“MasterChef” alum Nick DiGiovanni has been in the kitchen nearly his entire life. With over 10 million followers on TikTok, DiGiovanni is a bona fide Gen Z celebrity chef. Now, he’s whipped up his first cookbook: “Knife Drop: Creative Recipes Anyone Can Cook.” He joined Lisa McRee in the LA Times test kitchen to try out one of his recipes.

DiGiovanni began cooking as a kid, joining his grandmother and great grandmother in their kitchens. As a teen, he brought his passion for food to professional kitchens.

“I started working in a few different restaurants. I got a taste of a few different things from higher end cuisine down to a very specific seafood specific restaurant, to more basic type stuff. I tried to get a huge range of it and just jump into a few different kitchens to learn as much as I could,” he said.

In 2019, DiGiovanni placed third on “MasterChef,” an experience which marked the beginning of his friendship with chef Gordon Ramsey. “Knife Drop” features a foreword by Ramsey. DiGiovanni talked about the cookbook.

“I wanted it to be full of creative recipes that anyone can cook. So, I have things ranging from classic dishes that we all know and love with a fun, little unique twist that I put on there to more traditional recipes to sort of give a nod to my upbringing and the people that taught me to cook,” he explained.

DiGiovanni has created a community on his social media pages.

“I think what people really are looking for videos online are things that are going to make them laugh, make them happy, and teach them something. And I like to provide a mix of all that. We actually have a lot of younger people watching videos. So most of the people that will come up and say hi to me are actually kids, which is really fun because I wouldn’t have expected that given it’s all cooking,” he said.

“Knife Drop: Creative Recipes Anyone Can Cook” comes out on June 13. It is available for pre-order wherever books are sold.

Watch the video above for a peek at a recipe from the book.

Watch “LA Times Today” at 7 and 10 p.m. Monday through Friday on Spectrum News 1 and the Spectrum News app.