Podcasts about California Culinary Academy

Jared began his love for the culinary experience in his grandmother's kitchen. Jared attended the California Culinary Academy and started his externship with Wolfang Puck and has been working for him for over 20 years along with his mentor Erick Klein . At 17 years old he started working at Spago in Palo Alto and from there he went on to work at several locations including Las Vegas and becoming the Executive Chef in Colorado. After returning to the Bay Area Jared took the Helm of Alexander's Steakhouse in Cupertino where he became interested in butchery. To hone his butcher skills further he went on to work with Guy Crims at Pape Meat in Millbrae and joined Guy in opening the Butcher Shop by Niku Steakhouse where the focus is on Japanese Wagyu and dry aged beef. Jared is currently doing consulting work for Wolfgang Puck and as a private chef. Excited to share this long awaited podcast about Jared's origins and we talked about his wonderful culinary journey, kitchen challenges , bringing Japanese Wagyu to the US, his new job and favorite recipes. Show Noteshttps://www.foodoriginspodcast.com/podcast-episode-55Firecracker Farm Small-batch Spicy Salt Family farm with a secret blend of Carolina Reaper, Ghost, and Trinidad Scorpion peppers.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

Guest: Mark Pincus, founder & chairman of Zynga, and managing member & co-founder of Reinvent CapitalBefore Zynga and Facebook made social gaming mainstream, the video game industry was “extreme on this being about art and crafting,” recalls Zynga founder Mark Pincus. He believes his winning instinct was the realization that games were “at least 50 percent science” — but it's not enough to just have the instinct. Mark says entrepreneurs like him have to quickly take multiple shots on the goal and “look for feedback loops that tell you your instinct is right ... you need to get to a minimum viable idea state and you need to find true signal around that idea state, that it's right or wrong, and move on.”Chapters:(01:40) - Rubbing sticks together (07:01) - Virtual businesses (12:10) - Pre-Zynga companies (13:51) - Setting the real intention (17:44) - Internet treasures (23:21) - Disrupting gaming (30:14) - The chip on Mark's shoulder (33:19) - The end of Tribe (37:24) - Zynga Poker (42:59) - Explosive growth (46:57) - Making the virtual real (52:02) - The downturn (58:12) - Stepping aside (sort of) (01:01:50) - Back into the fire (01:08:45) - In the abyss (01:11:46) - What “grit” means to Mark Mentioned in this episode: Dot Earth, Elon Musk and the Boring Company, Uber Eats and Dara Khosrowshahi, ChatGPT, Roblox, Madhappy, Reid Hoffman, Craigslist, Google, Napster and Sean Parker, the California Culinary Academy, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, Yahoo, John Doerr, Words with Friends, LinkedIn, Tribe.net, Supercell and Ilkka Paananen, FarmVille and Hay Day, Parker Conrad and Rippling, Bing Gordon, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, the Game Developer's Conference, CNET, Matt Cohler, Don Mattrick, Microsoft and the Xbox, Joe Biden, Jason Citron and Discord, Steve Jobs, Super Labs, Marcus Segal, Frank Gibeau, The Courage to Be Disliked, and Stewart Butterfield.Links:Connect with MarkTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

We often focus on independent pizza makers here on Pizza Quest. But, only 50% of the pizzas sold in this country are made by the thousands of independent operators; the other 50% are sold by the many pizza franchise chains, and most of those are from the top five brands. Marco's Pizza has recently climbed into that top tier (along with Domino's, Pizza Hut, Papa John, and Little Caesar's) , as it now boasts more than 1,000 locations, with over 100 more coming this year alone.Peter sits down with Tim Brown, Chief Operations Officer (as well as owner/operator of 15 Marco's locations), and Kathleen Kennedy, Director of Culinary Innovation (and former colleague of Peter's at The California Culinary Academy in SF, 30 years ago). They discuss how this brand started from one independent location in Toledo, Ohio, and has continued to expand ever since. They mention how Marco's has stayed true to the founder's original vision while meeting the challenges of delivering a consistent pizza experience at every location, while managing the staff training of thousands, new product development, and the supply chain needs necessary to survive and thrive in today's competitive market place. You'll learn more than you thought possible in this week's episode of Pizza Quest.Click here for the video versions of Pizza Quest. If you count on HRN content, become a monthly sustaining donor at heritageradionetwork.org/donate.Pizza Quest is Powered by Simplecast.

Chef Ryan Gallego is a highly accomplished sushi chef with an impressive 20 years of experience in the art of Japanese cuisine. Graduating from the prestigious California Culinary Academy in 2005, he embarked on a culinary journey that would shape his expertise. His training at renowned establishments, including Morimoto Napa, Nobu in Palo Alto, and Village Sake in Marin, enriched his skills and refined his palate. Inspired by his father, he developed an unwavering passion for creating exquisite sushi dishes with a meticulous attention to detail. Chef Ryan Gallego continues to leave a lasting impression on diners with his culinary creations, crafted with both technical expertise and heartfelt devotion.I met Chef Ryan over a year ago and we connected over working food events together with some of our dear friends we have today. Appreciate Ryan for taking the time to sit down with me on location in Northern CA to share his story and the origins of Trifecta Cooks. Trifecta Cookshttps://trifectacooks.cateringShow Noteshttps://www.foodoriginspodcast.com/podcast-episode-42Support the show

Alan Maniscalco  and Shan Wickham, proprietors of The Lucky Horseshoe Lounge and Rally Pizza, join us to talk about their new spot on Clinton as well as Rally Pizza's residence at Victor 23 Brewing.  We also talk about Alan's significant history as co-founder of Ken's Artisan Pizza    Brief bios:   Shan grew up in Des Moines, Iowa. She graduated from the University of Iowa, where she worked as a librarian before moving to San Francisco to attend California Culinary Academy's Baking and Pastry program. Alan grew up in San Jose, California, as part of a large Italian-American family. He became a bread baker in his early twenties, first in Portland and then Phoenix, AZ.  Alan and Shan met working at Restaurant Zibibbo in Palo Alto, CA. They've worked almost exclusively as a team ever since, they moved to Portland with their daughter Sage in 2003. Alan worked as Production Manager at Ken's Artisan Bakery before co-founding Ken's Artisan Pizza in Portland, Oregon, where he was the Executive Chef from 2006-2016. Shan was a Team Leader at Whole Foods until 2006, then Pastry Chef at Ken's Artisan Pizza from 2006-2013. In September 2016, Shan and Alan opened Rally Pizza in central Vancouver, Washington, which has since evolved into a residency at Victor 23 Brewing.  In 2023, they opened Lucky Horseshoe Lounge, where their daughter Sage completes the family trifecta as its chef.    luckyhorseshoeportland.com/ Insta:  @luckyhorseshoeportland   Right at the Fork is supported by: Zupan's Markets: www.zupans.com RingSide SteakHouse: www.RingsideSteakHouse.com  Portland Food Adventures: www.PortlandFoodAdventures.com

Replay: Voices of Mothers in Practice What can architecture firms do to support mothers who are working in practice?Leaders of the profession share diverse perspectives on their identity between practice and motherhood. This discussion aims to explore the experiences of working mothers in diverse career stages who are raising children of different ages.Practice Disrupted is committed to elevating conversations on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion to teach, empower, and build greater awareness across the industry.Guests:Christina Cho Yoo, AIA, PE, LEED AP BD+C is co-founder of Atelier Cho Thompson. She received a BS & MS in civil & structural engineering and construction management at Stanford University and received a masters in architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She was a structural engineer at the international engineering company Arup, where she was the Structural Sustainability Champion for the Americas & worked on projects such as the LEED-Double Platinum California Academy of Sciences, Contemporary Jewish Museum, Kaiser hospitals, Schroder Overcrossing, and various other projects. She went onto work at architecture firms internationally including Kao Design Group on Richard Branson's Eco-Island, SHoP Architects on the Google HQ, Neri & Hu in Shanghai, Mass Studies in Seoul, and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson on Apple stores, the Apple iAd office, and the Square HQ. Christina is a licensed architect and engineer in California and has been LEED accredited since 2003.Her work has spanned typologies from single-family to multifamily residences, hospitals, labs, museums, innovative workplaces, hospitality and food service, to retail, exhibits, furniture, and graphics for various organizations. Before architecture school, she staged at Tartine Bakery while taking courses at the California Culinary Academy. She has lectured on Green R&D at Harvard and served as a critic at Parsons, Stanford, Harvard, & the California College of the Arts (CCA). She is an Adjunct Professor at the CCA, having taught advanced urban studio on the Post-Retail City and Integrated Building Systems. She served as Design & Innovation Chair of the Stanford Club of SF and currently is on the Board of Directors at Pacific Primary School.Jennifer T. Matthews, Associate AIA, is a full-time remote Architectural Designer at SS&A Design Collective based in Montgomery, Alabama. With eight years of healthcare design experience, Jennifer has worked on architectural projects for multiple healthcare providers and...

This episode will make you think about food and nutrition differently. The impacts of food on our brains is profound and making the right choices can have a dramatic effect on your brain health and quality of life. In this episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with Michael Hunsinger. Michael and his wife Dr. Isabel MD are the MD and Chef Coaching Team, offering Precision Personalised Medicine. Our Mission is to help you prevent and reverse disease, and to give you HOPE! Culinary Nutrition Expert, Chef Michael Qualifications Bredesen ReCode Protocol 2.0 Health Coach for prevention and reversal of Alzheimers/Dementia Graduate of California Culinary Academy, European-style school for professional chefs. Honors graduate of the Academy of Culinary Nutrition, Toronto, Canada Being the at-home dad for their two daughters gave him the knowledge of cooking for babies, toddlers, and teenagers. No awards, just the "BEST" experience of his life. Oh yes, and a lot of nappies! What is a culinary nutrition expert? Michael offers practical, everyday, natural cooking skills as well as a deeper exploration into the therapeutic properties of the foods we eat and how we prepare them. He uses food as medicine, to help you live your Optimal Health, not just normal health! He views nutrition as "Nutritional Psychology" to change our thoughts about food and how food works in our body systems. Michael is a Functional Nutrition Chef that spends time with his clients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, functional nutrition supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual. Connect with Michael: website: https://doctoronamission.com/ Optimizing Your Brain Health Community https://doctoronamission.mykajabi.com/brainhealthcoaching Instagram https://www.instagram.com/doctoronamission/ 00:50 Michael's journey of health 03:14 How to create a healthy life 07:55 Nutrition and brain health 15:30 Long-term impacts of food choices and dementia 21:08 Actionable steps to optimize brain health and get to the root cause 33:45 Why it's important to take an active role and age well 37:21 Why brain health is essential for success and achievement in life 38:45 Working through the barriers of eating well 51:08 Pain and inflammation 54:44 How to connect with Michael Hunsinger Connect with Kelly: Sign up for the Free 3-day Nervous System Workshop: https://view.flodesk.com/pages/64b694... Grab my FREE Morning Guide for Perfectionists https://view.flodesk.com/pages/64998a... Grab my FREE Daily Check List for Nervous System Regulation https://view.flodesk.com/pages/61a53a... Book a call with me: https://calendly.com/drkellykessler/s... Listen to my podcast Rewiring Health: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Visit my website: www.optimalyouhealthandwellness.com Dr. Kelly Kessler is a licensed physical therapist, transformation coach, host of the podcast Rewiring Health, the owner of Optimal You Health and Wellness, LLC and a mom of two boys. Kelly helps high achieving, people-pleasing, perfectionist women stop feeling burnt out and in pain and learn to heal through nervous system regulation and subconscious reprogramming. Kelly guides her clients through personal transformation to stop being held back by limiting beliefs, pain, and never feeling good enough to becoming resilient, experiencing abundance, and connected in the mind and body. Inspired by her own journey of recovering from an eating disorder and chronic back pain, Kelly has helped many women harness their profound ability to shift from survival mode to thriving. Kelly uses an integrative approach to healing including a personalized audit, education, community support, and actionable steps to create long-lasting results. Connect with Kelly: @drkellykessler --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rewiringhealth/support

Chad Kelley, a former teddy bear-turned-grillmaster, navigates the high-stakes, high-pressure culinary world as he strives to build his own beer-centric restaurant, learning the hard way how to balance intensity and professionalism."I found something here. There's something. And I was like, I should probably follow this up with a more bachelor's based degree, because I also found that I was very good at not just the cooking side of things, but the financial side of things as well. As most people are a lot of chefs out there are great chefs, great cooks. But when it comes to managing numbers and all that stuff, they know fucking nothing." - Chad KelleyChad Kelley is a chef from Southern California who has worked in seafood restaurants in Dallas, San Francisco, and Indianapolis. He has worked his way up from line cook to executive sous chef and has experience in both the cooking and financial sides of the business.Chad Kelley was born and raised in Southern California but didn't take school seriously, instead preferring to work and have fun. When his cousin suggested culinary school, Chad realized it was something he could excel in and found himself in San Francisco at the California Culinary Academy. After bouncing around to different jobs in the kitchen, Chad found himself back in Southern California where he worked for a real housewives of the OC restaurant. He then moved to Indianapolis and later Dallas, where he became the youngest executive chef in the company. While in Dallas, Chad took charge and didn't take any nonsense from his cooks, and eventually he opened a beer centric restaurant with 100 taps, proving his success in the culinary world.In this episode, you will learn the following:1. How did Chad go from a high school student working at In-N-Out Burger to becoming a successful chef?2. What is it like to work in a high-volume kitchen and how to handle the high pressure?3. How did Chad transition from working in the kitchen to becoming the executive chef of a beer-centric restaurant?Check Out my Other Projects:Chef Made Home @InstagramRoasted Bean Freak @FacebookOther episodes you'll enjoy:Ariel Guivi, Part 1: What is a Chef?Patrick Stark: The Untouchable EgosJosh Morris: Balancing a chefs drive with family lifeMore Links for YouInstagram: @insidethepressurecookerYouTube: @insidethepressurecookerPatreon: @InsidethepressurecookerFeedback: Email me!Website: https://insidethepressurecooker.comLoved this episode? Leave us a review and rating on Apple Podcasts or Follow Us on Spotify or your favorite podcasting platform.TransciptAnd welcome back to season two. And so today we're going to be talking really more about my background, my history, and how I how I grew. Originally, I was going to break this up into the interview where we are going to be looking at both Morris and I kind of at the same time as we grew, where our backgrounds, where we came from, and how we ended up at the same restaurant. But the more I kind of listened and started looking at these things, it was like, man, it doesn't make sense. So we're going to go ahead and drop these episodes separately just to make sure we can do each its own justice without just editing the shit out of it and turning it into something it's not. You guys listen to this because it's more raw, and creating something super edited is not something that I want to do or something I think you want to listen to.Speaker B 00:01:15All right, welcome back. We're here with Josh Morris and today's session, if you will, episodes. Morris is going to grill me.Speaker C 00:01:32It's not really a grilling. We'll compare and contrast our paths as chefs, I think.Speaker B 00:01:40Okay, that works. Compare and contrast. Yeah. The different perspectives. I mean, we kind of talked a little bit about that last week, where it was definitely much more old school in a lot of ways. It served me well for a long time. It got me into plenty of trouble as well, especially as my career progressed. And there were more and more bitches coming into the kitchen. When I say that, I'm not talking about the females. They were much stronger. I will tell you. We're 100% I would rather have an all female kitchen than some of the all male kitchens I've had is less drama. I mean, they were there to fucking work, and they were kicked ass. Some of the guys are just fucking little dramatic assholes. They were my bitches. They were the dramatic bitches. So I need to clear that up before I got in fucking trouble on that one. So the Morris, take it away.Speaker C 00:02:45Well, we've known each other for six years or so, maybe seven, somewhere in there.Speaker B 00:02:54Okay, sounds about right.Speaker C 00:02:57I know that you grew up in Southern California, and I know that you worked in Dallas at mostly seafood restaurants. Everything else about your career is a fucking mystery to me, and I know you personally, so let's dive into that a little bit. Where did you come from and how did you get here?Speaker B 00:03:18Where did I come from? I came from the shadows. Yeah. Having my voice a little jacked up, that worked pretty well there. So I came from Southern California. Born and raised southern California. Orange county. And no, I didn't surf. No, I didn't skateboard. I did spend plenty of time on the beach. I would frequently ditch high school and go hang out at the beach. And that's something that was possible there, because in high schools, a lot of high schools back then were open campuses. You can drive on, drive off whenever you want. So it was good and bad. And I was working for in and out at the time, and I was enjoying working a whole lot more than I was enjoying going to school. School was always busy work for me.Speaker C 00:04:25Did your family is it like a foodie kind of a family?Speaker B 00:04:31No. My grandmother was in charge of the catering at her church. My mom and my aunt at one point did some catering. Very small scale kind of thing. But at no point were anybody in my family were they really involved in cooking.Speaker C 00:04:59Okay.Speaker B 00:05:01But anyway, after high school, I was still working in and out. I just didn't give a shit. I was having fun time. Everybody else was doing their own thing. And my cousin, who he's been on the show, Jeff, mentioned going to culinary school. And then at that point, something just snapped. Like, that light bulb. It didn't come on all the way, but the dimmer hit switch. Someone hit the dimmer switch, and all of a sudden, it was like, hey, there's something there. And it was just like, okay. And I started exploring it, and the more I dug into it, the more it was like, this is kind of cool. And this was late ninety s I want to say 97, right? Is probably when I started digging into it. And I looked at several schools, whether it's the CIA there was a school in Arizona. I don't remember what it was called. And then I ended up going to California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. It was downtown. And this was before it was bought by La cordon Blue. That was cool. Living in downtown San Francisco for a little over a year was pretty badass, man. Sorry, I was just hearing noises. I'm like, what is that? Living downtown San Francisco, going to school in this old building. It was just French and austrian chefs and a couple of germans thrown in there just for fun. And it was just it was the time of my life. I mean, I absolutely hated school in every traditional form because I learned quickly, and I apply what I learn quickly, right? And I could not figure out for the fucking life of me what I was learning in high school. Had zero application on what I was doing in my everyday life.Speaker C 00:07:13Yeah.Speaker B 00:07:18It was just like, what the fuck is the point of this? But when I got into a culinary school and it was intense, it was just an intense and large volume of knowledge just being fucking shoved down your throat. And it was like, either retain it and move on and do well, or you don't. You fail and you go back and do it again. And so there's a lot of pressure to stay with your class, and so every week to two weeks, you go to your new class. And so it wasn't like a college curriculum where you have, hey, today at 03:00, we're doing French, and then whatever. You didn't bounce around. Like, there was two sessions at the campus. There's the morning and then the evening sessions. And you just rotated some semesters, it was the morning. Some there were at nights. But for eight, 9 hours a day, that's all you did. You took one lunch break or dinner break, and then that's it. And you just did nothing but execute or learn the theories. And I just fucking loved it. I took it all in, and I was like, this is it for me. And I found it was one of those I excelled. And I'm like, okay, this is cool. I can do this. So that's kind of where I ended up after school.Speaker C 00:08:50All right, what about first jobs in kitchens that were not in and out?Speaker B 00:09:02Probably. So I did bounce around. I worked at a couple of places in San Francisco just very short term, doing some stage kind of things. Nothing of any importance or note, but it was just there to kind of get some experience. And then Northern Arizona I ended up going to nau Northern Arizona University after culinary school because I'm like, okay, I found something here. There's something. And I was like, I should probably follow this up with a more bachelor's based degree, because I also found that I was very good at not just the cooking side of things, but the financial side of things as well. As most people are a lot of chefs out there are great chefs, great cooks. But when it comes to managing numbers and all that stuff, they know fucking nothing. And that's unfortunate because that's a huge part of the business. Sometimes it's too much. But hey, if there's no money in the bank, you can't buy shit. You can't fucking operate anyway. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go there. And nau kind of worked out okay, but same thing turned into this. Like, this is doing nothing for me. I'm paying you guys to teach me something that I already know, and I'm going to work over here. And it was a brew pub and working 40 plus hours a week over there while taking a full load at school. And I was breezing through school, but I was getting paid to learn in the restaurant, right? And I'm like, so why am I going to school again? Thing. And I was like, okay. So I finished that off. I didn't end up I didn't get the degree. But it was just like, okay, I'm just going to stick with that. And I was I started there as just as a cook and grew to, like I guess it would be the equivalent of a sue pretty quickly. But this was also a smaller college town, and 99% of the cooks that were there were college kids that just didn't have the charisma to be in the dining room. So I became sue, not just because of work ethic and all that stuff, but also because it was like, okay, you're not really going anywhere anytime soon. And then from there, I ended up back in California, Southern California, and did a couple of different things there. I actually worked as a front of the house for a while just to kind of get some money. And I hated serving. I hated it. I could do it, and I was all right with it, but I just hated it. And then I did a job where it was weird. It was like Real housewives of Orange County kind of shit. And honestly, I think she was on the show, too, when it finally came into that area where her husband had some software company or something, just tons of money. And so he bought her a restaurant so she would have something to do, all right? And it was a ground up construction, and they had someone that they knew that was helping them, but they also hired a consultant. And so I worked with a consultant, got to know him pretty well, and we had a pretty good relationship. And I will never forget this one. We were handed a manila folder with just tear outs from magazines of recipes. And it's like, this is our menu. We covered the walk in parchment paper, right? And then just put and just drew a bunch of fucking squares and then the titles of all the recipes. And then just me and a couple of other guys would then go through and then work on scaling those recipes into professional recipes. And, like, okay, this works. This doesn't. Because it's like you don't go and it's like you're making something. You're like, okay, I need a cup of butter. What the fuck is a cup of butter? But also, just as you know, too, when you go to scale things and scale spices, they don't always scale the same way. But there was this one recipe, it was like some kind of shrimp dish. And the way they described it versus what the recipe was written, like, we could never get it right because we never knew what the finished dish was supposed to be. And they would try to tell us, and we would try to execute, and we were executing what they were saying, but it was always wrong. And they would come back all the time like, what the fuck is this? And this but nobody's like, I don't know. And they would just get so pissed about that stuff. But it was like one of those things that's like, I don't know what to tell you. And they react, fix it. I'm like, I don't know what I'm fixing. I don't know what it's supposed to be. But, yeah, that was a very interesting get right there, and then from there, I ended up in Indianapolis. Did not have a job or anything lined up over there. Moved there for other reasons and just got a job once I landed. And it was at the Oceanaire and they were building out, right? They were getting ready to open. So I was kind of a late hire to them as well. And I was joined them as a saute cook. And I remember in the elevator with the chef, and he's like, you ever done any volume cooking? And I instantly was like, oh, shit. Because I kind of done some, but not to the scale that we were about to do. But oceanaire, I was a saute cook, man. I got fucking my shit kicked in on a daily basis. A lot of that stuff is very saute heavy, two, three pan pickups, pan sauces, all that fun stuff. And it was fun. You definitely learned to cook differently. When you're doing seafood, there's a ton more finesse that's involved. Your margin of error is much less. And when it comes to creating elements that go with seafood too, you also got to be much more careful because you can overpower fish very fast, right? But we were creating for 500 cover nights, and everything came in fresh. Everything was butchered in house. Man, those butcher shifts sucked whenever the butcher was out. When I was finally a sue over there or a lead cook, I kept a duffel bag in the office, which is fucking long johns because the butcher you worked, it was an eight to ten hour shift in a walk in, right? And the butcher table and sink and all that stuff was in the walk in. Sometimes you'd be working and you'd see blood on your hand and you weren't sure where it came from. Did I cut myself? The fish have the blood. It's the same color. And you're just like, oh, fuck, where did this come from? You couldn't feel your fingertips.Speaker C 00:17:44I've never seen anything like that.Speaker B 00:17:46That's cool. Yeah. And then so I was there for about a year and a half or no, close to three years, and just worked my way up through the ranks there, you know, from line cook, lead line, sous chef, execs sue. I helped them open up the restaurant in San Diego as a saute trainer. That was fun. But I was always very intense, always very intense person. And I'm a big guy, and so people have always been scared of me, which I'm just a fucking teddy bear, right? But like any teddy bear, you just don't want to piss me off. But no, there's a few times they're like, hey, dude, take it easy. We don't need these guys quitting yet. But I was just like, dude, come on. You're getting ready to open. And every time we'd fire something, they'd have to stop and look at their notes. I'm like, no, come on, let's let's go. Go. Let's go. I've always been that way. Mike, you got to start trusting yourself. You can't stop and look at your notes every time you got to do something right? Guess what? You're going to fuck up. I guarantee it. But that's also how you're going to learn. If you don't screw up, then you don't know how to fix anything because you've never screwed it up. And if you don't know how to fix it, then you're in worse shape than you've ever been in now. You're going to have to rely on other people. But anyway, so no. And then I moved down from Indianapolis to Dallas when the exec position opened up. And so I was 29. I was the youngest exec in the company at that time. And they just said, Fix it. Things were not as oceanaire as they needed it to be, right? That was the way they put it. They were burning stuff and sending out burnt stuff and it's like, man, it's we're too high scalable place and to be sending out food that's burnt. And so I did, and we kind of brought it back and we had a lot of fun. And then the company itself started going through some hardships. I was struggling as well with the company because just of my personality, my intensity, and there was a lot of that, why are you mad all the time? Kind of shit. And I'm like, I'm not. I'm making sure I'm hurt. But I also didn't take shit. I did not take any shit from anybody. I had two brothers that worked for me that got into a fight on the line on Mother's Day brunch. It was like one of the fucking two days of that year we did brunch and they started to get into a fight on who was doing the poached eggs or whatever, and I fucking kicked them both off the line. Get the fuck out of here. I didn't take shit. Right? That's part of as a younger cook as well, in a lot of ways, where I believed in a lot more structure and a lot more I want to say a lot more structure. But structure needed to be there. The level of fuck off. You can have fun, but at a certain point, hey, time to buckle up, time to be professional, right? Yeah. It's time to get your head in the game. You should always have your head in the game, right? But there are times when you can be a little bit more relaxed. And that restaurant, for the longest time was very relaxed. The GM, he made his decisions by whoever kicked up the most dust got the fucking candy. And that is not how I work. Whoever kicks up the most dust is most likely to get my fucking foot up their ass. And so it just became a very confrontational environment for everybody. So I left and got the opportunity to build out a restaurant down in Dallas, the Metals of Mouth. So that was the opening chef for that one. And that one was a lot of fun. It was the first real ground up build that I've done where I was 100%, had the input on what was going on and working with the owners on creating the menu and then the actual physical space.Speaker C 00:22:45That was like a brew pub, too.Speaker B 00:22:48We didn't brew anything there. It was a beer centric, right? We had maybe 100 taps or something. There was a lot, right? 50 somewhere in that range. Somewhere in the range of just, that's a lot. And damn, that's a lot, right? But it was all beer centric, right? Very small wine. People weren't drinking wine. They came there for the different beers. And we did beer dinners. I did beer dinners with garrett Oliver from Brooklyn Brewing. Met him. Fantastic guy. Ken with sierra Nevada, guys like Bob Ross. He's very quiet, but that was colby. He's very much a recluse, right? And so to get him out and do a dinner with him was a lot of fun. Adam avery with Avery brewering. We can go on and on, but at the time, this was 2010, beer was a very big thing, and a lot of these big name breweries were coming there, and they were coming to Dallas to do dinners with us. They weren't hitting other places. That was a lot of fun. We were doing beer dinners all the time, so we were always creating. People would come to us and be like, hey, I want to do a beer dinner for ten over in the private room, kind of thing. It was like, Cool, let's do it, right? We did it. But that one was just, holy shit. The kitchen was fucking tiny. The size of a bedroom, of a normal bedroom, I think it was. By the time it was all said and done, it was like 13 deep by 18 wide or something. But that was the prep kitchen, too. Like, once you go behind it, where you'd think some prep and other stuff was going on. No, that was just a dishwasher. It wasn't big enough to do anything else with the space. There's no refrigeration back there either. I think there was maybe a couple of countertops work tops, but that's it. And dude, from the time we opened, the time we closed, it was packed, and we were losing cooks because it was too busy, and because a lot of these guys are it's their second job, and it was just a fucking beating because everybody knows the same. If you're not a day ahead, you're a day behind on your prep, right? So all the prep you're doing today should be to set you up tomorrow. So you're not behind, right? You're always working that day ahead. Well, at the end of the night, yeah, we would have no product left because we weren't allowed to 86 stuff. And so many times we were making stuff to order. And so by the end of the night, like, everything's just cleaned out. Like the walk in is empty. I mean, we are getting deliveries daily just because one, our walk in was fucking tiny shit. These guys, they had done bars. All they had done before was bars. This is their first restaurant. I was their first chef. And they're like, this isn't a restaurant, this is a bar. We're only going to do about 40%, 30% food out of here anyway, so that's what they built for. Even though there is a reservation system and a hostess and everything that a restaurant has, bars don't. So they called a restaurant now, but I think it took them like ten years. But no, that thing just kicked ass. From the day it opened. We were in the running for best new restaurant. We lost out. I think we essentially just came in second place for that. But that was kind of a pretty cool thing to do. But we wanted to try to be more I don't want to say edgy, but aggressive with the food, right? It was probably one of the first places, really, that we had bone marrow, sweet breads. I'm trying to remember other stuff we were playing with lambs tongue. Those were all on your appetizer list. Not separately, but on the same day. You want the sweet breads, the marrow or the lambstone? But we wanted to be kind of aggressive in that means of just kind of bringing new foods to Dallas that weren't necessarily scary. I mean, the rest of the world was eating it, but they kind of get people involved in it and they did really well. It was definitely one of those people were getting stuff just to fucking I bet you can't eat this kind of thing. And then all of a sudden, they were fucking loving it. It was like dealing with fucking 30 year old fucking children. Just eat it. I know you're going to like it's. Pretty good. Yeah, I love that scene when people would say something like, oh, it's actually pretty good. Also. You expected it to suck. No, that's not what I said. I'm like, yeah, it is. You expected it to suck because it was actually good. But no, the moth was great. And creating a lot of attention for myself kind of gave me onto the chef list of Dallas, if you will, just because I was more aggressive with food and we were having fun. But it got to the point where every time one of the owners would come in, I just saw Red. All I could see was myself just grabbing him by the throat. And it sucks because he's a good person and I learned a lot from him, but it was just our relationship had come to an end and so I moved on. I was going to actually open up my own place at that point. And we had scouted the properties and we had a signed lease. My wife is an architect, and so the firm she was with, we had set plans that cost us nothing, right? We had the full plans, everything you need to do to build out. And we even had some investors lined up. And then it just got to the point, after six months of dealing with the landlords in the city, it was no longer feasible for us to continue because it was just more political shit involved. And it was like, well, I can't just sit here and wait for you guys to work out the politics. What area was it in, lois? greenville.Speaker C 00:30:24Cool.Speaker B 00:30:27That area is popping now, but we went into it back when. So that area, it was a ton of clubs at one point.Speaker C 00:30:41Mostly just bars.Speaker B 00:30:43Yeah, but it's surrounded by neighborhoods, family neighborhoods all around it. And so they finally just went in after lots of police activity. One of the bar owners was, I don't know, they caught him with like a fucking trunk full of drugs and some other stuff. I don't remember all the details. He was selling out of the club. So they pretty much went in and put in an ordinance that no bars could be opened past like ten or eleven. Most of those places didn't open until like ten or whatever it was. And so you had to apply for a special permit if you wanted to be open past until 02:00. Right? And just everything that came in there, like denied, denied. So they ran everybody out, but the city was working on revamping that whole area. And we were like, hey, timing is there. And we're the kind of restaurant that is going to fit what you're looking for. We're not going to be a family restaurant necessarily. We're not going to have a fucking playground in the back. But you got kids, come on in. We can cater. We wanted to build like a neighborhood restaurant, just your neighborhood bistro kind of thing, but that just all fell through. But during that time though, I started working with a place called The grape and been there for about 40 years, I think. And the chef that was running it, Brian, was just known as like the chef's chef. And I was only working there kind of part time, picking up grill, chefs kind of thing, and I fucking loved it. It took me back into and reminded me how much I just loved to cook. I got so caught up in management and running things and other stuff that I kind of forgot what it was to love cooking. And then after that, that was a short period of time. And then my daughter was getting close to being born, and then I was like, well, I kind of need to have a real paycheck. And then I ended up at another Dallas institution, cafe Pacific same thing that had been there for I think it's been there since 1980. And they brought me on, and they're like, hey, we need to kind of bring in some new energies, some fresh life. That's what I did. We went in, reformatted the entire menu when I was there. When I got there in 2012, the menu folders or whatever it is, are the same ones that they'd use from 1980.Speaker C 00:33:51Wow.Speaker B 00:33:52Right? Yeah. They weren't updating anything, so we went in and updated everything, changed up some wineless stuff and just made it much more presentable. Kind of gave it a steak house feel. But with the seafood presentation, it started to do a much better and still has a very old clientele. He got to meet a lot of rich Dallas money. The owner would be like, there's like four billionaires in here right now. Okay. And then from there, I ended up working with you. And it was actually because of the moth, because the guys were like they specifically said, hey, we want to do the moth, but up here. And the guy they were talking to, the recruiter, was like, okay, I know, guy. So he gave me a call, and I was like, okay, let's do it.Speaker C 00:35:00When you signed on for that, was the idea just to do the one restaurant, or was it pretty laid out that we're going to do multiple concepts right off the bat?Speaker B 00:35:16Yeah, that's the best way to put it. I knew they wanted to do multiple concepts. There was like, hey, we're hiring you to do this one concept. And but there's potential to do some other stuff. Right. They wanted to kind of fill me out a little bit, which makes sense. But before we even got the first one open, they had me on a plane out to fucking Seattle, go test drive and learn how to use these pizza ovens for this other restaurant they were working on. So it was like, well, shit. All right. I guess that test drives over. Before the first one was open, I was already working on the second restaurant.Speaker C 00:36:06Yeah.Speaker B 00:36:10Well, that's my story. I'm sticking to it.Speaker C 00:36:19What about what happened there since then? Do you want to touch on that?Speaker B 00:36:25What happened there? I feel like you're fishing for something here. What are you fishing for?Speaker C 00:36:36Well, there's a reason we're talking on this podcast right now, right? You're not still in the kitchen.Speaker B 00:36:43Well, yeah, no, I retired from the kitchen. From the kitchen? Really? Two years ago. And I don't want to say that it was the restaurants that did it to me. It was me that did it to me. It just happened to be where I was at. And in the timing of it all, my personality is very much head down, let's go. You can either follow me, or I just can run you the fuck over. And that personality still exists today? Very much so. But. I didn't have an on off switch necessarily. I didn't have different gears. I couldn't downshift as much as I would try. But I always took a lot of responsibility making sure that people were taken care of as well. So when COVID hit and we laid off, I forget what the final number was, but it was several hundred people, even though I had no impact on that. We didn't lay anybody off because of any decision that I made. Right. I mean, this was just happening nationwide, but I felt a lot of pressure, I felt a lot of responsibility. And it was kind of a weird sense of failure and responsibility of like, okay, how do I get these people back to work now? And then at that point, I didn't even know how long I was going to have a job for. I went through and we laid some people off and then it was like, okay, now what? We went right back to getting things open. And I just worked nonstop at that point, just trying to figure out how we could reopen each concept in a drive through format. Right. Luckily, by the time we got to the last one, things were opening up a little bit more. Still hard. But we were also faced with the challenge of how do we also keep numbers down? Like, we're not going to have the volume, so how do we I don't want to say it, but there's a lot of like, how do we take shortcuts? I was not vibing with that, and I wasn't that was kind of annoying some people, but they let me do my thing. But the other part that was a challenge for me is I wasn't getting a lot of feedback from anywhere else. So I spent probably, god, I don't know, close to a year, right, eight months, not knowing if I was going to be fired tomorrow. And that kind of weighed on me a little bit, but it was like, okay, fuck it. Let's just keep going. And then finally it got to the point where my body just broke. Mentally and physically, it just broke. So this is during COVID and it kind of sucks because instantly everything was just covered. Then if you had something.Speaker C 00:40:49Looked at you real weird.Speaker B 00:40:51Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, you kind of had a COVID. shove something up your fucking nose and see if you got COVID, man. I've had some brutal COVID tests. Next thing I know, I'm locked up in my room, but I wasn't getting any better. And so one did a COVID test. A couple of days go by, it's negative talking to me. Still have a bunch of the symptoms of how I'm feeling. Go back, take another COVID test, and I drive up to the COVID test because everything was drive through at that point still. The nurse was out there. And this is my doctor's office, the one I was going to I wasn't going to another clinic or something. I went to the people I knew and she's like, you look like shit. I was like, thank you. And so does the COVID test. And she's like, hey, I'll be right back and grab some other stuff. grabs my blood pressure, does the pulse ox and all that stuff. And my blood pressure was like I don't remember what it was, but it was low. And my pulse ox was really low. So my oxygen in my blood was low. My blood pressure was low. Apparently I was really white and I just had these cold sweats going on. But I felt normal, right? I was functioning. I was like, no, I feel a little crappy. And she's like, you need to get to the yard now. She's like, do you need me to call someone to come get you? And all of a sudden I just panic set in. I'm like, Fuck, no, I can get there. But so I drove over to the er and they checked me in, obviously. So I go in and you have to check in out front. And like, no, I'm here because yada, yada, yada. Next thing I know, like, they've got like, this fucking armband on me. And then people are coming out and like has mad suits and shit to take me into this fucking room. And it was just like, damn. But I mean, it was all precaution. I get it. And fucking did a rotor ruder job on my nose just to fucking get a COVID sample. I mean, my nose was bleeding for a couple of minutes after this COVID test. And the guy was like, COVID test is only as good as a swab. Damn. So within an hour or two later, that comes back negative. Still hazmat suits come off. They start doing blood cultures, blood work. They come in, they had me do an X ray. Then they took me in for a ct scan of my lungs. They had me on oxygen the whole time. And over the period of about 6 hours, my oxygen and blood pressure slowly recovered. I was there for about 6 hours getting fluid and oxygen. And the nurse comes in. He's like, so the doctor tell you what happens if this comes back positive? Like, no. And this is before. He's like, yeah, so if you come back positive, we're sending you to this hospital over here in plano. And it was this was also during the time where if you were admitted to a hospital, you didn't leave. And then it was like, well, shit, if I would have known this, I want to fucking come here. But my oxygen wasn't recovering either. So finally blood everything like, okay, we're not going to admit you with COVID You're not getting transferred anywhere. But we couldn't get my oxygen up. And so they're like, okay, we're going to admit you for that. And I was like, Fuck, was like, well, it's very dangerous because your body will essentially just start doing a lot of damage. But anyway, so finally they got to the point where they're like, okay, we're going to let you go. I think they just didn't want to admit me, but if you ever start feeling xyz, come back immediately. I was like, sure, not going to happen. And then but that was it. And then shortly after that, a couple of weeks after that, my wife and I decided to take a vacation. We just need to get away. And we did. We ended up in Colorado. lestes park, and Rocky Mountain National Park had just reopened, and we were up there with my family, and it was great. Just got grounded. I'm very much one of those people. I'm not a hippy kind of thing, but there's something about being out in a forest. It's the vitamin D, the sun energy. It helps reground you. And I just felt better and came back after about a week and felt good. Went back to work, came home that day, and I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm done. We started talking about it, and the reason for that is I knew that if I kept going back, that I would put myself right back to where I started, because I didn't have that control. And two, I didn't have what's the word I'm looking for? I don't know, but just my work ethic and who I was, and I didn't have the resources outside of work to kind of control stress, right? And so I would have just put myself right back to where I started. I would have been burned out again. I would have just had this short fuse, and it would have happened really quick. And I saw that and I was just like, this isn't for me. And then at that point, just more things started happening. This was probably maybe August or something of 20. And then October of that year, my dad passed natural causes wasn't COVID. He actually just said, I'm done. He had been locked up for a while. Not locked up, he was in a home, but nobody could go visit him, so he just refused meds and just checked out. And then six weeks after that, my father in law passed away from COVID related symptoms the day after Thanksgiving. And then it was just all this stuff was going on, and then people were passing away that were close, and it was like, yeah, we're making the right decision. And also, luckily, my wife has got a great career, and she was with a firm that really appreciated her and was helping her grow. And so if it wasn't for her being in the position where she was at, it would have been a much harder decision for us to make. But we went from a two income household down to one, but that one income was still solid enough, right? Yeah. We still need to make some adjustments, and we're working through that. We had some money in the bank, but that's kind of drying up. So that just made that decision. It's like, okay, let's step away. We'll figure out what we're going to do. But first things first is like, let's start getting healthy ish right. But my wife, her thing, too, was she did not want me just to completely walk away from restaurants. She's like, there's no way you can there's no way you can completely walk away from just cooking. And the other part, she put she's like, we've also invested too much in you and kind of building a brand for myself in the Dallas area to just give that all up. So we need to kind of make sure we stay involved in that. So that's kind of where Chef made home, then came along. Now I'm here today, correct? Yeah. That sounds long winded to some, but that's the short story, too.Speaker C 00:49:36Well, I enjoyed it.Speaker A 00:49:37Hey, thanks for listening to this episode on season two and learning a hell of a lot more about me than you probably realized you wanted to know. And next up, we're going to be talking a little bit about Morris and more detail of his growth, and then we'll kind of we start tying that together in the next episode. All right, once again, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Chad Kelly with Josh Morris. This is inside the pressure cooker.

Juan Antonio Cuéllar has been responsible for digitizing the most extensive collection of Mexican and Mexican American recordings in the world known as The Strachwitz Frontera Collection. Since February 2002, Cuéllar has personally digitized, listened to, and archived over 130k songs, which are currently available through the UCLA Digital Library.  Born in Los Caños, Aguascalientes, he immigrated with his family to Northern California to start a new life.  He was raised in Santa Cruz and eventually moved to San Francisco to attend the California Culinary Academy where he worked the hotel circuit in and around San Francisco until he took another creative outlet, and that was playing trombone for San Francisco-based bilingual Punk band, La Plebe.  Cuellar is in the finishing stages of digitizing the collection and will start on the next phase which is to disseminate the knowledge he has acquired over the last 20 years of digitizing and is transitioning into a new position as the Frontera Collection Curator at the Arhoolie Foundation.  This past September marked the first of what will be many exhibitions curated by Cuellar called "Rumo A California."  The exhibit looks at California record labels and how they documented and promoted Mexican music in the state over the last 100 years. Frontera YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fronteracollection4016 Frontera Collection at UCLA: https://frontera.library.ucla.edu/ Rumbo a California Online Exhibition: https://rumboacalifornia.org/ Lydia Mendoza song: Canta, Pajarito Canta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqVj0uhcIJI&ab_channel=FronteraCollection Lydia Mendoza Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJv1UYhNlyyA0KEjbJNHztPZLCirum1vZ

Episode 095: Voices of Mothers in Practice What can architecture firms do to support mothers who are working in practice? Leaders of the profession share diverse perspectives on their identity between practice and motherhood. This discussion aims to explore the experiences of working mothers in diverse career stages who are raising children of different ages. Practice Disrupted is committed to elevating conversations on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion to teach, empower, and build greater awareness across the industry. Guests: Christina Cho Yoo, AIA, PE, LEED AP BD+C is co-founder of Atelier Cho Thompson. She received a BS & MS inhttp://cee.stanford.edu/ ( civil & structural engineering and construction management) athttp://www.stanford.edu/ ( Stanford University) and received a masters in architecture at thehttp://www.gsd.harvard.edu/ ( Harvard Graduate School of Design). She was a structural engineer at the international engineering companyhttp://www.arup.com/ ( Arup), where she was the Structural Sustainability Champion for the Americas & worked on projects such as thehttp://www.holcimfoundation.org/Projects/new-sustainable-california-academy-of-sciences-usa ( LEED-Double Platinum)http://calacademy.org/ ( California Academy of Sciences), Contemporary Jewish Museum, Kaiser hospitals,http://www.arup.com/projects/robert_schroder_overcrossing ( Schroder Overcrossing), and various other projects. She went onto work at architecture firms internationally including Kao Design Group on Richard Branson's Eco-Island,http://shoparc.com/ ( SHoP Architects) on the Google HQ,http://enthepractice.neriandhu.com/ ( Neri & Hu) inhttp://www.archdaily.com/417308/design-republic-design-commune-neri-and-hu-design-and-research-office/ ( Shanghai),http://www.massstudies.com/ ( Mass Studies) in Seoul, andhttp://www.bcj.com/ ( Bohlin Cywinski Jackson) onhttp://www.apple.com/jp/retail/omotesando/ ( Apple stores), the Apple iAd office, and the Square HQ. Christina is a licensed architect and engineer in California and has been LEED accredited since 2003. Her work has spanned typologies from single-family to multifamily residences, hospitals, labs, museums, innovative workplaces, hospitality and food service, to retail, exhibits, furniture, and graphics for various organizations. Before architecture school, she staged at Tartine Bakery while taking courses at the California Culinary Academy. She has lectured on Green R&D at Harvard and served as a critic at Parsons, Stanford, Harvard, & the California College of the Arts (CCA). She is an Adjunct Professor at the CCA, having taught advanced urban studio on the Post-Retail City and Integrated Building Systems. She served as Design & Innovation Chair of the Stanford Club of SF and currently is on the Board of Directors at Pacific Primary School. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-matthews-4a253528/ (Jennifer T. Matthews, Associate AIA), is a full-time remote Architectural Designer at SS&A Design Collective based in Montgomery, Alabama. With eight years of healthcare design experience, Jennifer has worked on architectural projects for multiple healthcare providers and national government entities across the United States. She was awarded the 2018 Healthcare Design Magazine's Educator Honor Award for creating an annual event that introduces architecture students to healthcare design and careers within. Her recent outreach efforts include professional practice seminars and managing her professional development platform, https://www.creativesxp.com/ (Creative's XP).  In 2013, Jennifer graduated from Tuskegee University with a Bachelor of Architecture. In 2020, she acquired a Master of Arts degree in Business Design and Arts Leadership from The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Jennifer served as the 2013-2014 National Vice President of the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS).

Ken Hom OBE is the man who showed the British how to cook Asian food. A leading authority on Chinese cuisine, he is one of the most respected and celebrated TV chefs of all time. His phenomenal success is easily measured. He is the author of almost 40 books, which have inspired millions of home cooks around the world. And in Britain alone, the Ken Hom wok is found in one in seven kitchens. Ken Hom, who resides in France and in Thailand but travels tirelessly all over the world, continues to appear regularly as a celebrity chef, write books and keep involvement with restaurants worldwide. On any one day, when googling the name ‘Ken Hom' the search brings back an amazing average of 45,600,00 results.Additionally, he has been one of the fathers in articulating what is now popularly known as ‘fusion cooking'. His seminal book called East Meets West Cuisine was published in 1986. It was his natural development of cultural experiences and elective affinities that lend to the blending of Eastern and Western foods, seasonings, and techniques derived from his family life, professional teaching career and travels. The success of the concept led him to create menus for airlines, and hotel restaurants worldwide as well as restaurant concepts over the last 45 years.Ken was born in 1949 in Tucson, Arizona, where his Cantonese parents had emigrated. After losing his father when he was just eight months old, his mother moved to Chicago to be with relatives. (In 2022, Ken's father was honoured with the award of Congressional Gold Medal for his services during World War II). As Ken grew up, he found American food unpalatable compared to his mother's cooking, so she used to send him to school with a flask of hot rice and stir-fried vegetables.Aged 11, he went to work in his uncle's restaurant, where he earned the equivalent of 30 pence per day. At 19 he headed off to California to study art history and French history. To pay for his university fees he started to give cookery lessons and quickly realised that this was where his heart really laid – especially with his native Chinese cuisine. He soon started teaching first in his home, and then at the California Culinary Academy (a school for professional chefs in San Francisco). He also travelled to France and Italy to explore gastronomy further. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chef Shirley Chung A native of Beijing, she moved to the U.S. to obtain a degree in Business Management, then trained in the culinary arts at the California Culinary Academy.

The next generation of culinary artisans are changing up the industry. These artisans have a whole new approach to reaching and satisfying the next generation consumer. In this podcast we will explore chefs and artisans from around the world diving into their story and passion. In this episode of Chef AF, I chat with Chef Shirley Chung, about finding her love for cooking, working in several superstar chef's kitchens and sharing her Chinese food heritage through her Chinese American cuisine at Ms Chi Cafe in Culver City, California. Chung is a native of Beijing and moved to the United States to get her degree in business management. She talks about loving food growing up and says, “when I first came to America the way for me to learn english I guess the fastest way naturally was through food.” Chung got her business degree from Cal State Hayward and began working in Silicon Valley for six years. In early 2000 when the dot-com bubble burst, Chung decided to go to the California Culinary Academy and train in culinary arts. This is when she discovered her calling. Chung knew she wanted to work for the best and learn from the best. She had an impressive start to her career, she started her externship at Thomas Keller's French Laundry, and then went to Bouchon in Yountville. Chung opened Bouchon's Las Vegas location and then moved to Restaurant Guy Savoy in Caesars Palace. Chung says about that time, “Being in Las Vegas is definitely like a really amazing stage to work for all of the celebrity chefs from all over the world.” Adding, “So I got a reputation to become the opener for all celebrity chefs.” She opened Mario Batali's B&B Ristorante and in 2010 Chung became the Executive Chef of Jose Andres' China Poblano. She has twelve new restaurant openings under her belt. Chef Chung shares that she struggled with depression and began to feel burned out. Chung takes a mental health leave and during that time Top Chef's casting was looking for Chung. In 2013, Chef Chung was a contestant on Bravo's Top Chef Season 11 where she finished top 3. She was invited back to Top Chef Season 14 where she was the runner up. We talk about Ms Chi Cafe, Chung and her husband Jimmy's restaurant in Culver City, California. They opened in 2018 even though Jimmy wanted to open an Oyster Bar. Chung says she wanted to do Chinese American comfort food and make everything she literally wanted to eat. You can get Chef Shirley Chung's Vegan Scallion Pancake recipe on Chef AF. Chung talks about surviving the pandemic, selling on Goldbelly and co-founding the Dumpling Mafia NFT, a chef driven NFT on this episode of Chef AF “It's All Food.” You can check out this episode and more on Spotify!

IN THIS EPISODE OF THE HUMAN UPGRADE™...... you're going to find out how to cook differently using an innovative kitchen appliance, Brava, that's got some cool features that will get you excited about making your meals at home—always a good idea!First—what Brava is not. The Brava countertop cooking oven isn't a microwave, isn't a toaster oven, and isn't a convection oven.Instead, it's a device that cooks with light. Six lamps deliver exact, variable, infrared light waves to your food. Brava synchronizes and controls the amount of power each lamp emits. Simultaneously, the lamps instantly reach full power and turn off just as quickly, creating three independent cooking zones inside the chamber. The top five benefits of this cooking method include: Searing (great for your grass-fed steaks), precision, versatility, speed and quality. Brava also cooks up to three different ingredients at the same time. You can air fry, dehydrate and cook your favorite white rice in it (Bulletproof Diet approved). It's user- and kid-friendly, so your whole family can be part of a lifestyle that prioritizes food that nourishes your body and ups your energy.Brava's vice president and professional chef, Travis Rea, led the Brava Culinary Team in developing Brava's patented Pure Light Technology (physicists and mathematicians were in on it, too). He's on the show to explain the technology behind Brava and how cooking with light will change your entire approach to food.Travis earned a degree in Culinary Arts at the California Culinary Academy. Prior to Brava, he headed the Food Development team at Williams-Sonoma for eight years where he developed nearly 800 private label food products. His experience also includes leadership roles at Revolution Foods and NatureBox. So, he knows the many facets of creating great food.Brava takes out the guesswork of meal planning by offering over 7,000 fully automated recipe programs. This means you can enjoy cooking more because it takes less of your time.SPECIAL OFFER FOR LISTENERS OF THE HUMAN UPGRADE: https://www.brava.com, use code DAVE at checkout to get $200 OFF any Brava set through December 31, 2022. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Michael Kalanty was my faculty colleague when I taught at the California Culinary Academy back in the 1990's. Since then, he and I have been on parallel tracks, both as educators, bread book authors, and as product developers. In this episode, Michael shares his long and winding road including pastry chef, bread expert and educator, product developer for major food companies, and even how he became a "Certified Master Taster." All of which brings us to his most recent project, developing a new kind of bread for Craig Stoll at San Francisco's popular, award-winning Delfina Restaurant and Pizzeria Delfina. I got a sneak peek taste of this wonderful new, light as air, addictively delicious bread on a recent trip to SF, and Michael fills us in on its back story and takes us through the creative process of how a new product develops from an idea into full manifestation. It's a fascinating journey and you will hear all about it here, just days before the new Pane di Pala, hits the menu at Delfina. Remember, you heard about it here first, on Pizza Quest.Click here for the video versions of Pizza Quest. If you count on HRN content, become a monthly sustaining donor at heritageradionetwork.org/donate.Pizza Quest is Powered by Simplecast.

Born in Lisbon, Portugal. Nuno Mendes grew up on a farm which inspired a passion and understanding for food. He attended the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco but after over a decade in North America, he decided he wanted to return to Europe. Moving to London, Nuno founded the cult domestic pop-up known as The Loft Project and later went on to take over the restaurant at the Chiltern Firehouse, and his latest venture Lisboeta has already made the Estrella Damm awards shortlist.  On the podcast, Nuno talks about his Portuguese roots, his love of Japanese cooking and how he could see London's gastronomic revolution coming. 

Born in Lisbon, Portugal. Nuno Mendes grew up on a farm which inspired a passion and understanding for food. He attended the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco but after over a decade in North America, he decided he wanted to return to Europe. Moving to London, Nuno founded the cult domestic pop-up known as The Loft Project and later went on to take over the restaurant at the Chiltern Firehouse, and his latest venture Lisboeta has already made the Estrella Damm awards shortlist.  On the podcast, Nuno talks about his Portuguese roots, his love of Japanese cooking and how he could see London's gastronomic revolution coming. 

We don't hear from the chefs in our industry nearly enough. This particular chef is covering a TON of ground with the properties he is working with, so he was the perfect guest for this episode. Chef Jeff gives us insight from his perspective about working with event organizers on menu development, some trends he is seeing and his company is working towards, and more. Chef has an affinity for eco-friendly practices in food and beverage also, so we learn about some of that as well. Jeff LeidySenior Executive Chef-West at Sodexo Live Chef Jeff Leidy, Senior Executive Chef-West at Sodexo Live, is one of those lucky people who found his calling at a very young age. He began his four-decade-long career as a culinary professional at the age of 16, starting as a busboy in a steak and seafood house, where he quickly moved into the kitchen and fell in love with the culinary arts.   Before assuming his current role at venue hospitality partner Sodexo Live!, where he is responsible for overseeing all culinary operations for the Western U.S. and Canada, Leidy acted as the regional chef for the organization, overseeing culinary operations at the San Diego Convention Center and surrounding area venues. Chef Jeff graduated with honors from The California Culinary Academy in San Francisco and launched a career that has included working in major and minor league sports, convention centers, museums, zoos and other cultural destinations.  Jeff's Instagram is @LeidyJeff ~*~*~ The "Trade Show Talk" podcast is publishing two episodes per month, focusing on a different theme each month. If you'd like to be a sponsor or a guest or you have a topic to suggest we cover, please let us know by emailing podcast@tsnn.com.  

When it's dark, cloudy, rainy and depressing outside and you're having trouble getting motivated, you need to RALLY yourself. That's what Alan Maniscalco and Shan Wickham have done for, and to, each other since starting Rally Pizza in 2016 in Vancouver, Washington. And that's how they feel about their customers, that they too should rally into their restaurant to celebrate, whether a birthday, an anniversary or just to get out of the house on a rainy Tuesday and shake the blues. The husband-wife duo has a great division of labor. Shan is Rally Pizza's General Manager and Pastry Chef. She grew up baking with her mother and grandmother before attending California Culinary Academy, and now creates Rally Pizza's incredible vanilla frozen custard sundaes, shakes and Midwest-style ‘concretes' mixed with her house-baked goods. Alan serves as Executive Chef with more than 20 years' experience as a baker, cook and pizza maker. The two met while working at Restaurant Zibibbo in Palo Alto because Alan had hired Shan right out of culinary school. They went on to open Stone House Bread South in Michigan, consult for community supported bakery Avalon International Breads in Detroit, and redesign the Whole Foods Market artisan bread line - Shan managing the bakery and Alan running the bread program. From 2006-2016, Alan led the kitchen at Ken's Artisan Pizza in Portland, when it was considered one of the city's most respected restaurants and among America's top pizzerias. When they struck out on their own, their mission was to provide an uplifting atmosphere along with authentic Sicilian dishes and local, fresh ingredients and that is clearly evident when you walk in. The dining room is open and bright, the location is easy to get to for the greater metro area residents and there is plenty of parking. The restaurant is family-friendly, specializing in ingredient-driven Neapolitan style pizzas, bountiful farm-fresh salads, handcrafted muffulettas, decadent frozen custard desserts, and tempting cocktails. And according to Shan, they hand make “darn near everything” including the custards and the hand-pulled mozzarella cheese, so it is truly a craft restaurant. The community has appreciated their effort and has been a terrific supporter. Known as one of the “Best Pizza Places in Vancouver” on TripAdvisor, Yelp and Slice Life, the community “rallied” around them with plenty of to-go orders during COVID restrictions. That allowed Shan and Alan to keep themselves in business and the local farmers and suppliers in business as well. The custards are knockout and the salads delicious, but pizza is the calling card here. Start with the dough; the experience at Ken's Artisan Pizza is of course the main ingredient. Shan as the pastry expert uses the basics of flour, water, salt and yeast to begin the simple vegan dough they make every day. It's left in the refrigerator up to a day-and-a-half to give it that tangy flavor. Then the sauce, vegan tomatoes, garlic, chili flakes and salt and as Shan says, “easy cheesy” cheese is next. Sourcing local meats, the couple makes their own lamb and beef meatballs. They offer many gluten-free dishes but sadly, there is no way to serve up a gluten-free pizza. And there are amazing drinks for the adults. Shan and Alan have concocted some incredible cocktails using their custards, handmade syrups and spirits. They make up some “boozy floats” like their Blackberry G & T Float, comprised of house blackberry sauce, frozen custard and a can of Freeland Spirits Gin & Rose Tonic. So rally on over when you're in the area.

Chef Shirley Chung A native of Beijing, she moved to the U.S. to obtain a degree in Business Management, then trained in the culinary arts at the California Culinary Academy.She owned and acted as Chef de Cuisine of Fusion Catering before working for Thomas Keller at Bouchon in Yountville, CA, where she not only honed her culinary talent, but acquired skills in management, inventory and cost control.She opened Bouchon's Las Vegas location as Sous Chef, then moved to the position of Chef de Partie at Restaurant Guy Savoy in Caesars Palace.Continuing to another superstar chef's kitchen, she then opened Mario Batali's B&B Ristorante, progressing to Chef de Cuisine at Carnevino, where she was integral in raising the restaurant up to its current nationally recognized status.In October 2010, she was named Executive Chef of Jose Andres' China Poblano in The Cosmopolitan, where under her leadership, it was nominated for a James Beard Best New Restaurant award.In 2013, Shirley was a chef contestant on Bravo's Top Chef Series Season 11 New Orleans where she finished in the Top 3.Her experience working at China Poblano helped perfect her skill for Chinese cuisine, which she presents with a modern twist at her Orange County restaurantTwenty Eight, which she opened as Chef Partner in 2014.In 2016, Shirley was invited back to Top Chef Season 14 where she was the runner up.In 2018, Chef Shirley and her husband opened Ms Chi Cafe in Culver City which is a casual progressive Chinese-American restaurant serving lunch, dinner and weekend brunch and ships nationwide on Goldbelly.com.In 2019, Chef Shirley was the inaugural chef of Abernethy's, a new restaurant concept and chef- driven project at the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles.In2021, Chef Shirley co-founded Dumpling Mafia NFT which is the first chef driven NFT on the marketIn 2022, Chef Shirley competed among 32 of the best chefs in Guy Fieri's Tournament of Champions on the Food Network

Chef Shawn Naputi was born and raised on Guam. After graduating high school, he followed his passion by attending the California Culinary Academy of San Francisco. During and after culinary school, he worked for some of SF's best restaurants including Incanto and Foreign Cinema. In 2014, he was given an opportunity to follow his dream of opening up his very own Chamorro restaurant, Prubechu on 24th and Mission, with business partner Shawn Camacho. After a brief stint of having to close in 2019, they found their permanent location on 18th and Mission and have been sharing their culture through the love of their food.

Chef Shawn Naputi was born and raised on Guam. After graduating high school, he followed his passion by attending the California Culinary Academy of San Francisco.

Born in Sungai Koyan Felda in Pahang, Chef Wan moved to Kuala Lumpur when he was three years old. At the time, his father was part of the Royal Malaysian Air Force and his family lived at the Sungai Besi base. As the son of a Chinese Singaporean mother and a Malay father, he discovered his passion for entrepreneurship and food selling kuih on the air force base where his father worked. Despite studying to become an accountant, he quit his job to pursue his passion for food and cooking full-time. His perseverance earned him an associate degree in Professional Chef Training and Hotel Management from the California Culinary Academy, San Francisco, and a Ritz Escoffier Diploma (École Ritz Escoffier De Gastronomie Française) from the Ritz Hotel in Paris. Exuding a passion for all aspects of domestic living, Chef Wan has always been synonymous with the latest trends in wellness, cooking, entertaining and decorating. In his capacity as a motivational speaker, he constantly entertains and educates the Malaysian public about the latest trends in these areas using his unique humour and passion. We had a wonderful time finding the ingredients in Chinatown to prepare Chef Wan's Grandmother's Kerabu Udang (Prawn Salad), and then to Kiana's kitchen to make this special dish. RECIPE: Chef Wan's Grandmother's Kerabu Udang (Prawn Salad)

"Mr. Restaurant" Will Knox Interviews the geat Restauratuer Bob Spivak! Bob Spivak is co-founder and co-chairman, president and chief executive officer, for Grill Concepts, Inc., a company that was originally formed in 1988 and became publicly held in 1995. Grill Concepts, Inc. currently operates 20 Daily Grill restaurants throughout Southern and Northern California, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, Texas, Oregon, and Washington. In addition, there are 7 The Grill on the Alley restaurants, which are located in Beverly Hills CA, Hollywood CA, San Jose CA, Westlake Village CA, Chicago IL, Dallas TX, and Aventura FL. Bob, who is a 45-year veteran of the restaurant and food industry, comes from a family that ran restaurants in Los Angeles from 1946 to 1972. Bob began his career working in the family-owned chain of Smokey Joe's barbecue restaurants. After school, he managed several of the family's operations, including the landmark Redwood House in the Los Angeles Civic Center. Bob left the family business to manage the food operations at the Fedco discount department stores and, along with the owners of Fedco Foods, he developed the much-copied Soup N' Such restaurant chain. In the early 1980s, Bob formed a partnership with Michael Weinstock and Dick Shapiro to open the highly successful Beverly Hills restaurant, The Grill on the Alley, a traditional American grill with the by-words, “Quality Without Compromise.” The Grill was inducted into the Fine Dining Hall of Fame by Nation's Restaurant News in 1995. Considered one of Los Angeles' “power spots,” The Grill is the upscale model for the Daily Grill, a concept based on high-quality food and service at a price point that reaches a far wider audience. In 1965, Bob was appointed to the California delegation to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He served on the commission for 3 years. Bob is a director for the California Restaurant Association and is also director and past chairman of the Board of Advisors for The Collins College of Hospitality Management. Bob is also past chairman of the California Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (CRAEF) and has served on the Board of Directors for the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. In September 2000, Bob received the Spirit of Life Award, which is the most prestigious award given by the City of Hope. In 2004, Bob was awarded the California Restaurant Association's Elizabeth Burns Lifetime Achievement Award. Bob was also selected by the California Restaurant Association as their 2006/2007 California Restaurateur of the Year. Bob and his wife Leslie are recipients of the 2006 Robert Mondavi Wine & Food Award. Bob is co-founder of the restaurant development firm, Spivak and Frank. They assist people in developing and opening restaurant concepts. They have worked with Dunkin Donuts, Baskin' Robbins, Take A Bao, Kichi Grill, and Lucky Robata Grill. Take this maiden voyage episode of Mr. Restaurant with Bob Spivak, restaurant icon, Food God! https://www.dailygrill.com https://www.thegrillonthealley.com/westlake-village/

This conversation was a real treat! Mica welcomed us into her beautiful, bright, and cozy restaurant, Pomella (on Piedmont Ave in Oakland), and quickly offered us Baileys and coffee. You can say it was love at first site. The conversation flowed as smoothly as our coffees as we got into why she moved to the Bay from Israel, starting her career in catering, the essence of Israeli food, the ups and downs of owning a business with her now ex-husband, bankruptcy, opening a second restaurant at the start of the pandemic, and how her community, regular customers, and loyal employees keep her going. She is fiery and hilarious, and we could've spent the entire day chatting with her. And we can't forget to mention, the food was AMAZING! (Order the cheese stuffed falafel. You're welcome.) Check out her restaurant, and if you're lucky, you'll get a chance to meet her too.You can follow Pomella Restaurant on IG & FB--Thanks for listening and for your support! We couldn't have reached 600 episodes without your help! --Be well, stay safe, Black Lives Matter, AAPI Lives Matter, and thank you for being vaxxed!--SUPPORT US HERE!Subscribe to our channel on YouTube for behind the scenes footage!Rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts!Visit our website! www.bitchtalkpodcast.comFollow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.Listen every other Thursday 9:30 - 10 am on BFF.FMPOWERED BY GO-TO Productions 

Hi! In this episode we catch up with the Dumpling Mafia—co-host Andy Wang, Chef Shirley Chung, and Caryl Chinn—culinary pros who, in their spare time, have made it a mission to eat all the best Chinese food in Los Angeles and its environs. This autumn, the Dumpling Mafia will launch its first NFT project in collaboration with street artist Narrator and digital currency machine operator CoinCloud. Shirley Chung was born and raised in Beijing and immigrated to the United States for college. She worked in Silicon Valley before enrolling at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. Chung has worked for Thomas Keller, Guy Savoy, and Mario Batali—she opened CarneVino in Los Angeles as Chef de Cuisine for the Batali Group; the restaurant garnered multiple international awards for Best Steak House. She was a finalist on season 11 of Top Chef in New Orleans and was the runner up in season 14. Her newest restaurant concept is Ms Chi Cafe, which is located in Culver City. Caryl Chinn spent 16 years in New York, where she was the Senior Special Events Director at Bon Appetit magazine. She later worked for brands such as American Express, Godiva Chocolate, and the New York Yankees. She collaborated with festival founder Lee Schrager on the establishment of the Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival and produced the first four years of the festival, which, to date, has raised millions of dollars fo charity. In 2010, Chinn founded Caryl Chinn Culinary Consulting. She is on the Advisory Board of C-CAP LA (Careers through Culinary Arts Program), and is on the Culinary Council for the Food Bank for New York City. Chinn graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a BA in History. About us: Chinese Food Fight Club is a multimedia platform and consultancy inspired by a dining club created by Andy Wang and Danica Lo at Legend in New York City in 2011. Our mission is to connect the Chinese-American community with other Asian communities while amplifying the stories of Asian and Asian-American creators, chefs, artists, activists, policy-makers, technologists, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. Thank you so much for watching! Please like and subscribe for future episodes! You can listen to the Chinese Food Fight Club podcast on your favorite podcast platform—such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify—and you can find us elsewhere online on Instagram and at chinesefoodfightclub.com. You can also watch these episodes on YouTube. Stuff we mention: • Dumpling Mafia NFT • Westfield Santa Anita mall • Qing Dao Bread Food • China Poblano by Jose Andres • Las Vegas Chinatown Plaza • Chengdu Taste Las Vegas • James Beard Foundation Awards • New York Wine & Food Festival • Pop Off LA fundraiser • Moo's Craft Barbecue • Ricebox • Anajak Thai

Chef Jorge de la Torre is the Director of Culinary Arts for Kitchen Network-Park Hill, a non-profit incubator/accelerator/commissary for minority owned businesses and a workforce development learning center in Denver, Colorado.Chef de la Torre graduated from the University of New Mexico with a bachelor's degree in business before going to the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. After graduation from culinary school, Jorge worked at various restaurants in San Francisco and Hawaii. He then moved to Vail, Colorado, and worked for Vail Associates and was a chef/owner of a restaurant. He also worked for Whole Foods in Denver, many catering companies, and a steakhouse in NYC before finding his true culinary passion to teach.In 2001, Chef de la Torre began his career as a culinary educator, starting as a chef instructor for The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College in Philadelphia, PA. He joined Johnson & Wales University at their Denver campus in 2002 as the director of culinary operations. He received his master's degree in Adult Education from Colorado State University in 2005 and was promoted to the position of dean of culinary education, a position he held until 2021 when the campus closed.Jorge is on the board for We Don't Waste, a nonprofit that picks up food from restaurants, stadiums, and caterers to distribute for free to those in need. Chef de la Torre is also a council member for CHOW (Culinary Hospitality Outreach and Wellness), which deals with the mental issues found in the culinary world.CULINARY SCHOOL AFFILIATION: California Culinary Academy, San Francisco, CAEmail – jorge@kndenver.comWebsite - https://www.kitchennetworkdenver.com Free Culinary School Stories Recipe eBook: https://bit.ly/culinaryschoolrecipesSign up for our email list / newsletter: https://foodmedianetwork.com/contact RATINGS / REVIEW: If you enjoy this episode or the podcast overall, please consider leaving a short review and ratings on Apple Podcasts / iTunes if you have an iPhone or iPad. It takes less than 30 seconds, and it really makes a difference in spreading the word, getting new listeners and guests, as well as sponsors!To do so, click HERE and then scroll down to the “Ratings & Reviews”; tap the amount of stars you want to give; tap on “Write a Review”; create a headline; write your review; click “Send”. SPONSORSHIP / SUPPORT:If you like the show, this episode, and/or the video clips, why not show your support by buying us a cup or two of coffee to help defray some of the out-of-pocket expenses at: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/chefroche. We truly appreciate the gesture!Individuals can also donate through Patreon! Please support the show at: https://www.patreon.com/DrProfessorChef. If you contribute just the price of a cup of coffee a week, you will be helping to support the hosting, purchasing, creation and production of our episodes and shows that we produce and give away for free.Companies & Businesses interested in advertising or sponsoring the podcast, please contact us at: culinaryschoolstories@gmail.comABOUT THE SHOW: Culinary School Stories is a weekly podcast with engaging interviews that shares the stories of people from around the world that have an association with a culinary school in some way.Each episode we bring you the best stories from people around the food service world whose lives have been influenced, impacted, touched and/or enriched, for good or for bad, from their culinary school experience. And this Podcast is dedicated to telling their story!From current students and alumni to faculty and administrators, this interview style podcast allows for longer, more in-depth, open discussions about issues, stories and tales surrounding culinary school. We hope you will listen in and learn what each of our guests has to say as we talk to them about their relationship to culinary school, as well as their journey, the people who helped them, and their goals and dreams for the future. Join us as we ask and discover, “What's your culinary school story?”RESOURCES:Audience Response Hotline: (207) 835-1275 {Comments, Suggestionsor Questions)Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/FoodMediaNetworkCSS Podcast Website: http://www.culinaryschoolstories.comChef Educator Podcast Website: http://www.chefeducator.com"Kitchen Lingo" Podcast Website: https://foodmedianetwork.com/kitchenlingo/Main Website: https://www.foodmedianetwork.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DrChefColinFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrProfessorChefTwitter: https://twitter.com/ChefRocheInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/CulinarySchoolStories NOTE: If you want to share your culinary school story in a future episode, all you have to do is go to http://www.culinaryschoolstories.com and download the guest questionnaire at the bottom of that page. Once you fill it out, email it back to us. After we review it, we will be back in touch to set up a date and time to talk!MUSIC: "Family Montage" by Biz Baz Studio, YouTube Audio LibraryCulinary School Stories is a proud member of the Food Media Network! Copyright 2021Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/culinaryschoolstories/donations

All of our chefs have amazing culinary skills, but almost all of them specialize in a certain food culture or cuisine, and Chef Jake Driffil is definitely that way. He knows the art of Asian cuisine inside and out. In this episode of the Taste of Harmons Podcast, Chef Jake joins our hosts Chef Lesli Sommerdorf and Brandon Young to talk about all the different varieties of food that fall under the “Asian” category.  Chef Jake also shares his “aha” moment, the day he realized that he wanted to make a career working in the food industry. You'll have to tune in to the podcast to learn what that moment was for him, along with all the amazing things you can experience and try that is considered “Asian” cuisine. Chef Jake Driffill discovered he had a love for food and cooking at the age of 10, while spending time making holiday desserts with his mother and grandmother. In 2002 he took a job as a line cook, and after learning some basics recognized the culinary arts as his pathway in life. He enrolled in the California Culinary Academy of San Francisco, where he learned cooking techniques from French, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, and Latin American cuisines. For more information please visit https://www.harmonsgrocery.com  Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HarmonsGroceryStores/ Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/harmonsgrocery?igshid=6ir2kf3qy3jy For our podcast blog directory: https://www.harmonsgrocery.com/podcast-archive/ Be sure to check out HarmonsGrocery.com for all the latest delicious recipes at https://www.harmonsgrocery.com/recipes/

Over the last 20 years, Erin Kanagy-Loux has worked in various arms of the hospitality industry, most recently as the Executive Pastry Chef for Union Square Events, and Reynard at the Wythe Hotel. She's a first-generation Japanese American that grew up with a heavy sprinkle of Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch Heritage. Her memories, experiences, and love of flavor have shaped the unique cultural background she draws her creative inspirations from. She is most recognized for her work in celebration and wedding cakes, and has been featured in NY Magazine Weddings. Erin competed in Valrhona Chocolate's first USA-hosted C3 Competition and received the bronze Press Prize. In addition to her technical skills, she has honed her skills as a coach and teacher through her experience as an instructor at the International Culinary Center, California Culinary Academy, and the Western Culinary Institute of Portland. Past colleagues often refer to Erin as “The MacGyver of Pastry”, which has helped her in the ever-changing world of food.On the show, we discuss her upbringing, and how it shaped her culinary style. We talk about her career path, and her role as a culinary instructor, which now includes virtual instruction. Found out what her favorite ingredient is, and how to work fish sauce into a dessert.And we'd love it if you supported Chefs Without Restaurants. There are a few ways to help. First, if you have a business or product, we're always looking for sponsors.  Or consider joining our Patreon. If nothing else, it would be great if you subscribed to the show, rated and reviewed it, and shared your favorite episodes. Looking to hire employees for your restaurant? This week's sponsor is Savory Jobs, a job site only for restaurants. For just $50, get unlimited job postings for an entire year. Use discount code SAVORY10 to save 10%.===========Erin Kanagy-Loux===========Erin's Instagram================CONNECT WITH US================SUPPORT US ON PATREONGet the Chefs Without Restaurants NewsletterVisit Our Amazon Store (we get paid when you buy stuff)Connect on ClubhouseCheck out our websites (they have different stuff) https://chefswithoutrestaurants.org/ & https://chefswithoutrestaurants.com/Like our Facebook pageJoin the private Facebook groupJoin the conversation on TwitterCheck our Instagram picsFounder Chris Spear's personal chef business Perfect Little Bites https://perfectlittlebites.com/Watch on YouTubeIf you want to support the show, our Venmo name is ChefWoRestos and can be found at https://venmo.com/ChefWoRestos. If you enjoy the show, have ever received a job through one of our referrals, have been a guest,  or simply want to help, it would be much appreciated. Feel free to let us know if you have any questions.

In this week's episode, we feature Joe Schumaker located in Boise, Idaho.After graduating with honors from the California Culinary Academy, San Francisco, Joe co-founded Cosmopolitan Catering in Sunnyvale, CA.  Joe left Cosmo in 2015 and started FoodSpace where he and his team consult as experts in kitchen design, foodservice management, food business growth strategy, innovative food technologies and mentorship. Find out more about Joe at: https://myfoodspace.com/#foodserviceconsultant #fcsi #foodservice #myfcsi

What Up With Rob and Chris: 1st of all OMG these were are the Best scones and Focaccia Bread we have ever had!!! www.Clovervalleyculinary.com www.wck.org (Really check this on out) Instagram- @CloverValleyCulinary Shouts to: @kithcenoflife @wckitchen Nieta Farms in Loomis Drew Schultz Bio: I transitioned from the Bay Area to the Foothills of Placer County to connect back to my love of Cuisine. I am bringing everything I've learned throughout my career path into an opportunity to share with everyone through wonderful pairings of food and drink. I've covered just about every aspect of the Food, Hospitality and Lodging industries, in the capacity of operations, logistics and management. I started my career at the age of 16, baking pizzas in a stone oven and keeping up with the grind as Scullery Boy. An opportunity to learn front of house operations had me spend several years at the Bay Area's cornerstone French restaurant, Le Virage in Walnut Creek. While there I was taught the three types of traditional service and table side cooking. I spent my days off stocking the wine room for the Sommelier, giving me hands on experience of the wines that Lolek the owner had travelled the World to bring to the customers. My passion to expand my knowledge afforded me to obtain a Hotel-Restaurant Management and Commercial Baking-Pastry degree from Diablo Valley College Hotel & Restaurant program, as well as graduating with Honors from the prestigious California Culinary Academy. My internship from the CCA landed me at the Auberge du Soleil in Rutherford, immersing me into the center of the wine world and “California Cuisine”. After some years in the Bay Area restaurant scene cooking at notables Spiedini and Max's Opera Cafe', I moved to our nations capitol in Washington D.C. to cook at the Jockey Club in the Ritz Carlton. Under World renowned Chef Hidemasa Yamamoto, I built a solid foundation of seasonal cuisine with high attention to detail and flavor. My time there was capped off with a promotion to Hotel Garde' Manger, to lead the Banquet team through the elections and into inauguration for many of the “who's who” about town. I was honored to be asked to move over to the new Ritz Carlton in Pentagon City to be Saucier for Two Stars Michelin Chef Gerard Pangaud. At the time, he was the youngest chef to achieve 2 stars and mentored me on all aspects of how a Chef is to conduct Cuisine in a top kitchen. The opportunity to lead my own kitchen and prepare regional Virginia Cuisine as our founding Fathers had done, brought me to the historic Bailiwick Inn, in Fairfax VA. As Chef there, I partnered with the Historical Society at Monticello as well as being asked to cook a dinner at the James Beard House in New York. The highly acclaimed Washington Post Food Critic, Phyllis Richman, wrote about the food as a place Thomas Jefferson would have stopped on his way to and from his home while President. A strong pull to get back to family had me back in the Bay Area with stints at the Pleasanton Hotel and Wente, then a 20 year career learning a whole new aspect of the industry with Diversey and Ecolab. My success there in sales and running a multi-million dollar business, opened up the opportunity to settle under the ageless oaks in Clover Valley. I hope to get to know many more of my neighbors here in Placer County so we can enjoy the bounty together! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/what-up-with-rob-chris/support

Our guest this week is a chef, restaurant and two-time bar owner, a baker, a cheesemaker, and a beloved San Francisco native. Arnold Eric Wong has been a leading revolutionary in San Francisco culinary innovation for more than two decades. He studied at the California Culinary Academy, and after opening his first restaurant EOS Restaurant and Wine Bar in Cole Valley, Wong went on to be rated as one of five “Rising Star Chefs of the Year under 30” by the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2000, Wong opened his second and also very successful restaurant Bacar. Since then, he's opened two excellent bars: The Treasury in one of San Francisco's notable Beaux Arts skyscrapers in 2016, and The Beehive, a 60's style cocktail bar that, according to him, “exudes modern Mad Men vibes.” Wong's culinary expertise extends beyond restaurants and bars to also bakeries and cheesemaking. In 1994, Wong founded a wholesale artisanal bakery called Raison D'etre. Starting in the deli of his family's corner grocery store Ashbury Market, Wong and his brother Richard continued to cultivate the bakery into a South San Francisco facility that now delivers pastries to Peet's Coffee and Tea nationwide as well as local independent markets and cafes. Likewise, Wong has invested himself in cheesemaking and founded Joyfull Bakery through his family business. Their products include parmesan cheese crisps that can be found in grocery stores like Whole Foods, Raley's, Safeway, Andronico's and more nationwide. Arnold has received acclaim on both a national and international scale from reputable sources like The New York Times, USA Today, Wine Spectator and more. Nevertheless, he is a humble and kind man who is very family and community oriented. Throughout his work, Wong strives to maintain integrity and attention to detail in order to make his customers feel as if they are home. Meet Arnold Eric Wong!

Today's Guest: Michelle HoffmannMichelle Hoffmann is a Master Coach in Life and Business. She is an author, successful entrepreneur, and dynamic, entertaining motivational speaker. She specializes in helping widows and sole parents re-stabilize their lives after loss to live a full and happy life, though she holds the title of Director of Business Development in a variety of industries. For over two decades, she has catapulted successful careers working with executives, managers, and corporate employees. She is on the Board of several organizations, including the local Parents Club, Arts Council, a San Francisco school, and she is a Scout Leader. Her local Chamber of Commerce has honored her with Ambassador status.Michelle is passionate about helping people create a life worth living despite loss. When Michelle's late husband passed away, she adjusted her professional writing and consulting to more personal support. It was at a workshop she delivered to Silicon Valley's Reboot Accel, an organization that helps women rejoin the workplace after a gap in employment, where Beth and Guy Kawasaki inspired Michelle to write a practical and compassionate guide to help widows and sole parents.She lives in California with her brilliant children. She loves running with her Dalmatian, Pixel. Due to her appreciation of a good dinner party complete with fine company and fine food, she majored in "dinner" at the California Culinary Academy. To balance her culinary appreciation and sense of adventure, she coaches and teaches fitness in North and Central America, Europe, and Australia.On this episode:Amber is joined by Best Selling Author Michelle Hoffmann for a conversation on authenticity, grief, will power, and relationships. Tweetable Quotes:"You're not at mercy to the world around you. We experience things exactly the way we allow ourselves to experience them." -Amber Fuhriman"Will power essentially, is choosing to take the harder path." -Michelle Hoffmann"Personal responsibility is asking yourself if you are you in control of what's happening in your life, or are you just reacting to what is happening."-Amber Fuhriman"I realized If I could identify what grief held that I treasured, then grief no longer had a hold on me and I could move forward." -Michelle HoffmannMichelle Hoffmann:relationshipping101.comConnect with other incredible people looking to break out of the corporate mindset by joining the More Than Corporate Facebook group: http://bit.ly/2MuWn53 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Chef, restaurateur, TV personality, activist and graduate of the California Culinary Academy, Russell Jackson has a story to tell.  Welcome to Episode 8 of the Farm.One podcast. Kicking things off, Rob, Jess and Michael talk about GMOs. Is there really a problem? Rob then sits down for an extended conversation with Russell about his career as a chef (he's been cooking for other people for over 40 years), his vocal and monetary support of urban farming (he's an investor in Farm.One), food deserts and changing the food system, the crazy level of drama that is Los Angeles (his hometown), making his way through the culinary Mecca of the Bay Area, his principles and what he's trying to express in his restaurants, businesses and cooking and how important his community of friends have been in his success..  Known to some for his appearances on the Food Network's Iron Chef and The Next Food Network Star, Russell was born and raised in Los Angeles and eventually made his way to graduate top of his class at the California Culinary Academy in 1990. After returning to LA to open a restaurant, Russell made his way back to San Francisco. Through the highs and lows of working at some of California's best restaurants, he opened Lafitte to great fanfare in San Francisco, only to close it a few years later.  Russell found himself in New York City and opened his latest restaurant in Harlem last year. In his telling, Reverence is more than just a restaurant. It's a story, an exchange of ideas, an expression of him. The culmination of all his experiences at age 57 and his message to the world about what he's learned is important.  Learn more about Russell's restaurant, Reverence: https://reverence.nyc/ (https://reverence.nyc/) Instagram: @reverencenyc and @chefrjackson Independent Restaurant Coalition: https://www.saverestaurants.com/ (https://www.saverestaurants.com/) Article: Stop Arguing Over GMOs, Scientific American, Dr Sarah Garland, Dec. 14, 2020 - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stop-arguing-over-gmo-crops/ (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stop-arguing-over-gmo-crops/) 

(1:40) - Start of interview(2:10) - David's "origin story"(3:44) - His start with Wilson Sonsini in 1989.(6:11) -  His experience serving as a board member, and why he thinks corporate America has lost out on having lawyers as directors. His for corporate boards have included California Culinary Academy, and currently LTSE.(7:41) -  His take on the Long Term Stock Exchange.(9:47) - His thoughts on why companies should list on the LTSE ("the market is wide open").(11:03) - His take and role as an Advisor to the American Law Institute's Restatement of Corporate Governance.(13:22) - His take on the Business Roundtable Restatement of the Purpose of the Corporation (2019) (14:05) - Some historical context for purpose of corporation debate (stakeholders vs stockholder primacy).(16:49) - His advocacy in favor of dual-class stock.(20:27) - His dislike of time-based sunset provisions, as proposed by CII ("one-size-fits-all sunset provision").(24:42) - His take on distinguishing dual-class stock and a listing on the LTSE.(25:55) - His view on tenure-voting.(28:52) - His take on duties of directors in VC-backed companies in conflicted situations, since the Trados case.(32:14) - The governance risks that he sees with the emergence of SPACs in 2020.(34:53) - His take on the soaring stock market and the current tech boom.(36:34) - His thoughts on WFH after pandemic and how it has impacted law firms and other sectors.(37:47) - His take on shareholder activism this year, and what's next (activity will pick up in spring 2021). His advice for companies and boards is to think about long term plans:Economic message: growth plan for the long term must be communicated early and often to stockholders.Governance message: focus on diversity at all levels, especially at the board level.Public message: stakeholder and ESG concerns.(44:06) - His take on California's SB-876 and AB-979 laws and the future of boardroom diversity.(46:49) - Next big issues for boards and directors:GlobalizationMeasuring externalities (such as carbon emissions).(48:18) - His favorite books:The Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison (1952)In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust (1913-1927)The Diary of Anne Frank, by Anne Frank (1947)Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig (1974)(49:34) - Some of his mentors:Wallace Fowlie (at Duke).Bruce Payne (Ethics)Larry Sonsini (WSGR)(50:59) - His favorite quote:"Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not" by Bobby Kennedy.(51:27) - His "unusual habit" that he loves the most:Elephants. His true passion is wildlife conservation.(53:51) - The living people he most admires:Jane GoodallIain Douglas HamiltonDavid Berger specializes in corporate governance and M&A litigation as well as rapid response shareholder activism and corporate governance risk oversight. David’s practice is an unusual blend of corporate governance advisory work and litigation, and he is nationally recognized for his expertise in both the boardroom and the courtroom. David also represents directors and companies in internal investigations and public companies on disclosure and SEC proceedings.Follow Evan on Twitter @evanepsteinMusic/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

Jean Marc Fullsack Jean-Marc Fullsack was born in France where he was trained in classical French cuisine. He graduated from the Hotel and Restaurant School in Strasbourg. His cooking experience includes first class restaurants, Hotels, Private Clubs and Food service management in the Health Care industry. Jean-Marc was Instructor at the California Culinary Academy where he taught classes and operated a restaurant specializing in Healthy Cuisine. This expertise brought him to the Preventive Medicine Research Institute (PMRI) with Dr. Dean Ornish. Jean-Marc contributed to Dr. Ornish’s bestselling books "Eat More Weigh Less" and "Everyday Cooking with "Dr. Dean Ornish”. As the executive chef for Lifestyle Advantage and the Dr. Dean Ornish Program for Reversing Heart Disease, Jean-Marc developed wide variety of exemplary dishes for those committed to a low-fat whole foods nutrition plan. David Barnes David Barnes is the Global CEO and Co-Founder of Zulu Labs in Melbourne, Australia. After researching the effect that various DMARC entries have on a domain and what the outcomes mean to organizations and their business units I defined DMARC Compliance Vs DMARC Conformance after developing and publishing the first algorithm (freely available on GitHub) to programmatically check if a domain is secured from being used in a spoof attack.

Michael Jewell has worked in the restaurant and food industry for over 30 years. He went to school at the California Culinary Academy, has been an Executive Chef at multiple restaurants and currently runs Arby's Product Development and Innovation.

Justin Jones joins us as the newest #YearOfTheVet family member to drop a little bit of transition knowledge. When I met Justin, I was JUST transitioning out of the Corps, and after having this conversation with him, I now understand why he always seemed so elevated compared to the rest of us.Learning his way to the top, Justin shares stories about what it's like to land a job in the the kitchen, and what it takes to become and stay successful when it gets too hot in the kitchen.Justin also brings the element of family life and work life balanceto the conversation, which I know for a lot of veterans... is one of the hardest things to figure out.Seriously, one of the most down to earth guys... who can tell you that nothing comes easy from taking the shortcuts in life. Read through the show notes below and throw this episode on, and just chill all the way through, till the end of the conversation.Show NotesHear the excitement in Justin’s excitement to be on the show (4:07)Pre-Marine Corps Justin (4:47)We talk about the little Filipino inside of Justin (7:00)The road to the literal chopping block (7:39)The recruiter lies to the Chefs too! (8:30)“Working at the prisons…didn’t speak to me…” (11:13)The GI Bill… “back in the day” (13:03)Starting over at 22 (15:31)Esprit de… Kitchen (18:00)California Culinary Academy on Polk Street (19:01)The energy in a kitchen—the kitchen high (21:10)Does Justin have a “Top Gun” of cooking movies? (25:00)Justin’s culinary resume (27:18)How children can ruin a job as Chef to the Playboy Bunnies! (29:38)Becoming the feeder of nerds! Culinary master to the one of the greatest brains this generation has seen, and his employees that will send us all to space… Space-X (31:44)Maintaining discipline in the kitchen (34:35)What it takes to become successful in the food business (36:52)Passing on knowledge (40:36)Burritos and Rosemary! (41:37)Chitterlings aka the “poo trap” (43:58)Justin’s dreams (46:08)Balancing family vs food (47:35)Justin’s advice to struggling veterans (51:48)“Shut up and Listen” (54:33)Final advice for aspiring chefs (55:10)

Justin Jones joins us as the newest #YearOfTheVet family member to drop a little bit of transition knowledge. When I met Justin, I was JUST transitioning out of the Corps, and after having this conversation with him, I now understand why he always seemed so elevated compared to the rest of us.Learning his way to the top, Justin shares stories about what it's like to land a job in the the kitchen, and what it takes to become and stay successful when it gets too hot in the kitchen.Justin also brings the element of family life and work life balanceto the conversation, which I know for a lot of veterans... is one of the hardest things to figure out.Seriously, one of the most down to earth guys... who can tell you that nothing comes easy from taking the shortcuts in life. Read through the show notes below and throw this episode on, and just chill all the way through, till the end of the conversation.Show NotesHear the excitement in Justin’s excitement to be on the show (4:07)Pre-Marine Corps Justin (4:47)We talk about the little Filipino inside of Justin (7:00)The road to the literal chopping block (7:39)The recruiter lies to the Chefs too! (8:30)“Working at the prisons…didn’t speak to me…” (11:13)The GI Bill… “back in the day” (13:03)Starting over at 22 (15:31)Esprit de… Kitchen (18:00)California Culinary Academy on Polk Street (19:01)The energy in a kitchen—the kitchen high (21:10)Does Justin have a “Top Gun” of cooking movies? (25:00)Justin’s culinary resume (27:18)How children can ruin a job as Chef to the Playboy Bunnies! (29:38)Becoming the feeder of nerds! Culinary master to the one of the greatest brains this generation has seen, and his employees that will send us all to space… Space-X (31:44)Maintaining discipline in the kitchen (34:35)What it takes to become successful in the food business (36:52)Passing on knowledge (40:36)Burritos and Rosemary! (41:37)Chitterlings aka the “poo trap” (43:58)Justin’s dreams (46:08)Balancing family vs food (47:35)Justin’s advice to struggling veterans (51:48)“Shut up and Listen” (54:33)Final advice for aspiring chefs (55:10)

Part 2 with Primal Alchemy and Chef PaulJoin Thomas Ardavany & Suzanne Toro on Indie Creators in the JoyZone. We have special guests Chef Paul, Founder of Primal Alchemy and Christopher Sweeney. We will showcase the Primal Alchemy '2' Dudes and Food. We will share our passion for food, well being, sustainability, seasonal cuisine, nutrition and inspiring success stories.Chef PaulPrimal Alchemy is a Chef-driven catering company serving all of Southern California, specializing in cooking with organic, seasonal, locally sourced ingredients.With a thorough background in traditional culinary preparation, and a progressive approach that incorporates the increasingly popular Farm To-Table Philosophy, Primal Alchemy collaborates with local producers to provide a diverse array of food that is extremely fresh, simply seasoned, and prepared in the most straightforward manner.After graduating with honors from the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, Chef Paul honed his cooking skills in some of the best kitchens in Southern California, including Water Grill, Patina, Pascals and Campanile. At Patina he executed large scale events like the Oscars, Emmys, SAG Awards gaining valuable experience in logistics as well as cooking.Primal Alchemy was created to share his passion for seasonal, sustainable, local cuisine. Primal, meaning, first or premiere and Alchemy, the transformation of something. Cooking is the first science of man...in other words, First Transformation.Chef Paul Buchanan participates in Kids in the Kitchen, Slow Food, Chefs Collaborative, American Institute of Wine and Food, guest chefs at several “Real Food” events throughout the year and has been featured in many cookbooks.primalalchemy.com/suzannetoro.com/besimplyradio/ind…s-in-the-joyzone/klpb.org

Growing up in a big Greek family, cooking for large groups was a natural part of Marissa Daskalakis Tsangaropoulos’ youth. She eventually turned that passion for bringing people together over food into a business, Fete Fraiche, first as a personal chef, and now as an event chef and caterer for the likes of Google and Stanford. Marissa shares the challenges of unanticipated growth, why saying no is such an important part of success, and the reason she’s such a gigantic fan of… lists and spreadsheets? We start by talking about being born Greek, growing up in Queens and Chicago, and learning to cook at her grandmother’s side. Her best friend’s graduation gift led to a California visit, where she met her husband and they now live with their four kids. Before she started her cooking career, she earned two degrees (in Philosophy and Industrial Organizational Psychology) and started an MBA. After living in Florence, Italy for a minute (where she got her first chance to cook in a commercial kitchen), she returned to the States and completed her culinary training at the legendary California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. A stint at Michelin-starred Commonwealth, Ladies Who Lunch, and a few other local establishments, and she was ready to strike out on her own, creating Fete Fraiche. She didn’t initially plan to do catering and events. She started as a personal chef, making meals for for families in their home kitchen. Her clients loved her so much, they started asking her to cater large gatherings and events, eventually requiring her to sublease a commercial kitchen to handle the unanticipated growth. We chat about how her nightmare scenario of arriving at an event without any food almost came true, and the value of word of mouth in both marketing and hiring (especially when your website is “incomplete”!). And while her time in CCA didn’t completely prepare her for running a catering business, it turns out leading weeks-long holiday events for your kids’ schools most certainly does. We wrap up with a frank discussion about the challenges of educating customers who want custom catering for less than what they’d pay at Chipotle, and the importance of telling those customers it’s not me, it’s you.... Links and Show Notes Starter (bread) (https://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-bread-starter.htm)—“A bread starter is the base for many artisan breads, including sourdough and Amish (https://www.wisegeek.com/who-are-the-amish.htm) Friendship Bread. It uses naturally occurring wild yeast (https://www.wisegeek.com/why-does-yeast-make-bread-rise.htm) as a leavening agent, lending a distinct flavor and texture to the bread that cannot be replicated by commercially harvested yeast. Some bread companies use starters that are over 100 years old to create dependably flavored bread every time. Many home bakers make their own starter as they explore the varied world of bread baking.” How To Make Sourdough Starter from Scratch (https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-your-own-sourdough-starter-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-47337) California Culinary Academy (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Culinary_Academy) Commonwealth to close on Aug. 26 (https://hoodline.com/2019/08/sf-eats-commonwealth-says-goodbye-kezar-bar-restaurant-adds-brunch-more) Stage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_%28cooking%29) —“An unpaid internship when a cook or chef works briefly, for free, in another chef's kitchen to learn and be exposed to new techniques and cuisines.” Ladies Who Lunch (http://lwlcatering.com) United States Personal Chef Association (https://www.uspca.com/)—“USPCA provides a one-stop shop for everything you need to effectively and efficiently manage your Personal Chef business with day to day support from the association as well as the NETWORK with other Personal Chefs to help you grow your Personal Chef business.” Sole Proprietor vs. Partnership vs. LLC (https://www.legalzoom.com/knowledge/limited-liability-company/topic/llc-sole-proprietor-partnership-comparison) Pared (https://www.pared.com/) —Making restaurant life easier Word of mouth marketing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word-of-mouth_marketing) Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive%E2%80%93compulsive_disorder)—“a mental disorder (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_disorder) in which a person feels the need to perform certain routines repeatedly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_behavior) (called "compulsions"), or has certain thoughts repeatedly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thoughts) (called "obsessions"). [...] The phrase obsessive–compulsive is sometimes used in an informal manner unrelated to OCD to describe someone as being excessively meticulous, absorbed, or otherwise fixated.” Marzipan (https://www.thespruceeats.com/marzipan-521098) from The Spruce Eats Yoga (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga)—“a group of physical (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body) , mental (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind) , and spiritual (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul) practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_India) .[...] The term "yoga" in the Western world often denotes a modern form of Hatha yoga (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatha_yoga) , yoga as exercise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_as_exercise) , consisting largely of the postures called asanas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asana) .“ Meditation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation)—“a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness) , or focusing their mind on a particular object, thought or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state.” “Steven Hollifield walked into a kitchen dish-pit, found it magical, and remained in food service his entire career.” Listen to episode 17 of Lettuce Wrap (https://www.lettucewrappod.com/17) “BBQ is a Little Mystical with Steven Hollifield of Seismic BBQ. Our thanks to Marissa for joining us. You can find her on Instagram @fetefraichecooks (https://instagram.com/fetefraichecooks) and www.fetefraiche.com (https://www.fetefraiche.com). Thank you for listening. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram: Lettuce Wrap: @lettucewrappod (https://twitter.com/lettucewrappod) / @lettucewrappod (https://instagram.com/lettucewrappod) Christine Doerr: @christinedoerr (https://twitter.com/christinedoerr) / @neococoaconfections (https://www.instagram.com/neococoaconfections/) Tammy Tan: @spicehound (http://twitter.com/spicehound) / @spicehound (https://www.instagram.com/spicehound/) or email us at lettucerwrappod@gmail.com (mailto:lettucerwrappod@gmail.com). That’s a wrap! Amazon (https://amzn.to/2DBzg5j) and other links may be affiliates. Purchases help support the show. Special Guest: Marissa Daskalakis Tsangaropoulos, Fete Fraiche.

Like what you see? Please give generously. http://www.thinktechhawaii.com Innovative Education in Hawaii. Josh graduated from Punahou School in 1976. He spent two years studying at the University of Oregon and San Francisco State, then began an eighteen month culinary program at the California Culinary Academy and graduated in 1981 with a chef's certification. He worked at restaurants in San Francisco and San Diego, then shifted to work in hotel management. From 1990-1993 he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Iowa, then returned home to teach history at Punahoul. In 2000 he began teaching history, economics and Hawaiian studies at La Pietra. From 2010 to 2014 He taught history at ‘Iolani and served on their EdTech team.Hecompleted a masters in the Foundations of Education at UH Manoa in 2001. He was worked full-time at Apple Ala Moana Store, for five years. Over the past three years he has been Ted Dintersmith’s “agent on the ground” in Hawaiʻi. Ted is the Executive Producer of an acclaimed documentary titled “Most Likely to Succeed.” He is a retired VC working hard to help education systems in America retool and redesign for the 21st century. He is also the author of a bestselling book titled, “What School Could Be.” Josh is the founder of @MLTSinHawaii. He is in the process of forming a “casual consultancy,” which will be Plexus Education, LLC. On August 24th he will launch the What School Could Be in Hawaiʻi podcast series, a partnership with Ryan Ozawa and Kealakehe Middle School’s media team. The host for this episode is Jay Fidell. The guest for this episode is Josh Reppun.

Growing up in Laguna Beach, CA, Chef Kim Alter is a graduate of the California Culinary Academy.  She went on to work in some of the Bay Area's most notable restaurant kitchens before joining the Daniel Patterson Group where she served as Executive Chef for Haven and Plum in Oakland, CA.  Today, Kim Alter is the chef/owner of Nightbird and the adjoining cocktail concept, Linden Room, in San Francisco's Hayes Valley. Show notes… Favorite success quote or mantra: "Success isn't just about what you've accomplished, it's about what you've inspired other people to do." In this episode with Kim Alter we will discuss: You inspire others around you positively Using food to make people happy Food as acceptance Creating impactful “food memories” Mental health in the restaurant industry Tell your staff that they're doing a good job The hard work angle Ego Mentors Learning something new every single day Constantly improve your business Experiencing failure Fear of failure The inevitability of doing something wrong Thoughts on awards The importance of non-transactional relationships in the kitchen Money and waste management in the kitchen Diffusing angry guests Supporting the restaurants in your community Tasting menus Acquiring permits The importance of respect Women in the industry Culture v. Systems Working with your life partner Today's sponsor: Gusto offers modern, easy payroll, benefits, and HR to small businesses across the country — they were even named best online payroll by PCMag. And as a listener, you'll get three months free when you run your first payroll. Sign up and give it a try at Gusto.com/unstoppable.  CAKE provides an easy-to-use integrated software and hardware solution to build better dining experiences for restaurant operators and their guests. With mobile marketing and waitlist management to point of sale payment processing, the CAKErestaurant management system helps you grow your business.  Learn more at trycake.com/unstoppable EthicsSuite.com -provide a safe, secure, simple and anonymous communication channel between you and your employees to help you protect your hard-earned reputation and assets. Demonstrate to your team that you are committed to providing a workplace that operates with the highest ethical standards. Staying informed about important issues will help you resolve them internally before they spiral into larger, costly, or public problems.   Knowledge bombs Which "it factor" habit, trait, or characteristic you believe most contributes to your success? Being humble What is your biggest weakness? Too much time in the kitchen and not enough promoting What's one question you ask or thing you look for during an interview? Personality, goals, how do they treat the dishwasher? What's a current challenge? How are you dealing with it? Issues with the city impeding customer flow Share one code of conduct or behavior you teach your team Treat each other with respect What is one uncommon standard of service you teach your staff? BOH and FOH are one in the same What's one book we must read to become a better person or restaurant owner? The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz Setting the Table by Danny Meyer GET THIS BOOK FOR FREE AT AUDIBLE.COM  What's one piece of technology you've adopted within your four walls restaurant and how has it influence operations? Social media If you got the news that you'd be leaving this world tomorrow and all memories of you, your work, and your restaurants would be lost with your departure with the exception of 3 pieces of wisdom you could leave behind for the good of humanity, what would they be? Put your head down and work hard Treat people with respect Contact info: Night Bird website Instagram: @kimalter @nightbirdsf Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for joining today! Have some feedback you'd like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post. Also, please leave an honest review for the Restaurant Unstoppable Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read each and every one of them. And finally, don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. Huge thanks to Kim Alter for joining me for another awesome episode. Until next time!   Restaurant Unstoppable is a free podcast. One of the ways I'm able to make it free is by earning a commission when sharing certain products with you. I've made it a core value to only share tools, resources, and services my guest mentors have recommend, first. If you're finding value in my podcast, please use my links!

Award-winning pastry chef Robert Hac joins us to taste some of the best chocolate croissants in San Francisco. Robert is the pastry chef at Sons & Daughters, where he builds seasonal desserts inspired by memories of the foods he ate as a kid. He traces his love of cooking to his grandma, and the dumplings and mochi they made together. We talk about the start of his decade-plus career before Robert shares the essential trait needed to enter the culinary world, creeps himself out from his open kitchen, and defends the artisan creator. And what in the world does Jackson Pollock have to do with dessert? Tune in to find out! Links and Show Notes The ten croissants we tasted for episode 14, Two Whole Croissants https://files.fireside.fm/file/fireside-uploads/images/f/ff67b32d-68dc-4ffa-8e3e-157bcf552e52/1NJKUkFD.jpg Sons & Daughters (https://www.sonsanddaughterssf.com) 2017 Pastry Chef of the Year, San Francisco Magazine (https://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/best-chef-awards-2017) Second Act Marketplace (http://secondactsf.com) California Culinary Academy (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Culinary_Academy) San Francisco Cooking School (https://www.sfcooking.com) City College of San Francisco Culinary Arts and Hospitality Studies program (https://www.ccsf.edu/en/educational-programs/school-and-departments/school-of-business/CulinaryArtsAndHospitalityStudies.html) Stage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_%28cooking%29)—“An unpaid internship when a cook or chef works briefly, for free, in another chef's kitchen to learn and be exposed to new techniques and cuisines.” The French Laundry (https://www.thomaskeller.com/tfl) Dandelion Camino Verde chocolate (https://www.dandelionchocolate.com/our-beans/camino-verde/) Cruffin (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruffin) Chocolate Croissant map (https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1hs9DyCkVRfP28NV5ZtLb2nj07yswDgvm&ll=37.769986599968426%2C-122.43076464211424&z=14) Lettuce Wrap Chocolate Croissant map https://files.fireside.fm/file/fireside-uploads/images/f/ff67b32d-68dc-4ffa-8e3e-157bcf552e52/eVY8xH7H.jpg Our thanks to Robert for joining us. You can find him on Instagram (@mrroberthac) (https://www.instagram.com/mrroberthac/) and at Sons & Daughters (https://www.sonsanddaughterssf.com). Thank you for listening. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram: Lettuce Wrap (@lettucewrappod): (https://twitter.com/lettucewrappod) / (https://instagram.com/lettucewrappod) Christine Doerr: @christinedoerr (https://twitter.com/christinedoerr) / @neococoaconfections (https://www.instagram.com/neococoaconfections/) Tammy Tan (@spicehound): (http://twitter.com/spicehound)) / (https://www.instagram.com/spicehound/) or email us at lettucerwrappod@gmail.com (mailto:lettucerwrappod@gmail.com). That’s a wrap! Amazon (https://amzn.to/2DBzg5j) and other links may be affiliates. Purchases help support the show. Special Guest: Robert Hac, Sons & Daughters.

On episode 53 of Sourcing Matters we welcome leadership from the The Carrot Project.  Based out of Massachusetts, The Carrot Project creates a sustainable local farm and food economy by providing financing and business assistance so farm and food enterprises thrive. With a goal to foster a sustainable, diverse food system by supporting small and midsized farms and farm-related businesses - The Carrot Project is expanding accessible financing and increasing farm operations’ ability to use it to build successful, ecologically and financially sustainable, businesses. Joining us for the 45 minute discussion is The Carrot Project founder and Executive Director Dorothy Suput. Suput's commitment to a sustainable food system grew out of the incredible contrasts between Midwestern agriculture, with which she grew up, and the locally focused food and farming system in Switzerland, where she lived after graduating with a BS from Purdue University. Following graduate school at Tufts, Dorothy worked as the first regional organizer on the 1995 Farm Bill for the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group under the auspices of the Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, and subsequently, as a consultant for business and agency. Also profiled in this episode is Julia Shanks, who serves as the Senior Business Advisor to The Carrot Project, and is owner & principal of Julia Shanks food Consulting. Shanks brings a broad range of professional experiences to her clients, from pilot to chef to serial entrepreneur. Julia received her professional training as a chef at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, her BA from Hampshire College and an MBA from Babson College. After more than 10 years of professional cooking, Julia became a college professor of accounting and now works with food businesses and farms, helping them maximize profits and streamline operations through business planning, feasibility studies and operational audits. Julia’s second book, The Farmer’s Office provides tips, tools and templates for farmers to successfully manage a growing farm business. Co-host Jennifer Hashley of The New Entry Sustainable Farming Project happens to also be a strategic advisor to The Carrot Project, and as always, Jen brings a wealth of knowledge and understanding to round out our interesting conversation. Tune-In to these agents of change focused on a more stable and regional food system based on pragmatic economic modeling and a better understanding of the interests of a modern consumer.   www.SourcingMatters.show

Located on a two-mile stretch of gorgeous Isla Verde Beach and close to Old San Juan's historic attractions, the El San Juan Hotel, part of Curio Collection by Hilton, is popular with guests and locals alike. Executive Chef Gonzalo Rivera blends his classical training at California Culinary Academy and his Mexican heritage to create a fusion menu with modern Caribbean flavors. Did you know you don't need a passport to visit Puerto Rico? Time to explore and #BeCurious This show is brought to you by Talk 4 Radio (http://www.talk4radio.com/) on the Talk 4 Media Network (http://www.talk4media.com/).

This week we talk with Alison Mountford, founder of Ends + Stems about her meal planning business that helps reduce household food waste. We talk about her entrepreneurial journey and what led her to open Ends + Stems and how the business is evolving. Alison shares tips on how she’s grown her customer base and how she retains them. She also talks about managing a large amount of content on an ongoing basis -- tools she uses and tips on what has worked best for the business. Episode Highlights: Stats on food waste: 40% of food we produce ends up in the landfill $165 billion of edible food is wasted in the US Ends + Stems helps home cooks reduce food waste through a meal planning subscription service. Alison shares how the business started as a blog and how it is currently evolving into a subscription model Alison tells us how she has built and continues to grow her email list She shares tools and tips for managing ongoing content which is a large part of her business Alison also shares lessons learned from her businesses and her advice to listeners considering leaning the f*ck out 50% off first month with promo code: MEALPLAN About Alison Mountford Alison Mountford is the Founder, Chef and CEO at Ends+Stems. Alison has 15 years of head chef and entrepreneurial experience. In 2004, she founded her first company (Square Meals), which delivered ready to eat meals to busy families around the Bay Area. Mountford’s business acumen, vision, and management successfully grew this business from one client to selling thousands of high end meals weekly and was at the forefront of the meal delivery trend. Square Meals was sold in 2015. Her time leading procurement for a large food tech company inspired her to found Ends+Stems and set off a mission to do good for the planet and customers. E+S combines her unique knowledge of consumer food habits, culinary skill set, and accurately forecasts a need in the Food Waste trends developing today. Alison holds a culinary degree from the California Culinary Academy and both an A.A and B.A from New York University. Follow Alison online at: https://endsandstems.com/ https://www.facebook.com/EndsandStems/ https://www.instagram.com/endsandstems/ Download the FREE Lean the F*ck Out Launch Kit If you are thinking about starting a business or side hustle, check out our Lean the F*ck Out Launch Kit. The kit gives you tools and inspiration to start thinking like a fempreneur and start designing the life you want! You’ll receive a guided meditation to help you figure out your vision, a budget worksheet to see what you need financially to make a go of it, daily practices including printable worksheets and daily affirmations to help you keep your head up when your confidence is waning. Again, it’s free and it’s available at leanthef-ckout.com/launchkit. Music: Sunshine by The Icicles

Ever wonder why not every city serves hipster food? Or why Portland, Oregon is obsessed with doughnuts? Then check out Andrew Freidman’s interview with Greg Denton, the Vermont-raised chef who opened a classic French bistro and an Argentinian-inspired eatery in Portland, Oregon with his Ecuadorian wife Gabrielle. Greg Denton & Gabrielle Quiñónez Denton are Chef/Owners of Ox Restaurant and Bistro Agnes. Born in Schenectady, New York and raised in Rutland, Vermont, Greg knew he wanted to be a chef from age four. He started working in kitchens at age nine. Gabrielle’s passion for food developed at a young age as well, during summers spent in her grandmother’s kitchen in the Andean highlands of Ecuador. Both Greg and Gabrielle graduated from culinary school with honors, Greg in 1996 from The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York and Gabrielle in 1999 from the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. Thanks to our engineer, Aaron Parecki of Stream PDX. Music by Breakmaster Cylinder HRN On Tour is powered by Simplecast.

Upon joining Swiss Farms in its 50th year of success, Simon will lead the favorite drive-thru market towards a fresh new start with lifestyle focused, good-for-you product offerings. Scott will oversee operations, marketing, and brand-identity while increasing shareholder value across all 13 drive-thru market locations. As President & CEO, he directs overall operational services and drives revenue through exceptional customer service, company culture, and strategic planning and management. Scott most recently served as Chief Operating Officer at Heavenly Bowl, LLC, where he led the operational activities from inception to execution at seven Bowl of Heaven stores in Southern California and Nevada. He also previously served as Director of Food and Beverage for Harrah’s Philadelphia, CCR Resorts in Las Vegas and Par-A-Dice Hotel Casino – Boyd Gaming in E Peoria, Illinois. Past experiences include positions at Aramark and Isle of Capri Casinos, Inc. as well. Mr. Simon has an MBA from Bradley University, completed undergraduate work at UCLA, and obtained a certificate equivalent to an AOS Degree from California Culinary Academy. He also has educational certificates from Harvard University, United States Coast Guard Cooking School, Aramark Leadership School, Peoria Chamber of Commerce Leadership School and the University of Nevada. Aside from his pivotal time spent at Swiss Farms, Scott enjoys bike riding in his spare time and resides in the Philadelphia area with his wife and best friend, Lynn, and their dog, Max.

Although the French are known for croissants, they did not invent this globally appealing culinary pleasure. Come join us as one of Chicago’s most celebrated bakers, Sandra Holl, traces the origins of the croissant and other “laminated” pastries and touches on some of the colorful, although not necessarily true, origin stories But what exactly is laminated pastry, which sounds about as appetizing as a concoction made from layers of formica? “It’s just a fancy name for a family of buttery layered doughs,.” Sandra explains. “While the classic most well known, and celebrated member of this family is the croissant, the family includes puff pastry, Danish and my personal favorite Kouign amann.” Sandra says that laminated pastries are created by rolling butter into dough, then making a series of folds and turns until the dough has numerous alternating layers of dough and butter. When these doughs are baked, the moisture in the butter turns to steam and forces the layers to separate and puff, leaving a light and airy product. Sounds simple, but when made by experts like Sandra, the result can only be described as culinary ecstasy. Warning: Sandra will be bringing tasting samples from her nationally acclaimed Lincoln Park bakery, Floriole. Adult discretion is advised! Biography: Sandra was born and raised in Rockford, Illinois, graduated with a BA in French literature from the University of Colorado, taught English to high school students in France and worked in marketing in San Francisco before discovering her love of food and cooking. After volunteering as a prep cook for a non-profit and staging at a few restaurants she decided to sign up at the California Culinary Academy. She spent her externship and the following years working at world renowned Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. Sandra and her husband, Mathieu, left the Bay area for Chicago and started Floriole in a tent at the Chicago Green City Market. They have grown their business into a flourishing full service cafe and bakery specializing in French inspired pastries rooted in midwestern ingredients. The bakery has been named among the top 10 bakeries in the US, has received a Chicago Tribune Dining Award and is recognized as having some of the best bread in the country. Sandra has contributed to Bon Appetit and Sweet Paul magazines, appeared on Martha Stewart and Unique Sweets. In 2016 she was named Pastry Chef of the Year at the Jean Banchet Awards. Recorded at Weiss Memorial Hospital on July 21, 2018. www.CulinaryHistorians.com

Welcome to the #CharlotteIsCreative podcast. Today’s show features hosts Tim Miner and Matt Olin speaking with Peter Reinhart, baker, autheor, educator and Chef on Assignment at Johnson and Wales University, immediately following the June 1 Creative Mornings Charlotte event at The Fillmore Charlotte, where Peter spoke about the global theme of “Craft.” Peter Reinhart has been Chef on Assignment at Johnson & Wales for 14 years, and prior that that was a full-time instructor at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. Peter has authored ten books, including The Joy of Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Baking, and Bread Revolution. He has also won the International Gourmand Award for Best Baking Book and several James Beard awards, including Book of the Year for Bread Baker’s Apprentice. In this episode of the #CharlotteIsCreative podcast, Peter talks about his upbringing in Philadelphia and falling in love with cheesesteaks, the negative portrayal of TV chefs, whether or not you can be “born a chef”, how vital passion is and the effect of Johnson & Wales University on the Charlotte culinary scene. Register for the next Creative Mornings Charlotte event Friday morning, July 13  at 8:30 a.m. at The Fillmore Charlotte. The featured speaker will be Bryce Laguer, owner of Basal Coffee, the recently-opened coffee shop at Laca Projects, speaking about the global theme of “Intention.” RSVPs will open at 9 a.m., Monday, July 9. Don’t forget to use the hashtag #CharlotteIsCreative, and tweet us @CM_CLT whenever you see Charlotteans showing their creativity.

Lauren Fitzgerald, the current Bar Manager at Flores, a San-Francisco-based Mexican restaurant, is a specialist in craft cocktails and Mexican blends. Lauren was born and brought up in Texas and started at Buca Di Beppo. She studied at California Culinary Academy and has some solid input for people considering... After graduation, Lauren, being a vegan herself, joined Erin Tucker’s popular vegan food restaurant Millenium in San Francisco. It was here that she mastered the art of cocktailing and understood the importance of seasonal tastes. In January 2010, Lauren moved to Portland and joined Portobello Vegan Trattoria as the Beverage Director and Bar Manager. She later moved back to San Francisco and started working at the outstanding bar/restaurant Flores. Lauren’s favourite cocktail is one of her own creations – Bonita, which is a vodka-based drink, served over crushed ice with a deep magenta float of hibiscus tea and a sprig of mint. A lover of Wine, we enjoyed some amazing Portuguese wine at Hotel Biron in San Francisco. Shhhh… We want to keep it quiet. In this conversation, Lauren shares how and why she’s made bartending a career,  and the importance of context for curating guest experiences. She also discusses why she’s a vegan and how she brings it behind the bar successfully. Oh, and if you want to start a swim-up bar somewhere tropical, Lauren will be happy to help you! Links: What is a podcast? Plant Cafe Aqua Faba You can get in touch with Lauren on Instagram by CLICKING HERE.

In this episode with Chef Tim Boyd, we discuss what drew him to the industry, following passion not paychecks, not sacrificing quality, greatness attracting greatness, the dilution of passion with bigger operations, not letting your ego get the best of you, staying focused, having a balance of skill between FOH and BOH, being someones exit strategy, becoming a part of the community, having too many big egos under one roof, defining roles, getting sober, being the average of those you surround yourself with, and picking yourself up when you fall down.  Chef Tim Boyd got his start at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. After moving to South Florida and meeting his wife Lara, Tim's resume went from Executive Chef to owner of the well-known Upper Crust.  Tim would go on to create Milk & Honey Cafe. Today Tim is the Executive Chef of The Mustard Seed Bistro with wife and owner Lara Boyd.

When Barbara Felix started her business, Felix the Cook, over ten years ago, she was looking for a way to provide for her family, while doing something she loved. Finding her sweet spot with custom-made sugar cookies, Barbara has attracted big name clients like Google Ventures, UPS, and The Four Seasons. How can your business do the same? Listen as Barbara shares her best secrets for attracting and delighting clients. Find us on Stitcher You can also read the transcript below: Small Biz Stories is brought to you by Constant Contact. Constant Contact is committed to helping small businesses and nonprofits connect to new and existing customers with email marketing. You can be a marketer, all it takes is Constant Contact. Find out more at ConstantContact.com. Barbara: I've spent plenty of time working in offices thinking, “How can I get out of here?” I am not a paper person. I don't care what industry it's in, I cannot stand sitting behind a desk. So with cookies, I just love being the boss and being the creative person. I get physically ill if I cannot create something. Dave: Meet Barbara Felix, owner of Felix the Cook. Like so many businesses owners, Barbara became her own boss to avoid a boring, cookie-cutter career. Starting a business of her own, Barbara has the freedom to spend her days as she likes — which in her case means delighting customers with custom-made sugar cookies. If you've ever wondered if you have what it takes to start a business — or if you've already started and you're wondering how to take things to the next level, listen up. Today, Barbara shares her secrets for how a one-woman operation can use customer relationships to land big-name clients like Google Ventures, UPS, and The Four Seasons.More than fifty percent of small businesses fail within the first five years. These are the stories of those who beat the odds. My name is Dave Charest and I'll be your host as we share the stories of some of the bravest people you'll ever meet, small business owners. You'll hear how they got started, their biggest challenges, and their dreams for the future. Dave: Many small businesses start with a combination of passion and necessity. When Barbara started her business over ten years ago, she was looking for a way to provide for her family, while doing something she loved. Listen as she describes her early attempts at finding the right fit and how an early mentor helped point her in the right direction. Barbara: Well, my dad was a cook. My dad always cooked at home. And I loved to play in the kitchen. I loved making things and my mother let me do whatever I want with butter, sugar and flour. So I have absolutely no fear of sweet stuff. And I grew up, got married, got divorced and decided I needed a career because I've been to high school, of course, but not much college. So there I was, a single mother with two children looking for something to do and I thought well, maybe I can take a cooking class and instead I decided to take the full program at the California Culinary Academy and do 16 months and come out as a chef. So I worked at a really fine restaurant for a couple years and then found it was just too difficult as a single mother to keep the hours of a kitchen, which were pretty brutal, and mind my kids. So I quit that and got into private chefing after a stint of making desserts for restaurants. There were a couple of small restaurants I worked for that didn't have the time or the space to do their own pastry. So I'd do that for them. Again, pastry was always my favorite. And with the kids, I would make cookies with them every holiday like Halloween. I can't get over it. That Halloween, I made black icing, my son was in heaven with black icing everywhere. So we'd do that and then one year one of my instructors was at the house for Christmas and she saw my cookies and she said, “Oh my God, Barbra, you have to sell these.” I said, “Really?” So because I trusted her, I pursued the cookies. I was private chefing at the time and I asked one of my clients what she thought. She suggested I get a year of cookies. So that was a great idea. So I designed 12 collections with 6 designs each to make up a dozen cookies for every month of the year, and got connected with a web designer, who started with that page, our cookies of the month. And from there it just grew. It was very word of mouth, very word of mouth. Dave: So, just talk us through kind of that inspiration for doing the cookies? Barbara: Oh! The inspiration was I can do this, and it's fun and people pay me! That's what it was. And that having someone whose opinion that I trusted told me they were wonderful. That's what I needed because I get in my own little bubble where I can't see outside. And if you go on cookies websites, it's amazing what people are doing. They're total artworks. And if you look at that, and then look at what I do and it's like, well I'd never measure up. The funny thing is, is that they're doing the same thing. Everybody is comparing, which is silly. But I wanted a way to make some money that wasn't as difficult, as private chefing can be. I wanted to do something that I was entirely comfortable with, which is pastry. And it's a fun job and it's a happy job. People are so happy when they can get on my schedule. They are happy to order their cookies they're anticipating, and they're happy when they get them. So I like happy uplifting things. That's why, I'm not curing cancer but I'm making people happy, nothing wrong with that. Dave: With cookie-making, Barbara found the sweet spot she was looking for. Now, she had to find something just as important — a loyal customer base.  Luckily, this wasn't Barbara's first business. Through her past endeavors, Barbara already had some ideas about her target market, what they wanted, and how best to reach them. Barbara: Now, I spent some time in Texas for 10 years and I had my own business there as well, making curtains and drapery and shades. And my first customer was a junior-league lady and I had learned very well. You tell a junior league lady, you're set because they all tell each other, they all call each other. So with that experience, with the cookies I thought, I got to donate to the junior league. And I did the same thing. I picked a couple different charities and I'd make a significant donation and people started calling. And that's how it started, with donations, because I had to get the word out. Dave: Did you set any goals for your business when you were first getting started? Barbara: Oh, I wish I could say yes! I wish I could say I followed my business plan to the T. I did not. My goal was to make some extra money. I'm a single mother with two kids, money was the ticket. So, with the help of friends, I thought it was important to get a website together and that was my first goal to get all those 12 months of designs made. Then to set up a photography booth or some way to get…I bought my first camera to do the photographs, my first little instant camera. And, to set up a business account, I set up a checkbook. The goals were very small and then to find charities where I could donate because I knew that's where my market was. See, I knew, from my experience of having my business in Texas, I knew what these ladies wanted. I knew what they were looking for and knew where they were. I knew my market. And I knew what they needed. And that's how I did it. Going for the upscale charity events and contacting people I knew in that area. Dave: What would you say makes your business different from others out there? Barbara: I would say the service. I mean, they love the taste of the cookies, there's that. They love the cookies, they love what I do. But I've had people tell me, “Oh, you're so flexible, and thank you” And it's personable, you know, people get excited when they can talk to the person who's actually making their product. It's not going through several layers. In fact, a few years ago, well in 2004, Gwyneth Paltrow put me on her Goop website for Christmas. And that's because I knew her driver. A friend of mine drove for her. I didn't even know he was driving for her but that was my connection. And I got a lot of orders and one person called to check on her order and it was so funny the way she spoke. It's like, “Can you go down on the factory floor and find the order?” and I said, “Ma'am I'm making your cookies.” And they're so excited. They're very excited to talk to the person. So I think that's it. There's no filter between me and the client. They call or they email or they talk to me. And that's the way I like it. And even as I grow, I don't know that I'll give away that part of the business. I think I'll still be the contact person. Dave: Barbara's success comes from giving her customers an experience they can't get anywhere else. By listening to her customers' advice, Barbara creates relationships that make other people feel invested in her success. It's no surprise that many of Barbara's best new customers have come directly from her existing customer base. Dave: Yeah. Is there, is there some place that you go for advice or guidance? Barbara: Oh gosh, yes! Gosh, yes! I guess I'm just a friendly person. But I know so many people who seem to be more successful than I am and their always eager to help me. I have one friend I met when I was doing cookies for a charity function and it was being held at Pixar. It was a very big deal and I got to see the Pixar office. I got to look at an Oscar, like two feet from my face, a real Oscar. That woman moved on to another company and another company and she's taken me with her every step of the way. So I've made cookies for her at every company and she's very into computers and marketing. And she helps me and she gives me ideas. Another friend of mine, again, it's a friend of a friend. He asked me if I could deliver cookies to his friend who manages a very big jewelry store downtown. And because of the timing, I thought, “Oh I'll just take him in myself.” And that was like a perfect thing to do. The fellow loved meeting me, he loved the cookies and he has sent me business and he has sent me a wonderful event planner that I work with constantly. And he's my buddy. He brings me to different events, he suggests things to do. He's got me working on a chocolate cookie now. He's determined to have a chocolate cookie place card with gold lettering. So I have ordered. I have been through the web top to bottom looking for a specific edible gold luster, which I've acquired. It's in the mail to me now. So they guide me, they tell me what you can do. Another friend of mine works at LinkedIn and he's helping me use that to meet other marketing people in different companies because that's where the cookie orders from companies come from. So, yes, I don't know, people like me and they talk to me and I talk to them and we chit chat. And yes, I have plenty of advisors. I've made cookies for Google Ventures and they're still customers. I did cookies for UPS. I did cookies for Tyler Florence a couple of times. And when he had his shop, my cookies were in his shop. Because one day, I walked in, and I happened to have my portfolio with me. And there was some sugar cookies for sale and I thought, “Oh my goodness! I can do better than that.” So I showed the sales girl. She got the marketing person to come down and we started a relationship and I had my cookies in there every holiday. Because I walked in and said, “Hey look at me.” Dave: Barbara's confidence in her product and dedication to her customer relationships have served her well in growing her business and reaching big-name clients. But that doesn't mean she's always as busy as she'd like. Dave: Was there ever a time that you felt like potentially the business wasn't gonna work? Barbara: Oh yeah! Oh gosh yes! Dave: Tell us about that. Barbara: Because I didn't have a budget for marketing. My budget was, “Can I pay my mortgage this month?” And some people would tell me, “Oh! You need to get better pictures. They don't do you justice.” And I didn't have the money to go up a notch. Packaging, when you start pricing packaging, you have to buy a lot for custom packaging. It's a huge investment for a small business. And there were times where I would get discouraged. And then the phone would ring and somebody would say so and so told me about you. And I would get all happy again. I really feed off my customer's happiness because it tells me I'm doing a good job. Dave: What have you found has been your most effective way to get or reaching customers? Barbara: Oh, really, Constant Contact because my email list consists of people who have already done business with me. They've already emailed me and bought purchased cookies so they're on my list. They're familiar with the product and the emails are just a reminder that I'm here, which is, as I said, for people that don't order cookies regularly. They need to be reminded, whether it's a birthday or an anniversary or something… Dave: Yeah. Tell me a little bit about your approach with email, like what do you? What do you send out? Like what do you do, how often? Barbara: I want to do it once a month. I try to do it once a month and I like to put up pictures of cookies they haven't seen, something new. Like I believe I did an email about painted cookies now, there's a big demand now for watercolor. You use the food coloring as the paint. So I did that. Mostly it's seasonal, you know. It's like, “Oh this is August, I'll send out a picture of my watermelon cookies” or whatever. Trying to think of what they might be doing and what they might need them for. We're very seasonal. I don't ever have sales, so there's nothing like that to do. I made a decision very early on that I wasn't going to discount my work, at all. And I don't. I don't care if you're buying two dozen or two thousand. The price is the price and that's it. So, there's no sales to advertise. It's mostly a reminder. Get on the books now because September's full. So, think about me now. Mostly to remind people to, order ahead. That's what I use it for. The email marketing is entirely affordable, entirely affordable, $20 a month? I mean, come on. It's a bargain. It's a tremendous bargain. And what sold it for me is the online help because I'm of a certain age. I need to speak to someone. I don't want to just tap on the computer. And every time I call, I get someone who is willing to stay there and help me and I've never gone away unsatisfied from a phone call. And I need that because I'm not computer savvy. I am not going to invest time in learning how to run a computer because I run a cookie business. I'm not a computer person. Dave: Rather than focusing on finding new customers, Barbara stays in touch with her existing customers — the people she already has established relationships with. By reaching out and reminding her customers what she has to offer, she sparks new interest and gets the phone ringing again. Dave: What is it that you would say that really keeps you going and your business successful? Barbara: Pride in what I do, that I do it myself, that I don't have to answer to anyone except my customers. Like I've mentioned, this is not my first business. My first business was making curtains, draperies and shades and it was the similar thing. I worked alone, I made a beautiful product, everybody was happy at every stage. And I loved being my own boss. I've spent plenty of time working in offices thinking, “How can I get out of here?” I am not a paper person. I don't care what industry it's in, I cannot stand sitting behind a desk. So with cookies, I just love being the boss and being the creative person. I get physically ill if I cannot create something, if I can't be refinishing furniture, or making a curtain or doing something creative. And the cookies give me all that. All my art, all my color, theory, everything I do is in there. And I love making people happy. I love making little kids smile when they get a cookie. I have pictures on my wall of the little kids holding my cookies, being happy. That's a nice thing. Dave: You'll notice Barbara's success is rooted in her own satisfaction, as well as her customers'. As she said earlier, she really feeds off her customers' happiness. While many small businesses are started by fiercely independent people — hungry to call the shots, make their own hours, and put their stamp on things — the successful ones never lose sight of the people they're trying to help. I'll leave you with Barbara's best advice for someone interested in starting their own business. Barbara: Oh, golly. Know your market. If you don't know where your market is and what they want, you have no chance. You need to know what people want. And once you figure that out, make what they need. It's the same classic advice, find a need and fill it. And because of my exposure to a certain crowd of people years ago, I knew what they were looking for. I knew what they liked to have and that's why I can still serve those people by making my product. You have to know your market, you can't just have a good idea that nobody wants to buy, if you're gonna do it for a living. I mean believe me, I love what I do, I love the art but make no mistake, and this is how I put gas in the car. I have to make money. Dave: We appreciate you listening and would love to hear what you think of the show. Please go to iTunes or Stitcher right now and leave us a review. Small Biz Stories is produced by myself and Miranda Paquet with editing by TwentyFourSound. You can contact us at podcast@constantcontact.com Small Biz Stories is brought to you by Constant Contact. Constant Contact is committed to helping small businesses and nonprofits connect to new and existing customers with email marketing. You can be a marketer, all it takes is Constant Contact. Find out more at ConstantContact.com. The post Felix the Cook — Small Biz Stories, Episode 14 appeared first on Constant Contact.

When Barbara Felix started her business, Felix the Cook, over ten years ago, she was looking for a way to provide for her family, while doing something she loved. Finding her sweet spot with custom-made sugar cookies, Barbara has attracted big name clients like Google Ventures, UPS, and The Four Seasons. How can your business do the same? Listen as Barbara shares her best secrets for attracting and delighting clients. Find us on Stitcher You can also read the transcript below: Small Biz Stories is brought to you by Constant Contact. Constant Contact is committed to helping small businesses and nonprofits connect to new and existing customers with email marketing. You can be a marketer, all it takes is Constant Contact. Find out more at ConstantContact.com. Barbara: I've spent plenty of time working in offices thinking, “How can I get out of here?” I am not a paper person. I don't care what industry it's in, I cannot stand sitting behind a desk. So with cookies, I just love being the boss and being the creative person. I get physically ill if I cannot create something. Dave: Meet Barbara Felix, owner of Felix the Cook. Like so many businesses owners, Barbara became her own boss to avoid a boring, cookie-cutter career. Starting a business of her own, Barbara has the freedom to spend her days as she likes — which in her case means delighting customers with custom-made sugar cookies. If you've ever wondered if you have what it takes to start a business — or if you've already started and you're wondering how to take things to the next level, listen up. Today, Barbara shares her secrets for how a one-woman operation can use customer relationships to land big-name clients like Google Ventures, UPS, and The Four Seasons.More than fifty percent of small businesses fail within the first five years. These are the stories of those who beat the odds. My name is Dave Charest and I'll be your host as we share the stories of some of the bravest people you'll ever meet, small business owners. You'll hear how they got started, their biggest challenges, and their dreams for the future. Dave: Many small businesses start with a combination of passion and necessity. When Barbara started her business over ten years ago, she was looking for a way to provide for her family, while doing something she loved. Listen as she describes her early attempts at finding the right fit and how an early mentor helped point her in the right direction. Barbara: Well, my dad was a cook. My dad always cooked at home. And I loved to play in the kitchen. I loved making things and my mother let me do whatever I want with butter, sugar and flour. So I have absolutely no fear of sweet stuff. And I grew up, got married, got divorced and decided I needed a career because I've been to high school, of course, but not much college. So there I was, a single mother with two children looking for something to do and I thought well, maybe I can take a cooking class and instead I decided to take the full program at the California Culinary Academy and do 16 months and come out as a chef. So I worked at a really fine restaurant for a couple years and then found it was just too difficult as a single mother to keep the hours of a kitchen, which were pretty brutal, and mind my kids. So I quit that and got into private chefing after a stint of making desserts for restaurants. There were a couple of small restaurants I worked for that didn't have the time or the space to do their own pastry. So I'd do that for them. Again, pastry was always my favorite. And with the kids, I would make cookies with them every holiday like Halloween. I can't get over it. That Halloween, I made black icing, my son was in heaven with black icing everywhere. So we'd do that and then one year one of my instructors was at the house for Christmas and she saw my cookies and she said, “Oh my God, Barbra, you have to sell these.” I said, “Really?” So because I trusted her, I pursued the cookies. I was private chefing at the time and I asked one of my clients what she thought. She suggested I get a year of cookies. So that was a great idea. So I designed 12 collections with 6 designs each to make up a dozen cookies for every month of the year, and got connected with a web designer, who started with that page, our cookies of the month. And from there it just grew. It was very word of mouth, very word of mouth. Dave: So, just talk us through kind of that inspiration for doing the cookies? Barbara: Oh! The inspiration was I can do this, and it's fun and people pay me! That's what it was. And that having someone whose opinion that I trusted told me they were wonderful. That's what I needed because I get in my own little bubble where I can't see outside. And if you go on cookies websites, it's amazing what people are doing. They're total artworks. And if you look at that, and then look at what I do and it's like, well I'd never measure up. The funny thing is, is that they're doing the same thing. Everybody is comparing, which is silly. But I wanted a way to make some money that wasn't as difficult, as private chefing can be. I wanted to do something that I was entirely comfortable with, which is pastry. And it's a fun job and it's a happy job. People are so happy when they can get on my schedule. They are happy to order their cookies they're anticipating, and they're happy when they get them. So I like happy uplifting things. That's why, I'm not curing cancer but I'm making people happy, nothing wrong with that. Dave: With cookie-making, Barbara found the sweet spot she was looking for. Now, she had to find something just as important — a loyal customer base.  Luckily, this wasn't Barbara's first business. Through her past endeavors, Barbara already had some ideas about her target market, what they wanted, and how best to reach them. Barbara: Now, I spent some time in Texas for 10 years and I had my own business there as well, making curtains and drapery and shades. And my first customer was a junior-league lady and I had learned very well. You tell a junior league lady, you're set because they all tell each other, they all call each other. So with that experience, with the cookies I thought, I got to donate to the junior league. And I did the same thing. I picked a couple different charities and I'd make a significant donation and people started calling. And that's how it started, with donations, because I had to get the word out. Dave: Did you set any goals for your business when you were first getting started? Barbara: Oh, I wish I could say yes! I wish I could say I followed my business plan to the T. I did not. My goal was to make some extra money. I'm a single mother with two kids, money was the ticket. So, with the help of friends, I thought it was important to get a website together and that was my first goal to get all those 12 months of designs made. Then to set up a photography booth or some way to get…I bought my first camera to do the photographs, my first little instant camera. And, to set up a business account, I set up a checkbook. The goals were very small and then to find charities where I could donate because I knew that's where my market was. See, I knew, from my experience of having my business in Texas, I knew what these ladies wanted. I knew what they were looking for and knew where they were. I knew my market. And I knew what they needed. And that's how I did it. Going for the upscale charity events and contacting people I knew in that area. Dave: What would you say makes your business different from others out there? Barbara: I would say the service. I mean, they love the taste of the cookies, there's that. They love the cookies, they love what I do. But I've had people tell me, “Oh, you're so flexible, and thank you” And it's personable, you know, people get excited when they can talk to the person who's actually making their product. It's not going through several layers. In fact, a few years ago, well in 2004, Gwyneth Paltrow put me on her Goop website for Christmas. And that's because I knew her driver. A friend of mine drove for her. I didn't even know he was driving for her but that was my connection. And I got a lot of orders and one person called to check on her order and it was so funny the way she spoke. It's like, “Can you go down on the factory floor and find the order?” and I said, “Ma'am I'm making your cookies.” And they're so excited. They're very excited to talk to the person. So I think that's it. There's no filter between me and the client. They call or they email or they talk to me. And that's the way I like it. And even as I grow, I don't know that I'll give away that part of the business. I think I'll still be the contact person. Dave: Barbara's success comes from giving her customers an experience they can't get anywhere else. By listening to her customers' advice, Barbara creates relationships that make other people feel invested in her success. It's no surprise that many of Barbara's best new customers have come directly from her existing customer base. Dave: Yeah. Is there, is there some place that you go for advice or guidance? Barbara: Oh gosh, yes! Gosh, yes! I guess I'm just a friendly person. But I know so many people who seem to be more successful than I am and their always eager to help me. I have one friend I met when I was doing cookies for a charity function and it was being held at Pixar. It was a very big deal and I got to see the Pixar office. I got to look at an Oscar, like two feet from my face, a real Oscar. That woman moved on to another company and another company and she's taken me with her every step of the way. So I've made cookies for her at every company and she's very into computers and marketing. And she helps me and she gives me ideas. Another friend of mine, again, it's a friend of a friend. He asked me if I could deliver cookies to his friend who manages a very big jewelry store downtown. And because of the timing, I thought, “Oh I'll just take him in myself.” And that was like a perfect thing to do. The fellow loved meeting me, he loved the cookies and he has sent me business and he has sent me a wonderful event planner that I work with constantly. And he's my buddy. He brings me to different events, he suggests things to do. He's got me working on a chocolate cookie now. He's determined to have a chocolate cookie place card with gold lettering. So I have ordered. I have been through the web top to bottom looking for a specific edible gold luster, which I've acquired. It's in the mail to me now. So they guide me, they tell me what you can do. Another friend of mine works at LinkedIn and he's helping me use that to meet other marketing people in different companies because that's where the cookie orders from companies come from. So, yes, I don't know, people like me and they talk to me and I talk to them and we chit chat. And yes, I have plenty of advisors. I've made cookies for Google Ventures and they're still customers. I did cookies for UPS. I did cookies for Tyler Florence a couple of times. And when he had his shop, my cookies were in his shop. Because one day, I walked in, and I happened to have my portfolio with me. And there was some sugar cookies for sale and I thought, “Oh my goodness! I can do better than that.” So I showed the sales girl. She got the marketing person to come down and we started a relationship and I had my cookies in there every holiday. Because I walked in and said, “Hey look at me.” Dave: Barbara's confidence in her product and dedication to her customer relationships have served her well in growing her business and reaching big-name clients. But that doesn't mean she's always as busy as she'd like. Dave: Was there ever a time that you felt like potentially the business wasn't gonna work? Barbara: Oh yeah! Oh gosh yes! Dave: Tell us about that. Barbara: Because I didn't have a budget for marketing. My budget was, “Can I pay my mortgage this month?” And some people would tell me, “Oh! You need to get better pictures. They don't do you justice.” And I didn't have the money to go up a notch. Packaging, when you start pricing packaging, you have to buy a lot for custom packaging. It's a huge investment for a small business. And there were times where I would get discouraged. And then the phone would ring and somebody would say so and so told me about you. And I would get all happy again. I really feed off my customer's happiness because it tells me I'm doing a good job. Dave: What have you found has been your most effective way to get or reaching customers? Barbara: Oh, really, Constant Contact because my email list consists of people who have already done business with me. They've already emailed me and bought purchased cookies so they're on my list. They're familiar with the product and the emails are just a reminder that I'm here, which is, as I said, for people that don't order cookies regularly. They need to be reminded, whether it's a birthday or an anniversary or something… Dave: Yeah. Tell me a little bit about your approach with email, like what do you? What do you send out? Like what do you do, how often? Barbara: I want to do it once a month. I try to do it once a month and I like to put up pictures of cookies they haven't seen, something new. Like I believe I did an email about painted cookies now, there's a big demand now for watercolor. You use the food coloring as the paint. So I did that. Mostly it's seasonal, you know. It's like, “Oh this is August, I'll send out a picture of my watermelon cookies” or whatever. Trying to think of what they might be doing and what they might need them for. We're very seasonal. I don't ever have sales, so there's nothing like that to do. I made a decision very early on that I wasn't going to discount my work, at all. And I don't. I don't care if you're buying two dozen or two thousand. The price is the price and that's it. So, there's no sales to advertise. It's mostly a reminder. Get on the books now because September's full. So, think about me now. Mostly to remind people to, order ahead. That's what I use it for. The email marketing is entirely affordable, entirely affordable, $20 a month? I mean, come on. It's a bargain. It's a tremendous bargain. And what sold it for me is the online help because I'm of a certain age. I need to speak to someone. I don't want to just tap on the computer. And every time I call, I get someone who is willing to stay there and help me and I've never gone away unsatisfied from a phone call. And I need that because I'm not computer savvy. I am not going to invest time in learning how to run a computer because I run a cookie business. I'm not a computer person. Dave: Rather than focusing on finding new customers, Barbara stays in touch with her existing customers — the people she already has established relationships with. By reaching out and reminding her customers what she has to offer, she sparks new interest and gets the phone ringing again. Dave: What is it that you would say that really keeps you going and your business successful? Barbara: Pride in what I do, that I do it myself, that I don't have to answer to anyone except my customers. Like I've mentioned, this is not my first business. My first business was making curtains, draperies and shades and it was the similar thing. I worked alone, I made a beautiful product, everybody was happy at every stage. And I loved being my own boss. I've spent plenty of time working in offices thinking, “How can I get out of here?” I am not a paper person. I don't care what industry it's in, I cannot stand sitting behind a desk. So with cookies, I just love being the boss and being the creative person. I get physically ill if I cannot create something, if I can't be refinishing furniture, or making a curtain or doing something creative. And the cookies give me all that. All my art, all my color, theory, everything I do is in there. And I love making people happy. I love making little kids smile when they get a cookie. I have pictures on my wall of the little kids holding my cookies, being happy. That's a nice thing. Dave: You'll notice Barbara's success is rooted in her own satisfaction, as well as her customers'. As she said earlier, she really feeds off her customers' happiness. While many small businesses are started by fiercely independent people — hungry to call the shots, make their own hours, and put their stamp on things — the successful ones never lose sight of the people they're trying to help. I'll leave you with Barbara's best advice for someone interested in starting their own business. Barbara: Oh, golly. Know your market. If you don't know where your market is and what they want, you have no chance. You need to know what people want. And once you figure that out, make what they need. It's the same classic advice, find a need and fill it. And because of my exposure to a certain crowd of people years ago, I knew what they were looking for. I knew what they liked to have and that's why I can still serve those people by making my product. You have to know your market, you can't just have a good idea that nobody wants to buy, if you're gonna do it for a living. I mean believe me, I love what I do, I love the art but make no mistake, and this is how I put gas in the car. I have to make money. Dave: We appreciate you listening and would love to hear what you think of the show. Please go to iTunes or Stitcher right now and leave us a review. Small Biz Stories is produced by myself and Miranda Paquet with editing by TwentyFourSound. You can contact us at podcast@constantcontact.com Small Biz Stories is brought to you by Constant Contact. Constant Contact is committed to helping small businesses and nonprofits connect to new and existing customers with email marketing. You can be a marketer, all it takes is Constant Contact. Find out more at ConstantContact.com. The post Felix the Cook — Small Biz Stories, Episode 14 appeared first on Constant Contact.

An Arkansas native coming from a family of incredibly rich and interesting food-related history, Scott McGehee trained at the California Culinary Academy and cut his teeth at Chez Panisse working under Alice Waters for many years. Today Scott is a rabid advocate of treating people and contemporaries in the industry with absolute kindness, dignity, and respect. He exercises this advocacy as Executive Chef/Partner at Yellow Rocket Concepts, a Little Rock restaurant partnership, which is known as Central Arkansas's culinary juggernaut.   In this episode we discuss: Never giving up. If you want something you need to chase it. You need to be consistently positive. learn to communicate effectively. Utilize the path of least resistance to get things done. Lift struggling coworkers up, don't put them down for their mistakes. Paying your dues in the kitchen to learn and become better. Cooking is about more than food. Food is about human relationships, not just sustenance and taste. Be calm and kind. Baby steps are key to expansion. If you're not improving and growing every day, you're dying.If you don't know something just ask. You should be continually reinventing your restaurant.

A graduate of the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, Chef Russell Jackson’s passion for food started out like many of us, at home watching his Mother cooking family meals. He went on to become the Head Chef role at the James Beard-nominated Black Cat and eventually landed an opportunity to appear on both Iron […]

A graduate of the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, Chef Russell Jackson’s passion for food started out like many of us, at home watching his Mother cooking family meals. He went on to become the Head Chef role at the James Beard-nominated Black Cat and eventually landed an opportunity to appear on both Iron […]

Jennifer Johnson was a former sous chef at Chez Panisse under Alice Waters, credited with starting the global sustainable foods movement.  For the last 14 years, Jen has served as the Executive Chef for Ann & Gordon Getty, one of San Francisco's most prominent families - where she was also tasked with preparing healthy, home-cooked lunches for students at the household's Montessori school. In 2015, Chef Jen and Hip Chick Farms co-founder Serafina Palandech were named Most Innovative Women in Food & Drink by Food & Drink Magazine.  Jennifer attended the California Culinary Academy where she earned an Associate of Arts degree. She will discuss the meal she cooked for Obama and life on the farm.

More and more people are taking cooking classes and are also searching for other ways to perfect their skills as they develop their own style. While there are so many books and DIY videos on the market, there is one particular book that is almost the CliffsNotes of Cooking. In the book, Kitchen On Fire, by Chef Oliver Said and Chef Mike C, there are step-by-step illustrated directions about everything from understanding how to work with knives, perfect your knife skills, ingredient definitions, culinary technique definitions, egg anatomy and basic chemistry, conversion tools, tips and tricks, and so much more! In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, host, June Stoyer talks to Chef Mike C. who is an honors graduate from the California Culinary Academy and was the most recent host of the long-running TV series Organic Living with the Hippie Gourmet. Tune in to learn from one of the founders of the Kitchen On Fire! culinary school in Berkeley, California! Today's show is sponsored by Austria's Finest Naturally Authentic Pumpkin Seeds and Pumpkin Seed Oil from the Steiermark available at OrganicUniverse.com. Listeners of TheOrganicView can receive $1 off their purchase by using the coupon code "orgview".  For more offers, please visit our website at www.theorganicview.com

Billy Allin was born in New York and grew up in Greenwood, South Carolina. His professional culinary career began at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, where he graduated with honors. During his culinary program, Billy spent, first, a couple days a week, then almost every evening, working at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. Billy and his wife Kristin moved to the Napa Valley in 2003, and he worked at The Martini House under Chef Todd Humphries. In 2004, Billy and Kristin moved back to the Southeast. Billy furthered his career at Watershed Restaurant in Decatur, Georgia, where he worked as a Sous-Chef for over two years. In 2006, he began the process of opening his own restaurant, Cakes & Ale, in Decatur. Cakes & Ale is modeled after Billy and Kristin’s basic dining philosophy: cook unassuming food using the highest quality ingredients and serve it in a comfortable and welcoming setting. At Cakes & Ale, Billy and Kristin have created a down-to-earth restaurant where they can express their creativity and passion for great food and drink and the diner and enjoy the experience of a truly delicious meal.

Karen Diggs is a Certified Nutrition Consultant & Therapeutic Chef and inventor of the Kraut Source. After graduating from the California Culinary Academy, Karen got on a jet and flew off to Hong Kong.  There, she worked as a chef for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and also helped to open two eateries in that magnificent city of 7 million people (crowded into 426 square miles). In 2004, while washing dishes in her kitchen, Karen had an epiphany!  The epiphany went something  like this: “Wow, maybe it’s good to combine cooking with nutrition?!”  After all, didn’t someone from long ago say ” Let food by thy medicine and medicine by thy food”?  (It was Hippocrates who said that, by the way.) So, Karen went back to school and obtained her certification as a Nutrition Consultant in 2006 from Bauman College. Now, Karen merges her deep and innate culinary skills with her knowledge of holistic nutrition to help individuals achieve optimal health through detoxification and weight loss workshops, therapeutic cooking classes, and private nutrition consultations. Karen Diggs, CNC is a member of the National Association of  Nutrition Professionals. She lives by the simple motto: “Eat Right, Be Well.”

Celebrated California Artist/Chef Wendy Brodie is known for her creative style with food, presentation and table decor. In fact, she is often described as an artist whose medium is food. A graduate of the first class of the California Culinary Academy of San Francisco, Brodie has held executive chef positions at prestigious world-class resorts, including the Preserve at Rancho San Carlos, where she developed her own innovative style of ranch cuisine, Stonepine Inn and Gardiner's Tennis Ranch, all in Carmel Valley. She has been a guest chef, developing menus to represent California cuisine, at numerous four and five-star hotels in Europe and the Jockey Club in Hong Kong. Wendy has sailed with the Crystal Cruise Line as their Celebrity Guest Chef. She has cooked for and with numerous celebrity chefs including Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, Roy Yamaguchi, Paul Prudhomme and Martha Stewart. She has also been a guest chef at the Masters of Food and Wine in Carmel and the Monterey Wine Festival. She is one of the featured chefs in the Masters of Food and Wine cookbook. In 1991 Brodie was selected to attend Madeleine Kamman's graduate program at the School for American Chefs at Berringer Wine Estates and has been inducted as an honorary member of the American Academy of Chefs of the American Culinary Federation. She was awarded the 1982 Chef-of-the-Year of the Monterey Peninsula. Currently she gives classes of her artful style with food, table décor and entertaining in her demonstration kitchen in the Carmel Highlands. She also teaches cooking classes as team-building and spousal programs. Brodie is affiliated with The Confrerie de la Chaine des Rotisseurs, Les Toques Blanches, Knights of the Vine, American Institute of Wine & Food, International Wine and Food Society, American Culinary Federation

Anthony Rose is the genius chef behind Toronto restaurants Rose and Sons, Big Crow, and Fat Pasha. He studied at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco before working under several New York City food titans, including Jean-Georges Vongerichten. He also stole swigs from Barry's birthday Scotch. Anthony spoke with us about the first time he ate bacon, why Jews love Chinese food, and running the Drake Hotel's kitchen. He also talked about getting drunk with Anthony Bourdain, and bringing Cook It Raw to Canada.