Deesten Lewis appears to be a normal busy 6-year-old boy who has to deal with a sometimes annoying little brother.
But put him in a kitchen and all of a sudden he's buttoned up and demanding your attention.
"Hi I'm Little Chef DJ! Today we're making a strawberry granola bar," he says with a big smile.
His intro is as smooth as a greased cookie sheet.
"One cup of peanut butter," he explains.
His step-by-step instructions are as cute as his dimples. Deesten's mom, Tiarra, didn't just put him to work, she saw an opportunity to get him to eat healthy.
"Well, I was going to school for nursing and I was in nutrition class and we were going over how kids have poor eating habits and things like that. I was like 'my son, he doesn't eat that good,'" she said.
So she put him in the kitchen.
"And when I did that, he ate his own food so I was like 'OK, you can cook as long as it's healthy,' and it went from there."
Not long after, Damon Broadus, a director at the American Heart Association, stumbled upon the little chef.
"We were at a health fair at Carr Elementary Little Chef DJ walked up and he didn't hesitate, he stuck his hand out and said 'hi I'm Little Chef DJ and I like to cook healthy.' It was at this moment I knew we had a jewel in this community," Broadus said.
So he asked him to start doing cooking demos.
"The minute we do a cooking demo and we say Little Chef DJ, they weren't expecting that, and yeah, he comes out at six years of age and he's able to tell them what goes into a healthy recipe, how to put it together and what it's going to taste like in the end. Everyone is smiling and they're going 'maybe I can do this, maybe I can,' and that's what he gives them, hope I think," he said.
It's a tall order for a small chef, but he knows exactly where to start.
"First you have to wash your hands before you cook," Little Chef DJ points out.
And how every demo ends.
"Ta-dah," he says showing off his finished dish.
