Chef Daniel Holzman on The Best Way to Learn to Cook

the jurogan experience do you think that people starting out like if you've really never had any experience cooking do you think that a culinary school or some sort of a class is the way to go or do you think you should just start simply and slow from a book or an online tutorial i was talking to my buddy kyle kyle man so kyle came down here with me i was like yo i'm going to austin i'm going to be there a day earlier i'm going to be eating barbecue should come down here and let's let's let's have some fun and he came down he's got a couple of restaurants up in san francisco bay area he's he's an amazing chef and he's a great travel buddy and um i was just yesterday i was like yo man what talk to me about culinary school like what do you think what's our opinion about that like because i went to culinary school i dropped out i didn't make it through um he went to culinary school if you want to be a chef i don't think culinary school is necessarily the best route if you want to be a chef of an independent restaurant if you want to work as a if you want to be a home cook there's a lot to learn quickly from culinary school i think that's like as a as a non-matriculated kind of class by class there's a great that's a great opportunity taking some cooking classes as a home cook you learn a lot if you want to be a chef it's a hands-on experience in the in the restaurant that's going to get you there but i think there's a lot there's if i think there's definitely a use for taking cooking classes as a home cook you're not the only one who's told me this this is that that sentiment has been echoed by a lot of great chefs that i've talked to said the same thing my problem is also though you know for a certain there are a lot of culinary jobs out there and like you know think about all the hotels and all the cruise ships and all the corporate cafeterias there's so many culinary jobs out there and if that's a goal if you want to work in one of those jobs then culinary school can be a great road to give you the the needed you know that can be a great route to get one of those jobs if you want to have a standalone restaurant maybe something more avant-garde maybe something where you're where you're a little more creative then culinary school might not get you there and it and it can put you at a disadvantage because you get you know unless you like i got i was very lucky i got a full scholarship the james beard foundation gave me a full scholarship to go to culinary school and so it worked out for me but for so many folks like you go to culinary school you come out with big debt and then you can't afford to take a job at a restaurant that's paying minimum wage because you need to pay back that loan so if you get a job at a restaurant the restaurant will essentially give you a task and then if you show effort and show that you have work ethic and show that you're really interested they'll slowly train you to learn new techniques and cook things i guess and and this is this is like gets into like a whole nother issue that's going on right now with the labor laws and how they've really kind of changed the way that people in restaurants learn how to cook and cooks come up in the business so i kind of came up at in the as the last of the in the world where the apprentice system was still kind of a piece of the puzzle if that makes sense so i went and worked at the bernadette super fancy french restaurant i was like you know 15 years old 14 years old and i you know i chef was like i can't pay you you know you're not legal to work but you can come and work for free so did you always know that you wanted to be a chef i i i love to cook um and when did you start i started when i was very young i got pictures of cooking with my mom um very very young and she she kind of supported me in that so we we had you know like making pasta in the kitchen and hanging the noodles off the back of chairs and having you know she was very very supportive of of my interest when i was 13 years old i got a job delivering pizza at the pizzeria across the street gino's pizza vincent how'd you deliver them on a bike walking and i had a harmonica i would play the harmonica i thought i was the coolest kid that was not cool meanwhile my partner michael who i ended up opening a restaurant with michael michael's you know who we should talk about him too this guy's he's a very cool guy very inspirational he was uh he was a cool kid he was delivering on rollerblades making twice the tips quick he's getting around you know um but delivering pizzas and then i was working at this mexican restaurant samolitas i was delivering mexican food and i was like man these guys in the kitchen are so cool like got tattoos and the fire and like everybody says yes chef and you know i just i was really attracted to the kitchen and um i started i started spending time in the kitchen and um i was working at this vegan restaurant mike mike was delivering he was yeah uh so he was delivering vegan food and other things on his rollerblades he was like 14 years old yeah he was like green machine selling weed he was like son of a [ __ ] you just order you order your like your vegan vegan seven-layered dip and you get a bag of vega at the time it was like i don't know it was like the first time that they had uh chronic they called it chronic it's like fresh and green um and uh this this i was in love with this this girl she was she was amazing my best friend at the time and her father was the maitre d this fancy french restaurant he came in and i was working in the kitchen because whenever i wasn't delivering i was in the kitchen i loved it you know i was like learning everything i could and the chef had just cut herself you know like just cut herself and she had to leave and they were like we got to close the restaurant and uh and i was like oh like there's like two more dishes to go out and he came in he was like i was the only guy in the kitchen it's like busy restaurants full he's like 14 year old kid friend of his daughters he's like you know you know you're you're the chef here and i'm like yeah like absolutely he's like you should come i work at this you know fancy french restaurant you should meet the chef and uh he got me an interview and i went worked there so like 15 14 years old i go and work go to this fancy french restaurant i had no idea after school and the chef meets me and he's like he's late he's like you're lucky because i was taking a haircut because otherwise you would be fired already i was like oh my god i have no idea what's going on and he's like but you can come and you can watch like you can't touch anything you can watch after school on wednesdays you come and on weekends i started working there and it was fun man it was super cool what kind of tasks did they have you do initially the first job was i got to bring the fish from the refrigerator to the guy that was going to cook the fish like i could carry it across the kitchen and then i got to clean calamari my dad called me the calamari kid he was like he had a whole whole song for me i was like the squid kid um i remember one time i went in and i was like the chef was like you know the calamari some of it has gone bad i need you to smell every piece and i walked in and he's like i was like chef i smelled every piece of calamari he's like i know luke in the mirror and i was like my nose was all black from like the squid i was like oh man and then uh and then he had me clean lobsters it was the first time i ever cried you know you gotta like rip these things apart so barbaric and i was like i'm not doing that i start crying he's like you can rip them apart or you can be fired i was like oh my god i was [ __ ] crying and you weren't even making any money no i was like 14 years old crying over these lobsters like apologizing to everyone actually there was a guy man well he set one free he took a he took a lobster he was like i'm gonna set oh no it was for me i think he put in the east river we were a little drunk it might have made it it was brackish you might have made it to the ocean and uh and then and then i got to open oysters i was an oyster guy for for a long time and then eventually i made it up to a hot app station which was like you know it was like a big deal and but i was a tri i had a bad attitude man i had a bad attitude i met this guy roy choi he was he was the he roy choi's amazing chef from l.a he's got incredible he's got he's he's a legend legendary character now but he's um still still a dear friend he he um he was on the station with me and he describes it he's just like this little kid like you know i came in from culinary school i just wanted to learn and this kid was just such an [ __ ] i was just like you're an idiot you have no idea what you're doing like stand there don't touch anything watch don't talk that's how you talk to him yeah i was just like how old are you like 15 years old like punched in the face i got punched in the face a few times

Channel: PowerfulJRE

Views: 745,013

Keywords: Joe Rogan Experience, JRE, Joe, Rogan, podcast, MMA, comedy, stand, up, funny, Freak, Party

Id: LdE9u0-SwEY

Length: 8min 39sec (519 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 22 2022