The Pittsburgh Dish
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The Pittsburgh Dish
049 Ryan Peters: A Rise to Fame with Flour and Eggs
(00:37) What does it take to transform a simple culinary skill into a social media sensation with almost 8 million followers? Ryan Peters, known across platforms as Peters Pasta, reveals the extraordinary journey that took him from professional chef to content creator powerhouse.
Ryan's path wasn't planned. After years in prestigious kitchens like Salt of the Earth and Ocean Reef Club, a casual six-second video of him making cavatelli pasta unexpectedly garnered half a million views overnight. This one video would completely transform his career and impact countless lives.
(08:12) We explore Ryan's Knead to Know podcast, where he interviews influential guests like Larry Fitzgerald and Derek Shelton while cooking pasta, creating yet another dimension to his constantly evolving brand. For anyone fascinated by the intersection of culinary arts, social media, and entrepreneurship, Ryan's story offers valuable insights into finding your unique voice in a crowded digital landscape.
(11:42) Ryan has leveraged his platform for creativity with a humanitarian impact. When his egg-doubling challenge videos created massive amounts of pasta (eventually reaching a 10,000-egg collaboration with Mr. Beast), Ryan partnered with Outreached Arms to ensure the food reached those in need, while reducing food waste – combining viral entertainment with meaningful action.
(17:11) Our conversation delves into Ryan's innovative approach to content creation – particularly his viral series where he makes pasta in wildly unexpected locations. From NFL stadiums and NASCAR tracks to the Empire State Building, Ryan has turned "making pasta where you shouldn't" into a collaboration strategy that's opened doors with major sports teams nationwide. When industry experts warned him against niching down too specifically, Ryan proved them wrong by creating a unique lane that's attracted millions.
(30:30) Later in the show, Becca Hansborough takes us to brunch at Balvanera, and HongChing Cheung shares a beloved family dish from her Hong Kong roots. Enjoy this episode's culinary roundup of creativity and flavor.
Welcome to The Pittsburgh Dish. I'm your host, Doug Heilman. How does making homemade pasta captivate millions? We'll learn all about it from this week's guest. Where are you brunching lately? For Becca Hansborough, it's Balvanera. And if you're coveting eggs right now for dishes that you deem worthy, we have a comforting family recipe from Hong Ching Chung. All that ahead, stay tuned. Thank you so much for coming over and for being on the show. Of course, would you introduce yourself to our listeners and what you have going on right now in the world of food.
Ryan:Yeah, so my name is Ryan Peters. Most everyone on the internet knows me as Peters Pasta. I'm a former chef turned content creator. That's just kind of found my my lane in this world of sharing my passion for pasta with the world and being able to do that in a unique way, in a way that's kind of just, you know, built this brand for myself. That, you know, even five years ago I never thought was possible, so just allowed me to do. You know, a lot of cool different things around the country and but it all kind of comes back to pasta, which is where I wanted it to be. Yeah.
Doug:It's at the core. Yeah, all right, ryan, that was a great introduction. I do just want to say for any of our listeners out there that are slightly in the dark about you yeah, almost 8 million people follow you across all of your socials.
Doug:I have told you this face to face before. I don't understand, yeah, I don't understand. I mean, I love it for you, I love it so much, but the main action in your video is you're making usually egg yolk pasta. Yep, and I had another side question when do all the whites go?
Ryan:Yeah, so I eat a lot of egg whites. I've got a chest freezer in my studio. It's just little pint containers full of egg whites, yeah.
Doug:Yeah, and across the socials. I think it's like 5 million on TikTok, like two and a half million on YouTube. I mean the rest everywhere else. You're getting close to 800,000 on Instagram right now. It was like the bit of research I did.
Ryan:I love it.
Doug:But I think it's such an interesting story because you were you were a little bored right During COVID that things were locked down. Is that when you started doing these videos? So?
Ryan:it happened right before the pandemic began. I was working in restaurants and I'd always been really, really good at documenting everything I did as a chef, whether that be through you know little journal notebook that I had at work, or photos or videos, or whatever it was. I just love to document what I did, even just for to post on Instagram and get you know.
Rebecca:50 likes you know I wasn't doing it for that.
Ryan:So I kind of had this backlog of content that I didn't realize was content. This was summer of 2019 and my younger brother was out here visiting my wife and I and all he was talking about was TikTok. Oh, I had never heard of it, but I'm starting to now hear about it a lot. At that point, yeah. So I was like, oh, that's interesting, had never heard of it, but I'm starting to now hear about it a lot. At that point, yeah. So I was like, oh, that's interesting. So I decided to download it and I posted my first video ever on TikTok at least. It was a six second clip of me making cavatelli on a gnocchi board, and that video got half a million views overnight. That's crazy, and that's just kind of where it all began and it's snowballed into where we're at today.
Doug:Gosh, yeah, and we should probably take a step back. But I do want to talk more about your social climb in the creator space. You have been a professional chef for years. You went to IUP, indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Ryan:Yep In Punxsutawney home of Groundhog's Day.
Doug:Did you grow up in the local area? No, university of Pennsylvania, yep In Punxsutawney, home of Groundhog's Day.
Ryan:Did you grow up in the local area? No, so I grew up in Redding Pennsylvania Okay, about an hour outside of Philadelphia, and from a very, very young age all I ever wanted to do was be a chef. Yeah, not really sure where that came from, but you know, new from a young age that's what I wanted to do. So in high school went to a vo-tech school and then went to IUP for their one-year culinary program and then just started working out kind of all over the country in different restaurants and clubs and resorts and things.
Ryan:You took a long stint down in Florida, right, yep, I went down to the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo it's the number one private club in the country Worked there for one season on my externship left, came to Pittsburgh for the first time actually and then ended up going back there for about four years working as a banquet chef down there.
Doug:Okay, and then there was some Sunday evening in I think it was 2017, I was having dinner, yeah, outside on the seats in front of Tako downtown, and this lovely blonde girl.
Ryan:Which, by the way, I'll tell you. I told my wife last night that I was coming over here today. I was like I don't know if you're gonna remember this guy. So I showed her you and she's like, oh, I remember him. So, yeah, go ahead.
Doug:I'm sorry for cutting you off, no no, that's good, I should have you tell this story. Yeah, so I was new but I did. And then I looked over and I saw this woman take a picture of her food. And it was your wife and we struck up a conversation and you two were about to open your first concept. Remind us the name. It was called Brunois, inside of Smallman Galley yeah, one of the first galley locations here in Pittsburgh, and I love that space. It was fantastic, the grittiness and the whole decor. Papa J's is in there now, yep.
Ryan:And you guys were open for a solid year, right? Yep, we did a one year. It was the one year term that they had for the class of chefs at that time and, yeah, it was a whirlwind for sure.
Doug:I bet you two were always there. Your wife is in culinary as well pastry background.
Ryan:So she was yeah, she was my right-hand lady right there with me and yeah, it was a full, full year of just hard work. You guys had a solid burger.
Doug:I had had that burger several times. When you guys were open.
Ryan:Thank you, yeah, we had some good hits there, for sure. It was a fun time.
Doug:I think it's a great concept for folks to figure out. Do I want to do this? How much scale do I want to actually have? And this is just like the first baby steps.
Ryan:Yeah, just kind of, let you kind of try things out, test things, see if you know your concept is what you want it to do, see if owning a restaurant was what you want it to do, just because at that point too I remember, you know, coming from working in different restaurants and clubs. I was never, of course. I was thinking about, you know money and budget when I was doing things, but you know, versus then, when it was my own money. I'm thinking about, like, why are we going through two cases of paper towels this week versus one.
Ryan:You know what I mean this is a very, very alarming thing, so definitely eyeopening for sure.
Doug:It's so sort of fundamental to get that business sense. I remember you didn't have tomato on the burger because that was sort of a it's out of season cost a lot Like why are we going to put something on this, meh? A season yeah, it costs a lot. Like. Why are we going to put something on this, meh? Yeah, I like that decision. You actually told me that once.
Ryan:Yeah, my whole idea with that concept not to go too deep into it was just kind of take the fine dining approach that I had and kind of, you know, fuse that with the fast, casual concept that the galley group was, and, um, you know, there was pros and cons to that. For sure, we were kind of a little too ambitious in some things. But, um, little things like that, like the burger, like there was a lot of technique that went into that, but at the end of the day it was, it was hamburger. It was good, though, yeah it was really good.
Doug:Uh, I do miss that place. Overall, we'll move on all right. So you jump around a little bit, even locally in Pittsburgh. I know you, you did some work over at Ironborn, F ish nor Fowl. Yep, that's right. And then I don't know if I'm missing. You know, fill in the patches here.
Ryan:So then that was the most recent. I worked my first time in Pittsburgh. I worked at Salt of the Earth, that's right. That was the first job I ever had in the city. At that time I wasn't familiar with Pittsburgh at all. It was my first time here and I just Googled best restaurant in the city and that was it so. I applied and kind of worked my way up there. But then, yeah, salt of the Earth, the Deschantz restaurant group, Ironborn. Yeah, it's been a good little run.
Doug:Yeah, and now you're. I'd love to ask you how you describe to friends and family what you do now for work, because I have a struggle. I say I do food media. I don't really say content creation. I say I do food media, I don't really say content creation.
Ryan:What do you say? I just content creation, or I just make food videos for the internet? You know, it's really that simple.
Doug:And it pays all the bills it does, thankfully Crazy. Yeah, you have a few other things going on. I mean you've sort of expanded from just making egg pasta, and I should never belittle that it's not just making egg pasta People love it. But you have your own podcast. I do Tell us a little bit about that.
Ryan:Yeah. So the Knead to Know podcast is something that I started this past summer as really just a way to kind of get out of just having to do these 45, 60 second videos. You know, obviously I love doing those videos I'll always do those videos but I wanted a way to have longer conversations. But I wanted a way to have longer conversations and also, with that said, over the past five years of doing this, I've been fortunate enough to meet and connect with some really really incredible people that a lot of I really consider really great friends now, and I wanted a way to kind of bring all those people together, kind of bring all those people together. And at the end of the day, I found that the one thing that connects everyone whether they're an athlete or a CEO, another creator, a celebrity and whatever background they come from, everybody connects with food. Yes, and especially, even more so, pasta. Everybody loves pasta, everybody loves pasta.
Ryan:Yeah. So it was a way for me to kind of bring all those things together, bring these connections I made, bring my love for pasta, love for just having conversation, and bring that together with a plate of pasta. So it's been fun. We're about eight episodes in right now and just having fun with it.
Doug:I have to say, as someone that's doing a podcast, you are a couple levels beyond what I would take a bite out of. You are doing audio and video. It's mainly more video and it's entertaining. And if folks haven't caught any of the episodes, in most of the videos you're cooking pasta, you're cooking a dish from scratch and sometimes you don't even know what you're going to cook for them now.
Ryan:Yeah, yeah it's. It was definitely a challenge and it was definitely a a big undertaking, but I knew I had a vision for what I wanted when I launched it, and there's a reason why. Like I mean, I'm sure some people have wondered why we've only put out the amount of episodes that we have and, um, it's really just come come down to being able to facilitate with the guests that we're going after. Um, I've, you know, had the standard that, for the guests that I bring on the podcast, I want them to be one of the best, most influential people in their field, and that's a very, very aggressive stance to take against getting guests. Yes, and so it's definitely been difficult, it hasn't been easy, but at the same time, we've really landed some incredible guests that I'm very grateful for.
Doug:And I think that if we can keep on that path, it's just it's really something special.
Ryan:Let's remind listeners some of the guests you've had on so far, yeah, so we've had, I've been. We've had Larry Fitzgerald we had him as his the first interview that he had on the day that he got inducted into the hall of fame. We had Derek Shelton in the middle of the pirates baseball season, the pirates manager Abby and Josh Herbert, Katie Feeney she's a social media phenom.
Doug:All those folks are local here as well. Pittsburgh State College right Yep exactly.
Ryan:We just recently had Farmer Lee Jones, who we had chatted about In the culinary world specifically. He's just an icon, oh my gosh yeah he's One of my favorites so far.
Doug:just secretly, because I need to go there, I'm going to bring you out there. Oh my gosh, I would love that.
Ryan:You would absolutely love it. It's a culinary wonderland. It's really incredible.
Doug:I'm so happy for you in all of these things, I mean, I really have to say, since that chance encounter to just see your growth and then this crazy success that the internet and social media can provide us, but I do want to sort of pivot to that. You've done a lot of these wonderful creative things, but you've also done some stuff like giving back. So, I especially noticed Outreached Arms. I've worked there too. Can you tell folks a little bit about that and how you got involved with them?
Ryan:Yeah, so it's going to be a long way to get to that answer, but I have to give the context. So in January of last year I so in my studio at home where I film all my videos, I have a refrigerator that sole purpose is just to keep eggs.
Ryan:I go through so many eggs that I need one just for eggs. So January of last year I for some reason only had one dozen eggs in that fridge and I was like, what am I going to do? I need to make a video with this. So I decided to make a video with one egg yolk and I would spin the voiceover as I'm going to double it every day and whatever See where it goes, not thinking how fast that would compound, yes, the math nerds out there were like, oh, this is going to get good yeah.
Ryan:I'm good at pasta. I'm not good at math Me neither so I did that one. The video went insanely viral, so I just I kept going. I did one, I did two and whatever, so on and so forth, and when we got to 512 eggs, I realized at that point, if I wanted to do that one, I need to find a way to offload this pasta, because at that point, up until then I was just obviously eating it my family, friends, neighbors, whatever.
Ryan:But especially, coming from a culinary background, I do everything I can to limit food waste there's gonna there's gonna be food waste and content creation there is, but I think that we can do what we can to limit that, and so I couldn't, with a clear, conscious, do 512 egg pasta without a way to use that pasta right. So I reached out to a couple organizations here in pittsburgh and got linked up with outreach arms and I got on the phone with Rob, the director there, and I don't think he realized what I was doing or anything, obviously not.
Ryan:And I was just like hey man, I'm making a big batch of pasta. I hear you guys can feed homeless, can feed those who need food. Can we link up on this? And so it worked out. They were able to take all that pasta from that batch and then from there forward we were just kind of able to link with them and facilitate getting all this food out.
Doug:You've done it more than once now, or more than one events with them.
Ryan:Yeah, we did 512 that went to them. We did one when we did the 1000 egg batch. We ended up filming that at their location downtown. Um, we did the 2 000 egg batch there and then we also did 4 000 egg batch there. So what, yeah?
Doug:goodness, a lot of pasta. That is a lot, wow. And you end up linking up with mr beast for some ungodly amount of eggs, right? Yeah, that one was wild.
Ryan:We after we did the 4 000 I mean actually after we did a thousand I told everybody my videographers, everybody like, hey, we're done, yeah, I can't do anymore, because everyone sees the 45 second video. But they don't realize the amount of work that like goes into that.
Doug:It's no painstakingly hard work I have to just tell you as a side note, when I make something like um pastry cream and I'm dealing with a bunch of eggs, I kind of get a little wheezy after a while. So I don't know how you do it, yeah.
Ryan:I've built it up now, um, so I told everybody we were done. And then, after we did 4,000, again I told everybody we're done. But I joked with my team. I was like, unless Mr Beast reaches out, biggest creator in the world like that's, you know, the only way it's possible. And sure enough, we posted that video and two days later they reached out and said, hey, like, we want to do it, but we want to round up to 10,000 eggs, like, are you interested? And I was like, yeah, of course, like, so, yeah, then again, of course, we've made this giant, giant, 10,000 egg pasta video. Um, and then we're able to feed thousands of people with that food. So it's really, really incredible.
Doug:Where did you shoot?
Ryan:the this big one with, so that we went down to his headquarters in Greenville, north Carolina. Yes, uh, we were there for about a week or so. Um got linked up with some soup kitchens down there and it's a win win all around. Great content, but then also just doing something really really good. I love it. Yeah, this is Ryan Peters of Peters Pasta and you're listening to The Pittsburgh Dish.
Doug:Ryan, I want to pivot a little bit too. You know you've made some great connections with these other, like mega creators, yeah. But you also have such a strong connection you hinted at it earlier with the sports community, yeah. Has sports always been just like a big thing in your life? I love sports, of course. I'm a sports fanatic.
Ryan:You are, and it's funny too, because growing up outside of Philadelphia, I grew up Philadelphia sports fan. Yeah.
Doug:You don't want to say that too loud around.
Ryan:Pittsburgh Exactly, you know. But once I started working in restaurants and things I you know I was working so much as a chef that I really wasn't even paying attention to sports anymore. So I kind of got removed from that for nearly 10 years and then, as I then moved back to Pittsburgh and started to have some more time, I just kind of fell in love with the Pittsburgh sports culture. And so when I launched my brand of Peter's pasta to kind of tie into sports, there was two things that I wanted people to always think of when they thought of my page was pasta, obviously, but then also Pittsburgh, and then so to be able to tie in Pittsburgh sports teams but then also now dozens of other sports organizations around the country, was really, really fun for me, just as a fan of the sport.
Doug:Well, we should expand upon this. So somehow you were able to go to a lot of different stadiums, stadiums and fields and make pasta, like on the field or on the sideline or somewhere like how, how does this get going?
Ryan:yeah, so there's two, two parts to it, and I won't go too deep and tell me to shut up whenever you know, I love it I love it.
Ryan:um, so I kind of had this big success, this big blow up on social media during the pandemic, when we're all stuck at home, right. And here I was thinking, man, I'm like the man right now, but I can't go to hollywood or any of these cool things that I see every influencer doing and things, and so I was like, all right, well, how can I the pasta guy do cool stuff? Yeah, what's your niche.
Ryan:Everybody kind of told me that like, oh, like, forget about it. Like, unless you're doing stuff besides pasta, like you're not going to be successful. So I was like, all right, cool. So as things started to open up from the pandemic and things were happening again, I reached out to I think I already had a connection with the Steelers social media team. So I reached out to them and was like, hey, I have this crazy idea. Let me come to the field and make a batch of pasta at the stadium. And I wish I like still remembered word for word what they said. But they were definitely like that's really weird. But they said, yes, that's the only thing I needed, that's the only thing you needed, right? So I went there and very, very poorly shot video, just not good at all, but I did it. And the video didn't even like perform that well, but I now had the first one done. And then I did it with the pittsburgh penguins as well and I was like all right, that was fun, I enjoyed that. It was kind of getting me out of the kitchen per se, yeah, um, but you're still doing the thing you love, exactly, you're at places you love, right? So I look at that as a way to really turn that into something more than just like a one or two off thing. So a couple other teams around the country saw those videos and I'll never forget.
Ryan:The Chicago Bears reached out to me after one of them and was like hey, like we'd love for you to come out to our preseason fan fest thing, do your thing here. And I was like all right, cool, like how does this work? You pay me, do you fly me out? And they're like no, none of that. No, okay. And I was like, uh, I just for some reason I had a gut feeling that I should go, that I need to just pay my way out there. So I remember going upstairs to our bedroom to my wife and I was like, hey, babe, I'm going to go to Chicago to do a collab with the bears. And she got all excited. She's like that's awesome. Like when are they flying you out? I was like they're not. I was like I'm going to drive out there and I think it's going to work. So I ended up packing up the car, drove to Chicago, did a collab with the Bears While I was out there, when I was going to rest stops and stuff, I was just DMing other Chicago teams and stuff, trying to double down on this.
Ryan:Yeah, while you're there, exactly. So while I was there, I did the Bears. I was able to get in contact with the Chicago White Sox baseball team, did a collab with them, did a collab with the Chicago Bulls, then on the drive back I stopped in Detroit, did a collab with the Detroit Tigers. So I was able to hit four teams in a two-day period. So smart, yeah. And then that's when it really blew up. And I think now we've been to probably two or three dozen different stadiums. I've done it besides just sports too. We've done it on top of the empire state building, in the middle of a Walmart, um, golf courses, nascar tracks, cruise ships. Really, the whole idea behind that whole series is just making pasta where you shouldn't make pasta.
Doug:And it's allowed me, from a business perspective, to like blend what I do with anything Like you actually kind of triumphed what you heard earlier as a negative, like oh, you're not going to make it if you don't do exactly doing your same thing or do something else, Yep. And I think you also hinted at a couple of things that are kind of strange in the creator space, Like yes, we can get monetized on some of the social media platforms, but then you start getting offered things, but do they pay and don't they pay? And then how do you develop your own self-worth and advocate for yourself? To say no to someone in the early stages? It's super hard, right.
Ryan:Yeah, it's very, very hard, just kind of believing in what you're doing and knowing your worth, and I think too, I just want to make a note on, like when people would tell me that, um, and still people to this day tell people like, hey, you shouldn't like niche down too hard or whatever. I think I disagree with that because I think that you can. You just have to be smarter and have a better strategy for what you do, because I think most people on paper would look at a pasta creator collaborating with the nfl or with a cruise line or whatever. It just doesn't make sense. But I think that if you can, you know, present it in a way that is different and unique and just resonates with the audience, then proof is in the concept and it just if it works, it works.
Doug:I have to say as a marketing thought, because it doesn't make sense is why it makes sense to me, like it's just crazy. Why is this guy here?
Ryan:Yeah, and then honestly, once I started doing a couple of them, the audience was just so enamored with where is he going to be next and they became involved with it and it just became this really, really organic thing. That was just a lot of fun. I love it.
Doug:You know you're making your way now into this great creator space, all of these followers, and coming back to sort of the soul of it all, I want to talk a little bit about your love of pasta. You mentioned you grew up in Reading. What was food life like growing up? I mean, did you cook from an early age or were people cooking for you? When did that start before the culinary?
Ryan:experience. So I grew up a single mother. She cooked a ton. That was very important for her. It was just kind of always making sure that we had a home cooked meal nearly every single night and I'll give her credit. I mean she was working a ton and that's mad credit. Yeah, it's not great. I mean I have trouble sometime and you know, making food for my wife and my son and so, yeah, I give her a ton of credit that. And it's not like she was making these fine dining crazy things. She was making home-cooked meals but they were fantastic and so I would always, you know, bobble around the kitchen helping her and things like that. And then as I got older, you know, maybe seven, eight, nine, I'd start, you know, playing restaurant and cooking. You know something for her, whatever it may be. But yeah, I mean food. For me as a kid growing up, it was just very, very simple. It wasn't. It wasn't anything special to it. I mean it was special, you know. Yeah.
Ryan:But, not elaborate yet Correct Nothing crazy. Yeah, it took quite a few years for it to really develop, do you remember? Your first memories of pasta? Like did your mom make spaghetti at home? Like, where did this come from? I love you, mom, but I don't remember you making fresh pasta.
Doug:Oh, my family never did. I can remember like at age I think it was eight or nine I knew how to boil the box of pasta and heat up the sauce in what we would call like doctor it up, which was meaning to add sugar and garlic salt.
Ryan:Some Italian seasoning or something. Yeah, I mean, I don't remember having a moment where I had that pasta moment. So is this adulthood? I don't remember having a moment where I had that pasta moment, yeah, so is this adulthood?
Doug:Is this like something from the culinary experience? I think it would be adulthood. I'm going to learn this and I'm going to champion this and yeah, well, so that story comes so in.
Ryan:I want to say I don't remember what year it was. It was probably 2017, 2018, maybe 20, probably 2018. Maybe 20, probably 2018. I was, and at that point I had made pasta countless times in restaurants and stuff, but never really thought much of it. I just I knew how to do it, I was good at it, but it was just another task of the day, right. But at one point in 2018, I was at home with my wife and I and I made a batch of pasta for dinner, made some sauce and, for whatever reason, that pasta turned out great, it was delicious, we both enjoyed it.
Ryan:And so I woke up the next day and I made another pound of pasta. I went to work, came home, rolled it out, made it into a shape. I was like, oh, that's good. I went 64 days in a row of making a pound of pasta every day, every day at home. Row of making a pound of pasta every day, every day at home, every single day. Wow, and that was the switch of my career where, you know, I think a lot of young chefs and cooks struggle with finding where they want to place themselves in this world. You know, uh, which is hard. There's so many different lanes that you can go in and I had found, like that was that light bulb moment for me. It was like I'm going to be a pasta chef.
Doug:This is my place in the food world. This is it, yeah.
Ryan:I had found my like real, like obviously passion, like my passion was food and cooking, but this was like, really, really it yeah. So I took those 64 days, got obsessed with it and that's when it things started shifting and I was like, all right, I'm going to find, you know, italian restaurants and pasta focused restaurants to work in and just really kind of fell in love with the art and craft of pasta making, because I think that so many people, when they think of it or when they make it, it's just flour and eggs or flour and water. It's this very simple thing that, yeah, on paper it's simple, but it really is very, very deep and very, very complex that I just fell in love with.
Doug:Usually when it's the fewer ingredients, it has to be like technique and love. That kind of comes in and actually makes that whole dish shine.
Ryan:I tell people all the time that, like with a pasta dish, people ask me like the key to making really, really great pasta, and I tell them it's to have the best flour and the best eggs you can get, because this isn't, you know, a braised French red wine dish where you can hide behind red wine and butter and aromatics and things. Pasta is simple and you have to have great ingredients and great technique and, like you said, simplicity is it's easy to mess up. Easy to mess up yeah.
Doug:It's hard to really nail, it's hard to perfect it Exactly yeah, okay, ryan, so I think I'm gonna move us forward a little bit. So you have a lot still going on right now. Yeah, but I would love to ask uh, what's on the horizon for you? What's what's ahead? Any new goals, any new events or projects coming up?
Ryan:man, there's a ton um, I think it's hard for me to like put out actual goals. Sounds weird to say, but I don't do it either. I just want to keep doing that. That's I don't do it either. I just want to keep doing that, that's. The thing is for me is like I just want to keep like progressing and keep getting better and keep pushing out more, and so I think the goal is just that is, to keep growing the brand um in a lot of different ways.
Ryan:That's not just content. That's the podcast, that's long form content, that's, you know, products that can be on the shelves or whatever it may be Cookbooks. I think there's a lot of different ways. I I I've been doing this now for almost six years, and yet I still feel like I'm just getting started. Yeah, so I feel like I just there's still so much I can do. Really, though, in the next 12 months, um, I just expect a lot of growth from all aspects of the business, not just the content that everyone sees forward facing that there's just kind of always stuff going on in the background to keep things growing.
Doug:I love it. Yeah, so we will see more need to know podcast episodes. We will still see some more pasta making videos, maybe with some sauce. Yep, I just noticed one, oh yeah, and it looked really good. It was fantastic. Ryan, if there is someone out there under a rock that's not following you right now, could you remind us all of your social handles or your website?
Ryan:Yep, it's just. I mean, if you search Peters Pasta anywhere, that's the best way to find it. Instagram is the only one that's the curve ball. It's Ryan Peters. Anywhere, that's the best way to find it. Instagram is the only one that's the curveball, it's ryan peters pgh. Uh, but even still, I have made it now that on instagram, if you search peters pasta, I'm the first one that comes up. So, uh, peters pasta everywhere is the the best way to find me and the need to know podcast has its own handle.
Doug:Correct, instagram is right. Yeah, need to uh poof I?
Ryan:I don't even know, I have it I have it.
Doug:I did, I did my, I did slight research.
Rebecca:That's why I need you so and the knead to know podcasts.
Doug:handle is knead to know podcast and the word knead is like kneading dough.
Ryan:Correct, that's right. Yeah, it'll play on words. I love it.
Doug:Ryan, I always have an ending question for our guests. The name of the show is the Pittsburgh Dish. Yeah, what's the best dish you've eaten this past week?
Ryan:Ooh you're probably gonna have to edit around this a little bit, because I gotta think it happens every time. Yeah, big pause, and I honestly I was. I've listened to enough of your episodes that I was prepared for, but I also wasn't at the same time. Like I, I usually try to like get myself ready for podcasts, like questions that I know that they always ask and I forgot this time.
Ryan:Um, well, we don't eat out. That much is the problem anymore. Ever since we we had a kid, we just don't. It's okay. Home food counts, okay. So it's hard for me to say the best thing I've eaten is well, it's not hard for me to say that, but ever since our son was born, we just don't eat out anymore. Before our son, we used to eat out nearly every single night. We would just have a rotation of restaurants that were our go-to. Every single night, we would just have a rotation of restaurants that were our go-to. So if it was a couple of years ago, I'd pick one of those, but that's not the case. So I would say the best thing in the past week is and this will be a little promo teaser for a video that might even be out by the time this comes out, but I just made an incredible. I have a really nice pizza oven at home and we made a video on a Detroit style pizza that I made and it was topped with pepperoni, burrata, hot honey and pesto and it was fantastic.
Doug:It sounds amazing it was so good.
Ryan:It was really really good. I just like I don't always nail everything I make, but I nailed this one. It was just, it was really good.
Doug:I love Detroit pizza because I love the crust, so crispy on the edges, yeah. And hot honey might be my new favorite thing on pizza. It's so good, wow. Yeah, ryan Peters, thank you so much for being on the Pittsburgh Dish, of course. Thank you for having me Up next. Where are you brunching lately? For Rebecca Hansborough, it's a hot spot in the Strip District. Hey everybody, we're joined today with Rebecca Hansborough of The_41_chew on Instagram and, Rebecca, I was wondering have you been anywhere recently, say for brunch? That was a real standout to you.
Rebecca:Yeah, so not too long ago, with some foodie friends actually, I went to Balvanera oh, down in the strip district, yeah, in the strip district for brunch and it was absolutely delicious.
Doug:So they're an Argentinian restaurant. I've known about them for dinner, but I don't think I know about them doing brunch.
Rebecca:Yeah, their brunch is really good. I feel like they have a good amount of options like the standards. I got like an eggs benedict dish that was very good and for me, when I get eggs benedict, for me the most important part is obviously the egg. Do you pass the egg test and pass the egg test and as soon as I cut it, you know it was kind of dripping off the side of the toast, and that's, that's definitely what you want to see it needs to be that soft poach.
Rebecca:Yes, it has to be like the perfect amount. It was a perfect amount. It was really good. Um, I think there was another person that got steak and eggs, which is a classic which looked really good yes um. The eggs looked like perfect over easy, which I feel like is typically really hard for restaurants to get especially because, like if you've ever made an egg before, especially over easy, by the time you're leaving the kitchen it's probably gonna get pretty hard.
Doug:I can't make an over easy. By the time you're leaving the kitchen, it's probably going to get pretty hard.
HongChing:I can't make an over easy egg. Oh, I can't I make eggs terribly.
Rebecca:So, yeah, that definitely stood out to me. And then they had some really good drinks. I think I had an espresso martini. That was pretty tasty. That would be perfect. So yeah, it was just like a perfect, like yeah, I've been experience oh yeah, I love that.
Doug:Well, I have also, uh, been there once for sort of some small bites and cocktails, and they do in-house meat like cured meats, and yes, I did stuff like yeah, I actually got a chorizo plate.
Rebecca:Um, it was very good, but I was this was all on me. I take full responsibility. I thought that it was going to be kind of like, um, I guess like a thicker chorizo.
Rebecca:Yes, maybe the sausage, and this is more like almost like a deli cut this is a deli cut yeah so it was very funny because when I got I kind of wanted to get it as a shareable but it kind of came out looking like the missing piece of a charcuterie board. Yes, um. So the rest of the girls were kind of like I don't know if that goes with anything they were eating. So I ended up the the pieces of chorizo and putting them on top of my Benedict's and it was actually very tasty.
Doug:You might've started something new there. And they might say do you want to add a chorizo flight on top of the?
Rebecca:call it the 41chew please.
Doug:Exactly.
Rebecca:Um, I would love that, I would love to take full credit, but yeah, it's, it's, but yeah, it's a really nice place.
Doug:I love it and you know, sometimes an ordering mistake is not a mistake.
Rebecca:Yeah, no, that's right, it was perfect. It was. I just pivoted. I was like you know what? This is out here. It's delicious. Let's just combine the flavors and see what I have. So it was very good.
Doug:So Balvanera in the Strip District. They're great for dinner, but try them for brunch. Try them brunch, yeah, so good. Thanks so much. Absolutely. You can follow Rebecca on Instagram at the41chew. That's the underscore 41 underscore chew. If you're holding on to eggs lately for dishes that you deem worthy, Hong Ching Cheung of Healthy Heartbeets has one that's worth the splurge. Hey everybody, we're back with Hong Ching Cheung of Healthy Heartbeets. Hong Ching, last time we were here, we were talking about some of the cuisine that your dad made. So do you have a recipe for us that's like a family dish? Or you mentioned your family was from Hong Kong Any dish that you still like to make at home.
HongChing:Yes, so there is a specific dish that I love to make, and everyone makes it slightly differently, but this is the way we made it at home. When I was younger and I was learning to cook, this was one of the first dish that I ever made, and it was tomatoes with eggs. It sounds simple and it really is. You top it over rice.
HongChing:And so simple as it is. We use tomatoes, cut it up into slices and you kind of like fry a little bit, get warmed up in the pan, you add some oil to it Sometimes you can add sesame oil or keep it simple like olive oil and then what you do next is you add. One of the secret ingredients I found out after making it several times was actually adding the oyster sauce.
Rebecca:Oh.
HongChing:Yeah, oyster sauce and ketchup, those are the two main Both. Whoa yes To bring out that tomato flavoring. After adding that to it, you kind of like on the side, would whisk up some eggs so they're scrambled a bit scramble a bit, yes, and of course, like before, you kind of pour the eggs in we.
Doug:We personally also are big fan of cornstarch okay, yeah, in so many of our sauces it's a thickener.
HongChing:In so many sauces, yes so we would put cornstarch and water, mix it up together and then we'll add it to the tomatoes.
Doug:Yes, tomato paste, that little slurry will thicken everything up.
HongChing:So after that like heats up a bit, that's when you add in the egg and you mix it in. So it becomes this, like I don't know, like this slurry, this, like you know how, like curry has?
Doug:that kind of thickening, it's like that In the best way, in the best way, yeah.
HongChing:And then you top it a little bit with soy sauce and white pepper, specifically white pepper.
Doug:Okay.
HongChing:And it's simple as that A cozy dish. I eat it all the time.
Doug:Is this for any time of day breakfast, lunch or dinner?
HongChing:Yeah, it could be breakfast, lunch or dinner. I typically eat it for lunch. Okay it for lunch, okay, so it's like I'm rediscovering some roots of hong kong right, and this is something that you eat at like a diner. Oh yeah, um, I don't know how to describe it, but it's. What is that?
Doug:word. It's food for everyone, for everyone, yeah and it's.
HongChing:It's a diner kind of food where, um, I guess, when you like, go in. If you're like a construction worker or something, you're picking up food. It's like one of the takeout boxes.
Doug:Yes, that will be your simple meal. I love that. Keep doing it, rediscovering your roots from cuisine of Hong Kong.
HongChing:Yes, thank you.
Doug:Hong Ching. Thank you so much for sharing that recipe and thanks for being on the Pittsburgh Dish.
HongChing:Thank you for having us, Doug
Doug:You can find Hong Ching Cheung and Julian Figaretti's Healthy Heartbeats product at local markets around Pittsburgh and give them a follow at Healthy Heartbeets. That's B-E-E-T-S. Do you have a recipe? Share it with us? Just visit our website at www. pittsburghdish. com and look for our share a recipe form. If you enjoyed the show, consider buying us a coffee for this episode or supporting the show monthly. You can find links to those options at the bottom of our show description. And if you want to follow my own food adventures, you can find me on social media at Doug Cooking. That's our show for this week. Media at DougCooking. That's our show for this week. Thanks again to all of our guests and contributors and to Kevin Solecki of Carnegie Accordion Company for providing the music to our show. We'll be back again next week with another fresh episode. Stay tuned.
