My name is Stephanie Alejandro McMillan. I'll be maintaining this here blog, answering all your questions, sharing recipes, and posting some amazing pictures of sumptuous pizzas, our ginormous calzones, and our super fresh Greek salads (and so on, and so on..)
First I'll tell you a little bit about me and about the hubby. My father had several restaurants before I came into this world and after. The most successful by far was El Gallo Molino.
Some of my best memories growing up are at Gallo. I sold tomatoes in front of that open sign when I was 10 years old. I miss the fresh corn tortillas (my father's recipe) and the taste of lengua with a little bit of salt. I still love barbacoa and lengua, and maybe it's nostalgia, but nothing tastes like my father's food. Everyone in my family has always loved to cook. I remember my Grandma Alejandro would get up at the crack of dawn to cook breakfast (a big tub of manteca sat next to oven, ready to be delicious). Recipes for all our items come from my family and from Jeremiah's family, though we've added our special touch to everything. Even the recipe for our delicious Chanchi (a pizza with onion, olives, and avocado on beans and cheese) comes from my cousin Sandra, whose nickname from all the young cousins is Chanchi. My brother Steven is a baking whiz, and comes in to make our mouth-watering brownies. Jeremiah's father Fred has also worked in the pizza industry and Jeremiah's mother Janet makes the best Gumbo you will ever eat in your life.
My husband has worked in Greek, Cajun, and Italian kitchens. He's also worked fast food pizza, and he's brought everything he's learned to the table. Jeremiah 'Mack' McMillan is the kindest, strongest person I know; he's my rock and it doesn't hurt that he makes delicious food. He won me over when me met in these 3 ways:
a) he took me to the zoo
b) he took me to the symphony
c) he made pasta for me, and his sauce was impeccable. My father is the only other person I know who has such a gift with sauces. I remember the first sauce Jeremiah made for me was a white cream sauce (I'm still not sure what magical things he put in it, but it was a miracle).
We started Gallo Pizzeria on the same corner on which I once sold tomatoes. We are on the West Side of San Antonio, close to downtown and OLLU, corner of Castroville and 21st. We opened in July of this year, and nothing I have ever done is my life has been so magical and so fulfilling. We love our customers, we love our food, we love our employees. Gallo Pizzeria is a gift to us, and we want nothing more than to share it. My husband and my father laid down every tile in our humble 2nd home (a restaurant really does become like a 2nd home), and every painting in the building was painted by my father Eddie Alejandro, Sr.
Now that we've introduced ourselves, you'll be hearing a lot more of us. We'd love to tell you everything we know about the ghost pepper, share some exciting links with you, fun articles, and photograph all our new discoveries. Speaking of photographs, we want to thank Erik Gustafson again - your photos of our establishment make us so happy. We hope it's okay if we continue to share them on our blog!
Much Love,
Stephanie Alejandro McMillan
