Episode 24: Emmy Award Winning Tastemade FoodTuber Frankie Celenza
Episode 24: Emmy Award Winning Tastemade FoodTuber Frankie CelenzaDescription
Frankie Cooks
Frankie is a host for Tastemade on YouTube and Snapchat. Tastemade is Food Network 2.0, recently receiving $40 million in seed funding from Goldman Sachs. With the death of cable, companies like Tastemade are revolutionizing the way we consume media.
The Full Shebang
From Music to Video Production
Frankie went to music school at NYU Tisch School of the Arts where he studied music (he even has a sound credit on the first episode of Mad Men). During college breaks, he visited a family friend in Italy where he practiced the Italian he had been learning in school, and watched the locals cook amazing Italian dishes. Frankie would go back to school and cook for his friends, bringing the stories and ingredients from Italy back to his New York. Eventually, enough people he didn’t know told him he should film himself cooking so he gave it a shot.
Frankie Cooks was his first TV show, where he used iMovie, a $99 digital camera, and floodlights from Home Depot to produce the show with his friends. During that time, he bounced around working video editing jobs with outlets like Radical Media and the New York Times while producing jazz albums as well.
Tastemade found Frankie through his YouTube, and his channel took off from there.
“Making a meal for someone is one of the sweetest things you can do, its therapeutic, it gives you time to think in your own mind”
Hustle Round
Frankie’s go to comfort food is spaghetti aglio e olio.
Frankie says an activity he has learned a lot from is bicycle racing
In response to listener question from Elliot Roth @ThatMrE “If you could pick a dish to be your patronus, your spirit animal, what would it be?”
His response: Bucatini with Amatriciana sauce claiming that it was the single dish that led Frankie to cooking.
A lot of Italian restaurants are donating proceeds to the town of Amatrice to help rebuild the town after the devastating earthquake. Order an Amatriciana dish and ask them to donate! (for reference) “Italy hit by four powerful earthquakes in four hours”
Music wise, Frankie is really into Queen right now. (side note he went to high school with Lana Del Ray, and played in a middle school band with Alex Pall of The Chainsmokers).
Weekly Callout:
Rachel Tipograph founder of MikMak
Quotes
Shoutout to J-Buff and SoHHL for the beats!
United States
