Food Hospitality
Surely one of the best and most effective ways to express or manifest hospitality is in the preparation, sharing, and partaking of meals with others. Exceptional food and outstanding hospitality go hand in hand. Food hospitality isn’t just what arrives at the table. It’s the hearts and hands that make it a reality: preparing and arranging ingredients with care, treating guests with importance and warmth.
From the first welcome to the final presentation, there’s a rhythm, a presence, a journey you can’t find in the finished product alone. We read of the importance of this from the Lord himself: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.” Matthew 24:35.
When you share a meal with someone, it opens relationships as never before. Gary's nspiration, knowledge, and experience in the preparation of food comes from cookbooks, online recipes, cable TV cooking shows, his sisters, his mother, his grandmother, and, most importantly,y from trial and error. And even though he did not graduate from culinary school, h continually enjoys consulting the experts, striving for excellence in food service hospitality.
"While I love to personally indulge in my ribs, it gives me even greater joy and satisfaction to know that others are enjoying them."
Gary’s Ribs - Enjoy as good a barbeque pork rib meal as ever! The end-product is a wonderful seared, charred, and charcoal smoked taste combined with succulent, moist and tender flavor where the pork just falls off the bone for an unmatched taste. It does not get any better than this. With the finest quality meat prepared by the very best process, utilizing the superior equipment, completed with an outstanding BBQ rib sauce it ensures a Rib feast guaranteed to produce the most satisfied repeat guests who will continually recommend the finished product to all.
Gary has been grilling his Barbeque Baby-Back Pork Ribs utilizing infrared grills since 2003. The chefs of great restaurants will identify “serious heat” and “quality food items” as the two most important factors in achieving superior grilling quality. Infrared grills emit radiant infrared high temperature that immediately sears the meat locking in the juices with moisture and flavor. The direct heat is so intense and uniform that one does not have to be concerned about hot or cold spots. Drippings are instantly vaporized and turned into flavor enhancing smoke. Cooking in its own juices results in a more succulent, tender and tasty product than can be achieved through conventual grilling methods.
Many BBQ restaurants prepare ribs that are moist and tender within but lack the searing and charring on the outside. Other BBQ restaurants sear and char the ribs but in doing so over grill the meat which is tough to eat. Here the ribs are both seared/charred and at the same time moist/tender achieving or exceeding “restaurant quality results” consistently.
Gary’s love for hospitality shows up best in the smoke and sizzle of his kitchen—where he’s known for everything from tender Rouladen and crowd-pleasing chili to BBQ pork chops and fall-off-the-bone baby-back ribs.
In November 2022, he won the 1st Annual Christ Presbyterian Church Chili Cook-Off with his award-winning “Big Dog Chili,” a signature recipe pulled straight from the *Southern Cowboy Cookbook*. His BBQ story stretches far beyond the backyard: grilling on the banks of the Hudson River with the New York City skyline in view (Edgewater, NJ), tailgating at Miller Park in Milwaukee, firing up ribs off Lake Anna in Bumpass, Virginia, and even cooking at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Knoxville, Tennessee.
Gary has also been invited to showcase his infrared baby-back ribs alongside Dave of Sweet Baby Ray’s at Orchard Church in Arlington Heights—and later to grill on an infrared setup at Kraft Headquarters in Glenview—proving his food isn’t just a hobby; it’s a memorable experience he loves sharing wherever he goes.
