Copyright Parade
Tineke “Tini” Younger joined TikTok to share recipes for meals that she made for her boyfriend (now husband). Back then, she had no idea just how far she’d come and how fast it would all happen. Fast forward to less than five years later, and Chef Tini is married, expecting twin girls, and partnering with HelloFresh for her latest food collaboration, which has us licking our lips. She also has almost 12 million TikTok followers and another 3 million between Facebook and Instagram. With the holidays fast approaching and the TikTok star’s latest collaboration coming out this month, she spoke with Parade about what makes this partnership so special and she shared some insight into her pregnancy and marriage, too. 🎬SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox🎬 You are due with twins anytime now. How are you preparing to welcome your twin girls? I’m really just by double of everything. It’s kind of hard, like, I wish I was more prepared, but I’m not physically able to do anything right now, but, you know, just prepping, like the bedside stuff. We’re going to start meal prepping soon. That’s the big one, because I know food has a lot to do with postpartum and stuff, and making sure my body is filled with nutrients. So, yeah, I’m just prepping, and then I don’t know, I feel like it’s one of those things. You’ve got to go with the flow. Are you nervous about two babies at once? I’m more nervous about how they’re gonna come out. Then also, I already, like, I wake my dogs up in the middle of the night to make sure they’re still breathing. So I’m not looking forward to actual human babies. I feel like I’m not going to get any sleep. Has your pregnancy affected your cooking? And have you had any cravings or aversions? The only time it’s affected my cooking is just not being able to stand that long. So it’s so frustrating to me, because I have all of these recipes written on my notes, so I just want to share, and I physically can’t. I can’t do it. I don’t have any cravings, which is what I’m kind of bummed about, because I was like, excited to see about the weird cravings that everyone gets. And everyone keeps asking me, like, ‘Oh, what are you craving?’ I’m like, ‘nothing. Just regular food.’ So, yeah, no aversions either. I can pretty much eat anything. When it comes to holiday cooking, are you cooking for Thanksgiving? The plan is, I’m cooking. I probably will need some help in the kitchen this year. Usually I’m like, ‘Get out of my kitchen, don’t even touch anything!’ But this year, I will accept help, and then for Christmas, I really want… I don’t want a traditional Christmas. I want everything that I wasn’t able to eat. So, you know, I want a charcuterie board. I want the soft cheese and then I want a nice glass of wine. Now, the reason that you’re here, obviously, is because you partnered with HelloFresh. And it’s not just a money partnership. This actually has meaning behind it. So for starters, I want you to tell us what went into the recipe development and why you picked what you picked for these HelloFresh meals. Yes, so I did a stuffed chicken, because that is one of my go-to dinners when I don’t feel like cooking, but I still want an at home dinner [that is] semi-healthy, and it’s just not takeout, you know? And that also is a dish that I like to demo when I go to the women’s shelter. I like to demo a stuffed chicken again, because it’s like, you can stuff your chicken with anything you want, anything in your pantry. I [also] did a chicken cutlet over some pasta. I feel like you can’t go wrong with that. Like I’m actually gonna make something like that for lunch after this. So I love pasta, and I feel like during the fall and winter time kind of making it more on theme with the season. The partnership has meaning behind it. Can you to talk a little bit about why this was so important to you, and how you have and plan to continue to weave advocacy into what you do? This is really important to me again, because I like to volunteer at the women’s shelter, and HelloFresh has reached out to me, and they came up with this concept. So not only did it benefit the women’s shelter, it benefited No Kid Hungry. I’ve always grown up volunteering, so it’s just something normal to me, and I have a huge platform. And again, I don’t think kids should go hungry, so I just felt like it was perfect for me, very authentic, and it’s something that I’m very passionate about, and to me, if it’s something I’m really passionate about, it’s very easy for me to promote it and like the authentic side of it.
