Firefighter Brings Italian Cooking to Largo Fire Station

Largo firefighters bring a team approach to cooking their own meals.

Firefighters are well-known for their hearty, delicious home-cooked dishes.  Fire Station 41, 180 4th St. SW, in Largo has a professionally trained Italian chef who cooks many of the meals for his shift. Largo Firefighters generally work 24-hour shifts with 48 hours off in between. During their 24-hour shifts, Largo firefighters pool their personal money and cook lunches and suppers together. As with many families, the workload is spread out, with the usual scenario of the crew on the ladder truck doing the grocery shopping, a couple team members doing the food preparation and other team members cleaning the dishes. Meet the Chef A native of Naples (the one in Italy), Luca Petrone joined Station 41 as a full-time firefighter/EMT in late …

•  3 Comments
• Photos (8)

Thanksgiving Recipes: Turkey, Stuffing, Potatoes

Here is a collection of five table options to help you start thinking about your family's holiday feast.

It's never too early to start planning for your future—your holiday future, that is. Below is a collection of Thanksgiving recipes from Patch readers to get your creative juices flowing and your tummy rumbling. Have your own recipe you'd like to share? E-mail michael.stone@patch.com, and we'll make sure to feature it. Submitted by John McCarthy The recipe below is not an old family tradition, but is the way I will always prepare a turkey. I brined my first turkey breast last Thanksgiving and it was the most tender and moist turkey I had ever cooked. It carved perfectly as thin or thick as I wanted to cut it with no crumbling of any kind. Note: If you can find a fresh (unfrozen) turkey breast, this a great start, but you can also use a …

• Photos (1)

New Business on the Block

Tia's Serves Up Latin Flavors

Tia's Authentic Latin Food is at 7161 Ulmerton Road in Largo. The establishment prides itself on having a home-style taste.

Hungry for roast pork, crisp Cuban bread, breakfast burritos, plantains, yellow rice? Head to a new Ulmerton Road eatery and find out what “Tia” is cooking. The name of Largo’s new Latin restaurant, Tia's Authentic Latin Food, comes from Susan Gonzalez's nieces and nephews asking “Tia, what do you have cooking?”  Gonzalez, 61, just loves to cook and entertain.  “I always wanted a restaurant. It has been my dream. Because of cooking at home so much, people were always asking me, ‘Why don’t you open a restaurant?’” Gonzalez said. “I like cooking for a lot of people and watching them say this is delicious.” Born in Puerto Rico, Gonzalez learned to cook from her mother and grandmother. At age 10 she moved to New Jersey and then to Spring Hill …

•  5 Comments
• Photos (2)

Local Entrepreneur Set To Launch National Franchise

Cindy Pickering started out making salsa in her home, and now she’s on the verge of launching a shared-kitchen franchise.

Nine years ago, Cindy Pickering was making fresh salsa in her home and selling it to local restaurants. She was living the American dream, owning her own business after years of toiling in the cut-throat worlds of television and radio.  But as her salsa empire continued to grow, her business-related headaches increased as well.  In addition to the challenges of purchasing ingredients, producing and marketing her product, and finding clients; Pickering realized that she was possibly in over her head, when she discovered that she was breaking the law.  “I had trucks delivering pallets of tomatoes to my house at 4:30 in the morning, so eventually my neighbors complained,” said the fit 52 year-old mother and grandmother. “Inspectors from the …

• Photos (10)