The Art of Sandwich Making with Owen Han: From Viral Videos to a New Cookbook

In this episode of Chefs Without Restaurants, host Chris Spear talks with Owen Han, viral content creator and sandwich aficionado. With a new cookbook titled Stacked about to launch, Owen shares his journey from making his first food video to building a social media following of over six million fans across TikTok and Instagram.

They dive into Owen’s love for sandwiches, how he defines a sandwich (spoiler: a hot dog is a sandwich!), and his process for turning classic dishes into fun, new creations. Along the way, they discuss the challenges of creating engaging food content, what it’s like working with other culinary creators, and how Owen is expanding beyond sandwiches with longer-form videos on YouTube.

Tune in to hear more about Owen’s unique background, including his Italian and Chinese heritage, and what it’s like to collaborate with icons like Martha Stewart and Giada De Laurentiis.

Key Points:

• The early inspiration for Owen’s sandwich creations and how his love for food started with his Italian nonna’s simple Nutella sandwiches.
• Owen’s path from hospital dietary aide to viral social media creator.
• The surprising role “luck” played in launching his food career, and why a chicken bacon avocado sandwich changed everything.
• Owen’s thoughts on sandwich bread, including his love for sourdough baguettes, and the challenges of air pockets in artisan bread.
• Owen’s creative process for sandwich recipes and the balance of classic flavors with personal twists from his heritage.
• How Owen handles failed recipe experiments, and why he won’t be making cold lamb sandwiches again any time soon!
• What Owen believes about expanding into long-form content on YouTube and why short-form video is still the best way to gain traction.

OWEN HAN
Owen's Instagram and TikTok
Buy Owen's Cookbook Stacked


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Transcript

[00:00:00] Have you ever wondered what it takes to make a sandwich go viral? Today's guest, Owen Han, has done just that, taking his love for sandwiches to over 6 million followers on TikTok and Instagram. And now he's just released his first cookbook, Stacked, an ode to all things sandwiches. We're diving deep into his journey and how a chicken, bacon, avocado sandwich was the recipe that changed everything.

This is Chris Spear and you're listening to Chefs Without Restaurants. The show where I speak with culinary entrepreneurs and people working in the food and beverage industry outside of a traditional restaurant setting. I have 32 years of working in kitchens, but not restaurants, and currently operate a personal chef service, throwing dinner parties in the Washington, D.

C. area. So today I'm chatting with Owen Han, a viral food content creator who's made a name for himself with his creative sandwich recipes. We'll be discussing how he went from working in a hospital as a dietary aid to creating content full time. Man, having [00:01:00] worked in hospitals and knowing what that's like, I kind of wish I quit my job as a catering director at a hospital and just started making cooking videos, uh, 15 years ago.

We talk about his approach to creating viral videos, and what it's like to collaborate with icons like Martha Stewart. Of course, we'll also be diving into his new cookbook, Stacked, which is available everywhere October 15th. I also have some really strong opinions about mayonnaise, which you're going to be hearing.

As always, thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating or review it wherever you listen to your podcasts. And again, this podcast will be taking a break from mid November until sometime in 2025. And as we roll up on five years and 250 episodes of Chess Without Restaurants, I'm gonna have some pretty fun things planned.

So, stay tuned for that. In the meantime though, thanks so much for listening, and have a great week. Hey, Owen, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for coming on course. Thanks for having me. [00:02:00] Looking forward to talking to you today. I know you have a cookbook coming out and I have had a sneak peek of that. So I think we're gonna be talking about sandwiches today.

Yes, my cookbook stacked. It is my ode to sandwiches sharing my my love and all things sandwiches. So how did that start? But like going back before just the content creation, the social media, were you a sandwich guy? Is that like one of your go to meal options? Definitely. Always been a sandwich lover. I mean, I feel like my first food memory I can remember is my Italian nonna.

making me a pane nutella. One of the most basic sandwiches out there. Americans have their PB& J. For Italians, it's white bread and nutella. And that's it. And really, even to this day, it's one of my favorite sandwiches. One thing that was really cool is my high school, they would do sandwich of the day on the menu.

So they'd be serving regular school lunch. [00:03:00] But for me, what always stuck out was the sandwich of the day. I would literally like look forward coming to school and seeing what it was going to be. And no matter what it was, I always found myself gravitating towards that. So I feel like from an early age, it's just kind of been ingrained in me.

I'm a huge sandwich fan. What do you think it is about sandwiches though? That just everyone loves a sandwich. Have you kind of identified the key components of why people love a sandwich? I mean, because there's also terrible sandwiches out there. Yeah, there definitely are. But, um, for me, I think it comes down to a few things.

One being convenience. It's one of probably like the quickest lunches you can make. But at the same time, not even just lunch, breakfast, dinner. I mean, I have a dessert chapter in the book, but, um, In terms of convenience with time, you can make it as simple or as elevated as you want on that with convenience.

You can eat it with your hands. That's half the fun for me. I, I'm not a big fork and knife guy. And so if there's anything I can just eat with my hands, I'm all for [00:04:00] yeah, well, I work as a personal chef and, you know, not to live up to the stereotypes of kind of crouching behind. Things and eating on the go, you know, a sandwich is something that's easy to eat, whether you're running outside to take a bite for a couple minutes, or quite often, I'm finishing a job and on my way home and eating dinner in the car, and sometimes it's not even something that was meant as a sandwich, but, you know, I'll take a leftover short rib and shove it between, you know, two slices of bread that I had that were for the appetizer course, just so I can nosh on something while I'm, you know, headed back home for the evening.

Exactly. It almost gives you the excuse that you can just. Eat it wherever and with your hands. Like I don't even own a dinner table. I literally eat standing up maybe like 90 percent of the time. Well, clearly people love sandwiches. Just looking at your social media alone between TikTok and Instagram, you're over 6 million followers.

Does that sound insane to you? That sounds insane to me. It's pretty wild when you like take a moment to think about it, but I've been doing this for about three years now. So you kind of get [00:05:00] numb to the numbers and you just kind of like accept it. I remember when I first started posting, even just getting like a couple thousand views, I would be like so thrilled and hype.

Not that I'm not today, but it's had that wow factor and especially like getting my first million viewed video and stuff like that. And now once you do it so frequently. It's almost expected and it just becomes part of the norm. How did that whole thing start? Like deciding that you were gonna put yourself on social media and start doing cooking videos.

So it was fall 2021. I was working at a hospital. I was delivering food to patients, taking their orders, thinking I was going to go back to school, follow the whole dietetics route. After about a year of that, I really didn't like what I was doing, not the environment I really wanted to be in. And at the time, I was living with a former roommate and close friend, H.

Rue Lee, who Found [00:06:00] success on TikTok, posting food videos. And at the time I really thought of TikTok as like an app for dancing teens. You know, I, I didn't even know, like that was something people could do. And so once he started posting gaining success, he, he knew I liked to cook. We, we met in college, we ran a supper club together, obviously live together.

And so he was really encouraging me to get on the app and start posting. And so I decided to, and my first video that I posted was a shrimp toast recipe from my grandma's cookbook, which I now have a rendition of it in my cookbook. Um, and it got like a couple hundred thousand views and I was like, Whoa, this is ridiculous.

That was your first, your first video? Very, very first, uh, TikTok. Yeah. When I decided to just go all in for food. So after that, I was like, Oh, this is pretty cool. Like, I don't know, maybe this is just like a one hit wonder. Let's see. So I posted a few other videos, really random stuff. I think I did like [00:07:00] a pasta dish, a fancy salmon and like polenta.

And then what really changed everything and kind of kickstarted the career was this chicken bacon, avocado sandwich. It's the OG, um, spicy chicken sandwich in the book, and really, the reason behind that, I really owe it to luck. So that day I was gonna film a chopino, which is like a fish stew, a lot more ingredients, a lot more, a lot more time and labor really into that recipe.

I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna film my lunch today, I don't have any ingredients, I don't wanna go to the store and shop for this. So that day I literally planned to do a chicken, bacon, avocado, Chipotle, mayo sandwich. Sandwiches are pretty much just my staple when it comes to lunches or whenever I want a meal and I filmed it.

And that was the first video to break a million views. I was like, whoa, we're onto something here. And so following that, I did a steak sandwich, which is the one on the cover. [00:08:00] And it's on the cover for a reason, because one, when I think of just A sandwich. This one comes to mind. It is skirt steak, caramelized onions, melty Gruyere cheese, crispy baguette, and garlic aioli.

I'm a sucker for a steak sandwich. And this is my go to. And that video broke 10 million views. I was like, holy shit, this is crazy. And it was like, after that video, I got my first email from a brand offering to pay me. I was like, First of all, this is ridiculous. I didn't even know you get paid for this.

And then second, having that sort of like reassurance, I quit my job. So I stopped, uh, doing what I was doing and just wanted to go full force with this. And, um, even after that steak sandwich, people were commenting, like, I was like, hell yeah, I'm the sandwich guy. Let's go. This has a great ring to it. Let's have this be my thing.

Well, that's more [00:09:00] enticing than being a dietary aid. So, uh, I, I've done a lot over the years and I've been a catering director in a hospital. And at the same time, my wife was, my wife is a registered dietitian at the time. She was a dietitian in the hospital. So I guess maybe we should have quit our jobs and gone all in the diet.

Two of us at the time and started just, you know, instead of, uh, slinging those trays to residents, uh, important job, though, important job, like getting those people, definitely not glamorous at all. What was your quality like on those videos? What did you have the foresight when you did those first few, especially the ones that hit big, like, were you doing anything special with lighting?

Were you doing interesting cuts or was it just a very offhanded? Like, here's my sandwich. So what was great was, as I mentioned, my roommate, he was the one who. Was posting food content. So he'd been doing it for a little under a year and we lived in the same house. It's only one kitchen. So you kind of had a setup already.

He had some, uh, some tripods, nothing crazy, like a couple of tripods in a [00:10:00] single light, but he was shooting with his iPhone, which was super cool. And I, it was my birthday, August 14. And I went and got the new iPhone at the time. I think it might've been like the 12 or the 13. I was like, All right, cool. I think it's time we try this.

And so it was really just shooting with an iPhone and then like a couple of tripods, just to keep the phone up. What's crazy is like, if I go back and watch that first video to kind of like how it's progressed now, where I've got a full studio kitchen, I'm using two different cameras, giant lights, C stands.

Um, it's just wild to see the progression and how over the years you just kind of like find your own rhythm and shooting style and, It's I think it's progressed significantly. Well, and a lot's changed in three years, but you can still go viral. I mean, there's someone out there today who maybe is posting their first video and it could hit just like yours.

So I, I think that's, you know, I'm optimistic for those people who are like, Hey, let's just go out there and do it. I think [00:11:00] you just got to try some stuff and, and go. Um, I don't really want to do as a hot dog, a sandwich, because I hate that, but I knew this was going to be at some point. There's, there's other people who have whole, Podcasts about that have their own cookbooks, but I mean, in your book, you do stray a little bit into, you know, there's a spring roll.

There's a bowel bun. Tell me like, what's a sandwich. Yeah. So my term of a sandwich is it's incredibly loose. So by like actual definition, if the ingredients are stackable, hence the name stacked and in between a carb source and can be eaten with your hands. Or sometimes fork and knife, then it is a sandwich in my book.

So we've got spring rolls, wraps, burritos, tacos, obviously. Regular sandwiches, but yeah, it's a very loose term. So 100 percent a hot [00:12:00] dog is a sandwich. A burger is a sandwich. They're all sandwiches in my eyes. I always kind of say life's too short to eat shitty bread. So let's say you can only have one kind of bread in your pantry to kind of like make a whole bunch of sandwiches.

What's that type of bread? You've got to pick one. Oh, great question. I also love that phrase. Um, I would have to default. To a sourdough baguette. But if it's like one for the rest of my life, it's, I'm talking perfectly golden. I want to see bubbles coming out of the outside and then just like the softest cloud on the inside.

But majority of my sandwiches that I've made for social media, not majority, but close to like half of them, I would say use a really nice sourdough baguette. And so it just become a staple. And I think it's just. It holds the ingredients very well together, very versatile. One of the things I get into is I do a lot of things on toast, like crostinis and so [00:13:00] forth.

And I have a guy who makes this amazing sourdough bread for me. But when you cut into it, sometimes there's huge holes, right? So it's not great as like a crostini or something. And I'm having to kind of cut around to find it. Do you ever get into that with sandwiches? Like you bought a really great loaf of bread and you slice it.

And then there's big air pockets and shit's falling through. 100 percent and that like all, all this work. And then like, you also think you're getting such a beautiful product. Cause like the loaf itself, I I've come across this issue when I go to really nice, like artists in bakeries, there's a few in LA that I have stopped going to get my sourdough because I'll cut into it.

It smells great. It's crispy. I'll open it up. And there's just like a giant hole. In the center of the sourdough. I was like, I get it. Like, this is like, it looks awesome. And like, but it is so inconvenient for sandwiches. So a hundred percent I've come across that issue. And I literally will not go to certain bakeries because [00:14:00] I, and I don't know if it's a sign of good, healthy bread.

I think it is. It is. Yeah. But yeah, sometimes just a little more process, get, get, get rid of those giant holes because it is not optimal for sandwiches. No, I have a friend and he has a bakery here in town and I promoted him. He's on my podcast. Um, but I've said a number of times, like it's almost too good.

And sometimes I just have to get like a commercially made bread because I know it's going to be flat across the board and I can put everything through. So I figured you'd kind of, um, get me there with that one. Well, let's kind of jump into the book. How did the book come about? I mean, clearly you've been making videos about sandwiches for a while.

Why decide to put it all in book format and what was that process like for you? Yeah, so a few things came into wanting to start the book one if you see my social media i've got 30 second videos I'm throwing shit left and right it is very quick and [00:15:00] oftentimes i'm not writing recipes I cook a lot through sight.

So part of me didn't feel right in just giving them an estimate and then having someone recreate it and then not turning out how I made it. So I didn't really like that aspect when it came to giving out recipes. But at the same time, I wanted to share one, my story. So not a lot of people know kind of my background, how I got started putting that into a book I thought was a great way to do it.

And then just sharing my love and passion for sandwiches. I think I, I want to share that with people, but I also at the same time have been getting comments, DMS, people just saying I would love the recipes. Um, and even when people do recreate my recipes, just through the videos, it brings me so much joy.

Just, I've gotten people telling me that. Just by seeing a sandwich, they've been inspired to get in the kitchen and start cooking. That really resonates with [00:16:00] me and absolutely, it just gets me fired up. I love it. And so by kind of putting all that together and into a book, it just made perfect sense. For me, looking at a book like yours, it's more of a jumping off a point where it's like, Oh, cool.

Maybe I'll make this mayo per the recipe, but sometimes it's just the spark of like, I really like, Ooh, that's an interesting combo. I hadn't thought about that. Oh, I don't have bacon. What if I used, you know, crispy pancetta or something? Yeah, that's a great point. So you can use it as just like a guide to kind of get inspired and cook.

Or if you want to get into the details and learn a different cooking technique, there's everything to like, How to make your own pickles, how to make your own bread, even for certain sandwiches, of course, different sauces. So there really are recipes for beginners, whether it's more catered towards like the cold cut section, where there's not much cooking, but maybe you're making a specific spread.

Maybe you're making your own sketch [00:17:00] chapter for the mortadella sandwich. And then you can just slowly graduate and work your way up to. All right, how are we going to cook this steak perfectly? How am I going to caramelize the best onions? And yeah, that's what I love about it too. It's really they're sandwiches for, for every skill level.

Are all the recipes in the book something you've already done a video for? And then how did you kind of pare down everything you've made into a condensed book? So, to answer the first part, I've not made every recipe for a video. Actually, close to 80 percent are totally new. And that was honestly, One of the hardest parts is because I've done like over 500 sandwiches on social media.

And, um, so to come up with some new recipes, it took a lot of, uh, testing and brainstorming for sure. But basically when it came down to it, I wanted to do new sandwiches that people haven't seen. Which got me to be more creative and just like try out new stuff. But at the same [00:18:00] time, I took the heavy hitters and like the most popular ones that people have been asking, and those are in the book, so don't worry.

They're not all brand new. And then when it came to really organizing it, I was trying to figure out the best way to categorize it. And, um, I mean, there's sandwiches for every occasion. So there's breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert. And for me, I was thinking if I were going through a book and trying to like come up with a sandwich idea, I usually base it off the protein I'm working on.

So it'll start with the breakfast chapter and then there's, um, chicken. Poor cold cuts steak. There's a vegetarian chapter and then even a dessert chapter, which is wild because I'm not even a sweets guy, but when I had to come up with dessert sandwiches, I'm convinced this book just like gave me a sweet tooth.

Now I feel like I have to have something sweet after. What are some of those dessert sandwiches you have in there for those who don't have the book yet? So some dessert [00:19:00] sandwiches, we got a classic like Japanese fruit sando, um, ice cream sherbet bars. I love that one because it's super customizable. So whether you like Fruit Loops or Cocoa Puffs, you just, or you're essentially making a meal.

Ice cream sandwich bars with, um, you're creating like rice, crispy treats. That thing is, uh, one of my favorites. So, um, definitely wanted to cater to the sweets lovers as well. What's your creative process? Like you're clearly taking some classic dishes. I mean, a lot of these, if you just read the title, people would know what it is, but you do a lot of fun twists.

So do you have a process of. Hey, this is how I'm going to change a steak sandwich. Or this is how I'm going to change that. What does that look like? Yeah. So the process for me, especially when it comes to putting my own twists on classics, for me, I really like to tap into my heritage. So I'm half Italian, half Chinese, born in Italy, spent my summers, basically like growing Nana's kitchen.

So whenever I can try to put like an Italian [00:20:00] or Chinese flavor into a recipe, I love to do that. Um, But also it's not just Italian Chinese. I really just go off of my like taste preference. So I, growing up in LA, there's a huge variety in terms of like food scene and I eat everything. So, um, I've tried tons of different foods.

I try to just kind of put my own flair into the classics. Now, if I'm coming up with totally different recipes, that's a whole different, I feel like I don't have a specific, okay, this is how we're going to come up with a recipe. I'm all over the place when it comes to that. I'll draw inspiration. From everything.

I, I like to do research on food. Um, even just scrolling on social media, I'll see something be like, Oh, that's a really cool idea. Let me put my own twist on it. Or I really liked the protein used in here. This will go great in a sandwich. And so really my, uh, my ideas list, I have like a running note tab on my iPhone [00:21:00] where whenever anything pops up in my mind, I will just add to it.

So like there's been times where I'm sleeping and it sounds ridiculous, Like a thought, like an idea or sandwich will come to mind and I'll be like, I got to write this down. I'll just wake up, jot it down in the notes tab. So I just have like a running tab of rogue ideas that some might never come out.

Uh, but a lot of times it's, it's good to just build, um, ideas off of, no, I think everyone should do that. I do that. I actually have a dedicated process where I use a notebook and every day I try to write 10 ideas on a theme. It could be. What what are ten innovative uses for avocado it could be ten spins on a pimento cheese something like that like actively trying but i have all kinds of things in my notebook um today i made a me so caramel like you basically just make a regular caramel sauce and then just you know i like a really strong like dark me so in there but when i first.

I was thinking about like i didn't really know what i was [00:22:00] gonna do it wasn't a dish it was just a condiment and now it's turned into. A butterscotch blondie with a homemade vanilla ice cream, miso caramel, and then like, um, cashews on top, right? So it's like, just pretty straightforward things that I think everyone can understand, but like, we're just gonna modify it a little bit.

And that's kind of my style, is just like finding what's one cool condiment that you could incorporate in this to make it a little different. I love the sound of that. Um, what do you think people should stock their pantry with if they wanted to make good sandwiches on the fly? I mean, the obvious would be bread.

I feel like I always have bread and tortillas just on lock. And the thing with bread too, is we talked about. The fresh loaves having the big holes, whereas if you get something a little more processed, it also has a higher shelf life. Honestly, I will still go to the fresh bakeries. And the thing is, it'll go bad quick.

My freezer is my biggest helper in that case. So always have the freezer stocked with whatever [00:23:00] leftover bread you have. That's your foundation. And then In terms of, uh, condiments, you got to have Mayo in my opinion. That is just, you can add any spices and mixtures in there to kind of elevate it. So my go to's are Mayo and Calabrian chili.

I feel like whatever I'm eating, I will just add Calabrian chili Mayo to it and it'll just take it up a notch. Are you adding like the oily? Like it also has like good spicy oil in there. Cause a lot of them are like oil packed and then you get this really like, yeah, spice bomb. Exactly. It's a spice bomb.

And I feel like that'll just, I've done literally bread slices of Turkey and that Calabrian mayo and whatever, like, Vegetables I have laying around, so like I'll throw in like a red onion, and that alone, it sounds so simple, but that hits because of that flavor bomb, and um, pickled. Any pickled element, so I have a whole chapter in the book with homemade pickles, homemade pickled onions, pickled carrots and daikon, throw any of those, whichever, [00:24:00] whatever Like some people don't like pickles, but they might like pickled onions.

I love pickled onions. They look great too. So adding that acid flavor as well as like a little bit of crunch, I think we'll elevate any sandwich really. And that's great because once you make the homemade pickles. Or like pickled element that'll last in your fridge a certain amount of time really like you can just sit there and then open it up whenever you want either to snack on it or elevate a sandwich.

I pickle everything like we have a garden and right now it's we're coming to the end because I'm here in Maryland. I have a ton of jalapenos, but then I also have some scallions getting a little not. Phenomenal in the produce drawer and then I had like two little kohlrabi's left So it's like peel them up shave the kohlrabi on a mandolin slice up those kind of Skanky scallions and then a bunch of jalapenos and just do a big Pickled mixed stuff and keep that in the fridge and that can go on a fried egg sandwich.

It can go on a burger It could go in a quesadilla. Love it I've never tried [00:25:00] pickled scallion. Does it end up like wilting the scallion? So it's more like the whites because I use the greens for a lot. So I'll do the greens and then I always have like a bag in the fridge of like, you know, the, the white.

So it's more, it holds up more like a regular onion. Um, yeah, but again, it adds crunch. Yeah. And it adds the flavor back into the brine more than anything. Uh, I want to go back to mayonnaise because I, I, Think as much as I talk about shitty bread, shitty mayonnaise is the worst and I'm going to go on record and say I did not even eat mayonnaise until I was like 30 and now I put it on almost everything because my parents.

Where the kind of people who always bought the store brand at the grocery store, like, you know, the no name brand and you having worked in a hospital. I can almost guarantee you they had the big ass buckets of the industrial Cisco reliant mayonnaise. But you open that bucket and the smell coming off.

That is not good, right? Yeah. So if that's your experience with mayonnaise, it's not great. And I [00:26:00] grew up thinking mayonnaise was disgusting until I started getting into like, I'm a big fan of Dukes. That's what I use mostly here. I will take a Hellman's or best foods. But just like if you have cheap mayonnaise, that's A no go for me.

That's pretty accurate. I, I'm a little spoiled when it comes to mayonnaise. I grew up with um, my, my nonna would make mayonnaise from scratch and we eat it with um, you eat it with boiled meat. It's, it's a weird dish but um, I would see her literally just whip it up from scratch and that is like, probably hands down the best mayonnaise I've ever had.

I'm not a picky eater, so I honestly will eat whatever's in front of me. Um, I've tried all those brands. I would say Duke's fully agree with you on that. Very superior. Uh, when I was first introduced to Kewpie mayo though. Oh yeah. Yeah. A few things like the branding, the cute little baby, the, the convenience of the squirt bottle, and it just has like a stronger flavor to me.

[00:27:00] And yeah, Kewpie is usually my go to. So when you, when you're using mayonnaise, that's probably what you've got going on. Definitely. My fridge is just stocked with it. Even that Calabrian Chili Mayo I talk about. If you add QP with that, I think that's, uh, it's a fire combo. Well, you're clearly gonna be promoting this book for a little bit, and so you're gonna have to continue talking about sandwiches.

Do you worry about getting I don't know is the word typecast is like the sandwich guy and do you want to break out of that I even noticed on your social media or last couple tech talk videos you had a like a pumpkin bread and you did a beef stew. Do you feel like you're gonna have to kind of stay in the sandwich realm for a little while?

Um I feel like I will always be doing sandwich content just because it really is a part of me and it's what I love to do. But going forward, I do want to show people kind of the other side of me, the other stuff I like to cook. I grew up, as I mentioned, like summers in Italy, I, I cook a lot of [00:28:00] Italian food and I love Italian food.

just sharing recipes that I grew up eating. So one thing I'm doing now is I'm also starting up my YouTube. And so there I'm doing longer videos where I'm doing kind of recipe walkthroughs on kind of traditional dishes, not just sandwiches. There will always be sandwich content, but yeah, I can cook more than than sandwiches too.

So it's kind of cool to just once in a while break off and show people something different. But at the same time, I always find myself wanting to come back and just Share my love of sandwiches from a content standpoint. Do you think that YouTube is pretty much essential for anyone these days who are looking to get into Specifically food content creation like that.

If you're not doing longer form on YouTube, you're missing out. Not really. Actually, um, I think short form is the best way to get your foot in the door. There's I find it to be a lot easier to kind of like gain virality and get traction in a [00:29:00] following. And then I think once you you're trying to get into food media, once you start.

Getting traction in the numbers, you can kind of branch out into long form. So when I started out three years ago, a lot of other creators I met, it seems like we're all following the kind of the same progression where you find the recipe for success on short form. And then like slowly try and tap in a long form.

So it's a whole different beast. How do you learn that? Like, is that just try a bunch of stuff? Do you, um, connect with people and ask them for tips? Like, how do you, how do you learn how to be a better content creator? I mean, obviously you can be watching hours and hours of videos, but how did you learn how to make better videos that connect and maybe even go viral?

Lot of trial and error. So there's definitely some recipes out there that did not really stick with people. Um, my biggest piece of advice that I give is once you find kind of that, You catch that stroke of luck for [00:30:00] me. It was that chicken sandwich. You take that video and use that as like a blueprint for success, like overanalyze it like crazy.

See what worked, what people are commenting about, and then kind of just emulate that going forward. And then the more you do videos, the more you kind of like find your own voice in a way. But of course, talking to other creators is a huge way to get insight and kind of tips. Like for instance. When I wanted to make the shift from iPhone to camera, I had no idea where to start and I basically reached out to someone I collabed with, loved their camera setup.

This was, uh, this content creator named MaxTheMeatGuy. Super friendly, just literally told me everything I needed to get. Like, hey, I use this camera, this light, this is how I set it up. And so literally just, just by making connections and like being friendly with other people, everyone wants to see each other succeed and help.

And so really just picking [00:31:00] other people's brains and kind of seeing what they're doing helps. A lot of these people who I see who've made it big are doing a lot of collabs with other creators in their space. Um, you even had a video with Martha Stewart, which that seems like that would be a totally wild thing.

Like, what's it been like collabing with some of these people who you admire and are doing really cool things? It seems like you genuinely enjoy that process. Oh yeah, collabs to me are like one of the best parts of the job. One, it like It's super fun to kind of break away from what you're doing and just work with other people because it can get a little bit monotonous in terms of like, I'm alone, I film, I edit everything myself, I'm in my kitchen, I could go a week with just like cooking, pumping out content and like, not talking to anyone.

Uh, so when it comes to collabs, it's fun to like, just interact with other creators, see how they work too, but. In terms of like, people like Martha Stewart, Giada De [00:32:00] Laurentiis, Alex Arnacelli. These are people I grew up watching and admiring. And so to be able to like, finally kind of meet the people that you idolized growing up and cook with them, that's like, it's everyone's dream.

It's, and then seeing how they are in person too, it's great. It's such a fun part of the job. Who's one of your dream collaborators that you haven't been able to connect with yet? Like if you could pick one or two people. I mean, Gordon Ramsay is like the quintessential goat when it comes to, uh, food, but I would say other food people I grew up watching and would love to is like Matty Matheson, Action Bronson, like The Rock would be cool.

The great thing is food is so universal whether you're a professional chef and amateur chef or just a normal person we all have to eat right so i think just getting together cooking together eating together is fun and yeah maybe you can realize some of those collaborations [00:33:00] do you have any fails that you recall like anytime you either made a sandwich that you were really excited about and it flopped and that could be on video or something that you're like i just can't even film this.

Uh, yeah, I don't like to talk about that. So we can skip that question. Uh, no, definitely. I have sandwiches that have failed. Um, I mean, the hardest thing for me is when I'm shooting content, I have to get all the shots. I'm making two of everything, making sure the lighting, the angle. So by the time I actually go to bite into it.

Now most of the time it's cold. And so, when you're working with kind of proteins that aren't the best cold, that really kind of I like, I'll eat it and I'm like, well is this not good because of how I made it or because it's been sitting on my counter for 30 minutes, you know what I mean? So, uh, like one that comes to mind is, I did a lamb shoulder.

recipe and I, I just don't have a lot of experience cooking lamb. Oftentimes when I'm shooting content, I won't test the recipe. I'll [00:34:00] just do it on the fly. And like, I'm going to, it just has to look good. Um, don't worry. All the recipes in the book are tested and proven to be good. But in this case for the content I cooked it, it looked fine.

And then just when I went to eat it, I was not in the mood for a cold lamb sandwich, and uh, that's one that comes to mind for sure. Is everything the actual stuff though? Like there's no weird like food styling where you're making like Crisco ice cream or anything? Or is there? Like when you're doing the videos, is it all like 100 percent edible?

Yeah, 100 percent edible. And that's what was super cool too. When I went to do the book shoot photos for the book, I was fully expecting like, all right, like bring out the mashed potatoes for ice cream. Where's the styrofoam. It was none of that. Everything we shot in the book was completely edible. Like that was one of my favorite weeks because we would go in.

We're shooting and making food from my book and then we would just leave with like the most amount of [00:35:00] leftovers of all time and there were just great leftovers too because they're all my recipes. I was like, this is great. Like, we're just making food that I want. So all the photos like that is real.

It's no like movie magic at all, but it is hard to like nail real cooking and photos and videos. Like just today I was working on a caramel thing and it's like, Okay, I had it made it yesterday. So in the fridge, it was so hard. So it's not like you don't get like a good poor, but then you heat it in the microwave and it's like I went a little too far and now it's like too runny and doesn't look like caramel.

So it's like now I've just got to every 15 minutes go and like do a scoop and see. Okay, where is the consistency that it looks like a nice runny caramel? And that's that's hard because sometimes you have a time frame like I'm trying to get this done right now, but it's just not working for me. Well, what haven't we talked about that you want to leave our listeners with before we get out of here today?

I feel like we hit all the notes, uh, just check out my social. If you want longer form stuff, it's on my YouTube, um, [00:36:00] pre order stacked. Pre order stacked. And this episode is coming out right before the book is out, so we're gonna get that out there. It'll give people a couple days to do some pre orders, bump that up a little bit.

Hell yeah. Well, thanks for coming on the show. I had a great time and I'm looking forward to making sandwiches. Please do. Thank you. And to all of our listeners, as always, is Chris with Chefs Without Restaurants. Thanks so much and have a great week. You're still here? The podcast's over. If you are indeed still here, thanks for taking the time to listen to the show.

I'd love to direct you to one place and that's chefswithoutrestaurants. org. From there, you'll be able to join our email newsletter. Get connected in our free Facebook group and join our personal chef, catering, and food truck database so I can help get you more job leads. And you'll also find a link to our sponsor page, where you'll find products and services I love.

You pay nothing additional to use these links, but I may get a small commission, which helps keep the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast and organization running. You might even get a discount for using some of these links. [00:37:00] As always, you can reach out to me on Instagram at Chefs Without Restaurants, or send me an email at chefswithoutrestaurants at gmail.

com. Thanks so much.