Big T of Comella’s Restaurants dishes it out, this Week on “Cooks in Town” with host Katie Chapman

Tuesday, October 9, 2013 at The Wellesley Community Center

in conjunction with Wellesley Media will be taping the second show of the “Cooks

in Town” series.  If you ever wonder

who develops the dishes when you go into one of Comella’s eleven stores, it is

this month’s host, Tom Comella, himself. 

Tom’s family is from Lyons, New York between Syracuse and Rochester,

named after Lyon, France (who knew)?  Tom

moved to Sanibel Florida from Lyon NY and in 1988 he arrived in Wellesley and

worked at that restaurant and subsequently their Newton store for another 17

years.  It was somewhat recently, that

Gene, the operations manager and principal, who is Tom’s brother, brought in

his sons Matthew, John Paul and Gregory to run the eleven stores we enjoy

today.

Tom got into kitchen craft in Florida where he found himself

serving up frequent quantities of eggplant dishes and then the ‘perfect’

meatball.  According to Tom, making good meatballs

is very easy.  According to this author,

they are not!  Tom attributes his cooking

karma to his mother Katherine and his grandmother and grandfather, Termina and

Imerese who immigrated from Sicily in 1906, via the RMS Carpathia of the Cunard

Line and later of Titanic fame.

Brother Gene created the chalkboard menu after all the Aunts

and Uncles in the family.  There is even

a veal and chicken offering under the name of Grumpy T. Apparently Grumpy, er, Tom, taught cooking for

a brief period of time right here at Mass Bay some 20 years ago.  Perhaps we will be lucky enough to pick up

some tips with the next episode of Cooks in Town!" The crew sure is looking forward to it and it

is sure to be a very entertaining show.