Interview: Celebrating Life and Community in New Orleans

New Orleans isn’t just a collection of influences – it’s a community in ways that many places aren’t. On our first night there, we interviewed SOFAB Museum founder Liz Williams, Chef Isaac Toups, and Beverage Manager Bryson Downham to get a foundational concept of the city – but in the true spirit of that community, they gave us a lot more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to save our protection of I heart
radio and stuff media. I'm Annis and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum.
And today we've got probably our last interview from New Orleans. Yes,
it's only been over here. Um. And uh and in
in what we thought was a little bit of nice symmetry. Um,
it was actually the first interview that we did when
we got into New Orleans, like me or minutes after

(00:30):
we landed. Yeah, I think I came straight from the airport.
I had all my stuff with me and it was
a delight, Oh gosh, it was. Yes. And also um,
one of the people we interviewed, Liz Williams. She drove
us home afterwards. She was kind of thing, it was
so nice. Um, yeah, it was okay, so so. So
that's Liz Williams, who is one of the founders of

(00:51):
the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans, which
is also where we conducted the interview. She's also a
president of the National Food and Beverage Foundation, and she
has been books to her name. She does. Yes, um,
and we also got to sit down. This was a
rare three person interview, not including us, right, yes, not
including us, with chef Isaac Coops, who I bet a

(01:13):
lot of you have heard of because he gets around
on the television. He does. He does. Indeed, I always
see I'm always seeing him pop up stuff. He was
like he was a Top Chef contestant back in the day, right. Um.
And he also is the owner of Toops Meter and
Tuops South and Nola. Um. I wrote that down to
for myself. I didn't mean to say it out loud,

(01:34):
but I just did, and I just did so sorry,
but it happens, and we can't. We can't go back now,
there's going back, yes exactly. Um, And I said, yeah,
he's been. Recently he released another book called Chasing the
Gator Isaac Toops and the New Cajun Cooking and a
hot sauce line with two products, one called Smoky Green

(01:58):
and the other Louisiana Liquid Snake. And they both sound delicious.
You were saying that there's dashi in one of them.
And a new show on the Food Network called Kitchen
Takeover that is so good. He was a very nice person.
And I think that we've relaid the story before, or
perhaps we've just reminisced about it to ourselves so many times.
That I've forgotten whether it was on air or not.

(02:18):
But when we went to the Buddhan Festival, he had
a booth there and he greeted us with great joy
when when he saw us coming up to the booth
held out a beer and we went to cheers him
with the beers that we were already holding, and he
was like, no, no, this is for you. You You take it.
Pretty cozy beer, Yes it was. It was already in
a couzy. That's the kind of guy Isaac is. Um.

(02:39):
And the third person at this wonderful interview was Isaac's
beverage director Bryson Downham. He's also at Tips South. Yes,
so it was cool. We had sort of the baseline
history and then a chef perspective and a beverage prospective,
beverage perspective, and that we've definitely talked about how that
is really key in what makes New or New Orleans

(03:00):
in the history, which you'll hear about some of um
in this interview. And yes, as we release this, Marti
Gras is this upcoming Tuesday, Marty, who knows you could
be listening to this anytime? Anytime. We can't control. That
is beyond control. In fact, that's up to you. Yes,
So another reason we thought we would release these New

(03:22):
Orleans interviews. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, um and uh and if
anyone listening to this is going to be in New
Orleans for Mardi Gras or for later and at any time, really,
I so completely recommend going to sofab did the Southern
Food and Beverage Museum because we didn't get to hang
out that much that night, but um, but they do.
They do cooking classes and they have all of these

(03:44):
beautiful weird historical items. They've got a whole table of
weird kitchen implements that you can play with and they
all look like torture device. They do. They so much fun.
And all of these old medicinal whiskey bottles back from
pro vision probably when it was sold as a medicine
to get around the laws. Um, lots of stuff from

(04:06):
from Katrina and pre Katrina. It's pretty wonderful. Yes, and
um tubes Meri and two South are also delicious and
the drinks are great yes. Yes. And the location is
is right attached to uh, to the museum, so yes,
you can do both. Very convenient, very convenient. But okay,
I think for already uh huh to get into the interview,

(04:27):
let's do it. I'm Isaac Tubes, Chef, owner of Tups
Meter and Tupe South, Bryson Downham, beverage director for the
Troops Restaurants, and Liz Williams, the director of the Southern
Food and Beverage Museum. So we are in the Southern
Food and Beverage Museum right now, surrounded by these lovely things.

(04:48):
How how did how did this happen? How did this
place happen? Well, we are ten years old this year,
which is really exciting. Congratulations. UM. So a few years
before we opened in two thousand eight, UM, and a
group of us just decided that we needed to have
a food museum in New Orleans, and we decided to

(05:11):
make it regional as opposed to just about Louisiana because
there are influences that really cover the South. And so
we started it. It was really very UM, Judy Garland,
Mickey Rooney ish kind of let's put on a show.
We sat around the table and said, oh, let's just

(05:32):
start a museum. And that's why it's such a surprise
that we've been here, dead here. I can't thank you enough,
by the way, um, and how did. How did you
guys get involved with the museum? All you know there
is a restaurant right connected to it that they had
already put up. Uh, and it became available and we

(05:56):
straight up went hey, Liz, can we read the space
out and Liz wich sure, and it was it was
literally something like that. We had got a bunch of
attention to a bunch of things we did at Tips Meterary.
We became acclaimed and we got busy and with a
bunch of things come to happen, it was like, hey,
we should open up a second restaurant and for better
for worse there we are so to south just made
two years, so we're two years inside of the ten

(06:18):
years or all celebrating birthdays year. You know, it's been
a great collaboration. We feed each off other business and
we're just good neighbors. Or this is a good neighbor.
I don't if I'm a good neighbor. I can't speak
for Lizz. It's a very political of you. I'm standing
right here, um, could all y'all talk a little bit

(06:42):
about about those those influences on Louise Louisiana and specifically
now one New Orleans cuisine, the I mean it is
way more. It's a lot. It's it's I know that
that's a very big question. I apologize. How much time
did you have um? So it's it's really the simple.
The way to think about it, although totally not with

(07:03):
all the nuances, is that the three continents came together
to form the basis for the cuisine. So you have America, Europe,
and Africa, and our foods really reflect all of that.
For example, our gumbo, we have three basic thickeners for gumbo.

(07:23):
You have okra, which is African, you have file, which
is American, and you have root, which is European. Now
you can use them all in one gumbo, or you
use them separately as that was traditionally. They were separate
um and you would use them when this was in
season or that was in season. For example, gumbo that

(07:45):
is a seafood gumbo in New Orleans often has okra
in it, and okrah would be picked at the same
time as shrimp and crabs were running, so it would
make sense for you to use okra as a thickener
for that gumbo. UM. On the other hand, uh Native Americans,

(08:06):
it would use a cuple of file in a pot
of gumbo as their thickener, and all of our thickeners,
which I think is really interesting, give flavor. Even the root,
which traditionally in a bechamel or whatever doesn't give a
lot of flavor. It's just a thickener. But because our
woes are toasted to the point where they are dark,

(08:27):
they get flavor too. So that's a very simple thing.
It doesn't talk about the Italians, it doesn't talk about
the Filipinos, it doesn't talk about all the Vietnamese or
all the other influences that we have. But that's the basic,
you know, this is the way we got started. What
is specifically, that's something gets tossed around a lot. It's

(08:53):
and Sassafras is a tree that is native to America,
and so it wasn't something that anybody has seen before.
I always thought it was ironic that Columbus came and
found America because they was moving to find you know,
a passage to India for spices, not mag Yeah, and

(09:18):
and here you had this wonderful spice which is file
which nobody ever appreciated and took back because it was like,
you know, most of the spices people cared about, like
all spices and cinnamon, those sorts of things today we
think of as like sweet spices, baking spices, even though
I don't think they were always used that way originally.

(09:41):
But somehow or other, it was overlooked that this wonderful
seasoning of feway was not something that ever got picked
up anywhere, and I mean even in America. It wasn't
something that was not polum. Right, although it is creeping
back into drink culture yet, but I was just thinking
about that sas press used heavily in like root beer

(10:02):
and other drinks. We we do make our own root
beer here and we take in all these local spices
and herbs to bring that really unique flavor um, which
is a lot of fun and it really gets you,
get you involved in what you're presenting and how you
can best tweak it for for the for the food

(10:22):
and for the spirits and for the guest um. And
I mean, have you have you ever thought about doing
a root beer gumbo? No? And that's why I'm a
chef and you the mixologist. Sir. Let me tell you
what I do. So for Thanksgiving, I base the turkey
with root beer and it gives a really pretty blaze

(10:45):
and everything, and then it gets into the bottom of
the pan, so it winds up in your gravy. And
then the next day when I make a turkey bone
gumbo out of all the leftovers and everything, and I
stick the old gravy from the Davy four in or whatever.
I usually then put file in the gumbo because I

(11:06):
want to cut you know, be it havit partnered with
a wood beer. And then I make a corn bit
the night before, you know, when I'm doing this stuff
for Thanksgiving, I make extra corn bread dressing with oysters
and instead of potato salad or rice, I use that
as the the start in the in the bull of

(11:27):
gumbo rice actually giving Bryce in a hard time. I
braced short of root beer all the time, just a
root beer and gumbo. Every everybody's got a crazy new
wave of of doing gumbo. One recently with Keena Wall
and Kale it was like, whoa back up, back up?
I think, you know, Cajun food is very versatile and whatnot.
And to speak on what Liz said, you know, every everybody,

(11:47):
everybody besides the Native Americans, were immigrants coming to South Louisiana,
and what Cajun food is and what it was is
still going to be a collaboration of different genres in
different areas and land a location, and it still is today.
And so when I say I do New Cajun, while
I'm doing New Cajun now. But it's going to continue
to evolve because we continue to accept help and inspiration

(12:10):
from everyone that wants to be down here and South
music with the best place on the earth. Heck yeah,
stuffs right, though I can't cook, so I don't actually
don't know that it's true anybody to be over cooking
battle in the future. And your family is Cajun, right,

(12:31):
Um family is Cajun. We've been. Um father's side has
been actually predated the Cajuns, and then we had married
into Cajun so Cajun background from my mother's side and
from my father's side from a Swiss family. Not Swiss,
tell me Robinson, because I was just about to say that,
but for three hundred years. So we actually predate. So
we am about as Cajuns as they get born and brains,

(12:51):
as they say, are are y'all from from the area too? No, No,
I grew up all over the country. I've lived here
longer than I've lived anywhere else. First, first place I
ever really feel like home, and I think I think
the food had a lot to do with that. And

(13:12):
I was born here in New Orleans, so I'm not
Cajun Creole, that's all right. And so I'm half Sicilian.
There's a lot of Sicilian influencing the food and warns.
And then on the other side, on my father's side,
my grandmother was French from before founding of the city

(13:34):
of New Orleans, French when they just left people in
that condition that was a fort and uh. And then
on my grandfather side, my father's father prisoners from Alabama. Nice. Yeah. Um,
so so many, so many of the of the foods

(13:57):
that are coming up, you know, being being so celebrated
on a nationwide level from here started as these as
these substance schools, as these you know, like like whatever
was in season and cheap and available. Um, could I
need you guys speak to how how they became this
this thing that's that's celebrated in the kind of in

(14:18):
the you know, white napkin restaurant industry. All all of
our cooking traditions are rooted in what was necessity. So
I mean everything from the co feeing of chicken and
comfing of sausage that people would have to bury under
their house for preservation. We put rice in Boudan because
they were a poor community and we need to extend
it to make a meal. We put sassafras or rue

(14:40):
as a thickener in our gumbos and stews because we
had to stretch those gravies and stretch those meals out
to get a lot of people to feed and not
a lot of things to do with so curing, smoking, dehydrating,
all the things that we celebrate and do on purpose nowadays,
we're actually just at a complete necessity doing. The boustries
that they held were just similar too, so everyone was

(15:01):
able to butcher all the pigs all at once. It
was a community effort. We're do them for fun nowadays,
but back in the day it was necessity. And I
have what he's saying is absolutely true. But I think
that the reason there is a cuisine in Louisiana is
because we actually had a French background as opposed to

(15:24):
what so much of America knew America had, which was English.
So if you were an English colonist, you wanted to
maintain your identity as an english person, so you wanted
to eat like an english person. And there were actually
settlements in the early days in in America where people

(15:46):
starved to death, and not because there wasn't food, but
because they felt that the food of the savages was
not the food that they would eat because they were
too English. Whereas since we were French, we didn't have
that attitude. And our attitude was, if it's here, it's French,
because this is as much France as France. So if

(16:09):
we have to eat an alligator, it's okay because it's
a French alligator, And if we have to eat this
other thing, it's okay because it's French and we're in France.
And so that allowed us to just incorporate everything that
we encounter here. And yes, we also were worried about

(16:30):
waste and poverty and all of those things, but we
weren't afraid to eat the food, and I think that
makes a big difference. We still celebrate our backgrounds. And
I got one for you, an eight team team. We
took a little trip along with Colonel Jackson down the
Mighty mississ Hilp. We took a little bacon and we
took a little beans, vault, the bloody British and the

(16:50):
town of New Orleans. Sorry, that song always comes up,
and that was when we actually became American as opposed
to being French. Right, how how does how does all
of this swirling culture influence the I mean cocktail scene
here is also a thing that's been influenced by it

(17:12):
being a port town. And from what I understands, like
taxes were levied on on liquor and therefore, um everyone
was like drink corp so in in the early days,
in the early days the city of New Orleans, whether
it was French or Spanish governing, the money that was

(17:33):
made by selling tavern licenses which were auctioned to the
highest bidder, and the taxes on the sale of liquor
were what funded the City of New Orleans, the government
of the City of New Orleans. So obviously the more
drinking you did, the better it was for the city.
That's why I do with its civic duty. But that

(17:56):
that that compounds itself into what chef is. How about
earlier out of necessity because in a lot of those
early days, like around Spanish time and after, there were
ways to get around paying a lot of those uh,
taxes and fees. For example, in the early early to
mid eighteen hundreds, uh, you were allowed to serve spirits

(18:21):
at a coffee shop or a coffee house, and the
city of New Orleans had over three hundred and fifty
registered coffee houses. Now, I'm sure you don't believe that
we were a big barrista town at the time. Um.
One of those coffee houses actually Sazarek coffee House that
ended up creating Sazarek cocktail and uh you know, becoming

(18:41):
one of the most uh famous cocktails in the in
the country and in the world. Was just a coffee
house that had a close relationship with a French Konnac distributor,
uh named Sasak for defeat. So um that all of
that sort of ingenuity, and then we talked about in
food bleeds over into into cocktails. For the whole reason

(19:04):
they turned it into a cocktail was because they couldn't
get that cornyac anymore and they wanted to keep the
name because they had recognition. So they changed up the recipe,
added a local bidders and a little sugar and said, hey,
it's this is now just called the Sazerack. Still you
should still come and drink it. Oh, it's beautiful. How

(19:26):
did how did prohibition impact all of that? What would
that do to? You know, we have the reputation for
being the wettest city in America during Prohibition. If you
read anything about prohibition or you watch documentaries or whatever,
they're always about Chicago and New York. And that's because
those were the two most violent places, whereas other places

(19:52):
you had good citizens who decided not to sell alcohol
anymore because it was against the law. In New Orleans,
the good citizens and that if you did that, now
you had to bring in organized crime or somebody else
to sell the alcohol, because they were still the need
for that. Whereas in New Orleans, the people who were

(20:12):
selling alcohol before continued to sell alcohol afterwards because nobody
really took it seriously. And there was not a city
ordinance that made it against the law to sell alcohol,
so the police didn't have to arrest you because it
wasn't against the city ordinance. And Huey Long was the governor,
and he decided that we didn't need a state law

(20:35):
about it either. Now, there were many cities in Louisiana
did have such laws and parishes that adopted things on
the parish by parish bases. But in Orleans Parish, which
is New Orleans, it was only against the federal law.
And uh and so you had needed a fit to
arrest you, and um and so and many many doctors

(20:59):
took advantage of the special dispensation for giving prescriptions for
me diicinal reasons. Over there we have all these wonderful
drinks that were sold for medicinal purposes, only very boldly
marked on the labels. And also um at pharmacies you

(21:19):
could buy some kind of syrups that made your alcohol
taste like jim or a martini or other things. So
we were, we were, we were very um weary of
the law because we just didn't didn't take it seriously.
So can I tell the Izzy the Izzy Einstein story.

(21:43):
Eazy Einstein was a fed and it was his job,
as a federal agent um enforcing the law, to go
from city to city and see how long it would
take to get a drink in a particular town, and
then they would know how many agents to send and
all that sort of thing. He had a protocol and

(22:04):
it was that when he got into the taxi from
wherever he was to go to his hotel he would
begin the timing. So he got into the taxi in
New Orleans. He gave the taxi driver the name of
his hotel, and then he started the clock. And he
said to the taxi driver, do you know where a
man can get a drink in this town? And the

(22:25):
taxi driver reached under a seat, pulled up class pasted
over his shoulder, and he said, five dollars please. So
in less than a minute, izz, he had a drink.
And so and this is not an apocryphal story. This
really happened. You could read about it in the National

(22:47):
Archives and all of that, and uh, it was you know,
it showed that this taxi driver was so used to
giving out liquor that he didn't even hesitate. He didn't
worry about who was in his XICB or whatever. I mean.
That just tells you how open it was that he
could do that without even thinking. Twice, we didn't come

(23:09):
out of provision completely unscathed, though we were talking about
those good citizens. They're one of the most famous saloon
order owners in New Orleans history, Henry Rabos, owner of
the Rabos Bar and creator of the Rabos and Fizz.
He was such a staunch supporter of temperance that he

(23:30):
closed his bar. Yeah, he believed in the lot. He
just he closed, he shuttered his doors and uh and
said he'd never serve a drink again, said they very nationally. Yeah,
and they thought the recipe was lost until um one
of the bartenders from the Sazerack Bar after prohibition, like

(23:52):
I think it was like six or eight years after
prohibition went over to his house and asked him if
he would please share the recipe. Heavy was like, of course,
keeping it a secret. It's right here, and that got
passed on. So that was of course no, No, he
was an odd bird. We have some more of our interview,

(24:14):
but at first we have a quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor.
Let's get back into do you do y'ell who grew
up here have foods that's like specific like nostalgia points,

(24:36):
like things that your family cooked that you either still
cooked today or that you do RiPPs on and and
that I mean, I said, I singled them out, but
but you too, like like foods can trigger nostalgia that
you didn't technically grow up with, like you can you
can stay in re mind with people ask me all
the time. I I get this question all the time,
and it sounds almost cliche when I say it. With

(24:56):
my favorite thing to do, favorite thing to cook is
bull crawfish. And that steeps in tradition from what List said.
You know, it's it's French because it's down here and
the cases are very like, what do you got? Well,
let's just cook that and there, and everybody down here
doesn't Why do we Another question, why do you guys
use all that sugarcane, rice and crawfish that it grows
really well down here? Why wouldn't we? So boiling crawfish

(25:19):
is great. So imagine this. You're in your shorts, you
have a beer hand in your hand, you have a hat.
You're boiling sixty pounds of crawfish in a big, giant pot.
As children running around, there's uncle's telling jokes, there's women gossiping.
There's naughty games being played. I'm sorry, they're inappropriately dangerous
games being played, um lies told, Probably some music playing.
It's a gathering of people, and I think that's what

(25:41):
New Orleans and South Louisiana embraces a lot. Community gathering,
having a good time, having a good drink, cutting up
a little bit and not taking themselves too seriously. We
are professional drinkers, really, I mean, I mean that's seriously.
We learn how to drink from the time where children
and you watch people drink and you learn what the

(26:02):
rules are and all that sort of thing. And and
so the amateurs are the ones who drink until they
throw up all the time and all that kind of thing.
So also were professional drinkers. We will drink you under
the table quite easily. I wasn't going to challenge you.

(26:23):
Not not today, Yeah, not during the interview anyway. It
sounds like fun actually right made it through the podcast.
Um is you you've you've said, I like internet's talk
to you guys a little bit. Um Uh, you said
that your your your grandmother's were both great influences on

(26:45):
your on your cooking. What of what of your cooking
is your families? And like what is you've all you've
also trained in fine dining and what is it? One
of it is just yours? Um, you know, there's there's
just one dish and it was my grandmother toops is
redfish cuvion or she would use any fish she would catch.
She so she was she would go catch the fish,

(27:06):
clean the fish, make the broth, and then cook a
giant pot of cuve on a big magnalite aluminum pot
and serve it with rice. And you know, she would
make her route in the pot, and my grandmother the
other side would make her route in the oven. So
different dichotomies of Cajun masine. But that dishes on the
menu from day one at tops Meterary and it's gonna

(27:27):
stay there. But you know, with fine dining and your
own additions, you kind of grow and developed. I wouldn't
say I improved it because that would be blast blasphemous
in the Tups family, but I will say it's my
own now, and you pick up things and you use
better ingredients and you modernize your tactics. And I also
serve it with a crab fat fried rice, which is
also something of my own creation. So grandma to grandma,

(27:48):
you're gonna get different methods of cooking. Pass it down
to the grandchildren. They're gonna cook at different that's very
Cajun thing to do. Everybody's gumbles just a little bit different,
and mine's no different. I guess, I guess going going
back time, jumping around going back to the drinking culture,
how how did New Orleans become the tourist attraction that

(28:09):
it is, like the modern tourist like bridesmaids, parties and
all the wackiness. How did that happen? Has it just
always done been Bourbon Street Bourbon Street, um, like tourism.
I want to say it started like in the late seventies,
somewhere in there. I mean, we've always been We've always
had a reputation for being a hard drinking city, you know,

(28:32):
being able to drink on the streets and like all
throughout the city anywhere you want. Um, it's always been
a draw. But you just have always had the reputation
of being a fun, lazy fair, Uh, just a good
time city. Lay said, I can't remember exactly when, but
there was a time when Bourbon Street was more just
for locals. Necessarily in the middle of the twentieth century. Um,

(28:58):
Bourbon Street was much more a place where you would
have burlesque, and we probably took burlesque farther than other
places that had burlesque. But then after the Sexual Revolution,
burlesque was not suggestive enough, you know, and and so

(29:20):
you know, it got to the point where you couldn't
do anything even you could find whatever you were looking
for anywhere. And so New Orleans lost that kind of thing.
But it used to be you'd go to a burlesque show.
You you would get all dressed up and men and
women would go and it was definitely a show, you know. Um,

(29:41):
And it's certainly isn't like that now. You know, the
tradition of having for you know, coming for a wedding
just because it's a it's a tourist destination or it's
just a destination wedding or whatever. I mean, I think
that's a phenomenon from the whole country. You know, you
can go to a lot of places where you have
that sort of thing, but the idea of coming to

(30:05):
a place where you're going to get special music, like
real food, because we have. Um, we were always different.
I think the city was always different, and we kept
to that difference. We didn't become as not to say thing,
we aren't American, but we didn't become as homogenized as

(30:29):
other places. And um, the less a fair attitude that
you talked about, I mean, that's I can say. I'm
sixty eight and so I remember stuff when I was
a kid, and nobody, nobody ever thought about it. You know,
when the silver person walks by on his unicycle and
you're six years old, you don't know, oh, look at that.

(30:53):
You know, it's just like, oh, yeah, that's the guy.
That's a silver guy on the unicycle, and you know,
and other stuff too. That's a little bit more less
easy to talk about, perhaps, but um, you just nobody cares.
And so I don't know why that is, but it's
always been that way. Um. There are people who speculate

(31:16):
about the fact that as a really early early city,
we were totally unsupported by the French. They just were
so so infrequently visiting that we just went our own way.
And um, since most of the people who were who

(31:38):
were colonizing, if you want to call it that, were
from Debtor's prison. They were pickpockets, they were people who
were just you know, petty criminals. There was not a
lot of respect for the ways, you know, and I'm
not just talking about law, I'm talking about even more
raise and whatever, and so we just came to tolerate everything.

(32:02):
There's there's less of a focus on decorum and more
of a respect for like tradition of families and like
what our parents and their parents did. And it's been
generations of people just having fun and being a little
more um social and involved and just enjoying each other's companies,

(32:25):
each other's cultures. Um. So, like you said, we didn't
get as homogenized as the rest of the rest of America.
And the words we can dried in the streets is
because we didn't that you could do that anywhere in
America in the early early nineteenth century, and then they
started passing laws to make it illegal, and we never
did that. We were never were never that puritanical. I

(32:48):
really think the Catholic background really made a big difference
because we weren't puritanical, and of course the Catholics could
do almost anything and then go to confession. Then here
again at you can fly your freak flag in New
Orleans and that's completely okay as long as you get
along with everybody else. You can be as freaky as
you want. Like we celebrated the Duck Lady and things

(33:13):
like that and everyone, and there was a big article
in the paper when she died because people were upset
that the Duck Lady was gone. And it's just, you know,
everyone in New Orleans, I think is a socialite that
we all care about each other and care about the community.
And you know it's we're not so insular as like

(33:35):
familiar familial groups. Um, Like whole blocks will get together
and support each other as families and friends. And I
just haven't seen that really in many of the other
places that I've lived. You know, people neighborhoods means something here,
they really do. And that's the pill plays a big role.

(33:58):
Speaking of imoginization, a lot of the rest of the
country went through like the dark days of thees and
nineties in terms of cocktail culture. Um did that not
happen here? Or of course in a way yes, But
because we we did have that adherence to like our traditions,
like you know, drinks like the sazerac and the few

(34:20):
kray and the chim fizz uh burn build punched. These
things stayed strong because you know, every every Christmas, my
grandparents would take we my parents to the Sazerack bar
and we did get gin phizzicis and we look at
the lights in the lobby and I want to do
that like they did. You know, we go to brunch

(34:42):
of Commanders or Brandans whenever we could get French seve
and build punches, and it's just it's less of a
rejection of what came before. And I think, uh, you know,
I hear a lot about that, like the next generation
rejecting what their parents drank because it's that's like old
stagy stuff and we just didn't really ever do that.

(35:05):
You know. Sure, there are lots of Pat O'Brien's, for
one example, did dive into that, um that like kind
of difficult overly sweet cocktail thing, and that you can
still go get one. They're sure. Lots of hurricanes, by
the lot of frozen machines. Oh no, it's better than that.
Day have like a soda gun with a rakehead essentially,

(35:28):
and it's got like eight spouts on it, so he'll
just and the buttons are one, two, three, four, so powerful,
And that's cool. It's interesting. I appreciate the you know,
the creativeness there, and also the entrepreneurial latitude like they're
they're doing it. You can still get a great hurricane,

(35:49):
a real great hurricane, at plenty of bars and restaurants. Um.
But yeah, of course the whole country wanted to drink
overly sweet sugary drinks. And so yeah, sure we did,
but you can also get but really wonderful classes. I
also think that we still tend to be multi generational

(36:09):
and the way we do things. You take children, little
children to restaurants and they learned to do celebrations and
how to be in a restaurant and weddings or multigenerational,
just like you're talking about the crawfish boil and everything.
And I think that that helps a lot. And I

(36:29):
think that in preserving culture because people see it at
different levels, and they see it as its celebrated and changes.
And I think the tendency to have things that are
like adults only this and adult only that, where you
separate the children from the adults, then I don't think

(36:51):
you have quite as much integration of the children into
the culture. And we seem to have been able to
let children be part of things always. And if you
your family is here, you don't just go visit your
great aunt on Easter. You know you're going to go

(37:11):
out to launch with her. You're gonna go see your grandparents.
You're gonna go like visit with your cousins and your
mom and your dad on a much more regular basis
than I think most people think like, oh, well, I've
got to go, you know, every six months go see grandma.
But here it's like, you know, your grandma's eating lunch
at Galatois every Friday, and she's got an open seat

(37:33):
this week. So you know, we we're very multigenerational and
we don't have range. We make reservations. That's right, m M,
it's beautiful. Um. We were as as we were lifting
over here. Um. Our lift driver was a cook, um
and was a explaining that that most people in town

(37:53):
do cook and are terrific at cooking, but he doesn't
professionally sometimes. But he was also saying that it's a
relatively small city, like maybe about half a million or
something like that, but with a with such a huge
tourism thing. How I mean, I don't know it is.
Is tourism positive force to deal enjoy sharing that kind
of thing, that all of this with people, or are

(38:15):
there days where you're just like, oh, go home. It's
preferred to share. We want you to come over, we
want you to experience, we want you to tell stories
and have more people come over. That's where you know,
come on down. If you like what you see, you
like to do stay. It's a wonderfu places to live.
I'm never leaving. I'm not from the world's and from
the little town called Raine, Louisiana. I'm never going back.
I've been on not all over the world, but over

(38:37):
half the world. I'm never going anywhere else. You might
be able to tip me like one other city, maybe
like lyon France, but that might be about it. Um,
we just do so well down here that it's it's
really a truly unique place. And I say that knowing
have been the other big cities. It's it's that it's
that familial like host culture. And just because you're not

(38:58):
from here doesn't mean we can't be a guest that
if you're not from here, that means you have more
fun experiences to share with us and influence. It's so yeah,
tourism is great. And every time a new group of
people moves in, like there's an immigrant movement of one
kind or another. Um, we are so happy to bring

(39:21):
in that food and their ways and whatever, because that's
a way to get to know people is through their food.
And then if they do something you like, well it's like, okay,
that's what We'll totally take your technology here. Your ingredients.
We love doing that. That's what all of the cuisines

(39:44):
here have done, right. I mean, like like you were
saying earlier, it's it's African and European and French and
American all the same time, French as part of Europe.
I remember that, Yes, you got it, it's ours. Now.
Are there any creole auditions that you had growing up that, uh,
God have really stuck with him. So one of the
things this is not really a dish, but it's something

(40:06):
that my father did, and all through the time that
everybody said you couldn't meet fat. You know, it's like
my mother would say, you're not supposed to do that
at my father just didn't care. But he would whatever
he had, like if it was a pork chop or
if it was a piece of steak or whatever. He
always made sure that the piece that he bought at
the grisser turn the biggest piece of fat on it

(40:29):
that it would have, and then he would cook it
and so that the fat would be all rendered and
all that sort of thing. And that was of course
a really good part of it. And I can remember
he would take a steak or whatever it was, and
even if he had his piece. He would cut the
fat off and cut that fat in half and give
it to me. And that was just you know, I

(40:54):
just I don't love fat. Uh. Speaking back to the
to the culture of community and of celebration. Um, you
drive around the city, and I mean you'll have have
all of these old above ground cemeteries, I mean mostly
from the water table. But butch and um and second

(41:16):
lines and celebrations y'all, y'all make death a celebratory event
rather than the puritanical concept of it. Does that affect
or how does that affect the food? How does that
tie into the kind of food and drink? We tend
to celebrate life and not death. You know, let's let's
remember what you were, not not what you're becoming. Warm food.

(41:37):
But no, you know, between the second lines and the
big celebrations we have, we tend to let's let's look
on the brighter side of things. The glass is half full,
not half empty, and it's half full of whiskey. Heck yeah,
do you guys, do you have anything on the hoizon
that you're excited about you think in the future that

(41:58):
you'd like to see yours if you wor Um, what
I really like going on right now is the we
keep expanding on the cuisines. Right now we have friends
doing um gourmet Stoner food over Turkey and the Wolf,
and we have a South Asian food in Margie's Grill.
I'm not just plugging my friends restaurants. Actually go there
and enjoy myself. But we keep we keep pushing the borders,

(42:21):
and we keep getting different ingredients and different techniques and
expounding upon them, and I think that's just fantastic. We
keep taking the influences in and keep putting them out
our way, and I think that's what the future the
cuisine will be and will always will be, and we're
just we're to the forefront of that. I absolutely underscore
what he's saying that not only with music, which is

(42:45):
not you know, we didn't draw a line and say okay,
up to here is historic jazz, and so everything has
to stop now. Um, we just have all of this
music changing, changing changing. The same thing is true about food,
and I think that's actually what keeps it a lot.
It's not this dish or this dish or this dish.

(43:06):
It's attitudes towards food and the enjoyment of it and
all of that you might have a particular thing in
your family or whatever that you're doing. But even Isaac
is talking about improving and changing and whatever as as
time goes by, and I think that that's what keeps
it alive. It doesn't ossify as something that can't change,

(43:27):
and that as long as we can keep those attitudes,
and it's the attitude as opposed to the specific dish
that's important, then we will continue to have this culture.
Yea three er straw will probably make it. I'd say
the thing that's most exciting coming up in the future

(43:48):
as far as drinks um is and it's been going
on for a little bit a couple of years, this
changing attitude towards cocktails and drinking culture as we had
it here before. It's fun. Drinks are fun like. It's
not really serious business. Um. It's you're there, you're having
a good time, you're socializing, you're losing some inhibitions and

(44:12):
you know, there's a lot of stachy like, especially in
the beginning of this cocktail revolution that we've been having,
there's a lot of like this is very serious. You
don't no laughing, no joking. Put down that cosmo. But
it's if it's good, then make it good and have
fun with it. And you see a lot more bars
and restaurants embracing that, like the the the enjoyment and

(44:35):
the joy of it. Um more joy less fuss I
find in New Orleans, and you said of other places
that I won't name. Yeah, and also the the incorporation
of of different different ingredients that aren't having traditionally been
thought of as drink ingredients, like more like savory things,
and like thinking about it more as as a dish,

(44:59):
like a composed dish than just a one note or
even a nuance cocktail that you you only utilize as
traditional things, like we use a lot of salt and
black pepper and other seasonings human and whatnot in cocktails here.
And that's it's a lot of fun. It makes for

(45:19):
a more unique experience with your drink. And that's that's
definitely going on throughout the country. And can you see
more and more like vegetable bases and things like that
in your drinks not I'm interested to see how far
it goes and what people come up with as they
begin to incorporate more and more non traditional ingredients in

(45:40):
in drinks. Do I y'all pros coordinate your your menu,
your cocktail and your food venumes. Yeah, we tried to
keep we keeping within the season, and we're always bouncing
ideas of Bryce is wonderful about the accepting that I
might tweak one of his cocktails at any point in time,
but I do it with respect for his work. And
it's more like it's more of getting together and bouncing ideas.

(46:01):
If they had been me telling him no, I don't
like this, do something else, it's more like, hey, what
are we trying to add a pinch salt to that?
Or trust reason lumin in that. And it's that more
that curiosity thing that gets bounced back and forth and
I think makes our cocktailing in our food game stronger.
It's He's right. It is really good that we have
more of that dynamic because as I as I like

(46:23):
to tell my bartenders whatever we're talking about cocktails, UM,
I don't like to be told no when it comes
to an idea, UM, just a flat nose bad. You know,
there's always merit in any idea. There could be something somewhere.
So when I go to go to my bartenders or
a chef and say, hey, I want to put kremed

(46:43):
meth and pineapple juice together with some rom and thunderbird.
The first some people's first instincts was to say, what
are you doing? But chef and uh and my staff
or are very good about being like said, Okay, yeah,
that's that's my big making one. Let me let me try. Yeah,
I'll try drinking that. Yeah, it's delicious, it is so

(47:08):
But that's that. That's a lot of fun. I'm looking
forward to seeing as more and more people and more
and more bartenders and the chafts get involved in making drinks.
What what they're gonna come up with? Can I ask
how you came to New Orleans and why you stayed here?
And I guess you sort of said it's the first
place I not like home. But uh and how how

(47:28):
how y'all how y'all that up? Um? I moved here
when I was eighteen to attend to Lane. Um I
did graduate twice. That's usually people's first question. Uh that
I got involved in the restaurant industry at Commander Stallace
in order to pay for uh living my last two

(47:50):
years in school. And I was just so fascinating me um,
the way the way the drinking culture existed and dining
culture because it was all that was all brand new
to me. Um and I got really really fascinated by
making drinks because at the time I didn't really like
the taste of alcohol, and but I would have it

(48:11):
tried cocktail and be impressed. I think it was good.
So I wanted to do this thing where I would
take something that is literally poison uh and like and
almost repulsive to the palate and crafted with my own
hands into something that is beautiful and tasty. My degrees
are in neuroscience, so at the social aspect was also

(48:32):
important because I didn't want to be locked away in
a lab with with a bunch of very quiet people
all day and being at the bar and being in
the restaurant. She tried to Yeah, but now I get
to manipulate people's brain chemistry and a much more hands
on fashion. So I still think that I am working
within my fields. From Isaac, when did you decide that

(48:58):
you wanted cooking to be a career? Like? When when
were you like? This is my life? I got into cooking. Well,
I've been cooking my entire life. My mother and father,
all my grandparents that everyone cooked, and that was a
big infant poture and how I was raised. I grew
up cooking, but taking professionally. No one in my family
had ever done that. And I kind of fell into
a job hopping after my brief stint a college. I

(49:19):
did not graduate, Um, but I was job hopping and
just kind of started cooking when Dan fell immediately in
love with it. And this was I was twenty one,
so it's kind of late and and the cooking game
as far as a lot of my contemporaries go. But
I fell in love with it, and my wife wanted
to move back to New Orleans, so um, we moved
back to New Orleans, and I just walked into Emeralds

(49:41):
Delmonico eighteen years ago and was the fry cook and
just kind of went my way up from there. So
it's kind of been a whirlwin adventure from working for
shoppermal ten years to opening up my own restaurants to
the second restaurant, to being here, to writing cookbooks and
television and all this wacky crazy stuff that it's modern
America chef and why white food, White food firm. So

(50:09):
when I was in college, I was really interested in
the intersection of food and culture. I never wanted to
be a chef. I never went to own a restaurant,
but I was just so interested in how things like
the introduction of coffee into Europe changed European culture of
chocolate doing the same sort of thing, and how food

(50:33):
and culture were so connected. But you couldn't study that
when I was in school and everyone kept trying to
push me into home neck and I could just you know,
see myself embroidering my wife through college and so um,
I got a law degree because that's what you do
when you don't know what you want to do, you know.

(50:54):
And uh so I was always interested in it, and
I just did all these other things, and I got
very involved in museums and putting museums together and said,
all right, yeah, that's the time I'm gonna start a
food museum. Yeah, there's not a linear way to describe
that that journey. Does any museum have a linear like

(51:17):
path to founding? Um? Can I can I ask you
my nerd question about because you'll you'll do um the charcuterie,
you know stuff. Could you talk to me about your
fermentation programs? M our fermentation program just started actually, uh
even though the meter it has been opened seven years Um,

(51:39):
I chose to take a traditional route, of the traditional
Cajun route on the charcuterie, which is all freshly made
and freshly prepared, because if you hang a sausage out
in cage custer, you're gonna get a rotten sausage because
we don't have the climb for it. We're way too human.
So um we started the meter and said we we
do all the other things we actually do, which is
rattens or Cracklin's candy or Portfelio, real smoking, curing, confine

(52:02):
fresh sausages, tureens, pattes of that nature. So even though
I have a lot of charcuterie, very little of it
is actually permitted. And now that we're doing it our
fermnants we uh Jason Lambert, my chef's cuisine in there.
It has a very regimented program of weighing, calculating, and
each individual piece of sharkuri is weighed tag and has

(52:24):
its own individual name. We have Sparky in there. Sparky
is a duck breast. Naming is probably the most of
and yeah, yeah, I've never I've never been so interested
in both being introduced to and eating something at the
same time. The interview isn't over quite yet. We've got

(52:47):
a little bit more for you, but first we've got
one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you sponsor, and back to the interview.
And you're kind of speaking to your the interfective cultures
here that I would say one of the things, apart

(53:09):
from food and drink, that people think of when they
think of New Orleans is jazz, music or other types
of art. Um do you see maybe a relation between
those things? Very kind of Is one inspire the other
from a So I think that's a complex question. I
think that musicians in this town cook and this not

(53:35):
this weekend, the end of the end of November, there's
actually a conference in town that's all about improvisation and
they cover music, food, um, writing, theater, all sorts of things.
And so they talked about how the city is full
of improvisation and that people seem quite willing to do that.

(54:00):
So to say that there's a connection between food and music,
not only that, there's a connection between all of the
arts I think um in this town and all kinds
of cultural things. But our musicians are often out there
grilling something that they're going to serve while they're playing later,
you know, and that kind of thing. Are magazines that

(54:25):
are about music always have recipes of some musicians in
that particular issue or whatever. So there's definitely an understanding
that these things are connected. I think that there's a
transmission of the music and of food also, which is similar,
so that as people mix to make music together, they're

(54:49):
also transmitting their ideas about food or not that kind
of thing in the same way. So I think all
of that is UM related. The bar. The bar food
culture is still alive. You know. There are plenty of
places you can go early evening to get a drink,
a little spread of food complimentary cooked by either the

(55:12):
musicians that are performing that night or the bartenders, part
owners or sometimes just regulars, and you go and you
listen to music and you eat and you come together. Um.
So the musicians definitely UM, the food and drinking music
all comes together. And part of the professional drinking is
that you'd actually have food with it, because that is

(55:36):
an intelligent thing to do. You don't have one without
your other. That's it's not very proper much less fun.
You know, you got a wedding without alcohol, mind going oh,
I have to like very much. I mean, I'm willing
to bring my own. I was the minister of Bryson's wedding.

(55:57):
He had I made him out of alcohol. I have
a great picture actually on my group has been passed
out right there on that on that look hotel. This
that one thing that's come up a lot. This conversation
is community and the community in New Orleans and around

(56:19):
food specifically, And like every episode we've done in New
Orleans food, there's some like asterix of people were gathering
and cooking this food, and I was wondering, if what
ways do you see the food and drink industry supporting
this community that is New Orleans in times of hardship
or uplifting or like looping the city for it. We're

(56:43):
definitely a big help each other out community. I mean
that was definitely Uh. I had to bring up Katrina.
It was one of those things that place shut down,
everybody started banding together. I mean, yeah, we had some
looting and some horrible things going on, but afterwards you
saw this big community embrace. Let's just help each other out.
Let's get our restaurants back open, let's let's get back something.

(57:06):
What we've seen before. Let's let's just pack past the bottle.
Let's let's get everything out the freeze and let's just
cook it all. Let's just give it all away. Let's
let's go help and friend put a patch up the roof.
Let's let's get it done. Let's so after a Hurricane Katrina,
we did a special exhibit for the James Beard Foundation.

(57:26):
The James Beard Foundation um the first time they had
awards after Hurricane Katrina was giving the Collective Chefs of
New Orleans the Humanity the Humanitarian Award of that year,
and they asked us to come up and do an
exhibit about why the food was an important aspect of

(57:48):
rebuilding the city. And one of the things that we
concluded as we were doing our research and everything to
do this exhibit was that number one, chefs made their
businesses open before their homes were repaired, because not so

(58:08):
much because they were trying to have some kind of income,
although I'm sure that there were elements of that, but
because this became a place where you could come together
with like people that shared some cultural thing, and that
was this feed. So we had a website that was

(58:31):
operating in the aftermath of her it came to Patrina,
and we would get emails from people who said, I
can't find phil A. I'm in Minneapolis, you know, and
I can't find coffee and tickery and I'm in Seattle
or wherever they were, and where do you think I
can get this? You know? And um, there was just

(58:53):
this sense of missing their food and that that they
were kind of out of lace because the food that
they were eating was entirely seasoned. It was probably boring,
and it was just not what they wanted or what
they were used to. And tried to come back and
then have your food again and be eating it with

(59:14):
other people who appreciated it and had missed it, and
we're happy to have it. I think it really made
the city come back and feel like it could come back,
but this wouldn't be lost. And it's it's almost impossible
to explain. I mean, the city is a place where

(59:35):
it's no longer true because people have actually been born
here again. But when people came back to New Orleans,
everybody chose to come back to New Orleans. So it
became a city where people chose to live. And it
wasn't just because you were born here that you wanted

(59:55):
to you chose to live here, and the food when
you're you're mucking out your house and ripping out sheet rock,
you don't have a kitchen. It doesn't function. So are
you going to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?
Are you going to go to this restaurant that's opened
itself so that you even if you're eating off of

(01:00:18):
paper plates and things because water wasn't potable or whatever, Um,
you're happy to do that. And that meant like this
is are still a real place. And I think that
the food and the chefs who opened their their restaurants
and made the food available just the most remarkable, remarkable thing.

(01:00:40):
I mean, all the first responders, all that can stuft
all great and not taking away from them, but from
a cultural standpoint, that meant you were in New Orleans.
That really fueled the rebuilding because even if nothing else
is recognizable, you know you could still get some recognizable food.

(01:01:01):
I want to I wanted to ask it sounds like
it sounds like you guys have spent a few minutes
in here. Do you do you all have a favorite
object in the museum? Um, favorite object of museum? We
have this wonderful. I think I'm sure what kind of
stone it is, but it's it looks like it's marble
or granite. When the absence pours when was with the
angels on it, it looks so cool. If ever goes missing,
I didn't take it, but I don't. One of the

(01:01:23):
few people that actually like the taste of absinthe and
heer no and those flavors. I love that intense liquor
sheet herbal flavor, and it's my favorite cause I want
to use it one day and like wait for my
birthday if it's okay, Liz, to have it out and
come have the ice water set up, drip into all
the sugar, into the absinthe, and salute to all my friends.
That's so, that's what it's like. It's I'm gonna do

(01:01:43):
that one day tomorrow. We're treat up tomorrow. What's your
favorite my favorite item in here? Yeah, So there's there's
actually a lot of great answers to that, but I'm
gonna go with one of the weirder ones. Um, there's
a there's a blown up picture of al Copeland over there.

(01:02:05):
It's fake. You can't see it from in here because
it's facing the street. Um, but it's young, like handsome
ol and I swear a few people agree with me,
but I swear he looks just like Hugh Jackman. And
he's got three like fried chicken drumsticks in between his
fingers like this, and it's just like New Orleans love it.

(01:02:28):
There's also a tin foot hurricane. But the drink you
can't but there's you can't drink it all right. You
can't drink that became in a box label t Rex
or Dinostat or something like that. Nevicadnezzar right drinking if
you tried hard enough, it would take some doing, right,

(01:02:48):
So I changed my mind all the time because it's
like whatever just came in. It's like my absolute favorite thing,
um as a group of things. I love our gadgets.
I love to watch people play with the gadgets. And
we'll take a turned over milk carton and let children

(01:03:09):
stand on it so that they can play with the gadgets.
And to me, just watching people play with everything and
and say what do you think this is? And try
to guess what things are. Just that's that's my that's
my absolute favorite thing. And do they all have favorite
things on the menu? I'm biased, but I'll say what

(01:03:32):
came to mind. The cracklins that we do. They're the
best side of a Chaffela basin and maybe the best
in Christendom. Well, once again, i've I'm very biased. So
if you don't know out there, cracklin is basically the
better part of a cheat your own, So I cheat
your own will just be crispy skin, where a proper
fried cracklin is skin, meat and fat. And we tossed

(01:03:54):
them our own special crack spice. We just get drug
references out there, um, and we fry them fresh to order.
And I make the joke, but it's not a joke
that they put my children through school. It's not a joke.
I sell that much that it pays for their schooling.
My kids live off a port fan so do many
politicians kids. Obviously I leaned towards the drinks. Um, chef

(01:04:23):
took my favorite dish off the menu, so we're gonna
believe that the far banks in purgatory. Oh man, that
was great. It's okay. I don't even like breakfast, but uh,
and obviously our our drinks are changing all the time. Um,
but right now, right now, I would say my favorite

(01:04:44):
is is something we're doing uh for for happy hour uh.
And this goes back to like the world's traditions that
just won't die. We are doing we're doing setups which
traditionally would just be like a mill hip bottle of
liquor whatever you want, bucket ice and uh tony of soda.

(01:05:05):
So we've got we're doing our own sodas that we're
talking about Rootpier earlier. So we have a housemade root beer,
which is great, really nice. We have a spiced coke
like a cola, which is cool. Um. But my favorite
right now is a sesame cream soda that so a

(01:05:25):
little it's lemon and vanilla and toast sesame uh. And
we mix that with like some rum or some gin
or whatever you're feeling at the time. You just have
this this beautiful, bright, effifescent drink that you can pour
for yourself and your friends. And it's um, it's a
it's a social experience, it's a drink experience, and it's

(01:05:47):
a it's a weird, fun flavor and I love I
love things that are a little out there. It tastes
like one of my favorite candies. It's it's not a
Chico stick, But it's a little bit sesame candies that
are so delicious and it tastes just like the alcohol
version of that. So it's like next for alcohol and
up my childhood. I didn't need the help. My favorite

(01:06:07):
thing on the menu is the hamburger. Yeah, it's just
I could eat the hamburger every day, thank you. Is
that a general statement about hamburgers or is it a
general Is it a specific statement about this one specific
statement about this hamburger. I couldn't eat hamburgers every day? Uh,
but this hamburger. I could? We take our burger seriously,

(01:06:29):
just like every other menu item, you know, it's everyone's like,
oh yeah, a good burger. No, a good burger is
not just something you can just shuffle out. There's something
that takes time, and you gotta cook it properly every time,
and we grind our own meat. You gotta make sure
the bun is toasted, make sure the sauce on it
contains all of the bun. Make sure you bite into it.
You can equal parts bread and bun. Horrible part about

(01:06:49):
eating a burger biting into it, it's all bread. The
first pipe screw that screw youth had that burger, and
I will encourage people to get a hamburger, and when
they order medium, I just tell them that they can't
have it, and and and people people do it because
they're used to not having good meat on their burger,

(01:07:12):
so they get it medium so it's cooked, and I
tell them you don't need to do that. Just eat
it the way you're supposed to eat it, and it
will be juicy and delicious and everything. And then if
they say no, I wanted made about a little like
stop the way to go, Like yeah, I tell them

(01:07:32):
you can't have it. You have to swich exactly. There
are other good things. If you can't eat the burger
the right way, don't eat it. Dylan, I know you're
like doing a job over there. Do you have anything
you want to ask? Thanks find people? What do you
see for the future of museum? Thinking the planets that, well,

(01:07:57):
we have two things that we're working on that are
going to be for two thousand nineteen. So we want
to add a Missouri exhibit. We've actually had people from
Missouri and actually a restaurant in Missouri had people sign
a petition or that we add Missouri to um the
Southern Food of the Rich Museum. So there's that and

(01:08:20):
we're literally working on that. But also we're also looking
at putting in UM a Puerto Rico Amusing exhibit because
that where else would you put it? I mean it
would have to be here UM but in a bigger
sense where we're opening our our yard and we're going
to have an outdoor cooking space, and so we have

(01:08:44):
all kinds of things that are in the works for
two thousand and nineteen. So I have other future things
too that That's what we just talked about the one year.
Are your kids into cooking? My kids actually love to look.
They have short at tamsuspense like their father, but they
love to come in and see what they're doing. And

(01:09:04):
they don't always want to eat when I'm cooking, and
I have normal pay I think I'm a normal parent
trying to get their kids to eat more vegetables and
eat new foods. And they'll make they'll make leaves and
bounds and then like backstep three or four times they
will need a hamburger, but they'll eat sashini. They're weird kids. Yeah,
so um, they love to come help. And my seven

(01:09:25):
year old has her first knife. She got it when
she was six, and it's razor sharp and she uses
it even though I'm always sweating. She's not to cut herself.
But that's how you learn in the Twops family. You
here's a knife, you'll figure it out. You cut yourself
sooner or later. Um My little one, Ivy, she she's
a four. She's give her a bowl with some chips
and a spoons. You crush the chips, not necessary for

(01:09:47):
any reason. You just will have chip crumbs later. But
you know they love something to do. Is like, just
give me something to do, and give them something to
do in there there, please just punch and you just
set them on the counter. Don't touch it, don't touch it.
Don't touch that. How that's hot? Yeah, that's how you learn. Yeah,
my son, my son loves to help at the barn. Um.

(01:10:08):
So he'll come in and like I'll take him back
there after service and he'll make sodas for me and
my wife. Um. So like I'll get him some juices
or some shrubs or syrups and he'll pick out what
he wants and then he'll shake it up. Um. Then
we started doing that because he had watched me work

(01:10:30):
for a while and one day he was eating breakfast
and he had a juice box and milk came running
into running into the living room and he handed me
the companies of Daddy, I want you to try my drink.
I made milk juice and I and my wife was
like it was about to throw it away, and I
took it and I drank it, and I was like

(01:10:52):
it was actually pretty nice, you know. And like he said,
I don't like I don't like being told no when
it comes to mixing flavor. So I couldn't bring myself
to tell him no. So milk juice is my son's
first recipe. Um and now since that he's made to
a few really interesting so does. But yeah, it's you
get a milk juice and I like it coming soon

(01:11:14):
to a menu near you. Sounds like brunch. Yeah, that's
a brunch. Milk juice, Brandy Brandy milk juice, Brandy Brandy,
milk juice. Michael, My cookbook just came out, Chasing the
Gator self promotion babble on Amazon Comms. Autographed for free

(01:11:37):
milking restaurants. That's it. You can come see us at
Toops Metery in Toops, South North Carolton and Medary and
South is located inside the Southern Food and Beverige Museum.

(01:11:58):
Awesome museum which you can get a hottail from the
bar and walk around with and you can also have
a bite. Yes, I shouldn't visit one without the other.
In fact, it's mandatory. Yeah yeah, yeah're like, no, that's it.
I've talked forever pretty much poorly obligated. That brings us

(01:12:28):
to the end of possibly one of our final one
of our final interviews. It brings us to the end
of potentially our last New Orleans interview that will release
potentially potentially I never know, you never know what's going
to happen. It's to unearth something else, some spaghetti ghost,
but like interview for him, and we hope that you

(01:12:49):
enjoyed it as much as we did. It really was wonderful.
Oh gosh. Yeah, like the only time we got a
random singing in an interview, I believe, I think, so,
it's definitely one of few. If it's happened again, pretty rare. Yes, absolutely, yes, um.
And if you're going to New Orleans for Marty Graw,

(01:13:11):
have fun, be safe, m but have fun. Yes, yes,
And we would love to hear from any of you
listeners out there, Um, any of your Marti Gras shenanigans
are fun times, our foods or drinks, all of it?
Yeah or non Mrighty Graw related. Oh yeah, we're pretty open.
We're pretty open to shenanigans. Where we do, we do

(01:13:33):
like a good shenanigan. You can email those to hello
at savor pod dot com or reach out on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
sabor pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of iHeart Radio and Stuff Media. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit the
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super

(01:13:54):
producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way