Burlington local Frank Greco and Mississauga-based chef Stephan Schulz have combined their talents to win the award for Best Interactive EBook for their work on My Really Simple Recipes 2 at the upcoming TASTE Awards.
Greco, host of The Travel Guy and Gourmet Escapes, and Schulz have been working together for years after they first met during a culinary conference in Niagara Falls around seven years ago. After sharing their ideas, with Schulz creating the food while Greco handled creating the ebook, the duo came up with the My Really Simple Recipes series.
The My Really Simple Recipes books take advantage of being delivered digitally by having each recipe in the book link to a YouTube video teaching you how to make it.
“The whole philosophy behind the ebooks is that they’re really simple recipes,” Greco said. “It doesn’t take 17 ingredients to make this amazing dish, it might only take two or three. It can show you how to turn leftovers into phenomenal dishes, and in the ebook you can just click on the picture of the recipe and it’ll take you to the video showing you how to cook it.”
The videos, which are only around three to five minutes long, are simple and to the point in order to keep things as clear as possible for readers to try out.
The TASTE Awards are given out to the creators, hosts, producers and directors behind some of the best food, fashion and lifestyle content on TV, film, photography and online.
“The competition is tough,” Schulz said. “I’m competing against mostly TV chefs who have bigger staff and bigger budgets. We’re up against people all the way from New Zealand, Russia and China to compete against.”
Greco and Schulz are no strangers to the TASTE Awards, with the former receiving recognition for his work on the YouTube channel that goes hand-in-hand with the ebook while Schulz has won multiple awards for his food photography in the past.
“It’s an honour each time because it brings us to the top of the heap with all the other people that can share ideas,” Greco said. “It’s described as the Oscars of the food industry, and the more we win the more recognition we get around the world and the more we’re helping other people and sharing ideas.”
On top of being delivered digitally, the My Really Simple Recipes ebooks are also entirely free for consumers, with the costs of the series being covered instead by sponsorships and advertising within the ebook.
“This is where the future is,” Schulz said. “There’s no question about that. To have access with the younger generation who can click on a recipe and see it is great, and when I go to food shows the first thing they ask me is where they can find my books and how they can download them. It’s the internet that’s really the key.”
Schulz and Greco are currently working on an ebook focused on cuisine from Mississauga, where Schulz lives, and have plans to do the same for other nearby cities, including Burlington, Hamilton and Niagara.
The 16th annual TASTE Awards will be held at the WGA Theatre in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles on Monday, March 10.
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