John Rosevear

John Rosevear started cooking at age 7 or 8 (scrambled eggs, and they were pretty good), but didn't get serious about it until he was in his 20s: "I had a great apartment in Boston -- I mean, really great -- but not much money, because I was spending it all on rent. That meant I couldn't go out to eat as much as I liked, so I started trying to duplicate my favorite restaurant foods at home." Starting with a $30 wok and a Martin Yan cookbook, he taught himself Chinese cooking basics, making frequent runs to Boston's Chinatown for "reference purposes", enlisting foodie friends to critique his efforts, and taking occasional classes along the way. Later, he'd repeat the process with traditional French cooking, live-fire grilling and barbecue, old-school cocktails, and anything else that caught his palate's fancy.

Today, he's a work-at-home writer and a regular contributor to the irreverent investing site The Motley Fool, an arrangement that leaves him lots of time to inflict his culinary experiments on his family and friends.