Cosmo's Food for Thought

Well here we are Ella Mae is a house mom/cook and I am a cook/house dad.  It's our first night in the apartment and we are about to be abruptly initiated into college life.  If you remember this is mid January and colder than a you know what and we decide to take a stroll down M street. We are immediately shocked to have a streaker run past us, than after reaching the end of the street, turn around so we can now say we have seen him coming and going and I really mean see, him!   If anyone remembers the George moment in a Seinfeld episode, shrinkage, should come to mind!   So we now realized we were not in Kansas anymore.  Oh how appropriate it was to have our inaugural night start this way, even if it was just a small thing.    In Pi Phi we were very fortunate to have a no alcohol policy.  Since this was a dry house the only drinks being served were the ones at the local pubs or the many frat parties that ran most every weekend.  This made for a very healthy atmosphere and safe hom

Well it's now August of 2004 and Ella Mae is cooking at ATO and I am in my second year as the cook at Pi Beta Phi.  I am, however having a difficult time with the 'house mom' who began to work there that previous semester after replacing the live-in grad student I originally started with.  We seem to clash more with every passing day and the fun of this job seems to be fading with each conflict.  I do however continue to work well with Donna who is the 'housekeeper'.  She and I seem to have hit it off immediately and we always try to assist one another whenever needed.  I would always have the radio on and sometimes we could be heard breaking out in song for which the 'girls' must have thought someone was in their final moments of a horrible and agonizing death and those sounds were coming from the kitchen no less!  This association and our occasional laughing spells helped to relieve the stress of the continuing battles, which now seemed to be heading to a

After EM and I sold the restaurant she stayed on for a while as an employee and I began the Archway cookie route.  The route was from Rome, NY, all the way to Raquette Lake, which is 22 miles north of Old Forge!  We housed the cases of cookies in a rented storage unit just outside of Vernon.  Every morning at 6 AM I would start out to make the deliveries.  The concept of being a distributor was that you purchased the product and you placed them in your stores and if and when they sold you made your profit.  I say when they were sold because If you haven't checked lately, there are a lot of cookies in that snack aisle and with 'big boy company brands' to boot who could really market and have great sales.  My route consisted of the few small 'mom and pop' stores that were still hanging on and the ones they were hanging on against such as Walmart, Price Chopper and P&C.  Also the many gas station - convenience stores that dotted the area, such as Nice & Easy, F

Wow, this latest stop on our journey was proving to be a winner!  EM and I had both begun to develop relationships with the many patrons that came to the shop.  We each used our own unique style and manner and make friends we did.  We still can sit and recall some of their faces and even still be able to put a name with it, which is a challenge since it is now almost 14 years ago.  My Mom also helped out and she and Dad now lived in an apartment right next door.  It was getting more and more difficult for her to care for my Dad alone, so we moved them here.  This gave Mom some freedom to enjoy her second love, people.  She was a 'rock star' unto herself and it didn't take long for the 'folks' to know she was a ball of fire with a personality to match.  I believe it was in those last days of her working at the shop, just before we sold, that the first signs of her memory loss could be seen. Today she now has that horrible decease, Alzheimer's, and we can't ev

Well the title of this series was our tag line for the restaurant that was to be our next stop in this journey.  After Ella Mae and I sold the fruit truck we than decided that the casino in Verona would be a good place to find employment.  What I didn't tell you in my last post was that as we were winding down that business I began taking classes at night in Rome, NY to become a 'blackjack dealer'!  It was quite a leap from the fruit we sold on our truck to the fruit depicted on the spinning wheels of some of the slot machines that lined the casino floor.  EM landed a job there first, as a remote cashier.  She and her cart would travel the casino floor where gamblers would give her money for her to apply to their card so they could play those slots.  I was hired about a month later.  We would commute from our home in Clay usually in 2 vehicles because we worked different shifts.  That fall of 1995, the winter came on with a vengeance where it  snowed every day until late Ap

My adventure of doing my own thing, making my own pay and my own decisions, was for me this 'American dream' I had heard so much about while growing up!  It was really possible to have a vision, work hard, and make a success of your life.  This 'fruit truck' eventually became an 'sos' which folks from the South called a 'store on wheels'.  We began carrying eggs, packaged lunch meats, toys @ Christmas, whole turkeys @ Thanksgiving, cookies and candy.  With these additions came the moving away from the dollar concept to enable us a fair profit.  This was an easier transition than I anticipated as our customers appreciated the bigger selection and our prices were still much better than most. Part of our success was consistency and quality and remember we took it to the city in every manner of weather conditions you could imagine.   If you followed my last post you saw a pic of me dressed as a clown!  I was also known to be the Easter Bunny and as Santa, (

We now decided that we needed an enclosed larger vehicle.  I found a used 'bread truck' from D'orios Bakery in Utica.  When we went to bring it home it was freezing cold, and we discovered that the heater wasn't working and stopping was a challenge as the brakes were 'shot'.  This didn't deter our enthusiasm and we repaired it and off we went to continue 'taking it to the city'.  We now could stay inside and be protected from the weather.  My Dad & I continued to build our route and we added some stops along the way.  My friend Dick arranged for us to go to Unity Life once a week.  Those that chose to could come out to our truck @ noon and purchase 'fresh' fruits & veggies.  We also would stop @ the 'Salvation Army' on Salina Street and that allowed the 'folks' there to also be afforded this way of purchasing produce at a very reasonable price.  On one trip there, we were busy waiting on customers and when we went to

I left off on my last post with some history of my early recollections that led up to my having the 'fruit truck' and it being one of my happiest times.  This is a continuation of the little steps that helped instill in me this love of being independent and doing something that I always considered awesome and so rewarding.  I left my 'market' days and moved on to high school and eventually a stint in the Army for 2 years.  When I returned I met Ella Mae on a blind date and within the year we were married.  At the same time my brother Jimmy had begun his dream of owning the Pool Hall in Liverpool NY, our hometown, and I joined right in.  The pool hall also was a great place for food , especially the huge sandwiches which were served on a hunk of Italian bread made every morning from Pappas Bakery which was only about 100 feet from our front door.  My Mom made meatballs which accompanied pasta for the Thursday special.  This was another building block in my eventual love

In my last post I alluded to the 'fruit truck'.  Well here is some history leading up to that 'adventure' My Dad and all of his 6 brothers at one time or another worked @ the Regional Market in Syracuse. So it was almost a given that I would find one of my first jobs there.  Unloading the watermelon and other produce trucks that came in daily from many southern states was what I did.  It's 5 am, still dark and you would open the rear doors of a trailer and be faced with rolls of melons neatly stacked between straw.  It was a little intimidating for a kid of 14 and let me add, I worked for my Uncle Tony who was a very tough no nonsense guy.  Some of the drivers of these 'rigs' were my first encounters with men who spoke a very different English than me and some were even a different color!  This actually began my love affair for the workings of this fast paced, quirky city within a city filled with a an amazing array of 'characters' such as 'Jim

Time to tell more of my story.  My wife, Ella Mae is also a cook and 'house mom' @ a fraternity and she also is a 'house mom' @ a sorority.  We actually work within 3 blocks of each other.  Her sorority position does incur sleeping their every night, 7 days a week.  It makes for a unique relationship as we are married going on 41 years and have always worked side by side.  As I stated in my last post, I cooked for a sorority and yes, it is the one she is @ now.  For 2 years we were considered  'Mom & Pop' since we were both on board their.  The stories we could tell and laughs that we had, made for some interesting times.   I decided it was time for me to make a change and after a rocky first start I have landed into the very satisfying job that I now have.  EM and I will even make the same meals on the same day with out ever confiding in the other about our menu.  Her 'boys' call her Mrs. B and oh how they love and respect her.  Not only cooking and

As I stated in my first try @ blogging (is that even a word?) I am using this venue as a window to my world.  I hope that I can keep you all interested and get some comments and feedback.  @ age 62 this is an amazing way to have fun and share my many and varied paths in this life.  I have to first before this gets away from me, state that I am a follower of Jesus Christ and will always strive to conduct myself in all I say and do as such.  I will not preach here but I do hope that my values will shine through.  If you ever would like some help with understanding becoming 'born again' please go to liverpoolchurch.com. As I hinted to earlier I also cooked for a sorority for about 30 young ladies.  I have to say it was a humbling time.  Most of these girls became second daughters.  I always tried to be there if a need arose and to otherwise keep my distance.  The energy was contagious and that certainly helped to keep me feeling young.  As I now cook for the 'guys',  it w

I am Italian and have always believed that in my heritage Food = Love.  I am a cook @ a fraternity for approximately 35 young men and I use the food=love philosophy everyday.  What a joy it is to create good food and see the satisfied faces and be aglow in the praises and thanks I receive.  I also believe that preparing good food and being a positive influence go hand in hand.  It is an honor and privilege to serve both of these needs.  I create my own daily menus and am constantly searching and researching new recipes.  I am not trained and have no culinary certificates.  I am however self taught and in a continual growing & learning mode.  Cooking for guys is not just 'meat & potatoes' but I will say it is easier than cooking for girls for which I will explain further in another post....(I cooked for 5 years @ a sorority).  In one of my recent searches I discovered a down loadable book which recreates recipes from some of Americas favorite & well known restaurants