Chewing The Fat
Everybody said they had Chicago-style this or that, but we couldn't find it. And if you can't find something, it's needed.
Who's the cook of the family. Is it you?
My wife! My wife has a magic hand. She makes her own cannoli shells and filling, makes her own sausages, rolls her own meatballs. Almost nobody else around here makes their own cannoli shells from scratch, but she does.
Any family secrets you wouldn't mind sharing?
Well, we use good seasonings, quality meat [from Rio Rancho Meats]. And I'll tell you, we add no fat to our sausage.
What? No fat? Get out!
I'm not joking! The meat's already got plenty of fat to begin with. And just I hate it when a sausage looks great, but when you bite down on it—yuck. There's usually some cheap, hard fat in there. To me, that just ruins a sausage.
Yeah, that hard stuff is gross.
Well, you know, if it's made cheap, it tastes cheap. So we try to cook people's food up at the last second.
That's not something you're likely to see at Bucca di Beppo.
It's too bad, really. People are losing what real cooking is about. They're favoring the chains. They're forgetting what food is supposed to taste like. But I'd rather make it than fake it.
What are you going to miss the most about this place?
Meeting and talking with a lot of good people. We had great customers for our 12 years here. I'm really going to miss our customers. We're just glad we could make them happy. Tia and Bill will carry it on.
