Just desserts

Antoinette "Toni" Cardamone’s career change from personal trainer to pastry chef began the instant Stephen Starr tasted her Jewish apple cake.

His wife, Debbie Fleischer, was one of her fitness clients. Cardamone baked the cake for Fleischer for the holidays a couple years ago. Starr, one of Philadelphia’s premier restaurateurs, hired her on the spot.

"I went to work at Morimoto, and could not believe he hired me because I had no previous experience," said the 28-year-old South Philly resident. "I am totally self-taught."

I met Cardamone at Sunday brunch a few weeks ago at Georges’, Georges Perrier’s enchanting farmhouse restaurant in Wayne. After leaving Stephen Starr’s restaurant group a year ago, Cardamone had been pastry chef at Brasserie Perrier for six months when Brasserie’s chef, Chris Scarduzio, asked her to head up the pastry kitchen at Georges’. She began her commute from South Philly to Wayne in May.

During brunch, Cardamone’s desserts were beautifully displayed on a long buffet table and I sampled as many as I could. I was impressed with her pumpkin Bavarian, dreamy twice-baked biscotti, small almond cakes, peanut butter truffles, tiny hazelnut tarts, real homemade old-fashioned tapioca pudding and a variety of cookies, including dark and white chocolate chip with macadamia nuts.

We chatted for a while and Cardamone told me she was born in South Philly and grew up in Blackwood, N.J., but moved back to the neighborhood 10 years ago simply because she loves it.

Cardamone’s love of food and baking comes from her membership in a three-generation South Philadelphia Italian family. Her grandfather, Sam, has owned and operated Sam’s meat market at Second and Durfor for 50 years. Her father, Carmen, and his brothers, Sam and Carlo, work side by side with their dad at the butcher shop, which sells fresh meat, prepared foods and homemade soup.

"My dad makes the soup," said Cardamone. "He won’t let anyone else make it. The shop is a place where people meet, buy and talk — real old-fashioned. The register has not worked in years. My grandfather says it’s bad luck to change it. So they use an adding machine."

Cardamone said the recipe for Jewish apple cake is from her grandmother. Even though the family is not Jewish, her grandmother always made the recipe, which features a streusel topping. She describes her mother, Ada, as a "Betty Crocker type of cook" who made mac and cheese from a box but always prepared fresh meat because it came from grandpop’s shop.

"Any kind of meat was cooked to death. There was no such thing as a rare steak in our house when I was growing up," she said. "But mom and I baked Christmas cookies together. That’s when I knew I loved to bake."

Cardamone is a petite blonde with a wicked sense of humor. She is so funny and so quick with words, she just might make it as a stand-up comedienne if she ever gives up baking.

"My family is from Calabria but we never had a seven-fishes dinner on Christmas Eve because no one knew how to make fish. I guess it’s really because the family is in the meat business," she said.

Cardamone said her parents moved her and her older sister to the suburbs to "give us a better life."

"What better life? The suburbs are boring," she said. "When I told them 10 years ago that I was moving back to South Philly, all they could say was, ‘but we tried to give you a better life.’ You can take a girl out of South Philly but you can’t take South Philly out of a girl."

Cardamone’s r�sum� is an interesting mix. "I worked at the Turf Club in South Philly for five years," she said. "Then I sold diamonds on Jewelers’ Row. I always had the gift of gab and knew sales would be a strong point for me. I then worked in a bank — that lasted about a month, it was so boring. Then I trained as a personal trainer and now I’m a pastry chef."

Cardamone really got into the Christmas spirit three years ago when she thought she could save money by preparing her own dolci as gifts for her family.

"I wanted to make those fancy gift-box towers filled with all sorts of sweets," she said. "I was like a crazy woman, getting up before dawn or staying up all night baking and making all sorts of truffles. There were industrial-size bags of flour sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. I was constantly running to A.C. Moore to buy boxes, ribbon, bows, tape and Tupperware — oh, the Tupperware — once the sweets were done, I had to store them in something before they were boxed and trimmed and ready to go.

"I was exhausted by the time I was ready for Christmas. And it cost me more than $2,000," she said with a laugh.

Cardamone is now content in her career. She works 14-hour days and is in charge of all the sweets at Georges’. Sometimes the days are longer if a banquet is taking place.

"I didn’t want to leave Chris and the Brasserie but Chris told me, ‘You gotta go, you are needed there.’ I recently celebrated my first anniversary working for Georges Perrier and I don’t want to leave. I just fit in here. He treats me like family — it truly is like family here."

One of her favorite desserts is her homemade ice cream, for which she has received kudos from Perrier and his staff.

Despite working in Wayne, the chef still loves the hustle and bustle of city life even though she commutes to Wayne. Cardamone has what the French call joie de vivre. I asked her with a twinkle what she wants to be when she grows up and she replied, "Retired."

Almond Biscuits
provided by Antoinette Cardamone

Ingredients:

1/2 pound butter
1-1/3 ounces almond extract
7-1/16 ounces sugar
7-7/8 ounces egg
7/8 ounce A.P. flour
7/8 ounce cornstarch
Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together butter and sugar. Emulsify egg. Add extract and all dry ingredients.

Spray mini-muffin pan. Fill pan halfway with batter. Bake until golden-brown.