking for me. They'd show up with makeup still on," Spears said. "It was total culture shock."

It wasn't long before he received another job offer from a customer, flamboyant Houston oilman J.P. Bryan, who owned an old hotel and restaurant in a West Texas ranching community near Big Bend National Park. Spears was tired of Houston and yearning for the rural life, so he took a train to Marathon to scout The Gage Hotel. He fell in love with the rugged landscapes: "I saw country I never thought Texas ever looked like."

Bryan arrived in Marathon in a private jet and told Spears he couldn't afford to match his Houston salary (about $30,000 a year), but offered 40 percent of the Gage's restaurant in exchange for managing it. Spears jumped at the offer. "I didn't know it was losing $75,000 a year," Spears said. "I didn't ask to see the books. I didn't ask to see anything."

The Spears legend has him taking over the kitchen duties two weeks later on a busy night after his cook quit -- and turning in a performance that launched his career as a chef. Truth is, Spears doesn't recall cooking much more than grilled cheese sandwiches that night. The Gage's restaurant was a glorified hamburger joint until Spears "put my DNA on it," as he describes it. Throughout his career, Spears has relied on others to do most of the kitchen work. His strengths are developing restaurant concepts, researching the origin of entrées, putting a unique twist on them, hiring a solid cook staff to follow his vision, and just generally being the homespun guy that customers and cameras can't resist.

The Gage earned a solid reputation because Spears had the smarts to surround himself with talented people. The help might have looked like grizzled chuckwagon cooks or blue-haired old ladies, but he viewed them as masters. "I utilized all the resources around me, and that's how the whole cowboy food thing was started," he said. "I could barely boil water. But I had all these great people around me."

These masters delivered fresh goat cheese, vegetables, bread, homemade pies, and cabrito stews. Spears improvised dishes and captured diners' imagination with creations such as dessert tacos with bourbon ice cream and chocolate gravy. He made the restaurant a favorite for locals and tourists alike, and eventually he drew the attention of rancher and businessman Al Micallef, a Michigan transplant who'd fallen in love with Texas and its lore.

"He was staying at the Gage while they were building his ranch house," Spears said. "I was ready for a change, and Al said, 'Let's do a restaurant in Alpine.' That's how Reata was born."

The partnership would result in three Reata restaurants, in Alpine, Fort Worth, and, briefly, Beverly Hills. National prominence -- and tornadoes -- lay ahead.

Martha Stewart was the first to give Spears big-time exposure, a 13-page spread in Martha Stewart Living shortly after the Alpine Reata opened in 1995. Featured recipes included avocado enchiladas, empanadas with spicy pork, and grilled red potato salad with warm bacon vinaigrette. Stewart's stock trades might do her little credit, but she has always been phenomenal at spotting inspired chefs, said author and Vogue food critic Jeffrey Steingarten. "Martha has a very good palate," he said. "If she liked Grady, there was something there."

Cowboy cuisine was suddenly the trendy thing and Spears the genre's most photogenic and quotable poster boy. "I really owe it to her," he said. "She came down and we did a barbecue together. She also included the story in her Great Parties book. Having that national media exposure kick-started the whole cowboy food thing. The food has always been around; nobody had branded it."

The brand received its biggest boost in Fort Worth, when Spears and Micallef set up shop atop downtown's Bank One Building.

Southern Living, National Geographic, Gourmet, Texas Monthly, The New York Times, and numerous other magazines and newspapers would write stories about the food world's newest darling. Restaurant and Institutions Magazine named him a Top Five chef in 1998, and Restaurant Hospitality dubbed him a rising star in 1999, picturing him on the cover wearing a wide-brimmed cowboy hat and beatific smile. He cooked on "Good Morning America," "NBC Today," and appeared regularly on Food Network. He became a favorite chef among notable Texans such as Nolan Ryan and was handpicked to prepare a meal for George W. Bush during his campaign for the presidency.

Most authors who want to write a book go seeking a publisher. In Spears' case, a publisher wooed him with a $25,000 advance. A Cowboy In The Kitchen: Recipes From Reata and Texas West of the Pecos appeared in 1999, and the $30 cookbook sold more than 50,000 copies.

The future seemed limitless, but cracks were appearing in the facade. Co-workers said sudden fame and fortune went to Spears' head, and he developed what one former employee called "a god complex." He was running around the country, promoting himself, attending book signings, hanging out with celebrities, and doing just about everything except showing up at Reata. When he did show up, he might come barreling into the restaurant and give more havoc than help. He was temperamental in the kitchen, insisting on perfection and letting his staff know loudly when he was displeased.

Mood swings and manic behavior led some people to wonder whether Spears had a substance abuse problem. He's no stranger to cold beer and good times, but those who know him say his erratic behavior stems from a major case of attention deficit disorder (ADD) that has affected him all his life but seemed to grow worse with success.

Mark Rose is a former Reata chef who has known Spears for six years. He describes Grady as a nice and talented guy whose hyperactivity can push him over emotional cliffs, resulting in organizational meltdowns and clashes with staff and financial backers. "If you don't know he has a condition, you don't understand him," Rose said. "He doesn't like taking his medicine because he loses his creative interest in what he's doing and he just lays on the couch. Grady knows what needs to be done, but because of his disability he is not able to do it, so he always seeks out the best people to execute his vision. That's a bone of contention with some folks. They expect him to be running the kitchen. That's not his strength."

After five years of partnership, Spears and Micallef split the sheets in September 2000, five months after a tornado hit downtown Fort Worth, blasted through the restaurant, and temporarily closed its doors. Micallef declined then and now to discuss the split. Back then, Spears called it amicable, and he still tries to take the high road. Recently, however, he said it boiled down to Micallef wanting to boost the restaurant's bottom line at the expense of food quality. The differences proved irreconcilable.

Spears said majority owner Micallef offered him a $1 million buyout in exchange for a non-compete clause. (Some observers question whether Micallef would make such an offer.) "You're not going to run me out of my hometown," Spears recalled telling his former partner.

Still, he wasn't dealing from a position of legal strength, since he had signed "a bad contract" with Micallef. "These money people can beat you up so bad," he said. In the final settlement, Spears returned his Reata stock in exchange for $238,991 payable over 60 months -- about $4,000 a month for five years.

So why would a 30-year-old cook with no job and limited funds refuse $1 million in exchange for agreeing not to open a restaurant in Fort Worth? After all, Arlington, Dallas, or any number of nearby cities would probably welcome Spears just as warmly. His response reveals Spears' colorful nature. He loves Fort Worth, wouldn't dream of moving to cosmopolitan Dallas, doesn't like people trying to control him, and isn't swayed by a commodity that can tempt almost anyone.

"Money doesn't mean that much to me," he said.

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