I'm a firefighter/paramedic. I'm the cook at home, (wife can't/won't?) and love to cook for the guys at work. When you have between 4-8 hungry guys waiting for a meal, you just can't mess up! I have some formal culinary training from the local community college but did not complete the program. Basically I took all the hands on cooking classes, and decided to skip all the "book" stuff. Meats, meats and meat not much, a few of moms recipes have been passed down, but not much else. Cooking a successful holiday meal for the entire shift of firefighters, all the while taking emergency calls and still pulling it off. I feel a tragedy is when you have guests push away hungry. I try to never let that happen.