Hollywood roommates stumble into TikTok fame thanks to a dead uncle’s old recipes

The vodka sauce recipe calls for an entire cup of vodka. The Cajun recipes are not Cajun. The sauces and salads seem to be anything but. And there is no chicken. Only “chicky.”

Bachelor Bake. Zucheni Pineapple Bread. Salmon Candy. Sparklin Tater. Friggoli. Fish Sauce, which is not what you think it is.

This is the culinary chaos of a man named Greg, who documented his favorite recipes on pieces of paper which have now become immortalized on the internet after his death last summer. Hollywood resident David Zarco recreates the sometimes nonsensical, always misspelled recipes on his TikTok, which has garnered a quarter million followers and millions of views in a matter of months.

The format of each video is simple and unchanging. Zarco, 36, spins a wheel to randomly pick from a selection of recipes Greg, his roommate’s uncle, stuffed into several Ziploc bags. Zarco then cooks the recipe to the best of his ability and serves a plate to his roommate and a small serving to Greg himself, whose ashes are in an urn on the dining room table.

“So my roommate’s estranged, alcohol-loving uncle died,” Zarco says at the top of each video. “And this was his cookbag of recipes. I’m going to make one. I’m David Zarco and this is Dead Greg’s Recipes.”

Uncle Greg was not a chef by any means, but the videos extolling his unique style of bachelor homecooking, crudely handwritten recipes and bizarre ingredient choices along with Zarco’s dry sense of humor have captured the hearts and short attention spans of millions on the popular video sharing app, inspiring viewers to send Zarco their own dead relatives’ handwritten recipes.

“Dead Greg’s Recipes” and its offshoot series “Dead Greg’s Friends” reached an audience on the heels on the United States’ ban on TikTok, which may or may not come to fruition depending on the Supreme Court or President-elect Donald Trump. On an app inundated with cooking content, Zarco and the friends who help make the videos have managed to strike a chord deeper than entertainment.

In their own way, they honor the dead by making the recipes they left behind.

“People really resonate with that, and they’ve made it clear in the comments,” Zarco said. “There is that heartfelt aspect of it, too, of remembering lost ones and trying to connect with them through food.”

An estranged uncle’s recipes end up in Hollywood

The roommates, who both grew up in South Florida, became friends doing TV production at Western High School in Davie. Zarco now works as a graphic designer, and The Roommate, a 34 year old who insists on remaining unnamed both online and in person, has a pressure cleaning business.

Uncle Greg is The Roommate’s mom’s brother. The Roommate said he didn’t know Greg very well and only met him a couple of times when he was a child. As Zarco’s typical video introduction suggests, Greg was a heavy drinker, which put a strain on his family relationships.

Greg lived in Oregon his whole life, and died at 66 on July 3, 2024. In life, The Roommate said, Greg was “super charismatic, funny, the life of the party.” Standing at six-foot-seven, Greg was known for his big personality, which comes through in his recipes.

When Greg died, The Roommate’s father went to Oregon to collect his things, including some old photos and the now-famous cookbook, which is really more of a “cookbag,” Zarco jokes. Greg’s remains were sent to The Roommate’s mother.

It was The Roommate’s mother who suggested giving Zarco the recipes she received among her brother’s things, since he was the designated chef in the house (The Roommate does the dishes). Zarco is the first to admit his cooking skills are not extraordinary. In the few years the two have lived together, Zarco has mainly stuck to the same four meals: beef, salmon, chicken thighs or sausage served with rice or vegetables.

“Then she gave them to my dad, and my dad physically brought them over,” said The Roommate. “They could have easily thrown them out. It’s funny how it all turned out.”

Zarco immediately saw the potential.

“I just had the idea to make the video. I didn’t look at a single recipe without the idea that this would be an interesting series,” Zarco said.

He posted the first video late August. Zarco randomly selected a recipe from the “Sauce Salads” bag: “ornamental” salad dressing.

“I think he meant to put ‘Oriental,’” he says in the video.

Today, that first video has over 336,000 views. The series’ most watched video, Greg’s “Gourmet Grilled Cheese,” is sitting at 2.7 million.

‘We honor the dead’

The success of “Dead Greg’s Recipes” comes with some perks.

Since Zarco has been able to monetize the videos on TikTok, he and The Roommate have made some money from the app. In December, the account made about $2,500, they said. Shockingly, Zarco said, some viewers have bought him some kitchen utensils off his Amazon wishlist to help him make the videos. On a recent afternoon, they received a wireless meat thermometer and a much-needed wire rack.

“It’s the weirdest thing. I’m so grateful,” Zarco said.

“You know why, it’s because we honor the dead,” said Mike Cotugno, 36, a friend who helps record the videos. “I think that’s why people like us.”

The most precious things Zarco and his friends have received have been the recipes of viewers’ deceased loved ones. Often, like Greg’s recipes, the dishes featured in “Dead Greg’s Friends” have their own quirks, poor spelling and vague instructions.

One viewer sent her dad Jimmie’s recipe for “Lazana,” of course made with “parmasean.” In a recent episode, a viewer sent Zarco her Mimi’s lemon squares recipe from 1992, along with a note and some fabulous photos of her relative. Every Thanksgiving, Mimi took four hours to do her hair and then make the lemon squares.

Another follower, named Emily, sent her late husband’s “blandest meatloaf.” Emily left a note for Zarco explaining, “He was not a big fan of flavor.” The recipe calls for just four ingredients, none of which are salt or any seasonings whatsoever: ground beef, cornflakes, ketchup, egg. Unsurprisingly, the meatloaf tasted terrible, but it was an honor to make it, Zarco said.

“It’s like that dark humor connection. The fact that she just lost her husband, I mean, I could never understand [going through] something like that,” Zarco said. “And for her to be like, ‘You get it.’ To be able to attack it from that dark angle and still laugh through it, that’s just the best.”

While TikTok’s future may be uncertain, Zarco and friends plan to keep “Dead Greg’s Recipes” going. They’ve been uploading the videos to YouTube, where they’ll continue to post content if TikTok becomes inaccessible. And they have ideas for where to take the series next, especially when they run out of Greg’s roughly 100 recipes. Maybe a food truck. A gourmet version of the show. A travel version of the show. Or a series of Zarco teaching The Roommate how to cook.

“To the moon,” Zarco said.

Greg himself, of course, could not have imagined any of this. While alive, he likely had no idea what TikTok was.

“I think he would love it,” The Roommate said. “He would have T-shirts that he would write sayings on. He was always kind of an entrepreneur himself with weird, quirky ideas. This would be right up his alley.”

This story was originally published January 16, 2025 at 12:56 PM.