Episode Transcript
Good morning. Thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm
Alison de Murz. It's my pleasure to have in studio
this morning. Chef Ray Genaro from the Connecticut Food and
Fire Project. Good morning, good morning. So for those who
don't know about the Connecticut Food and Fire Project, how
did it come about?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
It came about in twenty twenty. I was in New Jersey.
I went to teach special needs students how to make
a dish of fred Montreal, and I said to my
mother and my wife, let's take a ride to Atlantic City.
It was right before covid on the Verge Place was
a ghost town, and I happened to see a woman
(00:41):
with a little child, and a child started coughing.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I saw a.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Fireman completely in gear in the middle of the summer,
and the women just went off on the firefighter as
if they say, aren't you going to say something?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
He's caught the child's coughing and coughing.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
And it actually stuck with me the whole way and
on the way home, stuck in traffic, I said, I
need to do something for these guys put their life
on the line every single day. The original connection to
the fire department is my parents' first restaurant was restaurant.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
And mafee and he's Taven where the rib House is now.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
It's directly next to the fire department, the East Taven
Fire Department. I started in the kitchen at the age
it is between eight and nine at a milk rate,
cutting greenies.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
And every time I heard.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
The fire that'll go off, I'd run outside the door,
watch the guys go to the fire where they.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Were ahead, and when they come back, I would ask them, Hey,
can I slide down the pole? Can I slide them?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh? Always no, that was always the that was the original,
and then this and it's just all made sense, and
that's what I decided I would start off program.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
So I started the Connectut Food.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
And Fire Project, where I bring three course fine dining
meals to the fire departments all over the state of Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
It's amazing that the gift you have of cooking, you
decided to use that in this particular way, Like there's
no coincidences in life, Like here you where you were
raised to cook, and then you see this firemen and
then the next thing you know, this idea comes to
fruition and then you put it into.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Plan, put it into plan.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
I've known my whole life that I was born with
a gift. My father was born with a gift. He
was recruited to the country at age twenty two from
the Amalfi Coast, working on the island of Capri. It
wasn't a coincidence. He was recruited here because of his
skills to work at a place called Cosamara on East Street.
When their father had passed away, so they went to
(02:30):
Europe to find a chef, and they came home. They
offered my father's a job. He said no, no, no.
Sometime later my mom had went and yeah, I got
a job in New Haven, and one thing led to another.
He came to New Haven, he ended up taking over
Kazamaras and making it one of the top restaurants wow.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
To be So.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I wanted to share my food, So what better way
than I literally gave it all away. Everything I fed
over on my own up into this year, it was
all on my own. I fed over twenty fire Department
Yale Knowhavid Hospital nurses. I fed at least four or
five police stations. Just I just wanted people to have
my food, and I didn't put the dollar first. I
(03:11):
literally almost lost everything because of the cost. But I'm
here today, five years later, and we're going to take
this all over the US and eventually we're going to
take it all over the world.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Wow, what a blessing. Do you feel that you've been
blessed in return for all you've done?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Of course, I was given a gift and I'm able
to share a gift, and I'm blessed.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I'm blessed.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Well, you're Italian, so you were first of all, you're blessed.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, I mean I got a long, beautiful legs.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Beautiful here.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I mean, are you can cook? I mean your wife, man,
she really did good.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
She got to deal with me.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
I'm teasing. I'm teasing. So this amazing project, the Connecticut
Food and Fire Projects, and if people would like to
find out more than go to chef Ray's dot com.
So you were doing all of this and you've become
like a nonprofit and now you're saying to people, if
you make a donation, I'll be able to cook all
of this food for all of the firemen at the firehouse.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
So up until this year, I told you it was
completely funded by me. So as of this year, I
take a two hundred and fifty dollars donation, and I
feed the entire fire station, whether it's two or twenty.
The last fire station had twenty five, the one before
that had twenty two.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
The other day, I had found.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Out that a firefighter had passed on Thanksgiving Day and
it's I saw the picture. Immediately I posted up if
somebody would donate, I would love to go feed not
only the fire station, but the family as well, because
they had a wife and two younger children, and it
literally just broke my heart. So I'm going to make
arrangements to get there somehow or another on Friday or Thursday,
(04:54):
and I'm trying to reach out to them to see
if I can get the address or the wife or
to leave the food behind, just to say I'm sorry
and thank you for your husband.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
And it was a hero.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
When we run out of a building, they run in
and that's just amazing to me.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
My dad, my brother, my cousin, my nieces, my nephews,
they're all police officers, and we do have a lot
of firemen in the family. And mine Ana, because I'm Italian,
many many years ago, maybe I was three four years old,
she said, when you hear a siren, you pray fire
ambulance police for not only the first responders, but the
people who are being helped. I can relate on so
(05:36):
many different levels with you why you want to do
this for them? So how can people do this do?
They go to your website and.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
The best way is to reach out through social media.
My chef Ray Genaro spelled g E N n ro.
I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, TikTok.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
You can call.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
My telephone number is two three four two seven seven
eight six. You can send me an email at chef
Raygenaro at gmail dot com. You can send me a
smoke signal anyway to let me know and I'll get
there somehow and.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Make sure it happens. So tell me about the responses
you received from the donors and the first responders.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
When you show up at a fire station.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
And up until this year, I would just show up,
not even let them know and just show up at
the food hot. Now I serve it heat and serve
so they can put it in at their own time.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
The look on their face is like you know, what
is this? And thank you?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And then after they eat it, it's the next it's
the next level. I cook different. You have different techniques.
My food is different, and they are literally blown away,
and the gratitude from them is it's worth more than
any amount of money that can be given.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Let's talk about that food. I know you make it
with love. To start out with.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Food is different to me. I for a family every Monday,
a private family. It literally takes me eleven.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Hours to cook for those four people, to twelve hours
just for that meal.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
But that meal is a meal leg they're not going
to get and it's served to them hot and ready
to go when they show up.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
My techniques are different. Like chicken.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
I haven't cooked the chicken breast in years. If you
cook a piece of beef, the most tender part of
a other than the rip cap of a cow of
beef is the tenderloin. However, when we get to chicken,
people always run to the breast. There's a part of
a chicken called the chicken tender. And if you take
us shears and we used to cut the coupons out
with those and remove the tendon and all the skin
(07:42):
and put that chicken tender between two pieces of a
plastic bag and tap with a hammer or a flat
pan and bread that flour, egg and bread, crimb season.
It's the best chicken palm you're ever going to get.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Cutlet and other sauces.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I use brand of tomatoes called Christina Gold. A friend
of mine passed away. His name was Lealed. His granddaughter
is on the can of tomatoes. If you know anything
about an Italian and grandchildren, they're at the They can
get no higher.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
They walk on water.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
They walk on water.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
So if you see the granddaughter on the can, those
are going to be good and they're the best. Christina Gold.
I got him met from l Sea Cash and carry
and new Haven on the dock.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
So what are you cooking when you say these three
course meals? Is it an app and then a dinner
and then a dessert? And what do they consist of?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
So I've gone with shepherd's pie. These are main courses
Shepherd's pie. I've gone with chicken marsala. Then I serve
them green beans. So let let's say the last one.
I think the last one was a chicken marsala, green beans,
almondin roasted potatoes. I had many eggplant powers, so I
mix it up. It's always it's always a dinner. It's
always a starch in the vegetables.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
The starch a carb you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
It's fun. Got to love that.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
The next fire department I'm going to after this one,
I'll be serving seafood croquettes, seafood range.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Oh my gosh, so for people don't know the rice balls,
but their seafood to do the little peas inside.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I just did the one before.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I did rice balls with Krispy perjuto in a five
cheese muzzarella, pecorino.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Momano, parme brother, I got two. I'm the only boy.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
I'm just kidding. I'm kidding.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I love that, and I give them the best of
the best. I buy only the best. I buy only
the best. The cheese is, you know, twenty dollars a pound,
twenty one dollars a pound, parmagena giano, pecorino romano, the
fresh muzzarella and all that come from friends of mine
who owned Liuzi Cheese.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
It's my favorite family, so my favorite.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I mentioned earlier. I'm going to eventually take my project
all over the world. The first person I reached out
was the Liuzzi family, and I said, listen, I want
to do this, and I'm eventually going to give a
percentage of all the money that I sell for these
trades that I'm going to eventually ship everywhere, I'm going
to put five percent aside for the Connecticut Food and
Fire Projects. I want our fire department in at the
(10:00):
Connecticut to be the richest fire department in the world.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And that's a goal wonderful. I'm speaking with Chef Ray
Genaro from the Connecticut Food and Fire Project. Again. You
can check them out on social media. You can go
to Chefraisgormet dot com. Please make a donation. They can
make donations and not even I get.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
A lot of anonymous, even though most of the time
or some of the time their their husband, their brother,
they work for the fire department and they don't want
anyone to know.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
And they say, listen, just anonymous. Oh by the way,
he doesn't eat this.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Okay, no, no, no problem, and he's no problem whatever
whatever you like. So not everybody's looking for their name
to be put to be put out there. Some people
just want to do good and there's no better cause,
you know, never hear a bad word about a fireman ever, right, right, And.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
They're heroes, they're they're they're heroes.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
To me, and you're being a hero to them now.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I don't know about all that, but I try to
do my best. I want to I want to make
a mark on this world, and you are.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Thank you, Thank you so much for being here today
and for all the great work you're doing.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
It was a pleasure and an honor to be here.
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