Joe Gatto - Seriously From Scratch

HOW TO COOK THE MOST DELICIOUS FOOD EVER BY MAKING EVERY SINGLE COMPONENT YOURSELF

JOE GATTO

PROFESSIONAL CHEF

WRITER OF THE AWARD-WINNING FILM OVERSERVED

Thank you for buying this

Page Street Publishing Co. ebook.

To receive special offers, bonus content,

and info on new releases and other great reads,

sign up for our newsletters.

Or visit us online at

us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the authors copyright, please notify the publisher at: http://us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO EVERYONE WHO HAS BIG DREAMSAND TO SNOOP DOGG BECAUSE SNOOP DOGG IS AWESOME.

Do you want to have fun in the kitchen? Do you want to make dishes that make people punch themselves in the face they are so amazing? Do you want to release that creative, culinary genius lurking deep inside your soul? Well, you have made the right choice in picking up this book. I know. Trust me. I know. Ive heard it all. From scratch?! Are you insane? It takes much too long. Its way too hard. No way, Joeare you some type of crazy person? Im here to tell you that its all a pack of lies. Well, maybe not the crazy person part, but everything else is greatly exaggerated. You can do this! It is super fun and you only need one tool to do it. Thats rightone tool. Passion. Not a cool knife, not a fancy pan. Those things help, but without passion, youre trying to kill a grizzly with a BB gun. Dal wasnt a genius because he had a good brush.

My journey did not start where you think it did. Like life, it is a long, winding road, always fluctuating and shifting. Becoming a chef with a cutting-edge cooking show has been an amalgamation of experiences: rewarding, frustrating and also the greatest times of my life. I want to share my experiences with you. This isnt your typical cookbook, trust me. We are going to take a journey together into food and its spirit. Im going to teach you knife skills so your confidence in the kitchen will soar, and Ill show you how to sear, grind and caramelize. But thats just the tip of the iceberg. Were going to start from the ground up, so you will understand food from its fundamental beginnings, and we are going to have a blast doing it! I dont want you to buy this book just for the recipes. This is my story, my life and why I have such an appetite for food, community and family. Food is the gateway to happiness. Its not just a line; I truly believe that. After you read this book, I know you will, too!

If youve ever seen my show, you know I love to get to the bottom of things. If we are going to use salt, I want to be pulling it out of the Atlantic Ocean and making my own. Cheese? Im milking cows. Charcoalyep, lets make some carbon! Why? Because I think that is the best way to figure out how to make whatever you want. To understand how things work is integral to becoming a confident cook in the kitchen. You dont have to be trained in the culinary arts to make rock star food.

I grew up in my moms kitchen, and the fantastic memories still make me smile and feel like Briegooey all over. Sitting on the counter as a kid tasked to the small jobs, sifting and stirring, and then being promoted to the big time, where I was chopping and sauting. I found my love of food and family right there. Its also where I honed my gift of gab. My mom, Lorraine, was and still is always cooking, amazing smells wafting through the house like some unseen poltergeist of yumminess. I was always hungry and there was always something delectable waiting in the fridge, from homemade deep-dish pizza to roasted potatoes to butterscotch pudding and everything in between. This gene of culinary obsession has been passed on to my two munchkins, Benjamin and Cassidy. Now my little sous chefs are up on my counter pulling fresh mozzarella, cranking pastas, stuffing empanadas and so much more. I find this time to be a wonderful time to connect; the kids are so much more open to telling me about their day as were cooking together. They openly share things I dont think they would tell me if I just asked. Nothing bad, mind you, but hilarious stories of their youthful days. Who their best friends are, how much they love puddles or our cats, Ripley and Zen. Because as youre cooking, the conversation flows.

They call the kitchen the heart of the house for a reason. Its where memories are created. I know at every party or family gathering everyone congregates in the kitchen. A culinary church that has lots of dedicated parishioners. I rejoice in the laughter and stories that flow, as well as some great drinks, as everyone works in harmony to create a meal. But Im getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning of how I became a chef and started my own radical cooking show.

My path into the culinary world really started off in an unexpected place: Hollywood, California, when I was an independent filmmaker. I know, it sounds like the start of a movie, right? So there I was, a wide-eyed twenty-year-old with my whole life ahead of me. The left coast had intrigued me since I was a kid; I was obsessed with cinema and the craft of filmmaking. So bypassing the college route, I hopped on a plane and landed in northern California, ready to become the next De Niro. I landed a couple of small roles in independent features and music videos. It was like a drug, and I was hooked. The whole time I was cooking from scratch like I always had. Little did I know down the line of life both obsessions would collide.

I took a job in a small production company and soon made a great friend: Larry Sara, who, like me, was obsessed with film. We had endless discussions over which director had the best visuals and what the funniest movie of all time was. Monty Python and the Holy Grail? I cut your arm off. No you didnt. Whats that, then? Tis just a flesh wound. Soon we were making our own films and music videos and having boundless amounts of fun. Food always played an integral part of it. Wrap parties inevitably ended up at my house with me at the stove, regaling our successes and failures of the past shoot over a fresh plate of pasta and marinara. These were fantastic times, even if the films were not instant classics.

After eight years, Massachusetts beckoned my return, and next thing I knew, I was shoveling again. I continued making films and got my first feature up and running, called Overserved, a scathing comedy about working in a wild restaurant. Food again was always playing a huge role, with me cooking for rehearsals or production meetings. I met some people who would become lifelong friends when we filmed at the Sam Adams brewery every weekend during the summer of 2003. Shooting fifteen-hour days, we poured our hearts and souls into every detail. We sweated every line and then flocked to the large, family-style picnic table to empty the kegs as we talked about all that went wrong and right and how much we had ahead. I laughed until my sides hurt every night, woke up exhausted and couldnt wait for more.