Dear Foodie,

I have been dreaming of having my own food blog for years and now it’s come true. Let me be the first to welcome you to Foodie In Disguise!

I have been blogging about food on my personal blog (www.scottmindeaux.com) since I started blogging in 2001. Now it’s time for a home of its own. I created Foodie In Disguise to focus on the food side of my life: the passion for good food, my brief culinary career and to meet other foodies! I’m also going to use this blog to talk about my struggles with personal health issues – my struggles with weight, Type II Diabetes and high blood pressure. Talking about my issues in an open forum can help me, but it may also help someone else. This blog is just as much about you as it is about me.

The tagline to this site reads: Computer Geek by Day, Foodie by Night. Weird combination eh? But I suspect I’m not unique and that there are other “geeks” like myself that are in search of that perfect bottle of olive oil, or feel like a kid in a candy shop when they visit a restaurant supply store. I want to reach out to those that find just as much comfort in a bowl of Captain Crunch™ as they are in finding that perfect medium-rare ribeye. When I’m not obsessing over computers, gadgets and sci-fi, I’m pre-occupied with the culinary world.

This blog is actually a sister blog to my personal site, The World of Scott Mindeaux – a personal blog that I have had for the last 8 years. There you can find the more intimate details of my daily life as a Creative IT professional working for an advertising/marketing agency in Irvine.

FoodieInDisguise.com soft-launched on Monday, Septmeber 29, 2008. Since then I have rebranded the site and have more offerings than I did when this site started. There are many more changes coming in the near future so stay tuned!

So more about me…

My earliest memories of cooking go back to when I was about 5 years old. My mom was sick in bed and she was hungry. Dad was at work so it was just me. I made my mom scrambled eggs. It was an iron skillet – not seasoned at all) and I remember that I didn’t use any oil. My vague memory of the event was that most of it stuck to the skillet!

I learned more and more as I watched my mom and others thru the years. I found myself cooking whole dinners for my family by the time I was in junior high. Cooking has always been something that was second nature to me.

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Cooking became my professional career for 3 years – I took a sabbatical from my IT work in 2002 and gave up my hard drives, CPUs and CDs for spatulas, sauté pans and knives for a career in the culinary arts. I found myself running a cooking school (Sur La Table) in Arlington, VA.

It was an adventure to say the least. I have had the pleasure of working with some of the best employees and kitchen assistants at Sur La Table. In addition, I have met some great chefs and some culinary notables such as Jacques Pepin, Joanne Weir, Christopher Kimball, Dorie Greenspan, and Alice Medrich. Perhaps those were the best two years I have ever had. The people, the students, the volunteer kitchen assistants all touched my life in some way and I wouldn’t trade that for anything!

My culinary career started off as being a chef’s assistant at the culinary school I was attending in June 2001 where I completed my Professional and Pro Baking courses. I was a TA (chefs/teachers assistant) for the recreational courses being taught at The New School of Cooking in Los Angeles (Culver City). It was there that I met my culinary mentor at the time, Carol Cotner Thompson. Carol is a frequent guest on KCRW’s Good Food with Evan Kleiman.

I used to cook food all the time during my previous stay in DC and even did some small catering jobs. Now that I got some professional training under my belt, I have found that I really enjoyed teaching.

While working at one of Sur La Table’s more successful school locations, I got more involved in the content management side of things as Sur La Table was readying an online registration system for their culinary program across the US. Here, people could sign up for classes and get access to class information without having to wait for the mailer. I was promoted and soon moved to Seattle, WA to work at the coprorate offices. My experience working in the field would be valuable as I worked on the team that developed the content and cirriculum for the schools.

Since my time with Sur La Table I have returned to my career in IT and specialize in Creative IT Systems. I work for a successful marketing and advertising agency, Ignite Health in Irvine. We specialize in pharmaceutical marketing and advertising. In addition to my duties in IT, I’m also in Operations and Facilities. I help keep the building running. In addition to those two “hats” I have also managed a couple of potlucks and company events and this year we will be hosting our Third Annual Holiday Dessert Event in December.

Thank you for taking the time to read about me. I hope that someday I will get to meet some of you on my adventures in the quest for good food, drink, and all things culinary!