I was born and raised in picturesque Nacogdoches, the oldest town in Texas, with its brick streets and downtown square. My father, along with his five brothers, loved to cook; in fact, growing up I remember my father and uncles cooking more than my mother and aunts.

They received this love for cooking from my grandmother, Elsie Ward, who cooked southern specialties (buttered biscuits, fried pies and tea cakes) Monday through Friday, which my grandfather delivered and peddled to all the factories in town.

She did this because of a crisis in the church where she was a member: shortly after her church built a new facility, there was a church split and the remaining congregation struggled to pay the new building’s banknote. My dear grandmother, stern, strong-willed, determined matriarch of the family, took it upon herself to raise this money herself….for 30 years. As she had no daughters, she passed this love of good cooking and good eating down to her sons, which trickled down to me.

Though interested in attending culinary school during high school, I instead pursued a degree in music from Jackson College of Ministries in Jackson, MS. During my three years at this small private Christian college, I routinely volunteered in the cafeteria to help out, especially for holidays and special school events. To be honest, it wasn’t a totally unselfish endeavor….the couple in charge of cooking for the student body had a bad habit of cooking all the ground meat into a meat sauce for spaghetti on Monday, putting the leftover meat sauce into “tacos” on Tuesday, ”shepherd’s pie” on Wednesday, “chili” on Thursday….you get the picture. So volunteering in the kitchen was a way of eating something better!

The summer before graduating, I was invited to Romania by family members who were missionaries there. I fell in love with the people and the country and decided to move there after graduation from college. For three and a half years I lived in Bucharest, working for a church organization that was involved with humanitarian aid and church planting. While there, I attended the Universitate din Bucuresti and studied the Romanian language. Still today, I travel to Romania five or six times each year.

Upon leaving Romania, I applied and was accepted to the prestigious Parisian culinary school, L’école Ferrandi. This is a school that is fairly unknown outside of France, but which commands great respect nationally, assuring students of internships in world-famous French restaurants and providing an excellent culinary education.

My internship as an apprentice chef was spent at the Restaurant Avant Seine of Paris La Défense and the very exclusive Restaurant Guy Savoy. Upon graduating from L’école Ferrandi, I was hired by a company that provided chefs for various companies and restaurants, and while in their employ, I became the chef and director of the private restaurant of the Conseil des Prud’hommes de Paris.

After working in various capacities in restaurants and also in a pastry shop, I was approached by the owners of a new culinary school in Paris, who were looking for bilingual chefs to teach classes in English and French. Since September 2010 I have enjoyed teaching hundreds of students from all over the world at the school La Cuisine Paris (www.lacuisineparis.com), located on the right bank of the Seine river, just across from the Notre Dame de Paris. In November 2016 I was approached by the L’école Ferrandi (www.ferrandi-paris.fr) from which I graduated myself, and also have been teaching there since that time.

In 2017 I returned to school once again, this time to pursue a degree in Boulangerie (baking). During the year of studies, I was an apprentice baker in two very famous bakeries: the bakery Le Boulanger de la Tour, which is the bakery of the world famous restaurant Tour d’Argent (which the movie Ratatouille was based after)

and the bakery Au Petit Versailles du Marais, owned by MOF Christian Vabret. “MOF” stands for Meilleur Ouvrier de France, roughly translated “Best of France”, which is a life-long distinction given to the winners of competitions that take place between French bakers every four years.

Since November 2018 I’ve had the privilege of teaching professional baking classes in the offices of the Syndicat de Boulangers-Pâtissiers de France ( Union of Bakers of France), whose beautiful offices and kitchens are located on the tip of the Saint Louis Island of Paris.

In August of 2020 I was honored to be asked to participate in the filming of Apollonia Poilâne’s masterclass, in which I was the “ghost baker”, preparing Apollonia’s doughs and breads so that filming could be done in a timely manner. If you have never visited the Poilâne bakery, then I encourage you to do so!

The pandemic having stopped almost all my professional activity in France for most of 2020 and part of 2021, I have begun traveling to the USA more often, teaching, cooking for private events, and providing consulting services to restaurants, bakeries, cafés and coffee shops. Please contact me if I can be of any help to you!