They Still Call Me Chef

A handful of ya’ll asked where I wandered off too for so long. Rest assured I was still taking pictures.
This should about catch ya’ll up.

New video drops next weekend…
😉

Whew! It’s been a minute!
This last year has been a whirlwind.

I’m excited to be back taking pictures, filming content and engaging in general shenanigans.

Here’s some snaps from an adventure in our neighborhood.
Drop a line in the comments and say what’s up.

And, if you’re local, try the Father Figure at

Special shout out to the folks at for assembling the “Taste of “ packages. With a house full of people to watch the final round, the little details in the package elevated the experience.

2024 started with a strong list of goals, budding partnerships and even bigger ideas. By September, the whiteboard of my 2024 content strategy had been wiped clean.

The sad reality; I bit off more than I could chew and while making content that looks cool is fun, my storytelling skills were severely lacking.

Enter 2025. No partnerships, no clients and one goal. Tell better stories.

Better stories means filming more, shooting more, being more present.

Cheers my friends, thank you all for following along.

Shout out to the for showing us an AWESOME time yesterday.

I went back through for my annual review of my work.
In June I fell into a bout of burnout that I 100% created. With that said I wasn’t expecting to love what I saw with the benefit of hindsight.
What I found was a powerful lesson in self-awareness. The resistance we battle is entirely within ourselves.

Happy Holiday’s my friends.

Coming aback has been more difficult than I thought it would be.

Finding the balance of a let it rip attitude and not feeling the pressure to post for the sake of posting has tough.

In my absence it feels like long-term food creators have gone in two different directions.
1) here are these four premade things I’ve assembled for you into a “recipe.”
2) here is this beautifully executed, meticulously researched recipe.

I can’t tell if I’m burnt out on the subject matter, or just focusing on the wrong things.
In all its iterations, this account has served as a sounding board for myself, and I work through yet another iteration of the creative process.

A creative process that started in a dank, dark kitchen, that smelled strongly of cigarette smoke, potatoes and fried fish.

That was almost 20 years ago, so I suppose this is progress.

I’m not going anywhere, but, I’m also not sure where I’m headed.

Our favorite Sunday combinations usually include something spicy and my favorite hazy IPA from

This week is no exception. These carnitas benefit from a flavor bump via Mexican

There will be more videos soon but I’m having a blast with these photos in the mean time.

I cannot tell you how happy I am to be back in the kitchen and behind/in front of, the camera.

I’ll have a video and recipe for this eloté dip up next week.

The number one complaint I hear about wings on a pellet grill? Not crispy enough. So here’s chicken wing rub and method for crispy-er chicken wings off a pellet grills.

Rub (this is listed in parts instead of exact measurements, this way you can scale up or scale down as needed. Hint - use a metric scale).

All spices are from my friends at
1 part garlic powder
1 part paprika
2 parts msg
1 part sage
1 part shiitake mushroom powder
1 part baking powder (note; look for one with out aluminum in it)

Method
Pat your wings dry and liberally season both sides.

Set your pellet grill to 240 degrees and cook your wings for 90 minutes

Increase the temperature to 400 degrees for 20 minutes, flipping after 10 minutes

Reduce your temperature back down to 240 degrees and cook to an internal temperature of175 degrees to allow the collagen to break down further. (Shout out to for that tip on the internal temp).

Remove the wings from the grill and let them air dry for 10 minutes before saucing them.

And done.

Truth be told, I’ve never been a rib fan (until this year).
There are texture issues, and it always felt like none of my favorite BBQ rubs went well with ribs the way I liked them.

See, I think the sauce should be sweet, but I don’t wrap my ribs and as such I didn’t want a sugar heavy rub. Burnt sugar is gross and mealy ribs are even worse.

So here’s my rib rub, it should come as no surprise that the simple recipe, checks all the boxes.

Yes it has MSG, and before you go flying off the handle, I promise you most of your favorite foods do as well.

But I digress, the rib rub.
5g MSG
5g Hungarian Paprika
2.5g Garlic Powder
2.5g Guajillo Chili Powder
2.5g Black Pepper
2.5g Kosher Salt

A big thank you to my new friends
Grilling season looks a heck of a lot more delicious thanks you ya’ll.