By Joseph Sapia
FAIR HAVEN – A preppy Jennifer Weber-Zeller thought back to the late 1970s, when she met a very different classmate at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School.
“My first day of high school, my French class, surrounded by preppies, all of a sudden, this wild girl walks in – wild hair, ‘Punk Forever’ T-shirt, cigarettes rolled up in a sleeve, torn jeans,” said Weber-Zeller, who still lives in Rumson.
How would she describe her close friend to this day?
“She’s wild,” said Weber-Zeller, 52. “She is funny, salty, warm, smart as hell and brave.”
The friend, Rossi – no second name necessary – is a writer, painter, radio host, lesbian, LGBT rights activist and feminist. But, perhaps, she is best known as Chef Rossi, owner of one of New York City’s most trendy – because it does not follow trends – caterers, The Raging Skillet.
On Thursday, March 10, at 7:30 p.m., Rossi will do a reading and signing of her recently published memoir, “The Raging Skillet, the True Life Story of Chef Rossi, a Memoir with Recipes,” at River Road Books.
Rossi – who lived in Neptune, Bradley Beach and finally at the corner of Carton Street and Forrest Avenue in Rumson – fled the local scene when she graduated from high school a year early at 16 in 1981.
“My parents thought I was eager to go to Brookdale Community College,” said Rossi, 51. “They didn’t know my bags were packed. I wanted to go somewhere where I could be wild and free.”
She landed in a Long Branch hotel “that had hookers and truck drivers,” she said.
“I had a dragged-around-the-block look,” Rossi said.
Rossi’s running away did not sit well with her Orthodox Jewish parents, Harriet and Marty Ross. And being sent to live in Brooklyn with a Lubavitch rabbi, whose job it was to turn around wayward girls, did not sit well with Rossi. So, Rossi took off, but stayed in New York City to be a writer and painter.
At one point in the 1980s, Rossi, who now lives in Manhattan’s East Village, was selling New York Times subscriptions and bartending at Trivia, a neighborhood bar in the Flatiron district. So began her journey into cooking professionally.
She said she bartended “with the same 30 drunks at my bar everyday.”
“I started going in the back, getting them something to eat,” Rossi said. “I would make up nachos of the night – tuna melt nachos, spaghetti and meatball nachos.”
And she got a cult following.
Rossi – the name being a nickname play on her last name – gained popularity in the 1990s and Chef Rossi took off. She now runs her Raging Skillet catering on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Rossi says she has thought of opening up a restaurant, but, one, she does not have the money to do so and, two, the seasonal ebbs and flows of catering allows her time to pursue her other interests.
Rossi writes a column for Bust magazine, a blog for the Huffington Post, along with hosting a radio show on stations WOMR and WFMR on Cape Cod.
“It’s anything but a cookbook,” said Rossi, speaking of her book. “I do sprinkle recipes. (But) it’s really (about) making it against all odds, in a man’s world. I’m blessed with a filthy mouth and chutzpah.”
“The overwhelming thing I’ve heard is she’s sort of a force, a ball of energy,” said Karen Rumage, co-owner of River Road Books. “This is a laugh-out-loud-type of book.”
Jacques Lamarre, a Connecticut playwright, has turned the book into a playscript and the play is being considered for the 2016-2017 season at a New England theater company. The play includes three chefs – one being the Rossi figure and the other two various people in her life – who cook onstage.
Rossi’s book is “very funny,” Lamarre said.
“It’s very much her voice,” Lamarre said. “It’s like you’re sitting in her kitchen while she’s telling you all these stories. You’re immediately drawn into her personality.”
Rossi keeps in touch with local friends and gets back to the Two Rivers area occasionally.
“Ultimately, people remember me with a lot of love,” Rossi said. “The thing about being brave or strong, your individuality in high school, it’s hard, (but) people remember you.”
Now, she is looking forward to her appearance at River Road Books, where she will treat the audience to food she will prepare.
“She’s an extremely accomplished and successful chef with a lot of interesting things to say,” Rumage said. “We’re thrilled to host her.”
“Afterwards,” Rossi said, “we’re going to Barnacle Bill’s for drinks.”
