Name: Chef Daniel Holzman on The Best Way to Learn to Cook
Uploaded: 2022-02-22T20:39:31.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Chef Daniel Holzman on The Best Way to Learn to Cook' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-22. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Chef Daniel Holzman on The Best Way to Learn to Cook' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-22. Transcript available.

The Joe Rogan 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, yeah, I'm going to Austin
I'm gonna be there a day earlier maybe 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. He's a great travel buddy
And I was just yesterday. I was like young 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
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 good 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 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 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 mm-hmm
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 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 La 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 love to cook
um and when did you start I started when I was very young I had pictures of
cooking with my mom
I'm 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 him on a bike I bought walking and I had a harmonica. I would
play the harmonica
I thought I was the coolest
It was not cool. Meanwhile my partner Michael who I ended up opening a
restaurant with Michael Michael's you know who you
We should talk about him to you. This guy's he's very cool guy very
inspirational. He was uh, he was a cool kid
He was delivering on rollerblades making twice the tips quick
Getting around you know, um
But delivering pizzas and then I was working at this Mexican restaurant Sam Alitas
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
I started I started spending time in the kitchen and
I was working at this vegan restaurant Mike Mike was delivering he was
So he was delivering vegan food and other things from on his rollerblades. He
was like 14 years old
Yeah, it was like a green machine sound weed. He was like son of a bitch. Just
order you're like
You're you're vegan vegan seven layer dip and you get a bag of bag of at the
time
It was like I don't know it was like the first time that they had a chronic
they called it chronic. Mmm. It's like fresh and green
um and
This this I was in love with this this girl. She was she's amazing my best
friend at the time and
and her father was the maitre d' of 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 a restaurant and
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 daughter's. He's like, you know, you
know, 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
He got me an interview and I went and 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 gonna cook the fish like I could carry it across the kitchen and then
I got to clean carrot calamari
My dad called me the calamari kid. He was like he had a whole whole whole song
for me
I was like the squid kid
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 look in the mirror and I was like my nose is all black from
like the squid
I was like, oh man
And then and then he had me clean lobsters was the first time I ever cried
You know, you got to 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
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's a guy man. Well, he set one free. He took a fee took a
lobster. He was like, I'm gonna set home
He threw in the ocean. I think he put in the East River. We were a little drunk
It might have made it. It was brackish. He might have made it to the ocean
And 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 to try 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 is amazing chef from LA. He's got incredible. He's
got a he's a legend legendary character now, but he's
Still still a dear friend. He he 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 asshole
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
Punched in the face. I got punched in the face a few times