Kirk grew up along the shore of a lake nested in the foothills of the Idaho Bitterroot Range. A bit of a loner as a boy, he was luckily befriended by Pat Flammia. Flammia—artist, timber baron, sailor, amateur cook, sportsman and opera fan—taught Kirk him how to trim a jib, tie a fly and cast it in a mountain stream, chop oregano for spaghetti and a host of other skills a young boy ought to know.

Grateful for the knowledge, but seeking fortune and adventure, Kirk ran away from Idaho for the big city of Seattle. There, he graduated from college, made some money, then ran away again. This time on a 37 foot sailboat. He shanghaied his wife, Lisa, and forced her to cook, navigate and reef the mainsail when the wind piped up. Somewhere around latitude 24 north, Lisa decided she might as well enjoy life at sea. Together, they sailed the Pacific, Caribbean and Atlantic oceans for a few years. They ate lobster and coconuts with the natives, drank rum with the other pirates and roustabouts, and swam naked with the sharks under a full moon. They weathered the usual close calls and almost lost the boat and their lives twice.

When the money got thin, they tied up to a dock in Baltimore and started a canvas business, making covers and whatnot for other sailors. For seven long years the sea beckoned and Kirk succumbed to her temptations again. But after two years, the seas did not seem as blue or the winds quite as fair as they did the first time. Wiser than he, Lisa convinced Kirk to “swallow the hook”, i.e., sell the boat and move ashore.

Somehow, they landed in Philly and made new friends who knew nothing about shoals and shrouds. Rebecca Torpie was one of them. Dauntless, perhaps crazy, certainly ignorant, Kirk and Lisa decided to open a cheese bistro in Old City. Rebecca offered them a few tips. They in turn offered her a job. We shall see what happens next.

Lisa Ruff comes from a family of foodies—grandparents who were farmers, a brother that’s a chef. She got an Easy-Bake oven when she was six. Her first cake was a flop—let’s face it, a light bulb doesn’t produce the best tasting product—but cooking took hold in her soul and gullet. Since her big brother pretty much hogged the kitchen, she didn’t actually learn to cook until he left home. Her un-requited fascination with food took root in the hardware of cooking. Her first real job after college was working in the design department of a restaurant equipment distributor. She’s designed Mexican, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese restaurants, the occasional diner, quite a few hamburger joints and a cocktail lounge.

Life and a sailboat took her away from design into another world. She spent five years cruising the sea with her husband and a cat, figuring out how to make a meal anywhere, in any conditions, out of just about anything at hand. She also wrote a book or two or three. When she got back to land again, she managed to get them published. Now wedge + fig has brought her full-circle back to restaurant design and cooking.

Rebecca Torpie hails from Chicago (you can take the girl out of the South Side, but you can't take the South Side out of the girl...), but has lived in numerous East Coast cities her adult life. She is a pastry doyenne and founder/former owner of Flying Monkey Patisserie in Philadelphia. Her loves are Dutch design, Nabokov, pugs and grocery shopping in foreign countries. She could live on Chenin Blanc, Pierre Robert and baguette alone. One day, she and her husband Chris will retire to Normandy and live out their twilight years running a boutique Calvados distillery overlooking Mont St. Michel.