BLiS was started with unique, Flavor-Cured Domestic Caviars and has grown to include gourmet Bourbon Barrel Aged & Tahitian Vanilla Infused Organic Maple Syrup, Double Solera Sherry Vinegars, Flavor Infused Fleur de Sel, & Exotic Spice Rubs.
We are a green company, we source organic ingredients as much a possible, and we use sustainably resourced fish to make our wild roes. Our gourmet food products have received rave reviews from some of America’s top chefs and have been featured in O, Food & Wine, Chocolatier, and Saveur magazines Along with Diary of A Foodie & Martha Stewart. If you Google "blis maple syrup" you will find over 1400 entries.
We invite you to try our our gourmet food products both as they are traditionally intended and in new and creative ways.
I think my interests in natural, regional and gourmet foods could be traced to my family’s one-half acre organic truck garden in Rochester, Michigan. The garden was managed as a pesticide-free operation and required very little irrigation during the course of the growing season. The garden’s prodigious output fed my large family as well as providing food for many needy families in the area.
I actually started cooking when I was 8 years old; a gourmet chef in the making. I was fascinated by the whole process. When I was 9, I fed 200 people at a Presbyterian Church camp Crepes Suzette. I had five or six adults working with me. I made the batter, got them organized and even served them with homemade apple butter and strawberries.
Favorite Things & Inspirations:
When I’m not working on BLiS or cooking you can usually find me fishing, foraging, hunting, cycling, or with my wife and three dogs.
I got my start as an outdoorsman at the age of eight on the Jordan River in northern Michigan. I’m an avid fly fisherman and have had the good fortune to visit some of the world’s best streams in Canada, Iceland, France, England, Scotland, Mexico, and the British Virgin Islands. I also enjoy tying flies, outdoor photography, and am a licensed Michigan river guide.
Life before BLiS:
After training at the Greenbrier Hotel, Tailevent Restaurant of Paris, and the Culinary Institute of America, I spent nearly two decades focused on advancing my vision of truly American Cuisine based on naturally sourced ingredients.
Past Positions:
> Dow Chemical Corp., Midland, Michigan – Corporate Chef
> Racquet Club, Memphis, Tennessee - Executive Chef & GM
> Amway Hotels, Inc – Corporate Chef
> Atlantic Farms, Inc. – Owner
> Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulfur Springs,
West Virginia – Sous chef
Advisory Board Positions:
> Plitt Seafood, Chicago, Illinois
> Northwood University’s Hotel & Institutional Program,
Midland, Michigan.
Domestic Roe
