•Musical inspiration: The Moody Blues, hands down

•Favorite cuisine to eat: Asian

•Biggest seller at The Timbers: Our crunchy grouper. I think that will always be No. 1.

•Favorite dish from your childhood: Shrimp with snow peas and straw mushrooms

•What was the first dish you mastered? Chicken Kiev

•First major splurge: My silver Datsun 280ZX with a sun roof

•Celebrity (living or dead) you’d love to have dinner with: Will Rogers

•If I weren’t in this business, I’d be…: In advertising

•Things you can’t get through the day without: A shower

•Favorite quick meal: Pan-sauteed snapper (or whatever fresh fish I grab from the restaurant)

•Cooking gods: Graham Kerr (I learned most of what I know from watching “TheGalloping Gourmet” as a child)

•If you had your own cooking show, what would you call it? You Can’t Make This Fish Up!

•Guilty food pleasure: Caviar (because of the expense), Haagen Dazs Chocolate Chocolate Chip ice cream (because of the calories.)

•Food aversion you can’t get over: Liver

•Favorite dish on your menu: Sauteed soft shell crabs. When we can get them they are fresh, fat and as good as it gets — simply sauteed with garlic butter!

•Biggest cooking disaster: During a live cooking demonstration on TV 20 (WBBH) with Mary Johnson, there was a short in my cooktop and when I touched the pot handle I got a shock at the microphone transmitter that was in my pants and I jumped, screamed and tossed the pot of mussels in the air. At the restaurant while we were smoking a turkey in our Chinese pork roaster, someone turned the heat up and the turkey caught fire, a giant ball of fire, ruining the Thanksgiving special!

•Favorite SWFL restaurant other than your own: The Nutmeg House on West Gulf Drive

•What would be your last meal? Wild mushrooms. I would eat wild mushrooms that I picked (which may or may not be poisonous) and puffer-fish sushi (same reason).

•Oddest/most interesting thing in your home fridge: Dragon fruit (from China town)

•What are your plans for dinner tonight? Having friends over for a cookout of shrimp and steaks on the grill (and stone crab claws in season)

•Dream vacation: Food and Champagne tour of France

•Oddest thing you’ve eaten, and did you enjoy it? Grilled sheep intestine (at a Greek restaurant with my Greek uncle). It was interesting, but I wouldn’t order it again.

•Age: 32

•Birthplace: New York , N.Y.

•Culinary training: No formal training. “School of Hard Knocks” and The Rusty Nail Restaurant, Cortland N.Y.

•Former gigs: I have worked for and then with the same two brothers (Kipp and Jim Foster) since 1973