If you happened to catch my story last week, you read about my earliest childhood memories of how food and travel has had a powerful impact on me. While visiting my father’s family in South Jersey each summer no doubt played a big part in shaping my life and career interests, growing up in “WashPa” is where I was surrounded by food and family on a daily basis. It’s also where my culinary career began.
By all accounts, I had a pretty normal childhood. We didn’t grow up with any extras like new cars or even name brand shoes and we rarely, if ever, went out to eat. We did however, have a neat home with plenty of what mattered most… lots of love and support, a warm bed, a big garden and good food on the table. On holidays and birthdays my mom always made cakes and pies to suit the occasion and Christmas Eve was always given over to the Greco’s – my mom’s family – with my aunts and cousins coming over for a loud Italian feast. Not a lot of gifts, but boy was there tons to eat!
Every Sunday after church we went to Monongahela to visit my stepdad Sam’s family, where food was also taken very seriously. Imagine Thanksgiving every week. That’s the way it always felt there – my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles around the big table, the kids at a smaller one in the kitchen (graduating to the ‘big table’ was a big deal). I vividly remember smelling the food halfway up the driveway as we arrived like clockwork at noon ready to devour whatever my Grandma Annie had prepared that day. She toiled tirelessly (yet happily) … making turkey, pot roast, braised pork, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans and salad. For dessert there were often nutrolls or fruit pies, and Steelers football on the TV. That’s probably why we always ate on time, so we wouldn’t be late to catch the 1:00pm kickoff.
Back in Washington, Grandma Greco lived next door and I remember going to her house almost everyday after school to say hello and heat up leftovers for an afternoon snack. It was perfect because she had a new appliance, a microwave oven, (this was the early 80’s mind you) so it was the fastest way to ‘heat and eat’ before disappearing with the neighborhood gang into the woods on our bikes. If I didn’t show up with cold food Gram’s Italian cooking was always there – simple and definitely delicious. Her homemade pizza, eggplant parmesan and angel hair pasta with fresh garlic, broccoli, olive oil, freshly grated Romano cheese and hot pepper flakes still holds a special place in my heart. So much so, I ended up naming one of my first dishes “Pasta Greco” in honor of her and this delightful staple.
Even though we didn’t have a lot growing up, my parents worked hard to make sure my siblings and I had a good foundation in education at JFK, the private catholic grade school. Early on my dad was an English teacher at Clairton Middle School and eventually became a coal miner. Surrounded by friends at school with more “stuff”, it dawned on me early that if I wanted to have cool things too I would have to get a job and work for them. I proceeded to get a paper route when I turned 11, carrying 40 newspapers early each morning, 360 days a year, rain or shine. And while I liked being a paperboy, I knew there had to be more to life than collecting $1.20 from each of my customers every week.
By the time I turned 13 I got my first restaurant job as a bus boy at Lou Reda’s Restaurant. My best friend Louie Reda Jr and I wore a tuxedo shirt, bow tie and black dress pants and bussed the tables of Washington’s Who’s Who. Louie’s dad owned the joint so we ate well every night; we could order whatever we wanted for dinner, usually Braciole or Chicken Parmesan, with lots of fresh Italian bread and plenty of Coca Cola to wash it down. We made lots of cash tips and spent most of these earnings at The Chess King buying parachute pants and other random items in fashion at the time.
That job led to my next adventure, also in hospitality, this time at The Stone Crab Inn, which was closer to home and I could walk to work. While I enjoyed being out on the floor with the public bussing tables, I always seemed to gravitate to the kitchen and the cooks so I requested to become a dishwasher. I eventually moved to prep cook when the opportunity arose. I missed the cash in my pocket each night, but I got a genuine rush out of the energy in the kitchen… the heat, the yelling, the pressure, the constant chaos and dangerous work all felt very normal to me. I cut and burned myself a lot, and sweated even more, but I thrived in this environment and enjoyed learning what it might take to maybe one day be a chef.
After a couple of years in the kitchen at Stone Crab, I felt I was ready for the next step, this time as a line cook at Angelo’s Restaurant. I remember how proud I felt getting that job, interviewing on my own, providing an actual resume. Keep in mind this is well before food was It was all falling into place by this point and as my confidence grew I wanted to know everything I could about food. Thinking back, all these places I worked were not just restaurants, they were the best places to eat in Washington, popular and pricey yet full every night. I liked making people happy with food.
After finishing high school I applied and was accepted at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA), but wasn’t 100% convinced I wanted to spend my life IN the kitchen per se, especially working for someone else. By this time the thought of catering was at the front of my mind. My Uncle Ross had sold my grandparent’s restaurant in New Jersey and dove into catering where he made a lot more money than with the restaurant. I really respected my Uncle, so I began to think about how I could build something like he did. But it would be a few more years and a lot of kitchens later…
Talk about prophetic, here’s the direct quote from my 1987 Trinity High School senior yearbook: “JASON ELLIOTT CAPPS. Future Plans: To open my own catering business and become a rich and successful bachelor.”
Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for the next story in a couple of weeks about culinary school, my Traveling 20’s and life in the fast lane…
– Jason Capps
