Sam Zien's recipe for success By Remi Levoff Despite the 11 Emmys that inhabit Sam Zien's home office, the Carmel Valley resident considers himself a regular person. It's that everyday-person quality that has skyrocketed him to fame. With his local show, "Sam the Cooking Guy," a new program on the Discovery Health and Fit TV channels, and a cookbook, Zien is now spreading his philosophy of simplified cooking across the country. Zien has come a long way since his days of three-minute cooking segments on the Fox 6 News Morning Show. How he got there in the first place, however, is the real story. The journey began with Zien working as the director of operations at a chemistry-based drug development company in Carlsbad. "It was a cool job, but I didn't want to do it," Zien admitted. "I wished I could be doing other things," Zien said. "I looked at the help-wanted general section of the Union-Tribune every Sunday looking for anything. I was a square peg in a round hole." The one thing he wanted to do was go back to Tokyo. He had traveled there for his 40th birthday and roamed the streets, he said, with nothing but a video camera. This experience encouraged Zien to quit his job and try his luck at a television show pilot he called "Travel for the Regular Person," based on his time in Tokyo. With the pilot, he hoped to show viewers how to travel and try new things without spending outrageous amounts of money. When the twin towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001, however, so did Zien's dream of a travel show. Traveling was at the bottom of America's to-do list and Zien's show needed to appeal to something at the top of that list. "I had nothing," Zien said. "So I would sit and watch TV." This sounds unproductive, yet it was quite the opposite. Zien came across cooking show after cooking show with recipes he was sure he could never make. "What if there was somebody normal teaching people how to make a pizza?" he thought. No specialty ingredients or training required, Zien's newest idea for a pilot took the regular guy from his travel show and relocated him to the kitchen. "TV didn't need another Emeril, that wasn't necessary," Zien said. Was he a trained chef? No. Did he have ample experience in the kitchen? No. But Zien said he did have self-confidence and the support of his wife of 24 years, Kelly, who told him to "go for it." Fox 6 San Diego was impressed with Zien and offered him a regular spot on the morning news, where he did three-minute segments a few times a week. A couple of Emmys later, Zien got an offer from Channel 4 San Diego to do a full 30-minute show. Dennis Morgigno, the director of original programming, said he "fought hard to get Sam on Channel 4 because I felt people would respond to him." Today, Sam has two shows: "Sam the Cooking Guy" airing in 10 cities throughout the West Coast as well as "Just Cook This!" which airs on Discovery Health and Fit TV. In addition, he teaches cooking classes and has his first book, "Just a Bunch of Recipes," on the shelves. Despite his fame, Zien's San Diego roots are not forgotten. Watch one of his shows or read his book, and it is clear that he has stuck to his original intention to "keep it simple." "I go to great lengths to leave the mistakes in because you learn that I'm a regular, normal, everyday person," Zien said. He often cuts himself or burns his mouth while tasting piping-hot dishes. "He really connects with people and his show is very accessible for busy people who want to put more than take-out on their table," Morgigno said. As far as including his family and friends in the show, "It was never intentional, it was just me," Zien said. "Sam the Cooking Guy" and "Just Cook This!" are both shot in the kitchen of his Carmel Valley home, and appearances by his family, friends and pets are not uncommon. "It's how we all cook," Zien said. "I have three kids, two dogs, one wife, and no picket fence." • • • Vox is the newspaper of the 2009 CCNMA-San Diego Multicultural Journalism Workshop. Return to index | See also: Vox on Blogspot