I sampled some Tomahawk Veal chop from http://www.catellibrothers.com/ out of Collinswood, New Jersey. Catelli is one of the largest veal and lamb distributor’s in the United States. Season the veal chop with freshly ground pepper and kosher salt. In order to get some char on the veal chop, turn over a cast iron skillet and place over high heat until extremely hot and sear the veal chop on both sides. Place the veal chop in a 350 degree oven for 5-8 minutes. Saute the lobster meat in butter with salt and freshly ground pepper. Mix the warm lobster with fresh Yukon gold mashed potatoes. Place...

I enjoy talking about my life growing up on Jugtown Mountain in western New Jersey. My grandparents built a summer cottage on 100 acres on top of this big old mountain called Jugtown Mountain in Hunterdon County. My parents built a house next door where all nine children were raised. I have 6 brothers an 2 sisters and as a young family we were always hungry. To raise and feed nine children was a real challenge for my parents. In the summer time my brothers, Kenny and Peter and I would go out in the woods with recently sharpened axes, hatchets and two man saws to build forts and log cabins. I thought...

Busy day at the restaurant today. I will be taking the day off Friday and so I had a lot to do in order to prepare my sous chef for my day off. I hired a new sous chef three weeks ago and I am trying to train him properly. It helps to undersand someone’s capabilties, strengths and weakness in order to train them properly. I like to take training slowly as I was taught by my boss in Birmingham. It was a Friday night at the newly opened Copper Grill in Birmingham where I worked as executive chef for Harold Ruttnenburg the owner. Ya see, he used to own Just for Feet a sneaker store with units...

A couple of weeks ago we hired a marketing company to help us with promoting our restaurant through social media. Very new to us we agreed to let them set up twitter and face book accounts. I had no idea of what they were talking about so I did some research myself and ended up with a face book page and a twitter account. On twitter I started to follow some dining sites and restaurants in town. I found out that there is so much information passed around on twitter. I found information and websites that I would never have found on my own. I wondered how I could promote my restaurant and myself. As a...

Well, my first blog! Took me a while to figure out what I was going to blog about and I think that I should just bog naturally, just what I feel and what I am doing at the time. I want to blog about my past, about what I was doing and what I would like to do! I hope people are interested in what I do as a chef. Being a chef is very different than some other professions.Being a chef has more to do than just cooking, it has to be a way of life if you want to be very successful in this industry. You need to have a certain passion for what you do. As a chef you can teach someone to prepare food, but can...