What’s your favorite after work or weekend activity?

Riding the Shallotte River with my dog, Harbor, is a great way to relax, but I also enjoy hanging out and hunting and fishing on our land with my family and my girlfriend, Bethanie. I just enjoy being out there. The fellowship and being together is enough, but I do like to get deer and ducks. My uncle took me to Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee, which is known for duck hunting, and we got so many different types of ducks, it was a great trip. He’s married to my mom’s twin. My mom doesn’t mind that we hunt, but she won’t cook it or eat it, so, any deer or duck is going to be cooked by me.

Would you share your favorite recipes?

I like to take duck breast and marinate it for a day in teriyaki sauce in a zip lock bag. Then I wrap it in bacon and place it on the grill like you would a popper. Grill it until the bacon is done, and that means that the duck is done too. Sometimes on a several-day hunting trip my brother and I will have that by itself for dinner, and it’s so good. With venison I like to make cube steak. I caramelize some onions by slowly cooking them in butter, and meanwhile I bread and fry the cube steak. I serve it with the caramelized onions on top, with mashed potatoes and gravy made from the drippings.

Any special getaways you enjoy?

Once a year, my parents, my brother and I and our girlfriends, and my grandma and aunt and uncle and their two kids, go somewhere for a week, usually in August. We go somewhere different, like Pawleys Island, Isle of Palms, and Outer Banks, but every fourth year we go to Key West, to Marathon. We travel with our boats, rent a big house, and spend all day boating, then come back and cook dinner. We’re together all day, every day of the vacation, which is great, because family is so important. It’s fun to watch the little ones grow up, and to know we’re always there for each other.