The Nick Bare Podcast - 020: Changing The World's Relationship With Food - Dennis Prescott

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

Today on the show, we have Dennis Prescott. Dennis is a celebrated Canadian chef, TV host, and cookbook author. A once struggling musician living in Nashville, TN, his new love for cooking quickly became a food obsession, where he started his booming Instagram account full of mouth-watering food photos and eclectic recipes. In this conversation, we discuss topics such as how food can cultivate community, the difference in food cultures globally, and why we need to spend more time at the table. Dennis's unique background and perspective teach us that we can all create great food, regardless of upbringing. Save 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio Follow for more:  IG: https://www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/@nickbarefitness Keep up with Dennis here:  IG: https://www.instagram.com/dennistheprescott/  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dennistheprescott Topics: 00:00 Intro 1:45 Food is community 9:03 Musician to celebrity chef 24:15 Servant’s heart 31:09 Experience with food growing up 42:58 Differences in food cultures globally 52:30 Changing our relationship with food 56:37 Chef’s perspective on food 1:09:26 Everyone can learn to cook 1:20:38 Making a great sandwich

I don't recommend cooking for somebody for the first time and inviting 15 people. But I made this chicken korma dish. I made rice. I didn't know how to season. I didn't know how to do anything. It was frantic. But I did it. And I remember this moment where everybody sat at the table and it got quiet just for a second when people took their first bite.

I didn't realize that you could hit a nerve when it came to food. I have experienced these moments playing music for people. I saw that look in people's eye when they connected to the music that was happening on stage. I didn't know that you could do that with food. And that moment, that hush moment, became a banner moment where I thought all I want to do is recreate those moments for people. No concept that that would turn into a job. I just wanted to create those moments of hush for people constantly. And I became obsessed with it.

Before jumping into this episode, I want to thank you for tuning in and spending your time with me. Every watch and listen truly does matter. Now, we've decided to not take on any sponsors for this podcast because we don't want to interrupt your listening experience. But if you do want to support me, you can head over to BPNSups.com for all of your performance, endurance, and wellness supplement needs.

We offer a wide range of products from amazing tasting protein powders, effective pre-workouts, green superfoods, multivitamins, sleep support, and much more. I've spent the last decade building this brand community and product offering,

and I'm extremely thankful that it has helped so many people. So if you are in need of a new supplement routine, head over to BPNSups.com and use code Nick Bear 10 to save 10% off your order. Now let's jump right into this episode. Today on the podcast, we have Dennis Prescott, celebrated Canadian chef, cookbook author. You may have seen them on the Netflix series, Restaurant on the Edge, or like me, came across your beautiful Instagram food that has me just salivating everything you make. Dennis, welcome to the show.

Thank you. I don't know how I, it's the classic thing to say, but it's true. I don't know how I live up to that introduction. I love food. I love making people hungry. So I'm glad that I make you hungry. Well, if anyone's listening or watching this episode right now, you have to go to Dennis's Instagram and just look at the feed. Because when I was deep in my, my bodybuilding prep, you know, a few months ago. I finished the bodybuilding show March 25th this year. When I was deep in prep, I would come across, like, your post, and I'd go to your page, and I'd lay in bed at night, and I'd just go through the feed, like, looking at food porn,

and my wife was videoing me in bed, laying in bed one night, and I was watching one of your Instagram videos, and it was the Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich, and she's, she's, she's, recording me, I didn't know it. And I was scrolling through my phone. I was like, oh man, I need some some Nashville hot chicken right now. You know, there's a word for that, right? What is it?

Like, you're torturing yourself. Oh, 100%. I knew that I was. I knew that I was, but I could not resist. It's, I love that you love food so much that even in a moment where, I mean, God knows I've not prepped for a bodybuilding.

You don't have to, I don't have to say that. You just look at me. You know I haven't prepped for a bodybuilding competition. But I do know, I know it's cool that you love food so much that even though you knew you couldn't have food,

that you're still kind of obsessively looking for those moments that get you excited about food, you know? For me, food is so much more than fuel. And what I found during this past bodybuilding show is it's not that I necessarily missed eating a cheeseburger or eating like a rice. rib-eye steak or just eating these like really delicious foods. It wasn't eating the food itself,

but it was the experience. I missed going to dinner with friends or my family or even like at home, like between me and my wife, we do like dinners together. And I would make my meal, which was like chicken and sweet potatoes and broccoli and she would make her meal. And what we found through that journey that experience is we missed consuming meals together. Yeah. That's why like, going to dinner with friends and having people over and hosting. That's what I missed. It wasn't necessarily like the food itself. It was the experience.

Yeah. That's every. And I know you, I don't want to jump right in. I'm conscious of that. But it, and I'll say it about 15 times. So I apologize to everyone who's listening to this if I would get repetitive. But food is community.

Food is, food is more than the food that you consume. I mean, yes, it is that thing that we're eating. But I think that there's a beautiful, almost kind of sacred, moment when you break bread with somebody. And we've been doing it since we've been humans. And it's the one thing that no matter where you go in the world, what language you speak, where you're from, what your

background is, we all love food. We all love eating food with people we love. And it sounds so simple, but it's such an important part of who we are. We also all have favorite food and we get super excited about wanting to share those favorite food moments with other people. And I think that if you have that, and then it's kind of taken away from you, or you choose. to take it away from you from your situation like you're training for a bodybuilding competition you obviously notice it because it's such an integral part of who we are as people yeah i used to i used to feel guilty obsessing over food because like i said i love food but i also love the experience and i used to feel guilty thinking i was actually having this conversation with jordan last night

because we were going to dinner last night as i was telling you downtown austin at one of our favorite restaurants it's called peacock and we're so excited for this meal and we were thinking and we're having the conversation, should we feel guilty that we're this excited for this meal? I was like, no. Like, absolutely not.

Like, we're about to, like, it was me, him, his wife, my wife. We were about to go have like a cocktail together this beautiful restaurant and share these appetizers

and this meal and have dessert and have great conversation. Like, we should be so excited for this experience. Yeah. And I don't think

there should be like this feeling of guilt based off of like an obsession or desire for a meal and experience food community around it. Yeah, I don't think that I'm a big believer that guilt and food should never be in the same conversation.

I think that food should only be fun, exciting, bring people together, obviously delicious. But I think that, you know, from a guilt side of things, it's just bad. And I, you know, obviously your world and not mine. And I'm certainly not the expert. But I do watch a lot of people who put a lot of guilt. they pack it on. You know, it's an Everest of guilt on their back when it comes to what they eat and how that's going to affect them, especially if they're training or they're doing anything like that.

And to me, I can't see how that's a good thing. You know, I can't see how guilt and, you know, having guilt as a relationship with our food is going to end positively. And, I mean, obviously, I'm on the other side. I'm a chef. I'm trying to get people to eat. I'm trying to get people to eat delicious food. maybe to have some conscious thought about, yes, what you are eating.

But yeah, to celebrate those beautiful moments at the table around food that you love, I think it's super important. I don't think we should ever feel bad about that. I mean, God, I've gone to it. I've had reservations at restaurants six months in advance. And I'm super excited about it because food is the event. That's the thing. I think that people, I think that we've created a culture,

maybe not so much today, but definitely historically. where food was the thing, but it wasn't the main event. We were eating as fuel to get to the thing. There was a thing after the meal. And we were getting to that thing. So we were just eating to get to that thing. And I do think there's been a shift, at least in not just my life, but people I know,

where food is the event now. Like we're getting, there's nothing after. We want to spend that extra hour at the table with people that we love because we want to be there investing in that moment, which is a very kind of European style of eating. I remember the first time I went to Italy, I ate my food and I got up to leave and they kind of looked at me like I was crazy.

They're like, no, what are you doing? Like there's still more food to come. You still have to have an extra glass of wine. You still have to just sit there and just enjoy the moment, just enjoy being in the restaurant because they would go to dinner and it would be four hours that they would sit. And I was used to sitting at a table for 30 minutes, you know?

And I think that was a huge shift for me personally where I thought, oh, this is the event. But we're in a rush. Everyone's in a rush. And it's like, we're you rushing too. Yeah. So like,

you know, you have a dinner party, for example, you're done eating and everyone's rushing to leave. Like, well, or are you rushing too?

Why do you have to get home? If you have a reason, yes, I understand, but like, stay, have another drink. Like,

let's have a conversation. Let's, let's play a game. Let's do something. But before we dive too deep into it, I do want to back up a little bit. You know, People probably see you as this chef and you're on Netflix series and you're part of the Trigger team.

You have a cookbook. They probably think you have this massive production team around the content that you produce on online and on social media, even though most of it's like we were talking about just you. But everyone starts at some place. And we're having this conversation before we started recording. and I love the analogy of like the iceberg where you look at the iceberg and you see the tip but under the water is this story, this massive piece that you can't necessarily see. I want to know how you got to this point being able to travel the world and cook food and try different foods and experience different cultures because you used to be a struggling

musician in Nashville, Tennessee where food was a second thought. Take me back to Nashville, how you got there, and how you found food. Yeah. It wasn't even a second thought, to be honest. It was more of a, you know, somebody called me a friggin one time. I would just eat whatever was available. I was a musician for 10 years, pretty much. I went to school. I was meant to go for business. My parents are both educators. Went to university. dropped out because a guy, literally a guy with a fan, said, do you want to come on tour and go to North Carolina, Tennessee,

Virginia, Kentucky, obviously not in that order. And I'd never been to any of those places. And I thought this sounds infinitely better than the business degree that I hate right now. So I dropped out of school, and I kind of went on the road. I loved it. And that started, that was the flame that started kind of a 10-year, journey of me trying to be a musician. I remember being a kid and like, you know, I had posters on my wall like every other kid who wants to be a musician. And I don't think I had any

dreams, you know, I didn't have any dreams of grandeur. I didn't think that I was going to play at Madison Square Garden or anything like that. But I always thought music was cool. And then this just came as an opportunity. I think, you know, obviously those dreams grew as I got further and further into the music path that I had, and journey that I had started on. But initially, I just liked the community. I liked being around other musicians. We were in, you know, it was a traveling circus. And I loved it.

That, you know, turned into me playing with a bunch of different people. But then ultimately, I ended up playing with one band a lot. And we toured all over Canada and the U.S. And we made a record at Abbey Road Studios, which was unbelievable. And all, what was the genre of music? It was like, it's always hard. I mean, we were a rock band. We loved Radiohead was my favorite band growing up.

I liked that experimental thing that was coming out of England. But I also knew that I needed to write songs that people could sing to. So I would say it was like Radiohead meets Foo Fighters, which is a terrible description, but the best one that I can come up with. It was like singable songs, but a little bit more experimental. But we made that record. and then we toured constantly. And I'm sure that I don't need to tell you this, but the musician's life is rich in only one thing, experience.

And it was dripping in experience, but we had no money. And like we had a $4 a day per die per diem when I was in the band. $4?4.4. Did you like dollar menu? Sometimes you couldn't even do the dollar menu. So we would go to the grocery store and we'd get like the cheapest deli meat that they had available, Wonderbread, and not. mustard and then we would just share that kind of deal. And I eat that aside from if we had the like,

you know, a super kind person that said, yeah, you can sleep on our basement for the night. They would usually feed us, which was great. But often it was bad sandwiches, to be honest. And the crazy thing is that, I mean, during those 10 years, getting to Nashville, during those 10 years, I had these incredible food experiences. I remember being in England and having proper Indian food for the first time. I grew up on a small town east coast of Canada. It's amazing. I still live there. When I was a kid, we didn't have access to incredible, delicious food from other parts of the world. That has changed now, and we have more access. But at the time, like, Indian food was not a flavor that I'd ever tasted before. And I remember sitting, we had a day in the studio, went to Brighton,

sitting near the pier, looking out at the water, had this incredible Indian feast. And it kind of blew my mind because I didn't know food could taste this good. I didn't know flavors like this existed. And I had these moments in pockets of that well touring where I really started to become interested in different food and different flavors and why does this taste like this? Where did this flavor come from? And then I moved to Nashville. And in Nashville, I had, I mean, we were living, I said before the podcast, it was very true. We had an apartment in a challenging part of town. We went to a yard sale at a Korean church. And they were selling stuff.

They felt bad for us. So they gave us a bunch of stuff. In that stuff was an air mattress and a chair. And the chair had like the beer coozy. There's a proper word for that, but a camping chair with beer holders on the side. That was my living room furniture. And I slept on the air mattress.

I pumped it up every morning or every night. Sorry, because it would deflate overnight. Slipped with the lights on because there was a cockroach problem. It was not the glamorous Hollywood. Hills situation that I think friends back home thought we were going to because we told people we're moving to Nashville we had an opportunity down there they thought oh you made it big like no no we didn't we did the opposite of that we just went to a new city to hustle when you were in it were you thinking like guys we're struggling right now or were you just so filled with passion that like

I didn't see it yeah I mean if now if I look back at it I obviously see it without the blinders on but in the moment, I thought we're doing it. We're here. We finally moved to this place. It was this us against the world mentality. I didn't really grow up. I mean, I played it a little bit, but I didn't really play sports growing up.

So it's the closest thing I have, I've ever felt to being on like a football team and feeling like it's you against the world. We're here to crush. That's how it felt for me when I was building my business. I remember days where, like, rent was due the next week, and we didn't have enough money to cover rent. So we would do a flash sale on our website just to generate enough revenue to cover rent for that next week.

But while we were in it, we were never thinking, we're struggling. This is tough. It was just like we were so filled with passion. And like you said, it was you against the world. Like whatever we got to do. Like you think you're crushing at the time. You look back, you're thinking, wow, like we were barely surviving. Yeah.

It's so interesting how that works. Yeah. And I didn't think, even from a financial side, of things, which it's just an unfortunate reality that it controls a lot of our situation. I didn't even think I was financially struggling. I was, I mean, I was making less than no money. But in the moment, I was like, it doesn't matter to me. I don't care. Like, I have got a goal. I have a vision and I'm working towards that and nothing else will get in the way of this. The challenge, as someone who is an expert significantly more than I am, is that if you eat at the

dollar menu. And if you had bad sandwiches with bad deli meat for like 10 years, that catch is up to you. Quickly. Very quickly. So when I was in Nashville, I mean, I was, I had essentially doubled down on that diet because I couldn't, I literally couldn't afford anything. There was a studio, a studio that we did a little bit of workout of in a barbecue spot close to that that they would do, I can't remember now because it's been long enough. I think it was $3 lunches there. It's either three or $4 lunches. And they give you a huge plate. Nashville meat, meet in three classic. One day they'd have nachos.

The next day they'd have pulled pork and then you'd get your three sides. That was the only real proper meal that I would have aside from, you know, bad takeout. And a friend came to me at one point because to be honest with you, I wasn't happy. There's a lot of factors that I think everybody else can kind of figure out as to why I wasn't happy in the moment. But I think a huge part was I wasn't taking care of myself at all. And a friend came to me and had a little bit of a come-to-Jesus moment, sat down intervention style and said like, hey, you need to start taking care of yourself here. You're eating terrible food.

You're not taking care of yourself. This is going to catch up to you. And I said, I don't know what that means. Like, how am I supposed to eat better? I have no money. I have no means. YouTube existed, but it was early in YouTube. Obviously, websites and blogs existed.

but how do you learn how to take care of yourself and eat better food? Today, I don't want to say it's easy, but it's significantly easier. There's resources online. It's very accessible. It's super accessible. It wasn't as accessible then. I'm not going to go to culinary school or anything like this. So he said, why don't you go to the library and take out some cookbooks?

And I vividly remember looking at him and telling him that you're crazy, the library doesn't have cookbooks. They have Jane Austen and Lord of the Rings and whatever. They have a huge section, by the way. anybody if anyone's listening and they need access to great cookbooks. There's tons at the library. But I went, I got my first library card since I'd been in university and I took out three cookbooks. Uh, and I brought them home and he's like, why did you, why'd you get these? I'm like, I don't know. The guy in the cover seems he's happy. Seems like a reasonably happy guy, good looking dude, stoked on food. They were all Jamie Oliver books. I'd never heard of Jamie Oliver before.

And I thought, okay, I'm going to do this. I, at that point was, I was not, I didn't have the weight under control that I felt like I wanted to. I was about 100 pounds heavier than I am now. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yep. And, but I didn't see that even, I didn't see that at the time. And I felt terrible.

And I didn't, I couldn't see why I felt terrible, but I felt terrible. Were you working out at all at this point? No, no. I hadn't worked out in 10 years. Not really. I mean, I might have done something here or there, but I, really hadn't done anything. Because I kind of just lived in the van and I lived the van life.

You know, we'd play a show. The show would get done, you know, especially if we were playing a club. The show would get done at one, two in the morning. We'd eat dinner at two in the morning. And I might sleep in the van. I might sleep on somebody's couch. Get up, do the same thing the next day over and over. And it just became this loop situation that I didn't even see it as a loop.

I just thought we're doing this great life. And I brought these books home. And I remembered, like I said, I had cooked this dish out of this, or sorry, I'd eaten this dish out of that restaurant in England. And I thought I loved Indian food. So I looked in the book, had some Indian food options in there. They had a chicken karma dish that I remember eating. I thought, I know what that tastes like.

I feel like I can pull it off. So I invited a bunch of people to the apartment. We made a makeshift table. There was about 15 people there, all of these chairs together. I don't recommend cooking for somebody for the first time. and inviting 15 people, to be clear. I mean, even now, like, it was chaos. Couldn't for 15 people.

I would stress down over that. Yeah, legit. I mean, I've been doing it a long time, and I still have to think, okay, how am I going to execute this? Right. But I made this chicken korma dish. I made rice. I don't know.

I'm sure it tasted bad, to be honest. I have, maybe it was okay. That's not on Jamie Oliver or on that recipe. That's user error. I didn't know how to season. I didn't know how to do anything. It was frantic. But I did it.

I made this food. And I remember this moment where everybody sat at the table and it got quiet just for a second when people took their first bite. And then people started laughing and they got a little louder. And that was the moment for me. I don't know. It struck me. I didn't realize that you could hit a nerve when it came to food. I have experienced these moments playing music for people playing their favorite love song or a song that reminded them of being in high school.

whatever it is. And I saw it. I saw that look in people's eye when they, then they connected to the music that was happening on stage. I didn't know that you could do that with food. I didn't know that food had that same kind of connection. And that moment, that hush moment became a banner moment for me personally where I thought all I want to do is recreate those moments for people. I want to create those moments at the table. No concept that that would turn into a job or a career or running a business. But I just wanted to create those moments of hush for people constantly. And I became obsessed with it. And all I was doing was cooking. I cooked at the studio for any, like if a band would come through, I cook for the engineers, all my friends, obviously, became a, I just became very passionate about it. And it's that passionate, almost obsession of wanting to feed people.

At first, you know, I'm a big believer that very few people fall in love with cooking. Most people fall in love with feeding people. and as a byproduct fall in love with cooking. And that was the case for me. I just wanted to feed people. And obviously that's over the last kind of few years, that's turned into me being able to work on television and write cookbooks and do social content for Instagram

and work for brands and all of that. But it still comes back to this love of feeding people and getting people excited about food and wanting to spend more time at the table. I think we're better people when we spend more time at the table and invest, I say often food is community,

and I think when we invest in that community at the table, we grow, we become better people, we become closer and more connected to the people around us. I just think it's good. I just think it's really good. And the more time you spend in the kitchen, the more you value the food, both that you're putting in your body

and the food that you're feeding other people. It just reshapes your relationship when it comes to food. And that's what I did for me personally. So I was cooking constantly, and turns out without working out, I started losing weight because I was eating whole food, knowing exactly what I was eating and taking care of myself. That has turned into me, you know, working out, starting to run,

starting to lift, doing obviously, you know, not on your level, but you're a big inspiration for me when it comes to that. But it's, it was fascinating to me when I, when I started eating better, how that just changed how I felt, you know, physically, but also emotionally, mentally, spiritual, the whole nine yards. It just reshaped who I was. I was a happier, healthier person. My wife told me last night that my love language

is food and cooking. She's a big love language person. And hers is words of affirmation. Which seems very simple, but it's not my love language. So it's hard for me to remember to do that. But she's saying that my love

languages is the way that I show love for people is cooking and food. So something I'll do for her all the time. For example, she brought this up last night. If we have an early flight, say like a Saturday morning, I'll wake up extra early and I'll make her like a breakfast sandwich or something and I'll bring it in the truck while we're driving. And she's like, I appreciate this. I'm going to eat it, but I'm not hungry at 5 a.m. Or, you know, if she's coming home from a meeting or from work, I'll prep something, have it ready for, even if she's not hungry. And I think I learned this from my grandparents, my mom growing up. Like, I saw them using food as their love language,

and now I naturally use food as my love language. And I'm by no means a chef on your level. But I love cooking. And I remember the first time that I cooked for a group of people and experienced that same thing that you just kind of shared with cooking, that Indian dish for a group of people. your friends and family. And I was in high school and I had all my friends come over.

It was probably five or six of them. And I found this burger recipe that I was going to make for them. And it was like, I took the ground beef and I mixed in chopped up apple, onions and cheese. And I mixed up these balls of beef and I made burgers and I toasted the buns and I added cheese on top. And I was like just so focused on this meal. and they were all super excited. I remember they were sitting out my back patio,

and I brought these burgers out for them, and I just sat back and watched them just take their first bite. And I remember them saying, like, this is the best burger I've ever had in my life. Was it? I don't know. I'm from a small town in Pennsylvania, so it might have been.

But I remember seeing that reaction and just falling in love with, like, that. And from that moment on, like any moment I have the opportunity to, to cook and feed people, I love that, I enjoy that. We were visiting my wife's family in Michigan last weekend, and her mom's always one that's cooking in the kitchen for everyone.

And I get in the kitchen and help, not because I feel bad, I mean, I do, but I want to help. I want to contribute to the meal that we're about to serve. So I've experienced that in my life before, but I think that is one of my love languages. That's how I show love is by creating and cooking and feeding people. Yeah. It's interesting, you just said the meal that we're going to serve.

I think that food, it's interesting. We live in a world now where chefs are viewed in a very different way than they historically have been viewed. At the end of the day, being a chef is not glamorous. You know, and I don't work in restaurants. I have, and I've spent time in restaurants, but the amount of hustle, dedication, passion that you have to have to work on the line every night is unbelievable. And I have so much respect for anybody who wants to do that. Because at the end of the day, if you're someone who cooks for people, you're passionate

about feeding people, you have a servant's heart, right? It's a meal you're going to serve because you want to serve someone. And I think that that takes a very, very important. very unique kind of person. And it's a special thing, you know, because you get to really be a servant. I think we look at chefs as being people who cook on TV or, you know, have a big Instagram account or whatever. There's nothing wrong with that.

And that is a thing that exists. But the average person is just wanting to feed people. Whether you cook on the line and you're hustling 100 tickets every night or you're just cooking a great meal that's accessible and beautiful and delicious for your friends and family, I think it takes a servant's heart to really be passionate about that and want to do that. I think we kind of need more of that, to be honest, because I do think it helps to shape who you are as a person.

Have you seen that show on Netflix? I think it's called The Bear. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think that, I mean, I've never really worked on the line. I've been a bus boy in restaurants before. I worked in this restaurant in Hershey, Pennsylvania. It was a good

it was a nicer, finer dining seafood restaurant, but I experienced that just anger and intense. city back in the kitchen. I mean, I was scared. I just being a bus boy. But I feel like that show showcased a reality of what it's like

to work on the line. Yeah. Yeah, they did a great job. I mean, they've got chefs I mean, Maddie Matheson, he's a producer, I believe on the show as well, but he also acts. And I mean, Maddie has been in the restaurant industry for his whole career, doing a great job in the restaurant in the restaurant

seen in Toronto right now. And, you know, so I think they've surrounded themselves with people who really understand the business and are able to tell that story properly and talking to other friends who have watched the show. I mean, if you haven't seen it and you're interested in the food world and you're interested in what happens, you know, because we go and do a restaurant with our, you know, with our crew, we sit down in a meal. It's great. You know, we never or very rarely, unless it's an open kitchen, think about what's happening back there, you know, and it's a whole other world, like you say. But if you've worked in that, if, you know, you're a busboy, if you were, you know, you were a server at a restaurant,

if you've worked on the line, you get it. You get what that world is like. And I think, like you said, they did a really good job of portraying that. I think that, yeah, if you haven't seen it, you should watch that show. Obviously, this podcast is not a push for this show, and we have no affiliation,

and we're not being sponsored by the bear. But if you're curious about what happens, because, you know, most of us eat at a restaurant, you know, once a week, several times a week, whatever it is, without thinking about the football team, type number of people that it takes to pull off that plate that comes to you. We just think about the plate. And we might think about the one person who brings us that food or the person who greets us at the door to be fair.

But the amount of people, the dishwashers back there who are working harder than anyone else in the restaurant, we don't think about those people that it really takes that team to pull off that meal. Yeah, I mean, it's a great show. I remember being a bus boy going back into the kitchen or the, the dishwashers were. And with all the steam, it was like 100 and like 10 degrees back there. Yeah.

I'd walk back just to drop something off, come back, dripping in sweat. But I'd love to know what your experience with food was growing up. And I've heard you talk about this in other interviews and podcasts about how these foods that we have as a child and as we grow up, they create these lasting memories. forever. And I think you mentioned before an interview, like your mom's pizza. Like, it was like box

pizza. Yeah. It was by no means like the best pizza in the world. But to this day, like that, to you is the best pizza. I'd love to hear more about that. Like, what was food like for you growing up? So my mom is a vegetarian. Uh, has been since my brother, has been since she was pregnant with my brother. She was on a flight going somewhere, was pregnant with my brother, who is three years younger than me, and got really, really sick on the, she spent the entire flight sick. And she says that there was somebody sitting beside her, got food, whatever it was, they probably still served everyone a meal on flights at that point, and had beef. And it just made her super sick to her stomach, the smell of it, whatever. This is what she says. And that's turned into her. She's a pescatarian.

now and we'll eat some fish, but she was a vegetarian my entire life. My parents live in Beijing. I moved there 12, 13 years ago. It has started eating fish. But my entire life up until they moved, basically, she was a vegetarian.

My dad is a fast fooditarian. He's the exact opposite. He would eat anything. Yeah, he's a trash can in a positive way. So I remember being a kid and my mom, I mean, my mom did her best.

I mean, I had great parents, great relationship with my parents, love them to death. My mom is not a great cook because she wasn't passionate about it and didn't spend the time. She can cook what she can cook, but she wasn't making,

and you know, what she did, she makes the best chocolate chip cookies as far as I'm concerned in the world. I put that recipe in my first cookbook, actually, because it's so good. But my mom has been a runner, my whole life. So my mom's a vegetarian, and my mom would average like 1820K a day. My whole life, she still does. My mom's 67, and she still runs that every single day. It's unbelievable.

And my dad's super athletic as well, but, you know, that is to say, my mom being a vegetarian didn't really know her way around cooking meat and protein properly. And at the time, like, I didn't, tofu wasn't a thing I had heard about until I was in my 20s, because growing up in the East coast of Canada, we just didn't have access to those ingredients, which is to say it was like salads with cherry tomatoes and cucumbers and a little bit of dressing. You know, that was, that was the meal kind of deal. And then whatever, and that's what my mom would eat. She ate a ton of eggs as well, actually. That's true. Now that I think about it, but only egg whites with salsa. Not interested myself. It's probably pretty lean. My mom is very lean. Yes, very lean.

A runner living off egg whites and salad. She's like, oh yeah. I mean, like I said, you know, her palate has expanded now being in Beijing. Right.

Just opens. But yeah, my whole life, like she was the leanest person that I knew by far. And even now, I don't fully understand, but at the time, being,

you know, a 16 year old watching your mom wake up at 5 a.m. to go run 20K, I did not understand that at all. I get it now a little bit more. But then my dad, so my, so that's all that.

to say my that's what my mom would would kind of prepare she i remember her she made a turkey almost like once every two weeks i ate more turkey i've eaten more turkey than anyone's eating turkey i can tell you that it's not just for thanksgiving and uh an easter christmas in my house is that because of convenience you just throw the bird in the oven 100% convenience and it and the output was huge so it would last you know so we'd eat this and then my dad on it and which is just to say my mom for my mom food was fuel for her it was how do I get enough food in me and obviously my words not hers but the way that it has always been has always seemed to me was how do I get enough food so that I can still be active I can do my run I can work my day and I'm

not starving so that there's a trickle down effect there obviously where we were eating that food so was it extremely delicious and interesting and unique no her pizza was great to be fair but like said, it was box pizza. It was burnt hamburger. It's not the Napoli style, you know, beautiful, airy crust, lovely pizza that we all love, but I'd still take that pizza. And then my mom, my dad would sneak us out to eat at a fast food restaurant all the time. So he had to like, hey, we're going to go, we're going to go for a little drive, going to go to the grocery store, we're going to go to the pharmacy or whatever it is. And that turned into us also getting a burger constantly. So it was this weird relationship, great parents, but they just, with a relation, you know, when it comes to food,

they ultimately, they didn't, they didn't really care. And they weren't on the same page. But it's interesting because even though that was my relationship with food, and ironically, growing up in the seafood capital of the world, didn't eat seafood, because I didn't grow up eating it. Now it's a very different relationship. But I still look at that pizza. I still look at those chocolate chip cookies. I still look at even burgers, to be honest. And yeah, I'll make them from scratch and I will make the bun and I put flavors in and all that. But even those, those beautiful memories around food, I think shaped who I am both as a person and as a chef. Because for me, I'm a firm believer that food is nostalgia, it's memory, it's community, it's deliciousness.

But you have to have all of those factors in creating a great dish. And I think that, you know, the food that most of us grew up with, I mean, I don't think most of us, story is unique. I think most of us probably grew up in a version where we weren't eating Hote cuisine. We weren't, you know, our parents are feeding us. They're doing the best job they can, but they're not chefs for the most part. Some people might be blessed with having a, you know, a great home cook. But I think most people, it's like, I need to feed my kids quickly, efficiently, and in a timely manner to get from A to B, because we might be going to, you know, guitar lessons or sports or whatever it is. But even those foods that they fed us, I think,

shape us as people. And we keep coming back to those foods because there's so much memory and there's so much community built around those specific dishes. So now, when I have a pizza, if I'm fortunate enough to go to a great restaurant or, you know, I've been to Italy a number of times and had pizza there, which is a blessing. But if I do that, it's delicious for sure. But I'd still take that pizza that my mom made because it reminds me of being 14 or 12 or whatever it was and coming home from baseball games because my brother played baseball and watching it and my mom making us that pizza. And those memories will never change, you know, if that makes sense. Yeah. I have a lot of those memories growing up. So I grew up in a household, central Pennsylvania, right outside of Hershey.

And there's a lot of Amish influence on the food out there, big Amish community, and a lot of farms. But as you're telling that story, I'm just thinking about all the meals. We would rotate through dinners at our house. You know, we'd have like spaghetti night. Me and my brother would make spaghetti sandwiches. So we'd take two pieces of white wonder bread. We put butter on each side and we put my mom's spaghetti with meat sauce and make a sandwich. You eat that.

Just carboloding. We'd have like chicken croquette night. It's like she would buy the frozen chicken croquettes. We would do that. shaking bake pork chops with butter noodles and lima beans i can tell you you're painting a picture of of a food journey as a kid that i would take it was good my mom like my mom loved to cook yeah my dad will not cook it's like my mom's not around anymore she passed away in 2019 so my dad now has like fend for himself on meals and his is frozen pizzas chicken wings eggs like my dad's

food palate is so limited. But I had this one memory, you know, Sunday we'd go to church as a family, and then my grandparents, my mom's parents, lived close to the church. So we'd all go to their house after church. My grandpa had a, probably, they probably live on two acres,

and an acre of that was a garden. And he would grow tomatoes, potatoes, corn, peppers, all this stuff. He had a huge garden. and we'd use that in a lot of our cooking, and he'd bring stuff over every weekend. He drops stuff off at the house.

And after church, he would make homemade French fries. So he'd cut up the potatoes from his garden. He would deep fry them. He'd make him super crispy. And they'd come out in these small batches because he had a small friar. So he'd just keep dumping them in the basket for what seemed like hours.

He'd have this bowl, and he'd lay this paper towel down on the bowl, and then he'd drop the fries in his. soak up some of the oil, extra oil, and he would do hamburgers, and he would always burn the hamburgers. They were, like, well, well done, but they had, like, the best, most red, freshest tomatoes and onion from his garden and lettuce, and I'm going to have corn on the cob, and, like, that, and then my grandma would make deviled eggs. To this day, like, if I go somewhere for dinner, and they have deviled eggs, I'm ordering the deviled eggs. And everyone's always like, why do you,

why would you order deviled eggs? But it reminds me of those dinners after church with my grandma and like that meal, I will take that meal over anything in this world. Yeah. And I think the best chefs in the world, you know, these chefs who are working at three Michelin Star restaurants that, you know, it takes a year to get into and all of that, they're obviously doing dishes that are genius.

But I do think part of that genius is them tapping into that. moment when it comes to deviled eggs like they want to remind you of something i don't know if you watch this movie um what was it called now terrible story uh it's really really new the menu uh if you watch this movie the menu it's uh it's it's a wild it's a wild journey prepare yourself if you ever watch it but they're even in that you know it's kind of a it's a like a cultural take on on fine dining but they very deliberately tap into these nostalgic moments when it comes to food and how chefs at that level, they're growing all, everything that they, that they use on the property, that, you know, they're foraging, everything's hyper-intentional,

very fine dining plating, but all of it with a North Star of how do we connect to this person on a very real personal level when it comes to this dish. And it obviously not everyone has a deviled egg story. Not everyone grew up eating deviled eggs, but everyone can connect to those moments around what a deviled egg means, if that makes sense. Because we all have our own version of a devil day. We all have our own version of bad boxed pizza. We have a thing that we loved. That as adults, we understand might not have been prepared in the best way possible,

but it doesn't matter because we loved it. And it reminds us of that beautiful time spent with your grandparents or my mom or whatever it is. Yeah. What have you noticed, you know, you've obviously traveled all over the world. Have you experienced different cultures and communities and foods and cooking styles? What differences have you seen from American culture, traditional American culture and other parts of the world in the way that they use food as a means of community? I mean, you know, I'm Canadian, so I'm conscious of I am not American. I love America.

I spend a lot of time here. And I'm grateful for the opportunities, but I'm not from here. But I do feel like I can speak on it. That's the preface, just to be clear. But I do feel like I can speak on it because I spent enough time here. The first thing is time spent at the table. We kind of already talked about that a little bit, but it's just investment. We have such a fast, busy culture here where we just want to get from one thing to the next thing.

I remember being in New York for meetings. I work a lot with a couple not-for-profits, but I work. with the Chef's Manifesto and we work from an advocacy side of things on behalf of people who maybe they don't have enough food or globally or need access to better ingredients, to knowledge, to whatever it is.

And we had a meeting in New York very intense, hyper intense, things that are way out of the scope of what I would normally talk about on a day-to-day basis with my job. And I kind of needed to decompose. from that. And I'm like, they wanted me to go to lunch. I said, I'm just going to go for a walk and eat if that's okay. Yeah, no worries. So I went for a walk. There was a half wall, half cement wall at a park right in Manhattan. I mean, I'm, I don't think I'm exaggerating by saying

there's 40 or 50 people, all of them eating lunch or whatever faced away from the street towards the park, but you couldn't really see the park eating on this half wall, not a single person talking to each other. And we had just gotten out of this meeting about, you know, talking about how food is so significant from a community side of things globally and how it's so important to tap into that. And I literally, you know, the juxtaposition of that meeting and me seeing all of these people eating, not in community, just how fast do I eat this to get back to the office was very eye-opening to me. And I think, you know, traveling through Europe and people always use this as an example, but it's a very real example. People spend time and invest time at the table

as a community. I've been fortunate enough to go to Kenya and Ethiopia and South Africa and Rwanda and spend a lot of time in, you know, in those communities cooking with people. The biggest thing that I noticed is, you know, I remember a woman named Joyce who lives in the north of Kenya in this town, just outside of a town called Aten. You would love it, actually, because you're a runner. It's where all the Olympic athletes go to train because of the elevation. So you'll be driving down this road. It's beautiful, red, dirt road, lush, very little infrastructure. And you'll have a team that will run past you decked out Nike gear, whatever it is, trainers,

everything behind them running down this road. I've probably seen videos. And there's no power to the houses and there's no anything. but they're there there because of the elevation. They're like, you know, you understand this significantly better than me and what that would do. But it's a wild place. And very cool to be there, right looking out over the Rift Valley. I went to this home, this woman named Joyce invited us in.

I was going to teach us some dishes that she cooks for her family, for our kids. And then one that she'll cook for her husband and the family. So we went in. She speaks only Swahili. I, of course, don't. I wish I did, but I don't. And, you know, we rocked up with, with, I don't know, probably five or six different people, all of us from North America. And we're there to join somebody for breakfast. That's weird, you know? And I've always kind of thought in those moments, if somebody came to film me making breakfast in my house, like that, that'd be strange. Like, I understand why there's this almost wall of division there. lovely people but there's still you could the tension you could kind of cut with a knife and but you know we're chatting and then the moment I've remembered this moment that I picked up a knife very dull hit it with my hand but it's going to work and we just started chopping

onions together simple nothing else we're literally breaking down white onions and the wall of division was broken we're laughing and joking we spent the entire day having the best time. I understood not a single word she said. And she didn't understand what I said either. There was a translator there which helped. But we were like literally joking with each other because food brings people together. And it's, I think that we think to answer your question, what's the difference with North in North America to globally? There's none. There's no difference in terms of food. Food is that one thing that we collectively share, maybe music as a close second, that in, you know, if we're fortunate enough to eat three meals a day,

not everybody is, but if we're fortunate enough to eat three meals a day, we value that. And we have foods that we love. We have foods that we crave. We have foods that remind us of being kids. We have foods that remind us of being with the person that we love. We have all of these unique memories and moments

and special things and connections when it comes to food everywhere. That's not unique. That's universal. The unique fact, I think, or the factor outside of North America is that people spend more time investing as a community in enjoying those foods that they love together. And I've seen that, you know, just to use those communities in Kenya as an example,

you know, we'd all sit on the grass in a field, in a circle, and share. And there's not much to share, but everyone shares. The generosity, the kindness, the togetherness is real. and you leave unbelievably inspired to want more of that in your life. And obviously, you know, you experience that, like I said, in Europe and everywhere else. There's people who do invest in that here, of course. You know, there's a lot of people in my own personal circle and community that will spend those extra moments at the table. And like you said, you went to dinner last night and you're super excited about spending that time.

So there are people who do that. But I think if you want to, you know, brush with just a blanket, brush of what North America is. I think collectively we don't spend enough time at the table. And we think about food as fuel. And we think about food as getting from one thing to the next thing. And we kind of don't care if it's that delicious because we just, we want it to be over with.

And I think that when we start to invest in community, deliciousness, and really those moments spent at the table, our relationship changes with food. And that can be whatever it is. If you eat chicken, broccoli, and rice and sweet potatoes, that's fine. If you love that, just invest in that. Really celebrate that. You know, don't do it quickly to get from one thing to the next thing.

I don't think there's any wrong answer when it comes to the food that you're eating, as long as you're, of course, taking care of yourself. But I do think that the answer is just slowing down and taking a little more time and investing in those moments. I think that you don't, you know, in the least political way that I can say this, you don't have to look at the world long enough to know that we need to spend more time together as people having conversations. And the best place to do that is the table. I remember this, you know, everybody has heard a million times in their life, the Simon Seneca thing, what's your why? I really thought long and hard about that for me when I started kind of my business and thinking, okay, I'm going to actually invest in whatever this is going to be with no dreams that it was going to become something where I was writing cook.

books or anything like that. I thought, what is my why? My why is that I want to move people from the couch to the kitchen because the byproduct of the kitchen is the table. And I think we need more time spent as a community at the table. The B part of that is the more time we spend in the kitchen, the more it changes our relationship with food. I think we invest in great food. I think it changes through the restaurants that you eat at. Because the more that you become an efficient cook, you're like, I can go to, I can do, I can do a better job than this at my house. You know, like, why am I paying all this money for food that I could do better and know exactly what I'm putting into it? So then the restaurants you do go to are restaurants that are new and exciting and vibrant and doing great food, you know.

And then you're at home actually investing, you're supporting, maybe you're going to the farmer's market and supporting local folks who are growing great produce in your own backyard. It just changes your entire relationship when it comes to food. And I think that that is something, you know, in a very long way of getting at your answer globally, that folks invest in. They invest in those moments spent in the kitchen. They invest in those moments spent at the table. And I think that we need more of that. You described my relationship with food there,

spot on, where as I started spending more time in the kitchen, I started changing my decision on what restaurants I was going to go to. It wasn't like, hey, let's go grab a burger down the road. At a spot we always go. It's like, I'm going to do some research. I'm going to find, you know, what has the greatest environment and atmosphere and culture and where can't take groups of people to go, like, have this dish that I can't create myself and try these really unique and new flavors.

Like, my wife, Steph and I, we go into Austin for dinners, for date nights. We tried different restaurants all the time. We went to this spot two weeks ago. It was called Esté. It was coastal Mexican. And we had this dish that was so unique than I ever had before. It was shrimp, and they were kind of cut down the middle, but the shells were still on it. And they were cooked and possibly fried in a little bit of oil.

And it had like this, this is like red oil sauce with it. But you ate it with a shell on it too. And my wife was like the same for me. But for me, it was like such a unique experience. So spending more time in the kitchen, one has changed the way I view it going out to dinner for the whole experience. Two, it's also changed who I support and where I buy my food. We go to farmer's markets.

I just bought half a cow from a local rancher here in Texas. We find produce from like co-ops and stuff like that. We support local bakeries. Because where you spend your money is it tells you a lot about your values and in your mission. But just spending more time in the kitchen has changed my perception on where I want to spend my money, what foods I want to consume. And it's naturally gravitated me towards healthier options, just naturally. I think that, I mean, for all of its challenges, I think social media has also helped in reshaping

our relationship with food because there's transparency, you know, not across the board, but we just know more. We just, in the simplest way I can say it, we know more than we've ever known when it. comes to food, when it comes to sourcing, when it comes to creating that dish. So it, like you say, it reshapes where you're going to put your money. You know, if I know that this is not good for me and it's also potentially not good for humanity, let's say, or the world, I'm probably not going to invest in that, you know, and I think that's something as a kid, my parents didn't know that. You know, there was no resources for them. They were just doing the best job that they could go into

the grocery store and buying what they what they had. They didn't think about what in that. They didn't think about all the additives and preservatives and everything else that was going in that. But we know now, you know, you can be blindfully, you know, willfully ignorant, I guess, in a harsh way to say it. But you can. It's fair. But I think if you want to know, you really have the resources now to know exactly what you're feeding people. And I think that there's responsibility that comes with that. You know, if you're feeding someone, you know, obviously, you know, Steph, you have kids to think about, like, people have families, you have friends that you're feeding. Like, I want to feed them delicious food, but I also want to know that I'm feeding them

food that's good for them, you know. And maybe it is a burger. Like, maybe it is, you know, whatever. It doesn't necessarily have to be healthy food, but at least it's good food and good quality product that you're actually feeding people. And I think that, you know, from a transparency side of things, you can know that you go to a great restaurant, you look online, you can see exactly what that vibe is going to be. You can see the dishes. You might even pick out what your meal is going to be before because the menu is on there. But there's a lot of transparency. And I think that you can be very proactive in what you're both eating and feeding other people today.

I'm a big fan of checking out the menu prior to going. You have to. I always know what I'm ordering. We sit down and I already know what I'm ordering, but I'll, I will wait, I will spend my time. I'd love to know like from the lens of a chef how you look at food and I'll provide some context around that. For me being in the fitness space,

I have historically looked at food certain way. Especially when I was younger, I had an eating disorder. So that also shaped the way that I look at food. And my relationship with food now is much healthier than it's been in the past. But the way I used to look at food and still do for a lot of my meals, it's proteins, carbs, and fats. And I look at meals as fuel, but also like when we go to dinner, I'm not thinking of it that way. it's, I want to try these new flavors and unique dishes and all these new things. When you look at food on a daily basis, do you look at it in terms of nutritional makeup and profile, or do you look at it as ingredients and flavors? How do you look at food?

I think that that's changed, to be honest. I feel like I have, probably not unlike what you're saying. I have had a negative relationship with food before. I already said, you know, I was 100 pounds heavier than I was. Like that wasn't a healthy relationship that I had with food. I was binge eating. And I was binge eating bad food too. You know what I mean? Like that probably goes without saying, but I'm just, I was not taking care of myself.

I think I also, then I went through a moment of getting, and I've also never talked, to be clear, I've never talked about this. before. Probably because I just haven't had the platform with somebody who's in the industry to chat with about that. But I also had a very negative relationship with food. When I started losing weight, I'm a very all or nothing person. So if I'm invested in something, I'm a thousand percent in. I'm the same way. And that's a gift and a curse, to be honest. I agree. But I had this moment where I, so I started losing the weight and then I became almost obsessive about it. And I would say, I don't, I wouldn't say I was starving myself, but I was definitely, like from a calorie

deficit side of things, I was probably half what my calorie deficit should have been if I was on a trainer. I wasn't eating. And then I had to, and I was still cooking, but I wouldn't eat. And I had to find my way to having a healthy relationship with food. And it was really hard, to be honest. It was very hard to get to that place because I was kind of doing it on my own. and I didn't have, you know, great friend, colleague, anyone else that I could lean on to say, like, how do I figure this out? So it took a long time. And eventually, I think today the relationship that I have with food is much healthier. I, you know, I'll create content for social, things for a book, things for a brand, whatever that is. That's not necessarily what I'm eating on a day-to-day basis. It might be. And I'm trying to do food that's conscious, even if,

it's what you would say a quote unquote cheat meal or something that's a little bit more of, you know, going outside of what you're going to eat on a day to day. I'll still do that. I love that food. I grew up, like I said, you know, eating burgers, eating pizza. I don't think there's anything wrong with eating that. But I do think I want to be conscious about how often I'm eating that. Right. And but I also know, you know, from an audience side of things, I have a, I feel like there's, I both have a relationship with the people who watch what I'm doing. And there's responsibility to those people, not just to do great content, make great content, do great work, but also what am I actually putting out and inspiring people to make? I don't only want it to be

Philly cheese steaks. As much as I would like to eat a Philly cheese steak every day, I think I want to encourage people to eat healthy whole food that's still delicious. I think the other thing is, for me, I have a North Star of creating food that's beautiful because I think you want to be proud of the food that you're serving other people, but it needs to be attainable, accessible, and delicious. So that no matter where you live, whether you're in Austin, Texas, or a small town on the east coast of Canada, you can get most of those ingredients and pull something off that you're going to be proud of. So I think that there's a relationship with that. And then as a byproduct of that, that shapes what I eat on a daily basis. So for me, you know, I made a,

last week I made a maple syrup, kind of salmon dish, whole salmon with a maple basil vinaigrette, some nice roasted cherry tomatoes. I had some roasted sweet potatoes with it. Delicious, delicious, delicious. And not something that I would say is not healthy, you know, but it's flavor packed. I know how to season. That's helped. That's a lot of failure, to be honest, to get to a place where you know how to season things. And I'm taking care of myself. So, you know, I'm working out more than I have in a long time. I feel good. Could I do a better job of that? Of course, but we're all on a journey. But I think for me, it's finding that. balance between I love this food. It's super delicious and I shouldn't eat it every day. But I shouldn't

feel guilty when I do eat it because I think it's still delicious and it still can be great. And I think that you want to celebrate those moments around the food that you love while being conscious about what you're actually putting in your body every day, if that makes sense. That makes sense. I think that's why I resonate with a lot of your content and I like following your page and I got your first cookbook years ago. My dog ended up eating the cookbook. Obviously, the photos probably looked so good. Classic story.

But I shit you're not. A dog ate the cookbook. But the reason I like the content and the recipes you put out is because there's pages that I follow. And, you know, I get hit on Instagram with these recipes all the time where it's like these unhealthy, just loaded cheat meals, cheap bombs. yours are always like there's a protein source like a meat a fish poultry and there's veggies or fruits and herbs and seasoning and like it looks absolutely amazing and delicious but also

like I can identify all the ingredients that are that are in it right and I think that's probably a misconception with a lot of people when you think of a cook or a chef it's like oh to make something tastes really good, well, it's got to be unhealthy. Right. There's a classic phrase, never trust a skinny chef. We've seen that. Everyone's seen that probably before. That couldn't be further from the truth.

To me, it's about what are you feeding people? What's your North Star as far as how you cook, how you view food, and seasoning. And I think for me, I've always connected to you. It's interesting because I grew up in a French-French Acadian part of Canada. So half of our province is, it's a 50-50 bilingual province. Not everyone speaks French, but I would say a good majority of people where I live in the province, most people are bilingual. And so we grew up around French food, you know, more kind of French country-style food,

but more French food, which, you know, if you take those classic, obviously there's cuisines all over the world, but North American cuisine, largely historically had a lot of Italian influence and a lot of French food influence. Now it's changed. I think it's changed for the better. But historically it's had a lot of that. I've never really connected with the French style of cooking, to be honest. I appreciate it. I think that it's delicious. But it's intense. You know, there might be 20 ingredients, 30 ingredients in that actual dish to the point where you don't even necessarily taste that ingredient anymore. But that Mediterranean style, I mean, we talked about a restaurant earlier that you love, but that Mediterranean style of cooking where it's five or six ingredients,

but they're all fresh, in season, you know where they're sourced, they're cooked beautifully, but simply and deliciously, I've always connected to that. So for me, I think that that's why, and I thank you for saying that, but I think that's why that's what my food that I put out, no matter where it is, I guess, has that as a North Star and it kind of comes across as this whole food that you can pick out every ingredient because I want that. I want people to eat a tomato and it tastes delicious, but you to know that it's a delicious tomato. You know, I don't want it to sink into something. I want you to taste beautiful fresh herbs because I think it's important, and I think that it brings out a lot of flavor and very simply elevates a dish, where somebody who,

you know what, at the end of the day, most people, they don't have the time to spend five, six hours preparing a dish. They just don't. We're busy. We live busy lives. And I think that we, you know, we as chefs or cooks, we kind of oftentimes will forget. And we have this expectation that people are going to put hours and hours and hours into a meal. The reality is people have like 15, 20 minutes to actually create something. So for me, I'm conscious of that. And I want to make sure that people, moms, dads, friends, whoever you are, that you're cooking for your community, that you can do something and pull off something that you're really, really proud of. And that tastes delicious. But I'm conscious of people's time. I'm also conscious.

of the money that goes in. So for me, I'm trying to educate people around like, hey, you want this beautiful, you know, cut of meat, you're going to get great salmon, you're going to get great steak, whatever it is, that's not free, you know, and then when we get into from a sourcing side of things, when we know exactly where that's coming from, I'm sure the half a cow that you bought was not was not free, but you know exactly where it's coming from. So for me, if you want to put a price point on something, you know, people are spending their hard-earned money to create this dish, I'm trying to encourage people to be more conscious shoppers, go to the farmer's market, go whatever. There's a price point that comes to that.

So for me, there's a responsibility of, hey, I'm going to teach you how to cook this so it's simple, it's delicious, and you're going to feel like there was value for your money. I like the simplify aspect. As you were talking about that, I'm thinking about this meal that I had last night. I think I mentioned already, but the restaurant is called Peacock. It's in Austin's Mediterranean And we always ordered the same thing I start with the short rib hummus

Comes out with these big fresh pieces of pita And then we get Saginaaki Flaming cheese And then the best lamb chops I've ever had in my life In the spot and what makes them Going to the simple

What makes them unique is like Obviously they are seasoned a certain way But they put fresh pieces of big salons on top. And when I take a bite out of this lamb chop, we've just lost half of the podcast, just so you know, with the cilantro, but go ahead. I take a bite of this lamb chop and then I take a bite of the cilantro at the same time, and it completely changes the entire flavor profile of that lamb chop. But it's one simple ingredient changes everything in it. Yeah. I love cilantro. And that's not, oh, me too. That's not something so, I mean, obviously from a restaurant side of things,

and I haven't been to Peacock, but I'm sure the chef there is incredible and does great food. But you eat a dish like that, and you kind of think, okay, I might not be able to cook these lamb chops, you know, perfectly in the way that they did, season it perfectly in the way that they did. But I can take some inspiration from this and make a very similar dish at home,

and now I know how to elevate it with these X, Y, and Z. You go to a fine dining restaurant, where everything is, you know, tweezers and foam and super plated. Nobody thinks, I could recreate this at home. I feel like I could do a version of this, right? I don't.

Chefs don't. Like, maybe the odd chef does, to be fair, but most people come away and they're like, yeah, that was delicious. But it's a little overwhelming, to be honest, because how do you apply that to your day-to-day? You can't. It's so out of the scope of what we would ever do in our own kitchens.

But you have beautiful lamb shops with a nice little bit of salon. and you go, I think I could pull that off. And then that changes how you view your own food. And from a flavor side of things, you develop a palate and you become more excited about like next time you're going to grill, you know, I'm doing lamb chops this week. You know what I mean? Yeah.

It just gets you more excited about spending more time in the kitchen. And that's not to say that one restaurant, you know, one version of a restaurant is better than another version of a restaurant. It's just from an inspiration side of things. For the average person, it's just different. And I think that, you know, for me, having that cilantro moment, I think is super value. The reason I like cooking, I'm thinking of two things right now. One, I've seen my palate change over time.

So that's a very unique experience where things that you didn't like, say, a year or two, three years ago, you start to like olives for me, for example. I used to hate olives. Now, like, I crave olives. And, you know, I want, like, my goal is to be a better cook as I get older, especially as I'm going to be cooking meals for my family. As my daughter gets older, we have more kids, I want to be the person with my wife cooking these meals for the family.

But like you'll see a recipe. I'll see a recipe online and I'll follow that recipe. And I'm like, that did not turn out anything like it. So it's humbling and you can learn and grow and, you know, clear example, this past weekend, Memorial Day weekend, we were going to make burgers. And we went out last. minute to get buns.

The whole state of Texas was out of buns. So I was like, okay, well, I'm just going to make homemade buns. So I found a recipe online. I rushed it because I didn't have enough time, so I didn't let it the dough rise enough. But I followed the recipe, like, to the tea. And this recipe had like 1,000 ratings, 4.8 out of 5. It's like, got it. I recreated it.

Put it in the oven, came out. They were biscuits. I was like, I don't know what I did wrong, but I want to learn. So I'll try it again until I get it right. You know, kind of like you mentioned earlier, you're like growing up, you guys didn't have brioche in your area. So you learned how to make brioche. But like, that's a great part about learning how to cook

and spending more time in the kitchen is it's never going to turn out perfect and you're going to learn these small things. You have to adjust and change and refine. But that's so you get better at anything in life. Yeah, I don't think anybody would, I don't think anybody would not run decide that they were going to become a runner and think they were going to run a half marathon on their first day out. Like I don't, I mean, I hope to God that nobody will, but like, I don't think that people are, you know, that sense of delusion. I think people are very aware. Like, hey,

I'm going to run for three minutes, five minutes, whatever that is, I'm going to walk a little bit. Then I'm going to run. I'm clearly not a trainer. But I think people are conscious of that. It's an interesting thing when it comes to food, because I think we think that we're going to watch one YouTube, you know, video, read a recipe online, watch a tutorial, whatever that is. And then we make a recipe and it doesn't turn out and we go, okay, forget it. I'm not, I'm not doing that again. And it's food is not like, it takes a lot of time. You know, to learn how to cook a poached egg properly, it takes a lot of time. Like all of these things, they're very simple things. But to, to, to master anything takes a lot of time. And I think for me, a huge part of that is the

stress that we've added to the kitchen. So we're nervous. You've got, you know, you've got your crew coming over for Memorial Day. You're going to make burgers. Most people, if Memorial Day was on Friday as an example, they're nervous on Tuesday because they think, I got to pull this off. It's got to be delicious. It has to be interesting. People really care. And you're freaking out for like four days, a little bit in the back of your mind because you've got to cook this for people and you've never made buns before. And I think the reality is people come over to your house. They just want to spend time with you.

They don't really care. Like, obviously, if it's delicious, they're going to appreciate that. And they're all going to have a moment. But at the end of the day, they just want to be with you. That's it. They want to be as a community at the table. And I think a huge part of that stress, if we could get rid of that, we'd get people more excited about spending more time in the kitchen.

Because the reality is, it's going to be good regardless, because nobody really cares. And I think that's something no one says, or very few people say that. We just want to spend time as a community. If it's delicious, that's a bonus. And it doesn't mean we should shoot for the middle, like try to make it as delicious as you can. Learn, grow, get better. But if it doesn't work out and you make biscuits instead of buns, fine. You know, enjoy it.

Just lean into it. Lean into the joke. I watched this movie years ago. The documentary about this band was hustling on the road, having a really hard time, really hard go of it. And they adopted this kind of moniker for the band. They said if it's good, it's fun, and if it's bad, it's

funny. And I think that for me, I was like a light bulb moment for me, because I would stress about everything. And if something failed in the kitchen, if something with my business didn't work out, it just became, it was a weight. It was an Everest, you know? And I thought, no, if it's good, it's fun. If it's bad,

it's funny. And I think, you know, if you make biscuits, It should just be funny. Yeah. You know? And I think that if you lean into the joke, it's, for the average person, like, you're built a little differently because you're an all or nothing person, just like I am. So that's just going to be fuel on the fire for you to make buns again.

But I think a lot of people go, I'm never making buns again, clearly, because I can't do it. It's like, no, no, no, it's going to take you 13, 15, 20 times to get it to a place where you feel like it's right. And you're still going to go to a local baker who does it every single day and pumps out five or six hundred buns a day and they're going to be way better. That's fine because they're an expert. We're home cooks. We're trying to pull this off. But just get a little bit better today than you were yesterday, a little bit better tomorrow than you are today. Like move the needle a little bit further and don't stop just because something doesn't work out. I think that should just be fuel

on the fire for you to push a little bit more while understanding that it should just be fun. Take the stress out of the kitchen. Yeah, I hear so many people say, well, I'm not a cook. I can't cook. Well, you just haven't tried. Yeah, I was a musician. I slept on an air mattress for a year and a half in Nashville. I didn't cook. I hadn't cooked a single thing in my entire life until I, aside from microwaved pizza,

you know, those little frozen pizzas that you would get. I wouldn't even take the time to turn the oven on. I'd just chuck it in the microwave. Pizza pops. I don't know if you guys had those down here, like pizza pockets. But awesome. I remember growing up eating those little frozen. personal pan pizzas and like they would come in they'd come in the box and you take them out and you

flip the box inside out and had that little reflective piece on top and then every time you'd bite into that pizza you'd burn your mouth oh yeah and the center was cold that's what I remember about this oh yeah but that was my cooking you know for my entire life and I think that you know it sounds so cheesy to say if I can do it you can do it but it's really true when it comes to food you know there are people who are born, not born, but who have a natural gifting that are, you know, Reni Red Zepi and Denmark running the best restaurant in the world. Like there's people who are built differently in every industry. But the average person can absolutely develop a wonderful palate and create great food.

Like that's not, but it takes time. You just got to put it in, you know. You training for, I think on the outside in, you, I think the average person probably looks at your journey with bodybuilding as an example and is like that's nuts you are a beast you're a tank i think they think probably they don't necessarily think about the years that it took for you to develop both your body but also the human that you are the traits that you have the character that it is to get to a place where you were able to pull that off right like you weren't just naturally you have natural abilities i'm sure which again i i'm not the expert on

but you had to put those to practice, and it took years and hours to get to a place where you're able to pull that off, right? That was constantly refining and learning and growing, and it's a decade in, and it's these small micro adjustments. Like, you don't feel or think you're making progress in the moment, and you look back over months and years and decades.

You're like, wow, there was significant, progress made over that time. We don't feel it in the moment. Yeah, but I'm sure you had days where you want it to not, you know, I'm sure you, I'm sure you had biscuit days where you thought, I'm good. Oh yeah. It's fine. Just like in anything else, like, there's bad days, there's good days, there's days where you feel like you're like getting worse. You know, I'm sure as a chef you feel like this too, like you're on this high, you're making all this good food. And one day, something goes wrong. Are you like, am I losing it? Am I losing the touch? Yeah. Same thing in business and fitness, yeah, one bad workout. Am I getting weaker? Am I getting slower?

Yeah. What am I, what am I feeling and experiencing what feels like a lack of progress? But it's just like it's part of that journey. Yeah. And it's interesting because our journey, I mean, your journey, obviously my journey when it comes to food and fitness, I think are both entirely connected and also very different in terms of a day to day. But it's interesting. because both of our businesses are public businesses in the sense that what we do is very visible on a daily basis. And I think that that adds its own set of challenges. For me, it's not just, is this delicious? It's, is this connecting with an audience? You know, did the video do well? Did it whatever? I don't necessarily think that's a good thing. But it's a reality of the world that we live in

where you want to create great work. You want to personally invest. and getting better every single day at what it is that you do, but you're also conscious that you're doing what you do for other people on some level. And I think that's a different way of viewing, at least from a food perspective, it's just different, you know? Whereas, you know, for years, cookbooks actually are the only thing that are different when it comes to my industry because, like, I'll take a year to write a cookbook and no one will ever see that.

And there's a ton of failure, but it's all private failure. You know, if you're doing work for social, it's either succeeds or fail. fails publicly. And you kind of have to be okay with the vulnerability when it comes to that. You know, for years, as a chef, you would create a dish that would eventually end up on a menu, but it wouldn't end up on a menu the day you first made that dish. You would have a lot of trial to get to a place where you're putting that menu item out there for people, right? Whereas now, you know, for me, if I create a dish, often, I mean, I'll make it a few times to test it, but I'm pumping it out because I kind of have to, because you have to feed the social

media beast. So it definitely reshapes how you view, for me anyway, how I viewed food. And I've been fortunate, I think, to try to find some balance in that, but it is interesting. It's a different day when it comes to that, you know, for chefs. Well, I know after this, we're making a sandwich and a sandwich that I'm extremely excited about because I went out and got the ingredients for it. I believe it's like a chicken Caesar sandwich. Yes, sir.

I love sandwiches. I love really good sandwiches. And growing up in central Pennsylvania, we had really good delis. You know, the closer you get to New York, obviously, you have really good delisies, good bread, good sandwiches. Being close to Pittsburgh, I went to school in Pittsburgh, you have like the Pittsburgh-style sandwich, Permanning Brothers. Those are great sandwiches. I'm curious, in your opinion, like, what are the characteristics? characteristics of a really good sandwich.

What makes a sandwich better than just okay and good? Because I can get a good sandwich anywhere, but what makes it remarkable? What are some small things you can do to make it great? Yeah, it's interesting because sandwiches, I think we don't think about them as being like incredibly flavor-driven and exciting on a day-to-day basis, right?

I mean, we think about sandwiches as being like a turkey sandwich with some mayo and a little lettuce on it, or a PBNJ or whatever it is. But sandwiches can be unbelievable, like you said. For me, I think a few things are texture for the first thing. You've got soft bread. If all your ingredients are cooked down, they're all soft.

To me, I'm like, it's going to be mushy. It's going to be whatever. I want some crunch. That's the case actually with every dish that I create. Like, yes, it's got to be delicious. It's got to be vibrant. You have to have a beautiful sweet and savory balance in there. you want the seasoning to be on point.

But I also want it to be textually unique and interesting. You know, I want every bite to be interesting and exciting. And I think some of that is adding some creamy elements. We're going to add some barata to that chicken Caesar, which is going to be creamy and delicious and melt in your mouth. But I'm going to pan fry some prosciutto. We'll get the bacon out of it. Pan fry some prosciutto.

So it gets really crispy. so you get that beautiful texture coming through the sandwich. I think it's just thinking about like, how do I make this interesting and unique? And it doesn't have to be complicated. There's very, there's things, I mean, what's less complicated than a sandwich? Honestly, yeah, you can make it super complicated, but you can make something very simply that's really, really delicious.

But I think the big thing for me is texture, is flavor. And just tapping into those things that everybody loves, very few people that I've ever met don't love a Caesar salad. You might not eat it all the time, but it's, I mean, there are a few foods that are more famous than a classic Caesar salad, right? So for me, I'm like, these flavors are delicious. They work. I'm not reshaping the wheel here.

We're just going to create a different vessel for that dish. Speaking of texture, one of my favorite sandwiches growing up was a bologna and cheese sandwich on white bread with kettle chips. inside. Yeah, you gotta have those. Yeah, growing up in my hometown, we had this Seltzer's Lebanon Bologna and it's where they smoked the Bologna and if you would dry by it, I mean, you could smell it from miles away. Smelled so good. It was like smoky. So, you know, in the summer I remember growing up on these sandwiches where it was Bologna, Provalone cheese, a bunch of kettle chips. in between white bread and you get it in your hands and you push it together and all the chips would crunch so they wouldn't fall out.

Taking a bite out of that, I literally, as I'm explaining this to you, I can feel myself in my parents' house eating this sandwich off of like the plates that my mom had. Yeah. But the texture of those chips changed the whole experience of that sandwich. 100%. You see people put the chips on hot dogs a lot. When we were kids, we had a lot of baloney. We called it. Our neighboring province to where I live is called Newfoundland.

We would call baloney Newfoundland steak. Because we're a sea, like a seafaring fishing part of the world. We export, I think it's like 80% of the global supply of frozen lobster. Oh, wow. From within a 60 kilometer radius of where I live. Like we, you know, we are seafood, essentially. From a cold water shellfish side of things, the water. is perfect, it's pristine, there's no cruise ships and, you know, there's no oil, there's no,

nothing's affecting the water there at all. So it creates this beautiful place for, uh, lobster, oysters, uh, scallops are gray. Anything cold water is great there. But all of it was exported, right? Because from a costing side of things, we know, it's changed obviously now, but you couldn't afford to buy that when you were a kid. Uh, and lobster has, it's having a moment, I mean, having a moment. It's been having a moment for 30 years, but it initially, it was, wasn't nobody wanted to eat it because people thought oh it's you know they're on the ground on the ocean their bottom dwellers i'm not eating that the the the story going back a hundred years is that lobster was fed to prisoners uh and people wouldn't eat it at all but baloney was a thing that

everybody ate so they we'd pan fry baloney thick cut baloney we pan fry that uh because we didn't have access i don't and i probably don't need to say but we're a seafood part of the world which means we don't have it, or at least we didn't have access to great beef like you do in Texas. So we would eat bologna instead, bologna with mashed potatoes on the side, some either frozen or canned peas with that. That was a classic meal for a New Brunswicker. Sounds great. Yeah, actually, we're not bad.

To be honest, it's pretty good. Well, Dennis, man, I appreciate it. And for anyone listening or watching following your content, excellent recipes. I go on your website after you push a recipe on social. And I've tried to recreate a lot of things you've posted and created. I highly recommend your cookbooks and in the show. But I appreciate you sharing the story, making the trip down here. It's been very insightful and great conversation. Yeah, likewise. Thanks for having me. It's, I mean, it goes without saying that you are an inspiration to all of us in what you do, not just the business you've built,

but you as a human. I think that it encourages the average person to, you know, you see go one more, and I think that that's something where most people need that extra little push. And I think that you putting yourself out there and being vulnerable with your journey, with your triumphs, with your struggles, with everything else, has encouraged, you know, average normal people, like I'm not going to, I'm probably not going to run an ultra. I'm probably not going to, you know, body build. I'm not going to do anything. But I can take one more step tomorrow, you know, towards getting better. And I think when it comes to from a food side of things, I guess to anybody listening, I just encourage you to just try, be willing to go through a little bit of something

maybe not working out to get to a place where it's super delicious and understand that at the end of the day, food is community. Food is the people that gather at the table. Food is your friends. It's your family. It's who you're feeding. That is the most important thing. Create delicious food, yes, but invest in more time at the table. It'll make you a better person, a better friend, a better family member. And it will also inspire and encourage your community to want to do the same thing, just like Nick is inspiring other people to take their fitness journey seriously. you can inspire other people in your life to take their food journey seriously and more seriously and spend more time spent at the communal table.

Absolutely. Dennis, I appreciate you. Cheers, man. Thank you. That's a wrap.