- [Interviewer] How hard is cooking on the body?
I've had one surgery.
Basically, I was holding saute pans
to the point that it ripped my tendon open
and kind of shredded it.
- [Interviewer] Damn.
(bright upbeat music)
- My name's Jonathan, I'm 25 and I'm a chef.
- Chef and owner at Samba.
- Head chef, owner of Marmite.
- A chef, catering farmer's market stand with this guy.
- I don't know if I would call myself a chef right now.
I would say that I'm cooking.
- [Interviewer] What's the difference?
- Most chefs don't want to be called chef
unless they have the biggest ego.
- I actually agree, chef to me means
like somebody that's like actually running a kitchen.
I've ran kitchens before.
So I've just taken the title.
- [Interviewer] How long have you been chefs?
- Since the mid seventies? (woman laughs)
- 25 years.
- 7 years.
- [Interviewer] Wait, how old are you?
- I'm 25.
I started like right out of high school.
- [Interviewer] Do you catch shit for being a young chef?
- Oh, so much, you just get shit on so hard,
but it builds character.
- [Interviewer] Let's talk about what you got here.
- The plastic bag at the end, it's kind of
like a little grab bag, a yellow onion in there,
a couple of plantations, a small leek.
Produce is one thing that I try
not to spend too much on.
- We're having our kitchen redone.
This is our current regimen.
Nuts, hummus, vegetables.
It's pretty dead, boring.
- I'm sorry, it's not more exciting.
- My local produce stand, I got my veggies.
So I went to a co-op for my pork and my chicken.
- [Interviewer] What about over here?
You got a lot of La Croix.
- There's usually restaurant supply stores
that sell name brand stuff
and you can get a better deal on them.
All these La Croix were like five bucks.
- [Interviewer] Oh, hold on a second
we just lost a can.
- [Jonathan] Can wild.
- [Interviewer] How often do you go grocery shopping?
- About every other day.
- Once or twice a week.
- Once or twice a month.
- [Interviewer] How much do you spend on food in a month?
- 150 bucks
- $200
- $250 on food.
- [Interviewer] That's a tiny amount.
- It is. Well, I eat at the restaurant
almost all of the time.
- Because we're able to trade, our budget
is allocated more for things on this side.
For that stuff,
- Yeah. We can usually get this stuff for like free
or trade ramen and products for selling.
Basically trading back farmers
their own products to get new products.
- [Interviewer] What did you eat growing up?
- Pretty straightforward food growing up
meat and vegetables.
- I had a slightly different experience.
I have some very nice early memories of being about five
and having suckling pig in Spain
and you know, stuff like that.
- Lots of pop tarts, sugary cereal, top ramen.
- Frozen vegetables, frozen meat.
- We were on welfare at the time.
So, we pretty much ate a lot of
government cheese, beans, and rice.
- [Interviewer] How did that influence how you eat now?
- That's another reason why I got that little grab bag.
It's not picture perfect food, but it's still sustainable.
So the normal person would be like,
that's just trash, but it's because
of the fact that we ate what was in front of you.
If you didn't like it, you went hungry.
- [Interviewer] How did you get into cooking professionally?
- I was always trying to help my mom
in the kitchen and she would try my
crazy experiments and be very interested and helpful.
- We are huge food network fans,
the original Iron Chef, not this
shitty American version that's out today.
- I started cooking in college,
just in their cafeteria.
Then I dropped out of college and I needed a job.
And cooking is what I knew how to do.
- Ever since I like started watching my grandma
cook early on I was like, that's what I want to do.
I used to play football too.
So I thought it was going to be like football or cooking
but then I stayed like super short.
So I went into cooking. (both laughing)
- [Interviewer] What are you going to cook
from these ingredients?
- The chicken I plan on breaking that down
and using the carcass for stock.
- I will probably make some sort of hash.
- [Interviewer] What's hash?
- Hash is a fancy way of saying
things that have been either sauteed,
or roasted and then mixed together in cube form.
- What are you going to do with that uncured bacon?
- That's my favorite bacon.
I mean, I'll throw it on top of anything.
- Have you ever put on the ice cream?
- Nope.
- What
- [Interviewer] How hard is cooking on the body?
- It's rough, I got started when I was like 25
and by the time I was 28,
bad back, knees are pretty rough.
- I've had one surgery.
Basically, I was holding saute up hands
to the point that it ripped my tendon open
and kind of shredded it.
- [Interviewer] Damn.
Is there a way to improve the industry
so that isn't so hard on them?
- I think you'd have to improve the
entire mentality of the industry.
So no, I don't think so.
We still live and work
in a country where it's not okay to show pain.
- We were cooking foie gras,
there's a lot of hot fat slashing
from the pan and it's splashed all over my arm.
- It's cool to be tough and strong.
- I'm good chef, don't worry about me. I'm fine.
- People are still coming into work, when they're hurt.
- The end of the night when I took the
bandage off, there was just
this giant bubble popping out my arm.
Do you have a high pain tolerance?
- I mean, I worked the rest of the night, so.
- [Interviewer] You're professional cooks,
any advice you can impart?
- Don't be afraid of high enough temperatures.
- Make sure you have sharp knives.
- Add salt.
- You'll probably mess up and that's okay.
Make sure the ingredients are
as high quality as you can get.
That's the main thing for flavor
- You should always invest more
in the food that you consume, groceries don't
and food doesn't come from a box at a store.
It comes from individuals. Therefore, yeah.
He's got an out. I can ramble, I'm sorry.
(machine calculating)
(plastic bag crinkling)
- [Interviewer] Child proof bags?
- Yeah.
- [Jonathan] Are we gonna keep the groceries?
- [Interviewer] Oh, hell yeah.
- [Jonathan] Oh, awesome.
- [Interviewer] Awesome, thank you guys.
- [Both] Thank you.
(bright upbeat music)