Hailing from picturesque Riverview, N.B., Dennis Prescott never imagined that he’d become a celebrated chef on the Netflix series Restaurants on the Edge and History Channel’s The Food That Built America.
Or that he’d write two cookbooks, including the newly released Cook with Confidence: Over 100 Inspiring Recipes to Cook and Eat Together. This musician-turned-chef had barely picked up a frying pan until he was a “questionably responsible, with a cell phone bill, adult!”
While living in Nashville between 2008 and 2010, working as a professional musician, his path changed.
“I was a full-time musician for 10 years and people say all the time that ‘I can barely microwave’ and that was very true in my case,” says Prescott. “The music lifestyle is a lot of late nights and eating on the road. I wasn’t taking care of myself, so that meant I needed to learn to cook. I couldn’t afford to go to cooking school and YouTube was barely a thing. I went to the Nashville Public Library and borrowed three cookbooks.”
He fell in love with cooking.
“The first time I cooked it was for about 30 people, musicians, band mates, studio engineers, all at a makeshift table at a sublet apartment in Brentwood, Tennessee,” he recalls. “I made chicken korma. When everyone took their first bite it got quiet, and then that hush got louder and louder as people got into it. It was at that moment I realized that you can create beautiful moments through food. The music thing quickly turned into cooking.”
Prescott spent several years working in a variety of roles alongside chefs at different restaurants. “I learned at the school of hard knocks, for lack of a better description,” he chuckles.
His popular Instagram account (869,000 followers at press time) unexpectedly led to television.
“I had a great reach out from some folks who wanted to make a new culinary show for Netflix, and I travelled the world making two seasons of Restaurants on the Edge,” he says. “Everything I do has a story element, whether it’s the TV shows, sharing recipes on Instagram, or in the book Cook with Confidence.”
Prescott is a proud ambassador with World Vision International, a humanitarian aid, development, and advocacy organization helping vulnerable children overcome poverty. He is also an ambassador with Chef’s Manifesto, a project that brought together more than 1,500 chefs from around the world to explore ways to develop a sustainable food system. Despite logging 70 flights last year, the busy chef still calls Dieppe, N.B., home.
“My book was inspired by my world travel as well as my Maritime roots. They are married at the hip,” he adds.
Cook with Confidence is a hefty hardcover from Penguin Canada, which offers more than 100 inspiring yet approachable recipes for salads, sides, pasta, vegetable-forward meals, fish and seafood and meaty mains. Lessons throughout the book (like how to open an oyster) aim to instill confidence in the kitchen.
“There are a few recipes in the book that are more complicated, but the reality is that once you do something once or twice, the scaries in the kitchen tend to go away.”
Amid soaring prices, Prescott says there are many advantages to home cooking. “We live in an age of convenience with home food delivery, and you are most likely paying a premium for that,” he adds. “When you cook from scratch and with intention, you learn to get a little more scrappy in the kitchen and not waste anything.”
Approachability and affordability are the themes.
“Food should be the best part of everyone’s day,” Prescott says. “Food should be fun, exciting and it shouldn’t be stressful. If I can encourage people to spend more time in the kitchen and at the table, then I’ve done my job.”
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