Grapevine, Texas · Frankfurt years
Cj & Melinda
A family album and a working cookbook — Nanny’s tea cakes, Saturday bread, and the dinner nights we cooked in Germany.
January 11, 2000
FoodTronix, day one
Melinda, Cj, and Chris — the founders picture, taken the day FoodTronix started. The game boxes on the wall are the office as it actually was.
The cookbook came with us from Nanny Dorothy Bishop’s kitchen in Deming: avocado salad next to the enchiladas, tea cakes on Saturday with coffee. Mom Mary Steapp kept zucchini bread in the freezer. Then Frankfurt — homemade tortillas, spaetzle in Wiesbaden, and Cj’s orange chicken after he refused every version he found online.
Road trip · 2025
Battleship and submarine
A May road trip through the engine room, the helm, and the weather deck. Melinda on the gun. Cj next to shells that come up to his shoulder.
A few we still make
From the cookbook
Still the same doors
Church and the way home
Bethel in Germany. And the Plan of Salvation — Jesus as the bread, the light, the gate, the shepherd.