What is your idea of a perfect meal?
A perfectly rounded social experience, which is all encompassing of the things that make us happy. Friends, family, great food, excellent wine, music, setting, story telling, and lots of laughs! 
What recipe still gives you goosebumps?
Making chicken stock… there is something very nostalgic about the process, the smell that takes me back to my earliest days of cooking seriously. It’s a foundation piece that all other items are built on, much like my own path!
What cooking personality, living or dead do you most admire?
Those that take great risks in what they do. There are no rules in cooking from your heart.
What’s a style of cooking foreign to you that you wish you had down pat?
Not necessarily cooking, per se, but the craft of mixology. I find it appealing and at it’s highest level similar to cooking at a high level.
Which ingredients do you find yourself using the most?
Potatoes, onions, meat… it’s the base of my childhood I suppose!
What was your biggest culinary disaster?
That shall be divulged in another time, in another place, in a parallel universe!
Jiro Dreams of Sushi. What food do you dream of?
Hard to explain but really, I dream of food that connects me to all of my previous experiences and that creates something unique and personal. Something that I am connected to on a subconscious level I suppose.
What’s your most treasured kitchen tool?
My notebook. I keep all my secrets in there. I document everything related to service, food, personnel.
If you weren’t a chef, what other occupation could you see yourself excelling in?
I wish I would have gone to medical school. I love science and would love to be helping people through researching solutions to medical issues.
Mario Batali has clogs. What’s your most marked characteristic?
When I am in the kitchen, it’s a pressed white jacket. Always have to be pressed for service.
What food do you hold in the lowest of regards?
I think everything has its place… for the most part.
What is the quality you most like in a chef?
The ability to think larger than those around them, and to teach the people around them directly and indirectly.
What is the quality you most like in a diner?
Willingness to fully trust the places they dine at.
Chef Boyardee or Colonel Sanders?
Sanders no doubt.
Who or what inspires you?
When I was younger I would answer with all these famous chefs, nowadays, its my family. I look internally for inspiration.
How do you take your coffee?
Twice a day, iced, with tons of cream and sweet.
What food trend drives you batty?
All of them at this point.
In-N-Out or Five Guys?
Good question, In-N-Out after 11pm. Five Guys before.
Could you “beat” Bobby Flay?
Seriously?
Do you prescribe to any kitchen superstitions?
No.
What’s a childhood dish you loved that still sticks with you?
Palačinka – they are Serbian crepes essentially that my grandmother used to make us as kids.
Biggest cooking fear?
Showing up for an event and having forgot to order all of the items and prep everything days in advance. It’s a recurring dream. I am a huge planner.
What do you cook on your off days?
Lots of Mexican, pasta, roasted meats and vegetables, and a lot of salads. Oh, and desserts too. Anything sweet.
Go-to guilty pleasure food?
Cheesecake.
If you ate some poorly prepared blowfish sashimi and passed, what person or thing would you like to come back as?
Something that flies. I want to see the world from above.
What is your catchphrase?
It is what it is.
