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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011 May 01 - Cape Cod Times Article: "Getting it to Go":ocks and mutuals, day or night AW, Day lemo: eke the ig view ey, did you notice? It's May Day! So how are you .spending this day? joining in a baccha- te of spring? Dancing maypole? you taking to the I solidarity with people? ing at all? le parts of the world is a big deal. But ►untry it gets short iritans apparently put >h on pagan -inspired ons of springtime and rhey were just a little iy and naughty for ose straitlaced folk. But what of the other May Day, the one celebrated by workers, immigrant rights activists, socialists and anar- chists all over the world? That May R Day has e its roots in the labor- management of the late 19th cen- ;n immigrant workers and to win an eight- rkday. member the eight- rkday, don't you? It most quaint now, h our 24/7 always -on les. re self-employed ... eight-hour day is r one of your shorter ,s. And you can't even i to management se, especially if you're actitioner, you are d management rolled with no one to strike )ut yourself. he labor-management n meaningless if you yourself? Does it relevance for sole yrs, independent nts and other self - d folks? so, so stay with me E the worst and most mistakes that small owners make is to aught up being labor- ,ducing a product or clients - that they nanagement-level ras one of my biggest wings when I was cloyed. Big -picture marketing out- -ainstorming new :eping an eye out business opportuni- bse were the types of nent-level issues that :ed while toiling away leadlines. is an employee, it's .it to stop laboring in ;hes once in a while. irse it's admirable to d -working employee ess owner. But if i you're doing, you're .ort -sighted. ;ing one's career or siness is as important gong -term success as :his week's work done. waa anri hiicinacc Getti -. - supermarket price survey /E3 but it's no Wad /E5 SUNDAY, MAY 1, 2011 ng it ,I Captain Parker's launches ��°`V wholesale chowder venture, marketing its signature soup to markets and restaurants 74' CHRISTINE HOCHKEPPEL PHOTOS/CAPE COD TIMES Prep cook Deuselina Freitas chops celery for chowder in the kitchen of Captain Parker's Pub. Moreira adds the salt pork to the batch. Freitas dices potatoes before adding them to the chowder. Moreira stirs the roux, a thickening mixture of flour and butter, before putting it Into the oven. By SARAH SHEMKUS sshemkus@capecodonline.com ESTYARMOUTH - It starts with butter. One afternoon last week, cook Fernando Moreira dropped block after block of butter into a large pot, before adding flour and the fat from some salt pork. He whipped the ingredi- ents together to form a thick paste, the first stage in the creation of the clam chowder that has garnered national acclaim for Captain Parker's Pub. "Making chowder is a very, very labor-intensive process,"said the res- taurant's owner, Gerry Manning, as he observed Moreira's work."We dice our own potatoes, we peel our own onions, we chop our celery." More than a year ago, Manning saw a business opportunity in saving other eateries the toil of making chowder from scratch. Now, he is in the process of launching Captain Parker's Chowder Co., a wholesale chowder business sell- ing to markets and restaurants across the Cape. "It's a good -quality chowder and it was kind of an easy decision,"said Mark Leach, owner of Dennisport Lobster Co., one of the new enterprise's customers."A lot of people like it, and wa've had a very good response to it." The story of Captain Parker's chow- der began when Manning opened the pub in 1981. "I said,'If we're going to have a Cape Cod restaurant, we have to have a really good chowder,'"he said. So he began working with his chef to create the chowder he envisioned: thick, creamy and very flavorful. Over 15 years, Mamiing and his chefs tweaked the recipe until they hit on the formula that is still in use today. Though the restaurant uses fresh clams and potatoes and cream, these components are not the key to the chowder's success, Manning said. "Our chowder is not special because of the ingredients,"he said."It's special because of the process. We've figured out how to meld the flavors together." The resulting chowder has a distinc- tive taste that often has diners trying to figure out the flavor, he said. "Then they take another spoonful and the next thing you know they're scrap- ing the bottom of the bowl;"he said. In 1998, Manning started entering the chowder in contests. And the chow- der started winning: first at the Cape Cod Chowder Fest, then the Boston Chowder Festival and then the Newport Chowder Cook -Off, which Manning calls "the granddaddy of them all." Captain Parker's chowder has been featured on the Food Network, in magazines and, in 2004, in a question on Jeopardy. The chowder has become so popular that on a busy summer day the pub might go through as much as 100 gal- lons, Manning said. The idea of selling the chowder whole- sale occurred to Manning some time ago, he said, but he knew it would be a chal- see CHOWDER, page 3 Cook Fernando Moreira adds the clams to a batch of chowder in the works. Moreira stirs two 5 -gallon vats of chowder. Moreira says they cook five batches at a time in the summer to meet demand. Moreira pours a finished 5 -gallon batch of chowder into a storage container. Does. 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