Chef Dave

Hello everyone! I would like to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about my culinary career and how it started. Most people may list their first experience with cooking or food service starting as a bus boy, dish washer, or host; my exposure began earlier as a kitchen helper to my mother when I was five-years-old. The kitchens we cooked in were never anything beyond what we had in our home, but that didn’t stop us from creating wonderful meals together.

Some of the favorite dishes we made together were meatloaf, macaroni and cheese, chipped beef with peas, salmon patties, tapioca pudding, dump cake, and flavored gelatin with fruit cocktail magically suspended within the bundt-pan mold. Making these dishes with my mother wasn’t only a time to make dinner, but a special time to share. Naturally, this association of good times with my mother and cooking evolved into my love for the culinary arts.

Moving nine years into the future, and two months before my 15th birthday, I began working as a bus boy. Clearing tables wasn’t the most glorious job but I got paid an hourly wage plus tips. Other high school students would have loved to have the spending money I had. At this point in time, it dawned on me that I can eventually do something I loved and make money from it.

The next logical step was to educate myself at an institution which specialized in the culinary arts. My school of choice turned out to be the best culinary school in the world, The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. (http://www.ciachef.edu)

The experience at C.I.A. was almost out of a dream, until a Master Chef tells you your roux is burnt, your consomme' is cloudy, or your tournee'd red-skinned potato looks like it has four sides.

After graduating from C.I.A. in 95', I began what would be the next 15 years of my career in Indianapolis, while abruptly finishing it in Cleveland. Years of damage from accidents and working in the food service industry had finally taken it's toll. I had to end my culinary career after 25 years of passion, cooking, and meeting a multitude of some of the most interesting and fun people imaginable.

Since becoming disabled, I decided