Welcome, everyone!
Hi, my name is Steven Thompson, and I am the head cook, recipe developer, dishwasher, photographer and I.T. guy for the food blog, Sips, Nibbles & Bites. As a hobby, the blog has been a real labor of love, allowing me to put the recipes that are in my head online for my friends and family to enjoy as well as documenting what my partner of 19 years Christopher and I like to eat, drink and snack on. It covers a pretty wide variety of recipes, techniques, and cuisines, we love to experiment and create new and interesting recipes that keep us entertained.
I no longer work professionally as a chef (I’m a watchmaker now); however, I did graduate from the French Culinary Institute in New York City back in 2001, my focus at school was in Pastry Arts. After graduating I worked at Jacques Torres Chocolate Factory, apprenticed at Bobby Flays Mesa Grill, before returning to the school and working in the student restaurant L’Ecole where the Deans and Master Chefs Jacques Pépin, André Soltner, and Alain Sailhac ran the kitchens.
After New York we returned to Dallas, Texas where I spent the remainder of my professional cooking experience in the pastry kitchen at the Four Seasons Resort and Hotel and on the side, helping my buddy Jason Boso when he opened a local and rapidly growing chain, The Twisted Root Burger Company, you should go have a burger and try my ice cream recipe there!
As far as developing recipes, I’d say the best, or at least the lesson that stuck with me the most from culinary school was the pound cake. Four ingredients all weighing one pound, simple enough, however, the Chef Instructors had us all change something about those four ingredients. A little more of one ingredient, a little less of the other and then observe each other’s results.
From this lesson, I learned how these simple changes had dramatic effects on the final outcome of a recipe and how to understand the ratios and formulas that make recipes work (or fail) and to develop new recipes. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of recipes that are a huge flop the first time I make them. But we go back to the drawing board, figure out what the problems were, and then fix them.
I am not a trained photographer and my photography is often a little amateurish but I’m learning and trying to improve my techniques. But I only cook what we eat, so I am not cooking just to take pictures, I can’t see wasting food like that.
My food styling for photography is regularly hampered by trying to rush to photograph the food before our dinner gets cold. Often, I will take the pictures, then dig in and start eating only to kick myself for not garnishing properly or forgetting a component or two. But in my defense, a lot of those pictures were taken after a cocktail or glass of wine or two, have you seen the ‘Sips’ section?
Thank you so much for visiting my little food blog! I sincerely hope you try some of my recipes and that you enjoy making them as much as I have enjoyed making them for you.
Thank you for reading! Steven
Ps. The Email Subscription is only to notify you of new recipes, I will never send spam (unless it’s in a recipe!), so please subscribe and be the first to know when I post something new. Cheers!