Typical boy childhood memories usually involve riding bikes and playing in the dirt. But, I believe I've been a foodie from birth, and my memories go back to food and the ritualistic preparation of it by my mother. One of my favorites even today is my mother's famous broccoli cheese casserole. I can almost smell the aroma of it as I write. She diligently and lovingly prepared it as a side dish acc
ompanied by a juicy t-bone steak and savory, buttery baked potatoes. I sat on a stool in our small kitchen, and watched my mother deftly chopping onions and grating cheese for the casserole. She always chopped off a pungent hunk of cheese to tide me over and shut me up while I waited for the completed dish. My mother's excellent cooking skills and career in catering inspired my never ending hunger for knowledge of the culinary field. My first memories of a cooking show are of Julia Childs in all her glory cooking up French cuisine, and beckoning for me to come along for the ride. Growing up, most of the women in my life were avid cooks, not merely out of necessity to feed their hungry families, but people who truly had a love of cooking. Growing up in the South, my first cooking experiences were pretty limited to the preparation of soul food. I couldn't claim much in the arena of experimentation until my move to Los Angeles in December 2000. At this point in my life, I wanted and needed a change, both professionally, geographically and emotionally. By then the TV Food Network channel, now known as Food Network TV had been around for more than 7 years since its entrance into the market in November 1993. I had secretly been hooked for years watching it for hours on end in my adopted hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. I was literally addicted to watching the various chefs on Food TV – these were my secret idols. It still hadn't occurred to me though that I could actually make a living by becoming a chef – I mean seriously, I had a Bachelor's degree in Psychology, had done relatively well in college, and had been working in the field for almost 20 years by then … what was I thinking … changing career paths in mid-stream to become a chef? But that's exactly what I had in mind – I didn't just want to cook, I wanted to have a serious culinary support system that would provide me with a path to learn, grow, experiment, stretch my imagination. Close friends (mostly women) had been pushing me for years to consider going to culinary school, but I was finally in a space in my head where I could see myself having a future doing exactly that – becoming a chef. So although it's taken me quite a journey to get here, looking back over all those years, I've been the happiest when I was in the kitchen cooking. With the experience I gained from attending the Le Cordon Bleu School of Culinary Arts, and building on my own culinary creativity, I ultimately want to open my own gourmet café, focusing on offering an extraordinary dining experience that keeps you coming back for more . . . and until that happens, I keep a mantra in my head that my mother has repeated to me for most of my life. You should hear her, she's got this little hint of a Southern drawl as she says to me "Son, you can do this," and you know what, she's right!
