Category: Food And Recipes
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Sharpening a Knife, Sharpening Yourself
The first lesson I ever learned in a professional kitchen wasn’t about flavor. It was about edges. Every good cook knows you can’t do much with a dull knife. Cuts get sloppy. Work gets harder. And sooner or later, the knife slips. That slip isn’t just frustrating — it’s a hazard. You’re more likely to…
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About MyJLStory: Golf, Food, and Life Connected
When people ask me what MyJLStory is about, the easiest answer is this: it’s a collection of the lessons and stories that shaped me. From my years grinding on the mini-tours, to the kitchens where I first learned to cook, to the golf clubs and businesses I’ve managed along the way — this blog is…
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Operational Flow: Lessons from the Sugarbush Kitchen
When I first stepped into the kitchen at Sugarbush Golf Club, I didn’t just look at what we were serving. I looked at how we were serving it. Running a restaurant inside a golf club means more than turning out good food. It means keeping pace with tee times, serving members who expect both speed…
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How a Stormy Afternoon (and Spaghetti) Started My Culinary Journey
It was almost 20 years ago. I was a struggling mini-tour player, grinding through events out in Phoenix, Arizona. My game wasn’t in a good place. Every round seemed to bring more frustration than progress, and the pressure of trying to make it wore me down. Back then, the only thing that brought me any…
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How a Better Fish Fry Helped Us Honor Tradition and Improve Service
When Tradition Meets Throughput When I first came on board at one operation I managed, one thing caught me off guard. There was no Friday fish fry during Lent. For a place built on Midwest hospitality, that didn’t feel right.So I asked why. The answer wasn’t about taste.It was about flow. The Constraint No One…
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How the Smash Burger Helped Our Kitchen Breathe
When One Menu Item Controls the Whole Kitchen When I first stepped into the kitchen at one operation I managed, I did what I always do when inheriting a system. Watch closely.Ask questions.Listen for the pinch points. It didn’t take long to find one. Nearly 8 out of every 10 orders were for a single…
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A Cheesesteak Smashed Burger, the Sugarbush Way
Sometimes, inspiration doesn’t come from within—it comes from a YouTube short. I was watching a clip the other night of a burger spot in NYC layering up a cheesesteak smashed burger. It was over-the-top, loud, and looked like the kind of thing you eat with both hands and a few napkins. But more than that,…
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How I Cooked 5 Dishes and Rice in Under an Hour — Using One Broth to Tie It All Together
What if you could make a full family dinner in under an hour?Five dishes, a pot of rice, no chaos — and everyone goes back for seconds. That’s exactly what happened in my kitchen tonight. The secret? A professional cooking technique called cross-utilization that I learned in restaurant kitchens and at Le Cordon Bleu, adapted…
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Even the Spice Has a Story
From the kitchen I stepped into to the quiet lessons of memory and taste. When I first walked into that kitchen, it was doing what most kitchens do.Good food. Solid effort. Just trying to keep up. But one detail caught me. A store bought Cajun seasoning. Scooped without much thought. That’s not how I learned…
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🧠 One Ribeye, Big Impact: How I Upgraded the Sugarbush Menu with a Simple Kitchen Strategy
When I stepped into the kitchen at Sugarbush Golf Club, I knew we could do more than just serve food — we could tell a story with every dish, and run smarter while doing it. Running a restaurant inside a golf club means juggling flavor, food cost, and guest expectations — and I’m always looking…