The Way We Cook
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of spending time with our team in Nashua, New Hampshire. We hosted a program for dentists in NH and surrounding states – over 200 participants in an eight hour program! Thanks to our team Sheri Ganter, Courtney McInerney, Dan Hart, Susan Signori, Larry Jacobs (Editor of Doctor of Dentistry), Gregg Karlins, Lynn Mawhinney and Jessica Feil for their quality care and hard work.
A special treat preceded the seminar! Two of our Ultradent Elite doctors, Dr Jim Borbotsina and his brother Thomas joined a physical therapist friend, David Gazzola, in Manchester, New Hamshire to form a restaurant called “The Way We Cook” (see background below). Together, they have folded together the dishes they recall from their childhood in a marvelous menu. Jim moved his dental office to the floor above the restaurant so he could stay as engaged with the operation as possible. They fed us like kings! And then after we were "wined and dined", the trail of desserts began- multiple desserts in large quanitities and ALL homemade! This grand finale was an incredible array and expression of "old and new world" Greece.
Background of “The Way We Cook” http://waywecooknh.com/
The Way We Cook, opened in 2003, was conceived by two men who shared a love for cooking and wished to bring their respective heritages to the public. Both men are sons of immigrants and nourished by these traditional foods as they grew:
David Gazzola, a physical therapist, was raised in an Italian family and has been cooking the family recipes from a very young age.
Jim Borbotsina, a dentist, has similar experiences in his Greek heritage.
Together they bring forth the dishes that they recall from their childhood in a manner that is reminiscent of good home cooking.
Also, in the pictures from the restaurant you can see my wife Leenie and sons Daniel and Austin. For the weekend following the lecture, we toured some parts of New England. This was something I had wanted to do with my family for years. Part of our tour included walking the “freedom trail” through Boston. There is fabulous history there of the founding of our country and built on the invaluable democratic ideals that not only we, but so much of the world, holds precious. I recommend to all that you do this at least once in your life.


Two weekends ago, I had a wonderful time delivering a full 8 hours of lecture to a great group of dentists in Seattle. By in large, this group was a very classy group of dentists. They were knowledgeable, caring and wanting to absorb/learn all they could. That being said, something that has really helped me is learning from the evaluations provided me from the previous dentists I’ve lectured to over the last few months. They have given me some great inputs (even direct and somewhat painful at times but hey, we need these the most) that have allowed me to improve my presentation. Life is always about improving and pushing to do better each time. If we ever get to where we lose the desire to do better, we are on the downhill slope.
Michelle always has a great positive attitude (as so many of you do). She sets her own goals and then is driven to reach them. Janet is a champion. Nobody pushed this program more than her. And furthermore, her husband, Pat, a gifted firefighter up there supports her in tremendous ways. He was even at the program the night before and late, helping to get things set up. (This is something I’ve seen so many spouses do for/with our TAMS. It makes me feel very humble and thankful for the caring people and families that we all are fortunate enough to work with.) Add to these two the bright, upbeat and personable Judi Galusha, our Tam in Portland Washington, who even brought a number of her dentists to the lecture albeit from some distance plus the likes of Cody Sunderland,(Endo), Jessica and Rachel of Seminars plus the gracious and professional Marti and it was a heck of a program filled with not only great dentists/customers but with great caring Ultradent colleagues.
Earlier this year, I was able to lecture in the Eastern Europe/Central Asia region. Olga Klar, our territory manager for both areas, was a real “trooper” in helping me. We ran into a number of obstacles trying to get a Visa for a particular country in the trek. Our attempts were finally rewarded after Olga’s great efforts, without which, the trip may not have occurred at all.
Here you can see one of the programs we presented. In addition to the didactic lecture, we did live demonstrations on volunteers using both Opalustre and Opalescence Boost. The people there are hungry to learn and most gracious. Our distributor is a young guy who is working hard to build a company with his wife. They appear to have “all the right stuff” and are driven to stay focused on Ultradent’s products and mission to improve oral health globally.