A Regular Guy Making Cooking, and Life, Simple
BY TISHIN DONKERSLEY, M.A.
“It’s not that you can’t cook─you don’t cook enough,” said Sam Zien, better known as Sam the Cooking Guy. “Think about it─the first time you make something, you mess it up; the second time you make it, your skills start to kick in… and experience changes everything. The more I cooked, the better I got,” he continued.
Sam didn’t set out to be a celebrity. In fact, he was a 40-year-old successful pharmaceutical representative with a wonderful wife and kids─you’d think he had it all─but underneath he wasn’t happy with his career, and was looking for a change. “I was miserable…I literally said to myself every morning, ‘this is a terrible way to go to work’─and I wanted to make myself happy,” he said.
Sam knew he liked to cook and enjoyed teaching people so, with that mixture, he decided to find a way to “encourage people to make [dishes] maybe they didn’t think they could make before.”
Sam started watching cooking shows but found the dishes to be too complicated for the average person. The chefs had too many steps to get to the finished product, and more often than not the recipes included ingredients that one could only find in a specialty store. Sam wanted to show people how to cook dishes that were simple, delicious, and that anyone could make, “without the foo foo,” he said. With no prior culinary or TV experience, he gathered a few friends and a video camera and started taping his own shows at home. Over time, he became a regular on a local morning show in San Diego.
Ten years later, 14 Emmys, 12 appearances on the Today Show, a series on the Discovery Health channel, and three cookbooks, this “regular guy” has found the recipe to teaching the average person how to make simple healthy dishes without the stress.
Even today, Sam continues to tape his shows in his kitchen and entertain viewers with his raw and humorous personality. “The kitchen is home for me─it’s not that I’m lazy or don’t want to go far to work; I want people see that this guy is actually cooking in his kitchen.” Part of his format is to keep the authenticity of the moment. “It’s a reality show─you might see my dog, gardeners, or kids in the background, and we leave all of it in.” And his viewers love it. “The best part is when people come up to me on the street and say ‘you make me feel like I can do this.’”
Sam’s next project is his live Internet show “The Sam Livecast” and nothing is edited. “It’s good, it’s live, it’s raw, and sometimes I screw up─but it’s interesting and entertaining.”
He also conducts cooking classes in the San Diego area and travels around the country for speaking engagements. His goal is to become a motivational speaker and inspire people to seek out their passion and live a happy, balanced life.
“Find a way to introduce your passion into your life, whatever it may be─cooking, writing or fixing cars. You might not be able to quit everything to do it, but find a way to get a gig somewhere and have it be a part of your life,” Sam declared.
A flavorful piece of advice from a regular cooking guy.
SamLiveCast.com
TheCookingGuy.com
Look to your local network for showtimes.
