November 18, 2025 • 27 mins
The essence of this discourse revolves around the profound insights shared by Hall of Famer Tuffy Stone and restaurateur emeritus Leanne Whippen, as they engage in a spirited discussion about the nuances of barbecue and culinary artistry. We delve into the intricacies of competitive cooking, exploring the lessons gleaned from past mistakes, particularly the significance of timing in the submission of dishes, which can determine one’s success in competitions. Furthermore, Tuffy reflects on the transformative impact of modern cooking technology, emphasizing how advancements have enhanced the culinary experience and facilitated precision in achieving perfect doneness. Throughout the conversation, we also touch upon personal anecdotes that illuminate the human experience intertwined with the culinary journey, thereby enriching our understanding of barbecue as not merely a cooking method but a cultural expression. Join us as we navigate these themes with Tuffy Stone, whose wealth of experience and knowledge serves as a beacon for aspiring chefs and barbecue enthusiasts alike.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Painted Hills Natural Beef
- Marcos Levy
- Julia Child
- Thomas Keller
- Charlie Trotter
- Alice Waters
- John Willingham
- Smokey Hale
- Adam Perry Lang
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is Barbecue Nation After Hours.
The conversation that tookplace after the show ended.
Hey, everybody, it's jt andthis is a special version of Barbecue
Nation.
It is brought to you in partby Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Beef you can be proud to serveyour family and friends.
That's Painted Hills NaturalBeef, everybody.
Welcome to After Hours here onthe Nation.
That's Barbecue Nation.
(00:20):
I'm JT along with Ms. Leanne Whippen.
Hall of Famer Tuffy Stone iswith us today.
He's a Hall of Famer.
Both of them are restaurateurs emeritus.
That's a good way to put it.
You can have that on your cardnow, Leanne.
That's a nice way to.
I like it that way.
Yeah.
Restaurateur emeritus.
So this is the part of theshow, Tuffy, where we do what we
(00:45):
call the lightning Round.
And it's a bunch of reallyfun, silly, irreverent, and sometimes
just plain dumb questions thatwe throw at you and we see what you
come up with.
You ready?
All right, I'm a littlenervous, but I'll go.
Don't be nervous.
Oh, no, no, You're.
You're right.
I. I'll start out with somekind of serious ones.
(01:08):
Okay.
If.
Okay.
If you started your career allover again, what would you do?
Man, I don't know, but I don'tthink it would be in the food world.
It's.
I think I could take myproblem solve.
I don't know.
I'd love to be a professionalphotographer, but I'm not that good.
Or fly fishing guy.
(01:28):
That would be nice.
That would be fun.
That would be fun.
Okay, here's one.
You're going to have to putyour thinking cap on for just a second.
If you could.
If you could cook for, thendine with a historical figure, who
would it be and what would themenu be?
(01:49):
Oh, my gosh.
I could go so many directionswith this.
I tend to get a little sappy,so that's all right.
You know, I'd like to be ableto cook for my grandmother, Florence
and my mom, Charlotte again.
And I'd probably do a versionof my grandmother's fried eggplant
and make my grandmother'spineapple hot dish and, I don't know,
(02:10):
just riff on some of their oldmenu items and just be able to just
tell them one more time howmuch I love them.
That's probably a littlesappy, but that.
No, no, no.
That's all good.
That's it.
Have you ever eaten haggis?
I have, and you live to tellabout it.
Yeah.
Okay, next question.
(02:31):
Next question.
What is one of the, for lackof a better term, hottest new things
on the market that you haveseen that will help people cook or
learn to cook?
Well, I mean, there are some.
(02:53):
There are some apparatuses outthere that, that I kind of shied
away from a little bit.
I used to stay away from thosetemperature measuring devices because
the kind where you would putthe probe in while you're cooking.
Right.
And I didn't like the cablesand all that now, but as I've gotten
(03:14):
older technology, I'veembraced it a little bit better.
And, and so these, thesedevices now that we can, like, monitor
the temperature on our porkbutt or our brisket and multitask
has.
(03:36):
Has made it a lot easier forme to.
To nail the doneness.
So I.
Where I used to shot and, andthey're so much better than when
Leanne and I started.
When we started, they weren'tthat accurate.
The cables would crimp, thesounds were annoying.
But there are some devices outthere now for monitoring the temperature
of our pits and our meats thatjust make these long cooks when we're
(04:02):
cooking a pork butt or a brisket.
Yeah.
So much easier, so much better.
Yeah, absolutely.
If you could cook with one,and you've.
You've probably already donethis, so you might tell a side story
on this.
If you could cook with one ofyour barbecue heroes, who would it
be?
(04:22):
You know, I like.
I want to cook with MarcosLevy out of Brazil.
This guy is a genius.
He's mind blowing.
I watched him do some thingsin Brazil, Churrascata, that, that
I never even thought aboutbefore, and I think that that's really
cool.
(04:45):
So, so I would really.
I mean, I.
Historically, I've been havingto cook with some really great people
over the years because I usedto go and volunteer at this event
called Masters of Food andWine, and people like Julia Child
and Thomas Keller and CharlieTrotter and Alice Waters and people
like that would cook at this event.
So I used to volunteer andhelp those kind of people.
(05:06):
But it's, you know, it's like.
And I think Leanne, you canprobably relate to just, you know,
when you can get your brainfed and, and, and so.
But this guy in Brazil is just.
He is cutting edge and he'sdoing some cool stuff.
But like I said earlier in another.
In our previous segment, thisis not.
(05:27):
This is not.
This is not clever getting inthe way of delicious.
This is like, this is takingcool ideas and making food Taste
great.
And you want to wear anasbestos shirt, Right?
So you.
That's right.
And they did wear a metal hat.
Okay.
All right, we got that down.
Now, if you could erase amistake, just one from your past,
(05:48):
what would it be and why?
Dad, I hope you're listeningin heaven above, but I wish I'd never
wrecked your Ford Bronco whenI was 16.
Yeah.
Yep, yep.
Same goes for me, dad.
My dad with the GMC pickup.
(06:10):
Okay, so we'll just go from there.
What's your least favoritefood to cook?
Tuffy.
Least favorite.
Golly, I'm having.
I'm struggling with this, andI like to cook a lot of things.
(06:31):
I don't like cooking flatironsteak when.
When it comes in and you it.
And it's not all trimmed niceand neatly like you would get it
in the grocery store.
I did an event at Charleston,Charleston Wine and Food at one time,
and I got cases and cases offlatiron that I had to do way more
(06:54):
trim work than I wasaccustomed to, and it took a really,
really long time, so.
Oh, and I would also not recommend.
I had this brilliant idea onetime of getting dry aged brisket,
and it came shipped to me fromNew York, and it was dry aged bone
in brisket.
And that was a lot of my.
Okay, on a scale of 1 to 10,how much barbecue do you eat on a
(07:19):
regular basis?
1 to 10.
1.5.
Yeah.
Well, hold on, let's definebarbecue because if it's grilled,
if you're defining it asgrilled meats, then it's.
It's a lot larger than that.
But if you're saying pulledpork and brisket.
So pulled pork and brisket.
(07:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like 1.5.
Okay.
All right.
Um, do you remember the firstthing you ever grilled or smoked
or barbecued?
The very first.
I got a couple of stories thattake me back to my childhood.
I remember grilling a hindquarter of venison with a bunch of
my high school buddies.
(08:01):
And that would have been backaround like 79, 80, something like
that.
And that turned out really good.
But it was probably because wewere drinking beer and we were hungry.
Um, and then another cookingmemory that I had took place probably
when I was around 16 or 17 isI like to hunt and fish.
And I had.
I had caught some native brooktrout, fly fishing, and I had also
(08:21):
gone squirrel hunting.
So I did my.
My teenager version of surfand turf where I. I cooked a squirrel
in the skillet and I also didpan fried some, some brook trout
the trout were pretty good.
The squirrel wasn't very good.
Wasn't very good.
Yeah.
Um, well, this.
(08:41):
I guess this next questionthen fits right in.
If you were an animal, whatanimal would you be and why?
Probably not a squirrel.
Right.
Well, I mean, I guess I'd be.
You know, if my mom wasaround, she'd tell me that I'm a
crab because I'm a cancer withmy horoscope.
Maybe a fish.
Okay, if we put Tuffy Stoneskills to music, what would the music
(09:07):
be?
Gas jazz.
Okay, here's one that I think you'll.
You'll like.
If we declared you SupremeRuler of Barbecue for a couple of
days, you were supreme ruler,what would you, as supreme ruler,
decree?
Get outside and grill.
(09:28):
Okay.
There you go.
You remember the worst concertyou ever went to?
The worst concert I ever went to.
I probably wouldn't have goneto them if they were bad, but.
No, I don't.
Oh, that's okay.
(09:49):
There's a lot of concerts Idon't remember either.
If you were on death Row, whatwould your last meal be?
Ice cream.
Ice cream.
Well, I mean, I like CherryGarcia, but maybe vanilla, but, you
know, I might.
One of my.
I mean, anybody really knowsme knows I love to cook barbecue
(10:12):
and.
But they know I love a steakand I love a steak.
Yeah.
But if I was getting ready to,like, be put down, I think ice cream
would be it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
After all your years ofexperience in your.
Your victories and somedefeats and all that, what is the
biggest change you thinkshould be made in competition?
(10:33):
Barbecue, if any, you know,for Kansas City Barbecue Society.
I. I wish that we would allowthe judges an opportunity to go back
and adjust their scores untilthey feel like that they have really
given those scores what theythink they should have.
And I.
And I don't think there'sanything wrong with us picking the
(10:55):
best out of the entries thatwe get that day.
You know, it's like.
I think it's all right, youknow, I think.
I think, you know, if you getfive or six entries on your table
of pork or beef or chicken orribs, let those judges kind of, like,
work those scores until theyfeel like they've done the best job.
And, you know, I think it'sall right, personally.
(11:17):
I mean, in Memphis in May,it's comparative judging, and I think
that's all right, too.
I think.
I think we should judgeentries for, you know, for what they
are.
I mean, you know, as cooks,and Leanne, I think, would agree.
It's Leanne and my or anycompetition cooks challenge to try
(11:38):
and put out a taste and atexture that's appealing to the judges,
that's our responsibility.
But I just think allowing thejudges to.
To adjust those scores untilthey feel like they given those scores,
given those products, thescores that they want, that, that
would be.
Yeah.
What's.
(12:00):
Even though you sold yourrestaurants, what was the hardest
thing about owning a businesslike a restaurant?
Well, I mean, the last one wasprobably the most difficult for me
because it was a really coolspot, and I think it had really opportunity,
but it was poor.
It was poor timing on our part.
We didn't know it.
I purchased it two monthsbefore COVID hit.
Oh.
And.
(12:20):
And that was really hard.
I had this naive belief,maybe, Leanne, maybe you can.
Maybe you can.
I don't know, maybe you canagree with this or not, but when
I. I never knew I was going tobe a cook or a chef, and that was
going to be the way I earnedmy living.
But.
But became my path.
And, and as I went down thatpath and honed my skills, I always
(12:42):
thought that I began tobelieve that being a cook was like
being a plumber.
And if I could feed people, Iwould always be able to put a roof
over my head.
And it wasn't until Covid hitand here I had this restaurant that
I just purchased, which Ithought was going to be super cool
and full of opportunity.
And then all of a sudden, thegovernor shut us down for four months.
(13:05):
And, well, I don't know.
We made the decision.
I don't know.
I don't know if it was thegovernor, but anyways, and I.
And then when we opened backup, I found myself working the lawn,
cleaning the kitchen, cleaningthe deep fat fryer, and going back
to the task that I had beganmy career with, you know, these.
(13:28):
These, you know, and anyways,it was.
It was a lot of hard work anda lot of long hours, and, and, and
it was a challenge.
And.
And I learned a lot from it,you know, and I, I gave it the work
that was required.
But, but, you know, Leon and Iboth know that the.
(13:53):
Probably one of the riskiestbusinesses out there is the restaurant
business.
And.
And sometimes they make it,sometimes they don't.
And it's not always areflection of how hard we worked
or how good our food was.
There's lots of variables inthere, so.
Sure.
Absolutely.
Sure.
Boxers are briefs.
(14:13):
That's a little personal.
Boxers.
There you go.
There you go.
Do you have a favorite eventthat you like to go to when you were
Competing all the time.
Well, I mean, the list gets alittle bit long, but since Leanne's
on here, one of my favorites,it's unfortunately gone away.
I think her dad wasresponsible for bringing together
(14:36):
and try out in North Carolinawas about as special of an event
as that you could ever go to, too.
Dillard, Georgia, was amazing.
1.
Of course, I love the Royaland the Jack and Memphis of May and
Houston Livestock Rodeo show, but.
So I can't, I can't, I can'tnail it down to one, but, but try.
North Carolina was in abeautiful part of the country, and
(14:58):
it had a fair and it had musicand it had kids playing in a creek,
and it had all the thingsthat, you know, just a really nice
slice of Americana.
There you go.
What's one thing you missabout your 20s?
That list as long.
(15:20):
I like my knees better in the 20s.
Yeah, me too.
I was, I was a much betterdrinker in my 20s.
I was a lot, I was probably alot, a lot less pessimistic and a
lot more positive in my 20sthan I find myself today.
But anyways, I could, we coulddo a whole episode on that.
(15:40):
Oh, sure.
Commiserate with each other.
What's your favorite movie?
If you have one movie, youknow, I don't know it's gonna be
a favorite movie.
I don't, I don't know if Icould just pick one.
No.
What's your favorite movie?
Mine is Godfather.
(16:02):
I like Godfather.
I always called it Business101, so.
Yeah, I like Amadeus.
You like Tommadeus?
Yeah, that's one of my faves.
Yeah.
I don't know, I, I, Someonereached out to me recently and wanted
to know my, I'm poor atcertain answers, so I don't know
what my favorite movie is.
I mean, I like, I don't know.
(16:24):
I, I, there's so many moviesthat I like out there, but, you know,
my son watches a lot moremovies than I do.
I was talking to him just thispast week, and he, he says he probably
watches 100 movies a year,which is amazing to me.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
When my, when my daughter waslittle, we watched, I grew up on
a ranch.
We watched a lot of westerns.
(16:45):
Okay.
My dad loved westerns and ofcourse, all the John Wayne film.
The point is, I think myfavorite John wayne film is McClintock.
Okay.
But Mercedes couldn't say McClintock.
She called him Mr.
Clock.
And so about once or twice amonth, if it was bad weather or it
(17:09):
was just the two of us, around there.
She'd say, dad, let's go watch Mr.
Clock.
So I can probably recite mostof the dialogue in that movie too.
But that was a fun one.
When you retire, Tuffy, if youdo ever retire, which I think there's
a question mark behind that,what would you like to do?
(17:32):
I would love to be like, spenda lot of time fishing in the flats.
Saltwater fishing.
Flats fishing.
I get.
I love beaches.
I love warm weather and seeyou soon.
Yeah, I love, I love there.
There is amazing.
There's amazing fishing downwhere you live, Ian.
(17:53):
I mean, absolutely.
And my son in law has a boatand he is quite the fisherman.
And I am spoiled.
And that's one of my favoritethings to do, if not my favorite
thing to do.
I get pictures of her.
She texts me a picture.
It's.
It's snowing sideways here.
And she's.
And she's down there in shortsand a tank top and she's got some
big red fish she's holding upsmiling, you know, and I'm like.
(18:18):
You know, I. I realized thatFlorida is where you go after you
make your mark in life.
My wife and I, when we firstgot married, we moved to Marco island
and we had a house on a canaland we were catching snook and redfish
and Jack Cavell and lady fish and.
And there's speckled trout.
It was so much fun.
I don't remember that.
And that's where mygrandmother lived for years.
And my mom, Marco island, that's.
(18:39):
I just.
I don't know why I didn't know that.
Ford or Chevy.
Wow.
So I was GMC forever and now Idrive a Ford truck.
And I felt like such a traderfor a long time.
I had 1, 2, 3.
I had three GMC trucks beforemy Ford F250 that I dropped now.
(19:00):
There you go.
There you go.
And the cumulative cost ofthose trucks probably matches your
Ford F250 are close to it.
I think if I can get all themoney back for those trucks, I can
come down there and get acondo near Lean.
Yeah.
Yeah, probably.
Probably.
Probably.
Okay, here is the Chris Lily question.
(19:20):
Oh, me for you.
Okay, so your answer is veryimportant on this.
Have you ever cooked in athunder or snowstorm in your underwear?
I have not.
Okay, Chris has got you onthat one.
Yeah, he.
He told the story about cooking.
(19:40):
Was it at the Jack Land or was it.
No, I don't think he defined exactly.
Where it was, but he was his.
His son was sleeping in like alittle pup tent and Chris was sleeping
in the truck and a big stormcame up, and they were trying to
save their pop ups and their fire.
And so he said they wererunning around in their skivvies
out there trying to.
(20:01):
To save the world.
I think that was the Jack,because his.
His site that year got a tonof it flooded bad.
Yeah.
So my guess is it was probablythe Jack.
Yeah.
And then.
And then Brad said, well, heprobably got an underwear deal out
of the thing, too.
So do you have a favoritebarbecue book besides yours, Tuffy?
(20:27):
Oh, well, I mean, mine's not.
I mean, golly, I mean, Ialready mentioned John Willingham's.
John Willingham's had somereally great words.
Smokey Hale.
I really liked his book.
Adam Perry Lang.
I really like the way hethinks about food and talks about
it.
(20:47):
So I think Adam Perry Lang'sbooks are great.
You know, I don't want toslide any of my friends.
I got so many friends and gotgreat cookbooks out there.
But, you know, I finally hadto put down my friend's cookbooks
when I was working on my own.
I'm like, dang, Garnet.
Adam's already said that.
I can't say that.
But, you know, I will say this.
(21:10):
I've had a.
And I think Leanne probablycan agree with this or relate to
this, too.
I've been really blessed tohave a lot of mentors and a lot of
people that are way smarterthan me.
Share.
Share advice and educate me on.
On cooking.
And, And.
And so my book is, as thewords of many.
(21:32):
And my book is, you know, lotsof time at the grill and at the fire
and cooking and Chef Alanyelling at me and teaching me.
And so it's.
I just.
I'm very grateful and thankfulfor all the mentors that I've been
able to.
I have in my life.
Okay, one last question.
Yes, sir?
(21:53):
Do you recall the biggestmistake you ever made during a competition?
Well, I mean, I've made a lotof mistakes, and I think the mistakes
make me a better cook.
Probably one of the mostpublic mistakes that I ever made
was cooking in Lakeland,Florida, and they accepted my box.
(22:15):
And then about 47 minuteslater, I was doing an interview,
and my phone kept ringing andringing and ringing.
I finally apologized duringthe interview and grabbed my phone.
It was my dad.
And he said, you got to getover here.
We got a problem.
So I told the interview, Isaid, I'm sorry, I got to go check
on my dad.
And I went to my cook site inLakeland, Florida, and the Reps were
(22:39):
there to tell me that I'd beendisqualified and that I was, like,
two seconds late on my brisketturn in.
And then we went on to awards,and we pulled a first, a second,
and a fourth, and the otherthree categories, and we could have
been last, not disqualified in brisket.
We had won the contest.
Anyways, I was devastated.
And I was driving back toVirginia from Florida, and the next
(23:02):
day, I had stopped at a truckstation to refuel and was filling
up and got back on thehighway, and I was driving back home,
and I got a phone call from abarbecue buddy of mine.
He said, tuffy, did I just seeyou driving south on 95?
I said, no, I'm driving.
Driving home.
I'm driving north.
He said, I could have swore Ijust saw you driving south on 95.
(23:23):
And he was right.
I was so devastated, I gotback on the freeway.
Wow.
But here's the lesson.
The lesson, what I learned,because I thought, all right, so
I'm really fast.
I'm really good at building a box.
I can do a really good job.
I've got a lot of years ofplating foods and making things look
good.
And, you know, the French havea term mise en place and being organized.
(23:45):
And anyways, long story short,that lesson, I had no world championships
before that experience.
And then I was fortunateenough to have great success afterwards.
So here's what I learned.
Here's what the mistake had a lesson.
And so the mistake was getyour meat on time.
(24:07):
But the lesson was this.
I gave myself more time tobuild boxes.
I started to really searchthrough that brisket or that pork
butt and find the mostdelicious portions, because here's
the real truth.
The real truth is our food hasgot to eat cold.
I thought it was so importantto give hot food to these judges.
(24:30):
So on pork and brisket, theysort our entries because they don't
want our entries to go to thesame table twice.
So that process becomes slower.
So what I learned is I don'tneed to be at the tail end of turn
in for pork and brisket.
It needs to be turned in time,and it needs to be turned in on time.
(24:50):
And I need to give them thebest examples of the food that I
cooked that day, give myself time.
And when I.
When I sorted that all out,because initially I started turning
them way early because I justwas so hyper focused on never having
that happen again.
But so cook it.
And here's.
And so that also taught me this.
(25:11):
It's a tenderness contest.
It is not the Taste is reallyimportant, but generally speaking,
we can fix taste.
We can fix taste with a brushof sauce, a sprinkle of dust, whatever,
but texture.
The best foods in the world.
I don't care if you're ThomasKeller at the French Laundry or ice
(25:32):
cream or Caesar salad or barbecue.
Those.
So how does.
How does ice cream andbarbecue get in the same conversation?
Well, the best barbecue, thebest rib is the one that's got the
best chew.
The best pork has got the best chew.
The best brisket's got thebest bite.
The best ice cream's got thebest mouthfeel.
The best Caesar salad's gotcrisp, fresh romaine with crunchy,
(25:55):
crisp, fresh croutons and justthe right amount of salad dressing.
So, anyways, that mistake inLakeland, Florida, ultimately taught
me a lot of lessons, and thoselessons didn't come quick.
It took a lot of reflectionand a lot of time.
But what I started to realizeis I actually made a better presentation
or put better food in that boxwhen I gave myself more time and
(26:20):
didn't try and do it, as theFrench would call a la minute.
Interesting.
You really are the professor,aren't you?
Yeah, I talk too much.
You know, I tell you what.
So John Marcus, when he calledme in Dillard, Georgia, a few days
before Leanne called and toldme that she had made fun of my spreadsheets.
(26:42):
John went on in that sameconversation, said, tuffy, I got
to tell you, I cast your roleas the Professor.
He said you could talk forhours on smoke and wood and fire.
So in this episode on yourshow, I just proved his point.
There you go.
It's all good.
Well, Tuffy, thank you fortaking the time.
(27:02):
Thank you, thank you.
And like I said, I don't wantto make it three years again or whatever
it's been since you've been onthe show.
This is Barbecue Nation After Hours.
The conversation that tookplace after the show ended.
Hey, everybody, it's jt andthis is a special version of Barbecue
Nation.
It is brought to you in partby Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Beef you can be proud to serveyour family and friends.
That's Painted Hills NaturalBeef, everybody.
Welcome to After Hours here onthe Nation.
That's Barbecue Nation.
(00:20):
I'm JT along with Ms. Leanne Whippen.
Hall of Famer Tuffy Stone iswith us today.
He's a Hall of Famer.
Both of them are restaurateurs emeritus.
That's a good way to put it.
You can have that on your cardnow, Leanne.
That's a nice way to.
I like it that way.
Yeah.
Restaurateur emeritus.
So this is the part of theshow, Tuffy, where we do what we
(00:45):
call the lightning Round.
And it's a bunch of reallyfun, silly, irreverent, and sometimes
just plain dumb questions thatwe throw at you and we see what you
come up with.
You ready?
All right, I'm a littlenervous, but I'll go.
Don't be nervous.
Oh, no, no, You're.
You're right.
I. I'll start out with somekind of serious ones.
(01:08):
Okay.
If.
Okay.
If you started your career allover again, what would you do?
Man, I don't know, but I don'tthink it would be in the food world.
It's.
I think I could take myproblem solve.
I don't know.
I'd love to be a professionalphotographer, but I'm not that good.
Or fly fishing guy.
(01:28):
That would be nice.
That would be fun.
That would be fun.
Okay, here's one.
You're going to have to putyour thinking cap on for just a second.
If you could.
If you could cook for, thendine with a historical figure, who
would it be and what would themenu be?
(01:49):
Oh, my gosh.
I could go so many directionswith this.
I tend to get a little sappy,so that's all right.
You know, I'd like to be ableto cook for my grandmother, Florence
and my mom, Charlotte again.
And I'd probably do a versionof my grandmother's fried eggplant
and make my grandmother'spineapple hot dish and, I don't know,
(02:10):
just riff on some of their oldmenu items and just be able to just
tell them one more time howmuch I love them.
That's probably a littlesappy, but that.
No, no, no.
That's all good.
That's it.
Have you ever eaten haggis?
I have, and you live to tellabout it.
Yeah.
Okay, next question.
(02:31):
Next question.
What is one of the, for lackof a better term, hottest new things
on the market that you haveseen that will help people cook or
learn to cook?
Well, I mean, there are some.
(02:53):
There are some apparatuses outthere that, that I kind of shied
away from a little bit.
I used to stay away from thosetemperature measuring devices because
the kind where you would putthe probe in while you're cooking.
Right.
And I didn't like the cablesand all that now, but as I've gotten
(03:14):
older technology, I'veembraced it a little bit better.
And, and so these, thesedevices now that we can, like, monitor
the temperature on our porkbutt or our brisket and multitask
has.
(03:36):
Has made it a lot easier forme to.
To nail the doneness.
So I.
Where I used to shot and, andthey're so much better than when
Leanne and I started.
When we started, they weren'tthat accurate.
The cables would crimp, thesounds were annoying.
But there are some devices outthere now for monitoring the temperature
of our pits and our meats thatjust make these long cooks when we're
(04:02):
cooking a pork butt or a brisket.
Yeah.
So much easier, so much better.
Yeah, absolutely.
If you could cook with one,and you've.
You've probably already donethis, so you might tell a side story
on this.
If you could cook with one ofyour barbecue heroes, who would it
be?
(04:22):
You know, I like.
I want to cook with MarcosLevy out of Brazil.
This guy is a genius.
He's mind blowing.
I watched him do some thingsin Brazil, Churrascata, that, that
I never even thought aboutbefore, and I think that that's really
cool.
(04:45):
So, so I would really.
I mean, I.
Historically, I've been havingto cook with some really great people
over the years because I usedto go and volunteer at this event
called Masters of Food andWine, and people like Julia Child
and Thomas Keller and CharlieTrotter and Alice Waters and people
like that would cook at this event.
So I used to volunteer andhelp those kind of people.
(05:06):
But it's, you know, it's like.
And I think Leanne, you canprobably relate to just, you know,
when you can get your brainfed and, and, and so.
But this guy in Brazil is just.
He is cutting edge and he'sdoing some cool stuff.
But like I said earlier in another.
In our previous segment, thisis not.
(05:27):
This is not.
This is not clever getting inthe way of delicious.
This is like, this is takingcool ideas and making food Taste
great.
And you want to wear anasbestos shirt, Right?
So you.
That's right.
And they did wear a metal hat.
Okay.
All right, we got that down.
Now, if you could erase amistake, just one from your past,
(05:48):
what would it be and why?
Dad, I hope you're listeningin heaven above, but I wish I'd never
wrecked your Ford Bronco whenI was 16.
Yeah.
Yep, yep.
Same goes for me, dad.
My dad with the GMC pickup.
(06:10):
Okay, so we'll just go from there.
What's your least favoritefood to cook?
Tuffy.
Least favorite.
Golly, I'm having.
I'm struggling with this, andI like to cook a lot of things.
(06:31):
I don't like cooking flatironsteak when.
When it comes in and you it.
And it's not all trimmed niceand neatly like you would get it
in the grocery store.
I did an event at Charleston,Charleston Wine and Food at one time,
and I got cases and cases offlatiron that I had to do way more
(06:54):
trim work than I wasaccustomed to, and it took a really,
really long time, so.
Oh, and I would also not recommend.
I had this brilliant idea onetime of getting dry aged brisket,
and it came shipped to me fromNew York, and it was dry aged bone
in brisket.
And that was a lot of my.
Okay, on a scale of 1 to 10,how much barbecue do you eat on a
(07:19):
regular basis?
1 to 10.
1.5.
Yeah.
Well, hold on, let's definebarbecue because if it's grilled,
if you're defining it asgrilled meats, then it's.
It's a lot larger than that.
But if you're saying pulledpork and brisket.
So pulled pork and brisket.
(07:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like 1.5.
Okay.
All right.
Um, do you remember the firstthing you ever grilled or smoked
or barbecued?
The very first.
I got a couple of stories thattake me back to my childhood.
I remember grilling a hindquarter of venison with a bunch of
my high school buddies.
(08:01):
And that would have been backaround like 79, 80, something like
that.
And that turned out really good.
But it was probably because wewere drinking beer and we were hungry.
Um, and then another cookingmemory that I had took place probably
when I was around 16 or 17 isI like to hunt and fish.
And I had.
I had caught some native brooktrout, fly fishing, and I had also
(08:21):
gone squirrel hunting.
So I did my.
My teenager version of surfand turf where I. I cooked a squirrel
in the skillet and I also didpan fried some, some brook trout
the trout were pretty good.
The squirrel wasn't very good.
Wasn't very good.
Yeah.
Um, well, this.
(08:41):
I guess this next questionthen fits right in.
If you were an animal, whatanimal would you be and why?
Probably not a squirrel.
Right.
Well, I mean, I guess I'd be.
You know, if my mom wasaround, she'd tell me that I'm a
crab because I'm a cancer withmy horoscope.
Maybe a fish.
Okay, if we put Tuffy Stoneskills to music, what would the music
(09:07):
be?
Gas jazz.
Okay, here's one that I think you'll.
You'll like.
If we declared you SupremeRuler of Barbecue for a couple of
days, you were supreme ruler,what would you, as supreme ruler,
decree?
Get outside and grill.
(09:28):
Okay.
There you go.
You remember the worst concertyou ever went to?
The worst concert I ever went to.
I probably wouldn't have goneto them if they were bad, but.
No, I don't.
Oh, that's okay.
(09:49):
There's a lot of concerts Idon't remember either.
If you were on death Row, whatwould your last meal be?
Ice cream.
Ice cream.
Well, I mean, I like CherryGarcia, but maybe vanilla, but, you
know, I might.
One of my.
I mean, anybody really knowsme knows I love to cook barbecue
(10:12):
and.
But they know I love a steakand I love a steak.
Yeah.
But if I was getting ready to,like, be put down, I think ice cream
would be it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
After all your years ofexperience in your.
Your victories and somedefeats and all that, what is the
biggest change you thinkshould be made in competition?
(10:33):
Barbecue, if any, you know,for Kansas City Barbecue Society.
I. I wish that we would allowthe judges an opportunity to go back
and adjust their scores untilthey feel like that they have really
given those scores what theythink they should have.
And I.
And I don't think there'sanything wrong with us picking the
(10:55):
best out of the entries thatwe get that day.
You know, it's like.
I think it's all right, youknow, I think.
I think, you know, if you getfive or six entries on your table
of pork or beef or chicken orribs, let those judges kind of, like,
work those scores until theyfeel like they've done the best job.
And, you know, I think it'sall right, personally.
(11:17):
I mean, in Memphis in May,it's comparative judging, and I think
that's all right, too.
I think.
I think we should judgeentries for, you know, for what they
are.
I mean, you know, as cooks,and Leanne, I think, would agree.
It's Leanne and my or anycompetition cooks challenge to try
(11:38):
and put out a taste and atexture that's appealing to the judges,
that's our responsibility.
But I just think allowing thejudges to.
To adjust those scores untilthey feel like they given those scores,
given those products, thescores that they want, that, that
would be.
Yeah.
What's.
(12:00):
Even though you sold yourrestaurants, what was the hardest
thing about owning a businesslike a restaurant?
Well, I mean, the last one wasprobably the most difficult for me
because it was a really coolspot, and I think it had really opportunity,
but it was poor.
It was poor timing on our part.
We didn't know it.
I purchased it two monthsbefore COVID hit.
Oh.
And.
(12:20):
And that was really hard.
I had this naive belief,maybe, Leanne, maybe you can.
Maybe you can.
I don't know, maybe you canagree with this or not, but when
I. I never knew I was going tobe a cook or a chef, and that was
going to be the way I earnedmy living.
But.
But became my path.
And, and as I went down thatpath and honed my skills, I always
(12:42):
thought that I began tobelieve that being a cook was like
being a plumber.
And if I could feed people, Iwould always be able to put a roof
over my head.
And it wasn't until Covid hitand here I had this restaurant that
I just purchased, which Ithought was going to be super cool
and full of opportunity.
And then all of a sudden, thegovernor shut us down for four months.
(13:05):
And, well, I don't know.
We made the decision.
I don't know.
I don't know if it was thegovernor, but anyways, and I.
And then when we opened backup, I found myself working the lawn,
cleaning the kitchen, cleaningthe deep fat fryer, and going back
to the task that I had beganmy career with, you know, these.
(13:28):
These, you know, and anyways,it was.
It was a lot of hard work anda lot of long hours, and, and, and
it was a challenge.
And.
And I learned a lot from it,you know, and I, I gave it the work
that was required.
But, but, you know, Leon and Iboth know that the.
(13:53):
Probably one of the riskiestbusinesses out there is the restaurant
business.
And.
And sometimes they make it,sometimes they don't.
And it's not always areflection of how hard we worked
or how good our food was.
There's lots of variables inthere, so.
Sure.
Absolutely.
Sure.
Boxers are briefs.
(14:13):
That's a little personal.
Boxers.
There you go.
There you go.
Do you have a favorite eventthat you like to go to when you were
Competing all the time.
Well, I mean, the list gets alittle bit long, but since Leanne's
on here, one of my favorites,it's unfortunately gone away.
I think her dad wasresponsible for bringing together
(14:36):
and try out in North Carolinawas about as special of an event
as that you could ever go to, too.
Dillard, Georgia, was amazing.
1.
Of course, I love the Royaland the Jack and Memphis of May and
Houston Livestock Rodeo show, but.
So I can't, I can't, I can'tnail it down to one, but, but try.
North Carolina was in abeautiful part of the country, and
(14:58):
it had a fair and it had musicand it had kids playing in a creek,
and it had all the thingsthat, you know, just a really nice
slice of Americana.
There you go.
What's one thing you missabout your 20s?
That list as long.
(15:20):
I like my knees better in the 20s.
Yeah, me too.
I was, I was a much betterdrinker in my 20s.
I was a lot, I was probably alot, a lot less pessimistic and a
lot more positive in my 20sthan I find myself today.
But anyways, I could, we coulddo a whole episode on that.
(15:40):
Oh, sure.
Commiserate with each other.
What's your favorite movie?
If you have one movie, youknow, I don't know it's gonna be
a favorite movie.
I don't, I don't know if Icould just pick one.
No.
What's your favorite movie?
Mine is Godfather.
(16:02):
I like Godfather.
I always called it Business101, so.
Yeah, I like Amadeus.
You like Tommadeus?
Yeah, that's one of my faves.
Yeah.
I don't know, I, I, Someonereached out to me recently and wanted
to know my, I'm poor atcertain answers, so I don't know
what my favorite movie is.
I mean, I like, I don't know.
(16:24):
I, I, there's so many moviesthat I like out there, but, you know,
my son watches a lot moremovies than I do.
I was talking to him just thispast week, and he, he says he probably
watches 100 movies a year,which is amazing to me.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
When my, when my daughter waslittle, we watched, I grew up on
a ranch.
We watched a lot of westerns.
(16:45):
Okay.
My dad loved westerns and ofcourse, all the John Wayne film.
The point is, I think myfavorite John wayne film is McClintock.
Okay.
But Mercedes couldn't say McClintock.
She called him Mr.
Clock.
And so about once or twice amonth, if it was bad weather or it
(17:09):
was just the two of us, around there.
She'd say, dad, let's go watch Mr.
Clock.
So I can probably recite mostof the dialogue in that movie too.
But that was a fun one.
When you retire, Tuffy, if youdo ever retire, which I think there's
a question mark behind that,what would you like to do?
(17:32):
I would love to be like, spenda lot of time fishing in the flats.
Saltwater fishing.
Flats fishing.
I get.
I love beaches.
I love warm weather and seeyou soon.
Yeah, I love, I love there.
There is amazing.
There's amazing fishing downwhere you live, Ian.
(17:53):
I mean, absolutely.
And my son in law has a boatand he is quite the fisherman.
And I am spoiled.
And that's one of my favoritethings to do, if not my favorite
thing to do.
I get pictures of her.
She texts me a picture.
It's.
It's snowing sideways here.
And she's.
And she's down there in shortsand a tank top and she's got some
big red fish she's holding upsmiling, you know, and I'm like.
(18:18):
You know, I. I realized thatFlorida is where you go after you
make your mark in life.
My wife and I, when we firstgot married, we moved to Marco island
and we had a house on a canaland we were catching snook and redfish
and Jack Cavell and lady fish and.
And there's speckled trout.
It was so much fun.
I don't remember that.
And that's where mygrandmother lived for years.
And my mom, Marco island, that's.
(18:39):
I just.
I don't know why I didn't know that.
Ford or Chevy.
Wow.
So I was GMC forever and now Idrive a Ford truck.
And I felt like such a traderfor a long time.
I had 1, 2, 3.
I had three GMC trucks beforemy Ford F250 that I dropped now.
(19:00):
There you go.
There you go.
And the cumulative cost ofthose trucks probably matches your
Ford F250 are close to it.
I think if I can get all themoney back for those trucks, I can
come down there and get acondo near Lean.
Yeah.
Yeah, probably.
Probably.
Probably.
Okay, here is the Chris Lily question.
(19:20):
Oh, me for you.
Okay, so your answer is veryimportant on this.
Have you ever cooked in athunder or snowstorm in your underwear?
I have not.
Okay, Chris has got you onthat one.
Yeah, he.
He told the story about cooking.
(19:40):
Was it at the Jack Land or was it.
No, I don't think he defined exactly.
Where it was, but he was his.
His son was sleeping in like alittle pup tent and Chris was sleeping
in the truck and a big stormcame up, and they were trying to
save their pop ups and their fire.
And so he said they wererunning around in their skivvies
out there trying to.
(20:01):
To save the world.
I think that was the Jack,because his.
His site that year got a tonof it flooded bad.
Yeah.
So my guess is it was probablythe Jack.
Yeah.
And then.
And then Brad said, well, heprobably got an underwear deal out
of the thing, too.
So do you have a favoritebarbecue book besides yours, Tuffy?
(20:27):
Oh, well, I mean, mine's not.
I mean, golly, I mean, Ialready mentioned John Willingham's.
John Willingham's had somereally great words.
Smokey Hale.
I really liked his book.
Adam Perry Lang.
I really like the way hethinks about food and talks about
it.
(20:47):
So I think Adam Perry Lang'sbooks are great.
You know, I don't want toslide any of my friends.
I got so many friends and gotgreat cookbooks out there.
But, you know, I finally hadto put down my friend's cookbooks
when I was working on my own.
I'm like, dang, Garnet.
Adam's already said that.
I can't say that.
But, you know, I will say this.
(21:10):
I've had a.
And I think Leanne probablycan agree with this or relate to
this, too.
I've been really blessed tohave a lot of mentors and a lot of
people that are way smarterthan me.
Share.
Share advice and educate me on.
On cooking.
And, And.
And so my book is, as thewords of many.
(21:32):
And my book is, you know, lotsof time at the grill and at the fire
and cooking and Chef Alanyelling at me and teaching me.
And so it's.
I just.
I'm very grateful and thankfulfor all the mentors that I've been
able to.
I have in my life.
Okay, one last question.
Yes, sir?
(21:53):
Do you recall the biggestmistake you ever made during a competition?
Well, I mean, I've made a lotof mistakes, and I think the mistakes
make me a better cook.
Probably one of the mostpublic mistakes that I ever made
was cooking in Lakeland,Florida, and they accepted my box.
(22:15):
And then about 47 minuteslater, I was doing an interview,
and my phone kept ringing andringing and ringing.
I finally apologized duringthe interview and grabbed my phone.
It was my dad.
And he said, you got to getover here.
We got a problem.
So I told the interview, Isaid, I'm sorry, I got to go check
on my dad.
And I went to my cook site inLakeland, Florida, and the Reps were
(22:39):
there to tell me that I'd beendisqualified and that I was, like,
two seconds late on my brisketturn in.
And then we went on to awards,and we pulled a first, a second,
and a fourth, and the otherthree categories, and we could have
been last, not disqualified in brisket.
We had won the contest.
Anyways, I was devastated.
And I was driving back toVirginia from Florida, and the next
(23:02):
day, I had stopped at a truckstation to refuel and was filling
up and got back on thehighway, and I was driving back home,
and I got a phone call from abarbecue buddy of mine.
He said, tuffy, did I just seeyou driving south on 95?
I said, no, I'm driving.
Driving home.
I'm driving north.
He said, I could have swore Ijust saw you driving south on 95.
(23:23):
And he was right.
I was so devastated, I gotback on the freeway.
Wow.
But here's the lesson.
The lesson, what I learned,because I thought, all right, so
I'm really fast.
I'm really good at building a box.
I can do a really good job.
I've got a lot of years ofplating foods and making things look
good.
And, you know, the French havea term mise en place and being organized.
(23:45):
And anyways, long story short,that lesson, I had no world championships
before that experience.
And then I was fortunateenough to have great success afterwards.
So here's what I learned.
Here's what the mistake had a lesson.
And so the mistake was getyour meat on time.
(24:07):
But the lesson was this.
I gave myself more time tobuild boxes.
I started to really searchthrough that brisket or that pork
butt and find the mostdelicious portions, because here's
the real truth.
The real truth is our food hasgot to eat cold.
I thought it was so importantto give hot food to these judges.
(24:30):
So on pork and brisket, theysort our entries because they don't
want our entries to go to thesame table twice.
So that process becomes slower.
So what I learned is I don'tneed to be at the tail end of turn
in for pork and brisket.
It needs to be turned in time,and it needs to be turned in on time.
(24:50):
And I need to give them thebest examples of the food that I
cooked that day, give myself time.
And when I.
When I sorted that all out,because initially I started turning
them way early because I justwas so hyper focused on never having
that happen again.
But so cook it.
And here's.
And so that also taught me this.
(25:11):
It's a tenderness contest.
It is not the Taste is reallyimportant, but generally speaking,
we can fix taste.
We can fix taste with a brushof sauce, a sprinkle of dust, whatever,
but texture.
The best foods in the world.
I don't care if you're ThomasKeller at the French Laundry or ice
(25:32):
cream or Caesar salad or barbecue.
Those.
So how does.
How does ice cream andbarbecue get in the same conversation?
Well, the best barbecue, thebest rib is the one that's got the
best chew.
The best pork has got the best chew.
The best brisket's got thebest bite.
The best ice cream's got thebest mouthfeel.
The best Caesar salad's gotcrisp, fresh romaine with crunchy,
(25:55):
crisp, fresh croutons and justthe right amount of salad dressing.
So, anyways, that mistake inLakeland, Florida, ultimately taught
me a lot of lessons, and thoselessons didn't come quick.
It took a lot of reflectionand a lot of time.
But what I started to realizeis I actually made a better presentation
or put better food in that boxwhen I gave myself more time and
(26:20):
didn't try and do it, as theFrench would call a la minute.
Interesting.
You really are the professor,aren't you?
Yeah, I talk too much.
You know, I tell you what.
So John Marcus, when he calledme in Dillard, Georgia, a few days
before Leanne called and toldme that she had made fun of my spreadsheets.
(26:42):
John went on in that sameconversation, said, tuffy, I got
to tell you, I cast your roleas the Professor.
He said you could talk forhours on smoke and wood and fire.
So in this episode on yourshow, I just proved his point.
There you go.
It's all good.
Well, Tuffy, thank you fortaking the time.
(27:02):
Thank you, thank you.
And like I said, I don't wantto make it three years again or whatever
it's been since you've been onthe show.
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