Hello from Big John

Greetings!

Well, it's about time that I introduced myself. I am Big John. And I will say it before anyone else does: I am the oldest but the least mature of us three. You want to talk about career changing? Try doing it when you're 54 years old. For the past 20 years, I've worked only for myself. I have an entrepreneurial spirit (and I don't like people telling me what to do). I've done it all--professional photographer, professional artist, realtor, and for the last eight or 10 years, I've started landscaping businesses and sold them only to start another, make it profitable, and sell it. Again and again. It was fun. I enjoyed starting something from nothing and building it up.

I was happy with what I was doing, but I had something in the back of my mind telling me I wanted to be a professional chef. I think these feeling started when I was about eight years old. Let me bring you back to my childhood. My grandmother on my mother's side came to America from Hungary in the early 20th century. She was a large woman who always wore old-lady shoes and a house dress. Her hair always seemed to be in a hair net for some reason, and you could never catch her without a smile on her beautiful grandma face. She was the best cook I have ever known. Grandma made everything, and I mean everything, from scratch. Fresh bread every day. I can still taste the eggs and butter in the bread she baked. I can still imagine, as a young boy, holding a thick slice to my nose and inhaling the yeasty, wonderful smell. If there were noodles on the table, she made them that day. Stuffed cabbage, incredible chicken (a live chicken she chose and that the butcher...well...you know), fried in either duck fat or lard. You don't get that today! Polichintas (Hungarian crepes), Hungarian pate baked in a crust. She cooked for people she loved, and the love she had went into the food she prepared. When you ate, the love went into you. At Grandma's dinner table, there was always lively, good-natured conversation; you couldn't help it. Grandma wouldn't eat at the table, with famiy and friends. She stood in the dining room, apron on, hands clasped, waiting to refill a half-empty bowl or bring something additional to the table. She was wonderful.

I think that was the seed for me becoming a professional. I always believed in "passing love" to people through my cooking. I try to do that in my professional life.

If I someday have my own place, it will probably a "joint/dive" near a college campus so I can cook for college students, whom I love. What a vibrant group of young people who are really starting to think and become the people they want to be, philosophizing, having fun, arguing!! A lot of energy and a willingness to try new things. Anyway, if I someday have a place (Big John's Jersey Diner?) I will insist on hiring people of good cheer. I will expect cheerfulness in the kitchen, good will. That, along with the freshest ingredients, will put some good kharma into the food, that will flow to the customers.

There's so much to say. I will try to tell you what it's like for an old guy to get into a pro kitchen as we go along. But I think my posts will be mostly about one of my hobbies: cookbook collecting. It's not all about old, dusty books. There are some recent books that are fabulous, and I will be talking about them in my next post. I just wanted to say hello and tell you a bit about myself in this first post. My next post will focus more on the wonderful world of cookbooks. Jason and Toni, I love you both; you are doing a great job with this blog. We must get a photo of the three of us together.

Big John