It takes a confident person to pack 30 people into a bus, feed them and provide makeshift beds while driving through 4 500km of South African landscape.
Justin Bonello hatched a wild plan to rope in his non-actor friends and design off-the-cuff content around his cooking. He then persuaded BBC Food to commit to a travel cooking series called Cooked and secured sponsors.
With this background, it's surprising to find an anxious 34-year-old behind a kitchen counter in Cape Town. I'd asked Justin to cook lunch - surely a cinch after his road trip experiences - but he confides that while good food shouldn't be the preserve of chefs, he's apprehensive about the culinary outcome.
"I'm a reluctant presenter. When I started this, I never imagined I'd be in the public eye and doing media interviews. I just wanted to cook for my friends."
I learn that some friends involved in the series will drop by for lunch, too. While fresh mussels are removed from their shells and garlic is sliced, I get the feeling that cooking for large numbers is the only way Justin knows.
As a film unit manager, his job involves co-ordinating the logistics of cast and crew, locations, and catering requirements for commercial and film shoots.
The series is produced by Justin's mother, Jeanne Bonello, who has been in TV and film production most of her life. So film sets have been part of Justin's environment since he was nine.
The mussels were collected earlier from a secret location near Scarborough (Justin was checking a film shoot location in Kalk Bay). They make a tasty starter with melted butter and garlic, with chunky bread strips for dunking.
Foraging for fresh produce is a Justin trademark, whether it be collecting and drying pine ring mushrooms from the forest, quietly fishing, or wading to collect fresh waterblommetjies for a potjie stew, as happens in the Breede River vicinity during the first episode of Cooked. Justin also ropes in friends to knead ingredients for pot beer bread made over the fire.
"I grew up outdoors, going to the Breede River or the Transkei ... I just assume everybody has picked mussels or caught crayfish, but they haven't. We do very little ourselves any more and so many people don't associate with their food."
Our lunch-to-be involves grilling prawns and pan-frying cubes of linefish.
On a rice base, mange tout, assorted mushrooms and the prepared seafood is piled into a large paella pan. More ingredients are chopped and added in a methodical, slow process; then saffron and coconut milk. The foil-covered pan is finally left to steam.
The edited version of the coconut milk and saffron-infused Thai paella is prepared over a fire in the third episode of Cooked. It's delicious.
Justin mentions that he's considering becoming a demo chef at the Cape Gourmet Festival next month, so it seems appropriate to suggest picking up the pace.
"My ideal world is a house in the country where friends arrive on Friday and you cook until they leave on Sunday," he responds. "The thing I learnt on the show is that people wait for my food.
The longer they wait, the better it tastes. It's not only about feeding people. It's about talking, reminiscing, catching up."
That Cooked was filmed without a script and with little more than a travel plan and menu is part of its appeal. "While filming, we planned to make smoked fish at Hogsback, but the lid didn't fit so we made a plan."
Flexibility was also required with ingredients. "We expected fish and oysters at the Breede River mouth, but caught nothing, so we made a Lebanese breakfast with tomatoes, eggs and chillies. The only thing I'm pedantic about is my old knife, which I've had for eight years."
A bit of luck never goes astray either. The crew arranged to shoot in a house at St Francis Bay, but the weather didn't co-operate. By chance, a neighbour offered his home with a fully equipped kitchen.
For a first-timer, Cooked is a professional operation. It doesn't suffer because a passionate amateur leads the cooking and an uninhibited group of friends provides refreshing spontaneity.
A gripe is that comments aren't always audible. Poor spelling should also have been picked up during the production and editing - Italian bruschetta is spelt "brushetta" on the chalkboard menu, and the Breede River features on a map as "Breeda". But it's an original look at scenic stretches of South Africa nevertheless.
Justin and the Cooked crew were on the road for four weeks in August while assorted friends travelled in the Baz Bus along South Africa's east coast to join them. Justin made sure the series showed them eating what they prepared - he hates it that some chefs never eat on cooking shows.
"But the best thing that happened is that I changed peoples' lives. To be inspired to get out and pick mussels, to cook a meal - bad or good. People forget that life is not only about work. I think I reminded them."
- Cooked, presented by Justin Bonello, airs on BBC Food at 9pm on April 18.