We had the good fortune of connecting with Sam Zien and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sam, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I needed a job. I quit a real job to start a travel show on TV but before I got a chance to do anything, 9/11 happened…and as we know, that day changed a lot of things for a lot of people including me because in the days following 9/11, nobody was buying a travel show especially from somebody who had never been on TV and barely traveled. So, I sat at home, was watching TV and came across a really horrible cooking segment. The chef was probably much better than I could ever be but he was making butternut squash soup as complicated as humanly possible. As I watched, I thought wow someone should do that but make it much simpler; make it approachable…at least make it that the audience could make it. Since I had no job, I called the crew I was supposed to make a travel show with, we made a cooking demo and sent it out. And lucky for me, there was something original in what the people saw and they put me on TV! They didn’t pay me, in fact the first year, I didn’t make one cent! The second year, I think I made $16,000. But, I was on TV and I was learning…I really needed that.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I love what I do. I am fortunate to wake up everyday looking forward to my chosen career. I am on You Tube 3 times a week with new episodes and really enjoy the process of shooting the episodes. I have fun with our crew. I am fortunate to be paid to write cookbooks…I really enjoy that process; especially love the photography part. It’s a lot of fun…the creativity and setting up shots, thinking through recipes. I am fortunate to have partners that believed in me enough to make me part of their restaurant group. But, at the end of the day, it’s the variety for me that I really enjoy. I think I would be bored with a typical kind of job…and I get that not everybody would appreciate what I do or want to do what I do for a living, but for me, it works. It lets me play at what I do, it lets me be around a lot of different people, it lets me be creative, it lets me try new things…fortunately all in the area of food because I really do enjoy eating…and I get to do that and be paid for it.

Getting to where I am today was definitely not easy. A lot of people didn’t believe in me in the beginning. A lot of people said it’s not possible for you to go from being a bio-tech guy to a television personality. And after a series of rejections in the beginning, I was very close to giving up. But a good friend encouraged me to put my head down and ignore what the doubters were saying and just be committed to what I wanted to make happen. I think one of the things that helped me the most was that I didn’t think it was going to as hard as it would be. I think if I had an idea that getting on TV would be this difficult, I might have said forget it, I can’t do it. I was ignorant to that. And I think what makes me different is that I’m not a trained chef. I don’t have chef terminology or technique at my disposal. So what I do, anybody watching can do. I think that’s helped me find a large audience. People watching hopefully say, that looks good, but also looks like I can do that! I think that’s important. The key is keep your audience at the front of your mind and I’ve always done that. I also think that I’m a bit odd in my approach. The world doesn’t need another Bobby Flay or Gordon Ramsay or Emeril Lagasse. I think it’s important to be original to whatever it is you do. Let you shine through, don’t try to be someone else.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If I had a friend in town, I would start my tour North and go South. I would start in Del Mar, which is a little beach-side town. There’s beautiful beach walks, surfing, a great park for picnics…and sort of one main street about 6 blocks that has restaurants and shops; it’s really cute. A little further south, we’d stop at Torrey Pines State Reserve. It’s about 2,000 acres on the cliffs above Torrey Pines Beach, which by itself is pretty amazing, but up in the reserves, there’s cliffs, mazes, canyons, it’s just incredible! You can go anywhere from a 20 minute walk to a serious 2 hour hike. And don’t forget, you’re surrounded by beautiful Torrey Pines trees and then of course there’s the Torrey Pines Golf Course. It’s one of the most significant municipal golf courses in the country. It’s on the cliffs above the beach and it’s absolutely amazing!

Continuing south, you have to go to Balboa Park for the arts and cultures, museums and restaurants. And yes, it’s home to the World Famous San Diego Zoo. Next stop would be Little Italy, San Diego’s restaurant center. Fine, I’ve got 3 restaurants there…used to be home to the largest tuna fishing fleet in the country…so a ton of history to go along with the food. In fact, it is the most prominent Little Italy in the country. And then finally, about 20 minutes south of downtown San Diego, is real Mexico. Right across the border is Tijuana…lots of fun, insanely delicious food and then you can even go further south to the Guadalajara Valley for wine tasting and great food. Then you can head even further south to Ensenada, for obviously amazing seafood…right along the ocean, it’s really incredible!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My shoutout first goes to my wife, Kelly. Because without her, I probably wouldn’t have the guts to make the leap from quitting a real job to what I wanted to do when I grew up. In fact, it was her that was the encouraging part of this. When I came home and said hey, I want to start a travel show, she was 100% behind it, but not for obvious reasons…not because she thought I’d be amazing at it but rather because she knew how unhappy I was at my real job and I needed a real break. But it wasn’t going to come by sitting at my desk and hoping. I needed some transformational moment and she thought me quitting would put me out there in the real world…probably the travel thing wouldn’t happen and then I would be forced to really find something that would make me happy. And she was right. The travel thing didn’t happen, not because I sucked but rather because of 9/11…found cooking. So I have her to thank for the original support because without that, I probably wouldn’t be doing this today.

The second shoutout goes out to a guy named, Alberto Pando; who was the first guy that saw something in Sam the Cooking Guy. I eventually shot a demo and sent out a handful to TV stations and a handful to “TV people”. And everybody rejected me, except Alberto Pando. He called me up and told me he liked what I did and would love to talk to me about being on his channel. And that was the beginning! I’ve said it many times before, you only really need one person to believe you in life; as a partner and in this case, it was a business partner. Alberto believed in me and I’m fortunate he did; in fact I dedicated my first book to him.

Website: www.thecookingguy.com

Instagram: @thecookingguy.com

Twitter: @thecookingguy

Facebook: Sam the Cooking Guy

Youtube: Sam the Cooking Guy

Other: Merchandise: www.shopstcg.com www.makeamericacook.com

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