The Tamesis
Thousands of people tune in online every week to watch Chuck Cruz and Haley Catalano cook up Friday night dinner.
Whether they’re making a delicious beach sandwich, steak and potatoes (“kicked up” with black garlic herb compound butter), or a recipe from Catalano’s Cookbook Keep it in your mind: Recipes worth cherishing, This chef couple’s videos are soothing, hungry, and endlessly watchable. With their dog Gus making frequent guest appearances and being curious about their cooking styles, the kitchen in their Asbury Park, N.J., home is the polar opposite of American high-pressure kitchens. Bear.
The couple met in 2012 at cooking school at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, and paired up as radio partners during a basic course. On the first day of school, Cruz showed up two hours late and talked back to the chef. “He was probably a very passionate, very good cook, like a chef,” Catalano thought.
This is not the case. “I was really bad,” Cruz said. Before attending culinary school, he worked at The Cheesecake Factory and a Chinese buffet restaurant. She won a high school cooking competition. Cruz remembers that during orientation, students were asked about the five mother sauces. “I was like, what the hell is mommy-chan?” he said, laughing with Catalano. “Hailey knew them all. I was like, damn, how does she know this?”
It’s a perfect match. “When we’re paired up, we all try to help each other out,” Catalano said. “It’s interesting. [I realized] He’s not intense. He’s just a goofy, fun guy. “
They began dating in 2014 and later worked together in restaurant kitchens in Chicago (Catalano’s hometown) and Jersey City (not far from Piscataway, where Cruz grew up), often working at the same station. “For some reason, we’re just good at cooking together. It’s often difficult working with people in high-pressure situations. But we always know where the other person is going,” Catalano said.
In 2020, Catalano joined TikTok (“At first I thought it was just dancing,” she says, until her algorithm powered her cooking videos) and quickly began making videos and gaining a following. She now has nearly 2 million followers on the app. For Cruz and Catalano, cooking and making videos is a way to spend time together.
“When we compare it to the way we cooked together in the high-pressure past — and we still enjoy it back then — the way we cook together, now it’s really a time for us to enjoy and spend time together,” Catalano said. “It’s been a hobby of ours for years, and really, it’s like having a nerdy buddy to do hobbies with, it’s what we love to do.” (Their most hated food? Hot dogs. When they come to a new place, their mission is to “find the local hot dog,” Cruz said).
Even if they work together on the production line, they look forward to cooking for fun on their days off, starting on longer projects like stews, stews, or pasta. “Now, when we do this, it brings back those days,” Cruz said.
As culinary school students, their first Valentine’s Day together was a trip to Burger King. “It just so happened that the Burger King we went to was decorated like it was Valentine’s Day,” with tablecloths and roses. “I was like, this is the perfect Valentine’s Day for me,” Catalano said. “Burger King had chicken sandwiches and smoothies on pink plastic tablecloths.”
