Who Are You?

[Leaky]

With so much good info passed here, it would be interesting to know who you are.

I'm a 51 year old Iron Ranger who has been a Sales Rep all my life, but have made a living at it for the past 30 years in the Twin Cities. Also have a place up in Mora on the river where my best cooking gets done. After leaving home, skipping college and entering the real world @ 19 YO, I figured out real quick if I wanted to eat good, I would have to make it myself. As I grow older, cooking has easily become my favorite past-time. Spending 5 days camping up on Namakon/Rainy & 5 days at my buddy's cabin in Sept on Burntside each is every bit as good, but I can only do those once a year.

Married 23 years and took in our 8 year old grand niece 4 years ago. Adoption was final 1 year ago. Best thing we have ever done. Worst thing? Taking Leaky as my name on this forum. There is a long story behind that......

Next?

[lispeej]

I am 36 years old. Married for 16 years and counting. Proud father of 3 kids.....6, 13, and 14 years of age.

I enjoy getting out as much as possible. Whether it's hunting, fishing, hiking, snowboarding, camping, boating, canoeing, or you name it!

I try to always to do all of my work in the fastest/most efficient time possible, so I don't have to redo things and will allow me and the family to get out more. If I can work 40 hours straight and take the rest of the week off, I would. I am in a way a workaholic and a perfectionist and have excellent work ethic (in my opinion). I like doing things my way.

I am a repair technician in the printer/copier industry. I have been doing this type of work off/on ever since I've been married.

The truth is, I enjoy cooking more than I do cleaning up.

Happy fishing!!!!

[reinhard1]

i'm 63, married for 21 years, two daughter [in their 30's], 3 grandkind with one on the way and a new pup [10 months old Lucy]. born in Germany in 1949 and came over here to this wonderfull country in 1957 straight to Duluth Mn. graduated from HS in Duluth Central in 1967. went into the Army in 1968 for 3 years. went to Jr. College for 2 1/2 years.

i'm a retired meat cutter after 35 plus years. live here in Andover with my wife and taking care of her mom who has been living with us since her husband died back in 2007. i love fishing, hunting, camping and being with my family. i've fished and hunted mostly in northern Minnesota in the arrowhead area most of my life.

i have cooked most of my life and still do all the cooking [and clean up]. love making sausage and now getting into smoking more than i used to. i proccessed venison for about 12 years on the side when i was working and making sausage was more fun than cutting the venison and wrapping it. working 10 hour days with doing deer on the side became a little too much.

so now i make sausage for the family and friends. some with the venison we are lucky to get from time to time and some with pork and beef. glad to be back here with a great bunch of people who love to cook and like me want to learn more. getting better at finaly posting pictures with some work on that to do still.

there are sill some sausage reciepies i want to do that are unique and different and more reciepe's in general for the oven and the grill/smoker. so i'm always learning and have learned quite a bit on here especialy. good luck.

[Heidi]

This thread was a really good idea. I have enjoyed reading and

learning from all you guys. Where else would you know to bring the

temp up to 190 internal degrees on your smoked pork butt?

I have learned so much from this site.

I am 51 and do all the cooking since I wash my hands and she don't.

I have a green egg that I should use more. Hunt and fish as well

around the Longville area where I have a lake home.

[pike79]

I'm 32 years old with a wife,3 kids(ages 8,6,and 1). I grew up on a farm in cetral mn with 11 older brothers and sisters,then moved to the city for a few years and decided it wasn't for me and bought 20 acres from the farm I grew up on and built a house there 7 years ago. I work for a food distribution warehouse that supplies grocery stores and have been doing that for 15 years. I enjoy anything outside but if I had to choose one fishing would be my favorite. I do most of the outdoor cooking around my house, the rest is ussally up to the wife.

[KEN W]

I'm 63 yrs old.Was a Special Ed teacher for 34 yrs.Most in Bottineau,ND.Which is along the Canadian border north of Minot.I was born and grew up in Waconia.Lots of relatives down there.Graduated from St. Cloud State in 1971.Been married 39 years.Have 3 daughters.They have given me 6 grand children with 2 more on the way before the end of the year.

We now live 10 miles west of Fargo in Mapleton,ND.I enjoy hunting,fishing,reading mysteries,cooking,and gardening.I now work 3 days a week in the produce dept. at the largest grocery store in Fargo.I process all my own deer and waterfowl.

Highlights for me are deer hunting in the ND badlands,a week goose hunting in Saskatchewan.....Will be my 20th year of going there.I own a GWP named Max.He is 5 yrs old and a pheasant hunting machine.Love watching him find birds and locking up solid on point.

[Moose]

I'm 45 years old married for 21 years and have 2 boys 18 and 14. The 18 year old will graduate this year and go to Arizona State in the fall. I enjoy fishing more than hunting but do like to deer hunt with my boys. We try to spend some time on Red in the winter but that will change a little this year. I have coached swimming ,track,football,baseball and basketball. I enjoy all sports but have stared to shy away from watching the professional versions as of late. I love to cook and cook for my family roughly 4-5 nights a week. I come to find new stuff and see what everyone is doing in the kitchen and smoker and grill. I would like to get more into some sausage making and my Czech heritage likes that. I grew up in southern MN farming and moved to Ely for college where I met my beautiful wife.I spent 5 years in law enforcement. 8 years in landscaping and currently work for a municipality doing park maintenance.

[pushbutton]

Howdy fellow foodies, my name is Chad and am 43 or 44....will know for sure in Oct. when my cougar/milf is 4 years older then me for a few months. Grew up in what was a small town and after moving to cities to go to school, developed my love of food. So many choices from so many different parts of the world. After moving to St Cloud 20 years ago or so had to learn how to cook since the chain reigns supreme here. Middle eastern is probably my favorite with Thai being a close second, and Indian third. Recently started experimenting with African food since we are experiencing quite the influx of Somali in the area and have access to ingredients at their markets. Just made some kabobs from a West African recipe tonight and they were the bomb! When I am not eating You can find me and my young son fishing or just wandering through the woods. We started mushroom hunting and foraging a few years ago and am getting rather addicted to it. I have job ADD and out of college started flipping houses, had a commercial landscape company, day traded, and now do hair at a salon we own. Getting bored with that though coupled with the economy is taking a toll on it and thinking about getting a teaching certificate or doing a food truck. Bought a step van a year ago, but have not pulled the trigger yet and equipped it. Hope everyone has a good "grillin and chillin" Memorial Day weekend!

[muskiemanAD]

I enjoy reading in this forum way more then I post. I'm Mike am 32 years old, have a great wife and a 5 month old daughter. I love grilling and do most of the cooking in the house. I come here to get a lot of ideas and different ideas for cooking. There is tons of good info here keep up the good post and ideas...

[eyeguy 54]

Will be 58 August 1. Will be married 32 years August 2. 2 kids both married and doing great. I am blessed. Dissabled sense Aug 2010. Working on getting better. Still able to do some stuff but stuck in 2nd gear. Joined the Army after high school and then went into sales, mostly home improvement. Did that for a long time. Love cooking and eating. Photography is growing on me. I really enjoy feeding and watchin the birdies. I'll fish as long as I'm able. Love archery. Probably will never golf or downhill ski again but still on the right side of the dirt. :>)

[OnAFly]

I'm a mere 28 years old, so it looks like I'm the young'n around here. I'm married just under a year and have a little boy. I got into smoking/curing a couple years ago when one of our neighbors got a smoker and shared some of his stuff with us. I was hooked after that. I got into fly fishing and canoeing about 8 years ago and now I try to get out as much as possible, but my distance from trout water has pretty much forced me to go after warm water species now, which is a good thing . I still use a spinning rod plenty, but I'm almost never on a boat without a fly rod with. It's actually gotten to the point that I'm better at catching fish on a fly than with a spinning rod is some situations, those being panfish, bass and most moving water.

[McGurk]

36 years old, married for 11, a 3 1/2 yr old daughter and a 3 month old son. Grew up on a small beef farm in Otter Tail County, went to school in Fargo, lived a year in St Cloud, another one in Lacrosse, and have lived in Bloomington for about 15 yrs. I work as a Land Surveyor, and really enjoy ice fishing and deer hunting, along with wordworking and some gardening.

Got rid of my gas grill about 5 years ago in favor of a Weber kettle, and got into smoking a couple of years ago. I am pretty much self taught, thanks to all of the contributers here, and have tried to teach a few things in an effort to pay it back. I actually hated steak growing up, until I started buying it and grilling it myself. My Dad liked them black and tough, so that is how we all got to eat them. I built my own smoker, and make most of my own rubs. I cook about half of the time as my wife works full time and I get home about an hour earlier than she does at night.

[Deitz Dittrich]

41, Been with my wife for 20 years, no kids, well 400... .. Elem Physical Education School Teacher.. I just love cooking!!! Do about 95% of the cooking for my household

[ThunderLund78]

34 year old father of two awesome little boys. Married 8 years. I enjoy fishing,hunting and camping but I can't say I'm awesome at any of them. Kind of a weekend warrior, I guess. I do a majority of the cooking. I like spicy food, my wife does not, so that limits my table options but I like to experiment. Would love to get into more smoking and barbecuing and have found some great info on this forum. My recipe rotation has doubled and tripled thanks to everyone here. Now my only problem is keeping my waist line from doubling and tripling Grew up in Henderson, MN, went to college at Winona State and now live in New Prague, MN. I work in Marketing for Best Buy Corporate. My family also has a cabin up on Fish Trap Lake near Motley and we get up there every chance we get. NICE TO FINALLY MEET YOU ALL

[thirdeye]

I'm 56, an independent welding inspector for 36 years, married for 33 years and both of us like to cook. We like a variety of different styles of food and cooking methods. I have traded off hunting for more fishing time, but am still involved in shooting (mostly handguns). I learned to butcher game, and barbecue meats early on as both grandfathers and my father were outdoor cooking guys. The family had ranches for years and we processed our own beef.

I'm a backyard barbecuist, A KCBS certified BBQ judge, and an amateur charcuterist (one that enjoys curing, smoking and preserving meat & fish), I make sausage and am into pressure canning. I'm still constantly learning and fine tuning my methods and recipes.

I've had some web exposure on several cooking sites for a number of years and have my own site where I post recipes and tips mostly for cooking over live fire.

[Leaky]

thirdeye - I know you can't post a link here, but would sure like to know how to find your site. Thanks.

[Leaky]

When I posted this thread, I didn't know what kind of response we'd get. Unlike "Silly Town", where I think most people SHOULD remain anonymous, we're just cooking here - not pretending to solve world and geo-political issues.

Don't get me wrong. If a BWCA topic comes up over there, I'm all in. My contempt for extreme, well funded, Pro-Bono attorney, serial suing environmental groups is well documented. But people will know who I am, where I stand and why.

I'm really enjoying reading everyone's brief Bio and hope to read many more. Thanks!

[delcecchi]

OK, against my better judgement and sense of reticence....

I am 65, a retired engineer and circuit designer for a large computer company with a development lab in Rochester. I like to cook.

I fish lake vermilion and streams around Rochester. I used to hunt some but gave up after some years of no success. Can't hit anything with a shotgun.

[Leaky]

Way to go Del. Nice to meet you.

[fowldreams]

This post is great! I am 30. Married for 5 years and have a 2 year old son that keeps me going everyday. He loves the outdoors like me. Avid angler soft and hard water. Hunting is becoming more and more of a passion for me though. I have been a tool and die maker at the same company for the last 11 years and enjoy what I do. As far as cooking goes, I enjoy eating so therefore I have made it a objective to learn as much as I can to cook great food. Been smoking fish for 10 years and just started doing sausage after last falls success in the field. Keep the recipes coming.

[pike79]

thirdeye - I know you can't post a link here, but would sure like to know how to find your site. Thanks.

Leaky, search thirdeyeq I'm guessing its right

[OnAFly]

So Del, did you work for IBM or Hitachi? If IBM, please punch the person who created Lotus Notes for me.

[c0untryf1sh3r]

So Del, did you work for IBM or Hitachi? If IBM, please punch the person who created Lotus Notes for me.

+1 Biggest PITA ever created.

[Dark Cloud]

My name is Jay and im 37yrs old. Been married for 35 weeks and my wife is 34 weeks pregnant with twins, one boy, one girl!

My 3 biggest outdoor passions are icefishing panfish, open water eyes and trout, and bowhunting deer, but pretty much dabble in everything from mushroom hunting to rod-building. I have been extreemly lucky to enjoy these passions with my father, alot!

My love for cooking started when I was about 12 and basically had enough of dad overcooking everything on the grill! I kinda took over the grill and moved onto the kitchen from there.

Im currently a property manager for a good sized business, been there for 4 years but before that I spent about 13 years in the restaurant/food business. Everything from a sandwich shop to nice steakhouse, to co-owning my own place....

[reinhard1]

i'll PM you Third Eye's site. good luck.