About The Flavor Fanatic

As a restaurant cook, I’m inspired everyday by the creative, skilled, and talented chefs I work with side by side. Like many of you, I also find so many great recipes and tips from food blogs and professional chefs online or in great cookbooks. I’m learning and practicing techniques, concepts, and skills to take my food from meh to amazing! It’s my hope that you will join me on this journey, as we elevate our cooking game together.

On this blog you’ll mainly find my own or adapted “Flavor First” vegetarian and vegan recipes, plus some helpful reviews.

The home page will provide you with a glimpse of my most recent posts. I hope you will enjoy my beautiful photos and even try some of the delicious featured meals.

The Recipe Index shows all of my recipe posts, both reviews and original/adapted. That way you can easily peruse and hopefully find that next inspiring meal idea.

Each recipe also is labeled with a category, such as “dinner” or “appetizer.” If you click on it, you’ll find all the recipes on my site which fall into that category as well.

Each page, this one included, provides an opportunity to subscribe to “The Flavor Lab.” All you have to do is share your name and email and I’ll be sure that you receive my latest recipes, reviews, updates, and tips. Your information will not be shared. It’s totally free, so be sure to take advantage.

Finally, if you have questions, comments, or want to work with me, check out my contact page. However, if it’s specific to a recipe, please comment on that post’s page for the benefit of The Flavor Fanatic community. I really want to hear from you!

About Bryan

Thanks for joining me at The Flavor Fanatic.

I created this blog because I love making beautiful, delicious food. Ironically, most of my life I had no idea most of it existed.

Like many of you, I really began cooking routinely to take care of my family. The meals were mostly nutritious, pretty good most nights, but not the most flavorful. I’m the type of guy where that’s not good enough.

Since then, I’ve been exploring, cooking, and tasting foods in pursuit of amazing flavor.

I watched some cooking shows and bought some cookbooks from Food Network celebrities. I tried so many recipes that caught my eye. Most were pretty good. Some were flat out delicious! My understanding of flavor began to expand. I was becoming a better cook.

Then I decided to go vegetarian.

It was the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and I just got sent home for two weeks from work. Next thing I know I was checking out a documentary called Forks Over Knives, journeyed down a Youtube rabbit hole on whole foods, plant-based eating, and the next thing I know I’m swearing off meat (and dairy for about a month), for the sake of my long-term health.

The unexpected result?

I’ve been creating amazing flavor combinations ever since.

Sure. At first, I tried the various meat substitutes: Impossible, Beyond, tofu, seitan, tempeh…jackfruit. Yeah, BBQ jackfruit. I tried that too.

I didn’t like any of them. But I think that actually made it easier to get away from meat-based recipes to explore what really makes great flavor – spices, herbs, fruit, and vegetables. Who knew?

Deviating from the omnivore’s path introduced me to the beautiful world of food b/vloggers, and all of their creativity, and delicious foods. My first few were vegan. Definitely influential and worth checking out.

I learned a lot about creating food from scratch without animal products, and the flavorful possibilities of plant based foods. But I soon discovered that the vegan-only diet was too restrictive for me.

So I begrudgingly expanded my diet to more openly include things like cheese and occasionally eggs or heavy whipping cream. Oh, ice cream is still a thing for me too. Non-dairy is usually tasty. But I’m a sucker for the real thing.

Recently, I changed careers and started working as a prep & line cook for an eclectic little restaurant here in Holly Springs, NC. Learning directly from the chef and owner has helped me to grow and has inspired me to share my culinary adventures with my readers.

This has been my experience so far in exploring flavor. With this blog, my intent is to go even further. I will share with you some of the great recipes that I have tried, with hopes that you will find something that inspires your cooking in your own search for flavor.

Find me elsewhere:

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• YouTube