who I am

i grew up in greater los angeles county, and I’ve always had a passion for baking, and in bartending.

first time I discovered baking was when I was 7 years old and I saw an ez bake oven and I wasn’t allowed to get it because it was a girl’s toy, and being from a semi-traditional household it was hard to argue against that, so I opted for the real thing.

I think the first thing I ever baked were those pillsbury Christmas cookies with the snowmen on them, I remember being so excited with my mom and step dad, and being a fat little kid I ate several.

since that, I remember pleading with my parents to let me go to baking summer schools to improve my skills, I wanted to know how to make more things, I wanted to know how to make not just food, but actually flavorful and good food.

I went to a culinary high school, but took the hospitality route after sophomore year to broaden my knowledge, we were the first graduating year of that school and I graduated 2nd of my class. by then, I had already begun experimenting with alcohol, trying to make drinks and cocktails by myself with the things I had access to. The first drink I ever made was for a dinner party I tried to host; the unnamed soju blackberry mint with tonic water. this is when I learned that cocktails usually have a sugar element in them.

my schooling and my associates in business administration led me to places, places like Disney. I was a bell clerk at the Disneyland hotel for some time, then I had made my way into Club 33. I have spent much time there, became a trainer, a bartender, and considered at one point for every other position there.

this is where the story of stiff sweets began.