One man, one pan and the perfect food gram: Who is OnePanPapi?

OnePanPapi

Written By Christopher Harris

Gawking at his filterless Instagram photos of mouth-watering, savory, elegantly decorated meals with just the right amount of sauce neatly drizzled over top isn’t exactly what private celebrity chef, Colin Gingles, wants you to do. 

Sure, he appreciates the likes, the orders, the fire emojis, and the smiley faces with that dribble of saliva around the mouth, but for Gingles, affectionately known as OnePanPapi, the real intention behind the post is to promote self-love.  “There is no greater version of self-love than cooking for yourself,” Gingles says via phone from his Atlanta residence. “Taking the time to chop up some food, prepare it for you, season it right, especially if you're cooking something healthy, honestly, is the definition of self-love.”

Gingles has come a long way from captioning a post of a frittata (stuffed with cheese, spinach, and tomatoes) on a plate simply as “food.” The Maryland-bred chef’s culinary creations have always been more than just “food.”

Three years ago, Gingles says he found himself depressed after quitting an unsatisfying job. While he was unemployed, Gingles started making cooking videos. And before he ate every meal, he’d decorate it “restaurant style” and take photos of the finished product. “That was for my mental health,” he says. “I feel better when I plate things that look good and taste good, and when I know that I put some effort towards it... I realized that cooking — which I started doing because it helped me get out of depression — was what I wanted to do.”

Gingles now has several reasons to be happy. These days, his meal prep service is heavily in-demand and he has cooked for the likes of R&B singer Jidenna, reality TV star Porsha Williams and actor Vince Vaughn. Due to COVID, Gingles missed out on some festival gigs but he has pivoted to developing QR codes for restaurants. 

DojoDC caught up with OnePanPapi to talk about his inspiring culinary journey, cooking for celebrities, tacos, and the exclusive Kamala-lassi drink. 

DojoDC:When did your culinary journey begin?

OnePanPapi: It started in my youth just at the house. My mom’s a cook. My father worked in a restaurant. From there, I've always had an interest in food from the very beginning of my whole life. 

So how old were you when you started cooking? 

I probably started around 5-6 years old, as soon as I could boil water. The first thing I ever started cooking was deviled eggs with my mom. She’s just a home cook but she's always been the nicest with it in my family. That’s who I get my flavor profile game from.

But you have restaurant experience as well. 

I’ve worked in restaurants but I worked as a server. I would just take game from the chefs and learn from them as much as I could. 

When did you begin to think you could turn cooking into a career? 

Around 2019, I was pretty depressed. I had quit my job thinking that I would get this awesome spark of creativity and purpose. I finally realized in the middle of it that cooking -- which helped me get out of depression -- was what I wanted to do. 

That’s interesting! How did cooking for yourself help you cope with depression exactly? 

It helped me a lot. When you cook, you’ve got no greater version of self love than cooking for yourself. Taking the time to chop up some food, prepare it for you, season it right, especially if you're cooking something healthy, honestly, is the definition of self-love.

What was so therapeutic about cooking for yourself?

Just taking time to cook for myself everyday. The big thing I used to do was I would record myself cooking. No matter what it was, even if it was like a waffle, I would plate it up and make it look like a fancy restaurant style. That was for my mental health. I feel better when I plate things that look good and taste good, knowing that I put some effort towards it. Doing that everyday, consistently for a year, helped me get out of my depression and also helped me find a career that I should be focused on. 

What did you learn from cooking & working in restaurants? 

I actually never worked in a restaurant as a chef until I became a private chef and then i started fucking with restaurants after the fact. it's a weird turnaround. Most chefs actually start working in the kitchen and then become private. I became private, got blessed by a couple different celebrities and notable figures and then from there, I got a couple opportunities to work at different restaurants. 

What’s been the reaction from your friends and family? 

Its been super supportive, I really love it. i have like an awesome dope network of family and friends, i went to school at Morehouse so that's been an awesome network. i started in Baltimore, i decided to come down here to atlanta to really expand and grow. a lot of my friends are plugged into influential places, i was able to scale up quite nicely and quickly just because of friends in high places. 

How does your Mom feel about you being a chef now? 

thats gang gang, she’s my biggest supporter always giving me new tips and new advice  , ‘cook it like this, do it like this. she is the best .... She's the pro, I’m the amateur for life. She is a champ in the kitchen, and I'm still trying to catch game. 

Tell me more about your foodsperiences?

The foodsperiences (food - experiences) is really developing and diving into what we call a full foodsperience. Before COVID we used to have nice private events, and tastings where we really would just set the ingredients that we were having out and we would pretty much just have a live chopped with a chef and a bartender and we would just get funky with it. We’d invite a group of friends over, about 20 or so, after that, we would just get in the kitchen and cook for 2-3 hours and just have fun, freestyle.

Where did the idea for the Paper plate tour come from?

That really came about when I decided to jump down and become a private chef. At first, i had been doing a lot of stuff back home, but I wasn’t really selling plates, mostly selling content, letting people learn recipes. But when I came out here to Atlanta, we were trying to figure out how to monetize it and with that came the idea to start doing dinner parties, just to get my name out here as a nice little marketing plus and with that we came up with foodsperience. We’d get an airbnb, and we’d have a private dinner party, but it wouldn't be as stiff as it normally was. It was really free-flowing, just a bunch of people having fun in there, music in there, some clothing in there, we've had some actors in there before, we've had some celebrities, we’ve had some artists in there. It really just became its own vibe. 

How did you start cooking for celebrities? 

A lot of my friends, here in Atlanta, they've been here for years. So, they've built up awesome connections. They've been in different industries; from managers, to artists, set designers, set managers, every position that you can think of in the entertainment career, script writers, they've all had them. When I decided to jump out, they were like, “alright, that's no problem bro, we can push you.” Just because of the good friendship connections that I had, I was able to easily get in there and once you get into the celebrity world, if your name stays good, you’ll stay in there. 

So, how’d you end up cooking for Vince Vaughn? 

That was a super surprise to me. That all came about just because I got contracted by the company to do the catering gig. I had no idea that I was cooking for Vince Vaughn, I just knew I was catering for a company that was celebrating the completion of their filming. We dropped the catering off. Got cool with the people on set, they were like, “hey bruh, if you want to hang out, it's an open bar, you can drink.” So, we’re drinking and having fun, and I’m talking to one guy, and he said, “I’m a driver.” I said “cool,” and he said, “yeah, i'm a driver for Vince. I said “cool” and he’s like, “yeah, Vince Vaughn,” and he turns around and points. I look and it’s Vince Vaughn standing there 6 foot 7. 

How gratifying was that for you to go from cooking to cope with depression to cooking for Vince Vaughn? 

Immensely. We’re always looking for a little gratification that we’re doing the right thing with our lives. Ever since i made pivots in my life to start cooking. which was really about getting out of depression, and anything that came around that to help monetize that to a degree I’ve really just been trying to be an inspiration and show people a little bit about self love and what its done for me and what it can do for you. It’s really the end all goal of it all. 

How did you begin cooking for Porsha Williams? 

One of my best friends works for Porsha. She knew that I came down here and Porsha was looking for meal prep at the time and also wanted to do some private dining, so we did the infamous Surf La Turf steak board, and she was also asking for meal prep. We did that for a good few months, while we were in town.We probably link up once every other month. I end up cooking for her. She's a doll, I love hanging out with them. It’s always fun, always very  entertaining, always a fair amount of drinking when I hang out with her. 

Are there any other celebrities you were surprised to cook for?

Jidenna for sure. He's a highly entertaining, well spoken individual. He came through and the reason why this one was so spectacular was because this one was really surprising. It was actually supposed to be a team meeting. At our team meetings, we still like to eat and drink and have fun a little bit. As we’re prepping for the team meeting, we were cooking for ourselves, and one of the team members said they were cool with Jiidenna and he said he was hungry and asked if he could come through. So what was a team meeting, became a mock practice session for Jidenna, and that was probably the funnest thing. It's always fun to see people in the kitchen and be able to just switch from fun to go mode just in the drop of a hat. We just made whatever we planned to eat ourselves into a nice 5 star dinner for him. 

Tell me about the Paper plate tour.

That was another thing to get people inspired to cook. There seems to be a little bit of a misconception. When people see me elevated to the point that I am now they think that i always like to eat michelin 5 star type food. But it was really a way to inspire people that you can do high end stuff in your home or you can just make what you're making feel or taste better or even just look better. It's really just a cooking class right now. We do a monthly cooking class. Emails go out the second week of every month. We encourage people to post their food on whatever plate they want. Paper plates tend to be the big thing, because of the name, but we're really just trying to inspire people to cook, eat, have a little bit of fun, learn a couple new dishes, learn a couple things from the culinary world, and overall just to continue to care about themselves. 

Do you enjoy cooking healthy food or comfort food more?

It's a combination of the two: I do like to make food that people enjoy, but then also we do things that are a little bit more dietary constrained. If you are specifically looking to live more of a healthier lifestyle or if you're looking to get more protein gains, we have plans for that.  Sometimes, you just want to eat and not worry about anything else and just feel good, and I have that as well. 

How does your meal prep business work?

It started off as a private meal prep, so i would do this specifically with clients. We just expanded to public meal prep. It's in the beta stages right now. It’s just hard to handle that level of volume. We’re going to be pushing it up soon to be fully open to the public so that anyone can order meal prep. They can order what they want and they can pick up when they want. Right now, it's real specific to the private clients that I have just because of the volume that I have. I'm not able to take on all those clients but with this move to the commercial kitchen we’re hoping to be able to take on 100+ and more. 

Besides your mom, are there any other chefs that inspire you?

Yeah, of course. One of my favorite chefs is Damien, also known as Kiss the Chef. He's based out of Maryland and what really impresses me about him is his business. My man started off as a cook and just working at a couple different restaurants and finally started his own spot. And with that he's just been running it up. He does what he wants.  

He freestyles it. He just wakes up and cooks what he wants to and he's turned it into a phenomenal business model. Watching him cook what he wants and also get the success that he wants is probably the most inspiring thing.

What are your favorite meals to make and eat?

[My] favorite meal to make is tacos. I know it sounds basic as hell but I love me some tacos. I feel like there's so much personality in the way I make tacos versus the way other chefs make tacos. They are both gon’ be bussin and so much of our personality is going to shine through those tacos.

And your favorite food to eat?

I’m a big pasta lover and I got that from my father. I'm a big fan of carbonara, that's definitely the way to my heart. I love pasta. you can go red sauce, alfredo sauce, cream sauce, we can

do a light marinara on there with a little bit of olive oil. Pasta is my main comfort food of all time. 

I’m a big fan of our Vice-President Kamala Harris, so of course I noticed the Kamala-Lassi. How did you come up with that? 

That came up around election time and I was like  if she wins, i'll make that. I’m a big fan of mango lassi. I love those to death and I just happened to have a super ripe plantain on me. I said let me play with this and see what happens. I played with it and it came out alright the first time, a little bit too much plantain. I edited the recipe up a little bit and it's been hitting ever since. That's something that we tend to do at home. I usually give the recipe out for anyone to make. 

How would you feel if she was to try your drink?

That would be love, if we could ever make that happen. I would love to see her reaction to how she feels about it. 

What’s next for you?

I’ve been moving into Black tech, helping restaurants survive COVID. Helping with QR codes , scanning the menu. And QR codes that can actually take a whole menu order. I've also been helping private chef. Initially, we were going to do a lot of festivals, a lot of private dining but because of COVID, we had to pivot and be more serviced based. We’re going to make shit shake.