I'm an ex-white collar guy who gave up the cash and the comfort for happiness. Seven years ago, I started cooking in fine dining restaurants just to see if I liked it. After working both jobs for two years and paying off all of my debt, I quit the day job and I haven't looked back.

Seven years later, I continue to live an extraordinary life. I worked on Nantucket for three summers, and in between seasons I backpacked around southeast Asia and China eating, meeting people, and soaking up both sunshine and culture.

I'm looking for someone who loves their life right now and is perfectly happy with, but thinks that it might be just that much better if they had someone to share it with. Someone with both a sense of patience and a sense of adventure would be great.

I tend to get along better with people who have been abroad, maybe just because it gives them a broader sense of the world. If pop music is all you listen to, we probably won't get along very well, even though there are plenty of pop tunes that get stuck in my head. Princesses need not apply. Adventurers, intellectuals and artists step on up.

I live a somewhat unconventional life. I'm looking for someone who can see between the facts and the data to the possibilities and potentials of the world.

I'm a fine dining cook, honing my craft so I can open my own joint.

making crass jokes, but I'll usually save that for at least the second or third date.

As of late, my wooden framed glasses.

Movies: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Eat Drink Man Woman.
Music: Faithless, Badly Drawn Boy, The Cure, Prince, Thievery Corporation
Books: Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," Katherine Patterson's "Bridge to Terabithia," Fuchsia Dunlop's "Shark's Fin & Sichuan Pepper."
Food: Dumplings, noodles, bi bim bap.

(In no particular order:)
1. Sharpies (yes, the marker)
2. Dumplings (of any kind)
3. Music (more specifically my music collection)
4. Books (I have a decent and distinguished collection)
5. My Passport (And sometimes I have to take it for a stretch)
6. Inspiration (you gotta have fuel for your mind)

How and when I'll leave the country next and what kind of food will be there.

Expediting the line, orchestrating cooks, barking at servers and runners, and feeding people.

I kinda miss an old stuffed Mickey Mouse that I got when I was 4 and I lost sometime after college. Kinda wish I knew where it was now.

you're open. By open, I mean open to new things. Someone who isn't closed off to possibilities and who isn't firm on their stance on anything. Someone who will try a food over and over again, even if it's just for one bite at a time, just to make sure you don't like it (I do it all of the time with eggplant, cilantro and avocado). Someone who realizes that the world is fluid and constantly changing, and who realizes that they might change too.