Los Angeles Chef Christina Xenos of Sweet Greek Personal Chef Services

Welcome everyone. This is Chris with the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. Today we have Christina Xenos. She is a Los Angeles based personal chef and owner of Sweet Greek personal chef services. She's also a recipe developer, does cooking classes, and is the co author of Opa! The Healthy Greek cookbook. She was also recently on an episode of A New Leaf on NBC, and The Cooking Channel's Food: Fact or Fiction. Hey, Christina, how are you doing? Welcome to the show.

Hi, Chris. Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

Thank you. Yeah, I'm excited to have you on here. So I want to just kind of jump right into it. Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, personally, professionally, and how you got into cooking and how you started your business?

I'm a personal chef. I'm based in Los Angeles. This is my second career. I was a journalist. Before this. I worked for where magazine for 11 years and I started their digital publishing program in Southern California. So I started their website and then I covered la market for them and when I was doing that a lot of it was food restaurant and Chef related and I always had a love for cooking. I think anyone who grows up in a Greek family has that in them and it really made me want to circle back and go to culinary school so even so while I was working at the magazine, I went I went to culinary school so I did 20 weeks of pro cooking and 20 weeks of pro baking at The New School of cooking in Los Angeles and it just I mean I already knew how to cook but it gave me the confidence to cook at a professional level. So that's kind of how it started. And then I've always been really entrepreneurial and I learned about personal shopping and it seemed like the right way to go to to be in food at this juncture. And I I really just I love cooking for people, but I really love the recipe side as well and I love developing and modifying recipes making them healthy, always making them very tasty for my you know the people who read my recipes For my clients,

so you never really wanted to get into working as a line cook in a restaurant. It sounds like

my first job ever. I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and I, my family. We lived down the street from NCR Country Club and we all know NCR they meet national cash register. They make a lot of the cash registers you still, you know, that you see in grocery stores everywhere. They had a country club and when I was 15, I started I worked banquets and I worked in the kitchen as an expediter. And that was in the 90s. And I was really young. And it was just you know, it was a fun environment. But you know, when I was in my late 30s, it was maybe an environment I wasn't excited to go back to and I'm, you know, really laid back and I like to be I like to be the one in charge. So it was it just made more sense to start running my own business. I do love restaurants and you know, it would have been a fun path to be on had I started in my 20s as a line cook I just at this point in my life, I just didn't really want to go back.

Yeah, and a lot of people start younger, and then by the time they hit their 30s and getting into their 40s have decided the lifestyle is not something that's really conducive to having a family or just physical, mental health, all those kinds of things, which is why, you know, I have so many members of my shots without restaurants community because they just for whatever reason, don't want to work in restaurants.

Yeah, I have mad respect for anyone who does I just Yeah, I was at a point in my life where I like the personal the personal aspect of personal shopping is really what what drew me to it. So I work really, you know, just very, very closely with my clients, I tailor everything that I make, to their dietary preferences to you know, what they, you know, their taste preferences, and it's, you know, I cook for a client yesterday and I sat down with them for half an hour and we talked about the food I was making the recipes that they you know, wanted in the future and it's just, it's nice to just be able to have the opportunity to work one on one with people and you know, make I'm really happy. So that's, I love doing that.

So what is your client base look like? Are they people on a recurring schedule where you're cooking for them every week or a couple days a week or just kind of like independent catering events or a mix of both?

I do both. And so but what I really love to do I have, I have a slate of regular clients, usually I work with them about once a week. I do have a couple people who are just they're single and they don't require as much so normally I would go into my client's homes and cook anywhere from three and five entrees at one time. And, and then I they you know, they hired me because either they don't have time to cook, they don't want to cook or they have you know, they have allergies. They have extremely restrictive diets. I have a client right now who he's gluten free. He has a nut allergy, a soy allergy, and he can't have dairy or eggs. So that is you know, if I were a person that wasn't so into cooking and That would just be paralyzing for me to try to cook for myself or even trying to eat out with the cross contamination and issues and not knowing exactly what's in foods. So that's four he calls me and then I obsessed about his menus and it's it's such an interesting troubleshooting opportunity for me to make things taste good for him and allowing him to eat and enjoy food without, you know, being petrified that he's going to have an allergic reaction. So, so yeah, I mean, anywhere from families, to individuals, and things like that. So I really, you know, a lot of people want to lose weight. My other favorite client is I do a lot of work for women who have just had babies so postpartum services and I love those clients because I can, you know, be in there with them. And for my one of my clients, I was there the day they brought their baby home from the hospital. And these women, you know, they need to eat and they need to eat well, and they need a lot of calories. So, as opposed to my clients who don't want to eat any carbs at all, I get to make pasta dishes, and those Vanya and you know, all kinds of really, really fun stuff for them. So that's, that's so fun.

Obviously, you specialize in Greek cuisine, but I'm sure you do a lot of non Greek food with your customers. But what are what are some of your favorite dishes? I mean, are there special dishes that your customers really love that play to the Greek cooking?

Absolutely. I make a lot of pizza and moussaka for people. So besito is, you know, it's most similar to a lasagna so it's pasta with ml and a meat sauce. So the pasta is on the bottom, the meat sauce is in the middle, the basketballs on the top, and it's different from lasagna because when Greek people make meat sauces, we use a lot of warming spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and all spice. So my clients really like that. moussaka is very similar to proceed so but it's made with eggplant, sometimes eggplant, zucchini or eggplant, tomato, meat sauce and then the best on top as well. And then I think what my signature dish would be my specific pizza and that's a spinach pie spinach and fetta scallions and herbs in between layers of phyllo dough. And so whenever I make that people are very happy. I had a great client last year and I was making Sonico pizza for her every week.

I saw your episode of a new leaf and you're teaching them how to make that and it looks so delicious. Yeah. Oh,

great. It was so fun to have them over. And we just had a blast in the kitchen. And it's, you know, they had you know, made it but everyone's recipe is a little different. So I love kind of showing people my perspective. And I mean, I might not copy this my actually my aunt Margie sonica is my favorite. And that seems like something that's kind of daunting, I guess if you've never made it. You know, I think there's always a fear of cooking another cuisine that you're not used to that you don't grow up. Like when I think about baking that. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if I even want to go down that route. Yeah, I think especially with the phyllo dough, a lot of people aren't used to handling it. So Once I think you have the confidence with that, and when I teach spanakopita classes in person and online and and once I, you know, it's you know, just give people the confidence that you know, Philo is actually really forgiving and even if you get a bad batch that you know might be dry and falling apart, you can still work with it and I show them you know, some tricks to working with it. And I think you know, then they feel more competent to branch out and make their own Sonic copies or any other pies that require Philo so and then if they really really hate it, I tell them they can make it with puff pastry. It's a little different, but there's there's a way to do it.

So do you do a lot of cooking classes and who are they for they for like existing clients that they want have a party or do you host them in some kitchen somewhere in town?

Before COVID I was doing a lot of I was you know, going into people's homes and teaching them a lot of times, you know, people just they want to familiarize they've either never cooked or this is you know they're in a new kitchen or I had a A woman who came from Armenia who just wasn't used to, you know, kitchens in the US or you know, grocery shopping So, you know, we did all the grocery shopping together then we went back to her kitchen. And you know, we I just familiarized her with, you know, her pots and pans and her stove and we made you know, Greek and Armenian Cuisine have a lot of overlap. So she was able to pick recipes and we would make, you know, three different recipes every time I went in there and that was really fun. So I do a lot of one on one work a little less so now with COVID but so I kind of pivoted and switched to online so people can hire me for a private session and we can do about you know, two or three dishes depending on you know, the the recipe and how much time they have. I also do I you know, once or twice a month I'll post a cooking class and we'll do one recipe. So last week we did a it's a it's called colicky. Look at that this in Greek but it's a zucchini Patty. So we did class on zoom for that. And it's just kind of went we we made some Suzuki to go with it too, but they're really kind of quick and easy recipes. The classes are about an hour and hour and a half long. So we can do both. And then before before COVID, I also had some classes through a website called eat with, which is really wonderful. It's all over the world. And it's it's hosts, and their specific city hosting dining experiences and cooking classes. So I had people so you, I would list my experience online and people would buy tickets, and then they come to my house. And we would do the cooking class there. And that's how I do my pop up dinners as well. So there's that and then we have a cooking school in LA that I've taught great cooking classes too as well. So it's a it's a variety of things. And I love connecting with people and showing them how to make the recipes and it's a blast.

You have a large blog component to your website with lots of recipes. So it sounds like someone you're someone who really loves teaching people how to cook. How important was that? When you were setting up your website that you would have a place to share recipes. Is that something you always wanted to do and have been a part of your business?

Yeah, I mean, the reason I called my business suite Creek personal chef services is because I first had the aspiration to have the blog before I even started my cooking business. And that was just the domain I had. And it seemed, you know, like a good Nexus for everything. So I had the blog, even before the cooking business, and then I just, you know, kind of rearranged things. But, you know, not not everyone has the luxury to hire a personal chef, and I only can have so many clients at once. It's really important to me that people have the confidence to cook and can feed themselves and their families in a sustainable way. And in a way that's, you know, healthy for them. I think, you know, just seeing, you know, the the range of health problems we're having right now in the US and all over the world. People eating highly processed foods. I was You know, just because they don't think they have time to have something fresh, so they, you know, put in a frozen pizza. And, you know, there's always a time and a place for frozen pizza, but you can't, you know, I just, I would prefer them you know not to have to do that every day and knowing that if you have a few simple ingredients, you can come home in within a half hour you can have food on the table for your family, people just need a real roadmap and confidence to get there and I try to show them that you know, something that looks beautiful, doesn't have to be complicated. So that's why it's really it's the cooking videos and the website are really important for me to teach people that they can they can do it and they can do it you know, pretty easily. We're making pizza at home tomorrow and

I think that's one of the things that scares people and it's pizza dough is literally just flour and water. You know it might have a pinch of salt, sometimes you put olive oil and then my sauces just San Marzano tomatoes, hand crushed with a little olive oil, you know, and then cheese and it's really easy and I think you know if they I'm gonna Big fan of like pan pizza. So just take up a quarter pan and put a little oil and you can do that. And I think people teaching them how to do that. So I've done a lot of tutorials on doing pizza during quarantine now because I wanted people to figure out how to be able to do that. So how did your business change during COVID? Like, did you have to change that practices or how you're interacting with your customers and going into the houses and stuff? I mean, we're all dealing with that. So I assume you have a little of that.

Yeah, I mean, it it's all been I mean, I look at this year is just a constant evolution. And I learned early on that you can't plan for everything. I guess you you know. So I was in I was actually in Sicily. From January until March. I was doing cook the farm at the ANA Tesco Lanza cooking school because I wanted to study food systems in the Mediterranean and it's a fantastic program and we studied everything from wheat cultivation to wine production. Buying, pruning, you know everything. And then I can't I just can't say enough about it. It was just an amazing experience. But once you know the Coronavirus, started taking hold in Italy, we had to pivot really fast. We weren't quite able to finish our eight weeks there. So then I had to come back to the US but I couldn't come back to LA because we had a tenant in our house here. So my husband was in New York with his family. So I had to go to New York, and I just really, you know, kind of saw everything dissipate with the lockdown orders in LA, I knew I couldn't, you know, be here to cook for my clients and frankly, my clients didn't want me You know, they were on you know, really hardcore lockdown. They weren't leaving, they're good at getting everything delivered and I wasn't able to operate my business. And slowly as things have started to loosen, I've been able to get back with pretty strict protocols. You know, just everything from you know, wearing a mask the whole time which is extremely difficult when you're cooking and trying to smell and you know, taste things and then just extreme sanitation and you know, scrubbing everything down. So you know, just not wearing, you know, I have a pair of shoes that I wear just in my clients house, I wash them after, every time I cook and you know, just you know, extreme sanitation. being really careful at grocery stores, I only go to grocery stores that have really strict protocols in place with how many people they let in at a time. And, you know, they have, you know, just like Trader Joe's in LA, we, they have arrows on the ground that, you know, you follow to maintain social distancing and things like that, but it makes me feel a lot safer. Especially when I'm out you know, three or four times a week at a grocery store, which you know, most people are not so, so yeah, I've pivoted in that way and you know, I I'm happy that I'm back cooking in people's homes and then I'm, you know, instead of hosting cooking classes on site, I've been pivoting over to zoom and and that's been you know, really And it's not the same, but it's still great because now I can connect with people all over the world. So I had a cooking class last Saturday, I had people from, you know, the East Coast, New York and Philly. And then I had someone from London. So it's been great. I mean, I love it.

Yeah, it's weird what you give up in, in person you gain with access, right? This sound like the podcast, I don't know that I would ever have had you on the show. Because who knows how we would meet up in either LA or out here in Maryland. And now it's like, you know, I love the sound of the show in person in the field is great, but I'm also getting to interview these people from all over the world that I never would have had a chance. So you figure out how to adapt. Right?

Yeah, I think it's all about adaptability. And it's all about, you know, if something doesn't go the way that you had planned to just be okay with it and, you know, figure out a new way. And you know, when I left Sicily, I had five plane tickets because I just didn't know what plate was gonna take off. And it's just, you know, knowing that we just we've never had Anything like Coronavirus in our lifetime before so it's just knowing that your decision might not be the right one, but it's okay and just figuring out, you know, your own way and just feeling okay about it. Because, you know, it's hard to when you don't have all the information or you don't have the experience to base a decision on, you know, finding a way to do it and being okay, if it wasn't the right one.

That's for sure. Being flexible, right? flexibility is the big word right now,

flexibility and adaptability. It's, that's all that you have right now.

And some would argue, I mean, we should have probably been thinking about this a little more romantic. Some businesses were really well prepared for that. I mean, as prepared as you can be, but some businesses are always evolving and always thinking in the next thing and then a lot of businesses don't and they just kind of got caught in this oops scenario where now they're backpedaling trying to play catch up.

Yeah, I think so. I feel my friends you know, a lot of my friends who are into like catering large events they switched over to take out And some, you know, farm box stuff where people could pick up groceries and stuff. And it's not the same, but they were able to pivot But yeah, I mean, certain industries got hit me to the event industry just got decimated and restaurants. I mean, my friends who have restaurants here in LA are just really stressed out right now because yesterday we had to close them down again. And yeah, it's it's a really, really strange time. I hope. I hope it ends soon.

Me too. So I know you have the one cookbook. Do you have plans for another cookbook to come out?

Yeah. So my friend Emily and I came up Emily was in Greece a couple years ago and was there for the saffron harvest. So in Northern Greece, and near Thessaloniki, there's a group of villages in the rosani area where they harvest a lot of saffron and she has these beautiful pictures. So the beginning are actually late last year we came up with about I think 10 recipes and we shot them and we're working on a saffron cook booklet, like a small cookbook that should come out in the next couple months. And then I put together just a list of my I think it's going to be 12 or 15 favorite summer recipes since not many of us will be able to travel to Greece This summer I wanted to bring grease to you and that will be available really soon as a download a free download on my website. So if you go to my website, you can just type your name into like the email box and then I can email you when that's ready to be downloaded. So it's just, you know, like, you know, just the base everything basic from a village salad to I do these. It's called the mom bld it's a stuff eggplant with tomatoes and feta cheese. So the quintessential recipes that you'll be eating at a seaside Suvarna and that we're all missing right now. And then like lobster pasta, which is my favorite thing to eat in Greece during the summer, so I'll have all that ready soon. For people to download and create grease at home, in their own kitchens,

and the idea that you're doing it for free just again because you love sharing recipes, people and you know, I think that's great giving them a little something right now when there's so little out there for people, you know,

well, we're all cooking whether we want to or not more than ever before. So my mom is going crazy, you know, she's like, I am so sick of cooking and finding new ideas. So it's just I like to point her to new ideas and just give people you know, new ideas so they can get out of the same stuff over and over again because I think it's just exhausting when you're cooking three meals a day and you're trying to find you know, new ideas and it's my passion and I'm fine with it but I know that's not what everyone wants to be doing all the time.

Yeah, I have twins at home are almost eight my in laws also live with us. So they're six in the house and today at lunch, we made four separate lunches like I used to never have to do any of that my wife went to work and my kids went to school. And now today like after we deal with breakfast, then it's lunch and it's like, I had tacos for lunch. And then my son had a bowl of soup and my wife made a case of dia and my daughter had like an egg and cheese bagel. It's like, this is so much work, just doing lunch for four people. And now I've got to turn around to do dinner for six people against night. When am I going to get anything done?

I mean, I can totally sympathize with you. When I was with my husband's family in New York. There were eight of us there. His parents, his sister, her husband and their two kids who are in high school and myself my husband and you know, Angela, her husband and I knew we slit cooking dinner every day. But then yeah, lunch came around and I mean, people it was just you I would just sit in the kitchen because that's where I would set up with my computer and just like watch the wave of people who have just come in and thank goodness they have two dishwashers because we were constantly running dishes and loading and emptying the dishwasher and just constantly cooking and cleaning up in it. It's just crazy.

But I have enjoyed cooking more at home, you know, it's given me a chance to do some, some fun cooking with the family teaching my kids to cook a little bit, definitely some boring stuff, you know, again, keeping the blog component going, I was kind of running dry for a while because work has been really had been really good. So not really having the time to try new dishes, type them out, photograph them all that stuff. So I've been able to do a little bit of that, which is nice. I mean, it would also be nice to be getting paid more.

Yeah, it's just now we know like and then you know, you know, the work will eventually come back and it's at least that was what I was telling myself in the spring. I'm like, I know it's going to come back. So this time, this is the time I'm going to come up with new recipes like get everything else down and on the blog and and you know, kind of, you know, just organize everything and get it ready to go and it was you know, fun to have that time I was doing like two cooking videos a week. It was it was really great. And I rarely have that time. I also was You know baking sourdough bread, which everyone was doing but I'd never had that time before so

so how did you end up on both an NBC TV show and the cooking channel? I mean, I'm sure people kind of want to know what's the secret sauce to getting on a major TV program.

It's partly being in LA and they film a lot of that here for the cooking channel, I had hosted a pop up dinner through eat with and the showrunner and the the director came to my pop up they wanted you know, to do a great dinner and they and their friends came and it went over really well. And then they were doing a show about it was I think was last season and the theme of the show was all about Chicago. And saga naki sakaki is is a dish all over Greece, but it was first Flom based in Chicago so that is not it's not a Greek thing. The Greeks never really did that. But there was a guy in Chicago who wanted to add a little extra pizzazz so he you know, brought up the cheese and set it up. Fire. And so I was the Greek expert on that segment for the food factor fiction, which was super fun to film. And then for a new leaf, the producer, john and Peter were both of Greek descent. So a new leaf, sorry, it was on NBC, it was the kind of the more you know, so it's educational programming on Saturday mornings. And this was in partnership with ancestry. So the whole theme of a new leaf is people discovering their ancestry and they create a show around that. And so john and Peter, you know, both had Greek heritage that they discovered through ancestry, and then they had recently gotten married so they wanted an activity to do right before their marriage party so they came over and we all made fun a copy down then they served on a copy thought their marriage Party, which was really fun. So yeah, the producer I think just found my website and contacted me and, and I had a video village in my living room a couple weeks Later. So it was a, it was really fun, a great experience. I love doing television. And it's it's been great to be able to champion Greek cuisine in that way.

And I think another good reason to have a blog component of your website, I mean, it's obviously good for SEO and finding, you know, people finding you on the internet when they Google Greek cuisine or Greek chef or something like that. It seems like you have a large fan base, you have like 20 to 23,000 followers on Instagram or something like that. How did that happen? And when did you start your Instagram and how did it grow?

I, you know, I started it in 2012. So it's been around for a while, and I was posting so much food content when I worked at the magazine and I think just being in the early days of it and being interactive with everyone and then even so when I pivoted mostly to doing recipes and food and finding my niche in Greek food, that's that has really helped grow my following as well. So it's I think it was easier when you started out because people wanted to follow More people now it's uh it's you know, gaining followers is you know hard but it's really important to me just to connect with the ones that I have and and doing that in an authentic way and posting good content for them and inspiring them and just being there I love doing Instagram stories because I can't always i don't know i like i like to over curate things that's just me so like if I don't have the right photo, I won't post that but I'll do stories all day long. So yesterday I was in my client's home and I was roasted a chicken for her I fried chicken for her and it's just fun to like put those little bits up on stories and you know, I love I just love connecting with people there and I've met so many people around the met you and I met just you know so many fun people around the world from like Morocco and Egypt and you know, Australia and it's just it's so fun to connect with people and Instagram being that vehicle is it's amazing.

It's like When you see someone at the grocery store that you kind of recognize and you don't know if you know them know them or internet know them and now and now we're all wearing the mask. So I go to the grocery store, and you know, I'm obscured, I got my glasses, and I have on this mask, and you just make eye contact with somebody, like, I kind of feel like I know them from the internet. And I don't know, I just don't want to go over and say hi, right now. So just kind of give like a nod.

It's like your brain does something. I had this this experience where I was at an engagement party for my husband's friend in Beverly Hills, and I was getting a drink at the bar and saw throws again rock and walked over. And I like, my brain was like, you know, this person and I was like, Oh, hey, and then I was like, Oh, I don't know you. But my brain knew you. And now I know who you are. And I definitely don't know you. And then I felt really weird.

Yeah, I've also said, Hey, to someone who I thought it was someone I knew. It's like, Hey, how's it going? Like, Hey, I know you're like, good. Josh right now like, No, I'm like, Oh,

that's kind of awkward. All right.

So I see that you did a dinner at the James Beard house. Is that right?

Dad.

Yeah. How exciting was that? I mean, as a chef, that seems like something I've always wanted to do. I've never been invited there. And maybe someday, but what was that experience like, and how did you end up doing that?

Yeah, it was epic. It wasn't my dinner. So I'll say that it wasn't I was invited to cook there. It was not me who was the main chef, so but it was still an amazing opportunity. I'm a member of Le Dom's de scuffie. A, which is an international women's organization of colon culinary people, so anywhere from people who write about food to chefs to people who work in food, PR. And so it's been around for a really long time. And my actually my mother in law was also a member in her time in the 70s and 80s. And so, they did, I think it was I can't I don't know exactly who organized it, but it was the southern Aegean Council and they hooked up with the James Beard house and Lattanzi iced coffee and rvO Bob butter yuzu who is a she Basically the godmother of Greek cuisine, she was invited to cook at the James Beard house and le Dom's puts together a team of chefs. So my writing partner Theo, Stephen and I from the west coast, two chefs from South Florida and then two chefs from New York we all came together and supported her and her team and it was incredible. It was a lot of work. But she rvO is like the best one most wonderful person to work with. And it was really cool to be able to cook her recipes. And it was an insane amount of food that we made. And if you've ever seen that kitchen, it's so small. That's what people pull off in that kitchen is pretty incredible. And it was it was March of 2018 there is still some insane storms that were rolling through. So it was like a huge snowstorm when we were there, like the day before. So things got really weird with Just logistics and produce being delivered and things like that. But the whole we did a media lunch for I think 60 people in the afternoon and then we did an 80 person dinner in the evening and it was the most insane and most wonderful day of my life. And I am so thankful to have that experience. And I hope to be there again in some capacity one day, but just just wonderful. My mother in law was there with my husband, which was really wonderful, and I loved it. absolutely loved it.

That sounds amazing. I can't imagine and cooking with someone like that, you know how cool I would almost I would almost rather go and cook with someone else like that, then go and be the one and just kind of be able to be in their presence.

Yeah, I was really happy to not have to handle any logistics and I was just, you know, I was there offering you know, I knew and I understood the recipes and actually, we made my dish that I handled was the lamb Africa say which I make all the time. It was fun to see Her spin on it. And it was just it was really special to be able to work there in that context, though, and work under her and champion these recipes. But yeah, I was really glad I didn't have to, like coordinate any of that. And then we you know, so basically anyone who does the dinners there, they have to do a whole lot of prep beforehand. So the day before we are, you know, prepping everything at this huge catering kitchen and Laura Manhattan. And I've never, you know, done anything of that magnitude before. So it was really interesting to see how that all worked out. But it was like, you know, we were prepping the lamb and then we were just, you know, finally peeling very tiny potatoes for the soup. And it was all really cool. So I can't wait. I would love to do that. Again.

I always like to do a speed round. Is there anything you want to leave our listeners with before we kind of jump into the speed round?

Okay, I just you can check out my website, my sweet Greek calm and online. info is there links to my Instagram is Xtina XTX DNS. So I post all my my videos on Instagram and my recipes on my website. And if you have a question about a recipe, I will answer you.

We put together a really comprehensive show notes, both within the RSS feed there and across social media so people will definitely be able to find you.

Cool. Yeah. So yeah, reach out say hi.

We just like to throw some questions out there to kind of get a feeling for everyone with their what they like don't like but I always kind of ask similar questions. So do you have a favorite tool in the kitchen that's maybe accessible for everyone? Like if you recommended a piece of gear, what would it be?

Yeah, off the top of my head. I love my microplane because I try to microplane everything I hate shopping garlic, but I love just like finally grading grading garlic into everything from a salad dressing to like on top of fish that texture of garlic lets it penetrate even more. And I pretty much assessed everything. So if I'm using a lemon and a dish which I use a lot of lemon, and you know, dusting the lemon and is in using the lemon juice, so I think I think a microplane is pretty underutilized, but it's something everyone should have and, and use.

I just noticed yesterday that my blades are getting kind of, you know, they get the spots, they're like, six inches long, but there seems to be like a three inch spot kind of in the middle where it's dull and it's like you have to kind of move to the top or the very bottom. I was doing chocolate which should shave really easily but I was shaving dark chocolate on my tiramisu and I'm like, why is this blade not shaving the chocolate? This is not how it should be. Do you have a favorite dinner? Food memory? Like is there a restaurant or at a family member's house? Is there a meal that jumps out at you as being particularly special?

I'm gonna say it's my husband and I are hitting our next weekend is our fifth anniversary. So we had a really small wedding. Here, I didn't want to, I didn't want to plan a big wedding. But we also had three weddings. So we could, you know, see everybody, but for actually actual wedding we went we rented a house in Topanga Canyon. And we had just our immediate family. So there were 11 of us total. And my friend, Greg has insky who is the executive chef of Stratton house in Manhattan Beach, who had gotten married the weekend before he came up and cooked you know, we got to work together on the menu and he created this amazing dinner of everything that I wanted. So it was like caviar, fresh pasta, beef tartare, incredible cheese spread. And I think I can't remember like ribeye cap and just like ridiculous stuff where I was just I didn't I mean, like, I love my wedding, but I was like, it was all about the food.

I'm totally with you on that one. We we catered our own wedding, which seems kind of insane. But yeah, my wife, my wife was a chef at the time and our whole wedding party were chefs. So we just rented a big house. I was on Cape Cod. And for the week, it was just like a whole crew of chefs. My best man was a chef. Just went and bought all this stuff and catered ourselves. And I think I would still do that again today. I mean, it seems a little crazy. There's some things I do differently. But being a bit of a control freak and a big fan of food, I don't think I'd want it any other way.

Yeah, I made my own wedding cake. I made a carrot cake. But the problem was the house we couldn't get the air conditioner to work really well and air conditioning in LA no one thinks you need it. But that day was a little warm. And the frosting kept melting off the cake and I was like, trying to do my hair and makeup and then ice the cake and Greg was just laughing at me. And he's like, I'll help you. I was like, You can't help me. I'm gonna do it.

That's literally the only thing we didn't do. We paid for someone to make the cake. I'm not that crazy.

It was I love making cakes. It was fun.

I enjoy them but they don't look the way my kicks are delicious. I think if I do say so myself, but the icing technique needs a lot of work. So that's something that I've continued to work on myself. Do you have any favorite culinary resources that aren't yours? I mean, obviously, people can go to your website and your book, but do you have favorite? Other cookbooks, websites? chefs to follow? Where would you recommend people look?

Yeah, so for me, I'm not really a baker. So I mean, I'm baking a lot of things now, but I wouldn't say that's my specialty. So Sally's baking addiction. She has her recipes are phenomenal. And they work really well. I know, you know, she must test them meticulously, because they work for me always. So I love her. I love her blog. And then I my dear friends in LA, they're called husbands that cook they're really wonderful. And they're, they're all vegetarian and they have really, really fun, modern, you know, delicious recipes. So I love them and then, I mean, so you know, as a personal chef, you know, I'm you know, I need to, you know, sometimes make recipes quickly and without a lot, I always test everything. But if I need something that I can't take a lot of time to test, I mean, I in a garden, you know, barefoot contest that I know, she meticulously tests her recipes, and I trust them implicitly. So everything I've made from her has been pretty spot on and, you know, they're just, they're good. They're really I made her fried chicken yesterday and I loved it. It was delicious. So those are, those are my three right now.

There's so much information out there it's almost overload you know, I have a tendency to want to make fried chicken and then I'll go on the internet and Google it and it's like, I'm gonna go to serious eats and see what they're doing. They're like, but I'm gonna go check out this recipe from some chef on food and food and wine. And next thing you know, you have like seven recipes and they all have different temperatures and different techniques. And it and it is you can definitely overdo it and everyone's got an opinion and at some point, you just have to go with one of them.

I do have to say serious eats for really technical stuff. So I've been making a lot of octopus lately and experimenting with that so I did a pressure cooker octopus and then I've done sushi octopus and the both the pressure cooker and the soup feed from Sirius eats the techniques have worked out really well. Sushi has been by far the best and yeah, so they said to be the octopus at 175 degrees for five hours, and it has turned out like the best octopus I've ever had. So I'm cooking a party for Fourth of July and I have six octopus in my fridge right now that I'm going to need for that party.

That sounds amazing. Do you do anything after you Savita? Do you throw it on the grill?

Yeah, you turn it off on the grill.

Yeah, that sounds amazing. The best one I've ever had was made in a rational combi oven. So same kind of idea because you can adjust the the temperature and humidity but who has a combi if and I mean professional kitchens, but like I don't have one of my house

right?

Yeah, great, great tip. So I also share those with people so that they can find some Greg Kohner resources. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. This was great. I'm so glad you made time for us. And I hope to talk to you I hope people follow you and find some inspiration in Greek cooking. I'm a big fan and like I said, Now I'm having to do all my own Greek cooking at home if I want it

so well at least it's grilling season so you can just put everything on the ground we're growing

everything right now I'm I have no desire to heat up the kitchen in my house.

Oh, gosh. Now Now I know so hot.

Have you done pizza on the grill? I'm

not this summer. So I haven't passed I mean and I I went to culinary school Johnson Wales and in Providence, l for No, it's like one of the places I think they literally invented like the grilled pizza. So I was big on that for a while. I'm really trying to get the technicalities of pizza cooking like I have a baking steel which I love and it does really great especially in the house. A couple times. I've put that on the grill, but I'm exploring Pan pizza a lot. I have trouble pitching my like I make this dough and it's beautiful and I put on the peel and I go to throw in it doesn't slide right and it tears and then have this big mess. But I grew up eating a lot of Greek pizza, which is Panda, isn't it? Yeah. So where I grew up in my hometown, there were no Italian pizza places. They were only Greek and it was always like that somewhat greasy, crispy pan pizza. I

think it came from Detroit. I think it was like the Greeks in Detroit who did that and then it kind of spread across the US but yeah, that's

what I grew up. I love that. I don't like that kind of chewy deli with the flower resin. Oh,

it's a it's like the crispy crabs. Yeah,

I bought some really awesome Lloyd's Pans. They make these amazing non-stick pizza pans in all different shapes and sizes. They're really awesome, high quality. So this summer, I've exclusively been working on those. I was using quarter sheet pans and half pans. But they're not really made to go in a hot oven like that. That Baking Steel gets to like 900 degrees. So, those pans are awesome. So just like a light coat of oil, and make your dough, and then you don't have to worry about pitching it or anything. Just build it in the pan, throw it on the baking steel and then take it out and put it back in, you know, for like two minutes just to crisp up the bottom. I've got recipes, and I can point you in the right direction for both recipes and pans. But yeah, so that's what I loved. I grew up with those Greek pan pizzas.

A lot of family from Detroit. So I'm always there eating.

Yeah, I could get I could eat pizza every day. Thanks again for coming on the show this.

This was so fun. Thank you.

To all our listeners, this has been the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. As always, you can find us at chefwithoutrestaurants.com and .org, and on all social media platforms. Thanks and have a great week. Transcribed by https://otter.ai