This summer if you notice La Fogata in the beloved space that until recently housed Miriam’s in Corolla, don’t think that chef/owner Ann Runnels simply took her sign down and passed on her keys. No, she did not decide to take a long vacation, a year off. Instead it will be two: Runnels will be recuperating from a tragic spinal injury well into 2003.

Last September on an Indian summer day, Runnels was riding in a Ford truck with two friends, on an emptying beach along a stretch of Corolla she’s been roaming since she was a young girl. The jolt from an unexpected landing on the back side of a washed out sand dune left this Culinary Institute graduate with two broken lumbar vertebrae. A resulting spinal fusion left her with, in her words, “an Ace Hardware store in my back.” During an interview seven months into her two-year healing process, this capable, talented force has a new vocation: healing. Grueling therapy and the physical and mental logistics of merely getting up from her bed, and walking down the hall now consume Runnels’s waking hours. Armed with a delightfully dry sense of humor and a very determined will, Runnels is in pursuit of the very best recovery from this serious accident, putting her exceptional goal-setting legacy that’s defined her culinary career into her healing.

When you hear Runnels describe her background before becoming such a significant figure in the finer restaurant scene on the Outer Banks, you realize that every twist and turn was a part of a “master plan.” This was not a young girl in the ’70s struggling to find her niche. Born and reared in Cincinnati, Runnels grew up around good food. Her mother entertained frequently, which made a lifelong impression on her daughter. As a high school student, Runnels worked in a bakery in the early morning hours before school and in a restaurant on the weekends.

When she entered the Culinary Institute of America in 1976, it was after careful, meticulous research on what educational institution would best serve her long-range goal of one day owning and operating her own restaurant. Runnels wanted a foundation that would allow her to get her “hands in the potatoes and onions” the first three weeks of school, not in her fourth year. The experience only deepened Runnels’s passion for cooking.

After graduation, Runnels packed her talent and ambition and headed first to New York City and then to California, but the cost of living in each place forced a geographical compromise — Denver —before the cold weather forced a southern retreat to Florida. There she blossomed at the five-star La Vielle Maison in Boca Raton. In the mid ’80s, the international influence was sparking the imagination of talented chefs in southern Florida. What was to emerge was New Florida Cuisine being created at the hands of such talented chefs as Mark Millitello, whose cooking finesse had made Cafe Max in Pompano Beach the place to have a reservation. Runnels got a job there, and as Millitello and his group of investors began to open other restaurants throughout south Florida, she traveled with him to open each new spot. This exposure to such an inventive, pioneering chef/owner was part of Runnels’s long-range plan. Such tutelage would afford her the exposure and hands-on experience of what it would take to one day open her own dining spot. After Florida, she gained even more experience, working two years with Chef Larry Forgione of An American Place in New York City. The time was nearing.

Baby boomers who once curled their toes in the sand during summer vacations along the Outer Banks, and who, as adults, periodically feel the need to head east to catch a glimpse of this geographically unique coastal area, have witnessed growth and development that once seemed impossible on these beaches. Runnels is such a “boomer.” Her family vacationed in the now-defunct Southern Shores Sea Ranch Hotel in her girlhood, when the thought of having a house in Corolla still wasn’t an everyday occurrence. Her first visit to Corolla was with her family in a guided Jeep tour trailing a path north along the sand dunes. The quiet, the isolation, and the ability to be in such a beautiful spot on the ocean with nary another person in view prompted this Ohio family to build one of the earlier homes in Corolla. In 1972, all the building supplies had to travel across the Currituck Sound. Long after her father’s death, her mother continued to spend her summers in Corolla.

Returning to the Outer Banks as a young adult, Runnels found that though Duck and Corolla were no longer the undeveloped places of her youth, they still did not boast a great variety of restaurants. Not quite ready to forge a fine dining restaurant, she bought the existing Osprey Gourmet, and turned this deli/eatery with outdoor tables and sweeping sound views into a popular gathering place for Duck locals and visitors — especially for tourists waiting to check into their homes on weekends. Here Runnels had the opportunity to create her own style of running a kitchen, as well as develop her skills at successfully managing the front of the house. Because Osprey Gourmet was a smaller operation — essentially an upscale deli with some catering involved — Runnels had a chance to grow into the business demands of running a restaurant before one day opening one with her name on it.

Miriam Ann Runnels had been saving part of her name for a restaurant where she would one day be both chef and owner. In 1995 she sold Osprey Gourmet and began the work to open her namesake restaurant further north in Corolla. In May of that year, Miriam’s opened its doors with a sophisticated, casual contemporary atmosphere and a service mission that paralleled its inventive menu. Runnels became her own brand of pioneer in the evolving fine dining scene along the shores of the Outer Banks with dishes such as a brown sugar- and mustard-marinated pork tenderloin served with braised red cabbage and cheddar-scallion mashed potatoes. Other signature dishes such as a sesame saute of shrimp and scallops with oriental vegetables in a light ginger cream over crispy wonton noodles helped Runnels develop a loyal following. It’s her clientele who need to know that Runnels isn’t on a long overdue vacation in Australia visiting her brother. She is close by under the care of her mother, not yet able to think about her next challenge in the culinary world. She’s plotting how to conquer healing her spine, and with her lifelong skill at mastering her most heartfelt goals, the odds are in her favor.