December 12, 2023 • 51 mins
On episode four of the Between Bites podcast, Nina Compton and Larry Miller are joined by Chef Mason Hereford from the acclaimed New Orleans restaurants Turkey and the Wolf, Molly's Rise and Shine, and Hungry Eyes.
Chef Mason shares how he scaled his career from a bar bouncer to a restaurant entrepreneur with innovative sandwiches as the foundation. The trio talk about Mason's Iron Chef experience, the lost-at-sea supply chain issues surrounding his New York Times bestseller Turkey and the Wolf: Flavor Trippin' in New Orleans, and the mutual love and appreciation that Mason and the city share.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Wild, big big.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
All right, welcome to another edition of Between Bites with
Nina Compton. I'm Larry Miller, brought to you by Caesar's
New Orleans today. I hope everyone is sitting down and
you may not want to be in the car for
this one, but we are joined by Chef Mason Hereford
of Turkey and the Wolf Molly's Rise and Shine Hungry Eyes.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Welcome Mason, thanks for having me. Why did they have
to be out of the car.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
He's like instant adrenaline. Okay, all right, that's amazing story
right now. You don't want to be lost in Mason's
world while you're driving. It's having the radio on.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
When you get your life like being stoned.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Well something like that.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
The Nina, Well, Mason, tell us a little bit of
your journey because you're from Virginia originally.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Yeah, well that's a big one to start. I drove
here from my house on Barone Street, up further uptown,
across Canal, which is rare, and then I crossed Boydrous
which is very very rare, and then across Esplanade, which
is the first time I've actually ever done that. Welcome,
(01:27):
we'll stamp your passport yeah, but as as you were saying,
I did grow up in Virginia.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
And I went to school there.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
And then I was sitting at a bar with a
friend of mine and he said, Hey, everybody's graduating and
like moving somewhere and we should do that, so we
should talk about how we're going to figure that out.
And then I think he said, what about New Orleans?
And I was like, cheers to that, that sounds cool.
Why not no prior understanding of exactly sort of the
(02:01):
poll and like the just the wonder and enchantment of
New Orleans. I just knew it was like a pretty
cool place and probably a fun place to land if
you're a young person.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
And then once I got here, it was like, oh, well,
I'm going to live here for the rest of my life.
And that took like an hour.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
I think I was like at egors On, Saint Charles
was like the first boar I somehow landed on and
I was looking around and I was like, Wow, you
can do your laundry here and it's open twenty four
hours a day. This is a completely new experience in me,
and I will be living in a city for the
rest of my life. And I immediately started applying to jobs,
seeing as I didn't have any money, and I applied
(02:39):
to more or less every place that was open that
I could find on Saint Charles and Magazine Street, which
were like the two main streets that I could consider
as a person that didn't know anything about New Orleans.
I got hired at two places, one of which was
for like minimum wage and the other one was for
had some two involved, and that was Fat Harry. So
(03:01):
I took a job at Fat Harry's, which, if you
don't know, Fat Harry's is like a awesome bar for
young people and elder alcoholics alike. And you know, you
can watch Pals games there. You can also it's like
a big spot for Marti Gras and around the holidays
it gets really packed. And I started off as a
(03:22):
door guy and I used to watch Roadhouse before i'd
go in. I check the IDs of college kids' licenses
on Friday Saturday nights. And then they said, oh, you
also work in the kitchen. I was like, awesome, and
that's where I started like learning how to cook beyond
like making cereal and pasta.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, now with the did you give any feedback on
the fake IDs you were getting.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
I don't think it would be appropriate to say how
long it took me to even find.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
The the birthday on the Laisena state ID, but I
won't say it was on the first ID that I
looked at. But that was at a different time when
you only had to be nineteen to get into bars,
but you weren't technically allowed to consume. But you're allowed
to get into bars, maybe even eighteen, but the rule
there was nineteen. And yeah, their policies are very legit.
(04:13):
Nobody underage drinking at any of these bars.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
But yeah, I was really scrutinizing those ideas.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
So you start cooking there and maybe we consider that
not the top tier of New Orleans restaurants.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Maybe you can consider it now.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
You know, I love that kind of food. The how
was your progression from there? When you were back there cooking,
did something click?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, oh definitely I got really into it.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
You know, there's something about like a flat top griddle
that shows you that really like says, oh, like cooking exists, right,
Like this thing is hot and.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
You put food on it and the food cooks.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
Before that, the idea of a Sartapian was pretty intimidating
as a person who didn't know how to use a stove,
and then you like throw stuff on there and you're
like it's like sizzling, and I'm thinking to myself, I
got to get one of these from my house, and
not realizing that it's just a big sawtaepian and that
you can do it at your house with you know,
fire and metal and whatever.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So I'm like, man, cooking is really food obsessed my
whole life.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
I wouldn't go far as say I was a foodie
because that word wasn't around, and you know, sometimes it's
kind of a silly word. But I was really into
consuming food, so it was natural that I gravitated towards,
you know, being obsessed with cooking. And it wasn't long
before they realized that, like, I wanted to go somewhere
with it, and they would. This was like one of
the first years that Chopped had come out, and they
(05:46):
were giving me like chop challenges because they knew that
I was, like, you know, had I wouldn't say career
aspirations at this time, because I was just a kid
drinking and partying at Fat Harry's and making case of
dias and burgers, but they knew that, you know, I
wanted to go work somewhere else, and then eventually I
ended up at Coquette on the guard Maget station, and yeah,
(06:11):
there was a lot of room for upward mobility there.
So over like the six years I worked there, you know,
I ended up being the chef gauisine for the second
half of my stay, and then.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I left traveled for a while with a little bit
of money.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
I'd saved stager restaurants around the country, five of them
mostly sandwich focused, and then came back helped some friends
work in some restaurants, some of which were just opening,
so I got a little refresher course on how to
open a restaurant, and eventually I got Turkey and the Wolf open.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
I remember that one's the news came out that you
were opening.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Everybody was so excited. Yeah, and they still are. Yeah,
still are. It's an amazing.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
World's most overrated scene and now it's.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Not even when we got here today we were talking
about the Boulogney sandwich. How did you get to the
point that you said, you go chef to Guizine in
one of the best restaurants in town. Took some time
off and then you open your sandwich shop. How would
you describe that menu? And coming up with that menu.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
I knew it was gonna be a sandwich shop because
I looked around New Orleans and saw Poe Boys, which
are like one of the greatest things on earth. In
muffalatta is an awesome, really another awesome sandwich. But I
didn't see this thing that a lot of other cities
of different sizes have, which is like a sandwich shop
with odd offerings or like eccentric combos that is not
(07:35):
also a deli. So we had Stein's, which was my
favorite place to eat because it was the closest thing
to a sandwich shop. And I love dan stein I
have a tattoo of them next to my wife on
my arm, and so I was eating there a lot,
and I was like, you know, other than Stein's, there's
not a ton of places in my part of town
that are making sandwiches that aren't po Boys, not that
(07:55):
I don't love po Boys. So as I started to
get sort of menu autonomy at Coquette, I was putting
sandwiches on the lunch menu because there's not room for
sandwiches on dinner menu. At Coquette at that time or
probably now, just it's not a perfect fit because of
the casual nature of sandwiches and the more elevated fair
(08:15):
at Coquette. So I would get really into making these
sandwiches at lunch. They're using the same sort of techniques
and ideas of how you create a fully formed plate
of food at a farm or table restaurant that's serving
really quality food, but just like in sandwich form. And
then it became very clear like if I keep going,
(08:39):
I want to be the guy that.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Opened the sandwich shop around here.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
You have a gift, says you, but yeah, the bologney,
like how to get from there to bologney sandwich.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I think at the same time that I.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
Was experimenting with sandwiches at Coquette, I was also experimenting
with taking sort of less fancy ingredients and you know,
creating fancier dishes for lack of more eloquent terminology.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And and or taking.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
You know, really sort of refined ingredients and then serving
him in a way that felt really accessible to somebody
who grew up eating it, you.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Know, at gas stations like I did.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
And then one day I was like, you know what,
I can like just serve the food they make at
gas stations.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
To do one or the other.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
If I if I opened the sandwich shop, and that's
sort of how we ended up at you know, making
Some people call them comfort food upgrades or stone or
food or whatever. I think of it as like an
evolution of like having a lot of meals at gas
stations as a child.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
And I don't mean to say that like.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
That was the only restaurant that that was accessible, but
I just you know it. Yeah, and when you stop
on the way to school because you missed the bus,
your mom's like running there and get something to eat.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
You guys are just work it like we are late.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
And then instead of baking and eggs that morning, I
had like a Snickers and a doctor pepper.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
That was a good day for me.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
So, but that being said, so now you have the restaurants,
everything is going, and you worked on your cookbook.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Oh yeah, I wrote a cookbook with a friend JJ.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Yes, that's a long journey because I mean I'm working
my cook and.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
It's for those that don't know, it's a it's a
label of love.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It's it's very paychecks.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
No, it's also it's a it's very disheartening because it's
I don't think people know how much work goes into
the cookbook and they just opened up and I go,
it's okay, and I'm like, this.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Is so much work. It's hopefully in front of you.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
No no no no no.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
No no no no no no no.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
But I think your book is it's.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
It's definitely you.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
And I think that a lot of cookbooks that are
coming out now are.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
There's not as much personality.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Yeah, and I think you always really shined where of
course I know you very well. So I look at
that book and I see your dog, I see your staff,
and it's like, that's that's that's the book and it
makes so much sense. So tell me the process of
how did you select those recipes for that book?
Speaker 5 (11:19):
Well, thank you for the kind words. I appreciate you
saying that about the book. That's all the recipes.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I got fluster minus a few at the time.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
Yeah, selecting the recipes wasn't as much of a challenge
as thinking, like you said, it's like, how do I
start with the idea of like a stack of pages
and then like create personality within the pages and the
same to do that was the same way I've sort
(11:52):
of gone about anything in my career, which is to
like surround yourself with people that have a lot of
personality and a lot of creativity and.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
A lot of skill and talent and you know, honesty
and all these things. And designing the recipes, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
We just sort of broke it up into categories and
started chipping away at it and then realizing that some
of the categories didn't make any sense and start combining them.
And you know, you start with two hundred recipes, you
get down to one by the end because as you
start testing it and being like, nobody needs me to
show them how to make something that doesn't have my personality.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Now, that was what was.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
Tough, is you know, it's like, oh, this is like
one of my favorite foods, and the best way to
do it is the most classic way to do it.
It's like, did they really need me to tell them?
Everybo deciding whether or not, you know, I think the
one simple dish in there is a caesar salad done
like very pretty pretty standard. I guess I don't really
know the most standard way to make a caesar salad.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And that one's you know, squeaked by because it's like,
I gotta have another salad and then yeah, everything else.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
The ideally should feel like more of an extension of
the way we create in our kitchen at our restaurant
our kitchens and our restaurant restaurants than just here's a
good version of this, or here's like, you know, here's
the best way to make a simple grilled cheese.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Is like, it's not really.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
And your brother did such a beautiful job, yeah, capturing
all of that.
Speaker 7 (13:25):
He is.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
He's awesome.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
He so yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
My brother, William Hereford I call him will is a photographer.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
He's done a few cookbooks.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
He does tons of travel, some fashion and food, and
he just did the photographs for Nini.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Wins cookbook, which will be coming out stands. So that'll
be really awesome too.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
He has a true gift.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Agreed, No, let me, let me. Let's go back to
the cookbook. So you do all of this?
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Would it's about to be released.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Everybody's excited and.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
Yes, yeah, so we the cookbook was about to come
out and then I get this call from the I
guess someone at the publisher and says, we've got just
terrible news, and I'm like, okay, what's going on. They're like,
your book was in a shipping container on a boat
(14:16):
and it all collapsed. And I'm sitting here thinking that.
She's like, it's so serious. I'm like, well, who got injured?
Like who did the book hurt? But really she was like, no,
it's going to come out later. I'm like, well, it
could have been a lot worse. But it pushed back
the release date that we had been slowly working towards
and planning up and building up for a long time.
(14:37):
And we immediately sort of started posting on Instagram about
how it fell in the ocean, how mermaids got and.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
All these things, and.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I think it's one of I think it really actually
helped the book.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
So the book.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
Squeaked in there as a New York Times bestseller at
the bottom of.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
The list and still on the list.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
And I think part of it was I introduced a
whole new audience when every journal in the seemingly in
the country wanted to talk about supply chain issues and
these creative.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Cookbooks that fell on the ocean.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
Yes, and then it turns out on the end that
they found the milk crate at the bottom of the
boat and we sold them all and everything was fine.
It just had to come out. You know six months later,
is there two pre sales?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Right?
Speaker 5 (15:22):
They a few people had bought it, and then we
canceled it, and then you know, we've had some more
pre sales than we you know, then we became a bestseller.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Has it crossed your mind when to schedule James Cameron
to go down and recover.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
If yeah, if that was a real thing, yes, I
think about it constantly.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And also if I could go back in time and
there wasn't.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Foul weather that day, I would push the books in
the ocean because it.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Really worked out in my favor.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
For as much as much sorries as I got the
two days that that happened, I was kind of took
it in stride, being like.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
You know, it's the middle of like a delta wave
of a pandemic.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
I don't think that this book coming out later is
going to be this, you know, this thing that you
guys need to be apologizing so much about it then
and we were correct and that it was not the end.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Of the world. That's good.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So Turkey is often running and you decide it's time
to open Mollies.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yep, what was the thought process.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
There just a wealth of talent in one space, and
it you.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Know, it wasn't It was never about.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
How many restaurants can we open, because if you ask
people that have five restaurants, as I have done to
a couple of people, they might have been more financially
well off when they if they just focused on that
one and grew that one and just really you know,
made it work. But I didn't have something to prove,
(16:57):
but we had something to prove. The group of people
had outgrown the space. We were so lucky to open
Turkey and the Wolf as this sort of casual joint
where a bunch of like Sioux chefs and chef c
cuisines and just really seasoned professionals came together to do
something like, you know, slightly more goofy and a little
(17:19):
bit less serious, while still trying to put out something,
you know, really solid that everyone cared about. And then
all of a sudden, we're two years in and I've
got the sous chef from one of the best restaurants
in town, you know, one of the old chefs from
Coquettes with me, and you know somebody else from over here,
and I'm like, I want you guys, we're got to
(17:40):
find you job, the places to go run.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Or there were, you know, they time to move on,
and we said, hey, let's try to open another restaurant.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
And that was sort of the impetus for making it
happen was And that's kind of where we're at now
now that we have three and we're considering doing a
fourth one. It's because that first group is still intact
and we've been lucky to attract a couple other just
wildly talented, smart, creative people.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
That's amazing. So now you have all these restaurants and
then you do Iron Chef.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
Spoiler alert, I lost. But yeah, that was wild. I
forget that that happened too sometimes. How was that experience terrifying?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Was it really? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (18:28):
I drank too much during the show. I don't know
if that's like what you talk about on Pelicans radio station.
But yeah, no, I wasn't terribly aviated. But we did
plan ahead that we were allowed to show a bit
of a party while filming. That was important for us,
knowing that we would be going up against someone who
probably wasn't going to make sandwiches and.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
He cheated, he didn't. You were up against Curtis Stone.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
It was street food, wildly attractive. Curtis Stone with the skill.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
On the same set. I'm sure everybody was.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Swooning when he smiled. Is this tooth like had like
a little glare? The man is gorgeous.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Well, he didn't follow the rules.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
It wasn't.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
An iron chef.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
I should gosh, I should own that that knife that
they gave out or they didn't give out the.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
When you you obviously got the phone call, and then
you're getting ready to go out there, did you Was
there an ingredient you had to bring with you?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Was there?
Speaker 5 (19:36):
You get a couple of things where they you can
plan ahead. That's like, hey, this is an ingredient that's
really important to my pantry. And and they I think,
if I remember correctly, it's so long ago.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yeah, they tell you, like.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
What's within like the rules.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, it's so.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
It's not like you're sitting in the dark. They turn
on the lights.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah, no, it was the lights were on when I
got there.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
That's good.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
Yeah, but it's still is a wild experience running around
that kitchen.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
The time goes quickly on, Yeah it is.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
It's one hour, it's real.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
Yeah, yeah, No, it's bizarre.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
It's a real hour.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
It's a real hour.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
And then at the end where you're like, oh, they
edited to make it seem like they just got everything
in at the last second, it's like, no, yeah, you know,
we needed those seconds. We were like burning stuff, recooking stuff,
running around in circles, cheers in, taking shot subourbon, and
then all of a sudden be.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Like, oh, shoot, forty five minutes went byck In this
horner was ten.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Did any mayonnaise making him?
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Oh? Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, I don't think anything
you want to BRANDI yeah, chance, Duke's Mayonnaise is coursing
through my veins. No. I do like Duke's mayonnaise a lot,
and it's a very organic relationship.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
It's not like a I'm not sponsored by dukes Man,
just a lover.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
One of my so I travel a lot.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
I've been really lucky to travel and cook our food
and other friends restaurants. And one of the first trips
I got a Duke's man as tattoo, which is next
to the tattoo of my wife and the tattoo of
dan Stein's.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
That's trinity, Yeah exactly, that is my trinity.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Now one thing that everybody wants to know about, and
it's not discussed enough. Is your greatest skill possibly in
life is rollerblade?
Speaker 5 (21:33):
Yeah, my lower back in my meniscus have something to
say about it currently being my greatest skill. But yes,
I would agree that there was a time where my
skill and rollerblading for eclipse to what I consider will
be my maximum skill in cooking.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I mean, that's that's setting that cooking could never catch
that because when you look at the clips that are
out there and the world.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Like, you did some insane things.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Thank you. I like this conversation. That's a good one.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
It is pretty insane when I see you jump up
on the on the bar, on the bar.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
And I'm like, we call it a rail.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Sorry.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
Uh yeah, it's bizarre that that was yeah, and that.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
All getting to do the Red Bull event at an empty.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah, that was cool.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
So if you don't know if New Orlean's got a
new airport a couple of years ago and the old
airport is sitting there empty and this guy is sitting
in our fabulous bywater studio today, got to go skate
in an empty airport with MS.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
Right, So team Red Bull does like cool activations, right,
we all seen Red Bulls content. They did create wild
situations to do crazy tricks.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And they did a skateboard sort of.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
Competition where they transformed different terminals of the old MSY
airport into a giant skate park. And we were lucky
enough to be the caterer to feed the athletes. And
then I also got to strap on my skates on
my you know, hardly working, slightly older body, and I
(23:15):
got to skate around and you know, film myself a
little bit going on the ramps in the airport, which
is pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
That would be just even just thinking back on it,
you think about, Okay, I went to this airport to
catch a flight. Now there's nobody in here but us,
great people jumping up. Yeah, nobody's getting in line for
the plane too early, just.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
You and yeah, like skating around, you know. So if
you grow up doing one of these sports where you
slide across stuff, For me, it's rollerblading, the perhaps the
most hated on one in the history of sports, which
I think is a perfect place for me.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I love it. But if you're a skateboarder, or if
you you know, you do any of these other things.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
You're always your eyes are always looking around at what
could be an obstacle if you were allowed to utilize
that space as a skate park or as a as
a street obstacle.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
And I got to go jump on things that I
had seen hundreds of times.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
Maybe one hundreds as many times as I was in
that airport, being like man, I had my skates on,
I would jump on that thing. I got to go
jump on the thing, which is pretty cool, which is
like things that weren't part of the skate park. And
then the Red Bull guys had to be like, hey,
that parts offline.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I still did I still got it in yeah, in
case we need to use that airport.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
So true.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Now with all your travels, and again you're you're a
person who attracts fun, creative people you wanted that are
fun to be around. How do you compare those? So
it's not fair, You're you're going to a city immediately
hugged and embracing you. But you do you notice differences
(24:55):
in the New Orleans restaurant community versus others cities, cities
that are that are similar to ours and their support
of each other. But there are some that are just cutthroat.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Restaurant cities that are no fun.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
Yeah, I think that the people I've been lucky enough
to cook with or or spend time with, I see
sort of a similar similarity.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Across the hospitality industry.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
I find that if you're with the right people, it
feels the same everywhere as as like a very sort
of supportive group. I Yeah, I think some cities are
more cutthroat than others.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
But when people invite us to.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
Go travel, they because of like all the content we've
created around it, there's this idea that we're coming to
show them a good time and they want to show
us a good time. So there's not we're not really
introduced into that idea that there's competition going on or
it's not a fun place, because I think we're considered
like sometimes it almost feels as if like we're going
(26:16):
to go visit friends or make new friends, and like
that's the whole idea, is to have fun. But sometimes
it almost feels like when we arrive, we're we're like
a hall pass for the restaurant for the night to
their own rules, right, you know, And and and and
I'm not trying to say that we're our restaurant is
more fun. But I think that they have an idea
(26:36):
that let's let's plan this around making a little bit
more of a party than just a regular dinner service.
And that's awesome for us because we get to go
cause a big stir, make a big mess, and then
get out there and then they got to be like
it was last night, exactly the way we do things.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
But Yeah, to answer your question, I don't see it
a lot just because of.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
It's good situation.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
So you're going to Toronto this week? Is there anywhere
that's on your wishless top three? If somebody said, hey,
can you come cook at X y Z?
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Where would it be? Oh? Man, there's so many. There's
there's some that I've been very fortunate.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
To do and some that all right, so tell me
you're the ones that you've done, and then the ones
that you want to do.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Like if you had to say, I want to.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Cook with so and so in Yeah, I got a
text or a DM the other day to go cook
with Earl Ninsom in Portland. He's a tie chef.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
He was like, Oh, our restaurant's turning ten. We're gonna
invite some chefs. Would you be in? And I was like, yeah, cool,
no big deal. And then but like on the other
side of the phone, I was like, oh my god,
this is amazing.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
This is gonna be the best.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
So that's a bucket list one because I've been borrowing
and learning from from Earl's recipes for a long.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Time, and.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Uh, cooking with Mashama Bailey was bucket list And she
just cooks little cooks just like you, just like cooking
with you. When we do travel events, we bring a
lot of stuff. We really try to make sure that
there are not too many curve balls so that we
can focus on, you know, making sure everybody's having good
(28:12):
time right serving this stuff. What Mashama did and what
I noticed that you did when when I cook with
you in Oakland is you came and you created the
food in the space, which is a skill that I
don't necessarily always have the confidence to.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Try to put into practice. And yet so.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Mashama shows up and solo, no helper chef, me and
me and my co chef show up together. We've got
a bunch of stuff planned out, and she just starts
cooking all this incredible stuff and it was amazing to
watch her nail down just like cooking with you in Oakland.
You start, you get flour out and start making pasta.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I'm like, what are you doing. I've got bread that
I buttered on the other side of the country.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Well.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
It's funny because the first time I cooked with the
Mashama was in Charleston and we were doing a lunch
for like the people and same thing. She was solo,
and I said, what do you make? And she's like,
I think I'm making an oyster soup with sweet potatoes
and something like that sounds very obscure.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
It was the most amazing thing I tried.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
But she was just winging it as she went. It
was pretty incredible.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
I find when I'm in those situations they give me
the most anxiety, and then when I make it to
the other side, they're the ones that I have had
the most fun and I appreciate the most. But I
do everything in my power to avoid the situations, which
I don't know if it's a good thing or a
bad thing, but yeah, the few times that I've gotten
to a place and the food disappeared or it's such
(29:40):
a nightmare, and then to see people's reaction to your
food when you really sort of.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
You know, pulled it out of nowhere. You know, it
can be feel more exciting.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
Yeah, it's also nice when you just show up with
the food, you get it ready to get it hot,
and they're like, wow, you did it and you sort
of just brought it from you.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
So who else is on your list?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Who else is on my list?
Speaker 3 (30:07):
All countries you want to go to?
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, I mean I want to.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
I don't know if I will find myself cooking there,
but Southeast Asia is summer. I've never been in Thailand
and Vietnam are places that I wanted to go forever.
My wife before we met, bought a ticket in that
direction and ended up staying in Southeast Asia for nine
and a half months before coming back.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
So to go there with her would be really exciting.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
And to have experienced so much awesome vietnamease food in
New Orleans, to go see Vietnam and try Vietnamese food
there would be really exciting. And then Thai food, I
think is my favorite food to eat, So being over there,
I think I've heard it is just a completely eye opening,
incredible experience.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
And I recently bought.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
An outdoor walk burner and I'm teaching myself how to
So far, I'm teaching myself how burn food, but I'm
trying to. Soon I'll be teaching myself how to not
burn food on it in my backyard. And it's such
a blast. I got like a stack of fifteen cookbooks
and I like, look at and then I burned the noodles.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Now one I guess it was when we had the
crawfish bowl at Turkey in a parking lot at night.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
That was for the book. No, that was for pictures
for the book. But there was there was something that
was added to the one time.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Wasn't it. Oh yeah, we did the dumplings from the
super Hawk Park supermarket.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
That's an amazing idea. Thanks again.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
You are able to approach food from a different wavelength
than kind of any other human and it just kind
of makes sense.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
But that just popped in y'all's head to thanks.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Doing an old move that I've done a few times.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
I think a few people do it, whether or not
the first time I did it, I had never seen it.
I like to think that is the case. But here,
you know, whatever, who am I say? But yeah, so
when you boil crawfish, depending on if you do, depending
on what method you do. I know that.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Yeah, it's very touchy subject.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
There's different areas of Louisiana.
Speaker 5 (32:16):
There's different people who have been on this show who
feel very specific about a way of doing crawfish that
doesn't involve a long soaking time. Donald, But when I
boil crawfish as a as a jerk who migrated here
from Virginia and learn from other people who have their
methods of boiling crawfish, you soak crawfish so that any
(32:40):
flavor in the water.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
You know, sort of saturates the the food that you're
gonna eat.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
So you know, you have this stuff sitting here in
this very seasoned, delicious water that's super hot for twenty
to forty five minutes. It's like, why not throw in
some dumplings in a strainer and get those cooked through
and and do it? And I think that started because
we used to go super on non traditional with our
(33:09):
crawfish boil, which obviously can already piss people off.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Oh yeah, we were just as a cook.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
You do a lot of your shopping at the Hong
Kong Market because it's like a drive out there. It's
exciting yet yeah, and it's affordable and It's just really
exciting as cook. And that's as a young cook. Is
how when I started boiling crawfish. So you'd be like, wow,
there's some brush.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Sprouts over buy those. Throw those.
Speaker 5 (33:36):
You're like, if you can plant it, you can throw
it in there. I'm sure a lot of people, you know, disagree.
And then you're going around you start thinking, hey, what
else can I grab? And you know, it's very rare
that you go to if you're me, you go to
Hong Kong Market and don't get some frozen domlings for
your freezer, and like it just was like, it's all
in the car, it's going.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
In the boil. It's great.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
It's I love that market.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
It's yeah, it's realacky to have it.
Speaker 7 (34:02):
Now, at some time you are going to be older
and reflective. Would you do you wake up in a cold.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Sweat thinking that you went back into find dining.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
No, but the other day I sneezed in the shower
and pulled my back.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Well that's sort of the same thing.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
No, I'm down with fine dining. I love finding I
don't know if I have.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
The bandwidth and all the current skills needed to perform
in that space. So I don't think I have business
like trying to create it. I mean I could, you know,
if I partnered with somebody that wanted to make sure
it was good.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
I don't think that.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah, I don't. I don't have the attention to detail
in my that I could do.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Right in a second, you do because of your prior employment.
Speaker 8 (34:52):
Yeah, years of Because to a lot of us in
the industry, you're like, man, here's a guy who has
it all together and then just turned it into the
little fun palace that you come.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
To and eat and do you really want to go
back to the to.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
The I think that's just like just like what we
do at Turkey and the Wolf, and like, you know,
we've created like an image of you know, we're showing
the parties, we're not showing the behind the scenes when
you're talking something.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
It's the execution of people who care about food and
have the experience of working in quote unquote high end kitchens.
But putting that in to something that is going to
come out on what kind of plate McDonald's is.
Speaker 5 (35:38):
We do have the old Melamine McDonald's place, and we
have every mind I won't say that, but I.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Guess what I was gonna say, is.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
Insomuch as Turkey and the Wolf, Like on a really
good day, at a good time, at the end of service,
we're all having drinks. Does can feel more like a
fun palace than a restaurant? Ideally, I don't think that,
Like there's enough stress serving a line all throughout the
day and there's enough fun that can happen in fine
(36:08):
dining that I guess like if we did it, we
would try try to.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Mimic some of what we're getting at.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
But having just opened hungry eyes and it being like
notably more of a refined environment than Turkey and the Wolf,
albeit still fun, yeah, fun, and you know, less intense
than fine dining. It's you know, we're not like setting
your stuff, We're like putting your elware in a cup
or whatever. Yeah, it's proposed, you know, challenges have come up.
(36:35):
It's like, how do we keep this as rewarding for
the team when the expectations of how they present themselves
in the service environment, when those expectations would change, Like
how do we make sure that this idea is like, oh,
it's cool to work here.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Like it's like we follow through with that because it's
just like a new playing field.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
So tell me about all the swag.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Love the swag.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
It's amazing. It's thank you another gift.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
I really appreciate that.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
I think it's part of my problem. Part of the
problem is my like addiction to shopping. This one too,
and as my complicated relationship with capitalism, I still can't
stop buying everything.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, we we.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
So this summer when it was extra slow, I had
a lot of time to really plan to get more
merch made, so maybe amps it up a little. At
the time, we weren't making money, And then all of
a sudden I realized I had what felt like a
quarter of the year's income in merch.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Ready drop.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
But yeah, we've had like almost a shirt either every
week or every other week for what feels like a
few months.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
That's crazy, it's so fun.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Maybe just do retail. I mean, it would be a
dream to have a retail thing. I don't I don't.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Like I don't have, I don't have like this. I
don't know anything about retail. I don't know how to
do any of that. But if somebody, if someone was like, oh, let's.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Turn that into a lifestyle brand, man be easier. Who
needs food when you got clothes, that's right, put one
in the airport.
Speaker 5 (38:12):
I'll put one anywhere anyone else. No one's ever asked, Hey,
if you want to do it, I.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Mean it would be talk after the show. Yeah, the
does anyone.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
In our industry in New Orleans have a better sneaker
collection than you and your wife?
Speaker 1 (38:32):
I don't. I don't know how to answer that.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
I'm not aware.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if there is someone
that does. But yeah, I have like one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Pairs of sneakers.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
No, I depends on Yeah, And I have a few
one offs, like a few shoes that were like made, uh,
and I'm the only person that has them.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Like I got married in a pair of shoes, and
I commissioned them.
Speaker 5 (38:56):
When my old man passed away, I made sneakers out
of like some of his old uh clothes and stuff.
And so those ones are particularly meaningful. But you know,
I need to start liquidating. It's an absolute atrocity in there.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Just get a dog, you'll clean everything up.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
How How how doing?
Speaker 5 (39:17):
Darla the dog is doing great, and early in her
life she actually had a problem meeting sneakers and she's
gotten past that a few years back, but yeah, she's
the best dog.
Speaker 7 (39:27):
That That was.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
A very scary time for the entire city when she
went missing out. Your half million Instagram followers you're up to,
but Darling was missed.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah, yeah, that was awful, extremely awful.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
The dogs are kids, and that was pretty amazing to
see the city kind of round, like everybody was looking
for Darling.
Speaker 5 (39:52):
I remember driving around looking, so it was like a
two to three day ordeal of us not knowing you know, uh,
you know if if Darla was around still, and I
just remember driving blocks and seeing people I did not
know yelling for Darla, which was an absolutely incredible feeling.
It amidst the sat and my old my old man
(40:14):
was sick at the time. It was like a very
emotionally charged time.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
And yeah, it really was special that people helped us
that way, and I thank them all, thank you.
Speaker 5 (40:24):
When what was her her tail was like crooked, Yeah,
like now she had her tails like a curly cue
and she had to go to the vet like a
bunch of times. Was like some cuts and bruises that
she had. I guess she didn't tell us where she
got them, but she was.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Running. Yeah, I mean she was a mile away.
Speaker 5 (40:45):
I don't know how far she made it, but yeah,
she never comes when I call ever. But when she
saw me three blocks away and I was like, it
was like a dead sprint. There was cars stopped on
both sides, like one of these things where you see
like people trying to corral a dog and like there's
no cars going, and you know, it was very much
(41:05):
slow motion.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
She jumped in my arms and I was like, wow,
you've never done that. She jumped in my wife's arms, but.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Not necessarily where she saw how how unpleasant it was
on the outside.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
I guess, yeah.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
I think it's a lot different when you're on you know,
you're going for a walk and you see cars and
all of a sudden you're not dodging cars.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
It starts to get a lot scarier.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Things that everybody says, the culture, the warmth of the people,
the architecture of the music, the food New Orleans. Because
you see the world a lot cooler than the rest
of us.
Speaker 3 (41:43):
What else about New Orleans?
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Your words, not mine?
Speaker 3 (41:46):
And it dragged you in.
Speaker 5 (41:51):
I've used this example a couple of times in conversations,
and you already kind of said it with like the
warmth of the people. But you can end up an
extremely long and meaningful conversation with someone you've never met,
and it could be somebody, you know. The example I use,
I think last time I was talking to somebody is
checking out at the gap anywhere.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, and you get into a conversation.
Speaker 5 (42:13):
It turns out there's like a shared interest or like
something even about the city that you love more than
just like oh it's hot today, and you just you know,
you start talking and whether or not that's the only
conversation you ever have with that person, the conversation so
fulfilling that like you may as well have exchanged phone
numbers so you can have that kind of another conversation. Uh.
(42:34):
And I find that that is really accessible in this
place for some reason, especially when you're hungover.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
I don't know. I guess I get really chatty.
Speaker 5 (42:44):
But I found myself making friends in the most unlikely situations,
more so in New Orleans than anywhere else.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
So I guess that would be my answer. I to
the people, It's it's definitely the people.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
So speaking of people, you do a lot of charity work,
you do a lot for the community, So just tell
our listeners a little bit about what you do in
case they're not aware.
Speaker 5 (43:08):
Uh yeah, not my like, not my not a talking
point that I came up with, and certainly not like
the conversation that I sign up for.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
But yeah, we have. We have been privileged to be
able to.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
Integrate a couple of Solidarity moves into our businesses that
that turned out to not be nearly as much work
as they felt like they might be when you think
about it.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
So yeah, we do.
Speaker 5 (43:40):
So we work with Southern Solidarity, which they do a
lot of stuff for un housed member members of our community.
Ours relationship obviously centers more around food. So we just
put on our prep list every week to make one
hundred meals. We used to box them up him individually.
Now we just literally we make, you know, big pans
(44:01):
of food and then somebody comes and picks them up
on Monday and we and sell their Solidarity goes into
certain areas of town and distributes one hundred meals a week,
and it's something that when you think about it, it's like,
oh wow, one hundred meals a week, Like that's a
lot of extra work and a lot of extra money.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
It's not at all for us.
Speaker 5 (44:22):
Right now, we have a thing where a customer can
buy a meal for we call it pay it Forward,
and you pay eight dollars. We take that eight dollars,
We put it towards the fund of money that pays
for all this food. And you don't have to sell
a hundred of them to cover a very delicious meal
(44:43):
for one hundred.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
People, especially when you're creating a lot of one thing.
You know, it can be.
Speaker 5 (44:50):
You know, red beans and rice and fried chicken, and
these aren't ingredients that are extremely expensive, like on a Monday,
we might do that. And then yeah, Molly's, Molly's found
like a church, reached out to Mally's Bethlehem Lutheran Church
sort of like a radical almost like leftist church as
far as their views, and they said, hey, would you
(45:11):
be willing to do one hundred meals for us? And
because Turkey and the Wolf had sort of figured out
that it wasn't that big a deal, Molly's started doing it.
And Molly's, you know, was maybe a smaller staff and
a weirder sized restaurant.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
We thought that there'd be.
Speaker 5 (45:27):
Maybe issues with completing it, you know, just like and
they're just kind of seamless, Like the talent is there.
The people that run the restaurants are organized enough that yes,
it's I'm not trying to say that the work that
they're doing is not it's like going unnoticed, but they
are very capable of doing the work and we're capable
of making it happen where it's not this, you know,
(45:49):
affects our labor costs to the point where we're not
making money or we're you know, we're doing it to
a point where it's not sustainable. Another big one that
was really awesome that we do, I guess, but really
as other people making it happen is Nola Community Fridges.
We worked with them to put a free fridge in
front of the restaurant, and yeah, we worked to make
(46:12):
sure that there's food in it, but so do all
of our neighbors. They helped us find a donated refrigerator.
They found like you need the refrigerated refrigeration to be
under some sort of shelter to be protected from the elements.
They found a class a teacher who taught his students
how to do woodworking by making the structure put it
(46:32):
around the fridge. They got an incredible local artist who's
become a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Jay McKay, and.
Speaker 5 (46:39):
Jay painted the whole thing and now we have this
like beautiful spray painted, badass structure, community coming in helping
us keep it full, and like all it was was
like community coming together, wasn't Oh Turken Wolf did all
this stuff? Like all we did is like, yeah, we
have an outlet and we can help keep this thing full.
And it all just sort of happened, you know, And
I think that's like.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Thanks, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
So how many concepts of new restaurants are floating around
that head?
Speaker 1 (47:17):
So I have this one idea.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
The next book is just a book of all your ideas.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
I don't know if I have enough recipes, but so
we have an idea. We have a lot of ideas
for restaurants that won't work. So there's all sorts of
restaurants we love to do.
Speaker 5 (47:36):
But the ones that I'm really excited about are the
ones that don't are not possible that I make up
with some of my buddies, Like a restaurant called just
the Next and it's just the Next of animals, So
you could have turkey and eggs braised lamb necks, maybe
pork necks, chicken ecks, and then we're also going to
serve snake because snake is all next.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Yeah, so it's one hundred percent next.
Speaker 5 (47:58):
So it's actually the only it's the only animal that
we can serve head to tail, and I would still
be part of our just the next restaurant.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
There's also a restaurant that we're not gonna do.
Speaker 5 (48:11):
That's called footprint, which is the largest uh, ecological footprint
you could ever have.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
So it's sort of like the reverse of sustainable.
Speaker 5 (48:21):
And and the idea is what we're gonna do is
we're gonna serve one customer a night, so their their
memory is so pretentious that they can't even be shared. Uh.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
And it's it's it's sort of like it's for the
billionaire class. Really, it's gonna say you could you could
charge and only the time. No no, no, I'm talking millions.
Speaker 5 (48:40):
This is gonna cost millions, Like you know, you know,
to make soup, you might start with a nice stock.
We've used perhaps an endangered species common door, maybe even
uh a dinosaur bones to make us stick things that
you that are in limited supply. I love that uh
And that's a joke everyone, and we're not actually gonna
(49:00):
say that, but it is a.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Funny thing to talk about over a cocktail or anything.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
The rest of your life.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
You can only have.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
A corn dog or a hot dog? Which are you choose?
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Are the garnishes unlimited for either one corn dog? That
sounds fun? I mean, honestly, probably. I don't know. What's
you gotta think about? Like a corn dogs? Probably less
helly hot?
Speaker 3 (49:30):
Wait?
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Am I allowed to eat other food?
Speaker 4 (49:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (49:32):
Yeah, I just have to give up one or the other.
I want to say corn dog because I know you
love corn dogs, but I gotta it's hot hot dog.
Speaker 5 (49:39):
It's hot dog. I just like, you know, bread like
corn dog. You're really sort of like fencing yourself into like.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
It's gonna be a simple guy. He's a simple guy.
What's your corn dog? Like? What like if you could
if you can only eat a corn dog one way?
What do you put it on it? Near it, dip
it in? What's the deal?
Speaker 3 (50:01):
We must that's I mean, yeah, ketchup and mustard. I
know the ketchup is a bad word, but I.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Don't know that's for hot dogs corn dogs? Maybe it's
like a different playing fid.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Well, no, I get yelled at the thing that's not fair.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
And one of the things that kind of comes out
in Mason's food of where you say, okay, ketchup mustard.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
That's an easy one.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
But the way of you can make one condiment out
of everything you love, or being able to pick different
ingredients put them together.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
When one to do, which one? I guess it's probably two.
Speaker 5 (50:35):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of condiments, I think is
what we're getting at, and I agree, I love condiments
and layering flavors with condiments is a blast.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
You can only eat at one fast food restaurant for
the rest mass market.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Popeye's, I would I would agree. I mean it tastes
the best. I don't know, like raisin Kine is also good.
I don't know if subway counts.
Speaker 5 (50:58):
That probably your healthiest option if you're gonna go either
fried chicken or like vegetable sandwich.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
But yeah, it's got to be pop last. Everybody's got
the most love for pop Lust.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Well, Mason, thanks a lot for taking time out of
your incredibly busy schedule to sit down with us.
Speaker 3 (51:13):
Who was a treat. As always, we look forward now
that we're out of a pandemic to the next game night,
and oh yeah, let's go out.
Speaker 5 (51:22):
There and have a wonderful, wonderful thank yeah, thank you all.
Speaker 6 (51:27):
All right, thank you big waity.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
Wait, big way
Speaker 3 (51:44):
By everybody.
Wild, big big.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
All right, welcome to another edition of Between Bites with
Nina Compton. I'm Larry Miller, brought to you by Caesar's
New Orleans today. I hope everyone is sitting down and
you may not want to be in the car for
this one, but we are joined by Chef Mason Hereford
of Turkey and the Wolf Molly's Rise and Shine Hungry Eyes.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Welcome Mason, thanks for having me. Why did they have
to be out of the car.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
He's like instant adrenaline. Okay, all right, that's amazing story
right now. You don't want to be lost in Mason's
world while you're driving. It's having the radio on.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
When you get your life like being stoned.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Well something like that.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
The Nina, Well, Mason, tell us a little bit of
your journey because you're from Virginia originally.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Yeah, well that's a big one to start. I drove
here from my house on Barone Street, up further uptown,
across Canal, which is rare, and then I crossed Boydrous
which is very very rare, and then across Esplanade, which
is the first time I've actually ever done that. Welcome,
(01:27):
we'll stamp your passport yeah, but as as you were saying,
I did grow up in Virginia.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
And I went to school there.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
And then I was sitting at a bar with a
friend of mine and he said, Hey, everybody's graduating and
like moving somewhere and we should do that, so we
should talk about how we're going to figure that out.
And then I think he said, what about New Orleans?
And I was like, cheers to that, that sounds cool.
Why not no prior understanding of exactly sort of the
(02:01):
poll and like the just the wonder and enchantment of
New Orleans. I just knew it was like a pretty
cool place and probably a fun place to land if
you're a young person.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
And then once I got here, it was like, oh, well,
I'm going to live here for the rest of my life.
And that took like an hour.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
I think I was like at egors On, Saint Charles
was like the first boar I somehow landed on and
I was looking around and I was like, Wow, you
can do your laundry here and it's open twenty four
hours a day. This is a completely new experience in me,
and I will be living in a city for the
rest of my life. And I immediately started applying to jobs,
seeing as I didn't have any money, and I applied
(02:39):
to more or less every place that was open that
I could find on Saint Charles and Magazine Street, which
were like the two main streets that I could consider
as a person that didn't know anything about New Orleans.
I got hired at two places, one of which was
for like minimum wage and the other one was for
had some two involved, and that was Fat Harry. So
(03:01):
I took a job at Fat Harry's, which, if you
don't know, Fat Harry's is like a awesome bar for
young people and elder alcoholics alike. And you know, you
can watch Pals games there. You can also it's like
a big spot for Marti Gras and around the holidays
it gets really packed. And I started off as a
(03:22):
door guy and I used to watch Roadhouse before i'd
go in. I check the IDs of college kids' licenses
on Friday Saturday nights. And then they said, oh, you
also work in the kitchen. I was like, awesome, and
that's where I started like learning how to cook beyond
like making cereal and pasta.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, now with the did you give any feedback on
the fake IDs you were getting.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
I don't think it would be appropriate to say how
long it took me to even find.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
The the birthday on the Laisena state ID, but I
won't say it was on the first ID that I
looked at. But that was at a different time when
you only had to be nineteen to get into bars,
but you weren't technically allowed to consume. But you're allowed
to get into bars, maybe even eighteen, but the rule
there was nineteen. And yeah, their policies are very legit.
(04:13):
Nobody underage drinking at any of these bars.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
But yeah, I was really scrutinizing those ideas.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
So you start cooking there and maybe we consider that
not the top tier of New Orleans restaurants.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Maybe you can consider it now.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
You know, I love that kind of food. The how
was your progression from there? When you were back there cooking,
did something click?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, oh definitely I got really into it.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
You know, there's something about like a flat top griddle
that shows you that really like says, oh, like cooking exists, right,
Like this thing is hot and.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
You put food on it and the food cooks.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
Before that, the idea of a Sartapian was pretty intimidating
as a person who didn't know how to use a stove,
and then you like throw stuff on there and you're
like it's like sizzling, and I'm thinking to myself, I
got to get one of these from my house, and
not realizing that it's just a big sawtaepian and that
you can do it at your house with you know,
fire and metal and whatever.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So I'm like, man, cooking is really food obsessed my
whole life.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
I wouldn't go far as say I was a foodie
because that word wasn't around, and you know, sometimes it's
kind of a silly word. But I was really into
consuming food, so it was natural that I gravitated towards,
you know, being obsessed with cooking. And it wasn't long
before they realized that, like, I wanted to go somewhere
with it, and they would. This was like one of
the first years that Chopped had come out, and they
(05:46):
were giving me like chop challenges because they knew that
I was, like, you know, had I wouldn't say career
aspirations at this time, because I was just a kid
drinking and partying at Fat Harry's and making case of
dias and burgers, but they knew that, you know, I
wanted to go work somewhere else, and then eventually I
ended up at Coquette on the guard Maget station, and yeah,
(06:11):
there was a lot of room for upward mobility there.
So over like the six years I worked there, you know,
I ended up being the chef gauisine for the second
half of my stay, and then.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I left traveled for a while with a little bit
of money.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
I'd saved stager restaurants around the country, five of them
mostly sandwich focused, and then came back helped some friends
work in some restaurants, some of which were just opening,
so I got a little refresher course on how to
open a restaurant, and eventually I got Turkey and the Wolf open.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
I remember that one's the news came out that you
were opening.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Everybody was so excited. Yeah, and they still are. Yeah,
still are. It's an amazing.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
World's most overrated scene and now it's.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Not even when we got here today we were talking
about the Boulogney sandwich. How did you get to the
point that you said, you go chef to Guizine in
one of the best restaurants in town. Took some time
off and then you open your sandwich shop. How would
you describe that menu? And coming up with that menu.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
I knew it was gonna be a sandwich shop because
I looked around New Orleans and saw Poe Boys, which
are like one of the greatest things on earth. In
muffalatta is an awesome, really another awesome sandwich. But I
didn't see this thing that a lot of other cities
of different sizes have, which is like a sandwich shop
with odd offerings or like eccentric combos that is not
(07:35):
also a deli. So we had Stein's, which was my
favorite place to eat because it was the closest thing
to a sandwich shop. And I love dan stein I
have a tattoo of them next to my wife on
my arm, and so I was eating there a lot,
and I was like, you know, other than Stein's, there's
not a ton of places in my part of town
that are making sandwiches that aren't po Boys, not that
(07:55):
I don't love po Boys. So as I started to
get sort of menu autonomy at Coquette, I was putting
sandwiches on the lunch menu because there's not room for
sandwiches on dinner menu. At Coquette at that time or
probably now, just it's not a perfect fit because of
the casual nature of sandwiches and the more elevated fair
(08:15):
at Coquette. So I would get really into making these
sandwiches at lunch. They're using the same sort of techniques
and ideas of how you create a fully formed plate
of food at a farm or table restaurant that's serving
really quality food, but just like in sandwich form. And
then it became very clear like if I keep going,
(08:39):
I want to be the guy that.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Opened the sandwich shop around here.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
You have a gift, says you, but yeah, the bologney,
like how to get from there to bologney sandwich.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I think at the same time that I.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
Was experimenting with sandwiches at Coquette, I was also experimenting
with taking sort of less fancy ingredients and you know,
creating fancier dishes for lack of more eloquent terminology.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And and or taking.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
You know, really sort of refined ingredients and then serving
him in a way that felt really accessible to somebody
who grew up eating it, you.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Know, at gas stations like I did.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
And then one day I was like, you know what,
I can like just serve the food they make at
gas stations.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
To do one or the other.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
If I if I opened the sandwich shop, and that's
sort of how we ended up at you know, making
Some people call them comfort food upgrades or stone or
food or whatever. I think of it as like an
evolution of like having a lot of meals at gas
stations as a child.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
And I don't mean to say that like.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
That was the only restaurant that that was accessible, but
I just you know it. Yeah, and when you stop
on the way to school because you missed the bus,
your mom's like running there and get something to eat.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
You guys are just work it like we are late.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
And then instead of baking and eggs that morning, I
had like a Snickers and a doctor pepper.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
That was a good day for me.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
So, but that being said, so now you have the restaurants,
everything is going, and you worked on your cookbook.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Oh yeah, I wrote a cookbook with a friend JJ.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Yes, that's a long journey because I mean I'm working
my cook and.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
It's for those that don't know, it's a it's a
label of love.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It's it's very paychecks.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
No, it's also it's a it's very disheartening because it's
I don't think people know how much work goes into
the cookbook and they just opened up and I go,
it's okay, and I'm like, this.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Is so much work. It's hopefully in front of you.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
No no no no no.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
No no no no no no no.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
But I think your book is it's.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
It's definitely you.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
And I think that a lot of cookbooks that are
coming out now are.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
There's not as much personality.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Yeah, and I think you always really shined where of
course I know you very well. So I look at
that book and I see your dog, I see your staff,
and it's like, that's that's that's the book and it
makes so much sense. So tell me the process of
how did you select those recipes for that book?
Speaker 5 (11:19):
Well, thank you for the kind words. I appreciate you
saying that about the book. That's all the recipes.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I got fluster minus a few at the time.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
Yeah, selecting the recipes wasn't as much of a challenge
as thinking, like you said, it's like, how do I
start with the idea of like a stack of pages
and then like create personality within the pages and the
same to do that was the same way I've sort
(11:52):
of gone about anything in my career, which is to
like surround yourself with people that have a lot of
personality and a lot of creativity and.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
A lot of skill and talent and you know, honesty
and all these things. And designing the recipes, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
We just sort of broke it up into categories and
started chipping away at it and then realizing that some
of the categories didn't make any sense and start combining them.
And you know, you start with two hundred recipes, you
get down to one by the end because as you
start testing it and being like, nobody needs me to
show them how to make something that doesn't have my personality.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Now, that was what was.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
Tough, is you know, it's like, oh, this is like
one of my favorite foods, and the best way to
do it is the most classic way to do it.
It's like, did they really need me to tell them?
Everybo deciding whether or not, you know, I think the
one simple dish in there is a caesar salad done
like very pretty pretty standard. I guess I don't really
know the most standard way to make a caesar salad.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And that one's you know, squeaked by because it's like,
I gotta have another salad and then yeah, everything else.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
The ideally should feel like more of an extension of
the way we create in our kitchen at our restaurant
our kitchens and our restaurant restaurants than just here's a
good version of this, or here's like, you know, here's
the best way to make a simple grilled cheese.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Is like, it's not really.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
And your brother did such a beautiful job, yeah, capturing
all of that.
Speaker 7 (13:25):
He is.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
He's awesome.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
He so yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
My brother, William Hereford I call him will is a photographer.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
He's done a few cookbooks.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
He does tons of travel, some fashion and food, and
he just did the photographs for Nini.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Wins cookbook, which will be coming out stands. So that'll
be really awesome too.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
He has a true gift.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Agreed, No, let me, let me. Let's go back to
the cookbook. So you do all of this?
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Would it's about to be released.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Everybody's excited and.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
Yes, yeah, so we the cookbook was about to come
out and then I get this call from the I
guess someone at the publisher and says, we've got just
terrible news, and I'm like, okay, what's going on. They're like,
your book was in a shipping container on a boat
(14:16):
and it all collapsed. And I'm sitting here thinking that.
She's like, it's so serious. I'm like, well, who got injured?
Like who did the book hurt? But really she was like, no,
it's going to come out later. I'm like, well, it
could have been a lot worse. But it pushed back
the release date that we had been slowly working towards
and planning up and building up for a long time.
(14:37):
And we immediately sort of started posting on Instagram about
how it fell in the ocean, how mermaids got and.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
All these things, and.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I think it's one of I think it really actually
helped the book.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
So the book.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
Squeaked in there as a New York Times bestseller at
the bottom of.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
The list and still on the list.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
And I think part of it was I introduced a
whole new audience when every journal in the seemingly in
the country wanted to talk about supply chain issues and
these creative.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Cookbooks that fell on the ocean.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
Yes, and then it turns out on the end that
they found the milk crate at the bottom of the
boat and we sold them all and everything was fine.
It just had to come out. You know six months later,
is there two pre sales?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Right?
Speaker 5 (15:22):
They a few people had bought it, and then we
canceled it, and then you know, we've had some more
pre sales than we you know, then we became a bestseller.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Has it crossed your mind when to schedule James Cameron
to go down and recover.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
If yeah, if that was a real thing, yes, I
think about it constantly.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And also if I could go back in time and
there wasn't.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Foul weather that day, I would push the books in
the ocean because it.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Really worked out in my favor.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
For as much as much sorries as I got the
two days that that happened, I was kind of took
it in stride, being like.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
You know, it's the middle of like a delta wave
of a pandemic.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
I don't think that this book coming out later is
going to be this, you know, this thing that you
guys need to be apologizing so much about it then
and we were correct and that it was not the end.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Of the world. That's good.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So Turkey is often running and you decide it's time
to open Mollies.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yep, what was the thought process.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
There just a wealth of talent in one space, and
it you.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Know, it wasn't It was never about.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
How many restaurants can we open, because if you ask
people that have five restaurants, as I have done to
a couple of people, they might have been more financially
well off when they if they just focused on that
one and grew that one and just really you know,
made it work. But I didn't have something to prove,
(16:57):
but we had something to prove. The group of people
had outgrown the space. We were so lucky to open
Turkey and the Wolf as this sort of casual joint
where a bunch of like Sioux chefs and chef c
cuisines and just really seasoned professionals came together to do
something like, you know, slightly more goofy and a little
(17:19):
bit less serious, while still trying to put out something,
you know, really solid that everyone cared about. And then
all of a sudden, we're two years in and I've
got the sous chef from one of the best restaurants
in town, you know, one of the old chefs from
Coquettes with me, and you know somebody else from over here,
and I'm like, I want you guys, we're got to
(17:40):
find you job, the places to go run.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Or there were, you know, they time to move on,
and we said, hey, let's try to open another restaurant.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
And that was sort of the impetus for making it
happen was And that's kind of where we're at now
now that we have three and we're considering doing a
fourth one. It's because that first group is still intact
and we've been lucky to attract a couple other just
wildly talented, smart, creative people.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
That's amazing. So now you have all these restaurants and
then you do Iron Chef.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
Spoiler alert, I lost. But yeah, that was wild. I
forget that that happened too sometimes. How was that experience terrifying?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Was it really? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (18:28):
I drank too much during the show. I don't know
if that's like what you talk about on Pelicans radio station.
But yeah, no, I wasn't terribly aviated. But we did
plan ahead that we were allowed to show a bit
of a party while filming. That was important for us,
knowing that we would be going up against someone who
probably wasn't going to make sandwiches and.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
He cheated, he didn't. You were up against Curtis Stone.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
It was street food, wildly attractive. Curtis Stone with the skill.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
On the same set. I'm sure everybody was.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Swooning when he smiled. Is this tooth like had like
a little glare? The man is gorgeous.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Well, he didn't follow the rules.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
It wasn't.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
An iron chef.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
I should gosh, I should own that that knife that
they gave out or they didn't give out the.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
When you you obviously got the phone call, and then
you're getting ready to go out there, did you Was
there an ingredient you had to bring with you?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Was there?
Speaker 5 (19:36):
You get a couple of things where they you can
plan ahead. That's like, hey, this is an ingredient that's
really important to my pantry. And and they I think,
if I remember correctly, it's so long ago.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yeah, they tell you, like.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
What's within like the rules.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, it's so.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
It's not like you're sitting in the dark. They turn
on the lights.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah, no, it was the lights were on when I
got there.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
That's good.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
Yeah, but it's still is a wild experience running around
that kitchen.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
The time goes quickly on, Yeah it is.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
It's one hour, it's real.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
Yeah, yeah, No, it's bizarre.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
It's a real hour.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
It's a real hour.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
And then at the end where you're like, oh, they
edited to make it seem like they just got everything
in at the last second, it's like, no, yeah, you know,
we needed those seconds. We were like burning stuff, recooking stuff,
running around in circles, cheers in, taking shot subourbon, and
then all of a sudden be.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Like, oh, shoot, forty five minutes went byck In this
horner was ten.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Did any mayonnaise making him?
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Oh? Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, I don't think anything
you want to BRANDI yeah, chance, Duke's Mayonnaise is coursing
through my veins. No. I do like Duke's mayonnaise a lot,
and it's a very organic relationship.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
It's not like a I'm not sponsored by dukes Man,
just a lover.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
One of my so I travel a lot.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
I've been really lucky to travel and cook our food
and other friends restaurants. And one of the first trips
I got a Duke's man as tattoo, which is next
to the tattoo of my wife and the tattoo of
dan Stein's.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
That's trinity, Yeah exactly, that is my trinity.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Now one thing that everybody wants to know about, and
it's not discussed enough. Is your greatest skill possibly in
life is rollerblade?
Speaker 5 (21:33):
Yeah, my lower back in my meniscus have something to
say about it currently being my greatest skill. But yes,
I would agree that there was a time where my
skill and rollerblading for eclipse to what I consider will
be my maximum skill in cooking.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I mean, that's that's setting that cooking could never catch
that because when you look at the clips that are
out there and the world.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Like, you did some insane things.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Thank you. I like this conversation. That's a good one.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
It is pretty insane when I see you jump up
on the on the bar, on the bar.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
And I'm like, we call it a rail.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Sorry.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
Uh yeah, it's bizarre that that was yeah, and that.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
All getting to do the Red Bull event at an empty.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah, that was cool.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
So if you don't know if New Orlean's got a
new airport a couple of years ago and the old
airport is sitting there empty and this guy is sitting
in our fabulous bywater studio today, got to go skate
in an empty airport with MS.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
Right, So team Red Bull does like cool activations, right,
we all seen Red Bulls content. They did create wild
situations to do crazy tricks.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And they did a skateboard sort of.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
Competition where they transformed different terminals of the old MSY
airport into a giant skate park. And we were lucky
enough to be the caterer to feed the athletes. And
then I also got to strap on my skates on
my you know, hardly working, slightly older body, and I
(23:15):
got to skate around and you know, film myself a
little bit going on the ramps in the airport, which
is pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
That would be just even just thinking back on it,
you think about, Okay, I went to this airport to
catch a flight. Now there's nobody in here but us,
great people jumping up. Yeah, nobody's getting in line for
the plane too early, just.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
You and yeah, like skating around, you know. So if
you grow up doing one of these sports where you
slide across stuff, For me, it's rollerblading, the perhaps the
most hated on one in the history of sports, which
I think is a perfect place for me.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I love it. But if you're a skateboarder, or if
you you know, you do any of these other things.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
You're always your eyes are always looking around at what
could be an obstacle if you were allowed to utilize
that space as a skate park or as a as
a street obstacle.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
And I got to go jump on things that I
had seen hundreds of times.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
Maybe one hundreds as many times as I was in
that airport, being like man, I had my skates on,
I would jump on that thing. I got to go
jump on the thing, which is pretty cool, which is
like things that weren't part of the skate park. And
then the Red Bull guys had to be like, hey,
that parts offline.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I still did I still got it in yeah, in
case we need to use that airport.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
So true.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Now with all your travels, and again you're you're a
person who attracts fun, creative people you wanted that are
fun to be around. How do you compare those? So
it's not fair, You're you're going to a city immediately
hugged and embracing you. But you do you notice differences
(24:55):
in the New Orleans restaurant community versus others cities, cities
that are that are similar to ours and their support
of each other. But there are some that are just cutthroat.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Restaurant cities that are no fun.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
Yeah, I think that the people I've been lucky enough
to cook with or or spend time with, I see
sort of a similar similarity.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Across the hospitality industry.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
I find that if you're with the right people, it
feels the same everywhere as as like a very sort
of supportive group. I Yeah, I think some cities are
more cutthroat than others.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
But when people invite us to.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
Go travel, they because of like all the content we've
created around it, there's this idea that we're coming to
show them a good time and they want to show
us a good time. So there's not we're not really
introduced into that idea that there's competition going on or
it's not a fun place, because I think we're considered
like sometimes it almost feels as if like we're going
(26:16):
to go visit friends or make new friends, and like
that's the whole idea, is to have fun. But sometimes
it almost feels like when we arrive, we're we're like
a hall pass for the restaurant for the night to
their own rules, right, you know, And and and and
I'm not trying to say that we're our restaurant is
more fun. But I think that they have an idea
(26:36):
that let's let's plan this around making a little bit
more of a party than just a regular dinner service.
And that's awesome for us because we get to go
cause a big stir, make a big mess, and then
get out there and then they got to be like
it was last night, exactly the way we do things.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
But Yeah, to answer your question, I don't see it
a lot just because of.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
It's good situation.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
So you're going to Toronto this week? Is there anywhere
that's on your wishless top three? If somebody said, hey,
can you come cook at X y Z?
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Where would it be? Oh? Man, there's so many. There's
there's some that I've been very fortunate.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
To do and some that all right, so tell me
you're the ones that you've done, and then the ones
that you want to do.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Like if you had to say, I want to.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Cook with so and so in Yeah, I got a
text or a DM the other day to go cook
with Earl Ninsom in Portland. He's a tie chef.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
He was like, Oh, our restaurant's turning ten. We're gonna
invite some chefs. Would you be in? And I was like, yeah, cool,
no big deal. And then but like on the other
side of the phone, I was like, oh my god,
this is amazing.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
This is gonna be the best.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
So that's a bucket list one because I've been borrowing
and learning from from Earl's recipes for a long.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Time, and.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Uh, cooking with Mashama Bailey was bucket list And she
just cooks little cooks just like you, just like cooking
with you. When we do travel events, we bring a
lot of stuff. We really try to make sure that
there are not too many curve balls so that we
can focus on, you know, making sure everybody's having good
(28:12):
time right serving this stuff. What Mashama did and what
I noticed that you did when when I cook with
you in Oakland is you came and you created the
food in the space, which is a skill that I
don't necessarily always have the confidence to.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Try to put into practice. And yet so.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Mashama shows up and solo, no helper chef, me and
me and my co chef show up together. We've got
a bunch of stuff planned out, and she just starts
cooking all this incredible stuff and it was amazing to
watch her nail down just like cooking with you in Oakland.
You start, you get flour out and start making pasta.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I'm like, what are you doing. I've got bread that
I buttered on the other side of the country.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Well.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
It's funny because the first time I cooked with the
Mashama was in Charleston and we were doing a lunch
for like the people and same thing. She was solo,
and I said, what do you make? And she's like,
I think I'm making an oyster soup with sweet potatoes
and something like that sounds very obscure.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
It was the most amazing thing I tried.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
But she was just winging it as she went. It
was pretty incredible.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
I find when I'm in those situations they give me
the most anxiety, and then when I make it to
the other side, they're the ones that I have had
the most fun and I appreciate the most. But I
do everything in my power to avoid the situations, which
I don't know if it's a good thing or a
bad thing, but yeah, the few times that I've gotten
to a place and the food disappeared or it's such
(29:40):
a nightmare, and then to see people's reaction to your
food when you really sort of.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
You know, pulled it out of nowhere. You know, it
can be feel more exciting.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
Yeah, it's also nice when you just show up with
the food, you get it ready to get it hot,
and they're like, wow, you did it and you sort
of just brought it from you.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
So who else is on your list?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Who else is on my list?
Speaker 3 (30:07):
All countries you want to go to?
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, I mean I want to.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
I don't know if I will find myself cooking there,
but Southeast Asia is summer. I've never been in Thailand
and Vietnam are places that I wanted to go forever.
My wife before we met, bought a ticket in that
direction and ended up staying in Southeast Asia for nine
and a half months before coming back.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
So to go there with her would be really exciting.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
And to have experienced so much awesome vietnamease food in
New Orleans, to go see Vietnam and try Vietnamese food
there would be really exciting. And then Thai food, I
think is my favorite food to eat, So being over there,
I think I've heard it is just a completely eye opening,
incredible experience.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
And I recently bought.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
An outdoor walk burner and I'm teaching myself how to
So far, I'm teaching myself how burn food, but I'm
trying to. Soon I'll be teaching myself how to not
burn food on it in my backyard. And it's such
a blast. I got like a stack of fifteen cookbooks
and I like, look at and then I burned the noodles.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Now one I guess it was when we had the
crawfish bowl at Turkey in a parking lot at night.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
That was for the book. No, that was for pictures
for the book. But there was there was something that
was added to the one time.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Wasn't it. Oh yeah, we did the dumplings from the
super Hawk Park supermarket.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
That's an amazing idea. Thanks again.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
You are able to approach food from a different wavelength
than kind of any other human and it just kind
of makes sense.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
But that just popped in y'all's head to thanks.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Doing an old move that I've done a few times.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
I think a few people do it, whether or not
the first time I did it, I had never seen it.
I like to think that is the case. But here,
you know, whatever, who am I say? But yeah, so
when you boil crawfish, depending on if you do, depending
on what method you do. I know that.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Yeah, it's very touchy subject.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
There's different areas of Louisiana.
Speaker 5 (32:16):
There's different people who have been on this show who
feel very specific about a way of doing crawfish that
doesn't involve a long soaking time. Donald, But when I
boil crawfish as a as a jerk who migrated here
from Virginia and learn from other people who have their
methods of boiling crawfish, you soak crawfish so that any
(32:40):
flavor in the water.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
You know, sort of saturates the the food that you're
gonna eat.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
So you know, you have this stuff sitting here in
this very seasoned, delicious water that's super hot for twenty
to forty five minutes. It's like, why not throw in
some dumplings in a strainer and get those cooked through
and and do it? And I think that started because
we used to go super on non traditional with our
(33:09):
crawfish boil, which obviously can already piss people off.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Oh yeah, we were just as a cook.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
You do a lot of your shopping at the Hong
Kong Market because it's like a drive out there. It's
exciting yet yeah, and it's affordable and It's just really
exciting as cook. And that's as a young cook. Is
how when I started boiling crawfish. So you'd be like, wow,
there's some brush.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Sprouts over buy those. Throw those.
Speaker 5 (33:36):
You're like, if you can plant it, you can throw
it in there. I'm sure a lot of people, you know, disagree.
And then you're going around you start thinking, hey, what
else can I grab? And you know, it's very rare
that you go to if you're me, you go to
Hong Kong Market and don't get some frozen domlings for
your freezer, and like it just was like, it's all
in the car, it's going.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
In the boil. It's great.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
It's I love that market.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
It's yeah, it's realacky to have it.
Speaker 7 (34:02):
Now, at some time you are going to be older
and reflective. Would you do you wake up in a cold.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Sweat thinking that you went back into find dining.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
No, but the other day I sneezed in the shower
and pulled my back.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Well that's sort of the same thing.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
No, I'm down with fine dining. I love finding I
don't know if I have.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
The bandwidth and all the current skills needed to perform
in that space. So I don't think I have business
like trying to create it. I mean I could, you know,
if I partnered with somebody that wanted to make sure
it was good.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
I don't think that.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah, I don't. I don't have the attention to detail
in my that I could do.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Right in a second, you do because of your prior employment.
Speaker 8 (34:52):
Yeah, years of Because to a lot of us in
the industry, you're like, man, here's a guy who has
it all together and then just turned it into the
little fun palace that you come.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
To and eat and do you really want to go
back to the to.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
The I think that's just like just like what we
do at Turkey and the Wolf, and like, you know,
we've created like an image of you know, we're showing
the parties, we're not showing the behind the scenes when
you're talking something.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
It's the execution of people who care about food and
have the experience of working in quote unquote high end kitchens.
But putting that in to something that is going to
come out on what kind of plate McDonald's is.
Speaker 5 (35:38):
We do have the old Melamine McDonald's place, and we
have every mind I won't say that, but I.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Guess what I was gonna say, is.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
Insomuch as Turkey and the Wolf, Like on a really
good day, at a good time, at the end of service,
we're all having drinks. Does can feel more like a
fun palace than a restaurant? Ideally, I don't think that,
Like there's enough stress serving a line all throughout the
day and there's enough fun that can happen in fine
(36:08):
dining that I guess like if we did it, we
would try try to.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Mimic some of what we're getting at.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
But having just opened hungry eyes and it being like
notably more of a refined environment than Turkey and the Wolf,
albeit still fun, yeah, fun, and you know, less intense
than fine dining. It's you know, we're not like setting
your stuff, We're like putting your elware in a cup
or whatever. Yeah, it's proposed, you know, challenges have come up.
(36:35):
It's like, how do we keep this as rewarding for
the team when the expectations of how they present themselves
in the service environment, when those expectations would change, Like
how do we make sure that this idea is like, oh,
it's cool to work here.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Like it's like we follow through with that because it's
just like a new playing field.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
So tell me about all the swag.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Love the swag.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
It's amazing. It's thank you another gift.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
I really appreciate that.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
I think it's part of my problem. Part of the
problem is my like addiction to shopping. This one too,
and as my complicated relationship with capitalism, I still can't
stop buying everything.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, we we.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
So this summer when it was extra slow, I had
a lot of time to really plan to get more
merch made, so maybe amps it up a little. At
the time, we weren't making money, And then all of
a sudden I realized I had what felt like a
quarter of the year's income in merch.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Ready drop.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
But yeah, we've had like almost a shirt either every
week or every other week for what feels like a
few months.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
That's crazy, it's so fun.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Maybe just do retail. I mean, it would be a
dream to have a retail thing. I don't I don't.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Like I don't have, I don't have like this. I
don't know anything about retail. I don't know how to
do any of that. But if somebody, if someone was like, oh, let's.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Turn that into a lifestyle brand, man be easier. Who
needs food when you got clothes, that's right, put one
in the airport.
Speaker 5 (38:12):
I'll put one anywhere anyone else. No one's ever asked, Hey,
if you want to do it, I.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Mean it would be talk after the show. Yeah, the
does anyone.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
In our industry in New Orleans have a better sneaker
collection than you and your wife?
Speaker 1 (38:32):
I don't. I don't know how to answer that.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
I'm not aware.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if there is someone
that does. But yeah, I have like one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Pairs of sneakers.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
No, I depends on Yeah, And I have a few
one offs, like a few shoes that were like made, uh,
and I'm the only person that has them.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Like I got married in a pair of shoes, and
I commissioned them.
Speaker 5 (38:56):
When my old man passed away, I made sneakers out
of like some of his old uh clothes and stuff.
And so those ones are particularly meaningful. But you know,
I need to start liquidating. It's an absolute atrocity in there.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Just get a dog, you'll clean everything up.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
How How how doing?
Speaker 5 (39:17):
Darla the dog is doing great, and early in her
life she actually had a problem meeting sneakers and she's
gotten past that a few years back, but yeah, she's
the best dog.
Speaker 7 (39:27):
That That was.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
A very scary time for the entire city when she
went missing out. Your half million Instagram followers you're up to,
but Darling was missed.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah, yeah, that was awful, extremely awful.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
The dogs are kids, and that was pretty amazing to
see the city kind of round, like everybody was looking
for Darling.
Speaker 5 (39:52):
I remember driving around looking, so it was like a
two to three day ordeal of us not knowing you know, uh,
you know if if Darla was around still, and I
just remember driving blocks and seeing people I did not
know yelling for Darla, which was an absolutely incredible feeling.
It amidst the sat and my old my old man
(40:14):
was sick at the time. It was like a very
emotionally charged time.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
And yeah, it really was special that people helped us
that way, and I thank them all, thank you.
Speaker 5 (40:24):
When what was her her tail was like crooked, Yeah,
like now she had her tails like a curly cue
and she had to go to the vet like a
bunch of times. Was like some cuts and bruises that
she had. I guess she didn't tell us where she
got them, but she was.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Running. Yeah, I mean she was a mile away.
Speaker 5 (40:45):
I don't know how far she made it, but yeah,
she never comes when I call ever. But when she
saw me three blocks away and I was like, it
was like a dead sprint. There was cars stopped on
both sides, like one of these things where you see
like people trying to corral a dog and like there's
no cars going, and you know, it was very much
(41:05):
slow motion.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
She jumped in my arms and I was like, wow,
you've never done that. She jumped in my wife's arms, but.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Not necessarily where she saw how how unpleasant it was
on the outside.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
I guess, yeah.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
I think it's a lot different when you're on you know,
you're going for a walk and you see cars and
all of a sudden you're not dodging cars.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
It starts to get a lot scarier.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Things that everybody says, the culture, the warmth of the people,
the architecture of the music, the food New Orleans. Because
you see the world a lot cooler than the rest
of us.
Speaker 3 (41:43):
What else about New Orleans?
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Your words, not mine?
Speaker 3 (41:46):
And it dragged you in.
Speaker 5 (41:51):
I've used this example a couple of times in conversations,
and you already kind of said it with like the
warmth of the people. But you can end up an
extremely long and meaningful conversation with someone you've never met,
and it could be somebody, you know. The example I use,
I think last time I was talking to somebody is
checking out at the gap anywhere.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, and you get into a conversation.
Speaker 5 (42:13):
It turns out there's like a shared interest or like
something even about the city that you love more than
just like oh it's hot today, and you just you know,
you start talking and whether or not that's the only
conversation you ever have with that person, the conversation so
fulfilling that like you may as well have exchanged phone
numbers so you can have that kind of another conversation. Uh.
(42:34):
And I find that that is really accessible in this
place for some reason, especially when you're hungover.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
I don't know. I guess I get really chatty.
Speaker 5 (42:44):
But I found myself making friends in the most unlikely situations,
more so in New Orleans than anywhere else.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
So I guess that would be my answer. I to
the people, It's it's definitely the people.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
So speaking of people, you do a lot of charity work,
you do a lot for the community, So just tell
our listeners a little bit about what you do in
case they're not aware.
Speaker 5 (43:08):
Uh yeah, not my like, not my not a talking
point that I came up with, and certainly not like
the conversation that I sign up for.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
But yeah, we have. We have been privileged to be
able to.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
Integrate a couple of Solidarity moves into our businesses that
that turned out to not be nearly as much work
as they felt like they might be when you think
about it.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
So yeah, we do.
Speaker 5 (43:40):
So we work with Southern Solidarity, which they do a
lot of stuff for un housed member members of our community.
Ours relationship obviously centers more around food. So we just
put on our prep list every week to make one
hundred meals. We used to box them up him individually.
Now we just literally we make, you know, big pans
(44:01):
of food and then somebody comes and picks them up
on Monday and we and sell their Solidarity goes into
certain areas of town and distributes one hundred meals a week,
and it's something that when you think about it, it's like,
oh wow, one hundred meals a week, Like that's a
lot of extra work and a lot of extra money.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
It's not at all for us.
Speaker 5 (44:22):
Right now, we have a thing where a customer can
buy a meal for we call it pay it Forward,
and you pay eight dollars. We take that eight dollars,
We put it towards the fund of money that pays
for all this food. And you don't have to sell
a hundred of them to cover a very delicious meal
(44:43):
for one hundred.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
People, especially when you're creating a lot of one thing.
You know, it can be.
Speaker 5 (44:50):
You know, red beans and rice and fried chicken, and
these aren't ingredients that are extremely expensive, like on a Monday,
we might do that. And then yeah, Molly's, Molly's found
like a church, reached out to Mally's Bethlehem Lutheran Church
sort of like a radical almost like leftist church as
far as their views, and they said, hey, would you
(45:11):
be willing to do one hundred meals for us? And
because Turkey and the Wolf had sort of figured out
that it wasn't that big a deal, Molly's started doing it.
And Molly's, you know, was maybe a smaller staff and
a weirder sized restaurant.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
We thought that there'd be.
Speaker 5 (45:27):
Maybe issues with completing it, you know, just like and
they're just kind of seamless, Like the talent is there.
The people that run the restaurants are organized enough that yes,
it's I'm not trying to say that the work that
they're doing is not it's like going unnoticed, but they
are very capable of doing the work and we're capable
of making it happen where it's not this, you know,
(45:49):
affects our labor costs to the point where we're not
making money or we're you know, we're doing it to
a point where it's not sustainable. Another big one that
was really awesome that we do, I guess, but really
as other people making it happen is Nola Community Fridges.
We worked with them to put a free fridge in
front of the restaurant, and yeah, we worked to make
(46:12):
sure that there's food in it, but so do all
of our neighbors. They helped us find a donated refrigerator.
They found like you need the refrigerated refrigeration to be
under some sort of shelter to be protected from the elements.
They found a class a teacher who taught his students
how to do woodworking by making the structure put it
(46:32):
around the fridge. They got an incredible local artist who's
become a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Jay McKay, and.
Speaker 5 (46:39):
Jay painted the whole thing and now we have this
like beautiful spray painted, badass structure, community coming in helping
us keep it full, and like all it was was
like community coming together, wasn't Oh Turken Wolf did all
this stuff? Like all we did is like, yeah, we
have an outlet and we can help keep this thing full.
And it all just sort of happened, you know, And
I think that's like.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Thanks, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
So how many concepts of new restaurants are floating around
that head?
Speaker 1 (47:17):
So I have this one idea.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
The next book is just a book of all your ideas.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
I don't know if I have enough recipes, but so
we have an idea. We have a lot of ideas
for restaurants that won't work. So there's all sorts of
restaurants we love to do.
Speaker 5 (47:36):
But the ones that I'm really excited about are the
ones that don't are not possible that I make up
with some of my buddies, Like a restaurant called just
the Next and it's just the Next of animals, So
you could have turkey and eggs braised lamb necks, maybe
pork necks, chicken ecks, and then we're also going to
serve snake because snake is all next.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Yeah, so it's one hundred percent next.
Speaker 5 (47:58):
So it's actually the only it's the only animal that
we can serve head to tail, and I would still
be part of our just the next restaurant.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
There's also a restaurant that we're not gonna do.
Speaker 5 (48:11):
That's called footprint, which is the largest uh, ecological footprint
you could ever have.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
So it's sort of like the reverse of sustainable.
Speaker 5 (48:21):
And and the idea is what we're gonna do is
we're gonna serve one customer a night, so their their
memory is so pretentious that they can't even be shared. Uh.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
And it's it's it's sort of like it's for the
billionaire class. Really, it's gonna say you could you could
charge and only the time. No no, no, I'm talking millions.
Speaker 5 (48:40):
This is gonna cost millions, Like you know, you know,
to make soup, you might start with a nice stock.
We've used perhaps an endangered species common door, maybe even
uh a dinosaur bones to make us stick things that
you that are in limited supply. I love that uh
And that's a joke everyone, and we're not actually gonna
(49:00):
say that, but it is a.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Funny thing to talk about over a cocktail or anything.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
The rest of your life.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
You can only have.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
A corn dog or a hot dog? Which are you choose?
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Are the garnishes unlimited for either one corn dog? That
sounds fun? I mean, honestly, probably. I don't know. What's
you gotta think about? Like a corn dogs? Probably less
helly hot?
Speaker 3 (49:30):
Wait?
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Am I allowed to eat other food?
Speaker 4 (49:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (49:32):
Yeah, I just have to give up one or the other.
I want to say corn dog because I know you
love corn dogs, but I gotta it's hot hot dog.
Speaker 5 (49:39):
It's hot dog. I just like, you know, bread like
corn dog. You're really sort of like fencing yourself into like.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
It's gonna be a simple guy. He's a simple guy.
What's your corn dog? Like? What like if you could
if you can only eat a corn dog one way?
What do you put it on it? Near it, dip
it in? What's the deal?
Speaker 3 (50:01):
We must that's I mean, yeah, ketchup and mustard. I
know the ketchup is a bad word, but I.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Don't know that's for hot dogs corn dogs? Maybe it's
like a different playing fid.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Well, no, I get yelled at the thing that's not fair.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
And one of the things that kind of comes out
in Mason's food of where you say, okay, ketchup mustard.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
That's an easy one.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
But the way of you can make one condiment out
of everything you love, or being able to pick different
ingredients put them together.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
When one to do, which one? I guess it's probably two.
Speaker 5 (50:35):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of condiments, I think is
what we're getting at, and I agree, I love condiments
and layering flavors with condiments is a blast.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
You can only eat at one fast food restaurant for
the rest mass market.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Popeye's, I would I would agree. I mean it tastes
the best. I don't know, like raisin Kine is also good.
I don't know if subway counts.
Speaker 5 (50:58):
That probably your healthiest option if you're gonna go either
fried chicken or like vegetable sandwich.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
But yeah, it's got to be pop last. Everybody's got
the most love for pop Lust.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Well, Mason, thanks a lot for taking time out of
your incredibly busy schedule to sit down with us.
Speaker 3 (51:13):
Who was a treat. As always, we look forward now
that we're out of a pandemic to the next game night,
and oh yeah, let's go out.
Speaker 5 (51:22):
There and have a wonderful, wonderful thank yeah, thank you all.
Speaker 6 (51:27):
All right, thank you big waity.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
Wait, big way
Speaker 3 (51:44):
By everybody.
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