For 40 years, Dr. Peter Glatz put dental instruments inside the mouths of patients in Illinois, and now that he's retired, he's providing a different type of "filling." At the age of 67, Dr. Glatz is staying in his "Bertha Bus" in Ann Arbor while helping out on a local farm and using his passion to cook and create at area restaurants. He tells WEMU's Lisa Barry about his culinary journey.
While he wasn't working as a dentist in Illinois, Dr. Peter Glatz had another passion in life, which is cooking. He and his wife Julianne purchased an old school bus and converted it into a mobile kitchen known as the "Bertha Bus." The two of them would travel to music festivals and serve the concertgoers and the performers.
2016 proved to be a transitional year for Dr. Glatz. Julianne suddenly passed away, and he was out of work for months while recovering from hip replacement surgery. Not long after, Glatz retired from denistry and attended a Zingtrain seminar hosted by Zingerman's Deli owner Ari Weinzweig. The seminar inspired him to travel and find ways to expand his love of cooking. He would eventually land a job at the Nonesuch restaurant in Oklahoma City, which, due to his fascinating story, would get him featured on "The Today Show" (see video above).
Dr. Glatz now resides--actually lives out of his "Bertha Bus"--with his new wife Ann in Ann Arbor. They split their time picking crops at Tammie Gilfoyle's Tamchop farm and serving the public in the parking lot of Zingerman's Deli.
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— Lisa Barry is the host of All Things Considered on WEMU. You can contact Lisa at 734.487.3363, on Twitter @LisaWEMU, or email her at lbarryma@emich.edu
