My culinary adventures have had me working in high end restaurants, factory cafeterias and local pubs. I’ve been a carny food booth cook, a tavern owner and a church hall pasta dinner worker. I’ve attended chef school, done menu consulting and advised more than one budding restaurateur. On the consumption side I’ve enjoyed wonderful dinners…
Mac and Cheese, once the staple of many a latch-key child, has gotten hip in the last 10 or so years. This uber-carb entree most associated with low cost and the blue and white box has even become the featured item on many a restaurant’s menu. There is even a pub not far from Chef…
It’s a funny name for a soup. Don’t you think? Let me tell you about it. I worked in a restaurant in central New Jersey called “The McAteers”. Most of the kitchen maintenance staff – the dish and pot washers and porters, as well as the dinning room bus staff were from China. These men…
In the mid 1960’s when I was 6 or 7 years old I attended St Michael’s Catholic School in Union City, New Jersey. We had a class activity called “Library” and it involved walking as a group from our classroom to the school’s library room where we were free to select a book to borrow…
On occasion, my wife and I would find ourselves near Livingston New Jersey. When those occasions occurred near lunch time we would sometimes visit a cool strip mall restaurant called Irving’s Delicatessen. What a wonderful place! Sort of a cross between a classic NY style Jewish deli and a NJ sub shop with iconic hot…
Who doesn’t love an ice cold glass of chocolate milk? (I know, probably lots of folks, but it’s a much loved expression so I’m going with it!) I found out about this hacked version of chocolate milk from one of my great-nephews. I was describing the principals behind Chef Hacker Kitchen and he got it…
When I was a child my Mom worked in the restaurant business. At various times and often simultaneously, her roles included, waitress, hostess, menu editor and restaurant manager. Although she was always home when I woke up in the morning, by the time I returned from school she had already logged a lunch shift and…
Why do I use “commercial” to describe this dish? Because it was designed to enable 100 different people to individually prepare and package 10 servings of consistent taste and quality to be delivered, ready to be heated and served by a completely different group of people. But don’t worry about having to eat a massive…
We love salmon. Especially grilled salmon. So one day when my brother-in-law served us a shrimp dish along with Asian Cole Slaw it got me thinking about just how good that slaw would taste as accompaniment to a similarly seasoned salmon burger. Just to illustrate how even a foodie like my alter ego, Chef Hacker,…
