About me

My older sister nicknamed me the "Giggling Gourmet" and that has been my chef's call name ever since, whether it be in the kitchen, around the grill or a campfire...Love to smile, laugh and cook and then cook some more...such a great meditation and working on new recipes all the time...love sauces, herbs and spices, hot sauces, grilling and slow cooking...campfire cooking and bread baking...learning how to cook more and more all the time is the best part of it all...love sharing food with folks and trading up dishes!!!! The path in cooking is never done!!!

Cooking Influences

Wow, where do you start with something like that? I love cooking food for my wife and family all around...they have been one of the most supportive parts of my cooking ambitions throughout all of the successes and failures...the influences come from a vast number of directions as my family and extended family is quite diverse...Lot's of cooking from my own Grandmother and Ukrainian cooking, my other Grandmother in South Dakota and Native American food...my other Grandmother from my cousin Nick's side is Southern India...and my wife's Mom is Puerto Rican so the Latin flavors roll in very thick...I love food through and through and preparing dishes from around the world is a great passion of mine...the above lists is where I tend to dwell the most and I do a lot of work with Buffalo Meat...I would be remiss if I did not say here that I am also a giant fan of BBQ grilling and we do a lot of family camping so camp cooking is something else I love to do a lot of...am very proud of my campfire baked potatoes...I am also an herb, spice and condiment freak as my wife can attest...all of our kitchen cabinets and the fridge door are coated in herbs, vinegars, hot sauces, oils and the like finding ways to make them work with one another is a massive part of my cooking process...most of all cooking is just way to much fun...I am a big fan of Rick Bayless and all of his work with Mexican Seasoning and I must say that spending time with my wife's mom is one of my other biggest influences..she is an amazing cook in the Puerto Rican tradition and her knowledge of sauces and spices is amazing...I recently had the great honor of her telling me that the San Cocho that I made recently was spot on...that was humble....as well as one of the new hot sauce recipes I refined with the fresh harvest of hot peppers on the tail end of our garden for the season...so yeah the influences are many and from all around the world...I am very thankful for the amount of diversity in my own family here and we have a lot of fun teaching one another how to cook as I find myself taking on the role of keeping all of our family cooking traditions alive...