I do not remember when Bruce first got interested in cooking, but he always was interested in food and looked forward to eating. His Mom reports that when he was very young and small, he wanted to be held up to see what she was doing when preparing something on the stove. So she often would be holding him with one arm while trying to fix dinner with the other. When he was about eight years old, he designed a menu, which we still have, for his "famous Paries Café," for which he hand-drew the cover. He had his Mom type the inside menu details, but he cooked the meal (with a little help from Mom) and, dressed as a waiter, he served it to us. One of his delights involved the use of food coloring – we have eaten blue applesauce and green mashed potatoes on occasion. When necessary, we could recall our car’s license plate number, 514 BWF, by thinking "514 Bruce Wants Food". He and his brother, Dave, could put away lots of pizza loaf and tacos.

In middle school Bruce took a class called "Bachelor Prep," and he was very proud of the chef’s hat and apron he made there. During his junior year at Stadium High School, Bruce joined the staff of the new Lobster Shop restaurant at Dash Point on opening day. He started as a bus boy, but soon was put to work preparing salads. He enjoyed showing others there how to pop open a packaged loaf of bread and how to bang the heart out of a head of lettuce. Gradually he learned more cooking skills and worked his way up until he was one of the cooks on an evening shift. By the time he was a senior at Stadium, he was the chief cook for one of the shifts. During that time he learned how to make some of the delicious desserts offered there. One we remember as our favorite was "grasshopper pie," made with Crème de Menthe. After Bruce left for college in St. Louis, we looked forward to his baking one of those pies when he came home during holidays.

After graduation he went to work at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati. There he found an apartment and got back to serious cooking. With his marriage to Lisa he acquired a skilled cooking partner, and they often prepared special meals together.

Whenever we visited them in Cincinnati, Bruce would whip up a fancy dinner for us. He had a knack of preparing it fast and it was always a gourmet meal. The kitchen might look like a disaster area, with pots and pans all over the place, but the results were always delicious. Bruce enjoyed trying new recipes, and we could always give him a cookbook for his birthday when nothing else seemed appropriate.