When Dennis and I met three years ago, neither of us could have guessed that one day we’d go into the restaurant business together! He owned a UPS store and I was working as an interior designer at a commercial firm. He subsequently purchased several additional stores while I tried to advance my career as a designer. Although from different professional backgrounds, we both had common interests in the outdoors and the environment- Dennis through his childhood in rural areas of Oregon and Arizona, and I through my interest in sustainable construction as an interior designer, as well as my upbringing in Europe. Dennis’ parents grew much of their own food in gardens, built their own homes, hauled their own water, and heated their homes with firewood as well as cooking on wood-burning stoves using wood that the family chopped down themselves.

After I met Dennis, he started trying all kinds of new things in his free time, from SCUBA diving to mixology. The food-related activities stuck while the sports and other attempts at diversion fell by the wayside as one-time experiments. He started researching where food comes from, and trying out new recipes from all kinds of cuisines, attempting to break down the ingredients to their most basic form. He grew herbs in pots on his tiny patio, and installed a bucket of worms there to digest his organic food scraps. He soon had to upsize the bucket to a large crate in order to keep all of the well-fed worms happy and provide enough space for their fertilizer output. (It has been suggested by several acquaintances that he babies his worms by blending the scraps into a smoothie-like consistency before serving them.) Dennis went mushroom hunting, took cooking classes focused on fresh and healthy eating habits, and started hosting dinner parties where he wouldn’t even test the recipes beforehand- talk about a leap of faith!

I was amused by it all, since I had grown up cooking and hosting dinner parties at home and had a more innate sense of what good food was and how to prepare it, whereas his style was much more scientific by necessity. At home, we hardly ever ate processed or manufactured foods- didn’t buy bleached flour (gross!) , didn’t eat fast food (I tease my dad that he’ll buy stock in the places but wouldn’t dare step foot into one), and shopped at German markets which were more natural and organic by cultural habit. My family traveled to Italy frequently, where our relatives grew produce on farms, and created memorably enormous and delicious holiday meals in which the pasta was always homemade just hours before, the chicken or rabbit had been caught and butchered the same day, and dishes were prepared in the simplest way, true to Mediterranean custom. I remember going home with bottled peaches from one relative, which rivaled generic canned peaches to such a degree that I would almost cry when we finished the last of our stock. We also had French relatives that made the most fantastic black current jam, from berries on the bushes surrounding their home. I didn’t even eat jam unless we had some of Maria’s “cassis”.

I have to say though that I learned a lot about cooking from all of Dennis’ research and experimentation. He was always buying some new kitchen gadget to do some specific thing to a specific ingredient, many of which I had never seen before, and collecting all sorts of spices that were not a part of my personal culinary repertoire, though I am a huge fan of pretty much any international cuisine. In fact, he was having so much fun learning to cook and entertain (I helped him with that part) that as a businessman, it occurred to him that it could also be fun to turn his new passion into a business venture someday, and for my part, I always had it in the back of my mind to own some sort of hospitality venue someday- a cafe, bed & breakfast, live music club...

Over the years, I had become frustrated that many architectural firms and their consultants did not consider sustainability in directing the design of their projects, and Dennis, now well versed in the management of a retail business, started wondering what else he could do to challenge himself as a business owner. He and his business partner Greg had started to talk about opening up a restaurant. Well, last summer, I made a dramatic change in my routine, moving up to Alaska for 7 months and working in the restaurant industry again for the first time in many many years. I had worked as a hostess, cocktail waitress, and bartender before in various jobs through school, but being a server again as a professional adult was a completely different experience. I noticed how things were managed, observed how issues with staffing and food quality were addressed, got familiar with some computer entry systems used for placing orders, and learned different techniques and styles of table service. It turned out to be the perfect segue into running my own place!

In December 2007, Dennis learned of an opportunity that would allow us to operate a new restaurant, and as it turns out, it was an opportunity that we couldn’t resist. Well, I could have resisted it, but Dennis can be very persuasive when he gets his mind set on something! So I quickly mobilized to return home from Alaska, and we jumped full-time together into the logistics of opening the Sea Rocket Bistro. And so our adventures continue...