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With all the new places popping up in the area, it’s hard to decide where to go or what to see. Jacqueline Peccina-Kelly — also known as Chef Jacquie — is here to help.
“The tours I was doing overseas to Sicily and to France … I started with my family and friends and their kids. I was just in charge of renting out chateaus in France, then I’d come home and here’s reality,” Peccina-Kelly, who grew up at 12th and Bigler streets, said. “I had this really great plan, but I thought you really can’t do all this [traveling to Europe], so what do you do with the rest of the time?
“Once a year, I still do [travel], but a friend said, ‘Why don’t you take us down to South Philly where you grew up and show us the Italian Market?’ So I called my friends and passed it by them.”
Her “friends,” who include childhood acquaintances that now own many of the area’s top restaurants, including Chiarella’s Ristorante, 1603 E. Passyunk Ave., and Pat’s King of Steaks, 1237 E. Passyunk Ave., greeted her idea with open arms. And so was born the monthly tour called, “Taste of the Italian Market,” where Peccina-Kelly leads small groups around the Italian Market for tastings and small history lessons. The second tour she offers came shortly on the heels of the April 2010 inaugural group, during a lunch outing on the avenue with her brother, Nick Peccina.
“I was shocked at how East Passyunk Avenue is now, and when I walked with my brother in that little strip near the triangle, I thought, ‘This is like Italy, like my tours in Sicily or Rome,’” the 48-year-old said. “I thought this would be great for restaurant hopping and tasting at nighttime.”
Peccina-Kelly developed “Taste of the Avenue,” which she also offers once a month on Thursday evenings as opposed to the family-friendly Italian Market tour on Friday mornings. The chef, who also specializes in Farmers Market demos, loves showing people around her old haunts and some of the area’s newest additions.
“The tours have been great. There are a lot of people from the area, as well, which tickles my heart to be able to show where the good spots are in Philly,” she said.
The intimate tours are lead by Peccina-Kelly, especially since most of the spots are personal connections she has had since childhood. The insider knowledge and the special treatment help to show locals and visitors alike true South Philly hospitality.
“I only take 12 people, a max of 12. I do all the tours myself. We walk in and get to meet the owner, the chef comes over and talks about the dishes and maybe the history of the restaurant or their business, whatever it is, about how it came to be what it is,” she said.
Peccina-Kelly’s mother, Lucy, is from Abruzzo, Italy while her father, Luciano, hails from Bologna, Italy where, at age 3, she moved.
“I lived in Bologna from the time I was 3 till 7. Then we moved to Miglianico in Abruzzo from [age] 10 to 11. I went to school there and, at the time, like fourth grade, my Italian was actually really good,” Peccina-Kelly said.
She then moved back to Marconi, which seemed a world away but with endless possibility.
“I came back to South Philly and it was a brand new world to me. The culture and the food — it was American-Italian cuisine, which is different than Italian, very similar, but different,” Peccina-Kelly said. “That’s been interesting. As I was growing up, my family was just Italian cuisine — as far as they’re concerned the only cuisine was Italian, but I thought there’s got to be more than Italian.”
As a youngster with a father from Bologna, which, she described as an “oddity” in South Philly, she attended Stella Maris School, 814 Bigler St., until 1977, then went to St. Maria Goretti High School, 1736 S. 10th St. Upon graduating in ’81, Peccina-Kelly worked as a realtor for nearly a decade.
“My husband [Kevin Kelly], when we got married, he said, ‘Jacqui, please, you’ve got to stop being a realtor. I don’t think it is the career for you. The only time you actually have a smile on your face is when you’re cooking,’” she said.
With this realization, Kelly gave his wife the greatest gift she didn’t know she wanted when he enrolled her in the two-year program at the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College.
“I never even cooked until I was 21. I was very lucky, since my mom is from Abruzzo and my father from northern Italy in Bologna … I had northern cuisine from the day I was born,” she said.
Though she toyed with the idea of opening a restaurant, Peccina-Kelly spent time in the kitchen through an internship that quickly brought her to the realization that she needed both food and people to be happy.
“I had a really lousy apprenticeship and I realized the kitchen maybe isn’t the place for me. I need to be around people. I need to be meeting people and having them make a healthy connection with food,” Peccina-Kelly said. “The tours have been great for me.”
In addition to the South Philly tours — which she operates under the name Taste 4 Travel — the guide still runs an annual guided trip to Italy, with the next one occurring April 2012. Attendees have a gastronomic exploration of her favorite spots, just like she did when she started. And though she wants to continue being the sole tour guide, she is bringing some fresh blood to the family business.
“They’ve actually worked for me,” Peccina-Kelly said of son, Kevin, 18, and daughter, Sabrina, 15. “I don’t want to tell you what my son said he was that day [he worked] for me, but they would carry my bags. My daughter made shopping bags for people to bring around on the tour – that sort of thing.
“They are going to start coming to Sicily with me. My son is a senior in high school and he asked his teacher if he could get credit if he went on one of the tours, so they are working on that. My daughter found out and thought that was great, so she asked, too.” SPR
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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