BY JACKIE FENDER for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 9/25/2026
Chef Daniel Ferreira takes his kitchen to the shoreline.
Picture this: gentle waves lapping against a kayak, the salt air moving through the trees, and somewhere along the shoreline, a camp stove hisses to life. A chef is chopping, seasoning, and stirring dinner while the Puget Sound provides a majestic backdrop.
If you follow Cooking Around the Sound on Instagram, you’ll know Daniel Ferreira has found a little magic, cooking up good eats on and beside the shore. Ferreira, a chef for 17 years, moved to the Pacific Northwest from Florida seven years ago after spending time in Pennsylvania, eventually meeting his wife and relocating here. He had already fallen in love with cooking. It didn’t take long for him to fall for the landscape, too.
Today, Ferreira is a chef at Clearwater Casino. For him, the joy of cooking for others is in the details. “Every detail matters; all the little things add up to one big thing,” he says. His Instagram content was first inspired by kayak adventures with his best friend as they traveled between Brownsville Marina and Fletcher Bay. As with all good odysseys, you must fuel up for the fun, and the two, both working in food and beverage, naturally brought their culinary lives along for the journey.
They’d pack Thai sauces, guacamole, a camp stove, or some premarinated chicken teriyaki and head out on the water. “We would always bring snacks that we made,” Ferreira says. “I wanted to step it up and marry these two passions of mine and showcase the beauty of the area.”
Cooking Around the Sound is equal parts cooking show and love letter to the region, with dishes that lean toward classic comfort food with a Pacific Northwest twist. When Ferreira is cooking in a particular community, he often researches the local food and beverage landscape and builds a dish around it, incorporating local brands like Tillamook, Dragon’s Head, Schilling Cider, or Woodinville Whiskey. He also has begun to let followers choose where he cooks, taking polls for destinations and then hitting the waves to delight the masses.
The recipes themselves are intentionally approachable. “I never followed recipes. I cook with my heart,” he says. Rather than encouraging viewers to follow a recipe down to the last teaspoon, Ferreira wants people to learn the skills and techniques behind cooking so they can make great dishes of their own, and maybe, just maybe, take that meal outside. “You don’t need a five-star kitchen to make a good meal,” he says.
That philosophy seems to be part of what resonates with viewers. The videos aren’t simply about watching a chef make something delicious. They’re about recognizing a place, and sometimes remembering your own place within it. Ferreira says one of his favorite parts of creating the content is reading the comments and hearing people share their memories of the Sound: childhood beach trips, camping adventures, family traditions, or simply the feeling of being outside.
“I think they like the locality of it,” he says. “Everyone has lived somewhere and we all have the same love of the Sound and the same reasons.” For Ferreira, those shared memories are part of what makes the project special. The landscapes may be different from one video to the next, but the feeling is familiar. And, as Ferreira will tell you, food always tastes better outside.
You’ll also notice his reels have a couple of co-stars with character: Old Salty and Capt. Pepper, two little mascots Ferreira discovered while waiting for the ferry’s arrival in Friday Harbor. He spotted them in a shop window and immediately knew they would be his seafaring friends.
The reels may look effortless, but cooking on the shoreline is anything but. Ferreira says he can spend four hours producing a single video. Wind, for one, is a constant adversary, as are shifting tides, uneven surfaces, and the general unpredictability of cooking outdoors. He sometimes has to move his entire setup every few minutes to stay ahead of the water when cooking alongside the tide.
And while the finished reels may have an easygoing, ASMR-like quality with crackling fire, chopping knives, rolling waves, and clever soundtrack selections, getting that perfect shot takes plenty of work. Shoreline casualties sometimes include broken dishes and even his salt-and-pepper-shaker shipmates, Old Salty and Capt. Pepper.
Among the collaborations already in the works are projects with local businesses and makers, including an upcoming collaboration with Narrows Brewing, where Ferreira is helping develop a new brew. He’s daydreaming about a Thai double IPA featuring lemongrass and Thai chili. A collaboration with Spice Spiva is also in the works, with hopes of developing a salmon rub or something similar.
So, what’s next?
Ferreira would love to take Cooking Around the Sound into longer-form YouTube videos and build a website where people can find recipes or follow along with a Substack and, eventually, feel empowered to craft their next best meal.
He’s particularly interested in developing practical recipes for kayak camping: quick, easy meals made with pantry staples that travel well. It’s a natural next chapter for a project built around the idea that a great meal doesn’t require a white tablecloth or a perfectly appointed kitchen.
Sometimes it just needs the water, an ocean breeze, and some of your favorite ingredients.
