Before sending Jeff an e-mail at Axe Jeff , please browse through our Infrequently Asked Questions. You never know, the answer you may be looking for may be found right here.

Q. Are the recipes in your books specifically designed for Lilliputians?

A: Quite the opposite my friend. Firefighter appetites are legendary and demand to be satisfied, but don't just think of the recipes as food to feed a crowd. Most of the recipes in my cookbooks are designed for 4-6 diners, depending of course on who the diners are - firefighters or mere mortals – and when they last ate. The recipes are meant for not only the firehouse but your house as well, so you can simply do the math to feed more or fewer. Remember, if you have leftovers that means you don't have to cook the following night.

Q: As a respected conspiracy theorist, I put forth the theory that you have written these books with the hidden agenda of converting modern society to the firefighting subculture, so that one day firefighters will ultimately rule the world.

A: That's us, taking over the planet one 911 emergency call at a time.

Q: What is the source code of your recipe collection, I'm keen to hack in and expose vulnerabilities with viruses and Trojan horse attacks.

A: Slow down there Bill, there's no need for a hostile takeover. The majority of the recipes come from fellow firefighters and friends. The great thing about recipes is that they're open source, and they're meant to be shared and improved upon. Give the recipes in my books your own touch and personalize them to suit your tastes. Recipes are guidelines not hard and fast rules, so be brave and experiment.

Q: I can't find the dam garlic press. Have you see it?

A: At troubling times such as these, one must ask the question. If were a garlic press, where would I hide? Imagine squeezing fresh cloves of garlic through your teeth on a regular basis. That would be enough to make most of us cower and hide. If you happen to be at a firehouse this is especially challenging as nothing is ever put back in the same place twice.

Q: I've noticed that there are numerous spelling mistakes, obvious grammatical errors, sentence structure inconsistencies and poor wording choices throughout the website. What's the deal Mr. Purlitzer Prize?

A: We've found this to be a surprising side effect of our choice to go editor free. In fact this last sentence should have read, ‘I've' instead of ‘we've', and ‘my' instead of ‘our', but ‘we' being ‘I' didn't have an editor to point that out to ‘us' being ‘me.' Had there been an editor with ‘us' being ‘me' it would have read, ‘we've' instead of ‘I've' and ‘our' instead of ‘my' and ‘I' before ‘e' except after ‘c', you see. Be consoled by the fact that running editor free is a very wise choice, environmentally speaking.

Q: I notice that many of your recipes call for an oven temperature of 375 degrees Fahrenheit, or 190 degrees Celsius. How much is this in Kelvin?

A: Obviously you weren't in my grade 11 chemistry class or you'd know that I failed every test that year, generally scoring 1 out of 15 - despite attending remedial class every morning before school - and re-wrote every test barely scraping by with 53%.

Q: How do you say your last name? Is that Derr-og, Der-raw, Der-oh?

A: Wait a second, that's a frequently asked question. What's more, I'm guessing that you're a Safeway cashier given those sad attempts at pronunciation. No it's Derraugh, like Sarah, the ‘ugh' is ironically silent.

Q: When will we see your books on the New York Times bestsellers list?

A: Let's be honest here, you have a better chance of finding a supermarket cashier that doesn't have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

Q: Do you use exciting exotic ingredients such as Cold Pressed Prairie Oysters, Wolverine Stock, Honus Wagner Bat Resin, Tibetian Trellis and Extra Virgin Tree Trollops in any of your recipes?

A: No, that's always been a pet peeve of mine – using hard-to-find ingredients. I think that listing this wacky stuff in recipes is all about chefs trying to impress other chefs. My rule of thumb is that a firefighter should be able to find it. Oh, he or she may need to be dragged through the store by the ear to the item by a grumpy grocer, but it should be readily available. It's the blue collar way!

Q: Why are you picking on supermarket employees? Grocery store workers are the heart of our great nation, why they grow the very food we eat.

A: I think you mean stockbrokers. Regardless, I in no way intend any harm. In fact, I worked in grocery stores for years; it's how I got my break in the food business. Of course that was back in a long-forgotten time when we stacked milk cartons on tomatoes in paper bags, and cashiers used an abacus to ring up bills paid for with ducats.

Q: Is there a Coles or Cliff's Notes version of your cookbooks available?

A: Typical firefighter, trying to take the cheap and easy way out. Sorry, at 240 odd pages this is as brief as it gets.

Q: If these are truly cookbooks, what's with all the stories?

A: Think of the recipes as the plot, and the stories as the subplot. Besides, a little humour lightens things up, Cooking is supposed to be fun, so why not spice it up with funny stories?

Q: But I don't seem to find anything in your books amusing?

A: This is obviously a compatibility issue with your operating system. Try upgrading to Humour Sense version 7.04.

Q: How does Humour Sense 7.04 differ from previous versions?

A: Numerous bug fixes have been addressed as well as an enhanced pant pee sensor; laughter burst filter, knee slap protocol 1.3, wavelength formatting tool and punch line encoder.

Q: But I have Sense of Humour 7.04, and since picking your books up, I haven't so much as cracked a smile. What gives?

A: Did we somehow infer that they're designed to be humorous prose? Come on, it's a cookbook for crying out loud! Ha, a humour piece - now THAT'S funny! Try switching to Movie of the Week Tearjerker version 5.30.

Q. What if I accidentally memorize large passages of your books and I'm captured by Guerrilla extremists and forced to talk. What should I do?

A: You don't expect them to find this funny either do you?

Q: That's not an answer, that's another question.

A: Like any good politician or cookbook author I won't answer that directly. Rather I'd like to leave you with a pearl of wisdom from the late, great Julia Child. “ It's fun to get together and have something good to eat at least once a day. That's what human life is all about, enjoying things.”

So swing your butt into the kitchen pronto and let the good times roll!