Chef Daniel Holzman on The Best Way to Learn to Cook

Youtube changed the game. Its rare that I ever open a cookbook nowadays. You get the recipe and a demonstration on how to cook it. Its hard to beat that as a home cook.

Chef Jean-Pierre’s YouTube videos are a great place to start for home cooking

just got my first job in a gourmet kitchen, absorbing as much as I can before I start in 2 weeks. This was weirdly helpful as far as mindset.

I love cooking at home, but would not have the stamina and patience to do it professionally. Thankful for all the chefs and cooks out there showing what can be done at higher levels.

Started as a dishwasher, my head chef worked at Michelin star restaurants. I asked him to peel potatoes and little by little I would cook bacon and do small prep jobs. One thing after another I would buy books and read them after work. They didn’t require me to do that but I had a passion for cooking. My Food and beverage director and head chef guided me even though they are very demanding intense people. But I remained humble and that gave me new opportunities in the kitchen. From being chef de partie of breakfast to now being a banquet captain serving hundreds of people on a daily basis. For us in the food and beverage industry it is our home, our co workers become family and the kitchen becomes the only place we feel safe. It’s not for everyone, it’s hard, long hours and most of us deal with depression. But it is freedom through discipline. I would encourage anyone who wants to cook professionally to just start from the bottom. The dishwasher is probably the most integral part of the kitchen and is no less than the head chef. You can achieve anything you put your mind to.

I learned to cook way before I went to culinary school. Which was very obvious to the chefs I learned under. Culinary school mainly helped sharpen my skills and gave me a big appreciation for good food.

My mother had me in the kitchen as a small child making home made egg noodles, chicken & dumplings, roasts, baking cakes...I thought she was teaching me math with all of the fractions following recipes. My father was a meat cutter and taught me a lot about cutting and trimming meat. How to cut up a chicken. He loved BBQ & Smoking. These days I use YouTube to find anything I didn't learn from my parents.

I feel the same way about the trades. Sure you can go to trade school, but there are so few electricians I’ll train and pay you.

Youtube is better than any cooking tv show. You'll learn a lot and can actually see techniques vs a cookbook.

I had a similar story. I started at the best Chinese restaurant in town. I started by hanging out there and then went from learning for free, to dishwasher, to deep frying to eventually su-chef. I had an opportunity to own the restaurant later but thankfully didn’t do it.

1) Think of something you want to eat 2) Research online how to cook it (cross referencing, of course) 3) Attempt it

I think cooking is the one skill everybody says they wish they would take the time to learn, yet only a few actually take that time. Nothing is better than a meal you cooked yourself.

Really cool of him to share his experiences. Grew up in restaraunts and I have always had massive respect for well run establishments. I will say, the best food is made in the home.

Great chefs were here long before culinary school

I didn’t know the first thing about cooking when I became a dishwasher. The chef at my first restaurant liked my work ethic and slowly started taking me out of the pit to show me basic knife skills so I could help with prep. 10 years later I accumulated experience in 6 different kitchens and was a sous chef for a few years at a flagship restaurant in a luxury boutique hotel/resort. I saw so many people come and go from culinary school. They had skill, but couldn’t hang with the pace or deal with the heat that is commercial restaurant. Now with YouTube, anyone anywhere can learn how to cook if they apply themselves. I only cook at home now. I had to get out of the industry because I destroyed my life with alcohol, Xanax, and cocaine.

I'm 34, I only started learning to cook recently. I've recently made my first chicken soup/stock/gravy, hash brown.

valuable information , will use

Preppy Kitchen is the best cooking channel there is I think, he really shows you how to cook through the entire process and gives little tips and tricks.

My advice though starting out is start with Italian, there's plenty of tutorial videos online, and Italian recipes that are traditional tend to be very cheap and very easy, and frequently much faster than what you would expect. adding the fact that Italian food might very well be the best on the planet, and it's an incredibly strong base to start from, and in reality the core of Italian cooking is a small handful of key techniques which are repeated with slight variations throughout all of it, and mastering those core components will give you the tools needed to expand into dozens of other cuisines.

I started out as a Kitchen Porter, made sure my time keeping was good, became reliable and then I started showing interest in what the chefs where cooking, what’s in it, how do they make it etc etc. enquired about that I want to move up in the ladder. My chance came and then I was half prep chef and half kitchen Porter. Then when a new kitchen Porter started, I was full time doing prep chef and then eventually I became a chef. This took about 2-3years, from kitchen Porter to chef