October 4, 2024 • 31 mins
Brian and Trey discuss the virtues of lasagna cupcakes and giving back as they fire up the grill with LA super chef Matt Poley.
Matt Poley began his culinary adventures in Clarkston, Michigan, and then moved to Los Angeles in 2004 where he co-founded the catering company Heirloom LA with his friend Tara Maxey. Aside from being one of LA’s top catering companies, Heirloom LA believes healthy eating is a right, not a privilege, and that everyone should know what’s in their food and who grows and raises it. Heirloom LA is committed to supporting small, local organic farms, promoting education and welfare around this work, and striving to ensure that everyone has easy access to fresh, healthy food. Brian Phelps is an American radio personality, actor, and comedian best known for co-hosting the nationally and globally syndicated Mark & Brian Morning Show in Los Angeles for 25 years. As the co-lead of his own television series, with multiple roles in movies, and a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Phelps is also an inductee in the Radio Hall of Fame.
Trey Callaway is an American film and TV writer and producer who wrote the hit movie I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and has produced successful TV series like CSI:NY, Supernatural, Rush Hour, Revolution, The Messengers, APB, Station 19 and 9-1-1 LONE STAR. He is also a Professor at USC.
___________________________________
Make sure to follow us on social media at:
begoodhumanspodcast.com
instagram.com
tiktok.com
threads.net
facebook.com
x.com
Matt Poley began his culinary adventures in Clarkston, Michigan, and then moved to Los Angeles in 2004 where he co-founded the catering company Heirloom LA with his friend Tara Maxey. Aside from being one of LA’s top catering companies, Heirloom LA believes healthy eating is a right, not a privilege, and that everyone should know what’s in their food and who grows and raises it. Heirloom LA is committed to supporting small, local organic farms, promoting education and welfare around this work, and striving to ensure that everyone has easy access to fresh, healthy food. Brian Phelps is an American radio personality, actor, and comedian best known for co-hosting the nationally and globally syndicated Mark & Brian Morning Show in Los Angeles for 25 years. As the co-lead of his own television series, with multiple roles in movies, and a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Phelps is also an inductee in the Radio Hall of Fame.
Trey Callaway is an American film and TV writer and producer who wrote the hit movie I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and has produced successful TV series like CSI:NY, Supernatural, Rush Hour, Revolution, The Messengers, APB, Station 19 and 9-1-1 LONE STAR. He is also a Professor at USC.
___________________________________
Make sure to follow us on social media at:
begoodhumanspodcast.com
instagram.com
tiktok.com
threads.net
facebook.com
x.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah. So so now she's glaring at me right with
this disgusted look on her face like would and she says,
she says, Hey, the only way I'm putting that on
is if you put it on first. Hey, welcome back,
Thanks for coming in. This is the Be Good Humans podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
So nice to have you back here. How do we
look by the way he looks better than I do?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Don't? There is cute, No, it's true. But and a
good kisser.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Wow, you really are a hotel lover.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
How are you good humans?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Be good humans? Be good humans, or we will think
you sucked, or we.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Will thank you suck.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Okay, So here's the thing. As long as you are
looking at us, if you are looking at us and
you're watching us on YouTube before we forget, just do
us a quick favor. Go ahead and hit like and subscribe.
Would you that will? That will do us a solid?
We would. We would greatly appreciate that. And if you're
just listening to us, then ignore this whole part. Hi everybody,
Hi everyone, Uh, Brian, I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I did
(01:12):
not have bread.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
So many ways I could take that.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
No, you need to really turn a corner here. I
am literally physically hungry. I did not have breakfast. You
probably had something healthy to start your day.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, yeah, every day it's oatmeal and protein powder.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah. See, this is one of the things I love
and despise about you. I normally try to treat myself
to some kind of breakfast, and I did not. I
didn't have anything to eat this morning.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Well, my go to if it's a cheat day, my
go to is a breakfast a breedo.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Oh you like a good breed.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Of sausage, egg, cheese, some beans would be nice. Now okay,
now I'm getting hungry.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Do you cook a lot? Where do you come out
on cooking? Let's talk about that.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Sure, this won't come as any surprise to you because
knowing each other for the years we've known each other.
But no, I respect, I love, I adore people that do,
especially when they do it in my house. But I've
just never had that passion really for cooking until recently,
like the last three or four years. It's I start
eating healthy and out of necessity because it's awfully hard
(02:17):
to go out to a restaurant and eat healthy because
there's too many choices.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yes, this is true, So.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Out of necessity lunch is my biggest meal of the day,
and I will usually make something.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Incredibly boring, like what do you mean by boring?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
You know, clean chicken breast along with or like a
a sandwich with no sodium deli turkey and low fat cheese.
You know that's the cardboard. So yeah, it is. It is.
It's I stay away from except for cheat days, which
I go crazy.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
But which is how many of those a week?
Speaker 1 (02:54):
No? One, every ten days.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Every ten days.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I I reached a point where I was like, okay,
especially it was like right before COVID especially, but I
could go this way right, or I could go this
way right.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It's a fork in the road.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, and so I chose. So, yeah, I'm not to
it's not interesting at all, but treadmill every day and
looking healthy. But every ten days I go crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
But in general, you would say that you're not a
very enthusiastic cook, Like that's not something that brings you
a lot.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Of No, no, it's not. But I again, I love
it when it's like owning a boat. I don't want
to own a boat, but I want a friend that does.
I don't cook, but I enjoy, appreciate, love, adore, great
savory food. In fact, when I was in college, the
only hot meal I had every day was I would
(03:42):
do some research and I find out which lounges or
bars had the happy hour munchies. Oh okay, it could
be tacos, could be hot dogs, could be chicken figures,
whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
And this is like Chicago land bars presumably, or somewhere
in that vicinity. There's a lot to choose from.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
I didn't Yeah, not in Chicago, but yeah, ye where
I went to college, Bloomington, normal, Yeah, there you go.
So I'd go to the bar and I pay seventy
five cents because I didn't drink, then seventy five cents
for an orange juice, and I would have me some supper,
and that was my only hot meal of the day.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I like this.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Now, how about you. I've seen pictures that you post
your concoctions.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, well that's the fair word to use.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Sandwiches, burgers. I mean, just oh my god.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I love cooking, but for me, it's cooking is probably
the closest I get to therapy without actually having to
see my therapist. Right Like, for me, it's very meditative.
At the end of a long day, I can really
effectively decompress by just walking into my kitchen and starting
to cook something. But when you use the word concoction,
(04:46):
that's key because my favorite kind of cooking is improvisational cooking.
It is the like, what's in the pantry, brilliant, what's
in the fridge? How might I put those things together?
Maybe I need a little help from Google, but like
I really like to just sort of wing it on
the fly, And sometimes that can be tremendously successful, and
sometimes it can be inedible.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Every picture I've seen has been tremendously successful. But let
me ask you this, Yeah, do you sometimes you know
you're cooking something on a fly? It's on the plate,
by the way, you plate really well as well to try. Yeah,
but it's on the plate and you taste it and
it's it's it's heaven. It's miraculous. Could you recreate that?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, so you're taking notes. I am careful about that.
If it turns out good, then I really quickly rework,
like what did I do? And then I approximate it
and I try to keep it in my phone or somewhere.
And my youngest son, Cosmo, who's home for college for
the summer right now, also has the same improvisational culinary spirit,
and so he and I make great partners in that sense.
And we just, while winging it, put together a spiced
(05:47):
thie steak salad that turned out to be phenomenal. So
we were like, quickly, write it down, what do we do?
What did we do? And then we have since replicated
it a couple of times, so it worked.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Who taught you how to cook?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
You know?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Or it was just kind of I mean, look like a
kid of the seventies, middle class Oklahoma upbringing. You know,
my mom, God rest her soul. You know, all of
our vegetables came out of a can and the base
it was the basics. It was like spaghetti or you know,
maybe if she was feeling, you know, really really adventurous
(06:24):
salisbury steak or something like that. Right, But she did
teach me to cook. Also, I think both of my
grandmother's had a hand in that. I remember the first
time I fried chicken was with my grandmother Alice, And yeah,
so that was a that's probably where I learned a
lot of it, but then some of it. I remember
having a friend going over to spend the night at
(06:45):
a friend's house in grade school and being being amazed
the next morning when we got up that he, as
a whatever ten year old kid, knew how to make
eggs and bacon and could make pancakes. And I thought
this was like a magic power, right, And I just
was so impressed by that that I wanted to be
able to do that.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well. Yeah, unfortunately, my mom always cooked for dad. Yeah,
we're talking like suppers, sit around the table. I say supper,
that's the that's but all the whole family sit around
the table. And it was always something that I just hated.
It was stuffed peppers or stuffed cabbage, liver and onions, which,
(07:26):
by the way, you don't order that in a restaurant,
something your mom makes you eat. But Brussels sprouts and
all this stuff that you would love that I couldn't stand.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
This is not food designed for kids.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, when I got old enough to kind of choose
my own food, still she's cooking for dad. But at
least I can open the refrigerator and have a big
chunk of Velveta cheese. Oh what was that? Well, was
that was velvita cheese?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I will see you and raise you because that's also
often known as government cheese. Where I come from, because
you could get it for free, right and uh, and
my amma would use government cheese, a big giant block
of velveta to make something she called cheese salad, where
you take a single block and then you slice it
and then you cube it, so now you just have
hundreds of little cheese cubes. You throw them into a
(08:13):
bowl and you pour in half a bottle of craft
Italian dressing and mix it up, and there's your cheese salad.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Velveta. It was like something chemical. It was like uh,
industrial solvent. There was something chemical going on in there that.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yes, it tastes. It could be eaten, or it could
be used for insulation.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
C eating your white wall tires, either one.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Either one of those. Well, look here's the thing. Even
I mean, we joke, but even if what we grew
up eating was not necessarily the highest quality of cuisine,
and and even if the way we feed ourselves now
is certainly elevated, and we have both, well maybe my
palate has evolved a little bit more than yours. But
(08:54):
even that's the case, even with those things in mind,
I think you would agree that one thing remains a
constant blessing for both of us, okay, and that is
that neither of us has ever really had to worry
about where our next meal is coming from.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Once I had that, I had that idea of finding
lounges and bars to a happy hour, then I didn't
worry much anymore.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah. So look, when we come back, we're going to
talk with somebody who has not only made a personal
and professional mission out of feeding delicious and healthy meals
to people of all kinds in their community, but is
also now teaching cooking skills, not to mention life skills,
to young people who need it the very most.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And I'll just give you a disclaimer here. If you
are kind of on a diet of any kind, if
you're trying to lose weight, you best turn us off.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Now this is not the show for you.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Our executive producers. Don't tell them to turn off the show.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Stick around. You're gonna mel somebody amazing right after this.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Of Auger.
Speaker 5 (10:15):
We will thank you, suck.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Welcome back to the Be Good Humans Podcast. Our guest
today is Matt Polly aka Chef Matt. He is the
owner and co founder of Heirloom La, a Southern California
catering company that not only feeds. They're rich and famous,
but they always believed in giving back and by the way,
(10:37):
in all kinds of ways. So welcome Matt, Thank you
for joining us.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Thanks for being here, Matt.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
Thank you a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Now, Matt, your story can be traced back to believe
it or not two words, and those two words are
lasagna cupcakes, which ironically is my pet name for Trey.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I've been called worse Matt, so you know, thank you
for that.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
R Now, what what are lasagna? Uh cupcakes?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (11:09):
So literally, Lazagni cupcakes are just an individually made lasagna
that we use all the same ingredients that the best
Italian restaurants would do. My background is that I came
out of culinary school and worked for an incredible chef
here in Los Angeles, Angelini.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
He's famous for his grandmother's lasagna.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
And you know, really it's funny the story you were
telling about kind of like having leftovers, and you know,
the Lazaangni cupcake was really just made from like the
extra pieces and the extra things left over for a
family meal, right, kind of that iron chef America, see
what's in the refrigerator and most restaurants have this, you know,
(11:50):
you do daily lunch for everybody. So I had all
these scraps from the big lasagna and I made little
individual ones, put them in cupcake molds, and you know, really.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
Stopped making him immediately. I was at the restaurants.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
It's someday I'm going to start a catering business and
the Lazagni is king, and so you know, that's that's
kind of becoming. And to this day now we're still
you know, they've got an incredible acclaim and different types
of publications on our food truck and through our catering business.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So well, let me tell you that kind of a
claim they've gotten. Oprah says about his uh Lazanni cupcakes,
They will change your life. Now, Is it true, Matt,
that you've patented the Lazanni cupcake?
Speaker 5 (12:30):
We tried our damnedst I'll be honest, it was. We
went all the way.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
We We should have done it early on and I
think we would have been able to secure the trademark
for it.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
But we did go to Washington, d C.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
We fought it for all the reasons, spent to gajillion
dollars to do it, and I think the one good
news is is that they're freaking hard to make, and
so far nobody's made them. People have ordered them, stofers
have ordered them and tried to recreate them, and we've
had really great offers to prepare them, as you know,
at different Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and such, but
it never came to fruition. It's just an airloom La
(13:05):
signature thing.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Well, let me ask you what's the recipe.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
It's hard in hands, I'll be honest, like, that's the
part of it that makes it so challenging, and that's
why we charge so much for them.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
But they're super durable.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
We ship them all across the country, and you know,
like I said, to this day, they're not they're not
necessarily the number one seller, but the thing that go
to make people go, oh, Lazanni cupcakes.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
Tell me more.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, I don't really care. I don't really care what's
in them. I just want to get them in me.
That that sounds amazing.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
We're gonna get Yeah, we're going to facilitate that for
you really good.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Let me let me ask you this heard, Matt, So
let's back up way before Lasagna cupcakes. Uh, you know,
Brian and I were talking before we brought you in
about like where we learned to cook, or like, you know,
how how did you first get inspired to become a chef?
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Also, a Midwest guy grew up eating a lot of
things frozen, reheated. Bless my mother, she did her very best,
and she had her signature dishes. But my grandmother on
my mom's side would take me each year on a
week long vacation. And I can remember being six or
seven and going to a bed and breakfast in northern
(14:14):
Michigan and waking up to the smell of fresh Belgian waffles.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
And went downstairs.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
The woman who was making the breakfast was like, do
you want to help? I couldn't begin to tell you
how excited I was to jump up on a stool
and start cooking them. Fast forward to Christmas, my grandmother
got me a Belgian waffle maker. I had one recipe
and every Sunday pretty much for the rest of my life,
been making Belgian waffles. And you know, I also grew
(14:40):
up in an era when Food Network was king the
Malto Marios and the license of Emerald and thirty minute meals,
and while my whole family was watching ESPN Sports Center.
I was captivated by you know, cooking shows and was
definitely raised by the Food Network.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Wow, we had way before your time, Matt, but we
had the Galloping Gourmet.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yes we remember that. Oh yeah, yeah, for some.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Reason I was and I didn't cook, I had no interest,
but I was like captivated with that.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
No, it was Galloping Gourmet and Julia Child. Those are
basically the two that we had growing up. But yeah,
you had a plethora of great chefs to sort of
draw inspiration from. And then I clearly you took that
ball and ran with it, and like you said, you know,
started in La restaurants here and then moved on to
food trucks in a bigger kitchen and a tasting room
and parking lot parties and pop up destinations and you
(15:27):
guys kind of kind of invented drop off catering as well.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
What is that exactly?
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Well, I mean, listen, at the end of the day,
things are so expensive, you've got to compartmentalize, and ultimately
what people want is the food.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
They want the quality of.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
The food, and they want it to be delivered and convenient.
It's really challenging right now financially to afford a party
with bartenders and servers and staff and everything. And we thought, well,
we can do the food in large scale. We can
still deliver the same restaurant quality food, and let's just
re formulate how we write the recipes so that they
(16:03):
travel and that they can be set up and be
more affordable so you can still host a party.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
We even do weddings that are drop offs.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
You know, two hundred people party, we go, we set
it all up, and you know, you find that nowadays
people are happy to help and throw away their own
trash and recycle and do all the things on their own,
so it doesn't necessarily require I mean, I always tell
my sales team, you know, twenty five to thirty percent
of our total sales is food. The other seventy is
the staff, the rentals and everything. So if we can
(16:30):
be seventy percent less expensive, then the person can still
get the delicious food.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
That's a win win really for us in for them.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
This successful, highly successful company, heirloom LA. Why catering over?
I mean, was there ever any interest in opening your
own restaurant?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
You know, if I reverse it all the way back
to when I was young in high school, we started
a tailgate company. We had really huge high school, four
thousand some odd kids, and we would take the two
penny or the two dimes from everybody's two dollars lunch
and we'd put them all in a bucket, and every
Friday we'd throw these tailgate parties, and by senior year
we'd be bringing in five, six, seven thousand dollars in
(17:11):
change at the coin Star.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Wow, at the coin Machine tailgate part Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
They were insane, and you know, so as early as
I can remember, as soon as I wanted to become
a chef, I never really wanted to be in the
restaurant world because I felt like with catering, I mean,
if I'm looking at it economically, I know exactly how
much money I'm going to sell in the next five
to seven days restaurant, if it rains, people don't show up.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
I like the personal aspect as well.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Love to be able to connect with the person say hey,
you know, get to be creative and work with them
for multiple weeks or work multiple months, and then execute
their party. It just feels like as a chef in
a restaurant, a couple hundred people come in and you
don't really get that person to person touch so much.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Especially if you're in the back of the house.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
So operating catering business people ask me we should open
a rest I always think, yeah, I don't know, that
just doesn't feel like the right fit for me.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Well, also, this connectivity that you speak about. I mean,
first of all, I think Brian, you would agree Matt's
clearly a good human just because he's willing to feed
another human. That's that's that rings you high on both
of our scales. But it's this connectivity you talk about
which also seems to be a critical ingredient in the
kind of work that you do, Matt, because it's it's
clear that another huge priority for you is pursuing philanthropic
(18:30):
goals with kind of the same gusto that you put
into lasagna, cupcakes or whatever else it is that you're making.
And so what we want to talk about, certainly is
this most recent initiative that you have kicked off, which
is something called my Brother's Kitchen. Tell us tell us
more about that.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Yeah, So I think you know, going on across the
country and certainly here in Los Angeles, homelessness is increasing
at an incredible rate. And I heard a statistic a
few years ago that youth and foster care by the
age of twenty three have you know, I want to
say it's something like that's the highest group at risk
to become homeless by the age of twenty three as
(19:10):
they're aging out of foster care.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
So, you know, zooming in and asking ourselves, like.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
What is a way that we can teach youth or
just anybody really in general, how to prepare healthy, wholesome
meals for two dollars and fifty cents or less on
a little like in sort of what would be a
bachelor apartment or like a house that doesn't necessarily have
a kitchen. Maybe it's like a toaster oven or something
like that, And so, you know, what can you really
(19:36):
do when you're traveling through the city and you can't
necessarily do anything to impact homelessness. This was a way
for us on a monthly basis to recruit fifteen to
twenty kids, get the get the community involved. I always
tell everybody it's kind of like one of those cooking
date shows where you go and you learn a recipe
and then you kind of get to screw around a
(19:57):
little bit. And our community has been so gracious and
generated so much buzz around it that we've got people
that are doctors and work in studios that they come
and act as mentors, and so essentially you're paired with
one of these youth who maybe doesn't want to be
an aspiring hospitality person, but you're ultimately cooking pizza in
a saute pan on a camping stove, and holy cow,
(20:20):
this is so much fun. You screw up, you burn
yourself a little bit, and it's very humbling, but it
brings everybody together and the bigger picture here what we'd
love to be able to convert this into. It's called
meals for people, and really our relationships with all of
our farmers, our relationships with all of our peers, people
that we cater with, putting together a meal delivery that
(20:42):
goes right to the transitional housing to those youth here
in foster care. The city of Los Angeles is the
highest population of youth in foster care, highest number of homeless.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
There's like thirty thirty thousand youths or more sane in
thee care system.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
You know, and that you don't even necessarily have to
be in this firing hospitality person to participate in a
program like this because really it's everybody's side hustle while
they go through college, and so restaurants are struggling trying
to find people that want to work, and you know,
hospitality is really it's a really great way to learn
social skills, communication skills. It's not even necessarily about cooking.
(21:21):
It's really just about the camaraderie and the family. And
we have the platforms to be able to do it.
We do really large scale events with on call staff members.
So our hopes are to create an infrastructure for youth
to be able to have an opportunity to come work,
come learn, be able to cook for themselves. You always
hear people, you know, social workers that used to be
(21:43):
in foster care become social workers. We think that if
we can get foster youth to come work with us
and be preparing meals for existing youth and transitional housing,
this is just a really great incubator to kind of
get that ball going down the road.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
It's fantastic met Maybe a hard question to answer, but
where did this come from?
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Where?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
I mean, you've got this successful business and had it
always been in your head? Look, this is this is
also part of what I want from the very beginning.
I want to I want to do these great things.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Yeah, I mean it's been baked into Airloumla since day one.
We've always done monthly cooking classes. We partnered with Challengers
Boys and Girls Club for quite some time, the Alliance
for Children's Rights, which is an organization that advocates for
youth and foster care, hosting an annual Thanksgiving cooking class.
And you know, it's it to me, like everything else
(22:38):
doesn't make sense unless you're giving back.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
It just doesn't.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
It's like, can you imagine just not having anywhere to
go for Thanksgiving? It's so unfortunate. And the youth, you know,
the every catering kitchen, every restaurant kitchen has individuals that
come from this population. Anyway, we're just not recognizing it.
So do I not lean into the people that are
our already a part of our network, the people that
(23:02):
are already a part of our community, and try to
extend that for their families and their friends and the
next of kin. And so it feels like it's always
been a part of our natural mentorship with the catering business,
and it sometimes you know, we've had upwards of one
hundred employees and a big population of that is going
to be people to come from similar backgrounds, let's not
(23:23):
why not try to expand upon that?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Well, talk to us a little bit about what one
of these classes might be, like, like, what are the
kinds of things that you know a student might learn
in this class, sure having to do with cooking or
the kinds of things that they might learn to cook,
but also what else are they learning while they're at it?
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Absolutely so one of the The other part of it
is the financial and sort of like literacy, right, so
much of it's like if I tell you go grocery
shopping and I can tell you how to tell buy
a two dollars and fifty cent meal, that's.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
So hard to wrap your head around.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
So favorite cooking class we ever did for my brother's kitchen,
even though that might be argued, we did pizza in
a saute pant just this last week, and everybody's minds
were blown that you can just put mozzarella cheese in
a pan and put dough on top of it and
flip it over and make this pizza.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
Everybody was blown away.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I know what that sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I'm sorry, but going back to that because I'm intrigued.
Did you just invent that? That was a trial by error, Like, hey,
I wonder if you can and then did it.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
We were at a catering event in Malibu. The ovens
didn't work. We had we had a pizza on appetizer
you and ovens was propane and electric.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
The generator busted. We had all the saute pants on
top of the.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Stove, and I was like, we got dough, we got tomatoes,
we got mozzarella. Let's see if this worked and you know,
cook it low and slow, and it worked. So it
was it became something kind of like, you know what,
this is a great camping pizza.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
You know what, this is a great way to kind
of teach people.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
I mean everybody pizza, right even now, you know pizza,
hamburgers and tacos are king. So it was a one
of those oops, Liz, what we have in this in
the pantry.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
These are the tools we have.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
But I was just going to say earlier, you know,
the financial literacy part of it, it's really hard to know.
Speaker 5 (25:17):
How to grocery shop.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
So we did a we went to we did a
video where we went to a grocery store about one
hundred dollars worth of groceries, and we made with one
hundred dollars worth of groceries, we made thirty six meals
for two, which was really cool. Everybody got the groceries
rick receipt, and then we walked through how to basically
(25:41):
cook you know, each of those dishes, even something as
similar as like you buy one chicken chickens twenty five bucks,
buy an organic chicken from Whole Foods twenty five bucks.
We make nine meals out of that one chicken for two,
chicken tacos, chicken noodle soup, chicken quesadillas, chicken salad with
grilled bread.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
So so this is cooking skills but it winds up
being life skills as well.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
In these classes, how else would you know how to
do all of that?
Speaker 2 (26:09):
And amazing?
Speaker 4 (26:10):
You know, I always say like I don't actually even
know what we're gonna make until we do it. But
to your point, you open up the pantry, you see
what you have.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
I have this chicken. I got to make.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
Enough meals for ten people. How do I take one
chicken turn into one meal?
Speaker 1 (26:24):
It's great to hear you talk about a lot of
people it's hard for them to shop to I am
that person, and I'm not kidding. I don't like going
to grocery stores because it's overwhelming. There's too many choices.
I don't know where I'm doing, I don't know what
I should get. There's you know, I'm reading labels whatever.
I would love to go shopping with.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
You, exactly. And I always make the mistake of going
to the grocery store hungry, and I'm just like amazing.
So so this this is a relatively new initiative, my
Brother's Kitchen. You guys have partnered with I think Twins
Buyer and Alliance for Children's Rights on this. How can
(27:02):
average people who are watching or listening right now, and who,
by the way, are openly salivating along with the rest
of us and are hungry and I cannot get lazign
and cupcakes out of my head, much less saute pan pizza.
But if folks listening or watching would like to be
helpful in some way to my brother's kitchen, how can
(27:22):
they do that? We understand there's a you guys have
set up a gofund me. Is that right?
Speaker 5 (27:27):
We do have a go fundme.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
A lot of companies are using this same model to
sort of do team building. So anybody who's working in
you know, a Netflix, right as somebody who's working somewhere
to kind of throw these like after work things. They
cost about thirty five hundred bucks for us to be
able to do. But if for instance, we could do
something like that, a company could therefore sponsor the next one.
(27:52):
They pay to have thirty people do a cooking class
where they're teaching their staff unrelated to the youth being there.
They're teaching their staff how to make meals in ten minutes.
For two dollars and fifty cents or last is a
great team building thing. We just charge them double and
then they're they're they'refore sponsoring the next one. So for
seven thousand dollars, you throw this party where we come in,
(28:14):
we cook this whole thing in your office, we bring
all the equipment, and therefore we can then throw the
next one and you know, give them the props on
the next cooking class.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
This is a no brainer. I'm going to forward this
broadcast to every single Netflix executive I know, and he.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Knows a lot of them.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Okay, great. And also we will put a link to
the GoFundMe on our website so that if you guys
want to try and directly help Matt and the rest
of his crew keep my brother's kitchen aloft. Which is
it's such a it feels and sounds and smells, and
(28:52):
I'm certainly sure tastes like an incredibly worthy goal that
you have. That you have sat.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Hereastic work, Matt. It's a pleasure to meet you, and
you're welcome here any time. If you bring then I'm coming.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
I'm coming to bring Lazani cupcakes. Don't you worry about that,
that's in the works.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Thank you very much for taking the time to talk
to us today, Matt, but especially thank you for being
such a clearly good human.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Absolutely I appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
It's the community around me. Thank you so much. Of
a bigger.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
We will thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Suck Wow, what an amazing Guyez.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Two things. Uh, he's way younger than a chef should
be and way thinner than a chef should be. This
guy was in great shape.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
But one of the things he said during the break
to you and I both is and I thought it
was a really brilliant way of putting it. Food is healthcare. Yeah,
And he has taken upon himself, not just in his
professional business, to sort of nourish and delight people with
the things he makes, but obviously in the more philanthropic sense,
he's trying to nourish people's souls and trying to help
(30:07):
people learn more than just cooking skills, but life skills.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Hey, can we wrap this up?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah? Sure, you know you're hungry.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Got to go eat. Okay, right down from the studio,
right around the corner, there's a great restaurant, all right.
Just they have like Korean meatball corn dogs.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Wow, that actually sounds good. Okay, before we get to
the corn dogs, let me just at least say, please
go visit our website Be Good Humans podcast dot com.
Tell us about good humans in your lives. People you
think we should meet, pointers you think we should have
on how to be good humans? Where we can get
more Korean meatballs, corn dog.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Horn dog meatballs. Anyway, that's gonna do it. We'll see
you next time, Thanks very much.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, be good good humans.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Good humans. Be good humans, good humans, or we will
think you suck.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Be Good Humans. Executive produced by Brian Phelps, Trey Calloway,
and Grant Anderson, with associate producers Sean Fitzgerald and Clementine Callaway.
And partnership with straw Hut Media. Please like, follow, and subscribe,
and remember be good humans.
Yeah. So so now she's glaring at me right with
this disgusted look on her face like would and she says,
she says, Hey, the only way I'm putting that on
is if you put it on first. Hey, welcome back,
Thanks for coming in. This is the Be Good Humans podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
So nice to have you back here. How do we
look by the way he looks better than I do?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Don't? There is cute, No, it's true. But and a
good kisser.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Wow, you really are a hotel lover.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
How are you good humans?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Be good humans? Be good humans, or we will think
you sucked, or we.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Will thank you suck.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Okay, So here's the thing. As long as you are
looking at us, if you are looking at us and
you're watching us on YouTube before we forget, just do
us a quick favor. Go ahead and hit like and subscribe.
Would you that will? That will do us a solid?
We would. We would greatly appreciate that. And if you're
just listening to us, then ignore this whole part. Hi everybody,
Hi everyone, Uh, Brian, I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I did
(01:12):
not have bread.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
So many ways I could take that.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
No, you need to really turn a corner here. I
am literally physically hungry. I did not have breakfast. You
probably had something healthy to start your day.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, yeah, every day it's oatmeal and protein powder.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah. See, this is one of the things I love
and despise about you. I normally try to treat myself
to some kind of breakfast, and I did not. I
didn't have anything to eat this morning.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Well, my go to if it's a cheat day, my
go to is a breakfast a breedo.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Oh you like a good breed.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Of sausage, egg, cheese, some beans would be nice. Now okay,
now I'm getting hungry.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Do you cook a lot? Where do you come out
on cooking? Let's talk about that.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Sure, this won't come as any surprise to you because
knowing each other for the years we've known each other.
But no, I respect, I love, I adore people that do,
especially when they do it in my house. But I've
just never had that passion really for cooking until recently,
like the last three or four years. It's I start
eating healthy and out of necessity because it's awfully hard
(02:17):
to go out to a restaurant and eat healthy because
there's too many choices.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yes, this is true, So.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Out of necessity lunch is my biggest meal of the day,
and I will usually make something.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Incredibly boring, like what do you mean by boring?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
You know, clean chicken breast along with or like a
a sandwich with no sodium deli turkey and low fat cheese.
You know that's the cardboard. So yeah, it is. It is.
It's I stay away from except for cheat days, which
I go crazy.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
But which is how many of those a week?
Speaker 1 (02:54):
No? One, every ten days.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Every ten days.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I I reached a point where I was like, okay,
especially it was like right before COVID especially, but I
could go this way right, or I could go this
way right.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It's a fork in the road.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, and so I chose. So, yeah, I'm not to
it's not interesting at all, but treadmill every day and
looking healthy. But every ten days I go crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
But in general, you would say that you're not a
very enthusiastic cook, Like that's not something that brings you
a lot.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Of No, no, it's not. But I again, I love
it when it's like owning a boat. I don't want
to own a boat, but I want a friend that does.
I don't cook, but I enjoy, appreciate, love, adore, great
savory food. In fact, when I was in college, the
only hot meal I had every day was I would
(03:42):
do some research and I find out which lounges or
bars had the happy hour munchies. Oh okay, it could
be tacos, could be hot dogs, could be chicken figures,
whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
And this is like Chicago land bars presumably, or somewhere
in that vicinity. There's a lot to choose from.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
I didn't Yeah, not in Chicago, but yeah, ye where
I went to college, Bloomington, normal, Yeah, there you go.
So I'd go to the bar and I pay seventy
five cents because I didn't drink, then seventy five cents
for an orange juice, and I would have me some supper,
and that was my only hot meal of the day.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I like this.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Now, how about you. I've seen pictures that you post
your concoctions.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, well that's the fair word to use.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Sandwiches, burgers. I mean, just oh my god.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I love cooking, but for me, it's cooking is probably
the closest I get to therapy without actually having to
see my therapist. Right Like, for me, it's very meditative.
At the end of a long day, I can really
effectively decompress by just walking into my kitchen and starting
to cook something. But when you use the word concoction,
(04:46):
that's key because my favorite kind of cooking is improvisational cooking.
It is the like, what's in the pantry, brilliant, what's
in the fridge? How might I put those things together?
Maybe I need a little help from Google, but like
I really like to just sort of wing it on
the fly, And sometimes that can be tremendously successful, and
sometimes it can be inedible.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Every picture I've seen has been tremendously successful. But let
me ask you this, Yeah, do you sometimes you know
you're cooking something on a fly? It's on the plate,
by the way, you plate really well as well to try. Yeah,
but it's on the plate and you taste it and
it's it's it's heaven. It's miraculous. Could you recreate that?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, so you're taking notes. I am careful about that.
If it turns out good, then I really quickly rework,
like what did I do? And then I approximate it
and I try to keep it in my phone or somewhere.
And my youngest son, Cosmo, who's home for college for
the summer right now, also has the same improvisational culinary spirit,
and so he and I make great partners in that sense.
And we just, while winging it, put together a spiced
(05:47):
thie steak salad that turned out to be phenomenal. So
we were like, quickly, write it down, what do we do?
What did we do? And then we have since replicated
it a couple of times, so it worked.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Who taught you how to cook?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
You know?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Or it was just kind of I mean, look like a
kid of the seventies, middle class Oklahoma upbringing. You know,
my mom, God rest her soul. You know, all of
our vegetables came out of a can and the base
it was the basics. It was like spaghetti or you know,
maybe if she was feeling, you know, really really adventurous
(06:24):
salisbury steak or something like that. Right, But she did
teach me to cook. Also, I think both of my
grandmother's had a hand in that. I remember the first
time I fried chicken was with my grandmother Alice, And yeah,
so that was a that's probably where I learned a
lot of it, but then some of it. I remember
having a friend going over to spend the night at
(06:45):
a friend's house in grade school and being being amazed
the next morning when we got up that he, as
a whatever ten year old kid, knew how to make
eggs and bacon and could make pancakes. And I thought
this was like a magic power, right, And I just
was so impressed by that that I wanted to be
able to do that.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well. Yeah, unfortunately, my mom always cooked for dad. Yeah,
we're talking like suppers, sit around the table. I say supper,
that's the that's but all the whole family sit around
the table. And it was always something that I just hated.
It was stuffed peppers or stuffed cabbage, liver and onions, which,
(07:26):
by the way, you don't order that in a restaurant,
something your mom makes you eat. But Brussels sprouts and
all this stuff that you would love that I couldn't stand.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
This is not food designed for kids.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, when I got old enough to kind of choose
my own food, still she's cooking for dad. But at
least I can open the refrigerator and have a big
chunk of Velveta cheese. Oh what was that? Well, was
that was velvita cheese?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I will see you and raise you because that's also
often known as government cheese. Where I come from, because
you could get it for free, right and uh, and
my amma would use government cheese, a big giant block
of velveta to make something she called cheese salad, where
you take a single block and then you slice it
and then you cube it, so now you just have
hundreds of little cheese cubes. You throw them into a
(08:13):
bowl and you pour in half a bottle of craft
Italian dressing and mix it up, and there's your cheese salad.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Velveta. It was like something chemical. It was like uh,
industrial solvent. There was something chemical going on in there that.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yes, it tastes. It could be eaten, or it could
be used for insulation.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
C eating your white wall tires, either one.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Either one of those. Well, look here's the thing. Even
I mean, we joke, but even if what we grew
up eating was not necessarily the highest quality of cuisine,
and and even if the way we feed ourselves now
is certainly elevated, and we have both, well maybe my
palate has evolved a little bit more than yours. But
(08:54):
even that's the case, even with those things in mind,
I think you would agree that one thing remains a
constant blessing for both of us, okay, and that is
that neither of us has ever really had to worry
about where our next meal is coming from.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Once I had that, I had that idea of finding
lounges and bars to a happy hour, then I didn't
worry much anymore.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah. So look, when we come back, we're going to
talk with somebody who has not only made a personal
and professional mission out of feeding delicious and healthy meals
to people of all kinds in their community, but is
also now teaching cooking skills, not to mention life skills,
to young people who need it the very most.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And I'll just give you a disclaimer here. If you
are kind of on a diet of any kind, if
you're trying to lose weight, you best turn us off.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Now this is not the show for you.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Our executive producers. Don't tell them to turn off the show.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Stick around. You're gonna mel somebody amazing right after this.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Of Auger.
Speaker 5 (10:15):
We will thank you, suck.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Welcome back to the Be Good Humans Podcast. Our guest
today is Matt Polly aka Chef Matt. He is the
owner and co founder of Heirloom La, a Southern California
catering company that not only feeds. They're rich and famous,
but they always believed in giving back and by the way,
(10:37):
in all kinds of ways. So welcome Matt, Thank you
for joining us.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Thanks for being here, Matt.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
Thank you a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Now, Matt, your story can be traced back to believe
it or not two words, and those two words are
lasagna cupcakes, which ironically is my pet name for Trey.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I've been called worse Matt, so you know, thank you
for that.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
R Now, what what are lasagna? Uh cupcakes?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (11:09):
So literally, Lazagni cupcakes are just an individually made lasagna
that we use all the same ingredients that the best
Italian restaurants would do. My background is that I came
out of culinary school and worked for an incredible chef
here in Los Angeles, Angelini.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
He's famous for his grandmother's lasagna.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
And you know, really it's funny the story you were
telling about kind of like having leftovers, and you know,
the Lazaangni cupcake was really just made from like the
extra pieces and the extra things left over for a
family meal, right, kind of that iron chef America, see
what's in the refrigerator and most restaurants have this, you know,
(11:50):
you do daily lunch for everybody. So I had all
these scraps from the big lasagna and I made little
individual ones, put them in cupcake molds, and you know, really.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
Stopped making him immediately. I was at the restaurants.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
It's someday I'm going to start a catering business and
the Lazagni is king, and so you know, that's that's
kind of becoming. And to this day now we're still
you know, they've got an incredible acclaim and different types
of publications on our food truck and through our catering business.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So well, let me tell you that kind of a
claim they've gotten. Oprah says about his uh Lazanni cupcakes,
They will change your life. Now, Is it true, Matt,
that you've patented the Lazanni cupcake?
Speaker 5 (12:30):
We tried our damnedst I'll be honest, it was. We
went all the way.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
We We should have done it early on and I
think we would have been able to secure the trademark
for it.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
But we did go to Washington, d C.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
We fought it for all the reasons, spent to gajillion
dollars to do it, and I think the one good
news is is that they're freaking hard to make, and
so far nobody's made them. People have ordered them, stofers
have ordered them and tried to recreate them, and we've
had really great offers to prepare them, as you know,
at different Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and such, but
it never came to fruition. It's just an airloom La
(13:05):
signature thing.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Well, let me ask you what's the recipe.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
It's hard in hands, I'll be honest, like, that's the
part of it that makes it so challenging, and that's
why we charge so much for them.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
But they're super durable.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
We ship them all across the country, and you know,
like I said, to this day, they're not they're not
necessarily the number one seller, but the thing that go
to make people go, oh, Lazanni cupcakes.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
Tell me more.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, I don't really care. I don't really care what's
in them. I just want to get them in me.
That that sounds amazing.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
We're gonna get Yeah, we're going to facilitate that for
you really good.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Let me let me ask you this heard, Matt, So
let's back up way before Lasagna cupcakes. Uh, you know,
Brian and I were talking before we brought you in
about like where we learned to cook, or like, you know,
how how did you first get inspired to become a chef?
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Also, a Midwest guy grew up eating a lot of
things frozen, reheated. Bless my mother, she did her very best,
and she had her signature dishes. But my grandmother on
my mom's side would take me each year on a
week long vacation. And I can remember being six or
seven and going to a bed and breakfast in northern
(14:14):
Michigan and waking up to the smell of fresh Belgian waffles.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
And went downstairs.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
The woman who was making the breakfast was like, do
you want to help? I couldn't begin to tell you
how excited I was to jump up on a stool
and start cooking them. Fast forward to Christmas, my grandmother
got me a Belgian waffle maker. I had one recipe
and every Sunday pretty much for the rest of my life,
been making Belgian waffles. And you know, I also grew
(14:40):
up in an era when Food Network was king the
Malto Marios and the license of Emerald and thirty minute meals,
and while my whole family was watching ESPN Sports Center.
I was captivated by you know, cooking shows and was
definitely raised by the Food Network.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Wow, we had way before your time, Matt, but we
had the Galloping Gourmet.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yes we remember that. Oh yeah, yeah, for some.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Reason I was and I didn't cook, I had no interest,
but I was like captivated with that.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
No, it was Galloping Gourmet and Julia Child. Those are
basically the two that we had growing up. But yeah,
you had a plethora of great chefs to sort of
draw inspiration from. And then I clearly you took that
ball and ran with it, and like you said, you know,
started in La restaurants here and then moved on to
food trucks in a bigger kitchen and a tasting room
and parking lot parties and pop up destinations and you
(15:27):
guys kind of kind of invented drop off catering as well.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
What is that exactly?
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Well, I mean, listen, at the end of the day,
things are so expensive, you've got to compartmentalize, and ultimately
what people want is the food.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
They want the quality of.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
The food, and they want it to be delivered and convenient.
It's really challenging right now financially to afford a party
with bartenders and servers and staff and everything. And we thought, well,
we can do the food in large scale. We can
still deliver the same restaurant quality food, and let's just
re formulate how we write the recipes so that they
(16:03):
travel and that they can be set up and be
more affordable so you can still host a party.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
We even do weddings that are drop offs.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
You know, two hundred people party, we go, we set
it all up, and you know, you find that nowadays
people are happy to help and throw away their own
trash and recycle and do all the things on their own,
so it doesn't necessarily require I mean, I always tell
my sales team, you know, twenty five to thirty percent
of our total sales is food. The other seventy is
the staff, the rentals and everything. So if we can
(16:30):
be seventy percent less expensive, then the person can still
get the delicious food.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
That's a win win really for us in for them.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
This successful, highly successful company, heirloom LA. Why catering over?
I mean, was there ever any interest in opening your
own restaurant?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
You know, if I reverse it all the way back
to when I was young in high school, we started
a tailgate company. We had really huge high school, four
thousand some odd kids, and we would take the two
penny or the two dimes from everybody's two dollars lunch
and we'd put them all in a bucket, and every
Friday we'd throw these tailgate parties, and by senior year
we'd be bringing in five, six, seven thousand dollars in
(17:11):
change at the coin Star.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Wow, at the coin Machine tailgate part Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
They were insane, and you know, so as early as
I can remember, as soon as I wanted to become
a chef, I never really wanted to be in the
restaurant world because I felt like with catering, I mean,
if I'm looking at it economically, I know exactly how
much money I'm going to sell in the next five
to seven days restaurant, if it rains, people don't show up.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
I like the personal aspect as well.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Love to be able to connect with the person say hey,
you know, get to be creative and work with them
for multiple weeks or work multiple months, and then execute
their party. It just feels like as a chef in
a restaurant, a couple hundred people come in and you
don't really get that person to person touch so much.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Especially if you're in the back of the house.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
So operating catering business people ask me we should open
a rest I always think, yeah, I don't know, that
just doesn't feel like the right fit for me.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Well, also, this connectivity that you speak about. I mean,
first of all, I think Brian, you would agree Matt's
clearly a good human just because he's willing to feed
another human. That's that's that rings you high on both
of our scales. But it's this connectivity you talk about
which also seems to be a critical ingredient in the
kind of work that you do, Matt, because it's it's
clear that another huge priority for you is pursuing philanthropic
(18:30):
goals with kind of the same gusto that you put
into lasagna, cupcakes or whatever else it is that you're making.
And so what we want to talk about, certainly is
this most recent initiative that you have kicked off, which
is something called my Brother's Kitchen. Tell us tell us
more about that.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Yeah, So I think you know, going on across the
country and certainly here in Los Angeles, homelessness is increasing
at an incredible rate. And I heard a statistic a
few years ago that youth and foster care by the
age of twenty three have you know, I want to
say it's something like that's the highest group at risk
to become homeless by the age of twenty three as
(19:10):
they're aging out of foster care.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
So, you know, zooming in and asking ourselves, like.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
What is a way that we can teach youth or
just anybody really in general, how to prepare healthy, wholesome
meals for two dollars and fifty cents or less on
a little like in sort of what would be a
bachelor apartment or like a house that doesn't necessarily have
a kitchen. Maybe it's like a toaster oven or something
like that, And so, you know, what can you really
(19:36):
do when you're traveling through the city and you can't
necessarily do anything to impact homelessness. This was a way
for us on a monthly basis to recruit fifteen to
twenty kids, get the get the community involved. I always
tell everybody it's kind of like one of those cooking
date shows where you go and you learn a recipe
and then you kind of get to screw around a
(19:57):
little bit. And our community has been so gracious and
generated so much buzz around it that we've got people
that are doctors and work in studios that they come
and act as mentors, and so essentially you're paired with
one of these youth who maybe doesn't want to be
an aspiring hospitality person, but you're ultimately cooking pizza in
a saute pan on a camping stove, and holy cow,
(20:20):
this is so much fun. You screw up, you burn
yourself a little bit, and it's very humbling, but it
brings everybody together and the bigger picture here what we'd
love to be able to convert this into. It's called
meals for people, and really our relationships with all of
our farmers, our relationships with all of our peers, people
that we cater with, putting together a meal delivery that
(20:42):
goes right to the transitional housing to those youth here
in foster care. The city of Los Angeles is the
highest population of youth in foster care, highest number of homeless.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
There's like thirty thirty thousand youths or more sane in
thee care system.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
You know, and that you don't even necessarily have to
be in this firing hospitality person to participate in a
program like this because really it's everybody's side hustle while
they go through college, and so restaurants are struggling trying
to find people that want to work, and you know,
hospitality is really it's a really great way to learn
social skills, communication skills. It's not even necessarily about cooking.
(21:21):
It's really just about the camaraderie and the family. And
we have the platforms to be able to do it.
We do really large scale events with on call staff members.
So our hopes are to create an infrastructure for youth
to be able to have an opportunity to come work,
come learn, be able to cook for themselves. You always
hear people, you know, social workers that used to be
(21:43):
in foster care become social workers. We think that if
we can get foster youth to come work with us
and be preparing meals for existing youth and transitional housing,
this is just a really great incubator to kind of
get that ball going down the road.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
It's fantastic met Maybe a hard question to answer, but
where did this come from?
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Where?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
I mean, you've got this successful business and had it
always been in your head? Look, this is this is
also part of what I want from the very beginning.
I want to I want to do these great things.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Yeah, I mean it's been baked into Airloumla since day one.
We've always done monthly cooking classes. We partnered with Challengers
Boys and Girls Club for quite some time, the Alliance
for Children's Rights, which is an organization that advocates for
youth and foster care, hosting an annual Thanksgiving cooking class.
And you know, it's it to me, like everything else
(22:38):
doesn't make sense unless you're giving back.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
It just doesn't.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
It's like, can you imagine just not having anywhere to
go for Thanksgiving? It's so unfortunate. And the youth, you know,
the every catering kitchen, every restaurant kitchen has individuals that
come from this population. Anyway, we're just not recognizing it.
So do I not lean into the people that are
our already a part of our network, the people that
(23:02):
are already a part of our community, and try to
extend that for their families and their friends and the
next of kin. And so it feels like it's always
been a part of our natural mentorship with the catering business,
and it sometimes you know, we've had upwards of one
hundred employees and a big population of that is going
to be people to come from similar backgrounds, let's not
(23:23):
why not try to expand upon that?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Well, talk to us a little bit about what one
of these classes might be, like, like, what are the
kinds of things that you know a student might learn
in this class, sure having to do with cooking or
the kinds of things that they might learn to cook,
but also what else are they learning while they're at it?
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Absolutely so one of the The other part of it
is the financial and sort of like literacy, right, so
much of it's like if I tell you go grocery
shopping and I can tell you how to tell buy
a two dollars and fifty cent meal, that's.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
So hard to wrap your head around.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
So favorite cooking class we ever did for my brother's kitchen,
even though that might be argued, we did pizza in
a saute pant just this last week, and everybody's minds
were blown that you can just put mozzarella cheese in
a pan and put dough on top of it and
flip it over and make this pizza.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
Everybody was blown away.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I know what that sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I'm sorry, but going back to that because I'm intrigued.
Did you just invent that? That was a trial by error, Like, hey,
I wonder if you can and then did it.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
We were at a catering event in Malibu. The ovens
didn't work. We had we had a pizza on appetizer
you and ovens was propane and electric.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
The generator busted. We had all the saute pants on
top of the.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Stove, and I was like, we got dough, we got tomatoes,
we got mozzarella. Let's see if this worked and you know,
cook it low and slow, and it worked. So it
was it became something kind of like, you know what,
this is a great camping pizza.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
You know what, this is a great way to kind
of teach people.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
I mean everybody pizza, right even now, you know pizza,
hamburgers and tacos are king. So it was a one
of those oops, Liz, what we have in this in
the pantry.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
These are the tools we have.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
But I was just going to say earlier, you know,
the financial literacy part of it, it's really hard to know.
Speaker 5 (25:17):
How to grocery shop.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
So we did a we went to we did a
video where we went to a grocery store about one
hundred dollars worth of groceries, and we made with one
hundred dollars worth of groceries, we made thirty six meals
for two, which was really cool. Everybody got the groceries
rick receipt, and then we walked through how to basically
(25:41):
cook you know, each of those dishes, even something as
similar as like you buy one chicken chickens twenty five bucks,
buy an organic chicken from Whole Foods twenty five bucks.
We make nine meals out of that one chicken for two,
chicken tacos, chicken noodle soup, chicken quesadillas, chicken salad with
grilled bread.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
So so this is cooking skills but it winds up
being life skills as well.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
In these classes, how else would you know how to
do all of that?
Speaker 2 (26:09):
And amazing?
Speaker 4 (26:10):
You know, I always say like I don't actually even
know what we're gonna make until we do it. But
to your point, you open up the pantry, you see
what you have.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
I have this chicken. I got to make.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
Enough meals for ten people. How do I take one
chicken turn into one meal?
Speaker 1 (26:24):
It's great to hear you talk about a lot of
people it's hard for them to shop to I am
that person, and I'm not kidding. I don't like going
to grocery stores because it's overwhelming. There's too many choices.
I don't know where I'm doing, I don't know what
I should get. There's you know, I'm reading labels whatever.
I would love to go shopping with.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
You, exactly. And I always make the mistake of going
to the grocery store hungry, and I'm just like amazing.
So so this this is a relatively new initiative, my
Brother's Kitchen. You guys have partnered with I think Twins
Buyer and Alliance for Children's Rights on this. How can
(27:02):
average people who are watching or listening right now, and who,
by the way, are openly salivating along with the rest
of us and are hungry and I cannot get lazign
and cupcakes out of my head, much less saute pan pizza.
But if folks listening or watching would like to be
helpful in some way to my brother's kitchen, how can
(27:22):
they do that? We understand there's a you guys have
set up a gofund me. Is that right?
Speaker 5 (27:27):
We do have a go fundme.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
A lot of companies are using this same model to
sort of do team building. So anybody who's working in
you know, a Netflix, right as somebody who's working somewhere
to kind of throw these like after work things. They
cost about thirty five hundred bucks for us to be
able to do. But if for instance, we could do
something like that, a company could therefore sponsor the next one.
(27:52):
They pay to have thirty people do a cooking class
where they're teaching their staff unrelated to the youth being there.
They're teaching their staff how to make meals in ten minutes.
For two dollars and fifty cents or last is a
great team building thing. We just charge them double and
then they're they're they'refore sponsoring the next one. So for
seven thousand dollars, you throw this party where we come in,
(28:14):
we cook this whole thing in your office, we bring
all the equipment, and therefore we can then throw the
next one and you know, give them the props on
the next cooking class.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
This is a no brainer. I'm going to forward this
broadcast to every single Netflix executive I know, and he.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Knows a lot of them.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Okay, great. And also we will put a link to
the GoFundMe on our website so that if you guys
want to try and directly help Matt and the rest
of his crew keep my brother's kitchen aloft. Which is
it's such a it feels and sounds and smells, and
(28:52):
I'm certainly sure tastes like an incredibly worthy goal that
you have. That you have sat.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Hereastic work, Matt. It's a pleasure to meet you, and
you're welcome here any time. If you bring then I'm coming.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
I'm coming to bring Lazani cupcakes. Don't you worry about that,
that's in the works.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Thank you very much for taking the time to talk
to us today, Matt, but especially thank you for being
such a clearly good human.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Absolutely I appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
It's the community around me. Thank you so much. Of
a bigger.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
We will thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Suck Wow, what an amazing Guyez.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Two things. Uh, he's way younger than a chef should
be and way thinner than a chef should be. This
guy was in great shape.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
But one of the things he said during the break
to you and I both is and I thought it
was a really brilliant way of putting it. Food is healthcare. Yeah,
And he has taken upon himself, not just in his
professional business, to sort of nourish and delight people with
the things he makes, but obviously in the more philanthropic sense,
he's trying to nourish people's souls and trying to help
(30:07):
people learn more than just cooking skills, but life skills.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Hey, can we wrap this up?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah? Sure, you know you're hungry.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Got to go eat. Okay, right down from the studio,
right around the corner, there's a great restaurant, all right.
Just they have like Korean meatball corn dogs.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Wow, that actually sounds good. Okay, before we get to
the corn dogs, let me just at least say, please
go visit our website Be Good Humans podcast dot com.
Tell us about good humans in your lives. People you
think we should meet, pointers you think we should have
on how to be good humans? Where we can get
more Korean meatballs, corn dog.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Horn dog meatballs. Anyway, that's gonna do it. We'll see
you next time, Thanks very much.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, be good good humans.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Good humans. Be good humans, good humans, or we will
think you suck.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Be Good Humans. Executive produced by Brian Phelps, Trey Calloway,
and Grant Anderson, with associate producers Sean Fitzgerald and Clementine Callaway.
And partnership with straw Hut Media. Please like, follow, and subscribe,
and remember be good humans.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!