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Food: it’s medicinal and can benefit a multitude of ailments and diseases! Today's guest is Isabella Gambuto, recipe developer, food stylist, and former NYC restaurateur turned Certified Natural Chef. She specializes in cooking delicious, vibrant, and fresh foods that are also enjoyable and healthy. She has always been passionate about food, growing up in her father's Italian restaurant and running it alongside him at the age of 23. When Isabella was 27, she was diagnosed with endometriosis, a uterine disease. The diagnosis changed her life, forcing her to reconsider her relationship with her own health and well-being. That path led her to sell the restaurant and pursue a new, more health-oriented career and become a holistic natural chef. Currently, she resides in Los Angeles and runs a food preparation delivery service. In addition to her prepared food delivery business, Isabella shares healthy recipes on her social media and is working on an anti-inflammatory cookbook and launching a "Chef Bella" YouTube channel this year.
Highlights
To learn more about Isabella, follow her on Instagram, or visit her website.
Follow us on Instagram or visit our website and stay inspired by our blogs, featuring a collection of posts about lifestyle, food, and so much more.
Listen to our past episodes!
Go back home.
Download Podcast Transcript
Food: it’s medicinal and can benefit a multitude of ailments and diseases! Today's guest is Isabella Gambuto, recipe developer, food stylist, and former NYC restaurateur turned Certified Natural Chef. She specializes in cooking delicious, vibrant, and fresh foods that are also enjoyable and healthy. She has always been passionate about food, growing up in her father's Italian restaurant and running it alongside him at the age of 23. When Isabella was 27, she was diagnosed with endometriosis, a uterine disease. The diagnosis changed her life, forcing her to reconsider her relationship with her own health and well-being. That path led her to sell the restaurant and pursue a new, more health-oriented career and become a holistic natural chef. Currently, she resides in Los Angeles and runs a food preparation delivery service. In addition to her prepared food delivery business, Isabella shares healthy recipes on her social media and is working on an anti-inflammatory cookbook and launching a "Chef Bella" YouTube channel this year.
Highlights
To learn more about Isabella, follow her on Instagram, or visit her website.
Follow us on Instagram or visit our website and stay inspired by our blogs, featuring a collection of posts about lifestyle, food, and so much more.
Listen to our past episodes!
Go back home.
Whole Food Style with Isabella Gambuto
Julia Chebotar 00:04
Spice up your life with me Health Chef Julia, as I set out on the journey of What is Healthy. In each episode, we'll explore the different meanings of healthy for some healthy means indulging in something decadent and delicious. For others. It's a mental health day and a good workout. There's more to health than just food. It's about living well, enjoying your life and having fun having you heard redheads do it best. Come with me, and we'll find out just what healthy is. Welcome to a new episode of What is Healthy? A podcast where we share every hack to getting healthier and more sustainable lifestyle. I'm Chef Julia and today we'll be talking to Isabella Gambuto thank you so much for being on is Do you mind introducing yourself to the audience and telling them all about you.
Isabella Gambuto 00:48
My name is Isabella Gambuto. Better known as Chef Bella, I am a certified natural chef, very similar to chef Julia and I have a professional meal prepping business very similar to chef Julia and I'm also a recipe developer, I come up with delicious foods that look pretty but also just happened to be good for you. I focus on like anti inflammatory foods. And yeah, I just love eating food that makes me feel good. And I want to help others do the same.
Julia Chebotar 01:14
So I know that you started all of this journey you were in the food industry and we'll get to that but you get you started getting more into health supportive foods, because certain health ailments
Isabella Gambuto 01:25
so I was diagnosed with endometriosis when I was 27 years old. And endometriosis is actually much more well known now than it was six or seven years ago when I was diagnosed. I forgot how old I am. And it is basically like scar like tissue builds up inside of your uterus and then can actually leave your uterus and it just causes like insane pain just like horrible pain, like it could just be during your periods. It could be during ovulation and like when it gets to a really bad stage like cancer has one to four stages. The tissue will actually leave your uterus and start attaching to other parts of your organs. So people can get like full blown hysterectomy is and still have endometriosis.
Julia Chebotar 02:10
And sometimes they're like very bloated and almost look pregnant.
Isabella Gambuto 02:12
Literally like I'm ovulating right now TMI. And like I can't even say Flo app is the best I use um, startup Daisy.
Julia Chebotar 02:22
Okay,
Isabella Gambuto 02:23
have you heard I posted about it actually, one of my friends from childhood came up with this app. She's she went by Harvard design school. So it's like really beautifully made. And it's like it mixes folklore and witchiness
Julia Chebotar 02:34
Ooh, stardust. I'm gonna download it
Isabella Gambuto 02:37
and like moon cycles, and it gives you like little like tidbits. And it's just really pretty. So like when I get I get excited to like, track my period with it. It's just like, it's the most beautiful like app. So I had surgery when I was 27 years old, which is usually like the course that happens if you were diagnosed with endometriosis. And you are lucky enough like myself to have good insurance and can find a good surgeon like that's really the hardest part I think of being diagnosed with endometriosis and finding the right care. And luckily, I'm from New York City where some of the best experts are. But I was really worried about my future fertility. Spoiler alert, I still don't have kids, like six years later, endometriosis can cause infertility in lots of women. And I was so concerned at 27 I was like, What am I gonna do? I want to have kids in the future. But I don't want to have kids right now. And my doctor was like, I've done everything I can do for you like you had surgery. There's nothing else medically from a medical standpoint we can do. If you're very worried about your endometriosis coming back and growing more, you should meet with a nutritionist and change your diet because that's going to have the most effect. And like, I don't know about you, but like most doctors don't ever say anything about diet. Since that time he is
Julia Chebotar 03:46
it's not even taught. Like I have friends who are in medical school. And they're like, yeah, the nutrition portion is literally like maybe not even a full semester. No rounds in nutrition, nothing. Nothing. My sister's
Isabella Gambuto 03:56
future brother in law is like a gastro ethnologist or something. And he's like, yeah, we just give people pills. Nobody like moms. He's like, yeah, like I'm sure diet would change it. But no one's gonna do that.
Julia Chebotar 04:05
Exactly. Because of pharma. And yeah, I
Isabella Gambuto 04:07
just like it sad. And so this doctor is like, male doctor told me like you need to change your diet to like, make sure that you're at your optimal health. And it like blew my mind. Like, I was like, Oh, I can and like, I didn't really have the money as a nutritionist. So I just like, you know, got really DIY and like, looked up what other matrial diets were. And I kind of created my own si inflammatory plan based on trial and error of what made my body feel bad and feel good. And it changed my life. If I like had more energy I wasn't as bloated, like and then I would have months where I would eat poorly. And it was like back to square one. It was just so obvious to me. How diet connects instantly with my pain with my health. Like even this year over Christmas, we drove across the country to be safe, and we ate a suit every day. And then I got there and we had the candy and Christmas trees and I had a horrible cycle that month. It was just so painful. For one, it was a direct correlation to the food I put in my body. So yeah, I was I owned a restaurant at the time. And I could not handle those long like 14 hour days on my feet. Stress was definitely part of like, I think getting the disease. And my dad was ready to retire. And we decided to sell the restaurant and I went back to culinary school for nutritional cooking. And that's how I became a certified natural chef.
Julia Chebotar 05:23
I love it. I love it. There's always some sort of health side effect in like someone else's like in your own life that
Isabella Gambuto 05:29
like makes you transition and kind of have a new career path. So many people in this like wellness industry, whether it be food or like fitness or meditation, have their own trigger of what brought them in, and it makes them more connected to the people that they're helping because you can empathize and identify, like a lot of my clients have Lyme disease. And I actually had Lyme disease that I luckily caught early and went away and I'm like so
Julia Chebotar 05:56
hard to find hard.
Isabella Gambuto 05:58
I luckily got the bullseye.
Julia Chebotar 06:00
Yeah. Cuz like it can go on for years and you can have fatigue and so many different side effects and like memory loss and speech problems. And yeah, it's horrible. And I just had it for like, a couple months. And I was like out for like, I still can't drink beer. It
Isabella Gambuto 06:14
made me averse to beer for the rest of my life. Really? Yeah. You know, I work with several people with Lyme disease. And it's like, I not only like know how you feel, but like, I know how we can make this better. And it helps like make a connection with my clients and be able to like really nourish them.
Julia Chebotar 06:28
I did the same thing. Absolutely. So I had shingles and I've had clients with shingles. And the shingles like affected my fertility. So I've also like gone through egg freezing. And that whole process was traumatizing. And like I've had clients now who are also in like, you know, IVF cycles and all this stuff. So I definitely what you eat and how you take care of your body post extraction is like so like I for four weeks, we get like colonics Weekly. I would I was like fully vegan, I was trying to have like no inflammation, inflammatory foods, and it really helped the recovery process.
Isabella Gambuto 07:02
Yeah, and I'm sure it also optimized like whatever eggs they harvested.
Julia Chebotar 07:06
So you mentioned that you own a restaurant with your family. But where did the passion start? Like how did your love of food happen?
Isabella Gambuto 07:14
Oh my gosh, I think I've always loved food. I loved the Food Network when I was a kid like I was obsessed with Emerald magothy like I feel bad. Like I'm still obsessed with Emerald.
Julia Chebotar 07:25
I'm not gonna lie. There was a there was a infomercial on TV like a few weeks ago and it was for No, no, it was like a machine that makes pasta but like ice cream, but like smoothies, but like first squeezed juices. And it was like only four payments of 6999 6999.
Isabella Gambuto 07:46
I mean, he does a lot of stuff. He's incredible. It does a lot of stuff. So when I was a kid I like love the show and I was like I think nine years old and I asked my dad to like take me shopping so I can make a steak Apollo, via Emerald and my dad took me to Gursky news and I bought me all the ingredients and I cooked a horrible steak and he ate it and told me it was delicious. And then I thought it was a cook. I was like oh, now my mom always cooked at home. She's an incredible cook and then my godmother, I actually remember bragging to my godmother, about the peppercorn steak that I made is a chef and a food stylist. She's to work with like Martha Stewart and she did like every TV commercial you can think of in the 90s like Sonic McDonald's. So she was always like making these grand meals like chicken pot pie was like always my favorite or like crevel bush like the huge towers. So I was like, I grew up with a lot of people making food from scratch and eating organic healthy foods. And then I also grew up in a restaurant where I would just go to the kitchen at like five years old and order calculating the Pomodoro. And like sit at bar and my grandmother has a story of like me being like two or three years old going to a restaurant and taking the lemon and squeezing it into my drink. Because they literally would just like put me on the bar as a kid like I would sit on a baby on the bar and just like hang out with the regulators.
Julia Chebotar 09:07
I love it. I love it, dude. Yeah, birth. Yeah. You knew that you needed to put acid into it.
Isabella Gambuto 09:13
It's just really elevates the taste.
Julia Chebotar 09:15
Right? Exactly. And brings out the flavors of your Pellegrino.
Isabella Gambuto 09:19
And then in college, I went to Oberlin College, which is famous for its cooperative system. It's like the second largest in the country, I think in one of these co ops and I was voted a head chef and I, like 19 years old would like plan, order, and cook and manage like five people every Tuesday night for 120 people dinners, and I loved it. I was the only person like like cooking with me. So I always got the extra budget for me and people like love my food and they were always excited for Tuesday nights. So it was like, it was like the first time I realized like, Oh, am I good at this, but it wasn't until I like couldn't get a job after college. So I decided that food should be my job.
Julia Chebotar 09:55
Really? What was your major?
Isabella Gambuto 09:57
Oh my gosh, my major was what was your major sitcom. in history, okay, mines is also out there. Major, I was a double major in politics and African American studies with a concentration in international relations. And I wanted to do development work in Sub Saharan Africa. That was my goal in life. But then I graduated college in 2009, when there were negative jobs. I had no debt at the time, which was incredible. Thank you, Papa Joe, for paying for my education my whole life. But also, I had no funds to pay for graduate school. And like, these nonprofit jobs I was looking at were like, 25 to $35,000 a year, you put yourself in about $100,000 of debt to get a masters and you're making $45,000 a year. And it just didn't make sense for me financially. And I started working at my dad's restaurant, and I just fell in love with it. Because the restaurant industry is like a magical and enticing place.
Julia Chebotar 10:50
It is it is. And it's like rainbows and butterflies until it's not
Isabella Gambuto 10:55
exactly. And I did it for like, almost 10 years.
Julia Chebotar 10:59
And then
Isabella Gambuto 11:00
and then I got sick. And it just became like more and more like, do I really want to do this, I thought about becoming a private chef and like moving out of the restaurant industry. And then my now husband bought a van. And we just both decided to like pick up and leave. And we traveled the country for a year. And that's what really kick started, kick started my decision to leave the restaurant to sell the restaurant. And actually one of my husband's friends who was a trainer, it was like Bella, she got into nutritional cooking, if she wants to be a private chef, like there's a huge market for that. So thank you, Kurt.
Julia Chebotar 11:31
You did it a little bit in New York. And then you guys decided to move to LA and now you have an assistant.
Isabella Gambuto 11:36
I do. I'm removed. I went to culinary school in San Francisco or in the in the Bay Area. I'm not going to give them a shout out because I did not think the program was very strong. I'll actually my new assistant is starting culinary school and she's gonna go to your program because I thought your program was so amazing that I recommended that they just started one in LA.
Julia Chebotar 11:54
Yes, they did. They started one in LA and I think the head chef that runs into chef Eliot, who was like the head baking chef at ngi for like 20 years. He's amazing. He's the best.
Isabella Gambuto 12:06
Yes. Oh, amazing. Oh, man. I'm gonna tell her also, like one of my friends have a friend who's a chef here. She's an instructor. They're just like such a small world.
Julia Chebotar 12:16
It really is. I actually really did
Isabella Gambuto 12:18
love that whole program. That's awesome. I did not love my program. I loved the experience of getting to cook for five hours straight in an incredibly soft kitchen. I loved my classmates. I think that was really one of the best things for me. I was a little underwhelmed by the actual program. And midway through the program, my favorite chef left because she was disappointed in the direction of the program after being involved for like 15 years, but she became kind of like a mentor to me and we're still really close and I help promote her products. Sometimes she has those crowdsource of the challenge. Nice small batch her meditation lives. She's so cool. She's like literally one of the coolest people I've ever met. She's like a professional sunova
Julia Chebotar 12:56
she's a professional way.
Isabella Gambuto 12:58
Oh, she's a professional like, mushroom Hunter.
Julia Chebotar 13:00
Oh, she like forages and stuff. I wouldn't do that one day. She's so cool. And apparently it's like really easy to do in California and especially like San Francisco, or they're in California. Yeah,
Isabella Gambuto 13:11
I'm gonna I keep wanting to go and my friend his dad's Italian and he does it every November up and Shasta. So hopefully next year I get to go.
Julia Chebotar 13:18
You see we follow each other on Instagram and I watch all your stuff. And I love that all the date stuff and I love the whole 30 also last video so cute. Why? cauliflower pizza. The cauliflower pizza is so cute. your hammock cute. I
Isabella Gambuto 13:32
loved it. I actually went with my new assistant for filming me, which is amazing. So it's like I can do more stuff. It's not just me like awkwardly holding things.
Julia Chebotar 13:41
But I know that you like follow certain food trends according to like anti inflammatory diets and just like things that you enjoy, but do you follow like certain current food trends or certain food trends like inspiring you see, I'm
Isabella Gambuto 13:55
so uninspired right now. I was like just talking to people about my husband and my assistant.
Julia Chebotar 14:00
I was I was actually literally doing the same conversation the other day because like, I feel like I'm constantly I'm cooking the same fucking things. And like I need something to like
Isabella Gambuto 14:08
coming up with nothing new.
Julia Chebotar 14:10
Yeah, and I'm not going to bake Santa like I'm against the baking Fattah video.
Isabella Gambuto 14:16
It's just like, I know that's busy. It's like I don't need a new pasta recipe like whatever makes that sounds delicious. But like I just said, it's not what I want. I just did a random whole 30 it was my third round. I think it might be my last round. I think a whole 21 might be something I would do again or a whole 14 but I just like missed rice a lot and like I miss cooking for my pantry.
Julia Chebotar 14:38
That's the thing. So like, I totally support whole 30 I just think that it's a little too restrictive in the sense that the way that I was taught like that nutrition is like the way that I take on food nutrition is that whole foods are the way to go and extremely nutritious and like the way to feed your and nourish your body from all elements. don't really agree with the whole of cutting carbs out of your diet.
Isabella Gambuto 15:03
It's not even carbs because you can eat like potatoes and sweet potatoes. Like it's not, it's just like it's not, it wasn't a program designed by nutritionists. Like if you want to do the AIP elimination diet to figure out what sort of autoimmune disease you have, like that makes sense where like you cutting out grains, and like this is like, it doesn't demonize grains and legumes, but I think just the fact it like the whole point of it is that it's just the cleanse and it's food freedom afterwards. Just the fact that it tells you to eliminate them that makes people afraid of grains and legumes and like it's also exhausting to have to inexpensive to have to cook vegetables and meat proteins that are like grass fed organic, because it's the only thing I'm going to eat two to three times a day and not have any like kind of pantry staples, like chickpeas or rice or feedlot that are so good for you.
Julia Chebotar 15:51
Absolutely. I also don't think I can digest that I don't hold 30 and like or Palio, just the or even keto. I know this is gonna sound terrible. The amount of animal intake is like overload. It's too much.
Isabella Gambuto 16:04
Yeah, it's, it's too much. Yeah. No, I agree. So I just like I enjoy my first whole 30 that I did was like mind blowing, I loved it so much. I felt so good. The second one, I did not prepare myself enough. It was on a good round hole 30 for me, like I remember being on a TV shoots as a culinary assistant for like 14 hours. And like there was no food on set. And then like, I get home at like midnight, and I was like, What can I eat, I didn't prep myself any food. And I've just been like, cooking all day. Like it just it's hard if you're not prepared. And then this time around. It was fun. But also like, my husband and I are stuck in our house already. Because it's like COVID so bad in LA and like, especially in January, like my friend got COVID from driving a u haul. Just like it's really bad here. So we just like we're really isolated and we were not drinking and it was hard. Like I hardly ever get drunk these days. I don't drink to get drunk, but like, you know, when life is this difficult, like sometimes it's nice to just like, unwind and have a drink at night. Yes. Literally, I was like I just mentioned the Miss natural wine.
Julia Chebotar 17:10
Have a glass of wine? Absolutely. I know. I know. That's another thing. Like I I'm really trying to cut out alcohol because as I get older, like the hangovers are real. And even like two glasses of wine. I'm like puffy the next day. I'm like a little I need your RX. Can you like make a post on your favorites because you sent me like you said so many last time and I couldn't find or forgot. So I think you need to do a wine post.
Isabella Gambuto 17:33
I am reluctant to post about the wines I like because they're limited batches within these natural wines. My favorite so just secretly email me my favorite wine has already been blown up to the point where like it's over. So I'll talk about right now it's called when Leto it's like a leader of organic wine from Italy naturally made by this woman she's like super cool. And it's just like a beautiful bottle it tastes good it's so drinkable and like it sell about every like two months of it being on the shelves and there's just a limited amount because that's the way the wine is made like it's not commercially made. It's all hand picked with wild ease. But yeah, I love a Beaujolais and again a Those are my like favorite grapes go to your wine store especially in New York City Los Angeles San Francisco kind of but if you're in like a major city they should have natural wine. Astor wines has a great selection and just like hey, I want a natural wine What do you have and they should tell you about it because I'm so dumb I there's a book I can recommend to people called wine unfiltered. Why don't sell doing it on Amazon for like $14 and it's a little book and teaches you everything you need to know about natural one if people are interested in it. Yeah, I also think I have it on my Amazon shop on my Instagram profile and my Amazon shop is linked and it should be under cookbook.
Julia Chebotar 18:48
So I know that in COVID you've been doing a lot of prep in home and dropping it off to clients. I don't know how you do it because that to me is like the worst fucking thing in the world. Like I honestly truly hate it. But I get that it could be a lot easier to manage with an assistant
Isabella Gambuto 19:06
because like in Are you still cooking in people's homes?
Julia Chebotar 19:10
I am but only I only have one quiet right now. Okay, so
Isabella Gambuto 19:13
then it's fine.
Julia Chebotar 19:14
I did doing like, like dinner parties and then like for the holidays I went with a family to ask them for two weeks but then I broke my shoulder so it wasn't a great Oh yeah, I fell skiing and I fractured my shoulder and tore my rotator cuff.
Isabella Gambuto 19:27
Oh my gosh, I don't know how to ski and that's why I was completely hurt myself. You whiskey and camping you learn from your parents like I always want I'm very good at going to the Caribbean and ordering pina colada bullseye. But my husband has made me very not very good at camping. I still suck at camping. But I'm more amenable to it. I
19:48
love you bye.
Isabella Gambuto 19:51
Sorry, my husband just left and say goodbye to me in the pub.
Julia Chebotar 19:55
But do you find it easier now the oven assistants like manage all that.
Isabella Gambuto 19:59
So Yes, this is my assistant, her name is Ash. She's awesome. And she actually blind emailed me back in like September or October or something was like I've been really inspired by you. I'm thinking about going to culinary school she like had switched careers because of COVID. And then I was like, I like reached out for a virtual assistant because like, what I'm so bad at is the like, emailing scheduling, like I, I'm just so exhausted after cooking all day, and like planning my news. I know, like, if I'm coming up with like, what, like two dozen different menu items every week, because the whole point of my meal prep service is that it's customized to my client's individual dietary needs and preferences. So and,
Julia Chebotar 20:40
and like food restrictions and
Isabella Gambuto 20:41
allergies, and there's all the things exactly. And in New York, we have Fresh Direct, which is a really reliable delivery service. That's what we always use. I used to work at meal prep shop, that's what we use there.
Julia Chebotar 20:54
It will show up on time. It's like you're never gonna get there like Not exactly. It's not like Amazon Prime,
Isabella Gambuto 21:01
you get what you ordered. That's what kills me about. It's like, if it's sold out, they won't sell it to you. And it's like, it's just a co packing thing. So it's not about like shopping, like when I go to Whole Foods now. It's all Amazon shoppers.
Julia Chebotar 21:13
It is right. And they're like, kind of like in your way with their carts and stuff.
Isabella Gambuto 21:17
Yeah. And I think Jeff Bezos, I know you're listening, start your own fucking, you can curse. Your own version of restaurants. I'm so sorry, restaurants. But like more people, the New Yorkers need the service, especially in metropolitan areas. So I can't do that here. Like, it's just Amazon delivery and instacart is unreliable.
Julia Chebotar 21:38
Yeah, there was like, Whole Foods doesn't have care. It's like, wow, there's like 17 versions of care. Or like,
Isabella Gambuto 21:45
I remember one time I ordered dried organic mangoes, and they gave me freeze dried mangoes. Like those couldn't be more different. Like, I just don't do so get them for me, I don't want them. So I have to do the physical shopping myself, which I didn't have to do before, which I do. Like I didn't love what the random produce, I would get like you would get something that was like this big. And then something is this big. So at least I know what I'm getting. And it is like slightly more affordable to pick things by hand if it's delivered. But you know, that's it takes me I go shopping twice a week for my clients because I want the food to be as fresh as possible. So it's either being purchased the day, it's been coated the day before and never more than that. So I go two times a week for the three days that I cook. And then the rest of the week is spent doing like office work and content creation, which I don't get paid for. I know, right? It's a lot like it's a lot. So my assistant comes one day a week to help cook which is fun. And I'm kind of like teaching her the things that I've learned and I'm so excited for her to go to culinary school and like get her more stuff that maybe she can teach me
Julia Chebotar 22:44
it's more fun when when someone else is there.
Isabella Gambuto 22:47
Yeah. And it's like she comes a day that I have the most clients. So I've done earlier. So that's nice. And then she comes once a week and we do computer work together we film videos. I have like a lot of stuff I'm working on right now to hopefully launch next month, your YouTube channel and your Amazon page. I have a YouTube channel and my Amazon pages. I'm redoing my website, which is the worst I like really just won't hire someone to do it. I don't have the funds to do it at the level I would like so I'm doing it myself. And maybe next year I can What are you doing it on doing it on. So I'm just I had a Squarespace site and I I switched the format of the templates over and now I just did a big rebrand I'm gonna launch soon. And so now I have to figure out how to like code, all the fonts and the colors into the template. I'm working on a newsletter so I just like I have all this stuff that I'm working on. And I'm not good at time management and stuff like that. So I want to like get everything ready so that I could plan my consistent posts rather than just like randomly put things out there. So that's what's been so yeah, but it's been so great. And what's so awesome about ash my assistant is that like
Julia Chebotar 23:54
which is so hard She's so
Isabella Gambuto 23:56
excited about everything we're doing that it makes me even more excited when sometimes I just feel like I'm talking to avoid
Julia Chebotar 24:03
Yeah, she's like a hype girl.
Isabella Gambuto 24:04
Yeah, Calvin's like Oh, you like have your family your best friend It's so cool because she wants to do something similar in her future and like I love getting to hang out with someone once we were so weak that like have similar interests as me and like it's so nice to be working with someone again after like a year of being all by myself. So hopefully we'll be getting a lot more stuff done in 2021
Julia Chebotar 24:26
we will we will you mentioned that growing up you loved emeralds. Is there a chef now that you admire the most like who who do you fangirl over?
24:36
Oh,
Isabella Gambuto 24:37
I think all of us so many people I love solo obviously She's so cool on her like her ideas and talent is endless. I love on lanky like everyone else like his flavors are literally the service book next to me flavor. I love Pamela Salzman Did I tell you about her before she's like a middle aged like hot mom from Manhattan Beach and she's Italian and her husband's Jewish. Like I really identify with her like family because I'm an Italian Jew, and she just makes like healthy food but there is no like, she doesn't have one way or another like her husband's vegan so sometimes she makes vegan foods sometimes she'll like share a recipe for pot rose like, she just makes real Whole Foods, Pamela Salzman just like I have a cookbooks by my bedside table. Oh, no, this is a um hotsprings Guide to California and she's great. Um, you know, I am a fan of the flavors of like, awesome Roman. I like I always joke that I could be like the healthy version of Allison Roman.
Julia Chebotar 25:33
I just followed her.
Isabella Gambuto 25:35
Yeah, but even just like being nicer to the people that like make her food. I like
Julia Chebotar 25:40
I tried to be really nice saying like, goals right there. But like, without all the issues exactly, like
Isabella Gambuto 25:46
just be nice and healthy. Like her stuff has so much butter and cream, like,
Julia Chebotar 25:49
as I'm saying, like, no kancil culture vibes.
Isabella Gambuto 25:52
My whole thing is like, you can make food tastes so good without without adding tons of cheese.
Julia Chebotar 25:57
I know. Like, I don't want to be me. And I don't want to throw anyone under the bus. But like, she could just be a little nicer.
Isabella Gambuto 26:02
With shallots, like garlic chili like it just not knowing but I do. What I've been very inspired by her is like her the amount of herbs she uses. I love that with salts
Julia Chebotar 26:13
with like, Jessica, a little bit of folic acid and salt. Yeah.
26:18
Oh, amazing. I
Isabella Gambuto 26:18
also have this Um, oh, you told me about her last forever. I have this incredible cookbook. My grandmother got me and it's Sephardic. I
Julia Chebotar 26:25
like that in Eden eats to
Isabella Gambuto 26:27
Jewish cooking. Oh, yeah, she's
Julia Chebotar 26:29
an Israeli Jew New Yorker. She's a Top Chef Canada host.
Isabella Gambuto 26:34
And it's this woman who used to live with my grandmother. My family is South African. And my grandmother lived in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, and they use their old friends from Zimbabwe. But it's like a crazy story of Jews from Rhodes, Greece that then got displaced during World War Two. And it's like, Yes, I also this is this because all these conflicts are on my Amazon shop. But it's like, it's a very, it's not a well known book. It's beautiful. And the recipes are like mind blowing, because they come from all these different cultures. And like, I love that. And that's the thing that inspiration is like I like asked on Instagram for cookbook recommendations is because like, I get so much inspiration from like, going out to lunch or traveling or like meeting new people go into people's houses, and I no longer have them direction. And then you know, I'm already addicted to my phone. So I'm not trying to be on as much. But then like, I do get inspiration from scrolling on Instagram and Pinterest. But I'm trying to find a balance because I'm already on my phone so much putting out my own stuff that I'm like, I have to stop being on my phone so much. But then there's nowhere for me to go in person to get inspired. So like really, my only thing right now is cookbooks. Yo you want to have new culinary experiences. But it's almost impossible. And I feel like in LA especially there was just an article in The New York Times about there's there's been all these like really cool pop ups coming up from the pandemic and like people trying to figure their stuff out. But it's, I find that it's like a lot of like, really, like really comfort food and food that like is traditional to the people who are selling it. So like there's like a golden rice company, and there's a provi company, and there's a pizza company. And like, that's awesome. And like, people making food to the best ability is like, I'm all for it. But it's not giving me inspiration for new flavor combinations and ideas. Like it's not like going to Mexico and get it going. contramar
Julia Chebotar 28:23
Exactly. So I was literally having the same mental break the like a few weeks ago and I was like, You know what? I'm culturally Russian. And like, there's not that like okay, I'm sure someone who's a foodie can probably name like five Russian dishes force being the first one. But like, it's a culture that and I feel like there's just so many staples that I grew up on like eating fresh foods, eating herbs, eating so much fresh fruits and veggies that are as popular culturally now because I feel like everybody wants fast food, junk food, comfort, food, food, Pawnee food, but like I kind of want to maybe revisit the Russian roots and figure out ways for people to like have whole supportive food but like in a new flavor palate,
Isabella Gambuto 29:09
that's also part of it. Like I want to like I've been really into learning about Indian food at my sister is my sister just got engaged and her husband or fiance, a Sikh. And I've been planning Indian wedding with them. And I've never even been to an Indian wedding. So I've been like researching it and like everything is about this. I want
Julia Chebotar 29:25
to go so bad. I want like the elephant the horse. It's incredible.
Isabella Gambuto 29:29
There's gonna be a horse, but like I'm like, literally salivating looking at this food. And I'm like, Oh my god, I need to get some, like real Indian cookbooks and learn more about this stuff. Just like learn about the flavors. And like, even if I'm not making Indian food, just learning from making these flavors. It's just like an inspiration of how things can work together for future ideas.
Julia Chebotar 29:48
I'm a person that needs to like learn visually. So like coders who was great for me because I could like watch the person make it and then I was like, Okay, cool. I got this and recently like, I can't watch cooking on TV. as much anymore it just doesn't like I tone a tune it out. And I've literally been looking at like so many different, like culinary programs on like chocolate making or you know, like Somali programs or this night like everything is closed. And I'm like, this is like All I want is to be like mentally enriched with like learning something new and at a standstill and like mental block as
Isabella Gambuto 30:23
well. I was like looking at a huge I told you, I watched all your YouTube episodes, to try to find a show that I could like, identify with and kind of like inspiration from and like, I really just like didn't none of them really clicked with me. I like I'm like, I don't even know who has cooking shows anymore. But it's like, I don't
Julia Chebotar 30:39
either. And I was watching I was in ruins video.
Isabella Gambuto 30:41
Yeah, tell her she's like me, I want to I was gonna join Molly basses recipe club, because I do think she has really great recipe ideas and like new flavors, but it's also like, I'm not gonna make the food, right. Like, I just kind of want to like, so it's like, I know, it's only $5 a month and I should support her. But like, I've only made like two of her recipes my entire life. You know what I mean? Like, I'm so Pro, like, supporting females. But like, at a certain point. It's like if I had to pay $5 a month for every single person that I want inspiration from, I'll just buy a cookbook, you know what I mean?
Julia Chebotar 31:12
Right? Absolutely. I understand that we're at a shift culturally and economically and just like where we are as a whole in the United States. We're a little off and a lot of things. What are your What are your thoughts on like, cooking recipes from other cultures? I don't technically think it's cultural appropriation because I think it's the opposite. I think it's more like an aberration. And like trying to recreate it, but like I have seen backlash and a lot of food bloggers and food people for you know, posting a Thai recipe or posting Indian recipe or this and like, you're not Indian, you can post this. And I'm like, but our burn coronary? That's kind of what we do. No, I
Isabella Gambuto 31:53
think you should, people should should be cooking other people's food. I just think the issue lies at how you present your dish. If you're like, this is my Thai curry recipe. And it's like, you know, you're then like, oh, like, I took this but for me, especially with like Asian foods, like, I can't eat soy, it kills me. So like, and I crit I love Korean food. And like Japanese food I love like old school American Chinese food. And like really authentic Chinese. I love Thai food. But like, a lot of times it has like, authentic Thai food has a lot of palm sugar, which like then also is inflammatory for me. So I want these foods, but I can't just go out and get them all the time. So I have to recreate them as versions that I can handle. I feel like as long as you're connecting with the origins of the food, like for example, I have a recipe for a chicken festa john, which is a Persian pomegranate walnuts do that you can use a chicken or lamb. And the first time I ever had, it's so good. The first time I ever had it were at my friend's death. And Kenya's wedding in San Francisco at septons. Jewish in Kenya is Persian, and my mind was blown by this I'd never had like authentic Persian food before living in New York. I
Julia Chebotar 33:03
mean, either and until I have a really close Persian friend and her mom taught me how to make tidy. So now I make tadek. But I always reference like nillas mom, like mama nez taught me.
Isabella Gambuto 33:14
Yeah, I'm obsessed with it. And I presented a recipe for physician based off of like, trial and error and like going through tons of different like YouTube videos. And I shared it with the story of learning about this recipe from my friend's wedding. And my friend cameo, like, shared my post and was like a Italian Jew from New York City is sharing a recipe for physician that she had in the Bay Area for my wedding like this is warming my Persian heart because of these like connections, and like introducing a dish to people that I had never heard of before. But in no way was I was like, This is my recipe for like, I dish like and it was very pretty traditional recipe. Like I wasn't changing anything. It was just like, this is how I made it. And I was inspired by these people. You know, it was taken really well. But even like, it goes back to even like cultural oppression, preparation and dress and I think it's different for every culture and how you demonstrate it like in Japan is seen as a sign of respect to wear a kimono like it's not seen as doing like, like trying to co OPT the culture when you're there like you can go written Kyoto they have this whole thing where you can like rent a kimono and walk around Kyoto all day like in Jaffa traditional Japanese dress. And I was like, Oh, that's weird. Like, you really want white people doing that. Like, I was like, all PC about it. And they're like, no, like, it's like, to us it's like, wow, like, you appreciate our culture so much. You're willing to like dress in the traditional dress.
Julia Chebotar 34:42
That's how I feel that all of that
Isabella Gambuto 34:44
Yeah. But you have to be respectful and not like pulling out Roman and be like, this is a stew and it's like, well, I saw that recipe and I was like, that's curry. Right like that like to me I was like, that's weird that she would call this a su it's turmeric coconut curry. So I think you just have to be like delicate and like thoughtful, which you should be always when sharing recipes when cooking recipes, and especially when presenting recipes as your own. But also I think another thing is that like as because of all of the things that have this discussions that happened this past summer, especially around this, it's been like, okay, like, what things should I share? And should I not share? You don't want to offend anyone?
Julia Chebotar 35:23
And you definitely people are thinking twice. And I'm actually putting thought behind posts now a bit more, which is great.
Isabella Gambuto 35:30
Yes. But for example, the fat bakes about a pasta right? Like it's a lager in Finland developed recipe that Greek people have been doing for hundreds of 1000s of years. I'm Italian pasta is like in my DNA, I would never like I would never make their pasta. Am I offended that people are making pasta like that? I'm not going to take it personally because it disrespects my culture, because pasta is part of my culture. So it's just like, there's just different levels of it. There are certain things that are offensive, like calling a courious do it like saying that you invented to sue,
Julia Chebotar 36:01
I love you. Thank you so much for doing this. Can you please share to everyone where they can find you where they can get your Amazon picks where they can get your, all of your videos, all the things you can follow me on Instagram
Isabella Gambuto 36:15
at Isabella gam Budo figure it out. It's long name. My website is Isabella gamble.com. You can go on my Amazon shop, Chef Bella, all of this stuff is linked on my Instagram. Just go there. I just started talking Julia, you're so proud of me. Oh my god, I'm gonna follow you. I'm going to be one of them. I am the only Isabel embudo in the world. So I might as well keep it that way. Really. I mean, I don't think anyone else is going to be taking Isabel again. But I was like, I didn't change my name. When I got married. I like make sure I change my name. And then I'm like, it's so much work.
Julia Chebotar 36:52
I thought no one would have my name. And then I went on Facebook and there's like 17 of us. Yeah, they're all in like Russia or like some sort of Soviet Soviet nation. But like,
Isabella Gambuto 37:01
I found tons of young budos on Facebook for Italy, but like my grandfather, like was illiterate in English and Italian like when he moved to America and there's no way again budos our real man from this small town he's from in a small island off of Naples called ECF there's not a single gambro so like, I'm not related to any one. We'll never know
Julia Chebotar 37:20
when we immigrated to America like my all of my name, like everything just misspelled on like every document so
Isabella Gambuto 37:26
Yeah, exactly. What did your family come to America when I was a year old? Oh my gosh, you know, my, my grandfather is Russian Jew. Really? They left Russia at the turn of the century to South Africa. And that's how my family a South African
Julia Chebotar 37:38
huge South Africa like South African Jews are big
Isabella Gambuto 37:42
down there. So I'm like, I'm either related to half of them or my grandfather, like delivered them because he was an OB GYN in Joburg. I like went to a break fast in Joburg and like half the babies at the table
Julia Chebotar 37:58
Okay, oh my gosh, thank you again for doing this I love you.
Isabella Gambuto 38:02
Oh yeah. Thanks for having me. I love you too. And we can go
Julia Chebotar 38:05
yes can we can we will we have to do a live we're gonna get that on the books right now. So thank you so much for listening. Remember you can follow me at health chef Julia subscribe to the podcast and please all go follow chef Bella. Isabel give it up.
Isabella Gambuto 38:19
Yeah to like and subscribe to the podcast. Yes, Isabel you know but my name is Chef Bella, whatever, you'll figure it out. There's there's like three gam budos on Instagram, love you mean it.
38:28
Bye, baby.