| Birth Date: | 1936 |
| Birth Place: | Cosenza, Calabria, Italy |
| Death Place: | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Style: | Italian |
| Television: | La Cucina Italiana con Pasquale, Pasquale's Kitchen, Pasquale's Kitchen Express |
Pasquale Carpino (1936 - December 30, 2005) was a popular television chef in Toronto and an operatic singer.
Born in the southern Italian province of Cosenza, Calabria in 1936, Pasquale immigrated to Toronto in 1958 at the age of 22, arriving alone with only a few dollars in his pocket. He was intensely passionate about music, most specifically opera. Pasquale met his wife Evelina, a soprano singer of Italian descent, in 1964. They had two daughters together, Beatrice and Lisa.
Pasquale began his career in cooking as a dishwasher and prep cook at several restaurants located around the city of Toronto. With his dedication and talent for food, Chef Pasquale eventually became a chef and later a restaurateur. While continuing to progress his cooking career Pasquale studied opera at the Royal Conservatory of Music.
Pasquale's original cooking show played on local Toronto television in the late 1970s. He hosted La Cucina Italiana con Pasquale on CHIN television during Johnny Lombardi's Sunday Italian programming on CITY-TV, Global Television and Rogers Cable's community chanel. Later Pasquale was the host of popular cooking shows in the 1980s and early 1990s by the names of Pasquale's Kitchen and Pasquale's Kitchen Express. His trademark outfit was a blue smock, a white necktie and a red chef's toque. Pasquale engaged the audience in his cooking while singing at the same time. The food prepared on the show was for the most part Italian, usually consisting of an appetizer, entree, and dessert. The episode would usually end with Pasquale pouring wine and serving his dinner to an audience member. He developed a cult following in Toronto and was parodied by Tony Rosato's Chef Marcello character on SCTV.
Pasquale's cooking technique focused on quick full multi-course meals. In different episodes he quoted a different time allotted for his four-course meal: 18.5 minutes to 22 minutes.
The meals were composed of several dishes: one for carbohydrate (usually pasta or risotto), another for protein (chicken, meat, or fish), and two of each of an appetizer (e.g., frittata), a dessert, a soup, or salad.
The meat dish is usually made using a pan-grilled method: grilling the meat on both sides in a little olive oil, then adding the sauce composed of chopped vegetables (such as mushrooms, potatoes, zucchini, onions, garlic, parsley, and celery, which are steam sauteed in a separate pan), then adding either 35% cream or tomato paste. The sauce was always added to the meat pan, so in the process deglazing it.
The pasta/rice dish was made with a similar sauce, but the pasta/rice added to the sauce instead of the other way round.
In both sauces, he would add broth from a pan beside the stove top.
On rare occasions, Pasquale would use the oven, for example, when cooking roast veal, rigatoni, or focaccia bread.
Pasquale would often repeat certain quotes while he cooked, such as:
Pasquale's fame is due greatly to the fact that he was one of the first celebrity chefs in Canada. Known as the Singing Chef, Pasquale once said :[1] Pasquale Carpino died December 30, 2005, of complications from surgery.[2]
Pasquale's Kitchen Express continued on air in re-runs on OMNI.1 and Citytv in Toronto.