Chefs as Stewards of the Environment - What is a Chef with Brady Lowe

Welcome to the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. I'm your host Chris spear. On the show. I have conversations with culinary entrepreneurs and people in the food and beverage industry who took a different route. Their caterers research chefs, personal chefs cookbook authors, food truckers, farmers, cottage bakers, and all sorts of culinary renegades. I myself fall into the personal chef category as I started my own personal chef business perfect little bites 11 years ago. And while I started working in kitchens in the early 90s, I've literally never worked in a restaurant. This week, I have a quick mini episode with Brady Lowe. It's another one of our what is a chef mini episodes. If you haven't listened to my whole episode with Brady of taste network, and formerly Cochon 555. Go back and check it out. It was just three episodes ago. I want to keep the intro short this week, just to set up the episode a bit for those who haven't heard one of these. This season, I've been asking my guests what they think it means to be a chef. As someone who works with a lot of farmers and sustainably raised meat. I kind of expected Brady to veer in that direction. But I don't want to give away the episode especially since it's only about two and a half minutes. So let's get right to it. The only thing I want to add before we get there is that if you would like to receive our weekly Chefs Without Restaurants newsletter, check out the show notes or the link is in my Instagram profile, which is@ChefsWithoutRestaurants. At most, I send out a once a week newsletter that not only has this week's episode, but also recipes, links to gear I'm really into and news from our former guests as well as links to articles that I think are pretty interesting. So go subscribe to our newsletter, and the show will be coming up right after a word from this week's sponsor. Over the past 27 years, the world of the personal chef has grown in importance to fulfill the dining needs of consumers. While the pandemic certainly upended the restaurant experience, it provided an avenue for personal chefs to close that dining gap. Central to all of that is the United States personal chef Association, representing nearly 1000 chefs around the US and Canada and even Italy. USPCA provides a strategic backbone for those chefs that includes liability insurance, training, communications, certification and more. It's a reassurance to consumers that the chef coming into their home is prepared to offer them an experience along with their meal. One of the big upcoming events for the US PCA is their annual conference scheduled for July 7 through 10th at the Hyatt Regency in Sarasota, Florida. Featuring a host of speakers and classes. The conference allows chefs to hone their skills and network with like minded business people and is open to all shifts in the industry. For those who supply the industry, it's a chance to reach decision makers and the actual buyers of products. This will be the first time back following the COVID lockdowns and the chefs are anxious to connect. And right now Chefs Without Restaurants listeners can use promo code cwr50 to save$50 on registration. Please contact Angela at aprather@uspca.com For information on becoming a member attending the conference or exhibiting. And as always, all this info will be in the show notes. And now on with the show. Thanks so much for listening and have a great week. The last question I really like to ask is, what does it mean to you to be a chef whether you know I'm not saying you are a chef but when you think of a chef, what is a chef?

You got to know how to fucking cook. And I think that's important. I think there should be some humbleness to it. And then I think you have to have a mission. If you're just cooking and you're just having fun, then you're just cooking and having fun but if you if you can cook and get paid to cook and you're humble, and then you have a mission, then you know like you're on a you're on a you're on a path and I think that kind of like sells that sells it to me. And I think what I was always looking for were chefs who did what they said they were going to do and support and want to support as much as they can the small guy on the on the on the floor, which would be either having a voice for the farm or having a voice against ownership when dollars weren't right? You never stopped to cut the corner and put cheap shitty product in. But your mission for me was stewardship. If you're good humble can cook like a motherfucker. And you are a steward to the environment. Yes, absolutely 100% I think there's a bunch of other shades of gray in there. But stewardship, meaning that you, you put your community first through food, and you cook with your art and you do what's right, when it's sometimes doesn't feel like financially it doesn't look right. And you tell ownership to back off because, you know, in the long way, that decision to support your local farmer will have them churn five more people into diners than so buying a box and Cisco would ever in your entire life. You know, so that's, that's the hardest thing for me. You know, it's like telling Jeff solver where I'm like, Alright, so what do you would you suggest I do, and I'm like, buy everything from local farmers and just ask them to send their friends to your restaurant, because you ain't gonna get that from any semi truck coming through. I don't see them sending anybody to a restaurant. It's the best marketing you can do the best money and marketing you can spend is on your own community. I think it's like it'd be funny just to ask people who own restaurants and not run them. What their definition of a chef is completely different than people who you know, care about the community.

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