Dennis Perez

By day, Create Cooking Challenge: My Family’s Recipe Second Prize Winner Dennis Perez of Tampa, Florida, works in IT and manages software development teams. Away from his computer, however, Dennis is in the kitchen tinkering with recipes and recording videos or, in the outdoors pursuing his other passions: hiking and archery. Whether inside the kitchen, at his computer, or slinging arrows downfield, Dennis is focused on what he loves to do, and he loves sharing these skills! Dennis was raised in a multi-generational setting, with family that spent more time in the kitchen than any other room in the house. His family first settled in New York after leaving Cuba and after many years, made their way to Tampa, where they live now. He said that in his family, you “grew up in the kitchen” as it was the heart of their home and that “love was expressed through food.” Although Dennis has never been interested in becoming a “professional chef,” he is enthralled by the culinary world and how ingredients come together to make incredible dishes. His current focus is healthy recipe development- he experiments with food and ways to prepare it, adding spices and herbs, and seeking substitutions to ingredients that may have similar properties in an effort to make a recipe healthier. Dennis has been working on his content creation for more than five years and says that, while he still thoroughly enjoys it, the way he works has changed over time. He is very philosophical about it, saying that “cooking is a lifetime thing!” While he used to develop a weekly recipe for his YouTube series “Black Tie Kitchen,” seeking life balance combined with the complexity of his growing research into recipe development has changed that schedule. He now produces two videos a month. In these productions, he walks viewers through the preparation process, encouraging them and making suggestions along the way about how they can modify each recipe to make it their own. That is a primary interest Dennis holds when it comes to his work with food: he wants people to adopt a bit of his philosophy when it comes to exploring food, seeing each new idea as a door, opening to their own exploration into healthy living and eating. As to cooking for his family and friends, he says he saves that for special occassions and the holidays, usually sticking to recipe development otherwise. What are his favorite foods? “Pizza or fried eggs with white rice top the list,” he said, sharing that it took him over a month of daily trial and error to create his most recent pizza recipe! “But it was worth it,” he adds with a smile. Dennis has a good time working in the kitchen and is known for adding comedy to his content - including a few toy stuffed animals, adding a little whimsy to his work! His winning video, Cuban Picadillo, received high praise from the judges. Diane Kochilas said she found Dennis to be “very engaging” saying she learned something from his stories, while Nick Stellino was eager to see Dennis host a series! Pati Jinich and Kevin Belton both praised his work in holding the interest of the viewers with interesting camera shots and the tips for substitutions in his recipe.