A Recipe for ConnectionHow one professor’s baking turned into a community-building tradition.

Every Friday morning, the smell of coffee and baked treats wafts from a first-floor office in Nash Hall. Inside, there’s the murmur of voices and the unmistakable sound of laughter. Members of the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences gather around a large conference table, with taxidermied animal heads looking on. They nibble on cookies or muffins, pour coffee from insulated pitchers into ceramic mugs and chat about research, weekend plans or sports. What might not occur to a new visitor, soaking in the atmosphere of comfortable camaraderie, is that the founder of this cozy tradition is missing from the frame: David L.G. Noakes, late professor at Oregon State University.

As a researcher, Noakes received the American Fisheries Society Award of Excellence — one of the top prizes in fisheries — for his work at the Oregon Hatchery Research Center, where he led groundbreaking studies into many local Oregon species including lamprey and Chinook salmon. But his legacy has another, very human component: When people talk about him, their faces light up.

“David was a major connector,” said Michelle Scanlan, ’05, ’12, M.S. ’15. Noakes was her master’s thesis advisor, and she’s still working in the department as a faculty research assistant today. “He would make it a point to introduce people and connect them if he thought they had some sort of common ground. And he would use Coffee Club especially to do that.”

Noakes started his first Coffee Club at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada — his own spin on Canada’s teatime tradition. When he came to work at Oregon State in 2005, Coffee Club came with him. The club met once a week, a casual in-and-out department meetup with coffee and conversation, and always with fresh goodies baked by Noakes himself.

“Other people would bake sometimes, but it was usually him,” said Rachel Crowhurst, M.S. ’12, another Oregon State fisheries and wildlife grad who works as a senior faculty research assistant in the department. “He knew it would bring people together — anybody will go anywhere if there’s treats.”

His recipes ranged from traditional Canadian fare like butter tarts and date squares to seasonal bakes like blueberry grunt and strawberry shortcake — and even to experimental recipes like chile verde and mincemeat muffins. Whatever he was whipping up, the department wanted a taste. And the treats weren’t limited to Coffee Club: Scanlan recalls Noakes arriving early on trips to the Oregon Hatchery Research Center to have fresh scones ready for the team of researchers.

Baked goods were just one of Noakes’ many ways of reaching out to those around him, Scanlan said. Whether he was leaving piles of guide books on a colleague’s desk after learning where they were taking their next vacation, trying to covertly pass a singing birthday card around the office, or handwriting friendly letters to David Attenborough and the Queen of England, he was always strengthening connections. Even after his death in December 2020, he continued to bring people together.

“During lockdown, we couldn’t have a departmental get-together to honor David,” said Crowhurst. “But if there was ever a time we needed community, it was 2020.” She, Scanlan and Professor Emeritus Stanley Gregory were reminiscing in a video tribute breakout room when they had the idea to put together a memorial cookbook of Noakes’ Coffee Club treats.

The small team dived right into the project: they compiled Noakes’ handwritten recipes, working closely with his wife, Pat, and began trying to re-create his bakes so they could take photos. “It was a lot of work,” said Crowhurst. “We had a lot of volunteer bakers who were out there in the trenches.”

He knew it would bring people together — anybody will go anywhere if there’s treats.

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Some of the recipes were trickier to reproduce than others. Scanlan described the team’s attempts at Noakes’ butter tarts as “carnage — delicious carnage, but carnage.” In Canada, spirited debates rage about whether you should use raisins or walnuts in a butter tart recipe: Noakes always lined the bottoms of his pastry shells with raisins.

“My favorite is actually the butter tarts, because I’m Canadian and you can’t get them down here,” said Crowhurst. “Once, when Coffee Club was done, he caught me sneaking down the hallway grabbing another one because they were so good.”

As the cookbook came together, news of it reached international circles — Noakes’ former colleagues in Iceland and New Zealand sent email requests for hard copies, and some offered to translate it into their own language. A digital version is available on the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences webpage. Like Noakes himself, his recipes are now part of a worldwide community.

Goodies this far-reaching are more than just delicious — they’re also a call to gather, to kick back and to form genuine connections. Each muffin or biscuit is an invitation to strike up a conversation. “David would go around the department on Friday mornings, saying, ‘Coffee Club?’” said Scanlan. “He had this very distinctive knock, so you’d know it was him. It was never just faculty and grad students that he visited — he’d go to the undergrad lounge, too, and to the business office.” Now, though the torch has been passed, the tradition of Coffee Club continues, with recipes from the memorial cookbook still making appearances.

“It’s something we look forward to every week,” said Crowhurst. “We know not to book meetings at that time.” Grad students, administrators, faculty and undergraduates alike mingle in the small room. Some of them have never met Noakes, but they’ve still been welcomed by him — and tasted his delicious recipes.

Try out Noakes’ spice cookies recipe.