Every few years, I change my look for the simple reason that I get bored. If you Google Image me, you will see so many different looks: long hair, short hair, clean shaven, beard, etc.
My mom was a rescue veterinarian, and I grew up helping her nurse injured animals back to health. Any deer hit by a car, fox caught in a trap, whatever it was that got hurt, everyone brought them to my mom.
When I was a kid, I would come home from school, and my mom would buy the industrial-size Famous Amos cookies or Chips Ahoy when I was lucky. And I would sit in front of the TV set with a glass of milk... and I would dump cookies in there, smash them with my spoon, and eat cookies and milk with a spoon watching 'The Dukes of Hazzard.'
I like the Rockabilly look. My background is half Italian, half French. I wear cowboy boots and jeans.
I really loved traveling the U.S. and seeing regional differences within the same country and how the same ingredients are used in very different ways. I love how the 'old guard' of cuisine are still pioneering so much of the direction of food today.
Chocolate is one of the backbones of the pastry kitchen. It is one of the most important ingredients in our pantry. It is very versatile, it is complex, and it is extremely temperamental.
