Trading Secrets - 264. Jake Cohen: From the Culinary Institute of America to best-selling cookbook author, the true BTS of the culinary industry, his unconventional career path, & the shocking $$$ behind it all

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

This week, Jason is joined by bestselling author, chef, and digital creator, Jake Cohen! Jake has become one of the most recognizable culinary voices of his generation, building an empire at the intersection of food, culture and social media. Jake has used his creativity to turn recipes into a thriving brand. His cookbooks Jew-ish, I Could Nosh, and his recent release Dinner Party Animal became instant bestsellers - earning praise for blending nostalgia with modern flavor, and for celebrating heritage beyond food. Jake is a master of brand strategy. Through his Wake and Jake platform, he has launched partnerships with major brands, developed original media content, and positioned himself as a culinary entrepreneur, redefining what it means to build a kitchen brand in a digital age.  Jake Cohen dives into his unconventional career path—jumping from the Culinary Institute of America into a 3-star Michelin kitchen, navigating low-paying editorial roles, test kitchens, and even a year as a Time Out New York food critic—all while staying true to himself and chasing an end goal he couldn’t yet fully see. He breaks down the realities of making ends meet, the differences between editorial and commercial shoots, how labor impacts the way he approaches dining out, and why maintaining a healthy relationship with social media matters. Jake opens up about his first cookbook pitch getting rejected, the surprising cost of cookbook photography, taking creative control of his team after book one, nearly joining a culinary hype house, and his “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” philosophy. He also shares how his Hulu show Jake Makes It Easy came together, when he knew he had the makings of a reality star, the power of word-of-mouth momentum, and closes with rapid fire questions. Jake reveals all this and so much more in another episode you can’t afford to miss! Host: Jason Tartick Co-Host: David Arduin Audio: John Gurney Guest: Jake Cohen Stay connected with the Trading Secrets Podcast!  Instagram: @tradingsecretspodcast  Youtube: Trading Secrets Facebook: Join the Group  All Access: Free 30-Day Trial  Trading Secrets Steals & Deals! Prolon: We’ve all set health goals—lose weight, exercise more, eat better—but without a plan, they often fade. That’s where Prolon comes in. Prolon offers an injection-free way to lose weight and burn fat while protecting lean muscle - and maintain results. In just five days, it activates fasting pathways to support metabolic health and rejuvenate cells—all while letting you enjoy real food. For a limited time, Prolon is offering listeners 15% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program! Just visit ProlonLife.com/TRADINGSECRETS to claim your 15% discount and your bonus gift. Function Health: The holidays can take a lot out of you—late nights, travel, endless to-do lists. You might push through, but your body feels every bit of it. Function helps you explore how stress may affect key health markers inside your body. Function is a near-360 view to see what’s happening in your body, and my first 1000 followers get a $100 credit toward their membership. Visit www.functionhealth.com/TRADINGSECRETS or use gift code TRADINGSECRETS100 at sign up to own your health Booking.com: If your vacation rental isn't listed on Booking.com, it could be invisible to millions of travelers searching the platform. Don't miss out on consistent bookings and global reach. Head over to Booking.com and start your listing today. Get Seen. Get Booked on Booking.com Upwork: Instead of spending weeks sorting through random resumes, Upwork Business Plus sends a curated shortlist of expert talent to your inbox in hours. Trusted, top-rated freelancers vetted for skills and reliability.... and rehired by businesses like yours. When you spend $1,000 on Upwork Business Plus, you'll get $500 in credit. Go to Upwork.com/SAVE now and claim the offer before 12/31/2025.

Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. This is the free market trading segment. And I got the one and only the curious Canadian with me. So I threw a little banter here before we ringing the bell with the one and only Jake Cohen, one of the best chefs out there with some of the best chefs. recipes that does collaborations with some of the biggest celebrity. So if you are a foodie, if you are so curious about the ins and out of the industry, from what dishwashers make to what food reviews and editorials look like, to how someone can build and make the best

books in the entire planet, New York Times bestseller, all things food and chef creation coming up here. But a little update from my personal life. I was actually in L.A. for little bit, which is a great time, had the best time there, had a couple activations in Vegas for F1. And now actually, I'll be in Charlotte for Thanksgiving. So that's a fun little update on my end. And David, you'll be in Rochester. I'm in Rochester. Happy Thanksgiving to you. Happy Thanksgiving to all of our listeners. But before we talk about Jakey boy, you were in L.A., you mentioned it, dancing with the stars. It's all over the place. I saw you. Front row, may I add, right behind the judges that minty green what is that suede suit popping in our eyeballs i was loving

it uh give us some ins and out is it electric in the ballroom is that are the dan is it because you've been in the ballroom a bunch before is it is it is it changes it evolve is it is it next is it leveling up give the people a little bit of the insights jay come on i got to say i've been to a bills game plenty of times right and i will tell you that i've been in that ballroom several times too i've never heard the crowd that loud for the pros and of course for the stars like it was it felt like at times you had a football game with the roar of the crowd it was absolutely unbelievable and incredible i have made a change in my prediction going to this week we have the finale this week if you heard this after the finale uh that means that you're listening after tuesday and this episode

comes out monday my prediction i thought robert irwin was a hundred percent going to win it i'm going to make a last minute change up and I'm going to say Alex Earl wins. David, what's your prediction? It's been Alex Earl from the start. It's still Alex Euro. Let's not forget. If you rewind on on our podcast, I first sent Jay Alex Earl when she had 30,000 on TikTok and I said, Jay, this girl's an upcoming star. And she continues to just evolve and impress. And all the dancers are incredible. I could see Robert Whitting, though, but I got to stick with my girl, Alex. I think that she's going to take the cake. But it is piquing interests from a lot of different people.

I think they said the semifinal was the most watched season in seven years. Or most watch episode, sorry, the semifinals in seven years. So I think people are, and there's no clear-cut winner this year. I think there's always been a little bit of a clear-cut winner. I don't think there is this year. So I will be tuning in to the finale. We talk numbers on this podcast, over 7 million active viewers for the semifinal, which absolutely shredded the,

the record history book for quite some time. And I think when you talk about winners, the real winner has been dancing with the stars. I mean, the show is on fire. All the pros are absolutely killing it in all areas of their career right now. It's one of the hottest shows. And the big question is, what comes next? What do you do next with this momentum when you get stars like Alex Earle and Robert

Irwin on the podcast? We'll see. But I don't know. What do you think, David, before we ring in the bell? Well, I think that they're in a good place. You know, I think getting Charlie DeMilleo on was massive for that, you know, I don't think there's Alex Earl if Charlie DeMilleo doesn't come on.

I mean, you have the number one most followed TikTok getting this new generation on. Now you have the Alex Earls who one day would dream of being the Charlie DeMilio's coming on. And who's the next Alex Earl that's coming on that's also getting new eyeballs, new viewers, electrifying the dance floor. You know, they do an amazing job with their casting from getting so many different demographics out there. And, you know, you got to give it to the pros because they put them through boot camp and you got to give to these contestants. I mean, that is everyone that's ever been on this podcast and said that's the hardest job they've ever had is Dancing with the Stars. So it'll be electric.

I think they're in a good spot. It's crazy. And in the markets, there's a lot of movement right now. We're starting to see the market shift back a little bit. You even saw Bitcoin dip below $90,000 per coin. We are expecting interest rates to probably be pulled back here coming soon. So keep that on the horizon. But most importantly, this is the quarter.

This is the month that most people are overseen. spending. So you cannot manage your money if you don't know where it's going. Pull out the credit card statements, see where the cash is flowing, minimize expenses if you can this holiday season and most importantly make sure all your bad debt is paid down. I've been doing a lot of financial reviews with some friends and I'll tell you where people I think are struggling the most right now is their retirement. The cost of living is so high that they are not properly prepared for retirement and savings. And when you benchmark where they're at from retirement perspective, they are behind. And maybe David will do one episode where we break into it. Before I kick it back to you, David,

everyone here, go give us five stars. I have gift cards to give away. I got Wingstop gift cards. I got Raising Kane gift cards and a few others. We are going to give those away next episode in the recap. But go give us five stars and let us know. David and I are doing a lot of strategy going in the 2026. We're thinking about some big changes, guest type of format, things we want to do. So go give us a review, let us know what you want to see out of us, but make sure you give us five stars. And I have some gift cards to give away. David, anything before we ring in the bell?

I just got to say, you do these intros, I tune in, people are listening. What you just said, you're a little talk about inflation and bills and holiday season and making sure you know where your money's going. I just got whacked with the biggest RG&E bill of all time. And for those people who don't know, that's Rochester gas and electric. I called in. I was ranting. I was raving.

I was trying to find out why. I learned something new. I didn't know that energy, the energy payment was done off of basically a stock price. It changes every single day what we're paying for energy. I had no idea. Yeah, and most of them are done off projection. Yeah.

It's an estimated projection of what you will use based on your previous use that it connects in price points that are ever changing. But I called and I said, how do I get this bill down? And she said, well, you can do daytime night time billing or you can do the flat rate. The flat rate was eight and a half seconds. And then she goes, well, if you do the daytime nighttime, night time, day is 11 cents, and then the nighttime is seven and a half cents. But yesterday it fluctuates.

It's all done off the market. So it's like a moving target. I'm paying something different for energy every single day. It blew my mind. It's crazy. We're living in a world right now where there are many people thriving and there are many people really struggling. And it's a really interesting time.

We've never seen, I literally just talked to a big wealth advisor recently. It's like I've never seen a more disconnect with the highs of where. the stock markets trading and how many people are benefiting off that, but where we're seeing some of the economic indicators of the actual strength of the economy. So there's a lot happening, which does connect to different topics and things we could be discussing on our Trading Secrets podcast, Instagram, and of course on this podcast. But for right now, go give us five stars. You'll be entered to win a gift card. Give us any ideas, themes, and or guests. And we have a lot to cover. But enough of us, let's ring in the opening bell with the one and only, Jay Cohen.

Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today we are joined by bestselling author, chef, and digital creator Jake Cohen. Jake has become one of the most recognizable culinary voices of his generation, building an empire at the intersection of food, culture, and social media. Jake has used his creativity to turn recipes into a thriving brand. His cookbooks, Jewish, I Kondosh, and his recent release, Dinner Party Animal became instant bestsellers earning praise for blending this stuff. nostalgia with modern flavor and for celebrating heritage. Beyond food, Jake is a master of brand

strategy. Through his wake-in-jake platform, he's launched partnerships with major brands, developed original media content, and positioned himself as a culinary entrepreneur, redefining what it means to build a kitchen brand in the digital age. Jake, we're going to get into all things, business behind the cookbooks, the economics, and social media, what it takes to turn storytelling and authenticity into long-term success. We appreciate being on Trading Secrets. It's been, we've been trying for a while now. I love it.

We have people on our team that are massive fans of you. Amazing. So, like, anytime your name has come up, they're like, when is it happening, when is it happening? And I do have some, you know, we usually get into business conversation here. But I got some fun questions from them at some point. Please, let's do it. All right. Well, I would say to, when I was going over all your stuff, I'd say you're kind of like living the dream here, right?

Like, you're hosting a TV show. You have cookbooks that are killing it. You're doing social media collaborations with some of the biggest celebrities out there, all with like your interest from day one. So many people have come on this podcast and they pivot or they change their direction. Of course. You studied at the Culinary Institute of America.

You worked in restaurants and then you got to where you are today. Tell me about your career track and kind of like the financial maybe successes or burdens and what life was like before this all took off. Yeah. I mean, listen, I think that's like the number one thing that happens all the time is people assume. It's like, oh, how'd you fall into this job? Because so often it is a pivot for many people who kind of, find this world as a result of unhappiness in a traditional route.

I never went a traditional route. I always knew, this was always the plan. And I just really set myself up for success. I only applied to one college in high school, and that was the Culinary Institute of America. There was no backup. It was just, I'm going to do it, so I'm going to do it exactly how I should be,

which is kind of full throttle, best education I could imagine. When it came time to work in restaurants, So I was like, okay, let's go to a three Michelin Star restaurant. Let's get the best kind of skill set for a foundation. I never wanted to have that like chef's table experience of owning and running a crazy restaurant. But I knew that I needed to really master a craft. I'm still mastering a craft. But on that journey, I never kind of shied away from challenge.

I remember growing up like when I was like young, I wanted to be a professional hockey player or like a professional poker player. that was my dream. When you were in like elementary, middle school, and I know you mentioned high school, but like even younger, did you know for sure you were going to be in the food business? No, I think a lot of it, and we're going to, this, I think it ties in, this is like a through line throughout my life, my career, both personal, romantic, professional, is this idea of really taking the time to undo a lot of the conditioning that our families, our society has on us in terms of what we're expected to do or what the actually options for careers or for lifestyles can be and for myself it really wasn't until high school

where I had really leaned into cooking as a passion and as a hobby and I finally gave myself permission to explore what that would look like giving my like totality of of education profession into a passion versus going medical school or following in the footsteps of of really, I don't know, there's a big conversation around different immigrant cultures and how there are typically these shifts of, like, when you look at, like, Jewish Americans, like when we first came, there was such an emphasis on academia and journalism and a lot of these professions, and then eventually it's shifted into Dr. Banker, a lawyer. Yep, and my grandfather always said he wanted to be, he's like, I wanted to be an actor,

I want to be a performer, and his grandfather, who was Jewish, of course, was like, you are going to be a doctor, a banker, or a lawyer. And that was his only options. And I think for myself, you know, I don't know. I think there is an element of being gay helps because you're already kind of breaking one mold of the, and it's not the norm, but like the majority and the societal kind of world that you're kind of raised in to expect.

And once you break one, then all of a sudden it's just, it's much easier to be like, all right, well, and let's just really have fun with us. Let's shatter those walls down. Yeah. The first book I wrote, it's called The Restart Roadmap, it's all about breaking the blueprint

because I think that, especially with your career in all areas of life, but society puts you down what this blueprint should be. And if you fall right into it, you could be trapped for an entirety. I was trapped for about 10 years into it.

You're talking a little bit about kind of how you broke the mold in all areas of your life, personal life, professional life. How early in life did you kind of start breaking that mold? Like when I had my brother on, I mean, we talked about when he came out and it was like a senior year in high school.

And he came out because my mom just went up to him. It was like, listen, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck. Like, talk to me here. So he was kind of pushed in the corner. It sounds like you were always at the forefront of like just being a leader in what you knew you wanted, regardless of what other people wanted. Was that the case early on were you always very vocal and were you always? Funny enough, I came to terms with wanting to go to culinary school before I came to terms of being gay.

Oh, interesting. And I think one probably help the other. When I really think about it, it's, it's, and it ties in so beautifully to like building a brand, which is authenticity is the number one thing for not only success, but for sustainability. So in terms of you can build up your idea of how you want to present to the world, what is the, what is the narrative you're telling. But if you're playing a role that's not true to yourself, it is the most exhausting thing. way of like not being true to yourself when it comes to anything when it comes to identity. The same thing is professionally. So if you are in a job that you're doing just because it's what was expected of you and you hate it, it starts to manifest in every aspect of your life.

And so that's something that I've constantly been really like laser focused on giving deep introspection on what do I love, what do I not love about everything I do. And so when I think professionally, I went to restaurants. First one was Danielle, this three Michelin star restaurant uptown, which was incredible. Was this your first job out of culinary institute? This was like in between your first and your second year, you have to take about nine months off and just go work. Okay. I think it's less, but the way it worked is over a lot like summer vacation. So I ended up extending and taking like a nice chunk of time. Is that, is that, okay, so like let's talk about the banking world for a second. Yeah. Like when you go to

like UPenn or you go to Ivy League, like it's very easy to end up at like a Goldman Sachs, right? When you're at Culinary Institute of America, is it, is it relatively easy to end up at a Michelin 3? Because that's like, it seems like that's next to impossible. Yeah, yeah, no, no, it's very common because you're doing, you're at the real bottom, bottom of the barrel when it comes to, like, what you're doing. And the knowledge that you pick up is incredible. It's so funny because the pay is so bad. We're kind of gone from the days of, well, I'll get to that in a second. But I'm like, you're making minimum wage, but I'm working like insane hours.

Yeah, so like time and a half, it's like I was pulling in money as a, as a 18-year-old that like could use it. That being said, when I left my last year of college, I had a pretty light workload. And so I started working part-time at ABC Kitchen here in Manhattan. I've been there with my brother, actually. Well, we went to ABCV. Of course, of course. This was before V opened. And it was actually, funny enough, I was a vegetarian for like a decade.

from 8 to 18 and I gave it up before culinary school to really kind of just get the most out of my education and so I started working at ABC Kitchen kind of with the mentality of I knew V was in the pipeline of coming and I was like great I'm gonna work for one of the coolest restaurant groups in the city that's about to open one of the coolest vegetarian spots in the city and so this is where I'm gonna set myself up

and so I again I wasn't even a vegetarian at the time I just it was such a crucial part to I don't know so much of my childhood and I was working at in the restaurant and I pretty much just had the realization of like this was never my dream and the second you do that kind of exercise and recognize it it's like okay amazing so what next

and it's always been what next for me and in this case I knew the sphere that I'm in right now was always the plan it was always the end goal I just didn't know how I was going to get there and I kind of like everything is kind of an exercise in faith, and I'm big on faith in a,

even in a non-denominational way. It's such a crucial part of energy in the world and manifestation, which I'm big on. But I took an unpaid internship at this food magazine. Really, this was still at the height of print media, and it was Severe magazine, and it was this like crazy intensive internship that so many people in the industry did.

And how old are you at this point? I am 20. Out of school. Out of school. 20 years old. I didn't, like, we'd have to go. I'd have to send another intern to pick up liquor because I didn't even, I wasn't even 21 yet.

And I pretty much just put my head down, made sure I was friendly whenever there was an opportunity for like a tiny little blurb in the magazine. I would like volunteer to start getting bylines in print. Eventually they hired me on as a freelancer. So I just never left. And then eventually made it on to the masthead as a staff member for the magazine.

Interesting. When you're a staff member, like what exactly in a role like that, what do you do? And what can you earn in a spot like that? Great, great question. So I was testing all the recipes that go into the magazine. So I was doing recipe development, recipe adaptations, in addition to just like random things.

Like just like kind of like cooking events that we were due at the magazine or cooking for all the photo shoots for the pictures that were not on site. And I'll never forget because I was making, I was unpaid and then there was the big Condé Nass lawsuit. And so they had to start paying us minimum wage. And then when I was hired on as a freelancer, I was making $8 an hour, which eventually I got a raise to $10 an hour. And then when I got the job offer, it was non-negotiable. It was a take it or leave it, 30 grand annually.

When you got that job offer, did you ever think about like, maybe I should go back to the restaurant industry? Like I was making, I was making $10 an hour as a line cook. It's not like that there was, and again, this has changed a lot. Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is a different world. Yeah, 10 years ago. I will say the thing that was so wild to me in hindsight is that the test kitchen manager at the time, who was a nightmare. And I hope she's listening because I honestly, I feel so bad for her as a person.

Like, what a sad, sad person. She was in her mid-30s and she had negotiated a pay bump. for herself and realize and then that's when I realized that she was actually making 30 grand was her salary before I got hired on and this is at ABC this is like a no no this is at the magazine oh at the magazine

this is an editorial which again is not crazy the editorial world is infamous for these kinds of roles where you're making 20 to 30 grand for that has it changed yes of course is it still incredibly

much a trade-off for the actual financial stability of a job versus the opportunity of the kind of platform it gives you. Yeah. So I always knew, I always knew that. I had this, it was, and I did it, whatever it took to financially make it. I was working, I was working Monday through Friday at the magazine, Saturday and Sunday at a spin studio in Murray Hill, because I was able to get a free membership. So that's the only way I could have a gym membership. And, And that was also extra cash. At one point, my sister was transferring schools to Manhattan. And my mother called me and she goes, hey, if you let your sister move in with you

because my apartment was much closer to her to the campus versus where the dorms were. She's like, I'll let you take her dorm money and put it towards your rent. I said, yes, it was a 400 square foot studio. And literally, she threw out my couch and put in, I was in a full bed and she moved in a queen-sized pull-out. Wow. And we did that for a bit. And you just do what you have to do. And it wasn't without help and it wasn't without support for my family.

And I would do whatever, I would like do like random private chef odd jobs or I don't know, whatever it took to keep it going. To stay in your passion and stay in your lane. Long work weeks and busy weekends can leave you feeling and even looking depleted. Well, prolons five-day fasting, mimicking diet works at the cellular level to rejuvenate you from the inside out, providing real results that include fat focus, sustainable weight loss with no injection needed, and now they're upping their game with the new next-gen five-day program, delivering the same science-backed benefits in a cleaner, more convenient, and more flavorful

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when you subscribe to their five-day program. Just visit prolonlif.com backslash trading secrets. That's P-R-O-L-O-N-L-I-F-E dot com slash trading secrets to claim your 15% discount and your bonus gift. Prolonlife.com slash trading secrets. I have a quick question on the editorials. With the magazines, you talked about photoshoots,

I've always just wondered this. When you're taking photos shoots of food, is it actually food? Always. Always. No. In my world, is there something behind the scenes? Like you put like hairspray on there or something?

Sometimes some Pam, so I'm like actually cooking spray. But like nothing, nothing inedible. Okay. That is not the case for like commercial shoots. Sure, that makes sense. That is when things get like doctored. But in editorial, I would say in every experience I've had, it's all just been actual food. And this is working in editorial for print and digital for a decade plus three cookbooks.

Like everything has never been doctored to that degree. Another question I got for it is you come up with the recipes, you taste the recipes. Did you ever do reviews on restaurants when you worked for it? At one point, so in my trajectory at one point, I, that's actually, this is a great segue way. So I ended up throughout my time at Sever, I knew social media was just starting. And they had built up a good platform on their own Instagram for the magazine. And I took as many opportunities as I could to be featured on it to start to build up my own following and like create my own Instagram. page for myself, just my name to do that. And what year is this? This is 2015. Oh wow. This is yeah, 2015. And I started to build up tiny following. We're talking like

15,000 followers, but this was the very beginning of food content on the internet on social. And I kind of leveraged that early on. So I was at the magazine for two years and then there was a job opening at this website called

Tasting Table, which was one of like the forefront digital media publications and it was an email newsletter had the largest one of the largest other than buzzfeed had like the largest facebook presence okay and so it was doing just really cool content and i applied to be their food editor which was kind of a it was a stretch for me and i've always kind of done that where i've gone out for jobs that i'm like that are kind of like it's a thumb so they hired me they hired me at 22 to run the test kitchen and be the food editor and it was i mean listen they got it wait what is that What is a test kitchen?

I have a physical test kitchen, a physical kitchen in which I'm developing all the recipes, testing all the recipes, leading all the photoshoots. For the magazine. For the magazine, or in this case, for the publication. You really put in your work for your cookbooks. Do you have this all pieces together, though? Exactly. And it is one of the most incredible things is when you can, every step of the way, take something

away. What did I love from this? What did I learn from this? What did I not like from this that I want no more of? And then you start to continue down a pathway. I always say life is like Plinko. You just have to drop a bunch of the chips and see where they fall.

And that's what I learned from this experience. It ended up being this interesting realm because I ended up getting laid off with the majority of the editorial staff because there was this huge shift in, I would say, 2017, when it came to the whole realm of food media and media in general. When it came to print,

I mean, we're still seeing crazy layoffs in print constantly in addition to digital. Interesting. And so the majority of the staff got laid off, and I took some time, and then I was like, what am I going to do? And I did freelance for a hot second, which was my first kind of taste of working for myself. Okay.

And then the craziest job opening came up that I applied for, which was to be the restaurant critic for Time Out New York. Interesting. And I ended up getting the job, and I spent a year. being the critic for Time Out New York. So as a restaurant critic, like, talk to me about what you're paid

and then you obviously get to expense all your meals, right? Yes, I had a good expense budget. When I got hired as the food editor, I was making $45,000. Okay. And I knew that was way under market for what a food editor should be paid. Yeah.

But I was just so, I so needed to get out of that magazine and be in the neck. I needed to level up that I was like, let's do it. You took the reduction in pay knowing the experience. Wasn't a reduction in pay? it was still a 50% increase in pay.

But still, I knew I was... A reduction of what you said the market value was, right? Yeah. And then from there, after a year, I ended up getting a 15K salary bump to 60K, which is the fact that that happened was also one of those things of like, wow, I really undersold myself if they were willing to just bump me up. Did you negotiate or did they bump you up? They knew that I was came, I came into this and I told my boss,

I was like, you know there's going to have to be a significant increase to market value. And they knew it. So they came appropriate, and they came with the number. Could I have probably negotiated more? Yeah, but they came at, they came with such an increase that I was like, okay, we're good. We're good for another year. I mean, it's 33%. We're good for, we're good for another year.

And then I think when I went to time out, I really negotiated not that much more. I think I went up to 75. Because to me, that feels like a dream job, like getting paid to go to restaurants to review. And now you're making the most money that you're making. Is it? You would think it wasn't for me. Why? Because I wasn't cooking.

And it was a great exercise in seeing like, okay, the workload was more than hand. Like, it was so, like, it was easy. I mean, what's your workload is a restaurant critic? I mean, again, I was running the whole section of the magazine. So I had an assistant editor or an associate editor underneath me. And we are both doing like the main reviews, the bar reviews, the different little piece of the magazine in addition to all the digital stuff. So, like, all the roundups of best whatever in Manhattan and Queens and whatever, which, again, is a lot to be doing for even two people.

So a lot of it's delegated to experts in, like, freelancers that really kind of can focus on that. I will say, it was exhausting. Like, you actually get really sick of eating out. So were you eating out every night? No, no. But, again, you have to do, like, one crazy meal, a week minimum. Okay. typically two. Plus you have to just be going all out to, like, you get invited to a bunch of things that you have to keep going to see, like, what are the cool spots in the city? What are the cool new dishes in the city? What are the viral things? Like, everything was kind of constant. Yeah. And I wasn't cooking. Do you, that's a really interesting take? Is there anything, do the restaurant owners know you're a critic or no? I mean, sometimes, yes, sometimes, no, I wouldn't use my name for that. I mean, occasionally you would. And we're in a world now where everything is pretty

obvious. Okay, so what are things to give, the people that are listening right now, none of us are a restaurant critics, but like everyone is a critic. What are things that you think we should look for, especially as the price of restaurants have gone up like 40% in the last five years or so? So like what are some things we should look at given that you were a critic? You know, and that's the main thing about New York. And I'm like a piece of shit native New Yorker who like truly thinks we're in the center of the universe. But good is bad in New York. That's true. And so it's like if something's just good, it's like, I would rather go to Chipotle or sweet green because for my money's worth, a sweet green salad

and Chipotle burrito never disappoints me. And it's a good price point versus going to a restaurant and spending a crazy amount of money for like a mid meal or even just like a good meal. Like the reason that you're going to a restaurant is for an elevated experience. So that means the hospitality. That means the food itself has to not only taste good. Tasting good is the minimum. It also has to be something that's either the best version of what it is or an inventive version of what it is or offer you like, what's the vibe you're going for? Are you looking for comfort? Are you looking for celebration and a little bit more of an ornate experience? Are you looking for really it has to be pinpointed to like what are you walking in to achieve?

And I will pay any price if it really hits it out of the point. park of what I'm coming there for. I think of like a lot. The craziest meal I've ever had was Alinia in Chicago. I was just going to reference Alinia. You know how you said on the, you started at Alinia? I have a buddy up, shout him out, Trevor Mooney. He works in finance full time, Monday to Friday. And he works on the weekend at Alinia. And he started at, I don't know what you call it. Just like, grade one behind the kitchen just because he's obsessed with food. Of course. And he's like, I love that. I love that. And now he's been like moved up, moved up, moved up. And he's like doing really well but on the weekends he literally works it's like 30 hours he works the entire weekend like

he doesn't stop then he works at alinia a choice but he's loving he's been doing it for years anyway but alinia is one of your favorite experiences yeah and it was the most expensive meals my life how much was that meal i think it was 700 a person wow what's the most overrated meal you've had in new york so there's so many it's kind of crazy yeah because there are so many social media marketing generated I don't go. I don't go anything that's a hot spot or a vibe. I'm not looking for a scene. I'm just not, it's just not for me.

Give me a couple that are overrated. You know, and here's my biggest takeaway from working on timeout is you realize the power of your word, and I actually don't do that publicly. I don't, I don't slander places publicly. Okay, how about, like, some of the best restaurants you've gone to in New York? I love Keene's Steakhouse. It is still, like, one of my favorite New York experiences. It's like where my family goes for like celebration and stuff.

The chef from ABC Kitchen went an open Loring place on 8th Street, which is one of my favorite spots. I'm very close with Mike Salamanov, so I love Laser Wolf in Brooklyn. I'll say I'm more of like a lady who lunches. So I like am a midday excursion kind of person. So I love like even like my favorite bakery is honies in the East Village. We're actually right over here. And it's where I, it's where I have many of my meetings.

I love to go to Cafe Pana for, like, Afigado Sundays. And I just set that up as, like, the baseline. And then from there, I love a new experience. I love a new meal. I love a new thing. I love Coat, the Korean Barbecue Steakhouse. Really exceptional. That's probably, like, one of my, I would say, in terms of the fancy,

that's where I tend to go fancy. Okay. For listeners here, like, we're always looking for value. So think about this answer as it relates to the entire United States. When you're going out to dinner and you're trying to dinner, And you're trying to, like you said, you know you're paying more. You're paying for experience. But there's all the items on the menu.

Where are you getting your best bang for your buck when all? I mean, there's whether it's pasta, it's sushi, it's the meats. Like where are you saying you are actually getting overcharged here? Like stay away from maybe these menu items. You're probably getting pretty good value here. Really? And it has actually nothing to do with the item itself. It has to do in my head.

And this is something where you start to think of it as like, what's the labor cost? Because labor is the main difference because it's, would I be better off making this at home, or should I be going out? Interesting.

And so when you think about some of the price you pay and you would think like, oh, there's so much more of a upcharge at a steakhouse on a steak. But do you really know how to cook a steak like that at home? Do you have that grill?

Do you have all those things? When you spend the amount of money you do on like penny ale vodka at an Italian restaurant, and that's something that you can easily do at home that's in my head at least how I think of it that way I like it the labor factor I've never thought of it yeah I'm gonna start thinking about it so again it's a big thing when it comes to sushi it's why sushi can be exorbitant I'll still pay it that being said I'm not necessarily

looking for this wild omicasse versus going like casunori and getting like a bunch of hand rolls rolls yeah that's fine I'm also not above like I love high-end grocery store sushi like Butterfield Market on the Upper East Side it's like Jewish Air One I go there constantly It is I would say it is not cheap The quality is exceptional It is one of my favorite places in the city Their sushi is so good

And it's like it's just not so pretentious And it's very casual and that's what I want When it comes to my health Here's my motto The more information I could get the better The more insight I can give The more I can do for my body And routine physicals often skip so many of the parts and information that could be helpful

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Just go to functionhealth.com slash trading secrets or use code Trading Secrets 100. And you can sign up for your own health. Check it out. All right, good trading secrets from someone that's been in all areas of the business. We're going to get to the multi-millions of followers, the social media, the TV show, all that in a second. Before we jump past it,

I have a couple rapid-fire questions from one of our big fans that works at Trading Secrets, Blake. These are coming directly from her, and let's just rip them fast. When you're too tired to cook, what are you ordering? What's your go-to-order in?

It's chicken fingers. From where? It's this place, it's this like chicken shop on the Upper West Side. A chirping chicken. And I get a thing of chicken. Do you don't come into anything? Like sauces?

I'm a barbecue sauce, boy. But I got a thing of chicken, and a thing of lentil soup. Okay. That's it. Boom, boom. What celebrity would you most want to cook dinner for? We know you've cooked with a lot of them, but who would you want to cook dinner for that you haven't yet?

And it's going to happen, and I've been saying this on my entire press tour because it's just like the more you put it out into the universe. I'm only one degree away from her, so it's going to happen. It's Fran Dresher. Okay, there you go. Yeah. Big Nanny fan. There you go. Make it happen. What's one kitchen tool you can't live without? A scale.

I think that's the one thing that's missing from everyone's kitchen. Wow. Yeah. It's so cheap and it's the secret to you. secret to you all baking is measuring your flour by grams. That means you got to follow the recipes. Very tight. Who in the food world inspires you most this moment right now? Oh, that's a great, great question. I'm going to say Martha Stewart because, and then this is one of those things where I think she has continued to see like brand evolving. We've seen her brand evolved in such a way

that I find so inspiring. And I also had like the privilege of going to shoot her show up at her house in Bedford and I had such a positive experience with her and and such she had such a positive like response to me that I found I just found it incredibly incredibly energizing interesting and the food creator space on social media what is a trend right now that you see you like and you're toward you're kind of gravitating towards I see smashing some you and Benny Blanco were like smashing some shes and cucumbers yeah yeah yeah a trend smash your food no no no but again in that and actually there is the perfect thing for that we're seeing these little mini universes of and what i mean by that is benny is a really close friend of mine it's not like i'm just going to like my most famous person i know

and being like hey will you help me do this we're good friends and as a result of him being my friend he wants to help support my dreams in the same way that when like when he had a cookbook coming out i was like great i moderated his philly spot we threw like a bar mitzvahs in philly and we like threw it into a crazy party. And I just like, baked the chalas for his wedding. I'm just like, we'll do, like you do, you show up for your friends in ways. And what we're starting to see is the crossovers

of your favorites hanging out with your favorites. Yeah. In these parisocial relationships online. We need more of that because what it does is it actually creates the best kind of content because it's more organic. These are people that actually like each other. You can kind of tell when someone's just doing.

Let's go clap and get out and never talk again. Actually, it's one of my, it's one of my things. And people get so weird about it because I, I, I, based on this background of experience, like a formal training and experience in media and editorial, as well as a savvy when it comes to social, I do kind of cross, I'm in the Venn diagram of like chefs and influencers. I fold right in the middle. And so a lot of my community are either one or the other, and it's hard with a lot of influencers that reach out to me. Hey, I'm coming to town.

I want to do a video with you. And my response is, I don't know you. We can get coffee. I would love to meet you. But I actually don't make videos with people I don't know. Interesting. And that's rare. It's very rare in this space, but it makes sense.

It's something that's super important for me keeping my sanity. And also for me keeping a positive relationship of making content. I hate the internet. I hate social media. I always say the second I win mega millions, I'm out. I actually say the same thing. 100%. Why would we be doing this?

Everyone was watching this. we don't know you you're strangers like like that's the whole point it is you're letting people in on your journey and you also still have to keep it real of like who are you what's your actual value

who's your actual community I get very hard on people in the industry that are always talking about their friends that are also in the industry and I'll sometimes be like have you met them I've met them in person have you ever spent time with them I know but we like

we talk every day on Instagram you're a pen pal. Yeah, exactly. Like, but they're not your friend yet. You have a power social relationship with them. And until you take that IRL, it's not real. And especially in this industry, the mislabeling for the good and for the bad, that happens because people think something comes with the common associated with someone, like either

completely mislabeling them for the bad or completely blowing smoke into a direction of like pumping someone's tires when they're just not a good human. It happens like every single second in this space. And the biggest part of that is in the same. same way and people don't think of of the public sphere like their personal lives yeah when you see people in your lives and you see who they hang out with and you're like ugh she's she's hanging out with that guy like yeah he's the worst really is it's like guilty by association so so you start to see it's like if your faves are hanging out with people that you don't like mm-hmm

keep an eye at it I love it all right that's a good transition though you don't love social media but you're damn good at it. Two and a half million followers. Forbes 30 under 30. I saw many cookbooks, New York Times bestseller. At what point, you started in 2015,

you heard your career track. At what point do social media start to become a business greater than everything else you're doing? I had been focused on that. Throughout every editorial position, I prioritize building up my personal Instagram brand. Continuing with content.

That means coming home, shooting stuff, different eras of different things. This was pre-video, so this was all still like digital. I'll never forget, a tasting table. I launched this initiative that was, when I look back, one of the most brilliant things,

and it's actually kind of wild that I haven't talked about this more. We did this thing where they understood, tasting table was really the intersection of restaurant chefs and home cooks. And as a result, the first wave of Instagram influencers were restaurant accounts, People that were just taking pictures of cheese poles and all this. Charcotry boards is like the big thing. But the thing is, none of them know how to cook.

And so what I started doing is I started hosting, we had an event space, and we started hosting these nights, and I would do cooking classes for about 20 influencers, between all of them, millions and millions of followers. And I would set up, we'd pick a theme. So it would be like, we're making homemade pasta, or we're doing X, we're doing Y. and I would set up a photo station

with something gorgeous there'd be a crazy charcutory board there'd be a beauty of whatever dish we were doing and then we'd do this cooking class and we'd have such a fun night and then I would have it was great for the brand because they were posting about the brand

they were also posting me and so all of a sudden I had I don't know three four million people three or four million followers between all these people in one night posting At J. Cohen. Like, oh my God, At J. Cohen teaching us how to make pasta, blah, blah, blah. And that's how I really learned my skills for cookbook launches, because it's guerrilla marketing. It's just

having one clear moment where you're getting bombard of everyone's story. You're like, wait, that person's there. That person's there. That person's there. Who is this guy? Because the first time someone sees you, unless they're like laser-focused for my, like, unless they see me, You're like, oh my God, this is exactly my kind of guy. Unless you are so niche that person, they're going to come and go. Exactly. And so it's not until like the seventh, eighth time that they see you. They're like, all right, I guess there's something about this guy.

Let me follow him. And so I was doing that, building up my platform. When you were doing that, how many followers do you have? I think I was just about to hit 25,000. Maybe we got up to, actually, I would say probably, I would say, I remember I hit 50,000 followers while working there. I think this theory fits into almost any business and obviously specifically branding, but I think the theory I'm taking here and tell me if I have this right is you are a chef by nature. You went to school for it.

You've worked in Michelin restaurants. You've been an editor and you're seeing the social media pick up and you're seeing these people that are doing this on social media, but they're not doing it particularly well. So you create an event in which they can come and which you're teaching them to do it better. So you're providing them massive value to their own platforms. And as a result of it, they're now looking. looking at you as a source of credibility. Is that what you're thinking was before you did it?

Was that the strategy? You know, I think it was more so affiliation of starting to think of me as a peer, but the peer that represented the skill set. So while they all understood, it wasn't that they were all trying to become incredible home cooks, it was that they knew their lane, and I knew my lane,

and I knew that I could leverage their platforms to promote it. because they are showcasing restaurants yeah yeah got you i am showcasing my own recipes and as a result there wasn't competition they might have been in competition with each other yeah but not you but not me i feel like people can connect with me on this one you know it's bad when your inbox hits double digits before 9 a.m you start the day buried in tasks and end it wondering where the time went this is literally the story of my day doing it all yourself well there is a solution out there. Instead of spending weeks sorting through all different tasks and all different inboxes, you can utilize Upwork Business Plus. They can do it for you.

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credit. Scale smarter with top talent and get $500 in credit. Terms and conditions apply. Do you charge for these or did you just say free? No, no, there were 100% they were 100% free. And so you're doing, I interrupted you because I was curious about the strategy, but you were doing around seven or eight and that's when you started to see massive traction on it? We did, I think we did probably five of them. But from the first one, there was massive. traction of, again, this was also the beginning. So people were a lot more, it was much easier to grow followings back then because there was just, the market was less saturated. Sure, 100%. And then I followed that throughout every editorial position I had. I did that when I was the food

critic at Time Out, which had a great platform. Same thing when, there was another position I had, and I think by this point, I had about 70,000 followers. I had built up a name in the editorial space. I was like, I want to do a cookbook. And I wrote up a proposal. sent it out, it got rejected by everyone. I was like, okay, let's go back to the drawing board. I adjusted it, went back to the market, sold it immediately, got a tiny advance. What's a tiny advance?

I got a $65,000 advance, plus they were paying 30 grand for the photo shoot. Half of that would be held against my royalties. The other half was just paid for it by the publisher. Two notes on that. One, I think what's interesting about cookbooks in general people don't think about is, is you have to, again, yeah, you have to pay so, like, yeah, they gave you 30,000.

I'm sure you spent a lot. I would assume you spent more than 30,000 putting the book together. We'll get to that in a second. Actually, so when you think about it, I have to pay for all of the groceries for all the development. It's the time for developing the book. It's not just like I write these recipes. I have to write them.

I have to test them. I have to have them tested, all the stuff. And then for the photo shoot. And that was really important for this was, photoshoots are very expensive for a cookbook. and when I think my first one, I pulled out every favor I could. I went to the staff photographer at the Verve magazine who had never shot a book before

and I was like, will you shoot this book? This is my budget. And it was his first opportunity to do a book. Amazing. I was like, this is the budget I'll have. Everyone saw, knew me in the industry, so building up that name was important because they wanted to be tied to a project with me. They knew what the budget was and they worked with it.

I used a test kitchen space from a, a brand that I was working with so I didn't have to pay for the studio I think I got I like called in favors from like every restaurant and I was like bread's bakery all this stuff they were catering the lunches so I didn't have to pay for lunches any day so I just I did whatever I could

to keep costs down and as a result it was incredibly unheard of in terms of what I did because also I'll never forget my editor came to me and goes you should should assume with this budget you'll be able to get like three quarters of the recipes photographed and the rest won't have pictures and that wasn't acceptable to me

because I knew for my vision that like every recipe had to have a photo or else people won't make it. It won't make it. We won't be able to give it for press. We won't be able to do I won't be able to post about it on social if we don't have the images. It wasn't acceptable for me. So I actually went behind his back and pretty much told the team like, hey, I'll have all everything prepped out. We're shooting everything. Wow. And then some. Wow. And we did it and it was. And so you got 60, 65 for the advance, 30 for the budget. How much that did you spend? So 95 all and how much you get to spend? I actually, I think it was all of the 30 went from, went for the shoot. But because of that, my editor had more control on the shoot. So I wasn't paying out versus for my next two books. I got a bigger

advance. Yeah. And I was the one cutting the checks. So I was in charge of the team and all of that. Interesting. That's and that's a very special thing. Because cook. books cost. When you talked like an average, like my last book, I think I spent around $75,000. Yeah, I've heard it's like, yeah, $75,000 is close to $100,000. And how long does it take from starting the book to finishing the book? Two years. Two years. Again, you have to remember, I am a unicorn. Because of my background, I do everything myself. The majority of people, and this is no shade to them, sometimes it's a little shade. Like, you, like, no, some of your favorites are like not actually writing their books because they have co-authors yeah and and they're not

even showing a lot of them are not even showing up to their their cookbook shoots I'm cooking almost every recipe in the shoot I have an incredible food stylist Barrett Washburn he's the main stylist for the times um I've worked without this like the same photographer and stylist for all three books and it's because I love my team I've been blessed enough to have success and I get a larger budget And as a result, I give them more money to have fun with it. And they have fun with the books because they know how much work I put into these books and how incredible that they come out. Yeah. And they're just, if you go anywhere online and look at reviews of your books, they are just so well received wherever they go.

I mean, period. Because that is the goal. This is my art. Yeah. And so it's not, it's hard because it's art through the lens of capitalism. Yeah. Where I also have to be selling books. But at the same time, one of the things I find so interesting, my community,

are predominantly creatives, but in different fields. Very few within my own field, mainly because most of my contemporaries are not very nice, at least to me. And one of the things that I found so interesting is I have so many friends that are in Broadway, that are in comedy, that are in prose of just writing novels and all this stuff, where what they consider their best work is their least commercially successful. fault. Do you find the same with your books? Like have you made, we talked a little bit about your first advance. Have you made in royalties more than your advance? I have. Wow. That was actually

the best, the biggest blessing of having a tiny advance is I paid off that advance in a few months of the book coming out and since then I just get royalty checks. For majority of your career after school, you know, you're working minimum wage, you're grinding 30 grand, 45 grand, get to 60, get to 75. Is it, I mean, the success story is really cool. Is it fair to say over the three books you've made over seven figures, fine? Over seven figures come by. No, not yet. Okay, but you're getting there.

Not yet. I just still think like that story is incredible. Yeah, but again, you have to remember. And this is something that comes up a lot. A million dollars spread across seven years is, it's nothing that I'm not incredibly proud of and not incredibly really, really grateful for. But we also have to level set of like living in New York, producing in New York, it's not cheap so it's not like the profit margins or if you have PR behind and whatever else is

coming and I'll say that this is like one of my like more controversial things I'll say just to kind of tie the bow on professionally really right before my first book came out I actually had a job offer and I left my last company for this offer and it was in the height of the pandemic and it was myself and all these other incredibly popular and public food personality cookbook authors, TikTokers, and it was this guy whose background was in gaming, and he was going to launch

kind of like a culinary hype house. And I signed on for it, and by the time we all signed on to it to the time that we got our contracts, the internet was exploding in such a way in which our followers were going, were just jumping through the roof. They wanted exclusivity.

They couldn't afford us anymore, and it fell apart. When you say exclusivity, they would have been able to manage any type of deal that came here way. Right. Gotcha. And this was at the height of when brand partnerships were just, it was just the Wild West.

His brand partnerships then been the largest source of revenue for you since pivoting into digital? I would say at first, yes. As I've built up my brand and book advances, all that stuff, I'd say it's probably equal. Interesting. Which is important because it's actually when you think about the cost of producing the book, I need to have, I need to have that. I need to have that stream of income in order to support the overarching thing, which goes into tying it back to the restaurant of the fine dining restaurant to the fast casual. To me, my books are my three Michelin Star restaurant. My social content is my shake shack.

Makes sense. And I need both. I can't just be making TikTok videos or else you just call me an influencer, which is the number. I had this guy, I was, oh my God, and again, this is no shade, but he was like some no-name guy who was trying to talk down to me. He's like, I won't be talked. I always say, he's like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to be listening to some influencer. And I said, first off, first off, that's New York Times bestselling author to you. Second, just because I have some social clout does not define me. And you see it all the time and you see all these actors and everyone who's like

then getting into the food space starts doing these cooking videos you don't all of a sudden start calling them influencers correct yeah but it's just a weird world of of where our our headspace goes yeah I mean it's interesting because there's an identity crisis right now online yeah and people that are that are true like their only source of income is influencing are trying every which is a big mistake right because I mean if we can that would be a whole podcast but yeah they are having this and let's just say they're making I know a lot of influencers making millions of dollars. Millions of dollars annually, crushing it.

And that's their only job. But they're having this identity crisis because they want more. And at the same time, there's a lot of people that have more. They have all the credentials, all the credibility. Some of them even like A list celebrities now are actually trying to do cross collaborations with high class A, let's call it, influencers because they're trying to get more of the community and following. And it seems like from Hollywood to social media to like everywhere in between,

there's this like massive massive identity crisis with like what's happening online and what are you i can distill that down where it's like the celebrities have typically much smarter teams behind them resources and they understand that there are physical products that they're selling and pushing and they're leveraging these influencers that get eyeballs but actually haven't figured out how to convert that into money other than click being a living breathing billboard correct and some have done an incredible job crossing over but i'll say from my own experience as someone who's many friends that then i kind of helped talk through in the cookbook space of these are our influencers ticktockers they get their first book deal some of them take advances that are larger than i've ever taken

and i told i remember there's one guy i told him i was like he was about to take a half million dollar advance and i was like you do understand you got to sell books if you don't sell enough books you're not going to get another book deal because they bet on you and it was a bad bet that's true and there's really only so many publishers so they all talk they'll know the numbers well no no everyone knows the numbers are public and so i was like you take in advance that allows you to again i'm not saying don't take anything take enough that you can that is your salary and pays for the production of the book yeah and then pay it off have the book be so successful and get royalty checks it's better for us to be getting royalty checks, then still looking to pay off on our banks. You can't find out how many units are

sold on books publicly, though. Yes. Within the industry. Within the industry. If you have an agent, you know. So it's like all these people have access to it. So for me, the hardest part is when I see these people that have so much more social cloud than myself, millions more followers, engagement through the roof. They're getting, each one of their videos is getting, makes me look like a nobody, looks like my mother on Instagram. and yet they're selling a fraction of the books that I sell. Interesting. Because it's a different relationship with their audience.

Yeah, for sure. And in my opinion, you have, you have, there's a lot of people, a lot of followers. It doesn't mean they actually have direct influence. Like, an influence comes with credibility, right? Which is where you have, which is why you can move units the way you have. This episode of Trang Secrets is brought to you by booking.com.

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Don't miss out on consistent bookings and global reach. head over to booking.com and start your listing today. Get seen. Get booked on booking.com. Let's quickly talk about your TV show. Jake makes it easy. It's on Hulu, right? Your second season, it's out right now. Tell us a little bit of how did a TV show, like, you know, we've heard everything to this point. How's a TV show find you? And what does that negotiation look like? It's a perfect tie into everything else. So it's like, I'll never forget there was one specific moment. People always know, like, when do you know things were taking off? Because I've, I don't know, it's like, and this is going to sound,

this is going to sound like really pathetic. Not pathetic, but like shitty, but like, I've always known I'm a star. Like, I like, I just like, you have to, you have to know you're just starting to be a star. Some people, some people think they're a star and they aren't. Yeah. And I just, I just, I am. And I, my book, my first book is coming out during the pandemic. I was asked to do a pre-record for the Rachel Ray Show in which I just, like,

filmed myself on an iPhone making a recipe from the book and this was the launch day and it was airing on Rachel and so I'd sent the video and that's all and so I'm watching the show live and I'm seeing

seeing her set up the segment and she pulls out my book and she pretty much says that this is like one of the best books she's seen of recent and kind of just like hyped me up in a way of like how obsessed she is with me

and this was one of the three women that I feel like raised me like I was so obsessed with the food network as a kid and to see someone whose trajectory so represents what I want for myself giving me this kind of praise. I'm not a very emotional person, but I start hysterically crying. And that was the same week that I, again, I was 27 years old when I hit the Times list for the first time. And it was a lot. It was a lot because it was also all happening in private because I would sound like I had, like I just think of my book launched two days ago was at the Stryker Center with 750 people

and the first two books I mean well the first book was completely virtual so you don't have any actual concept of what's happening around you there's no there's no actual tangible way to touch it to you to prepare your nervous system for what's happening which in one sense I actually think it was quite a blessing but at the same time it was just it was it was weird so Rachel continued to be a huge supporter of mine throughout all of my books, and she's blurbed my second and third books, and she had me back on the show a bunch of times. And the last time I was on set, she goes, hey, I'm launching a production company, and I want to give you a show. I was like, okay. I was like, well, we'll say it. But again, I've been, I've talked to a million production

companies. There have been, you talked to anyone in the industry for every greenlit thing. There's a 10,000 that disappear. Yeah. And I didn't really think anything of it. until it actually happened. And it's a real, beautiful, simple, stand-inster show, just me, cooking recipes. It's on A&E. So I knew it was going to be linear TV, a different audience on cable,

with the benefit of after six months, all the seasons go to Hulu and become part of the streaming universe. And so it's the same way that's like you look at reality shows, like, I love that, love thineater. That's a free-form show. But no, no, no, no, it's Hulu. Yeah.

Because it's all in the same universe and you do one and you get it all. Correct. So I knew that's what was part of this plan to be in the Disney sphere. And I didn't have exclusivity, which was a very important part of this. Because who knows, maybe tomorrow I get asked to be the host of Top Chef or maybe tomorrow, the next day I get a million and one thing. I don't know where I'm going to want to be. I might want to be, I always say, it's like I have this deep feeling that I'm going to end up on like Summerhouse or Survivor in the next year. Let me call Kyle.

I mean, I mean. So I just think that for me, it was kind of a no-brainer. Is it lucrative? Absolutely not. Again, it's the same conversation. Was it similar to like your first book advance where you just like... It's less. Interesting.

I really, it's... But at the same time, it is creating a piece of content that A has the wildest team behind it. So we have a production team. So the quality of what is being shot with multiple cameras. and a culinary producer and what we're able to actually produce is worth it for me because it's not like I am in the it's not the same workload that it is of taking a book. It's much less and so the pay is represented of it. But it also introduces a new audience to me that's not finding me on Instagram. It is it's a pedigree of like yeah I cook on TV now. You can go on

Hulu and you can watch my shows. You can you can find me and when you are look, when I'm looking for my next projects or next opportunities for someone to go and see proof of concept of oh you want to see what I look like making recipes with a camera up and not having anyone just holding my own go watch on Hulu I love it it's and it's important call me an influencer but it's true and it's like you see that and it's like oh okay it's crazy not to do that and also this is the the one thing that like i someone told me and it's like if you want to be like a professional person who cooks on tv and rachel ray's calling you and telling you to do it you do it you do it it's like you don't ask and then there's this there's this other food network star that i'm

very close with and i called her up for advice during it and one of the things she said is like have so much fun with this and just remember when you look at bobby flay and you look at at at at Giatta and you look at all these people, I can promise you you don't actually know the name of their first show on Food Network. That's great. Because it wasn't their biggest. That's great.

Well, good for you. I love it. I think you clearly have a clear path. It's a wild path, but it's always been a little wild. But that's where the faith comes in. I actually don't know what the path is going to be. I know the feelings. I know how I want to feel when it comes to my relationship with my work.

And I know what I want to do in terms of feeling fulfilled. And other than that, that's for the universe to kind of bring to me of what's going to happen. Because you'll do something and be like, okay, I love that. I want more of that. Or I actually didn't feel good about this, even if it made a lot of money. And then it's finding the balance like, okay, well, this makes a lot of money, but I don't actually like it. How do I reduce that or do with that enough in order to support the stuff that I love that might not be as profitable? I love it.

It's fascinating. I don't know. I could see something like a competition show. maybe I could see you as the chef on Summerhouse but also in the cast there's a lot of yeah I'm not I'm not a private let's be clear for all the Bravo producers listening

I will be a cast member period will I also cook yeah yeah I'm thinking like that's like host yeah yeah thing like you could see hosting but I could see him be like oh he's gonna he'll be a cast member but he's also the chef but then everyone comes to you and they like

of course and then we can stop yeah yeah something all right here we go there are like you said there are a lot of cookbooks out there. Rachel Ray gave you compliments. It's giving you blurbs. The entire industry has. But maybe my listeners haven't heard of your new book, Dinner Party Animal, recipes to make every day a celebration. So give us the pitch. Why this book? How's it differentiated? Why should someone go this second when they're hearing this and go buy it? It really is the most gorgeous book I've ever made of the three. It's so incredibly inventive. I wanted something that was so focused

on community. And to me, the greatest joy in my life comes from cooking for others. And it's something that terrifies people. And so I wanted to take all of the work out of it. And I created 16 menus for 16 different occasions, from brunch to weeknight dinners, to celebrations, to holidays. And I give you your recipes, your grocery list, your timeline, everything you need to know of, like, you're hosting people. Three days before, here are all the steps you're going to do. Two days before, here's everything you're going to do. The night before, here's what you're going to do.

When your guests come, everything's going to be ready. and you actually get to be present and have fun hosting. And pass that there are 100 incredible recipes that even if you didn't throw a dinner party and just made a random recipe, your cooking is going to get better. I love it. That was a hell of a pitch.

I'm ready to buy it right now. It also reminds me my business sense goes to Martha Stewart, someone he looks up to. I think that one of her beginning plays was I'm going to have the strategy of giving people the best recipe so when they cooked for their loved ones and their loved ones love it, I'm building power and credibility with them to come back.

And I think when you're putting a book together like this where people are, you're literally spelling out, just go to the grocery store, buy this, do this, and then their loved ones. They see that reaction. They're going to be coming back. It's really crazy because it's one of the few industries. Not few. I'd say actually it's more normal than not. We talk about marketing and using social media. Word of mouth is the most powerful thing still in my industry. Someone is going to make a recipe and tell their friends who cook how much they love this book. and that is the number one pusher of cookbook sales is that it is not you can have i've done every every show every daytime talk show all of the stuff i've done it all nothing pushes like word of mouth so true we got to wrap with your trading secret jake what can you leave us with it specific to you cannot learn it from a professor ticot tutorial or any of those influencers out there we can just learn from your experience that you just shared with us what can you leave us with yeah so

My biggest thing that I do in life is focus on what does my subconscious actually want. And the way that you find that is there are so many different rituals, but ritual is the key about that. It's journaling, it's meditation, it's manifestation through positive intentional thinking, it's psychedelic work, which is something I'm incredibly passionate about, all to help find, does this actually serve me, or is this what I have been programmed to think that I want? And when you do that, everything becomes easy

because you're able to approach every business, every opportunity authentically. And it really is the secret to success because it really, it doesn't matter what you do as long as you're doing it as your truest self. It's my biggest advice when someone's saying, how do I gain followers on Instagram? You be yourself, and you either find an audience

that resonates with that or people don't resonate. That's out of your control. And that's none of your business, whether people like you or not. Right. Right. That's wild because the trading secret we're wrapping with touched on the trading secret that we started with. And I think the trading secret that I took from you was everything you just said, but I also think the ability to execute.

I think a lot of people can feel it in their gut. They can see it. Their eyes, they can understand they're in the wrong place. They can be like, I'm going to be authentic. I'm going to be vulnerable. But the problem is they sit in that place for too long. Some sit in there for a lifetime. And I think the thing that I've observed from your career is, like, you're the speed at which you see it, you hear it, you feel it, your gut tells you, and you just go.

Like that, I think that is like your, I mean, there's a lot of obviously, especially things you have, but your superpower is to, like, see the vision. And even when you're like, what do you mean you're going to leave? You just got here. How are you going to not take that rule? Or how are you going to not go to the culinary house? Like, you see it, you insulate, you act. And I think so many people will spend their entire life overthinking and not acting and executing. So you are a testament to, just fucking do it.

Just do it. In this room, literally, we had a FBI hostage negotiator talk about the bits of, he talked about like bits and energy, like energy, everything is energy. But he talked about how your brain can compute something logically. And the speed and the energy at which your gut can compute something compared to your brain, this is an FBI hostage negotiator, I remember numbers, I don't remember terminology, was 500,000 to one. Your gut can compute it at 500. thousand to one range compared to your actual logic and brain and that's how or the last thing the last

thing else yeah yeah so when you think about this because i do a lot of woo-woo stuff i'm a huge i did the hoffman process which i swear by and really when you think of the neuroscience behind that and so much of this work it is your whole life is you've created these incredibly reinforced neural pathways of how you respond and how you think about the world around you and your subconscious can be telling you very clearly that this is wrong. It's the wrong way that you should act to this external simulai. It's the wrong way you should be approaching an opportunity, all of this stuff. But you don't necessarily have the neural synapsis strong enough to create a new response

to go for it. And so understanding that you are just a product of your childhood, your parents, the world around you and the nurture element, you are now in control of creating a new life for yourself and it's not easy nothing comes easily and even for me it's like i think i sounded pretty fucking confident on this and i think i am pretty confident that being said that comes with intense ritual intense check-ins with myself to make sure that i am doing things that are authentically like what i want deep down versus what i just think i'm programmed to yeah to go towards fascinating think it see it act on it and just keep putting in that work jake this has been awesome thank you

for being on Trading Secrets. Where can everyone find everything you have going on? At Jake Cohen. Google me. That's very easy. I'm on Amazon right now looking at your books. We're going to give away a couple copies of dinner party. And we'll stay tuned to the recap. We'll tell you how you can get those copies. And Jake, thank you for being so much on Trading Secrets. Appreciate having you. Ding, ding, ding. We are closing in the bell with the Curious Canadian to the Jake Cohen. So we're laughing because we were just getting fired up before we did this recap. But if you have it. Make sure you enter to win the gift cards. We got to give away. Just go to the Apple and or go to, oh, David's yelling for a star right now, but go to Apple, go to Spotify, give us

five stars. Let us know your biggest takeaway from this episode and let us know either a theme or guest that you think we should have on. And next week in the recap, we are giving three gift cards away. So make sure you do that. But we got the Curious Canadian here with us, the star of the recap to always break down what he's thinking. I'm actually very curious what The Curious Canadian thinks about Mr. Jake Cohen. David Ardoin, what you think of the episode? You must be calling me the star just to gas me up to get me on the same confidence level of Mr. Jake Cohen. Because let me tell you, this guy might be the most confident person I've ever met my life.

And he had some statements to back it up. I mean, he called himself a unicorn. He says, I've always known I'm a star. I mean, this guy was coming out swinging. You know what I got to do now with anybody that comes out this confident that I don't know of before? because I just didn't follow him and now I'm definitely going to follow him because I got to see what this guy's all about.

I got to dive into some cookbooks. I'm even going to try some recipes for this guy because if this guy is this confident, I'm all in. I might have to be all in or I might be all out. And if I'm all out, then I'm going to let you know. But right now this guy has me hooked and I need some more.

I need some more, Jake Cohen. Jake, if you are listening to this, let me tell you, the listeners that are still here with us right now, they know that David always has a comment Well, we have a very confident guest. And bring us back 20 years ago. When we were in college, David didn't like me at first because of what I will call my confidence. Now we're best boys.

It's just how David operates. But I will say the confidence, of course, is there. You drop some of the lines. But the confidence is also backed. I mean, he's got tons of experience in culinary school at the best culinary school. He's done his work in the industry. He is one of the few food creators that we see. that actually is a chef who's been there, done that with the experience.

And big-time New York Times bestseller, collaborating with some of the biggest and best celebrities in the entire world. And he's done it. So, like, the confidence is backed in its proof. Is it ever? I mean, why wouldn't this guy be confident? We're talking about one-track mindset. We've been on, we've had Barbara Corcoran on.

She's talking about her 26 failures before she landed on what she's going to do. this guy knew he delivered he's been on the one way highway he's taking it with benny blanco he's got two and a half million he's come on i mean yeah this guy this guy's backing it up all day every day so uh yeah i mean i learned a ton you know you know what i'm most jealous i'm always curious what you're curious about that's your job here but i'm most jealous about like what i want to be able to take in my life that he's able to do every single day it's just that ability to like he sees the vision and goes like the pivot go. The pivot execution. I'm good at seeing the pivot. I see the pivot. And then I'll just think

and analyze and wonder and call you, David, call my mock, call my dad. Hey, what do we? That, that, that, that. Just think in this world, to speed at which everything's moving, if you don't just start thinking and going, you're really going to be. And I mean, that's why he said he was so, he's been so successful because he's just been himself. And he says, that's the key to social media. And in a nutshell, be yourself. And then if you are relatable, you're going to find out because people are going to follow. They're going to want some more of it. um yeah there was that was one of the takeaways that i got i do have a question for you that i don't know the answer to um he started out of culinary school at a a

a michelin three star restaurant what makes a restaurant a michigan star restaurant because i've been pretending like i know what a michelan star restaurant and every time someone says michelan star you know what i think of jay i think i think of the michelan man I think of the Michelin Man Because I don't know what a Michelin Star is So people say Michelin, I think of the Michelin Man logo The Big White Puffy guy with all the rolls And he's with the tires

That's what I think of because I don't know what it is So I need you to enlighten me on what a Michelin Star is And what makes it a Michelin Star And then how do we define the stars in a Michelin Star? Okay, now let me tell you this I am no Michelin Star expert But I believe what happened back in the day Is actually the tire company, Michelin,

was trying to find ways to sell more tires, and they did it by saying, we're going to do restaurant reviews. And based on the restaurant reviews, we are going to encourage people to be traveling more to go to these restaurants. Because if they travel more, yeah. So it is actually connect. Michelin is connected to the tire company. My understanding is that they will come anonymously, they eat. And then if they have the credibility from the like quote unquote like anonymous eaters and inspectors, they will award the stars that I know for sure that they cannot be bought in any way, shape, or form. But that is my understanding of the Michelin Stars. And then based on the Michelin Star review, you'll actually get a certain amount of stars based on how good it is.

and then they can do the same and they can take the stars away too. So did you know that about Michelin? I was trying to be funny guy David on here. I was trying to say, yeah, why? You think that I thought the Michelin man had anything to do with the Michelin Star restaurant?

Because if that's actually true, I'm going to be in the deepest rabbit hole of my new best friend, Chad GPT, for the rest of the night, trying to learn about Michelin's because this is my brain, my brain in mind, actually. Jake Cohen might be rubbing off on me. Now I think I'm the smartest person

in the world for connecting the Michelin Man logo, the white puffy guy that we all know and love, to a Michelin Star Restaurant. And David, we always talk AI on this podcast. So, yes, you are sniffing it, you were feeling it, you were sensed it, and you said it. Well, as of mid-2025, according to AI, there are approximately 3,715 Michigan-starred restaurants worldwide, with about 3,053 holding a one-star, 503 holding two stars, and 153 holding three stars. that exact number changes annually with the release of the new guide, which covers a various of regions throughout the year. So a one star means high quality cooking. Two stars means

excellent cooking that is worth a detour. Three stars, exceptional cuisine that is worth this special journey. That's five, that's 153, um, that are holding that. So it's obviously, it's extremely prestigious. Now, for my, my, uh, my foodies out there that are listening to this recap, they're like, wow, these guys are a bunch of idiots. Yeah, yeah. Correct. Correct. That's the name of the game right there. Have you ever eaten at a mission star? Not that I know of.

Yeah. I have and it's very, it's, it's, it's, it's an experience. That's the only way, it's, it's expensive. Is it? And it's every form of like what they serve is going to be. Uh, no. Well, we, you know, I got another fun fact for it. We ate at a Michelin Star restaurant.

At Nemah calling. oh we did that's true that was a michigan star restaurant now a question for you is a michelin star rest well hang on one quick one i want to throw at you uh carbone which we know was first award a michelin star restaurant in 2013 but their star was removed in 2020 so that's 22 and it no longer has so that also that also answers my question i was always under the impression of michelin star restaurant had to be one of these like seven course you eat like something it's the size of a quarter and like you're they expect you to be full off it because it's made for you. from like, you know, plants from the Amazon rainforest.

So I'm learning. I'm learning. I'm here for it. I'm here for it. I'm hungry. And the one thing that I did really appreciate from him was his mentality about how he says, I will pay the price for any meal if it's worth it. I like, I'll use the example from Chipotle.

He's like, I'll pay for Chipoli anytime because every time I go, I'm satisfied. I don't care if they charge me $10, 20 bucks, whatever I want, I get, I love it. And the same thing with fine dining. I think you and I are similar in that realm. and I did love the fact that he viewed how much he pays at a restaurant based off labor cost. He says, to me

that's going to be my biggest, like, when I go to restaurants now, I think about what he said and I only order something that I think I'll get the value base on the cost now. He totally changed, shape my brain on that. Sushi's the best example. I'm never going to be able to cook sushi. He used steak as example. I feel like cooking steak

is something that I would love to do. And so going to get a good steak is like, well, I almost want to be able to recreate that because I feel like I could do that. But there is so many things where I'm like, I like that idea. It's like I'm going to now go and order things that I could never make on my own. And it's going to help justify the cost of it. I completely agree with that.

Like now I think about pasta. I'm like, why would I ever order pasta? Unless like the pasta dish is just like one of a kind. Like you could so easily make that at home. And especially with right now the cost of, I mean, I eat out all the time, right? I can tell you the cost of restaurants are just, out of control these days. Like it is out of control how expensive things are in these restaurants and the markups

have gotten just a little ridiculous. So cooking at home is definitely a play. Plus it's a little healthier. But you also got to enjoy your meal too. I don't know. David, let me ask you this. What is your favorite meal? I asked him, your number one fast food meal, your number one restaurant.

Give me the breakdown. So, you know, this varies. I think it varies on the season. I think it varies on a lot of things. I will say, and I just said it. actually by the time so we're recording the sunday night monday is tomorrow ashley is probably giving birth to our second son this week and i've been a pretty supportive husband because she can't eat sushi so you can't eat raw fish when you are pregnant and i don't like to do things

that she can't indulge in and so i am craving sushi jay and i love sushi more than anything and i've gone nine months without like really good sushi so right now in this moment in time i am craving sushi more than anything. And if we're talking fast food in there, I go in phases. I mean, for the last 18 months, it's Taco Bell. I mean, it's just been Taco Bell. It's Taco Bell. Every day of the week, it's Taco Bell. I love Taco Bell. I'm so done when Taco Bell. Well, you're a mighty Taco Guy, so we don't even need to get into here. No, but I like had a Taco Bell phase. I'm just so dumb. Okay. But I respect the sushi play. When she is pregnant, like, when you're on the road for your hockey games, do you ever just like

sneak in some sushi? It's not in front of her, so it's not going to like. No. I've, it's so funny. Actually, a month ago, there was, it was one right by my hotel, and I debated it. Even Ash was like, go, go. And I was like, no, because I've been saying her, I was like, our first date night, as soon as we can get out of the house, there's a new sushi spot that opened in Rochester. It looks unbelievable. I cannot wait to go there and try it with her and have a nice little date night, maybe a little socky. And we'll see, maybe make baby number three.

No, kidding. Not kidding. We're done. We're done after two. There we go. Are you sure? Trust me. Appointment is booked.

I am sure. Oh, wow. All right. We'll have to recap that when that happens. All right. A lot of personal updates coming here soon. A lot of action. And we're adding the new one to the family. David, anything else on this episode that really started out. Okay. I'm just going to end with this. I think another example of doing things for free or doing things without any monetary value that you're passionate in that can lead to networking jobs opportunities. I think you saw it there. I think he was a master of that. Really, really impressive stuff. And just one last thing that he said that stuck out to me for anyone here who's working on a side business, who's trying to, who's being an entrepreneur, he said in his career with how successfully he is, that word of mouth marketing has been more impactful than any media, any press store, any talk show, any radio show, any podcast he's ever done. Make sure that your product is good. People are talking about it. They want to share it with other people. That'll come across with how you treat the customer, how your product is, how people interact with it. I thought that was just a really interesting thing

with how successfully he's been. So those are my last two takeaways. Jay Cohen, I'm following you. I'm trying to capture and bottle this where it's coming from. He also said he has all the makings of a reality TV star. I'm going to need him in front of my TV on a reality TV show sometime soon.

We will see. I think he's prime for the pickings at a Bravo show, but we will see. David, let's wrap with this. You got a plate in front of you right now. It can't be sushi. What are you putting on that plate?

I listen, right now, I need it. I had a long weekend. And I'm going upstairs after this, and I'm eating the biggest bowl of cereal that I can find. Interesting. Well, it's, it's, it's 9 p.m. I've just bought a box of captive crunch, crunch berries. Yeah, and I'm going, well, I already have in the house.

So I'm, I'm. They like, when I eat crunch berries, they like make my mouth, like, chewed up. It's like war. It's like literally like, like, like, bite. Trading secret, Ashley got me on putting an ice cube in your series. to make your milk colder and oh my god i realized that i didn't buy milk and i have baby milk this literally it's two that's two it's like 4% milk i'm you're using you're drinking your cereal with no not breast milk milk for the baby milk for carter like formula no like just like

he just has a bottle so it's like 4% it's like it's like it's like fat it's like for calorie intake oh yeah what are you what are you eating i mean it's 839 on a sunday night what you eating it's not what i'm i'm telling you right now what i'm craving i haven't had a good chicken wing in 60 000 years i just need like i need a good chicken wing because you can't get a good chicken wing anywhere in the entire fucking planet other than buffalo new york so i'm just dying for it but the good news i will be in buffalo new york saturday i should told you that yeah yeah probably so thursday thursday thursday thursday friday friday uh charlotte saturday going up for jessey Bagua, they have a foundation that they, they get, they raise capital and then they give all the

money to rescue foundation. So it's not a rescue, but they raise money in the foundation and give it to rescues. So I'm going to support that and all the Buffalo boys will be there. When are you leaving? Yeah, do you want to come? Should you want to come? Yeah, I do. Yeah, come up Saturday. It'll be a great. A big Rob G will be in the house. When are you leaving? All the Buffalo boys. I'm just literally going Saturday and I think I'm coming back Sunday or Monday. Maybe you do Saturday there Sunday, Rochester, a little football Sunday theater room. Maybe we chop it up a little bit. Go get your, go get

your chicken wings. Very possible. We'll pick this up off the show. But thank you guys for tuning to another episode. Trang tickets. We've got gift cards to give away. Go give us five stars. Let us know what you're thinking. Give us all the feedback. Different guests. We should have themes. We got 2026 on the horizon. And boy, we're

going to be changing up for the better. Training Secrets. It's a good place to be right now. We're ripping and roaring. David, anything for a wrap. Happy Thanksgiving to all of our listeners. I appreciate you guys. Happy Thanksgiving. I hope we see you this weekend. Thank you for tuning to another episode of sharing secrets.

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