I’m one of those fortunate people who woke up one morning, decided to chase my dream, and in short order caught it! While I had a promising career in the insurance field, I was not as passionate about it as I was my love of cooking. That’s why at age 24, I decided to drop out from a safe career path and become a chef. That was three years ago, and I haven’t looked back.

Actually, my cooking career started while attending Ohio Wesleyan University where I lived in a house equipped with a full restaurant-quality kitchen. I decided to make use of my access to first rate equipment and figure out how to cook and I quickly realized that I loved being in the kitchen!” I spent countless hours teaching myself to cook, and by graduation, was working with an acclaimed local restaurant and cooking my “famous” Sunday dinner for a group of 25 friends every Sunday evening.

After graduation, I spent a summer on Cape Cod steaming lobsters and making clam chowder, but still not taking a career in the foodservice industry seriously, I began working in the insurance field which eventually brought me to New York.

Throughout my earlier career, food was on my mind all the time. On a whim, I visited the French Culinary Institute and, before I knew it, found myself enrolled in the Culinary Arts Program. I left my insurance job and worked as a sous chef for a small catering company in Mt. Kisco and soon began developing my own catering service, first by responding to catering jobs offered to graduates of my alma mater. Today my company, Good-Life Gourmet, is a fun loving high-end boutique caterer serving private and corporate clients in Westchester, Southern Connecticut and New York City.

After two years of successful operation, Good-Life Gourmet is now expanding with the opening of two gourmet sandwich shops, bearing the same name as the catering business and offering sandwich, salad and soup choices each day, along with gourmet take-home dinners called Good-Life Gourmet Meals.

As creator of Good-Life Gourmet, I have gotten to know the people who are eating my food, unlike a restaurant atmosphere where you don’t get direct client feedback. I get to listen to my clients’ thoughts about what I’ve made. My hope is that everyone has as much fun eating my food as I have cooking it. And now, through my sandwich shops, I can reach an even broader audience.

I wake up in the morning knowing that I am living my dream and doing something that I really love!