Chefs Without Restaurants

On this week’s podcast, I speak with Laurie Boucher. Laurie is a self-described attorney turned pasta-preneur, and is the woman behind the Instagram account @BaltimoreHomeCook. We discuss how she got into pasta-making, and her pasta-related activities which include selling pasta boards and hard to find Sardinian pasta cutters, as well as the pasta-shaped jewelry and ornaments that she makes. She a...

On this week’s show, I speak with Jennifer Zavala. Jennifer is a chef in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is currently doing a pop-up called Juana Tamale out of Underground Arts. We talk about a wide range of topics including her “illegal” tamale business, birria tacos, influencers and bloggers  vs reviewers, cooking with cannabis, getting death threats for making vegan meatballs, her time on Top C...

On this week’s show, I speak with Masako Morishita. Originally from Kobe, Japan, Masako’s family has owned and operated a bar and restaurant there for 90 years, and food has always been a part of her life, though she never worked as a cook. Growing up, she was interested in dancing and cheerleading, and in 2013 she moved to Washington D.C. to be a NFL cheerleader for the Washington Football Team (...

On this week’s show, I speak with Lisa Donovan. She’s a pastry chef and James Beard award winning writer. She’s helmed the pastry kitchens of some of the most important restaurants in the country, including Husk in Nashville, and has kept her whole life afloat by making, writing on and thinking about food - including consulting, recipe development, selling pies out of the trunk of her car and crea...

On the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast this week I have chef Christina Pirello of Christina Cooks. After already losing her mother to cancer, Christina was diagnosed with terminal leukemia in her mid-20’s. Not wanting to undergo traditional treatment for cancer, she ultimately changed her diet and lifestyle, and her cancer went into remission. She’s been cancer-free for more than 35 years now. C...

On the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast this week I have pastry chef Bria Taylor. She’s the owner of Killa Cakes, a Washington D.C. area cake business. Trained in graphic arts, Bria has no formal training in baking. In fact, she is completely self-taught.  We discuss learning to bake, the process of starting a business, big flavors, and the possibility of a sandwich pop-up.     ========== Bria Ta...

On the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast this week I have chef and culinary instructor April DuBose. She’s currently the culinary director and instructor at Baltimore Outreach Services in Baltimore, Maryland, a nonprofit shelter for women and their children. The culinary arts training program there is eight weeks long, and focuses on basic cooking and kitchen skills, as well as sanitation food saf...

This week I speak with Philadelphia  chef Shola Olunloyo. Shola has carved out a creative niche in modern cooking instruction as a consulting chef. The Studiokitchen was created as a research and idea space to support his manufacturer partner and client projects. He uses contemporary cooking techniques to create increased value and high impact flavor. His Studiokitchen has exposed guests and clien...

This week, I have Michael Twitty. He's a food writer, independent scholar, culinary historian and historical interpreter personally charged with preparing, preserving and promoting African American foodways, and its parent traditions in Africa and her diaspora, and the food culture of the American South.  Michael is a Judaic Studies teacher from the Washington DC area, and his interests inclu...

Welcome to season two of the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spear. On the show, I have conversations with culinary entrepreneurs, and people in the food and beverage industry who took a different route. They're caterers, research chefs, personal chefs, cookbook authors, food truckers, farmers, cottage bakers, and all sorts of culinary renegades. I, myself, fall i...

This week we speak with Charles Hunter III. He’s a personal chef, recipe developer and food blogger based in Nashville, Tennessee. He’s the owner of The Salted Table Company, an in-home catering company that prepares meals for backyard weddings, dinner parties, business dinners and more, in the comfort of your own home. Charles and I have similar backgrounds as it relates to blogging, and the pers...

On this weeks show I have Ryan Dumapit. He has a degree in pastry arts, and food service management. But Ryan doesn’t have a singular path in the food industry. In fact, he also went to school for IT, and has worked for a point of sale company, as well as a fitness company. We talk about many of the positions he’s held including being a district manager for a contract food service company, and wor...

On this week's Chefs Without Restaurants podcast, I speak with chef Alex Smith. While Alex has been in the food and beverage industry for over 20 years now, he’s only spent the last 10 years cooking. He started out in the front of the house, but discovered a passion for cooking. He’s been a line cook, kitchen manager, head chef and pitmaster. He’s worked at Fairmont resorts, five diamond rest...

On this week's Chefs Without Restaurants podcast, I speak with Philadelphia pastry chef Monica Glass. Upon graduating from Penn State, Monica moved to New York City to embark on a career in public relations. But after a brief stint in the corporate world, she realized she felt more at home in front of an oven than behind a desk. Monica set out to improve her culinary skills with an apprentice...

On this week's Chefs Without Restaurants podcast, I speak with Sam Hefter, the chef and owner of Hefter Catering in  Kansas City. Sam's catering business focuses on upscale taco bars. We talk about how he came up with that idea, and why he doesn’t think he’s going to expand beyond tacos. We get into the set up, overhead and profitability of his catering business, and also discuss doing t...

In this episode of the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast, host Chris Spear welcomes Chef Amethyst Ganaway to discuss her culinary journey, which spans over a decade in both front-of-house and back-of-house roles. Amethyst shares her deep-rooted connection to Gullah Geechee cuisine, offering insights into how her heritage and upbringing in North Charleston, South Carolina, have shaped her approach...

On this week’s Chefs Without Restaurants podcast I have renowned photographer Aliza Eliazarov. On November 17, she has a book coming out called On the Farm: Heritage & Heralded Animal Breeds in Portraits and Stories. The book invites us to take a closer look at the animal breeds taking center stage on sustainable farms and homesteads. It’s equal parts fine art and field guide.  Passion for doc...

On the podcast this week, I have chef Tu David Phu. Tu is a first generation Vietnamese-American, born and raised in Oakland, California. You might know him from season 15 of the Bravo Tv show Top Chef . He’s also a San Francisco Chronicle Rising Star Chef.  Tu uses the medium of food as a vessel for meaningful work like cooking with incarcerated men in San Quentin , and being a community ambassad...

This week I speak with pastry chef, and self-proclaimed culinary renegade Kate Holowchik. After working her way through some of Boston's eclectic kitchens, she's now finding her personal voice with the launch of Lionheart Confections. Her desserts are a mix of the refined, with a touch of nostalgia.  We discuss:  empowering your staff standing up for yourself toxic work environments food...

This week I speak with Kareem Queeman, better known as Mr. Bake. He’s the owner and operator of Mr. Bake Sweets, a small dessert studio located in Largo, MD. He’s been baking for 20+ years.  In the years that Mr. Bake Sweets has operated, he's done a few television appearances on Food Network, Fox, ABC, and Discovery Family. He's also a 2020 Business of Pride honoree by the Washington Bu...

On the show this week, I have chef Bill Smith. Bill was the chef at Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for 25 years, before retiring in January 2019. I wanted to talk to Bill about his time working at Crook’s Corner, and what he plans to do now that he’s retired. Bill’s always been an activist. Many of his employees at the restaurant were from Mexico, and have become like family to Bill...

On the podcast this week I have chef Brendon Hudson. He’s owner and chef of Liliahna catering company. Brendon was recently voted Best Chef by Baltimore Magazine’s readers poll. We discuss the state of the catering and personal chef business, the rise of the micro-wedding, the Thumbtack platform and more. ===========================  Brendon Hudson  ===========================  Liliahna’s Instagra...

On the podcast this week I have chef Kimberly Schaub. She’s spent much of her culinary career in the research and development field, working for companies like Beecher’s Handmade Cheese and Bulletproof 360 . She also spent some time with the Modernist Cuisine team, and contributed to their book Modernist Cuisine at Home. Currently, she’s doing business development for Griffith Foods. She also has...

This is part 2 of a discussion I had with chef Justin Khanna. If you haven't listened to part 1 yet, I suggest listening to it first, as this episode jumps right into the middle of our discussion. On the podcast this week I have chef Justin Khanna. He's the co-founder of Voyager's Table, a bespoke event production company. He’s also the host of The Repertoire Podcast (formerly The E...

On the podcast this week I have chef Justin Khanna. He's the co-founder of Voyager's Table, a bespoke event production company. He’s also the host of The Repertoire Podcast (formerly The Emulsion podcast), and has a YouTube channel that has more than 20,000 subscribers.  Justin spent a number of years working in, and staging in, some of the best restaurants in the world including Per Se,...