Category Archives: Blog

Food Safety

Have you had your hepatitis shots? This is something you don’t want to hear just as your digging into some sushi in Manila. My friend John Huang dropped this question on me while we were enjoying a sushi lunch one day in Manila. Fortunately. I didn’t have any problems.

The biggest single cause of food poisoning is people touching food ingredients with their hands. Hepatitis is a whole other issue. My friend Johnnie Huang had a battle with Hepatitis after a trip to Papua New Guinea. That is why he asked about my having hepatitis shots. After that I did. If you are traveling to the tropics you should too.

Food poisoning isn’t something you worry too much about at your wine group gathering, but it is a risk whenever and wherever you eat. The old line is if someone asks you how your meal was, you can answer I’ll let you know in 6 hours.

Food born illnesses can take between a few hours and a few weeks to incubate. A common denominator for feeling the effects of food poisoning is the 6 hour time frame. Having worked with many food scientists and microbiologists over my years with Kraft foods I know more than I want to about food poisoning and pathogens.

I ran a Coconut company in the Philippines and traveled there quite a bit over a period of 20 years. Franklin Baker Company has been producing the highest quality coconut products for over 100 year. On one of my first trips there I traveled with a microbiologist who scared the daylights out of me. Of course hearing about all the possible issues seemed to lead to a case of “Marcos’s revenge”. Getting sick overseas is just no fun.

I do have a supper club story connected to my Philippine travels. I was at a restaurant in Manila and saw someone who looked familiar but couldn’t place where I knew him. Sure enough a few months later I see the same guy at a supper club dinner party. I go up to him and say “Two months ago I saw you in Manila”. He gave me that “Oh shit what was I doing look”. Oops

As far as a real message for someone preparing food for a wine group gathering, make sure you wash your hands, a lot!

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.

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.

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.