Starting at the young age of four, Bobby Boyd has always felt a sense of comfort in the kitchen. Boyd would stand on his pink step stool and watch his mother closely, admiring her, as she cooked several different dinners for their family of five.
“Just seeing how excited [my mother] would get when we would love something she came up with…that was just addicting to me,” Boyd said.
Fast forward to 2020, Boyd wanted to reconnect with his parents during a time of such uncertainty, so he got back in the kitchen. He started with one of his mom’s famous recipes: spaghetti Bolognese, which is now one of his favorites to make.
“[The spaghetti Bolognese] is so good,” Boyd said. “I forgot what home-cooked food tastes like.” The meals created from his boredom during lockdown led Boyd to start filming cooking videos to continue his social media presence when he was not able to post his typical content. “I just filmed my favorite margarita recipe…almost immediately there was a group of people I hadn’t reached before,” Boyd shared.
Cooking was not the only thing Boyd started young; he began modeling to save money for college and travel the world when he was between 13 and 14 years old. “I came from humble beginnings, and there was no way I was going to get help from family [to pay for college],” he revealed.
However, Boyd knew modeling was not going to last forever because there was so much instability in the business. “There’s so much rejection in that business,” he said. “I don’t want to have my future and my stability or my family’s financial stability in the hands of someone who just wants to see if I look good enough.” So, Boyd moved to Los Angeles where he found his passion for real estate at 21. “Real estate for me just happened. I didn’t know what real estate was, but I loved homes, and I loved decor…I just realized I had a good knack for [real estate]. I liked meeting new people. I’m like a people-person; I can talk to anybody for the most part. I liked the art of the deal…it just became like a passion. It was fun for me. It became a creative outlet,” Boyd said.
Boyd moved away from modeling and transitioned to doing real estate full-time in 2007. Now, his days are filled with everything that encompasses Bobby Boyd Living, including creating cooking videos for his own series on YouTube. Boyd focuses his videos mostly on comfort foods and the keto diet, his “yin and yang.” Boyd started the keto diet in 2018 when he had been struggling with not feeling energetic and gaining some weight. But keto helped Boyd feel better quickly, he disclosed. “Everything I thought was a myth was true,” Boyd said. “After a week and a half, maybe two weeks [of keto], I did start having more natural energy and the mental clarity was there and the fat was melting off.”
Perhaps contrastingly, Boyd grew up around comfort food, so he had decided to share recipes inspired by his childhood. For Boyd, making comfort food is fun and can be more affordable, allowing him to reach a wider audience. “It’s like a warm hug from your grandmother, eating comfort food,” Boyd expressed, a feeling that is often craved. Through these recipes and videos, Boyd wants to show his audience that anyone can cook. “I wanted to show people that you can make really yummy, delicious food, and you don’t have to be timid or scared or anxious to get to the kitchen,” Boyd revealed.
He spread this message by leaning into his own mistakes, making his videos funny and lighthearted by adding memes and other visuals. “That really is my authentic sense of humor,” Boyd said. “I’m always sharing memes and gifs and things like that with my friends…but really, also, the basis of [the humor] was that I am not a trained chef by any means…I didn’t want to study a recipe and then be inauthentic.”
Boyd’s comedic take on messing up in the kitchen would not be possible without his editing and production team. Boyd explained that while he makes suggestions, it is really up to the others on his team to put everything together, including the additional clips to enhance the comedy in the videos. “I am lucky to have a great team that supports me,” he shared. “It really is a group effort to make the videos…without them [the videos] would not be as great as they are.”
Boyd does not plan out his recipes, he said. He cooks how he feels. “If I’m feeling like I need comfort food, I gravitate toward that. If I’m on my health journey, I’m doing a lot of healthy recipes,” he revealed. Many of his recipes are inspired by important people in his life or creative “hacks” he found online. “It’s erratic. It’s not just one way. It really starts with my mood and then goes from there,” Boyd said. To maintain authenticity, Boyd no longer practices his recipes before filming. “Now, I just film [the recipe]. If I mess up, I mess up. If I don’t, I don’t,” he revealed.
But these recipes are not just for YouTube, Boyd explained; he uses cooking as a stress-reliever. He is often in the kitchen cooking dinner for one or making food for his friends, who appreciate even the least-gourmet recipes, like a homemade Taco Bell crunch wrap or Bobby’s butter biscuit breakfast sandwiches. When he is not in the kitchen, Boyd finds peace in turning off his phone, eating comfort food, drinking wine and watching television with his dogs. “I feel like I get centered again when I do that,” he said. He also enjoys brunch and a pool day with friends, which is a drastic change from his jam-packed workdays of meetings, emails and events, sometimes starting before the sun comes up.
Even with all the craziness, Boyd loves what he does. He believes that he has created a career out of his passions, and he encourages others to do the same. “I would tell my younger self to just go with my passion… if you’re passionate about something, it’s not going to feel like work,” he said. Boyd still follows that mantra and is moving forward to create new projects, like a cookbook, partnerships and even some potential television deals.
Boyd is also a big advocate for having financial stability, especially starting at a young age. Boyd has learned that real estate and his other jobs are not like what you see on television, and he said that he had faced some struggles during his first couple years as a real estate agent. “When you’re stressed financially, you can’t give your all to something,” he said. “And I’m a firm believer that if you’re riding light…you can give [a job] much more of your attention, which would then be the ultimate success.”
Following a passion requires taking advantage of opportunities, and Boyd is a paragon of creating his dream jobs inspired by his passions.
“If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that you really cannot plan your future … I am calling this the year of ‘yes.’ I’m saying yes to everything, to every opportunity,” Boyd shared.
Creative Credits
- Written by
- Emily Weiner
- Photography
- Meagan Shuptar
- Retouching
- Brianna Kish
- Styling
- Irena Iverson
- Hair & Makeup
- Paula Heckenast of City Lights Beauty Agency
- Fashion direction
- Katie Schuppler
