gJ Maresca  

I grew up in Brooklyn, and I’ve been cooking for as long as I can remember. My grandparents were chefs and bakers from Naples — so the kitchen was just where life happened. I began working in my uncle’s Italian restaurants, started with the unglamorous stuff, and eventually worked my way up to actually cooking. Then moved on, to working in pizzerias. I loved it. I figured that was my path.

Then science got in the way. I had strong grades and a genuine passion for engineering, but paying for college was another story. The only full four-year grant I could find was from the U.S. Navy’s NROTC program. I took it. Four years of college, then four years of active duty as a commissioned officer. Simple enough — until I discovered flying.

During a summer reserve stint, I got accepted into the elite Naval Aviator Training Program. I was going to be a fighter pilot. I felt it in my chest — the certainty of it, the rightness. Nothing, I told myself, could possibly derail this.

What followed was a life I couldn’t have invented: eight years active duty, three in the reserves, two years in naval aviation training earning my gold wings, three years in Vietnam doing my best not to earn the other kind. If that wasn’t enough, I re-enlisted later in life, for four more years as a technical consultant. Apparently, I don’t take hints easily.

After I finally separated, I spent years in the computer industry working for top military contractors — good work, interesting problems. But cooking never really left me. When I retired, I went to Italy and enrolled at the Italian Culinary Institute. I came home a restaurateur, a personal chef, and a cooking instructor. It felt like coming full circle.

Then I started writing. First two cookbooks — one on lifestyle-based eating, one entirely devoted to pizza, which I’ve enjoyed making for over 50 years. After that I moved into fiction and memoir: novels, a mystery, and a three-book series about growing up and flying jets in the golden age of naval aviation. There’s another one coming — a sci-fi mystery set in Egypt, underneath the Sphinx. I’m not sure I know how to stop now.

I love telling my stories to all who want to listen…