Celebrity trainer Dolvett Quince has seen big-name clients such as Janet Jackson come through the doors of his Buckhead-based Body Sculptor Fitness Studio. The well-known trainer is successful outside the gym, too, creating a low-impact, high-intensity workout DVD called “Me and My Chair” and modeling for numerous fitness magazines and ad campaigns. He also acts in a recurring role on “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne.” Most recently, he competed for the affections of Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas on the VH1 series “What Chilli Wants.”
Outside of his athletic and aesthetic endeavors, Quince has had a lifelong love of food and cooking. In fact, he’s combined his efforts with local restaurateurs such as Tom Catherall and Ludacris to develop Dolvett’s Dish — healthful menu items at participating restaurants served with a twist: Those who order them get a free workout at Body Sculptor Fitness. Fitness and food seem to pair nicely for Quince, who gets his love of working in the kitchen from his mother.
I’ve been interested in cooking since I was very young. My mom said to me, “Get in the kitchen and learn how to cook on your own. I’m not going to be around forever.” So I started at an early age. My parents are West Indian by way of Jamaica, so the recipes are all embedded in my head and my heart the way they were for my mom. She just did what her mother did. I make a mean rice and peas and a mean jerk chicken.
The application came later, though. My mom was very territorial in the kitchen. You know, “Get out my kitchen!” But I studied martial arts for 10 years and the guy I learned from was also a gourmet cook. He taught me to make crepes. So between the West Indian cooking from Mom and the gourmet cooking, you’ve got quite the chef over here.
I’ve always cooked for women. It’s a great way to impress the women in your life. It was all about, “Why don’t you come over and I’ll cook for you?” Then I fell in love and cooked a lot for my ex-girlfriend. For three years straight we’d cook for each other and swap nights in the kitchen. It was really great.
Some of my favorite things to cook are a good piece of trout — just about any fish — and my salmon dish is great. I do a chicken and polenta over a bed of spinach. I also do some tricolor pasta with halved cherry tomatoes in a light mayo as a cold casserole. It’s a nice little afternoon picnic-in-the-park kind of thing.
My philosophy is, if you’re going to eat something, make it a healthy choice. Don’t go to the extreme of eating something bad five or six days a week and eating healthy the other one or two. You want to live your life to the best of your ability. I want to be an advocate and promote healthy choices when it comes to food.
As told to Alison Abbey, for the AJC
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