its supportive polices for immigrant students<\/a> and people who are also working while in school. <\/p>\nXimello Sanchez aspired to become a doctor. He put himself through college at Rowan University, studying biochemistry, with a minor in biosciences \u2013 research fields that would later come in handy when he was designing practices at Mimmos to minimize cross-contamination. <\/p>\n
He graduated, but his status kept him from being able to get the loan he needed for medical school. \u201cThe fact that I have to renew my permit every two years makes everything I do uncertain. I had [to] let go [of] many opportunities in my life such as that of becoming a doctor,\u201d he said. \u201cBut, thanks to being a Dreamer, I have found ways to help the community and obtain a higher education. This has helped me a lot as an entrepreneur\u2026 in my township.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also began working as a firefighter at Tom\u2019s River Fire Co. 2. He had enough saved up to go into business, and his jobs in the restaurant business had made that an appealing option. If he could turn the restaurant into a success, he thought, he would be able to generate an income and carve out enough time to study to become a nurse practitioner.<\/p>\n
By this point, Ximello Sanchez had worked in the restaurant industry for 15 years. Working as a host and server at a restaurant called Il Giardinello in Tom\u2019s River gave Ximello Sanchez a unique sensitivity to customers\u2019 allergies and accommodations. <\/p>\n
\u201cI saw reviews of customers getting sick because of the food,\u201d says Ximello Sanchez. He knew he had to do better. In Italian restaurants especially, one of the biggest obstacles to having gluten-free food is preventing cross-contamination.<\/p>\n
Ximello Sanchez credits his time working in a lab with his deep understanding of cross contamination. In the lab, it is vital to prevent unintentional particulates of one substance from finding their way into another substance. Such attention to detail is normalized in a scientific setting – using extreme caution when transferring substances from surface to surface is standard practice. In the kitchen, it\u2019s a little different. \u201cIn real life, cross contamination is everywhere.\u201d Ximello Sanchez points out.<\/p>\n
When an opportunity cropped up in an already established \u201cgluten-free spot,\u201d Ximello Sanchez and his business partner, Everardo Flores, bought the restaurant with the same determination to stick to what made the restaurant unique – its wide-variety of gluten-free options. \u201cWe have rice flour, we have gluten free breadcrumbs, we have gluten-free gnocchi\u2026 you wouldn\u2019t believe how much you could make with those ingredients.\u201d says Ximello Sanchez.<\/p>\n
However, at the beginning, customers doubted whether the change in ownership would mean a change in dedication to the gluten-free food that made Mimmo\u2019s a local legend. Ximello Sanchez says the turning point was when a member of an Ocean County gluten-free Facebook page stopped by. Their later post detailed the incredible dedication that the new owners of Mimmo\u2019s had to accommodating its gluten-free guests. <\/p>\n
Every morning, the two owners do all the prep work, to ensure that it is done correctly and with no possible gluten interference. The gluten-free products are stored in a separate fridge, fried in a separate fryer, and always handled with gloves. Gluten-free pizzas are made with a frozen crust, using separate sauce and cheese. Even the regular, gluten pizzas are tossed with rice flour, to avoid wheat flour contaminating the surfaces in the kitchen. <\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t look [a customer] in the face and tell them their meal is gluten-free, when I\u2019m not totally sure that it is.\u201d Ximello Sanchez says. <\/p>\n
In the meantime, Ximello Sanchez is starting school at Ocean County College in the spring, and continues to work with the Tom\u2019s River Fire Co., as well as in the restaurant six days a week. When I sat down with him, he assured me he also has time to work out and do things for himself. I asked him about his ambition and what enables him to hold down all of his jobs. \u201cIt\u2019s who I am,\u201d he said. \u201dI feel like I was made for this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From left to right: Jim, Juan, Carrie, Kelly, Everardo, Gloria, and Moises, staff at Mimmo’s. Ximello Sanchez, MImmo’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[277],"tags":[18,135,19,17,32245,105674,10269,508,275084],"class_list":["post-650878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-italian","tag-mimmo","tag-new-jersey","tag-nutrition","tag-toms-river"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117139829940539770","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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