2008 May Archive

The following is from the April 22, 2008 edition of “The Daily Local“:

UPPER OXFORD — The creator of Steak-umm has sliced up a new cut of meat, good enough to win the national 2008 Big Beef Innovation Contest.

The Texas Hold’Em, a grillable short rib scored to the bone, was developed and submitted by Eugene D. Gagliardi Jr., of Visionary Design, a Smithfield Beef Group company.

The Research Chefs Association recognized Gagliardi with the contest win at the group’s annual conference in Seattle in March. To reward his creativity, Gagliardi was presented with a check for $50,000.

What makes the Texas Hold’Em unique is the scoring, which allows the short rib to be grilled. The meat is presented on the bone with an end portion of the bone exposed.

Generally, short ribs get slow-cooked in sauce in an oven or crock pot.

By scoring the meat to the bone, it not only allowed the meat to be cooked quicker, it changed the flavor, a “pleasant surprise” for Gagliardi.

“They taste like steak, not short ribs,” Gagliardi said.

The product will be sold either raw in vacuum-sealed bags or browned in a 500-degree oven, then sous-vide, a French cooking term for food that is cooked in an air-tight vacuum bag and placed in hot water well below the boiling point for more than 24 hours.

Smithfield will supply the raw material and an Alexandra, Va., company will prepare the product for market. Gagliardi said he believes Texas Hold’Ems will be avail

able on the shelf at Costco.

For Gagliardi, the win among so many meat companies was especially rewarding because it was the contest’s first year.

But then Gagliardi got the bad news: no one can win two years in a row.

“That’s not fair,” Gagliardi said he told them. “I have the next thing for you.”

What is it? The man who runs his own creative think tank, Creativators, won’t say. That would give his competitors an edge.

Creativators was established in 1993. Gagliardi is the founder and chief executive. Gagliardi stiched together the company name from the phrase “creative, innovative concepts for the food industry.”

Creativators is headquartered in office and research space at the intersection of Homeville Road and Route 896 in rural Cochranville.

Gagliardi took what was a garage built over a septic tank, relocated the septic system and rebuilt a state-of-the-art research facility.

In addition to Steak-umm, created in 1968, another Gagliardi success story is Popcorn Chicken, developed and licensed exclusively for Kentucky Fried Chicken as a fast-food snack children would love.

The product exceeded KFC’s expectations and provided the fast food maker with the most successful promotion in its 52-year history, according to Gagliardi.

At 77, Gagliardi does not appear to be a man ready to hang up his carving knives.

In the company’s conference room, the walls are lined in patents from around the world. On the conference table is a row of spiral notebooks of patents in progress.

“It is a pleasure to come up with something totally off the wall that becomes successful,” Gagliardi said.

What he doesn’t like is corporate politics, he confesses.

Over the years as a food industry consultant, Gagliardi has developed products for the National Pork Producers Council, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and fast-food restaurants, among others.

He founded Visionary Design in 1994 and sold it to Smithfield in 2003. He is now a full-time consultant for Smithfield Beef Group.

The son of an Italian immigrant, Gagliardi still has a picture of his father’s corner meat market at 60th and Vine streets in West Philadelphia.

Gagliardi describes it as a high-end store where such Philadelphia notables as broadcast personality Bill “Wee Willy” Webber and radio personality-turned-children’s-TV-host Sally Starr were regular customers in the early 1950s.

“My father came to the United States in 1923 with $5 in his pocket,” Gagliardi said. “He got an apartment in Ft. Lee, N.J. There were five guys who shared one suit.”

Whoever had a job interview wore the suit, Gagliardi said.

The senior Gagliardi opened his corner meat business in 1924 and operated it for 33 years until the family changed focus, moving to portion-control meat products.

Over the years, Gagliardi has owned and restored several country estates in Chester County including Southdown in East Bradford, Wolfs Hollow in West Fallowfield and his current estate in Upper Oxford.

Through it all, he is modest about his accomplishments and financial success.

Like Popcorn Chicken, “I make a little look like a lot,” Gagliardi said. “I wish I were as rich as people think I am.”

To contact staff writer Gretchen Metz, send an e-mail to gmetz@dailylocal.com.

The following is from the April 13, 2008 edition of “Philadelphia Weekly“:

Harvey Fuqua, a musical legend in the purest sense, is on the phone from Las Vegas, where he bought a house in 1990.

Unfortunately, he can’t hear me very well. The man has a terrible cold.

”Huh, what?” he says to nearly every one of my questions.

I begin to nearly shout into the phone. If I squint, I can almost see the dense vaporized fog around him.

I have a lot to ask about. So many questions about the early days of his career, going back, back, back to the early ’50s, questions about the bigotry he surely experienced, the music he made, the difficulty he no doubt had getting it played and what it must’ve taken to be a black producer and musical rainmaker at a time when the sounds you produced were ghettoized on the radio and tagged as ”race music” by white producers.

But Mr. Fuqua doesn’t seem to be even trying to hear what I’m asking.

He’s too miserable. The cold has him staggered.

Too, the man is 79. In a few days he’ll be getting on a plane to Philadelphia to perform at the Kimmel Center with other early–day harmony stylists as part of a Jerry Blavat stage show. He’ll be performing songs decades old, and talking to the Geator about them live.

But right now all that seems lifetimes away. All that matters is that nasty cold.

Happily, Jerry Blavat is on the phone too—prepared, as always, to make the best of any and all situations.

”Timmy, you do know all that Harvey has accomplished, right?” the Geator says, jumping into the conversation, generously providing Mr. Fuqua a much–needed time out to recoup.

I do.

Though his name may mean little to all but the most ardent rhythm ’n’ blues historians, Harvey Fuqua was among the Jackie Robinsons of the music industry.

>> He founded the seminal harmony group the Moonglows, among the first groups to practice ”vocalese” (the art of using voices to replicate the sound of instruments).

>> He recorded ”Sincerely,” a huge hit for the Moonglows, subsequently covered by the McGuire Sisters and turned into an even bigger mainstream hit. (Decades later it resurfaced on the GoodFellas soundtrack.)

>> He was mentored by legendary New York disc jockey Alan Freed, and appeared in one of the very first rock ’n’ roll movies, Rock, Rock, Rock, in 1956.

>> He produced songs by Etta James, including ”At Last,” considered among the biggest romantic ballads of all time.

>> He was a mentor to Marvin Gaye, and co–produced ”Sexual Healing,” among other hits.

>> He was married to Berry Gordy’s sister Gwen.

>> He worked as a record promotions man—new territory for people of color in his time—when not recording or producing other acts.

>> He launched his own record labels (Tri–Phi and Harvey Records), and he signed groups like the Spinners and Junior Walker & the All Stars.

Harvey Fuqua was a label owner, a writer, a singer, a performer, a producer, a promotions director, a mentor and a lot more.

But right now, he’s a man with a cold.

”Timmy,” the Geator continues, gracefully filling the silence coming from Las Vegas, ”the man is a living history. I mean, there are pioneers still around in this business, but few who go back as far as Harvey Fuqua. Am I right, Harvey?”

Harvey coughs, apologizes, promises he’ll be ready when the bell rings Sunday night at the Kimmel and the Geator asks him to take us all back to a forgotten era, to a time when courage and fortitude were as necessary as talent. He apologizes for being so little help in the interview, unnecessarily of course.

”I’ve always liked Philadelphia,” he says. ”The people where you are know their music.”

The Geator’s back on the line.

”Living history, Timmy,” he says, telling Harvey he’ll see him in a few days. ”A legend.”

Archive for May, 2008

Short ribs win innovation award

Harvey Fuqua Has a Cold