Ep. 8 - Brandon Naquin | General Manager - Spahr's Downtown
Miracles in Meat Podcast | Ep. 8 – Brandon Naquin: Culinary School, Cajun Cooking & Running Spahr’s in Thibodaux
From Culinary School to Restaurant Management: A Chef’s Perspective on Louisiana Cooking
In this episode of Miracles in Meat, Shane Thibodaux sits down with Brandon Naquin, General Manager of Spahr’s in Downtown Thibodaux and a graduate of the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls State University.
A third-generation Bourgeois Meat Market customer, Brandon shares how his early love for Cajun cooking led him from the family kitchen to culinary school and eventually into managing one of Thibodaux’s most well-known restaurants. From mastering family recipes to navigating the challenges of restaurant management, this episode is packed with insights on food, heritage, and leadership in the hospitality industry.
Inside This Episode:
🍴 Brandon’s journey through culinary school & how it shaped his career
🍴 The art of Cajun cooking & the value of preserving family recipes
🍴 Managing a historic restaurant—the highs, the challenges, and what makes Spahr’s unique
🍴 Customer service in the food industry—what makes a restaurant truly great
Why You Should Listen:
This episode is perfect for food lovers, aspiring chefs, and business owners who want to learn about Cajun cuisine, culinary education, and what it takes to run a successful restaurant in Louisiana.
💥 Exclusive Offer
🛒 Use code: MIMPODCAST for 10% off your cart at checkout!
🔗 Connect with Us:
🌐 Website: www.bourgeoismeatmarket.com
📍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bourgeoismeatmarket
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bourgeoismeatmarket/
📩 Email: Shane@bourgeoismm@gmail.com
Transcript
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Music.
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You're listening to the Miracles in Meat Podcast. I'm Shane Thibodeau,
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a fourth-generation butcher at one of the oldest meat markets in the world.
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My great-grandfather started this business by slaughtering one cow or pig at
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a time and selling the cuts door-to-door on horse and buggy.
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Today, our products are enjoyed across the globe. I will attempt to give you
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some insight as to how we got here and explore the challenges we've had along the way.
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At Bourgeois, our mission is to preserve our heritage generation after generation
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through legendary Cajun flavors and the development of relationships, not customers.
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Since 1891, Bourgeois has maintained age-old culinary traditions that fuel the
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South Louisiana lifestyle.
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Over the past 133 years, our Cajun products have gained global recognition,
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and for tens of thousands of
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folks around the world, the Bourgeois Cajun Lady logo is a symbol of home.
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Today, the fourth-generation butchers sit at the nine-foot maple block with
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loyal customers to discuss the adventures, skills, and passions that guide each of their legacies.
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These conversations will become priceless resources for future generations of any industry.
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This is our way of maintaining the spirit, purpose, and traditions of our lost
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arts in a world of change.
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133 years, four generations. We're just getting started.
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Music.
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Here we go. This is episode number eight with Brandon Nakang.
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The last episode was with Mr.
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Francis Hebert. And in that episode, we spoke a lot about a downtown hotspot
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in Thibodeau called Spars.
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Brandon is actually the general manager of that location on West 4th Street.
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He began his journey as a graduate of the Chef John Foss Culinary Institute
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at Nichols State University here in Thibodeau.
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Brandon is a third-generation bourgeois customer and is already passing down
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that tradition to his boys.
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And we're going to get into all kinds of things, but we're going to talk about
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his passion for cooking, as well as get into some details about culinary school
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management and customer service.
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Before we start, I have a little clip I want to play for you. if
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you go to our website up at the top there's a tab says
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explore and then from there you can click on podcast if
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you click on podcast you'll see a little form pop
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up and that is for you the listener to submit
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a question or comment to the podcast something you'd like us to read and i'm
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actually going to read for you our first our first question submission that's
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going to be from actually our good buddy byron delon we've known byron for a
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long time family friend and And so,
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yes, it is a biased review,
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but it does mean a lot. And what he's saying is true.
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You know, we we we take pride in it. So let's have a listen and we'll get right into the episode.
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I don't have a question for the podcast, but I want to make a statement of fact
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is I travel a lot for work all around the state.
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And I really like to hit up different meat markets, see their selections,
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see what they offer, their different products.
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And Bourgeois is doing a great job of keeping up with customer demands. hands.
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But the real thing that y'all do that no one else does is you still display
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the art graft or butchery by the fact that when you walk into either market,
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whether it be the one in gray or the one in Thibodeau, you still see workers
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out there producing products in the open environment where you can see them.
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They cut your meat in front of you.
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They package things in front of you. You don't put the process back in a closed
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off room without the customer interaction.
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And I think that's what a lot of the meat markets are missing.
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They don't have that. You don't see the craft or the art of what they're doing displayed.
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And I think that's a part of, you know.
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What you offer that others don't is you get that storefront experience.
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You see the workers, you interact with them. You see what they're doing behind
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the scenes out front of you.
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And I really think that's a special part of what makes bourgeois bourgeois.
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All right. That was awesome. Really appreciate it, Byron. I can't thank you enough for that.
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Yeah. If anyone else listening has anything like that you'd like to share or
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like I said, just a question or a story, something that happened here.
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Or we'll always love hearing new Pawpaw stories, Mr.
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Cleave stories, things like that. If you got something, go ahead to the website,
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go explore, then podcast, then fill out that form.
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And the easiest way to do it is just use the voice memo app on your iPhone and
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you just upload that file and we'll get to it.
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And let's go, Brandon Naka.
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All right, Brandon, we do this with everyone that comes on just because I'm
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curious and I think it's fun to hear. but tell me about your earliest memories
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of bourgeois meat market.
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So I can remember when I was a little boy, to be honest, I didn't know they
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had any other sausage in the world unless it was bourgeois.
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Every time we made gumbo, we had to stop at bourgeois to get their smoked sausage.
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And I remember Mr. Cleave and your granddad going in there. And that was a time
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when they were able to steal butcher hogs in house.
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And I always was amazed coming in and looking and, you know,
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seeing what was happening.
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And I can always remember your grandfather's saying is, I can cut a pork chop
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so thin it only has one side.
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So he was a character and he and Mr.
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Cleave, you know, ever since I was a little boy, every time I walked in,
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they were standing at the counter, either cutting meat or helping guests.
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So like, it was amazing. So I just...
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Every time we had to go get sausage or hamburgers or
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something for for a barbecue it was
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bourgeois that's so cool so not a lot of people have talked much about mr cleave
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so far what do you like what do you remember seeing him doing and in his spirit
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and all that that's what i remember is just a big smile yeah i mean he was he
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was happy man while he was working and you know it it looking hindsight hindsight, looking back,
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like that was mastery of his craft.
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Like he knew exactly where to cut, what to cut, how to cut it.
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And just with ease, you know, just like from, from early childhood, just seeing,
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you know, him breaking down an animal and, and after being, becoming a chef
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and, you know, learning about it, like that was a master, you know,
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he understood exactly what he was doing.
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It may look random at times to an outsider. Right. Yeah.
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I mean, he was just definitely, definitely eyeopening looking back.
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Yeah. Mr. Cleave, I would like to get as many stories about him as I can on here.
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And I'm sure we'll do that when we get into more of our family members,
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like my mom, uncles and all that. Yeah.
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You could, you could always, always see him, in his apron, had some stuff on
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the apron and just a really big smile and just, just looked like he was happy
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at work, you know, doing what he was doing.
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And I think he was, I wish I had more memories of him, but that is my.
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My biggest memory is the smile, you know, and all the stories from Pawpaw.
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All the Mr. Cleave stories from Pawpaw.
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So now, what are some of your favorite products? I know you're in the market
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probably three times a week. Right, right.
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So my little boy only eats bourgeois sausage and only eats bourgeois hamburgers.
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So if we want to cook burgers, I have to come here to get the fair burgers.
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Depending on what I'm cooking, I do a chicken and sausage jambalaya.
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When I make my jambalaya, I always come get on doing sausage.
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We love the boudin burritos. When we go on swim days, we started off with boudin burritos.
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When I want to make red beans, you guys smoke some ham hocks for me.
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And then y'all taso is really good when I want to do a shrimp and taso pasta.
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So I think anything I get from y'all is my favorite because y'all know what
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y'all doing. And it's consistent.
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And it's the flavors I grew up with. And if it's ever not, we want to know. Absolutely.
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You know, come. That's what we tell everybody, you know, it's always great to
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get feedback, positive or negative, you know, you're only good as the last dish
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you make or the last product that you put out.
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So if you, you know, if you hear everything is great when they're in the door,
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but in public, you know, oh, I went to Bourgeois, I went here or there and I
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ate there and it wasn't that good.
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You know, did you explain that or tell somebody,
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you know, because we can only try to fix it while we're
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there you know it was great doesn't
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help it feels and it's nice but it doesn't help
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right if you want to really help someone you really you tell them tell them
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there's a flaw exactly exactly what have you what are some of your like personal
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cooking styles at home we'll get into to the restaurant stuff later but just
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you at home with the family and just Wednesday day night after swimming.
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Right. So I have some really picky eaters. So it's usually like I'll cook one
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thing for one kid, one thing for another kid, and one thing for my wife and I.
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Or sometimes we make like four different dishes depending on what we have.
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But we eat jambalaya at least once a week. My little one can survive one chicken
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nuggets and french fries.
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And my oldest, he wants steak like every day.
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Steak. Yeah. Hey, what you want to eat for dinner? Oh, I'll take a steak.
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And or something, but you know, in the winter, I like to cook some low and slow,
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some, some hearty ribs sticking, you know, stews and braising and.
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Just stuff that fills you up and makes you feel good.
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And in the summer, you know, try to stay light, you know, chicken breast and chicken thighs.
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That's one of our favorites is cooking chicken thighs. So what's like your,
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what's the skillet or pan you grab more than anything else in the kitchen?
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So I have hand-me-downed cast iron pots and pans from my grandfather.
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My dad and mom used them. Now I have them. So if I'm cooking like gumbos or
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trying to saute some chicken or something, I'll grab those pans pretty regularly.
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When we got married, we got a set of Emeril cookware, which it's almost restaurant
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grade quality, which I kind of use pretty often as well. You do a lot of stainless?
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Yeah, although that whole set is stainless and then I have cast iron.
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But early on, my wife and I kind of made a rule, and it's a running joke.
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If it doesn't take a pot and a pan and a cutting board, we don't need to eat it.
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So we try to use as least as possible to make sure that, you know, cleanup is easy.
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Yeah, I like that. I started using a lot more stainless here recently over the past years.
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I was kind of stuck on cast iron for everything, but I'm kind of finding my
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way around the stainless.
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Right, right. You know, cast iron, it wants to get tied to tie.
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You know, stainless steel retains its heat.
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You know, it all depends on what you're doing. It's kind of what you cook where it should be.
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But, I mean, if you need a good go-to every day, stainless is the way to go.
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It's a little maintenance and cleanup's usually easier.
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So with the hand-me-downs, I'm sure some of your first influences come from
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maybe parents, grandparents?
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Yes. So every Sunday we had family meal.
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My grandma would invite my aunts and uncles and all the kids.
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She would cook Sunday lunch, 1130 meal was served.
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Adults ate at the adult table. Kids ate at the kids table. And it was an all
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day, all afternoon, like traverse and conversate and catch up from the week.
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And then it kind of tapered off after they passed away.
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And, you know, my mom did, my mom and dad did that with us, you know,
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that every Sunday, 1130, you had to be at their house.
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So, early on, we understood, like, everything that was important started with
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food, you know, and my mom's mother, she passed away when I was real little,
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so my grandpa was at our house every day, like, she fed him.
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So, every day, like, he would come visit to eat and then stay a little while and visit with us.
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So, like, everything that we did as a family kind of revolved around food.
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And like one sunday out of
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the month we would barbecue and like it looked like
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we barbecued for days um we just we just
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filled fill the barbecue pit up and like we ate
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on it for like five days but again that
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was a hand-me-down barbecue pit that my grandpa made that
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my dad used and i still have it from from the
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60s you know so it was pretty amazing so did
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each of them have that skill or passion or like
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like mama and papa are just so so my grandmother was a great cook she she anything
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she did she was great in the kitchen my grandpa just bought seafood and did
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barbecue same thing with my dad my mom was the primary cook my dad bought seafood did a,
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and barbecued. I would tell everybody that I knew once I was in culinary school,
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the reason why I went into culinary school was I needed to find a better way
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to make gumbo because my mom made the worst gumbo in the whole entire world. It was terrible.
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So I was like, I became a chef to learn how to make a better one.
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It was terrible. However, it did have bourgeois sausage in it.
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So we all picked out the sausage and we ate that and some of the meat with the rice and that was it.
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Know all right so we hate the gumbo but
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what's one dish from from each of
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those people that you really remember right so my grandmother
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would make pot fried chicken and it
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was it's kind of like sticky chicken we called it pot fried chicken
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it was that white beans and ball
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talk meat and ball potatoes like that was like that
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was the meal you call up and be like hey grandma i'm
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hungry well come after school and then
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the whole the whole kitchen would be full and
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she would make your plate and she's like all right start eating
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and then after that it's like oh i'm full no
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you not have some more like she would she would cut the chicken into
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12 pieces and like just it was like
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just chicken kept coming so so that
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that was that's her favorite or my favorite
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dish that she made was was the pot fried chicken
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with the rice and she did butter beans my mom
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she made the most amazing turkey and we actually
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had turkey other than thanksgiving so like holidays
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okay a random sunday we would have a turkey and
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like everybody was like your mom makes the best turkey
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in the whole entire world which that was great it was good and then after that
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it came turkey and sausage to gumbo but all right it was like oh i don't i just
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want the turkey no we're gonna have gumbo all right well we're gonna do the
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same thing just pick out the turkey and the sausage and then that's it you know.
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You still making these, these dishes? I do. So when my grandmother got sick,
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I decided to, to go one Thanksgiving and watch her make her famous cornbread dressing.
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And she's like, you need to put this. I'm like, whoa, stop.
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I'm going to measure everything. We're going to, I'm going to write it down.
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The procedures, the amounts, the everything from start to finish. So I wrote it all down.
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She passed away a couple of years later. I'm like, man, I need to,
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I'm hungry for it. I got an on V and I'm going to make it. So I put out the recipe.
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I made it, you know, I took one bite and I'm like, this ain't it. And I threw it away.
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Literally, literally I threw it away. And my uncle was like,
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what are you doing? I'm like, that's not your most common bread dressing.
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It tastes like doo doo. So I'm not going to serve it to you.
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He's like, well, we would have ate it. I'm like, no, that's not it.
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Isn't it weird that you have that? And some people don't have that.
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Whatever, whatever made you do that. I had the same thing. But whatever that
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is, some people don't have.
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They don't understand it. I'm like, that wasn't it. So like.
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I can't let you put this in your mouth. Right.
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It wasn't good. So I tried it again for Thanksgiving and like for Christmas.
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And I'm like, it's close, but it's not it.
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But it's close. So I let them try it. And they're like, we can't tell the difference.
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I'm like, y'all just being nice.
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I know the difference. I don't know what she did when I turned around.
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What she added to it. what she put in what
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she said she's probably laughing but this
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ain't grandma's they keep secrets
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they do 100 it's crazy just my mom keeps
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secrets my aunts keep secrets papa kept
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secrets right just like they didn't want you to to understand
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or hear something so they were talking french you know
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and i grew up really close to my grandmother and she
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had she had sisters and we would hang out on the
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weekends you know they would play cards and and and do old lady things and we
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would come hang out with them and like they would talk in english and as soon
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as they didn't want us to hear something they would switch up in french and
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then one of my sisters one time's like i don't want to go yeah with you and
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they're like why because they speak chinese.
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You know and grandma's like that's not chinese it's
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cajun french and i'm like well why don't she teach us she said
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well we don't want y'all to know what we're talking about so it's
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like you know it's it was a lost language now my my
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grandma on my tibeto side my dad's mom she only
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spoke french and and i would get dropped off there when i was little you know
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very little right five six seven and it's like they didn't know that i didn't
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speak french that's how they talked to me right they only spoke in french i
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didn't know any of it but it didn't stop them right exactly it talked You talked to me all day long.
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And then they would say, Teter, and you knew that you were a hard head.
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Uh-huh. It was good. It was good.
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So tell me a little bit about your family. I know you got some boys.
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I've kind of gotten to watch them grow up, actually. Absolutely.
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As you're in and out of the market. So they are four-generation customers.
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I have two. One's Tyler. He's 12. And one's Sawyer. He just made nine.
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Like you said, they've been going to Bourgeois since they were born.
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And it's nice to see the customer service that you guys give them.
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They open up the door, and your staff is like, hey, Tyler, Sawyer,
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let me get you some beef jerky and then next thing you know like they're rattling
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off exactly what they want not like not,
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here's what i'm here for not specifically what i'm i'm
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like buying but it's like here's the stuff that i want to get while i'm here
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like hey i want some beef jerky or hey i got some beef sticks you know and it's
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like it's gonna be so cool man the first time you see them pull up in their
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truck right right and get out like they're like they're the man yeah yeah yeah
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and and that's That's what they do.
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Like, they open up the door and they're like, hey, Miss Stacy,
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or, you know, I need it. I want this, this, and this.
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And I'm like, yeah, I guess. You know, why not? Why not?
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That's really cool. Yeah. What are some, so tell me more about the, about the family.
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What do y'all, what do y'all like to do maybe outside of cooking and how's the family work?
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We, both my wife and I work, so we like never see each other.
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We're kind of ships in the night some days.
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But when we all get together, we try to do some sort of family activity at least once a week.
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That way, you know, we can kind of just keep up with each other and keep up
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how everything's growing.
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Both of my boys are swimmers, and we swim five days a week.
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So they get to run their energy out. They swim. They swim.
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Not we. Yes, they swim. They have been swimming since they were,
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well, Sawyer since he was two and Tyler since he was four. Wow.
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And they've really become really good swimmers. My in-laws have a pool.
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And on Sundays, we would swim recreationally. And then we started swimming.
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We used to do a race where whoever wins gets to pick supper.
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Well, now I'm sad to say I will lose if we do that contest anymore.
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So we don't. That way, I don't have to let them win and pick what they want to eat for supper.
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But no they're they they you know
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they uh start in fifth sixth grade and and
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third grade this year so they excited for school and can't
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wait to see them grow up and see what they can they can accomplish
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you know we want them to be productive members of society sure so you know we
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trying to raise them the right way and all that fun stuff but you know it is
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it is what it is in this day and age you know yeah i think they'll do well yeah
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you're also in the fire department i am The Thibodeau Fire. Let's hear some more about that.
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So I'm a fourth-generation volunteer fireman. My family is still really big
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and fire company number one. That's the station that's downtown.
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So, you know, it's really good to give back to the community.
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And our family, you know, kind of had a little tradition of,
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you know, when you turn 18, you join the fire department.
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My wife was kind of crazy when I was 18. So I kind of didn't go that path.
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I bounced in and out every once in a while. But lately, I've kind of jumped
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back in and found my place and found my role.
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They get to have a chef-cooked meal once a month.
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So I think our membership has grown just because on Monday, they get to get a good meal.
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And it's a great brotherhood. We really, really think of each other as brothers and sisters.
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We fight like brothers and sisters we you
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know we always supportive it's just it's a
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really good organization that that i'm proud to be part of and correct me if
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i'm wrong thibodeau is the largest volunteer in the u.s it is one of one of
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if not the largest volunteer fire department in the country and what's that
333
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look like on the number so we're a little over 500 active members,
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In Thibodeau. In Thibodeau.
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Just Thibodeau. Just Thibodeau. And there's Schriever right down the road.
336
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There's Jack Bay. Jack Bay, St. John.
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Right. So Thibodeau has 500 active members. Right.
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And we just kicked off our 150th year of the Thibodeau Volunteer Fire Department.
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So this great organization has been protecting Thibodeau for 150 years.
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So cool. Which is unbelievable. There's some pictures of my grandpa,
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I believe on the first Thibodeaux fire truck.
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You got some old pictures with that thing.
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Somewhere I can maybe dig them up and maybe link them to this if I can.
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So you said you didn't go the fire route. What were you thinking in high school?
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So in high school, I was actually going to be a nurse.
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And then I had some family illness and family deaths.
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And it was like, that's not for me.
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And I kind of did some soul searching and figured out what am I passionate about?
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And growing up, I was a fat kid. I loved food. and all those memories that surrounded
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the dinner table or the stove or, you know, the barbecue pit.
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Like, it just kind of lit something in me. Like, I need to explore that a little bit more.
352
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And then I went to talk to a couple people in the culinary school and realized,
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like, that was, it's, I graduated in 2003, so that would be 99.
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The program was just kind of kicking off and gaining steam,
355
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and that was the era of the Food Network, work where all they
356
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have all the celebrity chefs so you know that that that
357
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whole industry kind of like piqued my interest
358
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so that kind of started started the passion was there someone you looked up
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00:24:27,631 --> 00:24:31,851
to at that point yeah so i had a really good conversation with with one of the
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chefs chef caslow who's like he became a mentor a friend a confidant like he
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was almost like your second dad Like he was,
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he was truly, truly concerned and like genuinely wanted you to succeed,
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you know, and like personal life also professionally,
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like he just wanted you to do well, you know, which like he was, he was amazing.
365
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Like you would go in and he could see like you were having a bad day and he's
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all like, let's go have a cup of coffee and a cigarette, you know,
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and he would light a cigarette walking out the kitchen.
368
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Like, let's go talk. And then you look and then you knew it was like, great.
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00:25:14,531 --> 00:25:18,891
It's going to be a 45 minute conversation with Chef Caslow and we are going
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to it's going to be rough.
371
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And that's someone you met in high school. Yeah.
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And then so obviously that kind of is what got you motivated towards culinary.
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00:25:30,331 --> 00:25:34,611
And then you graduate and did you go straight to Nichols?
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00:25:35,111 --> 00:25:38,831
So, yeah, I graduated. I was working at Rouse's at the time.
375
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I did a whole bunch of things from
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buggy pushing to working in the meat department, working in the office.
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And I worked at Rouse's, and they had a scholarship that they offered for culinary students.
378
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So I was thankful and grateful enough to receive that scholarship while I was working for them.
379
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So it was kind of like, let's just go that route, see where it goes.
380
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And what's it like? Which, I don't know. As an outsider, I can't imagine what
381
00:26:10,544 --> 00:26:15,764
a culinary course is like. Like, you know, is it a heavy book?
382
00:26:15,964 --> 00:26:21,364
So when we started in the culinary school, we were in Go Hall,
383
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the corner of Go Hall. So it was a very small, tight-knit kitchen.
384
00:26:25,164 --> 00:26:29,484
And so you can either get a bachelor or an associate's degree,
385
00:26:29,664 --> 00:26:34,544
which you have to take your sciences, your math, your Englishes,
386
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as well as a couple of business courses, as well as culinary classes.
387
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So you got a real well-rounded education.
388
00:26:43,404 --> 00:26:48,244
You know, and being in culinary, there's a lot of math involved,
389
00:26:48,384 --> 00:26:51,944
you know, with recipes and especially in bacon where you have to,
390
00:26:51,944 --> 00:26:54,064
there's formulas that you have to use,
391
00:26:54,384 --> 00:26:57,744
you know, if you start off with a recipe that's this small and you need to do
392
00:26:57,744 --> 00:27:00,964
it for a thousand people, there's a bunch of conversions you have to do to make that happen.
393
00:27:01,204 --> 00:27:04,944
So, you know, you have to be pretty proficient in math, you know,
394
00:27:04,944 --> 00:27:08,584
and being able to speak to people, you needed speech, right?
395
00:27:08,884 --> 00:27:14,484
And if you wanted to run a business or be a chef, you have to know some financial.
396
00:27:15,824 --> 00:27:19,884
Information. It's a lot more than just cooking something and put it on the plate, right?
397
00:27:20,004 --> 00:27:24,644
Because your product is what you're trying to sell.
398
00:27:25,464 --> 00:27:30,224
So you need to figure out that it costs this much and I need to make this much
399
00:27:30,224 --> 00:27:32,984
to keep the air conditioning on, you know? So you got to make,
400
00:27:34,547 --> 00:27:36,767
It's a business, as well as art.
401
00:27:39,427 --> 00:27:45,147
It's a lot that goes on, and they were able to teach us proper techniques,
402
00:27:45,487 --> 00:27:49,267
sanitation, proper techniques, what flavors go with what flavors.
403
00:27:49,587 --> 00:27:53,427
And then we always had the running joke is, in culinary school,
404
00:27:53,607 --> 00:27:55,887
the best thing is you get to eat your homework.
405
00:27:56,567 --> 00:28:00,807
And the worst thing that you have to do is eat your homework.
406
00:28:00,807 --> 00:28:07,787
Sometimes we had great dishes and sometimes it was like yeah don't eat that it's not good yeah so,
407
00:28:08,487 --> 00:28:12,067
is it heavy into like the i guess the chemistry of
408
00:28:12,067 --> 00:28:19,027
flavors and combinations of acids and stuff right so it's like it's a balance
409
00:28:19,027 --> 00:28:24,587
you know you have to you have to understand like what the ingredients do you
410
00:28:24,587 --> 00:28:30,207
know if you're gonna add salt it's gonna not just be salt oh,
411
00:28:30,267 --> 00:28:33,087
it's going to enhance whatever other flavors you have.
412
00:28:33,467 --> 00:28:37,907
Or if you want to add a specific herb, you know, if you want to roast a chicken,
413
00:28:37,947 --> 00:28:41,127
you want to elevate it a little bit, add a little bit of rosemary,
414
00:28:41,187 --> 00:28:44,247
a little bit of thyme, and that'll elevate the flavor a little bit.
415
00:28:44,567 --> 00:28:49,627
You know, if you want a licorice flavor, you can add star anise or some pernod.
416
00:28:49,927 --> 00:28:54,767
Or there's just a lot of experimenting and visualizing, like.
417
00:28:55,613 --> 00:29:00,813
What I want to put in this dish to make it turn out the way it does, you know?
418
00:29:00,853 --> 00:29:07,393
And thankfully we have, we have a lot of great Cajun Creole instructors and,
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00:29:07,433 --> 00:29:11,433
and that's what it's based off of, you know, and just like a Cajun cook and
420
00:29:11,433 --> 00:29:13,693
everything, it starts off with onion, celery, bell pepper, right?
421
00:29:13,793 --> 00:29:18,873
And you add garlic, but there's a lot more flavors that are out there that,
422
00:29:18,873 --> 00:29:26,013
that you you can kind of find or discover or, you know, on accident discover
423
00:29:26,013 --> 00:29:27,633
and be like, wow, that's great.
424
00:29:27,953 --> 00:29:33,673
And do you get to play with that a lot at Nichols or is it kind of centralized around Creole?
425
00:29:33,853 --> 00:29:38,313
So first, it's really diverse now, which is great.
426
00:29:38,493 --> 00:29:44,073
They have the new building, but basically it's starting with the basics and
427
00:29:44,073 --> 00:29:50,413
then it builds upon there. And then depending on which course you take is kind
428
00:29:50,413 --> 00:29:53,133
of where your flavor palates are developed.
429
00:29:53,393 --> 00:29:58,933
So they'll have classical French cuisine, some Asian, some baking and in different
430
00:29:58,933 --> 00:30:03,853
classes where, you know, they explain like your first semester,
431
00:30:04,013 --> 00:30:09,233
you'll learn about sauces and herbs and, you know, how to cook vegetables correctly
432
00:30:09,233 --> 00:30:11,633
and butcher meat and all that stuff.
433
00:30:11,633 --> 00:30:14,813
And then you kind of, it's a building block where you kind of build,
434
00:30:14,853 --> 00:30:18,473
build your flavor profile that you kind of like to use.
435
00:30:18,953 --> 00:30:25,113
And what was your kind of focus? What were you interested in? So I did, funny story.
436
00:30:25,333 --> 00:30:32,153
I did an ice carving class in, yeah, yeah, that was fun. A real thing.
437
00:30:32,373 --> 00:30:37,113
It's not. It's a, it's, it's definitely like winter's coming.
438
00:30:37,113 --> 00:30:43,673
But our instructor was from Dallas and he has an ice carving and sushi business
439
00:30:43,673 --> 00:30:49,833
so back in 2000 sushi wasn't that popular in this area right but,
440
00:30:50,573 --> 00:30:52,693
he would make a sushi and it was like.
441
00:30:53,623 --> 00:30:58,923
That's interesting, you know, and me being from the bayou, right? How you eat fish, fry.
442
00:30:59,543 --> 00:31:04,023
What you mean I can eat raw fish, you know? And then he just kind of opened
443
00:31:04,023 --> 00:31:06,783
up that avenue and it's like, this is pretty interesting.
444
00:31:07,303 --> 00:31:11,143
You know, so, you know, that's one of the memories I have.
445
00:31:11,223 --> 00:31:17,623
Our classical French class, we would do a seven course meal and we would pull
446
00:31:17,623 --> 00:31:25,563
off a hat of what course you had. At, well, seven out of eight times, I pulled a soup course.
447
00:31:26,623 --> 00:31:31,303
So I learned how to make a lot of soup. Right. And my wife loves me for it.
448
00:31:31,383 --> 00:31:33,103
And I think everybody else does too.
449
00:31:33,403 --> 00:31:39,743
Because I come up with some really unique soups. I've actually had one of your unique soups. Right.
450
00:31:39,803 --> 00:31:43,063
You brought over some andouille sweet potato bisque. Right.
451
00:31:43,183 --> 00:31:45,343
And I've made it since. Right. And it's awesome.
452
00:31:45,603 --> 00:31:50,203
It's awesome. And you never think, like, andouille and sweet potato.
453
00:31:50,203 --> 00:31:53,603
What is he thinking but it tastes like ham like
454
00:31:53,603 --> 00:31:56,823
great you're you're having ham soup you know
455
00:31:56,823 --> 00:31:59,723
and and learning all those techniques in
456
00:31:59,723 --> 00:32:02,743
class like you can substitute ingredients you can
457
00:32:02,743 --> 00:32:05,503
make new flavors you can make something new you know as
458
00:32:05,503 --> 00:32:10,163
long as you know the technique you can kind of change it up you know you don't
459
00:32:10,163 --> 00:32:14,903
always have to do broccoli and cheese you know you can make cauliflower and
460
00:32:14,903 --> 00:32:20,443
bacon you know jerusalem artichoke cream of asparagus you know it's just using
461
00:32:20,443 --> 00:32:24,083
the technique and different ingredients to make different flavors. Mm-hmm.
462
00:32:25,492 --> 00:32:30,352
The sushi stuff sounds interesting. I've never gotten into like making the sushi.
463
00:32:30,452 --> 00:32:35,492
I do a lot of fresh fish, but I was talking about this with someone the other day.
464
00:32:35,872 --> 00:32:41,252
I believe, you know, you understand all the cuts, say of a tuna and what they're
465
00:32:41,252 --> 00:32:46,212
used for and, and there's, there's specifics and the flavor profile of each
466
00:32:46,212 --> 00:32:48,652
and the texture of all that. Is that where you learned all that?
467
00:32:48,792 --> 00:32:52,712
So I learned a little bit of that. And then I had a lot of on-job training.
468
00:32:52,712 --> 00:32:55,432
And I actually did sushi for Rouse's for about six years.
469
00:32:55,612 --> 00:33:00,112
And I also helped open up Zen Sushi in Houma. Love some Zen.
470
00:33:00,252 --> 00:33:01,352
Yeah, way back in the gap.
471
00:33:01,752 --> 00:33:06,772
So, yeah, the, oh, yeah, I'll make sushi. Just go out to a sushi restaurant.
472
00:33:07,032 --> 00:33:13,092
Okay. There is a lot that goes on in preparation to make a simple roll,
473
00:33:13,212 --> 00:33:20,432
you know, from doing the sanitation is 100% because you're actually eating raw product, right? Right.
474
00:33:20,772 --> 00:33:26,332
So it has to be safe to eat. And then making the rice, they say like the first thousand don't count.
475
00:33:26,532 --> 00:33:30,052
So you have to make at least a thousand pots of rice in order for it to like
476
00:33:30,052 --> 00:33:33,072
start coming out correctly, which sometimes it works.
477
00:33:33,112 --> 00:33:36,732
Sometimes it's great, but you gotta, you gotta know what you gotta do to correct it.
478
00:33:36,812 --> 00:33:42,332
Right. And just, just kind of rolling it is, is a little different as well as
479
00:33:42,332 --> 00:33:46,392
like what to put in the roll to compliment each flavor. You know,
480
00:33:46,392 --> 00:33:50,312
you need something fatty, something, you know, crunchy.
481
00:33:50,552 --> 00:33:54,312
It's a lot of texture, a lot of flavor. You know, you're having one bite.
482
00:33:54,412 --> 00:33:58,752
So you want to get all that in, in one, in, in one mouthful,
483
00:33:58,772 --> 00:34:01,132
you know. Any favorite sushi restaurants?
484
00:34:01,812 --> 00:34:07,892
So I have a couple. We go to, we used to go to Tsunami and then Yakuza House.
485
00:34:08,012 --> 00:34:09,872
We stumbled upon that last year.
486
00:34:10,052 --> 00:34:14,432
We went to the LRA show and he was breaking down a tuna and we went to eat at
487
00:34:14,432 --> 00:34:16,352
his place. and it's amazing.
488
00:34:16,652 --> 00:34:19,532
Yeah. Like it's, it's the real deal. I haven't been.
489
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:23,200
Make a reservation we my wife
490
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:26,160
goes to kano kano yeah i haven't
491
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:29,080
been there either yeah but after after doing it
492
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:32,420
for like six years it's like i really don't
493
00:34:32,420 --> 00:34:35,340
want to eat that but i will uh you know
494
00:34:35,340 --> 00:34:38,440
and i used to have some friends that would that they would
495
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:41,340
we would get together and they would be like hey you're making sushi and
496
00:34:41,340 --> 00:34:44,260
i'm like you're an accountant you're doing my books you know
497
00:34:44,260 --> 00:34:47,060
and so they would show up with like rice and fish and stuff and be
498
00:34:47,060 --> 00:34:49,820
like hey let's let's have a sushi party you know yeah
499
00:34:49,820 --> 00:34:53,020
look i ate a boudin burrito yesterday so
500
00:34:53,020 --> 00:34:56,180
i know yeah i know the feeling sometimes a
501
00:34:56,180 --> 00:35:02,440
boudin burrito is just what just what the soul needs not after six years all
502
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:11,620
right was it easy the schooling no uh was it hard it was challenging you know
503
00:35:11,620 --> 00:35:15,060
we we had a small facility, you know, just timing.
504
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:19,640
And it took your life, you know, you, we were at the point where like,
505
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:24,300
it was almost like we were working in the kitchen where we had big block classes.
506
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:27,480
So you would, you would be in the kitchen from seven in the morning till noon.
507
00:35:27,980 --> 00:35:32,860
And is, is it, oh, hey, everyone watch this, watch what I'm doing.
508
00:35:32,940 --> 00:35:39,160
Now you do it. Is that how it is? Yeah. It was a lot of like almost on the job training kind of thing.
509
00:35:39,240 --> 00:35:42,900
You know, we did, we did some some class lecture and
510
00:35:42,900 --> 00:35:45,740
then you know they explained what we're going to do and
511
00:35:45,740 --> 00:35:48,560
then they demonstrated it and then like you have
512
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:51,600
to do it you know like deboning a chicken they
513
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:54,880
showed you how to do it and then like everybody gets a chicken let's go ahead
514
00:35:54,880 --> 00:36:01,060
and demone it you know do they also i'm assuming they also you know have a functioning
515
00:36:01,060 --> 00:36:05,920
kitchen and kitchen crew and they teach you how that works and what you need
516
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:09,080
what makes up a kitchen crew and who needs to be where and doing work.
517
00:36:09,180 --> 00:36:14,960
So when I was in school, my senior level, we ran a restaurant and it was al bistro.
518
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:17,400
They still do it now. It's a little bit different.
519
00:36:18,515 --> 00:36:22,575
But you and your team would design a menu, make out the recipes,
520
00:36:22,895 --> 00:36:27,735
do everything like you were working in a restaurant, and you were the boss.
521
00:36:27,955 --> 00:36:34,215
You know, you had service and people paid to come eat, just like a real restaurant.
522
00:36:34,455 --> 00:36:39,915
You know, everybody came in and, you know, they ordered and you had to cook
523
00:36:39,915 --> 00:36:40,995
it, you and your classmates.
524
00:36:41,375 --> 00:36:44,875
So you would say, you know, this person is going to be sautéing.
525
00:36:45,135 --> 00:36:48,375
This one's going to be making salad. These guys weren't going to do dessert.
526
00:36:48,735 --> 00:36:52,615
You're going to be busting suds, you know, the whole, the whole, the whole gauntlet.
527
00:36:52,875 --> 00:36:56,715
And you were graded on the service, you know, did, did everybody enjoy their
528
00:36:56,715 --> 00:36:58,635
food? Did it take too long?
529
00:36:59,175 --> 00:37:03,135
How much I burnt? You know, all, all that stuff that goes on in a real restaurant,
530
00:37:03,315 --> 00:37:08,795
you know, was, was kind of like, that was, that was the benchmark on how,
531
00:37:08,835 --> 00:37:12,075
how well or how poorly you, you perform. Any fights?
532
00:37:12,415 --> 00:37:15,455
Oh yeah, absolutely. absolutely so so we have
533
00:37:15,455 --> 00:37:18,975
a we have a saying like between between rush
534
00:37:18,975 --> 00:37:22,515
whatever i say to you it ends
535
00:37:22,515 --> 00:37:27,415
at the end of rush like you know i had i had i had some people i hated them
536
00:37:27,415 --> 00:37:33,455
from 6 45 to 8 o'clock we we would curse each other and call every name in the
537
00:37:33,455 --> 00:37:38,695
book but like 8 30 when it slowed down we would go outside sit on milk crates
538
00:37:38,695 --> 00:37:42,375
grab a soda and like you know like nothing Nothing happened because,
539
00:37:42,455 --> 00:37:45,915
you know, it's high energy, high paced, high volume.
540
00:37:46,215 --> 00:37:49,475
You just got to like roll with the punches, so to speak.
541
00:37:49,655 --> 00:37:53,755
And like usually by the end of the night, it's like, yeah, you are an idiot.
542
00:37:53,855 --> 00:37:57,295
I am an idiot. But we're going to be back at nine o'clock in the morning to
543
00:37:57,295 --> 00:37:58,655
do all this all over again.
544
00:37:59,535 --> 00:38:03,335
So it's and it's kind of one of those those things that we kind of.
545
00:38:04,076 --> 00:38:07,236
We kind of understand in between people in the industry, like,
546
00:38:07,236 --> 00:38:12,896
you know, we may say some harsh stuff during service, but it's just because.
547
00:38:13,376 --> 00:38:18,136
I still love you. Yeah, I still love you. It's just a high stress environment and like, you messed up.
548
00:38:18,196 --> 00:38:23,516
Like, you know, and it's like, yep, you know, and it's a lot of accountability and ownership.
549
00:38:23,696 --> 00:38:28,376
Like, yeah, I screwed up two steaks, which, you know, I messed up the whole
550
00:38:28,376 --> 00:38:32,236
ticket and then I had to start all over and then it put us behind.
551
00:38:32,236 --> 00:38:35,176
And next thing you know 12 people showed up and like
552
00:38:35,176 --> 00:38:38,016
now we're in the weeds and we can't
553
00:38:38,016 --> 00:38:40,896
get out you know so that's how it should be anywhere man
554
00:38:40,896 --> 00:38:43,776
if something's wrong and you know it to be wrong you
555
00:38:43,776 --> 00:38:46,676
ought to be able to say it right and the problem gets
556
00:38:46,676 --> 00:38:49,356
fixed and everyone's better for it right it's just
557
00:38:49,356 --> 00:38:52,116
here we have a job to do if i
558
00:38:52,116 --> 00:38:55,256
don't fix this issue the job won't be done right correct
559
00:38:55,256 --> 00:38:57,976
i could you know maybe i could be a little more
560
00:38:57,976 --> 00:39:00,676
polite but if it's wrong it's wrong and i of have to say
561
00:39:00,676 --> 00:39:03,856
it right right you know and we chefs have
562
00:39:03,856 --> 00:39:07,076
a have a notoriety for being hotheads you
563
00:39:07,076 --> 00:39:09,776
know so we're just passionate about what we do
564
00:39:09,776 --> 00:39:12,536
it you know we we we think of our
565
00:39:12,536 --> 00:39:15,876
craft as like artistry and you
566
00:39:15,876 --> 00:39:21,136
know it's very an intimate act you know you're cooking for someone and you you
567
00:39:21,136 --> 00:39:26,376
hoping that they enjoy it so you know you put in your your passion your blood
568
00:39:26,376 --> 00:39:32,156
your sweat your tears Here's your years of in the industry on this one plate,
569
00:39:32,316 --> 00:39:34,196
you know, and you want it to be perfect.
570
00:39:34,596 --> 00:39:39,456
And then you hope the person right next to you is that passionate enough to do that as well.
571
00:39:39,696 --> 00:39:45,136
And if it's not, like we not working in the same area.
572
00:39:45,236 --> 00:39:48,376
So like, put it up, you know? Yeah.
573
00:39:49,656 --> 00:39:54,596
Eve, did you find yourself maybe early on sort of in temp imitating?
574
00:39:55,668 --> 00:39:58,988
Your mentors or maybe whatever celebrity
575
00:39:58,988 --> 00:40:01,808
chefs that you that you maybe watch is that
576
00:40:01,808 --> 00:40:06,268
like the first step is like i need to you know this is my favorite person and
577
00:40:06,268 --> 00:40:10,428
i need to get like them you gotta find your your passion find your mark you
578
00:40:10,428 --> 00:40:15,388
know i have a really stern look i mean everybody thinks i'm not the nicest person
579
00:40:15,388 --> 00:40:19,888
in the world you just gotta and i'm dry i'm very very dry like toast dry.
580
00:40:20,188 --> 00:40:25,848
So like, you got to get to know me and like my body language and, and the way I speak,
581
00:40:25,988 --> 00:40:29,988
but like, I'm very soft, you know, a very kind hearted person,
582
00:40:30,048 --> 00:40:36,728
you know, is it's the way you, you approach things is kind of what,
583
00:40:36,768 --> 00:40:38,108
what you got to deal with.
584
00:40:38,308 --> 00:40:42,728
You know, like I said, you know, I look very stern, but like you having a bad
585
00:40:42,728 --> 00:40:45,668
day, we go on, on a milk crate and we're going to to figure it out,
586
00:40:45,728 --> 00:40:50,548
you know, because, uh, it's not just a job, you know, it's, it's family.
587
00:40:50,648 --> 00:40:54,828
Like we, bunch of restaurants, the restaurant I was in, we did family meal,
588
00:40:54,968 --> 00:40:58,408
you know, we, before service, we cooked a little something for everybody to
589
00:40:58,408 --> 00:41:00,008
eat or let them order something.
590
00:41:00,108 --> 00:41:04,328
And we, you know, before we opened the doors, we, you know, enjoyed a meal and,
591
00:41:04,368 --> 00:41:07,968
you know, did our game plan, like we're preparing for war, you know,
592
00:41:07,988 --> 00:41:09,828
and, and then going from there.
593
00:41:09,828 --> 00:41:13,828
So, you know, if you work with people for six months, a year,
594
00:41:13,948 --> 00:41:17,368
a little longer, you know, they kind of become part of your family because you're
595
00:41:17,368 --> 00:41:19,088
going to see them more than you're going to see your family,
596
00:41:19,128 --> 00:41:21,948
you know, working 40 to 80 hours a week. That's right.
597
00:41:22,128 --> 00:41:27,728
And either like you're a psychopath or you love what you're doing to work all
598
00:41:27,728 --> 00:41:30,368
those long hours and put up with all that abuse from, you know,
599
00:41:30,368 --> 00:41:35,868
from guests and customers and employers and employees and, you know, the general public.
600
00:41:36,548 --> 00:41:39,708
But, you know, if you're passionate about it, you, you'll learn, like.
601
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:46,500
What's the take from it? What's the progression look like? What are you looking forward to?
602
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:49,760
You know, say you're coming out of Nichols Culinary.
603
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:55,980
What are you looking forward to? Like, does everyone there want to open their own restaurant?
604
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:59,480
Does someone want to move to Italy and work for so-and-so?
605
00:41:59,740 --> 00:42:06,120
So, thankfully, like, Nichols has a really good network of knowing people,
606
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:11,580
knowing chefs, knowing people in the industry. and they kind of do job fairs and whatnot.
607
00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:14,980
They also are connected with a couple other culinary schools.
608
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:19,060
So you can go to school in France at the Paul Boucou School,
609
00:42:19,380 --> 00:42:24,300
which is one of the world-renowned culinary schools, and learn from the chefs over there.
610
00:42:24,540 --> 00:42:29,040
We had one classmate, he backpacked through Europe working at restaurants,
611
00:42:29,180 --> 00:42:31,720
and now he has four restaurants in the city.
612
00:42:31,940 --> 00:42:38,320
We have some people that went the corporate route. They're working at hotels, casinos, hotels.
613
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:42,780
Some are business owners. Some are food bloggers. We have some bakers.
614
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:48,000
Just all walks of the industry. Some people have graduated culinary school and
615
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:49,400
are doing something totally different.
616
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:54,640
You know, it's one of the crazy things is you get a four-year degree to make
617
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:57,020
15 bucks an hour, you know, when you first start out.
618
00:42:57,080 --> 00:43:01,020
Because, you know, nobody really wants to hire somebody straight out of culinary school.
619
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:05,160
You know, some people have a little chip on the show that I graduated culinary school.
620
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:09,640
You put them in the kitchen and, you know, they can't cook out of a paper bag.
621
00:43:09,860 --> 00:43:12,800
Some of them are a little bit more inept.
622
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:18,700
It's just, you know, student by student is kind of where we are with them.
623
00:43:18,860 --> 00:43:24,880
But, you know, it was a great experience for me. I graduated culinary school. I worked for Rouse's.
624
00:43:25,720 --> 00:43:28,720
They opened up the Quiznos subs. I did that for a while.
625
00:43:28,940 --> 00:43:34,420
Then I went to their wine department and then we started this sushi program here in Houma.
626
00:43:34,420 --> 00:43:39,420
And then eventually moved to Thibodeau and then, you know, then I parted ways
627
00:43:39,420 --> 00:43:44,100
with the company, but, you know, it, it, it all depends on, on where you are,
628
00:43:44,220 --> 00:43:47,000
you know, and I want to kind of stay close to home.
629
00:43:47,340 --> 00:43:51,320
So, you know, I want to stay close to home, stay close to family.
630
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:54,320
So I just found a couple of places here and there, you know,
631
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:56,740
to kind of learn my craft, hone my craft.
632
00:43:57,649 --> 00:44:02,809
To become a better chef, you know. What makes Nichols Culinary special?
633
00:44:03,329 --> 00:44:09,869
Is it seriously just the Creole? It's a lot, lot different now.
634
00:44:10,609 --> 00:44:13,929
It's definitely the staff and, like, what you can learn.
635
00:44:14,229 --> 00:44:20,449
Also, Nichols is one of the only places that you can get a state-accredited culinary degree.
636
00:44:20,789 --> 00:44:24,789
You know, it's backed up by the state. Some of these other culinary schools,
637
00:44:25,189 --> 00:44:29,069
if they close tomorrow, theoretically, your degree is nothing.
638
00:44:29,429 --> 00:44:32,169
You know, you might have the skills, but it's nothing on paper.
639
00:44:33,109 --> 00:44:36,269
But it's a state-funded college degree, you know.
640
00:44:36,589 --> 00:44:40,829
And it's a state-of-the-art kitchen that they made. And, you know,
641
00:44:40,869 --> 00:44:42,629
it's kind of like the Cadillac of kitchens.
642
00:44:43,209 --> 00:44:46,629
I'd love to see that. That you can learn your craft.
643
00:44:46,829 --> 00:44:49,929
And then, you know, you go into some little mom-and-pop restaurant,
644
00:44:50,069 --> 00:44:54,289
it's like, well, where's this and that? Oh, we don't have that. We got a stove.
645
00:44:55,409 --> 00:44:58,949
We got a stove and an oven. Where's the air fryer? Yeah, make it happen.
646
00:44:59,809 --> 00:45:02,789
Where's the sous vide machine? Oh, we don't sous vide here. Yeah.
647
00:45:03,189 --> 00:45:07,809
Keeping it simple, right? Right. I like to keep it simple. We keep everything simple here.
648
00:45:08,249 --> 00:45:12,689
I like to do that at home as well. Same thing goes for recipes.
649
00:45:13,649 --> 00:45:18,029
Everyone assumes you need a crazy secret recipe. Well, the secret oftentimes
650
00:45:18,029 --> 00:45:20,649
is like, well, there's nothing in it. That's the secret.
651
00:45:20,869 --> 00:45:25,389
It's ingredients. You're tasting the meat or the fish or the vegetable or whatever
652
00:45:25,389 --> 00:45:27,909
it is. That's what you're tasting. You buy the best ingredients.
653
00:45:28,109 --> 00:45:34,229
You use the right technique. And the roadmap is the recipe. Yeah. You'll get there.
654
00:45:34,449 --> 00:45:37,049
But you got to start off with quality ingredients.
655
00:45:37,369 --> 00:45:44,249
There's no point in buying or working hard to get high quality fish if you're
656
00:45:44,249 --> 00:45:48,249
going to soak it in garlic and whatever other flavors you.
657
00:45:48,249 --> 00:45:51,689
Or get a steak from bourgeois and marinate it in an Italian dressing,
658
00:45:51,789 --> 00:45:55,129
you know, like, you know, and that's, if that's, it's, that's you,
659
00:45:55,269 --> 00:46:01,189
that's you, you know, but, you know, why mask a restaurant quality steak with
660
00:46:01,189 --> 00:46:05,229
Italian dressing when all you need is salt and pepper and let it,
661
00:46:05,229 --> 00:46:06,669
let it shine, you know. Simple.
662
00:46:06,849 --> 00:46:10,769
Just keep it, keep it, well, we have a saying, kiss, keep it simple, stupid.
663
00:46:10,889 --> 00:46:14,789
Yeah. You know, just make sure that you use the best ingredients and treat them
664
00:46:14,789 --> 00:46:18,389
respectfully, you know, and you're going to make a good dish.
665
00:46:18,769 --> 00:46:24,709
Do you have, so you talked about you're heavy on the soups, but do you have
666
00:46:24,709 --> 00:46:28,469
your own kind of style or maybe flavor profile?
667
00:46:28,629 --> 00:46:30,909
Like if you're...
668
00:46:31,939 --> 00:46:36,159
If your wife tasted something, would she know it's yours?
669
00:46:36,419 --> 00:46:40,399
Would she know Brandon cooked this? Yep. Or she has, she has the,
670
00:46:40,519 --> 00:46:43,239
Hey, taste this, make it at the house.
671
00:46:43,599 --> 00:46:48,659
You know, or I saw this recipe or heard about this. Can you make this?
672
00:46:49,179 --> 00:46:54,819
You know, she saw, saw somewhere a couple, a year ago, candied jalapenos.
673
00:46:54,979 --> 00:46:57,039
She's all like, Oh, we ought to try that.
674
00:46:57,839 --> 00:47:02,439
Or this place was having candied jalapenos. Let's get some. And I'm like, I can make that.
675
00:47:02,639 --> 00:47:07,399
So we make candied jalapenos. And now it's like every three months I have to
676
00:47:07,399 --> 00:47:11,339
make five pounds worth of candied jalapenos.
677
00:47:11,459 --> 00:47:14,499
And people are like, hey, when you got some of those jalapenos,
678
00:47:14,679 --> 00:47:15,499
I want to get some for you.
679
00:47:15,579 --> 00:47:19,499
So like I'll stop at the little Spanish market and buy up all their jalapenos.
680
00:47:19,719 --> 00:47:21,779
And I'm like, what are you doing with all these?
681
00:47:22,079 --> 00:47:24,119
You know, I'm like, hey, making candied jalapenos.
682
00:47:24,459 --> 00:47:28,819
Did you grow up hunting or fishing at all? I did. I did. I did a little,
683
00:47:28,859 --> 00:47:33,419
a little hunting, a little fishing, just like everybody in the bayous in South Louisiana.
684
00:47:33,939 --> 00:47:40,119
Were you all into that kind of camp lifestyle? No, it was, we did like side
685
00:47:40,119 --> 00:47:44,779
of the road or somebody's field, everyone's in a blue moon kind of fishing.
686
00:47:45,199 --> 00:47:49,759
I married into a camp, so I have use of a camp now in Dulac.
687
00:47:50,019 --> 00:47:54,439
And we do some saltwater fishing. We take the boys out. My father-in-law graciously
688
00:47:54,439 --> 00:48:01,359
enough, you know, hosts us and we go and we fish and I clean the fish, they clean the boat.
689
00:48:01,459 --> 00:48:05,079
And then we always have at least a fish fry while we're there.
690
00:48:05,179 --> 00:48:09,099
And nothing tastes better than redfish or sheep's head, you know,
691
00:48:09,099 --> 00:48:12,819
straight out the water on the back dock when the breeze is blowing and you're
692
00:48:12,819 --> 00:48:14,299
drinking beer, you know? Yeah.
693
00:48:15,419 --> 00:48:20,439
So we hunt a lot and we go to, we had Uncle Donald's camp often.
694
00:48:20,439 --> 00:48:25,119
And one of the special things about the camp is cooking at the camp.
695
00:48:25,179 --> 00:48:29,659
Right. And kind of the mentality we have is like, we're just going to use whatever's there.
696
00:48:29,819 --> 00:48:34,939
Right. So whenever we kill something or bring something, we just try to bring
697
00:48:34,939 --> 00:48:37,919
minimal and then use whatever else was already in the freezer.
698
00:48:38,219 --> 00:48:41,839
So we always bring a little bag of fish just in case.
699
00:48:42,739 --> 00:48:47,319
Just in case. And we bring some French fries and we bring a French bread and a couple onions.
700
00:48:47,619 --> 00:48:51,899
And, you know, if we're going to cook, if we have a bunch of friends and neighbor
701
00:48:51,899 --> 00:48:56,039
campers that are there, we'll try to cook something special.
702
00:48:56,259 --> 00:49:01,899
But that's usually my invite to someone's camp is, hey, we're going to the camp. You want to come?
703
00:49:02,259 --> 00:49:06,339
And can you come cook for us? And then, yes, absolutely.
704
00:49:06,459 --> 00:49:10,699
Sure. Or like, I don't have a lot of time to do some hunting and stuff,
705
00:49:10,839 --> 00:49:15,159
but it's all like, hey, I killed two deers this weekend.
706
00:49:15,359 --> 00:49:18,439
Would you help me butcher them? I'm like, Dude, you know my fee,
707
00:49:18,579 --> 00:49:24,399
a pack of sausage and a backstrap, and I will help you with your deer.
708
00:49:26,124 --> 00:49:31,224
Couple wild pigs and whatnot, but usually like that's my fee is I'll, uh, I'll help you.
709
00:49:31,284 --> 00:49:35,764
And, and, you know, grew up willing to, or learning like you help your neighbor.
710
00:49:35,984 --> 00:49:39,184
Um, and that's, that goes back to the fire department, you know,
711
00:49:39,204 --> 00:49:43,044
you're helping your neighbor, member of the Knights of Columbus, you help your neighbor.
712
00:49:43,164 --> 00:49:46,384
So just trying to instill that. And that was instilled to me,
713
00:49:46,444 --> 00:49:49,004
trying to instill it to my, to my, my boys is,
714
00:49:49,104 --> 00:49:54,324
you know, you always help somebody out so that camp cooking that's kind of how
715
00:49:54,324 --> 00:49:58,984
i try to cook at home i like to just i like to wing it and i think i got that
716
00:49:58,984 --> 00:50:03,244
from them she never has a recipe for anything again she's lying,
717
00:50:03,704 --> 00:50:06,464
right to be fair she's lying she probably has about she has
718
00:50:06,464 --> 00:50:10,124
12 cookbooks and like a whole bunch of stuff she's just not giving it to me
719
00:50:10,124 --> 00:50:16,024
so i'll ask her how to cook uh whatever so-and-so soup or whatever and uh oh
720
00:50:16,024 --> 00:50:19,504
i never never really paid attention let me see if i can try to write some of
721
00:50:19,504 --> 00:50:24,984
it down right which is always always a lie because it never tastes like hers and.
722
00:50:25,564 --> 00:50:28,364
But it's taught me to just kind of use what's in
723
00:50:28,364 --> 00:50:31,624
the kitchen and i'm not afraid to i'm not
724
00:50:31,624 --> 00:50:36,004
afraid to turn the fire on before i know what i have right and i love that right
725
00:50:36,004 --> 00:50:40,744
to me that's that's what my passion is and cooking is like i like running around
726
00:50:40,744 --> 00:50:44,584
the kitchen and opening the fridge and running to the deep freezer and like
727
00:50:44,584 --> 00:50:48,764
all right i'll just use this instead i love that that's fun It's kind of like
728
00:50:48,764 --> 00:50:50,304
a chop, you know, you gotta,
729
00:50:50,464 --> 00:50:53,464
Hey, I got this to start with. What am I cooking?
730
00:50:53,664 --> 00:50:57,664
You know, usually like when, when I say, Hey, I'm going to cook.
731
00:50:57,744 --> 00:50:59,304
I'm like, all right, what's on sale.
732
00:51:00,044 --> 00:51:02,964
Let's figure something out. Right. And that's cool. Yeah. That's a good way
733
00:51:02,964 --> 00:51:05,584
to do it. I don't mind inviting friends over.
734
00:51:06,664 --> 00:51:10,484
Right. Doing that. Right. Right. Pulling it on my ass. And, you know,
735
00:51:10,484 --> 00:51:13,744
and being a chef, being invited to somebody's house, it's like,
736
00:51:13,844 --> 00:51:18,044
Oh, I don't want you to eat this, you know, whatever. and I'm like, dude.
737
00:51:18,967 --> 00:51:24,827
It doesn't matter. Like, I'm here, like, I'm just your friend. Like, I eat hot dogs.
738
00:51:25,747 --> 00:51:29,967
I can only have a bologna sandwich when I'm at the camp.
739
00:51:30,047 --> 00:51:34,847
Like, I eat bologna sandwiches. It's not, everything has to be five-star or
740
00:51:34,847 --> 00:51:38,207
good, you know? It has to be, you know, restaurant quality.
741
00:51:38,427 --> 00:51:43,027
Like, I eat just like everybody else, you know? For years, my supper consisted
742
00:51:43,027 --> 00:51:47,007
of a little Debbie and a glass of milk, you know, or a sandwich.
743
00:51:47,007 --> 00:51:49,887
And that's what i hate you know
744
00:51:49,887 --> 00:51:52,947
you i'm cooking steaks all night long yeah i
745
00:51:52,947 --> 00:51:56,867
get home on a little w a glass of milk and a cold shower and go to bed because
746
00:51:56,867 --> 00:52:01,067
i gotta do it back at eight o'clock in the morning you know so it's it's a little
747
00:52:01,067 --> 00:52:04,887
intimidating if somebody invites a chef over you know but it's like look we
748
00:52:04,887 --> 00:52:09,707
eat just like everyone else we eat crap yeah we're in beau's office right now
749
00:52:09,707 --> 00:52:12,047
and if If you look on that bookshelf,
750
00:52:12,167 --> 00:52:14,167
there's two whole cases of Vienna sausage.
751
00:52:14,507 --> 00:52:20,147
Yeah. So, Bumbo has access to all of the best stuff that you can find around.
752
00:52:20,387 --> 00:52:22,067
Right. What does he eat for lunch? Vienna sausage.
753
00:52:22,347 --> 00:52:25,527
Yeah. That should tell you the secret there.
754
00:52:25,687 --> 00:52:28,367
Well, that's just like a mechanic, right? They don't want to work on their cars.
755
00:52:28,467 --> 00:52:32,887
You guys work with smoked meats and product all day long.
756
00:52:32,967 --> 00:52:36,927
You don't want to have that. You might just want a Vienna sausage out of a can.
757
00:52:36,927 --> 00:52:45,087
Back to the the schooling how competitive is it between students is it is there like.
758
00:52:45,847 --> 00:52:49,127
Everyone's striving to be top dog so they
759
00:52:49,127 --> 00:52:51,947
they do have a little gauntlet system that that we
760
00:52:51,947 --> 00:52:54,707
that i kind of incurred you know who's the best at
761
00:52:54,707 --> 00:52:57,687
this who's the best at that there's always like
762
00:52:57,687 --> 00:53:01,067
the bosses where they want to control and
763
00:53:01,067 --> 00:53:03,927
there's the workers so it's kind of like depending on what
764
00:53:03,927 --> 00:53:07,247
group it was and the chefs kind of like figured out
765
00:53:07,247 --> 00:53:13,547
their potion personalities and like you you're the boss right you're gonna go
766
00:53:13,547 --> 00:53:18,487
work with the hardest person who can't get along with them yourself you know
767
00:53:18,487 --> 00:53:23,667
and it just kind of broke up the diversity where like you know in the real world
768
00:53:23,667 --> 00:53:26,407
what happens right you might have somebody that's,
769
00:53:27,096 --> 00:53:30,256
mentally unstable or you know somebody who's really passionate
770
00:53:30,256 --> 00:53:33,396
about what they're doing or like somebody who's just
771
00:53:33,396 --> 00:53:38,216
here for a job you know you don't know their work ethic but you have to work
772
00:53:38,216 --> 00:53:42,616
with them um so like it was kind of like a little psychology while you were
773
00:53:42,616 --> 00:53:47,016
working and figuring figuring out like how to work with people how to talk to
774
00:53:47,016 --> 00:53:50,716
people and figuring out like okay.
775
00:53:51,436 --> 00:53:54,856
I'm terrible at decorated cakes Like terrible
776
00:53:54,856 --> 00:53:57,916
I had a classmate that Baked one
777
00:53:57,916 --> 00:54:00,836
of my Well decorated one of my cakes My cakes for
778
00:54:00,836 --> 00:54:03,836
me She hated to butcher me So I
779
00:54:03,836 --> 00:54:06,796
did her butchering She decorated my cake So like
780
00:54:06,796 --> 00:54:09,576
it was It was Find out what you're
781
00:54:09,576 --> 00:54:13,496
good at And surround yourself with people
782
00:54:13,496 --> 00:54:16,276
Things that you're not good
783
00:54:16,276 --> 00:54:19,836
at That they're good at And then you're gonna wind up That's
784
00:54:19,836 --> 00:54:23,536
a business man yeah you're gonna wind up being successful yep if
785
00:54:23,536 --> 00:54:26,696
you can understand that at a young age right
786
00:54:26,696 --> 00:54:29,356
you can be very successful you know and
787
00:54:29,356 --> 00:54:32,276
of course you want to be you want to be the best out of everything
788
00:54:32,276 --> 00:54:37,536
but you know in in hindsight like i realize i suck at baking at decorating cakes
789
00:54:37,536 --> 00:54:41,956
i can bake cakes all day long putting them decorating them it was a different
790
00:54:41,956 --> 00:54:48,016
i don't have the patience to do it so you know even now when i when i somebody's
791
00:54:48,016 --> 00:54:50,496
like hey bake me a cake and and decorate it so,
792
00:54:51,016 --> 00:54:55,396
like it's gonna be so you go to Rouse's and you buy it's gonna be very minimally
793
00:54:55,396 --> 00:54:59,356
decorated it's gonna be delicious however it won't look like Ace of Kings.
794
00:55:01,227 --> 00:55:08,207
All right. So kind of switching from the in the kitchen to maybe like over the kitchen.
795
00:55:08,547 --> 00:55:12,467
I know right now. So what's your role at Spars right now?
796
00:55:12,467 --> 00:55:15,507
So at Sparge right now, I'm the general manager of the downtown location,
797
00:55:15,847 --> 00:55:20,107
which at that role, I am in charge of the whole restaurant, the kitchen,
798
00:55:20,107 --> 00:55:27,187
as well as the front of the house service and leading the brand of the restaurant there.
799
00:55:27,567 --> 00:55:34,407
So we, you know, we're very passionate about what we do and who we are.
800
00:55:34,807 --> 00:55:39,847
And, you know, it comes out on every plate of catfish chip or every Bloody Mary we serve.
801
00:55:40,627 --> 00:55:46,167
I love Sparge. As far as the big staple in our family, again,
802
00:55:46,487 --> 00:55:49,367
it's one of those generational places for us.
803
00:55:50,707 --> 00:55:54,587
My grandpa was there every morning. I'm sure you've seen his face a lot.
804
00:55:55,167 --> 00:56:00,167
We used to, all the cousins, we would go at like 5 a.m. every Wednesday.
805
00:56:00,367 --> 00:56:02,747
We did that for maybe, I don't know, a year or two.
806
00:56:03,207 --> 00:56:10,647
And it was just a place we were all married and having our first kids, some of us second kids.
807
00:56:10,647 --> 00:56:16,027
And it was like the one time we can all get together and, and chit chat and
808
00:56:16,027 --> 00:56:20,267
just grab a cup of coffee and a biscuit and solve all the world's problems or,
809
00:56:20,347 --> 00:56:22,647
or figure out what your problem of the day was.
810
00:56:22,767 --> 00:56:27,907
And why were we doing that is because our, you know, our role models,
811
00:56:28,047 --> 00:56:31,227
Papa and our uncles and Mr.
812
00:56:31,347 --> 00:56:36,807
Francis and all those old guys we see, they're, they're there before us and
813
00:56:36,807 --> 00:56:37,947
they're there more than us.
814
00:56:37,947 --> 00:56:44,567
So that's just like challenging us like okay if they're 90 years old and they're
815
00:56:44,567 --> 00:56:50,467
finding value in going to spars with their buddies every morning there's got to be something to it,
816
00:56:51,187 --> 00:56:54,447
It'd be easier not to, but maybe we should try it. Right.
817
00:56:54,647 --> 00:56:59,107
You know, if, if, if they're saying that's the smartest thing to do, maybe we should try it.
818
00:56:59,147 --> 00:57:03,107
You know, there's some interesting conversations that goes on every morning at that table.
819
00:57:04,127 --> 00:57:07,667
And it's, it's unbelievable. And it's all different walks of life,
820
00:57:07,767 --> 00:57:08,927
all different age groups.
821
00:57:09,047 --> 00:57:14,587
You know, they start off with the only retired, then next thing is the newly retired.
822
00:57:14,687 --> 00:57:18,807
And then it's the working man, you know, and, and, and it's like you said,
823
00:57:18,887 --> 00:57:22,087
it's generational One will get up, one will replace a seat.
824
00:57:22,167 --> 00:57:26,427
It's like the adult table and the kiddie table. You know, it co-mingles together.
825
00:57:26,707 --> 00:57:31,587
And, you know, we, as far as we provide a place, a caveat for that,
826
00:57:31,687 --> 00:57:35,007
you know, and sometimes we get in the conversation with them,
827
00:57:35,087 --> 00:57:37,567
you know, just because we want to show them, like,
828
00:57:38,267 --> 00:57:45,047
we generally care about you, all of our guests, and especially the ones that come like every day.
829
00:57:45,207 --> 00:57:48,647
Mr., for instance, Mr. Francis just celebrated his birthday.
830
00:57:49,747 --> 00:57:54,387
We made him a birthday cake. Yeah. You know, we made him a birthday cake because,
831
00:57:54,407 --> 00:57:56,527
you know, you can only turn 96 once.
832
00:57:56,687 --> 00:58:00,287
Right. You know, and he was upset that we made a fuss about it.
833
00:58:00,327 --> 00:58:05,327
But like, you know, you kind of like our papa, you know, everybody, everybody loves you.
834
00:58:05,387 --> 00:58:08,067
You know, you opinionated and we love you.
835
00:58:08,147 --> 00:58:12,607
And we just want to want to just show you, you know, one at least one time that
836
00:58:12,607 --> 00:58:14,587
somebody else has cared about you. Right.
837
00:58:14,807 --> 00:58:18,967
But man, how special is that? You can't just open up a business and have it
838
00:58:18,967 --> 00:58:22,307
be the resident mastermind location.
839
00:58:22,687 --> 00:58:26,527
You know what I mean? That is a problem we have every day is,
840
00:58:26,547 --> 00:58:30,947
you know, we open the doors and we, in restaurant wine, you know,
841
00:58:30,967 --> 00:58:34,867
the industry wine is you open up the door, you don't know what's coming in.
842
00:58:35,007 --> 00:58:36,787
You don't know if you're going to be super busy.
843
00:58:36,987 --> 00:58:41,927
You're not, you don't know if you're going to be, you know, begging for customers to come in.
844
00:58:41,927 --> 00:58:48,367
It's just you have to you have to find your niche and i think downtown has has the.
845
00:58:49,167 --> 00:58:51,807
The knowing and the calling of like it's a
846
00:58:51,807 --> 00:58:56,787
place where it's it's home or it's in the extension of of your home where you
847
00:58:56,787 --> 00:59:02,907
can come and sit down and have a cup of coffee and not be rushed for your day
848
00:59:02,907 --> 00:59:09,667
or if you're in a rush you know you can come in and out and you just everybody comes
849
00:59:09,867 --> 00:59:12,927
in at the same time they do the, you know, it's routine,
850
00:59:13,207 --> 00:59:18,527
you know, and it's, it's, it's sometimes that's what some people need is they need a routine.
851
00:59:18,707 --> 00:59:21,087
They hang out, you know, they just want to,
852
00:59:21,813 --> 00:59:25,593
want to talk to somebody, you know, like Mr. Francis, he's, he's an elderly gentleman.
853
00:59:25,753 --> 00:59:29,253
He's really doesn't talk to, you know, he doesn't have anybody at home.
854
00:59:29,353 --> 00:59:31,013
So all of his interaction is in public.
855
00:59:31,233 --> 00:59:35,653
Right. So, you know, if, if he can come and spend, have a cup of coffee,
856
00:59:35,713 --> 00:59:40,073
spend an hour or two just chit-chatting and, you know, the other guests that
857
00:59:40,073 --> 00:59:44,133
are there kind of like jug them on sometimes and all that fun stuff,
858
00:59:44,253 --> 00:59:47,913
but it's all in good fun, but you know, it, it makes his day and I'm pretty
859
00:59:47,913 --> 00:59:49,753
sure it makes everybody else's day. Sure.
860
00:59:50,533 --> 00:59:54,553
It's cool how, you know, it's very uncommon to have such, you know,
861
00:59:54,573 --> 00:59:57,853
it's kind of a historical place and it's sort of a landmark around here.
862
00:59:58,193 --> 01:00:02,573
And you get a lot of tourists. I'm sure you get a lot of parents from Nichols
863
01:00:02,573 --> 01:00:05,053
and the hospital and you're getting people from all over.
864
01:00:05,193 --> 01:00:13,153
So you sort of balancing between a tourist location and the half of the room was here yesterday.
865
01:00:13,313 --> 01:00:16,533
Right. It's like, that's pretty uncommon comment because a place
866
01:00:16,533 --> 01:00:19,333
that's heavy tourism the locals are not
867
01:00:19,333 --> 01:00:22,253
going to want to go but y'all kind of are able to
868
01:00:22,253 --> 01:00:25,073
balance it for that audience yeah we like we have the man
869
01:00:25,073 --> 01:00:31,273
and passing academy every year we had one family that this was their quote-unquote
870
01:00:31,273 --> 01:00:35,233
last year here their child's turning a senior like they were on the verge of
871
01:00:35,233 --> 01:00:39,733
tears like we're never coming back and i'm like we'll still be here y'all can
872
01:00:39,733 --> 01:00:43,733
come even though they're not man and passing academy but like they They would eat breakfast,
873
01:00:43,833 --> 01:00:46,253
lunch, and dinner every day that they were here.
874
01:00:46,333 --> 01:00:49,033
And they did that for five years. You know, and they were like.
875
01:00:49,893 --> 01:00:52,553
They were like, no more spars. I mean, this is the last year we have spars.
876
01:00:52,553 --> 01:00:54,413
Yeah, this is our last year. So I'm like. That's cool. You know,
877
01:00:54,413 --> 01:00:56,953
there's Mardi Gras. You know, y'all can come anytime.
878
01:00:57,173 --> 01:01:00,573
Like, y'all don't have to, like, make a reservation or make plans or.
879
01:01:00,893 --> 01:01:03,953
Thibodeau's still here. You know, you can come and eat. It's just,
880
01:01:03,973 --> 01:01:06,873
you know, and like the first and second year that they came,
881
01:01:06,933 --> 01:01:08,793
they thought, like, it was just a show.
882
01:01:08,973 --> 01:01:15,173
You know, like all the hospitality and all the things that. But it's the way we are. You know, we...
883
01:01:15,943 --> 01:01:20,503
We want to have hospitality at its finest level. You know, we want to exceed our guest experiences.
884
01:01:20,803 --> 01:01:28,743
And we can appreciate all those things that, you know, some tourists come in
885
01:01:28,743 --> 01:01:32,183
because they heard about us. You know, that means we're doing something right.
886
01:01:32,403 --> 01:01:36,643
You know, or those repeat customers that come in all the time,
887
01:01:36,663 --> 01:01:37,843
we're doing something right.
888
01:01:38,023 --> 01:01:42,443
And it's, you know, we are definitely like living our brand values.
889
01:01:42,703 --> 01:01:50,263
Yeah. And that's what's so vital with mom and pops are independently owned locations
890
01:01:50,263 --> 01:01:54,303
is like, you have to do it right 100% of the time.
891
01:01:56,383 --> 01:01:59,343
Or make it right right away. Make it right, right. You know,
892
01:01:59,343 --> 01:02:03,743
because you don't want to hear on the street or like you in Rouse's,
893
01:02:03,823 --> 01:02:05,503
you know, I had a bad experience somewhere.
894
01:02:05,803 --> 01:02:12,183
And you're like two hours over and, you know, which means you didn't like my bourgeois hamburgers.
895
01:02:12,183 --> 01:02:15,103
You know it's like you want to stop and have that conversation
896
01:02:15,103 --> 01:02:17,803
like what did we do wrong yeah how
897
01:02:17,803 --> 01:02:20,743
can i get my truck because it's not it's not like
898
01:02:20,743 --> 01:02:23,803
we want you to be happy we want you to be satisfied with
899
01:02:23,803 --> 01:02:29,523
your shirt with with our product like what did we do wrong and how can we correct
900
01:02:29,523 --> 01:02:33,943
it and make sure that we're we want to be back in your good graces right in
901
01:02:33,943 --> 01:02:37,683
some places you know to give them another chance in some places you know it's
902
01:02:37,683 --> 01:02:41,423
not you write them up you know it's not worth it but But, yeah,
903
01:02:41,523 --> 01:02:42,863
as far as it is that type of place,
904
01:02:43,003 --> 01:02:46,843
for me, I'm always comfortable and never had anything go wrong.
905
01:02:46,963 --> 01:02:51,983
But I know if something were to go wrong, it's a simple, simple, simple fix, you know.
906
01:02:52,063 --> 01:02:58,963
As long as you let someone know, we are 100% sure to fix it. Or at least attempt to.
907
01:02:59,463 --> 01:03:07,503
So what was it like transitioning from the stove to the books and hiring? Hiring.
908
01:03:07,743 --> 01:03:13,803
Right. So I went from Rouse's. I worked at a hotel for a little bit and then
909
01:03:13,803 --> 01:03:18,283
left there and worked at a restaurant in Vashti for about 10 and a half years,
910
01:03:18,423 --> 01:03:21,983
which I was the chef and the manager.
911
01:03:22,783 --> 01:03:29,563
So I kind of was everything. And I had 10 years of on-the-job training at that location.
912
01:03:29,863 --> 01:03:35,563
And I'm a very people person. I like to talk to people. And I also want to make
913
01:03:35,563 --> 01:03:39,983
sure you're enjoying yourself while you're here, you know, with the culture
914
01:03:39,983 --> 01:03:42,243
and what you're eating and whatnot.
915
01:03:42,623 --> 01:03:46,283
So, you know, to be able to talk to tables and all that stuff,
916
01:03:46,423 --> 01:03:48,903
it kind of started becoming second nature to me.
917
01:03:49,043 --> 01:03:53,383
You know, I do miss playing on the stove and coming up with dishes and,
918
01:03:53,403 --> 01:03:55,503
you know, getting that adrenaline working.
919
01:03:55,643 --> 01:03:59,023
But, you know, it's different to see.
920
01:04:00,100 --> 01:04:04,920
The other side of the table or the other side of the pass to where you're interacting
921
01:04:04,920 --> 01:04:08,740
with the, with the guests and you're, you know, you're checking to make sure
922
01:04:08,740 --> 01:04:12,320
that whatever came out of the kitchen, they're enjoying, you know,
923
01:04:12,320 --> 01:04:14,540
we always, we always look for empty plates.
924
01:04:14,540 --> 01:04:17,460
Plates it's a little hard at spars because we give you
925
01:04:17,460 --> 01:04:21,080
a great value and a great portion but if
926
01:04:21,080 --> 01:04:24,220
it's an empty plate either you were hungry it
927
01:04:24,220 --> 01:04:27,180
was good or you were good and hungry so that's that's
928
01:04:27,180 --> 01:04:29,880
a telltale sign that like we did our
929
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:32,760
job you know and and that's what we look
930
01:04:32,760 --> 01:04:37,940
for and you know we just really want to be personable with our guests and and
931
01:04:37,940 --> 01:04:45,660
learn learn from them You never know what their day is when they walk through
932
01:04:45,660 --> 01:04:50,820
the door and you're just hoping this one meal can either cheer you up, console you.
933
01:04:51,420 --> 01:05:00,260
Revitalize you, fill you up with nourishment, and hopefully you have a food memory from it.
934
01:05:00,340 --> 01:05:03,140
And that's what we strive to do. do dude is
935
01:05:03,140 --> 01:05:05,780
it's it's wild because you know you
936
01:05:05,780 --> 01:05:08,740
take a server who is just they just
937
01:05:08,740 --> 01:05:11,680
want to make money and that's it right they just want
938
01:05:11,680 --> 01:05:15,820
a paycheck they want to get the hell out of there you don't care about this
939
01:05:15,820 --> 01:05:22,420
they don't care about that and then in comes you know 30 year old guy and his
940
01:05:22,420 --> 01:05:29,980
100 year old grandpa and this might be the last meal they have together they don't that
941
01:05:30,080 --> 01:05:35,060
she don't know that or he don't know that, you know, so you got to treat it all like, right.
942
01:05:35,140 --> 01:05:39,280
What if, you know, who do you, who do you want to be? What kind of mark do you want to make? Right.
943
01:05:39,320 --> 01:05:47,240
So, you know, servers are tipped employees tips stand for to ensure prompt service, right?
944
01:05:47,620 --> 01:05:55,660
So the guest is giving you a gift from the service that was given by you.
945
01:05:55,960 --> 01:06:03,220
So you should want to put your everything in that table, or into every guest,
946
01:06:03,520 --> 01:06:07,480
not only to benefit you, but to understand,
947
01:06:08,360 --> 01:06:12,340
you're serving this person, you're catering to their needs.
948
01:06:13,720 --> 01:06:19,200
And I tell this to some of our folks as well, like on the service,
949
01:06:19,360 --> 01:06:23,260
on the counter service, maybe you don't want to be here forever.
950
01:06:23,460 --> 01:06:26,540
Maybe you want to be here for six more months and that's fine.
951
01:06:26,800 --> 01:06:35,520
And yes, I and we want you to give good service, but what if you give great service?
952
01:06:35,520 --> 01:06:38,640
Service and the guy you're serving i
953
01:06:38,640 --> 01:06:42,280
don't know is the hiring manager
954
01:06:42,280 --> 01:06:45,440
for danos right and he can't
955
01:06:45,440 --> 01:06:50,120
stop thinking about you and he comes give you a a job well look at bill puts
956
01:06:50,120 --> 01:06:54,260
you right where you want to be right look at phil cass exactly perfect story
957
01:06:54,260 --> 01:06:59,180
or you know for us we have we have the hospital right there like you never know
958
01:06:59,180 --> 01:07:02,940
if a person's come and eat and just gotten diagnosed with cancer,
959
01:07:03,120 --> 01:07:06,780
you know, and they're down in their dumps, but like, you know,
960
01:07:06,800 --> 01:07:08,620
the server comes up with a great smile,
961
01:07:08,860 --> 01:07:12,920
gives you a cup of coffee, you know, chit-chat you with a little bit,
962
01:07:13,040 --> 01:07:17,140
and then, you know, it kind of brightens up your day, and, you know,
963
01:07:17,160 --> 01:07:20,480
you have the best French toast you've ever had,
964
01:07:20,620 --> 01:07:26,920
you know, and it could make you stop thinking about that bad diagnosis that
965
01:07:26,920 --> 01:07:31,060
you you had are like giving you the will to, to, to change or,
966
01:07:31,080 --> 01:07:32,260
or, you know, something.
967
01:07:32,640 --> 01:07:35,860
So you never know what the, what the person that's sitting in the chair,
968
01:07:35,940 --> 01:07:38,920
that you're about to service, what's going on with them.
969
01:07:39,020 --> 01:07:43,440
So like, you just want to make sure like you hold to your brand standards and
970
01:07:43,440 --> 01:07:46,300
you offer some great hospitality.
971
01:07:47,700 --> 01:07:51,840
What's, I guess, what's the hardest part? What do you, what really stresses you out?
972
01:07:51,900 --> 01:07:56,720
Which, which struggles do you have? So, you know, in this industry,
973
01:07:56,780 --> 01:07:59,540
staffing is really, really difficult.
974
01:07:59,660 --> 01:08:06,300
This day and age is to, you know, hire the right staff, retain them, train them.
975
01:08:07,599 --> 01:08:13,379
Get them to do, you know, standards. Sometimes it's like, you got to do the,
976
01:08:13,399 --> 01:08:17,219
at least the bare minimum, you know, we want you to, we want you to succeed
977
01:08:17,219 --> 01:08:20,379
a little bit more, but you have to do at least the bare minimum.
978
01:08:20,479 --> 01:08:24,519
And sometimes that's, that's a little difficult, you know, not just at Spar's,
979
01:08:24,579 --> 01:08:28,099
but, you know, and, and all the restaurants I worked with, you know,
980
01:08:28,119 --> 01:08:31,199
it was some of them, like you said, are here just for a paycheck.
981
01:08:31,539 --> 01:08:37,099
And some of them, you know, They don't want to be here, but it's why, why are you still here?
982
01:08:37,239 --> 01:08:40,319
Then, you know, we talked about pluses and minuses, you know,
983
01:08:40,319 --> 01:08:43,839
if you're just going to be a negative, like why, why stay here?
984
01:08:43,939 --> 01:08:48,979
You know, if you're so unhappy, but it's just, you figure out like,
985
01:08:49,159 --> 01:08:53,599
what can you do to motivate that person to try to do better?
986
01:08:53,739 --> 01:08:58,699
You know, and we, we at Sparce, we really want to, to help people grow. out.
987
01:08:58,999 --> 01:09:05,819
We've seen, seen some employees that we, we saw something special in them and,
988
01:09:05,879 --> 01:09:08,739
you know, we want to, to help them out.
989
01:09:08,819 --> 01:09:12,579
We've kind of watered them a little bit and they become from a cook to,
990
01:09:12,599 --> 01:09:16,259
you know, a kitchen manager or from a server to a front of the house manager.
991
01:09:16,499 --> 01:09:24,119
So we definitely like want to promote from within and we're really big on, on the family.
992
01:09:24,299 --> 01:09:30,799
Um, so we, We really want close-knit family and be able to, you know,
993
01:09:30,819 --> 01:09:35,599
train our employees and nurture them and watch them grow. Mm-hmm.
994
01:09:36,578 --> 01:09:41,638
Anyone you're, I guess, who are you learning the management side from?
995
01:09:42,598 --> 01:09:46,538
You read anything? Yeah, so like I said, you know, in culinary school,
996
01:09:46,638 --> 01:09:52,658
we had some accounting classes and to learn financials. And we do have someone
997
01:09:52,658 --> 01:09:56,298
on staff that takes care of our books for us.
998
01:09:56,358 --> 01:09:58,618
And we interact on a weekly basis.
999
01:09:59,218 --> 01:10:06,298
But it's to understand all those caveats. It's, you know, worrying about labor
1000
01:10:06,298 --> 01:10:13,638
and food costs and product costs and overhead and all the things that happen, you know.
1001
01:10:13,898 --> 01:10:19,698
It's a business, you know. You worry about the bottom line all the time, you know.
1002
01:10:19,898 --> 01:10:25,698
And what affects sales is how many people come through the door,
1003
01:10:25,778 --> 01:10:30,398
you know, and how to get those people keep coming in the door and keep coming back.
1004
01:10:30,398 --> 01:10:33,438
That's that's the real that's the
1005
01:10:33,438 --> 01:10:36,278
real struggle is you know how do we
1006
01:10:36,278 --> 01:10:39,278
keep you know we're known for this we need
1007
01:10:39,278 --> 01:10:42,758
to be be on this every time so
1008
01:10:42,758 --> 01:10:47,418
we can keep getting those repeat businesses as well as like growing our business
1009
01:10:47,418 --> 01:10:51,998
with word of mouth advertisement like you know how many times you've heard like
1010
01:10:51,998 --> 01:10:58,358
hey i went to wherever and i had a memorable meal oh man i want to go there
1011
01:10:58,358 --> 01:11:00,478
You know, I want to try, I want to try out,
1012
01:11:00,518 --> 01:11:04,718
you know, Grapevine in, in Donsonville, you know, it's, it's off the beaten path,
1013
01:11:04,898 --> 01:11:08,618
but people on the street talk about it, you know, well, I want to go there or,
1014
01:11:08,698 --> 01:11:11,698
you know, somewhere, somewhere else, you know, I want to go to St.
1015
01:11:11,758 --> 01:11:15,238
Clair's because he's having his special, special dinner tonight.
1016
01:11:15,658 --> 01:11:18,798
Let's go get some cocktails from Jeff and let's go eat dinner, you know? Mm-hmm.
1017
01:11:20,158 --> 01:11:24,638
So that's kind of where we are. Yeah. We wouldn't be, we, you know,
1018
01:11:24,678 --> 01:11:28,818
we get in a lot of tours ourself and they're always asking where to eat.
1019
01:11:28,838 --> 01:11:31,918
They're asking where to eat lunch, where to have drinks and all of this.
1020
01:11:33,278 --> 01:11:38,598
And it's just easy. It's just easy and honest to say spars, just go check out
1021
01:11:38,598 --> 01:11:40,618
spars. I don't need to give you a list of places.
1022
01:11:40,838 --> 01:11:43,978
Right. Just start there and then ask your waiter where to go next.
1023
01:11:44,098 --> 01:11:49,558
Right. You know, it's easy. And with us being the Louisiana Cajun Bayou is, is, is a great.
1024
01:11:50,158 --> 01:11:53,198
Great venue for for tourism we do
1025
01:11:53,198 --> 01:11:56,218
the same you know we have guests here it's like man where
1026
01:11:56,218 --> 01:11:59,998
where else to eat i'm like if you like beef jerky you
1027
01:11:59,998 --> 01:12:03,758
have to go to bourgeois and pick some up because they have the world's best
1028
01:12:03,758 --> 01:12:08,438
beef jerky and then they also have this this this and it and by the way there's
1029
01:12:08,438 --> 01:12:13,978
some hot boudin burritos that you have to get so you know and i do the same
1030
01:12:13,978 --> 01:12:19,818
thing when i travel it's like checking the hotel and it's like hey where you eat for dinner Yep.
1031
01:12:20,078 --> 01:12:23,498
That's the way I like, I don't, I don't want to go to a chain.
1032
01:12:23,538 --> 01:12:28,898
Like I, I don't, I want to go like where you eat. Cause that's where, where I want to go.
1033
01:12:28,938 --> 01:12:33,478
Like, give me a greasy spoon diner or give me somewhere in that,
1034
01:12:33,618 --> 01:12:35,978
that your buddy's mom's number that's cooking.
1035
01:12:36,078 --> 01:12:40,278
Right. Right. Right. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's where y'all eating.
1036
01:12:40,378 --> 01:12:44,218
Like we, when we were in North Carolina for, for the junior Olympics,
1037
01:12:44,318 --> 01:12:50,158
we were like, Hey, where you guys eat? Well, they took us to this little restaurant
1038
01:12:50,158 --> 01:12:53,278
that had a whole bunch of beers on tap and some sandwiches.
1039
01:12:53,358 --> 01:12:56,658
And that was like one of the best hamburgers I had in a year.
1040
01:12:57,138 --> 01:13:03,158
You know, I can still think about it. It was a French onion hamburger.
1041
01:13:03,458 --> 01:13:07,398
So it was everything that goes in a French onion soup on a hamburger.
1042
01:13:07,658 --> 01:13:10,758
And it was delicious. Okay. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.
1043
01:13:11,650 --> 01:13:16,050
Tell me a little bit about this Louisiana Seafood Cook-Off that you just did.
1044
01:13:16,110 --> 01:13:17,690
This was, what, two months ago, maybe?
1045
01:13:17,870 --> 01:13:24,410
Yeah, it was right about two months ago. So every year they host a competition
1046
01:13:24,410 --> 01:13:30,510
to represent Louisiana in the National Seafood Cooking Contest.
1047
01:13:30,870 --> 01:13:39,450
It's put on by the Louisiana Seafood Board to promote Gulf seafood and Louisiana seafood. food.
1048
01:13:39,850 --> 01:13:44,550
And you have to apply and go ahead and be selected.
1049
01:13:44,890 --> 01:13:51,990
And out of 75 chefs that entered, I was humble enough to be chosen and went
1050
01:13:51,990 --> 01:13:55,690
compete, which it was very enlightening.
1051
01:13:55,850 --> 01:13:59,630
I haven't done a competition in a while.
1052
01:13:59,870 --> 01:14:05,530
And to be able to be cooking in front of all those people with all those,
1053
01:14:05,570 --> 01:14:09,170
the caliber of chefs that were selected were pretty, was pretty neat.
1054
01:14:09,370 --> 01:14:11,330
So it was, it was a great experience.
1055
01:14:11,550 --> 01:14:14,950
I didn't win. However, I was proud of my dish.
1056
01:14:15,090 --> 01:14:19,090
I would serve it for friends and family in a restaurant. You know,
1057
01:14:19,110 --> 01:14:21,450
I was definitely pleased with my dish.
1058
01:14:22,010 --> 01:14:27,590
The judges liked it, but we just, we didn't win. However, it was, it was cool.
1059
01:14:27,750 --> 01:14:33,850
What were the rules? So the rules were you have to use a Louisiana seafood product,
1060
01:14:33,950 --> 01:14:37,970
and everything had to be done within an hour.
1061
01:14:38,250 --> 01:14:42,930
And you also have to cook everything there. So all ingredients had to be raw,
1062
01:14:43,050 --> 01:14:45,890
and you started from raw ingredients.
1063
01:14:46,610 --> 01:14:49,970
And it had to go from there, and you had an hour to go. And would you cook?
1064
01:14:49,970 --> 01:14:58,370
So, I did a Zapp's potato chip crusted catfish with boursin and asparagus and
1065
01:14:58,370 --> 01:15:02,690
Louisiana crawfish risotto with Bloody Mary caviar.
1066
01:15:02,690 --> 01:15:06,130
And we did a celery oil.
1067
01:15:07,130 --> 01:15:13,450
Bloody Mary caviar. Yeah. That's what interests me. Yeah. It's some really cool food science.
1068
01:15:13,710 --> 01:15:19,370
We used a product called Agar Agar. It's derived from seaweed.
1069
01:15:19,970 --> 01:15:25,110
So it's kind of like a gelatin Jell-O. And we took all the ingredients and the
1070
01:15:25,110 --> 01:15:32,410
flavors of our traditional Bloody Mary, and we were able to make kind of like boba out of them.
1071
01:15:32,510 --> 01:15:38,690
So when you bit them, they popped, and it was a Bloody Mary in your mouth. So it was pretty unique.
1072
01:15:39,070 --> 01:15:43,470
And then the Zapp's Cajun Craw Taters, we crossed the catfish with it.
1073
01:15:43,550 --> 01:15:47,710
One time we were at the camp, and we were running out of –.
1074
01:15:49,056 --> 01:15:55,196
Out of fish fry. So I was like scrambling around. There you go. Like, what can I do?
1075
01:15:55,476 --> 01:15:59,596
Well, I get to have a bologna sandwich and Cajun Zaps crottata.
1076
01:15:59,656 --> 01:16:03,816
So we crumbled them up and we batted some redfish and we fried it up.
1077
01:16:03,876 --> 01:16:06,216
And everybody was like, oh man, this is so good.
1078
01:16:06,336 --> 01:16:10,116
I'm like, I don't know if we drunk or if it was good. It doesn't matter.
1079
01:16:10,116 --> 01:16:12,576
Or we were good and drunk. So I'm like, well, let me try it again.
1080
01:16:13,076 --> 01:16:18,116
So we tried it a couple more times. It worked out. I did it when I was at DJ's
1081
01:16:18,116 --> 01:16:20,076
for a couple of weekend specials.
1082
01:16:20,256 --> 01:16:23,276
Everybody liked it. So, kind of, I kept that in my back pocket.
1083
01:16:23,716 --> 01:16:27,176
And so, I was originally going to do it with Red Snapper.
1084
01:16:27,616 --> 01:16:32,656
But then, you know, being working for Spores and I'm all about humble ingredients,
1085
01:16:32,836 --> 01:16:36,876
making them, elevating them, you know. And what's catfish, right?
1086
01:16:37,136 --> 01:16:41,876
It's a humble ingredient that, you know, doesn't get much culinary credit.
1087
01:16:42,016 --> 01:16:43,956
So, I'm like, well, let me give that a shot.
1088
01:16:44,156 --> 01:16:48,336
And, you know, We tried it out, and it worked. We cooked it a couple times,
1089
01:16:48,596 --> 01:16:50,576
and everybody was like, man, it's delicious.
1090
01:16:50,916 --> 01:16:55,116
And I'm like, yeah, we're going to run with that. And like I said,
1091
01:16:55,216 --> 01:16:56,396
we were happy with the dish.
1092
01:16:57,896 --> 01:17:00,976
So it's history after that. Where did you get the crawfish?
1093
01:17:01,316 --> 01:17:09,076
So we get the crawfish from a packer right outside of Rain, Louisiana, in Welsh.
1094
01:17:09,636 --> 01:17:13,636
So we get our crawfish tails from them. And then—,
1095
01:17:15,171 --> 01:17:19,151
You said you fried the tails? How did you prepare the tails? The crawfish? Yeah.
1096
01:17:19,391 --> 01:17:24,011
We put them in a risotto. Okay. So risotto is kind of, it's an Italian rice
1097
01:17:24,011 --> 01:17:27,031
dish. It's basically a wet jambalaya.
1098
01:17:27,451 --> 01:17:32,871
And we put some boursin cheese and heavy cream and richened it up with,
1099
01:17:32,931 --> 01:17:36,591
and also put some asparagus for a little color and a little texture.
1100
01:17:39,331 --> 01:17:44,371
And another chef, the Grady Vee chef, Brent Daigle, he was there too.
1101
01:17:44,551 --> 01:17:49,111
Right. Were you guys eyeing each other up and ready to take each other down?
1102
01:17:50,711 --> 01:17:56,171
We know each other professionally and we kind of gave each other the good luck
1103
01:17:56,171 --> 01:17:58,271
and I'm going to beat you kind of thing.
1104
01:17:59,131 --> 01:18:05,371
It's a great camaraderie. We met the day before at a restaurant.
1105
01:18:05,451 --> 01:18:10,191
We had cocktails and just learned about the rules and learned about each other
1106
01:18:10,191 --> 01:18:16,451
and all that stuff. And it was a pretty fun, enlightened experience where all
1107
01:18:16,451 --> 01:18:17,891
the chefs were on the other side of the table.
1108
01:18:17,991 --> 01:18:20,851
People were waiting on us, not us waiting on them.
1109
01:18:21,111 --> 01:18:24,291
And we were able to chit-chat and talk about
1110
01:18:24,291 --> 01:18:28,491
trends in the industry and what's going on in your life and your culinary life
1111
01:18:28,491 --> 01:18:35,111
and how to balance some of the things that are going on between what's going
1112
01:18:35,111 --> 01:18:39,791
on in our profession in general and what specific problems you have in your
1113
01:18:39,791 --> 01:18:42,131
restaurant. restaurant and how to fix that, you know?
1114
01:18:42,171 --> 01:18:46,371
So we kind of each kind of, you know, did a little round table kind of discussion
1115
01:18:46,371 --> 01:18:49,071
and just, just shot the breeze for a little bit.
1116
01:18:49,231 --> 01:18:53,271
But when, when the day of the competition, it was all, all business,
1117
01:18:53,451 --> 01:18:58,971
you know, everybody was like, so, but we all, we all got on station set up and,
1118
01:19:00,002 --> 01:19:03,782
We went outside for a quote-unquote last-minute smoke where we did a little
1119
01:19:03,782 --> 01:19:07,822
quick powwow and wished each other good luck, you know.
1120
01:19:08,642 --> 01:19:11,622
I wonder if everyone was intimidated of the Thibodeaux boys.
1121
01:19:12,262 --> 01:19:16,202
You know, it's hard to imagine. What do they see? Yeah. When we show up,
1122
01:19:16,202 --> 01:19:17,942
they're like, oh, shit, that's the guys from Thibodeaux.
1123
01:19:18,042 --> 01:19:22,342
Yeah, we were. That's how I hope it is. We were above I-10, for sure. We were in Monroe.
1124
01:19:22,622 --> 01:19:27,542
So every once in a while, I can throw a down-to-body accent at some people. Oh, yeah.
1125
01:19:27,662 --> 01:19:32,122
I was able to hit that. And I brought a pirogue and a whole catfish.
1126
01:19:32,482 --> 01:19:38,542
So make a little smoke and mirrors and everybody was, we had a good time playing host. Yeah.
1127
01:19:39,122 --> 01:19:43,422
Bringing what's so great about Louisiana is, you know, one thing is our local seafood.
1128
01:19:43,862 --> 01:19:46,962
I would have drug the whole catfish in and hooked to a jug line.
1129
01:19:47,122 --> 01:19:51,062
Yeah, yeah. So I had to pick them up several times. The lieutenant governor
1130
01:19:51,062 --> 01:19:52,602
was like, hey, I need a picture with that.
1131
01:19:52,962 --> 01:19:57,322
It was a big one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like 35, 40 pounds.
1132
01:19:57,322 --> 01:20:01,022
We got it from our fish market nice and and yeah
1133
01:20:01,022 --> 01:20:04,482
mr redneck caught it like the day before so
1134
01:20:04,482 --> 01:20:07,622
it was it was nice and fresh and just just
1135
01:20:07,622 --> 01:20:10,482
really nice so i was like man i need to bring we
1136
01:20:10,482 --> 01:20:14,442
need to bring a whole catfish out there and we were like we also gonna be making
1137
01:20:14,442 --> 01:20:19,222
bloody marys so one of the one of the mc was like i went to nickels i know all
1138
01:20:19,222 --> 01:20:23,602
about spores i'm like he goes what about the bloody marys so i'm like you mean
1139
01:20:23,602 --> 01:20:28,822
this bloody mary right here mister he's like yeah Yeah, Bloody Mary. So it was awesome.
1140
01:20:29,442 --> 01:20:35,362
What did Brent cook? Brent did, I think, a redfish stuff with an undoing stuff
1141
01:20:35,362 --> 01:20:36,382
in, something like that.
1142
01:20:37,082 --> 01:20:40,422
And I think it's something that's served at Grady V's every once in a while.
1143
01:20:40,582 --> 01:20:44,782
Anything wild? Anyone make anything wild outside the box?
1144
01:20:45,222 --> 01:20:48,062
I guess yours is pretty damn outside the box. Right, right.
1145
01:20:49,162 --> 01:20:56,042
Somebody made some crab meat stuffed pasta. The winner was a simply seared tuna,
1146
01:20:56,122 --> 01:21:00,262
and he made a really nice sauce and some pickled vegetables.
1147
01:21:00,542 --> 01:21:07,342
I mean, it was just a different layer of flavors from the chefs.
1148
01:21:07,482 --> 01:21:14,862
Like we had one guy who he owns a smokehouse, so he did like a sous vide smoked
1149
01:21:14,862 --> 01:21:19,262
grouper and made like a little taco with them.
1150
01:21:19,262 --> 01:21:22,182
Them so it was just like a whole gauntlet of
1151
01:21:22,182 --> 01:21:25,202
like nobody did anything that was
1152
01:21:25,202 --> 01:21:28,422
like similar or like just
1153
01:21:28,422 --> 01:21:33,302
like the winner had a little asian flavor we had one guy that was like cajun
1154
01:21:33,302 --> 01:21:39,422
creole we had one guy that was french inspire you know we did we we did some
1155
01:21:39,422 --> 01:21:44,302
you know down home flavors but upscaled so it was just a whole different caveat
1156
01:21:44,302 --> 01:21:48,122
of like like food tastes and food experiences and techniques.
1157
01:21:48,362 --> 01:21:50,842
It's not like it would have been a fun one to judge.
1158
01:21:52,459 --> 01:21:55,879
Judging competitions sometimes are great and judging competitions
1159
01:21:55,879 --> 01:21:58,719
are sometimes oh i did the the
1160
01:21:58,719 --> 01:22:01,619
big boys cook-off last year and by the end
1161
01:22:01,619 --> 01:22:04,599
i was so how many entries oh i think i
1162
01:22:04,599 --> 01:22:07,979
had like 35 samples of the food
1163
01:22:07,979 --> 01:22:11,099
yeah that we that we sampled and
1164
01:22:11,099 --> 01:22:13,819
like we had one or two bites of things but like
1165
01:22:13,819 --> 01:22:16,579
towards the end it was like right i can't eat
1166
01:22:16,579 --> 01:22:19,419
this is the worst buffet ever just start chewing and
1167
01:22:19,419 --> 01:22:22,379
spitting out right i was like this like at the
1168
01:22:22,379 --> 01:22:25,059
the food was you know it was pretty tasty we had some
1169
01:22:25,059 --> 01:22:27,919
really good some not so good some you know
1170
01:22:27,919 --> 01:22:30,659
middle of the road but it was like it was a challenge it
1171
01:22:30,659 --> 01:22:33,479
was struggle coming coming towards the end you
1172
01:22:33,479 --> 01:22:36,159
know the finish line is like i don't know if i'm
1173
01:22:36,159 --> 01:22:39,019
gonna have any more jambalaya you know or any more
1174
01:22:39,019 --> 01:22:41,779
of uh of this now let me ask you this because i'm
1175
01:22:41,779 --> 01:22:45,059
thinking about it right now i'm in a cooking competition i know
1176
01:22:45,059 --> 01:22:48,279
what what it needs to taste like right and it's minute zero and
1177
01:22:48,279 --> 01:22:51,219
it ain't there right right you submit it
1178
01:22:51,219 --> 01:22:54,099
yeah or you pull it yeah you throw it in the garbage yeah
1179
01:22:54,099 --> 01:22:57,159
yeah i don't know what would you do so
1180
01:22:57,159 --> 01:23:01,079
i guess you have so you can't cop out and not if you submit it you have to take
1181
01:23:01,079 --> 01:23:05,459
the loss right right if it doesn't taste like it's supposed to be i'll rather
1182
01:23:05,459 --> 01:23:09,439
you i'm not i'm not serving it i'd rather throw it away it's not right i'm not
1183
01:23:09,439 --> 01:23:14,779
serving it i'd throw it away right because i want When I submit it, I want to feel,
1184
01:23:14,899 --> 01:23:19,139
I want to bite it and say, yep, this is the best I could possibly make it.
1185
01:23:19,139 --> 01:23:21,139
And it tastes exactly like I want it to taste.
1186
01:23:21,279 --> 01:23:23,959
If it doesn't win, it doesn't win. But here's what you need to taste.
1187
01:23:24,279 --> 01:23:30,559
Correctly. Correct. So, like, you know, unfortunately, somebody burnt a dish and submitted it.
1188
01:23:30,619 --> 01:23:34,959
You know, we took a bite and unfortunately, it was like, everybody was like, they burn it.
1189
01:23:35,039 --> 01:23:38,739
You know, we had some that the rice wasn't cooked all the way.
1190
01:23:39,219 --> 01:23:42,339
Yeah. You know, but in a competition setting,
1191
01:23:42,499 --> 01:23:46,219
you know, you, you want to put your best foot forward because you're being judged
1192
01:23:46,219 --> 01:23:50,039
hopefully by somebody who knows something when they're looking for,
1193
01:23:50,119 --> 01:23:55,859
you know, either perfection or, you know, they're judging on a criteria.
1194
01:23:56,019 --> 01:23:58,739
You know, did you meet all these criterias?
1195
01:23:59,439 --> 01:24:02,799
And that's what I'm, that's what I'm looking like at, you know,
1196
01:24:02,799 --> 01:24:05,699
so like it, does it look good?
1197
01:24:05,799 --> 01:24:09,579
Does it taste good? Is it, you know, if you're doing a jambalaya contest,
1198
01:24:09,959 --> 01:24:11,679
did they use Paul ball rice?
1199
01:24:11,799 --> 01:24:16,139
Did they use regular rice? You know, or how, how dark is it?
1200
01:24:16,159 --> 01:24:21,579
Is it, you know, it's, and the, the theory of Paul ball rice versus regular
1201
01:24:21,579 --> 01:24:23,899
rice, you know, who thinks it's better?
1202
01:24:24,139 --> 01:24:28,759
Um, it's, it's all those things that, that have to go in there when you're judging. Yeah.
1203
01:24:29,944 --> 01:24:35,644
I guess you have to cook to the judges on some things, you know,
1204
01:24:35,664 --> 01:24:38,764
especially this competition that I was in, it was, you know,
1205
01:24:38,764 --> 01:24:43,364
make the best dish, but like we had criteria that we had to cook towards.
1206
01:24:43,504 --> 01:24:46,404
I mean, it was just making, making it that way.
1207
01:24:47,764 --> 01:24:52,444
So going back to the restaurant stuff, and this is a question,
1208
01:24:52,504 --> 01:24:56,124
this isn't a spars question. This would just be a Brandon question.
1209
01:24:56,864 --> 01:25:01,924
What are you looking for in, in a new hire? So definitely some passion.
1210
01:25:02,364 --> 01:25:09,484
I interviewed a little girl a couple of days ago that I really,
1211
01:25:09,524 --> 01:25:11,764
really hope I can find a spot for her.
1212
01:25:12,324 --> 01:25:19,404
She hit all the boxes of what sports is looking for, and it seemed genuine.
1213
01:25:19,404 --> 01:25:23,444
So like I look for, you know, somebody that's passionate,
1214
01:25:23,604 --> 01:25:27,324
somebody who's, you know, I can, you can teach a monkey a new trick,
1215
01:25:27,444 --> 01:25:31,224
you know, but you have to be passionate to like want to learn something,
1216
01:25:31,324 --> 01:25:38,004
you know, a hard worker and, you know, everybody answers all the interview questions correctly.
1217
01:25:38,224 --> 01:25:42,484
It's just, we like to ask and I like to ask different questions,
1218
01:25:42,544 --> 01:25:45,924
you know, like where you see yourself in five years.
1219
01:25:47,024 --> 01:25:50,584
I'm laughing because I was listening to Brody interview someone this morning.
1220
01:25:50,644 --> 01:25:52,884
His question was, how do you like the cookie pork chops?
1221
01:25:54,124 --> 01:25:57,864
Right. You know, you know, in, in, in you guys' case, right?
1222
01:25:57,964 --> 01:26:01,224
So they come in and, Hey, I want to cook a steak.
1223
01:26:01,804 --> 01:26:03,764
Well, what kind of steak you want? Right.
1224
01:26:05,224 --> 01:26:10,024
So you, you can tell him, well, I got these rib eyes I can cut,
1225
01:26:10,044 --> 01:26:11,524
or I can get you this porterhouse.
1226
01:26:11,524 --> 01:26:14,324
You know well my wife doesn't like anything
1227
01:26:14,324 --> 01:26:17,244
that's fatty well how about you try this porterhouse you
1228
01:26:17,244 --> 01:26:20,184
get a filet and you get a new york trip all in all in
1229
01:26:20,184 --> 01:26:23,224
one shot so it's like the best of both worlds are you know
1230
01:26:23,224 --> 01:26:27,524
you get a burly man and it's like you need this this tomahawk steak because
1231
01:26:27,524 --> 01:26:33,364
like that's what it is you know you gotta your employees have to be willing
1232
01:26:33,364 --> 01:26:38,644
to answer those questions especially in the customer service setting in the
1233
01:26:38,644 --> 01:26:41,024
back of the house setting it's you know,
1234
01:26:41,084 --> 01:26:43,404
are you able to multitask?
1235
01:26:43,564 --> 01:26:48,224
Are you able to work under pressure because that's what you're under the whole time.
1236
01:26:48,244 --> 01:26:53,124
You know, we want food out in 15 minutes, you know, can you do that?
1237
01:26:54,377 --> 01:26:59,577
Are you able to read something, understand it, read, comprehend,
1238
01:26:59,677 --> 01:27:02,077
and produce it? Because, you know, we have recipes.
1239
01:27:02,737 --> 01:27:06,197
You gather all the ingredients. Here's the procedures. You read it.
1240
01:27:06,657 --> 01:27:10,597
And now you have to do it. You know, how does that work for you?
1241
01:27:12,057 --> 01:27:17,037
And then, you know, one place that I want to apply to right after culinary school,
1242
01:27:17,417 --> 01:27:19,717
got my culinary degree, right? Cool.
1243
01:27:20,097 --> 01:27:23,177
Then he was like, all right, here's a chicken. Here's some stuff.
1244
01:27:23,177 --> 01:27:25,997
They got a little pantry ingredients go cook
1245
01:27:25,997 --> 01:27:29,117
me something like before he even talked that's cool
1246
01:27:29,117 --> 01:27:32,177
you know like go cook me something so
1247
01:27:32,177 --> 01:27:39,177
he's like you got 45 minutes and that was my interview you know what did you
1248
01:27:39,177 --> 01:27:44,357
cook how did you cook it all right you hired yep yeah we've done working interviews
1249
01:27:44,357 --> 01:27:49,797
where there's no talking and all right are you okay to clock in right now clock in go
1250
01:27:49,837 --> 01:27:52,777
back and i'll see you back at five and we'll
1251
01:27:52,777 --> 01:27:55,637
get a feel on on if it's a good fit for
1252
01:27:55,637 --> 01:27:58,497
you right you know sometimes that's the best sometimes like
1253
01:27:58,497 --> 01:28:01,857
you said you got the you got the right personality and they have those character
1254
01:28:01,857 --> 01:28:06,857
traits that you you know you can't teach they just need to be there already
1255
01:28:06,857 --> 01:28:10,857
and you don't necessarily have the spot for them but you make the hire right
1256
01:28:10,857 --> 01:28:14,837
you make you create a spot for them because they need to be on the team exactly
1257
01:28:14,837 --> 01:28:16,497
exactly you You definitely,
1258
01:28:16,737 --> 01:28:20,277
like, you know, and especially this day and age, it's not...
1259
01:28:21,258 --> 01:28:24,578
It's hard to find some employees sometimes.
1260
01:28:24,698 --> 01:28:27,358
It's, you know, or you're getting
1261
01:28:27,358 --> 01:28:30,598
bounced around employees where they left because they didn't like it.
1262
01:28:30,678 --> 01:28:34,538
And then, you know, they thought the ground was greener on the other side.
1263
01:28:34,578 --> 01:28:39,058
And then next thing you know, oh, yeah, I'm hiring because I really want to come back.
1264
01:28:39,218 --> 01:28:44,758
You know, and that kind of put something back towards you, like what you did
1265
01:28:44,758 --> 01:28:47,918
as a manager, what you did as, you know, as a business.
1266
01:28:47,978 --> 01:28:50,998
Like why you want to come back. you
1267
01:28:50,998 --> 01:28:54,838
know not not so much why you laughed is what
1268
01:28:54,838 --> 01:28:58,018
you think that you coming back has
1269
01:28:58,018 --> 01:29:01,698
to offer yeah so you can you can understand like you
1270
01:29:01,698 --> 01:29:06,378
know we're doing stuff right yeah sure we do it often right we get a lot of
1271
01:29:06,378 --> 01:29:10,638
rehires right you know do it often not afraid to hire you know if they're if
1272
01:29:10,638 --> 01:29:16,138
they're right not afraid to hire impact correct correct yeah what do you think
1273
01:29:16,138 --> 01:29:18,118
were maybe the most important things,
1274
01:29:18,318 --> 01:29:24,138
not experienced by you, but passed down to you from, from someone,
1275
01:29:24,178 --> 01:29:28,118
from your parents, from a mentor, you know, college professor or whatever.
1276
01:29:30,478 --> 01:29:37,658
So hard work. My, my father was a laborer and he taught me, or he told me early
1277
01:29:37,658 --> 01:29:40,218
on in life, you can have two jobs, son.
1278
01:29:40,458 --> 01:29:43,658
You can have one that works with your brain and they got one,
1279
01:29:43,658 --> 01:29:47,678
the one you can work with your back, you decide which one you want to use.
1280
01:29:48,238 --> 01:29:52,518
So, you know, make sure you get an education, make sure you,
1281
01:29:52,538 --> 01:29:56,538
you find something that you passionate about and, you know, work hard and people
1282
01:29:56,538 --> 01:30:00,338
see like your hard work, your dedication, you know,
1283
01:30:01,642 --> 01:30:05,582
I worked at places, you know, for a while and like, I was like,
1284
01:30:05,642 --> 01:30:08,402
man, this place is just not, not for me,
1285
01:30:08,482 --> 01:30:12,602
but I'm going to work there until either I find something better or,
1286
01:30:12,662 --> 01:30:16,862
you know, you gave me the experience or the, the grace to hire me.
1287
01:30:17,222 --> 01:30:22,802
And, you know, I'm a team player. I want to, I want to do right by you because
1288
01:30:22,802 --> 01:30:27,442
you, you gave me the opportunity to, to learn or, or, you know,
1289
01:30:27,442 --> 01:30:29,402
to provide for my family.
1290
01:30:29,402 --> 01:30:33,722
So I'm going to, I'm going to make sure that, you know, I do my best while I'm there,
1291
01:30:33,922 --> 01:30:37,622
you know, so you definitely, definitely gotta, gotta put in the work,
1292
01:30:37,642 --> 01:30:42,442
you know, to, to, to get where you are, be passionate about what you do and,
1293
01:30:42,462 --> 01:30:45,422
and, you know, just be a man of your word.
1294
01:30:45,502 --> 01:30:49,602
You know, it's, it's, it's like the old saying, you're only good as you're handshaking
1295
01:30:49,602 --> 01:30:52,882
your word. That's the only two things people can't, can't take from you.
1296
01:30:53,142 --> 01:30:56,782
So you gotta just make sure every day that you live all those,
1297
01:30:56,782 --> 01:30:58,222
all those values and models.
1298
01:30:59,582 --> 01:31:05,762
Let's go with this as our closing question. What's a dish that you would hope
1299
01:31:05,762 --> 01:31:11,082
long after you're gone is still being cooked in your honor?
1300
01:31:12,742 --> 01:31:18,462
From your kids, grandkids, or wherever. I do a lot. Let me start by this answer.
1301
01:31:18,942 --> 01:31:25,202
If you're telling me that it's my last meal, I'm doing chicken stew,
1302
01:31:25,482 --> 01:31:30,902
white beans, sauerkraut, and L&N French bread. That's my last meal.
1303
01:31:32,142 --> 01:31:36,542
But like I said earlier, we did, we have a family tradition of barbecuing.
1304
01:31:36,682 --> 01:31:41,382
I've started, started teaching my kids the ins and outs of, of our barbecue.
1305
01:31:41,462 --> 01:31:47,582
And I hope like that, that's one of the last and last in dishes that we can do. And then.
1306
01:31:48,715 --> 01:31:52,875
We have two dishes for the holidays that we normally do. One is a cabbage dressing
1307
01:31:52,875 --> 01:31:56,775
kind of casserole with onion, celery, bell pepper, some ground meat.
1308
01:31:56,935 --> 01:32:00,035
And you smother the cabbage down, you add some rice, and done deal.
1309
01:32:00,335 --> 01:32:03,635
And the other one is some field peas or chack bay peas.
1310
01:32:04,275 --> 01:32:09,195
That's one of our family favorites. But those are a couple of things.
1311
01:32:09,635 --> 01:32:15,335
And then, of course, pot fried chicken is always key with some good cornbread, greens.
1312
01:32:15,335 --> 01:32:21,495
And, and, and hopefully they'll, they'll learn and to, uh, appreciate some smothered
1313
01:32:21,495 --> 01:32:25,295
greens with, with some smoke stuff from bourgeois, uh, in it,
1314
01:32:25,315 --> 01:32:29,675
you know, cause growing up, like didn't like eating mustard green and stuff.
1315
01:32:29,795 --> 01:32:35,275
And my grandpa had gardens and we had, we had all the greens and we ate that
1316
01:32:35,275 --> 01:32:37,475
and it was not that great.
1317
01:32:37,575 --> 01:32:40,675
Or like when we were young, when I was young, I was like, man, that's gross.
1318
01:32:40,815 --> 01:32:47,135
But now it's like, I need that in my life, you know? So we try to cook it every once in a while.
1319
01:32:47,255 --> 01:32:49,955
And my kids are the same way. It's like, that looks like grass.
1320
01:32:50,195 --> 01:32:51,575
I'm like, yeah, but it's delicious.
1321
01:32:51,835 --> 01:32:57,635
My kids, you put sausage in anything, and it doesn't matter what the item is.
1322
01:32:57,735 --> 01:32:59,515
It's, Dad, is this sausage?
1323
01:32:59,855 --> 01:33:03,295
Yep. I love sausage. And then they just kill the dish.
1324
01:33:03,475 --> 01:33:07,975
You can hide whatever you want in there. You put some smoked sausage, they're crushing it.
1325
01:33:08,035 --> 01:33:11,055
That's just like my little one. I just bought
1326
01:33:11,055 --> 01:33:13,915
a got a blackstone grill and we made we made
1327
01:33:13,915 --> 01:33:17,495
bourgeois hamburgers all like man these are
1328
01:33:17,495 --> 01:33:20,355
almost as good as the fireman's fare
1329
01:33:20,355 --> 01:33:26,495
burgers I'm like but these are the same fireman yeah but I don't know if it's
1330
01:33:26,495 --> 01:33:35,935
just the rides but there's a way back so man if only we could have a super duper
1331
01:33:35,935 --> 01:33:40,255
flame broiler at home right right right shit you can almost make making one, you know?
1332
01:33:40,475 --> 01:33:43,655
But yeah, it's, you know, all those, all the.
1333
01:33:44,647 --> 01:33:52,287
I would rather create food memories than, like, be remembered for a dish.
1334
01:33:53,267 --> 01:34:00,807
Like, I would like somebody to taste something and remember where they were,
1335
01:34:00,987 --> 01:34:04,267
what they were doing while eating it.
1336
01:34:04,487 --> 01:34:10,347
Like, that's. Yeah, very cool. You know, I went to a food show one year,
1337
01:34:10,627 --> 01:34:13,807
and one of my classmates was sampling some pickles.
1338
01:34:14,727 --> 01:34:19,787
And he's like, hey, taste these. I'm like, eh, not a super huge fan of bread and butter pickles.
1339
01:34:20,267 --> 01:34:27,807
Well, tasted one. I had an instant food memory of, like, my great aunt made those pickles.
1340
01:34:28,127 --> 01:34:34,507
So I left the table. I called my mom. I'm like, hey, you have Aunt May's bread
1341
01:34:34,507 --> 01:34:36,987
and butter pickle recipe? She's like, probably somewhere.
1342
01:34:37,267 --> 01:34:39,607
I'm like, find it. We need to make some.
1343
01:34:41,747 --> 01:34:44,807
So we got home. she found the
1344
01:34:44,807 --> 01:34:47,587
recipe we made the pickles and i was like i'll be
1345
01:34:47,587 --> 01:34:50,607
damn got it those are the pickles yeah that's so
1346
01:34:50,607 --> 01:34:53,647
cool so passion man just gotta
1347
01:34:53,647 --> 01:34:58,507
find a way to to teach it i don't know if the right thing is to force it into
1348
01:34:58,507 --> 01:35:02,247
their brains you you have to force i guess you force it you have to you have
1349
01:35:02,247 --> 01:35:07,207
to do it till they break like you know you because what's what's happening at
1350
01:35:07,207 --> 01:35:12,547
school right right they're being force-fed right stuff that we might not agree with so the things we
1351
01:35:12,627 --> 01:35:15,947
truly believe in force it, force it.
1352
01:35:15,987 --> 01:35:18,967
If cooking is important, you got to learn how to cook. Yeah.
1353
01:35:19,187 --> 01:35:23,227
It's a life skill. So like, you know, it's a life, you have to eat it.
1354
01:35:23,447 --> 01:35:26,667
The only thing is different. It's what you're eating. Sure.
1355
01:35:26,767 --> 01:35:29,927
It's, it's, and what's crazy is like, especially at culinary school,
1356
01:35:30,027 --> 01:35:33,867
like we all had the same ingredients to make the same recipe.
1357
01:35:34,647 --> 01:35:39,867
And so we had, you know, say five teams, five different tastes.
1358
01:35:40,127 --> 01:35:42,167
And we had all the same ingredients.
1359
01:35:42,547 --> 01:35:51,587
So, it's finding the flavors and the things that are important and letting those shine.
1360
01:35:51,867 --> 01:35:55,567
And that's kind of just like everything. You find what's important in life and
1361
01:35:55,567 --> 01:35:58,867
you shoot for the moon with those.
1362
01:35:58,927 --> 01:36:01,247
And other things, it's like, yeah, whatever.
1363
01:36:01,967 --> 01:36:06,307
Yeah. I mean, dude, look at twins or triplets.
1364
01:36:06,547 --> 01:36:11,607
Same household. One of them's NASA engineer and one of them's dead on the railroad tracks. Right.
1365
01:36:11,867 --> 01:36:14,127
You know, it's, it's, it's all, it all depends.
1366
01:36:14,427 --> 01:36:18,767
It's just, it's weird. You know, you just gotta, you gotta figure out,
1367
01:36:18,767 --> 01:36:24,307
you know, how, how to make productive members of society and, and go from there.
1368
01:36:24,427 --> 01:36:28,307
It's, you know, raising kids is, it's, it's a whole different ballgame,
1369
01:36:28,367 --> 01:36:31,387
you know, especially this day and age where, you know,
1370
01:36:32,188 --> 01:36:36,808
parents and styles are different and what you see in school and TV and whatnot.
1371
01:36:37,048 --> 01:36:42,788
And it's like, well, this is the right way, you know, or this is the way we, we think.
1372
01:36:43,828 --> 01:36:47,488
Yeah. Kind of have to take over. Right. And it's like, well,
1373
01:36:47,648 --> 01:36:50,628
I don't like to eat this. Did you try it?
1374
01:36:51,028 --> 01:36:54,708
No. Well, you know, I, and how, you know, you don't like it.
1375
01:36:54,888 --> 01:36:58,988
My, my kids famous question is, do I like this?
1376
01:36:59,668 --> 01:37:02,788
And then my answer is just, yes. and they eat it
1377
01:37:02,788 --> 01:37:05,448
or like i never i don't know i don't
1378
01:37:05,448 --> 01:37:08,688
remember this do i like this oh okay yeah or
1379
01:37:08,688 --> 01:37:11,708
i don't know if i like this well try it
1380
01:37:11,708 --> 01:37:17,928
like and i i tell i tell my staff that as well and i've told my staff that a
1381
01:37:17,928 --> 01:37:22,248
thousand times i'm like i don't eat that well what you mean you don't eat it
1382
01:37:22,248 --> 01:37:30,808
i never tried it okay so the worst thing that can happen is you get a napkin, you taste it,
1383
01:37:30,908 --> 01:37:33,628
you don't like it, you put it in a napkin, and you throw it away.
1384
01:37:34,848 --> 01:37:38,148
Nine out of 10 times, you're going to taste it and you're going to love it.
1385
01:37:38,388 --> 01:37:39,908
And it's going to be something new.
1386
01:37:40,228 --> 01:37:45,948
And then you understand and you can explain to a customer what it tastes like.
1387
01:37:46,908 --> 01:37:50,668
We started using a bunch of goldfish from our
1388
01:37:50,668 --> 01:37:54,048
seafood market for our specials so you
1389
01:37:54,048 --> 01:37:59,628
know we make a plate for them to taste that and and and suggestively sell it
1390
01:37:59,628 --> 01:38:04,048
to our guests and it's like i don't want to eat it well you're gonna have to
1391
01:38:04,048 --> 01:38:08,908
eat it like you're gonna have to try it because like you need to be able to
1392
01:38:08,908 --> 01:38:13,728
explain like what a hogfish is and what a hogfish fish tastes like,
1393
01:38:13,808 --> 01:38:17,088
which that has become my new favorite Gulf fish,
1394
01:38:17,228 --> 01:38:20,708
you know, and it's ugly.
1395
01:38:21,548 --> 01:38:24,948
It's an ugly looking fish. Yeah. It's a, it's an ugly looking fish,
1396
01:38:25,028 --> 01:38:29,228
but he's, he's very, very tasty, you know, and it's just in our industry,
1397
01:38:29,308 --> 01:38:31,968
we always look for something new, unique,
1398
01:38:32,168 --> 01:38:36,588
sustainable that, that we want to, we want to use, you know,
1399
01:38:36,588 --> 01:38:43,048
and we, we very passionate about sustainable and supporting our local fishing
1400
01:38:43,048 --> 01:38:46,008
and, and Gulf seafood and, and whatnot.
1401
01:38:46,228 --> 01:38:49,708
So, you know, that's what we were heavy on in the restaurant.
1402
01:38:49,948 --> 01:38:54,468
And I find myself doing the same thing as, you know, we're gonna,
1403
01:38:54,528 --> 01:38:57,808
we're gonna find stuff that like.
1404
01:38:58,870 --> 01:39:07,410
Mean something and we're going to use it to eat you know like you guys have been open since 1891,
1405
01:39:08,330 --> 01:39:14,630
like y'all have to be doing something right so like come try we're we're gonna
1406
01:39:14,630 --> 01:39:19,670
we're making a jambalaya we're going to get buchwas andouille and sausage you
1407
01:39:19,670 --> 01:39:22,970
know you just got to use what's It's local, it's fresh,
1408
01:39:23,150 --> 01:39:26,910
and just kind of help everybody out.
1409
01:39:27,070 --> 01:39:31,490
You know, if it's a local business, small, local, support them because,
1410
01:39:31,710 --> 01:39:33,670
you know, they're your community.
1411
01:39:33,910 --> 01:39:38,950
And then when your kids need a softball sponsor or a baseball sponsor,
1412
01:39:39,450 --> 01:39:43,930
you know, we're going to have bourgeoisos, we're going to have spars or, you know.
1413
01:39:44,170 --> 01:39:48,090
Rico, Rico, Reynolds or whatever is going to be your sponsor. Yeah.
1414
01:39:48,250 --> 01:39:51,450
Maybe people don't understand that though, because you get a lot of requests
1415
01:39:51,450 --> 01:39:56,670
in from people or companies and then, you know, you kind of show it to everyone.
1416
01:39:56,770 --> 01:39:59,310
And does anyone know this company?
1417
01:39:59,550 --> 01:40:03,150
Has anyone ever seen anyone from this organization before?
1418
01:40:03,770 --> 01:40:07,810
No, no, no, no, no. Right. Okay, then we'll pass on it.
1419
01:40:07,890 --> 01:40:10,510
Do you want to support people that support you? Right. What about the guys that
1420
01:40:10,510 --> 01:40:11,990
are in here daily, you know?
1421
01:40:12,710 --> 01:40:16,090
But yeah, I guess they don't really think that far. Yeah.
1422
01:40:16,710 --> 01:40:21,350
Yeah, so talking on trying things and tasting things, it's so difficult,
1423
01:40:21,390 --> 01:40:26,670
and I can't fathom why an adult wouldn't try something.
1424
01:40:26,890 --> 01:40:31,050
If you're allergic to something, sure, but if it's that, you're afraid that
1425
01:40:31,050 --> 01:40:32,150
it's going to taste bad, exactly.
1426
01:40:32,510 --> 01:40:36,830
Right. And we started doing these shows, and, you know, we're sampling jerky,
1427
01:40:36,850 --> 01:40:41,030
and people will pass and say, I don't eat beef jerky, you know,
1428
01:40:41,030 --> 01:40:45,910
or, you know, I don't like that. I said, have you tried ours?
1429
01:40:46,310 --> 01:40:51,550
No, but it doesn't matter. I don't like beef jerky. Look, just try this. Hand them a piece.
1430
01:40:52,390 --> 01:40:59,290
No way. I'll give you a dollar if you try it. No thanks. I'll give you $5 if you try it. All right.
1431
01:41:00,230 --> 01:41:03,230
Pops it in her mouth, then buys three or four packs.
1432
01:41:03,590 --> 01:41:06,550
And I don't understand that. It's just the bias.
1433
01:41:06,610 --> 01:41:10,390
I don't understand it. It's just the bias of not. Just put it in your mouth.
1434
01:41:10,430 --> 01:41:13,170
Yeah, just taste it. Like, you know, like.
1435
01:41:13,904 --> 01:41:17,684
The especially like the off cuts like oxtail or
1436
01:41:17,684 --> 01:41:20,784
you know short ribs or you know things
1437
01:41:20,784 --> 01:41:24,584
dude blood boudin is the only thing i understand
1438
01:41:24,584 --> 01:41:27,184
i'm still gonna try my hardest to get you to
1439
01:41:27,184 --> 01:41:30,664
try it right it's the only exception anything
1440
01:41:30,664 --> 01:41:33,404
else if you're an adult just shut up
1441
01:41:33,404 --> 01:41:36,084
and try it exactly the blood boudin sure let's talk
1442
01:41:36,084 --> 01:41:39,524
about it first let me explain it to you first but no
1443
01:41:39,524 --> 01:41:42,724
so another story this was a few years ago like christmas time
1444
01:41:42,724 --> 01:41:45,504
the front is packed we got like line out
1445
01:41:45,504 --> 01:41:48,464
the door and you know a teenager with
1446
01:41:48,464 --> 01:41:51,604
her mom and i'm bringing some uh turkey cheese
1447
01:41:51,604 --> 01:41:54,344
at the slap it on the scale for someone and the little girl
1448
01:41:54,344 --> 01:41:57,264
goes oh and the mom
1449
01:41:57,264 --> 01:42:00,044
goes she's like don't say oh that's turkey cheese we love
1450
01:42:00,044 --> 01:42:03,764
that and the girl goes i don't love it so i'm
1451
01:42:03,764 --> 01:42:06,524
busy i'm running around i'm back and forth on the on the metal table and
1452
01:42:06,524 --> 01:42:09,824
i'm wrapping stuff with people and i said have you
1453
01:42:09,824 --> 01:42:12,504
you ever tried it and she goes no no way i never eat that and i
1454
01:42:12,504 --> 01:42:15,524
said i'll give you a dollar if you try it you know i'm wrapping myself said so
1455
01:42:15,524 --> 01:42:21,044
i go in the cooler come back out bringing you know sausage for the next person
1456
01:42:21,044 --> 01:42:27,504
wrapping give you five dollars said nope go back in come back i did this until
1457
01:42:27,504 --> 01:42:34,244
we got to twenty dollars and she she said nope twenty dollars will not take a bite of it
1458
01:42:34,664 --> 01:42:37,504
and they had a guy behind her in line he goes i don't want to try it either.
1459
01:42:38,884 --> 01:42:42,504
Shit i'd pay you to try it well speaking
1460
01:42:42,504 --> 01:42:45,544
of stories so one time i went in with
1461
01:42:45,544 --> 01:42:48,344
the boys and they had a couple ladies on the side
1462
01:42:48,344 --> 01:42:51,244
of it and there was somebody on the butcher block and they
1463
01:42:51,244 --> 01:42:57,084
they had a couple hogs head on the on the block and sorry was just able to start
1464
01:42:57,084 --> 01:43:03,684
seeing over the over the counter and he's all like dad what's that and i was
1465
01:43:03,684 --> 01:43:06,824
like that's hog heads they're gonna I'm going to make a cheese out of it.
1466
01:43:07,184 --> 01:43:08,584
And he looks and he's like.
1467
01:43:09,610 --> 01:43:15,230
That's where that comes from? And I'm like, yeah, buddy, it's in the name, Hogshead Cheese.
1468
01:43:15,470 --> 01:43:18,210
He goes, well, that looks delicious.
1469
01:43:18,850 --> 01:43:22,810
And the old lady, like, dropped her sausage and looked at my little boy,
1470
01:43:22,870 --> 01:43:26,750
and he was probably like four or five, and was like, what'd you know about Hogshead Cheese?
1471
01:43:27,030 --> 01:43:29,870
He goes, I like that. That's good.
1472
01:43:30,090 --> 01:43:33,490
You know, he's like, I didn't know that came from there. You know,
1473
01:43:33,490 --> 01:43:39,330
and it's just like, you know, now he doesn't eat it because he's Sawyer,
1474
01:43:39,450 --> 01:43:44,190
but, you know, it was, it was just like, so that's where that comes from.
1475
01:43:44,450 --> 01:43:48,190
Innocence is good when it comes to flavor, right? Yeah. Yeah.
1476
01:43:48,270 --> 01:43:54,610
You definitely, we definitely got somewhere from, from what we,
1477
01:43:54,670 --> 01:43:59,270
what we had, you know, and especially the, the people in South Louisiana,
1478
01:43:59,350 --> 01:44:02,850
you know, we, we can make almost anything tasty.
1479
01:44:03,170 --> 01:44:05,430
Or last longer. Or last longer. Yeah.
1480
01:44:06,030 --> 01:44:11,210
We're going to use it from the oink to the boink. I guess that's a good one. A good analogy.
1481
01:44:11,670 --> 01:44:14,070
We'll use it from- That's going to be the title of this podcast.
1482
01:44:14,950 --> 01:44:18,490
From the oink to the boink. From the oink to the boink. But yeah,
1483
01:44:18,710 --> 01:44:24,670
people grew up in the age where no refrigeration and.
1484
01:44:25,910 --> 01:44:32,490
How to utilize the whole animal and use it in a respectful way to nourish your
1485
01:44:32,490 --> 01:44:33,710
family so you can survived.
1486
01:44:33,950 --> 01:44:40,290
And, you know, luckily we had a whole bunch of cultural influences that were
1487
01:44:40,290 --> 01:44:43,670
able to like shape our cuisine in South Louisiana.
1488
01:44:43,910 --> 01:44:47,550
You know, we got the wonderful sausage maker from the Germans and,
1489
01:44:47,630 --> 01:44:52,170
you know, gumbos from the African portion
1490
01:44:52,170 --> 01:44:59,710
of the Louisianians and just a whole bunch of dishes that that were you know
1491
01:44:59,710 --> 01:45:05,670
a melting pot together from all cultures and all walks of life you know yep
1492
01:45:05,670 --> 01:45:11,910
and we we love to you know i don't know i guess we we love the nostalgia of the.
1493
01:45:12,750 --> 01:45:19,290
The old ways and the you know pre-refrigeration and before we we get these items
1494
01:45:19,290 --> 01:45:25,010
out of luxury and want, you know, it was all done the way it needed to be done.
1495
01:45:25,130 --> 01:45:29,510
And every, you know, all the stuff where we enjoy now, these are all byproducts
1496
01:45:29,510 --> 01:45:30,650
and they don't need to happen.
1497
01:45:30,830 --> 01:45:39,150
And the cool thing about us is if, if the economy didn't allow and we had to go back to bare bones,
1498
01:45:39,750 --> 01:45:46,170
you know, we can, who else could, we can go, we can certainly go back to smoking
1499
01:45:46,170 --> 01:45:48,090
stuff just to make it last longer.
1500
01:45:48,250 --> 01:45:54,070
And, you know. So what's very popular right now is all the charcuterie boards, right? Sure.
1501
01:45:54,850 --> 01:46:03,770
So all the sausages and all the pates and whatnot, that was all the ways to preserve.
1502
01:46:05,596 --> 01:46:09,776
All the cuts, you know, after you butcher the animal, you know,
1503
01:46:09,796 --> 01:46:11,776
to make it last a little longer.
1504
01:46:11,916 --> 01:46:14,136
You're saying it wasn't for a pretty Instagram picture?
1505
01:46:14,416 --> 01:46:19,556
No, it wasn't. But now it is. It's like a double lunchables, you know.
1506
01:46:19,696 --> 01:46:26,056
Now it is. You know, all the pâtés and the sausages and all those charcuterie
1507
01:46:26,056 --> 01:46:30,156
items, you know, they were made by necessity.
1508
01:46:30,156 --> 01:46:33,696
Necessity you know you you know a big animal
1509
01:46:33,696 --> 01:46:37,096
you can only eat on it while it's fresh for so long and
1510
01:46:37,096 --> 01:46:39,976
then you have to do something else either to preserve
1511
01:46:39,976 --> 01:46:45,256
it or share it or you know so it doesn't go to waste and especially the people
1512
01:46:45,256 --> 01:46:48,916
in south louisiana we don't like to waste anything you know your leftovers become
1513
01:46:48,916 --> 01:46:53,916
something else and you make something else out of it but you know it's It's
1514
01:46:53,916 --> 01:46:59,756
out of necessity that those fun things that we enjoy came about. Yep.
1515
01:47:00,536 --> 01:47:04,696
And we just got to keep it going, keep it happening, and keep passing down our passions.
1516
01:47:04,876 --> 01:47:08,336
And that's what this thing is for. You know, that's what this is about.
1517
01:47:08,456 --> 01:47:12,856
Hopefully, you kids can listen to this and learn a lot of things and their kids
1518
01:47:12,856 --> 01:47:14,556
and their kids. And that's the goal.
1519
01:47:14,976 --> 01:47:20,396
Keep this whatever we think is important for whatever reason that we think right now.
1520
01:47:20,576 --> 01:47:24,836
And it might change in 10 years. I don't know. Yeah, these are like really good fishing stories.
1521
01:47:24,856 --> 01:47:29,236
Sort of like going to the nostalgic barbershop and sitting and listening to the,
1522
01:47:29,316 --> 01:47:34,456
or even going to spars and coming in the morning and having a coffee and listening
1523
01:47:34,456 --> 01:47:41,436
to the old stories and the present times and things that are funny,
1524
01:47:41,756 --> 01:47:43,496
you know, especially in the fire department.
1525
01:47:43,496 --> 01:47:48,156
And we have, you know, we've been up 150 years and we have some gentlemen that
1526
01:47:48,156 --> 01:47:51,516
are in their 80s when they tell us great stories.
1527
01:47:51,536 --> 01:47:54,176
And it's like, man, I wish I was there.
1528
01:47:54,356 --> 01:47:58,396
You know, they had some good times, you know, and it's like,
1529
01:47:58,396 --> 01:48:02,556
we really wish that, like, you know, one, we want to remember,
1530
01:48:02,636 --> 01:48:08,936
like, those stories because, like, that's where our heritage and our traditions come about, you know.
1531
01:48:08,936 --> 01:48:13,336
And so we, you know, just, just for prosperity, keeping all,
1532
01:48:13,356 --> 01:48:17,696
all the records and, you know, the oral history of, of Thibodeau and,
1533
01:48:17,816 --> 01:48:21,796
and, and things that have happened, you know, that shouldn't be important to somebody.
1534
01:48:21,876 --> 01:48:27,476
Yeah. And, and I'm so glad, like you decided, like it was important enough to,
1535
01:48:27,516 --> 01:48:32,296
to start this podcast and, and invite, you know, people that you think are special
1536
01:48:32,296 --> 01:48:33,716
and, and know Thibodeau.
1537
01:48:34,566 --> 01:48:41,526
Know about life you know it's it's important to to keep that yep i'm just learning man that's,
1538
01:48:42,346 --> 01:48:45,486
i'm learning and then everyone else gets to gets
1539
01:48:45,486 --> 01:48:48,326
to benefit right right from the from things i'm gonna
1540
01:48:48,326 --> 01:48:51,126
get to hear that's you putting you put in the legwork and everybody
1541
01:48:51,126 --> 01:48:54,166
else prospers yeah you know again you know
1542
01:48:54,166 --> 01:48:57,726
that's that's part of of being passionate
1543
01:48:57,726 --> 01:49:00,646
about what you're doing is you know somebody else is going to benefit
1544
01:49:00,646 --> 01:49:04,106
from all your hard work you know yep
1545
01:49:04,106 --> 01:49:07,286
and sometimes you don't know why and it doesn't necessarily
1546
01:49:07,286 --> 01:49:13,566
matter just yet right right somebody you'll figure out why but yeah you got
1547
01:49:13,566 --> 01:49:19,046
that feeling like you need to do something or make a move make a change do it
1548
01:49:19,046 --> 01:49:23,746
right no one no one's going to do it for you you it's either going to be a pass
1549
01:49:23,746 --> 01:49:25,626
or fail you know And if you fail,
1550
01:49:25,806 --> 01:49:30,386
you learn what you did wrong. It's a life lesson.
1551
01:49:31,546 --> 01:49:34,546
All right, Brandon. Appreciate it, man. Thanks for coming. Absolutely.
1552
01:49:34,666 --> 01:49:37,506
Anytime. This is fun. Absolutely. See you. All right.
1553
01:49:36,720 --> 01:49:47,440
Music.
1554
01:49:43,806 --> 01:49:46,806
All right. That's it for this episode of the Miracles to Me podcast.
1555
01:49:47,226 --> 01:49:51,766
We ask that you share it with at least one person in your life that you think needs to hear it.
1556
01:49:51,766 --> 01:49:55,446
Um you know if you got a little something from it you got some little goose
1557
01:49:55,446 --> 01:49:59,906
pimples or it just gave you some feel goods um you know send it to someone else
1558
01:49:59,906 --> 01:50:01,446
let them let them feel that too,
1559
01:50:01,966 --> 01:50:06,046
and if you loved it please leave us a five star review that'll really help out
1560
01:50:06,046 --> 01:50:10,826
and if you only loved it like four stars or so please do not leave a review
1561
01:50:10,826 --> 01:50:15,206
same thing with the one through three not interested in any of those only five
1562
01:50:15,206 --> 01:50:21,306
stars um if you have any personal questions or Or comments about the episode. Shoot them over to.
1563
01:50:21,546 --> 01:50:23,666
Bourgeois Meat Market. On Facebook or Instagram.
1564
01:50:24,966 --> 01:50:30,146
And we'll reach back out. And if you have any ideas. For any cool future guests.
1565
01:50:30,486 --> 01:50:33,266
Please shoot those over too. We're always interested in hearing.
1566
01:50:34,666 --> 01:50:38,546
Who else is out there. And what kind of cool stories. We might be able to bring into this place.
1567
01:50:40,106 --> 01:50:41,966
See you next time. Thanks for listening.
1568
01:50:42,640 --> 01:51:13,498
Music.
I love the podcasts, they are very interesting!!
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