EDDIE'S STORY-How I Got
"How did you get into this?" is a question I've been asked numerous times....
The Short Story;
Got a Job at restaurant called "Stuff-Yer-Face" to work my way thru college. Was also involved with "behind-the-scenes" of my Fraternity's meal plan. While in Sig-Ep, as part of the Social Club, I helped run tailgate parties for Rutgers Home Football games. I continued running tailgate parties for my Rutgers buddies for many years after graduation, under the guise of "The Official Tailgate Club". I accumulated so much equipment (and experience) during that time, that my hobby continued. I'm now what I would consider to be a "Semi-Professional" caterer. (I have a full time job, but do catering on the side). I started "Eddie's Portable Pig Out", a mobile catering operation, with the primary focus of doing BBQs. Eventually Pig Roasts became my most requested type of job. As of the moment, I'm just trying to deal with the growing pains of making a "hobby" into a "business", without doing myself a whole lot of damage.
The long & boring, endlessly detailed story;
Although Mom was the cook of the household.....it was Dad who made cooking fun. Every now and again, him and his two boys would make "Navy Eggs" to serve to Mom on Mother's day, breakfast-in-bed style (much to her horror, I'm sure). Back in his Naval days, Dad was on KP duty, I believe on one of the battleships that escorted the USS Forrestal Carrier. I remember having a ton of fun with him in the kitchen, as he was truly a kid at heart. Dad wasn't really much into cooking other than when he *had* to.
As I was growing up, I didn't really much care for cooking, nor did I even really appreciate the gigantic task that Mom accomplished: feeding two boys and my Father. But as I got older and more accomplished in the kitchen...and called Mom 15 zillion times over whatever culinary question I had at the time... I came to realize that Mom had a very broad knowledge of food, preparation, health, not to mention carrying along a pretty rich history of Yiddish/Jewish cooking. My childhood was filled with Sunday afternoon Brunches after NYC trips, featuring bagels, lox, whitefish, blintzes, Knishes...Jewish Soul food... This remains among my favorite artery clogging meals.
Some of my earliest inspirations: Home Economics class in Junior High.. I really liked the cooking class part. Simple stuff...English Muffin pizzas, pasta...but it got me going. At age 15, my parents did me the great favor of shipping me to CA for a few weeks, to hang out with my 21 yo cousin Jeff, who lived at Redondo Beach while he attended USC's med school. Jeff, a well established bachelor, taught me a few manly-man survival skills in the kitchen, practically from the minute I arrived. Tuna fish salad was his contribution to my repertoire :-). He also gave me my introductory personal class in "Partying 101".. Partying is an underlying theme throughout my entire cooking career.. Good food goes hand-in-hand with proper partying!!
It got more serious when I went to school at Rutgers University's Engineering School, where my major was "Applied Sciences in Engineering-Packaging Option". Much of my culinary career took shape during my 4 years of College, and the few years after I graduated.
Ultimately, it was being a cheapo sleazebag that drew me to the culinary world:
My very first semester as a freshman, I had a $900.00-19 meal plan! This was a freaking waste of money, since I was missing half the breakfast's... Since I was paying my own way thru school, I couldn't afford such a frivolous expense.. I quickly scaled back to the 10 meal plan, shortly thereafter dropped it entirely. At that time, I was living in an on-campus apartment with a few other guys, preparing meals for either all of us, or just myself.
By this time, it became obvious that I needed a job to continue to fund my education, living expenses, beer bill, and Deadtour expenses. (Yes, I was developing very rapidly into a party animal with a particular affinity to Budweiser in Cans (tall boys) ;-) I was also mutating into quite the touring Grateful DeadHead...which equates to "Professional partier". ) I embarked on a job search...
I was hired as one of the dishwashers/janitors by a place called "Stuff-Yer-Face", which was a small, but very successful restaurant on Easton Avenue in New Brunswick. SYF was famous for Stromboli's (and Pizza). They had become so popular and successful, that they moved a few stores down to a custom-built building where they are currently housed. It wasn't long before I became disenchanted with dishwashing/cleaning toilets....and requested to be made into a cook. They agreed... Mario Batali (famous Food Channel Personality "Malto Mario" "Mediterranean Mario", owner of NYC's "Lupa", "Babbo", "Esca" & "Po", among other things, etc....) was working there at the time, and was one of the people who got stuck with trained me. I credit Mario with being one of my inspirations, since his love of food was very apparent as he often whipped us up some tasty delights in the back.. I remember him telling me of his plan to head off to Cordon Blue Culinary School in England and was blown away by his passion for food. It never occurred to me until I met Mario that a culinary career doesn't have to be limited to standing at a deep fryer in McDonalds. Mario's current day success remains an inspiration as well. (I can actually see myself on "The Food Channel" someday, hosting a show about Mobile Catering. (Yeah right)).
Stuff Yer Face was also one of the places I scrounged for meals, due to the lack of a Rutgers meal plan. :-) While other people grumbled about working a Saturday...I was psyched. Not only would I get well fed, but usually there was the ever-present "break" spot across the street at Walt's Tavern, featuring the barstool kept open for the SYF folks, the bottomless mug of beer, a pile of markers for whatever drinks we wanted, the community pack of smokes, all funded by tips from the waitresses.
The Owner, Bill "Boli" Washawane & his partner, also get some inspirational credits because of their overwhelming success story there. After SYF was Franchised, then later bought out by General Foods...They made several million dollars!!! I loved being part of the SYF family...and appreciated the great working atmosphere. This was the first time a job felt like a family or team, instead of the usual shithole factories I had been working in for years prior to this. This was my formal introduction to commercial food prep. (I worked at SYF for 7 years.) Looking back, I wonder if there was an actual connection between "Stuff Yer Face's" name, and the Grateful Dead's "Steal Yer Face" album title. I never did ask if Bill Boli was a Deadhead. If he was, there'd be several cosmic connections going on there. No wonder why I felt "at home".
At this time, I had also joined an RU Fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, or "Sig Ep" for short. Furthering the party career! Three things happened during my time at Sig-Ep;
1. There was an in-house meal plan...5 weeknight dinners...and a couple of odd special function banquet meals.. Each meal required 3 brothers to serve as "crew" I was pledging the fraternity at the time. One of the ways to score points with the brothers was to do their meal "crews" for them. Not only did I get major brownie points for this, I got tons of private instruction from Cookie (the hysterical retired cook)...AND I scrounged a couple more meals per week (My main attraction). I spent allot of time in this kitchen, in the pursuit of partying (Cookie spent half the time shitfaced, and enjoyed our drunken company). But most importantly, I was absorbing the cooking lessons too.
2. As I got into my Junior Year...I was voted in as the "Steward", in charge of the frat's Meal Plan. I had to do the ordering, menu planning, and basically charged with making "Cookie, our Drunken 75 year old Chef" Happy, which was never an easy task. More "behind the scenes" in the culinary world.
3. The partying side of me became interested in the Frat's Social Committee. They would hack together subs and burgers for Tailgating at Rutger's Football games. Since I had the keys to the fridges and freezers, I was often involved with tailgate party preparations. I was also the midnight snack man for the latenight drunks (which quite often included myself).
After I graduated from RU, the partying continued. The friendships I developed at the frat were quite strong, and this core group of friends stuck together after graduation. Belmar beach houses with Eddie at the BBQ Grill, became an incubator for all my talents to date. A handful of my frat brothers maintained a strong desire to Tailgate at the RU home football games, but we couldn't count on the undergraduates to provide a decent tailgate party. The undergrads simply had their heads up their asses! It became obvious that if we were to continue anything that resembled decent tailgating, we'd have to take matters into our own hands. One of the Sig Ep Brothers, Ken "Pruitt" Patterson took it upon himself to coordinate tailgate parties.... He eventually passed that chore onto me, which I willingly accepted ...after all, I was mastering the art of BBQ back at the Beach Houses, So I was the perfect choice! (I use the term "mastering" loosely. Just ask Bob Kloby about the ribs I turned to cinders).
That first year of tailgating, we'd have one guy responsible for charcoal, another for the grill, another for the beer, another for the rolls, etc... This quickly turned problematic when one person failed to show up...leaving the rest of us without a critical component. To resolve this, I finally realized I'd have to do it all myself!!! (Little did I know it would become a "way of life"). I embarked on managing all aspects of each tailgate party, of all home games in a season.
In 1986, I started "The Official Tailgate Club", with membership fees, newsletters, "survival" kits, ID cards.. For a few years, I catered EVERY SINGLE HOME GAME, and accumulated the equipment to do this properly; Truck, coolers, tables, grills, etc.. I paid my dues in the catering world here, as I did allot of hard work, often for no money...often under some extreme conditions. But we had a blast, and many of our friendships were cemented in stone at that time. The partying element continued to be the underlying theme of it all! After a few years, the burden of this was becoming a little much forcing me to scale back the efforts. I'd cater only the bigger games (homecoming), and run "Bring-Your-Own" (BYO) events for the smaller games. (BYO events were "equipment only" events where people would bring their own food/beverage). I ran this club, in various formats, for about 10 years...
A significant event during those 10 years was being fortunate enough to be able to purchase a home, which allowed my hobby the room to grow. Before that, I was somewhat nomadic, having more and more difficulty dealing with a growing mound of catering crap. Since I no longer had to live out of milk crates and boxes, I was able to buy and store more cool culinary equipment. But more equipment led to more logistical hurdles. I bought a 16' trailer.....which I configured to do mobile BBQ's and tailgate parties.
Perhaps a more over-arching arising was my full time job as a Packaging Engineer (I graduated from Engineering School with a Degree in Packaging Engineering). I've worked for the Army since 1984. This is important in several aspects, 1.) The salary allowed me to afford the home I just mentioned 2.) The salary allowed me to "invest" in the catering equipment. 3.) Working with Military Logistics provides a great experience-base to develop mobile-tough catering gear. 4.) Professional training and computer experience has had extensive crossover benefits. 5.) The somewhat relaxed working environment allows me to have interests outside of the job. It's safe to say, Eddie's Portable Pig Out would not exist if it weren't for this particular job.
Back to the story. Interest in the "Official Tailgate Club" began to fade... As people grew older, moved away, had kids, it just stopped being feasible and fun. RU's Tailgating Restrictions and Parking Restrictions aided the downfall of this club. The last OTC tailgate was in 1997. Over all these years, I had become known for doing mobile catering, and was offered various small jobs....which I would often take. Hell, I had all this equipment, the know-how, and the interest.....why not?
I do have to mention that there was a hell of a lot of inspiration coming from the Grateful Dead, to follow my muse. I was, and always will be a die hard Grateful Dead fan. (Attended 187 shows, when it was all said and done). The life lessons, inspirations, energy & guidance that regularly spilled out of my years of GD touring have become somewhat of a backbone for almost everything I do.
I should also point out that after an 18 year, infinitely fun, colorful history of hard drinking, I decided to stop! In the middle of the GD's 6/15/95 Highgate VT show, I decided that I've drooled on myself quite enough for one lifetime. I partied till sunrise, and said goodbye to drinking. This in itself was a critical milestone for the catering operation. Once I freed myself from the 'ball and chain' that drinking had become, I had the time to commit to 'all things catering'....a decision I do not regret at all. I've retained the partying mentality, but cold cases of beer are no longer required to summon it. I do miss having a "Cold One" with Da boyz now and then...but for me, a Cold One usually led to the Cold 17th, a few shots, a swervy drive home with my headlights off, and a newly dented truck parked with one wheel crushing the flowerbed. I'm lucky I didn't kill myself, or anyone else for that matter.
Once I made the decision to focus on commercial catering, the *real* knowledge started to come. The more I got into it, the more jobs came my way. I took a "NJ State Food Manager's" Course. I got a sanitation certificate from Denville's Dept. of Health. Somewhere around 1998, I named my operation 'Eddie's Portable Pig Out". My goal was to become some sort of "High End" caterer. But I was working against the grain. With the full time job, I couldn't sustain the levels of effort required to be "High End" on a regular basis. Additionally, I don't have a commercial kitchen at home, nor would zoning laws permit me to establish one. So "Fancy-Pants" catering was out. All I could do was fresh grilled foods served on single service (Paper/plastic/foil). I had marginal success for a while. Jobs every other weekend at the height of the season.. Smallish 30ppl jobs. Some months no jobs. My fascination for BBQ and smoked foods continued.
The name "Eddie's Portable Pig Out" did bring along a frequent inquiry, "Hey, do you do Pig Roasts?!!" After saying "No" for a few years, I started to give it more consideration. "Ralphie" from Sussex Meat Packing (The son of my very excellent butcher from Wharton, NJ) was doing pig roasts all the time and encouraged me to try it just once. Ralphie was a hustler. He always had 20 things going on, including the rental of his own homemade roasters. He often said "Why are you killing yourself with small catering items! Just bang out a pig and be done with it!" So, Ralphie set me up with a rental roaster, instructions, and a pig. And I had a paying customer, willing to be the "guinea pig"...a Coworker (Mimi G.) hired me for her daughter Kelly's graduation party (2000 or so). I roasted a Cuban Style pig. That started a whole new direction for me. In retrospect (now that my business has mutated to "mostly pig roasts"), Ralphie may have become one of THE most important influences to date. Honorable mention goes to a Coworker named Nelson G., who does pig roasts for fun, on home welded apparatus. Nelson, a retired "old school" engineer provides endless general inspiration, on too many subjects to count.
Back to Ralphie. Ralphie's somewhat crude (I'm being nice) roasters also had some influence (sorry Ralphie). When I drove up to the afore mentioned job with this homemade towable roaster that Ralphie welded himself, held together with duct tape, glue and feathers, I was a little fearful. The taillights weren't working. The motor was clipped on with a pair of rusty pliers, and the wires were kinda frayed. Huge rust holes in the roaster allowed heat to scorch the tires. On the drive home, at night, those rusty holes also allowed lit charcoal to spill out all over the road. I was lucky I didn't get multiple tickets. My next roast using a different Ralphie rental roaster came with a whole new learning curve and another set of "crudeness" issues. (Pigs came out fine though). It was at that point, I decided that if I want to do pig roasts AND present professionally, I better consider owning my own roaster. So in March 2000, I bought my own. Shortly thereafter, out of sheer necessity, I bought a 14' cargo trailer to move the roaster and all the proper pig roast support equipment. My first roast with the new apparatus was an embarrassment, but fortunately the audience of 200 boy scouts weren't too picky. Once I mastered the roaster's operations, I was able to "develop" the process to a point where it is today. Now it's down to a science, but I'm always experimenting with new sauces, marinades, rubs, nicer presentations, etc.
At this point, Pig Roasts represent 90% of my jobs, so I've become somewhat of a specialist! Pig Roasts are commonly requested for Luau Themed parties, weddings, and basic backyard parties. In the last few years, business has grown to the point where I pulled more friends into the operation, and added more equipment. Something unusual happened: 5 or 6 people were trying to hire me for the same choice summertime weekends! In Sept 2005, I bought my third cargo trailer and third pigroaster. The third cargo trailer (with roaster inside) will allow "Concurrent Jobs" run by trained staffers. The third roaster intended to be used for a rental coponent of the operation. (More of Ralphie's Influence). I took a stab at Roaster Rentals for a while, but that turned out to be more headaches than it was worth. I should also mention that some of the staffers/friends I've hired have also had some notable influence, and keep me on my toes. Phil di Georgio, Kevin Niemeyer to name a few who's knowledge of food far surpasses mine, and continually encourage me strive for improvements.
I do also have to give some credits to my own brother, Allan. Allan established a business called "AtoZ Entertainment", which specialized in Corporate Children's entertainment (Company Picnics, etc).. There are huge similarities between his business and mine, although he's not directly involved in "Food Service". Allan and I often discuss "The Service Business", and his input has been invaluable. He has since moved onto to other ventures, but his coaching was invaluable to me.
I am growing though. Up till recently, I was only capable of one job per weekend. Maybe rare back to back weekend gigs. And due to equipment limitations, there was only a choice between a Grilled Food Event *or* a Pig Roast. As mentioned above, with the establishment of my third Cargo Trailer in Oct 2005, I'm now able to perform concurrent Pig Roasts (pending availability of select staff and logistics). In 2006, I also made some huge investments into another caterer's estate sale, leaving me with several very large commercial quality Propane Grills, and other equipment. This forced a renovation of my 16' Cargo trailer to incorporate the new equipment. The retrofitted trailer now allows Pig Roasts *AND* Grilled Foods together. The 16' footer is also reconfigurable to support large headcount events (remove Roaster, add Grills). Actually, very big, specialized jobs may entail bringing all trailers to support large headcounts or multiple meals. More on large jobs "here".
That pretty much brings me up to the current date, and the current level of this "Hobby". I'm trying to take steps towards becoming a formally registered business, but that's Pandora's Box-ish and has it's own set of problems (fears?).
The Grand Plan seems to be in play already. I will keep taking "Baby Steps" with this business, but likely will not relinquish my full time job. Seems best to keep the catering business on the side, and maybe take it to the next level if 1.) My Engineering Job Falls thru or 2.) I retire in 2018. I had a bigger Vision at one time, but it remains a Fantasy, for now. Click here to read it.
The cooking knowledge came from years and years of being near food! I never really felt like a chef...I felt more like a "Lab Technician". All I do is follow recipes. Read instructions... Over the years, I just picked up all sorts of techniques....from Mom, from recipe books, from the Food Channel, from staff, from the Butcher, from other friends and likeminded people, and from the internet. The engineer in me also came up with a few techniques, simply out of necessity. But a lot of it came from just DOING IT.
I really dislike being called a "Chef" because it's not tremendously accurate. People who go to Culinary Institutes, who run commercial kitchens, who are responsible for Millions of dollars worth of product, who are regularly submerged in the "warzone" that is a commercial kitchen, have earned the right to be called "Chef". I haven't. I'm just kind of a "hack". And for every 1 thing I know, there's 100 things I wish I knew. But I won't argue with the term "Damned Good Cook"....or even "Caterer" :-) An "Aspiring Culinarian" or "Foodie" may also be accurate. "Culinary Challenged People" still refer to me as a "Chef" though, and given that point of reference, maybe I am!? I do feel like I'm pretty good at the logistics of Mobile Catering though. My favorite part is building and configuring the trailers....and I really do love to buy stuff.
So that's about it. It's all about partying and fun... And I'm very fortunate to have lots of people who allow me the privilege of feeding them. I'm even more fortunate that people are willing to PAY ME to feed them :-) Yes, it's not easy sometimes, but anything worth doing is never all fun and games.
Please Call (973) 627-2722 to Discuss Your Event. Usually 6pm-10pm, Weeknights. Please leave a Message otherwise. Also be sure to mention the potential date(s), estimated headcount, location, and the nature of the event. Thanks!
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