To Market We Go | Jill Of All Trades
6 Degrees of Separation
Chef Di and I go wayyyyy back. Many moons ago we first met when I was attending a private cooking lesson with her that a friend had set up. Everything we made that evening was absolutely delicious and I saved those recipes and use them, tattered, torn and stained, to this day. Every time I visit Trader Joe’s and pick up their pre-made pizza dough, she pops into my head and I can taste those buttery, garlic knots we made. She recently came into my life again in her work with realtor, Dennis Hartley. We were Zooming and she said how familiar I looked. I was wracking my brain and then remembered the cooking class and that I had taught her niece and nephew back in the day. I told her how much I enjoyed the cooking class and my love of her recipes…a natural progression to highlight all of her fun endeavors she’s involved in.
My Q & A With Chef Di
When you go grocery shopping, do you have a set list or do you let your eyes and creativity do the choosing?
It’s funny you ask about grocery shopping, this is really something I love and am expert at, even though I enjoy it a little less since this last March. I used to go to a lot more stores on my rounds than I do now.
I always, always have a list. And I rarely go to the store when I’m hungry, I need to focus LOL! I even organize my lists by department/aisle because I’ve had so much practice at this – many many years as a Chef and Caterer, and as a regular girl. I honestly cook and eat most of my meals at home.
If I go to a local farmers market or to explore a new gourmet market of sorts, I’ll go with a short list and that’s when I let my instincts run amuck. I’ll come home with so many more treasures than I’d planned on!
What’s your process as you develop a new recipe?
It’s mostly intuitive, and sometimes it starts with a craving or a mild obsession for a certain ingredient. I’ve even dreamed about a certain food and that feels like a call to experiment with it. Lately I have a passion for passion fruit ;), also things Greek because of a Greek friend and, I had intended to be in Greece at this hour.
I’ll usually do a little research to find a few ideas then my intuition just seems to take off. Sometimes I even scribble what I’m doing just in case it goes really well. I usually always cook – and create - without recipes so when I’m up to something new, it’s extra work to write it down!
You are a Jill of all trades and have your hand in a lot of projects. Tell us about these.
Thank you for the compliment, I’ve never been called that!
Just in the last few months, I’ve started a cooking video series for YouTube called Cooking by the Sea with Chef Di. It’s one of the only things I hadn’t yet done as a Chef and it’s just getting rolling. There is a rooftop deck of our building with a glorious ocean view. My team and I set up a mobile kitchen of sorts and I share how to prepare really unusual recipes, all of which are published by the way!
It’s my dream to teach how to cook without recipes and I share tips on how to do that each time I host a lesson. And I especially love making foods that people have not had, or heard of, before.
My new YouTube channel is called Chef Di Scalia, and it will be up and running in early October with our first set of videos.
In 2008, my sister Lisa and I co-founded Melting Pot Food Tours, the original food tours company in all of southern California, which has enjoyed a lot of success in its 12-year lifetime. Since all of our Tours are suspended indefinitely, I’ve been maintaining a Recipes and Blog series on our website and our Facebook and Instagram updates, to stay in touch with our following. It’s hard to say what’s in store for the future of Tourism, especially in Los Angeles.
I’m also a Certified Holistic Life Coach and will host a series of retreats in the new year, with a theme that combines culinary and spirituality. I will love bringing these two very imporant-to-me worlds together in ways that are uniquely mine.
Your passion is life coaching, what drew you into this realm?
My mom passed almost exactly one year ago, after living with dementia for many years. It was a very heartbreaking yet soul-enlightening passage for me.
One of her most beloved caregivers dedicated her Masters thesis to my mom, which was the study of (my mom’s) Frontal Temporal Dementia and its impact on those in the patient’s life. She asked to interview me and that experience was life-changing for me. It was the very first time – in years – that I spoke honestly about my feelings and what my experience of her illness had been.
It occurred to me that if I felt that way, others must feel that way as well. Paige and I still intend to work together on some level in the future, and we’re now the best of friends. That same evening I told her that maybe I would consider becoming a Life Coach, so that I could be possibly be a lifeline to others the way she felt to me, at that hour.
Working with caregivers will be a work-in-progress for me as the passing of my mom still feels a little tender to go in that direction right now. I’m grateful that those years were the catalyst for becoming a Life Coach, because that has been an amazing and soul-expansive experience of its own.
You have a retreat set for 2021, how do you plan on marketing that?
Don’t have a plan. Grocery shopping might be the only thing that I plan seriously, come to think of it!
In my experience, when people meet me – on a Tour, when I was a Spanish Bar Chef in front of my customers all the time, as a Caterer, when I travel, etc – they always want to know what else I do. I’m trusting that when they become fans of my cooking videos – and our vast Melting Pot Tours following will be notified ;) – that they will be interested candidates for other programs I’m offering.
The name of my retreats is Love Infusions, which is a blend of culinary, mindfulness, and storytelling. I would love for it to encompass everything I’ve done up until now. If someone is passionate about both food and spirituality, it might just be a slam dunk. I hope so.
I also have Love&Beauty Heals, on Facebook and Instagram. These will both be ramping up very soon.
How has social media helped your businesses?
For Melting Pot Tours, it has been – for me – a way to be like a privileged ambassador of our City of Angels, our cherished tour merchants, our tour guests, and other businesses that we love. This is especially my theme right now while I can’t be a Tour host in person.
I believe that only good can come from being an agent of love and appreciation. Over the years lots of amazing things / coincidences / synchronicities have happened for us and our business - seemingly out of the blue – but I know better ;).
Time and trust will tell, to see how it helps with my new projects. I’m confident that following my instincts will show me amazing things I don’t even know about yet.
I plan to be surprised.
Follow Chef Di Here:
@loveandbeautyheals – Facebook and Instagram
YouTube – early October – Chef Di Scalia
Melting Pot Tours – Find new Recipes and Blog posts regularly
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