My friend DJ asked me to tell him "a story about when you decided you enjoyed cooking." This is my response to him: I've always liked cooking. I grew up in the kitchen with my aunts. I didn't start to love cooking until I started working at The Cheesecake Factory at Valley Fair mall in San Jose,CA. It was just after I started Expediting, one of my managers started talking to me asking how I liked Expoing. Told him I really liked it and that my favorite part was learning how to cook the food on the menu. That is when he started talking to me about layering flavors and how every single item on the menu was designed to hit every part of the tongue. From that point on I just stared playing. Mostly trying to recreate dishes from each of the thousands of amazing places my wife and I would eat in the Bay Area. I cooked often for years after that, but my big AH HA moments didn't come until culinary school. Once I learned methods and procedures, it was over. Researching flavor combinations and enhancing my palette became priorities. And now, here I am. I am the most relaxed in the kitchen. When I am creating something, even if it is just dinner for the family (which still uses at least three to four pans several utensils and a grip of ingredients) everything else slips away and I find myself in a place that is nothing but love. It is another kind of church for me which is funny because all those years ago when I was tugging on apron strings I remember my aunts talking to God the whole time, and though we probably each have/had our own ways of thinking about God he was/is in every dish.