Louie Valle
Title: owner, manager and cook, Italian Rebel Pizza Parlor.
Age: 51.
Hometown: Akron, Ohio.
Who or what was your first cooking influence? My mother. ... (She made) the Italian dishes that she learned from my grandmother.
What made you decide to become a chef, and when was that? I was going to the University of Memphis, and I wasn't really sure what direction I wanted to go. Something came up at Northwest Junior College in DeSoto County -- hotel restaurant management -- and that kind of got my interest. ... I got an associate's degree in it.
What was your first food-related job? We had a little restaurant when we lived in Ohio. It was called The Dog Hut. It was just like a Sonic type, a drive-up-type restaurant. We had that for one summer. I mostly just washed root beer mugs. I stayed all day. ... I helped cook. Like fried stuff. That type of food. Like hamburgers and hot dogs. ... I was probably about 14.
What was something important that a fellow chef taught you? If I thought someone was doing something that was working out better, I didn't have any problem adapting to that, using their method. I still do that till this day. ... Not the ingredients, just the technique.
Describe a dish you created. Our version of the muffaletta. We don't have a New Orleans style. We have a different style of muffaletta. It's our best-selling sandwich. It's a big, meaty sandwich with salami, ham, roast beef, mozzarella and provolone cheese. But instead of the olive spread they use, we have a marinated bell pepper and mushroom dressing. I wasn't real crazy about olives, so I created that for myself. That's what I liked. And everybody loved it, and we just stayed with it.
What do you cook or bake at home, if anything? My wife does 99 percent of all the cooking at home. She's a Southern girl, and she's a good cook, and we eat just the traditional Southern-style foods. But if I cook at home, it's mostly going to be just grill out, like steaks and chicken. ... Just whatever we put on the grill is usually what I'm in charge of at home.
What's your favorite food.?Lasagna.
What's your least favorite food? Turnip greens. Tastes like wet grass.
Italian Rebel Pizza Parlor is at 1636 Winchester; (901) 345-5164.
-- Michael Donahue: (901) 529-2797; donahue@commercialappeal.com
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