My name is Greg Turner. I like being a husband and dad, cooking, photography, writing, New Order and The Clash. I’m irascible, grumpy, an introvert and difficult to know. I’m also loyal and kind and funny.
Hi.
Why I cook:
I cook because I think it’s important. It’s important to eat real, good food, and it’s important to bring the family together each night to sit around the table and be able to look one another in the eyes and understand that we’re here together. Even if we don’t talk much that night, even if we gobble up our food because it tastes so good, or listlessly pick at it because our days have been tough and no one feels much like talking. Even if all that happens through the course of the meal, we’re still there with one another, and that’s what counts.
I also cook because I want people to understand that it’s the cooking that’s important. Yes, folks can worry about organic sourcing or local foods or buying into Community Supported Agriculture or tracking down humanely raised beef or pork. But I think that comes later. The first and most important step is to begin cooking in the home for yourself or for people you love. Or, as Ruhlman says, if you don’t like to cook, help someone who does. Agree to watch the kids for an hour. Tell him you’ll clean up after. Food is what makes us go, my friends. It is what we need to survive. And in the end? It’s not that hard. Simple, good-tasting food can be had in your home with just a little bit of practice.
Her’es the weird third-person stuff:
Greg Turner was born and raised in Gainesville, Florida where he attended Santa Fe Community College and the University of Florida. The most valuable skills he took from those institutions are critical thinking and the ability to cut through bureaucratic bullshit, two skills not unrelated. Greg Turner also learned he could get a graduate degree in story telling and took it upon himself to do so. In 1998 he completed coursework and a thesis necessary to earn an MFA in fiction from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Greg has since been employed as a resume writer (don’t ask, he will not look at your resume), advertising copy writer, help-files developer, project manager, college instructor, and Web designer and developer. His most interesting jobs have been in warehouses.
He has written game reviews for Insidemacgames.com and Buzzjive.com and has had fiction accepted for publication in The Quarterly, edited by Gordon Lish, Atlantis and various online publications. He remains a contributing member of Gainesville Poets and Writers, the town’s oldest continuing writing group. In 2002 Greg Turner published a collection of short stories entitled Building and was the food columnist for Satellite Magazine (RIP, print edition).
He believes the barbecue battles were settled quite nicely long ago in the Carolinas, thanks, a good pulled pork being the art’s finest achievement.
He has lived in Gainesville, Wilmington and Orlando, and has traveled to all 50 states, England, Scotland, Italy and Holland. In 2003 he moved back to Gainesville and lives there with his wife and daughter and newly-minted son, all of whom are much greater than he deserves.
