The Captain BBQ Story
My mom is a great cook. My dad learned to be a great cook (from my mom, ha ha ha). With this winning combination to get me started on a long culinary journey, I had a lot of power in my corner, and I was off and running. My family included mom, dad, three girls, three boys, and an ant farm I hid in my closet. With this many mouths to feed every meal was a feast. After the guidance I needed, I would prepare my own meals only to discover that this has to be a major part of my life. Before getting into my formal training, we need to dig up some family roots and find out where it all began.
Let's start with mommy. My mom's parents, my grandparents, were from Ireland. With seven children and grandchildren, as well as, 25 great-grandchildren, grandma "started cooking." She had no choice but to feed the masses. Cooking became a way of life we all learned from, let's go back even farther. My grandmother and grandfathers' great-grandparents were church builders in Ireland. After traveling from town to town building churches, they would organize, build, and feed entire towns until the job was done. From then on they were known as the Great McLaughlins. This went back so far that what was actually cooked was never documented. But we know that if they had Captain BBQ in their blood, then it had to be good. During this stage of building the churches, it was cold and rainy so the only way to dry foundations and heat the area was build a fire and that is when turf was invented by my great uncle Kevin, known to the townspeople as Kevin Patrick, the turf inventor. So with him being the most famous in our family, I know I had to do something.
Now to my dad's side, going back about 500 years ago to my great, great, great, great grandfather. He was a Viking and leader of a Viking ship called "Odlid" meaning "Pro of Kirk." Working in between Ireland and Scotland in a little town called YPMUB pronounced (ya-pee-mab) meaning land of the lost warrior. It is known that one of the first barbecues was built out of rocks, dirt, and gravel. Cooking for everyone on the Viking ship which was about 250 plus Vikings, pigs, goats, boars, lambs and other animals gladly jumped in to the fire to be barbecued now he was known as the "Great McGonagle" The Great McGonagle family met the great McLaughlin family, which created the Captain BBQ family.
Now up to date with me "Captain BBQ" you know that I have an inherent love for food. Back to the present, I now have four years of culinary training in traditional cuisine, French cuisine, and classical cuisine. I was running a gourmet food operation with seven retail and wholesale stores. I also catered weddings and parties of any size. I've moved onward and upward to running a few of my uncle Bill and aunt Margaret's restaurants, one fast food and the other an Italian-American seafood & pizza restaurant. I also knew karate, played guitar, collected ants and worked at a public access TV station. My culinary mind was ready to explode .I wanted more, more, more. So I decided to do a 13 show cooking series on public TV and when it was done, it was done. But after the first show I realized that teaching cooking was a calling for me.
Six years later with over 200 TV shows, Fabulous Franko's Foodaramaland, airing in Massachusetts, New York and California. I still needed more, so after entering the cable access competition, I WON a national TV award, yahoo! So for a celebration present, my friends all built me a huge BBQ out of an old oil drum, so I started to BBQ pigs, turkeys, beef, etc. After a bunch of pig roasts with Penelope, I moved to California to work in the movie industry. I was now cooking for everyone in the move industry, sometimes over 1200 people were fed at a time. After working on a movie in Texas I had realized it's time for me to build a BBQ. So, I built an 8,000 pound smoker, cooker, BBQ and then a BBQ superhero evolved. "CAPTAIN BBQ"
May all your days be BBQ days.
Franko McGonagle
