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I like to jam. I like to jam with guitars and basses and all manner of musical instruments. I like to jam with people who like to think to solve problems. And I like to jam in the kitchen. Jams have one thing in common. You work with what you got, have fun, and see what you come up with. This is how I cook.

I like to start with foraging through the fridge and cabinets to see what I can use. I'll look over the equipment, survey the diners allergies and preferences, and take off to the stores. I'll see what's fresh, walking back and forth between meats and produce, thinking about techniques and building the menu as I go. I get ready for the Jam.

This site is a collection of my thoughts and experiences jamming in the kitchen. I have no professional training, however, I have studied diligently since cooking my first dish from a Julia Child recipe I found in a newspaper in 1962. Since that time, I have learned to cook everything I eat directly from scratch. My first paying job was cleaning a griddle on the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore, working my way up to short order cook and retiring professionally before high school was out. I returned briefly in college as the rotisserie chicken guy at the local Italian green grocer but that was it. I've spent the last 30 years on the road a few days a week eating in the finest restaurants, and the rest working at or very close to home where I have had the privilege of being able to cook many of my meals. I have had access to the best grocers and developed ways to find the hard-to-find stuff I sometimes need. I have learned a lot, and I'm still sucking it up like a sponge.

Sometimes, I need to check ingredients for a shopping list or check temperatures and cooking times. Most meaningful attempts at recipes, however, require that I annotate them with my notes. And since I jam in other kitchens as much as my own, I can't always access my notes. So this is my personal website. You are welcome to explore and come back anytime.