Chef Bae: Why You Should Never Take ‘No’ for an Answer

TRANSCRIPT

Kirk Bachmann: Hello, everyone, my name is Kirk Bachmann, and welcome back to The Ultimate Dish. Today, I’m thrilled to be joined by celebrity private chef, entrepreneur, and TV host, Brooke Baevsky. Though most of her 1.5 million food baes online know her simply as Chef Bae, so I’m gonna call her Chef Bae as well. Brooke grew up just outside Springfield, Massachusetts, in a household with — by her count — 11 dietary restrictions between 5 people. A celiac, dairy-free mom, brother allergic to peanuts, and her own soy allergy and more. That childhood kitchen, where she was reinventing recipes so the whole family could eat together — I love that — became the foundation for everything that followed.

Her path into food was anything but traditional. After earning a dual degree in food science and product development from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, she became, fun fact, one of the famous pairs of hands in BuzzFeed Tasty Videos, trained in holistic nutrition at the Institute of Culinary Education, and developed healthy products for brands like Starbucks, Nestle, Panera, and Freshly. In 2019, while in New York, she took her first private clients on, and the rest simply snowballed. Today, Chef Bae cooks for a roster of 60-plus high-profile clients, including Paris Hilton, Adam Sandler, Emma Roberts, Mindy Kaling, and the Duchess of Sussex, building custom high-performance meals through informed blood work and DNA analysis. She’s the face of Erewhon, creator of the cult-favorite LA Green Juice Hot Food, and a Food Network and America’s Test Kitchen talent, a YouTube Platinum Play Button recipient, and she has a cookbook with Union Square & Co. coming in the fall of 2027. On top of all of that, she runs a non-profit cooking program in LA and New York City, and led one of the largest wildfire relief meal efforts in LA County. Brooke, I’m exhausted, but welcome to the show. How are you?

A Fridge in Tel Aviv

Brooke Baevsky: Hi, I’m good, how are you? Thank you for having me on, this is so fun.

Kirk Bachmann: Absolutely, it’s gonna be fun. What a career! Unbelievable. Where are you, by the way? Where are you today in the world?

Brooke Baevsky: I am currently, I don’t know, 7-10 hours out of you in Tel Aviv, so it’s about 6:45 p.m. here. The sun is setting. A nice vacation, I say. On everything.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh, my goodness. Vacation, I love that. Well, thank you so much for finding time for us. This is going to be a delicious one. I have a feeling that our listeners are going to leave just a little bit hungry. You know, with that in mind, I’m gonna put you on the spot right away. If your fridge got raided on a random Tuesday morning, what 3 things would always, without fail, be there?

Brooke Baevsky: So, I always say my fridge is usually… sorry, I feel like I have something away. I always… I always say my fridge is usually empty, and my freezer is always full. Whenever I do recipe development or meal prep, it’s straight into the freezer, because I never know when I’m going to be home, and I truly live on a plane with my career.
So, in my fridge… I mean… drinks. I have, like, the Erewhon assortment of drinks, probiotics, matcha, definitely matcha, some kind of plant-based milk, a hummus. But really, usually, people laugh, my fridge is pretty empty, which is crazy. Freezer? Packed to the brim. Everything is dated. Fridge is empty.

Kirk Bachmann: I love it. You know, this isn’t on the script, but I love how you were able to respond, stack rank, all of that so quickly. You know what I’ve found over the years is that people who cook also love music, and oftentimes ride motorcycles. I’m not gonna put you on the spot with motorcycles, but if I said top 3 bands of all time, go, what would you say?

Breaking the Chef Stigma

Brooke Baevsky: I’ve got to get people to leave this podcast in 2 seconds. I have the worst music taste ever. My Spotify age, I think, was 13. I’m, like, a belieber.

Kirk Bachmann: Baby clothes.

Brooke Baevsky: Classic rock when I’m really into my cooking mode, but honestly, I’m like a… a tween girl with my, you know, pop music, but I definitely break the chef stigma, for sure. I have no tattoos. You know, I came from the corporate food product development world, where most of the people I work with were, I would say, men 50 plus, and I was the one woman in the kitchen for years in many different roles. Nestle, Freshly, yeah, breaking that, the chef stigma with… and I had a completely different outlook, too. Most of these chefs, you know, some of them want — I’ve worked with Michelin star chefs, James Beard award-winning chefs, when I go and I do menu development and consulting for restaurant groups and hotels across the world, and these chefs are amazing! They could cook me out of the water, they are some of the best chefs in the world, but when it comes to dietary-friendly food, their culinary programs and their training did not hit this. So when it comes to, like, a dairy-free or gluten-free option, it’s like, you know, there’s more than just that little sad scoop of sorbet that can go on the menu.

But really, I was in Cabo last year at the Four Seasons, and I was working with these Michelin-star Mexican chefs, and I blew their mind on making dairy-free cotija, and how you can make simple Mexican dishes gluten-free, and I was like, this… what? It was, it was crazy, but breaking the… breaking the chef stigma, you know, the traditional chef directory. Most chefs come from, as you know, high school to culinary school, and they work their way up in a restaurant or a hotel hospitality setting. I never worked in a restaurant. So, very different.

Kirk Bachmann: Such a great response, and, you know, just so you know, we have students that come to us for culinary education that are very young, right out of high school. But the majority of our online students are actually looking for unique careers. They don’t necessarily want to be behind the line. They’re a little older, they’re looking to career change, and so they’re gonna love that comment. Good comment, by the way. Good comment.

Follow Every Interest

Brooke Baevsky: I always say when students are, you know, saying, what should I study, how do I become a celebrity private chef, or get into content, or do whatever you’re doing, I always say, follow every single interest, and explore it, because you never know when it will come back and where it’ll take you. When I was graduating college, the career I’m in now didn’t even exist yet. And with how AI is working, the job that they’ll probably end up in doesn’t even exist yet.

With college, you’re supposed to know what you want to do at 18. It’s crazy. So I studied — you know, I said, you know, food on the internet, and product development, and developing healthy food products like I do now, really wasn’t a career, so I said, great, I’m creative, do I go into fashion? My first jobs I applied for, my first internships were fashion, because I thought I would have to go that route and not food, because I didn’t want to work in a hotel, or make the same thing twice, or work in a hospitality setting.

And then I did study fashion and product development, and then I end up having a line of chef jumpsuits. So you never know when things are gonna come back. My food science, my product development background, my business background, everything kind of comes back, or you never know where it’ll… where it’ll fit. I took public speaking courses, I took acting classes, just explore it all, because it all kind of comes together somehow.

Healing Through Food

Kirk Bachmann: Oh, I love that. I love that. You know, coming back to the nutrition comments earlier, again, off-script, but I have a number of friends in the area here that are doctors, dental surgeons, and they’ve all kind of confirmed that no matter how much they studied, where their residency was, how much continuing education they do, the part on nutrition is, like, that… that much. It’s like… Yeah. It’s like 3 sentences, right?

Brooke Baevsky: It blows my mind.

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah.

Brooke Baevsky: But you can truly heal your body and feel like you’re on jet fuel with food, and even culinary school programs. Most culinary… there’s many reasons why I didn’t want to just go from high school to culinary school, but one of the biggest ones was there wasn’t really a culinary school that really stood out to me, because they were all focused on traditional French cuisine, or Italian cooking, and while that’s amazing, I knew exactly what my niche was gonna be, and I saw the need, first and foremost, to what you said. I grew up in a family with 11 dietary restrictions and food allergies, and I saw that there was nothing catering to it, and that with our food system, and how people are eating, and medical needs, that need is only gonna grow. Now it’s 60% plus of Americans have some kind of dietary need or restriction, or — I would argue more, based on medical needs, that they feed a certain way. So I knew exactly where I wanted to go in the food world and these medical… these culinary programs didn’t even touch on it. They maybe had one class on health and wellness, and that blew my mind. And same with medical school. They have one class on nutrition, and I’m like, you can truly heal a body.

Nutrition is everything. They say, you know, I would argue they say 70% diet, I would argue 90% diet. And really understanding your body, and it’s a thumbprint. So, not to jump the gun, but people always say, you know, how do you… how do you end up cooking for these clients? You know, royals, and models, and athletes. And it was because I could really bridge the gap between, you know, nutrition, functional health, product development, food science, and the culinary world. A lot of chefs are traditionally trained, and then they have… these clients will have a… a nutritionist, for example, and they don’t really talk to each other. No one’s implementing one into their actual meal plan. But I would analyze, you know, blood work and saliva, stool, urine, everything, and come up with these custom-curated diets and supplement routines that would make them feel like they’re on jet fuel. And I started with athletes in the NBA and the NFL who… they would have one nutritionist, maybe for the whole team, and then they would have chefs. And then, they were doing the craziest things to meet their goals, their nutrition goals, their macro goals, and no one was really analyzing them as a unique person.

So I would make them feel like they were on jet fuel, and give them these really custom-curated diets, and, you know, these people were billion-dollar corporations. To get them feeling their best and in peak performance is worth… is priceless, and then their wives were models and actors and… I… they were like, I want to look hot on the red carpet, I’m training for a movie role, I want to look good on vacation for Instagram, and then it just kind of snowballed. But healthy food, health and wellness, you know, food first, ingredient integrity, recipe, you know, ingredient, where your food comes from, label integrity, understanding a label, where food comes from, it’s all gonna just grow and grow and grow.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh my gosh, what… what great comments. Our students are gonna love that. You know, Brooke, we have — you’re right, our most popular programs are our traditional culinary arts, traditional pastry arts, and they are very much designed in the French way, but we also have, you know, a full plant-based program to help people better understand, sort of, where their food comes from, right? And then we also have a holistic program, so they can kind of start to explore the whole self. There are more boutique programs, but what I have found interesting is that many of our students will do the full culinary program but crave more. So they jump into plant-based, or they jump into holistic, or they jump into entrepreneurship. I have to… I have to bring you in as a guest lecturer. I mean, this… this is validating everything that we believe in and hope for. A local yogi here in Boulder helped me write that plant-based program, I don’t know, 5, 6, 7 years ago, and you know, people didn’t know what to do with it, and here we are, because she, like you, knew that there’s more… that there’s more to it, right? So…

Brooke Baevsky: And people don’t really study it. I mean, I’m breaking the stigma every single day that dietary-friendly food or allergy-friendly food is, you know, isn’t boring and disgusting, and it’s indulgent and satisfying and sexy and amazing, and it’s food that everyone can eat and wants to eat. You know, nothing is better than having everyone at the table be able to enjoy a dessert together, and not feel like, oh my god, I’m sacrificing, like, get the gluten-free option, but the fact that the most delicious, moist, satisfying slice of cake is gluten-free and dairy-free.

The NDA Question

Kirk Bachmann: That’s so rich in hospitality culture, I love that. It’s the worst thing in the world that someone who’s dining with you can’t enjoy, you know, the full experience. You know, I’d love to talk about your sort of untraditional path into food, but I don’t know that you can answer this next question — is there… are you allowed to say who your favorite celebrity client is, or is that…

Brooke Baevsky: No, I’ve honestly never signed an NDA kind of contract. I think Chrissy — Chrissy and John, Chrissy Teigen and John Legend — I had to sign a contract once, but it wasn’t really an NDA, it was, like, don’t go in my closet and take my Birkin bags, and I’m like, there, valid. You know, and I would have that too.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh my god, oh my god. I love them, by the way. I love them, how can you not, right?

Brooke Baevsky: Yeah, no, I’m an open book. Honestly, I’ve cooked for some awesome names and faces, and people always say, you know, how do you not sign an NDA? How can you just talk about these people? How can you film? And I… honestly, NDAs and contracts, I always say, are kind of there to prove that you’re a good person at the end of the day. You know, sometimes they’ll test you. Like, you’ll go into a client’s house, and I’ll go into, you know, A-list plus celebrity, and they’ll kind of — the first time you’re there. They’re like, okay, you can’t film the first time, and they’ll be talking and gossiping among each other, and they will kind of test it. Like, is this gonna get out to TMZ? They’re, like, fake lies, they’ll pretend to be looking at an engagement ring, or whatever it may be. Or, if you do have to sign an NDA, usually it’s, you know, if you share a photo of our family, you owe us $40,000.

But with these people that I cook for, one picture of Paris Hilton’s kid, or a Kardashian kid eating dinner is worth over a million dollars to TMZ. So if you’re a bad person and a sellout, and you want to just ruin your career, and, you know, a lot of your students will end up cooking for high-net-worth individuals, or celebrities, or have them in their restaurants — being a genuine, kind, normal person goes a really long way. That’s kind of what they’re looking for. And then the world of opportunities are open to you in terms of experiences in the culinary world. But it’s really just a… a test, so people say, you know, how can you just, like, talk about it? I’m like, well, you’re under no contract. Once you kind of prove you’re a normal human being, then you just… you just gotta become one of the… one of the family, you know, you’re with them all the time.

But I… in terms of favorite, that was another rant of mine. I’ve never had a bad client, honestly. I love every single one. Emma Roberts is such a vibe. She is just, like, amazing. We just have so much fun together at her house in the Hamptons. She’s getting married next month, which is really fun. So I cooked for her entire family. I… she really likes prioritizing clean eating, and I just got to make whatever, all day, every day. She was like, whatever you want to cook. So, it’s always fun. Usually, you know, sometimes they’ll… people will say, like, what if someone brings you in and you just have to, like, make hot dogs all day? Or, you know, I’ve cooked for dogs, I’ve been asked to make chicken fingers and hot dogs all day, but usually they want my expertise, they want to eat what I’m known for, and they want to eat food that feels like they’re not sacrificing on taste or anything, and what I’m most known for. So a lot of my clients eat gluten-free, and dairy-free, and refined sugar-free, and, whatever I want to cook, which is really fun.

Kirk Bachmann: Such a great answer, so thoughtful and kind. That’s really, really good business advice as well, right? Be a good person, be thoughtful, kind, respectful. Absolutely. Perfect answer, perfect answer.

Brooke Baevsky: Goes a long way.

Reinventing the Family Recipe

Kirk Bachmann: It does, it does, right? Now, you started to talk about this a little bit, and you’ve said it yourself, how I got into cooking definitely wasn’t traditional, and I love that, because that’s the story and the path for many people. And because so many of our students worry that there’s only one right way. I’d love it if you could take us back, cooking around all those allergies and different restrictions in your home. How did that shape the chef that you eventually became, or continued to become?

Brooke Baevsky: I would say it’s the entire reason I really went into food. I really saw this niche from, you know, in the mid-late 90s — I’m now 30 — so, like, late 90s, when I really started being with my mom in the kitchen, my grandma in the kitchen, and seeing the very limited options when it came to anything dairy-free. You know, almond milk wasn’t on store shelves at this point, nutritional yeast wasn’t something people had heard of, there was Tofutti ice cream sandwiches, and rubbery mac and cheese from Amy’s, and there really was nothing. So I really saw this need, and I said, how is no one even going into this? How is no one studying this? Why are there no products on the shelves? This market is only gonna grow.

And my creative outlet as a kid was developing recipes, to your point of what you said in my intro, that my entire family could eat together. You know, my dad was an ER physician. He worked until 1 in the morning. Some days, my mom commuted an hour and a half to work every day from Massachusetts to Albany, New York. And they would work so hard in their day jobs, then have to come home and make 5 different dinners for us all to eat. So I said, why is there not food that everyone can and wants to eat, so we can have one dinner?

And I would develop a gluten-free, dairy-free mac and cheese, and while my parents and siblings and brother and sister tried — I’m not telling you, I’m not saying I’m a connoisseur and got everything right. They tried some disgusting, disgusting things, like rock-hard cakes you couldn’t cut through, absolute rubber garbage food. But out of all of this trial and error, I developed a gluten-free and dairy-free mac and cheese, for example, that is still the mac and cheese I made for Mindy Kaling’s kids and Adam Sandler’s daughters, and that’s the recipe. And it was made with a carrot and a cauliflower potato cheese sauce with nutritional yeast that, like, was not heard of at all. There was, you know, soy milk on the market, maybe. So it really shaped everything in the food world.

You know, my first — I started in corporate food product development after college, and it’s crazy to think that this was 2018, and the first companies that I would develop healthy food products for were the giant companies sitting on billions of dollars that had the risk, and I have emails that would say, you know, that we were willing to take the risk to go into healthy food. And this was a Starbucks that would sell cake pops, and cupcakes, and scones, and loaves, and were like, maybe people want protein for breakfast, and it was like —

Kirk Bachmann: Don’t imagine that.

Brooke Baevsky: It’s crazy to invest in something like this, as keto and paleo were starting to take over the market, and now it’s everywhere. Now these huge companies are buying Califia Farms and all of these health food things, and there’s protein in every… every… thing. You can’t eat anything without protein in it anymore.

Never Take No for an Answer

Brooke Baevsky: So, it was a very interesting path to food, but along with studying every single thing that interests you, never take no for an answer. You know, my first TV jobs were literally banging on the doors of producers’ offices, getting doors slammed in my face, getting told, we don’t want to take the risk in healthy food, getting told by BuzzFeed Tasty, or BuzzFeed at the time, that there’s no budget for food on the internet, which is wild to even think.

When I was starting BuzzFeed Tasty, it was my senior year of college, and light bulbs went off in my head. This guy, Scott Leutch came into the Newhouse School, my communication school, and he was a video intern at BuzzFeed. And they gave him… he didn’t know anything about food, but they gave him a $25 budget to say, you know, do whatever you want. And, he basically said, you know, food on the internet, there’s long-form Food Network content, and then Instagram with static food images only. He’s like, maybe short little 10-second recipe videos just with hands would be really interesting. And he went to the dump, and he found kitchen cabinet covers. And painted them and stuck them to the walls to look like a kitchen set. And literally had no budget, and I was some of the hands in those videos, and I’m like, I told them, I was like, this is the most amazing thing. Ever. This is going to break the food world, this is exactly what I want to go in for forever, you’re always developing new recipes, they’re fun, they’re engaging, this is going to break the food world and break what is food on the internet, and they said, sorry, you know, there’s no budget in this idea.
So never take no for an answer.

Kirk Bachmann: Never.

Brooke Baevsky: I wanted to do something similar for other companies. I reached out to, like, Banza and Simple Mills, and I still have emails applying for these internships that I meet up, and they were like, sorry, we have no interest in doing a food social media account. And then they… now I work with them on a professional, you know, product development basis, or equity, or whatever, and I recently sent the founders that I’m now friends with my initial email to them, applying to be their intern. And they were like, sorry, they completely forgot, it was, you know, 12 years ago. But yeah.

Kirk Bachmann: You’ve got to frame… you’ve got to print that one out and frame that. I love that.

Brooke Baevsky: But I always send it back to them. It’s so funny how things come full circle.

Kirk Bachmann: You know what really fascinates me, Brooke, is the… And a lot of our students come to us from, you know, other careers and also other areas of study. So you studied food science and product development, absolutely love that. Before you became a chef, how did that business and science foundation end up setting you apart once you got into the area, the culinary world, I’ll call it, that you really wanted to be in.

Brooke Baevsky: I think I was doing what that… I mean, still now, most chefs don’t… aren’t trained in. It was very niche, especially at the time, and even now, you’ll have healthy chefs that focus on product development, and there’ll be, you know, TikTok chefs on social media. Then you have the professionally trained culinary grad chefs that are mostly in restaurants. There’s not many that are still both. I’m always, you know, I do stuff for Food Network, Food and Wine Festival, and they’ll always try to either pin me in, like, the FoodieCon food content creator panel, or they’ll have me do a HexClad demo or a dinner, and I’m like, why can’t we merge… merge the two? So I’m always trying to, you know, go where no other chef has gone, or what they’ve done before.

The LA Leap

Brooke Baevsky: I’ve always developed products that haven’t existed yet for companies, or tried to create my… my own path, so it’s crazy, you know, never saying no for an answer. I would say 6 years ago, I moved to LA to try the food content worlds, leaving my corporate food product development job, developing healthy food products for some of the largest companies in the world. At that time, I was working, leading a chef team at Nestle, developing products. They bought this company Freshly, that was doing meal kit, meal delivery service prototypes, so I would work on Freshly Thin, and the keto line, and the paleo line, and the plant-based line, and developing these meals in a test kitchen, and then scaling them up to 10,000 meals in their facilities, and all the challenges you can imagine that go with that.

But, I — really wanted to just go on my own, I wanted to cook for private clients, I wanted to try food on social media and just go after it, so… moved to LA. I was living in New York, had never been to LA before, and I just said, you know, just give it 6 months.

Spent basically any savings I had, rented a friend’s 15-year-old car, moved in with a friend of a friend in her extra bedroom, and literally just became a yes man to try to figure it out, because there weren’t really celebrity private chefs doing content creation on the internet. This was literally… what the heck? I mean, even my own parents were starting to redecorate my childhood bedroom in case I had to come home. They took the twin beds out and put a queen-size bed in there, and they’re like, you know, we love you, we support you, but we’re here, you know, if something goes wrong in LA.

Brooke Baevsky: And I truly just said yes to any opportunity. I would drive 3 hours because someone needed a grazing table, and I would pretend that I knew how to make a grazing table when grazing tables were just coming out. And I was watching YouTube videos the night before until 3 in the morning, trying to figure out how to make a grazing table. And you just… never say no. Fake it till you make it.

I was doing dinners, just to get, you know, your net worth is your network, I truly believe that. And in LA, I just wanted to get my name out there. I had never even done private events, I came from the product development corporate world, no one… I was not a brand by any means. And I hired staff, basically, on Craigslist and Facebook, and random friends of friends looking for extra jobs, like actors that needed cash under the table. And I would go on Eventbrite, and I would host these events for 35 people, and you could bring a max of one person, so it really was an eclectic group.

I would cook for these high net worth individuals all week in exchange for their house on a Friday or Saturday night in LA, and I would post these Eventbrite events, $60 or $80 a person for an open bar, 5-course meal. I would work the entire weekend to do this, and I would get to the front of the table with this random group of 35, 36, 37 people, and I would say, I am doing this for free, in fact, I’m actually losing money. The one thing you guys can do for me is tag me in every single course. On your social media, post me. And pretty soon, these events are still on Eventbrite. People ask me, like, when your next $60 dinner is, and I’m like, huh?

Kirk Bachmann: And they did it! They started tagging you, right?

Brooke Baevsky: Yeah, and it was Adam Sandler’s daughter’s best friends. It was an agent at WME. That was the first agency that brought me on. You never know who knows someone who knows someone knows someone, and I did these events every single weekend for, like, 6 months.

Looking back, I had no idea what I was doing. I was alone in the kitchen, cooking, making way too much… way too much, like, my… I had no idea, you know, where to shop, how to best utilize, repurpose things on a menu, menu bounce, like, making way too much food, so much waste, I mean, ridiculous. My costs, I really had no idea what I was doing. And you just figure it out. And most people didn’t even notice that, they were just like, oh, it was a beautiful dinner, and you literally just fake it till you make it. Just be a yes man. Just say yes, you’ll figure it out. Between Google, YouTube, ChatGPT, and asking friends, you could figure out pretty much anything.

Kirk Bachmann: I love it. I have 4 children, and I’ve always told them I’ve never applied for a job that I was qualified for. You just get in there and do it. You just do it.

Personalized Nutrition — A Thumbprint

Kirk Bachmann: You know, this next section is… is really about personalized nutrition and… and you becoming Chef Bae, and it… and I… and I have to… I have to say, this is not in the script again, and at the risk of becoming emotional a little bit, that the idea of DNA analysis and — it really resonated with me. Chef, when I was doing my research, 43 years ago, I received a kidney transplant from my father. Long story. But, can I just tell you, there was no counseling whatsoever around diet. No one took a look at my blood work and said, based on your blood work, your diet should reflect this or that. And I obviously have gotten to a place in my life with that.
But that… that training that you’ve had really seems to show up in… in what makes your cooking so distinctive today, right? You design these meals, cerebral meals, that are based on blood work and DNA analysis and functional foods, to the point where clients, like you said it earlier in the show, they feel like they’re running on jet fuel, and that’s a long way from the Tasty videos that you shared with us a bit ago. So, I’d love for you to talk a little bit more about that, and then for someone who’s never heard of personalized nutrition at this level, walk us through what that actually looks like on, you know, day-to-day, and how custom does it really get for people? Because it becomes personal, almost emotional.

Brooke Baevsky: Yeah, for sure, and you can… you change people’s lives, physiques, health. Yes. I mean, even with supplements, there’s some simple changes that, to me, is, like, a very easy fix that people don’t even think about, like changing the right probiotic for your gut microbiome. But with, of course, it started with athletes, because, you know, nothing is more valuable than their peak performance being spectacular, running a millisecond faster. You know, this is worth everything. So trainers and nutritionists would come to me and say, I need a high-protein, no nightshade, low-inflammatory diet with 160 grams of protein a day, divided into 6 meals, because they sleep in 5 90-minute intervals in the day, and so on and so forth.

And it’s, I… it’s… very interesting. I mean, you know, most… even Western medicine, it’s so high level. You know, most people will just take the most superficial blood test ever, and everything looks fine. But people, you know, I’ve seen high levels of microplastics that lead to hormone imbalance that was unresolved. You know, people are on the complete wrong supplements, or they think they need a certain superfood, and you know, while it sounds like I’m making their diet so complicated, I’m actually simplifying it, you know? Holistic, but realistic, and making diets that are actually sustainable and approachable to them. One, they’ll want to continue it because they’ll feel a difference. But also, you know, they’ll be on so many different supplements, and I’m like, wait, when you actually look at your body, you need, like, 3 things. You don’t need to be on this calcium. Are you taking your magnesium with the B6? Because otherwise, you’re not digesting any of the magnesium that you’re taking. Are you taking your zinc with the liposomal vitamin C? Just little, tiny changes that make such a big difference.

The Paris Hilton Lasagna

Brooke Baevsky: And then, side note, but what I realized with cooking healthy food, and the clients that I cooked for, there was this… unexpected positive outcome. You know, my goal in life was to always inspire everyone to eat healthy and make healthy choices, and that starts with kids, and that’s really hard to inspire kids to eat healthy. And I was teaching my nonprofit cooking program. It started in New York with the Henry Street Settlement, where I would teach inner-city children and families how to best utilize food stamps, you know, talk about having… making tiny changes going a really long way, the fact that food stamps go further at a farmer’s market than a grocery store, and developing this program, and I was cooking for, you know, the wealthiest people in the world, and also the poorest people in the world, in the country.

And very much seeing this dichotomy, and one time they went up to me, some of the kids in this class, and they were like, I made the Paris Hilton lasagna. And like with BuzzFeed, light bulbs went off in my head, and I’m like, wow, people are — you know, there’s one thing to tell people what to change with their diet, but people want to eat like those who inspire them. And if their heroes and their mentors and their idols in life are eating a certain way, then they’ll also want to eat a certain way.

So that was really eye-opening, because you can give people this advice all day, every day, and it goes — same with my celebrity clients. I’ll have the most famous people in the world being like, well, what does this person eat to get good skin? And what is this person doing? And I’m like, everyone’s asking what you’re doing.

Kirk Bachmann: There’s… there’s just… there’s so much that… and I… and I always like to use as a qualifier that you make it seem so simple in how you do it. What people haven’t seen over the last decade is the hours, the sleepless nights, the working every weekend for 6 months, so I want to at least point that out, that it’s hard work. It’s a lot of hard work.

The Cost of the Hustle

Brooke Baevsky: For sure, absolutely no chill. I gave up years of my social life, my weekends, working all of the time. When I started private chefing, I would wake up at 5:30, maybe, work until maybe 11, edit content some days until 2 in the morning, get 2 hours of sleep, and do that for weeks on end to, like, a breaking point. It was actually crazy. So, definitely hard work.
Even to this day, I’ll do events in the Hamptons, and some brands will be like, is Chef Bae gonna be there? And I’m like, am I gonna be there? I’m gonna be on my hands and knees cleaning food off the floor at this event. I am, like, so involved in recipe planning, menu development, everything. It’s my… my… my child. I am truly never, never off. It is very hard work. You know, there’s pluses and minuses. I’m, you know, when you work in a restaurant or a traditional 9-to-5 job, you’re off. You know, you go into an office and you’re off.

There’s a joke that, you know, I didn’t want to work a 9-to-5, so I want to work for myself, and now I work 24-7. Truly, you’re never off. Must say. Worth it, it’s amazing, it’s rewarding, but very… yeah, hard work, to say the least.

Kirk Bachmann: Well, the honesty and transparency is super, super important, so that leads me to, for a student or a graduate who wants to work, let’s say, in this space — what skills would you advise, beyond cooking, that they need to start working on today?

Skills Beyond the Kitchen

Brooke Baevsky: I would say… If they want, like, do they want to go into social media, or.

Kirk Bachmann: Or all of the above, right? Working as a personal chef, social media, creating content, you know, changing people’s lives through nutrition and other analysis. And again, it’s a loaded question, but students and people, just in general, think, oh, maybe I’ll do that. Well… what can I do today?

Brooke Baevsky: Your education, getting more degrees, too. I mean, I studied food science, product development, holistic health, nutrition, business, communications. I have, like, five degrees. So there is a lot of school that I did, for sure. Getting real-world experience, I would say… The beauty of social media is you have access to literally anyone on the planet you can directly message, which is insane.

And, you know, there’s so many no’s that I’ve gotten, but a lot of times, people will say, you know, I’ve… someone lent me a hand a long time ago, and I’ll… I’ll, you know, meet with this person for coffee, or take that call, or, you know, I wrote handwritten letters, so I, you know… Sometimes being unhinged. For sure. You know… Taking advice of people that you emulate, that you want to emulate, that inspire you, and not taking advice from people that, you know, you realized quickly didn’t follow their dreams, and if you’re not inspired by them, don’t take advice from them.

But there, you know, when I started out, I would have coffee meetings, I would write handwritten letters to people that inspired me, I would meet with chefs and restaurateurs and nutritionists, and just… you know, learn as much as you can. Be the dumbest person in the room. And mostly people will say, you know, someone along the way has helped me, I’m willing to kind of take the call, help you, answer questions, connect you to somebody. The people that I’ve hired over the years, truly, were Instagram DMs that have worked with me now as kitchen assistants and now sous chefs, for the last 5-6 years, and I bring them around the world with me.

And I’ll get notifications from culinary schools, and amazing food programs, and even Syracuse, where I graduated from, from their alumni office, saying, hi, you know, we have 3 people very interested in working for you, and I’m like, not one of them has reached out. Not one of them has sent me a message. Not one of them has… you know, I truly hired people off of an Instagram DM. The girl who edits a lot of my social media content, messaged me at 2:30 in the morning when I was editing a video, saying, hi, long shot — now I know, she literally… I was her first client. The epitome of making it till you make it. She goes, Hi, I’m a social media editor, I will edit your first video for free, I’m really good, can I have a chance? I took it as a sign, because I was up at 2:30 in the morning editing, sent her my stuff, and it was such a good video that I ended up paying her for it, and now she’s been with me for 3 years.

So truly. And then I’ll get messages all the time from alumni offices and everything, and I’m like — you know, it says so much for them to take the initiative and reaching out and putting themselves out there. You know, what’s the worst that’s gonna happen? They don’t answer? I DM people all the time, and they do not get back to me. Some have even followed me. Meghan Trainor, if you’re out there, she’s followed me, and I’m like, I’m dying to cook for you, I’ve messaged you. Not getting anywhere. Jennifer Coolidge, same thing. But there’s no harm in asking, and just take that initiative. Go after it, take that risk.

There’s nothing… I don’t believe in failure at all. Like, I’ve done so many dumb mistakes that were stupid and expensive or whatever, but you… you learn. And social media also doesn’t show it. So, you know, social media is a highlight reel. A lot of my cooking content, you know, it looks like I just, like, go in and put on my apron and do a little dance, and, like, 45 seconds later, after the reel’s done, like, all the food is done, and everything’s in the fridge, and the amount of back and forth with their teams, and dealing with changes, and dietary restrictions, and working with their nutritionists, and menu changes, and last-minute things, because you can never say no to these people.

Plan C is always Plan B, which is always Plan A. Plan A never happens. You know, you need everything in your back pocket, and how many emails and weeks of planning go into this one chefing day that is like a 45-second highlight reel. And they don’t see lugging the groceries, like, slipping a disc in my spine from carrying such heavy groceries over the years, and literally physical labor on my feet all day, every day, like tendinitis. They don’t… that does not make the social media.

Brooke Baevsky: It doesn’t. And I try to do long-form vlogging for that reason, to really show what goes on beyond… behind the scenes. But it’s… it is a hustle. And when I moved to LA, I first reached out to a lot of content creators, just to work for them for free. Wash their cilantro. For hours, just to learn from them and, like, how they do these events. And what shocked me was truly these, like, gorgeous events that would be sponsored by brands — it was literally them in the kitchen for 15 hours the day before, doing everything themselves, hair up in a scrunchie and pajama pants, and just doing it, and lugging the groceries, and figuring it out, and hustling, and cleaning the kitchen with maybe an intern. But people always… a free extra hand is a really good way in.

Kirk Bachmann: Well, and that’s such a powerful message for students or anyone trying to get into this industry, that the magic is the magic, but there’s so much work behind that. You know, speaking of a lot of the work that you do, Brooke, is inside clients’ homes, right? Whether it’s an athlete, or an A-lister, or someone else. What would you say that experience has taught you, just in general, about hospitality, and being able to read the room, and listen, and understand, and better realize what a client or a person truly needs? Just beyond food on the plate.

Reading the Room

Brooke Baevsky: That was a great… that was my other point to your last question, too, along with hustle, is genuine personal skills. You know, hospitality is huge. When you’re especially private chefing, working with brands, putting on events. It’s… everything is a relationship, you know? You’re not with these people on the red carpet, you’re seeing them getting their kids ready in the morning in their stained pajamas, getting their kids ready for school in the morning, making their lunches. Everyone’s just a person, and you’re in their personal space. They need to feel comfortable with you, they need to feel safe with you, they need to feel like they can trust you, and that you’re just a good, genuine person, so that goes really far.

I feel like I… there’s a lot of chefs that just like staying behind the scenes, being, you know, working the line in a restaurant. Don’t do private chefing if you don’t love people, if you don’t love working with people. You know, you need to really be extroverted, and you’re a reflection of the clients when they have people over. You know, you’re always interacting with everybody, because I call them the peepers. You know, the hosts will always say, everyone eats everything! No. No, no, no. They will come into the kitchen and peep over to you, and these are big people, you know, these are owners of billion-dollar corporations, and the biggest companies in the world, and they come and they’re like — you’ve seen it all. Gluten-free, dairy-free, food blessed by crystals, allergies to cold water. Nobody eats the food that is on the original menu. You have, like, 9 backups.

So, just being able to handle those situations with grace. So much of my cookbook coming out next year is all about that and these funny stories. Or, you know, when things are messed up, how you just handle it with a smile, and no one will ever know that that wasn’t your Plan A kind of thing, but you’re… you’re always talking with people. You know, you have to be a people person, and a personality first and foremost when you’re in someone’s home. They have to like you and be friends with you, so… yeah.

Kirk Bachmann: I love that you used the word grace. I love that you use that, and it’s part of your DNA. I love the word grace so much, I named my fourth child Grayson. Truly, truly.
You know, it’s remarkable to think about the community that you’ve built, the millions of followers, and your partnerships with Four Seasons, and Nestle, and so many others. And I’m so glad that you took us behind the scenes a little bit about, you know, how scrappy you have to be. You talked about the grazing table. I mean, you really had to work hard. Things took off for you. You know, the example of the LA Green Juice hot sauce. And then so many more. Can you walk us through — I’m going to go back to your degree — how do you turn a recipe into an actual product? Because it’s not… it could be the greatest product in the world, or recipe in the world, but if your product strategy isn’t on point, it goes nowhere, right? And you’ve been able to sort of accomplish both. It’s really quite remarkable.

From Recipe to Product

Brooke Baevsky: I would say… not taking… well, developing products and getting into the marketplace, not taking no for an answer. I was the first ever food collab with Erewhon, so people only did smoothie collabs. And my background was corporate food product development, you know, making food at scale, making a product taste the exact same worldwide, dealing with manufacturers and supply chains, and the financial aspect of it, and making a high-quality product when you have no budget to work with that tastes the same throughout the entire world and can ship, and, you know, worked with shelf life stabilization and microbial growth in the food science.

So that was my background, and I actually went into a meeting with Erewhon because they didn’t love my content. That was actually how that meeting started, talking about having, you know, no shame in going after it. This was a meeting to be like, hey, you know, you’re kind of positioning us, you know, as, like, this expensive whatever in your content, we don’t really love it. I took it as a, hey, I’m meeting the head chief marketing officer and branding officer of Erewhon, let me bring samples to this meeting. So I brought carrot cake, my famous carrot cake cupcakes, and my chocolate chip crack cookies to this meeting. It was, like, 8:30, 9 a.m. And they were like, it’s so early, we just had breakfast, we’re not eating this. They take one bite, then another bite, then another bite, then they’re, like, three cupcakes and 2 cookies deep in.

And they’re like, we’ll take these back to the office. And I was like, well, you know, while we’re here, I’d love to be the first ever food collab. And they kind of said, you know, they’re like, okay, this product’s good, but like, what did you have in mind? And I came to them 24 hours later with a full proposal. Down to, you know, how much money they would make, there would be no overhead or work on their end, how we would turn the corner of the store into the chef bakery, the dates we would do. I had every single I dotted and T crossed that they literally could not say no to this. So what came as, like, a, hey, stop doing content like this, came into, let’s do, like, the biggest food collab Erewhon has ever seen.

Because it all came into, you know, everything I knew, even my fashion degree. I did, like, Erewhon fashion jumpsuits for this collab. I… I, you know, studied art and design, and designed my own label. They literally went as far to be like, we will not even print labels for this product. I printed and stickered my own labels. I have friends to this day that were like, remember when I assembled 2,000 cookie boxes for you? Just, like, remember that one day, in my apartment, and then sent them by Uber to Erewhon. Like, that did not make the little highlight reel, of course.

Brooke Baevsky: Social media, but, you know, going from a recipe to a full-scale product is a lot of testing, you know, working with something like a combi oven versus a home kitchen is very, very different. So, trial and error. I have a very, very fun nationwide collab coming out in a month, which I can’t talk about yet, because it’s under NDA, but you will soon — I see this collab, it’s gonna ship nationwide with DoorDash, with one of the most iconic food establishments, I think, in the US, so I’m very excited, and that was 6 months of product development, because aside from just making something at scale that can also ship and taste amazing, the ingredients have to work twice as hard, because it’s a dietary-friendly product that’s gluten-free and dairy-free, with a team that doesn’t really make gluten-free, dairy-free products, and introducing something so completely new to their menu lineup.

So, yeah, many, many, many months. I’ve had, in the fall — this isn’t a secret — I don’t know if you know Bread’s Bakery in New York, but I’m gonna do a gluten-free, dairy-free babka. And originally, I was working with the chefs, and they were like, Brooke — I’m going to kill you. Obviously, it’s like a sarcasm, but they’re like, I am going to kill you, this does not work. Like, you cannot make this dairy-free butter blend, this dough does not rise, this gluten-free flour does not work, blah blah blah blah blah blah.

3 months later, they’re like, okay, kind of want to kill you, but it’s kind of working. Then, like, 6 months later, they’re like, okay, we love you. And it worked, and we did it. But there is, like, blood, sweat, and literal tears that go into product development and making something at scale, especially when it’s new, but that’s what you have to do now. You have to create something that’s not there. You know, don’t take, like… it’s not scary, it’s just unknown.

Yeah. Truly, I wish I recorded. I have those emails saved from those companies, but I wish I had the heads of that bakery being like, I’m going to kill you, this does not work, and now we’re doing a photoshoot in two months for the babka, coming out this holiday season. At the end of this year.

Kirk Bachmann: I just… I just love that. And you have to believe —

Brooke Baevsky: They were like, why don’t we do, you know, a loaf? I’m like, no, no.

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah, yeah, no.

Brooke Baevsky: No. A babka has to exist, and their entire audience is, like, Ashkenazi Jews, like myself, who are gluten-free and dairy-free with stomach issues. Like, you’re missing an audience here, so…

Food as a Service

Kirk Bachmann: You know, and I’m so appreciative of your time, but before we start to head to the finish line, there’s a really beautiful side of your work that I want to make sure that we get to. Because the same drive that built the brand also built something much bigger than yourself, right? You grew up near Springfield, a city with some of the highest food insecurity in the country, and you turned that reality into a non-profit cooking program in both LA and New York City. And then, and this is so moving — in 2025, you led one of the largest wildfire relief meal efforts in LA County, raising, I believe it was over $250,000 in a single week. I’d love for you to talk about that a little bit, about that work. And what it’s taught you about… food as a service.

Brooke Baevsky: Yeah. Well, you quickly learn that, you know, nothing matters, you just need to be healthy and have a roof over your head, and that’s… that’s really it in life.

With my nonprofit. So I grew up in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. I was always very fortunate to have, you know, a roof over my head, and I never had to worry about food or when my next meal was coming. My parents worked very hard to provide for me and my two siblings. But right outside of Longmeadow, Massachusetts, was Springfield, Massachusetts, one of the highest food insecurity rates in the country. So about 30% of children and families did not know when their next meal was coming, and lived on school-subsidized lunches, fast food, and food stamps. That was always devastating to me, so working with food insecure families and children was something I was always passionate about. It was always something that was a non-negotiable to me, you know, practicing doing what I believe in.

When I moved to New York doing corporate food product development, my non-negotiable was Tuesday, Thursdays. I left my job at, like, 1:30. And it could have probably stalled me in terms of growth at those companies. But I said, this is my program, this is what I’m doing, and I’m going to do it. And I left work those two days to do this program. I stuck to what I believed in.
And then with the LA Fires, or any of these programs that I’ve done, people will comment on my social media, and people can be crazy on Reddit, or, like, just social media in general. Like, it’s actually wild, because the most valuable thing that someone has in life is their time, and they will… some people will be like, you’re so tone-deaf, how do you, you know, spend $30,000 at the grocery store on this yacht, people are dying, all this stuff, and I’m like — I… one, yes, thank you very much. I very much see the dichotomy between some of the people I cook for, you know, the poorest people in the country and the wealthiest people in the world. I mean, cooking for, like, Meghan and Harry. So, yes, I see this, but you can’t have one without the other with my programs, or when I need to raise money — I did the largest prepared, high-protein meals in a commercial kitchen, in LA during the LA fires. We were producing thousands of meals a day, and I raised $260,000 in less than a week.

When it came down to it, hi, I need to raise this money, I reach out to my clients, and they give me an empty check. I say, I need hydroponic gardens in my classroom. Zooey Deschanel and Jacob Pechenik, who I cooked for, own Lettuce Grow. They’re like, how many units do you need? Or where can we send the money to? Or what kind of equipment do you need? They’re, like, the most kind, generous, wonderful people I’ve ever met, all of my clients, and I can’t have one without the other. Truly, I’m like, I want to do this program, I want to have this farm that I want to build on this school in LA. They’re like, great, where do we write the check? So, yeah, they spend a lot of money at the grocery store, but they have, like, the hearts of gold.

Kirk Bachmann: Are Meghan and Harry amazing?

Brooke Baevsky: Yeah, they’re amazing.

Kirk Bachmann: Meghan?

Brooke Baevsky: Was really fun to impress, because in the UK, especially several years ago, when it came to dietary restrictions, if you want a gluten-free high tea, you have, like, a crumpet-less plate with — there is no dairy-free clotted cream. You know, the dietary restrictions in the UK are very limited. You have fruit, but I could just really wow her with what was in LA at the time. And then, yeah, Harry was the opposite. He’s like, hot chocolate with extra sugar, please. So opposite. But I… yeah.

Kirk Bachmann: I’ve seen her do a little bit of cooking on TV, I can’t remember what it was, but she did.

Brooke Baevsky: Yeah, she does a little cooking. Her… the recipes that she loved that I made for her are gonna be in my book, called It’s Basically a Salad. I always say it’s gluten-free and dairy-free, so it’s basically a salad. So that’s what the… the book.

It’s Basically a Salad

Kirk Bachmann: Can I just tell you, like, this morning at the beginning of the show, I told you my wife’s in California, and I told her that you were on the show, and she texted me back, it’s here, it’s basically a salad.

Brooke Baevsky: Oh my god! That’s so funny! We have to send her a…

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna send you a little pic of her and connect you with her. She’s gonna be mortified, but I’m gonna do…

Brooke Baevsky: I have my Chef Bae phone case, we like.

Kirk Bachmann: I love it. And I’m gonna reach out to you, and so we’ll be connected on social. I’m very careful with that. Noelle does that for us, so I have to be very respectful. But you mentioned your book. Tell us about the book, what can readers expect, and — and then I have one… I have two more questions for you. Fall of 2027, right, with the book?

Brooke Baevsky: Fall of 2027. I’m gonna start promoting it maybe… come… when would I start promoting it? Maybe… spring, 2027?

Kirk Bachmann: Okay, okay.

Brooke Baevsky: So, pretty.

Kirk Bachmann: We can have you on the show again, when it comes out.

Brooke Baevsky: I’m very excited, I have to come, and I’ll do a lecture, and you guys can order some cookbooks.

Kirk Bachmann: Absolutely we will. I love it.

Brooke Baevsky: Everything is gluten-free, dairy-free, all of my celebrity stories and their favorite recipes, and delicious, satisfying food that everyone can and wants to eat. So I’m very, very, very, very excited to finally launch this. It’s a long process.

Kirk Bachmann: Do you want that book to get dirty in the kitchen, on the counter, or do you want it on a coffee table?

Brooke Baevsky: I think both, but I think a lot of people open up a cookbook and never cook from it, and it can be just as entertaining, even if you don’t cook. It can be a coffee table book that is truly entertaining and just beautiful to look at. Every recipe needs pictures. I hate when —

Kirk Bachmann: Yes.

Brooke Baevsky: — don’t have photos. It needs to be photos, and tips, and, like, blurbs, and just fun. Like, fun, fun, fun.

Kirk Bachmann: That you want to pick it up, yeah, yeah.

Brooke Baevsky: Exactly. But I’ll have more information. So everyone here, follow, if you don’t already, on social media. Instagram is at Chef Bae, TikTok is at Chef Bae. YouTube is at Brooke Baevsky. I have a Substack called It’s Basically a Salad, and I’m one of the top worldwide in rising food and drink on Substack. I post 2-3 recipes a week. And you can subscribe for free, and I… I don’t know, threads, all the… all the things. So, send me a message, I’d love to hear from you guys, too.

Kirk Bachmann: Gosh, I love that. I love that so much. You know, Chef, when you look back, was there a moment when you — this is also not in the script, so I’m catching you off guard. Was there a moment when you stopped thinking of yourself as someone who cooked food, and you started thinking of yourself as someone who solved problems? Through your food.

Solving Problems Through Food

Brooke Baevsky: For sure, I feel like day one, my goal was to — problems, make my parents’ life easier, make… food in the dietary world less gross. And boring. So that was really it. I feel like food came as an… as an afterthought. Even everything kind of just spiraled. I mean, social media was an afterthought. People just loved the recipes, they loved what famous people ate, and then that grew my social media following, but really — it was to solve problems of food insecurity, lack of options when it came to dietary-friendly food, and wanting to share my tips and tricks with the world. And really just solving that problem.
I’m still solving that problem. I’m still, you know, people… we’re so blessed in these big cities that we live in in the US, and even the US. It’s hard to find healthy, dietary-friendly options in most of the country. So I’m trying to work with these big establishments to get my food everywhere, have people try it and really — that’s the best way to break a stigma, you know, try the food.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh, that feels like a mission statement right there. I love that. That’s very good.

Kirk Bachmann: Hey, so, the name of the show is The Ultimate Dish, so before I let you go, and thank you again, it’s getting late there. In your mind, Brooke, what is the ultimate dish?

Kirk Bachmann: It could be a memory as well.

Brooke’s Ultimate Dish

Brooke Baevsky: The ultimate dish.

Brooke Baevsky: Would be… Hmm, it’s hard, it’s really hard.

Kirk Bachmann: There’s so many.

Brooke Baevsky: Cinnamon rolls would be the ultimate dish. It’s something that’s really, really hard to get gluten-free and dairy-free, and it was something… it’s something so nostalgic to me. Growing up, on a special morning, my mom would make, like, a gluten-free, dairy-free cinnamon roll at a time where, like, almond milk wasn’t even on the shelves. That was something really special she would make. That’s the ultimate dish. Very, very nostalgic to me. A good chicken soup. I’m very much sweet over savory, like, all the desserts and stuff, for sure.

Kirk Bachmann: I totally got chills on the cinnamon roll. We… after — over 100 episodes, no one’s ever said a cinnamon roll. Can it be that simple, but yet that beautiful? I love that.

Brooke Baevsky: My favorite question is a death row meal. I honestly hire people, and my… my… basically my only question I ask is literally, what is your death row meal? I feel like it says so much about people. There’s always a cinnamon roll in there.
Every, like, meze dip and spread, a deep dish cookie skillet in, like, an acai bowl with a tremendous amount of granola and nut butter, in case you were gonna ask this question.

Kirk Bachmann: I think they’d take you off death row if you showed up with all of that, I love it.

Brooke Baevsky: I know, it’s very expensive. I’d be, like, very specific where everything needed to be sourced, and, like…

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah.

Kirk Bachmann: Break the bank.

Brooke Baevsky: It’d be very expensive.

Kirk Bachmann: Chef Bae, thank you, thank you. Continued amazing success. Let’s stay in touch. When the book comes out, we’d love to have you back on the show, but our students and our audience is going to absolutely love everything that we chatted about today. Thank you, really, truly.

Brooke Baevsky: Great, thank you so much!

Kirk Bachmann: Really awesome.

Thank you for listening to the Ultimate Dish podcast, brought to you by Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. Visit escoffier.edu/podcast to find any materials mentioned during the podcast, including notes, links and other resources. And if you can, please leave us a rating on Apple or Spotify, and subscribe to support our show. This helps us reach more aspiring individuals ready to take the next step toward their dream careers. Thanks for listening.