In 1985, stumbling around trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, some friends suggested I take a look at new cooking school in my home town of Portland, Oregon. It had started just a couple of years before, and was offering a full-time year-long program for folks aspiring to become professional chefs. My cooking had always been well appreciated by friends and family, and I had even made some money doing catering, so I looked into the program and enrolled immediately.

At that time, the glamour world of cooking and star chefs was a fairly new concept in Portland. There were a handful of well-known restaurant owner/cooks, but they were local stars. One of those, Horst Mager, originally started the school, but he had recently sold it to a local proprietary school chain. The chefs he had hired for the school were still there, though, many of them German men who had been trained in European kitchens. The common theme was that women belonged in home kitchens, and the best way of teaching often involved elevated volume. But we learned a lot, and we learned the professional way.

I was recruited as an assistant manager and chef in a small, fine-dining restaurant, a great but grueling experience. I eventually moved on to own and operate a small catering business. During the years since culinary school, I also attended and graduated from law school, practised law, worked as paid and volunteer staff on political campaigns, and ran for office myself (I lost). I still cater occasionally, but only for family and friends, and I’ve never lost the interest and fascination with all things cooking and food.

I live in Clackamas, Oregon, a suburb of Portland, with my husband, a labor organizer who retired when he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I’m working on a number of projects online, including building this site with cooking information I hope you’ll find useful. I love sharing information, so if you have a cooking question – technique, recipe, whatever – please send it along.