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Life is full of coincidences and epiphanies and these are the events that shape our futures. My first epiphany as a future Chef came at age four. I was at my friends birthday party in the Bronx consuming massive quantities of ice cream and cupcakes. I realized Jimmy's mothers cupcakes tasted better than Brian's mother's cupcakes. At four years old I already had discernable taste buds.
My second defining moment as a future Chef came at age eight when my sister got an EasyBake Oven for Christmas. She never used it and my rotund cousin Angelo and I found the unopened EasyBake Oven in the basement of our house in the Bronx. We baked those wonderful little cakes using the heat of a light bulb sharing them with our delighted friends. This was my first experience of the emotional; link between cooking and making people happy.
In 1969 at ten years old a family friend took me to City Island in the Bronx where her father worked as a waiter in a big seafood restaurant. He brought us to the kitchen introducing us to the Chef, an affable man with a crisp white uniform and tall Chef's hat. The Chef took us into the walk-in box to show us the lobsters. As we entered the walk-in box the aroma of fresh herbs was intoxicating. There were crates of wriggling crabs and a tank full of lobsters climbing over one another. I'll never forget those lobsters and crabs or the smell of those fresh herbs.
By age fourteen I worked nights after school and doubles on weekends washing dishes in my friends fathers restaurant. I spent my free time watching the Chef, and the first recipe I learned from him was potatoes Au Gratin. At fourteen years old I went home and made Potatoes Au Gratin for my family and friends. They loved them. I was a hit!
I worked my way through high school in delis and restaurants and after graduation I bought my first business, a Deli in Woodhaven, Queens. I loved working for myself because the business would succeed or fail based on my efforts and I was up for the challenge. I sold the deli at age twenty and moved to San Diego, California where I worked full time as a Chef and part time as a waiter in an Italian restaurant. After two years in San Diego I drove back to New York and started working nights cooking in Manhattan and attending Queens College full time days. I majored in Computer Science and eventually worked for IBM for one year, but that's another story.
I honed my skills as a Chef working in prestigious Manhattan hotels such as the Algonquin, Mayflower, and the International. I've cooked for many politicians and celebrities over the years like Ronald Reagan, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Audrey Hepburn, Sean Penn, Madonna, Robert Deniro, Joe Pesci, Robert Goulet, Miss America and many more. My most memorable moment was when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis eating dinner with her son John F. Kennedy Junior called me out to her table at the Hotel Algonquin shook my hand and gave me kudos.
I've built over a dozen restaurants and received favorable reviews from The New York Times, The New York Newsday, The Zagat Survey, Great Restaurants of Long Island and many other publications. After more than twenty five years cooking for a living I still love being a Chef. It's a wonderful and gratifying vocation. My good experiences greatly outnumber the bad and I'd do it all again because I was born to be a Chef!