Drew Lazor: Twin burners: Two Philly chefs share stoves, stories

"IT LOOKS LIKE A truck hit it."

That's not something anyone wants to hear or say, especially at 9 o'clock on a Monday morning. But there was no more succinct way to put it: Peter Woolsey's brand-new stove, custom-built for him in California and shipped across the country to his Queen Village Bistrot La Minette, was unsalvageable.

While Woolsey was unsure how it happened, he was clear on the implications. A section of his shiny new Montague that houses the manifold meant to feed gas to each of this gorgeously tuned machine's dozen high-Btu burners, was harshly dented.

He had no choice but to roll his baby back onto the truck it rode in on.

"It was like, Christmas Day's ruined," he later lamented. But he wasn't the only chef bent out of shape by bent steel. A few weeks earlier, he'd agreed to give his existing ranges, plus a 500-pound convection oven, to his longtime friend Laura Frangiosa for the low, low price of - nothing. Soon, the caterer will open her first restaurant, the Avenue Delicatessen in Lansdowne. But while her schedule has been compromised, the spirit of the exchange hasn't. These are two chefs in different places, but they're traveling in the same direction: forward.

Woolsey and Frangiosa have known each other since they were kids. Woolsey, 35, attended Lower Merion High School for a year and a half, but ended up transferring twice before snagging his diploma. Frangiosa, 33, counts the school as her alma mater.

"I really remember being dumb kids, driving around in somebody's car for hours on end," Frangiosa said. "Getting into trouble, but never large amounts."

While Woolsey peeled off to Paris to attend Le Cordon Bleu, Frangiosa began studying performing arts at Temple, but she's always had a future in food on the brain. Eager to cook dinner for her family by the time she turned 8, Frangiosa worked at a bakery, a deli and a coffee shop in high school.

After bartending through college, she became the first person to run the catering department at South Street's Whole Foods. It was a job as a sales rep for seafood purveyor Samuels & Son that reconnected her with Woolsey, who opened La Minette in 2008.

Catching up with his pal between fish orders, Woolsey learned that Frangiosa was itching to live the restaurant life. "I really wanted to try my hand at being a line cook," she said. Shrugging off conventional wisdom, the chef added his experience-free friend into his kitchen team, an offer Frangiosa took a "ginormous pay cut" to accept.

"What we do wasn't her end goal," said Woolsey. "But she got an idea of what the pace of a restaurant was."

Frangiosa quickly proved herself, but after months on the grind, she decided the late nights were cutting too much into her nonwork life.

Woolsey understood: "It was one of the easiest, most amicable partings with anyone I've ever had."

As La Minette continued to thrive, Frangiosa kept busy with private catering clients and events at Rittenhouse's COOK. Her style - unfussy, familiar flavors, prepared with clarity - will be on display at the Avenue, where the under-one-roof offerings will celebrate Frangiosa's Italian blood and the Jewish heritage of her husband, Joshua Skaroff. "I know that I'm not cut out for fine dining," she said. "It's not my personality."

While Frangiosa, along with Skaroff and partner Brian Flounders, started hammering in the million nails required to get their breakfast-lunch-dinner restaurant concept open, Woolsey made a move of his own.

Once he was sure La Minette was "doing well enough to afford it," the chef ordered up his dream stove to replace the fading Imperial model that had served him well since opening.

Nearly five years of hard-core wear and tear, including an out-of-necessity "MacGyvering process" that saw Woolsey placing metal sheets atop burners to create makeshift flattops, put the apparati in a bad place.

"Day in day out, our stoves took a beating," he said. "My guys are here at 12:30. By 1:15, the stoves are just packed with stuff. It goes on until 11 at night, taking abuse."

Still, as he considered how to make room for his upgrade, Woolsey decided there was a better destination for his old equipment than the scrap heap. With just a few hundred dollars in repairs, the stoves, which cost thousands new, could be fast and functional flame-spitters once more. "They've got life left in them," Woolsey figured. "They got me through 4 1/2 years. I don't see why they couldn't do the same [for someone else]."

In December, Woolsey put out a call to the food community, requesting letters of intent from hungry start-up restaurateurs. He received a few bites, but nothing whetted his appetite like The Avenue.

"Laura had something concrete," he said. "She's someone I know and want to succeed."

After some "very brief conversations" at Frangiosa's kitchen table, she became proud mama to Woolsey's ranges, the same burners she jostled pans on as a La Minette line cook. The Avenue space didn't have much in the way of existing toys, and she needed a more serious setup to take her menu from paper to plate - porchetta-hash latkes, chicken cutlets on schmaltz challah, apple cake muffins baked like panettone.

The plan was for Frangiosa to haul the old stuff out of La Minette the same day the new stuff arrived, get it in shape and fire it up. That didn't happen, but it will soon. On March 15, the day Frangiosa had originally notched for her opening, Woolsey's new new stove will leave the West Coast.

"It was so hard getting my place open. I would have been very happy to be on the receiving end of something like this," said Woolsey, content in his decision to lend an old friend a boost.

Frangiosa, forever thankful for the assist, isn't exactly sure when The Avenue will start cooking, but she's confident the delay won't be too deleterious. "I learn something every single day about this business," she said. Bending, but not breaking, to unforeseen dents is just another lesson. "I know it's going to be rough, but this is going to be totally worth it for me. I know it."