Tell me about your new book and the story
behind it.
As I’m redoing
these recipes, I’m learning about how to make healthy choices. I started to realize that there are about a
million decisions you can make that either cause you to gain weight or cause you to lose weight. We’re
obsessed with food. We think about sex 10 to 15 times a day, food 200 times a day. That’s the order of
magnitude. So I thought if I put together an easy-to-read guide that would give you the answers to at least
100 of those questions, you can make better decisions when you’re at home, in a rush and on-the-go, and cut
at least 100 calories out of your diet. It may not seem like a lot but every 100 calories you cut, you lose
10 lbs a year.
It’s a great
approach since it doesn’t eliminate the kinds of food people want to eat; they just eat fewer
calories.
It’s giving them
choices that it would be absurd not to make the choices. It’s sort of for the angry, bitter dieter. The
anti-exercise person. You can skip one sugar every three coffees and cut 366 calories out of your diet a
week. Everyone can do it. Use all-fruit jam, and cut 370 calories a week. Eat an orange instead of drinking
orange juice, it’s 100 calories a day. Instead of a dollop of sour cream, use a dollop of cottage cheese and
blend it with some lemon juice — another 290 calories. You get that information spoon-fed to you, succinctly
and simply [in the book].
Tell me about your
personal journey and how this has helped you and your health.
I had always
flirted with the idea of being a fit guy and never really was able to consummate that relationship. I got out
of the restaurant business and I found myself with a little more time and after being a hypochondriac who was
told by his doctors for years and years and years, “There’s nothing wrong, there’s nothing wrong.” Finally,
he said, “Guess what? There’s something wrong. You have some high blood pressure issues, cholesterol issues,
and if I do the math, 10 to 20 years out, you’re going to have problems. You can take medicine or diet and
exercise” and I thought, “Let me try diet and exercise.” Within a year, I was doing an Iron Man 70.3 and it
worked.
You have been
involved in weight-loss and nutrition endeavours for quite some time — appearing on
The
Biggest Loser to help people lose weight. But you’re still not considered a health chef. How
important has that been for you?
There are very
few chefs with my cooking background, cooking in this wheelhouse. A lot of chefs don’t think it’s prestigious
enough or creative enough. I happen to find it incredibly creative and fulfilling. My point of view is always
about preserving flavour so the recipes that I come up with are flavour-first and somehow, I manage to take
out the calories as well. Every trick, every approach, every avenue I can think of and I keep trying every
one. It’s like a 3D chess game. What ingredients can I replace? What can I use less of? What can I completely
reinvent while holding on to the original flavour? So it’s good that my foray into healthy hasn’t removed my
chef credentials and turned me into a health person.
What are some key
things that people can take away from the book, to cut calories from their favourite
meals?
The one idea is
that losing weight without diet and exercise is possible. It’s a little more effective and faster with diet
and exercise but you can lose weight slowly over time with making almost no effort. If for every one of those
200 moments that you thought about food, you had the answer immediately available to you, and you can do the
algorithm and make the calculation in your mind, you probably would make at least 50 per cent more better
choices than if you didn’t have the information. That’s the point of the book, to give you that
information.
What is a common
mistake people make when dining out?
They think
they’re the victim in the restaurant. (laughs) When you’re the customer, you’re in charge.
You’re in the driver’s seat. The show is for you. You need to walk in with that kind of empowerment. Worrying
about what the owner is going to think, the waiter, the chef, all that is a bunch of nonsense. If you weren’t
there, they couldn’t be open. You need to take back control of the dining experience by asking questions,
letting them know who’s in charge. Asking for whatever it is that you need. If you’re on a calorie-restricted
diet, the first thing you do is say, “Hey, guess what? I’m on a calorie-restricted diet. I can’t eat
blah-blah-blah-blah. If you take control like that, you get whatever you want. Obviously, you have to be
polite... but the notion that we’re victims and not in control of the restaurants is what’s really upsetting.
I know from a chef’s point of view, we wake up every day for the opportunity to make people happy. That’s
what makes us happy.
What advice do you
have for people when dining out?
Some restaurants
make it really easy for you. When you order foods, you can say fat-free, sugar-free, low salt — whatever it
is that you need. I give you a list of foods to avoid. If there’s a crunchy or crispy, or ooey or gooey,
those are probably high-fat foods. If there is the word “steamed” or “grilled,” it’s probably going to be a
little less fattening. Getting sauces on the side every time, without fail, is always going to give you more
control. Salad dressings on the side will always give you more control. Skipping a round of bread, always
going to give you more control. Have a snack before you go so you don’t eat 2000 calories in bread and
butter, and 1500 calories in three Margaritas before you even start dinner. You can eat and drink enough
calories for two days, before you even get your appetizer. Restaurants don’t decide on portion sizes based on
what the appropriate amount of food to eat is. We decide what portions are based on what looks good on a
plate. We have really big plates in restaurants (laughs )so we fill up the plate because we want you
to think you’re getting good value, which means you’re almost always getting served two to three times more
than you actually need to eat. One thing I do is I split the meal before it even comes to the table. I’ll
order a Fajita salad, which will probably be 2000 calories, I’ll say, “Split it and bag it. I’ll just eat
half now.” Always got to split things. If you’re having the first, second, third course, on your own, in
almost any restaurant, you’re eating way too much.
Tell me about your
new show, Rocco’s Dinner Party, which just premiered in Canada in September. How
did the idea come about?
I was on
Top Chef
six
years ago and Bravo and I started working on ideas. I said, “One of my passions is dining in, I think it’s a
lost art. It would be really nice to focus on what happens after you cook, versus just the cooking.” We were
thinking how we could make this different than Top Chef. Top Chef focuses on culinary only. “Let’s make it all
about what happens after the culinary part — the dinner party. Why people cook? Why we get together? What the
point of that is versus what the point of cooking for the competition’s sake?” They seemed to like that idea,
then they added the three chefs competing, the $20,000 — they kind of Bravo-tized it. The decor element,
which I thought was really fun. You get to see the rooms transform, and it’s really cool. I couldn’t believe
I watched it happen in two, three, four hours what they were able to do.
The “Summer in the
City” episode was quite interesting, where the chefs cooked recipes from one of your books. How was
that?
It was really
interesting to see the competition between essentially an inexperienced cook and a very experienced, highly
acclaimed chef, and how the wrong intention could undo a person. You didn’t see all of it but in the
beginning, I explain that having the right intentions is everything. If you want to make people happy at a
dinner party, you will make people happy if that’s the conscious decision that you make; if that’s not
important to you, that’s not going to happen. For a lot of creative people, there’s a struggle. You’re
walking that line of, “Do I indulge my own creativity right now, at the sake of the guests’ happiness? Or do
I make them happy and sacrifice a little bit of my creative interest right now?” What the very experienced
chef did was indulge himself, almost every course, and he ended up losing. She wiped the floor with him. You
should have seen his face, I think he still can’t believe he lost.
What advice do you
have for them to avoid getting stage fright, cooking for a celebrity chef and his celebrity
friends?
Chefs were
nervous, often. They were put under tremendous pressure and when all the cameras were turned on, they had to
speak for themselves, advocate for themselves, and some of them succumb to the pressure. I think anytime
you’re in a competition, it’s nerve-wracking. Certainly, when you have quote, “celebrity guests” and a
well-known chef to cook for, under a time constraint, with a lot of cameras around, if they’ve never been on
TV before, with $20,000 — it would make me very nervous. I would never agree to do the competition
(laughs). I wouldn’t do it myself.
Really? Even
though you were on Dancing with the Stars?
Oh, God. That’s how I
know I would never do it.
Where do you come
up with the themes for the challenges on the show?
It’s
guest-dependent. So, when we get the guests tabled together, socially, who the guest of honour is, and build
a challenge around them. For Liza Minnelli, it was obvious, how do we honour Liza? When Cat Deeley was
confirmed as a guest, we thought a gastropub would be fun. We sort of came up with themes that would sort of
work, all things being equal and things that were very specifically tailored to the guests.
Anything you’re
hoping to try out on the show that you haven’t had a chance to yet?
There’s a lot of
focus on wine and wine pairings. I worked with my sommelier from Union Pacific, and we were very thoughtful
about wine pairings. And there was nothing (laughs) about wine made into the show. I would love
to see a wine challenge.
There has been a
balance of fine dining chefs and local chefs that have appeared on the show, why was that
important?
We wanted to open
it up to more than just quote, “professional chefs,” and we thought it would be interesting to see how home
cooks would fare against professional chefs, given the situation. Given that it’s a home setting. It made for
a very broad mix of people. I think it adds a lot to the show and those times when the underdog wins are some
really great moments; usually they [win] by a huge margin. It gives them courage and confidence they wouldn’t
have, because of the home environment, because it’s a dinner party and everyone is throwing a dinner
party.
What can we really
find at Rocco’s dinner party (when you’re the one in the kitchen)?
Usually something
healthy and usually some specific wine or cocktail. If I think it’s special, one thing I’m in love with right
now is a sparkling Italian wine called Bigaro — it’s a blend of Brachetto and Moscato. It’s a pink, bubbly,
sweet sparkling, unbelievable delicious wine. I like to have one moment in the party that is culinary-related
that makes people go “Oh, what’s this?” I try not to knock them over the heads with everything that I cook or
serve because it’s not really about that. It’s about fostering an environment where people can have fun, give
them permission to have fun. Usually one thing like that, one sort of culinary centrepiece. Then a ragtag,
eclectic mix of silverware, china, glass, silver — I don’t think I have a complete set of china, glass and
silver to-date. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. It’s really random and often just thrown together at the
last minute. The best kinds of things are spontaneous.
Any plans to
return to the restaurant industry?
I’m slowly
slipping back into it. I launched a food truck recently, it’s called the Now Eat This truck. It’s a
not-for-profit endeavour... I sell healthy food in mid-town and then I drive uptown and give it away to the
school kids who live in underserved communities. Millions of kids go to public schools and many of them don’t
have access to lunch. I try to show them that healthy and delicious food is possible, like I do with my
books, and to just feed people who are hungry. I thought the truck would be a good idea. I’m really having
fun with that. It may lead to something without wheels.
Photo Courtesy: Corus
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