Chef Michael Silverstein Releases New Keto Cookbook

How does spice-rubbed pork tenderloin with orange gastrique sound? Perhaps, seared scallops with pea puree and prosciutto crisps? Tres leches cupcakes with cinnamon whipped frosting? If you are salivating over these dishes, then just wait until you see what else Chef Michael Silverstein has included in his new cookbook, New Keto Cooking.

Silverstein is a private chef and television personality who competed on the latest season of MasterChef on FOX. After losing over 80 pounds on the Keto Diet, Silverstein is hoping to share some of his own, personal Keto recipes with the world. New Keto Cooking features a modern take on healthy eating, and these elevated dishes strike the perfect balance of being easy and approachable for the home cook while still using fine ingredients and smart cooking methods.

While Keto is a powerful weight-loss tool, Silverstein believes the benefits of a low-carb lifestyle is much more extensive than weight loss alone. His clear grasp of gastronomy shines through with his fresh ideas for Keto substitutions, such as using celery root to make the perfect mashed ‘faux-tatoes,” instead of go-to’s like cauliflower or sweet potato. Silverstein provides new and tastier ways for dieters to enjoy flavors they crave.

OUT FRONT had the opportunity to chat more with Silverstein about the book, his experience on MasterChef, and his personal weight loss journey.Hi, Michael! Thank you for taking some time to chat with me. How are you doing during these unprecedented times?
This is a weird year, and it has screwed up everybody’s life in one way or another, but I am grateful to be healthy and be able to continue doing what I love. Since my job is cooking and making recipes from home, I have been able to weather the storm pretty effectively. I took the year to write a book and dive in deep into recipe development headfirst.

It may not be the best time to launch a book, but we must do what we can at these times. I am also a private chef, so that whole half of my business completely shut down. That has obviously presented a lot of challenges, and although it is starting to carefully pick up again, for my safety and that of the guests, I had to particularly put that entire business on hold, but it gave me a lot of time to focus on writing and creating something special that I have always wanted to do.

Before we dive more into your cookbook, I would like to ask you more about your time on MasterChef. You competed on the most recent season. Can you tell us more about your experience?
Absolutely. It was a life-changing experience. I have never been challenged or pushed harder at anything in my life, and it was a year long process. What we see on TV is sort of the very last phase of what was many months of auditioning. I spent a lot of time in L.A. long before anything started being on camera, so it basically required me to take a big chunk of my life and put everything else on hold and put everything into honing my skills for the show. It was an exciting and life changing experience. Being able to cook for Gordon Ramsay, get on TV, and show people my chops was mind blowing.

Also, being able to build those relationships. I still talk to Gordon here and there, and he has still been a positive force in my life. Obviously, TV is tricky because it’s not good enough that I can cook. I also have to be able to do it while looking at the camera, talking to the judges, and looking at 17 different camera angles. Getting comfortable on camera was one of the biggest challenges that I have ever faced, and even today, it is still kind of a demon. In addition to the culinary challenges, there is a lot of interpersonal stuff that comes out when you think about being on a national TV show. The nerves were something that I did not anticipate, and something that I still work on today.

What made you audition for MasterChef?
My fiancé Jacob really pushed me to do everything I did. I would not have done it on my own. I never wanted or planned to be on TV; that was never a goal of mine. I have cooked for friends, I cook professionally, and one day, we were watching MasterChef and he said, you can knock this out of the park. Why don’t you do it?

I thought he was kidding, and just as a joke, kind of a silly #YOLO moment, I submitted my name and Instagram account. That’s all it took. They checked me out, looked at my Instagram, looked at what I was doing online, and the next thing you know, I am getting a call from a producer. What started as a fun YOLO moment turned into a life-changing time that I will never look back from.

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Be honest. Are Gordon, Aarón, and Joe as terrifying as they may seem?
[Laughs]. Yes. Absolutely. They are, and they hold us to an incredibly high standard while in the kitchen. Outside the kitchen, they are incredibly warm, positive, and humble. I was kind of surprised. You have to understand, on set, there are close to 80 people there.

Camera people, sound people, producers, but when Gordon would walk in, he would say hi, and he knows everybody by their names. He treats everybody with respect. Outside the kitchen, we don’t see Gordon the way that we see him on TV, but in the kitchen, that is all real. That guy holds everybody to such a high culinary standard, and he is incredibly forceful about coaching us to be better all the time.

If asked to compete again, would you?
Absolutely. It was a blast. It was the hardest thing we ever did, and we worked for weeks and weeks. I was away from my friends and family and sometimes filmed 17 to 18 hours a day, but it was an honor. I would never turn down the opportunity to go back. It would be amazing.  How did your passion and love of food begin?
Oh, man. I have been cooking since I was very young. My mom is an amazing cook, and I just smile thinking about her food. I remember being little enough that I could not see over the counter, and I would get a little step stool and help my mom. Then I started working in an Italian restaurant when I was 13, like paid cash under the table before I was even legal. Just rolling the silverware into napkins, and I would get like $20 a night, and I just fell in love with it from that point on.

I bounced in and out. I studied architecture in school; I dabbled in real estate for a while because the chef life is hard. I battle with that a lot because it is my passion, but it is also a challenging lifestyle to work in a restaurant. I have so much respect for any chef on the line right now.

You and Jacob are from Pittsburgh, but you both moved to Austin, Texas. What drew you to the Lone Star State?
Texas just called us; I cannot explain it. We came for a visit with some friends here, and just fell in love. There is no specific reason as to why Austin, but the food scene and the vibe here was magnetically drawing us here. It is so vibrant, young, hip, and kind of up-and-coming. As well as the weather year-round, we just fell in love.

Honestly, I think we took a bit of a risk. It was not an easy step for us to move at all, and it had the potential to knock us down a notch in our careers, but we wanted to take a gamble. So far in my life, I have found that taking a gamble is the only way to move forward. You sometimes have to take a risk and get uncomfortable in order to grow. We had found our zone in Pittsburgh and on the east coast, and I think it pushed us to try and work harder for both of us in our careers. I think Austin made a great place to try and do that.

Can you now tell us more about your new cookbook, New Keto Cooking? These are your very own recipes?
Every, single one is my own. I literally created these recipes from scratch out of my kit over many, many months. It is something I have put my entire heart and soul into, so I would call this book my baby. I have never worked on any single project in or out of food this firmly and intensely. Just because of the sheer volume, and we are talking 65 recipes and 65 photographs, not to mention the supplemental writing content, all from scratch. I even do my own photography in my home studio. This is my creation cover to cover, so every single word and photograph came from my heart.

You lost over 80 pounds in one year thanks to the Keto Diet. How do you respond when people say Keto is just a fad diet and should not be trusted?
That is something we hear a lot, and I think my book plays into that conversation well because I don’t label any of the recipes as diet food. I did not lose weight by eating salads and little, plain pieces of chicken. My belief in getting healthy, you need to eat real food and cook food at home in a healthy way.

I understand there are a lot of associations with Keto that it is a fad diet, but is anyone going to argue that cutting sugar out of your life is going to harm you? In my opinion, eliminating sugar and flour as a formula has only helped me find health and wellness. Not only with just how I feel, but also medically speaking in terms of my lab work, and I have been very closely monitored with my doctor, which I think is important for any diet. You need to know that what you are doing is healthy, and eating the whole time, never starving yourself, or finding unhealthy patterns is key for any diet.

For me, Keto is a structure where I eliminate sugar and carbs, but in a healthy way. Doing it in a way where you are getting balanced nutrition is very important. Everything that you need to be healthy, but in a structure that works for you. Also, never say that Keto is for every single person. I think every body is different. We know that in many ways, in and out of the LGBTQ community, every body is different, and I do not think that there is a one-size-fits-all-model here. That is why I focus my recipes on damn tasty food.

Then from there, I try to make sure that it fits in Keto. There is no flour, no sugar, none of the things that I consider unhealthy to me. It’s whole food, real food, that is satisfying and comforting. Not these little dainty, little bite sized portions or asking anybody to restrict how much they eat or how much they love eating. That is what worked for me. For my weight loss journey, I ate well the whole time.

When you get into diets where you are counting calories and restricting yourself, you are in a very negative space, and food should not be a punishment. You should not punish yourself for eating. Having a bad meal then starving yourself the next day is heading towards a dangerous cycle. So, that is what the book is really about, and that is why I call it New Keto Cooking. It is not about the fad diet; it is not about restriction; it is about eating delicious food that happens to be within the keto structure.

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All diets are challenging, no matter what kind they are. How did you say focused and on track?
It was really easy because I ate the whole time [laughs]. I love food with all my heart. Not only cooking, but I love eating it. Nothing makes me happier than eating a delicious meal. So, I knew from the start that if I was going to get healthier, I had to enjoy it the whole time. I think people try and fail at dieting because they are torturing themselves.

Keto worked for me in this particular case because I was just able to eat delicious things that I love. Cheese, bacon, eggs, and vegetables. All the things that I still love as a consumer and a chef. Making sure I am eating and enjoying what I am eating the whole time. Never treating the diet as some torture that I have to punish myself through in order to hit my goals.With the holidays coming up, what advice can you offer?
I think with the holidays, I would say, be kind to yourself, and enjoy a little bit. This has been a hard year, mentally and physically, for everybody. Have a cookie; have some pumpkin pie. It’s fine. Make small changes here and there. I think there are ways of incorporating small changes through the holidays that might help you out.

Try to find that gluten-free recipe; try to create sides that do not necessarily need as much sugar. Work towards a balanced diet, but enjoy a piece of cake, and live life. We all need to smile, and we all need to spend that quality time with family. We need a little comfort food right now, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. If you want to stay on-track over the holidays, you can find great recipes. There are so many options. The key is to not torture yourself.

What are your absolute favorite dishes?
Oh, wow. I love seafood. I was born and raised outside of D.C. in Maryland, and I grew up eating crab and seafood. I have a special place in my heart for seafood, so crab cakes, seared scallops, grilled shrimp. I think that is my ultimate treat for dinner; it is definitely my comfort food. Other than that, a warm donut for dessert is always a treat, and I have made a Keto donut recipe you can find in the cookbook to stay healthy, but like I said, have that warm donut once in a while. You only live once.

What more do you hope to accomplish as a chef?
I am already thinking about a second book because sharing my food with people is obviously the most rewarding part of what I do. I don’t do it for any other reason than the smile it brings me when I see somebody on Instagram post a picture of their kitchen table with my recipe. I feel like I have impacted somebody and helped somebody get a smile. I genuinely enjoyed the process of writing and developing food for other people to make at home, which is a different modality than cooking food at a restaurant. Kind of like, give a man a fish versus teaching a man to fish. I love helping people learn to make food for themselves.

So, writing recipes, I am starting to do some online classes that people seem to really enjoy. Then, I just started filming a pilot for a TV show concept that we will be pitching to some networks. I would love to get back on TV to continue sharing my message and helping people cook more at home. I think that is really the message I want to keep sharing. Anybody can cook at home, and you can have food as good as a restaurant chef. Not only will it make you feel better, but it will put a smile on your face. As long as I can keep sharing that message, I am happy.

For more cooking tips, recipes, and to stay up-to-date with Silverstein, follow him on Instagram. Make sure to check out his official website for the latest news, and to sign up for a free one on one Zoom cooking class. New Keto Cooking is available to purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, and everywhere else books are sold.

Photos Courtesy of Michael Silverstein and FOX