For the past 18 years, culinary peers have known him as Chef Jose’, but to the ZED RUN community he’s best-known as Dough Boy – content creator extraordinaire, and vital member of the PonyPlug247 stream team.
“Streaming is dope,” DoughBoy says. “I enjoy it. I like to think I’m pretty entertaining – so I’ve kept doing it.”
Together with PonyPlug247 partner Pony Zook, Dough Boy has helped raise over $60,000 USD for the children’s charity Extra Life, with the majority of donations made by fellow ZED RUN community members.
“What we accomplished last year with PonyPlug will probably never be replicated,” DoughBoy says. “But, it’s opened the door for others to raise money for their charities in a similar way.”
Dough Boy says he’s always been passionate about two things – horse racing and culinary arts.
Growing up his father was a horse trainer, and his grandfather a handicapper. The family connection to horse racing meant countless hours around racetracks as a kid.
“I would help my father during training hours by walking racehorses, cleaning stalls, setting up feed buckets, and helping roll bandages,” Dough Boy says.
“When I was a teen I worked part-time at the racetrack. Eventually, I was able to purchase my first racehorse, which won its first race.”
Dough Boy says that while his grandfather was helping mould his love for horse racing, back at home his grandmother was igniting his budding passion for the cooking.
“When I was younger I would watch chefs like Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, Emeril Lagassé, and Alton Brown on television with my grandmother,” Dough Boy says.
“I grew up so passionate about cooking that I opted out of my Senior year of High School, joined a culinary arts school, received my first real kitchen job at age 17, and have been working in the field ever since.”
Dough Boy says that while on the surface there may not seem to be much overlap between his passions of playing ZED RUN and cooking, he has found them similar in some ways – specifically, the necessity to pay attention to fine details for a desired result.
“For me, the main similarity isn’t close. You have to pay attention,” Dough Boy says.
“In cooking – too much of an ingredient and your recipe is done for. In ZED RUN – entering the wrong race on a tourney day will end your chances of competing.”
Creating content isn’t a new venture for DoughBoy. His Youtube channel – Jose's Culinary Chop Shop – features videos of himself and guests putting together Master Chef-level plates of food, then serving them up.
When asked what he would whip up for a ZED Headz party, DoughBoy has no shortage of suggestions as to which foods would pair best with digital racehorsing.
“It would definitely be a finger food night,” DoughBoy says.
“Lamb meatballs with a mint yogurt sauce, a charcuterie board, some confit chicken wings with a Gorgonzola dipping sauce, and crab cakes remoulade would definitely be on the menu.”
While he feels as if he was born to cook, and is constantly creating recipes in his head, being a full-time content creator is an intriguing possibility.
“Cooking means the world to me. It's my life. Besides training horses, it's what I’ve always wanted to do,” DoughBoy says.
“But if NFT gaming becomes what it’s supposed to be, and what we all think it can be, then the sky's the limit.”
“If I could be a full-time content creator for a living that would be dope. For now, I love the challenge of doing it all, especially cooking.”
