Brian Murphy is a Professional Chef Based in The Bay Area

My culinary education started in the kitchen, making bread with Mom. “Think loving thoughts while you knead the dough, it’ll taste better,” she told me.

This sounded goofy, even as a 7-year-old. But I did my best to radiate good vibes while I worked the dough. I felt the shaggy pile transform into a silky smooth ball. We laid it into a blue Pyrex bowl in the warmest corner of the kitchen to rise.

Saturday mornings, I watched Julia Child and Jacques Pépin on PBS. I brought home stacks of cookbooks from the library. I spent all day in the kitchen, cooking elaborate meals. My greatest joy was to gather my family around the dining room table and astonish them with my cooking.

Professional cooking started later, several years into my career as a copywriter. I had a radical idea. Why not turn my passion for cooking into a career? Well, because I graduated from Yale, not culinary school. But I also didn’t want to spend my life in a cubicle, yearning to be in the kitchen.

So I went to my favorite restaurant, Oliveto in Oakland. With Chef Paul Bertolli at the helm, Oliveto was widely regarded as the top Italian restaurant in the country, and Bertolli won several James Beard awards. Everything was made from scratch, by hand, without recipes, inspired by the best ingredients available in the moment. It reflected Bertolli’s origins at Chez Panisse, where he wrote Chez Panisse Cooking with Alice Waters.

I talked my way into a spot as an unpaid kitchen helper. I peeled potatoes, cleaned chanterelles, whatever needed free hands. They saw the care I put into every task, and my responsibilities grew.

Soon I was cooking on the line, working pasta, fish, and the spit/grill. I made pizza in the wood-fired oven downstairs. I was promoted to Sous Chef. I opened the restaurant in the morning, wrote lunch and dinner menus, rallied the troops, and got cooking.

At Nostrana in Portland, I became Executive Chef.  I wrote ever-changing menus and managed a talented team of cooks, pastry chefs, pasta makers, and bakers. We cooked for at the James Beard House, served banquets with Tuscan superstar butcher Dario Cecchini. We collaborated with chefs like Nancy Oakes, Stephanie Izard, and Gabrielle Hamilton. We hosted events with personal heroes like Samin Nosrat and Ruth Reichl.

I returned to the Bay Area to develop recipes for Amy’s Kitchen. We created wholesome frozen organic meals sold in stores nationwide and beyond. Despite my Italian culinary training, my cooking ranges the globe. I made dishes reflecting a diversity of traditions — Thai, Mexican, Indian, Korean, Chinese, and American classics.

Private cheffing distills what I love about cooking to its essence — going to the market for seasonal ingredients and inspiration, putting all my experience and care into each element of the meal, and creating the best part of the day for my clients around the dining room table.