We were lucky to catch up with John Eisensmith recently and have shared our conversation below.

John, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear from you about what you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry and why it matters.

Food Media and the global food system largely undervalue people and try to “save” them from the “hassle” of cooking instead of simply empowering them to learn the basics to make good food simply. Cooking real, simple, delicious food is easy, quick, and cheap if you take the time to learn the basics of food and cooking. This is why I am on a mission to teach just that, the fundamentals of cooking, so people can see how easy and delicious a simple meal can be when you pay attention to just a few basics. Pick out good produce, cut, sear, combine, and season well, and of course, season to taste and good food becomes easy and quick. Instead of teaching, food companies try to give you the “shortcuts”, “must do’s”, or “best ways” to do things so they can “save” you from your cooking (which in turn devalues each individual’s experience and skills) while portraying home cooking as difficult, expensive, and requiring recipes and lots of ingredients. This is all just marketing to get you to buy their products or look at their articles. Learn how to pick out good produce, cut and cook it well, season properly and to your liking, and combine flavors based on experience (other people’s at first then your own with time) and there is no way your food won’t be good. And when you spend just a little time focusing on the basic techniques, you get so much faster so quickly that your cooking time is drastically reduced. Simple techniques and ideas, utilized well, make simple and delicious food quickly… But “the industry” can’t make money off of that… Only farmers…;)

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started cooking when I was 15 and realized quickly that I wanted to do this as a career because every day I was super excited to go cook and school was easy and pretty boring for me. I thought if I wanted to do this as a career, I wanted to go to the best culinary school in the country. I found The Culinary Institute of America and went there straight out of high school, cooking in restaurants all during high school and in college. After entering the CIA, I had my mind opened to all the amazing experiences, exciting challenges, and depth of understanding on so many levels that fine dining had to offer and I was hooked!

I did my internship in Duck, NC at a 4-star restaurant (Bluepoint Bar and Grille) and upon graduating, moved to South Beach Miami to work at Wish Restaurant in The Hotel in the heart of South Beach. I rose to become the “go-to” guy in that kitchen before moving to Nantucket, MA to continue to expand my experience. Before leaving Miami my chef, Michael Bloise, got invited to cook at The James Beard House and told me that nowhere I was in the world, I was coming. In Nov. 2006, he flew me to NYC to be his sous chef for the weekend for his dinner at the historic house. Certainly a highlight of my career and one of the reasons I refer to Miami as my “finishing”; because things were simply right or not and there was no in-between and I was doing it on the biggest of stages…

I knew I wanted to own my own restaurant and in Nantucket, after getting on some of the world’s largest stages in the kitchen, I wanted to do every other restaurant job as my primary job, so I truly “knew” what everyone did. During my 4 years there, I was a sous chef, bartender, bar back, extreme fine dining, and short order server, and began my own private chef business and catering company doing parties for the uber-wealthy (Johnson and Johnson’s and Halmi’s of the Hallmark channel among others) before taking over a restaurant with a new owner as the GM/Executive Chef and flipping it into another concept.

I left the island in 2009 and moved to Durham to work with my best friend from day 1 of culinary school who had just opened his new restaurant, Revolution. I quickly topped out there and found my way to Six Plates Wine Bar as their new Executive Chef. The owner and I clicked and then after getting a write-up in the NY Times, we started blowing up! I began working my way into ownership, opening 2 other restaurants (Mattie B’s Public House and Black Twig Cider House) before it was time for me to do my own thing as my partner and I were going in different directions. I had planned a slow back away from my restaurant group but on the day we told the staff I was leaving, my mom died out of the blue. Immediately, I had much bigger priorities and it turned into a mic drop but also gave me a paradigm shift and reminder of what’s important. I took time off and realized that what I loved about food and cooking was helping others have a good life. I had cooked all the fancy food in the big places and had multiple restaurants under me… But happiness and love were always at the heart of it… I also realized through cooking dinner parties for my friends (one of my best ways to share and show love), that even people in the industry didn’t understand the fundamentals of cooking. I looked at how the CIA taught professionals and began building what would become The Essential Series to teach home cooks the same way they teach professionals, but designed for home cooks so they could get the joy and confidence the pros enjoy, but with each and every meal in their own home.

I consolidated and redesigned the Assoc. Program at The Culinary Institute of America to teach home cooks the fundamentals of food and cooking to home cooks, in 12 hours, so they can feel comfortable and confident in the kitchen cooking their food their way seasoned to their tastes. In addition, to truly teach people about food, I have to teach them about themselves because each individual person’s “stuff” comes out in their food. So to cook the way you want, you have to work on yourself and I began teaching that too with inspirational speaking to help folks beyond the kitchen. Because the same principles that you use to adjust yourself and your food in the kitchen, you can use to adjust yourself outside of the kitchen. Thus my speaking career was born! Now I inspire and educate in and out of the kitchen to help others have a more meaningful, passionate, purposeful, and delicious life in any way that fits their needs!

I began Season to Taste in 2019 and have been changing how people look at their food and cooking, and their lives, ever since… Creating The Essential Series and getting to see the change that occurs in each and every cohort that comes through my kitchen has been the greatest joy of my career! I open up food and cooking to people while giving them the knowledge and ideologies to feel confident and comfortable cooking whatever they want, with ever-increasing skill! And to enjoy their lives on a deeper, more meaningful level by truly knowing what goes into food and thus gaining a greater appreciation of something they have to do 3 times a day…

And because my goal was to give this life-changing information and skills to folks who need it the most and can’t pay for it, through my video series (I filmed the entire Essential Series), I am now offering it to anyone who can’t afford it for Free! You can’t take it with you and to better help the world, I’ll gladly share it with anyone! That’s how I help beyond me! Thanks for helping share my story! 😀

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I have two that merge into one for this one. The first was that I closed on my first house the same day Trump won the election and the same day I got the news that I knew would lead to the end of my restaurant group partnership of 6+ years. I spent the next 9 months untangling a legal and accounting mess to get out of the business with the best protection and the least financial loss while dealing with an ever-deteriorating business partnership. At the end of that time, I gave my notice and prepared to leave things well for the betterment of the staff who had supported me for so long. A week later, we told the staff I was leaving the group (which was one of the hardest decisions and conversations I’ve had to have) and that night, I found my mother dead of a heart attack. It was one of the worst times of my life as I was leaving an empire I had built, an industry I loved, and dealing with the tragic and sudden loss of my only parent (my father passed of cancer when I was 5).

I took 9 months off to deal with all the trauma that came from that time and during it, among many other things, I cooked a lot for my family and friends and simply reveled in the joy that comes from sharing good times and good food with your loved ones. I also realized that so many people, even in the restaurant industry, didn’t know the basics of food and cooking. I figured this was an area where I could help. I also realized that almost no one was teaching it the same way they taught chefs, but geared towards home cooking. So that is where The Essential Series came from! Culinary School for home cooks. I built my own business from scratch, pivoted multiple times through a pandemic, redesigned and reimagined my business to succeed and here we are, 5+ years in and I couldn’t be prouder of the impact we have been able to have for folks to feel free in the kitchen! I am so grateful for all the support along the way and look forward to the future! And am so happy to be able to offer scholarships to help folks learn this for free!❤️

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Integrity, excellence, and continual improvement. For a long time, I have said, “Integrity is what you do when no one’s looking” and that is how I have conducted my life and my business. I am the same person in work as I am out of work and striving to be the best person I can be, both at work and at home, has given me relationships that I am still in awe of. I still work with folks who I did 15+ years ago and consider many “coworkers” family because of the love and respect that goes both ways. Ask anyone about me… This is who I am and if I make a mistake, it’s an honest one, one I want to and will learn from, and one I won’t soon repeat, if ever. From living like this for as long as I can remember and continually seeking feedback, particularly criticism, I have refined my work into something I feel confident saying is excellent (not because I say so, but because so many others have said so very consistently). I worked in a restaurant in Miami when I was fresh out of culinary school and once asked another cook if what I did was “good enough” and I’ll never forget his response- “We don’t do “good enough”.” It is either RIGHT or it’s not. Period. I took that to heart and strive for that mentality in every aspect of my life while knowing that “right” is a moving target based on the situation. But continuing to strive to improve keeps me improving, growing, and refining my own meaning of excellence. And everyone who knows me knows that because this is who I am, day in and day out. That’s what has built my reputation and my life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.seasontotastenc.com/
• Instagram: @seasontotastenc
• Facebook: @seasontotastenc
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-eisensmith-686050105/