Q. Fantasy class location? Why?
A.  Specialty Produce or a local farm for access to amazingly fresh local ingredients.  I think people get either overwhelmed with the amount of great ingredients we have here in San Diego, or they get pigeonholed into using a few of the same things they are used to using. It would be amazing to highlight some of these incredible places and products to show people how easy it can be to make fresh food with just local ingredients and a little bit of elbow grease.

Q.Path to chefdom?
A. I started over at the age of 30, after working as a federal officer for the department of homeland security and working as a musician. I took some adult education courses, being inspired by the early days of Food Network and the celebrity chefs.

Q. First job in culinary?
A.  When I moved to San Diego after taking the culinary courses, I left the government and started working at a place called Great News! Cooking School in Pacific Beach. This was an amazing experience, meeting local chefs and vendors, and getting into the local Chef scene in a very fancy way. 

Q. What came next?
A.  From there, I worked in a lot of restaurants, launched food trucks, launched restaurants with the biggest food and restaurant groups here in San Diego.  Worked for some of the biggest catering companies as well, after gaining all that knowledge and experience I launched my own company in 2018.

Q. Top life lesson?
A. The one valuable thing I will tell people is always work for amazing people, and learn and take those skills with you.  Be a sponge. I still work closely with a lot of those companies to help them out when needed.

Q. Advice for your younger self?
A.  If I was starting at a young age like I did with music, I would tell people to forgo culinary school, and try to travel and learn from some of the best chefs in the country or the world. If you can’t put money together, at least learn from some of the best chefs in your city.