Hi! I’m the Rick behind Rickommended Eats. I love eating and cooking incredible food; brewing and drinking amazing coffee; spending time with friends sipping a hoppy beer, a funky Pét-Nat, some craft sake, smooth bourbon, or smoky mezcal; bicycling and exercising; traveling, sightseeing, and capturing the world around me in photos and videos; learning and doing new things; fixing and assembling things; and getting to learn from incredible people and cultures from all over. I’m originally from Central New York, but moved to New York City in 2014, in search of incredible food and culture and to finally move in with my partner, Samson. We are now living and eating our way through Brooklyn.

My relationship with food and cooking started at an early age, but grew and evolved since then. I have a background in science, so I view food as both a biological need for nourishment and survival, but also as a way to connect with our world, with our histories, and with other people—and bring all of those a lot closer together. I have fairly high standards when it comes to food, but I try to remain humble still, as I know I’ll always be learning new things as I travel and connect with more people.

I understand and recognize that I am just another white guy in an already white guy-saturated food media landscape. Rather than simply push more western perspectives out into the world, my goal is to learn about the food and cultural histories of frequently underrepresented, and often misunderstood, people and regions, to diversify my own experiences and perspectives. I hope to learn about the influences—geographic, ecological, social, economic, etc.—that help shape cuisines and create the variations in ingredients and preparation techniques that are used between the distinct, but often interconnected, places around the world.

I believe that learning about—and understanding the history and background of—regional foods and cuisines will improve my own cooking and understanding of food. I attempt to do this by reading everything I can about regional foods, traveling when I can afford to do so, engaging with other well-traveled and incredibly talented food obsessives in real life and on social media, and cooking and preparing foods and ingredients that I’ve never before experienced, with every chance I get. My goal is to better understand the foods of our planet and share my experiences with anyone who’d like to come along on my food adventures.

I started this website/blog to share my own perspectives about my connections to food and culture, in an effort to learn, connect, and share my relationship to food with others. This website, along with my Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube channel are all the ways in which I hope to make this possible.