My influence would be my dad, He Never let me be a "picky" child. I have 3 older sisters and none of them are like me in my food tastes, because my dad somehow chose me to bestow his knowledge and love of food on. I felt like i was in on a cosmic secret!. He showed me his love of Oysters fresh and grilled in our backyard, He took me to our local thai restaurant and i ordered things i still cannot pronounce, he loathed liver and onions but knew how to cook them so well, We would butcher our pigs and cows and chickens together and savor the fresh meat, He would hunt and fish and we would have a huge freezer full of venison, wild boar,rabbit, squirrels, fish, and frog legs, He refused to take us to fast food joints called them "gutbombs", We ate pizza from a local place called Loritos it always had huge chunks of garlic on it…..still to this day we meet about once a month and go eat sushi, thai, vietnamese(he still tells me about when he ate dog while in vietnam),Real Italian…..He has blessed me with an open Food mind!