“I was 13 when I started cooking. I am an only child and my parents didn’t like to cook, so I started with macaroni and fried chicken and using whatever we had around the house. My first job was working at Krystal when I was 15 and made enough money to buy my own ingredients and start experimenting. Emeril was my hero and I watched the Food Network. I learned how to make Soul food and then coastal culture food and fell in love with local seafood. My mom loves my cooking and she is my biggest fan.

My parents raised me right and gave me morals and business sense that revolved around the soul of a person and the numbers came later. My dad wanted me to play football and join the Army. I played football but I was bad. Being a Junior, you are expected to be as good as your father and my dad was an amazing football player with the trophies to prove it. That wasn’t going to be me. I had to start my own legacy and that was hard for my dad to understand.

I got serious about cooking as a career when I was 23. My grandfather died, I stopped living with my parents, had no job and just had my son. I was too proud to ask my dad for money and had to step up and provide. I wasn’t successful at anything else so I had to succeed at cooking and it was now or never. I started catering little parties and then for the church. Church people talk and that is the best marketing and I started catering weddings. I am new to business, but you can’t tell that by my food and the presentation and service. We are on time and we stay and clean up. The name is Flawless Catering because that is a guarantee of our food every day.

A lot of people in my family have diabetes and high blood pressure so I started doing dietary meal prep for them and it grew into custom meals for people who have also have cancer or trying to lose weight. I take what they like to eat and I customize it for them. I cook the food on Sunday for Monday thru Wednesday and Wednesday I cook for Thursday through Friday. I prepare the food twice a week to keep it fresh. Saturday and Sunday they are on your own. People don’t have time to cook healthy anymore so I fill the void. My goal is to help get Mobile more healthy. I also teach people how to cook healthier also. I went to Bishop for culinary arts and I am going to be an instructor there.

The dream was to cater and cook great food but now it is to have my own restaurant and be the first Michelin star chef in Mobile. I cook by smell. If they smell good together they will probably taste good together. I experiment with my friends. They get free food and tell me yay or nay. Shrimp and grits is going to put my kid through college. I don’t cook it fast, everything is as fresh as possible, and I put Conecuh sausage in it. I love Conecuh sausage

My catering service is personal and I cook everything myself. I let my employees do the food displays as long as it looks good. I want to be a good boss and take care of the people who work for me because I want them to give their best. We have fun outside of work. I throw parties for them and take them to the movies.

When my granddad was dying, I recorded him talking and have the only recording of his voice. Until you hear the stories that changed their lives, you can’t understand them. It helps to know the reasons why people are who they, why they are so strict or why they act the way they do.

“What is unusual about you?”

“I only have one dimple. I was scared of the attic until I was 16. I write R&B songs and but can’t sing, so singing is my favorite thing to do alone. I am right handed but I bat left handed. I love to fish on the beach. I like the woods but can’t go too far in the woods because it doesn’t have cell service. What if I meet Smokey the Bear in the woods and I don’t have cell service? I like going new places. I want to be the ‘I’ve been there guy.’

I like going to different restaurants and trying different food, but often I get the basic things, wings, shrimp, pizza. I have to cook extraordinary things so much that it loses the allure.

I believe in Mobile and want to stay here and make people believe in it again. Love grows on top of love. My child is going to grow up here and do his first everything here.”