Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / James Avery: Leadership, Wellness & The Reality of Hell's Kitchen (Ep. 176)

Transcript

James Avery: Leadership, Wellness & The Reality of Hell's Kitchen (Ep. 176) · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello chefs, this is Chef's PSA and I'm your host, Andre Natera.
• 0:04
  Today I'm joined by Chef James Avery, mentor, thought leader
• 0:08
  and TV personality, known for his time as Gordon Ramsay's sous
• 0:11
  chef on Hell's Kitchen. We talk health and Wellness in
• 0:14
  the kitchen, leadership under pressure, and of course, how to
• 0:17
  make the perfect beef Wellington.
• 0:18
  This one's packed with insight and a lot of fun.
• 0:20
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  There's the photo, the infamous photo.
• 1:34
  Like it. It's a ridiculous photo of
• 1:36
  Gordon. At least everyone thought it was
• 1:37
  Gordon. It's that one episode where he's
• 1:39
  supposed to be in disguise. Yeah, and he looks.
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  He's an airline pilot, like, and and.
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  And the audience like. That's him.
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  That's it. But that was you that.
• 1:46
  Was me. So what's the story?
• 1:48
  Behind that. Oh man, so he was he was doing
• 1:50
  the show 24 Hours of Hell and Back where he and the whole
• 1:53
  premise of the show. It's kind of like Kitchen
• 1:54
  Nightmares, but he he goes and and dines in disguise and then,
• 1:59
  you know, there's a big unreal unveiling that it's him
• 2:02
  underneath the costume and then he goes in and takes us to the
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  restaurant. Coincidentally, he was in the
• 2:08
  area I had heard through friends of mine in the business that OK,
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  Neil Gordon Ramsay's filming in in town.
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  So I messaged chef right away. I'm like, Hey, you know, I'd
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  love to meet up with you and, and just say hi, whatever, if if
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  you know if. You had already known about.
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  This Oh, yeah, sorry, this was like 2010.
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  So I I'm sorry. No, this was 2019.
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  I met Gordon in 2010. Sorry, I missed that part.
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  But anyway, so I'm like Gordon Ramsay's in town.
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  Like I got to see if I can at least, you know, get a cup of
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  coffee or just pop by the set and say hello.
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  And he's like James, I'm so slammed.
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  I I really can't, you know, I'm sorry.
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  I'm like, OK, it's no big deal. I mean, that's that's life.
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  But at midnight, I got a random text and it's it's one of the
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  executive producers of the show. And they're like, hey, Gordon
• 2:48
  can actually, you know, use you for something.
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  So of course, like, I'm always willing to do whatever he asked
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  me to do. So I go down and, you know, talk
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  to them the next day and they're like, listen, this chef and by
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  the way, this is in my hometown. The restaurant that they were
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  doing was in my hometown. They're like, by the way, you
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  know, this chef is on to Gordon. He knows the premise of the
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  show, that he comes in in disguise.
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  They're like, we have this dreadful mask that Gordon
• 3:12
  forbids to wear, but we want to put you into it.
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  So it's so obvious that it's like Gordon in disguise.
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  And they're like, so I'm like, well, OK, I'll do it.
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  You know, like, I'm always the first one to jump on our
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  grenade. And yeah, so.
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  So we go in, we get dressed up. I go in the dining room.
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  I'm having dinner in this, like, horrific costume that looks like
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  Ed Gein meets the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, like crazy outfit.
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  And then they're like, so you're going to go in and you're going
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  to eat and everybody's going to be staring at you.
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  Now, mind you, my hometown. So I know half the people in the
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  room. And the premise was once I start
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  eating, I have to like, stand up and shut the restaurant down.
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  And they're like, oh, and you got to yell and try to sound
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  like Gordon Ramsay. Like that was the hard part,
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  like just throwing on a British accent and get, you know.
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  You've known him long enough where you like.
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  You probably pull it off a little bit.
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  Right. Yes, man, but it's still kind of
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  hard to do to sound like him. Yeah, I mean, I've been around
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  him enough about this point in time.
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  I already traveled on a season of Kitchen Nightmares, and I'd
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  already served as the city chef on Hells Kitchen for four years.
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  So yeah, I'd spend some time around him, but still trying to
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  emulate what sounds like what's crazy.
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  So I stand up, shut down, shut down the restaurant.
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  This is awful. I'm like, this sounds terrible
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  now even. And then I, you know, RIP the
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  mask off and there's like, it was like the scooby-doo moment,
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  you know, and and Gordon was actually disguised as one of the
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  cameramen. So it was like the big, the the
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  the double cross, you know, So it was pretty funny.
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  But yeah, that's like my claim to fame.
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  I was I'm that's a. Hilarious photo, by the way.
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  I I've memed it many times, by the way, on myself.
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  Yeah. Before I do it was you before I
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  met you. Yeah.
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  This is great. This is a hilarious, yeah,
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  hilarious photo. Yeah, something I never thought
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  I'd find myself doing, but hey, here I am.
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  So it's very interesting. So you've worked on Kitchen
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  Nightmares, worked on Hells Kitchen, this other show that
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  you're talking about, How did you even get involved with that?
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  Yeah, like, like from, from your culinary career.
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  Where were you when when you said, hey, this seems like an
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  opportunity that might be interested in?
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  You know, it, it kind of it's, it's part of the bigger thing.
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  You know, I was always the kind of person that knew how to find
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  the right mentor, like the right be in the right kitchen, the
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  right place, the right time. And like I always worked hard,
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  showed up early, you know, so you know, you create those
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  opportunities. You can't just go out and do
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  that, right? Like when people say, how did
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  you end up? It's like, I don't really know
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  how. I just know who I was as a
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  person, like my work ethic and all that.
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  So I found myself in 2010 working in Atlantic City for
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  Michael Mina and Gordon's Andy, who was the the sous chef of the
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  time. She was one of his like
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  corporate, you know, chefs or, or the corporate chef, I should
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  say. And she was travelling on all
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  this TV shows and doing that. Well, she used to work for
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  Michael Mina and they were filming in New Jersey and they
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  needed a consultant so many because that that show, you
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  know, you do there is a team that helps out and you know, we
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  kind of help order and load the kitchen and we do some stuff.
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  You know, there's this support team and then.
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  For for for context, about how many people are on the support
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  team? A handful.
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  Handful. Yeah, a handful.
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  So it's nothing crazy. Like, you know, it's Gordon goes
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  in, has the menu, and then we kind of help facilitate that.
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  But I actually was on camera for that.
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  So going backwards, you know, I was working at Michael Mina.
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  The, you know, New Jersey this season kind of goes down in the
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  offseason. That's when they were filming.
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  So Andy, who had worked for me and I called my my boss at the
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  time and was like, hey, can you come help out?
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  And he's like, no, I can't, I'm too busy.
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  But I have this guy James, and I'm a 29 year old, you know,
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  junior sous chef kind of at Michael Mean at the time.
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  Like that's another story we'll get into, I'm sure.
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  But yeah, I was like low level, kind of like line cook, junior
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  sous chef kind of situation. He's like, I'll send James
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  because he knew, you know, I'd work hard and do all that stuff.
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  So I showed up on and, you know, Gordon needed me to come work on
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  Kitchen Nightmares. So that was kind of it.
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  And. Then and then from there you
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  just kind of. Stuck around, yeah.
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  So, yeah. So I, so I did, I did Kitchen
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  Nightmares and I ended up being on the show because he needed a
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  consultant on the show to help out.
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  And then I just kind of stuck around for a while and then I
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  went back to Atlantic City. Now you know, a couple years ago
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  by I'm an executive chef running a multi $1,000,000 Mexican
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  restaurant like in the kitchen, I should say running the
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  kitchen. So this is 2011, 2012.
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  I've been running the the Mexican restaurant Dos Caminos.
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  I got a phone call from producer and she said, James, you know,
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  you had good on camera chemistry with Gordon.
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  His long time sous chef is leaving the show and we'd like
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  to consider you for the job of his on camera sous chef for
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  Hell's Kitchen. So this is like for people that
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  don't know as they split the teams up, right?
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  There, Yeah, there's red, red, blue, yeah.
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  Exactly. So you're running one of the
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  teams? Yeah.
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  So our job is to mentor and train and we do a lot.
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  It's really, it truly is a kitchen.
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  There's a menu, there's ordering, there's all that
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  stuff. So, but the way it works like a
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  French brigade, so there's a red sous chef and a blue sous chef.
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  So I basically got the audition for the blue team sous chef job.
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  I went on to do that for four years, you know, built a
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  relationship with, you know, chef and yeah, the rest is kind
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  of history. I I left in 2015 to open up some
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  restaurants, my own restaurants. But now I'm back.
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  Now I'm back. I want to ask is it enjoyable?
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  Yes, it is. It's like.
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  What is the day in the yeah for you look like?
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  So, yeah, so we're down early. So I wear a lot of hats because
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  it is a TV show, so you are running a dinner service, all
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  the things like prep and this and that.
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  But there's challenges. So we're part of the challenges.
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  So a typical day, it could be a 12 to 19 hour day.
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  It depends. So we get up early, we go down,
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  we get the, the staff, the staff, the contestants up, we
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  get them prep. You know, they get prepped for
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  their competition or whatever. Whatever the challenge, not
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  competition, the the challenge is we're there, we kind of
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  oversee the cooking component of it and then we have meetings
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  during the day when that's not happening.
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  And then when that after that's done and we figure out what's
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  the next, you know, challenge or whatever other moving culinary
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  pieces there are, we then, you know, do either like a
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  punishment or a reward or we're prepping for dinner and then we
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  go into dinner service. So in the days are long, they
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  bleed in each other. You know, as you get longer in
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  the season, you eventually you become a sous chef for one of
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  the finalists. And then you're kind of really
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  you're just their sous chef. You're helping them, but you're
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  mentoring them at the same time, but you're helping them kind of,
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  you know, organize their their final menu and all that.
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  So those days get longer towards the end, I mean.
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  How many seasons did you do at all?
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  So I've done 11/12/13 and 14 and then we just shot 23 and 24 back
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  in April of 2024 and I'm pretty sure we're going back again to
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  do 25 and 26. Wow, how's your Wellington?
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  It's tough, man. Yeah, my Wellington, it's good.
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  No, it's good. He's got a great one.
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  I've copied that Wellington many times.
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  Yeah, he's the, he's the OG Wellington.
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  I mean, I know he didn't invent it, but like, yeah, modern
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  Wellington that you see, It's Gordon's.
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  What's cool about his is like, usually it's a whole tender one
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  that you would roll up and carve.
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  You know, the fact that they do it with the 8 oz filet, yeah,
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  it's it makes it like really nice because it's perfect for a
• 10:06
  restaurant location and it's it's really.
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  Good. What's what's so for people that
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  are listening, if you wanna, you know, maybe this is it's it's
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  really hard to pull off a Wellington, a restaurant
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  setting. I, I don't think people
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  understand how difficult that is because you kind of don't know
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  how it's in the middle with the pastry crust on the outside.
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  It's much trickier than I think people give it credit for
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  because, you know, us armchair quarterbacks as homework.
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  Like I wouldn't fuck up the Wellington.
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  Yeah, and they also don't have Gordon Ramsay yelling at them
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  with 100 cameras in the face, you know, so it's I give those
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  guys a lot of the contestants a lot of credit because it's hard.
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  Yeah. So your question was about that
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  bad. Wellington like like for people
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  that are looking at a restaurant operation, I want to I want to
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  put Wellington on the menu. What's what are what are some
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  best practices if you want to have the Wellington?
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  On right, have one guy prep them or a really have a really good
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  SOP for building those things because you know, if the
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  pastries rolled out too thin or too thick or if you know the
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  meats not seared exactly the same way every time, how much
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  you insulate it with duck sell. So you have to be super
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  standardized. I think that's really important,
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  right down to the, you know, the, the cut in the portion of
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  the meat. So I think searing it, shaping
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  the filet and there's a multiple steps to it.
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  You know, you, you're trying to roll it in.
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  Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah.
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  So you sear it, you chill it, you, you shape it and then you
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  have to have a crepe and then you, you know, then you wrap it
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  in prosciutto. The, the, all that's the, the
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  Dijon. You roll that and then you have
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  to take it out of the plastic. Then you put it back on the, the
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  puff pastry, you wrap it in the pastry, you roll that.
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  So there's a lot of steps and you have to just really super
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  consistent. And then you have to cook a
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  couple because you know, once you figure out your oven temp
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  and you definitely have to cook it in the same oven every time
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  because it might be 22 minutes in this oven or 17 minutes in
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  that oven. So, right, can you know
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  everything has to be the same because you, like you said, you
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  don't know. You can't, you can't touch it or
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  poke at it or feel it or stick a thermometer into it.
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  You just have to like, Nope, it's been 22 minutes, let's go,
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  right. Right, it has to be perfect
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  every time. Every time.
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  So you're looking for like a medium rare on that, you know,
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  like a nice red even center doesn't need to be 1000°, you
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  know, it just needs to be. What what do you, what do you
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  typically look it at? Yeah, yeah, If you, if you.
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  Were a perfect medium rare. No oven town.
• 12:15
  Oh, like 404 hundred. For 17 to 20.
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  Two, yeah. So yeah, you want to like, and
• 12:20
  you never want to go from cold, like anything, you know, you
• 12:22
  also don't want to get too warm because then your puff pastry
• 12:24
  starts to melt and it just kind of goes this shit in the air.
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  And so it's like, definitely like you want to brush them, let
• 12:30
  the egg wash get a little tacky and dry to it so you get that
• 12:33
  nice shine on it. Yeah.
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  And then yeah, pop it in the oven.
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  Probably like 1718 minutes is where I'd start.
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  And then let it rest for 1718 minutes, and that meat's going
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  to stay perfectly warm on the inside.
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  Then it's gonna get that nice carriage.
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  So when you cut it, it's like that, even red, pinkish.
• 12:49
  So I was asking you if it's fun, right?
• 12:53
  If you enjoy it, what are some of the most enjoyable parts for
• 12:56
  you when you're on Yeah on the show?
• 12:59
  Like for you, what do you enjoy the most when you're?
• 13:01
  On it, it's such, it's such like a dynamic environment because it
• 13:04
  is a restaurant, right? Like you are prepping, you are
• 13:06
  training people, you are, you're working with food, some of the
• 13:09
  craziest ingredients. You're meeting chefs.
• 13:11
  Like when you know when we used to film in LA like Wolfgang
• 13:13
  Puck, Nancy Silverton, David Lafava, like all these chefs and
• 13:16
  these big time people, you got to meet them.
• 13:18
  It was really exciting. But so again, the dynamic
• 13:22
  environment, like I love being uncomfortable.
• 13:24
  Like, like, OK, like you don't learn how to be a sous chef on
• 13:28
  TV working next to like there's no instruction book for that.
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  You just have to kind of figure it out.
• 13:32
  So that's enjoyable. It's very, it can be stressful.
• 13:35
  It's, you know, it's a lot of moving parts, you know, TV
• 13:37
  magic. You hear about like the show
• 13:38
  must go on. Like we're doing this.
• 13:40
  Like there's really not a lot of time to for it to be like, it's
• 13:45
  not very forgiving. So you have to just keep nailing
• 13:47
  things. That part's exciting.
• 13:49
  And I mean, being around him, it's like amazing, you know, I'm
• 13:52
  glad he has so many shows now where you actually get to see
• 13:54
  his personality, you know, because he is, he's an amazing
• 13:58
  person. He's a a huge inspiration, you
• 14:01
  know, the guy is amazing. So that that part's fun, you
• 14:04
  know, obviously. His work ethic is unmatched.
• 14:06
  It's I don't understand it to be honest, I really don't.
• 14:10
  You know, where does he get the energy?
• 14:11
  I don't know. It's, it's, it's bizarre, you
• 14:14
  know, and he's in his 50s now. You know he's got.
• 14:15
  You know it's he. Looks great.
• 14:16
  He looks amazing. He.
• 14:17
  Looks exactly how he looked 20 years ago.
• 14:19
  Well, because he's stayed, you know, fitness of the formless.
• 14:22
  He's not, you know, he's a worker.
• 14:23
  He's he has that you said the high, high work ethic and he has
• 14:26
  standards. So but just to see him go from
• 14:29
  boppa, boppa, boppa, boppa, boppa, hop on a plane, go here,
• 14:31
  I'm in here, I'm there. I'm just like, yeah, you know, I
• 14:33
  get overwhelmed. I don't have to get my kid to
• 14:35
  soccer and like, you know, write a special menu and he's like.
• 14:37
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just do you ever get competitive
• 14:41
  personally with the other team? Yeah.
• 14:44
  It's all in fun though. But do you?
• 14:47
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:47
  Well, you definitely. Like when the cameras not
• 14:49
  rolling, you go to the other. She's like, I'm a fucking man.
• 14:51
  Yeah, of. Course, and then I get on the
• 14:53
  guys so they don't like yeah, cuz at the end of the day, it's
• 14:55
  like a reflection on me. Like, you know, when you guys
• 14:58
  suck at dinner service, like I'm going to get yelled at like I
• 15:00
  didn't train you. I didn't I showed you, you know,
• 15:02
  you put the butter into the end on the risotto.
• 15:04
  Why are you doing this or why are you not basting the steak?
• 15:07
  I told you base the steak, whatever it is.
• 15:09
  So it's like, yeah, you definitely get competitive, but
• 15:12
  it's, it's all fun, you know, at the end of the day, it's it's,
• 15:15
  it's all. Just out of curiosity, Just just
• 15:18
  out of curiosity. So there's all these other
• 15:20
  shows. So let's say your, your, your
• 15:22
  time with, with that organization ends and you have
• 15:26
  all these other shows like Next level Chef and, and well, I
• 15:28
  guess Gordon's involved in that now too, but you got like Top
• 15:31
  Chef and yeah, I know there's other shows that are, you know,
• 15:34
  competition style. Would you ever go on like, I'm
• 15:38
  just gonna use Top Chef as the example just because you
• 15:40
  understand a whole lot about what goes on, and you'd probably
• 15:44
  do extremely well just because you understand the rules of the
• 15:47
  game? Yeah.
• 15:48
  So are you saying would I go on as a competitor?
• 15:51
  Yeah. Would you go on as a competitor?
• 15:52
  I don't know, it's a good I maybe you know, I was asked to
• 15:56
  do chopped a few times, but the concern was like, you know, like
• 16:00
  if I go on and do a competition show, like I'm the guy to beat,
• 16:03
  you know, like whatever, just because you know, So, you know,
• 16:07
  I, I don't know if I would do it.
• 16:08
  I would do other things, but I don't know if I would.
• 16:10
  I personally would go on and be a contestant on a on a cooking
• 16:13
  show. After being, you have a little
• 16:14
  bit of an unfair advantage. You know, I mean, I'd be able to
• 16:18
  handle myself, but it's it's grueling.
• 16:21
  It's mentally grueling. Like again, I give every
• 16:23
  contestant who's ever set foot in Hell's Kitchen A and I don't
• 16:26
  think the viewers really appreciate that.
• 16:29
  It's it is hard. It is hard.
• 16:31
  I think, think about, you know, you have to do those challenges.
• 16:34
  You have to come with a special everyday on the spot and you're
• 16:37
  getting greater on it. Yeah, yeah.
• 16:39
  Like it's, it's, it's mentally hard and you're out of your
• 16:41
  comfort. Zone.
• 16:41
  And if you're not an experienced chef and you don't have like a
• 16:44
  Rolodex of dishes that you've already made.
• 16:46
  Right, correct. You know, some of these guys are
• 16:48
  younger chefs and you know, some of them are very experienced
• 16:50
  etcetera. But it's it's a very hard thing
• 16:53
  going on a competition cooking show.
• 16:54
  So I give, you know, like the the guy that was working
• 16:58
  Anthony, he was the chef at the Michael Mina restaurant I was at
• 17:01
  when I went to go work with Gordon originally, he was on Top
• 17:04
  Chef and beat Morimoto. Like that was my boss.
• 17:07
  I remember just being like blown away by that.
• 17:09
  He beat Morimoto in battle Bronzino, Anthony Omarosa.
• 17:12
  And that's why I went to go work for him.
• 17:13
  Like I want to work for that guy back in 2009, 2010.
• 17:16
  But yeah, competition shows are are crazy.
• 17:19
  So if if you had to give advice to someone that was potentially
• 17:23
  going to go on one of these shows, yeah.
• 17:24
  Right. So specifically Hell's Kitchen,
• 17:26
  but it could, it could also probably the same advice would
• 17:29
  probably apply to multiple shows.
• 17:30
  Yeah, if you had to pull someone off to the side and said, hey,
• 17:34
  let me get you ready, you know, let's put you to a little
• 17:37
  training. So I want to know what you would
• 17:39
  put them through physically, mentally, but also culinary
• 17:42
  wise. Sure.
• 17:43
  I mean, so it's kind of goes to my my ethic foundations.
• 17:46
  It's like skill set, mindset and health set, right?
• 17:48
  So like skill set. Let's talk about that.
• 17:50
  You should have like a very good understanding of some basic
• 17:53
  stuff, like for example, how to make a cake on the spot or how
• 17:57
  to make hollandaise on the spot. You'd be surprised how many
• 17:59
  chefs don't make colanders anymore from scratch.
• 18:02
  You know, they they or like knowing how to do certain like
• 18:04
  basic, basic things, have a go to sauce that you can change
• 18:08
  with some, you know, ancillary ingredients, you know, maybe how
• 18:11
  to roll out a pie dough. Or, you know, that I mean, have
• 18:14
  a like a, a really fail proof pasta dough recipe in your back
• 18:19
  because again, they just having a repertoire, like you said, you
• 18:24
  know, remember how to cook without using CVI mean when you
• 18:27
  and I were coming, we didn't see the menu.
• 18:30
  Yeah, like I had to get the temperature, like just while
• 18:32
  you're looking at it. So like, learn how to cook
• 18:35
  without all the gizmos and gadgets, learn how to cook
• 18:38
  without a thermometer, you know, really understand how to master
• 18:42
  heat. You know, you're, you're, you're
• 18:45
  cooking by hand on the spot. You've got 30 minutes to do it,
• 18:47
  sometimes 40, whatever. But having like a really good 10
• 18:51
  recipes, not, not 100, you know, you know, you'll find flavors in
• 18:54
  the moment, you'll find inspiration.
• 18:56
  Oh, I got these. I'll throw those in there.
• 18:57
  But like having like the, the backbone, the structure of the
• 18:59
  dish, you know, master the basics.
• 19:02
  People forget that, you know, they, they forget, they start
• 19:05
  going on following trends, they forget how to cook basic things.
• 19:08
  You know, make sure your, your fried fruit is crispy.
• 19:11
  Make sure your meat is seasoned. Like, you know, just really
• 19:14
  don't overthink it to the point where you forget to do the basic
• 19:17
  things. And what about the mental
• 19:19
  aspect? What would you?
• 19:20
  How would you prepare? Yeah, get, get some tools to
• 19:23
  stay calm because it's chaos. You know, I'm very big on like
• 19:27
  meditation and just like breathing and just like hyper
• 19:30
  focusing. Like don't, don't let the things
• 19:33
  around you like, you know how to cook if you're on that show, you
• 19:36
  know how to cook, right? Just cook.
• 19:38
  Forget the cameras, forget all that stuff.
• 19:41
  Just just get on there. Shout out to chefs PSA store
• 19:43
  just cook at available. I heard I get a free one for
• 19:47
  being on the on the podcast, right?
• 19:48
  Here, right, right, right, just. Cook, I love to cook, but that's
• 19:51
  it. It's a great mantra, though.
• 19:52
  Just cook. Like I do that sometimes I'm
• 19:53
  like overwhelmed. It's like, you know, trying to
• 19:56
  write specials. Just just cook, just get in
• 19:57
  there and just just cook And I tell the guys that.
• 19:59
  So it's a great it's it's a great, great thing you have
• 20:01
  there. But so that would, you know, be
• 20:03
  the mindset and be healthy, you know, like you have to.
• 20:07
  Mentally healthy your body has to be healthy, stay hydrated and
• 20:11
  how easy is it to forget to drink water all day long you.
• 20:14
  Know, and I and I think about, and I don't know this for
• 20:16
  certain, but I would imagine there's a large portion of
• 20:17
  people that are going on shows like Hell's Kitchen or Top Chef,
• 20:21
  etcetera, that haven't really been doing it in a while.
• 20:24
  Like they're in kitchens, but they're not doing it right.
• 20:27
  There's a different type of kitchen shape versus executive
• 20:29
  chef shape. Yeah, it's different.
• 20:31
  Well, for sure. I mean, I, I agree.
• 20:33
  Yeah. It's like, you know, it's a,
• 20:34
  it's I always say our in our profession is a athletic sport.
• 20:38
  You know, like you're on your feet, you're bending, you're
• 20:40
  moving, you're twisting, you're picking up, you're putting down,
• 20:42
  you know, you're bent over. So you, you have to be
• 20:44
  physically fit to like really run around a kitchen and, and
• 20:46
  like jive and you need to have energy.
• 20:50
  You know, when your energy is low, your, your mind is low,
• 20:52
  your mood is low, everything is low.
• 20:54
  So being healthy, you know, like even when I'm we're filming,
• 20:58
  it's like I, I have to be like mindful to do some push ups, you
• 21:02
  know, in between when we're waiting around, I can't get to
• 21:04
  the gym, I'll do some lunges. I'll go outside, I'll walk
• 21:06
  around the parking lot and go back in on my break.
• 21:08
  You know, obviously the contestants don't have that kind
• 21:10
  of freedom, but they do. They have freedom.
• 21:12
  But like, yeah, just like staying fit mentally.
• 21:17
  I think chefs just need to really take their health very
• 21:19
  seriously. It's funny, I did a presentation
• 21:22
  recently where I talked about how being healthy is the new
• 21:26
  swanee for chefs. You know, as we move into 2026
• 21:29
  and beyond, I think health for chefs, not just not just
• 21:32
  physical health, but also mental health.
• 21:34
  But, you know, in the in this particular context that I was
• 21:36
  referring to, I was talking about physical health because in
• 21:39
  the old days it was all about, you know, getting drunk after
• 21:43
  work or, you know, the party lifestyle.
• 21:45
  Chef life, you know, hashtag chef life, no sleep.
• 21:47
  Now, I I don't think that's the way.
• 21:49
  And I think chefs that are embracing a healthy lifestyle
• 21:52
  have a longer career. Yeah, right.
• 21:54
  They have a happier career. They have a healthier career.
• 21:56
  Yeah. And I know you're big into that.
• 21:58
  So I did want to pick your brain on that because obviously you're
• 22:01
  extremely healthy. Yeah, I appreciate that.
• 22:02
  So I've always been kind of into health.
• 22:05
  And I remember earlier on my career at the early 2000s, it
• 22:08
  wasn't cool. Like it was weird that I didn't
• 22:10
  want to eat like 5 lbs of foie gras a week or whatever is
• 22:14
  laying around and just be overindulgent.
• 22:16
  I always wanted to be and feel healthy.
• 22:18
  I have young kids, you know, my father died of a heart heart
• 22:21
  attack. All the men in my family had
• 22:23
  heart problems. Like I, I don't, I want to be
• 22:25
  healthy, right? So that that's number one.
• 22:27
  Like that's like baseline, like wanting to be healthy.
• 22:30
  So it always stayed with me that that needs to be a pillar in my
• 22:34
  life, regardless of being a chef.
• 22:36
  Like you don't have to always overindulge in everything in,
• 22:42
  in, in food and women and drinking and the party and all
• 22:45
  that. And I'm glad to see that coming
• 22:49
  back like that. People are more mindful of
• 22:51
  health now. I think it gave this false
• 22:55
  perspective of what it means to become a chef.
• 22:59
  I, I always try to lead by example.
• 23:02
  That's the best way. So I think when you come to work
• 23:05
  with me, I'm trying to show you, you can, you can be healthy and
• 23:08
  still be a talented chef. You can be a chef and still have
• 23:11
  a family and have work life balance.
• 23:12
  And yes, you can. We just talked about Gordon.
• 23:15
  He looks like he did 25 years ago because he's healthy.
• 23:17
  He couldn't do what he does if he was, you know, 50 lbs
• 23:21
  overweight and smoked and drank himself every night and, you
• 23:24
  know, it just couldn't do it. So yeah, I mean, I, I take my
• 23:29
  health very seriously and keeps me grounded.
• 23:32
  I know I can do this for a a much longer time, but that's it.
• 23:37
  So my workout is, you know, hour a day.
• 23:39
  So I got to find it an hour a day.
• 23:41
  What? What is a?
• 23:41
  What is a typical? I just want to get granular, not
• 23:44
  that we're going to find the magic bullet.
• 23:46
  Yep. What is it?
• 23:47
  What is a typical day for you in terms of just the health and
• 23:50
  Wellness? Yeah, so health and Wellness.
• 23:51
  Let's start with morning. Like when you wake up to yeah,
• 23:55
  what it goes like to the bed. Bedtime.
• 23:56
  Sleep sure, so I don't wake up and have this crazy morning
• 23:59
  routine. You know give a couple of these.
• 24:01
  I don't do like you see these influencers now so I'm not they
• 24:03
  wake up and I'm just 2 hour routine.
• 24:05
  I don't have time for that. Sure.
• 24:06
  I gotta get. Up sunbathe in their perennium.
• 24:08
  Exactly, right, Exactly right. So no, I get up, you know, it's,
• 24:11
  it's it's a, it's a glass of water.
• 24:13
  Yeah. You know, right away, some sea
• 24:14
  salt I learned from my fitness coach that I had.
• 24:16
  So it's a glass of water. You know, I, I used to take a
• 24:18
  lot more vitamins than water. I do my vitamins at night now
• 24:21
  and then. I typically walk about four
• 24:23
  miles almost every day from from the morning.
• 24:25
  From the morning. Yeah.
• 24:26
  So it's called less low intensity steady state.
• 24:29
  It's like the opposite of hit. So you do like a lower intensity
• 24:31
  for a longer period of time in a fasted state.
• 24:34
  You know, it's good for insulin resistance and fat burning, all
• 24:37
  that. And I, I mean, walking is
• 24:38
  amazing for you mentally. Yeah.
• 24:39
  Like just we're, we're, we're like nomadic creatures,
• 24:42
  literally by design. We're meant to walk.
• 24:44
  Walking is good for you. It's good for you in a multitude
• 24:47
  of ways. So usually I always, always do a
• 24:49
  walk. How long?
• 24:50
  So you said 4 miles, but was that about an hour?
• 24:52
  An hour, yeah, I'd say 1/2 hour minimum.
• 24:54
  An hour is great. Yeah, you.
• 24:55
  Know what are you listening to Podcasts or?
• 24:57
  Most of the time I walk with my wife.
• 24:58
  Yeah. So we talk.
• 25:00
  Yeah. So it's yeah, you know, we have
• 25:02
  we have good, good conversations.
• 25:03
  It's good quality time for she and I.
• 25:04
  We have 4 kids, so. But if I'm not with her, yeah, I
• 25:07
  listen to a podcast. I talk to myself.
• 25:08
  I don't know if you do this, but I like I have conversations.
• 25:11
  Yeah. I think out loud.
• 25:12
  Yeah. So like, I definitely do, you
• 25:15
  know what I mean? Like I, I, you know, I'm like
• 25:16
  the same thing. I get in the car, I'm like, I
• 25:17
  just drive in silence and like, whatever.
• 25:20
  So anyway, so when the walk is done and I do strength training,
• 25:23
  you know, weights, I, I mix that up, right?
• 25:25
  So this is this is all Still, it's not like break.
• 25:27
  It's like boom. Well, yeah, so I'll go home,
• 25:29
  then I'll eat and then I'll go to the gym and I, you know, I'm
• 25:32
  trying to get it to where like my, my gym time is like 45
• 25:35
  minutes, you know, because it's, you can't give 3 hours a day.
• 25:38
  You mean you sometimes it's nice, you know, if you can, I
• 25:42
  always get, you know, and if I have to choose one or the other,
• 25:44
  it's usually the walk because I just find that to be better for
• 25:47
  me mentally. If you get if you can strength
• 25:49
  train three days a week, that's that's probably bare minimum.
• 25:53
  I try to do it four to six days a week.
• 25:56
  I just feel better and. Do you go lighter weights, more
• 25:59
  reps or do you go heavier? Weights, I mix it up.
• 26:01
  You know, two years ago I was training for a bodybuilding
• 26:03
  competition. So I was doing like a like a
• 26:05
  body part per day, high volume, high velocity, like really like
• 26:09
  weighing my food. That was crazy.
• 26:10
  I was trying to like get like, I'm still going to go back to
• 26:13
  that, but now I do functional stuff.
• 26:16
  So it's more strength. You know, I wanted to put some
• 26:18
  weight on this winter. So I did four days a week and it
• 26:21
  was based off of a certain lift. So one day was bench, one day
• 26:24
  was squat, one day was military press, and then the 4th day
• 26:27
  would be like deadlift. And then you do ancillary
• 26:29
  workouts around it, like a very typical strength training thing.
• 26:33
  Now I'm I'm kind of working through some injuries.
• 26:35
  So a lot of like band work, light, lightweight kind of
• 26:39
  mobility. That's really important.
• 26:42
  That's what chefs need, is mobility more than strength.
• 26:44
  We don't need to be, you know, Herculean or underwear models.
• 26:47
  We need mobility and we need our joints to like us, right?
• 26:50
  Most, most of the workouts that I do now, yeah, are mobility,
• 26:54
  like shoulders are not great, knees are not great, back's not
• 26:56
  great. So I spend the majority of my
• 26:58
  workouts now, yeah. And I'm not as disciplined as
• 27:01
  you, which I need to be, but most of my workouts now are like
• 27:05
  shoulder focused, knee focused or back focused, yeah.
• 27:08
  So you, you should be doing things.
• 27:09
  So think about even now how we're sitting.
• 27:11
  Yeah. Like that's when we're cooking.
• 27:13
  We're like this. Yeah.
• 27:14
  I do this a lot all the time. Like literally just lie on a
• 27:17
  bench or on a bed or on like a foam roller and just open your
• 27:19
  body up and just let it like, cuz that'll lower your scapula.
• 27:23
  When you're doing this, your scapula raises and you're just
• 27:25
  like shrugging all that. Yeah.
• 27:26
  So learn how to like open yourself up, stretch your pecs.
• 27:29
  It's crazy cuz just 'cause you don't work your pecks out time
• 27:32
  you're, you're, you're shortening the muscle.
• 27:34
  So it's like rounding you out and you get neck pain goes your
• 27:36
  elbows. So it's like, and again, I, I'm
• 27:38
  cognizant of it. I still have to remember, OK, do
• 27:41
  this. So I, I have a we'll get to that
• 27:43
  in a minute. We're done with the routine, but
• 27:45
  definitely stretching that riding bikes like really like a
• 27:47
  Echo bike or something that'll strengthen your knees, stretch
• 27:49
  your hamstrings. Most knee pain is because your
• 27:50
  hamstrings are too tight and your quads are too weak.
• 27:53
  That's funny. I used to train in a lot of
• 27:54
  fight gems and yeah, I, I, when you did that stretch, yeah, all
• 27:59
  the fighters would do it. And I would always wonder like,
• 28:01
  yeah, why are they always stretching that way?
• 28:02
  Yeah, It's just when I saw you knew that for a second, I was
• 28:05
  like, yeah, that's the stretch. They would all.
• 28:07
  So yeah, I mean, I've had multiple physical therapists say
• 28:10
  make sure you're doing that. And I'm tall, I'm 63, so I'm
• 28:13
  always hunched over. I'm always picking up or
• 28:15
  chomping. So that's that.
• 28:16
  So yeah, so most of my workout is mobility based.
• 28:20
  If I can mix in like a yoga session here and there, it's
• 28:23
  cool. I haven't done that in a while,
• 28:26
  but yeah, that's really like mobile functional.
• 28:28
  Everybody has different definitions of health.
• 28:30
  Mine is I want to be able to pick up my great grandkids.
• 28:33
  So I want to live long and actually not be confound to a
• 28:36
  wheelchair in the corner of the room or a given grandpa on ice
• 28:39
  cream. I want to be up and active right
• 28:40
  right now. And that to me is like my
• 28:42
  definition of health now. So much.
• 28:45
  How much can I bench press? Who cares, you know?
• 28:47
  Yeah, Yeah. I want to look good naked.
• 28:49
  But really it's about being mobile and and feeling good.
• 28:51
  Yeah, you want to be able to get naked first.
• 28:53
  Yeah, exactly, right By yourself.
• 28:55
  Yeah, exactly. I want to pull my pants up.
• 28:57
  So, yeah. So there's that.
• 28:58
  And then so then, so that's the really the workout and the
• 29:00
  recovery. And then there's the hydration.
• 29:02
  Gallon of water a day, non negotiable.
• 29:04
  Yeah. And which is important for
• 29:05
  chefs, right. So I, I use, you know, when I'm
• 29:07
  working out a lot, I use the LMNT and they're not sponsored,
• 29:10
  but I, I use the one that has like magnesium salt.
• 29:13
  Yeah, I love that. Yeah, a little bit of flavor.
• 29:16
  We yeah, it's it's so easy as a chef.
• 29:18
  I know this because again, like I as as healthy as I want to
• 29:22
  think that I always am. There's been times where I
• 29:24
  wasn't where, you know, you get up in the morning, you just pick
• 29:26
  up a coffee, you nourish your coffee, you drink another coffee
• 29:28
  because you're going into service.
• 29:29
  You don't touch any water and you get dinner.
• 29:31
  I need a beer. You're like, I went from coffee.
• 29:34
  I didn't have any water today. That's that.
• 29:35
  That will catch up to you. That'll affect your joints.
• 29:37
  I mean your liver obviously and just like your energy levels and
• 29:41
  all that. But hydration, we are the bio
• 29:44
  organic species we need to. Have water.
• 29:48
  What about like supplementation? Do do you recommend or not?
• 29:51
  Not that I don't want to put you in a position where you're
• 29:53
  making recommendations, but what do you do for?
• 29:54
  Yourself so I am not a doctor I can't tell you what to take but
• 29:57
  I do recommend getting blood work find out where you're
• 29:59
  deficient for me I need to take omegas.
• 30:03
  I think everyone needs to take omegas.
• 30:04
  I think D3 is another important one, especially when we're we
• 30:07
  spend a lot of our time like indoors.
• 30:09
  Yeah, D3K2, yeah, I do that do. You do like super dose?
• 30:13
  I heard it you can. I haven't.
• 30:16
  I do I'll mega dose vitamin CA lot.
• 30:20
  I'll do like 5000 milligrams. I might have been C in a day.
• 30:23
  I take her human. I think it's good for your
• 30:27
  joints and inflammation and all that stuff.
• 30:30
  What else do I take? I do the peptides.
• 30:32
  Yeah. I, I, I kind of go back and.
• 30:34
  Put the interesting, yeah, peptides are super fascinating,
• 30:36
  yeah, super fascinating. Like the future.
• 30:38
  So I had hurt myself and I I got on I I want to say TB157 maybe.
• 30:42
  Yeah, it's body protecting compound 157.
• 30:46
  Yeah, yeah. And I, I remember it's like he
• 30:47
  like Wolverine. Yeah, he's crazy.
• 30:49
  You can add that with TBS that's just like that's based off of a
• 30:52
  gastric juice, so it can heal your gut, your joints,
• 30:54
  inflammation, all that stuff. I just recently did one called
• 30:57
  PDA Pentadeca Arginate. It's basically BPC with an
• 31:00
  additional salt added to it. Yeah, and it just, it works
• 31:04
  virtually the same thing. So I've done that.
• 31:07
  I've done ones that like, you know, with like I have a lot of
• 31:10
  tendon issues from cooking Leo pans and jiu jitsu and lifting
• 31:13
  weights and whatever I did. It's called some Morelin.
• 31:19
  So it has CJC 1295 and ipamoralin in it and it
• 31:24
  ipamoralin. Yeah.
• 31:25
  Anyway, double checked that. But yeah, that's really good for
• 31:28
  it helps with like tendon like growth, like stimulate your own
• 31:32
  body's ability to produce growth hormones.
• 31:34
  That's that's really good, really good one too.
• 31:37
  I just found out that a new one called Dyhexa, it was actually
• 31:40
  used for Alzheimer's patients. So it helps with mental clarity
• 31:44
  and stuff like that. So.
• 31:46
  You do creatine. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:49
  It's crazy low dose. I do HCL because it's non
• 31:52
  bloating. So I do I do I?
• 31:54
  Do anhydrate probably. I I don't like the powder.
• 31:57
  Yeah. So I like the gummies.
• 31:58
  The problem is not all gummies are the same.
• 32:00
  Right. Yeah, so.
• 32:01
  Like when I switch up brands, it's like, OK, I like this one.
• 32:03
  And then it's like, well, this one's cheaper and I buy the
• 32:05
  other ones. Like, you know, 5 milligrams is
• 32:08
  not 5 milligrams, Yeah. You know, Yeah.
• 32:09
  No, it's not the same. Yeah.
• 32:10
  It's not like all gummies. Yeah.
• 32:13
  You never know what you're gonna get.
• 32:17
  No. So yeah, creatine is good.
• 32:18
  I, I, I have ulcerative colitis. It's not active and I, I manage
• 32:21
  it, you know, but I'm very like careful with what, how much I
• 32:25
  can put in my stomach. The, I had heard that creatine
• 32:29
  HCL is actually it's, it's less bloating, it's softer on your
• 32:32
  stomach, it's more rapidly or what's absorbed into your body.
• 32:36
  So I like that one and then I sprinkle stuff in here and
• 32:39
  there, you know, if like, what is it?
• 32:44
  What's something I might take Like I'll do like a beat.
• 32:47
  And niacin flush, like it's niacin is like a vascular
• 32:51
  dilator. So it helps with blood flow and
• 32:53
  circulation. It helps with liver detoxing and
• 32:55
  all that. But none of that.
• 32:57
  I mean, you can take all the supplements in the world.
• 33:01
  Do you do like the NMN niacin? I'll do and then I'll.
• 33:06
  Well, yes, but you you come out like the like the.
• 33:08
  NAD. NAD is more like, yeah, you
• 33:10
  would go to like get Ivs. So I'll do that when I'm sick.
• 33:14
  You know, I don't just go get Ivs unless there's a like a real
• 33:17
  if I'm coming down with something.
• 33:18
  What's that? What's that Doctor David
• 33:20
  Sinclair, which he's the he's the guy that's like a big time
• 33:24
  into reverse aging. So I want to say he does the NAD
• 33:26
  plus NMN and I, I was taking it for a while.
• 33:29
  It was like that. I don't feel like it's the same.
• 33:31
  And then other people I know take it like, wow, I feel great.
• 33:33
  And I'm like, yeah, I didn't notice shit.
• 33:34
  Yeah, but yeah, I mean, if to me the the biggest ones are the
• 33:37
  D3K2, the Omegas and the vitamin C.
• 33:43
  Yeah, you know, and hydration, like hydration.
• 33:45
  Yeah, I, I'm, I'm with you. I take the creatine, I mean, not
• 33:50
  just for for the athletic benefits or but also for the
• 33:53
  cognitive benefits, especially because all all day I'm on in
• 33:56
  front of a computer. I'm on, I'm in meetings.
• 33:59
  Everything that I do now, yeah, as I've gone from chef to chef's
• 34:03
  PSA, everything I do now is mentally engaging, right.
• 34:08
  So I, I need to remain sharp. So for me personally, and again,
• 34:10
  I'm not a doctor either. Yeah, even though some people do
• 34:13
  call me Doctor Dre, but I'm I'm not a doctor is I will also I'm
• 34:20
  I'm for podcasting. And then also sometimes when I'm
• 34:23
  writing, I like to, I love to write.
• 34:25
  I get better nicotine. Yeah, the I do nicotine patches.
• 34:29
  So they're they're saying that like 5 milligrams a day of
• 34:32
  nicotine has a good nootropic effect.
• 34:33
  Not talking about smoking cigarettes.
• 34:35
  It's not OK. Nobody should be smoking.
• 34:37
  You're talking about like I I chewed nicotine gum.
• 34:39
  Yeah, OK, so I I, I do the Zens. Yeah, I just, I really just
• 34:42
  started them in the back in the day when I was younger, I dipped
• 34:44
  or smoked cigars, but now I'll do like a nicotine packet day.
• 34:47
  I'm not, I'm not saying young people should go out and listen.
• 34:50
  What I'm saying I'm also I'm saying is that there's been some
• 34:52
  scientifical supported data. Yeah, scientific supported data
• 34:56
  saying that like minimal doses of nicotine have a nootropic
• 34:59
  beneficial cognitive effect on. Also, maybe I'm I'm uncorrect
• 35:03
  again, not a doctor and I probably heard this.
• 35:05
  I'm just regurgitating information, but maybe nicotine
• 35:07
  is also like Alzheimer's protective Potentially, yeah.
• 35:12
  Yeah, no, actually I heard that too.
• 35:13
  I forgot. But yeah, so I think it's good.
• 35:15
  It does help you lock in a little bit.
• 35:16
  Yeah, get in the zone. Yeah, it does for me.
• 35:18
  I love it. Yeah, like before a podcast,
• 35:20
  usually when I'm like, driving to the studios, like chewing the
• 35:22
  nicotine gum. Yeah.
• 35:23
  Listen to some hip hop music getting ready.
• 35:25
  Get in the fucking zone. Do you remember?
• 35:28
  Did you used to fuck it? What was I used to love this guy
• 35:31
  and I saw the video the other day and I'm only bringing this
• 35:34
  up because of the area where you're from.
• 35:35
  It was the this guy. He it was like early YouTube.
• 35:38
  He'd go into the fucking gym with a boom box or no no with
• 35:40
  oh. Don Don Manzetti.
• 35:42
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, chief, I'm in the fucking
• 35:44
  zone, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:47
  That's for Jesus. He's so funny.
• 35:49
  Yeah, yeah, that's it. So that's good.
• 35:51
  So yeah, that's so. That's the supplement regime and
• 35:54
  then eating it's. It's wild to me how little chefs
• 35:59
  know about nutrition. Wild, like wild.
• 36:04
  We're so focused on making it like taste.
• 36:06
  Good. Yeah.
• 36:06
  We're just. Yeah, exactly right.
• 36:07
  Like we don't, we don't even know how to feed ourselves.
• 36:10
  And I'm guilty of, I mean, I remember at like the peak of my,
• 36:14
  like, worshipping Marco Piero white chef days, you know, like
• 36:17
  my first chef job, 30 years old. I just thought it was like, cool
• 36:19
  to be like, emaciated and tired and not feeding myself the right
• 36:23
  way. I would not eat, like I said,
• 36:25
  caffeine all day post chef beer. Go home, peanut butter and Jelly
• 36:29
  sandwich, another beer and go to bed.
• 36:31
  You know, it's like, so now. Yeah.
• 36:35
  Like proper nourishment eating and I and I and I I study a
• 36:39
  different different I try since I study I I test different ways
• 36:42
  like I've done carnivore, I've done intermittent fasting, I've
• 36:45
  done bodybuilder style food I've.
• 36:48
  Done. Find one that works best for
• 36:49
  you. Yeah, I, I, I feel like, you
• 36:51
  know, eating less, less amount, less meals in a day is actually
• 36:56
  better for me. Like I haven't had, I haven't
• 36:57
  eaten yet today. I feel better when I feel
• 37:02
  lighter. So I read this book and I'll ask
• 37:05
  you a question called the warrior diet, probably 10, no,
• 37:09
  15 years ago. And basically it talks about how
• 37:12
  like our warrior ancestors, it's kind of like this was this was
• 37:15
  before paleo and keto and all, you know, carnivore got
• 37:19
  mainstream. This guy wrote this book, The
• 37:20
  Warrior Diet Ori. I can't think of his last name
• 37:22
  as he's a Russian doctor. But anyway, you know, we, we
• 37:26
  weren't meant to eat breakfast and warriors or they'd be out
• 37:29
  fighting. They would get up in the
• 37:30
  morning. There was nothing to eat, maybe
• 37:31
  a piece of meat from the night before.
• 37:33
  They'd go, you know, March fight all day and then they would have
• 37:35
  like 1 big feast at night. It made a lot of sense.
• 37:39
  And he in the book he talks about when you're hungry, you're
• 37:42
  more in prey Dr. you're more like focused and I like that
• 37:46
  feeling. So I prefer not to have
• 37:48
  breakfast what I'm trying to put on muscle or for a certain
• 37:51
  reason I choke it down. You know, egg whites, whatever.
• 37:55
  I'm on vacation. There's chili Chiles or in
• 37:57
  Mexico, I'm getting them. But at large I skipped breakfast
• 38:00
  almost always have my water. And then so I, I, I find a
• 38:06
  combination of following your macros, eating, you know, most,
• 38:10
  most of my protein is animal based, right?
• 38:13
  So it's like chicken or steak. And then I love potatoes and
• 38:18
  rice. So a combination of everything.
• 38:21
  It's a combination of intermittent fasting, you know,
• 38:24
  following your macros. And I'd go like more or less
• 38:27
  Paleo. Like I don't eat pasta.
• 38:28
  I mean, I'll eat pizza if I'm gonna try this pizza restaurant,
• 38:31
  right? But I don't that's not something
• 38:33
  that it's if I eat pizza once a month.
• 38:35
  That's probably an exaggeration or something.
• 38:37
  Like that for a lot of chefs, if you had to give some practical
• 38:41
  like let's just say. Yeah.
• 38:44
  We're we're reaching 80% of the chef audience right now.
• 38:47
  Sure. What would be some practical
• 38:49
  advice like say start incorporating some of these
• 38:51
  health and Wellness? Yeah, things that are practical
• 38:54
  due to your crazy schedule and maybe and maybe they're crazy
• 38:59
  sleep schedule. As well.
• 39:00
  Yeah, I think crazy sleep schedule, it's really tough.
• 39:03
  So let's start with the food. Sit down and eat.
• 39:06
  I mean, it's like it's a cliche. I love chefs like eating like
• 39:10
  out of a pork container, a wolf down family meal.
• 39:12
  Over the garbage. Can, yeah, whatever, whatever's
• 39:14
  messed up in the window, you're not eating intentionally.
• 39:17
  You're just, oh, there's a fucking carbonara pasta.
• 39:18
  I'll just throw some fried chicken on that and eat it.
• 39:21
  Like, no, like don't eat that. Like ask somebody or, you know,
• 39:24
  you, there's a piece of protein you can cook.
• 39:25
  There's a chicken breast, you know, there's a burger Patty you
• 39:28
  can have. You don't have the Braun, you
• 39:30
  know, you could go down, throw a handful of greens in a bowl and
• 39:32
  make a quick salad. So, you know, protein and
• 39:34
  veggies. Protein veggies if you have to,
• 39:37
  if you want to have something nice once a week here and there,
• 39:40
  like sprinkle it in, but definitely like be cognizant to
• 39:42
  eat protein veggies, good Whole Foods, right?
• 39:46
  You have those things at your fingertips.
• 39:48
  Don't just eat chicken tenders because it's easier because
• 39:51
  it's, you know, what's in the window dead.
• 39:56
  It's OK to bring your own food. I mean, I don't think you really
• 39:58
  need to if, if, especially if you work in a restaurant,
• 40:00
  wherever it's cool. I, I, I'll walk in my
• 40:02
  restaurant, but guys, I need like, I'll just give me some
• 40:04
  rice or some roasted potatoes and like 2 chicken breasts.
• 40:07
  It's like, not hard. So what was that?
• 40:11
  That was that. And I think sitting down to eat
• 40:14
  like sit down, give yourself 20 minutes to sit down because I
• 40:18
  mean, you're going to have all kinds of stomach problems.
• 40:20
  You're not going to digest. And it sounds like what you
• 40:22
  talking about. No, it's true.
• 40:23
  Like you want to eat your food? Digest it.
• 40:25
  Slow down for a minute, but your heart rate go down.
• 40:28
  So easy to get caught up in the day-to-day, running around like
• 40:31
  a crazy person and wolfing down your foods.
• 40:33
  It's just not good for you long term.
• 40:36
  So that that would be that like, you know, find healthy things
• 40:40
  that you can easily get in your restaurant.
• 40:42
  You know, chicken breast is pretty much in every restaurant
• 40:45
  there is. There's some type of salad,
• 40:47
  There's some type of, you know, carbohydrate that isn't pasta or
• 40:51
  bread. And then in terms of like
• 40:54
  supplementation, would you like, again, not for everybody, but
• 40:57
  yeah, if you have to give like your general.
• 40:58
  Vitamin C because, you know, keep your immune system strong
• 41:02
  so that you know, we get so run down and depleted take I would
• 41:07
  take vitamin C maybe a multi if your if your diet's not great,
• 41:11
  but I would start there. You know you don't need to go
• 41:14
  see these younger and. Then walk.
• 41:15
  Yeah, walk. Get outside, walk.
• 41:17
  If you get, if you're lucky enough to have a break, go take
• 41:19
  a 10 minute stroll, get some fresh air.
• 41:21
  Takes take 10 huge deep breaths. You know, regulate your your
• 41:25
  mind and your emotions. Like give.
• 41:27
  You have to talk about meditation earlier.
• 41:28
  Yeah, yeah. So what is?
• 41:29
  What is your mindfulness routine look like?
• 41:31
  Yeah, so it's, it's not as as amazing as I wish it was.
• 41:34
  So, you know, I did go to a Transcendental Meditation
• 41:37
  training back in 2016. I felt my best when I was doing
• 41:42
  that for you get a mantra and you sit there and you say the
• 41:44
  mantra quietly. And eventually you kind of are
• 41:46
  like in that stage where you're in between sleep and awake, but
• 41:50
  you're just kind of there really amazing stuff.
• 41:53
  It's hard to do that and breathing at all the things I
• 41:55
  do. So now my mindfulness is really
• 41:58
  focusing on breath. I love box breathing.
• 42:00
  So it's like if you you know what box breathing is.
• 42:02
  Yeah, I do, but for people. That don't.
• 42:03
  So, OK, so box breathing is if you, if you you'd go like hold
• 42:08
  it, hold it. So you it's it's inhale, hold,
• 42:17
  exhale. What is it?
• 42:18
  No, Inhale for four seconds, Hold it for four seconds, exhale
• 42:21
  for four seconds, inhale for four seconds.
• 42:24
  I said that, right? Yeah.
• 42:25
  So, yeah. So you breathe in a box and you
• 42:27
  do that, do that like 20 times. There's other really good apps
• 42:31
  on you can get on your phone, like the Wim Hof method, which
• 42:33
  is just 30. Like it's, it's crazy how much
• 42:38
  it will calm down. Yeah.
• 42:40
  And just reset you It's it's it's Wim.
• 42:43
  Hof is wild because because they hold on the exhale.
• 42:47
  Yeah, right. And and if you try and breathe
• 42:49
  your air out now and try and hold it's it's very difficult to
• 42:52
  hold on the X. It's much more difficult to hold
• 42:53
  on the exhale than the inhale. But when you're doing when Hoff
• 42:56
  like all of a sudden you'll be like you're looking at the
• 42:58
  clock. It's like, well, it's over a
• 42:59
  minute. I'm still holding on the.
• 43:00
  X I'm 245. Really.
• 43:02
  Yeah. I got my best.
• 43:03
  Like, by the time you get to like, your fifth or sixth round,
• 43:05
  yeah, you're like, you're like high as a kite and you're like,
• 43:07
  this is crazy tingling. Your body's tingling, right?
• 43:09
  And I remember exactly what you said.
• 43:11
  I always thought it's easier to hold it on the inhale.
• 43:13
  Yeah. Now I think it's easier to hold
• 43:15
  it on the XL cuz you get, so you get so oxygenated I guess and
• 43:21
  then yeah. It's have you ever tried the
• 43:22
  push up challenge after the Wim Hof?
• 43:24
  No. Yeah, cuz it's crazy, cuz you
• 43:26
  could do way more, really. Yeah, yeah.
• 43:28
  So you do a couple rounds of Wim Hof and then you go do push ups
• 43:32
  and when let's I'm just making numbers up.
• 43:34
  But let's say you could do 20. You might be able to do 50.
• 43:38
  No way. Yeah, that's like 100% increase
• 43:40
  of. Strength.
• 43:41
  Yeah, yeah. Or more.
• 43:42
  Yeah, I'm going to do it next time.
• 43:43
  Yeah, do it, Do it. I'd love to know what you did.
• 43:45
  Yeah. Yeah, no, I I love the Wim Hof
• 43:46
  stuff so yeah, those that's like a really good tool to have as a
• 43:50
  chef breathing because you think how many times you go out and
• 43:52
  take a 5 minute smoke break go take a 5 minute Brock breathe
• 43:55
  and. Not only that, but, and, and I,
• 43:58
  I'm a big proponent of some sort of mindful decision because I
• 44:01
  think that's important, especially in a high stress job.
• 44:04
  Yeah, because that mindfulness, look, a lot of people towards
• 44:09
  the end of my career, more towards the end of my career
• 44:11
  would tell me, oh, you're so calm.
• 44:12
  It's like, well, yeah, part of it was experienced, but the
• 44:14
  other part of it was just a mindfulness routine.
• 44:16
  Yeah. And if I had learned that
• 44:18
  earlier, I probably wouldn't have been, you know, that hot
• 44:20
  head young chef. Yeah.
• 44:21
  But that mindfulness prepares you to just how to de stress
• 44:24
  yourself. Yeah.
• 44:25
  Yeah, You know who really inspired me like that was Eric
• 44:28
  Repair. I don't know if you've heard of
• 44:30
  these things about him. He's like a full blown like
• 44:31
  Buddhist. Like he has like the end support
• 44:33
  and this is like true. He doesn't yell on his kitchens.
• 44:35
  He's very soft spoken and he talks a lot about mindfulness.
• 44:38
  So if anybody listening wants to do a more deeper dive, listen to
• 44:40
  like his advice about it. But I think cooking by nature,
• 44:45
  it can be chaotic. It can all the things we know
• 44:47
  what like what's been kind of portrayed right, But it's also
• 44:52
  repetitive. You listen to Thomas Keller like
• 44:54
  it's almost like, you know, get get dialed in, like get into
• 44:57
  that. Find that like that rhythm, that
• 44:59
  cadence when you're on your station and like it becomes kind
• 45:01
  of you get mindful, like tune out the noise, tune out all that
• 45:05
  and just lock in on those tickets.
• 45:07
  Yeah, like just, you know, and I'm not trying to like sound Foo
• 45:09
  Foo here, but like really it's true.
• 45:11
  Like how good do you feel when you when you just when you're in
• 45:13
  a state of flow on the line and you're just.
• 45:15
  I'll tell. You, especially when you become
• 45:18
  a head chef and the higher up you go and the more stress you
• 45:20
  have to deal with. Sometimes I would just look for
• 45:22
  a cutting board, right? I just want to cut onions or
• 45:24
  slide mushrooms or I just want to see a stock and I zone out.
• 45:28
  It's the only time I don't have to think.
• 45:29
  Yeah, 100% into this mental, you know, flows and.
• 45:33
  Yeah, it like resets you like it's the same thing.
• 45:36
  I think it was a Marco Corolla. He was saying how maybe I don't
• 45:40
  know which step it was. Can't Regardless, you're you're
• 45:42
  in, you're having a like a block.
• 45:44
  You can't figure out what to cook.
• 45:45
  Start mincing garlic, yeah, start chopping and chiffonading
• 45:48
  parsley and it's just gonna start coming to you cuz you're
• 45:50
  gonna like you're overthinking everything.
• 45:52
  So just start doing something in like a meditative practice, the
• 45:55
  kitchen and it's gonna start flowing.
• 45:57
  You'd be surprised. And this word for me?
• 45:59
  Different bearing wave states, right.
• 46:00
  So your delta, your alpha, your Theta, your, you know whatever.
• 46:03
  Yeah, totally and all that. So one of those is like the,
• 46:07
  the, the creative, but something has to, something has to trigger
• 46:10
  it. So when I'm, when I'm writing,
• 46:11
  we talked about this a little bit earlier, like I'll take the
• 46:13
  nicotine gum. I have a bunch of anchors that I
• 46:16
  set myself up in to, to focus if I need to get into a creative
• 46:21
  state. And for me, that would be like
• 46:22
  some nicotine gum. It would be listening to
• 46:24
  classical music. It would be smelling something
• 46:27
  like for me, it's peppermint and it would be tasting something.
• 46:31
  So in my case, green tea. So if I have all those things so
• 46:34
  I smell, I taste, Yeah, here. You're triggering.
• 46:38
  It's triggering every single thing.
• 46:40
  That's like time to get into creative mode.
• 46:43
  That's awesome. Yeah, that's not.
• 46:45
  Those things are hyper important.
• 46:47
  And the only time I do that, by the way, is when I need to be in
• 46:50
  creative mode. I will not do it unless it's
• 46:51
  creative mode because I don't want my brain to think it's time
• 46:54
  to watch Netflix. Got it.
• 46:55
  Yeah, you like, you wanna reserve that for like?
• 46:57
  Yeah, that's 100 percent, 100%, Yeah, Focus.
• 47:01
  Yeah, One thing. Yeah.
• 47:03
  So kind of moving on. So that's the the, the
• 47:06
  mindfulness thing. I think chefs and I know this
• 47:09
  because even to this day I struggle with it.
• 47:11
  Sleep hygiene. We have horrific sleep hygiene.
• 47:16
  The screens make it worse. You know, screens make it worse,
• 47:19
  eating late makes it worse. You know, staying out late after
• 47:23
  work, having beers makes it worse.
• 47:27
  You know, because it's like you're in a chaotic system all
• 47:29
  the time and you get home and it's like, holy shit, it's
• 47:32
  quiet. I can like do whatever I want
• 47:34
  right now. I can have a few beers, I can
• 47:36
  watch Netflix. I can just binge on whatever's
• 47:38
  in the fridge. Like really, you shouldn't be
• 47:41
  eating within two to ideally 3 hours before bed, right?
• 47:46
  You should be having no screen time an hour or two before bed.
• 47:51
  And we, we, you know, we get home at 10:00 at night.
• 47:54
  It's like, well, I didn't get to do that stuff all day.
• 47:56
  You know, it's hard and I'm not claiming to be the master of
• 48:00
  this. This is something I'm really
• 48:02
  trying to master myself. It's like the one it's like the
• 48:05
  last thing that I'm missing is that sleep hygiene.
• 48:08
  And because I want to be that guy that gets up at 5:00 in the
• 48:10
  morning, but I also know like there's just times.
• 48:12
  I mean, not so much now, but it but as I was coming up, you
• 48:16
  know, you're home late and you're like, Jeez, I need to
• 48:17
  like just sit here for a minute. But I think sleep hygiene.
• 48:21
  So my advice to younger chefs is like, don't go out every night
• 48:24
  after work. You know, I know it's your
• 48:25
  social life. I know you think it's cool, but
• 48:27
  trust me, take my word for it, like go home, try to eat before
• 48:32
  your shift starts. If you get, if you eat like in
• 48:34
  the middle of the day, a nice sized meal, you don't need a
• 48:36
  whole lot. You don't need to go home and
• 48:38
  eat pizza and whatever gets in the fridge.
• 48:42
  You know, get home, have a have a routine.
• 48:44
  How like you said, like this is that these are the things I do
• 48:46
  that start telling my body it's time to write.
• 48:48
  Like start doing things that tell your body it's time to go
• 48:50
  to bed, go home, shower, stretch, you know, maybe listen
• 48:55
  to some tunes or I don't know, I used to come home and read books
• 48:59
  or cookbooks and yeah, like that.
• 49:03
  I think really set your make sure your room is dark.
• 49:06
  Don't pass out with the TV on. And then the biggest thing to
• 49:11
  sleep hygiene is waking up consistently.
• 49:14
  So set the alarm. Set the alarm.
• 49:15
  And use an app like, well, I know the iPhone now has like a
• 49:18
  gentle way to wake you up instead of yeah, so that fucking
• 49:21
  alarm that everyone. Yeah, sleep is.
• 49:23
  Yeah. And if you're single, it's easy.
• 49:24
  I live with kids. I never know who's coming to my
• 49:27
  room in the middle of the night. Or some nights I get a bed, you
• 49:29
  know, And I, obviously, I'm in the bed with my wife.
• 49:32
  And sometimes we keep each other up whether we're tossing and
• 49:34
  turning. So like, yeah, the alarm, if
• 49:37
  you're, if you're single, living at home or whatever, again, you
• 49:40
  can use an alarm to develop that like consistent waking time.
• 49:43
  Yeah, just alarm out of bed. You can have like a like a
• 49:46
  softer ring tone. I don't think it's good to be
• 49:47
  like jolted out of bed, but you can have like that, like it
• 49:50
  slowly gets louder or, you know, they, they make ones too.
• 49:53
  They're like a light but black out your room.
• 49:56
  Turn the, the AC down, you know, there you can take magnesium is
• 50:01
  really good to take at night. So I take magnesium now and I'm
• 50:03
  like, yeah. Yeah, I take sometimes I take
• 50:05
  the magnesium glycine, which is great for.
• 50:07
  Glycine, it's awesome. I do a complex, has that in it.
• 50:10
  But yeah, I mean, so develop that habit.
• 50:12
  And if you get up early, there's your free time, right?
• 50:15
  If you don't have to be at work till 1:00 and you're up at 7:00
• 50:18
  or 8:00, you know, try to get 8 hours of sleep, ideally 7.
• 50:22
  Good. You start pushing 6.
• 50:23
  It's like, and if it's six and you're drunk and you're waking
• 50:28
  up and you're peeing 10 * a night and you have heartburn
• 50:30
  because you ate a Big Mac at 2 or, you know, a cheese steak at
• 50:33
  2:00 in the morning, you know, So yeah, try not to eat too
• 50:37
  early before bed, all that stuff.
• 50:38
  So develop good sleep hygiene. How do you use a chef?
• 50:42
  Find work life balance. I know you mentioned you have a
• 50:44
  family, but how do you, how do you, how do you manage your own
• 50:47
  life? How do I manage my own life?
• 50:49
  So I think one thing that you know, work life balance has
• 50:54
  become there's a lot, right? So I'm going to start with this.
• 50:58
  The grind culture has been established where it's a grind,
• 51:00
  just work hard, make your money. Well, the opposite's happening.
• 51:03
  Like I go on Instagram now and it's like people like fuck this
• 51:05
  job, you know, you're working on a play.
• 51:07
  It like makes you like anti want to have a job, work life
• 51:12
  balance. It's like part of work life
• 51:13
  balance is working. It's not just the balance, but
• 51:16
  people want to focus on the balance part, right, right.
• 51:18
  They want to focus on, well, I like, I want to go to Coachella
• 51:21
  and I want to do all these amazing things.
• 51:22
  I'm like, yeah, but you also want to build a life and
• 51:24
  building a life requires sacrifice and work.
• 51:26
  So if you really want work life balance, you have to give
• 51:31
  respect to the hustle and to, you know, maybe the part of that
• 51:36
  balance is like when you're in this part of life, the work
• 51:39
  part, like don't worry about the, you know, the, the, the
• 51:43
  life and they do all these things and then same thing like
• 51:46
  life goes in and out of balance. For me, for example, there's
• 51:49
  times like seasons, right, where I'm more like I'm not missing
• 51:54
  the stuff with my kids. I'm coaching lacrosse.
• 51:55
  So I'm going to cut work early. You know, I'm going to like not
• 51:59
  maybe do the 60 hour weeks, the 50 hour weeks.
• 52:01
  So I'm going to leave early and I'm not going to feel bad about
• 52:03
  it because when the time comes, when the summer's here, when
• 52:05
  it's a baller month that we're just, I need to be there heads
• 52:08
  on, I do it. And I don't feel guilty because
• 52:12
  I, I donated. I'm not donated.
• 52:14
  I, I gave all the time I could when I could.
• 52:19
  That's the balance. It's like a dance.
• 52:21
  If you try to have balance all day, every day, you're going to
• 52:23
  go insane because you're not getting what I'm saying, Like
• 52:25
  you're not going to be able to do these things.
• 52:28
  That's how I manage it. I'm at a point now in my career
• 52:31
  where I can kind of make my day a little bit more like daily.
• 52:36
  Like, OK, I'm going to work these, you know, these six hours
• 52:38
  on this and then this, and then I'm going to, you know, be home
• 52:40
  and we're gonna have dinner. I think early in your career,
• 52:44
  the best way to have work life balance is, and I know this,
• 52:46
  this is a grueling career. It can be grueling.
• 52:49
  I hate to say that, you know, but you should.
• 52:51
  If you do things the right way, like I'm saying, you'll have a
• 52:54
  nice life. And then we get your two days
• 52:55
  off. Enjoy the fuck out of those
• 52:57
  days. You know, call your friends,
• 52:59
  call your mom. If your parents are still alive,
• 53:01
  you're very lucky. Spend time with them.
• 53:03
  Yeah. You know, use that time to
• 53:05
  recharge you so that when you're back at the work, part of the
• 53:08
  work life balance, you know, you feel it.
• 53:10
  It's trying to do it everyday I feel like is a fruitless battle.
• 53:16
  You do a lot right now. So you do a lot with mentorship,
• 53:18
  you do a lot with coaching, you do a lot with consulting.
• 53:21
  Yeah. And I know we talked about this
• 53:23
  before, but before we recorded. You've been fortunate, we've had
• 53:28
  good mentors, but now you're paying it back.
• 53:31
  So tell you know the audience a little bit about what you do now
• 53:33
  in terms of mentoring, coaching and consulting.
• 53:35
  Yeah, so, well, I, I, I exited out of my restaurants about 8
• 53:40
  months ago. I stayed on as a consultant.
• 53:41
  I do some, you know, I'm at a point where in my, where I live
• 53:44
  in New Jersey, I kind of have a reputation so I can help
• 53:48
  restaurants out license my name, you know, consulting, basic
• 53:53
  consulting type stuff. I do the TV show.
• 53:57
  I am still highly compelled to do my own restaurant.
• 54:01
  You know, I'm 10 years, I'm taking a little hiatus from the
• 54:03
  entrepreneur world. I love my, the thing I love most
• 54:08
  about being a chef is the mentorship component, the
• 54:10
  learning and the teaching component.
• 54:13
  And we live in a a time now where I have platforms to do
• 54:17
  that on. So I'm, I'm currently, you know,
• 54:19
  building that out. My whole, I guess stick is
• 54:25
  trying to teach chefs, you know, mindset, skill set, health set,
• 54:30
  and that that's what I that's the mark I want to leave.
• 54:32
  It's not a James Beard award, right?
• 54:34
  So I want to be able to work with people groups and, and
• 54:39
  share the things that got me to where I am and and also change
• 54:44
  the perspective and and coach restaurants on how to how they
• 54:49
  have to evolve to continue to attract people into the
• 54:52
  business. And then, yeah, waiting to go to
• 54:56
  the TV. So that's kind of I hope I
• 54:57
  answered your question. Yeah, I did.
• 55:00
  You know, I want to be able to go do some talking and not just
• 55:04
  to chefs, you know, like this is a a road less travelled this
• 55:08
  this career. And I think there's a lot of
• 55:09
  careers that are similar. And if I can share my story in
• 55:12
  culinary and as a chef, maybe it'll inspire other people that
• 55:15
  are in the other careers and things like that, that, you
• 55:18
  know, high, high, high time demand, you know, things that
• 55:21
  people might think it's not the right career path to be on,
• 55:25
  things like that. And trying to show them though
• 55:27
  it, it can. You just have to do things
• 55:29
  differently than what we've been taught.
• 55:31
  Right. If you had, you know, a chef's
• 55:33
  PSA out there, advice to chefs, something to either stop doing
• 55:37
  or start doing in the kitchen. Like, and this might be
• 55:41
  something that you see all the time when you're on Hell's
• 55:43
  Kitchen. Yeah.
• 55:43
  Something that like, hey, don't do that or start doing this
• 55:46
  immediately to become a better cook.
• 55:50
  A a a a functional cook, meaning a line cook or someone in the
• 55:53
  kitchen, a professional kitchen. What would it be?
• 55:55
  I always go back to like, you know, mental mis and plus like
• 55:59
  really always have a game plan before you execute, you know,
• 56:04
  being super, super organized and every day trying to do it
• 56:08
  better, you know, like that. That to me is the fun part.
• 56:11
  Like I can do the same menu day in and day out and just every
• 56:13
  day find a better way to do it. It drives me nuts when chefs and
• 56:18
  sous and cooks even get bored with the current menu.
• 56:20
  I'm like you haven't even mastered this yet.
• 56:23
  I have not had a Saturday night where I haven't had three things
• 56:25
  sent back from your station. And it's not because the guest
• 56:27
  is wrong. Like don't tell me you want to
• 56:29
  write any menu. So stop thinking that new, like
• 56:32
  the new shiny object is the way to go.
• 56:36
  Like focus on organization. Show me that you are a
• 56:39
  motherfucker on that station. Or if I'm the owner and you're
• 56:43
  my chef, show me that this kitchen runs without any
• 56:45
  problems. I don't give a fuck about your
• 56:46
  tasting menu if we can't even get through a normal Saturday
• 56:50
  night with the menu I put together.
• 56:51
  Yeah, you know what I mean? Like.
• 56:53
  Yeah, make sure that Beef Wellington doesn't come.
• 56:54
  Out exactly right, like, you know, and listen, I'm not saying
• 56:57
  there's no room for creativity or a flat out need for
• 57:00
  creativity, but you know, there's there's a lot of things
• 57:03
  you have to be cognizant of being a chef and and businesses
• 57:06
  is one of them. I tell young chefs all the time,
• 57:09
  like, would you know if I showed you AP and L do you know what
• 57:11
  EBITDA means? Do you do you know these things?
• 57:13
  Because those are skills that really are going to move the
• 57:15
  need. People that don't know what is
• 57:16
  EBITDA? Earns for interest, taxes,
• 57:18
  amortization, and depreciation. It's a, it's a financial term,
• 57:21
  but. Also a great song by Clips right
• 57:24
  now. Other new album EBITDA.
• 57:26
  Drop it. No, but it's important because
• 57:28
  at the end of the day, this is a business and you need to have
• 57:31
  some business acumen. You don't need to have an MBA.
• 57:34
  But you know, I I do like to tell chefs like start start
• 57:37
  start reading some business books, start asking those
• 57:38
  questions. Start.
• 57:40
  You know, I mean, I went and taught myself how to read AP and
• 57:43
  L and like what? OK, where should this be?
• 57:44
  Yeah, we all know food cost and labor cost.
• 57:46
  That's not all it takes to run and.
• 57:48
  Honestly, it frustrates me when people say about about labor
• 57:51
  costs and food costs. Like I want to learn about food
• 57:53
  costs. Like, look, there's a formula
• 57:55
  cost divided by sales. You got it.
• 57:57
  Let's move on. Go back to cooking.
• 57:58
  Yes, yes, yes, yes. One minute to remember that
• 58:01
  formula. What they should be asking is
• 58:03
  how do you manage this better? Right where you're going to
• 58:05
  learn about food cost is in the kitchen, looking in your trash
• 58:07
  can, learning how to cut meat better, understanding what to do
• 58:10
  with all this trim. That's where you're going to
• 58:12
  learn about food cost. It's not about cost divided by
• 58:15
  sales. Yes.
• 58:15
  No, no, because then because then I said we'll just raise the
• 58:18
  price. Well, no, but like, you can't do
• 58:20
  that. So what are you doing?
• 58:20
  You can't raise the price anymore.
• 58:22
  We're going through that today. You can't.
• 58:23
  I mean, we can't raise a burger to $35, at least not yet.
• 58:26
  So what do we do now? We we add value in the plate.
• 58:28
  We blah, blah, blah. We just pours it.
• 58:29
  So it's like, yeah, I think, I think chefs needed to learn a
• 58:33
  little bit about the business because the business has to
• 58:36
  change and we have to be the ones that change it.
• 58:39
  If if we had to talk about your workstation and let's just let's
• 58:42
  just let's just take this as an example.
• 58:44
  You're, you're finishing on the pass.
• 58:46
  What is your finishing acid? Is it lemon?
• 58:48
  Is it vinegar? All-purpose, yeah.
• 58:51
  So I typically, yeah, finish with on on my Little Chef thing
• 58:55
  depends on the restaurant too, obviously, but I always have
• 58:58
  espilant Maldon like a super fruity olive oil and lemons.
• 59:03
  Lemons you can yeah, like little half lemons.
• 59:06
  You can also use like a lemon vinaigrette, which is just
• 59:08
  pretty much just a little bit of sugar.
• 59:09
  Sugar, not even sugar, like just like for roundness, not like
• 59:12
  sweet, but like lemon juice, olive oil, just just kind of
• 59:15
  little quick Vin. Yeah.
• 59:17
  Like a classic vinegar. Yeah, yeah, like like a one to
• 59:20
  one type situation. I love espullet.
• 59:23
  Yeah, you know, if people are cool with it, some people get
• 59:25
  freaked out by it, but I love finishing with espullet.
• 59:27
  Especially like seafood and poultry and stuffed vegetables
• 59:30
  with espullet. Yeah, delicious.
• 59:32
  What's your what's your workhorse salt in your kitchen?
• 59:35
  Is it? Is it diamond?
• 59:35
  Crystal. So that is that is what I spec
• 59:38
  yet and it's dude, it's finally it's like some some some
• 59:41
  especially bigger box companies. They're like that's we we use
• 59:44
  this one or they take whatever's cheaper that week.
• 59:46
  I'm like, you guys don't fucking get this, Do you?
• 59:48
  Like, I don't care what salt it is, to be honest with you.
• 59:51
  It can't change, but it cannot change, right?
• 59:53
  Like it cannot change once we lock that in.
• 59:56
  But like, my favorite salt flavor, I use grey sea salt.
• 59:59
  I've gotten really used to using that.
• 1:00:01
  I have for all-purpose cooking. Yeah.
• 1:00:02
  Even, like, at home, that's what I do.
• 1:00:04
  It's kind of, you know, a little cost prohibitive to do it in the
• 1:00:06
  restaurants. I don't think you'll get the
• 1:00:07
  credit for it. So listen, restaurants Diamond
• 1:00:09
  Kosher finish Maldon or I love selgrey for like, I just like,
• 1:00:14
  celebrate better than Maldon. And everybody, like, loves flaky
• 1:00:17
  sea salt. But.
• 1:00:18
  I do like selgrey at home. I have selgrey in my cracker.
• 1:00:23
  I just tell my because I have the hex clad yeah pepper and
• 1:00:28
  salt grinders so that sell greens and the salt one Tella
• 1:00:31
  cherry pepper. And that's important too.
• 1:00:33
  Tella cherry pepper black. I have a speck on my black
• 1:00:35
  peppercorns. Yes I I agree Tilla Cherry is
• 1:00:37
  the is the speck. That's the speck, you know, if,
• 1:00:40
  you know, if you're a nicer restaurant, you know, a little
• 1:00:43
  upscale even if you're not. Yeah, like, I mean.
• 1:00:45
  Like spend. The extra 2 bucks.
• 1:00:47
  What are you talking $2.00? Have better Peppers.
• 1:00:49
  Do it like. Yes, a Tella cherry pepper.
• 1:00:51
  Raising food cost by 10% by getting better peppercorns.
• 1:00:54
  Yeah, exactly. So I do.
• 1:00:56
  But I do think, I think Diamond Kosher, I mean, Thomas Keller
• 1:00:58
  kind of said that, yeah, standard in the play.
• 1:01:01
  Do you? Are you a tape person?
• 1:01:02
  Green tape or blue tape? Frog tape, green frog tape.
• 1:01:05
  Yeah, gotta be right angles, you know.
• 1:01:07
  But listen, man, I I take my victories when I can get.
• 1:01:10
  I mean, there's a lot of, you know, we gotta yes, I like it.
• 1:01:13
  What I do is I take a sheet tray.
• 1:01:15
  I put, you know, you put them on the back.
• 1:01:16
  Yeah, yeah, I always have a box knife on me.
• 1:01:18
  I love tape. Yeah.
• 1:01:19
  And and my thing is get that thing as small as small as.
• 1:01:21
  I agree. Like if it's if it's twice as
• 1:01:24
  long as twice as costly, right? And like, what are you doing?
• 1:01:26
  You don't need I need, you need the date and just write a little
• 1:01:28
  thing. Black sharpie I use.
• 1:01:31
  I use red sharpies a lot. If you had a Mount Rushmore of
• 1:01:34
  chefs, 4 chefs that should be on Mount Rushmore, who should they
• 1:01:37
  be? Man, this is one of those
• 1:01:39
  crises. Well, it it would definitely be
• 1:01:41
  Gordon. He'd be 1 and he's the best to
• 1:01:43
  ever do it. I work for David Burke.
• 1:01:47
  I think he, you know, he is, he's, he's an OG.
• 1:01:51
  He's a bad ass. You know he does.
• 1:01:54
  He. He get he.
• 1:01:55
  I don't think enough people know who he is.
• 1:01:57
  Yeah. People should old school New
• 1:01:58
  York. He's great.
• 1:01:59
  Yeah, he's great. He's yeah, he's, he's he's
• 1:02:01
  legend. No, he he's one of the few chefs
• 1:02:03
  that, you know, even Thomas Keller threw a nod to him in, in
• 1:02:05
  the French Laundry cookbook. That's like the chef's Bible.
• 1:02:08
  I feel like, like, like, yeah, everybody read the the French
• 1:02:10
  Laundry, right. And like, you know, yeah.
• 1:02:12
  Thomas Keller even threw David Burke a nod.
• 1:02:14
  So he's like a chef among chefs, you know what I mean?
• 1:02:16
  Yeah. Big in New York, like I said.
• 1:02:18
  So I guess how many, how many? There's four on that 4 you got.
• 1:02:21
  All right, I got. I'm halfway there.
• 1:02:23
  I'd have to do something like probably Julia Childs, right?
• 1:02:27
  So she'd be my French 1. Jacques de Pen's up there, too.
• 1:02:31
  Fuck, yeah. And then you know who's a really
• 1:02:34
  good Asian chef that I like? So I got, I got Gordon, David,
• 1:02:41
  Julia Child. I don't know, not because he's a
• 1:02:44
  celebrity chef, but I'd say Morimoto, the guys, the guys in
• 1:02:47
  this gotta be in the 60s now. I yeah, he just did an omakase
• 1:02:50
  place in New Jersey, dude, and he's just still fucking killing
• 1:02:53
  it. Yeah, he stud right, Just just
• 1:02:54
  just. Putting out I'm like, you know,
• 1:02:56
  like the guys just still doing like preparing food in front of
• 1:02:59
  16 people that are just in their heads or going like this.
• 1:03:01
  So yeah, those would be my 4 I guess, off the cuffs.
• 1:03:04
  So here's a new question that I've never asked anybody.
• 1:03:06
  Is it like my my new closer? I'm I'm bringing in today.
• 1:03:08
  You're the first. If you had a bucket list chef
• 1:03:11
  that you wanted to eat their food, who would it be?
• 1:03:13
  A bucket list chef who I would want to eat their food, past and
• 1:03:19
  present, the living and dead. Go for it, Charlie Trotter.
• 1:03:22
  I'm with you there. Charlie Trotter, Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  I regret I didn't get a chance yet.
• 1:03:26
  So, so many. Great.
• 1:03:27
  I have his entire collection of cookbooks.
• 1:03:29
  He was the man when I was younger and so many talented
• 1:03:33
  chefs worked for him. He was Chicago, and now nobody
• 1:03:37
  would probably even knows his name.
• 1:03:39
  Yeah, CC Trotter is my answer as well.
• 1:03:41
  So for people that were gonna ask me what my answer is, it's
• 1:03:43
  also his food is you look at other chefs, it's like sometimes
• 1:03:48
  their restaurant lives on after they pass Charlie Trotters, he
• 1:03:52
  when he when he passed his restaurant closed.
• 1:03:55
  Yeah, it's crazy, you. Can't have that food anymore.
• 1:03:57
  It's it definitely at that at one stings that I didn't get to
• 1:04:00
  let go eat at his restaurant. Yeah, Chef, where can people
• 1:04:03
  find you? Chef James Avery is pretty much
• 1:04:06
  me across all platforms. So that's my my Instagram
• 1:04:08
  handle. It is my website,
• 1:04:10
  chefjamesavery.com, YouTube. My YouTube stuff's more just me
• 1:04:13
  goofing around in my home kitchen.
• 1:04:14
  You know, I, I gotta get better at reeling all this stuff in.
• 1:04:17
  Yeah, yeah, you can find. It's a new world.
• 1:04:18
  Just. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:04:19
  It is. And it's overwhelming, but it's
• 1:04:21
  it's all fun. Yeah.
• 1:04:22
  Just Chef James Avery. If you Google that, you'll,
• 1:04:23
  you'll see me pop up. Yeah.
• 1:04:25
  This has been fun, thanks. Chef Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:04:27
  Thanks for having me. Thank you.
• 1:04:28
  Yep. Well, I hope you enjoyed the
• 1:04:30
  show. You know what to do.
• 1:04:31
  If you're watching on YouTube, hit the like and subscribe
• 1:04:33
  button. If you're listening on Spotify
• 1:04:34
  or Apple or anywhere else, make sure you leave five stars.
• 1:04:37
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• 1:04:41
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• 1:04:43
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• 1:04:46
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• 1:04:49
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• 1:04:51
  episodes and listen to them before anyone else, you can
• 1:04:54
  become a premium member on Spotify and also on Sub Stack.
• 1:04:58
  You get your ear candy before anyone else gets their candy.
• 1:05:01
  Anyway, we'll see you next week. Hit the porno music.
• 1:05:03
  Don't. Smell a drink in the kitchen.