Al Frugoni

Hello and thank you for wanting to know more about who I am and what my business is about.  First a little back ground on the country I was born in, Argentina.  It is a country of glaciers, gauchos, desert, rain forests, the Andes mountains, the Patagonia, Tango, Malbec wine, top quality meats and the world famous Chimichurri sauce.  In Argentina we pride ourselves with our cattle that graze the highly fertile lands.  It is exported all over the world and served in many fine restaurants.  Being raised in Argentina means your first word is ASADO.  Asado is our word for bar-b-que but it means so much more than that. It is an event that takes place a minimum of once a week and requires the attendance of the noble Malbec wine. I grew up in Buenos Aires a province that acquired an influx of Italian immigrants in the early 1900s which added much flavor to the Argentine cuisine.  When I was not eating those juicy steaks I was eating milanesas, cannelloni, and raviolones.  It is our tradition to eat ñoquis on the 29th of each month for luck.  Our lives as porteños (Argentines from Buenos Aires) requires a fusion of the rustic gaucho ways of cooking meat on open fire flames and the fine culinary art of the delicious simplicity of Italian cuisine.

In the year 2000 I lived in Rome and Spain for a year and came across an interesting woman from Texas. When she became my wife we moved to Buenos Aires and had our three children there.  Each year as we visited the states, I began to incorporate US favorites into my cooking. Loving all the culinary variety that the US has to offer we could not stay away.  In 2015 we left our Argentine businesses, bought some cowboy boots, and began to acquire a taste for the JALAPEÑO. We moved outside San Antonio in the Texas hill country.  I fired up our new Texan grills and began to get schooled on Texan traditions. We had our traditional Argentine meats accompanied by the famous jalapeño poppers, German sausages from Fredericksburg, TX and that delicious brisket.  I loved being a part of the variety of techniques in bar-b-queing and using different types of woods, sauces, rubs, and spices.  With my Italian- Argentine culinary background I fused the favorite flavors of the US and just had fun with it on my own grill.

 Open fire grilling takes us back to simpler times and allows us for a moment to enjoy what is important.  It can engage all ages.  It doesn’t matter if it is 105 or 20 degrees outside, rain or shine, I enjoy grilling.  Nothing says more than sharing food with people. It brings us together and creates a moment.