Teaching Dads How To Cook | David Haddad (father of 1, founder of Mr. Branzino)

David: I've had colleagues of mine show me like the mommy groups on Facebook.

It's the same thing. It's like, my husband doesn't do anything. I just wish he would just cook an effing meal. Or I wish he would just make the lunches or I wish he would just do something because it's so stressful and these guys are then wondering like, well, why am I getting divorced?

Why is this relationship so strained? And it's like, cooking seems complicated, but if you do this, it's going to pay massive dividends on your relationship and like the future of your family.

Adam: Welcome to Startup Dad, the podcast where we dive deep in the lives of dads who are also leaders in the world of startups and business. I'm your host, Adam Fishman. And in today's episode, I sat down with David Haddad, also known as Mr. Branzino. David is a health tech founder and product manager turned creator, now on a mission to teach dads how to cook.

He recently started a company called Mr. Branzino to teach dads how to cook delicious and simple meals in just two hours a week. He runs a newsletter, a dad cook crew, and a recipe planner called Meal Machine. He's a loving husband and the father of one son. In our conversation today, we spoke about food, from how he developed his passion for cooking to the relationship between kids and food and his Pisces system for building a weekly meal plan.

We talked about why dads aren't as comfortable in the kitchen and how they can get there. Plus, a sample meal plan from one of his most recent weeks. David's advice can get anyone started right away, becoming a more confident cook. I've already tried a few parts of his system in my own household to great effect.

Adam: I would like to welcome David Haddad to the Startup Dad show, David. Thank you for joining me today. It's a pleasure to have you here.

David: Thanks, Adam. Thanks for having me.

Adam: Today we're going to talk a lot about food and cooking. And for those folks who don't know you, you also go by Mr. Branzino, which is a brand that you're creating, a product that you're creating, around food and cooking and helping dads learn how to cook.

If I recall correctly, this is not your background. You are not a chef. You did not work at a Michelin star restaurant. So tell me about that. Like, what did you do? And then tell me about the mission behind Mr. Branzino.

David: Yeah. It's so funny. No, I'm not a chef but I have been cooking for 21 years. You know, in earnest, probably I would say like the last like 10, 15, like more seriously, I've been cooking and getting more interested in food. But no, so my background is, I'm a professional product manager.

I've been building digital health products. I've had my own companies in this space. I've been building in that space and operating in that space for like 13 plus years. I've just been building or a builder. And so the cooking thing has just always been in the background.

It's always been this thing that like people they didn't even know that I cooked. They didn't even know that I had that in my back pocket in terms of my skills. But yeah, so I've just been cooking you know, where did it come from? So my family. Is like insane cooks.

Like my parents had a cafe growing up. My father was in the import and had to have some grocery stores in the Bay Area doing like specialty ethnic foods. My mom and grandmother were just like phenomenal cooks. My grandmother was a phenomenal cook. My mom is a phenomenal cook.

Brothers and sister in law's uncle, everyone's just like really good at cooking. So I just kind of grew up, you know, in cooking and I've like kind of oriented a lot of my travel. Everything was always been around food. I was selling like specialty ethnic food, specialty food on the internet in like 2010. Doing my first foray in the e commerce like.

Playing with Shopify from back in the day, I like, had a falafel pop up in LA right before the pandemic just done a lot of like food projects along the way. So it's just food is always, been in my blood and pulsing through my veins for like the last 20 plus years. But yeah it's been a journey.

It's always been there. And I'm just kind of expressing it right now in a way that um, I think needs to happen.

Adam: yeah. And you mentioned, you know, you were sort of surrounded by this as a kid. Like everyone in your family is kind of into this. You've got parents, grandparents, you know, et cetera. And you also mentioned. Ethnic grocery stores you sold sort of like specialty ethnic foods online. Like what ethnicity?

David: I'm racially ambiguous. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's is that what you're trying to get at here?

Adam: No, no, I mean, I'm not as, that racially ambiguous. No, I mean, I guess like, you know, I think there is something about people who come from certain cultural backgrounds or ethnic backgrounds where food is naturally and cooking is naturally more a part of their lives.

And so I'm just wondering, like, is that something that kind of grounded you in that, or was it something else? And what lane, I guess, did the family cook in?

David: Interesting. So, my heritage is from the Middle East. My mom is from Palestine and my dad's from Jordan. So I grew up in a, you know, East Mediterranean style of food. So food in the Mediterranean is, you know, it's everything, right? It's like you eat your breakfast and then you're like, what are we going to have for lunch?

You eat your lunch, but we're going to have for dinner. You're not like, you're always thinking about food. You're obsessed with food. Just because of how good the food is. You just sort of like food is like a, conversation everyone's having all the time.

So I grew up in that environment. My father was an engineer was a professor but he had a cafe and he started a coffee business back in the day and he was like roasting on the downtimes of like Pete's coffee.

When they were in Emeryville, I grew up in the Bay area. You know, so everything was like, food was like part of the household, but it's interesting, like, even though that, like, my dad knows how to cook and is a pretty good cook and he used to cook a lot before he met my mom.

But you know, I think culturally, I think they kind of took the sort of more traditional Middle Eastern, sort of like the woman cooks and the man works sort of thing. Which is, you know, was very, is very common in the U S too. There's still that, like, kind of that idea. It's still very common in the Middle East, but it's changing.

I think that's changing quite a bit. So yeah, you know, even though that I did grow up in that type of environment, like I grew up Hayward, California and that is like a really diverse place. And so like, I grew up with like people from all around the world.

 Especially for people of different ethnicities, like if you think after like the end of the cold war, like there was a lot of like Russian and ex Soviet immigrants were, they came to Hayward as like a landing pad. And if you think about like lots of cultures, they come there and then like, they were at my school.

And so like, you know, you would try like Russian food and Polish food. And then it's actually my father, like he started a store in Hayward selling like 30 plus different nationalities worth of food. And then grew it into Palo Alto. And then like his business partner did a lot of the import of that type of food.

So I grew up like with German, Russian, Jewish everything under the sun you know, it was just so, so crazy, but also amazing. Cause I got to experience and taste so many different kinds of things I would never have gotten to do just being like you know, first generation kid, you know?

Adam: Very cool. Now you have a family now you wouldn't be on the startup dad podcast unless you did. So you have a partner and you have one kid. How did you and your partner meet each other and tell me a little bit about your son?

David: We met on a dating app. I mean, that's it. We met on a dating app. She bought some beans on this app called coffee meets bagel. That was it. And it's today is actually the day that we're recording. This is the day we actually met. So it's uh, yeah, yeah. It's so we're going to go out tonight and celebrate a little bit for our meet-aversary.

She's great. She's a behavioral therapist. Like, she's really smart loving great mom, great wife, great partner. Yeah. And a friend. So she's everything. We have one son together, a pandemic baby.

 He's almost three. It's been a wild ride. Something I've always wanted to have, you know, a family and it's you know, hopefully it grows, but yeah we're just excited about our little family. It's great.

Adam: Yeah. When you were courting your partner after coffee meets bagel, did you cook her any epic, magnificent meals that like won her over to your favor?

David: Yeah. I cooked a lot of meals for her. I let that cat out of the box really quickly. I think it's something I should have like maybe held back a bit more on, but yeah, no, I did. I think one of the meals she was pretty impressed with was like I, I just did like a really nice like steak and potatoes with like some like parmesan cheese on the potatoes and I just oven roasted it.

It was pretty good. I made a bunch of other meals that she was just like, wow, he knows what he's doing in the kitchen. I think it, it definitely gave me a leg up in, in many ways.

Adam: Also set the tone for the expectations of the cooking for the relationship.

David: Yeah. And that created, it created tension. I will say, I mean, that created a lot of tension between like, she knows how to cook. I think she's a great cook. She's more of like, even if she follows a recipe, she has really good, like flavor. She has good flavor sensibilities and knows how to like say, oh this could be, you know, I like this or like that.

And when she follows a recipe, it's great. But I think there was always this like, so it's not just me that has experienced this, but I've had friends on the opposite end of this where they're like, the relationship dynamic starts like changing because one person is good at cooking. One person is not.

They perceive themselves not to be. So there's a sense of like insecurity and like there is, we had to get through that. There was definitely issues with it. So, I didn't realize I was casting as big of a shadow as I, as I did, but

Adam: On the next Top Chef.

David: Yeah, next Top Chef, right? Exactly.

Adam: What was the decision like for the two of you to start a family?

David: I mean, we both wanted, I mean, that was part of like original conversations. Like we hit it out the gate pretty much saying like, yeah, we both wanted kids. We both wanted to have a family. I was like, in the midst of like a firestorm with my company. So we kind of had to delay a bit of that. And so I needed to like, work on that a bit before I exited my company, but it was just, it was like something we both wanted.

So we cut to the chase on that. I think we didn't even wait to figure that out. Like it was pretty, pretty clear. She's always wanted to have one. I wanted to have one. So. Yeah, it was pretty straightforward,

Adam: Cool. So the first topic that I wanted to talk to you about today. Is around partnership dynamics. And you mentioned even, you know, you casting a big shadow in the kitchen. But some of the things that you brought up in our prep for the show are around mental load, chores, and then something you described as weaponized incompetence, which is a phrase like when I was reading through that, I had to stop for a second. And I'm like. What did he mean there?

So, so tell me about this universe of partnership dynamics. And then I'm really curious about weaponized incompetence. What does that mean?

David: So I don't have like a formal definition, but I could do an impression of what weaponizing competence.

Adam: We love a good impression here.

David: Okay. A good impression is partner says. Specifically the wife will say, “honey, can you clean the bathroom?” And so the husband says, “babe, I don't know, do I use this brush or do I use this brush? Like I'm just, I don't get it.” Like, or guys will do something like that. Like it's very common. And it's just like incompetence that's used to like, Basically not do something so like this is actually The thing that got me really interested in, doing this whole Mr.

Branzino thing, it was really around this relationship dynamics. And so I've heard that, like, I've heard of a lot of guys doing this like, I have, family members, let's say that basically did that type of weaponizing competence, like not change diapers they'll like, they'll mess it up on purpose in order to like, basically not like have to deal with that type of chore.

And so, because they know that like the sensibility of, let's say like a mom is going to be like, oh, I want to take care of my kid. I'm going to be the one that does it. Like, just let me do it. We hear from female friends, oh, my husband doesn't do anything or he just not pulling his weight. I was like, oh that's, sucks. And, you know, you start digging deeper and there's this whole like thing around like mental load, which I didn't know anything about this, but it turns out like a lot of women like wake up in the morning and especially it's usually the mom. And she'll wake up in the morning and just kind of scan and she's like scanning and she's like, we got to do this.

We got to do that. We got to do like, they're just constantly thinking about like what the day is going to look like for the household for the kid and the load is weighed on her. And then it turns into like, she doesn't want to explain everything to her partner. And it'd be like, hey, could you help with this or could you, and then she ends up just doing it because of maybe the man did some weaponized incompetence or she finds it to be easier to do it her way.

I read, and I can't find where this tweet was that I saw it on Twitter/X there was a divorce lawyer that said that like over 60 something percent of like women that divorce their husband, when they file for divorce, it's out of resentment. And it's usually she's tired. It's like, say they have two kids together.

She's tired of raising a third child. So this is like mounts, right? This like mounts and mounts and mounts. Like if you just keep like not helping, you keep not doing anything there's a lot of stress in the relationship. And so there's this really weird thing. It's like, okay, there's basic, like life skills that you just, you know, should know one of which is knowing how to make money, let's say another one is like maybe how to clean or do your laundry or something like that. Another one's cooking. And, you know, like, I know how to cook and I know what it does for my family and it's this thing of this is like one of the like to me is like one of the most high leverage skills that you could ever have because if you think about what that would do to your relationship, like if you just made a meal once a week as a dad or as a partner in your relationship, you're going to reduce that mental load on your relationship.

Yeah, The dynamics are very, very tough. The crazy thing is like, you hear, we hear like little things from our friends and whatever, and then you start, I like my wife would show me, and I've had colleagues of mine show me like the mommy groups on Facebook.

It's the same thing. It's like, my husband doesn't do anything. I just wish he would just cook an effing meal. Or I wish he would just make the lunches or I wish he would just do something because it's so stressful and these guys are then wondering like, well, why am I getting divorced?

Why is this relationship so strained? And it's like, okay, cooking seems complicated, but if you do this, it's going to pay massive dividends on your relationship and like the future of your family.

I'm hoping to change that dynamic, but that's the bit of the genesis is based in a lot of like relationship dynamics. And I think it's one aspect of like, you know, what I'm, I'm hoping to shift.

Adam: I think there's been a lot written about mental and emotional load. And so we'll link to some articles in the show notes. But I also think that it's only relatively recently that some dads have started to pay attention to this. I think, you know, moms have been paying attention to it forever but they haven't really had a term to describe it until, I don't know, maybe the last decade or so.

But yeah, we'll link to some things and I do love that description of weaponized incompetence. I know a lot of people who are like that, where they're like, well. Just going to ask enough questions here. And then it's almost like I'm not even doing the job anymore. I'm like the, you know, the marionette puppet, and they're just kind of pulling the strings and then that's work too.

David: It just leads to a lot of stress. And I think that we're in a very busy time right now that things have just changed. You know, we've gone from, you know, patriarchy. It's really funny. It's just like funny thing with like cooking and it's, you know, my grandmother would say when I was starting to like, learn how to cook and all that kind of stuff.

Like my grandmother would be like, why do you want to learn how to cook? You're a man sort of thing. Like there's a sort of like, well, there's the patriarchy and the man goes and works and, you know, disciplines the children if they need it sort of thing. Right? But we're now from patriarchy to partnership.

And it's like, I think that there's something lost in that. Like as a partner, you have to like, chip in. We don't have the luxury in society between our busy schedules or just economically, that you can't just be like, oh, I'm the man and I'm not going to do the most fundamental thing, which is like, which we do 90%, you know, most of the day is like, you know, outside of your sleeping and work is probably eating. So it's like, you're not going to like help with that is like such a funny funny dynamic. But anyway, I'm getting a little, maybe a little off track, but probably relevant to the pod. But

Adam: That's okay. These are all good conversation topics. wanted to ask you what is, One of the more surprising things that you've discovered as a dad since your son was born?

David: That we set the tone.

Adam: What do you mean by that?

David: Well, like I didn't realize that like, If you are good, your kid's good. If you're content and you're like calm, your kid's calm. It's just like sort of like you're projecting this energy and they, feel the energy. So you just set the tone in terms of like they're watching us for behavioral cues.

And I think anytime that I've gotten like frustrated or like he acts out. Every time I've been like chill. Okay, there's obviously exceptions where there's nothing I could do, like, even if I'm like, cool as a cucumber about something, it doesn't work. I've seen this even with my nieces, and even my interaction with them, like, In watching my brother, like when, you know, he's chill, like they're chill.

I've watched, I've been seeing this modeled with other parents. I didn't realize that they were watching that closely. That has been the most surprising thing is we are really in control of this. We are the adults in this relationship at least right now.

And so, you know, we're sort of the ones responsible for setting the tone.

Adam: Yeah, no, that makes a, that makes a ton of sense. And it's something that a lot of dads have talked about on this show is this modeling this behavior. It's also something that doesn't come easy to everybody, Rright. What do you do if you find yourself, you know, not modeling or feeling like you're about to kind of go in a direction that you're not going to be happy about, like, do you do anything to kind of reset yourself or excuse yourself from the situation or what's sort of a best practice that you found works for you?

David: For me it's just like walking away. It's just walking away for like a minute and then just taking a deep breath and then trying to just realize that like. Like he's not doing anything to me, you know, like he doesn't have power over me. Right. Like, I think that's the main thing.

And when I just tell myself he doesn't have power over me, I'm in control here. Let me just kind of reset and then I'll like come back to him. And then it usually, works. Cause I think knows that I'm upset and he can kind of sense and he kind of, changes his tone as well.

So that usually that tends to work. Also I learned this, a lot of this from my wife. So this is like, not like a, not natural instinct. I've had to really, like, I'm still working on it, but

Adam: Yeah, yeah, lifelong journey. I think, I mean, I don't think anybody that pretends that they're perfect. A hundred percent of the time is being honest.

Um, it's human, human nature. So, awesome. We're going to talk about kids and food in a second, but the one thing I wanted to ask you before that is if you could rewind the clock, you know, three years to a younger David pre child David, and you've got an extended family and friends and stuff you're getting bombarded with parenting advice, people who are like, oh, you're going to have a kid.

You got to do this. You got to do that. What piece of advice that you got would you tell yourself to completely ignore? Like, what did you find to just be un untrue when you became a dad that maybe somebody was emphatic about. This worked for me, so it's gonna work for you. 

David: It wasn't really advice and I hate saying this because this is, seems like this is a very American thing.

Cause I don't hear this from my friends from other parts of the world, is they complain a lot about children. And I let their complaints about like, oh, it's so hard. It's so hard. You're never going to sleep. It's so difficult. Like, they're just constantly like nagging you. Like, good luck.

Like, good luck trying to get sleep wasn't hard. I mean, I think it was like a mental frame and I just, but I let some of that get into my head and it really stressed me out because I was like, how am I going to sleep? How am I going to do work? How am I going to do this? How am I going to do that?

And you're just like thinking about all that stuff. Again, I think it's just Americans love complaining. I think. It's like, you know, it's just like a natural, like, you know, rite of passage being an American is to complain about everything. But other parts of the world, they don't do that.

In my experience, they don't complain about having children. It's just like, it is what it is. We're having a child and that's what it is. And we will handle it as it will come. It's, you know, as natural as you know, drinking water. It's a big deal, but it's not that big of a deal.

I think people here and also going back to the relationship dynamics, I think people here have very broken families. I think people because of economic opportunities, they're left alone in a lot of ways. They're like they're away from their families. They're away from their community and their network.

And it's hard. It's just really hard being a parent. And so you're like unfortunately, like hearing all this negativity and you're seeing like a lot of people talking about this idyllic sort of like lifestyle on Instagram or just socials and like what being a parent is supposed to be.

And it's like, none of that, it's none of those extremes, you know? So I think that there's a lot that adds to the stress of like, when it comes to, you know, figuring out how do you maintain your household and do the chores and stuff is cause there's like no one helping you.

So that was the biggest thing I think I was just like would completely disregard anyone telling me that it's hard. It is hard, but it's also amazing. And no one, you don't hear a lot of people talking about how great it is and all the other stuff. Most of it is very negative.

Adam: That's really interesting. Push away the negative, even though it's hard that you psyching yourself out if you like, absorb too much of that stuff.

David: The best advice I got, had two pieces of advice one from a friend's father who said everything's temporary. The good's temporary and the bad's temporary that like, kept us through like, everything was just like, everything's temporary.

The second one was from what was it? What was the show? Ted Lasso. And it was when Roy, did you, I don't know if you watched that show at all.

But when Roy, Roy was like talking to, I think he was talking to Ted about his kid. I don't remember what the context, but Roy said something like, All these kids want to do is just be part of your life.

Adam: Mm-hmm.

David: And it was just like, they just want to do things with you. And it's like, that's it. And it was like, oh, okay. That was another thing. Like, it didn't need to be so like the kids do this and I do that. It's like, no, we do that stuff together. That always was really like helpful. And then and then Neil DeGrasse Tyson had something around, like, they're just little scientists.

They're just trying to understand patterns. And, you know, if they're going to jump in a puddle, it's because they want to like, experience what that's like to jump in a puddle so it's just like, don't get mad every single time that they like try to do something. They're just little scientists trying to figure stuff out, their world out.

Adam: That's a really nice way of thinking about it's a very positive spin on, that. I often use the Jurassic park reference. They're like raptors testing the fences, but,

um, but that seems a little bit more negative probably than, yeah, that I like that they're jumping in a puddle. They're just trying to see what happens.

David: They're dropping an egg. Cause they, they're understanding gravity, you know, like they're under, they're understanding their world. They don't know anything. Right. So I think, it's too easy to just get frustrated and angry about like, them trying to do stuff but taking a step back and it's like, it's our, again, it's our job to model and to teach and all that kind of stuff. So.

Adam: Well, speaking of dropping an egg, let's talk about kids and food. Look at that segue. Um,

David: You're going to get a lot of hate mail for this.

Adam: No. So I, one thing I wanted to, I just want to acknowledge one thing, which for both of us, we are both products of a Western civilization. We are both fairly privileged folks. And I just want to acknowledge that like feeding your kids, creative and diverse meals and taking any amount of time to make food is a privilege that not everyone has.

Right? Like some people are very rushed. They can't, they literally can't do what they have to do. Um, Now all that being said, I imagine that if you have the privilege of listening to this podcast, you are probably in a similar camp to you, to you and to me. And so I'm going to set the privileged part of this aside for a second.

David: I appreciate that. Yeah, that's good.

Adam: And assume that most of the people who are listening to this podcast are probably struggling a bit with getting their kids to eat good stuff, right? Even the best of us can default to chicken nuggets and plain pasta with butter on it. Right. So tell me about your approach to food with your son and what do you do in your household?

David: Yeah, this is funny. I actually posted about some of the rules. I said these were my rules, not the rules, but these were just again. I'm going to also caveat. These are my rules in the household and I call them rules, but they're obviously flexible and we don't follow them all the time because it's just, and I didn't come up largely with these.

I got a lot of help from a website called solid starts. There's obviously like, a book that we really like, the name is escaping me at the moment, but I will remember it in a minute, but the author's name is, he's a doctor named Brazelton. anyway, we'll find it. These are my rules. Yeah. so what I've noticed, what is going on as I think what ends up happening is that parents this is going back to like modeling the behavior. I think that a lot of times parents are. And again, I don't mean to say, I'm not trying to cast aspersions, but I find a lot of times when it comes to the dinner table, the parents are afraid of their children. And I feel like they're afraid that like, oh, well, little Jimmy doesn't like what I'm making. And he's going to cry. So I'd rather just have him stop crying and I'm going to just give him what he wants. Like, I'll just give him chicken nuggets and pasta.

So I've seen this with a lot of friends that they will be like short order cooks. And so they're just like making separate meals for their child. And it's this, like the most, the craziest thing in the world. Like I never grew up, I don't know if you did, but I never grew up with like, my mom would make food and we'd say, what's for dinner.

And she's like, get up here and see what I'm making. I'm not telling you, I'm not like a waiter giving you like a restaurant menu of like what you get your options to eat. We're eating food. This is dinner we're eating together. So I wrote a post about this about my rules and some of these things.

And I got like a lot. I got some hate. People call me Hitler. People call me Stalin. People said, good luck, you know, in the nursing home when your kids don't come to see you. You're too strict with your children. And then I got a lot of support from dads too. And so I think that I struck a nerve with this thing.

But what I do, it's not difficult. It's just like, it's like a little bit of my responsibility is to like make a meal. We sit down together at the table every day. I wrote about this as well as like Barack Obama, you know, whenever he wasn't traveling, he was at the dinner table every night with his family.

Like you and I are not as busy as Barack Obama. We are not solving world conflict and world problems so what excuse do we have? To not like have dinner with our family. I think a lot of families, but I, what I saw in the exchange over on the internet and people on, I mean, this is like Reddit too, where people are pretty.

You know, pretty mean, but I think what I saw is like a lot of…

Adam: What are you talking about? Only good things happen…

David: Only nice people are on Reddit. There's such a kind community. Uh, I love Reddit, but you know, like a lot of families eat separately. They eat in different rooms. They don't eat together or they eat at different times.

Like I know a lot of friends, they'll be like, well, my kids eat at like 5, 5:30. but like, we're not hungry at 5, 5:30. So we'll eat at like seven or eight o'clock because that's when we want to eat. But like, you're not eating with your kids. You're not modeling the behavior.

And I mean, There's a sacrifice there. Like, yeah, you might need to start eating between five and six o'clock. That's like, you know, grandpa hour, you know, that's the blue plate special hour. But you know, you're going to just have to adjust. With that in order to model the behaviors.

So I think for us, we eat together. There's no devices. We try to have some conversation around the food. We try to have as much uplifting conversations. We've talked to my son about his day. We talk about our days. He hears what we're up to.

You know, he doesn't get another option. He gets what he gets, you know, he doesn't get to have like other kinds of foods. He gets as many, you know, vegetables and meat and protein or whatever he wants. But if he's like, I want like a ton more carbs, like we don't like, I mean, if we're traveling or something, obviously it's not like these are not hard fast.

I'm not like a dictator about this, but it's just like he gets what we eat. And I think that's the main thing. And if he doesn't eat it, that's okay. I'm not going to give him anything else to eat. And so he will be fine. He will be hungry. And the next day he will eat.

He'll be very hungry the next day and he will eat, these are my rules. These are quote unquote rules, but it's just sort of like coming back to the basics, like this didn't exist 30 years ago where kids like got to eat whatever they wanted and eat in the room.

I think in my age and like the eighties, early nineties kids did eat in their room and they have like play video games and stuff in the room, but I think it's gotten to a point now where like kids are on their phones and kids are just like watching TV or they're like doing. I mean, it's just gotten kind of out of control.

I think once that starts getting established, like your job isn't to like, make them eat all the food, it's just to like present it and be together, and just build the habit and the repetition in terms of like doing that together. So it's, you know, again, I'm not an expert in this, like, I'm not like a child expert and like how to do this, you know, we have challenging days, no doubt.

Like there are days where he doesn't want to, he throws the food, he doesn't want to eat it. And like, like, that's okay. Like, he's going to, I'm not going to, I'm not backing down to whatever he wants just because he wants pasta. Like I made a very good soup. It has all the nutrients that he needs in there and he doesn't want it.

He can, you know, tough luck.

Adam: He'll be hungry tomorrow. And he'll eat a great breakfast.

David: That's right. It always happens. Yeah.

Adam: Yeah. What is something that you make that your son absolutely loves? What's a dad meal? What's a Mr. Branzino meal that your son looks forward to?

David: He loves, He loves meatballs. I made a chicken soup yesterday. He loved, He does like when I do make pasta type dishes. I mean, that's just fun for him. I made empanadas over the weekend. He loved that. Like he loves chimichurri. He loves grilled, you know, whenever I barbecue.

I've noticed anytime that I involve him in the food and the making of the food, he eats it. He eats Most of the food. Yeah, he usually likes most of what it is that I make. I'd say like 70-80 percent of what I make he eats pretty well.

Adam: A lot of people would be intimidated about letting their kid who's not even three help them in the kitchen or “help.” I put help in air quotes.

David: Yeah, it's “help.”

Adam: There’s only so much that a, that a young kid can do. But you talked about including him in the making of the food. So what are some things that you've found?

And again, it could be unique to your situation, but what are some things that your son helps you with? And again, remember to the folks who are listening, he's not even three.

David: So various things like we got from target one of those stand things that go against the counter go up to the countertop. They're like, I level with the countertop. Well, he's not at eye level, but anyway he's at the countertop whisking. I'll let him like crack an egg.

Cause it's fun for him. I let him like, when we hard boiled eggs, like he peels it. He likes peeling it and crushing the egg. I let him peel garlic. I let him smash the garlic in a little mortar and pestle.

I mean, don't tell my wife this, but I let him like help me flip the steak on the grill the other day, which was like kind of too close to the fire, but it’s ok.

Adam: I'm sure your wife will never listen to this episode, so…

David: Probably not. Yeah. Yeah. But,

Adam: It’s just safe between the two of us.

David: And maybe the world, but anyway so what else? as long as it, it's not going to involve him like cutting his finger, like burning himself.

Like I just let him try to do some, like, we made empanadas. I gave him a little scooper, like an ice cream scooper. And he had like fun, like scooping out the mix and throwing it into the empanada pastry dough. I let him take a fork to do some crimping.

So little things. He's not like fully cooking like it's just like little little little tasks that like make him feel like pretty included I give him some gloves. He likes the gloves that's basically it. I mean, this is stuff that like my grandma would let me do, you know, we would go to the farmer's market and go get fava beans and, you know, my grandma would be like, all right, you're picking the ends of the fava beans or you know, we would get these leaves that we would use to make kind of a stew, like kind of a spinach style stew.

And they're like these big. Big leave things. And so we would like just sit there with my grandma and my mom, just like picking, picking, picking, picking. And it's just like stuff that the kids do. We used to mortar and pestle and yeah, just easy stuff.

Adam: That's good. As long as it's safe, they can do it. You know, they may not do it as well as you would, but, that's fine.

David: It takes longer. It does take longer, which is a little, it can be frustrating when you're in a pinch of time, but it's beautiful. I think it's a beautiful thing. I read a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist kind of philosopher guy.

And he said that nothing comes from nothing. And I think it's important for them to understand that the food that we're making comes from the earth. It comes from people who put it together, like they package something or they like cut it from the earth and like they're preparing it. And, you know, I think associating yourself with the food is important to you know, we build products too, right? We got to give like free samples and we got to give them some sort of like teaser to make them want to come in. And so if you're just like, people want to feel more involved in the product so they can have you know, have retention with 

Adam: Yeah.

David: the product, you know, in the end,

Adam: I love that. Yeah. So I wanted to transition to our last topic, which is you've made it part of your mission to teach dads how to cook and get dads more comfortable in the kitchen. Right. Which is like a very positive step in the right direction. And so I wanted to start and just ask you why do you think, and in the conversations that you have with people about cooking, what do you hear from people when they say like why they're not comfortable in the kitchen?

What makes dads, and that's again, the audience for the show, what makes dads so uncomfortable in the kitchen? What are we worried about? 

David: It's this really weird thing. It's like guys are very, we have big egos. We have, a lot of us have very big egos, especially in probably the audiences listening to this have like, you know, we're successful in certain ways, like professionally and we get into the nitty gritty with numbers, we're able to dissect certain things.

And so there's a sort of like, we have an ego around that, but when it comes to this thing that is like, so primal, which is like, to cook. It's like, I just don't know how to do it. There's this weird sort of like, anxiety. There's guys on some ends of the scale that are like they feel weird because of the gender dynamic.

Even though that we're living in some, you know, partnership times and modern times, they still feel like, oh, this is what women still do. You also have on the other end, like, a lot of guys are like, well, this is what my mom did. Like, yeah, that's like, again, going back to the gender thing.

A lot of guys they feel like they can read a recipe, but they get very nervous because they don't know every single thing about like everything because of maybe like their analytical brains, especially in the, you know, in the tech world, like guys are very smart and they want to know everything about everything.

And they intellectualize everything. And so because they don't know what something is they lack curiosity and they kind of get freaked out and they just default to like ordering out or something, or they burn the food or they do other things. So there's just, I don't know.

There's a lot of weird invisible kind of scripts that they tell themselves, like, I'm not good at this. It's like anything. It's like people who don't know much about exercise. They start, you know, well, I don't know. I don't want to hurt myself. So, you know, like, Oh, that's another one. Like they fear they're going to hurt themselves or cut their finger.

 There's just like all sorts of these stories that I'm like, cause I've been like helping a lot of guys along this journey. And it's just, yeah, it's interesting where they start in terms of

Adam: Yeah.

David: Like the stories they tell themselves about it they're just very overwhelmed. They feel very overwhelmed by like how much stuff has to go into a meal.

They feel overwhelmed by like the complexity, quote unquote, complexity of cooking. So there's just a lot of feelings.

Adam: So when you're working with a new dad and trying to teach them how to cook. Describe your system to me. know, one of the things I read on your site and in our conversation was about taking about two hours and being able to prep an entire week's worth of food, which feels like one of those things that's like, an over promise, right?

In just two hours, you'll make a week's worth of food. But I actually saw some of the pictures of stuff that you made. And I think you know, there was like a creativity involved where you're like, oh, if I do this, then I can reuse this here. And I could reuse this here. And I make this and like, you know, etc.

And then suddenly it was like the permutations of interesting recipes came out of, you know, what was around two hours of investment. So I guess all this is to say, like, let's go back to my original question, which is, tell me about your system.

David: The system is look, it's a little bit, the cooking is around two hours and it's not two hours at one time. I think that's part of it. So obviously you have to do a little bit of planning and you also have to do a little, you have to obviously do the shopping, but you don't have to go do that.

You can also do Instacart and Amazon fresh or whatever. I enjoy the shopping, but it's four parts. It's planning programming. So that's the P, I call it Pisces. So Branzino fish, Pisces. Okay. It's

Adam: Fitting together to me now.

David: yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway. Mr. Branzino brand comes from like Branzino is this like fish that my wife and I would always eat when we were dating. It's our love fish. So this is you know, it's like the birthing of our son is like kind of a,

Adam: It's also the name, if you've ever seen the movie Luca the kids movie he lives underwater and Mr. and Mrs. Branzino are a neighbor of his. And they're,

I think they're the fish, they're fish or they're like some sea creature, but they're named Mr. and Mrs. Branzino.

David: I'm going to get taken down by Disney or something now. Okay. Here we go. All right. Never. So, so it's planning and programming. And I think this is like the essence of how you're able to get a lot of stuff done is around the programming. That's the hardest part. The planning, once you kind of get used to it and I can go into like how we do it, how I do it It is pretty straightforward.

And then it's the shopping, cooking, and then eating. So the planning you have to spend like maybe 15 minutes doing it. And you're kind of just like looking for, is there a theme? Maybe you went out to a restaurant and you we're like, oh, I really like that, like meal or that dish.

Or like, we went to like, had Thai food or Mexican food. And then you just want to play around with that type of ethnic theme, or you're like, oh, I want to try like more Italian this week or more Mexican this week or something like that. Or maybe there's like a holiday coming up or maybe you have a diet that you're trying to do because you're trying to lose weight or gain weight or do you know, whatever I try to make a lot of the planning based around protein just because that usually is the star of our show in our house that might not be in other people's homes, but in our home, we try to balance between protein, carbs and vegetables and then it's just about like, yeah programming that out. And so the programming comes to like where you're doing like about an hour and a half ish of cooking on a Sunday. So you're planning on a Friday. You're shopping on Saturday. And this is very simplistic. This is obviously you can adapt this to your own needs, but you're planning on a Friday. You're shopping on Saturday. You're doing like one batch of, meals that you're doing on Sunday. And this is like, not novel, right? Like, it's just, that's how I do it, but I'm able to do it very quickly. And then the key here is to take the main protein that you do on that Sunday and remix it.

So the remix comes in on Monday, Tuesday, so I'll do like, depending on the weather it's either like more coldish weather is more like soupy. And then more like, you know, warmer weather will be more salady.

And then Tuesdays are more tacos. So it's more like wraps and sandwiches and things like that on Tuesdays. Wednesdays will be more like a one pot. I like to thematasize and it's not a word, but like to make every day into like a theme, so there's just like easier to like systemize work. And so when you're cooking throughout the week, you're like 10 minutes, 5 minutes you're just taking the main thing and remixing it in a way that's like pretty easy.

It's just changing the form factor I just wanted to caveat that's only for family dinner. That's only for dinner food. If you're trying to do like lunches and breakfast, that will increase your time because you have to also consider that.

But I think family dinner is the thing that we're trying to like focus on for dads is just doing that. And then I do also recommend, you know, like people going out to dinner. If you can afford it. Even if you're like, oh, I'm going to go to like Chick fil a or I'm going to go to, I've never been there, but if I hear it's good, but like, if you go to those types of like fast food places or In N Out, or that's okay.

Like you deserve a break and it's not like every night has to be like this gourmet thing. I think you should budget for that and enjoy and it helps you expand your palate, expand your horizon of what's possible. You start getting new ideas. You start like, you know, exploring your city and your locale.

Like, I think it's a cool, like, it's a great way to like, break it up. So you're not always cooking because it gets boring. And I'm sure you feel this way. It gets sometimes pretty boring, like cooking the same. Similar things over and over again.

Adam: So walk me through. So PPSCE is the is the acronym and that's planning programming, and then what did I miss? Shopping.

David: Cooking, eating yes. So the shopping in general we're very blessed to be in California. We have like a lot of great farmers markets and whatnot, but you know, we do like usually like a Saturday or a Sunday farmer's market day.

and it's also an outing for the kid. And this is what I went back to the Roy, from Ted Lasso, which is like, they just want to be part of your life. Like, I think that the shopping is like a great experience.

It's also like, you know, they get to see where the food comes from. So we always do farmer's market like once a week, we get our fruits, we get our veggies based upon what I come up with at the meal plan. I shop like a grandma, which is

Adam: What does that mean?

David: This is like, if you talk to any grandma, like from old world or just, you know, I'm at a point now where I don't like plan super hard because I let the market kind of tell me what I should be making.

So if you see like a, you know, oh, wow. There's a pot roast is on sale for 1.99 a pound. You're going to make pot roast like, or chickens on sale. Like you're going to make chicken. Right. So you kind of like change your menu based upon what you get from the market. I shop for things that are like you know, inexpensive, usually great value and then things that look beautiful and tasty.

we alternate every week with like Costco and Whole Foods. So we go back and forth between the two. Costco is like the number one thing you can do as a family is just having a Costco membership. It's the best, whatever 100 bucks a year, you're going to spend,

Adam: For all your food needs, or if you also need to buy a trampoline. Uh, or or a refrigerator.

David: Refrigerator. Yeah, exactly. So we just alternate off that and it's just like, we take our son with us and quick tip. If you go to like Whole Foods or Trader Joe's, they give you a little stickers.

At Costco, they'll give you, they draw a little like happy face for your kids. And if you have young kids, it's like a great, they love it. So there's shopping and look, you can make delicious meals, even buying food from Walmart, like Walmart and Target, they have all the same things that those places, how you can might be spending, you know, a little bit more money here and there, but it's like, you know, Costco is just a better value.

If you have the space. And then the cooking is the next part.

Adam: One of the things I'd love to talk about within cooking is give me like a week, maybe what you, what did you cook, you know, a week ago or like what, you know, what is a typical meal plan and cook look like for a family? Because I want to put it into concrete example, because you mentioned like cooking and then remixing. And I'm really curious to hear more about what that means and kind of unpack that a little bit more. So you could take us through like a standard week in the Mr. Branzino plan.

David: Yeah. A hundred percent. So let's say last week I made some, I call it like my everyday chicken and I just use chicken thighs, probably not as healthy as chicken breasts, but thighs are just hands down better. I'll fight anyone on that. Yeah, they taste way better.

Adam: I’ll Fight anyone

David: I'll fight anyone on that. Yeah, so made some chicken some chicken chicken thighs, and it's really, just being able to portion that out.

So like we're three. I do about like a third of a pound per person. So I'll make enough to last to Tuesday evening. And you don't have to do just protein.

You know, one protein, you can do two, whatever, but I'll make sure that during the week we'll have two different kinds of protein. But I might just do one for up to Tuesday night. And then it's like two vegetables, one carb could be like rice or potatoes or whatever it is.

And then a sauce of sorts, like maybe a dressing depending on if we're eating more salads or something. And if like I have a lot more time, I'll do like a soup too. And so, last Sunday I made like chicken. I made enough carb like I made some actually rice and like a Zaatar potatoes.

I made cauliflower and broccoli. I made a yogurt cucumber sauce. I made hummus and that was it. That was Sunday dinner. Monday you know, I had some tomatoes.

I had some cucumbers and I made a Greek salad with some feta and olives and stuff. And I added the chicken and I added the potatoes to it. So it was a complete meal. It was great. Tuesday I made wraps. So I just had some pita bread and I like wrapped it up and I just took everything and we finished everything.

It was gone by Tuesday. So it was done. Wednesday was a one pot meal. So I kind of did Mexican ish, like I had some cans of bean and corn and stuff. And made it with like some ground turkey and yeah, it just, it did a one pot, like kind of rice dish. It was like, yeah, it tasted like enchiladas, but it was like rice and meat.

And it was very, it was really good. And then re ate that again on Thursday added a salad to it. So I had made like a little, just simple, like lemon juice, olive oil dressing, with the same meal. So we use leftovers. It's not like, I think this is another thing I've noticed. Families don't eat a lot of leftovers, but like, that's the only way to scale is like, you can eat different things every day, but it's very difficult to do with the time constraints and everyone's so busy.

and then Friday we went out to dinner and then Saturday we went to someone's house for dinner, so it was a little bit easy. And then Sunday we did it again.

Adam: Started it all over again. So it sounds like in this typical week, you know, you're kind of optimizing for Sunday through Thursday, which gets you through the majority of the week, low stress, remixing every night, and then kind of hitting the reset button midweek and then couple other alternative plans, Friday, Saturday, which for busy parents usually happens, right?

There's usually something going on. And then. Hit starting all over again on Sunday.

David: It's not rocket science, but in practice, it's actually really, really easy. It takes really no time and it's a very like, once you get it down and you're like, just having that programming in place, it allows you to just like not think and you're kind of just like go in the kitchen and have that framework of like, okay, today's like salad night.

I'm just going to put protein and some little bit of carb and I'm gonna make like a salad bowl. So you get your greens in and all that stuff, yea.

Adam: Love that. I love thinking about I've seen a couple of other people talk about sort of thematic evenings, which is what you're describing here, which is like Sunday is the, you know, official portioned out dinner. Monday is, you know, salad day, Tuesday is soup day. Wednesday is one pot meal day. Like it's really interesting to think about that because then you're like, well, that now I know how much I need to make.

I know I'm going to incorporate like a diversity of vegetables and carbs and protein and everything. So I wanted to ask you, if you're a dad, that's just starting out you know, and you're not very inventive in the kitchen. So I imagine you could look at a set of stuff and go, Oh, I can whip something up with this, right?

Because you've been doing this a lot. You said you've been cooking for, you know, 10 years. 20 plus years. But for the dads who aren't all that creative in the kitchen, who can't just like look and have, you know, like a beautiful mindset of connections of ingredients and be like, aha, I have a meal now for three days.

Where should dads get inspiration around recipes around, like, just like how to You know, if you're somebody who needs more of an instruction manual, which has a, that's how I cook in the kitchen. I need guidance. I need a recipe unless it's something I've made a hundred times. And then I'm like, cool. I know generally how to do this, what do you recommend?

David: I actually have a swipe file of like all the different places I get my inspiration from books, from YouTube from blog websites, like cooking blogs. But I mean, one hack I've used a lot, which is Blue Apron has blueapron.com/cookbook. And it's not really well publicized, but it's a great little hack because you can find out

Adam: Blue Apron, the meal kit company, the company that's gonna ship you pre-portioned, things that you can throw into a pot. They also give away all their secrets apparently.

David: They gave away all their recipes for what they're making. Cause they, they, you know, if you don't want to have the leaflet with you, you can have the recipe for what they're going to be cooking. And so I use that a lot cause I care about trying to eat as seasonal as possible.

Seasonally as possible. So they have a good job of like, you know, saying, oh, this is what we're making that is seasonal or whatever it is. That's one place. I love New York cooking on newyorktimes.com. Like, I think of a dad was just starting out. I think. You may not get into the system of doing this every single day just yet.

I think just try make one meal once a week or once a month. I think given the dynamics that kind of exist in the world the relationship dynamics, I think if you just did once every week or month, start with once a month and then go to once a week, try to do it on a Sunday, make that your day to like make a meal.

Just go to like cooking at new york times dot com and find a recipe that you dig. They have a good filters. You could do a sheet pan meal. You just do something. I think just get started. The trick with recipes is that their framework, they’re a guide, they're not the word of God.

So like, you can do what you want. Figure out what are the core essentials of the meal. Get to the essence of the meal, read the recipe, go through, like find out what the, I have a chemistry background. So this is like the rate limiting step. So it's like, what is the step that's going to prevent you from, like, from the chemical reaction from happening?

But in the cooking world, it's like the things that are going to prevent you from, they're going to slow you down. So it's just like reading through the recipe one time, glance it over, but then be like, okay, it says preheat the oven. This is where people get freaked out. And this is what I've heard in a lot with a lot of guys is that they like, don't read the recipe.

And then they're like, wait a minute, I'm supposed to turn this on, like, I'm supposed to boil the water, and then they forget to boil the water. So just the lot of the big steps, like preheat the oven, boil the water, just get that stuff started first, because then it's a lot easier to like, get your flow with what you're, so I would just say start there. Watch YouTube videos. If you like any of that, there's a few people that I love. I love chef John from food wishes. He's the best. He's like makes tons of dad jokes. He's great.

Adam: Oh, you know, we love a good dad joke around Startup Dad.

David: Yeah,

Adam: So, yeah.

David: Yeah, there's a ton there and I have a swipe file I can share with folks too.

Adam: Oh, maybe we could link to that in the show notes that would be interesting. Well, I love that. And it sounds like underlying all of this is like, just get started. Try and set the ego aside. Realize you might burn the potatoes or the chicken or something might not taste as great as you'd like it to, but just try once, then try a second time. And like, you know, I think back to the movie, Mrs. Doubtfire, when he's trying to, he's trying to cook and he like tries to do lobster and he sets himself on fire and like all this and he ends up ordering food, but then like he starts watching videos and like over time, you know, with a little bit of practice, he gets better and better and better at it.

And so it doesn't involve ordering, you know, lobster out or anything like that. So, but yeah, it sounds like that's the underlying advice. Like just get started, use a system, you know, start with one time a month. Love that idea. One time a month, think about how you might make leftovers. Then you get, then that one time a month turns into a couple of meals.

And then that one time a week turns into a couple of meals. And the next thing, you know, you're cooking like half the meals in the month just by, you know, cooking three or four times a month. So.

David: That's 100 percent right. I wouldn't overburden yourself with like getting into the system right away, but I think it's just like, start doing something. You're going to mess up. You're going to screw up. That's okay. Just eat your failure and it's going to be great.

Adam: Tell me about a disastrous recipe that you made. What is something that just turned out inedible or terrible or whatever. Let's, we're big on failure stories here on, Startup Dad. So I'd love to hear about one of your like most epic cooking failure stories.

David: Oh my God. When I was at Berkeley there was a wine club and there was a guy who made this amazing thing. He did like, green grapes with like onions. He sauteed the grapes with the onions it was really nice. And he put like herbs and then he had some like brie cheese that he put, and it was like, you just kind of take a, you know, thing of baguettes and you, you scoop it out. I was like, oh, I'm going to make this for some friends. Oh my God. It was so bad. It was like, I put the brie too early in the pan. It melted all over the pan. And then, and it was just like, it was so bad. And everyone was like saying like, dude, this is, like we're just be… like they'd like, yumm, this tastes good, and then like one guy.

I mean, I love him. He, you know, he's like a brother to me. He's like, bro, this sucks. This is really bad. I was like, okay, thank you. So I kind of tried to like freestyle something I've never made before in front of other people. So don't freestyle with your friends if you've never made something.

So that was a really bad idea.

Adam: Did you, did you ever redeem yourself? Did you ever remake that recipe and do it better?

David: To be honest, I'm still haunted. I've never remade it. I've honestly never remade it. I should.

Adam: That’s okay. You know, you know, you maybe someday maybe for your anniversary with your wife.

David: That's right, maybe I will do that. That's a funny, yeah, why not? Let me try that out.

Adam: over, overcome your fears. Okay. Well, last question for you. How can people follow along or be helpful to you? You're obviously trying to build this company, this brand.

So a good way for people to get involved?

David: Just go to my Substack, Mrbranzino.substack.com. Check out, just sign up for the newsletter. You can kind of follow along the journey there. I have like a course it's like, you know, become a meal machine in seven days. So you can kind of like follow along. I have more details like the entire operating system, how to do it.

It with instructions and recipes and you can kind of get started. And then I also have a dad cook community. If people are interested, called the Dad Cook Crew. If you want to, like, be part of like a community of guys that are like trying to like change and Make their lives bring less stress to their relationships and, you know,

Adam: Yeah.

David: Teach your kids to eat for life.

You know, this is like, you know, what we're building as well. But yeah, just sign up for the newsletter.

Adam: Awesome. We will direct everyone there in the show notes. And David, thank you so much for being on and for talking about Mr. Branzino and teaching me something about how to cook. I love the, PPSCE system. I'm going to give that one a second thought for my household. So, do you have a few minutes for our rapid fire round?

David: Let's do it. Yeah. 

Adam: Okay, What is the most indispensable parenting product that you have ever purchased?

David: Nanit camera.

Adam: Okay. What is the most useless parenting product that you've ever purchased?

David: We got a warmer for some wipe thing and that was completely effing useless. Yeah, but did nothing.

Adam: Yeah. What is the most frustrating thing that has ever happened to you as a dad?

David: Yeah. Just like my son stopping dead, you know, just dead stopping in the middle of the street when he like doesn't want to do something and we're trying to move. That's super frustrating. But yeah, that's been the biggest frustrating thing. I'm sure every dad's dealt with that. Yeah.

Adam: That is a new one, or at least one that hasn't been shared, but every dad's dealt with that, so. What is the most difficult kids TV show that you've ever had to sit through?

David: Cocomelon.

Adam: Oh, yes.

David: Horrible. Horrible TV. Horrible television.

Adam: Have you ever used your son as an excuse to get out of a social event?

David: All the time. Used it. Used him. Not even used him to like go use the bathroom at a private restaurant. Cause I said he has to use the bathroom and you know, I had to use it. That was it. So, but yeah, no it's I have used it. Yes, to get out of things. Yeah.

Adam: Love that parenting hack. Blame your kid. If you need to use the restroom at it, like a private place, that's a good one. What is your favorite kids movie?

David: Coco

Adam: Coco. Worst TV show, Cocomelon, favorite movie, Coco. Those are polar opposites 

David: That's right. Yeah. Polar opposites. Not the same thing. Yeah.

Adam: Not the same thing. What is the worst experience you've ever had assembling a kids toy or a piece of furniture?

David: I was trying to make my son, his little like strider bike thing this weekend. And he kept taking the tools away and running away and going outside with the tools. So it just took way longer than it should have. But yeah, that was super frustrating. But also, you know, also super cute that he was trying to play with the play around, but yeah,

Adam: Alright, because you are big on cooking, how long can a piece of food sit on the floor in your house and you will still eat it?

David: I'm still pretty tried and true with the five second rule. Like I'll still do the five second rule. Yeah.

Adam: Five second rule it is. What nostalgic movie can you not wait to force your son to watch?

David: Dumb and dumber.

Adam: Oh, that's a good one.

David: Yeah. Big gulps. Huh?

Adam: Big gulps, huh. Well, see you later. And finally, what is your take on minivans?

David: I'm all about it. I'm all about them. Especially if they're like, you know, champagne. That's a, yeah. Why not? So, you know, baller drink, you know? So, yeah, there's just

Adam: Yeah.

David: I don't, not champagne, but yeah, definitely. I'm all about them. Wife is not, but I am. Yeah.

Adam: Okay. We have some conflict here in the marriage.

David: We're going through therapy about it.

Adam: Yeah. Well, not about the minivan at least. David Haddad, AKA Mr. Branzino. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me today on startup dad. This was a fantastic discussion and hopefully helps a lot of dads get a little bit more comfortable in the kitchen and just get started. I appreciate your time.

David: Just do it. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me. This was awesome.

Adam: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with David Haddad A. K. A. Mr. Branzino. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, and leave me a review on Apple or Spotify. It'll help other people find this podcast. Startup Dad is a Fishman AF production with editing support from Tommy Heron. You can join a community of over 10,000 subscribers and stay up to date on my thoughts on growth, product, and parenting by subscribing to the Fishman AF newsletter at www.fishmanafnewsletter.com. Thanks for listening. See you next week.