Hari Cameron of Grandpa Mac, and Chef Consultant at Arcobaleno - Talking Pasta, the Move to Fast Casual, and Content Creation

Welcome everyone. This is Chris with the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. Today I have chef Hari Cameron. Hari is currently the chef consultant at Arcobaleno. And is a chef, partner at Grandpa Mac, welcome to the show, Hari. Great to have you.

Hey, I'm so happy to be here.

I'm so glad we could do this. We talked about this back in March and you know, things happen, but here we are.

Yeah, things definitely have been happening. But we're here and it's time now. So it's great.

Yeah, so I've known you for a little while. And I guess we probably met officially maybe at Star chefs like at this point probably like seven years ago or something like that. I think a lot of our listeners know you as a chef who had a more kind of fine dining restaurant in Rehoboth, which you closed what this past year.

Yeah, so our last dinner service was New Year's Eve and it was a grand blowout. And I had a 10 year dream to open a restaurant before I was 30. I did it when I was 29 and we operated for eight years. And it was great. You know, it was a, you know, you set out to cook food and make a goal. And we made that goal and we really cooked some beautiful things. And the timing, of course, with all of the pandemic and everything. to own a fine dining restaurant right now is not the easiest thing for anybody. And, but it's definitely not easy when you're in pandemic conditions. So it was the right time in our life to exit that. And, you know, I missed the wonderful people that I worked with every day, I missed the guests that I had so much interaction with and, you know, we were, we were purchasing from so many farms, and you know, part of a large part of my job was capturing the best beautiful ingredients and those are things that I still get to do but just not the same way. But again, everything has a beginning, middle and end. And it It ended but it ended in a positive way. So it's definitely you know, it's it's a it's a positive thing for my life and it's a positive thing in general and I love the food that we cooked that i'm used, you know, we really held fast to cooking food that we loved and food that was seasonal regional. I was a chef the restaurant was in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. So we had the beautiful the Mid Atlantic to draw from both for inspiration for ingredients, the beach was one block away so we can take a boardwalk stroll to clear the mind and find inspiration or that we could go a mile this way and and go into all the farms and all the great things that are in Delaware and in beyond. So it was a great experience. I My heart is there and I learned so much and I grew so much and it You know, being a chef for 20 years and being in my restaurant for eight years, it's something that I'll do again, but in a different way.

It's a really great, special place. We went last summer, and I took the whole family, I was really excited that I could go and get a really nice meal that wasn't just fast casual family, family friendly, per se, I guess, but then I could bring my kids who were, you know, seven year old twins and they both came and found some really great stuff to eat and we had a great meal and I think we're actually there on your birthday, I think two years in a row. We ended up there on our on your birthday, which is I guess just when we take our vacation to the beach, except this year, maybe not. But so you already had to grandpa max going so I guess that's you know, kind of your your lifeline there when COVID had you were kind of prepared because you had to fast casual restaurants. When did you start those restaurants and how did you start them?

Yeah, so yeah, at a(MUSE.), we wanted to cook food, which was seasonal, regional, but we're at the beach. So we wanted to if your kids wanted to come in, and they could come in and flip flops and they could get something to eat that would be familiar to them. But then we also had the potential there to cook seven course tasting menu, and it would change with every table depending on kind of where the inspiration came from. But five years ago, I think it was in 2015. My brother was in California, and he said, Hey, Hari, how do you feel about a mac and cheese restaurant? You know, it's something I'm really excited about. There was one called the homeroom in San Francisco or in the Oakland area that he really liked and he was ready to come home. And I said, well, Orion, which is Orion's my brother and my partner, I am a chef, like I can't be a cat. Have boxed macaroni restaurant and I already have a fine dining. You know, upstairs restaurant. So it can't compete with that. And I said, well, let's work on it. So we worked on it together. And what we saw was, um, where food was going for younger generations. I can't make fast food. It's just not in my nature. And but I said, Okay, if we can make everything from scratch, if we can make it so that young couple on date, we want to go there. A family would want to go there old people, young people, professionals, if we could cook food that people wanted to eat every day and make it healthy and make it affordable, and make it a concept we could replicate that that would be something I'd be into. And we worked on it and we worked on it. I'm grandpa Mac was my great grandfather, who I stayed with in the summers in New Jersey. His name was Mervyn Cameron McCurdy, and he was a postmaster. He lived till he was 97 years old. He was born 1901 and he was just such a generous person he did so much for his community. He did so much for us and made such a big impact on our lives. So he was our grandpa Mac. So of course, we were thinking about making macaroni noodles, mac and cheese. So that's why we call the grandpa Mac to honor him. So it was a great, a great romaji I'm part of the symbol my little brother's a graphic artists as well. He actually drew a grandpa back in a cartoon. But he kind of said he put my grandpa back together with me and made the image that way. So it has kind of my style glasses, but my grandfather had glasses and a hat. It's kind of crooked a little bit, but then my grandmother's profile, so very good. So that's kind of how it started. It started out of already doing a restaurant but knowing we wanted to grow. And then also my younger brother was inspired. And I said okay, well let's think about this. You know, I've really always wanted to buy a pasta extruder and At amuse, it wasn't that style of restaurant. So it wasn't something that at the time we made the capital investment on. But it was something that I was like, Huh, I think we can really make the noodle and house, make the pasta, customize the shapes, make sauces that have deep flavor, but connect with every everybody and you know, it's something where I knew that wasn't the restaurant that I was going to be cooking in forever, but I knew that I could use the years of experience that I had as a professional and cook. You know, instead of making sauce in a pot, we make sauce at a 25 gallons steam kettle jacket there. And, you know, we you know, instead of the the menu changing micro seasonally, like amuse was doing the menu would be pretty static. There might be small changes, you know, throughout the year, but nothing that sweeping you know, we wanted it to be very familiar to people, we want people to come in there and feel like they are going home.

Is that where the relationship with Arcobaleno started? I mean, I guess we didn't really even get into what Arcobaleno is. They make a bunch of kitchen equipment, but notably, they make the extruders that you use to make your pasta correct.

That is correct. So that is where the relationship came from. You know, it's like I had known about them and seen them and talk to them and had a small relationship. But when I was ready to do you know, maybe a year before we got into grandpa Mac, we went to purchase the extruder. So I came here where I am today in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And Lancaster, Pennsylvania is nice because it is it isn't a very far drive for me from the beach. You know, it's about a two and a half hour drive. And it is, you know, really just just north of Delaware north and a little bit of West. But yeah, that's where the relationship started. I came up here and I got to know the owners mine, Antonio, which are my friends and my bosses and they had just a really great product with so much I could just see so much potential in an extruder and a tabletop extruder. I loved making pasta by hand, but it would be very difficult for me to have a restaurant, which was served primarily pasta, you know, we're going through in the height of our business, we're going through a 5050 pound bags of flour every two weeks, you know, so we're really going through a lot of semolina flour. And that would be very, very difficult to do that type of volume by hand. Nothing's impossible, but it might be cost prohibitive. So that's kind of where the relationship started. I really had good rapport and they liked the things that I were cooking with them. And then one year they invited me to cook with them at Star chefs And that was great. You know, I got to do one of the lunch carts. And I was there with some other really talented chefs making pasta. And I think that I did a pretty good job and we had a relationship. And then they kept, they invited me one time to work at a trade show with them where I were at a trade show and I were making pasta and kind of demonstrating the machines. At this time. I had a I had a, we have one of the eight teams that we dedicate to nothing but gluten free production, which is awesome. I owned the X 30. And then we hadn't quite purchased we have one that makes 90 pounds an hour which is in the front of our mainstay. Our flagship, Grandpa Mac. We're working on hopefully eventually having a grandpa Mac in a brewery as well locally. And it just has been drastically slowed down due to conditions of life. And right now we actually have a food truck, which is really, really great. And we're able to, you know, we had all of these events set up, you know, we're going to be in Dover downs at the speedway and do all these huge events, of course that which are not happening right now. But when the everything was on lockdown in the pandemic, we were able to pull that truck to the front of grandpa back and use that as our drive up window. So that could be contactless giving people food. We could keep our employees really safe. And we were able to, you know, keep contact away from it. And we're able to now we're not doing huge events, but we're able to go into neighborhoods and service those communities and we're able to, we do an event in our in our beach at Hudson fields, which is wonderful. Which is a local event which has its huge outdoor field, they have sports things of you can be very useful. Socially distant, but you can still listen to music and, and eat some food and drink some beer. So it really is helping our businesses out right now. And it's great arcobaleno we have a huge sticker on the side of it. And it says pasta powered by ARCA Bellino and my younger brother again, being the artist that he is, there's this beautiful, almost look like a yellow noodle camouflage all on the side and also lots of great stickers. So it's a, you know, it was a blessing for me to be able to have the dream of a muse and to run it positively and cook the food that we cooked. We got a lot of great awards and accolades out of us. And it was when we didn't think people were really paying attention but it was really because we stood by the food and service that we gave and all the great people that were on my team at amuse, and it was the right like I said the right time to sell a fine dining restaurant and then indefensible. rules. It's kind of nice because you know, to sit down I'm looking forward to the time where I can go back to a Michelin restaurant and have a food experience that will blow my mind I have been getting takeout but down at the beach it's very busy in the summertime there's been a recent kind of outbreak again in Delaware and everybody that I all our employees are being saved and nobody has gotten it but it's a definitely a hard time so I'm looking forward to the times when you can go back to how it was a little bit more.

Well, I think every neighborhood needs a drive thru mac and cheese food truck because that sounds amazing. I think just like an ice cream truck. You should just take it to the residential neighbors neighborhoods and start selling mac and cheese.

Yeah, so grandpa Mac, we're able to cook the food that people want to eat every day. You know we have on the truck we do things like we have a smoker so we'll do smoked meats or We do like to smoke pork mac and cheese or sometimes we'll do grilled or fried crab cakes or soft soft shell crab sandwiches. It's also we do this jumbo love chick pea cake which is like a crab cake but a vegan version. At grandpa Mac. We really try to incorporate everybody into dining, we think good food should be you know, accessible. We have all of our dishes can be made gluten free. We have lots of vegan and vegetarian options. And yeah, so I started working at arcobaleno they my Antonio said, Hey, Hari, if you are ever available, we're looking for a chef. And I said well, I have my I do lots of consulting for lots of businesses, lots of I do lots of marketing for things. I have a lot of coals and a lot of irons and a lot of coals if as they say. I said if it ever can work out you know I love you guys and I believe in your product. So I would really love to do To make it happen, and so I started in January, and I was nice. I was doing a bit of traveling before really broke before the COVID really hit hard, you know. And then when COVID happened, I was driving and doing it in one day a week not staying in hotels, it's like safer in my test kitchen than anywhere else, because it's me. And we're, we're now it's awesome. We have this really great zoom setup. So we're doing virtual training for chefs across the country. I'm helping arcobaleno work on and develop new product. And I it's just, it's a job in which I love because I really believe in the products that arcobaleno makes and brings and you know, the potential is so unlimited with them. And now I get to connect with chefs and share the info and share the love. I get to train people I get to develop things I get to you know I love the way that my brain works. It's such a problem solving kind of r&d brain. So, people send me their recipes and say, okay, is this possible with these machines, it's like, not only is it possible, but it's awesome and we'll work on it together. So I really have the ability right now to it fulfills all my needs. As a chef, you know, I get to come in, play with the best toys in the most beautiful setting. I get to still research and develop recipes. I get to connect with chefs everywhere. And it is you know, it's a dream I really love. I love it here and I love what I do and it is, you know, I'm not a salesperson, I've never been a but if you if you show people how it can make their life better and how it can be profitable. I don't have to be a salesperson. It's like, do you make pasta? Wonderful. This is how this machine can possibly work for you. If we can help you with it, please let us do so. And if it's not for you, then that's okay as well, maybe you'll have a concept someday that you might want to make pasta, or you might need the size machine. So it's a wonderful, a wonderful space and a great product and pasta is for sharing.

Do you have any advice for any chefs looking to become brand ambassadors with companies? I mean, obviously, they should probably already be using them. But would you recommend reaching out, you know, if you have a piece of kitchen equipment that you've used for a while and think that you were kind of a, an expert on it, you know, would it? Should you reach out to those people and say, Hey, I'm using your stuff? Is there any way we could strike up a relationship? I'm just interested in that because I know you've worked with a couple different companies.

I do. So I think the first thing is, is that your work has to stand on its own. And it has to, you know, all the people who are really great brand ambassadors that I know are just doing and using those things naturally. These are the tools They're using, and they're making really beautiful food with it. So I think the first and foremost, before everybody just wants to run out the brand ambassadors, practice your craft, perfect your craft, make beautiful original content, be yourself and your food, because those things are really representational. Now, if you feel like you're there with your food and you're, you have really great product, I think a lot of brands, a lot of companies who make beautiful cooking products need really good content. Okay? So start by doing that. If you want to be that way, start making content and start tagging brands, maybe in the content you're making, like, do a bunch of work where you're making videos of doing what you love, and using the tools that you use every day, but tag those, you know, do some marketing for them. It's not asked for you know, you know impressed people by your work and by your passion. And then once you have, you know, once you have some really great content, then your content has to speak for itself. You know, most chefs could contact 1000 brands, but those thousand brands have 1000 people contacting them. So it's how can you as a chef, stand out? Well, here at arcobaleno we really love it when people make beautiful things with our products. And we have lots of chefs who we work with very closely to promote their promote their products. We send them dyes, we, you know, we work with them closely. And it's something where, right now I do that with Personally, I do that with multiple companies and multiple organizations and it's about it. Everything in life is about creating relationships and how you create those relationships is with what you lead out. If you always lead with really great food, and really great quality, that's a relationship that you're making. You know, if you're in a restaurant, if you have a catering company, if you're trying to be a brand ambassador, with everything that you do, sign your name, sign your signature, with everything that you put out, do your best always. People are always watching, especially now with social media with, with everything. We're also interconnected. So I guess the first piece of advice I could have is, do you be original use use the product in an original way, use it in it. And then the second thing I have is like hashtags are important at the companies that you like and you wish to and then the next thing I can say is go to trade shows, go to the places where the people that make the decisions are you know, go to those go Have those situations. Introduce yourself. You know, when people get emails, you get 1000 emails. In a day, sometimes emails can be lost in the shuffle. And when you're emailing people you're getting to the first level, but go to trade shows, you know, create really great contact and just say hi, you know, make a relationship, create a relationship. Once your relationships created, who knows, you know, everything is timing, who knows whether that they would need somebody or want somebody but every company needs people using their products and needs really good content with their products. Every company is looking for that. So I would say if you're only cooking, to be a brand ambassador for something, it probably won't work out for you, unfortunately. But if you're making really beautiful and wonderful content, for yourself, and for your audience, and for your diners, then Maybe something can happen. You know, there's there's only a few people that I know out there who their main thing or one of their large things is just working with companies and products, you know, and it is possible in life. I would say it's probably more attainable to cook beautiful food every day and love people and feed people. And then if you can work with a company in some way, so be it.

And it's a lot of work, I think. I mean, obviously, everything's a lot of work. But I think sometimes people on the outside think that it's really easy. Jesus, Hari at StarChefs this year, how many things did you have going on? I mean, I just had Dave Pietranczyk on the show, and I said, you know, he's one of the hardest working guys at ICC, but this year, it seemed like you had a dozen things going on from workshops to pop ups to working with all these different brands. I mean, you know, if you want to work with those brands, you got to put on the show and you really did it this year. I mean not you haven't done it other years, but this year, it seemed especially busy.

I like I think in life you get out what you put in, you know, you put in the love, you receive the love you put in the hard work, you the hard work comes back to you. And yeah, when I'm at that particular event or any event, I just try to push you know, I, I always thought about what I think about the chef's Congress, I think the only person I was always like, man, if I can cook half as many dishes as Shola, then I'm doing something right. You know, it's like, I can keep them, you know, but for me, it's like, Where, where else am I going to be able to cook with people who is for the shirt, sheer love of cooking and for the sheer sharing of knowledge and, you know, but every time I go to an event, that's the mindset that I go after or every, even when in my own cuisine, you know, I, I want my food to have intense flavor and focus, but I'm going to go you know, I study things and when I study things, I go deep into them. And I go deep into the history and origin of these things. And I go into different sources and purveyors of these things. And I go into looking at 100 recipes that are already kind of being created like this. And then once I'm doing all of these things, then an outcome will calm me down. The thing I love about creativity is creativity is never, you just sit down and be creative. Creativity is everything that you've seen, heard, tasted, touch, it all kind of melds together and it comes together into something beautiful. That is it, you know, there's no nothing is just made, you know, there's influences happening from so many things and it's making those influences your own and and, you know, adopting them for the things that you know, and the things that you want to share and love. So, yeah, it's a fun thing. You know, I I love it. Cook every day. I love to connect with people I love to explore. And those are the things that really keep me stoked on doing it and keep me juiced up. It's like, yeah, I could only do one thing there. But what's the fun in that when you could do 13 things? So,

And you do beverages as well, you had your own spirit produced with Dogfish Head. How cool is that? And I know you you want to cocktail competition. Is that how that started?

Yeah, so I've been very fortunate. I am actually with there's a guy named Rob Bagley and he's in Rehoboth Beach, and he's actually starting a kind of helped him with his business and I'm involved in that as well. It's called D still, but it's like Delaware deSTLJ. And, yeah, it entered in a lot of cocktail competitions, and I have won a good amount of them. To me, I think, you know, you'll find some stuff. Just to say, Oh, I don't like to bake. I don't like to do pastry. It's too much like science or I'm gonna leave the cocktails to somebody else. To me. It's all technique and flavor. You know, it's like I'm learning the origins of things is exploring things is fun. For me. It's like, it's not only my hobby, but it's a fortunate hobby that I can pursue every day. And, yeah, so that was great. I actually entered into Dogfish Head. They have a distillery, so they're gin. And I competed against lots of really great bartenders and cocktail makers and I came up with the spirit in which we bottled and when they sold it, they sold it in it was a they donated to keep him open a charity of our area called chef. But it was it was something where I took inspiration from the actual I made a shrub From the sequence I took the sequence, it was already a naturally sour, and I use acid phosphates, which are an old school soda jerk. And I made that into this really, really bright instead of vinegar, but a shrub from the beer. And then I got my fishermen went out with them and got a big tub of deep sea water. And then I made Delaware sea salt from that off of our coast. And then I took and I thought about the flavor profile of the sequence which has black wines, and sea salt and rows and then I made the traditional T of Persia, which is a movie t which is made with saffron and black lime and rose petals. And I took my local cow's milk and I made a milk and tea punch and I fat wash that. So I called it compelled to quench and drink tea by the sea a delawareans fired milk and tea punch, because it was the most long, ridiculous Title I could think of. And it was it was really wonderful. So really well balanced milk, tea punch, you know, when you add the milk and you're able to break the fat out of it, but leave behind the lactic sugars and the way and it really had it was really crisp and bright while being floral. The black lines have a deep fermented flavor as well as it was. It was fun. It was a fun cocktail. And then with Rob actually the guy who was he was working at the time. He actually he and I took my original cocktail, and then scaled it up and I was actually on a bottling line and I was bottling each of the bottles, which was great. So yeah, it was a really fun thing. I think that um, I love when food and beverage can go together where it's one in one equals three, you know, with the synergies of really great food and beverage together. And yeah, it was It's fun. It's still about bumping. Eventually I have aspirations of owning a distillery, and other other companies and they're fun things for me to do. And I just again, I love science and I love culture. I like where they come together and the things that people can enjoy.

So was food always a big thing in your family growing up? So you already mentioned you have one brother, who's the partner with you? You I know you also have another brother who's a chef. So there's three of you in the family in the food business. How did that happen?

Yeah, that's a good question. Um, my, so you know, some of my great food memories. When I was younger, were eating Indian food. My name is Hari, which comes from bahagia. But he said my dad was a hippie, and I ate a lot of vegan and vegetarian Indian food as a child. My dad's a vegetarian. Of course, my dad was the guy he loved making just spaghetti with red sauce and he He would take the spaghetti and every time we made it, he would throw it on the ceiling. And when he threw spaghetti on the ceiling and it stuck, that's what you do the spaghetti was ready. And we were the dad let's keep throwing the spaghetti like no no no more throwing spaghetti, but um, he was he had a couple of good dishes he is he actually owns a massala shy business in Eugene, Oregon. After that, he got remarried and he Barbara is my stepmother. And it's called Blue Lotus Chai and they're distributed in Whole Foods and fresh market. You can order it online and they make really beautiful Masala Chai, which is the spicy of India but um, my dad was always a carpenter. And he he was a general contractor, but he could do so many things. You know, my dad is naturally an artist, he carved totem poles and he made flutes with our next door neighbor that he played Native American things when we had sweat lodges and he did silver smithing and I started to get back into silversmithing which is wonderful, which I sat in his lap and vile things. My mom was a waitress when I was growing up a mother, you know, she took care of us, but she occasionally worked as a server. And she's a physical therapist now or PTA. And she is just a ray of sunshine. She has this natural infectious quality and a loving spirit. And who knows, you know, I always really liked to be in the kitchen. I was like to be in the garden, like eating fresh tomatoes from eating cucumber from the field. But I is one of these things where, who knows why we all you know my brother Joshua camera, and he's in Bangkok right now. He is a chef of the tallest restaurant in Bangkok with us and he's doing really great food over there. Yeah, I don't know. You know, my mom is a good cook. She has some really great dishes. Is she a great cook? I mean, who's to say, when you eat your mom's cooking, it's always great. You know, it's like, she makes this cucumber salad in the summertime. And it's one that I like to make as well. And it's like, so simple. It's like, we're you slice the onions and you marinate the onions of vinegar. And then you add them to the cucumber salt. And maybe maybe there's other things too. I mean, depending on how it made it, I made it different ways. But, you know, when my mom cooks, she's always like, ohare. I know, it's not like what you cook, and it's like, to me, any food that's prepared with love, any food that anybody cooks for me. I am not a critic. I am just a human being and a lover of food, things and so simple things are great for me as well. And yeah, who knows why we're all three in the food business. But my brother Elian is a graphic artist and he was always in the front of the house and he's my general manager. He's the managing partner there. If you're there He is the guy who is giving you that great service. He's the guy who he, my little brother is this natural athlete who can pick up anything physical and just naturally do it. And he uses that same kind of team mentality. In the rep rep on Mac, you know, it's kind of like, he's like, calling the shots make it happen. So, you know, but my little brothers also he was a very picky eater. And even now, he eats a lot of different things, but he is so critical hotel you if he doesn't like it, they're like, nope, don't like it. Like, go back and do it again. Where for me it's micro adjustments. It's, you know, I like to eat every food. So, yeah, yeah, with Grandpa Mac. I really like the idea of a business that can make as many people happy as possible because like, I think that is what good food is. It's caring for people making people happy. So I think that's the thing that we got from our parents is, is that caring for people? And it just turns out, it happened in hospitality and the rest is history. So

Well, my son would say, as long as you keep the arcade there with the free play on it, you're going to be his favorite restaurant. We love that,

You know, Galaga and Pac Man. Unfortunately, with COVID, we've had to turn that off and right out of order, just with the germs spread, it's just another thing for us to scrub down. But hopefully we find a vaccine soon so that we can turn Pac Man back on for everybody.

So what's next? Do you have plans for expansion with Grandpa Mac? Do you have anything else cooking up?

Right now I'm really, like I said, half of my week, and a lot of times, you know, when I'm at home, connecting with chefs or when I'm here in Lancaster half the week. I'm really putting focus on arcobaleno because it's something that I really enjoy and it's a job that's kind of well suited for my nature. As far as grandpa Mac. Like I said, Who knows, you know, I think now isn't a time for real growth for businesses. I think now is the time for sustaining businesses. And I think we'll all weather the storm to get through the greener pastures. I'm internally an optimist. And I think that this like every other depression is a phase that will will come through stronger because of the hard choices and decisions we've had to make. So you know, as far as growing grandpa Mac right now, I'm always accepting new things. You know, I like to I have a job where I'm an ambassador for think rice, which advocates for all the rice growers in America. I've done work with corto olive oil before they have really wonderful California grown in Lodi beautiful, fresh olives and they actually came right before COVID and made a video of myself. And myself making pasta in our kitchen, which is really beautiful and nice. But at this time I am I, I really love where I am in life and I'm very, I feel blessed and I count my blessings every day for where I am and who knows what will happen tomorrow. All we have is the food that we cook today and the relationships we have. And so right now know what's what's next for me, you know, in maybe, you know, I always want to help people out in life. And who knows in another 10 or 15 years, if we could have an institute where we could help people grow food and learn how to cook and still cook beautiful food. I always have aspirations of doing things that are bigger than just one restaurant. You know, a restaurant has a 30 year shelf life 40 100 year shelf life, but I want to have someday something which for generations To come, that can help people out. You know, I want to create those type of things with my life and my experiences. I always do work with lots of nonprofits to help people. Of course, these big events that I've been the chefs have in the past aren't going on right now. But I was speaking with my friend, her name is Stacy lamotta. And she does this event every fall where it's called a southern Delaware Food and Wine Festival. And it was it was an indoor event at 800 people. And with two local causes, I said, Stacy, I definitely think you should keep this event going. I think you should have learned but it needs to be. The money needs to go inward towards the restaurant community which is suffering. We need to be able to have this outdoors in a huge venue so that people can be absolutely social distance. We need to take people's temperature we need to make sure that people are being safe because people still need to come together and Experience food and chef's still need to cook. But it needs to be safe and it needs to be different. So that's kind of where I'm working right now. I'm still working on a book called The chef response with chefs around the country. arcobaleno is sponsoring the book with other great people as well. Another podcast that I was on...Manuel, shout out to you. His podcast is really, really wonderful. It's called flavor unknown, and check out his podcast as well. And he's been helping me out with it. We're kind of stalled in a holding pattern right now. But we wanted to make a book where every chef who participate in it could equally share in how it benefited so we could share recipes and we could, we're calling it the chef response. And it's what is the chef's response to the pandemic To cook and to keep cooking, and cook what you know and cook for your family or cook to make your business survive in any way that you can, you know, as a chef, it's inherent in me to cook what what I have to do you know what I have to get, no matter how many other things that I'm thinking about hobbies or things I always have to cook and it's kind of what's in me so I guess that's what's next is to keep surviving keep thriving, keep connecting with chefs across the country, keep innovating, keep cooking.

I love it. And one of the one of the questions we always ask is what you want to be remembered for, but it sounds like you already jumped right in and answered that there.

I guess what I want to be remembered for is I've lived in many places, you know, my family moved around, but um, I've always lived on the east coast of the of the US I've always been a mean Atlantic, upstate New York and some different places but um, You know, I often meet people and say, Man, I met, I've met people in the West Coast that have eat my food in Delaware, which is amazing. I always wanted to be seasonally, seasonally and regionally great. You know, I wanted to be, but it's really great when people come to me and say, Hey, Hari, do you remember this dish? I had seven years of yours. It was like the best thing I've ever eaten. I still, my wife and I still remember this experience that we had. And I said, No, I don't remember that dish. It sounds like something I would have cooked at the time. I'm glad that it impacted you. I'm glad that you know, if you are fortunate enough in life, to have somebody that you want to eat with. And if you're fortunate enough in life, to be able to share an experience of socially culturally, eating is the most intimate thing we can do. You know, you're literally sharing intimate space with somebody, you're putting things into your body. you're sharing your culture, you know, so Guess the things that I would want to be remembered for is sharing some of that love and holding a space that we can really holding a space for a period of time that we could really, people could come and celebrate their best and most beautiful weddings and their best and most beautiful, happy times or come together to to mourn something or come together to celebrate a graduation, you know, those things are wonderful things. And the other thing is, is that I've always tried to cook food that had one foot firmly planted in history and technique and culture and one foot planted in my own head and my own imagination, the here and now of what food can be. I think you have to honor the classics you have to honor great food or you have no technique or you have no you know, technique has to be paramount. You know, you have to have technique, but technique without luck. It's just hollow. So I don't know, I don't know if that's a good answer or not, you know, it's kind of putting together, putting together the old and the new. Representing great farm or, you know, working with great farmers cooking food that has historical ties, but also cooking food, which is great on many levels. So there's Antonio right now. Oh, come say hi to everybody out there. This is Antonio. Everybody is the president and proprietor owner of arcobaleno. My boss, great friend. He's been this year arcobaleno has been in business for 25 years. And I'm only very new to it, but it wouldn't be without him. So happy and honored to be here with him. And so if you're, if you're ever in Lancaster, and you need some good parts of things, this guy is the guy. So thank you guys. Good to hand. Yeah, we're really blessed to have Such a common thing working together and and it's such a good friend as well. So we really appreciate that. Thank you. So enjoy. And thank you, Mom, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yeah, so this is the test kitchen right here in arcobaleno. You walk in the front and you're greeted by smiling faces. Of course we have hand sanitizer, everybody wears their mask. And then if you look to the back of Arcobaleni, behind us, there's a machine shop called gam machine shop, where we're able to tool different parts. We're able to fix things things can be assembled. What makes arcobaleno great is some companies you call and you you can't connect with people but Amy's smiling face on the phone, Scott's tech support, you know, all of you know, you call and you can, you know, I've been very fortunate had the machine for over six years and not had any issues with it, but it's one of these things where I know that if I did it And I worked for but even before I worked for the company, I could stand behind the support that you would get. And I think that's, I think that's a really great thing when you can work we can you can have relationships with people, which you know, who you buy your product from, should be a relationship. You know, it kind of goes back to the ambassador and thing like, who you're cooking for is a relationship. All of these things. So, again, this is I'm a chef without a restaurant. I have restaurant but I'm not the chef there is the owner who dictates the recipes, but this isn't a restaurant but it's also a place where we can, we're going to be using this beautiful GoPro this setup to connect with chefs across the country to train people further to give classes to share the knowledge of bread making pasta making charcuterie, all of these things that I really love pastas, just such This simple flour and water thing, but through technique, it can be so different and it can be so beautiful. On the machines you know I've recently made some beautiful hybridized ramen noodles, where you alkalize the noodles and you use vital wheat gluten and you use a high protein flour, or extruded soba noodles something so difficult with buckwheat and, and a hybrid noodle that of course, it's not the tradition. It's not the traditional noodle. But in America, we're able to look at technique and make a noodle and make it our own. And I think there's something very beautiful about that, I think ever since the beginning of time. Food is changed when other cultures have been introduced in America. America is such a melting pot ever since its inception. It's great. We can learn from each other and we can push on with food and yeah, I'm super stoked. I really love handmade past I love handmade pasta tools. I love extruding pasta. Yesterday we were using this beautiful mixer and you know I love making pizza and I love making bread. I I don't know if there's a food I don't like so I'm blessed that I'm in the right career for sure.

Well, that's great. That kind of leads into the last bit here. We always do kind of some rapid fire questions. So the first question I always ask is, what's your favorite food? And I know that's really tough. Do you have something that you go back to like a comfort food or something that you really love?

I don't have a favorite food. But I love bra through mommy. When my dad was when we were sick growing up, my dad would make me nice bow soup instead of chicken soup. And I can just think about that umami ever since a young age. Here in Lancaster the other night I had some Sichuan food for a place called San Juan gourmet shout out to them if you're ever in Lancaster. It's so funny. It's so freakin good and I love Vietnamese food I love the noodles bonfire and I love the broth. But I I I don't have one favorite food you know of course I love pasta. I love noodles of so many different types in origin but I love vegetables. I love vegetables sleeve on my arm. And people say you know, steak is going to be steak and there's a lot of different steak and cook in different ways you can sauce in different ways. But vegetables to me are so interesting. You know, there's so many variations of each vegetable and like where it is where it's from where cooking season, like so, you know if I can eat anything for the rest of my life It will be like Chinese broccoli or like, like Greek braised greens or like broccoli Rob like I love those things so that's not a good answer. I was the worst answer ever. Not very concise. I love food. So

Not the worst answer and these aren't always quickfire. We say they're quickfire and some people are like, it's pizza or pasta, but sometimes you have to dive a little deeper there.

I'll try to be more quickfire in the next response. I I tend to ramble when I'm on recording. I love food it I people always do that to me as well as like, hey, Hari, do you have a signature dish? And I was like, No, I don't, I can't even. I mean, we had the potted chicken of like flog raw chicken liver mousse, and chicken reacts and like a jar of pickles. That was the only thing that was on amuses menu the whole time. So signature dish? I don't know.

And I hate that question, too. I shouldn't ask it because we all hate when we get asked that right. What kind of food do you cook? What's your favorite cuisine? What do you do when it's like I have done so much and made so much? I don't know.

I love it all.

I still throw it out there for everyone.

Well, it's nice to see how somebody reacts to it. You know?

What are some of your favorite culinary resources are there websites, books, blogs, Instagram accounts, like if someone's looking to expand in You know, it could be very specific. It could be about pasta, it could be a certain cuisine, but what do you really love?

That's a great question. I really like you know, I always find I always found inspiration in our culinary magazine it comes out quarterly. These are the things as a young cook I inspired to I always I like Michael Romans ratio book. I think everybody got ratios tattooed on my arm, Michael, Ruhlman, big shout out. If you know a ratio, if you know technique and ratio, you can cook anything within that ratio. So I think understanding those fundamentals, of course, loose gastronomy, you know, if you want to know the, if you don't want to know where you're going, you have to know where you've been. So looking at all those classic things there. If you're looking at bread, I love Peter Reinhart. I love his books. I think he's the man I've got. He moderated a panel I was on and I was like, "We're not worthy. We're not worthy". It was really great. I guess in everything you look to the people doing it. Well. When I was younger if you want to know hydrocolloids I used to love kite most hydrocolloid manual you can download online. When I do r&d for stuff. I still reference that. I think that's great. Yeah, I think those are a couple that I really love.

That was my very first intro to hydrocolloids, I think. I did a workshop with Dave Arnold and he recommended everyone go and download that and they kept updating it every maybe six months or so. And I haven't checked back I don't know if they've updated it. I don't think I've looked at the website in five years or so. But I'm sure the original cookbook, you know, it was a couple hundred pages such a great resource.

I just worked on a keto startup pasta. So I was referencing a lot because when you're doing gluten replacers and when you're understanding gels, you need gels when you're not, you know, low carb and high protein things. So that's why it was on my mind because I've just been working on this r&d for a startup for this keto for my buddy Elliot

Very cool. I don't have anything else for you. Do you have anything you'd like to share with our listeners before we get out of here today?

Well, I just want everybody to know that COVID is not going to last forever. So keep your head up. I think everybody needs to vote with their dollars. Support the companies that you think are doing it really well. You know, if your restaurant in your town is doing takeout, try to do that once a month if that's what your budget will allow you to support the people who you want to survive and sustain. Buy from the companies you believe in. create relationships with people. It's really difficult for restaurant owners right now. It's really difficult for chefs in our industry, it's difficult for manufacturing companies. This is an unprecedented time or you know, not not in many people's lifetimes have we seen something like this, but this too shall pass. This is not our forever. Be safe, be socially distant. But don't be socially distant, make calls to people tell people all you love them. be physically distinct, don't be socially distant, you know, keep working hard. And we'll all get through this stronger together. And I just, I'm very easy to reach. If anybody wants to connect with me for any reason, please reach out on my Instagram DM me, it's m h, Ma, ri. Ch M. I'm not as active in posting as I once was, but I don't use it as anything. You know, I've cooked much better things that are on my Instagram account, but it's the things that excite me. Also, if you're interested in pasta machines or pasta equipment at all, if you go to arcobaleno, pastas website or website you can see all the things we do I've done a lot of videos on there. Or if you go to arcobaleno Instagram account, I'm able to connect with people that way as well. In my life, I'm always helping people. So if there's a way that I can help you please let me As well, and I will be stronger when we get this together. If you know any nurses in your life or doctors tell them that you appreciate them. When people cook for you say thank you, and we're there love cooking is love food is love pasta is for sharing. I'm out.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much. This has been great. And to all our listeners, this has been the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. As always, you can find us at chefswithoutrestaurants.com .org and all social media channels. Thanks so much, and have a great week. Transcribed by https://otter.ai