Tony Cafaro soaking

The big wine bottle giveaway

The Meatball Man of Joe's Italian Kitchen
by Leigh Ann Henion, The Mountain Times

Seven flights of steps. It's the last phrase in all of Tony Cafaro's childhood stories of New York City. The midwife that delivered him had to go up seven flights of steps to attend to his mother's bedside. When he was a child he would collect wood for the kitchen stove and carry it up, seven flights of steps. There were no grocery carts, so when he helped his mother with the shopping, they hauled their goods home and ' that's right - up seven flights of steps. 'Everyone did a lot of walking back then,' Tony lamented with a hint of nostalgia.

Some of his strongest memories of childhood are of shopping in NYC's Little Italy in the 1920s and 30s. 'In those days they had mom and pop stores, ice cream parlors, butchers and bakers. On one street you'd have everything you could think of. Everyone had a specialty. They did what they were good at,' he said.

In Tony's mind, Little Italy remains a place of push carts with immigrants at the helm, filled with the smells of fresh fruits and vegetables in open markets ' where shoppers bought handmade mozzarella at the local dairy and bread at a bakery where artisans passed down their recipes and knowledge to the next generation.

'Now you go to one place and that's it.' He lifts his hands in the air, palms forward to emphasize the difference between the way of life he once knew, and the way of life that emanates from, 'What's that place ' Lowe's''

He shrugs as if to say, it's not that there's anything wrong with the way things are done these days, but it's different, that's for sure.

Tony and Helen, his wife of 52 years, moved to the High Country a few years ago to be closer to his son, Joseph ' better known as Joe of Joe's Italian Kitchen.

Since Tony is used to walking, and his apartment is not that many blocks away (in New York terms) from Joe's, he has made it part of his daily routine to walk to the restaurant every morning. 'Someone has to make the meatballs,' he explains.

'My mother taught me to make the meatball,' Tony disclosed in a thick Brooklyn accent. 'My mother didn't speak good English. I used to go with her when she went shopping. I had to tell her the price and everything,' he said.In exchange for his assistance in acquiring the ingredients for the Cafaro family meatballs, his mother shared with him the family recipe. 'My mother came from Italy when she was just a little girl. It was her mother's recipe,' Tony says of the meatballs that hold countless generations of culinary practice.

'My mother had an accident at one point and she couldn't use her hands,' Tony said, 'That's when I really started to cook.'

Tony was 13 at the time. At first, he started with a recipe. 'I had it all mopped down,' he said, moving his hand against his palm as if holding an imaginary pencil. 'But now,' he said, moving his pointer to his temple, 'it's all up here.'

Tony knows how many eggs to add to a pound of meat to make his meatballs perfectly cohesive. He knows just how much parsley, pepper and garlic it needs to be delicious. When he doles out the ingredients in a large tub for mixing, it looks like a work of art, each egg an equal distance from the next.

When asked if Joe ever makes the meatballs, his father laughs a little. Then says, 'No, he doesn't have it in his head yet, but he will,' Tony said, admitting that he had already made sure that Joe had his own 'mopped down' copy of the family recipe.

Tony offered, 'Joe's a very good cook.' He continued, 'Everything he makes, I'll eat and so far, everything tastes good.' In the Cafaro family, this is a compliment in the highest regard. Because, as Tony says, 'If he was missing something, or if it was no good, I would tell him.'

Tony's brother, Sam, once owned a deli just around the corner from Macy's in New York City. He specialized in hero sandwiches. It was in that deli, with its chrome grill backboard and swivel stools that Joe first declared that he wanted to be a restaurateur.

'I want to do what Uncle Sam does,' he remembers declaring as a child. His mother, having watched his uncle's schedule, told her son that he would work day and night if he decided to do that.

Standing next to an industrial size cooler filled with sparkling imported water, Joe concedes, 'So, now I work day and night. But how many times do you get paid to do what you love''

Joe learned to cook from his mother - everything but the meatballs, that is. Tony said, 'My son went to church every week. One day my wife said to me, 'you can take Joe to church every Sunday, or you can make the meatballs and gravy.'' Tony chose to make the meatballs and gravy every Sunday while Joe and his mother attended church, a choice that later gave him a new career.

Looking around his son's restaurant, he said, 'This is the first chance I ever had to work in a restaurant and I like it. As long as I can walk, I'll always come in here to make the meatballs,' he said as the restaurant staff went about preparing the seating area for a lunch crowd.

'I love living here,' Tony continued, 'When I lived in Brooklyn there were no trees. In Brooklyn everything is a hassle. It's rush, rush. If you don't rush, you don't do nothin'. It's a different life here. It's like a country place that you would see in a book.'

There isn't much he misses about NYC. It's changed a lot since Tony's childhood. The small stores, he says, are a thing of history.

Joe, remembering his own childhood, said, 'The way I grew up and dad grew up, we'd go to the Avenue to do our shopping. We'd get fresh handmade mozzarella; we had different bakeries ' the Jewish bakery and the Italian bakery'That is way in the past now. You'll never see that again. Nothing's ethnic anymore. There might be a bakery but it's not specialized. It's like a lost art. There's no one around to teach them how to make things anymore.'

But somehow, the mention of this cultural shift that is happening across the nation ' the homogenization of American culture, the corporations that buy the coffee shops and the grocery store chains ' highlights the fact that Joe's Italian Kitchen has captured something that is almost lost.

Though they do not specialize in one product, Joe's Kitchen does specialize in ethnic. As Joe says, the food served in his restaurant is like the food served at his house. He could use china, throw linens on his table in place of the red and white-checkered plastic, use silver and charge a lot more money, but he doesn't. He keeps it home-style in a very Italian sort of way.

He lines his windows with olives and espresso makers, his coolers with mozzarella and Italian sausages that are handmade in his kitchen and cannoli, fragile and just-sweet-enough, in his display box.

Joe's Italian Kitchen is reminiscent of a small store deep in the heart of Brooklyn. A store where regulars know they can find quality Italian culinary supplies. It is a restaurant where the food is not pretentious, but it is good.

It is one of the few places where there is someone to teach the art of cooking to the next generation, who in turn shares it with his customers.

'Everybody knows my dad better than they know me,' Joe says as Tony stands next to him, a small white towel in his hand and a black apron wrapped around his neck. Joe continued, 'It's gotten to where customers will stop if they see him walking and offer him a ride to the restaurant ' they know where he's going.'

In Brooklyn, everyone walks. In Boone, everyone who walks usually sees someone they know along the way more than willing to pick them up. 'In Brooklyn, nobody knew me from Adam. Now, it's like I'm a celebrity,' Tony says as he smiles a small, delighted smile and turns towards the kitchen where there are meatballs waiting to be made.

Joe's Italian Kitchen is located at 190 Boone Heights Drive behind Burger King. The restaurant, which offers a variety of vegetarian dishes in addition to those featuring Tony's meatballs, can be reached at (828) 263-9200.