When I was younger, I thought a scientist’s job was to create whacky things by mixing this purple potion with a lime green potion and, poof, an anti-cootie potion. I can blame Dexter’s Laboratory for the naiveness. As I grew up, my affinity for potion creation did not fade. It transformed. 

I think I can credit my love for cooking to my mom, who let me have visa-free access to pantry goods and spices, and my long-time friend Hazley Wildman (Real name), who introduced me to what adding Weber Grill Salt to Ramen can do. The answer? Besides the occasional crunching of peppercorn, nothing. But the somewhat mad scientist approach of tinkering with food did excite me. I was maybe nine or ten, with access to a spice cabinet that would rival a kiosk in a grand bazaar in Cairo. What more can a mad scientist want? 

Some of my first kitchen creations now have their own vaccines. I was never happy with food as is. I believed a little bit of garlic salt and a splash of that hard-to-pronounce “worsteyershauce” could elevate a bowl of Maruchan Ramen. I think I tested out every single spice in our galaxy before I reached my conclusion on what spice reigns supreme. The included chicken flavoring. But at this time, the taste was the last thing that mattered. It was the perusing of spices and the tinkering of tinctures that inspired me. With this newfound love, I found myself searching for my next culinary challenge. A job

I was maybe 11 or 12 at the time; I grew up near and frequented a local deli called the Italian Place. The Italian place made simple but incredible sandwiches. Furthermore, what made the Italian place special was its melting pot culture. The Italian place was the only place you’d find a million-dollar deal getting struck on one table and a hippie getting a bite to eat after a serious hacky-sack sesh on another. You went to the Italian place for your birthday, you went there when you got broken up with, and you went there after a long day’s work. No matter what reason brought you to the Constantinople of Logan, Utah, the main reason you were there was to order the Manhattan, which consisted of steak, cheese, and onion. What you did with the Manhattan from its birthplace, only god knows. To this day, I remember what I did with mine: 

Double steak, double onion, double cheese, fry-cheese, on white w/cold peperoncino, sprouts, ketchup, ketchup, a little more ketchup, and enough pepper to make an auditorium sneeze. 

The Italian place showed me how powerful good and simple food could be. I never saw a frown in the building besides the signed photo that hung above the cash register, which depicted Seinfield’s “Soup Nazi.” Aside from the smiling faces, the camaraderie behind the counter was something of a symphony; you couldn’t help but admire the production of a steak, egg, and cheese. I am positive that every person who stood in line fantasized about life on the other side of the counter. Well, maybe not everyone, but I did. The whole operation and really the city of Logan was led by the legendary John Harder. It really is hard to describe John, a little bit of General Patton mixed with a splash of Austin Powers, with just a hint of Gordon Ramsay. When I put in my AirPods and activate noise canceling, during that brief moment of utter silence, I can still hear John shouting down the line at unexpecting patrons. John’s voice would boom like thunder, sometimes, you wouldn’t even know he was talking to you because you were three customers back repeating your Manhattan order in your head. The line was one thing, but ordering was another. At twelve, my sailor’s tongue hadn’t even seen a wave, luckily, I was with a seasoned navy captain. My father. I still think about the average Joe’s who weren’t in on any of the inside jokes and were just trying to get a hot sandwich on their thirty-minute lunch being between any of the conversations in line between my Father and John. I learned a few things in that line: laughing and food live in synchrony, a spatula can be a weapon when flexed right, and I liked sailing vocabulary.

 I recall summer being on the horizon, I could already hear the chopping of the mower blade cutting down my gaming time. This summer was leading into high school, and I had desperately wanted to make some extra cash. I remember floating the idea of working a day, or at least a half day, at the Italian place to my father. I can’t quite remember his reaction, but if it meant I wouldn’t be playing MW2 and instead using my time wisely, I am sure he was all in. 

My Father agreed to accompany me in my inquiry (though I am sure he just wanted a sandwich) after the lawn was mowed. The idea of standing in line to order a sandwich and asking for a job as a 12-year-old was frightening. Luckily, John and my Father had somewhat of a comic-book relationship between themselves. I wasn’t sure if they loved, hated, or admired one another. But I did know they complimented one another beautifully.

After muttering out my order like I had rehearsed a hundred times, I asked if there might be an opportunity for me to work on Fridays for a couple of hours. I don’t remember exactly what was said next, but I think I blacked out after the routine smart-ass remarks were delivered by my Father and gracefully received by John. The next thing I can remember, I was cutting vegetables and making my own sandwiches behind the counter. I can’t tell you how many lawyers would visit the Italian place on a Friday afternoon, but none of them turned me in to the authorities because the kid cutting their onions was the last thing they were worried about when it was their turn to peek behind the counter.

To say this experience was memorable would be an understatement. I strengthened my sailor tongue, learned metaphors I wouldn’t understand until years later, and fortified my love for being in the kitchen. A pivotal moment that can’t be overlooked in this chapter of life was the assigning of my first nickname. I worked alongside another Alex, who was described as Bad for reasons one can only imagine. Naturally, with Yin, there must be Yang, and I was known as Good Alex. The Italian place will always have a piece of my heart. I regret to inform the reader that the Italian place is no longer in business. After John hung up the spatula, the Italian place had lost its heartbeat, and quite frankly, the city of Logan lost its heartbeat as well.

Long Live The Manhattan.

After the summer concluded, I was eager to show off my newly developed cooking skills to friends. I hosted a BBQ with some friends and naturally assigned myself as grill master; after negotiating with Hazley that he could man the lighter fluid if he spared us from a nightworths of buttercups, and thus the grill was ignited. How hard would it be to grill a couple of burgers over some charcoal? Well, apparently pretty hard. While these statements have not been verified by the Bear River Health Department, an innocent bystander who goes by Jack Lunt claims that he received an undercooked burger. I think I consoled him on what a medium rare burger looks like, but I have to admit, every time I flip a burger, I still see the pinkness in the patty he presented. From that day forward, I made a promise to elevate my cooking standard. I dreamed of the day when friends, new and old, would fight for a spot at my dinner table.

Fast forward to college, cooking wasn’t exactly my primary focus at Arizona State. I found time to occasionally whip something up, but after every meal, I felt like something was lacking. It wasn’t salt, and it surely wasn’t pepper. That something was patience.

Patience is by far the most valuable skill to have in the kitchen. My roommates probably got sick of me repeating low and slow. One roommate later on in my college experience never followed this advice and earned the nickname Charizard for a variety of reasons. One said reason was the smoke bomb move he would pull whenever he touched a frying pan that was Super effective at making us clear out of our living room. 

It wasn’t until late 2021 that I really started to take cooking seriously. I mastered the crunchy egg, perfected my grilling skills, and after consuming an unhealthy amount of Gugafoods content, bought a sous vide. The sous vide was my first kitchen gadget. I really started to feel like Dexter in his Laboratory with this thing. After a couple of solo steak dinners, my brother from another mother, whom we will call Sparky, decided to join me on my next cooking experience. My first sous chef! My plan was to wow Sparky with the skills I had garnered over the last couple of months. 

 Both Sparky and I had consumed enough Sam The Cooking Guy content to be inspired to take our own stab at cooking content. We wanted to stand out amongst everyone who was doing fancy jump cuts, wearing kitchen blues, and showing off fancy onion dicing skills. We decided what better idea to show these cooking punks that we could not only cook, but we can also dress. The idea was simple: create food that you wanted to eat while wearing clothes you wanted to wear. 

The evening had come, and we landed on a pork chop for god knows what reason. I think we both wanted to do something a little outside the box. We gathered all of our ingredients and laid them all out on the table, and took beautiful product and fit shots. But we hadn’t even started cooking. Fast forward four hours later, we were beaten. But it was time to eat. After all that hard work, I suspected we were both disappointed with our creation. Initially, I couldn’t figure out what It was lacking. At first, I wasn’t sure what it was; we had followed the recipe to the T! My first thought was maybe it was too salty, then it was maybe the onions weren’t diced fine enough; as I look back now, it wasn’t anything food related; it was us. We had no kitchen tango, and we followed the recipe so closely we left no room for creativity. The byproduct of a good kitchen tango where one man is on prep while the other man is dishwashing is quality. The byproduct of using unfiltered raw honey instead of using sugar is magic. The byproduct of quality and magic is art. So while our fits were fresh, our food was not. 

After a dozen more meals, we were getting good, we started following no rules. We were always finding new ways to put our own spin on a dish. I cherish these early cooking memories with Spark deeply. Unfortunately, Spark’s dream led him to the Pacific Northwest, where he wowed Oregonians with the skills he picked up from the 445 Brasserie. He doesn’t know it, but he played a massive role in reigniting my passion for cooking, which had been lost in the labyrinth of Mika’s Greek runs.

With Spark gone, it was back to a one-man show. I found my groove, took all the rules I had followed closely, and threw them out the window. I vowed to never follow a recipe again. I never considered myself a home cook until one night when I made the rookie mistake of forgetting to thaw a chicken. I had planned to make a balsamic glazed chicken, but I clucked up. With my head between my legs, I opened the fridge, and like Percy Jackson seeing letters out of the blue, I began to see a variety of ingredients that would blend very well together. With each ingredient I pulled, more options revealed themselves. You would’ve thought I was cleaning out the fridge. With my ingredients sprawled out like a Trader Joe’s grocery haul, I landed on homemade meatballs with a honey-cherry tomato sauce. It was the most enjoyable cooking experience I had ever had, and the result? Art. 

After about a dozen of my favorite shirts had been ruined in the process of perfecting said art, I decided it was finally time for a good apron. For Anthony Bourdain, it was having hot grease from your morning bacon hit your Johnson; for Alex Larson, it was a vintage Supreme tee meeting soy sauce.

The apron-selecting process was similar to Mr. Potter’s experience at Ollivanders Wand Shop. I couldn’t quite find the right thing after consistent searching. After one night of doom scrolling, I came across an old friend’s Instagram who was creating luxury canvas bags. Naturally, my first thought was I needed a custom NFD x FitznFood apron pronto.  I reached out to this Ronnie Kith-like character, and his response was perfect. Something along the lines of hell yeah, let’s do it.

It is Wednesday, August 30, 2023, I am sitting on a patio over-looking the narrow cobblestone streets of Sofia, Bulgary. I have been backpacking for a few months and have been exploring culinary delights the world has to offer. I have been saying yes to all desserts, have yet to turn down a recommendation, and am returning to the states with a wide knowledge of what makes the world go round. A great meal, and a comfortable outfit.