Research Chef Shola Olunloyo of Studio Kitchen - Cultural Appropriation, Staging and Cooking Nigerian Food at The Stone Barnes Center

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. They' e caterers, research che s, personal chefs cookbook autho s, food truckers, farmers, cott ge bakers and all sorts of culin ry renegades. I myself fall i to the personal chef category a I started my own personal c ef business perfect little bites 10 years ago. And while I star ed working in kitchens in the ea ly 90s. I've literally never wor ed in a restaurant. This week I have Shola Olunloyo of P iladelphia's studio kitche . Shola is a research chef wh often works with kitchen equipm nt companies like polyscience a d rationale. He also hosts mall dinners showcasing his contemporary cooking techniqu s. Shola's worked with some f the best chefs including Geo ge Perrier at Le Bec Fin. He's o e of my very favorite chefs. I onsider him to be the epitome o a chef without a restaurant For as long as I've known Shol , which is probably 10 years now, he hasn't worked in a tra itional restaurant setting. He started doing pop ups and colla orative dinners way back in 20 2, long before it was a thing. He most recently finished a mo th long residency with Chef Da barber at stone barns in ew York State. Our conversat on took place just as he was tarting his time there and he just finished up last week. I strongly encourage eve yone to go check out his In tagram, which is at Studio kitch n. He's always posting int resting cooking techniques and ecipes. And you should really ee what he was doing with hi native Nigerian cuisine up t stone barns. We also discussed staging cultural appropria ion and cooking techniques, amongst other things. I hope y u enjoy our conversation. I'd ove for you to subscribe to t e show. And if you're listening n Apple podcasts, please g ve us a rating and review. Now on with the show. Thanks so uch for listening and have a gre t week. Hey, Shola. Welcome to t e show. Thanks for co

Thanks, Chris Sorry, I couldn't make it today But I'm in a much better moo with less to do

Yeah, I find that I actually enjoy recording in the evening, as opposed to the morning anyway, kind of the household is quiet for background noise. And I can kind of have a more calm, quiet conversation anyway.

That's apparently the hotel room of sorts. You know, well, cooking at Blue Hill. Yeah.

Very, very comfy digs? I'm

sure. Well, it's comfy enough. Just cooking sleep. That's it. Okay,

so I'm sure a lot of my listeners know who you are. I've, I've probably known about you for like 10 years now. And when I think of like Chefs Without Restaurants, which is, you know, my organization of my podcast, you're definitely one of those people. I mean, for as long as I've known of you, you haven't been a restaurant chef, but you know, I think of you as someone working kind of at a very high game doing really interesting, awesome creative stuff. And I really wanted to hear a little bit about how you got into that. Maybe why you're not working in a restaurant. But I guess, kind of from the beginning. Where are you from? And how did you get into food and cooking?

Well, I'm Nigerian, you know, like, just about everyone else who was not born here, through some measure of immigration ended up in the United States and I kind of found myself in the restaurant industry. You know. I worked for the A while back from Philadelphia, for some number of years, which was just classic French food, you know, but very technique, rich environment, you learn a lot, you work at a fast pace, that's great. Another chef before that, who was also friends, I think I kind of started working for the restaurant teletypes, you know, Stephen star, blah, blah, blah. It was at that point, I kind of had to reevaluate. While I was in the food industry, you know, I go back a bit. When I was living in West Africa, I used to cook. And I cooked out of both curiosity and family obligations, we all participated in cooking. That's, you know, your mom's making like a rice dish, you help chop something. Next time, maybe three times later, you're making the rice dish. That's how I learned how to cook basic things, at least certain things from my culture. So it goes from there. I also like probably intersects with the fact that I had this maybe slightly unhealthy fascination with fire when I was growing up. So I was very curious about how things burned. I did like turn into an accident or anything like that. But a very curious about the rate of combustion, which led to some interesting physics that I never pursued. But it kind of manifested itself in barbecue, if you would, you know, cooking on fire outside roasted, just watching the transmission of ingredients, flames, you know, certainly not as eloquent as far as this moment. But

yeah, that was really cool to see him cook in person, I don't know if I'll ever get to see anything like that, again, that's a COVID rule, hopefully. So it was great to see him

to cook like that. And that really just, I guess, set the seeds of some amount of continuing interest in food, not just from a consumption perspective, but from a creativity, tactile, you know, composition and preparation of food. Yeah. So as I continue to grow up, even though cooking was not my thing, you know, my parents are very, sort of respectful, but stringent in the sense that of suddenly, they expected us to be educated in a formal sense, go to college, high school, that stuff, didn't choose careers for us. But I eventually settled into the food business to basically not really have any interest in doing anything else, you know, food was like my, a hobby that became a serious vocation. And then, you know, I went down that same path, some, you know, reasonable amount of Culinary Education. But really, you learn from working in good restaurants and good stages and other things like that. So I pursued elements of that, you know, went to Fat Duck in the UK, in a very short start stead. Because I did want to be longer, but I didn't feel like stashes were beneficial. In all restaurants. It certainly did seem like it wasn't that one, as much as it may sound ungrateful. in any way. A lot of us just really abused the whole concept and made it like, you can just make the things we want you to make him not related to you or anything like Ico stage, alien life, separate groups and segments, there's no reason for me to fly.

Yeah, you're not you're not learning anything really,

exactly. To do that, you know, so, but I do understand their position in outside. They want to trade the payroll for the illusion of like teaching you how to cook. But it led to what I think was one of the more negative curves of the food industry where people were just opening restaurants based on the ability to not have to pay for accurate staff that would run it to the degree that it was. So that was unfortunate about the industry. But I think we've gotten to a point where we've gotten past that just about now. I think this story not to be negative, but it does offer some amount of cynicism that made me tick the choices that I made after that. It was like, you know, I kind of like not really interested in working for anyone who doesn't need a pay enough or creates an environment where you can either learn and grow, you know, or maybe you do your own thing when you're Muslim. It is a whole different set of headaches. Yeah. So I decided to start meditation as a Rather experimental think tank and it was bare bones like, like nothing had like a stove, a couple of pots

when when was that

2002. And I started this dinners to like pop ups. And I don't think anyone was even saying pop up at the time. You know, like, I don't want to say I am the first person to claim to do a pop up dinner. But nobody wants to see a pop up to the kitchen. And then I moved into like doing dinners with chefs who thought I was doing different things. And it was like a collaboration. And those weren't happened back then to like, you know, so some people still want me to answer like you when you started the collaboration dinner. Yeah, well, that's perhaps true. But that's not the hill I want to die at. And have like other chefs like that, making it a point of criticism, have better things to do. So as I continued to evolve, though, what I did took notice, and there were some very helpful people who kind of reached out to me and I worked with them, you know, one of the very first polyketides because I like you have been to many of the original Star chefs iccs. And that's why it's a second to them. And they love that I wasn't like a chef in a restaurant. But I was doing like some of the coolest things with the equipment. And the first time I stood up just like, what, like what I did it from like the little money I made. And, and once they knew, like, whatever I was doing, they gave him like, a huge discount every time after that. And I stopped playing in the last few years, they just like give me like stuff I need for pets like you want to control freak. And like they're really amazing people. So I can feel like one person has supported me very much in my career, it's probably felt Preston Conrad David disguise polyscience. And now gravel, with the split, and rationale. So building his brand relationships, helps to also think about technology as far as what you're making. So they reach out to you in the development phase of many things they join, and they say, Hey, we think we're going to make this new circulator. Do you think he should have a probe and once you go walls situations, so that's always helped. And just set the kitchen as a known entity for if I want to buy something cool, or if I want to design my kitchen? Should I talk to so now as a matter of fact, that's not a service that I offer and charge anyone for? People just know me? I'm like, Hey, listen, we're thinking about buying a bus? Or should we? Is it worth it? Like, first, it's worth it? Don't be silly, you know, and they're not given me a card or anything, I just recommend it. I tell them what's my, because I think if we're all smarter, we'll make better food, we have more time to treat people better instead of, you know, building Stone Age kitchens, and making people run around like jackasses, just to be food should be cool, comfortable, well equipped, and as a pleasure to not compromise on your methods and techniques.

Yeah, having seen your face firsthand. It's amazing.

And that's a lot of years of work to mess, all that stuff and work on those things, you know, which, you know, a lot of people seem to think you live the life of luxury, and you're lucky people just give me free stuff. They don't I come to the table with something, to offer them to justify the expenses, and ready to give back a shell ton of intellectual property. I mean, I charge what will be reasonable for my time to do projects for people. And sometimes I'll do them in trade, which is why I have what i what i what i have access to what I'm able to use. So that's good. But on a larger point beyond just like technology and cooking, I think was the kitchen allows us just to have conversations about cultures and ingredients and other methods and techniques of looking at food and expand your flavor palate and your technical cooking skill or approach to cooking. In fact, I kind of make it like an open architecture type of environment to talk to people that be intellectually curious and offer solutions. That's what it is.

So do you really enjoy doing the small dinners?

Smaller than is a great because, you know, like the smallest dinners that we have for like eight to 10 people. So it's not necessarily small. However, it is detailed. So I dedicate a full day to the prep. It's no less, you know, extravagant than in most cases is a serious restaurant of the same caliber, you know, I have in most cases, better equipment and more time. So I can do anything I want even though I may be doing it alone, but you know, think of it, you know, I don't have to wait for if I get this Spark, I want to make this ice cream, I can process it pack of jet three hours in the blast chiller as opposed to wait until tomorrow circuit in like six hours from now

got the last dinner I came to there the food was is fancy and delicious as any restaurant I had been to.

It's so and that's what planning time efficiency allows you to do. So I enjoy the dinner, because they also allow me to test ideas, you know, I keep writing on these notebooks with little snippets here and there, just walking down the street or driving somewhere, you think of an idea, you write it down. And then you kind of scan through them later in the week later in the month. And this, you know, maybe it's time to execute this, you know, coconut stout caraval, you know, and see if there's anything good to it and with where it's gonna go, you know, pork ribs, or like, both ends of bacon, you know,

it seems you seem to be executing that at a much higher rate than I think a lot of us like I've tons of notebooks with things that I just haven't executed maybe because I haven't figured out how to do it. But looking through just your Instagram of all the stuff that you seem to be turning out it's very innovative. Things I would never think of and you get it done, it seems like you have a million things going on at once.

So this is the thing with that. It's very funny. A lot of people people either say that, it's a compliment, thank you are the days they call it? What's it called flexing showing off or something like that. I'm like, I'm not begging anyone to follow me. But my count is like private, you know, I just do what I do. And I put it out there to be thanking me. But that's fine. It's okay. I love it. But you know, what the thing is, every time I'm doing something, even if it's not a completion, snapshot, steak pig photo, I keep taking for I think like maybe like 25 photos a day. And I have so much to cycle through them. You know, when I feel like it's the right time to make the right narrative, then I'll write the story and just go with it. But everything I do is relatively recent. And yes, I do spend a lot of time on conception and creativity. Yes.

When you start conceiving components, do you? It sounds like you don't always have a dish in mind, right? Like you make some kind of condiment and then you figure out what it goes with? Or are you thinking three or four steps ahead, where you know what the complete dishes? What's the process? Like?

I suppose, you know, you could decide to decide I want to do some characters, and I want to figure out what to put on the plate besides carrots, you know, I know the carrots will be there, the calculator will be there. But I understand the textures of those things. But like, why would this be an element of crunch, there is an element of temperature variation, there needs to be an element of vegetable. So you can just go in any direction by making that those sort of what do you call it? changes to the dish or creating the components that you want. So as long as taped together, taken context, temperature, texture, color, I don't know what else mouthfeel you can add as much stuff to play the food as you want before it becomes excessive. That is the challenge is how to edit, edit things into good.

I talked about that all the time, especially now you know that I work by myself. I think when you work at a restaurant, you have all these hands, especially in a place where you know, I've said you've got all these stages, and there's like 17 people plating up food, I think you can get carried away, you know, when I go out and do my personal chef dinner, I execute alone, or I have one maybe two people with me, but it really taught me editing, like, how many things do I need to put on the plate to make it delicious, like I don't have four sauces, and 100 different micro herbs and a duelist proteins like it just doesn't work. And I've really learned to edit. And I think that's been good for me.

Yeah, it's very important to be able to have the strength cooking, because you can have the best ideas and just swamp them with, you know, especially in this age now where fermentation is like taking center stage in terms of flavor adjustment and component making. Besides the just straight lacto fermentation of vegetables. There's also the whole concept of Koji and amino acids and bases and all this stuff. So you know, one thing I do say is like, at some point you have to prove you can keep making all kinds of stuff and making all kinds of stuff. And I'm actually myself at the point where that's so much stuff that's not for me to go back because it's all really good and really held properly temperature. So yeah, time to make the food which is why Moodle works out well because I get to test some of my robot now.

Let's jump into that what is what is blue hill? And what is this thing you're doing right now.

So as you know, blue Hill is Google's Software Center for agriculture. And maybe the best well known restaurant in the country, thanks to their very single a unique focus in nature. Animal Husbandry, you know, it's just an amazing place to be. So as you know, Chef Dan barber also works with the stone barns foundation. So it's not just, it's not just a chef, teacher, and a mentor to many people. And he decided to step back, especially during this pandemic time where things were actually a little slow to, to do something a bit more creative, which is to have chef residences have a chef come from somewhere else. That checks, accepted boxes, they'd like it to be diverse it to be, you know, culturally promotional, and appropriate. And a conversation with the cooks to learn and exchange ideas, and education within the community. And bringing other artisans I can made like plates, bowls for this business. It's crazy, like stuff that most restaurants can't even buy. on a normal basis had stuff made. Yeah. So it's such a big provocation to walk into this place. And just you basically handed the keys into second driving like a VW bug. And someone gave you the keys like a Ferrari is like, hey, do you want to go my car? For both? I'm like, hell yes. You know.

So you're gonna be up there for what, like a month?

Yeah, months, I'm responsible for menu. And to all the cooks are working with me. And then we'll also do some charity stuff where we do boxes to be donated to, obviously people who can afford like, 250 bucks worth of tasty menu. So it's not just about fancy with people coming to eat this kind of connection to the community, to the farmers to try to get everyone's product to move through this whole ecosystem. Yeah. Is what it's, it's very exciting.

Yeah. And this is what your food you're doing, like Nigerian food? Well, I

feel like my interpretation of what Nigeria say was with like, some variation, I don't want to just make Nigeria at that point. Yeah, yeah. And I think I can do more than that. Not better. There's more than that to kind of bridge the conversation of cultural relevance and, and what you call and exposing people to different ideas, different cultures, you know, what they were doing here with this food is also not necessarily line of the tradition of using Boolean tubes to enhance everything, like many ways, I think I can use simple software for you know, and that has the on intended effect of creating like other health problems, high sodium, high blood pressure, hypertension. We're also having that conversation how health plays into the role of technical ism.

Now, what are they doing up there for growing stuff, I mean, it's cold, or they have like indoor growing,

that multiple greenhouses. They also have things covered outside that sheltered, like the growing a lot of kale, they go into a ton of terroristic stuff. So obviously not as much as in the spring and summer, but like this still growing, and they have farmed out and grown and other things that they partner with. So if you get potatoes,

how long have you been working on menus and recipes for this?

I've been since probably about two months ago, I've been thinking of ideas and meetings, and it only always comes together in the last three days. You know, we have ideas, we have these makeup tastes now we fix them. We had a first taste in today. You know, he went well, everybody seemed happy. I'm not one who accepts accolades on the first day. You know, it's probably like good 35% of the menu that needs to be tweaked something he would fry differently. sauces with the changes capacity. I want kind of absent flavors and you know, it can be better. Yeah.

Is it a normal restaurant season like restaurants open a couple days a week? Is that how this is operating?

Well, so obviously, Bill Hill is in Westchester County, not in New York. So they're not subject to the closed restrictions in the office. This is very spread out the cases. Case levels are below what the county requires to close indoor dining. But it was separate from that stone barns cabinets. This place is huge, you know, so why wasn't it like the 125 people they would sell the by doing like a level course tasting menu. They are doing 30 people a night spread all over. property, you know, that sounds on good access to the kitchen. And so, you know, most restaurants have seen like six foot social distance and they don't like 15 feet social distance. And windows are open. It is on. It's cozy, you know, hot food. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. So people are looking at this and think it's like, why am I going to an expensive tasting menu? And I've actually been doing COVID it's not, it's not really like that the restaurants basically operate below its capacity within the restrictions. Yeah.

What are some of your favorite things you've created for it? So far, things that you think are really standout?

Well, you know, if you're able to harness like the basic, some of the students in Nigeria, but modified them in a way that they appeal to both the contemporary cocaine that you're used to diverse and also the season, like we have a pheasant dish, and we're, you know, we're wrapping it around egusi steel, which is a pumpkin seeds to Nigeria, and we're gonna roast pheasant and the stew has pheasant, like comfy in it, you know. So it's just really, really kind of earthy, and delicious, but also has like, a lot of traditional failure.

Any thoughts on ever making a cookbook? Is that something that you would ever do?

Well, chefs don't make cookbooks.

They do have them produced for them, though.

Yeah, cookbooks makes chefs. That's how it works, you know, and very few people have the cloud to say I want to have a cookbook, unless they plan on publishing it themselves to the Apple Store, then you can have a cookbook, but the cookbook world is one of the most bizarre kind of concepts in America. I like I don't even say this to be Aggie, it's just like weird. Every time someone's approached me to do a cookbook, and I, and they're very nice people have well intended, it's like a writer, photographer, provider, anything and you start to go through the process. And I just look at it at the end of the day, like, you know, what, what a publisher wants, and what they're going to give you. It's just not worth my time. You know, it's like, I do all this work, meet all these deadlines, do all this photography, go buy my own stuff, as a first time offer to like, prove it? And they take like, 95% of the sales or something? I don't have time for that at this time. You know? Yeah, no,

no, I'm just sure there's lots of people who'd love to see all the info in your notebooks.

No, I, I continue to share it. And as I said, that is a have to, you know, at some point, I like to consider like this, like, quit to do my masters in a sensible way. Like a smart, I know, some really good writers to like, clean up the stuff and just go to like, a self publishing format and just have as many copies as I need, publish and sell them, you know, to Amazon or something like that full ecommerce. I'll shoot some of my own pictures or high fantasy pictures, but the whole like publisher bs of like, whoa. He says, the photography budget. So

yeah, I'd buy a copy of your hard drive just like rip it off to another one.

I've worked too hard to just like, give my

no totally, totally,

you know, I love I want to do a cookbook, I I love to hear compliments from friends like you and people who are doing stashes and people will come up to me like, to the degree that I would like look.

Well, I don't think most people would even have the equipment to pull half of it off anyway, you know, it's like, I love the Noma fermentation book, and I just looked through it, it's like, oh, wait, like, where do I start, I don't even know that. They're like, I read it. And I admire it. And I don't even know that half of that stuff, or a quarter of that stuff I could execute, you know,

my goal in doing what I do also, and this is something very important to me is to go through the process, even if it means like some high tech thing, but ultimately, is to distill what is possible without any of the, you know, expensive equipment to see like, Can we make really good sauce? Can we make really good gam? Can you instead of having a fermentation chamber, can I use a rice cooker for this? So that's also part of the conversation is I think it which is a larger audience, and it inspires more people than just like super esoteric knowledge.

Any other big projects you're working on?

I expect to take like a one week vacation after this.

Just one just one, just to like, relax and breathe and

just one but in this time in this day and age, and I'm sure you'll agree with when not exactly been, you know, making loads of money like we used to, you know, as soon as I'm done here at the fall to skate Valentine's Day where people will probably pay me tons of money to make.

Yeah, yeah, business has been so weird. It's been up and down. And you know, it comes in waves and you got to take it when it when it comes

to vacations or like very low, fat Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve. Valentine's Day. It's like the frickin Super Bowl of like, dinner for to take out. Yeah,

I know, I wish I could clone myself just for a few small days. And vacation. I mean, nobody's traveling. Actually, the last place I went was Philly, I was up at the Philly chef conference in March. And that was like the last thing, you know, like, it was like two weeks before the shutdown. And that's the last place essentially, I've been other than my house. And going out for a little work. What are some of your favorite things for culinary inspiration? Like, are there? Like, who are you looking at chef's cookbooks? Like? Where's some of your inspiration coming from these days?

I mean, books, books are always a good thing just to see like, what people are thinking and how they put together the thought processes. But don't look at it as just like trying to do what someone else is doing or like trying to emulate them books, it definitely you should always have always advocate for books. Because that takes a lot of people to share accurately what they do. I like them. For the books, I think my biggest inspirations are to get out and see smell and touch food. One thing I always encourage young cooks today to like, what are you gonna do to go to like a neighborhood, you know, obviously somewhere safe. That says that all cultures exist in and could just go to the grocery stores, you know, there's New York, New Jersey, go there and go to like all the Dominican Caribbean grocery stores that sell like a punk mareel. And all this other stuff you're not going to see often. Yeah. And see that you have you really are in America, you have access to so many things that people don't have in other countries. And you should go and be synthetic bullion labels and lotion, they lose they get these neighborhoods, there's all these people with food that the that we in the mainstream don't really look at unless we go to like, you know, some weird like these, like, you know, go go go, you know something? Yeah, it sounds like, you know, Chinese.

And I don't even want to like, open this box. I mean, I've seen you talk a lot about it. But then there's the whole cultural appropriation appropriation thing, right, because then this cook goes to this market and find some ingredients and starts making things and then people start calling them out for like using these ingredients that aren't of their culture. So

I think that's silly. So there's a couple of competing things. It's just that people don't have the discipline, to see that they're having slightly different compensations. cultural appropriation is a problem in society, food is not necessarily the place to start with that argument. Racism is a cultural exclusion is not allowing people to move into certain neighborhoods, again, which all go back to like some sort of, you know, race based unfairness, in many ways, or culturally based, you see, and then there's the whole idea of true cultural appropriation where it's like, somebody makes a strong case to promote something through the eyes of another culture. Like for example, if somebody food or wine magazine wants to do a story about hush puppies of fried green tomatoes. And rather than understand that, you know, slaves were given like good tomatoes at the end of the year, they just bad environment is that maybe like the only way you can eat them? And then it turned out to be really tasty. You know, they have like, Paula deeds son's like, talking about like, texture and all this other bullshit, you know, what do you do? Like that's cultural appropriation, but like you, Mr. X, go into a grocery store and saying, like, I'm very curious about fitness. I want to make a father that has like brisket and add like pastrami spices to it. I think that's great. You're not claiming to be Vietnamese and you're not claiming to be like, the king of wrath Asana. You just make it fun food. It's okay. It's totally fun. You know, and I think that the cultural appropriation accusers often miss the boat in terms of trying to shoot themselves in the face rather than understand that some exposure to other cuisines, I think, generally helps the cuisine and like no one is saying that being authentic about something like rightfully, if you make bad food you make that food. Like if you make like, you know, you saw the whole Stephanie is a rice bowl. thing that happened couple weeks ago, right? Yeah, it was a shitty rice bowl. That's the problem. You know, she should have made a better rice bowl call the device was that I'm saying it was bad. It wasn't bad. But why can't he call it now? I think they should do. But there was a bad day for a chef of that caliber with a restaurant of that caliber. Just to sell like, meat from like, a commodity diet we prevail. You know, it's like everything that was bad about it was not what anyone complained about, though, just like why women cook in Korean food. This is bad. That's completely ridiculous. You know, you can cook whatever she wants. So my position is a little bit more narrow than either side of the complaint. Those who think that some people feel like people should be able to cook whatever the word and nobody's willing to tell them what they want. I'm like, everyone's open to criticism. If you cook bathroom, people should tell you that. Your food is bad as you're convinced it's better than you are good. You deserve every rightful roast that you get, like, say, I make it better xxx that people have that coffee. I just don't ever do that. I'm okay with you making the food? Who's having better food than Vietnamese people? Because I put this in it. Like none of the things you put it in a Vietnamese? No. That's not what they do. You know, and if you've changed it, and you seem like it's better because you change it, then you're an asshole. You know? It's a

very slippery slope there, you know?

Exactly. Yeah. So but you should be able to think of ingredients quiz, as the periodic table, you know, those elements will be each other in some ways, in the lab, and sometimes that good reactions, and sometimes they're very bad words, you know, and sometimes you have to wear a gas mask and leave in a hurry.

I've made some stinkers in my day.

Yeah. So you know, but you know that, but but you know, you will see that from what you do. I don't see I don't think cultural appropriation should just be like litigated to food all the time. You should just, you should talk about access, like the New York Times story today on like, how high end restaurants have failed black women chefs. And that is a great story. But then people put it on social media, I would have a bunch of ideas about the story. Like guys, this is my basil story.

Yeah, maybe, maybe sit this one out and just let other people have the conversation.

Please. Like I like the the laughter eye roll emoji that comes at things like that happen.

And now there's so many markets that like I didn't grow up with access to so many of these products, and you almost become like a kid in a candy store, right? Like I just grew up in a place with like normal grocery stores. And I think at some point, you're like, Wow, now I've like Mexican markets and Asian markets. And I think a lot of people just get overwhelmed and want to start buying a bunch of stuff and playing with things.

I'm just play with things, you know, like, understand that what you're doing is could be tasting could be fun, but just be careful with your language and how you do it. You know, like, everybody wants to make everything into tackle to the Korean tacos. You know, you know, other people you know, African tacos bla bla bla, bla, bla, you know, a taco is a thing. Like, maybe like, go find out like the regional chapters of Mexico Puebla, you know, wherever, you gotta see what they do. Just like plop a bunch of like, beads from a bogey to like a tortilla and clean it equally into just a lazy quote. But I don't I don't think that's cultural appropriation. I think it's just silly. It's

some weird fusion mashup and just kind of taking the easy road that, you know, you know, you You talk a lot about like George Perrier and the sauces and I've really picked up a lot of books in recent years on like, classical sauces, because I feel like some of that stuff's falling off. And it's really fun to kind of revisit that stuff. You know, I learned a lot in culinary school and then didn't do anything with it for like 20 years, and never kind of like dive back into that stuff.

Those are the best sources a lot of people. Yeah, I guess. And I'll say this as a criticism. The first person to put in a, in a cookbook, the very strict concept of stock reductions as an Add button season as a sauce, which is a terrible idea, by the way, was Charlie Trotter. Again, not a terrible chef, one of the best chefs in American history someone I still like very much admire his process his cooking I said look at Charlie father's books all done. But if you look at those books, what do you get to the sauce? It seems like the steak will stuck with us. We go to the pigs. Take some real stuff with you super head as butter season was like what? This is like, not a sauce. You know what it may be a sausage. him I think he's just very like there's somebody a little bit thing will stop. White goes back Debbie glass has to be and chickens that brown chicken stuff mussels that fish stock. Plant stock loves the stock game stock manager vegetables were like 15 stocks, all the boats will stay for all the animals, five gallon buckets of every component of the required fee tied bouquet Gary's you know, Burberry's is taking some things. Just a crazy operation what in the honey pots on the flattop like 15 it is going in with like you know bows in grabbing bottles like you're like a spring with the glaze and things like oh, you know, everywhere brand equipment there everything quite what you know, and then added the liquids and it just wasn't just like, it's like, amazed any taste the sauce? Yeah, this is why you do this stuff is like way better than just like trying to make some, you know, more effort. But the rewards are clear. Y'all should have a book. He has a cookbook. Yeah, it is to have a book on just like sausage making.

I'm sure there's a market we could you know, yeah, make that happen. So when we when we can travel again, where are you thinking about going?

So I'm going to go back to places I've only been and investigate them a little bit more deeper. Like I love Indonesia for the tropical connection to like West Africa and the food is just unbelievable. Yeah, I would go back to Bali. And then my other favorite part of the world to try to see is the Dolomites Trentino Alto Adige Italy more than, you know, for for wine for food. And just like the mountain food, and the way they cook is just fantastic. I love it. So and I really want to go to Sicily. So I want to make that happen at some point. Anything else you

want to get into or talk about? Yeah,

just like to say that. You know, well, you and I have been in a probably safer space and all of our friends who have restaurants and have to worry, you know, I keep talking to people. Some people have a great head on the shoulders and are not taking it too little and they're adapting without letting the egos or original intent get into the way, you know, first of all, probably most admire right now is Johnny Sparrow, and his pizza thing that he's doing like, dude, you're smart. Like you

gotta get out there for that I reveries probably the place I've eaten at most in DC in recent years. And yeah, now he's got his pizza thing going. He's got another new concept up. But you know, he did great. He did great pivoting. I mean, he even talked about like, how he was out delivering personally himself. Like when when COVID started. Yeah, he walked away. Yeah, that guy's awesome. So you're gonna come down and do a dinner?

And not only gonna come hang out, come down with Diego Jolla do that. That's

so awesome. Because it's not that far from me. I couldn't make it up to Philly. So when you guys come down here, that dinner

together? Oh, we're gonna do another one. Yeah. As soon as we can travel again. The next one is a robbery. Yeah.

What's been great having

you on I'm so glad we can catch up. never see each other often enough, except the stock chefs, which no longer happen. But like,

I know.

It's kind of all over the place. show a read to

the podcast has been fun, because I was doing them all in person. And then when COVID hit, I was like, Well, I guess I'll figure out how to do virtual. But then it opened it up to more people like before I was, you know, having to travel or do really locally. And now I'm talking to people all over the country. And it's like, I think I'm just gonna do this as much as I can.

Yeah, you are killing the microphone game.

I'm working on. I mean, it was not good at first, like and I've had to go back and do some editing and cleaning up. And now it's like, well, if I'm going to do this from home, like I need the mic setup here and, and have all that.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Chris. You're the man. Yeah,

I appreciate it. I look forward to seeing you. I wish I could make it up to New York. But uh,

I'll keep posting and stay warm, my friend.

Well, thanks again for coming on the show. I had a great time talking to you. And to all of our listeners. This has been Chris with the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. As always, you can find us at Chefs Without restaurants.com and.org and on all social media platforms. Thanks so much, and have a great day.

Thank you, Chris. Cheers.

Thanks for listening to the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. And if you're interested in being a guest on the show, or sponsoring the show, please let us know. We can be reached at Chefs Without restaurants@gmail.com Thanks so much.