On a recent Monday afternoon, Luke Brown, a line cook at Burlington restaurant A Single Pebble, slashed the skins of dozens of drumsticks. Meanwhile, fellow line cook Ben Redington parcooked the chicken in huge stockpots.

After Redington skimmed the liquid in one pot, Single Pebble sous chef Nick Gambill poured in local beer, dark and light soy sauces, and Chinese cooking wine to finish the braise. He added fresh sliced ginger, chopped scallions and a generous amount of rock sugar.

"That's too much sugar," Redington, 23, said, ribbing his colleague.

"No, it's not," Gambill, 22, shot back.

Pithy banter, deftly wielded cleavers and Asian ingredients are commonplace in A Single Pebble's Bank Street kitchen, where the culinary team churns out customer favorites such as mock eel, dry fried green beans and red oil dumplings. But the three professional chefs weren't on the job as they prepared the chicken. They were volunteering a few blocks away at the Salvation Army of Greater Burlington, where free hot meals are served five nights a week to everyone who shows up.

Brown, Redington and Hen Joyner, a bartender at nearby Restaurant Poco, had answered Gambill's weekly call to help with his Burlington Free Meals Program, which provides regular Monday meals.

It was the pandemic summer of 2020 when Gambill resolved to deploy his skills to feed people regardless of their ability to pay. Since then, the skinny, scraggly-bearded young man has pulled together volunteers and resources to serve more than 1,375 free meals in Burlington. He has cooked for the Salvation Army, the Food Not Cops base on Hungerford Terrace and the low-barrier shelter operated by ANEW Place in the former Champlain Inn.

A tireless kitchen brigade of one, Gambill has magnetized supporters ranging from an elder of hip-hop to well-connected Burlington chefs to the chef and cofounder of the People's Kitchen, a collaborative food-access nonprofit in Philadelphia. He has walked 50 pounds of groceries from the Old North End to the Salvation Army and collaborated on a farming pilot project in Braintree, driving two hours round trip to check the plants on a rare day off. He has used his vacation time to volunteer at the People's Kitchen and spent several thousand dollars out of his own pocket to supplement donated staples with specialty items.

Passionate about restaurants, Gambill believes it is their responsibility to help feed everyone. The food he cooks at his job "is only going to a select few people. It's behind this huge price wall," Gambill said. When he cooks for free, "There are no walls between what you create and people being nourished by it."

"Nick has his own crate of ingredients in our kitchen," said Felisha Davis, pastor and administrator of the Burlington Salvation Army. "He doesn't just want to provide food; he wants to provide good food."

Among the supporters of Gambill's efforts is Burlington chef Frank Pace, co-owner of August First and the Zero Gravity Beer Hall food operation. "All his extra energy is going toward this," Pace said. "Most kids that age are not doing that."

The young chef expressed his frustration that more restaurant owners don't see the obligation and pitch in. The profit from a single bottle of wine sold at a number of high-end local restaurants could fund many meals, Gambill said. With the bluntness — and, some might say, naïveté — of youth, he added, "I don't have patience for people telling me these kinds of restaurants can't help ... It's about priorities."

Growing up, Gambill found a home in such restaurants. School never brought out the best in him, but the kitchen did. As a Montpelier High School student, he worked his way up from the dish station at the now-shuttered Kismet. He relished the fast pace, the continual challenges and the deep bonds forged in the kitchen.

After graduating at 17, Gambill moved to New York City for a restaurant job he secured through a Kismet connection, but he was "essentially fired" after a month, he said, when his weekly shifts were slashed to one. Rather than slinking home, the teenager printed out 40 copies of his résumé and hand-delivered them to restaurants citywide. He cooked for four months at a now-closed Greenwich Village spot before returning to Montpelier to save money for school.

In summer 2019, Gambill moved to Burlington to attend the University of Vermont. He got a job at A Single Pebble, where he started by learning cleaver skills and quickly graduated to the wok.

Even before the pandemic forced his college classes online, Gambill found that his academic experience paled compared with his on-the-job learning. "Maybe this is a better fit than Intro to Poetry," he recalled thinking.

A Single Pebble chef-owner Chiuho Sampson said that, during his four years of working there, she has watched Gambill grow from "a very shy, really young kid" into a confident and accomplished chef. "I've never met a young cook who has such passion for learning, so inquisitive like he is," Sampson said.

In summer 2021, she recalled, Gambill came to her and said he thought he'd learned everything he could from A Single Pebble and wanted to go learn elsewhere. She challenged his assertion but said, "Sure, go for it." Gambill spent that summer splitting weeks between A Single Pebble and Hen of the Wood in Burlington before returning to work for Sampson full time.

Her sous chef frequently texts her on the two days the restaurant is closed with ideas for new dishes, Sampson said. Some, such as a technique-intensive recipe for wok-caramelized sugared apples that Gambill mastered after much practice, were a hit at a staff meal but not practical for the restaurant. Others, such as golden salted egg yolk prawns, made it to the menu.

It does not surprise Sampson that Gambill has achieved so much with his Burlington Free Meals Program. "He's so passionate about feeding people," she said.

Sampson has supported him with food donations, advice and use of the restaurant kitchen. But sometimes, as with his menu ideas, Gambill needs a reality check. For example, Sampson said, he asked to use the Single Pebble food truck to serve free meals, which raised liability and staffing concerns. "It sounds great," Sampson told him, "but it's not that simple."

Between his Single Pebble job and the Burlington Free Meals Program, Gambill said he's putting in at least 70 hours a week. He's found it impossible to tease apart work and his volunteer labor. "I bring it with me into everything I do," he said.

This summer, Gambill partnered with Jericho farmer and artist Luis Yat to raise a trial plot of vegetables in Braintree in a field offered by a generous landowner. Farming is yet another ball to juggle, but "We're trying to create something that's self-sufficient," Gambill said.

Attaining his goals of expansion and self-sufficiency means finding financial resources. For seven months in 2022, the Burlington Free Meals Program received funding from Vermont Everyone Eats, supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Gambill said he may receive some emergency dollars in the wake of the July floods, but he needs steady support.

In April, Gambill earned fiscal sponsorship from the Burlington-based nonprofit Peace & Justice Center, which enables him to apply for grants and receive tax-deductible donations. He has been working on staging a benefit concert this fall featuring Memphis-based Patrick Houston, aka Project Pat, a hip-hop artist who was recently included in a New York Times list of 50 influential rappers.

Gambill hopes the concert will net $10,000. "That's a lot when you have nothing," he said.

The chef, who is also a musician, initially approached Houston on Instagram to ask him to contribute a verse to a song. Houston agreed and soon became a supporter of Gambill's volunteer project. A framed photo of the artist wearing a Burlington Free Meals Program T-shirt hangs in the Single Pebble kitchen.

Houston has a faith-based nonprofit called the Go Foundation. "A lot of people think ministry is church. But Nick's got a ministry helping people by feeding them," Houston said in a phone interview. "I mess with Nick because he's real ... He's putting good out there."

At the Salvation Army on August 7, Gambill and his volunteer crew served 51 plates and to-go containers of beer-braised Chinese chicken, rice and salad with ginger-soy dressing. Asked why he came to cook on his day off, Single Pebble line cook Brown said, "I just thought it was cool that literally one person decided they were gonna make food for people in need of food. There's no budget, and now we're just cooking."

Mark Flynn, a Salvation Army meals regular who described himself as a member of the homeless community, said he was thankful for the "fantastic" food. Flynn's friend, Sean, who declined to share his full name, said he appreciated the time volunteers spend cooking.

"These little sparks of generosity are a beacon in the darkness," Sean said.

After the dinner rush, Gambill reflected on how ending a shift at the Burlington Free Meals Program feels different from ending one at his job.

After a busy night at the restaurant, he said, "I try to forget about all the stress, the anxiety, the pressure." By contrast, he said, "The pressure here — I'm trying to carry it with me, to carry this responsibility with me."