Matty Matheson is known for making delicious dishes without following a recipe. In Just a Dash, a YouTube cooking show that has since been acquired by Netflix, his authenticity shines through. People want to watch The Bear star cook anything from a chopped liver to a layered wedding cake, because in reality, the fun is in watching him chaotically work a kitchen as opposed to staying behind a counter, meticulously crafting a meal. 

But aside from Matheson himself, the secret sauce to Just a Dash’s success is found in his humorous dynamic with culinary producer Michelle Rabin. While he pours ingredients into a bowl on a whim, Rabin tries as much as possible to ensure that the food looks good and that there is at least some structure to the unscripted series. Whereas Matheson is spontaneous, Rabin is attentive to detail, and it is their playful banter that keeps things lighthearted and comedic. 

Following the release of Just a Dash Season 3, Rabin spoke with SheDoesTheCity about the challenges of filming a cooking show outside Matheson’s kitchen setup, her long-term friendship with the subversive chef, and how the series’ organic feel sets itself apart from other cooking shows.

Returning for Season 3 on any show, you already get the hang of what the style is, but obviously things change and the stakes get higher. What would you say is most different in Season 3 compared to the previous seasons?

There’s a whole bunch of things that really changed. Season 1 was like a DIY cooking show that ended up being a cooking show about a cooking show. We were working 18 to 20-hour days, trying to make two episodes a day, and it was exhausting. Then in Season 2, we were more established and we kind of leaned into breaking down the fourth wall, revealing the makings of what goes into a cooking show. Matty is just such a natural on camera, so he kind of carries that. He’s such an entertainer.

In between Season 2 and 3, Matty’s whole career really changed. He started doing The Bear and his popularity online soared. He did this massive renovation on his house, and that kitchen that we had originally cooked in didn’t exist anymore. So cooking in someone’s beautiful, huge farmhouse kitchen isn’t what we were really going for. During the first two seasons, his whole family left the house and stayed in an Airbnb while we filmed the show. Trish, his wife, was unwilling to leave the house this time. Knowing that from the get-go was a great place for Season 3 to launch, where we don’t have a kitchen to cook in.

The beginning of this season really establishes this whole concept and that’s what makes it so fun and chaotic. What were some of the challenges of trying to make a cooking show work in unusual places, like an RV?

The luxury of a real kitchen means that you have the equipment that you need, and appliances available to you. When that doesn’t exist, you have to start thinking about literally everything that you need, from a spoon to a blender to a stove. There’s no forgetting something when you’re cooking in an RV. In the second episode, we didn’t plan for the oven or the microwave not to work. The beauty of the show is that you can be as prepared as possible, and then sometimes something happens that just throws you off. 

A lot of people think that the show has a script that we’re following, but it doesn’t. We plan to make this steakhouse dinner. Things go wrong. What happens now? Because there’s no outline of what’s going to happen during the day, we have this freedom to kind of be like, “okay, let’s go to McDonald’s and get fries. Let’s blend the sauce in a gas station because the power outlet doesn’t work.” 

You’re the type of person who’s trying to keep things in order, while Matty is just going with the flow, figuring things out as he goes. How do you feel like your relationship with Matty adds that extra sauce to this equation?

Ultimately, Matty and I are friends, so there’s a foundation of love between us. It’s difficult doing my job for him, because Matty wants to be spontaneous in what he’s doing and with someone who does my job, like for example, Martha Stewart, she’s planned every step. There’s no room for spontaneity. With Matty, he’s always like, “oh my God, what about this?” On one given day, he might want cherry tomatoes on a vine, and then on another day, he might be like, I want the shitty ones on the shelf from a grocery store. After years of working with him, I can kind of predict what he might want, but ultimately I’m going to get something wrong. There’s things that are sometimes out of my control. I don’t have a team of people that have eyes on everything. My job isn’t like I’m standing there supervising. I’m also an on-camera talent, so it’s challenging doing it all. But I think that that chaos of all of us trying to make a cooking show is exactly what makes this cooking show so successful.

In the wedding episode, you get to lean into a lot of the humour of it. Can you share about the experience of shooting that one?

The day before, we were making so many things. We made a chiffon cake, a Swiss meringue buttercream, a lemon curd, and then we bought flowers and decorated the cake. I really wanted the cake to look super professional, because we had everything that we needed to make it look incredible. But again, Matty treats it like arts and crafts. What I had in mind for what the cake needed to look like, and what the cake is actually looking like is completely different. But also the cake doesn’t even matter. Like, there’s so much other stuff that’s going on in the episode that no one even cares about what the cake looks like.

In Season 2, there’s an episode where I pretend to have this past relationship with Billy Zane and that we’re still pals. At the time that was a fabrication, but the fans went completely wild, and they were like, does she or doesn’t she know Billy Zane? Months later, after the episode aired, it got so much viewership that I posted on Instagram that my Christmas wish was for Billy Zane to see this episode. He responded, and he was like, “I saw it.” I ended up going to LA and reaching out and being like can we have a cup of coffee together? And he agreed. I was like, “oh my God, I get to post that I’m with Billy Zane and that we’re hanging out.” I was so nervous. I don’t smoke cigarettes, and I bought a pack and lit them all up before. That plot was such a huge part of Season 2 that we had to bring it into Season 3. Unfortunately, Billy Zane didn’t show up to the wedding, but we really wanted to celebrate that.

This is an interesting type of cooking show where the personalities matter even more than the food. How do you approach this aspect of it, which is so different from other cooking shows? 

I think a lot of people follow along with cooking shows, and then whatever they make doesn’t really turn out to be what they thought it would be. And part of the fun of Just A Dash is seeing what works and what doesn’t, and not hiding behind small mistakes that we make. So if something doesn’t work out, then that’s just the way it’s going to be. I do think that breaking the fourth wall and exposing the mistakes along the way is amazing. 

I also think that during cooking shows, it’s usually one person behind a counter, cooking a couple of recipes. When you don’t really have someone to riff off of, or there aren’t two people on camera, asking questions or bothering each other, then it kind of loses its luster. Matty and I have created such a great rapport that isn’t fabricated for the camera. Our friends are the camera guys. We’re all just with our friends, and we forget the cameras are there. The whole point is to figure it out together. I would say there’s only reality in what we say to each other and how the episodes exist. That’s how we speak to each other, that’s just how we are together. 

Matty might be the chef here, but you are also a cook outside of the show. How did helping Matty cook in Just a Dash inspire you to also make your own cooking content online?

Matty and I have been working together since 2017 and I will say that something that I have  learned from him is that so much of a show comes together in the edit. A lot of people, especially when they’re new to making videos on social media, get choked up, and they get scared, because they’re like, “well, what if I say the wrong thing.” Watching Matty made me realize that being yourself is the most successful way to be on camera. I’m a food stylist for commercials, and I see it happen all the time where people get choked up and then they just can’t get over it. To see the complete opposite, where someone’s just feeling comfortable, is so nice and certainly helped me.

Just a Dash Season 3 is already available to stream on Netflix.