The quick background on me. And this site.

So, I've been a foodie for years. I'm not a professional chef, I have zero professional training, and I don't always know what I'm doing.

As a background, I'm a nerd and I have a background in the most alpha male job in history. I have been everything from a network security software tools developer (think white-hat hacker) to a skydiving special operations forward air controller. But before I was any of those things, I was just an only child of an awesome mom and dad who both are pretty great cooks. So that passion, as well as a willingness to be creative, rubbed off on me.

I'll also apologize that I'm trying to learn to plate better. So, there will be, hopefully, an upgrade in the "looks" of these posts. Also, trying to come off as the kind of arrogant I intend to be - which is playful - and not as a jerk. It's hard with text, so, I'll keep trying. A lot of the self-deprecation mixed with the faux-arrogance and the sarcasm via bits on a page is hard to convey.

I've been posting in Facebook for years. I'll slowly re-visit those posts and turn them into a better "how-to" if you will.

I'd like to eventually be a cicerone, so most of the pairings will be with beer. I will also be doing beer brewing on this page as well; I've been brewing almost as long as I've been doing high-end cooking, and actually, when it comes to expensive gadgets, I've been doing that on the beer front longer. So, there will be lots of exotic suds.

I've also been slowly writing a cookbook, a combination of mostly my mom's recipes, a few of my own, a couple of my dad's, and a couple of each grandmother's. Those too will find home here on this blog.

I'm hosting this from my house; everything is custom, from this implementation of Ghost through a localhost proxy on Apache2 to my absurd security systems. In fact, it's a very convoluted network configuration through two separate stateful firewalls to a linux box running on an old Dell Laptop. Connectivity provided by a very complex dual-WAN configuration (Verizon FIOS + Cox) with a myriad of IPv6 tunnels, a few different DynDNS setups, and all this so that in addition to being able to stream 4k bi-directionally, I can also access my "Internet of Things" behind a robust firewall. And what's on that Internet of Things? Everything from a device for monitoring the brewing of beer to the sous-vide (and of course the Google Assistant and all that home security stuff, etc.)

In fact, there's lots of food gadgets. The pasta roller attachment for the KitchenAide, the masticating juicer, the Ninja blender, a FoodSaver I use constantly, multiple crock-pots, a stand-up smoker, a large barbecue (propane on the left, charcoal on the right), a 10 gallon all-grain beer brewing setup, a turkey deep fryer, and most of this I have on both coasts. Some of these posts will be from my home with Laura in Virginia, and some from where I live about half-time with my parents in California (I have a bi-coastal job).

So, over the next few years, I hope we all enjoy this culinary journey. I am pretty sure I will.