About me

I work as a private chef, mostly small dinner parties and a standing Friday supper club, after a few years on restaurant lines that taught me more about pacing a room than any cookbook did. That job trained me to read a table fast, who needs more explanation, who's bored, when to move things along, and it turns out that's most of what teaching a new board game actually is. I cook constantly, I read constantly, and somewhere in there I started writing down what I actually thought about both instead of losing the thought a month later.

I'm a private chef in Asheville, North Carolina, which means most of my week is other people's dinner parties and most of my Fridays are my own table, food first, then whatever's next in the box stack. I trained at a culinary program in my twenties, spent a few years on restaurant lines before I burned out on them, and now I cook for small groups on contract, weddings some weekends, a standing supper club the rest of the time. Reading and gaming both started as the thing I did to decompress after a long service, and neither one ever stopped. I read across genres with no real plan, whatever's next to the bed, and I host a Friday table that's turned into a real gaming group over the last few years, mostly two or three regulars plus whoever I've talked into learning something new that week.

Where I am: Asheville, North Carolina

Cooking for other people all week and then cooking for myself on Friday sounds exhausting written down. It isn't, mostly. The table's just smaller.

What's here

Book reviews, board game reviews, and personal essays. No schedule, no affiliate links, nothing sponsored. I write about a book or a game after I've actually finished it and have something to say, which is why the dates on here are irregular.