About
Welcome friends & family!
I'm Garrett, but some people know me as Bear. My wife, Jana, and I have always been passionate about cooking and baking.
I got laid off from tech in 2024, which led me to being a stay at home dad and put me in a chapter of life discovery. There might be some little hands every once in a while helping me out.
In 2019 I fell in love with naturally leavened ("sourdough") pizza and went on a journey of making it at home. My 100+ year old San Francisco sourdough starter is named Giuseppe. You can learn more about Ricotta Bear pizza on the pizza + catering page.
Why we are here
My wife handles all the baking in the house and we divide the cooking. She's great with following instructions and recipes, baking the classics, and terminology. Me on the other hand, I just make up most of my cooking on the fly, get adventurous with flavors, don't know any of the terms, and cook with instinct. In short, my baking sucks compared to Jana's.
Luckily we both love to watch The Great British Bake Off together, and we even have a group of friends who share the same passion. This year I decided a great way to improve my baking skills, and maybe actually learn proper technique and terminology, was to put together a Tent Ready bootcamp.
The goal is to learn popular recipes and technicals you might find on the show. Jana gets to always be a judge, and I look forward to having some guest judge appearances. I want my readers to also help participate and set challenges for me.
Additionally, I set a goal for my followers: as this series grows, if I can reach 1 million followers, I will apply my butt off to every baking show possible for me to get on. I would even move to the UK to meet all the qualifications to be on The Great British Bake Off, but AI says I might not be able to qualify due to Ricotta Bear (if their legal team wants to look into it, let me know).
Jana is a very tough judge, so I look forward to her comments, her feedback, and her form of a handshake (what will it be?!).
Tune into the Tent Ready series
I'll be posting most of my journey here and on Instagram, but I did finally join TikTok, so videos get uploaded there too.