#192 Andy Cooks on the Intensity of Chef Life, Overcoming Addiction & Blowing Up Online

I suffered massively from alcoholism and drug abuse for fifteen years. You know, I drunk every day.

How hectic did it get for you?

I got real bad, yeah.

Andy Herndon, Well and straight to it mate.

I think I'm one of those strange individuals who knew what I wanted to do in my whole life. Oh really yeah, So so I out of school, went to Cheft School and then saved all my money and bought a one way ticket to London. I got to London and learned how to cook real quick.

Just take me through. What's the intensity?

Look like there's a mild to medium case of anxiety the whole day. Yeah, doing fourteen sixteen hour days, you know, five days a week.

You are Aphononymo when it comes to what you do on YouTube and all the other social mediums.

Thank you.

How you start something like this?

It was through adversity, So COVID happened. I lost my job really quickly, and I sat around looking my wounds for six months, thinking this is the worst thing in the world. So I started looking at what I could do, what was the next step? And I watched a lot of content and I thought, I know how to cook now. These cameras can't be that hard to figure. So I started making tiktoks.

Oh my god, I'm so hungry. Now, let me really hungry, Andy Herndon, Well, and straight to.

It, mate, Thanks Mark, thanks for having me.

Otherwise known as Andy Cooks Cooks or cook Andy Cooks.

Like that's your sort of let's call it your stage.

Name, correct, Yeah, my performance name.

The performance name.

Yeah.

Is there two people?

No, I think you're the same person. Yeah. Yeah, I think Andy Hernan might be a little bit more relaxed than Andy Cooks. He's probably you know what it's like when you're in social media, you kind of have to turn on a little bit.

It was entertainment, yeah, I mean in cooking is entertainment, Like actually cooking is made for social media. Color, smells, looks nice. You know, it's a motive. You know, we're all thinking about our guts guts up, like and you know, and the creativity part of it.

Like it's a big deal.

Yeah, everyone doesn't. Everyone eats, don't they.

Well, let me just take you back then, because that's probably not how you started. You didn't think, Probably weren't thinking about that time when you first started cooking or mcgirl.

Let's go right back.

What makes someone go and do I presume a chef course or something like that. What makes someone think about that?

At school?

For example, I think on one of those strange individuals who knew what I wanted to do in my whole life.

Oh really?

Yeah, so you know from before I remember if you know, anyone ever said what do you want to do when your groan up? It was always chef chef.

We what's that influence come from? Like someone at home?

I think my grandfather was a poultry farmer in Foxton, New Zealand. I grew up in Wellington, Wendy Wellington, Wendy Wellington. Yeah, he has very wondy and my mom was a good cook, good home cook. We ate around the table like you kind of did in the eighties and in the.

Nineties Sunday Sunday lamb roast. Was that a thing in New Zealand.

Yeah? It was meat and potatoes, you know, meeting three bag. It was pretty standard cooking, but it was good, honest cooking. So yeah, I've always been passionate about food. I'm not sure where it really came from. Didn't come from them? Are you know? An Italian family or anything like that. It was standard food.

But your surname Herndon, is that that's that sounds like rish background.

In English England.

Yeah, so, like you know, it was a thing probably more mum's generation, not necessarily your generation, but more mum's generation. Like Sunday roast sitting around the table, roastly lamb whatever the case.

New Zealand. Definitely lamb in New Zealand.

And you know, three vegs, gravy and maybe dessert.

Yeah, followed some sort of dessert after pudding.

In a shitty cold cold weather, particularly Wellington and a cold winter's wind blow and blowing his ass off, like like I've been to that football stagum you got there in Wellington, like the Caketon.

Oh my god it was. It was a miserable man like but it was full, yeah, full of people. It was.

I went for a rugby went to watch a rugby match and it was full of people, like I thought, Well, like, I only went out because I can't come mates mine when I want to go and publicoll basically and watch foot at the same time. Use foot is an excuse, but people actually out there loving the joint and does living in a place like Wellington. Does that create more inside activities so to speak, because you're not going to go to the beach or whatever. If it's generally speaking

But potentially, I think Valentonian is a pretty hearty bunch, you know. I don't think that they let the cold weather stop them doing much. But I think they're also pretty foundly orientated, you know, the kiwis So I think that's where it comes from. It's that, you know, it's breaking breed together as a family and hanging out. But food wasn't cool back then, right Like food didn't get started getting cool until the late nineties in the mainstream.

Realman, you you what emotions do you attach to? I mean, if you as an observer, not not your own emotions, but as an observe, what emotions do you attached to?

Do you think it are attached to food? You know, like, what is it that I'm apart from family?

Like?

What is it that we feel? Really?

You know, the dopamine and sort oftona starts flushing around our brain, same sort of outcomeing you get when you take okay. I mean it's the same sort of emotion like it's wow, how good is this?

This is so nice? More emotions are we feeding effectively?

I think it's a huge amount to do with history, you know, and having ownership or belonging to something. Yeah, you know, especially with some of the ethnic you know, people that have come to Australia and New Zealand, you know that that was it was memories of home, so you know, the big Italian you know population, big Greek population, you know, Chinese. So it's history and having something to be proud of. I think that's a huge part of it that guys I noticed.

And what did you get in your family then? Like you know you neither one of those three categories, but you're New Zealanders. I mean apart from family, what was it that you felt when you think back now, what was the feeling you got when you sat down and had the Sunday afternoon lunch. What it was with your family?

What did you feel?

Well? Haard to do with that? My my mother was Dutch, so sick in generation Dutch. My father was English, so I think there was unusual things that we ate that other people didn't. What a duchy, Well, they for very similar European food. But this stuff like olibolan, which is a Dutch donut. They like these sprinkles that they have on toast with aniseed flavor. Yeah. And the Dutch also have a lot of They equal a lot of spice, you know, I think because.

They of course duchies Indies.

Yes, yeah, they.

Were importing of that was the big borders out of Sri Lanka.

Correct.

I remember, Well, I've actually been to the place called the Dutch House in Sri Lanka and a place called Gaul which was owned by the Dutchiest India company is now a little hotel. And they used to import the spices from Southeast Asia through s Linka back up to somethow like they got their back somehow they got to Holland as a result of Yeah, that's cool like that,

Yeah, yeah, and Indonesian food is big and you know, they did a lot of nazigoring and stuff like that there in Holland. Yeah, or certainly my family did it well, yeah, yeah. And spicy, quite spicy, so.

Like as in strong spicy, as in chili style thing.

Yeah. Some curry yeah yeah, yeah, so some.

So do those things.

So maybe is there a nostalgic sort of sense for you in terms of you know, food, cooking food and remembering your family sitting around there.

Did you help your mom? Yeah?

Yeah.

I always helped my mum and then tried to kick her out of the kitchen as soon as I could, and kind of wanted you know, I'm a pretty independent type of person, so I kind of wanted my own kind of time in there. But yeah, and I think it was kind of a bit of escapeism too, you know, like mum was also a single mother by the time I was able to stand and be in the kitchen.

So as a as a ten year old, twelve year old, you were out there doing cooking and peeling potatoes or whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah, certainly my young teenage years, Yeah, I was having a crack in the kitchen and you know, like I'm really dyslexic. I couldn't wait to get out of school. So I just just was layser focused on just getting out and getting into chess school.

That's cool. So apart from being in an escape, was your mum being a single mum? Was she one of those mums who said, hey, you don't learn how to cook? You know, you have to be self sufficient.

I'm not raising you know, like a kid and a boy who doesn't add a.

Cook absolutely all those things cooking, how to sew a button on a shirt, you know, how to tie a tie? Really? Yeah, all those things.

So would you say, therefore you have a a great debt of gratitude to your mum.

She's still live today, Yeah she is. She is. Yeah, she's still alive. She's in Parmesan North in New Zealand. Yeah she's she's she's getting on now, and it's kind of you know, it's at that point the end of her life, I think, which is kind of sad to see you, but you know, I think that happens to everyone.

Siblings.

Yeah, I got I'm the youngest of four, so I've got two older brothers and an older sister.

And were they doing the same deal.

No, no one else, No one else is cooking cooking orientated. I think they all kind of enjoy it now.

But no, as the youngest kid, it's funny like that you were the sort of lead in the family when to come to sort of being in the kitchen.

Yeah, I certainly the only one that really kind of pursued it, and everyone else has gone on to be successful and do it their own stuffy.

Looking by the way, looking at brief you're pretty successful, don't.

In terms of in terms of what you do, in terms of your content and what you do in terms of your craft. You're extraordinarily, extra narrowly successful. We'll talk about that in the moment. Did you, as a younger person appreciate the quality of the resources that New Zealand had to offer relative perhaps perhaps other place of the world.

Absolutely not. You know, you have no idea. I think when you're growing up how lucky you are growing up in a place like Australia, New Zealand. You know, with fresh air, great produce, it's extremely safe, you know, in the grand scheme of things, and like most Kiwis, and I think Aussie as well. I couldn't wait to get out of the place.

Because it tell me, tell me that why did you come to Australia.

So Australia it was the last stop. I left New Zealand went straight to London, so at twenty one years old, and I couldn't wait to get there.

Had you done some sort of cooking course or a chef Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, So I got a school, went to chef school yep, and then worked for a couple of years and then you know, saved all my money and bought a one way ticket to London. So one way ticket. Yeah, there was no break mum's heart. Yeah, there was no intention of coming back.

Oh really Yeah, what do you say to your mum at that stage? Like, you say, a mum, because you were the youngest, you were probably be the last to leave yep, yep, that was probably all skinned out all by that stage.

And you say, sir later, mum, who got one way ticket? What was that? Like?

I mean, I've got a you know, an interesting relationship with mum. I think she'd I was pretty a bit of a naughty kid, and I was certainly a naughty teenager.

What does that mean? I was naughty too? Compare naughtiness now.

You know, I got into drugs and alcohol really young. I got into just staying out. She didn't know what I was doing. I wasn't naughty at homeless. It would just go out and never come back. And I think by the time, you know, I was sixteen seventeen, maybe she'd had enough and she booted me out. I think, yeah. And at the time you kind of, you know, you think it's horrible, but it was probably the best thing

And then so off to London. Did you work in some sort of fancy chef joint?

Yeah, yeah, I landed in London and where for a guy called Tom Akins for a couple of years, and he was a pretty notorious chefs, really good chef, still cooking now, but a hard kitchen, like really hard what does that mean, Very militant in the way they run those kitchens, and they're very strict and there's you know, they don't they don't mince their words, and yeah, you kind of see some stuff and you open your eyes.

And would you say this stage that you had started to craft your creativity or were you just more conformative.

Yeah, more conformative. And I kind of say I learned how to cook in London, like I obviously went to chef school in New Zealand and stuff. But you know, food culture back then, and you know, the early two thousands is when I was kind of floating around in New Zealand. Still food culture wasn't great. Still restaurants seen, it wasn't really hadn't really kicked off yet, not like it is now. You know, whereas I think cities like Sydney in Melbourne, you know, some of the best food

Yeah, but I've never I've never thought of it. By the way, I'm no foodie, but I've never thought of London as a food capital globally, but maybe relative to New Zealand it was at the time. Did you decide to go to London because it was a place where you felt like you could further your craft?

Absolutely, I think it's common misconception. I think London is definitely one of the food hubs of the world. Right now. English food doesn't have a great representation, it doesn't have a great reputation of reputation, but London restaurants scene has been incredible for a very long time, you know, since

The only place I can remember of London it was a place called Simpsons on the Strand. It was a famous institutional place in London. You go, then you get beef Wellington and all, you know, and they get that big cheese thing.

I can remember what it was like a.

Fonder no, like it was a really smelly cheese and and I said, think himself, this is like, you know, like I'm Greek background something and like it's not quite the food I'm used to. I'd have made it a pommes to go with him to London quite a bit. And he used alway write about the London food, and but I don't. Eventually I find myself eating something like that, that type of that top of meal.

What were you serving?

And like what was like as a food scene You're talking about intricacies like you know, like intricacies of flavors.

And the look of a plate.

No, my food's a bit more back then. Back then, back then, what.

Were you what were you sort of moving into?

Well, I was kind of still discovering myself for I as a cook, and I was working at Tom Kitchen, which was his brasserie of his restaurants. So it was elevated gastro pub food, you know, that's what we were serving in London.

Elevated to gastro pub food. Yeah, so gastronomical, but elevated me to like a little.

Bit upper class correct, Yeah, yeah, so you know, really good ingredients, still cooked pretty simply, but really good ingredients, you know, looked after well. But yeah, I never really went like really down the line of the really high and fine dining stuff. Kind of wasn't my warehouse.

But yeah, so you've done, you've done. So, you've done London. You've happened after that?

Yeah, seven years in London and I was seven years seven years yeah yeah, and then I decided that I needed to get back to this part of the world. But I couldn't quite bring myself to get to New Zealand. So I came to Sydney. And I was in Sydney for not even a year, and I kind of didn't like it. I was a very different city to London totally. Yeah. So I moved to Melbourne and fell in love with Melbourne. So the food scene or fell in love with Melbourne

Son, can you can you?

Is it fair to say then that there was a period like it's let's call it teny period twelve to twenty two that Melbourne was considered to be superior at a certain level in terms of certain types of food, I guess, but as a as a destination for food, like proper food is yeah, absolutely.

And that is conventionally generally accepted.

Yes, yeah, yeah by all you guys. Yeah, chefs. Yeah, Melbourne was the kind of the gastronomic city of what.

Was it because of the individuals are down there.

Yeah, I mean you think about the chefs that have come out of there, you know, the restaurant scene. I think the cold climate helps as well, you know, like you were kind of referring to earlier, you know, you eat out more, you know, whereas in Sydney, you might hang out at the beach until the sun goes down and then you you knowerg and go home, Whereas in Melbourne, if it's middle of winter, you're not doing anything right.

So where were you working?

So when I first moved there around a restaurant called Gills Diner, which is right in the city on a little Collin Street. And then I moved around a bit worked for a restaurant called Entracott and Melbourne worked at a group of cafes called Saint Ali for quite a long time.

And what do you what did you think you got out of that? Like, what did you I'm apart from skill craft, what did you get out of that experience? And like in terms of what you know about people? Oh, it comes to food.

I mean the people piece is huge, right, and it's learning how to interact and connect with people from all walks of life. Kitchens are pretty usually rag tag bunch of people from all walks of life, you know, from immigrants who just need a job, through to you know, people from upper middle class families who just like the

So and would you would you also become friends with people from other restaurants.

Yeah, yeah, yes or no. But but you're working really back then, you're really intensely long hours with this group of people, and you become like this little kind of almost family, you know, like a a unit. Yeah, yeah, you know, and you're there a lot. You know, you're doing fourteen sixteen hour days, you know, five days a week.

Fourteen sixteen hours.

Yeah.

So they say, I guess you're talking about lunch and dinner, right.

Yes, if you're working a restaurant that does even like Tom's Kitchen and in London and those works, we were doing breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So you know that's one shift. You do what two of those two of those. Yeah, so you start a lunchtime. They say, if you're going to have to do the lunch, and you're one of the chefs doing lunch, what's on.

You if you're going to work, what time are you in the kitchen?

You're eight And if you're doing a double, you're not out of that kitchen until midnight.

So that's six hours.

Yeah, yeah, and you have an hour an hour and a half off in the middle. But in the afternoon, it's a bloody long day though. It's a big day on your feet.

And is the whole time is it hectic?

Like?

Is it intense the whole time?

No, it comes and weeps and flows. You're prepping to get ready for lunch, and then you go through the pressure builds effectively throughout the day. So you're prepping and as the day goes on, the precious building pressures building. Right before lunch, it's everyone's at a real high level of anxiety and anticipation, you know, and then you do your service and then it kind of winds down and

Oh really, no, what is it now? Well?

I think largely restaurants are kind of in most cases are limiting people to working about forty five hours a week, right, which is good. It's a good thing that that's that that transition has changed. And so they do that in a couple of different ways. I either work less days. So a good friend of mine, Ben Sherry from mar he has a very famous restaurant in Mother and good Attica.

Yeah.

But if someone's just you know, working for a wage, I don't think it's fair that we're put in But why do.

You think that was always the case of chefs. It's like it's like slave drivers, like chefs have. There's always been this expectation that you're the chef or your kitchen hand, whatever the case may be, and you're learning the learn of the rapes. Do you're going to work under our rules? Yeah, and we've seen those movies, those TV shows. Kitchen night means all sort of stuff.

Cop it sweet or get out.

Yeah, I'm not sure where it came from. I guess it's because restaurants is a really really hard game. It's really hard to make money in restaurants, right, so they're going to squeeze. You know, they had to squeeze people

It's like you're not even gett an entre for thirty bucks. Now, no, in a good joint. And I'll come back to that in a second.

But it just I just always interested from a person like your point of view.

Just take me through what happens. Like you said you started eight.

Let's say you're doing lunch at twelve one or whatever was in there there doing prepping at eight.

Just take me through.

The mindset of say, in your case, you I want to just go through one day. So yeah, you're in there, you're just doing your best and you know you maybe have a couple of coffee when you get there and you start doing your prepping. Just take me through what's the intensity look like? I mean, and how do you how do you feel like? How are you feeling?

I'm sure you've got I'm not hopefully I'm not bringing any up any PTSD here, but take me through that process and then then what happens at the end of the night. So how do you feel.

So there's there's a mild to medium case of anxiety the whole day, the whole day, Yeah, because you're chasing your tail. It always feels like not being ready.

On time, not having the meals ready on time.

Correct. So if you're not ready for the start of that service for lunch, you don't have what we call mes on plus, which a French word for everything in place. If you don't have your mees on plus ready by the time that lunch service stuffs starts, you're absolutely stuffed.

So that the way it walks in and he puts up the order and whatever it is. However that works, like what's everyone doing if as soon as it happens, the starter's gun goes off?

Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, So the chef will call the ticket and if it's part of your section, so kitchens are broken down into sections, and if it's something that's come off your section, then you know, and then it has to be orchestrated in a really timely fashion. Right, So there might be a dish if your table is four dishes might come from two or three different sections, So someone with who's got the longest lead time will

So you're thinking to yourself, I don't want to have my thing ready in seven minutes when it's going to take them two minutes, because my my meal is going to be cold or not not right, whatever's.

Going to be. So and is there someone they're conducting the orchestra.

Yeah, yeah, it depends on the structure of the kitchen. In a big London kitchen and kitchens here as well, there's someone running the past, a senior chef, so a head chief or a se chef who's running the pass and running the orchestra. Tickets coming and they're kind of running and they're also yelling out checks. So if you've got a crab dish shine, You'll be like, you know, and you've got fifteen crab dishes on order right now. You know I need three of them up in four minutes type of thing?

What is you fuck it up? Whats are you? Like?

You're making crab and you go shit, I put the wrong sporce on there, and then everyone else is ready because the other five.

Dishes are ready. What the fuck happens?

Well, back then you've got a bowlocking. I'm gonna be late, and you you stuff everyone else's order, so the whole tables everything get started again. So you copped the bollocking.

So they have to start the meals again.

Some think or where they're at. But if they're finished almost finished it, yeah they can. They might be able to save it, but they might not. They might, you know, because stuff just keeps cooking, right, residual heat keeps cooking things. So yeah so, and then fucks it up ruins and you.

Let the whole team now yeah so so, and then what happens when the sioux chef Food of the Dude is conducting the orchestra's called comes in and it gives you a bowlocking. As you said, you like punch them there it's just funk off. Don't talk that way, I mean, because.

You can't pick people's personalities. I mean as a.

Blues I mean, there's definitely I've definitely seen punch on some kitchens.

Really yeah, yeah that's cool.

But but yeah, I mean you just cop it like you know, and I think that's the you build resilience and the people that build resilience quick back then you kind of went through the ranks cooker, you know, and it's about you know, it's different to how it is now. You kind of can't act like that and it's a good thing.

Yeah, So you get through that one, then you have a little of a break and your cortisol sort of starts to settle down a little bit, and all your adrenaline starts to move back into the wherever it goes to probably live, and it gets to get and then in recircle. Then it starts all over again for dinner. And then by this stage your nervous system is exhausted and it's like eleven or twelve o'clock at night. But I got made to ben cook with chefs and cooking and they all went out.

It needs to go out, YEP. Is that normal?

Absolutely, you know, let's go for a drink. There's a reason that drug and alcohol abuse is rife in our industry, and it's because of those levels of stress anxiety. And you come off a massive high, whether it's a good high or a bad high, and you're a drilling's pumping and you need something to calm you down.

So you need and I mean as I understand it because you know, many many, many many years out, when I was much oger around this area here, there is to be verious famous bars. It didn't sort of stay kicking off to midnight, and I used to often frequent them, usually on a weekend, and you'd see I'd run into mates of mine, blakes I knew who were chefs and also musicians, yeah, from pubs and stuff, and they'd all

Yeah? Absolutely, Yeah, you end up you end up socializing with other people from the bars, the musos, everyone that kind of works nights. Because you don't start You're right, you don't start till midnight and you'll run through until the sun comes up.

Yeah.

Yeah, so now it's Kevin, go back to work.

What do they do to you?

I mean I suffered massively from alcoholism and drug abuse for a long time, for fifteen years. You know, I didn't I drunk every day?

What was a drug and choice when we were talking about coc or someone.

It, yeah, coke, but mainly alcohol because it's just easy to get. Yeah, you know, so you absolutely would have have a crack on the recreational stuff on the weekends, but it was the booze that got me in.

The So were you were you conscious that I got to go and have a drink because in the beginning, that's talk at the beginning part. Were you consciously like I got to go and have a drink because you just need to wind down? Was that was that the theory?

I don't. I think it was subconsciously there, but it was more so just to be part of the crew. Right, everyone's doing it, so you just follow it.

You know.

I was young as sixteen seventeen when I started working in restaurants, so you just do what the older guys are doing, and then it just becomes habit really quickly.

Yeah. Then you become the older guy.

Yeah yeah, yeah, and then you start sitting there and it's not even it's not even at the end as well even in the middle. So we do double shifts, and so you clean down after lunch and everyone would go to the pub, you know, three or four points and then go back to work.

They don't drink while cooking, or do they?

Yeah, in the end, you start doing it because if you go and have a bear after lunch service and then you start sobering up during dinner service A good yeah. So you go and find some cooking wine or whatever. You'll be mates with the bar, you know, the person running bar, and you're like, mate, I'll give you a bowl of chips if you vodka. Yeah, so you know, give you a'd send you a coffee cup out, you know, just be full of vodkas. I have a shot.

And our sort of intensity get and hectic. Did it get for you?

I got real bad? Yeah?

I don't know what does that mean?

So I was an I called myself a high functioning alcoholic, but you know there was it was three or four bottles of wine a day, a day. Yeah, yeah, you know, pretty pretty comfortably. But there was a per day per day. Yeah, but you're still going up to work every day, You're still showing up for everything. But then you, you know, you kind of once you get to a certain point in life, you go, I can't, like, there's no way my body can handle me doing this forever.

How did you know? Like, what were the signs that.

I just think you just kind of you know, you just know when you get out of bed, you get out of bed and you start drinking again. That's what happens in bed. No, but on as soon as you get up.

Soon as you wake up. Yeah, oh it was so got that bad.

Yeah, you got that bad.

But drink effectively, drinking all the time, all the time. So he turned to work drunk. I'm not drunk, but with in your guts correct.

Yeah, And.

I guess you become so good at your craft that it doesn't really affect anything.

No, you know, and there's there's managing it, right, so you don't shut up drunk, but you have a little bit, you know, just to kind of to get rid of the hangover effectively, and then you just kind of level it, level it all day and then you can now again you can stand it at night, but.

As an event or something that made you decided that's it, I'm going to give it. You give it up at one in one shot.

Yeah. I think I'd known for a long time that at some point that you know, I'm an all or nothing type of person.

So I was like, I'm not good.

Actually yeah, I'm not one that could go. I can't like I can just have one or two drinks. I knew at some point I just have to stop drinking. But when I started kind of becoming a bit of a deck to my partner, that's what was that catalyst to me to get okay, now it's time to sort this out. Yeah.

Yeah, so you at some stage you said, I'm just go cock turkey no.

And so I did what most people do, well, a lot of people do. When I was in trouble and realized I was in trouble, and I called my mom, I said, Mom, I need some help here. And really lucky that I had a good support network around me.

Wow, and you've been sober ever since?

Yeah eight years?

Congratulations? Think you've done. What differences made your life?

I don't even it's night and day. Yeah, it's not and day. I don't even think about it anymore. I don't never really have, Like I just it doesn't bother me. People drinking around me, his booze around with the time. I have no interest in drinking. It was but also don't regret it, you know, like I had a lot of fun, but I have no interest. But it's my life has done nothing but exponentially get better since I stopped drinking.

Have you we're going to talk about the moment, you know, your YouTube sort of sensation, but like.

Have you these days look back.

And look at all the you know, well known chefs who are still running restaurants, and we all know all their ups and downs. You know, they could even beyond television, well known on television, and we know some.

Of those guys.

And think to yourself, the restaurant games, it's fucked. It's one of the hardest games in the world. He got tenants, staff, he got a landlord, you've got staff, you've got inventory, high cost of goods and fit out costs, ship all this ship, you know, electricity, power, whatever, and then you might get fatted out. So you know, you might be a fad for a month and then someone else up down the corner, who's the new fad. Do you ever look back at that and say, my god, what a shitty industry.

Like I mean, like, you know, hard.

I don't mean bad because we used it, but but like a hard industry, A hard game.

Absolutely, mate. And it's one of those things that you go grow older and I, you know, may talk about how I got into social media later, but it was that like part of it was like I didn't want to work for anyone else. I want to work for myself. And I still back and thought, well, what do I know how to do? I know how to run restaurants, So I'm not I'm not going to go like, start a restaurant and earn a salary for working one hundred and twenty hours a week, like it just doesn't make sense.

Right, and run all the risk as well, run all the risk.

You know. I'm happy to work work and work, work hard, work my ass off, but if there's no reward to that, then what's the point of doing it. But I still love the industry and I fully understand why people do it.

So if we pull that apart for a second.

So at some stage in your life you've said, and I said, I love cooking. I love people enjoying my food two important things. I've been creative in the form of cooking. That's my that's my brush and canvas. Happy to work hard.

I don't want to be run a restaurant.

Is that what made you decide to get into the social media side of cooking. Let's call it that social media cooking. Yeah, I was Did you make that decision though? Was that a like a I'm going to do this.

Yeah, it was, it was. It was through through adversity. So COVID happened, and I was running a really large group of restaurants that was owned by Emirates to the airline, so we ran one hundred venues around Australia and New Zealand. Wow, and I lost my job really quickly in COVID. So, you know, we were living in Melbourne, so me and my partner decided we weren't going to get jobs anytime soon, so we drove to the Sunshine Coast where she's from.

So that you excluded that, that's out. He worked out what you're good at.

Yeah, And I didn't have huge amounts of capital, so I didn't have access to you know, you know, fifty million bucks or anything. Like that. So I wasn't going to do because the other option is that.

And god I didn't because you might have put in a restaurant.

Exactly, true, true, And I'm serious, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, But you know there was the other option. I really love kitchen ware and cook where, and I was like, well, I kind of like kitchen where cookwear, but I don't have heaps of capital. It's a really capital expensive business to get into. So I thought, and I watched a lot of content, and I watched these guys like Josh Wiseman and Babbish and Nick Giovanni and all these guys big YouTubers and stuff, and I thought, I know how

Tiktoks, like in the COVID period. Yeah, it was the sort of during COVID that.

Was twenty twenty at the end of COVID twenty twenty one into twenty twenty one.

So just tell me how you start something like this, Like do you remember your first day?

Yeah? Yeah, I was living in my in law's house and I just thought, I just forget this TikTok thing. I need to have a hook pretty quickly. And I can't remember. I remember, I know what happened. It took us to the put us to the stratosphere. But the verse video I think I did was just like making fish tacos. And all I did was just make tacos and film it and posted it, and of course it got like three views. Now I watched it, and then you just kind of refine it. You go, how do

Then you start learning about the social medium. Yeah, you got to learn about the medium itself.

Correctly, what works correctly?

Or what have I got to do to make it work for me?

So?

What what did work?

We did a series which we still do now, the Hey Babes series, which we're famous for. Or I walk up to the fridge, I open the fridge and I say, hey, babe, what do you want for dinner? And Babe Caitlin, she says a dish, And I make that dish.

She says what the dish is?

Yeah, She'll say tariaki chicken, And I'll make Tariaci chicken from scratch. And I think it hits people in so many different elements.

You know.

It's that if you're the person in a relationship that does the cooking, it's a really nice thing to have someone that knows what they want. If you're the person the relationship that does there eating, it's amazing to have someone that can literally cook any dish in the world. And here we just take me.

I actually I'm a bit intrigued by this.

You obviously analyze it over and over again because you know this, this thing's making your money so and it's what you do. So just that that you were sort of being quite modest in how you analyze that those two things. Is just look at I'm a viewer, and so I might either be the person lace to prepare the food.

I think I might be the persons to consume the food.

So you're appealing to both of me, both those time of audiences and probably some hybrids in between. How did you know how to do that analysis? Like how did you did you sit down with Caitlin and work this out or did you just sort of fumble upon it?

I think I think it's fumbled upon. It's probably a better way to describe it. And then it's just retrospective analysis. So oh, this is really working. Like we're talking about like millions and millions of views and you go, Okay, this is really working. It's like, why is this working? Because how how can we We can't just keep doing this forever. This has a shelf life, So why is this working? And how else can we make videos?

My variations?

Can variations? Can we pulled that that that you know that can replicate the kind of success we're having with us?

Hey babe, that's just one of your catch calls.

It just take me through. So is Katelyn's standing there like you just looking in the face like, I.

Mean, it's a different shot. But yeah, yeah, she's in the same room. Effectively, she might be reading your book or something. I'll walk up to the fridge.

So the story in it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, all of.

A sudden, there's a story. She's the book. You're in the kitchen.

You might all go over to her or walk up to her and say hey baby. You say, hey baby, what do you want for dinner?

We for dinner? She says, Berrianni cook Berrianni. So do you remember your very first one? It was a tune in nice Wa tune and it did pretty well, but the first there's a couple of really viral ones. So like what with the Berrianni roast beef and pash and chips. You know, collectively between those three videos there'd be something in the reade of four hundred million views.

Wow.

And so what does that tell you though about those particular dishes.

It's it's comfort food. It's it's not fine dining, you know, you think about Berrianni as a dish, it's comfort food for a really large population of humans, not just Indian people, No, trill Ancons, English, English people.

Yeah yeah, yeah, and probably Australian. So do you get any sort of data as to nationalities like, for example, Berrianni, like in terms of informing you as to what you might it up next.

Yeah, I mean a large part of our audience is American now America, Yeah, yeah, followed closely by Australia and New Zealand or not New Zealand. It's a small population, but Australia, the UK and Germany are my kind of top tier performing national You could.

Probably pretty much tell somebody what what meals perform best, yes, yeah, yeah for those for those nationalities yeah correct, Yeah, And it's it's it's comfort food that you're often too lazy to make yourself. So dishes like fish and ships is a great example. Right, everyone knows fast and ships. Most people love fashion ships. Not many people are going to bother making it at home.

Correct, it's too you're going to deal with oil and all that stuff right, better better, But it's that, like you know, it's it's we say. Now, what we try and do is inspire people to cook bit of food at home. And it's to try and inspire people that it's actually not that hard to cook rist in ships at home, and you should give it a crack.

So when you put the video up, so I presume using TikTok and YouTube and everything all the other usuals when you put the video up, is the video there you proposed to be or idealized as something that I watch and just get inspired by, or I watch to learn how to make that particular dish.

Both. So it's to inspire you to try something different and try and cook something new. It's also there as an educational piece, and there's a full recipe attached on our website that will give you a written like a normal cookbook recipe. I'll give you all the details of how to execute that dish at home?

How do you how do you keep I mean, I don't know how many dishes there are on the will, but I don't know how many shows you've done. Give me an example, how many posts you made, if you post.

Them, that'd be well over one thousand recipes. I'd say, yeah, yeah, so a thousand videos definitely.

So you know, let's say a thousand videos. Let's say you do which a rhythm leak to a week?

When a week.

Four well five to seven videos a week a week?

Right, So, so do you find yourself repeating dishes? My popular demand is to think.

Yeah, sometimes not necessarily because we have to, and mostly because we want to want to update it or I want to rewrite the recipe because I wrote it at a time I wasn't very good at writing recipes. You know, you kind of get better at that stuff over time. So sometimes and sometimes you repeat recipes because you know it's going to do well. But there's there's people ask me all the time, how can you can't with so many I'm there's millions of recipes in them. Really, we're

You're comfortable, they see, yeah, because you say thousands, thinks of thousand, Like, I don't think I've eaten a thousand different meals, different style of meal. Maybe I'm not adventurous enough, you get me. I feel inspired now?

So and how long? How long is how do long?

How long did it take you to work out not just the cadence of how often you put it up, but how long you take to push the recipe out per show?

How did you work out? All this sort of metrics around this stuff?

Like who? Just like the logistics The logistics is just the seat of your pants stuff, you know. Effectively, it was a turn from a passion project stash kind of hobby to a business. And then you realize this is actually a business now and we employ people, and we have a studio and all this stuff, and you know, some people in my account and goes, I'll watch your r on and videos I don't know, mate, like and it doesn't matter, like it's like how many eyeballs watch

He might just explain it to people, because not a lot of people understand that the commercials or the revenue of these the business model of these things, the financial model thes things. So you know, everybody understands you're up there, you've got a camera system, you all set up in the kitchen, you do the a babe, and there you go off and recklessly make very army whatever it is.

Yes, yeah, but it's not that we So our business has probably broken down sort of forty percent ads in so that that counts from what we make money from YouTube. That's the only platform that pays us. And the rest is well, maybe sixty percent or not even fifty percent is brand deals. So we work with brands talk you know, about their products sort of like sponsors. Yeah, effectively like a sports person would have a sponsor. So we have brands that we work with closely, and we're really particular

Yeah.

Yeah.

So who are some of the brand individuals that you've worked with over the time?

People? Yeah, people have some really cool people.

These are collabs.

Yeah yeah, So Stormzy, how was that?

What was experience?

Like?

Amazing?

You know?

And you know Storms? His team reached out to us and said, Storms is in Brisbane? Do you want to hang out with him and go for lunch? I said I'd love to. He was a fan and he's already a fan. Yeah yeah, And so I said can we make a video? And they said, yeah, sure if you want to. So we did a video with them talking about for lunch and met his old crew and it was incredible.

But you'll cook? You cook for him or he cooked with you.

I cooked for him and that instance, we didn't have very much time with him. He was kind of getting ready to do a show. So did you say hey, babeah?

Yeah?

No, he kind of called me Storms. He is a is a huge human being. He's very strong. But what do you cook for him? A fish finger sandwich?

Yeah? And I saw the video of it. Dummy, he sort of he handed.

Up well was pretty yeah, yeah, yeah, he knew what was going on. Finger burger sandwich sandwich.

What the hell is a fish finger sandwich?

The very English thing. It's like really literally, I mean, I've made everything with scratch, but it's literally fish fingers, Tatar sauce I.

Speak, you know, the old fish fingers used by the frozen ones wars whoever.

Yeah, it's those, but I made made him from from from from real from scratch, yea from.

Fish and and then and just like sitting in between two bits of bread. Yeah, I've never heard of fish finger fan sandwich English food, but he's.

Probably And by the way, it's comfort food it is.

Yeah. Yeah. And like so you know, a friend of my, Morgan, owns a restaurant here in City Bessies. They do a version with Moreton Bay bugs now you know, so it's kind of an elevated version of that.

And I've seen some stuff with Volks cooking either real food.

Yeah, he's right into it. And he's another really lovely human being.

I challenged him to because he's mum's Greek and his dad's and and uh and I challenged you know, we're friendly, so like I said, mate, one, don't you and I do a Greek lamb cookoff and we're going to do it. I don't know whatever we were talked about late last year.

We haven't done it. But he's like fully up for cooking.

Yeah, loves it himself, loves it.

I reckon, he'd rather cool for you than you cook for him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he came around to my place. I said, mate, on the Sunshine coats, has he come around? We'll cook And he goes yeah, And he just flew up just for that, just to come and cook.

For because he's like huge he'd be a huge fan of yours. But he's a huge fan of food. Like he's always posted stuff about cooking, like obviously it's a big passion of his.

So what did you guys cook?

We cooked steaks as you do. But he loves he loves the State steaks with Chimmy cheery, and we did one on the rotesserie and we did something in the smoker and he loved it. It was a It was a good fun.

Did you have a wrestle with him?

No, No, he had a punch. He had his coach there and he had a punch in the Backyard and yeah, yeah, yeah, Jay's a legend. But it's it's pretty scary, not scary, it's intimidating to see you, right because they you know, they don't they don't muck around.

They had a role in Backyard. That's cool.

So isn't it amazing that your platform allows you. It's a bit like me, I'm lucky to ear my show, but it allows us, the social media platform to be able to talk to all sorts of interesting people.

It is man and some of the people that we've met, I'm sure that you feel the same. It's mind blowing and they're inspiring. You know, you're around these people that are that are really successful in their own field, and it's just inspiring to.

You learn so much. I mean, I'm just talking to your learned so much. Like about you know, I'm always curious about what people what the emotion is about food, why it is like it's so fundamental and it's not just European families.

I just think it's a way to connect.

Like if you said to me, mate, let's go and cook something together, I'd feel feel quite honor visual chef, but the opportunity I'm honored about the opportunity to connect. I mean, I'm just sitting here talking to you. Now, this is the way you're connecting to having a conversation. Ordinarily, why I used to connect with be a dream, But cooking is actually better.

Yeah, it's more personal. I think doing.

Something together like cut and something will showing you something and my dad showed me.

You know it's it's.

You're sharing craft, aren't you.

Yeah, it's so powerful when people watch it.

Yeah, it is.

It is people learn about you. Yeah, and your guest, I guess, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean what.

Do you what does someone like you do?

Like you're a phenomenon in terms of like the amount of people have watched your all your very shows, let's call them shows because it is it is television on a different medium.

What do you do from here?

Do you just keep doing the same or do you start rolling out pots and pans or you know, I'm serious about that, but.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, so what we do? We do short form videos, the videos you watch on your phone. We do four to six of those a week, and then we do one long form videos.

Is that a subscription subscription?

No? No, no, I'm passionate about not putting any of that stuff behind payble. It's all free for right. And the long form videos, you know, twenty minutes on YouTube, you can watch it on your TV. It's more in depth, slow of pace, just talking about ingredients, stories, history of food, all that stuff. But to answer your question, it's yeah, we're doing products now. So a natural progression for a YouTube or a social media person is to do merch.

Or so when you put your stegg on the grille, you put this thing on top top.

It's a weight, yeah, and it holds it down there. And what's the point of that, Well, it just you just get a bit of contact with the heat source, so you get faster. My odd reaction, and my odd reaction is the is the kind of that, I guess the easiest way to describe as the caramelization of the crust the crust. Yeah, so you get better bitter contact, faster crust.

That's interesting. So what's that thing called?

We call it a protein press?

A protein press? Is that a thing in kitchens? Yeah, yeah, like high in restaurants, so they have one of these things.

Yeah, lots of different shapes and sizes of them.

But yeah, it's basically just a weight though just I'm not ugrading it, but it's a weight.

I've never heard of that.

Yeah, yeah, it's effectively our waste.

And what about things like I mean, because it's a big move towards this at the moment, like outside of cooking, but you know, no teflon pans or stainless steel or titanium or another one porcelain style things like you know, because I've got grand kids and recently I bought my two sons who have the grandkids. The other two don't have your grand kits, just two boys that have the grand kids kids. I bought them some cooking where that nothing comes off, because I thought, I don't want my grandkids.

They've got sons.

I don't want grandsons from day wine eating any ship, you know, And I'm like, you're looking forward to do it. So I went bought it, and I thought it might be fucking fetish like I saw it on Instagram, believe it or not. But is that a thing that you because if someone like you said to me, Mark, the thing you should be buying, is this this brand? Yeah, I will write their brand down.

I'm not joking.

I We'll go straight out and buy it because I haven't got a fucking clue, you know. I'm literally would buy something of Instagram because it looks they say to me, this is better than buying something with a teflone where it is, And but is that the sort of thing I mean to me, I think there's a marketplace that they're screaming out for this sort of stuff from something like you.

One hundred percent agree, you know, and where we're working on it effectively. So we're we've got a next another set of products and development at the moment, and we'll do a pan at some point. And your one hundred percent right. These forever chemicals are bad things, you know. It's you know, there's a whole bunch of really mixed messaging out there as good as a bad.

And that's true. It's overwhelming for me.

Overwhelming humor, right, And I think the easiest way I think to think about it was just go back to basics. So I cooked and stain and steel cast iron pans always.

So in the studio here there's a we're got a cafe out there and as part of the building, and the three blokes in they used to work at oils down at the chefs proper chefs like you, but they got out of their industrics too hard. But they run this cafe and think.

They kill it.

But they were telling me that they use cast iron pans and they don't even put in a dishwasher when they finish the sort of wipe it out with something. Absolutely, they're no no detergent, just wipe it out and recook again.

Correct.

And I got them to buy them a couple of but they were sort of black looking and they didn't Look, it didn't.

Look right for it, But is that how? How how people like you cooked?

Yeah? If you're using what is that about?

What's what's what's the deal?

So if you using a cast iron pan, you're effectively breaking down the polymers or the fats, the carbonizes and that becomes your nonstick. Right, So if you wash that, you're washing that away. So you kind of want to keep that on then, and you want to build that up over time. You're not dirty? Well, no, you think about what temperature it's at. It's not. The bactery is long gone, so you wipe it. It's clean. But if you use the soap things A funny one, all right,

They're quite heavy. Yeah, they're actually quite heavy.

You're you've got to be careful your wrisk but they're quite heavy.

But because what I didn't like about.

It because I'm used to I know, I got in my mind, as in a domestic kitchen sense, and I like to cook. I got in my mind that everything needs to be shiny in the kitchen. And they're all you know, like stainless steel and whatever. They're just shiny. I mean, it looks really clean. And the thing that got to me was I thought, you know, these guys really know what they're talking about, because this doesn't look

It holds heat well, which is good. Now, the funny thing is about cast iron is that it's actually it was cheap to make. That's why see cast iron.

It looks cheap, always cheap to buy it too. There's nothing about it, no big deal.

So that you know, there's there's lots of ways you can kind of take that, you know, But then you're trying to you're trying to service a really broad range of the budgets. Right, So if you're going to do something, you know you can do a cast iron pan for

Because because obviously I bought.

Some Instagram and Instagram now knows that, and it's feeding it serves me stuff all the time. And the latest one that I've been getting is I think it's traitanium, like as the toughest metal or the hardest metal. And it's sort of because last thing I wanted something I don't want to be. I don't cook fans, but if I'm cooking on I don't want all this ship to stick everywhere. And the way that looks like nothing looks like nothing sticks to it, I mean.

And should I be cooking with oil? Yes, and what sort of oil.

Well, it depends up to you. I mean there's a lot of you know, negative toun seed oils in the world now, and I have no position on it. I use seed oils like I'm not granola. Yeah, I mean I don't really canola much because I just think that there's bitter quality seed oils out there. I use peanut oil if I'm frying, but I use a lot of olive oil because I like it. It tastes good. I think it's I'm not It's the thing I always say

But it's about taste food taste.

So I use a lot olive oil. So I use a really good quality olive oil if I'm not cooking with it, so you know, if I'm just putting on a salad or something like that.

I a virgin whatever it is.

Yeah, it's just a straight olive oil. If I'm want to fry a piece of fish, if I'm using a deep fryer, if I'm frying chips or making fish and chips, I'll use peanut oil as a kind of the three main oils at all.

And but why do you use spend it all instead of olive oil.

Because if you use friest me at olive oil, it does tend to take on a bit of a taste like taste like olive oil a little bit. If you frying peanut oil, it's very neutral flavored oil. So you're not gonna you're not gonna taste any olive oil flavor. Yes, and it's a lot cheaper.

So in terms of your progression of your business emerge, we're not going to do T shirts. But you've put out this press thing what you call it in protein press protein press. When you said that, I was imagining some sort of machine that produces protein. But it's a thing that you basically put in it to make sure that there's more of the surface of both both the pan and the or whatever you're cooking on and the meat, for example, which will make fish meat, chicken or all.

Proteins all above, or even if you're doing a toasty cheese toasting in a pan, put that on top, you're going to get like a more even toast on your bread.

Well, okay, so that's one product, So the next we might be talking about things like knives and forks, you know, like chef's knives.

Yeah, chef's knives are an interesting one. That's there's an art to creating a knife, you know, and I think it's one of those things that's probably best left to the artisans and other Japanese knife makers and stuff like that. All the Germans make great knives too, so it probably wouldn't touch knives or what.

Do something like you do? And where do you get your nice one? Because like I watch.

You guys and like, you guys something your slice it looks like and I thought, like you slice some money, Like I think he.

Must be sharpening his knife every bloody day, like.

You sharpen them a lot more than most people think. And the thing that's the issue with most domestic cooks is that they don't realize how much you have to sharpen your knife. And they'll buy a knife and they'll use it for three months straight and they've got it

Have you ever done an episode where you talk about sharpening, sharpening everything and getting all your tools right?

Yeah? Yeah you have.

Yeah, they would have gone off.

Yeah, yeah, they do all right, those ones.

Because ao, do you want to know what sort of what you're using, what you watching, what sort of knife you got or set of knives, and and what you're using spanw you go see these guys sharpened him on the on thees. Yeah yeah, oh my god, I think it looks like he's gonna take forever. And every now and then I get sort of inspired and I'll go and shut my eyes.

I've got a like electric I'll go and sharpen them.

But like he said, probably once three three months, and then I wonder why I can't cut through the bloody tomato or its or you know, like I'm bruising at.

It as well? Is that the whole objective?

I'm sorry to ask you these questions, but is the whole objective around having sharp knives?

Is it about making.

Sure you you sort of preserve the thing you're cutting? Is it about not fucking it up?

Basically?

Absolutely, mate, But it's also like it's a whole ethos around like, you know, like having good care about everything that you do and doing things with intention. You know. So if you're going to use a knife, make sure the knife is supposed to be sharp, make sure it's sharp. Have intension with what you're doing, you know. And I love the Japanese for that. You go, you go to Japan, you see any store owner. The first thing a store owner will do in Japan is I'll go and clean

And when you it's just a little question, you said, a little question, but but it's important to me when you wash your at home, not when you're on YouTube, but not when you're performing. You're just at home when you wash your knives, your forks, your plates, and you just wipe out your pants.

What do you what is your process? Do you ever put stuff in the dish washer or are you so.

Fussy about the outcome that you actually, you know, just wash your stuff yourself.

So I'll hand wash a cast iron pan with the paper towel and hand washed knives. Knives never be on the dishcushure. Other than that, everything goes, yeah, so everything else can go the dish are there for a reason?

And do you take a view that you know when you're storing food, so like you know what would be great?

Like I'm mad on.

Pre prepared meals because not many people at the time. You've got time to do because that's that's what you do. It's your show. So you know there's prep and there's someone goes and buys them material the food, and you know you probably got your favorite butcher favorite see if you're joint, et cetera, like that you're living in Sydney now, correct, so you know you go to your favorite joints.

You know we're going to get the best produce, so you should, but.

People like me, I'd like to have stuff prepared like so because I don't want to think about like today, for example, I've done a whole series of podcasts, Got one after you.

I don't have time to go and get.

A proper lunch, blah blah blah. I would like to have a prepared meal. Are you doing something like that? Like do you say to people this is how you do your prep for the week.

Yeah, you done a series yet on that.

We've done videos on that.

Yeah.

Yeah, we did a really popularity or not long ago about meals for one as well, so you know, you know, we did five different recipes for people who are just eating well themselves Friday. Yeah, it's an understand utilize or service piece in the market where people just want you don't want to cook's lots of recipes for ten to twelve people.

Yeah.

Yeah, you can't just want to cook one meal and you don't want left others. So but yeah, and then also a meal prep it's like, well, you know, if you're going to if you're going to make a big batch of you know, Bolonnai's, and then you can turn that into a shepherd's pie and a pass the dish and et cetera.

For efficiency.

Yeah, especially say someone's got a family, like they say, you've got three or four kids, so Sunday afternoon they want to be able to get on to watch your show.

I'm able to work out how am I go because it's going to be it's got to be efficient, but it's going to not cost you too much. See, it's got to be tasty and it's got to satisfy all the family's taste, because you know, it's not usual weakness the rest of the family, isn't it. Yeah, Because when I was a kid, I knew what I was going to eat every the other week because my mum used to give me the because in those days you went to the butcher. It was just down the corner. She's to give me the order.

I went down and order the butchers for every week, same food, and every night we knew it exactly what we're going to have.

Monday night we had the same. For Judy, we had the same.

Food every week every week at Thursday Friday in our house. Because Catholic, we'd always have fish. And I hated fish. I hate it. I don't know I love fish now I hate it. Front and then Sunday it was a roast every week. Same but now to serve that up to your kids made that be So do you go through those processes and help people out this with some sort of creating ideas for them to help them work out what the hell to do?

Yeah? Yeah, I think. I mean, because we post many videos, that's half of it, right, So I think what we see with the data is that you see people it's spikes in the afternoon, right, So someone might be on their way home from work and they'll be on and they'll see a reci I'll make that, you know, and I'll stop and get the ingredients to make it. But yeah, I think the reality is that our stuff's kind of

Is like lay like taste. If I said to you.

That, because one of my big frustrations is that more going back to years ago, but not so much these days, but I would like to have it sold these days. Is that if I's a good example and.

I know where he gets his.

Food from it in terms of his packaging food which he has to do through programs, and like Jordan Solomon is a good made of mine, So who's his dietitian, And like he might have to have in the morning between sessions, he might have to have based on how much way he's going to lose. He might have to have one hundred fifty grams of proteine the fish, beef or chicken he might have.

He might need so much one hundred grams of carbs.

Could your mashed potatoes, rice wood pasta, brown rice pasta, And he might have to have of edge just fraguentcy for greens and to get these other multi items and a lot sort of stuff. Have you ever gone through a process where you've tried to make that tasty? Because that is very hard to do it and make it tasty.

Yeah. I've gone through process of eating like that for a long time to try and pull off weight because my whole lot have Yeah, because I you know, I eat for a living, right, so it's hard for me. My weight fluctuates so yeah, I think naturally I've done it. I don't think i've ever documented it, though, But it's just about it's about using dry spices and herbs a lot because there's no calories in it, and then being

Should do something.

Yeah, you don't see why because I remember. I remember one time, one time I got really bad it. One time I had to put on five killers to fight someone like that. He was like ninety one killers.

I was.

I'm normally aout eighty five eighty six killers as much of it, so I thought I actually had to for once. Only once it happened, I had to put weight on be crazy. So I had six months to would get ready so and I would do a lot of gym work and stuff of that, but I was in like the blow helped me out. I got six seven times a day, right, but I was buying ready made meals.

First two three days it was fine, was great, But after that I felt like it was this. I didn't feel like it was food.

It was it was like, yeah, it was a Jaws like getting cardboard, and I was just basically just trying to get it down my throat and it had no taste to it. I felt like this, this particular I might say, the brand with this particular brand of food, had no taste to it. And I felt as though they were just preparing based on calories and protein levels and no one was actually looking at it as from

Do you know Jordan Sullivan the Fight Digestion, Volks Dietition.

I've never met him, No, I know of them, but he's a pretty cool guy. But he's always frustrated too.

I know who's using them, and and by the way, I'm using the people, I've used the people that is currently using to buy the meals, and I'm not going to say it their names.

But that's pretty good. But I'm just wondering when someone.

Like you actually got on top of this and said, you know, this is the best.

Meal that is.

You can buy this by some of these meals, by the way, you can buy water. So they're everywhere, but they're very salty.

Yeah yeah, I think I think they up the salt is because they stay around for so long because we've got to see water shehells for thirty days, which crazy, right, Like it's yeah, I think.

And you eat it and you don't feel great.

No, no, because the salt makes you hide you.

And then then when you drink the water, you hold yeah, you hold the water along.

Yeah, So like put someone like you do you know, let's say you're just trying to make it last a week with someone.

Is that something that you would be able to do?

Would you be able to work these things that make this meal particularly tasty whatever they might be tasty?

Absolutely food science behind making stuff shelves. They well, that's not my way. Help, let's it was a week? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you just use it like controlling acid. But I mean, I have a meal prep video now where it's all about. So instead of making five boxes that have the same meals and cook a whole bunch of different ingredients, right, and then then you go home and night and you go, right, I'm gonna grab some some rice. I'm gonna grab some

So have you done a series on that?

Yeah, there's a YouTube video on that.

Is there a name for that?

Because I might not look at that, I'll send you an because that's something I would look at. Because because you're right, you could just go you get your prawns, Yeah, and you get blah blah blah blah. Yeah, you don't have more pre made because you're generally speaking, if you had a pre made I'm making one dish. No, you have the same dish, five tight career and that drives mental.

So you just have containers of their great cooked ingredients. You might have a whole hundred corn you know, four cooked corn cobs cooked or you know, cut off and cooked. You know, some cherry tomatoes slice in half, some baby spinach washed, and ready to go some cooked rice, some cooked chicken, and you go, I'm and have some rice chicken.

Tonight and tomorrow night might have and corn and that's cool. And then then I guess it's the sauce. You need some sauce sauces, the differentiator or the condiment.

What do you call it?

Yeah, is a differentiator.

Yeah, yeah, So what's your I mean, you probably don't know it's this, but what what do you like in terms of like goats.

Simple cooking, mate, Like, if I'm eating at home, it's it's grilled meat, usually on the barbecue, So I might grilled a piece of steak, a grilled piece of chicken. I like rice, you know, I eat a lot of rice, and then like simple vegies. It's nothing crazy. Then I do like I like hot sauces, and I think hot sauces are a great cheat for like making instant flavor, as in the spicy Yes, you know, I'm not like one of these people that just eats, you know, crazy

Sauces vinegar based.

Yeah, it's opposed to like the sweet ones. I like them.

When they it's not like sweet chili sauce. It'll be like tabasco or chicula or they got vinegar in them, are they?

Yeah?

Yeah, I didn't know that.

Yeah. And that's the that's the stabilizer. That's why they're self stable because of the acid levels so high.

It's stabilized as in preserved, correct, Yeah, as opposed to lots of salt. Yes, Yeah, that's interesting. I never knew that.

Yeah, yeah, And I never really thought about it, but I didn't know that it's vinegar that preserves it.

Yeah. And they're also very low colorI because there's no sugar in them.

So as opposed to say the sweet chili sauce that's called it that that's got probably a lot of sugar in it. Correct, what's the what preserves are they're also probably put a lot of salt in it. Yeah, sugar sugar as well. Sugars are preserved. Like sugars preserved.

You think about like jam, you know when you're growing up still now like that's you know, it's from the sugar.

Sugars preserved. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, I guess it makes sense. But I remember thinking about.

Preserves deserves actually something is they call that because they take the peaches off of them, think they can't eat them.

Are for the summer and presum for the winter.

We sugar.

Yeah, that's mad. I didn't know that. I don't thought about that, thinks. I appreciate that.

That's that's pretty good, it's pretty logical, but I never really thought it through. And food is such a fundamental thing to us, like we tell you for granted.

We do. We do, especially in this part of the world, you know, all the time. It's like, you know, we're all extremely lucky to live here, you know, extremely lucky.

As you rate our produce in Australia relative to the rest of the world and where we sort of ranking up there, for.

The average product that we have is very high. It's much higher than the average producce you get in the States or the average produce that you you know, you think about countries like France and Spain and probably are a little bit better a lot of cases like but

In the world.

And I'm getting wrapped up here, but the producers wrapping me.

But like, I just want one more question. Why is it?

I just you just spark my memory. I remember when I was in I haven't been in London for a couple of years, but when I go to London, I have been more recently, but like I used to go.

To Lend a lot.

One of the things that always struck me about London in their summer spring summer was the difference between strawberry in London and France compared to strawberry here.

What is the deal with that climate? You need the cold, the cold nights and the warm days. Yeah, and it's the same. They're so sweet, Yeah, they're so sweet, but also fragrant. But even beef, beef is very different in Europe, you know. And it's because the grass is different, so the fat ten of the animals is different, you know. It's and we're so used to growing up eating a strawberry was it was was a treat. Now you see my nieces and nephews and they're just like punets of the thing.

Them and blueberries days a year.

Oh yeah, but they taste below average, all yeah, yeah. Whereas if you eat it seasonally and we actually ate to the seasons, you're going to get those peaks of like really delicious strawberries and then you won't. But you won't. You only see them for two months of the year.

When I was growing, like my mum was a she just half on by this eat to the season because in those days you didn't get blueberries a straw only get it once a year and you get you know, we used to get nuts at a certain time of year, like walnuts and things around times and then and the rest it was. It was very everything like Mumm used to I say, pears and apples, pears, apples and oranges in the winter and stone fruits in the summer. And

Naturally.

I'm going to be a bit of a hypocrite here and say that I often don't because a lot of my audience lives in the other atmosphere. Yeah, So it's really tricky to be like, who do I service the most? You know? So we have to do a mix of both. So in wintertime here I have to do some winter recipes, but I also have to do some summery recipes. Otherwise a whole most of the world's going to be like, well, I'm not going to eat a pumpkin soup right now. It's I live in New York and it's one hundred degrees.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

And are you a sorry to keep I amnnoying my producer, but I have one more question for you.

Are you when you go to a place like France or Paris?

When you're in France, but let's call it Paris, are you a mad mad And I know you're trying to watch away, but are you mad for their pastries?

Yeah? Yeah, I mean I love food. Mark like I love it. Like so I've got anywhere in the world, I'm going to hunt out the best of whatever that country does. And I love the French know how to do pastries. They do greate butter in France too, That's why the pastries are good.

And there's been an emergency emergence and emergency, but an emergence of Greek food all of a sudden, because Greece has become the place to go to our holiday, both popular European destination right at the moment from people from all around the world, and all of a sudden'm seeing lots of Greek restaurants. Yeah, arise.

We've never generally speak with very few Greek restaurants, particularly in city, a lot of Melbourne more and much more in city at the moment. What is it a Greek's food? What is it about Greek food that has become so popular? Do you think there's a simplicity?

What is it? Yeah?

I think it's simplicity, and you know, it's that Mediterranean diet, right Like I think it's you can go to a Greek restaurant and you don't come away feeling like you've had a cheap meal. You just come away because you've eaten like a really lovely fresh salad. It's some grilled meat, you know, like and it's you know, you don't feel like you've kind of indulged, as opposed to if you go to a French restaurant you kind of usually come away and you go, oh.

My god, especially if you had a bit of wine with it, and then dessert, you know they're bringing out a soup fla or something like that.

And because it's rich, it's rich, yeah, heavy, dairy heavy, whereas you had a Greek and it's olive oil, you know, and lots of lemon and lots of acid to cut through all that fatty.

God, I'm so hungry now. It made me really hungry, mate. It's been fantastic. I really appreciate. By the way, Congratulations on being a phenonmamon.

Thank you.

You are somewhat of phenomenon when it comes to what you do on YouTube and all the other social mediums.

Well done. Congratulations And sort of like.

Your personality and your nearly laconic like, you're pretty laid back about it.

I'd say there's a fair bit.

Of intensity gets involved in it, but you're very laid back about your success and well done on that's that's a hard thing to do.

Thanks Mane, I appreciate it and thanks for having us.

You're welcome