Dan Pelosi

I find it just the thing that keeps me alive and keeps me happy.

I might have like not, you know, had a great day at the gym or like, you know, jumped off my Peloton like 10 minutes early.

Those are not easy wins for me.

Making myself dinner or having my friends over, it's an easy win.

I mean, it started day one.

I was born into an Italian-American and Portuguese-American family.

So it was sort of my birthright.

My mother tells stories of having me on the counter as a baby, sort of, you know, hanging out with her while she cooked.

And I would just sort of happily be there.

And then as I grew, I would be helping her cook.

And I was sort of the official taste tester.

And I remember my grandfather saying, do you think the marinara is done?

And I would always say no, because I didn't want to stop tasting it.

Being in the kitchen and cooking is like kind of an easy win.

Like, I think that's why it's relaxing to me.

Like, I'm pretty much like never bummed out or disappointed with what I make because I'm like, this is like a fun space for me.

It's like a safe space.

The wins are easy for me in the kitchen.

And for me, it's never about the result.

Like, what do I learn from the result?

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Mine just results in something edible.

I was at probably my peak of stress and being overworked.

And it's just so beautiful.

And getting into my groove and handling beautiful produce, firing the grill, making a beautiful meal.

It just is the thing that brings me back to life.

It feels like I have...

air around my thoughts.

Like I have that space.

I have room to sort of breathe in my mind so I can really focus on that task in front of me.

And so therapeutic because I'm focused on one singular task and I'm really driven by the payoff, which is putting the food on the table, saying let's eat and letting everyone dive in.

And that to me is just the best.

I started just basically creating teachable content on my Instagram.

And suddenly the followers just sort of started flowing in.

And every day I was just like, here's how you make tuna.

Here's how I make pizza.

Like, here's the five things I keep on my counter.

Here's what's in my pantry.

And that allowed me to really take off and realize, like,

wow, this weekend hobby is actually something that I can use to help people during this global pandemic.

And then from there, it's just been sort of like the first year I worked my job at Ann Taylor, at the brands that I was working at, and I built Grossi Pelosi.

And it was the hardest I've ever worked in my whole life, but it was the most joyful, amazing thing.

And it kind of got me through the pandemic.