Dean Jeffrey Kropp

Dean Kropp was career—less and college—less after high school, it was 1976. His father came home after work and told him about a job cooking at a short order restaurant. Dean interviewed three times and because he kept his bedroom clean, he was hired. It took a few years but, after culinary school, Dean started competing in culinary competitions. Because he was up for over 50 hours straight for his first competition, he was intrigued to find out how these competitions started. He had a full 25-year career of making pastry, cooking for movie stars and then competing at the 1996 Culinary Olympic in Berlin, Germany, winning gold on the American Natural Foods Culinary Team.

Dean was severely injured in two car accidents, 2000 and 2004. He remained injured as he fell into a

messy No Fault system that was conjured up in New York State in the 1970s. By 2010, he was still recovering

when he was directed to track down four books from 1899,1900, 1901 and 1902 Germany that were at the Culinary

Institute of America’s library upstate New York. It wasn’t until February 2018 that Dean started writing the book The Cooking Olympics – World’s Best Kept Secret. It took six years of writing and over 200 drafts, but it was worth it. Because of his culinary experience, Dean was awarded the title of The Dean of Chefs by an ABC news producer.

Dean has also appeared on the Food Network, Better Get Baquero on NBC and ABC news for the reopening of the number 1 train. Dean has also produced documentaries on the 2016, 2020 and 2024 Culinary Olympics combined with the United States Army Culinary Arts competition that takes place annually at Fort Gregg-Adams located near Richmond, Virginia. It is believed that Dean is the first chef to use QR code technology inserted with his recipes in his book; The Cooking Olympics-World’s Best Kept Secret. Please visit YouTube and search thedeanofchefs to view documentary food videos and cooking videos. Thank you.