What About Bob?

 

 
Born in Connecticut in the early 1970's, I was exposed to the wonders of food at an early age, which I attribute to my two wonderful grandmothers' cooking. My fraternal Grandmother could cook anything and make it the best thing you have ever had, in that down-home comfort food style that I appreciate and still love to this day. My maternal Grandmother was of Syrian decent and I quickly learned all of the wonderful foods of that region and incorporate them in some of the things I do today.

Flash forward to my teen years. I decided that after cooking and being involved with food all of my life, from my aunt’s restaurant to my father's hot dog wagon, that food was in my blood and I wanted to go to culinary school to learn everything I could about food, restaurants and anything related to these subjects. This brings us to where beer became one of my life’s passions. My first (and I am sure I am not alone on this) American craft beer was Samuel Adams Boston Lager. It was so different from the norm at the time (Bud, Pabst, insert cheap college beer of choice here) that it really made an impact on me. The next event was in culinary school where I missed a class (Dining room-basic front of the house class) where assignments where passed out for the wine section of the class. There were no wine regions left so I was assigned beer, not lagers, or ales, but the whole thing. The research I did for that opened my eyes and changed what I thought I knew about beer forever. This is also where I met my wonderful wife of nearly 19 years, who also was a student there. When we graduated we moved to Cleveland, Oh where in the early to mid 1990's there where a few brewpubs and Craft Breweries popping up. My wife got a job at the now defunct Diamondback brewery that had a gastro pub feel about it before we actually called them that- great small batch craft beer with cutting edge fine dining. I eventually got a job there as well. I learned a lot about the process of brewing there from the brewers, which made me love beer even more, this coupled with the fine dining atmosphere was a perfect match in my eyes. After playing around the restaurant scene in Cleveland We took a big step and Moved to Las Vegas in 2001. I did all kinds of odd jobs still cooking at home and drinking craft beer, but then in 2006 I took a position with Whole Foods Market in Henderson, Nevada as their beer specialist, where I was in that position for 4 years. This was an opportunity of a lifetime for me to expand upon my love of Beer and Food and teach people about it. In 2010 my wife and I made a decision to move back to Ohio. We spent 2 years in Columbus where I went back into the kitchen at one of the Whole Foods there. We stayed in Columbus for 2 years and decided that we wanted to go back to where the journey began, Cleveland, Where I currently am in the kitchen at the Whole Foods Market in Woodmere. After a year + not writing about beer I thought it was time to get back to it. Beer and Food are passions that I felt compelled to share with the world again, but with my crazy spin on them.