Bonjour mes amis, my name is Patrick and I partnered up with my charming, curious, convivial cat, Rémy, to create Le Chef et Le Chat.

I started cooking years ago when I was a teenager. My parents were both busy, working long hours, and my sister and I would cringe at the jar sauce and box spaghetti that would grace our plates at least twice a week. I was raised on Barilla, Old El Paso, and meatloaf. I could only take so much before eventually taking the first step towards culinary freedom. I was hooked. I had never been able to express myself creatively before cooking. Once I learned the basics, all I wanted to do was learn more.

Through my time in restaurants, I have found a common theme about chefs and cooks. Many of them develop a superiority complex about their work. Some of it is fair, some is earned. I will even admit that I feel it in myself on occasion as well. With that said, there is a lesson that my sous chef taught me at my first job as a dishwasher. “Food is meant to be eaten.” There is no shortage of arrogance, stress, and especially pretension in cooking. At the end of the day… food is food. If you do not know how to make a dish, that’s okay, at one point someone else didn’t get it either. If you don’t know what makes a great wine any better than the $8.00 bottom-shelf bottle, that is perfectly fine too. Sometimes the best wine and the best food is the one that makes you feel good. One of my culinary idols is an Italian chef named Massimo Bottura. He claims that the food that brings him the most happiness is a raw raviolo. It brings him back to a place as a child, sitting under the table while his grandmother handmade the ravioli for him and his family. That is what cooking means to me. If you like Kraft mac and cheese more than an elegant five-cheese, oven-baked masterpiece, then so be it. In fact, if it’s Spongebob-shaped, I’m taking Kraft every time. Food is food, “Anyone can cook,” and if you are having fun and you like what you make, then that’s what it’s all about.