So amazing to have my favourite Chef and Sandwich artist on the Podcast today. Lina Caschetto has an inspiring story about finding her own way through life and through our industry. Her background in design and many years of working and honing her craft in Paris, has made her unassuming little sandwich shop one of the best bites of food in the city. I hope you enjoy her stories of adventure and fun, but always with a very strong backbone of tenacity and grit. And I can't say this enough. For a proper sandwich, go see her at her shop, Say Hey Cafe, you will be thankful I sent you.

On today's podcast we have long time hospitality veteran Michael Ziff. With his vast array of experience of opening some of the best restaurants in Vancouver to running one of the best restaurants in the Okanagan. The iconic Poplar Grove Winery, which opened its restaurant five years ago with Michael at the helm and it has grown into the go to restaurant in Penticton/ Naramata.
Hospitality in general is about telling the story of the restaurant, the food and the wine. It is integral to the experience of dining out. It is integral to the fabric of being a hospitality professional. Story telling is at the core of who we are and what we do. I hope you enjoy Michael's insights and I really look forward to having him at COOKSCAMP this September.

Once in a while you can be really pleasantly surprised by a local business. That happened to me last December. I moved into a new apartment with my wife Tina and san Eli and we were discovering our new place and all that came with it. A new bakery/ pastry shop that I had not heard of before was in the new retail section of the complex and I wanted to try it out. They had coffee and a beautiful pastry case of really beautiful viennoiserie, and collection of cake slices and creme puffs. I ordered my usual cappuccino and simple croissant, I paid and walked out. As I slowly walked down the block sipping my coffee and pulling my breakfast treat from its bag, I took a bite stopped in my tracks. A thousand layers of butter soaked pastry shattered against my bite and was transported back in time to Paris, where I experienced a similar and familiar taste and texture. As I continued home, all I wanted to do was each another bite. I got to my front door and the sad realization that my bag was empty and the trail of croissant crumbs were the only evidence of my delicious breakfast.
Since that time I have had many delicious pastry's from this unassuming bakeshop. I have also had the pleasure to get to know the owner, Elmo Pin Pin, and his very talented but small team. I hope you enjoy getting to know him as much as I do, also go and do yourself a favour and find his shop. It will definitely improve your day.

I am very excited to welcome Chef John Bates from Interstellar BBQ in Austin Texas. We had the opportunity to meet and cook together at last months Tofino Wine and Dine event up in Tofino BC. Cooking over fire and chatting great food always brings cooks together, and he had a late morning before flying back to Texas to join me in the Podcast Studio, to chat food, the industry and all things BBQ. I had an opportunity 7 years ago to go and eat BBQ in Houston, San Antonio and Austin and it truly changed my perspective on just how incredibly delicious BBQ can be. Simple food, cooked low and slow with the addition of post oak smoke, makes one of the most sublime, unctuous and incredibly deliscious foods available anywhere. So, the simpler the preparation, the much harder it it is to execute well. John shares his methods and tips and nuances of the craft. I hope you enjoy, I sure enjoyed chatting with him.

On this weeks Podcast I am supper happy to have on the most humble and incredibly giving Chefs I have ever had the opportunity to call a friend. Chef Poyan Danesh, who has been working his whole professional career here in Vancouver, is a family man, a lover of great food, champion of the young apprentice and a successful entrepreneur. From his humble beginnings in this industry to some of the best kitchens, to the World Stage, Chef Poyan has accomplished many incredible things in his career. He is well known and respected amongst his peers, and all those adjacent to our community. His tireless work with the Chefs Table and especially brining back the Apprentice of the Year Competition has cemented him a true leader to look up to. I hope you all enjoy our conversation.

Hello Everyone, welcome back to this weeks episode of the Podcast. We have a very special guest that I got an opportunity to chat with. Born in Brighton, England, he started his career as an architect and through his desire to travel and open his mind to new opportunity, he found himself as a bartender in Whistler and has yet to look back. Now he is one of the most respected hospitality people in western Canada and is working with the amazing teams at Boxset Collective as the Bar Director, which include Published on Main, Bar Susu, and Mama Said Pizza. We had a fantastic chat and it seems to always circle back to the importance of hospitality and how that hospitality is really what keep people coming back. I hope you enjoy and as usual if you have any comments, please DM me @cookscamp2024

I am very happy to have had the opportunity to chat with two of the next great leaders of the hospitality industry. Co Chefs of the Restaurant at Poplar Grove in Penticton, Stacy Johnston and Minette Lotz, they share their work life and they share their lives as partners in marriage. Two extremely talented chefs that helped bring the Naramata Inn back to life, tell their story of the journey through this business, from humble beginnings to running one of the nicest properties in the Okanagan Valley. We are also excited to have Stacy as part of the Chefs Table board and Minette taking part in this Septembers COOKSCAMP as a Chef leader in the worlds largest family meal and leading the daily foraging classes. I am so glad we were able to make time to chat and hear their fantastic story.

On this weeks podcast, I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with my old friend Michelin Star Chef Joël Watanabe, of Kissa Tanto, Bao Bei and his new bar Meo. Chef Joël has been cooking professionally for over 30 years across Canada. His reputation of incredibly hard work, exacting standards, and absolutely delicious foods, has made Chef Joël one of the best in Canada. I hope you enjoy his stories of finding his calling in the kitchen from a young age, and what Michelin means in Vancouver. As always I hope you enjoy and if you have any feedback let me know on @COOKSCAMP2024 on instagram.