m_y_a

I was born in a little shack beside the river....wait that's another story.

I was born in Providence, RI in 1960. I remember the old houses in the Federal Hill neighborhood we lived in at first. The old style windows and ornate trim work. The smell of sautee'd garlic is an aphrodisiac to this day, with onions and peppers a close second. The smell of a street fair or church feast. Sausages and peppers being grilled or simmering in a fresh tomatoe "gravy". Nobody calls it sauce in Roe-die-lynd. We moved when i was 4 to Cranston, a center of the next generations move to the suburbs. There, along with all my second generation Italian friends, we did the stuff that kids do growing up. Not the least of which was eating. Pasta and meatballs and lots of good pizza. Very little cheese, but lots of tomatoe the way it should be. I worked early at 14 as a dish dog in a new place called Gregory's. It was an upscale offshoot of the Greggs chain in the beginning. The BIG desserts were good, but it didn't last more than a year. People then liked the family type places that were not pricey. That job set the tone for my future in the food business. The pace of the work and the personalities that the business attracted was very appealing to an impressionable boy in his teens.

I went to a private catholic school for college prep, but decided to apply to Johnson & Wales culinary program and was accepted in '79. The J&W commuter program was in its beginning stages so the key to getting in was ability to pay or get financial aid of some kind. It was a popular program and most of my classmates and I worked food jobs in the daytime and weekends. It was two years for an associates in culinary and two more if you wanted a BS in Foodservice management. Not me, I was going to make my way and wanted to travel as well as cook. I decided to enlist in the Coast Guard upon graduation and was garranteed a school in food service in California. I graduated #1 and was off to Alaska for my first duty at a far flung LORAN station at ATTU in the aluetians. I returned to New England next and stayed close to home in RI, CT, MAss and Maine. I also was fortunate to do a tour on the tall ship Barque Eagle the CG training vessel. We pretty much toured the wold on the five cruises I went on. Australia was the best one. Europe was nice too. When I got out I worked in a few family type places as manager/chef. Mostly seafood and steaks and some nice specialty items. I have retired from the food biz now and only cook at home. The food biz was the downfall of my marriage, my relationships with my kids and family and led me to some questionable habits, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.