Erik Akis was hired as food writer for the Victoria Times Colonist in 1997.

His recipe-rich, by-weekly columns are published Wednesday and Sunday. Akis trained in the 1980s to be a professional chef and pastry chef, and worked for 15 years in a variety of operations in Ontario and British Columbia, from fine hotels to restaurants to catering companies.

In 2003, his experiences as a chef and food writer inspired him to create the best-selling Everyone Can Cook series of cookbooks, which have four titles to date and more on the way.

Akis also work as a food consultant, providing services such as food styling and recipe development.

Eric Akis was born into a military family in Chicoutimi, Quebec and has lived in six provinces. Victoria, which he moved to in 1992, is now officially home, where he lives with his wife, Cheryl Warwick, also a chef, and son Tyler.