Toni Reece: Hi there. Welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. I’m Toni Reece, and today I have a very special guest with me, Jason Hook. Hi, Jason.
Jason Hook: Hi, Toni.
Toni: Jason, take a little bit of time here and tell us what you do.
Jason: I run a business called H20 kitchen. I’ve been on here a couple times now. I’ve explained the business, but for those that don’t know, we do private events and private dinners in people’s homes. We come in and prepare a multi-course tasty meal based on the client’s specs, and I draft customized menus per event. We do everything from cocktail hours to sit down dinners, to any kind of catering. I’m fully licensed as a caterer now, too, so we do any kind of numbers, all off premise. That’s the bulk of my business.
Then, as you know, Toni, I’m a photographer, so a lot of my weekdays are filled in with food photography and food styling. I fill in the gap there. That’s what I do, and it’s been a good year. We grew since the last time I was on the show. I’m booking up for the holidays right now. I’m really excited about the Thanksgiving and Christmas season, and just getting out there and cooking.
Toni: Fantastic. I can attest that I have been to one of your demonstrations. The food is excellent, and your photography is excellent. Way to go.
Let’s go into the Project. The first question of the Project is, what does inspiration mean to you?
Jason: Inspiration comes in so many ways. It’s an emotion that evokes creativity. As a chef, I get inspired by many things, many factors, whether it’s at the Farmer’s Market and I see some local produce coming in that’s just coming into season; like right now we have some pumpkins and delicata squash and crosnes, and salsify. That’s always exciting with the seasons. We’re blessed to have four seasons in Berks County where we have the transitions were we can get out of root vegetables and into spring vegetables with morels and ramps, and that’s always fun. It kind of changes the scene. Inspiration comes in that form as a chef.
Also, as an artist, I find inspiration in other artists. As far as photography goes, I always look online. I have a lot of photographer friends that I learned from. I still pick up tips and tricks here and there on the technical side where I’ll implement that into my style of photography. It comes in many ways, but to me, inspiration is an emotion that evokes some kind of creativity.
Toni: Do you find that you can really feel when you’re either looking at something or you’re at that Farmer’s Market, you’re going to create a dish or an experience, is it the same? Can you feel it?
Jason: It’s definitely something you feel inside. As a chef, if I see something that inspires me, and it could be not even at the Farmer’s Market – it could just be another chef demonstrating a dish that he just prepared. I might take something from that, whether it be a technique or something molecular or something as simple as seasoning or whatever it is. I might just take something so simple from it, be inspired, and turn it into something of my own. It comes in so many different ways.
Inspiration also comes in a kitchen of any magnitude, but especially with my style kitchen. Inspiration comes from other cooks as well. The cooks that work underneath me, I’m inspired by watching them progress. A lot of times they’ll come to the table with great ideas as well. We work as a team and work together. A lot of the final product might be a collaborative effort. We inspire each other.
Toni: So there really isn't a hierarchy when it comes to inspiration for you.
Jason: No. It’s an open-minded game. It would be ignorant to block everybody off and not welcome ideas and try to implement them in the best way possible.
Toni: How do you take all of that creative energy when you’re inspired and put that into practice here in Berks County?
Jason: I try to deliver an experience that Berks County hasn’t really been exposed to. I try to educate the customer as well as far as the food goes. It might be more common somewhere else like in the city to do what I’m doing here, but it’s great to be able to see the people’s expressions when they see something that they haven’t seen before, or a technique, a dish, a protein, or whatever it is prepared in a different way. That’s the reward for me, is being able to show people something and educate them at the same time, and deliver an experience that is something they haven’t experienced before.
Toni: And that’s what you do. You do that here in Berks County, correct?
Jason: Yes.
Toni: You said you do catering, so does that happen when you go into someone’s home?
Jason: When I say I do catering, I’m only opening up the doors to any kind of business possible, because I want to be able to expand and obviously take care of people that want to have a wedding or an anniversary and deliver a higher experience whereas a traditional caterer only goes so far here in Berks County. I want to be able to deliver a better product. I just got into catering, so it’s not my forte, but I definitely do it. I just did a party for 200 at the Baum School of Art in Allentown.
Toni: Oh my gosh!
Jason: It was great. It was one of those parties that took a lot of planning.
Toni: I would imagine.
Jason: It was at a school. Of course I rented everything – tables, chairs, linens, bars, glassware, everything, and set up staffing. It was a whole ordeal. I’m used to that. I come from a hotel background too, so it was directing and coordinating it, and it went really well. We ended up doing 185 people in a school with just empty rooms and the space that we created.
Toni: That’s wild!
Jason: We set up a kitchen in an employee break room with one sink, no dishwasher, and this was all glassware, too. Mind you, there were no disposables. We used wine glasses for a bar, we used the rocks glasses. We rented everything. It was all washable stuff. We did it. We pulled it off. We got out of there at 4:30 in the morning, but that was one of my largest catered events.
I’ve done a couple here in Berks County at the Berks Opera Workshop, where we did about 150. It went really well. We do everything, but like I said, my specialty is delivering an intimate, in-home experience that is basically having your own personal chef. We do more than just a sit down dinner. We always have a cocktail hour where we pass hors d’oeuvres and small plates, and in between cocktail hour and the sit down I like to do a culinary demo where I set up on the kitchen island. I’ll do either a butchering demo or how to make fresh pasta, ricotta and gnocchi, something that’s different that brings the guests into the culinary side of it. It gets them engaged, and then they sit down and have a dinner. It’s really fun.
Toni: Now I’m hearing a 360 approach to the inspiration theme here. The intimate experience – really it’s an experience whether it’s a large group, a small group, your photography. You are creating an experience, right?
Jason: Yes.
Toni: I would imagine as inspired as you are to create it, you want people to be inspired as they’re experiencing it. Correct?
Jason: Yes.
Toni: Can you give me an example of the last time you witnessed one of these experiences with someone where you thought, “They just got inspired!”
Jason: That’s a good one, because this happens often when I do these dinners and these private cooking classes. One of the services I offer is not just a sit down dinner, but I’ll do these cooking demos. I come to your house, and we actually set up cutting boards for a married couple, boyfriend/girlfriend, whatever – usually it’s really intimate, like two or three people. I’ll do a three-course meal.
The whole idea is to educate and to teach them how to prepare this meal so they get inspired to do it themselves for their guests when they have people over, whether it be just a traditional coq au vin or a butternut squash veloute. I’ll do three courses where it’s an appetizer, entrée and dessert. It’s not too complicated, but it’s enough where they haven’t done it before, and they find inspiration in each course so they can duplicate it for the guests that come to their house next time. It’s educational. They get to eat dinner. It’s just a win for everybody. It’s really fun.
Toni: Fantastic. Who in Berks County inspires you, Jason?
Jason: I have to tell you, there’s so many people here that inspire me on a different level. It’s a human level. Honestly, you know Craig Poole very well at the Crowne Plaza, and Chef Tim Twiford. They’re both great friends of mine, and obviously we do a lot of work together. Those guys really are what inspires me.
It stems from hospitality, but it’s more than Chef Tim; obviously he’s a chef, but it’s more than culinary. It’s more on a human level. They give back so much to the community. They do so much for others, and they’ve done so much for me too in the beginning of my progress here that I owe them so much. They just do so much, and it’s inspiring to see that and to want to be like that. It really is. You see what they do.
Just for example, today Craig Poole posted on Facebook about the Socktober. This is every day for him. It’s just every day. The idea is there’s a basket out front of the hotel where we donate brand new wool socks or long socks or whatever for people that don’t have socks. It’s just so simple, but it’s just those little things that he does every day and that Chef Tim participates in, and they both do together. Those kind of things are what inspire me. It’s on a human level more so than anything else.
Speaking of that, I want to also say obviously Chef Tim and Craig Poole are amazing people, but my mother … I never really talk about my mom, but I want to because she inspires me so much because she is so giving.
My family has been through so much, obviously with my side, my wife and everything, and then with my sisters. My sister had a drug problem for a while, and she had three kids. My mom took on three kids just a couple years ago that were young – seven, five, and three – all by herself, because my mom is divorced from my dad about eight years now, all while taking care of my grandparents that are both living in their home, taking care of them at 89, and doing it without even thinking. Just giving and not even asking for anything else.
My wife passed away last year, and I moved back to the area, and she helped with Brayden and helped us, all while going through all of this. Now my sister is actually good. She’s clean, which is wonderful. She’s an amazing sister, and she’s an amazing mother now, so she’s helping to relieve the load, but my mother did all of that, all while not asking for a single thing. That’s inspiration to me as far who inspires me the most. I have to give it to my mom.
Toni: I’ll tell you, there’s a theme there, Jason, and it’s selflessness. That’s what I’m hearing, and that’s what inspires you.
Jason: Yes.
Toni: So Jason, this is a weird question for some, but what do you want your legacy to be?
Jason: I honestly just want to give back, and I want to educate young cooks. Nothing makes me feel better than when I get a text from a cook that is now in the city like Philadelphia or New York, and they say, “I just want to thank you so much for what you did for me and teaching me the ropes in the beginning, so now I’m actually prepared to go into this four-star kitchen.”
I just got a text from a friend of mine who worked with me a couple of years. He texted me saying, “I just want to thank you so much for what you did for me and how you brought me up. You brought me to the level where I was able to step into this kind of kitchen.” I guess my legacy is I want to be able to teach as much as I can, educate as much as I can, and give back, because I was given so much.
I was given so much as far as my chefs go. My education and my training came from a lot of sacrifice, a lot of hard work, but these are from chefs that didn’t have to, and they did. I want to be able to do that for others. I want to be able to make a stamp on this area.
People ask me all the time, “Why are you here? Why are you in Reading? Why aren’t you back in the city?” It’s easy. This is such a great area to raise kids, raise a family. It’s a beautiful area to live, number one, and you know what? Lancaster is pretty much untouched. As a chef, that’s a beautiful thing. We have awesome produce, great animals right here. There’s a lot of restaurants that are popping up in Lancaster right now and in Berks County, but it’s kind of untouched. I want to be that chef that touches this area and makes a stamp here with my style of food. That’s my goal.
Again, just to give back and to give younger cooks an opportunity to grow with H20 kitchen and learn like I did.
Toni: I’ll tell you what, Jason, it’s been a privilege to watch you the last year. You see me every once in a while and promoting as much as we can. I think you’re living your legacy, which is awesome. I thank you so much for doing what you’re doing and caring so much about creating the experience that you are. Thank you so much for showing up for the Get Inspired! Project.
Jason: Thanks, Toni. Thanks for having me.
