Chefs Without Restaurants

Do you or someone you love have a food allergy or intolerance? Or maybe you're a chef who cooks for people and wants to get better at accommodating customers with dietary restrictions. In this episode of Chefs Without Restaurants, Chris speaks with Kayla Cappiello, the author of the new book "Easy Allergy-Free Cooking," about food allergies and how to cook delicious meals that are safe for those with dietary restrictions.

Kayla has celiac disease, is lactose intolerant, and is allergic to tree nuts, so she knows firsthand the challenges of cooking with multiple dietary restrictions. She started documenting her experiences online, sharing new recipes she was making and recommending places to eat that catered to those with allergies. Her Instagram quickly gained followers, and she now has 47,000 fans who love her allergy-free cooking tips and recipes.

Kayla's book, "Easy Allergy-Free Cooking," is a choose-your-own-adventure cookbook that accommodates multiple allergies and dietary restrictions. Every recipe includes tips on how to make adjustments for gluten-free, dairy-free, and nut-free diets, as well as suggestions for making the dish vegetarian or low-fat. It's the perfect guide for anyone who wants to cook delicious, allergy-free meals for themselves or their loved ones.

In this episode, Kayla and Chris discuss the challenges of cooking with multiple allergies, how to make substitutions in your favorite recipes, and the importance of community for those with food allergies. Kayla also shares some of her favorite recipes from the book, 

KAYLA CAPPIELLO

Kayla's Instagram
Buy the Book: Easy Allergy-Free Cooking

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This week on Chefs Without Restaurants we have chef Kyle Shankman. Kyle is the chef and owner of Speak Easy Supper Club, an exclusive dining experience in the Atlanta area. As tickets for Speak Easy are hard to come by, Chef Shankman also finds a way to feed folks as a private chef and cooking class instructor.

A chef for two decades, Kyle has run multiple restaurant kitchens as an executive chef and consultant, taught hundreds of cooking classes for home cooks, been the personal chef to A-List celebrities, and has been the on-camera talent in both live and produced segments for several national brands.

On the show, we discuss the best hire you can make for your personal chef business. This was part of a longer conversation we had about Kyle's  Speak Easy Supper Club. I had asked Kyle what position he'd recommend hiring if he had the budget. Kyle has actually already hired an assistant, and talks about how it was a game-changer for his business.

Kyle shares his experience of working with his assistant who has helped him take his private chef work to the next level. She has an understanding of the details that go into service and provides an eye for detail that takes their work to the next level. Additionally, she has excellent people skills that balance Kyle's dry humor and fills in gaps when he's busy cooking.

Because I thought this would provide tremendous value, I removed it from the full episode, and have released it here as a standalone mini-episode. You can find our full conversation here.

KYLE SHANKMAN

Kyle's Instagram
Kyles Website
Speak Easy Supper Club on Instagram
Kyle's Facebook

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This week on Chefs Without Restaurants we have chef Kyle Shankman. Kyle is the chef and owner of Speak Easy Supper Club, an exclusive dining experience in the Atlanta area. As tickets for Speak Easy are hard to come by, Chef Shankman also finds a way to feed folks as a private chef and cooking class instructor.

A chef for two decades, Kyle has run multiple restaurant kitchens as an executive chef and consultant, taught hundreds of cooking classes for home cooks, been the personal chef to A-List celebrities, and has been the on-camera talent in both live and produced segments for several national brands.

On the show, we discuss starting the supper club in his residential home with his 15-year-old son. We talk about the inspiration for his menus, how his diners find him, and the pros and cons of running a supper club. 

 If you'd like to hear Kyle discuss why hiring an assistant was a game-changer for his business, check out the mini-episode here.

KYLE SHANKMAN

Kyle's Instagram
Kyles Website
Speak Easy Supper Club on Instagram
Kyle's Facebook

CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS

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This week on Chefs Without Restaurants we have Christine Flynn, the proprietor of The Good Earth Winery in Ontario, Canada, and executive chef and partner at iQ Food Co. She recently released her second cookbook, "A Generous Meal."

We talk about her culinary background, including her early love of food and cooking, and how her parents' three-bite rule helped her develop her palate. We discuss her cooking style, which she describes as elevated home cooking that is both approachable and affordable. Christine believes that everyone deserves to eat beautiful food, and the recipes in her book are both flavor-packed and easy to execute. 

She discusses her love for creating a beautiful life and how making food and clothes are part of that. Flynn finds inspiration from design, cozy aesthetics, places she’s been, music, and art. Christine discusses her approach to sustainability and cooking. Her expertise in using leftovers to create different meals is something she takes pride in and wants to teach others to do. She emphasizes that her approach is all about having fun and being creative.

Christine was also behind the viral Instagram account Jacques La Merde in 2015 & 2016. Jacques was known for his overly-worked and tweezered creations. They were elaborated interpretations of junk food. Think…the Michelin version of a Big Mac. While she had fun with it, she’s left her Jacques days behind her, focusing more on family cooking these days.

CHRISTINE FLYNN

Christine's Instagram
Buy the Cookbook A Generous Meal
Christine's Recipe for Eggplant Parmesan

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This week I have chef Pailin Chongchitnant, host of the YouTube channel Pailin’s Kitchen, and author of the companion website Hot Thai Kitchen. She recently released her 2nd cookbook, Sabai: 100 Simple Thai Recipes for Any Day of the Week.

This episode is a primer on Thai food and cooking. She dispels some Thai food myths, and shares her top five items for stocking a Thai pantry at home. We discuss why she was compelled to write another cookbook, and she shares how she grew her YouTube channel to over 1.5 million subscribers and almost 170 million views.
 
PAILIN CHONGCHITNANT

Hot Thai Kitchen Website

Hot Thai Kitchen on Instagram

Pailin’s Kitchen on YouTube
Buy the Cookbook Sabai: 100 Simple Thai Recipes For Any Day of the Week
Hot Thai Kitchen on Facebook

Video: Thai Chef Takes You Grocery Shopping

Video: How to Eat Thai Food Correctly

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On this week's podcast, I address the issue of nickel and diming your customers. Instead, I offer the alternative, which is providing an all-inclusive experience. I believe that many costs, such as providing china and linens, or covering travel expenses, should be considered a part of the cost of doing business. If you want to position your business as high-end or luxury, you should figure out your total costs, and give the client one number instead of an itemized bill.

What do you think? Hit me up on Instagram @Chefswithoutrestaurants

CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS

GET TICKETS FOR THE CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS DINNER: Chef Chris Spear of Perfect Little Bites and Chef Matt Collins of Chef Collins Events. Saturday March 11th in Bradley Beach, NJ.

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I started Chefs Without Restaurants to help other people grow their food businesses. Because I’ve been working as a personal chef for 11 years now, I have a lot of firsthand knowledge about what you can do to grow a personal chef business.

I was recently interviewed by meez for their blog about some do’s and don’ts of the personal chef business. If you’re not familiar with meez , they’re an online tool that lets you digitize all of your recipes and keep them in one place. You can easily scale the recipes up and down, cost them out, and even share them with your team or customers. Meez founder Josh Sharkey was on my podcast last year.

As much as I love doing the long-form interview podcast episodes, I think that there’s a lot of value in the short and punchy, informative episodes. This week I’m going to share what I consider the do’s and don’ts of being a successful, personal chef. In just a couple of minutes, I’ll be able to tell you some of the things that worked really well for me, and some things that I think you should avoid.

How to Be a Successful Personal Chef - Blog post on meez
meez founder Josh Sharkey on the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast
Grow Your Personal Chef Business with AirBnB - Podcast episode
Check out meez

CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS

GET TICKETS FOR THE CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS DINNER: Chef Chris Spear of Perfect Little Bites and Chef Matt Collins of Chef Collins Events. Saturday March 11th in Bradley Beach, NJ.

If you enjoy the show and would like to support it financially, please check out our Sponsorship page (we get a commission when you use our links).  

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This week I speak with Bobby Hicks, the man behind Retro Recipes Kitchen, the online video series where he cooks up the good, the bad, and the weird from vintage cookbooks. His videos can be found on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube (all linked below).

As a food content creator, we talk about how he came up with the idea, and some of his challenges. I ask him about some of his favorite, and least favorite, recipes he's made. He also discussses his "Antiquated or AI-Generated" recipe experiment.

BOBBY HICKS
Bobby’s Instagram
Retro Recipes Kitchen on Instagram
Retro Recipes Kitchen on TikTok
Bobby’s YouTube Channel

CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS

GET TICKETS FOR THE CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS DINNER: Chef Chris Spear of Perfect Little Bites and Chef Matt Collins of Chef Collins Events. Saturday March 11th in Bradley Beach, NJ.

If you enjoy the show and would like to support it financially, please check out our Sponsorship page (we get a commission when you use our links).  

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On today’s show I have chef Sam Fore, the Sri Lankan-American chef and recipe developer who’s known for her wildly popular Tuk Tuk Sri Lankan Bites pop-ups. She was recently honored by The James Beard Foundation Awards as a semi-finalist for best chef in the southeast. On today’s show you’ll find out how this former marketer made the jump into the pop-up restaurant world.

In 2016, after hosting a number of traditional Sri Lankan brunches at her place, Sam decided it was time to move these gatherings from her dining room. And so, the pop-up was born. But these events aren’t limited to Lexington, Kentucky where she lives. Sam’s been traveling and collaborating with chefs across the country. 

We talk pop-up logistics and collaborations. Sam details how she ended up with her own Spicewalla spice blend. And she shares some info about her upcoming brick and mortar restaurant. 

In the past few years, she’s been on the cover of Food and Wine magazine, been named one of Plate magazine’s chefs to watch, and has joined the cast of Christopher Kimball‘s Milk Street. With everything going on it would be easy to burn out. We talk about taking the time to take care of yourself, and say no to some things…To only doing the things you really want to do.

SAM FORE
Sam's Instagram
Tuk Tuk Sri Lankan Bites
Sam's Recipe for Roasted Curry Tomato Pie
Buy the Tuk Tuk Fried Chicken Spice from Spicewalla

CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS

GET TICKETS FOR THE CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS DINNER: Chef Chris Spear of Perfect Little Bites and Chef Matt Collins of Chef Collins Events. Saturday March 11th in Bradley Beach, NJ.

If you enjoy the show and would like to support it financially, please check out our Sponsorship page (we get a commission when you use our links).  

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This week is a follow-up episode with Chef Derrick Fox. You might have heard my full episode with him last week. Derrick went from being a punk rock drummer to cooking on MasterChef season six where he was the runner-up, followed by a season of all-stars. He currently works as a private chef, and is also the man behind the Epic Mega Cookie Co,  and host of the podcast A Bunch of Losers.

In this short episode, we jump right into the topic of getting paid for chef referrals. Should you ask for money when providing a referral? How much should you charge? When is it better to just do it for free? These are just some of the aspects we discuss.

DERRICK FOX
Derrick's Instagram
Epic Mega Cookie Co
A Bunch of Losers Podcast
Derrick's YouTube

CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS

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