First, I have to tell the story of how I came to like steak.  I had a pretty awkward diet as a kid, to say the least.  I ate a lot of hot dogs, french fries, pizza, baloney, and bacon.  Up until I was 15 years old, I never ate steak.  I did eat hamburgers, but never steak.  I remember having a lot of stomach problems as a kid and a lot of doctors attributed it to my irregular diet.  I think the fact that I used to drink six to eight cans of Coca Cola a day probably contributed to it in some way.  The good news is I haven’t drank soda in 15 years and I haven’t had stomach problems probably for the last 25.  But anyway, I remember one day my father being really upset that my stomach was causing me so many problems.  I was missing a lot of school, plus I was stubborn and refused to change my diet.  So, he insisted that I try steak to expand my diet.  My father loved steak.  He always ate steak.  As a matter of fact, his favorite steak at that time was a Delmonico steak.  So I had seen a lot of steak, been around it and never had desire to eat it.  But I did agree, under protest, to try steak.  My mother cooked it, I remember taking a bite, putting it in my mouth, tasting it and spitting it out.  It was not a pretty scene, I did not like the taste at all.  However, fortunately for the outcome of this story, I did try steak again and acquired a taste for it, and by the time I was 16 years old I was eating steak all the time.  My first recollections are of my mother taking me to Tad’s Steakhouse, which was a discount steak house where you could get a sirloin barbequed steak for $1.99 or $2.99.  Mom used to take me there a couple of times a week.  I would have three steaks each time, all well done.  I couldn’t stand to look at any pink or blood in the beginning of my steak eating career and always ate steak well done.  I started to eat a lot of burgers as well, (well done, of course) and I started to have a fine love for meat. 

 Now, just so you understand, my parents used to buy their meat through a friend of theirs, Mike Cohen who used to own a restaurant.  We lived in Westchester, but we were able to go down to New York City, to the Bronx, to the wholesale meat markets and buy from a wholesale distributor called Old Bohemian Meat Company by using Mike Cohen’s name.  So my dad would be buying $200 to $400 worth of meat at a time.  This is back in the 70’s and that was a lot of meat; boxes and boxes of filet mignon and New York Strips would come through the door.  At that point, dad was off Delmonico and onto New York Strip and I ate a New York strip occasionally and enjoyed it. 

 I will never forget how excited I was every time we would get a new shipment of meat from Old Bohemian.  Obviously, we would freeze them and I would have free access to all the steak I could eat.  Thanks to the wonderful loving parents I had, I never had a limit on how many steaks I could eat.  Their food was always my food and as I got older and went on to high school I always was able to eat the best filet mignon steak as often as I wanted, and I enjoyed that greatly.  At that time I was not using seasoning, I hadn’t created the seasoning yet.  But, to give you a little background of my cooking career as a kid, probably when I was about 12 or 13 years old, the entrepreneurial guy that I was, I started a little food stand off the back of my terrace called Papa Jake’s Barbeque, I was Papa Jake.  My father always called me Jake, since I was a kid, even though my name is Jack.  His father’s name was Jacob and he and my brother and my friends growing up always called me “Jake”, hence the name “Jake’s” Steak Seasoning. 

 One summer, my friend Ronnie Bard and I sold hot dogs out of our condominium back yard, out by the pool, and I found that the selling of food could be profitable, as well as enjoyable.  I loved to prepare food, I used to make my father toast in the morning and sandwiches, and he nicknamed me “shortman” for short order cook.  I always enjoyed making my own food and preparing it.  Somewhere, and I will try to get it up on the website, I still have a copy of the Papa Jake business card with the slogan “enjoy the true flavor of the barbeque.”  Also, my mother early on, I was probably 11 or 12, younger even, turned me on to her recipe for chocolate malteds which she had gotten from my Gram and Grampa when they owned a candy store in the Bronx.  From that first day to today, I saw it as by far the greatest chocolate malted in the world.  So, I already had my first secret recipe, which I cherished, and found it made me very popular as in high school I was making chocolate malteds for my friends and they loved them; it was unbelievable.  This also got me a lot of friends in college, as well. 

 By the time I went away to college, I was always eating steak out in restaurants, but now I ordered it medium well and had started to sample and appreciate some of the finer steaks in life.  My cut of choice quickly became filet mignon for its tenderness and taste.  People say that New York Strip is tastier.  I would probably agree it has a different taste, I’m not sure I would agree it is tastier, but I have loved filet mignon since I first tried it.  I hate steak with fat in it.  That is just a personal preference.  I hate looking at it, I hate chewing it, and filet mignon for me was not fatty and it was delicious. 

 Then I was off to college, off to the foothills of Syracuse, NY - for those of you who don’t know, it is extremely cold in upstate New York in Syracuse, and you are inside a lot, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing considering how cold it is.  Up there, I started to play around with food a lot more.  I started to invent a couple of different foods.  Because of my great love of pizza, (which, to this day, is probably my favorite or second favorite food next to steak) and the fact that you could not walk down the streets of Syracuse with a slice of pizza (because it was so cold that the pizza would get cold and it was too windy to walk down the street with it anyway).  I invented what I then called a pocket pizza which was in essence pizza wrapped in egg roll paper with cheese and sauce and spices.  Because I really didn’t like greasy food I baked them instead of frying them and they were delicious. 

 I opened up Campus Pizza in Syracuse in 1980.  I had just graduated but I was at that time dating someone and she had another year to go, so I stayed up there and opened Campus Pizza.  That is probably when my cooking creativity exploded.  Now today, obviously you see pocket pizzas in the supermarket all the time (and nobody knows I invented them), but I think they are more for convenience than out of the cold weather necessity from which I created them.  I also started to put other ingredients in the egg roll pizza, mixing lettuce and cheese and hot dog pieces and a variety of different spices and I created both meatless and meat filled lettuce cheese egg rolls that were just delicious.  I used to make them a dozen or two at a time and freeze them in my freezer and defrost them and for me it was just terrific and my friends loved them, too. 

 I continued to enjoy steak in the finest restaurants in Syracuse, one in particular called the Poseidon and another Grimaldi’s, which was an Italian restaurant but had a really excellent filet mignon and life was good.  In 1980 or late ’80 I moved back to New York City to begin my advertising career and again I was exposed to the finest restaurants in New York: Peter Luger’s, Smith and Wollensky, The Palm, Gallagher’s, which I never thought was that great, but basically I tried them all.  I did like The Palm above Peter Luger’s, I thought Peter Luger’s was okay, but I thought the meat didn’t have that outstanding of a taste.  By that time, I was eating steak cooked medium and loving it.

Click on the menu to see the original steak I used to eat!

In 1985, I moved to Florida and it was then the seasoning got created.  My Aunt Bunny turned me on to a Chinese restaurant called Christine Lee’s (click here to see the menu).  Now I don’t really like Chinese food, although I have eaten some spare ribs, egg rolls, and noodles in my day, but that is about it.  However, she took me there because it had the best steak she had ever had.  So, I went to Christine Lee’s and ordered the filet mignon and it was unbelievable.  It was spiced to the max and the most delicious thing I have tasted in my life.  I ate there over the course of the next couple of years pretty consistently, once a week, maybe once every two weeks, and I just loved it.  It was then I was determined to set out and duplicate that taste at home.  

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  My love for the barbeque had never waned, I was still barbequing like a mad man.  I created another invention, which friends of mine loved.  “Jake’s World Famous Cheese Dogs,” which are hot dogs cooked with cheese and spiced a certain way.  My friends who have had them can tell you they are truly unique and delicious, and I believe the best in the world.  So now I was ready.  I first set out to duplicate the taste that was in Christine Lee’s and after some months of experimentation I did it, I finally had what I would consider equal.  I could now create in my house the same taste I could get in that restaurant.  There was a lot of garlic in that spice, but none-the-less it was very enjoyable and delicious and I did duplicate it. 

 At that point, I got to thinking about it and said, “look, I can do better than this. Why don’t I make a new one I like that is better.”  So, after months of experimenting and labeling, and testing different spice combinations, I created over 20 different original recipes taking notes on what I put into each until I got it perfect and today the end result of that is Jake’s Steak Seasoning!  And by the way, at the same time I also created potato pucks which are a baked (notice I don’t like fried stuff) potato in a puck like form with delicious seasoning and spices.  Simultaneously, I came into possession of, I cannot call it my own, a recipe for ice tea.  My friend’s wife made the most delicious ice tea I have ever tasted in my life, and over the years I would drink it at her house and she eventually gave the recipe to me.  It is a fresh brewed recipe, but it requires a certain brand of ice tea and is unbelievable.  I hope you will have the chance to sample this from me, as well.  You will never go back to store brand ice tea again.  So, I create the spice, I’ve got it, I love it, I am enjoying it and, of course, my friends who know my passion for cooking and who I invite over to my house are now tasting it on the steak I cook for them and they are loving it.  As a matter of fact, I am noticing people are eagerly anticipating my invites to barbeques so that they can taste the steak that they can only get from me. 

 I have to tell you, I very much enjoyed the fact that people could only get the seasoning from me; that in order to taste steak this way that people had to be with me, I had to cook it for them.  It gave me great pleasure to treat my friends and family to this steak, to this taste and it became evident very quickly that the seasoning was unbelievably delicious on any steak. I always preferred it on filet mignon, but it was great on any cut of steak or hamburger and, as we would later come to learn, is delicious on a variety of other foods.  To name only a few: fish, chicken, eggs, other meats, and popcorn.  It’s unbelievable the variety of uses that it can be used for now because it is just delicious.  Of course my only thought then was that it be used on steak and it was that time that I coined the phrase, “you can pay more money but you can’t get a better steak.”  Because I would say to my friends, look you can go out and eat in the finest restaurants in the world, the finest steak houses and I name the Peter Luger’s, the Palms, Smith and Wollensky and any others, but you can’t get a better steak than you are going to eat in my house tonight and they would all agree after tasting it. 

 The years went by like this and I became a bit of an urban legend amongst my friends in Yonkers and my new friends in Florida.  As time went by, somewhere around 1994, I started to make some of the spice in plastic bags and give it to my friends who were really hammering me for it.  My cousin Cliff and some of my other friends would say,  “look, I love your steak seasoning so much, why can’t I have a little bit that I can have in my house and just enjoy it?” 

 Of course, I was a little egotistical and still wanted them to have to call me, but I do love cousin Cliff and enjoyed the fact that it did still bring pleasure to him and other friends.  So, I would make a little bag here and there for a very few select people, my mother included, who I trusted because I was nervous about having the formula out in anybody’s hands.  Even though nobody knew the formula, I just didn’t want anybody in possession of it. 

 By the way, to this day the formula is still a secret.  About 1995, I started sending bottles of the spice to certain friends, which I started bottling myself.  I actually bought all the ingredients, mixed them up and could only make enough for 6 to 10 little bottles at a time and keep the consistency the way I wanted it, in my own kitchen.  So, it was a painstaking effort and I remember sending a few bottles to friends.  The second year, I actually had labels printed up, that first label, which did have a picture of me on the front in a chef hat with a Tricom Pictures apron, is a collector’s item today.  So, if you have any of those old bottles, if you are one of those people fortunate enough to have one, hang on to it.  I started to send them out the first year, and as years went by, more and more.  The last year I sent out spice, I was sending out over 500 bottles to friends and family members, one bottle per family, at holiday time. 

 Yes, I happily admit I have a lot of friends, but still that became a tedious and expensive effort and a lot of work.  The first few years I went to Pier One Imports and paid $2 a bottle for empty bottles.  Then, I had to call up a bottle manufacturer and got it down to 50 cents a bottle.  I was still able to use the labels, but it became a costly venture.  That didn’t bother me so much as did the time and effort required to make such huge quantities.  In order to keep the consistency, I had to make it in small batches. 

 The amazing thing, and why I kept doing this, and why I loved it, is that I would send these out at holiday time, around Christmas, with a letter to my friends and family updating them on life. By April, usually at the beginning of April, my phone would start to ring and people who had run out would call me and tell me they needed more spice.  My response would always be the same, you have to wait until Christmas, I’m not going back into the kitchen to make it. 

 Of course, I always made enough for myself to enjoy, but I kept them waiting until Christmas.  The thing that I loved the most about this was that it kept me in contact with people I otherwise wouldn’t be in contact with.  Think of all the people you just send Christmas cards to and you don’t even talk to them on the phone; you just exchange a Christmas card and that is nice, but this kept me in direct contact with friends and their families and their lives and I started to hear comments like, “I can’t eat steak anymore without your seasoning, the meat just doesn’t taste the same,” or “my son is addicted to this stuff, he loves it, he won’t eat his hamburgers or French fries (it’s great on French fries, too) without your steak seasoning.  Please, please, please, please, send me more.”  So, I figured you know what?  This is good, people are loving this, I will tell you the truth: everyone who tries it loves it, everyone!  Everyone who tries it thinks it is the best they have ever had and want more.  So, I knew at this point there was a public market, but I really didn’t have a desire to take it public.  Instead, I decided that I would send it out if people would donate to the Voice of God Ministry, a charity of which I am a director.  This charity gives 90 cents out of every dollar received directly back to help people in need. 

 Also, I was looking to cut down on the amount of work I had to do and figured, you know what, the people who want it bad enough will send a contribution and I will send them a bottle.  This way I will have a good excuse not to have to make so much.  Well, that really didn’t help, people contributed and still wanted the spice and everybody was hammering me to put it out on the market.  They said I would be like Paul Newman: you can give the money to charity but why deprive people of this great taste.  We all love it and need it and want it, and eventually with the help of my business partner Mark, I succumbed to the idea. 

 Knowing that we would donate portions of the proceeds of every bottle sold to the Voice of God Ministry, and then finally this great taste would be available to the masses, I gave in to the wishes of the hundreds of people who have tasted it over the years and now swear by it.  I assume that you will be seeing many testimonials on our TV commercials for this and be able to taste it for yourself.  If for any reason you try it and you do not believe it is the best steak seasoning you have ever had, you have my word on a complete money back guarantee.  But trust me on this, you will try it and it will be the best you have ever had and you will not be able to do without it.  

So, we trademarked the formula and found a good manufacturer and bottler.  We  changed the label to appeal to a wider market (no picture of me on the new label).  They told me that since I am a skinny guy (I only weigh 135 pounds and am about 5’8”) and that skinny guys on labels of steak seasoning don’t sell, I shouldn’t use the picture.  But, I am delighted to be able to make this product available to people all across the country.  I have enjoyed and had the benefit of this for myself now for many years, and have had the privilege of truly having a taste that a king couldn’t buy, that Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Donald Trump, the Sultan of Brunei with all their money, can’t buy.  You know what?  “They could spend more money, but they can’t buy a better steak!!” 

 And today, you literally can have the best tasting steak in the world.  Now, I am not a fish eater or a chicken eater, so I can’t swear what it does for those foods, but I can swear to what it does for steak.  I have had many people swear to how wonderful it is on these foods.  So I urge you to try it, please share your findings and comments and thoughts with us via e-mail or mail.  We would be delighted to post some of these up on the website for others to share and enjoy.  Also, please feel free to exchange recipes and cooking tips. 

Today I have the privilege of eating at what I believe to be the finest steak house in America, a steak house called New York Prime in Boca Raton, owned by Jerry Greenbaum and his partner, and run and managed by John Gioe, and I can tell you that I eat there at least once every couple of weeks and have since the restaurant opened (click here to see the menu).  It is unbelievable; the food is unbelievable although they do not use Jake’s on their steaks.  However, I am proud to say that many of the chefs and managers of the restaurant to whom I gave gift bottles of seasoning constantly ask me for more and use it in their own homes, on their own steaks, for their own families, when they are cooking and I don’t know of any greater compliment I have ever been paid.  That’s it for now, now you know the story.  I’ll update you down the line.