About me

By trade I have been a technical writer for the last 7 years and in IT for the last 20+years, but in my mind I was always a chef, cookbook author, nutritionist and food stylist. After writing boring manuals all day long I need a creative outlet and cooking is my choice.

Last year my job was outsourced, the second time in as many jobs. After talking to several other IT companies and putting several hours/days/weeks of thought into itI decided to change my career. I looked into sales, retail management, etc and decided instead to do do what I love. I joined the APPCA and as of June 1, 2016 I became a personal chef and started Pan On The Run.

I will be starting a new blog at http://PanOnTheRun.PersoanlChef.com. My old blog http://crostiniandchianti.blogspot.com is still out there but I needed to expand what I offer so the new site was born.

Cooking Influences

My dad always liked to cook and probably was my biggest influence getting interested in cooking. I can remember watching Julia Child and Graham Kerr, the Galloping Gourmet, with him and being fascinated by the shows.
While I have cooked since I moved into an apartment when I was in college, the passion never struck me until later in my married life. I am not sure if it was interest in cooking or my wife's hatred for it that pushed me to become the "cook" in the family. The more I cooked the more I liked it. Then the Food Network started and I could watch cooking shows all of the time. This rekindled the flame my dad started and the next thing you know I have 2 cooking blogs on the internet.