As a mountain lover, Meghan Ochs measures the number of years she has lived in Reno by its winters: “This is my 13th,” she says while we sit down in her living room in early spring. Originally from Pennsylvania, she considered herself “a casual skier.”
Food is certainly fuel for Jesse Felker, a personal trainer and veteran quarterback on the Nevada Storm, Northern Nevada’s female full-contact football team — but it’s also about family, in all its forms.
Brian Duggan loves the French concept of mise en place, as it applies to preparing every ingredient and carefully planning a meal in the kitchen, but also at work. In both cases, he’s always looking to the future. He calls it a “preparation mindset.”
Steven (better known as Steve) Silva compares himself to a short-order cook when he’s making dinner for four children, ages 4 to 10, and his wife, Katie, director of digital marketing and communications at the Peppermill Resort Hotel in Reno.
We all come to the kitchen via our own path. I personally never dreamed of any greatness as a cook other than being able to make good dishes to eat for family and friends. I like to think I do an OK job of it — better than some, not as well as others. I wouldn’t say I learned from the best, but I learned from the best I had: my mom.