Pregnant chef: Makes a living by modifying recipes from the Internet

In just a few years, you have become a star of the Czech Internet. You won the first Kříšťálová lupa in the poll of the same name in 2022, and at the end of last year you even won in three categories. I get the impression you’re not a trained chef, is that right?

I’m not, I’m originally a waiter, but I like to cook. If you put it that way, I can’t really do anything else… But I was incredibly naive, I thought that I would start making money on YouTube within a month. That was, of course, an odd notion.

What actually needs to be done in order for a YouTuber to start earning?

You must have at least one thousand followers and four thousand watched hours. Since then, I think the criteria have loosened a bit, but back then it was set up like this. But I had about three hundred followers after about two or three months, so I was still a long way from being able to start monetizing my content.

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That’s when the youngsters (sons) told me about TikTok, which I didn’t know at all. I created an account there and uploaded an old domestic killer video that I had saved on my phone as a test. How a butcher fills bread boxes by hand. After three days I remembered him and went to see him. It had five million views! So I started filming recipes on TikTok and gradually my following on other networks started to grow, purely based on that TikTok.

Can you deal with the killer yourself?

That’s what the pros are for. I just help when something needs to be mixed and the like. Even though I cooked a butcher’s goulash on one butcher’s stove, while the butcher was making breads, stews, and brats.

I’m a little surprised that on TikTok, where there are a lot of teenagers, the morning meal was a success… I have a feeling that today’s teenagers don’t even eat killer specialties.

The video had a great response in Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, where similar delicacies are still widely produced at home. It had two million views from Romania alone.

Can Romania, for example, also have a business effect for you?

No, TikTok just showed me where to go and how to get followers fast. Most of my monetization comes from Instagram and Facebook.

Your video recipes are characterized by brevity and, let’s say, economical comments in a style that could probably be called “how to grow your beak”. Did TikTok tell you that too?

It only came with time, in the beginning I used to choose the background music for the videos, but then I just saw a girl commenting on her recipes on TikTok, and I tried it too. Since then, my viewership has skyrocketed. I think my comments are basically normal people talking. It’s just a little more concentrated. And normally, of course, I don’t pour forums out of my sleeve either.

Before cooking, I watch ten video recipes, read another twenty and make my own

Do you stock up on funny stories?

Clearly! I write them down in the notes on my phone.

Do you have a favorite source of inspiration?

A lot of these messages are from the series The Big Bang Theory. I like him and watch him all the time.

Why are your recipes so short and quick? Don’t like long cooking?

I don’t like long video recipes! I’m always annoyed the most by the opening passages, when I have to watch the chef cut the ingredients for maybe three or four minutes. By the time he cuts it all up, I’ve already got a plate on my video.

Because of this, do you also like meals that are quick to prepare?

I don’t choose recipes based on that. I can even include food that takes three hours to cook in a two-minute video. Of course, you need to show all the important stages so that people don’t fumble and wonder what to do. So I always try to present them with all the individual steps according to which everyone can cook, even those who have never cooked before.

How many videos have you made?

About four hundred. But some of the recipes are very simple and some of the videos are just fun, but when I look on my mobile, I have 378 recipes saved right now. I already deleted something or didn’t even download it from my old phone.

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Is it true that food allergies led you to intensive home cooking? Can you eat in a restaurant?

I will choose from the classic Czech coins, which I know what goes into them. I can’t go to some hogo fogo places where they write three basic ingredients on the menu, but there are eighteen other ingredients in the food that you don’t know anything about. I don’t want to argue with the waiter or the cook about what’s in there, I don’t have the nerve for that.

They probably consider it a secret for the most part, don’t they?

Probably yes, but I have a lot of allergies and they are outside the official spectrum that must be listed. Officially, I think there are only fourteen allergens, and they certainly do not include, for example, apple juice, which bothers me and which is added to barbecue sauces, for example. When we have some barbecue events with friends, I usually take care of it and we agree on everything. And it’s completely fine at home, on the one hand my girlfriend of course knows all my allergies, on the other hand we don’t even have the things I have to avoid at home.

How did your nickname Pregnant Chef come about? After all, your character does not indicate anything like that.

When I started filming, I weighed 105 kilos. Once a friend drew me in profile while cooking, so now I use that drawing as my logo. But now I have eleven kilos less.

Has any change in your kitchen affected the weight loss?

Not really, I just skip the second, third and fourth dinners! The basis is to be well versed in six. Sometimes it happens that the highlands are cut at ten in the evening, but it is certainly not as often as before.

How many recipes do you shoot in a week? I assume you are pre-rolling to stock.

I release an average of three videos a week, usually on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, although sometimes it can change as something jumps out at me. But sometimes I shoot six a week when I know I won’t have time. About four on average.

Does it take a lot of time?

So yeah, there’s a lot of work involved. First, I have to look up the recipes and set up the workflow in a script so that it goes quickly and makes sense.

So it’s not enough for you to open a proven and popular cookbook?

No, I make every meal from several recipes from other chefs. When I have to cook, for example, tomato sauce, I watch ten video recipes, read another twenty, and make up my own procedure from which I expect the best result.

Food that normally takes an hour to cook takes me three hours or more because of filming

That sounds like a full time job.

It is so. It currently takes me about 250 hours a month, it used to be three hundred, but I have already delegated some of the work.

Do you also cook at home, for the family, or is it too much for filming?

Also, my girlfriend only cooks when I go somewhere. But mainly she bakes sweets, I’m not very good at that yet. Baking is more challenging for me because everything has to be weighed and measured. I like to pour everything by eye, but then the dough doesn’t want to listen.

You like savory buns, don’t you? I was intrigued by your recipe for pulled pork buns.

So for this dough, I consulted with pastry chef Pepa Maršálek. We follow each other on Instagram, so I wrote him about the ingredients I put together for the recipe. I needed to know if it would even work. I changed a few things on his advice and it turned out great.

Do you have any favorite chefs that you follow regularly?

I really like chef Roman Paulus, who posts educational videos about ingredients on Instagram. For example, asparagus season comes, so he talks about asparagus and how to prepare it, and that’s how he goes through the whole season. I like that a lot. I have never even heard of some ingredients before. Of course, I also have other favorite chefs, Czech and foreign.

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When you mentioned your test video for TikTok of a homemade butcher, I immediately thought of master Málek, the butcher who rose to the top as an influencer during the pandemic thanks to the videos he originally made only for his apprentices.

I like him too, we even know each other personally, we shot two of his videos together and we write here and there. We have preliminarily agreed on further cooperation, so we’ll see…

Baking is more challenging for me because everything has to be weighed and measured. I like to pour everything from the eye

So you are drawn to the butcher after all?

I wouldn’t say it like that, I really don’t want to get into it personally. Also because it’s a lot of work and a terrible mess – and I shoot everything here at home in the kitchen. I put one phone on the line on a tripod, and I put the other one in this mug and take it from two sides. (Laughs)

Are you also looking for recipes so that you don’t have a big mess in your kitchen after cooking?

No, I always try to clean up a bit between takes, but that means that a meal that you would normally cook in an hour takes me maybe three hours or more because of the shoot. Although already in about three video recipes, I showed the rest of the kitchen next to the plate of food at the end, where it still looks like after an explosion.

Which social network is currently the most commercially interesting for you?

Probably on Instagram. Paradoxically, I have the fewest followers there, even though there are already over 350,000 of them. I currently have the biggest audience and biggest reach on Facebook, which is said to be dead, but it’s definitely not. Of course, I have an older audience there, that kind of middle age, so classmates.

When did video recipes start to earn you enough that you could already rely on income?

About a year and a half ago, I discovered that I could make a full living from it.

Have you ever thought about opening a restaurant that would cook according to your recipes?

I didn’t really think about it because I would have to be there all the time to make it run my way. And given that I currently spend 250 hours a month filming, it wouldn’t even be possible.

Is it not possible to entrust the kitchen to someone?

It is not, you have to check, taste, monitor the quality of the service. You can’t trust someone with your restaurant and just slap your name on it. That wouldn’t go well.

So the profession of cooking probably won’t draw you into a classic operation in the future, either?

Certainly not. My original profession is a waiter, I have already worked in a pub, we even ran one with a friend for three years, and I know for sure that I never want to do that again.

You have already made four hundred videos. Running out of ideas?

Not at all! I save links to recipes that interest me on my phone. I have about 250 of them, I haven’t even touched them yet, and I assume that at least a hundred of them will be worth taking a closer look at and creating and shooting my own recipe based on them. I will definitely have something to look forward to this year as well.

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