I’m Tabor. I’m a nerdy mechanical engineer who loves cooking and developing my own recipes. I especially love experimenting with new-to-me foods. I’ve never been a picky eater, and if you were to ask my mother, she’d tell you all about the time I had a chocolate covered cricket in 4th grade. I’ve also tried durian fruit and Hákarl (Icelandic Fermeted Shark); I would recommend neither.
My cooking style is eclectic; I try to pick up new foods and techniques wherever I go. I lean heavily on Latin flavors, but really I’m all over the map. Whenever my husband and I travel, we try to find a cooking class in the area and learn all about the local cuisine. We’ve done classes in Buenos Aires, Seoul, and Bali (and more)! It is always fun to incorporate these tastes into my everyday cooking.
My love for farmers market started with my pet rabbit – Inky. Since rabbits love fresh produce, my mother and I would head to the local farmers market in Sunnyvale to pick up fresh stuff for him to munch on. One of the farmstands would display their carrots with the tops, but since most people don’t use the tops, would cut them off for their customers. When I stopped by, they would generously give the carrot tops to me for free. Inky was definitely a fan.
Random Food-Related Facts About Me
- I strongly dislike 99% of grape-related foods, including wine and especially balsamic vinegar. The exceptions to this rule are fresh grapes and red wine vinegar (well, I suppose vinegars in general are an exception).
- Of the five basic tastes, my preferences lean heavily toward sour and salty.
- I unabashedly love red meat. Beef, lamb, bison… I love it all!
- My first, and perhaps most famous (infamous?) recipe is my Doritos Lasagna. It may not be the healthiest dish out there, but it is way tasty (perhaps more than it ought to be).
My “Day Job”
I’m the Hardware Lifecycle Manager for Carbon, Inc. I’m in charge of the hardware products (the printers and accessories) once they are released for customer use. Released products are rarely static; designs can and need to be improved with time so that they are more robust, more economically procured, and generally better than when they’re first released. While it may not be as glamorous as new product development, it’s just as important in the product lifecycle.
About My Name
For those who are interested in the background behind my name, I was named after Baby Doe Tabor, the Silver Queen of Colorado, who had quite the rags-to-riches-to-rags story. Baby Doe is a legendary figure; there’s even an opera based and a Pre-Code Hollywood era silent movie about her life. If you ever visit Leadville, Colorado, you can still tour the Matchless Mine and see the cabin where she lived after her second husband, Horace, died. My mother grew up in Colorado and knew that if she ever had a daughter, she wanted to name her “Tabor” because Baby Doe knew what she wanted and went after it.
As it turns out, the name “Tabor” does appear in a bunch of places that are not Colorado. There are several Mount Tabors in the world; some of the more famous ones are in Israel and Portland, Oregon. A “tabor” is also a type of drum, which means that I can legally use my name on a Scrabble board.
