A Man and His Meatballs: The Hilarious but True Story of a Self-Taught Chef and Restaurateur |...

A Man and His Meatballs: The Hilarious but True Story of a Self-Taught Chef and Restaurateur | John Lafemina | Here's why New York is such a great city

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A Man and His Meat...

	A Man and His Meatballs: The Hilarious but True Story of a Self-Taught Chef and Restaurateur John Lafemina William Morrow Cookbooks, 2006 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A hilariously funny cookbook?cum?how?I?did?it memoir by the chef/restaurateur who created New York's dazzling Ápizz restaurant.

At the age of thirty?seven, John LaFemina left a lucrative career as a jeweler to become a chef. Instead of going back to school, or getting on?the?job training, he did it the hard way: he bought the restaurant and then taught himself to cook.

Today he owns two of New York's great Italian restaurants?Ápizz and Peasant?and is one of the city's most?talked?about chefs, earning rave reviews from fans and critics. In this gorgeous cookbook, he not only shares scores of recipes, but describes his life as a Canarsie boy learning about meatballs and macaroni in his mother's kitchn?and reveals how he drew on a lifetime of Italian cooking, and his own hard work and exquisite taste to create his dream restaurant from scratch.

LaFemina takes us step?by?step through the process of finding the perfect location (and figuring out how many meatballs you have to sell to pay the rent), designing a restaurant, procuring all the necessary permits and licenses, and creating the menu. And this is just the first part of running a restaurant. He shares his experiences in dealing with the public and the press, unexpected disasters, and finally, basking in the glory of a popular restaurant.

Along with his inspiring story, John LaFemina also shares 100 mouthwatering recipes, including:

Lasagna with Braised Wild Boar

Mushroom Risotto

Veal, Beef, and Pork Meatballs with Ricotta Filling

Open Ravioli with Roasted Butternut Squash

Creamsicle Panna Cotta

Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding

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Great Story

The is the perfect book for anyone who has ever wanted to own a restaurant. The first half of the book is compelling and funny, and gives a lot of insight into what it takes to open a restaurant in NYC. I couldn't put it down!

Here's why New York is such a great city

If anyone needs to know why New York is a world class city, they won't find a better explanation than this brief but amusing and highly enlightening story about opening and running a restaurant.

Meatballs? Anyone can cook meatballs. But, a meatball of veal, beef and pork with some onion, parsley, basil, Parmiagiano-Reggiano cheese, oregano and basic tomato sauce is something else. LaFemina grew up believing meatballs were the most special treat in the world; when he decided to open a restaurant, he discovered how much he didn't know. Fortunately, he includes his recipe for meatballs baked in a wood-fired oven. They're served without pasta.

In addition, he needed to learn about creating a restaurant.

For example, he had to deal with a telephone booth that appeared outside his new restaurant at some time between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. He removed it with a jackhammer, and was promptly visited by a tall forty-something guy in a dark suit who said he "obviously didn't know who he was 'with' or who the officers of his company were." LaFemina, a native of Canarsie, told the tall guy "to have his CEO call my CEO and while he was at it, ask around and find out who I'm with."

"Who are you with?" his wife asked him, having watched the encounter. LaFemina replied, "You."

It's the pure New York of legend. The phone booth didn't come back, neither did the tall guy in the dark suit. But, many of New York's elite do dine at 'Apizz' and recommend it to others of the rich and powerful. How does a guy with a high school degree become one of the top Italian chefs in the city? It takes hard work, some luck, determination, a sense of humour and sheer nerve.

Perhaps the key element is expressed in his reaction on opening night, which " . . . wasn't terrible. The whole thing felt fine to me, but not great. And I knew I wouldn't survive on 'fine'. Not in New York."

"Fine" isn't good in New York. It's why the city is great. To be great in New York, one must be great. In today's world, when so much is defined by the intensity and meanness of pure anger, LaFemina uses sparkling humour to explain how he created a truly great restaurant.

He's the ultimate "practical" hands-on common sense man, which in my experience reflects the pure heart of New York attitudes. LaFemina doesn't explain spread sheets and sales projections and pie charts, he counts the number of meatballs he must serve to cover expenses.

It's this common sense approach, told with relevant humour, that makes this book a delight. Anyone who's ever gone to a good restaurant will love knowing some of the inner thinking that makes it a success.

Plus, the 75 recipes are interesting.

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Most Amazing Restaurants & Food

I haven't even purchased the book yet, and my mouth is watering thinking of preparing John's awesome recipes in my own home!

John LeFemina is a most awesome chef, business owner & one of the most stand-up guys I've ever known.

If you want to read about making great food from a self-made success who came up from the streets of Canarsie, Brooklyn, then get this book!

On a sidenote, I only eat glatt kosher these days, and I see that most of the recipes are either dairy & vegetarian.
So that means, all the kosher & veggie readers out there, GET THIS BOOK, too!

If John makes it, it's awesome!

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Will appeal to a wide audience

Most chef's autobiographies document an early interest in the field, but A Man & His Meatballs differs radically, telling of a successful New York City jeweler who changed careers in his mid-thirties to become a notable big city chef the hard way - by buying his own restaurant and then learning how to cook. One would anticipate this a recipe for failure: but three successful restaurants later John LaFemina has proved them wrong, and here charts his ups, downs, and elements of luck which have made his establishments quite successful. The addition of recipes makes for more than another chef's autobiography and will appeal to a wide audience of general-interest readers and lending library patrons.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

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Would have been 5 stars

...except for the fact that I picked this book up, fully intending to buy, when I discovered a blurb from Rachael Ray on the back. This is a book supposedly marketed to foodies, and they put HER on the cover???
In case you think this is pure sexist drivel, my wife was with me and concurred wholeheartedly. We're not sexist, but we ARE snobs. No apologies.
What I read of the book was just fine. Hopefully the next edition will be Ray-free.

reviews: page 1, 2

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