About the Author
Hello! My real name is Zach but many people call me Graff. Why? It’s a long story, but the short version is that it’s from a video game I used to play ages ago and there’s commonly already a couple of “Zach” creatures in any given group I tend to join. One fateful Wednesday, I was the new guy walking into a meeting and they asked my name. When I gave my real name: Zach, one person without missing a beat replied “We already have three of those, try again.” Without thinking, I responded “Graff” and the rest is history. The punchline to that story is that I worked at a data management company.
So why is a tech nerd writing a food blog? Who am I to teach you how to cook? Good questions. I’ve been cooking for over 20 years. I started as a teen with the ever so gourmet job of…re-inventing leftovers! Since then my journey has lead me through several ups and downs and consequentially, my food journey took a similar path.
My cooking has ranged from putting together entire weeks worth of food using nothing but what can be found at a dollar store, food bank and the Manager’s Special section of a super market to roasting wild caught wild boar marinated in Norwegian mead over a fire. I’ve cooked in tiny, office contests to larger city or state wide contests to being a contestant on a National TV show. I’ve cooked for the homeless, drugged up hippies in the forest, food critics and professional chefs.
My point here is that I’ve been around the block a few times…and this is all self taught as a hobby.
So that’s the “who” but now the “why”.
With the economy the way it is, many of us are finding ourselves with less time, more work, less money and more stress. Many of my friends talk about how they’d like to cook more for one reason or another. Health reasons, diet restrictions, money and more are all valid reasons to get into the kitchen but many of them are flummoxed as to where to start or how to achieve their goals. They’ve come to me and asked “how do you do it” and the answer is “practice.”
See, I’ve spent hours researching regional cuisines, studying food history, practicing techniques or cooking food. I’ve also spent hours and hours screwing up, fighting myself and my tools, and learned all my lessons the hard way.
So now I’d like to take the time to lay out the benefits of my experience for some of my favorite people and friends. I lay this out here for anyone to read because, why not? If you know me or don’t if I can help you, I’d like to.
Oh…and why “Fire and Smoke?” Well, I was out in the woods cooking over a fire back in October of 2019 and I’d just gotten done roasting a bone-in leg of lamb, letting it cook in the fire and smoke for 4 hours. I’d carved it up and served it with some roasted vegetables and fresh bread out of a Dutch oven to a bunch of random people I’d just met that day and one of them says, “Dude, you’re some kind of wizard!”. “Yeah”, goes another “Like…some kind of Goblin Wizard of Smoke and Fire!”. “And MEAT!” chimes the first, “You’re the Goblin Wizard of Smoke, Fire and Meat!”. Of all the things I’ve been called in my time, that one remains to this day one of my favorite.