I started working as a cook in Topeka KS at a steak house called The Vintage, I was 16 years old. after working there for a little over a year I quit and began working at an eclectic/new American restaurant called New City Cafe. Here I was introduced into a whole new world of culinary techniques. I worked at New City Cafe from 1998 to 2000 while attending a high school food-service program at a local Technical school.
The Technical school provided a state-wide competition for high school cooks. I enrolled my Jr. year and won 1st place and a spot representing Kansas at a National competition. The national competition was an all day event that consisted of preparing a 6 course meal from a box full of random ingredients. I took 11th place which provided me with a scholarship that I put towards Culinary school at the at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park NY. After only one semester of culinary school I decided to transfer to Manhattan Christian College and after 3 years I received a B.A. in Theology.
With a diploma in hand and no theology jobs in site I applied at another eclectic new world restaurant called Pachamamas. I worked here from 2004-2006 as a line cook and for the last year as the sous chef. I also began to run my own catering business called Va Bene which essentially consisted of small dinner parties that could be thrown in the comfort of ones own home. Around this time I left Pachamamas and called it quits with Va Bene in order to take a sous chef job with Robert Krause at Krause Dining. I worked under Robert when he had owned New City Café and had always considered him one of my favorite mentors. Robert had worked all over the world focusing most of his training in san-Francisco at places like Aqua and Gary Danko. Less than a year later Krause dining closed down to re-locate and I began work as a server and bartender at a Italian restaurant called Tellers. I moved to Chicago in August of 2007 in hopes of furthering my culinary career.