Tyler Daniel Lewis didn’t intend to work in food. He didn’t know as a child, when the kitchen in his home was a melting pot of different culinary influences, that he would one day hold the title of Chef. He wouldn’t have guessed it when he started scrubbing pans at his hometown’s local pizza joint or when he got his undergraduate degree in Environmental Science and Ecological Design.

But the writing (and some marinara sauce) was on the wall.

Chef Tyler grew up in a home that valued sharing a meal together above all else. Immersed in a rural environment, he spent his childhood foraging for mushrooms and developing an innate bond with the natural world. His family taught him a simple lesson about food; that meals are not simply the sum of their parts. That when you bring forward quality ingredients and treat them with care, they blend together to create something bigger than just one dish. Meals have social value—they tie us together, whether that’s over the table or through recipes.

This love of food brought Chef Tyler to take over his first restaurant in Burlington, Vermont, during a leave of absence from school. There he learned how to train staff, run a kitchen, and work with artisanal creators.

Motivated by a desire to create a more sustainable life, Chef Tyler packed up his pots and pans and sailed off into the sunset.

Or something like that.