Michael, who lives in Western Hills even though neither he nor his wife grew up on the West Side, is curing some of the best salmon I've ever tasted onsite at Findlay Market in a sparkling clean custom-built smoke room across the street from the Lukens stand. It's a dream of his and his wife's, both lifelong foodies, to build a long-time hobby into a second career. When he recently left a big local law firm, they decided the time was right to see if his recipe for handcrafted salmon had legs. 

I caught up with him one day while he dry-cured 25 pounds of his wonderful European-style cold-smoked salmon.