Marketing Is A Talent

One of my favorite things about the highly acclaimed French Chef Paul Bocuse was his gift for marketing. On his passing in 2018 the New York Times said:

Mr. Bocuse, a tireless self-promoter, was a constant presence in the news media and on television. “You’ve got to beat the drum in life,” he told People magazine in 1976. “God is already famous, but that doesn’t stop the preacher from ringing the church bells every morning.”

Paul Bocuse was one of the early developers of nouvelle cuisine in France and around the world Bocuse was an inspiration for my friend and culinary muse Lucien Vendome (Feature picture has Bocuse & Vendome together in 2012). Lucien had an impactful career with Nestle as their director of Cullinary innovation, and innovation was something Bocuse clearly mastered.

In his obituary, The NY Times said “Following the lead of Fernand Point, the spiritual father of nouvelle cuisine and a mentor to many of its pioneers, Mr. Bocuse shaped a style of cooking at the restaurant that stressed fresh ingredients, lighter sauces, unusual flavor combinations and relentless innovation that, in his case, rested on a solid mastery of classic technique”.

One of my favorite stories from Lucien on Bocuse was, when being asked about the explosion of Nouvelle Cuisine around the world, Bocuse said: “I love Dover Sole and I love Blueberrys just not necessarily together”. Combining unusual ingredients can be a beautiful thing. Great chefs find ways to bring ingredients together, layering in flavor in such a way that delights the eye and amazes the palate.

“It is not true that Paul Bocuse invented Nouvelle Cuisine,” he told The Wall Street Journal in 2011. “There were a few dishes that were developed lighter, but that is normal in cooking. The term Nouvelle Cuisine as it came to be known was nothing to do with what was on the plate, but what was on the bill.”

Bocuse’s product… when does a lobster salad become a work of art

That ladies and gentlemen is MARKETING. Bringing attention to your product and garnering a higher return on investment. It doesn’t matter if you are a marketer at a Fortune 500 corporation or making an appetizer for friends at your wine group. If you can make a good product and bring attention to it…that is good Marketing

A team of Marketers from our Kraft Food Ingredient days bringing attention to good products

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/wine group/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

You Can Go Back, But Things Change

The old saying is that you can never go back. The truth is that you can go back, but things change.

Lots of my culinary roots go back to my upbringing in a very Italian community in NY. In my grammar school class there were 35 kids and 32 were Italian. My classmates included Tommy Palumbo, Patsy Fashetti, Georgy Deleo, Danny Monteforte, my best friend was Tony Ciafone… And yes I was: Paulie. Doesn’t everyone’s name end with a vowel? My other nickname was mayonnaise, which was more a tribute to my complexion than my culinary preferences.

One of the guys I grew up with became a quasi rock star. Timmy Cappello went on to be the “Sexy” Saxophonist that played with Tina Turner in her hey day and garnered fame for his role in the 1987 vampire film The Lost Boys. In his Wikipedia profile he delineates the complexity of where we grew up. We say we are from Silver lake, but our address was East White Plains. In reality, we lived in West Harrison. Confusing yes, but it was a great place to grow up and fantastic place to eat. But things change.

Timmy Cappello, the Sexy Saxophonist with Tina Turner

Many of the scenes of my youth evolved around an Italian restaurant and bar called Casserella’s. Susan and I went there a while back and it is now an upscale Italian restaurant called Lago’s.

It was a bit of a tell when the waiter introduced himself as Juan. My dad used to say that every waiter in a French restaurant in New York was really Italian. Today everyone working in an Italian restaurant in New York is Hispanic. This is actually a good thing, but things change.

Juan was great. He was well schooled on the menu. He even spoke New York Italian very well. On one my trips to Italy I realized that Italian of my youth (or as Cousin Vinny would say: “my yutes”) was very different than real Italian. With New York Italian, when you were cool, you cut off the vowels. Prosciutto becomes prosciutt. Mozzarella becomes mozarell. Juan’s Italian was very cool and it was music to my ears.

I explained that I had grown up there. He told me he had a guy about 90 years old come in and tell him that beers used to cost 10 cents. I explained that I wasn’t nearly that old. In my day the beers cost 33 cents each. You got 3 beers for a dollar and the bartender Eddy, would give you a fourth for free. So at a memory of a 25 cent per beer, I guess I am really old.

The food at Lago’s was actually pretty good. While memories usually make the food of your youth seem better, to be honest, the food at Cassarella’s was inconsistent at best. My buddy John Nangle was once working in the kitchen making salads when Cassarella’s got reviewed by the local newspaper the Reporter Dispatch (affectionately referred to as the “Distorted Repatch”). The reviewer cited John’s work that night by stating he had been served a very “Undistinguished Salad”. John explained: “What should you expect, no-one had ever told me that there was a difference between cucumber and zucchini”.

My son Brian recently with John Nangle. When Brian was 15 he had his first experience as a bar tender working with his Uncle John as a bartender at Graziella’s

Speaking of inconsistent, growing up we knew who the cook was each night. If Gracie was cooking you were in for a treat. If another cook was working we just drank beer. Actually, we drank beer every night, we just ate better when Gracie was cooking. I have been trying to replicate Gracie’s veal chop Milanese for years. No amount of beer could dull that memory.

I made a Pork Chop Milanese for a recent supper club that was inspired by Gracie’s creation. Distance may make the heart grow fonder, but things change. My Pork Chop Milanese might be different than Gracie’s, but it is pretty darn good and it is a great supper club dish.

Check out the recipe.

“It Is Not What You Say, It Is How You Say It”.

You have to love the nuance of language. The same thing can be said the same way and mean many different things. It gets particularly nuanced when traveling and talking to people in a language that is not their mother tongue.Yet, you need to be careful pretty much all the time, even at wine group gathering, because the old adage is true: “It is not what you say, it is how you say it”. Here are a few examples

1. “I Am A Communist, And I Eat Capitalist For Breakfast”

A friend of mine was in Berlin back in the early 1990’s right after the Berlin wall had come down and reunification of Germany had just begun. He went for a jog in the morning in his sweatsuit and wearing a NY Yankee baseball hat (He is a native Memphian but…?). After his jog he went to a Burger King to get coffee. A scruffily dressed man walked up to David dressed in his American uniform and gruffly announced. “I Am A Communist, And I Eat Capitalist For Breakfast”. My buddy noticed how the Burger King employee taking his order winced and thought: “Now I am in trouble…”. Then the communist smiled and David realized that he just wanted him to know that he liked American food. Language can be nuanced.

2. “Une Femme D’un Certain Age”

You have to love the French. Not only can they really cook, but they have such a wonderful way with words.

They wouldn’t call someone an:

“Older woman”.
- A woman of a certain age sounds so much better

They wouldn’t say:

“He looks good for his age”
“He reminds me of his father” or worse: “His grandfather”.
“He looks so much older than his wife”
- “Un home d’un certain age” sounds so much better.

A classic example of Une femme d’un certain age was the French actress Simone Signoret in her later years. She was a great actress who was also married to the actor Ives Montand. Ives was famous in the U.S. for the movie he made with Marilyn Monroe, Let’s Make Love. It just so happens that Ives was a first cousin of our International Sales Manager at Kraft, John Argiro. John told us the story of how Ives had an affair with Marilyn during the filming of movie. As John said: “Who could blame him, he was French”. Simone never divorced him. She just made him pay. I am sure that more than language was nuanced.

3, “OK, OK, OK”

I was once going to Japan to negotiate a business deal. Before I left our corporate attorney, who had lived in Japan for a few years as a young man, gave me some sage advice: He said if the Japanese start saying “OK, OK, OK” that means they don’t understand what you are saying. To which I replied: “You mean it is basically the same as with an American talking to another American?” Language can be nuanced.

The good news with wine groups is that if you are enjoying a a glass of wine with friends, you are probably on safer ground. It is always a good idea to think about what you say and how you say it, but if you say it with a glass of wine in your hand and a smile on your face, you are almost certainly OK.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.