Heading out for dinner is out of the question, which is inspiring many to turn up the heat on their home cooked meals. Learning a new skill is a priority for many stuck at home. Chef Guy Reuge from Lessing’s Hospitality Group’s Mirabelle and Sandbar is helping home chefs expand their recipe Rolodex with instructional videos every Friday. The award-winning chef is sharing his go-to cooking tips and demonstrating dishes every week on Facebook. In his first post, Reuge demonstrated how to make crepes, and there are many more tutorials to come. We caught up with the chef to find out what it is like to share his passion in this new normal.
How did you come up with the idea for video cooking demos?
After being cloistered in our house for a few days, I thought that cooking and getting the whole family involved as well could be a good spirited motivation to get some fun videos going.
What types of recipes will you be sharing?
The recipes are more dictated by what a lot of people have in their pantry and refrigerator. For example, our croque monsieur and madame, most people have white bread, cold cuts, Swiss or cheddar cheese, flour, milk and eggs. We just made crepes, croque monsieur, next week chocolate mousse, salad Nicoise and a great roasted chicken and spring vegetables. All the recipes are easy to make.
Are you filming in your kitchen, what type of video equipment are you using? Is it difficult to set up?
My son-in-law Stephen is my cameraman. We are using a Pixel 3 and getting better at it every time. We organize our shots before filming with each sequence using the best possible angles. If it’s not good enough we reshoot. We forward the entire video to Nick Renna, our social media director, and he edits it before posting it on our Facebook page. We shoot in my home kitchen because, like everybody else I have no choice but to cook here, and it is also nice for the viewers, as they can appreciate better what can be done at home.
What do you hope your viewers will gain from the videos?
I hope that our viewers will get inspired to make each cooking show a family project that in these worrisome times could bring togetherness to all. Eating the dish as a family can also bring great evening conversations about the achievement of each adult or child involved.
Is takeout being offered at Mirabelle and Sandbar?
The takeout at Sandbar is doing great. I have my chef Amanda and a helper make either individual dishes, such as our praised chick pea fries and Sriracha or chopped salad, meatballs and shrimp cocktail and main courses, such as steelhead trout with asparagus, basmati rice and herb butter, or family style chicken parmesan, penne bolognese or shrimp scampi. We put this menu together with the help of chef Amanda, and James Olsen, our general manager.
Visit www.facebook.com/watch/MirabelleRestaurant to tune into Chef Guy Reuge’s video cooking demonstrations.
