"Summer Series: From The Beach With David Burkta”

bringing you our Summer Series from the Beach. Each Friday, will be publishing short and intimate conversations that I've had with some of the top talent in the food world. And even beyond. The conversations you'll here for the next six weeks were recorded pool side at the w Hotel in South Beach as my friends and I enjoyed great cigars and magnums of rose as we discussed our past, present and future. Without further delay, please enjoy Summer Series

from the Beach with my good friend David Bertka. I think now, I think the millennials are getting it. I think the millennials are understanding that the modern pot luck is because people want to do because they're always in their phones and they're not social, so they need these outlets to sort of get together and and hang out and make meals together and and feel a sense of belonging.

I so agree. And pot luck is one of those things where you invite people you know, have one good dish, you bring that, you ring this, you ring that you bring this, you curate the manu, and suddenly have a great dinner and no one's like stressing out. Do you have not many invites for people from their house because you're an iron chef and acclaimed chef? No? Do people not tend to invite you because they feelings to what we do is we invite a lot more than we

get into the same here. Yeah, so I'm I'm okay with that. But I think that once we have people over, what's funny is to watch their reaction of them because they think that like, we're going to have this like butler service, like that it's family. Start doing the dishes. We open three or four balls of wine, put them in the middle, drink whatever you want and by the way, you do it yourself. I'm not pointing the wine for you. And a tart that we make and CHAKUI in the kitchen.

But is it a nice when people come over and you put them to work. I think people like that. People think like to be a part of the meal. In four seconds, if you if you bring him in the biggest part of your house. In four points six seconds, they come to the kitchen, they find the kitchen, and then when they get in the kitchen, they're they're not nervous, They're not okay, right, I use those pots, so I have those. It's it's this sensory memory thing that makes

them feel relaxed. So I go for them, like and when you when you give them a job like peeling carrots or chopping earth. And then and then you get to the carrots at the dinner and you're like, oh, Jeffrey's carrots are amazing. I feel like they're a part of it. That's nice little thing to do. So we have a long relationship of like cooking and eating together. And you live up the street. Literally, did you throw

the absolute best Halloween party? I've ever been to five levels of your brownstone and it is it's uncanny of a chocolate shop, a horror shop, a pastry room, a photo booth, a secret room. You're not supposed to go in, and when you go in and I know something bad happens. You never went in it. I haven't got in yet. I'm scared. And then a feast and everybody loves it, and you have all these children come at the right time, then they go home at the right time, and then

you have kind of an adult thing after. So you're really doing something. You've done all that party. Yeah. My husband is a huge Halloween fan and when we lived in l A. He was really famous for throwing putting on a haunted house for the teenagers of the neighborhood. Not the kids who are going trigger treating, but he would do some really scary stuff. I mean, it was how does that happen? How does one like he build a maze in his backyard? It was crazy? It was nuts.

How have you maintained your performance from every mathia done? From TV to screen a Broadway to music to writing, to cooking to catering to being a chef? How do you perform at the top level? What is it that drives you and how do you maintain what you're doing and get better every year? I feel like I do a lot of things, but do a lot of things mediocre. I don't do one great thing. So start your day out. How is it that you you wake up? What is

the first thing you do? Give me a routine. I do a bit of a meditation and then I wake my kids up, make them breakfast. Then my husband hates it, but I'm a short order cook, so whatever they want, you know. I started as a toast front, you know, and Worsted Eggs, and I started making one thing and that's it, and like, well, can I have an egg? And we have like pancakes, and like no, that was yesterday. And then it's like okay, and you just like succumb

because they don't try to plan something. So it's a little bit of surprises every now and then. But when Neil's waking them up, it's hot cereal, cold cereal. That's it. That's it. So get them to school. I usually go out earlier, workout, yeah, early, riser because I have to um and I'm home a lot, a lot alone because my husband's away. Yeah right now, he's shooting. Actually he comes tomorrow. He's shooting in San Francisco. The Matrix four four Yeah, yeah yeah, Kiano, yeah, he all of his

scenes are with Kiano. I don't know if I'm supposed to say that, but it's okay. Yeah, he's uh the mare Carrion Moss and Kanu Reeves and he him Basically, it's pretty exciting. So you're up, you're at the gym. What is your workout? Tuesday Thursdays or more cardio, Saturday's cardio and then Monday, Wednesday's Fridays or weights like body weight, so very specific five days. When you try to do when you travel, yeah, you do when you try. I

feel like I try when I travel more. I'm more able to work out because usually there's a gym in the hotel. Downtime aren't around like a vacation. When I'm going for work, right, you feel that you get to sleep in by nine or ten, you're done with your prepping for the day. Yes, then you get into it and then I get into it. So it's usually, Um, I've got meetings for this one show that I'm doing that's coming up from Netflix. Can we talk about it?

I don't know. Netflix is a big deal. It's a Netflix show and it's what is it kind of about? I can't really talk much. It hasnt been announced, but it's with food and drag queens, Food and Drag Queens, Yes, being the two together. So it's it's a wild it's a wild fun show, Food and Drag Queens. That's the first I wish I had thought of that. Damn well, you can come go on, you can come woke him dress Jeffrey and Jag. I don't think he'd be a

very pretty woman though hadsome man. Not a pretty woman at the heels thing with in the makeup thing, but very masculine features. I do thank you, So I don't think thank you so that if you're working on that show. So working on that show, working on that. I'm prepping for the Food Network show. I'm writing a show right now that is in the beginning stages. I just took a class and improv class because it's took an improv class. Yeah with upright, So this is aid and it was fun.

It was wild. So do you feel the need to sort to keep up your ship? I do. I feel like, you know, since the kids are getting older, I'm getting back into acting and I've been up for a bunch of stuff and turned down a lot of stuff that the Broadway stuff I'm not able to do right now. Still but it's hard because it shows a week with kids and Neil's always gone. It's like we just saw wil Uge and I was like, how do they do

that right? I mean, I know it's ninety minutes two hours, but it's just physically and mental to take such good kid when you're doing the musical, when you were doing when talking about performance, when I'm doing plays. When I was doing plays, I was always my best performances were when I was hungover. So if I partied the night before, it just came out of me emotionally because I was emotionally tired. But with musicals, you've got to take care of your voice. You got to take care of your body.

To stretch. You have to stretch an hour or two before. I did a show where I had a you know, seven minute dance solo in the show, and I had to get there an hour and a half just to warm up. And then it's warm up your voice and get enough sleep and eat right and eat clean. I mean, you've got to be an athlete to do a Broadway musical. And you notice that everybody is probably thirty or younger. Thirty two are younger. It's just what you phase out. I mean, I was doing answer to the chorus for

a really long time. And if you step like milusion know if you've seen it, If I did, I loved it. The show has been tab but the set is like the orchestra pit and the stairs, and if you make one misstep, you're running around. Oh yeah, and if you one misstep when you're you're gone. I mean. And also the show is so technical, so I can imagine if the set doesn't move and there's a big dance number,

I mean, you're stuff. If it's one second moves one second when you're not expecting it to move, and you're like in the middle of a step your toast, I'm like, I'm shocked by how they do it, and they get up for it, and it's really spectacular. It's a true it's a really true Broadway musical. I feel like lately there's been these musicals that are just stripped down and not many people. But this is the sets, the costumes, the dancing. There's not much substance, but who cares, no,

it's great. Who needs substance when you get dancing. So we're at noon, what do you eat for lunch? I usually have a big salad bar, Like in my my middle drawer, I have a bunch of different lettuces and sliced up cucumber, carrots, celery, a couple of different dressings, and I just put a big salad. Sometimes I have protein like shredded chicken or shrimp, garbonzo beans or some type of protein and plan this. I mean, you have

a plan every every weekend. I put the salad bar together so it's there so I'm able to eat like a big salad for lunch. We always say that like if you're not prepared, you're gonna fail. If you don't have stuff, you should have stuff and you open the bridge that you can right here is good. Yeah, those are my favorite kind of meals is just looking at the freaking seeing what you have, pulling something out of

your ass. So dinner is control. So usually around three thirty four o'clock, I'll start prepping and get things together and and I try to switch up the proteins. Where would you chicken in or pork or we do a lot of fish in our house. Um My kids eat everything like yours do. So everything. It's because at seven months, you know they were eating you know, viale parmesan your plate. It's like it's a little piece of veal. It's like fine. I have to say, I was so impressed with your girls.

You invited me to this met family night. Yeah. They did their own cooking, this cooking demo, and Neil and I were just blown. Oh wait, they were incredible. They were there like and I'm standing next to them. I want to help him. I'm like, They're like, oh can you can you season this? Dad? You're like, I'm the soux chef here. It was great. I had no purpose on that stage. I felt. I felt proud and sadly, sadly lonely, like that's it. That happened real fast? Do

they want to do that? Is that? Like? You know, there's twelve and they have a cookbook coming out, book coming on October. It's incredible. I saw a card there then it said there's a Carrian family cookbook. How genius? How was that with them? Was that hard putting it together? We shot at at our house in Niagara Falls in the summer. In the entire month of August. We had a studio in Buffalo, and my ex pastry chef happens

to live in Buffalo. She also works cooks as well, so she did all the recipes and we had a photographer next door that did all the photos. So we did in one month. I love how soft the photos are too. They're they're very different than most of these photos you see in cookbooks right now. It's kind of food different cookook. They wanted to do, and they said they did not want to do a kid's a kiddie cookbook. They wanted an adult cookbook that was like smart and

had great colors and and really popped. They didn't want to do sort of like ABC cooking, and they wanted to They want to start here. So he must be so proud. I'm very proud of them. Does George get into it? George's getting is eating. He eats everything, and he's starting to like understand. But he's five, so right, of course, that's she's still pretty young to be. He's very young. Snacks do you snack? Do I snack? Uh? Not really, I should know. Usually criticism I try to

not eat. But if it is, it's you know a handful of nuts or some apple with almond butter, or some veggies, So that's that's good snacks. That was really yeah, right, Like if I don't eat or a skip lunch. I'm going for the carbs and going for How does how does Neil take his diet on the road like that? Does he have someone that just cooks for him? No? No, No,

he doesn't eat. He doesn't. It's weird like he eats half portions of things all day and then by the time ten o'clock rolls around, he eats heats about seven ess peanut butter cups full esus peanut butter cups. Really, yes, at ten ten o'clock a nut because he's like hungry. I think so he's hungry or he's a tasty to it. It's like it's like Heroin for him. Peanut butter and sugar come on a chocolate. He will forget to eat ice, like he's like, oh, I had oat meal today and

it's eight o'clock. I was like, what, how can you forget to eat? I forget to have second or third lunch. It's impossible for us foodieas So, where was it for you that you decided that this is really natural, this food TV, this this thing is very natural for me, and I could still have You're really in three worlds. You could have all three worlds and you know, it's kind of incredible to have that as Act two and a half or three. When did that happen? Yeah, I

don't know. I took a break from acting because my mom had died, and then I had to get away from the rejection of acting because I was living in l a and not loving l a Um. So food always made me happy. Cooking always made me happy. So I went to culinary school and sort of things started falling in my lap um and it's been great. I've been loving balancing both the two and then realizing with infants, I can't go on the road, I can't do something on location. So it was nice to sort of stay home.

I had a catering company, I had, you know, I made a cookbook, so it was nice too. When the kids were at school, I was able to do my work. So it just sort of lent itself that I was able to sort of dabble in cooking and acting every now and then. And I did a one man show it at Studio fifty four, and so it was sort of like I went in and out. It must be amazing to be a home full time and cooking for them every night. Five nights a week. That's special. I

wish I could do that. I cannot do that. I can tell him to come to the restaurant, but it's not the same. But you know, I'm also putting together meals in forty five minutes. But very it's very simple, you know, It's it's simple for you. That takes time. A lot know a lot of people that if they come over for dinner, like on a week day, they're like, you just threw this together. So we we have this issue I think in our society and especially the culture that we're in now, is about we want to spend

ten minutes cooking. I mean, you can't spend ten minutes cooking. You might as well just order. You'll you'll get a better meal, you get a better outpoint. And there's nothing wrong with ordering. Thank God for seamless, thank God for the ability to have I'm gonna come to your house and bring great food and if you want or from a fancy restaurant, you do it. I'm amazing how that that exists. But to put food together, it takes patience, It takes time, takes effort, it takes energy, and it

really takes focus. You have to spend some time to do it. It's not one to three. Those one to three cookbooks are just I can't get into my My husband bought one of those insta pots. I can't get into it. I don't understand those. I mean I I said, I'm gonna do a meal a week. He hasn't. It's still in the box. That's what happens that we have one. We have one. I'm not going to mention the name, but it is literally you try it out simplastic, right, and I have my old Dutch oven. That's that's how

you wrap, is what we use. That's how your brace thinks. Well, it's easier. I don't have to worry about it do stuff. I do suvite because I've been doing it in my kitchens my entire life. So for us, it's it's so simple. But suvite is actually another step as well, because you have to think about putting in and actually getting into it, and then you have to caramelize it after. So I'm like,

just caramelize the ship out of it right away. I'd like to have a lot, Like if it's protein, if it's poultry, I'd like to have it already ready to go. In the freezer in that morning, I bring it out, have it come to room timp and then syric because that's takes ten seconds. Ten seconds, you know. So what is your go to weeknight meal when you're deep in the weeds and you're tired. Probably a roast chicken. Roast chicken. Yeah.

What is your favorite dessert When you need to make a dessert on a Sunday someone's coming over, you need to whip something up in forty five minutes and make it homemade and not go out and get it in the summer, it's usually some sort of berry or peach or something like something a cop or just or in syrup, you know, like a shortcake or because you can make short I did that for you. It was super eatid and it's super easy. I did that. I was desert. I need to be tastic. I thought you bought it.

I really did know, because it was like it was like, it takes time to make that, but did it? I know, it's like a biscuit. It was so fantastic. That's really the berries. It's really the berries and everything that's it. You really have great balance. But so that's dessert. So you're waking up in the morning, big breakfast on a Sunday. I keep a bunch of frozen scones in my that you made. I make them and then I freeze so smart they're they're raw and all different kinds. So I

do that. I do like a bunch of like new ski thick bacon. I usually do some baby maybe some bagels, and then maybe some poached eggs if someone wants a poached egg with like grilled toast, and that's it. That's it. David, thank you so much. You just made us a day, a week, and about five years of your life.