Hi, there!  I'm Ben.  I was born in San Antonio, Texas on July 14, 1977...that's Bastille Day for those of you who know French history, and it's also the anniversary of the day Billy the Kid was gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Lincoln, New Mexico.  

 

I grew up in Abilene, Texas, which is a relatively small city about 3 hours west of Dallas, basically in the middle of nowhere.  I lived on what you might consider to be a small farm, surrounded by sheep, pigs, goats, and chickens.

 

I started learning to cook at age 4 when I took an interest in the way my grandmother, Meemaw, was making toast in the oven.  (We were too poor to own a toaster oven, especially when the main oven did the exact same thing.)  I demanded that she teach me, so she took out a loaf of stale bread and a stick of margarine (don't ever eat margarine, by the way, it's all trans fat) and she set me to practicing.  About an hour later she was walking by the kitchen when she heard me bragging to myself, "Who ever heard of a 4-year-old making toast?"

 

I like to think I'm a little more humble about my cooking these days, but I have learned alot since I was four.  Both my grandmothers and my mom were housewives and cooked 3 meals a day, so by the time I left for college, I was pretty skilled in the delicate art of Southern cooking.  After a few years of college, I accidentally stumbled into a job as a travel agent and started roaming the world.  But I found it more fulfilling to stay with local families, rather than in hotels, and this is how I learned to cook a variety of foods from other cultures.

 

From 1998 to the present, I've tromped across 34 countries on all 7 continents.  I've crawled through water-filled caves into tiny chambers filled with skeletons in Central America.  I've frolicked with tens of thousands of penguins and swam in hot springs with elephant seals in Antarctica.  I've been in car wrecks on the Sinai peninsula and been rescued by Bedouins on camelback. 

 

While I still travel alot, most of my time these days is taken up by my huge organic garden and my 11 chickens who occupy my backyard in suburban Dallas.  I cook every day.  I host dinner parties every week. 

 

I am the wealthiest person I know.  Not from money, for I have almost none of that.  My life is rich because I have the most fascinating and devoted friends and family of anyone I know.  Without them, I'm nothing.