Welcome to Married for the Meals! My name is JJ, I’m a professional videographer and self taught cook. I’ve spent my entire adult life working on the road. I’ve lived in hotels, motels, resorts, dive boats, arctic ovens, and two man tents.
During my travels I’ve gleaned a lot from the people that have cooked for me and the different cultures I’ve been lucky enough to experience. I’ve taken cooking classes in Indonesia and Thailand.
No matter where I am, or what I am shooting, when the day is done, everyone gathers around for food and drink. I love cooking because it makes you feel like you belong, like you’re home.
A few months before the world broke, in March of 2020, I met the love of my life, Frankie. She is a full time therapist and a full blooded Italian. Frankie grew up in a long line of food folks.
Her grandparents opened one of the first Italian restaurants in Baltimore. Her uncle was a beloved produce purveyor, and Frankie herself slung potatoes at her dads fry company. She ultimately decided to dedicate her life to healing minds and not hunger; not before taking culinary classes while studying abroad in Florence Italy.
“I promise to be true to you during good meals and bad ones, in hunger and in satiety”
So I was freshly smitten and had nowhere to wine and dine my future wife. (remember Covid lockdowns?!) If I was going to win her over, I knew I had to step up my home cooking.
The first time I cooked for her, I made a vegan Indian tacos called “Frankies”. She said she liked it, but she also said she would’ve preferred some red meat.
I thought she was joking, because in her dating profile she said she was a vegetarian. Fortunately she lied in her profile and that was just “a stage of her life”. We’ve never looked back.
Now Frankie and I live together in Portland, Oregon with our two French bulldogs, Billie and Bobbi. We got married in June of 2022 and love to spend our time together cooking, feeding, and learning from each other.
Married for the Meals, is a scrapbook of our individual cooking experience, as well as a culinary roadmap of our love story. We hope you enjoy the stories and recipes, cheers!
