health & wellness

Justin Holt, originally from Paris, Texas, but now an East Dallas resident, began his culinary career at Nonna. He then worked at Lucia for two years, and he made a big impression on Oak Cli with his pop-up ramen shops at Ten Bells Tavern. After a stint running the kitchen at Driftwood, he has returned to Lucia as co-sous chef.

What is in your fridge right now?

Leftover Chinese food, tare [Japanese soy basting sauce] from my last ramen pop-up, Champagne, and beer and butter.

What are your staple groceries at home? I don’t cook enough at home enough to have staple groceries. You go to the store for a reason. I don’t go to the grocery store to shop for a week.

What is your favorite kitchen item? My pasta extruder.

What’s that?

It’s like this big clunky piece of equipment that mixes dough and pushes out pasta that has this texture that’s similar to dried pasta, but it’s fresh pasta.

What is the least-used thing in your home kitchen?

Microwave.

What is your ideal comfort food? Ramen.

If you had to eat the same lunch every day for the rest of your life, but it could be anything in the world, what would it be? I don’t eat lunch. This is lunch, energy drink and cigarettes.

What is your favorite local beer? The Hammer [Peticolas Velvet Hammer].

Have you created a dish that you’re really proud of?

No, they’re all works in progress.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever cooked?

I used to sear hamburger patties in a skillet and boil them in beer for my buddies, before I went to [culinary] school. In hindsight, I am sure it was terrible, but at the time, I guess we thought it tasted pretty good.

You’ve just received a $1,000 bonus and two consecutive days o . What’s on the agenda?

Get out of town and go eat somewhere. Spend it all.

What’s on your DVR right now?

I watch like B-movie horror all the time. The worse it is, the better.

What is your favorite major-league sports team?

I don’t watch sports.

What is your opinion of reality TV cooking shows?

They’re caustic. They’re creating a false environment. They’re making all the younger cooks have these false expectations of what they should get and what life as a cook is. People are not expecting to have to sacrifice anything for the guest and for hospitality as a whole. You’re giving up your life, your social life, to surround yourself with miscreants and all these shady individuals who are just getting o work at midnight.

What’s the best piece of wisdom or advice you’ve received in your career? Go as hard and as fast as you can. Really push yourself and really leave everything out there. Do it to the best of your ability, and then go further. You’re always setting your own pars. The business will always expect more from you than you can deliver, which is good. That keeps you pushing.

—Rachel Stone

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Mike Gibson

Neighbor Mike Gibson worked at the Dallas Country Club for a year and a half following the Air Force and culinary school. He’d heard about David Uygur’s Lucia, where every two weeks, they break down a whole 350-to-400pound hog and make it into charcuterie. He wanted every part of that. So he knocked on the back door of the restaurant and o ered to “stage,” the culinary tradition of volunteering in a kitchen until a cook has proven himself. “What people don’t know is that every one of his days o , he was working over here for free,” says Gibson’s co-sous chef at Lucia, Justin Holt. Gibson says he was waiting for Uygur to “tell me ‘never come back’ or ‘you have a job.’ ”

What’s in your home fridge right now?

Out-of-date milk, butter, lots of butter, bacon, biscuits and beer.

What is your favorite kitchen item at home?

If I had to answer that question, it would probably be my co ee maker, but I don’t want to answer that question.

What is your ideal comfort food? Chicken and dumplings.

Your significant other has family coming in for the weekend — what do you cook for them?

Has to be chicken. Her dad doesn’t eat anything but chicken. We roast chicken, and I did a pan-fried chicken before … I got him to eat collard greens for the first time in like a decade, he said. But it’s always chicken.

If you had to eat the same lunch every day for the rest of your life, but it could be anything in the world, what would it be?

Ham sandwich. It’s got to be the spiral-cut ham with white bread.

Mayo?

No mayo, just really good ham.

What is your favorite local beer?

That’s tough. My favorite beer is Lone Star … I’m being serious.

What is the worst thing you’ve ever cooked?

Back in college, we used to eat a lot of brisket, and it’s college, so you’re always broke. Sometimes all the meat from the brisket would be gone, and we would eat brisketfat sandwich.

You just received a $1,000 bonus and two consecutive days o . What’s on the agenda?

I could easily spend it all in two days [in restaurants] and Underberg [herbal bitters].

What’s on your DVR? ‘SportsCenter’

What is your favorite major-league sports team?

The Texas Rangers although not this year.

What is your Starbucks order?

Oh, I don’t know. Have you ever heard of Green Beans Co ee? [Editor’s note: This is a co ee shop chain that serves military bases.] They have a drink called the M.O.A.C., mother of all co ees, and it’s a black co ee with four shots of espresso.

What is the best advice you’ve received in your culinary career?

So far in my career, it’s a sous chef at the club who told me, ‘Don’t chase a paycheck.’ Work for places you want to work. Don’t go for the money. —Rachel Stone

You probably wouldn’t know it if you ran into him at our local Asian grocery store, but Roger Kaplan is a kitchen legend. In the ’80s and ’90s he was a quintessential celebrity chef, sporting wild, curly hair and appearing in classic cooking programs such as “Great Chefs, Great Cities” and numerous news shows, magazine features and cookbooks. He attended the Culinary Institute of America; landed the pastry chef post at The Ritz in D.C.; launched the iconic Old Ebbitt Grill near the White House as executive sous chef and later executive chef; and opened Atlanta’s City Grill, which, as owner and chef, he molded into a five-star, Beard-award-winning establishment. Later he worked as a corporate chef to some 50 restaurants, training, consulting and creating menus for companies across the country. He joined Boston Market in the business’s infancy (“they were making real food, good food, and were like little gourmet grocery stores at the time,” he says), learning all about the manufacturing of food, before taking a position with Ruth’s Chris steakhouse in Dallas, where he turned his attention to front-of-the-house operations, rounding out his knowledge of the industry. Today Kaplan works mostly behind the scenes, owning shares in multiple restaurants and creating menus and advising restaurateurs through his company Restaurant Innovations. Much of his gastronomic alchemy occurs inside his White Rock-area home’s kitchen.

What’s in your refrigerator right now?

Some products for restaurants I work with but that I cannot mention [there are confidentiality agreements with some of the restaurants he consults]. Ten to 12 hot sauces. Some things from my garden — herbs — cider, beer, homemade pastrami, prosciutto, cheeses, avocado.

What type of beer?

Negro Modelo, Fireman 4, Lawnmower.

What are the essentials that you must always have on hand?

Extra virgin olive oil, garlic, shallots, fresh herbs, vinegars, citrus — lemon, limes, grapefruit — for flavor, a whole library of spices and grains, lentils, flax, hemp. I am into making vegetable protein shakes right now, in the interest of health. My wife, Carolyn, and I have started working out at Peak Zone Fitness in East Dallas. I’ve lost about 15 pounds. She had cancer [years ago] — lost a lot of weight, put on a lot of weight. She is in the best shape ever now. We love it. We force each other to work out and eat right. I am also making protein bars.

Where do you buy your groceries?

I am all over the Asian markets. I love La Michoacana meat market — there’s one right up the street on Greenville. Sometimes Central Market or Whole Foods, depending on what I’m doing. I also like the Herb Mart — in Medallion Center — for hemp seeds and hearts, chocolate hibiscus. It is great.

OK, you’re into health food now, but what’s your go-to comfort food? Well, any old chef will tell you all good food is comfort food. You can see it in trends around Dallas that we keep veering back to comfort food — you’ve got the Blind Butcher, sausages, steak, potatoes, mac and cheese is back. All humans are driven by salt, sugar and lipids. That is why we want potato chips. That is why we want ice cream for dessert — sweet and fat. For me, what are the ultimate comfort foods? Soup dumplings, onigiri, which is a Japanese food —triangle-shaped rice with fish or plumbs in them — they are the most comforting thing. In fact, when we came back on the plane, we brought them with us so we could avoid the airplane food. We also like mashed potatoes, pizza …

Favorite pizza place around here? We probably eat at Grimaldi’s [Shops at Park Lane] more often than anywhere else. They seem to be more consistent with the type of pizza I grew up on, up north.

What’s your most essential gadget in your home kitchen?

Right now, other than a stove, it is my Anova re-thermalizer. This is a sous vide pressure cooker. [Sous vide works by regulating the temperature of water so that the food cooks very slowly. The water is held at the same precise temperature until the food is cooked through, and allows the inside and outside to cook together].

Favorite neighborhood restaurant? We love Latin Deli. The Lomo Saltado sandwich, Cuban sandwich, red chicken salad. It is a staple for my wife, Carolyn, and me. Our place. We’ll go there all the time.

Cooking shows. Do you watch them? I used to when they were about food. The shows now are not teaching. They are about celebrities now. If I had to watch, it would be Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives because I like hearing the guys in the diner talk about their food, their wa es and ice cream, comfort food. And don’t get me started on Paula Deen, who’s diabetic and telling people to eat blubber …

The ones where they are screaming?

That’s not a good method of teaching? No. Those upset me the most. Just perpetuating a stereotype. Yeah, it’s a hot environment and busy and frustrating, and tempers can flare, but usually when someone is reacting like that it is because they are blaming themselves for something, seeing themselves in the guy they’re yelling at. The walk-in [the big refrigerator in a restaurant] is a great place for a reprimand for someone who needs his butt kicked, but in public, that’s where you compliment.

What country would you travel to just for the food?

Peru. Lima is a hotspot. I want to get there and try the markets, restaurants, see what’s happening at the farm.

Family/friends are coming for dinner without much notice — what do you make for them?

It’s mostly going to be what I have in my refrigerator. But I do have a lot of food here in the two refrigerators — I’ve got a fridge out back filled with ingredients for work recipes. But maybe I make smokedbrisket burritos; there’s always something fun you can throw together. If I know they like something specifically, I’ll make that, even if I have to run up to the store.

Do you entertain at home a lot?

No, but we did have my daughter’s wedding here.

What did you serve there?

It was very eclectic — we had vegetarian food, Mediterranean, shrimp, short ribs the band played in the corner. The wedding cake was a cupcake wedding tier cake that I did not make. It was very good.

Where was the cake from?

Crème De La Cookie. It’s in Preston-Royal and Snider Plaza.

Have you ever had to cook for a big star who made you nervous?

I have cooked for two presidents and was part of a team that cooked for Queen Elizabeth. I’ve cooked for Bill Cosby, Ted Turner, Jane Fonda almost all of congress when I was in D.C., but really, they are not the ones who are important, really, to me. The people who I most want to impress is, say, the couple who appreciates food, who worked hard, saved up to go have this one really special meal. They are all important, but that is the most important. I look at it, every single time someone walks into a restaurant, that I don’t know what’s going on in their life, and meals are a covenant. As restaurateurs we should be giving the best quality food and the best service. Making sure this person has the most awesome time. When people go into the restaurant they should only have to make two decisions. What am I drinking? What am I eating? Anytime you involve them in any other part of the process — do you need me to move this plate? Or they have to get the waiter’s attention for another drink — that’s a failure to me.

What presidents, and what did you serve the presidents and the queen? There was Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan — I served Reagan a bomb. Haha. An ice cream bomb. That is when I was the pastry chef at Ritz. Also, I had to taste it before he could eat it. The Secret Service said, ‘Did you make this?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And they said, ‘We need you to taste it.’ Jimmy Carter, that was for a dinner to raise money for Habitat for Humanity when I was in Atlanta — I cooked alongside Alice Waters and Stephan Pyles. And Queen Elizabeth, I was part of a big team of chefs with Dean Fearing. I really don’t remember the exact meal. I do remember Bill Cosby dragging a bartender into the kitchen to show her how to make a proper cappuccino.

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