FOOD&DRINK He had been cooking out since he was a teenager, growing up outside of Detroit, but not until he started grilling alongside soldiers from all walks of life, all around the world, did he feel a deeper sense of appreciation for what a common denominator it is. “I recognized early on that there was something about food and fire that brought people together,” Eads said. “Living in a barracks in Southern California, you might have a couple of Hispanic kids that were from L.A. You might have a really southern boy from Mississippi. There were people from all walks of life, but all our differences disappeared when we were around a grill, and seeing meat over this open fire. Everybody just came together while we talked about food and flavors and formed freendships and created memeories.” Eads celebrates that sense of connection with a movement he started on social media called “United by Flame.” Using that as a hashtag, he invites people to share grilling photos, anecdotes, recipes
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and memories with him. That kind of sentiment, his engaging personality and of course, Eads’ skills on the grill have helped him grow a base of 36,600 followers on Instagram and turn a lifelong passion into a new career. On Instagram, Eads is the “Grillseeker,” which is a play on a Ted Nugent lyric about a thrill seeker from a tribute song he wrote about a bowhunter named Fred Bear who loved the outdoors. Eads has a website, Grillseeker. com, and a new cookbook out entitled
“Grill Seeker: Basic Training for Every Day Cooking.” The cookbook is both a how-to on gourmet grilling, with sections on grills, grilling tools and cooking techniques, and a practical guide to making grilling part of everyday cooking. It features more than 75 recipes including whole chapters on beef, poultry, seafood, sides, appetizers and desserts. The publisher, who first approached Eads about writing it, said they could consider it a success if they sold at least 3,000 copies. Within 24 hours of its release, Grill Seeker was leading Amazon book sales in several categories. Now it has sold more than 30,000 copies. Not bad for a guy who was still in the corporate world five years ago and only joined Instagram on a whim in 2016, when his three daughters encouraged him to do it. Eads had left the Marines at age 30 after his youngest daughter was born. He used the GI bill to go back to college at Penn State, while staying at home with daughter who was five months old when he started. Taking as many as eight classes a semester, he graduated in 29 months and made the Dean’s List. Eads took a job with General Electric, working the civilian side of what he already knew—C130 transport plane propellers. He worked his way up to program manager and got transferred to Washington, D.C., but eventually he realized corporate life and travel was still keeping him away from his family. “I was basically outsourcing my entire life,” Eads said. “It was like the nanny
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