My first cookbook project was a first-grade class collaboration, the result offered to our moms on Mother's Day. Early kitchen work included serving as a cafeteria helper in grade school and inviting my whole third-year high school French class over for a classic French dinner, complete with soupe à l'oignon (using beef stock made from scratch) and coq au vin. An earlier culinary masterpiece was a bunny salad of halved canned pear, with sliced almond ears, a maraschino cherry nose, and a puffy mound of cottage cheese for a tail. I still have the picture to prove it.

Despite all these indicators of my natural interest in cooking, I didn't find my calling until years later. I figured a "real" career was in my future, attended the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, and got myself a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics, with a second major in French Literature (my saving grace!). French studies included two study abroad programs in France, the country's culinary traditions continued to work their charms on me.

Travel is an important part of my life, both personally and professionally. I was born in Japan at the tail end of my father's Navy career, which means I missed the years when my family lived in and traveled to spots as varied as the Philippines, Hawaii, Idaho Falls, and Scotland. I've been making up for it ever since. France is by far my home away from home, particularly Burgundy where I attended a semester of college at the University of Dijon. I returned to France to study cooking at La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine, a nine-month stay that grew into a two-and-a-half year escapade that helped satisfy my wanderlust and set me firmly on the career path I still follow today. It was a rich and wonderful time, which included an internship in the kitchens of the elegant Hotel Royal Monceau in Paris and a stint as chef in a tiny bistro in the French ski town of Auron, a couple of hours north of Nice.

While magazine articles and cookbook writing make up the bulk of my work, I thrive on the diversity of the projects I am able to spend time on. When Amazon.com launched their kitchen retail section, I wrote dozens of product reviews for the site, including one of my personal favorites, the Whirly Pop Popcorn Kettle, as well as Spiegelau martini glasses and even the George Forman Inside/Outside Grill. I also wrote some buying guides for the kitchen site, on subjects as varied as dish racks, fruit and vegetable gadgets, seafood gadgets, food processors, and pasta tools.

I have also contributed snippets about Seattle neighborhoods (Queen Anne and Ballard are two examples) to the International Herald Tribune in Paris. On the more lighthearted side of things, I've judged cook-offs (both pro and amateur) featuring everything from Spam™ (the Puyallup Fair) to chocolate desserts (Chocolate for Choice in Seattle) to seafood recipes (OysterFest in Shelton, Washington).

Speaking is a growing part of my career, a development I hadn't anticipated but am very much enjoying. An active member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, I have spoken at three conferences over the past decade, all on subjects relating to seafood, a longtime special interest of mine. More recently, speaking engagements have focused on food traditions of the Northwest, my area of greatest expertise. As a recent example, I was honored to be the keynote speaker for the 2004 conference of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, held in Seattle.

I feel incredibly fortunate to be doing what I do—writing and talking about food and drink in a wide variety of forms—in the city that I love. There is no telling what is around the corner, and I relish that part of my career as well.