Roger Mooking – Being a Chef ‘was in my soul’

When Roger Mooking was recently interviewed by the Globe & Mail they described him as having, "the cocksure swagger of a hip-hop star and the huggable, consoling warmth of a teddy bear…" and they couldn’t be more right about him!

Roger Mooking is the Host and Co-Creator of his own internationally broadcast television series, Everyday Exotic. He is also Executive Chef/Co-Owner of Kultura Social Dining and Nyood Restaurant, both named Top 10 restaurants in Toronto, where he has earned a reputation as one of Canada's premier Chefs. Mooking is also the Recording Artist behind Soul Food, a unique food and music package, with Warner Music Canada. For Mooking music and the epicurean worlds are seamless - one feeds the body, the other feeds the soul.

On each episode of Everyday Exotic, Mr. Mooking champions the transformative superpowers of a single "exotic" ingredient (curry powder, salt cod, daikon) to sass up dinner standards, making things like angel-hair pasta with pistachio pesto or coriander meatloaf. "It’s all about mixing! I come by it honestly," he says, referring to his cultural background. His grandfather was Chinese, hailing from a village in the Guangdong province (Mr. Mooking’s real last name is Moo) and eventually emigrating to Trinidad. Mr. Mooking’s mother is Trinidadian, claiming African, Dutch and British ancestry. Mr. Mooking’s family moved to Edmonton when he was 5. But it was even before that, he says, when he was only three years old, that he announced that he would one day become a chef. "It was in my soul," he says.

To read more about Roger Mooking and his passion for food, music and life click here.

Categories : New Speakers, Motivation/Inspiration, Advice