S6E16 - Chef Dennis
This week’s guest is Chef Dennis, the founder of the food blog, Ask Chef Dennis. Incidentally, he is also a chef!
Dennis was always a fan of food. He gained early inspiration was Graham Kerr, an Australian television chef who showed him how great you could make people feel by cooking for them.
Professionally, he started out as a prep cook, carefully observing the chefs with the aspiration of moving into that role. After a chef at the restaurant he was working in was injured during a busy weekend, Dennis got his big break.
Later, following a bout with carpal tunnel, Dennis moved into business dining for a time and then on to a school where he revamped the dining program and also stared educating students on cooking. His blogging stared as an output of what he was teaching at the school and eventually grew to have a worldwide following!
Some key points we hit:
Dennis’ path of trying to do a lot of things and finding out what he wanted to do
Introducing change to an organization
How people can get satisfaction from cooking for themselves
In addition to cooking personally, Dennis enjoys reading and music. He also became a travel blogger almost by accident and enjoys trying the cuisine in all different places and telling people about it.
Note from Rabiah (Host):
It was so funny when Chef Dennis mentioned Graham Kerr because I too watched his show but not to the same end. He was wild! And it was a lot of fun to watch his cooking show. I am not someone who ever watched the Food Network but I have been entertained by some chefs. What I like about Chef Dennis is that he always ends up going back to what he loves, which is food, no matter how is is lead to it.
Rabiah (London) chats with Chef Dennis (New Jersey) about about food blogging, travel and pursuing your purpose.
Transcript
Rabiah (Host): [00:00:35] This is More Than Work, the podcast reminding you that your self worth is made up of more than your job title. Each week I'll talk to a guest about how they discovered that for themselves. You'll hear about what they did, what they're doing, and who they are. I'm your host, Rabiah. I work in IT, perform standup comedy, write, volunteer, and of course, podcast.
Thank you for listening. Here we go.
Welcome back this week everyone. So my guest is Chef Dennis. Thanks for being on Dennis.
Chef Dennis: Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me on your show today.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, I'm excited. So where am I talking to you from?
Chef Dennis: Well, I am in Summers Point, New Jersey. It's right outside of Ocean City, "America's Family Resort. When, when we moved back we did try to get a house in Ocean City, and it was one of those God's unanswered prayers kind of thing because we, my [00:01:35] wife wanted it so bad, and it turned out this was the best thing for us was right across the bridge.
Because we have neighbors that we see. It's not people coming in every week and we're on the water. We're gonna never afforded the water over there, you know, talking millions for those. So, so, you know, it worked out really well. Yes, I'm, I'm in New Jersey. Never thought I'd come back. We moved nine years ago to Florida and my wife said, when we crossed the border, the angels sang for me.
You know, I was a native Texan and Florida was as close to Texas as I was gonna get, I think. And loved the blue sky sunshine and I just got so crowded. Everybody moving to Florida, everybody. So, we moved back up here and we're gonna winter there. You know, I'm not stupid, but
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, that's the thing a lot of, I lived in New York City for about five years and a lot of people, like a lot of friends I made, their parents would do that. They'd winter down in Florida and then summer up in, in New York and it was kind of a relief for everyone. Cause they got a break from [00:02:35] family too, so...
Chef Dennis: oh yeah. Good for everybody. Mental health.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, exactly. Cool. Well, um, , you're Chef Dennis. I mean, that's, that's the what people know you as from Ask Chef Dennis, from your website and from your YouTube channel and everything. So So you're doing this now, you're a personality who's, you know, teaching people how to cook but before that, how did you get to where you are now? And then we'll talk about what you're doing now, but how did you start out?
Chef Dennis: Well, you know, I didn't, I always liked to cook because I like to eat and I, I equated that at, at an early age that me being able to make my own food meant that I got to eat more often. And I was, I was a big fan of that. My early inspiration was Graham Kerr and he was just this flashy Aussie, or I don't know if he was Aussie or New Zealand, but he'd wear the, the Ascot, the scarf, and he would come out and he drank a lot.
He did. And he, he loved butter and he loved cream. And that was kind of my, something that I carried with me throughout, throughout my life [00:03:35] in cooking. And at one time he was listed as the most dangerous man in America by the American Heart Association, because of all the butter and cream, you know. I have since, you know, as we all do, as we get older, cut back on some of those things because of, you know, we wanna live longer at the time.
But Graham Kerr really kind of, he implanted this memory of how amazing. It was to make people happy with food cuz he'd bring them down from the audience and people would literally moan in the faces they would make when they tasted what he cooked. And I, you know, I never really had any other artistic ability that that's shown.
And That was the one thing I could do, that I could be creative at and I could create things so you know that again, I always say they go back to that, you know, that early memory imprinted and all the different things I tried throughout my life to be good at and to be happy at. Nothing ever really resonated until I, I got in the [00:04:35] kitchen and started cooking.
And I started as a, a prep person in, in a restaurant and I watched everything that the chefs were doing, you know, cuz I did not wanna be in that corner and the prep person. For me that was like this, there's no fun here. There's no action here. I'm passing food to the people that are making it. And during the season, I would, I would jump in the corner every chance I got when the boss wasn't there because the, the one main other chef didn't like to cook.
He was the CIA graduate. He was amazing at everything else, but it just wasn't, that wasn't the part of the restaurant business he enjoyed, He enjoyed every other aspect of it. So he saw that I kind of knew what I was doing and that meant he could get his work done in the back and not have to come up every time to make a, a dinner, you know, when we were slow. This was only the slow times. And I started learning how to make everything and I just kept working at it and working at it all summer and end of the season the owner was looking for a new property and he got stung by [00:05:35] like, 18 wasp, bees. I don't know what stung him. But they had to shoot him full of, of drugs to keep him from going into shock.
And, and this was Labor Day weekend, the busiest day at the Jersey Shore. I walk in and the other chef goes, "Guess who's cooking tonight cuz?" And I said, "Who?" He goes, "You are." Cool! Okay, , you know, you know, it didn't phase me, didn't scare me. Well, not that I let on and, yeah, I got through that night pretty much flawless and I escalated my apprenticeship in the kitchen pretty quickly.
And you know, I spent the next few years still learning the trade and learning everything, but I was the guy in the corner. Now I could be trusted. So that's really what kind of fueled and started me cooking. And then, you know, over the years I actually stayed with that family on and off for, they were my safe zone. Every time. I left a restaurant or had just needed to get my head on straight, I would call 'em and said, "You need anybody for a while," you know. So I'd go back and work for them and and, you know, get things together and make some changes and, [00:06:35] you know, build my confidence back up and then go back out in the world and work somewhere else.
So, it was a good spot for me and towards the end of that career, my body started to break down and my hands went first and I had carpal tunnel so I decided to go into business dining. I had a friend in business, dining and, and management.
And that didn't last a whole long time because I just couldn't sit in the office while the food looked like it wasn't as up to my standards.
I was, I'm a Virgo, so I'm a perfectionist and I expect people to work at the level that I work at, which is unrealistic, but for me anyway. So I would end up back in the kitchen. And then I had another carpal tunnel surgery and I went back in the office. And then actually he sent me to a school. That was my last job.
And the food was horrible. It was school food. And I just, I, I, I couldn't take it anymore. I was going stir crazy in the office. We didn't have that many video games on the computer at that point that I could just sit there and play those. So I started cooking [00:07:35] again, and it, it ended up being like a made for TV movie.
The girls, it was an all girls Catholic high school. They loved me. They painted a mural of me on the wall. They were like, you know, they were so thrilled that they were getting this crazy good food rather than, Simple cafeteria food. And a few years into it, I decided that I needed to start training my own staff.
And that's when I became a blogger. I, I started a culinary program at the school and started teaching girls, you know, how, And I wasn't trying to make chefs, I was just trying to teach 'em that, you know, food, it's not rocket science. You can make food easy and this is how we do it. Well, let's just go in the walk in and what do you wanna make today?
Let's grab some of this, some of this and this, and throw it together and teach 'em how to, how to work with food. And that's been my philosophy with my blog. But I started blogging as a resource for them. None of 'em wanted to go there. They wanted to come see me all the time. But I started getting some readers and started spreading out.
And then I found some organizations and I kind of got spread out more [00:08:35] worldwide. Now, not a large following, but I, I was reaching the whole world, you know? I think I had, I forget how many countries I was in. It was, I was missing Greenland and a country in Africa.
Does know anybody in Greenland? My blogging started changing direction and it was like, you know, this is something I can do when I retire. My body finally gave out and I retired early and we moved to Florida.
Rabiah (Host): Hm.
Chef Dennis: And I had all this extra time, so then I really started working harder at it and doing more and stayed up on everything. Um, Google Hangouts was a big thing back then. And, Google was a love hate relationship. Either you loved it or you hate it. I loved it. I drank the Kool-Aid early on. And that was something that again, got me up into view because I was using the Hangouts the way they wanted to. We actually had phone conversations every other week with Google.
It was like, this is crazy. [00:09:35] And they rewarded me by putting me on the follow list with Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray, Emeril Lagasse, Anthony Bourdain, and here's Chef Dennis. I'm like, I don't know how the hell this happened. So that got me, I had over a million followers on Google at the tongue. They closed it.
But that taught me a lot about the business. Made me comfortable talking to, you know, I started doing conferences, speaking at conferences. And just kept working my end game. And I was doing very good, very happy with business. And then the pan pandemic hit and things went crazy. People were all cooking at home. I would say the pandemic was very, very good to me. You know, I didn't get covid and I, my business like tripled so it, it was a, a really good thing. I just love what I do. I wake up in the morning and try and figure out what, how I'm gonna make more money today, or how I'm gonna share recipes and how I'm gonna teach people, you know, that they can cook at home.
You really can. It's not that difficult.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. [00:10:35] Well, so like starting. So basically back when you started cooking, did you go to college or did you just decide to go straight into restaurants or what brought you, like how old were you when you started that first job as a prep cook?
Chef Dennis: I was I was gonna say I was in my late twenties. I, I had bounced around. I, I went to college right outta high school, which was not the right thing for me. I was not ready. I was studying business, so that did give me some insight to the business world. then I just, I dropped out. I just, it wasn't for me.
I was a musician. I was writing jingles for a while. I was playing in bands. Then I went and became a carpenter. My father-in-law was a master carpenter, and he was trying to teach me the trade. And he was a good guy. I worked, worked with him, built houses, did all kinds of things, and just was never, you know, really happy, happy.
You know, I. I was okay at what I did, but it wasn't anything I excelled at. I, and then I was, I was actually flipping, I, I had started my [00:11:35] life in the kitchen at 12 in a hamburger joint, and I became the manager at age 13 because I was an overachiever at that point. Which was crazy, you know.
So I went to for work for a company called Geno's. The guy that I'd worked at, this hamburger place was there and he got me a job there. So I was a manager there and I was the golden child for a while. And then I always had like a four year shelf life. After four years, people weren't as thrilled with me anymore, , cause I get rather obnoxious, you know?
So I was still really good at what I did, but I was more too obnoxious for, for them to have around. So I left there and my mom had been a charge nurse at a nursing home, and they needed a food service director. I went there and, and revolutionized the kitchen there. I had a really incredible person I was working with as the head dietician.
She had been everywhere and taught me a lot. She, she really taught, and that's when I went back to school and I got my degree in in food service, food science.
[00:12:35] Associates. And so when I went to the restaurant, I, I mean, I had that behind me. I had some knowledge how to run the business, end of it to a degree, but the kitchen, how to run a kitchen. The nursing home. Kitchen. Yeah. But not a professional restaurant kitchen.
So that's when I began what I, you know, I refer to as my apprenticeship with them. It wasn't official, but you know, they, they abused me for a few years. I worked for them. I, I learned a lot. I went and opened a new restaurant with them and I was part-time.
I only worked 35 hours a week. That's what they used to say, you know, that was part-time. But I'd cook every night on the line and just really started appreciating the whole routine. And then that kind of got me ready to go out on my own and I opened a restaurant with some other people. And then just moved around the industry.
But I, I would always come back to them for every now and then and then go back out and come back. But yeah, no real formal training other than I read everything I could get ahold of.
Um, one restaurant I opened, the guy said he wanted to be real Italian, [00:13:35] so I, I had the county library system ordering every book they could find. And, when I got ready to open it, it was too Italian. He didn't know what half the stuff was cuz he was a, he was an American Italian,
you know, not an Italian Italian and I'm cooking this regional stuff. He, he didn't even know how to pronounce it, you know,
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Yeah.
Chef Dennis: So we, we scaled that back a little bit, but that taught me a lot too. So I carried a lot that through and, and I would kind of Americanize regional dishes to make them more palpable.
Cuz honestly, Americans, if you go to Italy, it's not gonna be what you expect.
Or you're in London, so you understand that. Cause London has more real Italian
food. But over here it's Italian American. It's all been adapted, you
know? They, they've come up with some wonderful dishes, but not necessarily something you'll get in Italy.
Rabiah (Host): No, that's true. So yeah, it sounds like you just kind of [00:14:35] knew early on too, just about adapting things to make them more palatable, but also like easier for people to comprehend, in a way, is a dish, right? So, which probably is translated to what you're doing now with the, with the videos, like with your YouTube channel and stuff like that.
Looking at that though, it sounds like you started out in a pretty creative career with music, of course. And then even with the carpentry, I mean, there's still, it's an art in my opinion, like building things really well. So do you feel like the food is just an extension of you being creative too?
Chef Dennis: Yeah, I, I do, I do. And it's the one thing that I'm actually, I feel that I have, not that I've reached the pinnacle but I feel that I, I'm, it's my best creative outlet. I had an early teacher early on before I really got into the kitchen that showed me how to make some things.
And she had told me, she, she would call me Sonny Boy. She said, Sonny Boy, you have to learn to listen to the food. And I looked at her like, You know what have you been smoking? [00:15:35] And and it was like, No. She goes, If you listen. If you look. If you let all your senses open up while you're creating something, It'll speak to you in a way, and it'll tell you what it needs or what it wants to make this dish really good, what it's missing.
And that's kind of something that, I don't know if it was intuitive that, that I had, that she knew I had and brought it out, but I, I love to mix things together. And you know, when the restaurant, especially like, on the Jersey Shore, we're selling a lot of seafood, but seafood's expensive. So people coming in for dinner are, are, they're, they're trusting you with their money.
They're giving you their hard earned money to get, to feed them and make them happy. So I, I would use chicken. And different as like lobster or shrimp. So I would make the dish less expensive, but still give them that taste of seafood, the mix with it. And I, I would just find other ingredients and I just love combining, you know, I, I was using sun dried tomatoes [00:16:35] before they were really popular and I would use sausage in dishes, pepperoni in dishes, and, and it would just really add some flavor, add some spice.
And I was make, making these beautiful seafood combinations serving 'em over pasta. And I, I, I always said, you know, you never want someone to leave your restaurant hungry. If they leave and they're so hungry, you did something wrong, you know? And I go to so many restaurants and they give you this tiny little portion of pasta.
Well, that's the cheapest thing on the plate.
You know, Give me a good size and let me go away going, Oh my God, that was great. I'm full. So, you know, I always gave up real healthy, serving a portion and made sure people were unbuckling their belts after they got done eating. You know, I'd go out in the dining room if it was quiet, I, I would've done my job. If they were so busy eating that they didn't want to talk, that's when I knew I was successful.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Yeah. That's a good, that's a good measure for sure. I like that. And so then working in this school, I mean, one thing, it is interesting cuz I, it's almost [00:17:35] like there's this general knowledge that school food isn't good. And it's almost as though that's acceptable to give kids or young people food that isn't great.
Which is weird because you would think we're taking, I mean, I don't have kids, but I very much like them and think that they shouldn't eat food that's not good. And so, yeah, why should they? I mean, and I think about what we had in school and we had, I know there was this like big cookie and I thought, how unhealthy was it that you were every day serving some kid this giant cookie,
you know, like, what is wrong with you? So what was the process for you of changing things over there and and how did that go overall? I mean,
Chef Dennis: Well,
Rabiah (Host): it's introducing change is difficult.
Chef Dennis: it, it was, and it, it didn't happen overnight. And the biggest the most acceptance that I got were from the seniors that year because they had already spent three years eating crap. Any kind of small change that they saw, they, they were very appreciative. Now, [00:18:35] it did take a while. I mean, when I first got there, we were in a Catholic school, so it didn't matter what I fed 'em. The like,
I remember going toman when I first tired and I says, All right, so where we getting rid of the soda machine. She says, You will not get rid of the soda machine. They love their soda, you know, what about fried food? Says you feed them whatever they want. You keep them happy and everything is good. So there was no restrictions on what I couldn't give them.
So the, at the time, the company that I had joined Was very big on health and healthy foods.
Uh, and I learned a lot about like whole grains. I had to serve aramath, spelt, quinoa. I didn't know how to say quinoa back then. I had to go, I'm in a Whole Foods and I'm looking around. I pick up a box, How do you say this?
Cause I was going quinella, you know. It's like I had no idea. I heard people talking about quinoa. I kept looking for it. I couldn't find it. , you know, . So I learned to work with whole grains. I had. Being in food service in dining service, I [00:19:35] hadn't understood about grilled vegetables and healthy salads and different things, so, first thing I did was redid the salad bar and, and the person working it was very receptive cuz she loved the fact that I was giving her all these great options to put on and giving her a lot of creativity to do things.
So the salad bar transformed and they were loving that. And then I would slowly try and get 'em away from the fried chicken fingers, which, you know, fried chicken fingers are pretty good. Not every day. , not all the time. So I started making a couple pastas every day. I started them making about eight different sandwiches every day.
We had two soups every day. And, and just started getting 'em away from the chicken fingers. And then I would make chicken marella. We had sushi. We had, you know, stuff that you wouldn't find in the school. And I even had fried calamari on, you know, a a few times and they were just, there were kids that just loved it and they were so appreciative and they saw that we still had the big [00:20:35] cookies too,
but ,we had everything else in between.
Rabiah (Host): they're so good.
Chef Dennis: Yeah, Breakfast, you know, I was making all kinds of muffins and, and serving different things. I, I brought coffee in. I brought a organic fair trade coffee in that my company had access to. Teas, The Republic of Teas. I had all these teas and the kids were like, Wow, you know, I was treating 'em like adults cuz I
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Chef Dennis: honestly didn't know what to feed kids. I treated 'em like adults and, and it worked really, really well.
Rabiah (Host): That's awesome. And I mean, kids, they're, I don't know, some adults act like children, you know what I
mean? But kid ,so it's like kids, I don't know if you kind of treat them like people and with respect and maybe it's just cause I don't have them, I, I think I just treat them differently anyway. You know what I mean?
Cuz I don't have to parent them so I can just, just be like, Hey, what's up? You know? What do you want to eat? You want real food? No, that's really great. And so then looking at basically all the stuff you're producing now, so you do your [00:21:35] blog, you do videos on YouTube, and you also do stuff about travel.
So how's all that like evolved now, as you said, from when the kids, it was more to teach people like you knew now it's to teach anyone. So that evolved and what's your. Who should go visit your site and, and your blog and everything now?
Chef Dennis: Well, I, I try, I've used all my experience in the restaurant. I'm, I've been in cooking in restaurants or dining services for, oh, geez, for longer than I care to remember at this point. But, you know, all the dishes I created, all the dishes I cooked, I I watch people constantly. I read constantly. I, I learn. So I have adapted these recipes and they're all tested. They all work. A lot of 'em are ones that I have made thousands of times, you know, that I know work. They're easy. My recipes are I, I always call 'em restaurant style because it's stuff that you can make and a restaurant, Well, we have 10, 20 minutes tops to make you dinner, [00:22:35] you know, and, and I can't even spend that much time on each individual dinner cuz I've got all these dinners coming in.
So there's stuff that isn't, isn't hard to make number one, and doesn't take a lot of time. So this is what I pass on to people with my recipes. So if you want to kick your, your cooking at home up a bit, you know, my recipes will definitely do that. What I also teach people is that recipes weren't written in stone. You can change them just because I say there should be mushrooms in the dish, if you don't like mushrooms, leave them out. It's okay. You know, it's it, it might change a little bit of the flavor, but if you don't like mushrooms to you, not at all, it's gonna actually be better. And I think the problem with a lot of people cooking is they trust these recipes or these chefs that tell them this is how it should be made. So they figure, well, I have to make it that way, because they're knowledgeable. They really know what they're talking about. Well, yeah, but you're the one eating the dinner, [00:23:35] you know? And I, I'll say, Should it have this? Well, yeah, it should, but it's your dinner.
If you don't like it, leave it out. And part of the problem is people will go into the kitchen and they'll take these recipes. They, they're all proud, they're excited. They've got a recipe printed out, They've got the ingredients and they make it, but it's got something in it they don't like. It's got a flavor they don't like.
So at the end of the process, when they sit down to eat, they go, well, it's good, but I don't like this. So they suck some of the joy out of 'em. So the next time they don't really want to, they don't have as much enthusiasm as they go in the kitchen.
, I don't like nutmeg. I don't put nutmeg in anything baked, but if you do put it in, you know, it's. It's, you know, it's no harm, no foul. So, you know, make it so you like it cuz then when you sit down to eat that meal that you worked hard to make, you're gonna go, Wow, this is good. I and your family's going, I didn't know you knew how to cook, you know, This is great. So you're all excited to get back in the [00:24:35] kitchen now.
So this is what I try to teach people, and this is what I try to give people with my recipes, is this philosophy of cooking with foods you like to eat and, and knowing you can make substitutions.
So anybody that really, you know, even if you're, you're good at, you've been cooking for a long time and you love it, I have some really great recipes.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Well, and it's funny with the, the heat, like adding spice or whatever, because I definitely like hot sauce and I'm a big fan, but I did start trying the food before I put the hot sauce on cause I used to just grab it and be like, Well, Shaula Shula's going on this. And I'd have no idea what it even tastes like without.
And so it's been, it's been interesting. But it is true too, when you're making your own food. I mean, I'm, I live alone. A lot of times if I make something, I'm gonna eat it for two more meals. It has to be something I like cause when I make something, I don't like it. I still have to eat it for the next two meals, you know? Then it gets really tedious. Are you familiar with Michael Pollan?
So he. He had a thing, I think it was actually on an Oprah show or [00:25:35] something, but where he talked about being really mindful and like cooking is a place where he's mindful and it reminded me of what you were saying about that person saying like to listen to the food.
It was a very similar idea, I think, of just like being mindful and present while you're cooking and kind of enjoying that process and it almost makes eating better too. And I kind of tried that, or I have tried that for the past couple years just to like enjoy cooking versus hating it . And doyou ever talk to people who say, well, I hate to cook, and have you ever delved into that with them and kind
Chef Dennis: Oh yeah. You know, it sometimes it's, it's just something that they're not, everybody is gonna enjoy it. My mother did not like to cook, which is one of the reasons I cooked. Now late in life. When she was living alone. She enjoyed the process. And I'm like, Oh my gosh. She goes, Yeah, I'm having a good time. But when she was so busy working all, she was a nurse.
She worked all the. She didn't like to cook. And my father. It was kind [00:26:35] of a bland, he was English, my mom's Mexican and my father who is English was kind of a bland eater. So I mean, that was one of the reasons, another reason I wanted to cook because actually this food is horrible. I actually sent her to the school to learn how to make spaghetti sauce because she was using this thing called spat, which was a packet of seasonings and tomato paste to make.
I know it was horrible. Even at a as little I knew it was horrible. But yeah, you know, that's the problem You. You don't like to cook because you've not had good experiences.
Okay. Right away you tried it, you know, and either you just threw stuff in a pan without really knowing what you were doing, or you followed a recipe verbatim that had ingredients you didn't like.
So I always tell people, Let's start simple. Let's start when, when you're just trying to make something. You know, like my, my Chicken Marsala is really easy to make. I start with something that only. You know, five to 10 ingredients in it. Something easy that you can make that you know you, What do you like to eat?
Do you like chicken [00:27:35] parm? Let's make chicken parm. Everybody loves chicken but you get sucky ones when you go into restaurants. So let's make something easy that you're gonna, you're gonna sit down and you're gonna go, Wow, Iowas good. So, yeah, it, you know, people will tell me, I, I just don't like to cook. And I'll go, Why don't you like to cook? Oh, because I, it never comes out right.
You know, it's too hard. Well, you're using the wrong recipes. Takes too long. It shouldn't take more than 20 minutes. You know, a lot of my recipes, you know, you can cook the, by the time you cook the pasta. If you're making pasta or rice or potatoes, the, the entree takes less time.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah,
Chef Dennis: Now if you wanna make something a little more intricate, you know, it'll take, you know, an hour or sometimes I slow cook things or braise them, that's gonna take three hours.
But you don't have to stand there and watch it. You know, you put it in the oven, you set the timer, you come back, you pull it out. So you know, it's nothing that requires a lot of work, but you can start to have fun with it. And you can start to bring people in the kitchen with you and you can have them cutting vegetables [00:28:35] with you.
You can talk. It's like you said, it should be a happy time. And making the time in the kitchen. Happy is the whole difference in making you happy when you eat food and letting you enjoy the experience. Like you said, you know, be in the moment. Enjoy the experience. Have a glass of wine, or have sparkling cider, you know, have something. Get, you know, get your family involved and, and talk and bond because we bond over.
Rabiah (Host): Mm.
Chef Dennis: We can sit down. My wife's a prime example. We're in Germany and I'm taking pictures and I turn around and can't find her. Well, she's sitting at a table with a bunch of Germans having a good time. I'm like, you don't speak German. You know how the hell's this happening? But she's very gregarious and outgoing and they'll she'll wave and they'll wave her over and you know, they're trying to communicate and but food does that.
Food does that food and. You know, drinking does that, you know, brings you together. We're laughing and having a good time,
Rabiah (Host): [00:29:35] Yeah.
Chef Dennis: not knowing each other's language that well. So you know, you can do that even more at home.
Rabiah (Host): Oh, for sure. I find like a lot of times you end up in the kitchen, at a party or whatever, you
Chef Dennis: Oh yeah.
Rabiah (Host): anyway, so people worry about what to do with other rooms. Like don't do anything. Just have the kitchen ready for everyone to stand around.
You know,
Chef Dennis: People gravitate to the kitchen. That's why I like the place we got now, kitchen's small, but I have this huge island that opens to the living room. You know, it's, it's a, a condo, so it's set up a little different. So, you know, this, that's to me's important. Alright, I have a gathering place right here and I can feed people
and,
Mario Baltal used to have a show on, and I, I always wanted to do a show like that where he would invite people in and he'd make it and they were sitting on the other side of the island talking to 'em while he cooked.
And, He would serve 'em, you know, for me that would be like the epitome of, of just having a good time, fun, you know, talking to people while I'm making stuff and, and showing 'em and teaching them. I think that's why I enjoyed the teaching [00:30:35] aspect of it was cuz I got to share the enthusiasm with people. That's what I try to do again when my recipe share some of the
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, That's awesome. So what else? What do you do besides cooking that kind of brings you joy or that gives you balance? Cause sometimes I'm sure, it is work. I mean, even if
Chef Dennis: Oh,
Rabiah (Host): you're having fun it, it's still work.
Chef Dennis: Yeah, it is. I, you know, and I spend a lot of time on social media and I need a break from that. So I read a lot. I always enjoyed reading, but it got to the point was I had so many paperback books in the house. I almost stopped reading because I was just accumulating too many books.
And I had slowed up and my wife bought me a Kindle, Oh, years ago. And, all of a sudden I became voracious again. I was reading constantly. And, and I'd still do that now. You know, I'll, I, I, I have Kindle Unlimited, so I, I get all these books for free and I read books that probably I
normally wouldn't.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Chef Dennis: I listen to music. I listen to music all the time while I'm working, unless I'm writing, then I have to have quiet while I'm writing. But that, and, and I love [00:31:35] to travel. I, I became the accidental travel blogger people were saying, and someone, the friend sent me to this travel opportunity and I says, I'm not a travel blog. She goes, Oh, I just apply. Apply. So I did. I got the, the, not a great room because I was the last one they accepted, but they had put in these nine foot sliding glass doors that opened to the Atlantic Ocean. We were on the beach. So I'm up there in this kind of crappy room, but, you know, they hadn't got to that floor yet. I'm looking out the, at the ocean and going, I can do this. I get this. If I write about it, people are gonna send me places.
You know, and that worked out. And I was getting sent all over Europe traveling and writing about it because I had such a large following on my food side of the business, you know, And then I became a culinary travel blogger.
So I would write, you know, I had someone call me out one time. He goes, he visited six UNESCO sites and didn't talk about 'em. He talked about the food. I'm like, Yeah,
everybody
Rabiah (Host): doing.
Chef Dennis: UNESCO sites. What was there?
Says they wanna know what they're gonna eat and where they can drink.[00:32:35]
Rabiah (Host): It's like, okay. That's a thank you for the complaint. You know, like great?
Chef Dennis: We finish it with, Yeah. And his stuff does make me hungry though,
so
it's like,
ok, job done,
Rabiah (Host): Okay. You weren't going to eat granite or whatever, you know, Oh, that's great. That's great. So, one thing I like to ask everybody is, do you have any like, advice or mantra that you just want to share with people?
Chef Dennis: Well, yeah, just, just to remember that you learn from failure, you know? Not everything I did was successful and not everything I did the first time worked. You know, so you, you never see success unless you fail first, in any kind of business. But, you know, if you wanted to be a blogger or a chef or, you know, you have to be able to work through the failures.
It's, you know, the strength. It's not, you're not strong because you never fail. You're strong because you fail and you try again.
So, you know that that's the whole thing. You know, when I was in high school, there was a poem my, my wrestling [00:33:35] coach would give me and goes, If, you know, if you think you are a beaten you are.
If you think you dare not, you don't. You know, And that's the
truth, you know, you just have to try, try it and try it until you get it right and just keep working at it and try to be happy at what you're doing.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Oh, that's great. That's and that's cool. Like my nephew plays sports. He's really a good baseball player, but I think I see how important the coaches are, so it's good that that resonated with you for this long.
Rabiah (Host): So next we have a set of called the Fun Five. First one, what's the oldest T-shirt you have and still wear?
Chef Dennis: You know, I. I have gotten out of that habit. I think my oldest t-shirt is maybe three years old. It's, it's, I I used to keep 'em and they were pretty much just a look at. I, I'm a messy eater.
Rabiah (Host): Hmm.
Chef Dennis: I know that might be hard to believe, but I'm a messy eater, so I stain my shirts, so they get recycled. If I can't keep the spots off of 'em, they go away and I just buy new t-shirts.
Rabiah (Host): Fair. Well, yeah, especially if [00:34:35] you're, before when you were using all the butter, that would
Chef Dennis: Yeah. Oh yeah. I, My wife gets everything on the floor or on the table, and I get everything on me.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. So you really wear like bibs
Chef Dennis: I, you know, I keep thinking about ordering bibs. I really do, because I'm tired of replacing t-shirts sometimes.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. All right. So it felt like, and you mentioned the pandemic affected your business in a different way, and Same for me. I mean, I was actually really busy, but it did seem like it was Groundhog's Day for a while because we were kind of doing the same thing all the time. So what song would you have your alarm clock to play every morning if it was Groundhog's Day, like the movie?
Chef Dennis: You Like the movie, "That Thing You Do" by the Wonders.
Rabiah (Host): Oh.
Chef Dennis: I love that song. You know, if we were going old school, I might say Happy Together by The Turtles, but that's going way, way, way back. But I was trying to think of that and, and I thought, you know, I love that song. It's so upbeat. And that would be a good Groundhog Day song to start the day, every day.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. That's cool. All right. And coffee or tea or neither?
Chef Dennis: Oh, [00:35:35] coffee. Coffee. Black coffee, lots of it. Don't dilute it and give it to me. One of the problems I had with coffee was all my life being in food service, coffee's hot. Coffee is hot. And I would buy these coffee makers and the coffee's like 185 degrees. It goes well, it's lukewarm, you know, I want 205 degree coffee.
Or, you know, So, definitely black and I have gone. off of all caffeine to half caf. So, you know, just because I, I like, to me, drinking coffee is Not a social event, even if I'm by myself, but for me it's social. I enjoy it. I like, I want a big cup. I want, you know, 16 ounce mug of
Rabiah (Host): Yeah,
Chef Dennis: an American. I like a lot of coffee, you know. One of my problems with traveling to Europe was I, I like espresso, but these little bitty cups and you know, you drink it and you're done. I'm like, well, that didn't take any time.
Rabiah (Host): And if you drink more than one of those, I mean,
Chef Dennis: Oh, yeah. .
Rabiah (Host): I [00:36:35] definitely sometimes do feel the coffee, you
know where I go, Okay, yeah, I had a little bit too much and, and yeah, I get it.
Chef Dennis: Yeah. It's like, there was a movie with Jim Carey that he had a Red Bull and he goes, I had a Red Bull. Did you have a Red Bull?
I had a Red Bull. Red Bull.
Rabiah (Host): Well that's even with . Sorry. No, that's even with beer. Like, so I, I see these beers that are 10% or something, and I'm like, that's not, I mean, at some point that's not sustainable. So I like a 4.5% that I can enjoy for a while. Cuz once I get over five, it just starts to get like to be an antisocial beer where it's like
Chef Dennis: Oh, some of them are so good, but yeah, that's like, I can't drink like that all the time.
It, No, it's not sustainable. That's, I'm one beer and I'm going home. See you guys,
Rabiah (Host): yeah,
Chef Dennis: you know.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, differerent conversation, basically.
Chef Dennis: Wow.
Rabiah (Host): Alright, so can you think of a, something that just makes you crack up or like a timely you laughed so hard you cried it or something like that.
Chef Dennis: Oh, there's a comedian. He, he did pass away. His name was John Pinette.
Rabiah (Host): Okay.
Chef Dennis: And he used to [00:37:35] do these routines. He was a large man. And he was so funny, but he would talk about going to McDonald's and he goes, You stand behind people. And they get up to the front of the line and go, Let's see, what will I have? He goes, They haven't changed our menu in 30 years.
I can't read it to you. Back to front, front to he goes, Get outta line. Every time he was like, "Get outta line", oh, I would just, howl. I, I've lived that, you know, you get, you see people and he goes, Really? You waited till now. But yeah, he was, he was just, I love all comedy. I mean, again, it's, it's a release, but there's certain comedians that just make me howl, and, and I think the movie that does it the most or did it the most was called Weekend of Bernie's.
It's an old, Oh, I almost peed myself in the movie theater. Laughing so hard. It was just so funny.
Rabiah (Host): that one's a wild one. Well, like Louie, you know Louie Anderson too? I
mean, he, which I don't know, I'm, I'm a comic on the side, so, I just, I watched some of the, the latest stuff he had done and it was so brilliant. But he [00:38:35] had that kind of delivery too. That was really great and, and he would talk about his weight and stuff, which was,
Chef Dennis: Uh,
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, he's beautifully done
Chef Dennis: Yeah. Oh.
Rabiah (Host): miss him for sure.
Chef Dennis: John Pinette, we used to talk about his friends thinking it was a good idea to take him skiing and he talks through the, Oh, it's just hysterical. It's just, and again, you know, the, the death march through Disney, you know, this, the different things that are just so relatable.
But yeah, and I think that's what it is.
It's relatable humor as well, cuz we're almost laughing at ourselves when we're laughing with them.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so, the last of the fun five. Who inspires you right now?
Chef Dennis: You know, I, I gather inspiration from so many different places. I would not say there's any one person that I have ever locked onto as I wish I could be like them as more or less. I, I, I try to gather inspiration from. I eat at restaurants from what I read [00:39:35] about I, I would say my, my greatest source of inspiration is are food magazines.
I, I actually have I got a subscription. I got again, I got tired of buying them and having stacks of these beautiful magazines that are just getting wasted. I love Australian food magazines.
And, and British ones too. Ones in the States, a lot of 'em suck. You know, all these old Bon Appetit and Gourmet, you know, I went delicious, good food, you know, all these different different magazines. So, but I, I have a subscription with a online service and I just, I just look at the pictures pretty much. And if I see something that I like, I copy, I, I do a screenshot of the picture and then I'll go back later and try and figure out how to make it.
Rabiah (Host): Oh, that's, cool. Like reverse engineer it kind of.
Chef Dennis: Yeah.
Yeah, that's, that's it. You know, and that's my thing with going out to eat. Like, I'll, I'll see something on the mini says, Wow, this sounds really good. And it'll come out and I'll go, Well, that's not what I expected.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Chef Dennis: So then I'll again, you know, make it the way I thought it should be. So that's kind of [00:40:35] where I gather inspiration from, from meals that I eat out.
And then again, just I like, you know, very visual, very visual. And I, I try to do that with my blog too cuz I, I know if I'm visual people all the stop go, Ooh, pretty picture pretty, that looks nice, you know, kind of a thing.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. Cool. Well, how do you want people to find you or where should they go to find you?
Chef Dennis: It's really easy. I am ask chef dennis dot com (askchefdennis.com) and across social media, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, I'm Ask Chef Dennis (@askchefdennis). So it's really easy. If you Google Ask Chef Dennis. I'll fill, I'll fill quite a few
pages.
ah, it was great to be on your show. I enjoyed the, I enjoyed our talk.
Rabiah (Host): Thanks for listening. You can learn more about the guest and what was talked about in the show notes. Joe Maffia created the music you're listening to. You can find him on Spotify at Joe M A F F I [00:41:35] A. Rob Metke does all the design for which I am so grateful. You can find him online by searching Rob M E T K E.
Please leave a review if you like to show and get in touch with feedback or guest ideas. The pod is on all the social channels at at More Than Work Pod (@morethanworkpod) or at Rabiah Comedy (@rabiahcomedy) on TikTok, and the website is more than work pod dot com (morethanworkpod.com). While being kind to others, don't forget to be kind to yourself.
