March 21, 2024 • 54 mins
Long before the sprawling culinary empire, the Emmy nominated TV shows, the award-winning cookbooks and the White House invitations, Rick Bayless was just a regular kid growing up in Oklahoma City and working at his parents' BBQ restaurant. He played by the rules and wasn't the rebellious type.
Until, one day, on his way home from work, he bought a pet monkey.
It was an unprecedented act of rebellion that would forever change his family and teach him an indelible lesson on actions and consequences.
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Max Chopovsky (00:02):
This is Moral of the Story interesting people
telling their favorite shortstories and then breaking them
down to understand what makesthem so good.
I'm your host, max Trapowski.
Today's guest is Chef RickBayless, the culinary legend
responsible for spicing upAmerica's collective palate with
its sprawling culinary empire.
But to call him a culinarylegend would be unfair to his
(00:23):
long list of other interests andaccomplishments, themselves
enough to fill a lifetime.
For Rick, however, these wereall tributaries that would fuse
to create the whitewater rapidsof his remarkable journey.
So where did this hero'sjourney begin?
Well, like most heroes, itbegan in a crucible, more
accurately two crucibles theHickory House and the Bayless
(00:46):
House.
Let's start with the latterHome.
Life was hard for Rick and hissiblings, skip and Luann.
Some icons credit their parentswith nurturing their ambition.
Rick clawed his way to successin spite of not because of his
parents, who often rolled theireyes at his lofty ambitions.
But his parents would learnearly on what the rest of the
(01:06):
world had yet to discover.
This guy would not take no foran answer.
For him it was binary Either ahard pass or rip out the stop
signs on your way to yourdestination.
Go.
At 14, he convinced his familyto travel to Mexico, their first
vacation via airplane, andarriving at their Mexico City
hotel, in his words, felt likecoming home.
(01:29):
The connection was immediateand would inspire a deep dive
into the culture that woulddefine his brand.
The love affair was on.
Meanwhile, rick and his brotherSkip, would join their dad,
john, at the family's barbecuerestaurant Hickory House in
Oklahoma City, cleaning tablesthen slicing vegetables.
Skip hated it, rick loved it,but even so he wasn't prepared
(01:52):
to run the place.
At run it he did at the tenderage of 16 with his mom when his
father became disabled.
For those who don't know, therestaurant business is hard.
Long hours, slim margins and anoften fickle clientele make for
brutally long and stressfuldays.
But Rick saw how good foodserved well can be an emotional
(02:13):
experience, and he embraced theHickory House crucible, which
would in turn begin to forge hispassion for cooking and ignite
the flame that burns to thisvery day.
After wrapping up his undergradat the University of Oklahoma
and getting a master's inlinguistics from the University
of Michigan, where he also methis future wife, deanne, rick
was in the middle of a PhD inanthropological linguistics when
(02:36):
his life took an unexpectedturn, so he followed his gut
quite literally into theculinary world.
And so two tributaries, thelove of Mexican culture and the
love of cuisine, fused into one.
As a rising expert in the worldof Mexican cuisine, it wasn't
long before Rick found himselfhosting the 26-part PBS
television series CookingMexican Shot in a studio.
(02:57):
The show wasn't immersiveenough for Rick's quest for
authenticity, however, and heand Deanne decamped for Mexico,
spending over five years onculinary research that
culminated with the 1987cookbook Authentic Mexican,
which took the world by storm.
Countless other award-winningcookbooks later, rick got his
dream of a culinary showadequately authentic for his
demanding taste hosting Mexico,one plate at a time, which would
(03:21):
go on to be nominated formultiple daytime Emmys.
But Rick never took his eye offthe prize of sweeping people
off their feet with authenticcuisine.
In 1987, rick and Deanne openedthe 60-seat Frontera Grill in
Chicago, following it just twoyears later with Topolabampo,
chicago's first Mexican finedining restaurant, which would
go on to earn and maintain aMichelin star every year.
(03:44):
From the guide's 2011 arrivalin Chicago, both restaurants
have also won the James BeardFoundation's Outstanding
Restaurant Award, anunprecedented accomplishment for
side-by-side restaurants.
Topolabampo's opening completedanother story arc for Rick when,
as a young kid, he saved upmoney to take a bus to a
high-end French restaurant justto experience the magic of fine
(04:05):
dining.
Well, now he was the magician.
His magic caught the eye ofanother ambitious Chicagoan,
barack Obama, and in 2010, rickwas called to DC to prepare the
state dinner in honor ofMexico's then-President, felipe
Calderón.
A few months later, presidentObama had dinner at Topolabampo.
Unfortunately for Rick, us Navychefs had to play to the
(04:26):
president's food.
Now, these culinary escapadesare enough to fill a lifetime,
but the man for whom a beachvacation is too relaxing, well,
he has a few other, shall we say, pursuits.
For anyone who's ever worked theback of the house or has seen a
few episodes of the Bear, youknow that the restaurant kitchen
is not for the faint of heart,but Rick glides through the
kitchen with such grace that youmight mistake him for a dancer.
(04:49):
Well, you would not be wrong.
After participating in thefirst annual Dancing with
Chicago celebrities charityevent and winning first place,
rick was hooked and, being thetenacious overachiever he is,
has trained at the Arthur MurrayDance Center for years.
He's also a yogi who can do thesplits.
Why mention this?
Because learning how to do thesplits takes commitment.
(05:11):
Rick took Rick a decade, and hisAnusara style of yoga is
something he describes as longhold until you want to scream
yoga.
That sounds about right for theman who's been pulling out stop
signs his whole life.
And just as the kitchen is atype of symphony, music has also
shared Rick's life stage, withclassical piano lessons a part
of his life for over a decade.
(05:31):
But the soul of it all for Rickis the moment when a diner
takes a bite of the food thattook years of research and
dedication, closes her eyes andis transported to another world,
perhaps to the streets ofMexico City, where young Rick
first fell in love with theculture, and perhaps to the
small town of Puebla or Oaxaca,where the smells from street
(05:55):
stalls permeate the ancientstreets.
And now, in 2024, rick cancheck another goal off his
bucket list.
On March 21st, frontera Grillturns 37, matching the iconic 37
year run of his parents.
Hickory House, fittingly, mayorJohnson is declaring March 21st
2024, rick Bayless Day,underscoring the chef's impact
(06:16):
not just in the city of Chicagobut the nation's culinary
landscape.
Now, if the culinary experienceis his soul, then Deanne and
daughter Lainey are his heart.
The former the family's moralcompass and the latter the light
that shines in a way that Ricknever could have imagined as a
kid.
Growing up in the Bayless House, crucible, and following in her
father's footsteps or perhapsleaving her own footsteps,
(06:38):
lainey teamed up with her dad topublish Rick and Lainey's
Excellent Kitchen Adventures in2004.
In 2019, lainey, a burgeoningcocktail impresario, stepped up
to the plate herself, openingbar Satineau under Frontera
Grill.
Finally, the tributaries food,art, experience, community,
family have joined to combineinto the raging river of Rick's
(07:01):
life.
So shall we call this a happyending?
Well, not if the chef hasanything to do with it.
If you ask him, the journey isfar from over.
In fact, the next course isjust getting plated.
Chef, welcome to the show.
Rick Bayless (07:15):
Thank you so much, and thank you for such a
wonderful and generousintroduction.
Now everybody knows everything.
Max Chopovsky (07:22):
I am sure that that was probably only 40% of
your bio, but it was just reallyhard to leave anything out.
You've done a lot.
Rick Bayless (07:30):
Well, thank you very much.
I love life, and so I likeexploring lots of things.
You explore them with gusto.
Max Chopovsky (07:38):
That's for sure.
Yes, so you are here to tell usa story.
Okay, before we get into thestory, is there anything that
the audience should know?
Do you want to set the stage atall?
Rick Bayless (07:49):
Yeah, I want to set the stage because the story
that I'm going to tell is astory from my high school years
and what everybody, I think,needs to know is that I come
from a family where my motherand my grandmother were very
public people.
They rose through anyorganization they joined and
(08:11):
within a few years would becomethe head of that organization,
whether it's parent-teacherassociation.
My grandmother was veryinvolved in Eastern Star and
that side of my family was veryambitious.
I'll say that my father camefrom a very different kind of
background and, as you mentioned, my father became disabled.
(08:34):
Well, what it was was that hewas in and out of rehab all
through my high school yearsuntil the fact that he just
couldn't run the place anymoreand my mother had to take it
over.
And before that happened,before that sort of major change
in our lives as a family, wewere beginning to fray at the
(08:57):
edges and it was veryuncomfortable to go home.
I was the kid in the family thatloved the restaurant business.
I worked in the restaurantevery weekend, sometimes during
the week after I'd gotten off ofschool.
I was trying to keep ittogether.
I was trying to keep the familytogether, mostly through the
(09:19):
restaurant because it was ourfamily's restaurant, a barbecue
restaurant in Oklahoma City, andI was the good guy, I was
always doing everything justright in this desire to keep
everything together.
And then I made a turn andthat's the story.
(09:40):
I started looking at this petshop on my way home from the
restaurant.
Sometimes I would even go buythis pet shop on my way home
from school, even though it wasway out of the way.
But I would go into this petshop and this pet shop was known
to have all kinds of veryunusual pets.
(10:02):
They had a whole section ofmonkeys and I was looking at
this one monkey one day and Ijust thought, man, that monkey's
got this great personality.
And I went back the next day,and I went back the next day,
and so it was like every day.
I was driving past this petshop, stopping and saying hi to
(10:26):
this monkey, and I was workingat the restaurant, I was being
paid, I had money in my pocketand one day I walked into the
pet shop and said I want to buythat monkey.
Now, one thing that everybodyhas to understand is that a
monkey is not a casual pet, andI hadn't really thought through
(10:48):
that part of it very much.
But here's this young man who'ssort of very upstanding, doing
everything right, that walksinto a pet shop and buys a
monkey.
And the fellow, as he'schecking me out, says, you know,
there's no returns, right?
And something clicked in me andI said that's fine, and I put
(11:13):
the monkey in my car.
And I'm 16 years old.
Okay, I have my first car thatI've bought with my own money,
which is a triumph spitfire.
That is really close todestined for some trash heap
someplace.
It barely runs.
I'm a two-seater, you know,with a convertible top.
(11:35):
I have no idea how I ended upwith this car, because it was
also not like me at all to dosomething that was that sporty,
because I was the upstandingyoung man.
So here I am in this brokendown sports car with a monkey in
there and I drive to my houseand we had this cage that we had
(11:57):
had for a pet rabbit and it'sin the garage and I'm thinking
I'm going to use this for mymonkey.
I've got it all planned out.
I walk into the kitcheneverybody's at the dinner table
and I say I have to tell yousomething.
I've just bought a monkey.
Well, as you could imagine thatthe family's fraying anyway and
(12:19):
putting a monkey in the mix wasnot necessarily going to make
it any better.
And my mother just blows up Ithink she's already mad at my
father who started drinkingagain and she says you get that
out of here, you've got to getit out of here.
And I say I'm sorry, I can'ttake it back.
There's no returns for monkeysat this pet store.
(12:41):
And I sat down at the dinnertable and start to eat and my
mother's like what are you doing?
You're supposed to get thatmonkey out of here.
And I said no, I'm keeping themonkey, I'm keeping the monkey.
This was so unexpected for mebecause I was the kid that
always did everything right andto have done something that was
(13:04):
that bizarre, almost egregious,was like so out of character for
me.
My father's sort of in a stuporand he doesn't say anything and
I guess things sort of settlefor a little bit.
I go back out in the garage andI sit down by the monkey and
(13:26):
try to get to know the monkeybetter.
Max Chopovsky (13:28):
Okay.
Rick Bayless (13:29):
So there's peace with the monkey in the house,
there's peace in the familyovernight.
And the next morning I find myfather out in the garage trying
to make friends with this monkeyand the monkey is going crazy
like he hates him.
(13:49):
He's screaming and all.
It's like my father.
Every morning for the next fewdays my father's out there
trying to make friends with themonkey and my mother starts
going, spending time in thegarage and the monkey likes my
mother, hates my father butloves my mother.
And so the next thing I knowshe's taking food out to him and
(14:12):
she's starting to play with him.
And still you have tounderstand that this is a monkey
in a house and monkeys don'tbelong in houses.
They belong in zoos or hugecages where they can jump and
everything.
So things settle down, myfather begins to make friends
with them.
But my father spends so muchtime out here in the garage
(14:36):
sitting by the monkey, playingwith the monkey, I'm thinking
it's like.
I don't know, it's maybehealing our family.
This monkey's bringing peopletogether.
I don't know what it is, but themonkey would have them on a
leash most of the time on top ofhis cage or around his cage.
But when I would go out in thegarage, I would let him loose,
(14:56):
and so I started playing thesegames and he would climb up high
and he would jump on me.
And then the next thing I wouldput him into my car and we'd
put the top down and I'd drivearound town with this monkey on
my shoulder.
And so it's like, all of asudden I became known as the guy
with the monkey and I would letthis monkey be out in the
(15:16):
garage playing around with me.
And then one day I walk outinto the garage and he sees me
coming and I'm walking prettyfast and he jumps Like he'd
always loved to do, and he jumpsand he's going to land on my
shoulders.
But I stepped away and themonkey hit the ground and
(15:38):
suddenly he goes into some sortof epileptic kind of fit and I'm
like, oh my God, what's goingto happen here now?
What is it?
So then he recovers and I thinkit's okay, except that the next
day he has another epilepticfit and he's trying to find a
vet for a monkey.
You know, you go call up yourlocal vet.
They won't take a monkey.
You have to go to somebody thatdoes zoo animals.
(16:02):
So I had to investigate andfind the person in Oklahoma City
that dealt with zoo animals andI took the monkey out there and
he goes no, he's got epilepsyand they gave him some
medication or stuff, but he wasmuch more involved in that kind
of thing, regularly every fewdays going into epileptic fits,
(16:23):
and I probably most people don'tknow this, but monkeys have
very sharp teeth and the firstthing you have to do when you go
into an epileptic fit is to prytheir mouth open, pull their
tongue out so they don'tsuffocate themselves with their
own tongue.
So what I thought was going tobe bringing our family together
suddenly became a sort of crisisin the family.
(16:44):
And then one day I came homeand the monkey had gotten out,
figured out a way to take hisleash off and gotten into the
house Okay.
So again I will tell youmonkeys are not like home pets.
And so he had gone through thekitchen pulling everything out
of the cupboards eating sugar.
I found him when I got home.
(17:06):
He was sitting in the livingroom unwrapping pieces of candy
that were in a candy dish there,one after another, eating them
all and throwing the wrappers onthe floor.
So this side like makes mefirst think about.
Oh my God, he has eaten nothingbut sugar for the last four or
five hours here.
He's wrecked the kitchen, he'slike done all these crazy things
(17:28):
.
And so I'm beginning to get veryworried about this, because not
only is our family fraying frommy father's behavior, but now
it's fraying from my behavior.
So my impulsive desire to dosomething completely unexpected
and bring a monkey into ourhouse was actually contributing
(17:52):
to its demise, my family'sdemise.
So this goes on.
For a little while further, mymother becomes super attached to
the monkey, which surprised meto no end.
My father's still trying tomake peace with the monkey.
I'm loving the monkey, butrealizing that I have no ability
(18:15):
to take care of the monkey.
And I'm trying to figure outwhat I'm going to do, because I
talked to the people at the zoocould he go out to the zoo?
And they said no, they wouldn'tbring him out there because he
was domesticated, some, and hewould probably just be devoured
by the monkeys that were reallywild monkeys that were in the
zoo.
And so I'm getting really,really perplexed about it and
(18:38):
trying to figure out what to do,still driving around in my
little sports car in theafternoons with the monkey on my
shoulder and the craziness ofthis.
So my father, in an attempt toplacate my father, I tell him
I'm going to take him two hourdrive to see his mother.
Maybe that would help him,maybe that would make him see
(19:00):
the error of his ways and thingswould go.
So I decided that I'm going totake the monkey and my father on
this two hour ride to OakMulgee and I guess I didn't plan
very well.
This whole thing shows I wasn'tplanning anything.
But I get in the car with thismonkey and my father and
realizing about five minutesinto it that monkey really
(19:25):
doesn't like my father, he stilldoesn't like my father and I
think maybe said they've made upor something along this road.
And so I start driving and myfather starts talking to the
monkey and the monkey getsreally agitated and starts
peeing on me and so I've got peerunning down my back and we've
(19:47):
got a long way to go.
And when we got to mygrandmother's house in Oak
Mulgee I had to change clothesand see if I could find
something there that I could puton and all of this stuff and by
the time we had had what was afruitless journey basically up
(20:07):
there and gotten all the wayback to home again.
I was drenched with monkey pee,dropped my father off where he
was staying at that time and gothome, probably the most
exhausted of my life, got mymonkey put away in his cage,
only to come back the next dayto discover that that monkey had
(20:31):
had an epileptic seizure,fallen off of the top of his
cage, broken his neck and nolonger was my pet.
It was a really hard lesson tolearn.
I'm still not quite sure why Idid it, other than the fact that
(20:51):
I had been so boxed into doingall the right things for so long
that I wanted to do somethingjust outlandish, only to find
that it came back to haunt me,because it was probably the
hardest six months of my life,not only watching my family fray
(21:12):
and eventually dissolve, butalso learning that I had
committed to something that wasnot sustainable for me and that
was just what was causing memore and more struggles as I
went along.
When I buried that monkey, Iwas both sad and incredibly
(21:35):
relieved that I didn't have totry to figure out a different
ending to that story, that theending had been actually given
to me.
What a story.
Max Chopovsky (21:48):
It's kind of crazy.
Thank you for sharing that.
Yeah, you're really hard onyourself.
I mean, I don't know any16-year-old that is a good
planner and has all the answersto all the questions held.
They don't even have thequestions, but it's interesting
(22:09):
when you walked into the petstore and you're like I'm going
to buy this monkey, and youthought that the cage in the
garage would be just fine, andyou thought that the monkey
would be fine to survive there.
It almost makes me think,though, that perhaps that's the
way it's supposed to be, becausewe're not supposed to have the
answers and we're supposed tomake all these mistakes, because
(22:30):
that's how we learn our lessons.
Yeah, yeah, do you think thatit was an act of rebellion for
you to buy that monkey?
Like?
Have you thought about that?
Rick Bayless (22:39):
A lot.
I was never a rebellious kid,ever.
That is really my only act ofrebellion.
Growing up, like I said, I wasalways the one that was doing
all the right things andsupporting the family.
At 16, when my father finallycouldn't work anymore, I took
over the whole catering divisionof our restaurant and I did
(23:00):
that all through the rest ofhigh school and all through
college I ran that division.
It was great for me becausecatering is sort of on and off
and usually it's at nighttimewhen people want to have parties
, or on weekends, and so I wasable to run that whole thing.
By the end of college I wasactually running the whole
restaurant and going to schooldoing the whole thing by that
(23:23):
point, because the family had sofallen apart.
Max Chopovsky (23:27):
You were in University of Oklahoma first.
University of Oklahoma for myundergrad and Michigan was the
master's yes, gotcha, okay, whatwas the monkey's name?
Rick Bayless (23:36):
Well, it's a really really silly, boring name
, but we called him Punky.
Max Chopovsky (23:41):
Punky, I feel like the story would be
incomplete without reference.
Rick Bayless (23:43):
Without Punky's name.
I have a picture if you want tosee it.
Max Chopovsky (23:46):
I would love it.
In fact, we'll put that picturein the show notes of Punky.
Rick Bayless (23:52):
This is like an old photo here that's yellowing
and it's just him lying besideme.
There's another one that I canget you as well.
That is from my high schoolyearbook.
Like I said, I became known asthe guy with the monkey, so it
was in my high school yearbook.
What kind of monkey was it?
(24:13):
He's called the ring tail andthat's because they have a
prehensile tail, which was thereason that he could sit on my
shoulder when I would be drivingaround town in my little sports
car convertible and he wrappedhis tail, which was very long,
around my neck and he held onwith his tail.
People are probably going whatis this all about?
(24:35):
And it's really a true story inmy path.
Max Chopovsky (24:38):
It's exactly the kind of story that I want, which
, in all the research that we'vedone on you, never did a monkey
come up.
Rick Bayless (24:44):
No, never did a monkey come up.
Max Chopovsky (24:46):
So this was.
You nailed that part of it whenyou were walking back to your
house and Punky jumped to get toyou and you stopped and he fell
.
That wasn't what precipitatedhis first epileptic seizure.
It was, yes, it was.
Rick Bayless (25:03):
He loved to do this thing where he would hide
up high on shelves or somethinglike that, and when I would walk
through he would jump onto myhead or onto my shoulders and
grab on, and I was used to that.
I was just walking really fastand he misjudged exactly where I
was going to be and so I keptwalking and he came down and
(25:27):
that's what started theepileptic fits, because he hit
his head really hard on thecement pavement.
Max Chopovsky (25:33):
Okay, Okay, I'm sure you've thought about this a
lot.
What lessons did the Punkyepisode in your life teach you?
And maybe which of thoselessons have you then taken into
your career as a chef?
Rick Bayless (25:51):
I would say number one I learned how to deal with
the consequences of choice andgetting through it because I
made that choice and so I had todeal with having that monkey
after I had committed to it.
I had to take care of him.
(26:13):
I had to figure out how he wasgoing to be taken care of in our
house, which was like almostimpossible to do, and I just
kept working on it and, as Isaid at the end of the story,
when I buried him, that I wasboth sad and relieved because I
loved him he was really a funpet but relieved because I knew
(26:38):
it wasn't right to have him inour home.
Max Chopovsky (26:43):
Did you have a ceremony for him with your
parents?
Rick Bayless (26:45):
No, I just did it by myself.
Max Chopovsky (26:49):
And what did your parents?
What was their reaction whenthey learned that he had passed
away?
Rick Bayless (26:56):
I remember nothing At that point.
Everybody was kind of on theirown in our house and so I think
I told them, but that was it.
I think I remember my motherbeing saddened by it because she
had sort of gotten used to himbeing there and she would play
(27:16):
with him some and all.
I was the only one that wasreally super physical with him
because he loved to be physicaland so he crawled all over me
and jumped on me, like I said,and that sort of thing, and I
loved the physicality of itbecause our family was not a
physical family.
When I went to graduate schoolit was the first time that I
(27:37):
knew anybody ever hugged anyone.
So it was not a very physicalfamily and I loved the
physicality of being with thatmonkey and so I really missed
that after a while but at thesame time it wasn't right to be
having that monkey in my house.
Max Chopovsky (27:52):
Yeah, I can see how you would also be relieved,
because the decision was kind oftaken out of your hands.
Rick Bayless (27:58):
It was and I wasn't sure where I was going to
go with it.
But again, I learned the lessonthat when you make your
decisions, you have to live withthe consequences, and I had
made that decision and wasliving with the consequences of
having this monkey.
Max Chopovsky (28:12):
Correct, and the interesting thing is that all
parents at some point have toteach their kids about the
consequences of their actionsand the fact that you made your
bed, you live in it, but nothingquite does that like a massive
decision that impacts yourentire family.
Rick Bayless (28:28):
Exactly.
Max Chopovsky (28:31):
And it did.
Did your dad ever?
Was he mad that he never quitegot along with Punky?
Rick Bayless (28:36):
I think he was sad .
I think he wanted to make thatand they got to where they could
tolerate being in the same room.
But when I put them together inthat little tiny car, yeah man,
that monkey was not at allhappy with it and I had to live
with the consequences of that aswell.
Max Chopovsky (28:57):
Yeah, can you imagine arriving at your
destination at yourgrandmother's house?
You must have been a sight forsore eyes.
Oh, I was a mess, is what I was.
I mean, your hair was probablycrazy, covered in monkey urine,
with your dad probably frazzledthe monkey, probably wanting to
be anywhere.
Rick Bayless (29:13):
But that time car.
He knew about that, yes, yeah,and he was like I'm not going to
be able to get into that monkeyin her house, and so I had to
just shut the monkey up in thecar while we went in for a
couple hour visit or somethinglike that.
Max Chopovsky (29:28):
And then we headed back and I had to go
through the whole thing again.
Rick Bayless (29:34):
Punky must have been like that's the worst day
of my life.
Yes, I'm sure of that.
Max Chopovsky (29:37):
It was definitely up there as one of the worst
days of my life as well, Ibelieve it.
I have three kids, and they'reall fairly young, and a car ride
with the youngest one, who'stwo, to daycare.
On a bad day it could be tough.
Our drive to daycare is sevenminutes and then we drop her off
with a professional who caresfor her for the entire day.
You had a monkey for two hourswho did not want to be in that
(30:02):
car Exactly Unbelievable, allright.
So when you think about thatstory, about the punky chapter
in your life, what is the moralof that story for you?
Rick Bayless (30:14):
I don't regret having made that decision.
I guess the moral of the storyfor me is, no matter what
decision you make, it can betransformative.
Even if it's the wrong decisionor a bad decision.
(30:34):
It's something that you sort ofregret having done.
You can learn something from itand if you don't try to run
from the decision that you madeor try to abort things in some
unhelpful way, then I think youcan learn lots of things.
(30:55):
And I learned tenacity throughthat, because there were days
when I didn't wanna have to dealwith the fact that I owned a
monkey and I had to take care ofthat monkey and I had to give
that monkey plenty of time torun around and all that sort of
stuff.
I just wanted to go be withfriends or something like that,
(31:17):
but I couldn't.
I had to go back and take careof the monkey and I guess there
was partly that aspect of havingmade that decision that it was
exerting some independence fromthe family, which I felt like I
needed at the time, saying thatI'm old enough to make my own
decisions.
Now they may not be greatdecisions, but I'm gonna make my
(31:37):
own decisions and that, I think, is a good lesson too.
But I would say the moral forme is that you can learn stuff
from every decision that youmake, whether it's a good one or
a bad one.
Max Chopovsky (31:52):
Well, I think you have to embrace the decision,
because it's one of the manydecisions to make you who you
are.
Yes, so I'm reading this bookcalled 4,000 Weeks.
It's a really fantastic bookabout.
It's called it's TimeManagement for Mortals and
basically the takeaway is you'llnever have enough time to do
everything, so stop being sohard on yourself.
And there's a chapter about thisguy who is from the US but he
(32:18):
wanted to become a monk.
So he went to this monastery,knocked on the door.
They didn't let him in.
He kept trying, he kept tryingand finally they started letting
him do some menial tasks aroundthe monastery.
And then he finally got thechance to take the course that
allows you to become a monk.
And one of the first things theyhad him do was put a was take a
bucket of ice cold water in thewinter in mountains in Japan
(32:40):
and pour it on his head.
And he had to be naked for this.
And he was like this isridiculous.
Like this is, and it's so coldthat the water freezes when it
hits the floor.
So you're slipping around onthe ice as you're trying to pour
this water over your head.
And like he's like why am Idoing this, and, as he would do
this every single time, he wouldtry to think about being
somewhere else, because the lastplace he wanted to be is and
(33:01):
that little hot pouring water onhis head.
And it took him months torealize that the more you try to
run away from an experience,the more it beats you over the
head and prevents you fromrunning away from it, and so he
took the opposite approach.
He said you know what I'm goingto lean into the fact that
there's cold water running allover my body, and it made it
(33:23):
more bearable for him, and so,after he ended up becoming a
monk, he's like part of life isbeing able to lean into any
experience that you have, evenif it's the result of a
questionable decision, and Ifeel like that's the lesson that
you learned through punky.
Yes, absolutely so.
You've heard some fantasticstories in your day, and you are
(33:47):
also a master storytelleryourself.
What makes for a good story?
Rick Bayless (33:54):
Well, definitely, setting a stage so that you know
where you are in the story, Ithink is really important.
And then clearly there has tobe something suspenseful in a
good story, because you have tobe invested as the listener to
that story.
You have to be invested in theresolution of something that's
(34:19):
going on in that story.
I feel that a lot of times whenI listen to other stories being
told, some of them reallyengage me that way and some
don't.
Some I'm not involved inthinking what the outcome is
going to be, or the outcome istoo predictable and that sort of
(34:41):
thing.
So I will say that theanticipation of resolution is
really an important part of anystory, and then how things get
resolved.
I think when somebody's tellinga story is important too.
You can do the sledgehammerapproach, where you just like
dump it out there, or you cansort of let it unfold more
(35:04):
slowly so that you think, as thelistener, you know where it's
going, but you're alwaysuncertain as is it really going
to end there or is there goingto be a twist at the end?
And I like stories that dragout the ending.
So it's like a little bit ofslow motion going on there so
(35:25):
that you really don't knowwhat's going to happen.
Max Chopovsky (35:29):
That's how I felt with Bunky.
Rick Bayless (35:31):
Oh, good, good, good good.
Max Chopovsky (35:33):
Where's this?
Rick Bayless (35:33):
going.
Where's this going?
Max Chopovsky (35:35):
But he kept developing in really interesting
ways.
Rick Bayless (35:38):
I have a bunch of theater friends that we were on
a writing retreat one summer andmy wife we had all these
artists around and she's not oneto let a group of artists or
people in general go withoutdoing something.
She likes these soirees, and soone night I had made a big
(36:00):
dinner for everybody and she hadannounced early in the day okay
, everybody's going to performsomething, okay, and so you can
read a poem, you can tell astory, you can do whatever you
want, and there's a lot ofwriters and artists in this
group, and actors as well.
And so everybody planned whatthey were going to do and I
decided to tell the story ofBunky.
(36:23):
That was what was going to bemy thing, and since it's not a
story that I tell very easily,nobody knew if I was making it
up, if it was a piece that I hadwritten, that it was just the
story I was telling, if it wastrue.
And I told the whole story inslow motion, basically to keep
(36:44):
them all really engaged andguessing whether this was a true
story or not, and at the end ofthat people were always like,
no, no, what, what, what tell us?
Did you just make that up, didyou?
Is this something you'vewritten?
Is this, does this reallyhappen to you?
Because nobody could believethat it really happened to me,
(37:05):
so they assumed that it was apiece that I had written for
something else.
But it was really fun to gettheir reaction to it at that
point, because I told it in thestyle that I was just describing
.
Max Chopovsky (37:17):
And I think that part of what makes it so good is
you have a story arc in thatstory and Bunky has a story arc
in that story.
Bunky has, yes, a distinctlyseparate but also like equally
contributory story arc, whichmakes you kind of root for punky
but also root for you, yeah.
So then, what makes for a goodstoryteller?
Rick Bayless (37:41):
Almost always, I would say, a glimmer in the eye,
meaning that the storyteller isletting you know that he or she
is going to take you someplaceand this is gonna be a fun
journey and we're gonna go on ittogether, and so I like that
kind of storyteller.
A lot of times when I'mlistening to somebody tell
(38:02):
stories, I can tell whetherthey're doing it in a rote way
or whether they're actuallyenjoying telling this story, and
that's the first thing thatcomes to my mind.
Max Chopovsky (38:15):
For sure, and you can tell immediately if
somebody has a glimmer in theireye or not.
Rick Bayless (38:20):
Yes, exactly, you can hear it in their voice.
You don't have to see theirface.
Max Chopovsky (38:24):
For sure, for sure, it's appropriate for the
podcast medium.
Rick Bayless (38:28):
Yes, absolutely, if somebody's just listening to
it.
Max Chopovsky (38:30):
So my very first job was in a French restaurant
and I washed dishes and theproprietor of the restaurant his
name was Franck If you call himFrank he'd smack you.
It had to be Franck.
The kitchen was a U-shapedkitchen and I was on one side
and then Dave the prep cook wasbehind me and Franck was on the
(38:51):
other side cooking right.
And one time I remember he said, max, come here.
And I literally just turnedaround and ran to the part of
the U from which you could seeboth sides of the U, just in
time to see a hot pan flying atme.
I didn't have enough time tograb my towel, so I just grabbed
(39:13):
the pan and I heard the sizzleof my fingers on the hot pan, so
I immediately threw it into thesink from where I was standing
and it made it into the sink.
But I remember one of thelessons I learned as a result of
that story was obviously alwayshave your towel ready, but also
tenacity, right.
I could have quit right thenbecause I had blisters on my
(39:33):
hands and it was just an awfulnight.
Tenacity, I feel like, is oneof those things that a
restaurant tour anybody inhospitality really, but a
restaurant tour really has tohave in spades.
So when you opened FronteraGrill, the first people that
walked in were a four-top thatsat down, opened their menu,
(39:54):
closed their menu and then theguy came up to you and he said
you're gonna be out of businessin six months.
That's a hell of a message toget from your very first clients
that walk into your restaurant.
Rick Bayless (40:04):
It was devastating .
He said this isn't Mexican food.
We don't recognize anything onthe menu and we were doing the
food of Mexico, not MexicanAmerican food.
So we didn't have burritos ornachos or anything that he
expected to see on the menu andhe predicted that we would be
out of business in six months.
I'm happy to say that here 37years later.
(40:26):
He wasn't right, but I lovetelling that story because,
especially to young cooks andfront of the house people that
dream of having their ownrestaurant that you're not gonna
hit it out of the park from dayone with all of your guests and
it takes time to develop yourown clientele, to get your own
(40:51):
stride, because you open thedoors, you don't know what
you're doing, you're justthrowing a whole bunch of stuff
against the wall and seeing ifit's going to stick.
And especially if you're new tothis whole thing and you
haven't had a restaurant beforewhich is the case for my wife
and me but we had a lot oftenacity, we supported one
another through that.
When she would feel down, Iwould be the one that was
(41:13):
boosting her up and vice versa.
I will tell you that my wife isone of the most long suffering
people I have ever met in mylife.
She can get through anythingand I think without her I
probably would have not gottenthrough all of the trials and
tribulations that we had to face.
Max Chopovsky (41:34):
Behind every crazy man is a pillar of a woman
.
A pillar of a woman, I can saythat, without whom none of the
craziness would be possible,absolutely so.
You obviously tell storiesthrough your food.
Yes, your canvas in that casehappens to be a 8, 10, 12 inch
(41:59):
diameter ceramic canvas, right?
How do you see yourself as astoryteller when it comes to
that particular medium?
Rick Bayless (42:07):
It's a very interesting thing because
flavors tell very clear stories.
So you have to have clearflavors on the plate.
Second, you have to putsomething in front of a guest
that they can see what the partsare.
So trend these days to pilestuff on top of a plate and the
(42:30):
thing that you think you orderedyou have to discover further
down.
I think that's bad storytelling.
Yes, if you're the diner thatlikes to discover everything as
you're eating through, then youmight like that style.
But most of our guests want tosort of see what it is that
they're getting and you want totell them that story pretty
(42:53):
quickly once they get intosomething.
So flavor and visuals two veryclear things but that flavor can
tell you a story that you maynever have heard before, because
we're doing a lot of food fromsmall villages in Oaxaca say
(43:14):
okay, so once we put that flavorin front of you, this may be a
new experience for you, but wehave to help you get into that.
So we're always thinking abouthow do we set the stage, because
if you don't know what thestage is, you may taste that
flavor and say, whoa, this isnothing I've had before.
(43:34):
I don't know whether I like itor not, but if we give you
enough touchstones and set thestage well, then I can get you
into that other flavor.
So a good example would be wheatla coche.
Okay, so wheat la coche is thismushroom I'm going to say that
in quotes that grows on an earof corn.
In an ear of corn it actuallythe mushroom grows inside of the
(43:59):
kernel of corn, making itballoon up and look like it has
elephantitis or something likethat, and it's highly, highly
prized in Mexico and absolutescourge in the United States.
Here we call it corn smut andthink of it as a blight.
In Mexico they call it wheat lacoche, which translates,
(44:21):
interestingly enough, asexcrement of the gods.
So it's both good and bad, Idon't know, but anyway it's very
expensive and highly prized inMexico.
So if I want to introduce you tothat and you've never had wheat
la coche before, I'm probablygoing to put it inside of
something else that you're goingto feel really good about.
(44:42):
So you recognize something thatmakes sense to you, you start
eating it and then you discoverthis new flavor, this new
texture that you haven't hadbefore.
But your already set mindset isa positive one, and so you're
going to hopefully love whatthat discovery is, because I
(45:04):
haven't slapped you in the facewith it.
If I were to serve you a tacowith wheat la coche, which you
can easily get in Mexico City,it would just be a tortilla with
the wheat la coche on top of it.
You might say I'm not sure Ireally want to have that, but if
I set the stage right, I thinkyou're going to like it.
Max Chopovsky (45:25):
I love that because you are taking them on a
journey that introduces them tothe wheat la coche sort of
gradually and maybeincrementally.
Rick Bayless (45:34):
Yes, exactly what we say.
Yes, and we talk a lot aboutthe story we tell with every
plate.
When you come to our staff as asous chef and usually that
means you've worked here as aline cook for a long time and
then we have given you this newresponsibility of sous chef and
once you hit sous chef, you haveto start creating dishes and
(45:55):
you have to create theappropriate dish for the
restaurant that you're in.
It has to fit beautifully inthat menu and the first thing
when you put the new dish thatyou're proposing for the menu in
front of me, the first thingI'm going to ask you is tell me
the story of that dish and youhave to be able to articulate
all of that and you have to tellwhat you want the diner to
(46:17):
experience in this, where it'sgoing to take them.
Because you talk about narrativearc.
There's a narrative arc onevery plate.
We just don't use those wordsvery often when we're talking
about food, but it's there,especially I mean, maybe not at
McDonald's when you're eatingthere.
It's a very short narrative arc, but if you're in a restaurant
(46:39):
that has a chef that is creatingfood for you, there's a
narrative arc on every plate,totally.
Max Chopovsky (46:45):
Totally.
Now, with a dish like that, alot of planning has to go into
it, because you also have toplan the journey from the
diner's perspective.
You sort of have to putyourself in their shoes.
But there are also times when,like with you, for example, when
you're picking the produce outof your garden, you might be
(47:07):
walking through it thinking Ithink I'm going to do this, I
think I'm going to do this andit could be a little bit more
spontaneous.
And I think there maybe aretimes when you're a little bit
more spontaneous with your mealprep.
I ask and the question that I'mgoing to ask because so I'm
usually the cook at our houseand, in order to be able to prep
(47:27):
the meals throughout the week,we'll go through a planning
process on the weekend where Ihave to figure out what the
recipe is, get all theingredients in line.
My wife, however, can go toTrader Joe's, walk through the
aisles and, in 45 minutes, pickup this and that and this and
that, and then she'll be readywith the ingredients for the
meals that I can make for thatweek.
So there is the intenseplanning versus complete
(47:50):
spontaneity.
What's the relationship betweenthose two approaches for you?
Rick Bayless (47:56):
So really good question.
When I'm cooking at home, I'mvery spontaneous.
When I am cooking at therestaurant, I am very thoughtful
and lots of planning goes intoit.
For a dish, to say, get on themenu.
In Topolobompo it has been madefor a group of people four,
(48:16):
five, sometimes six times beforeit's finalized and gotten on
the menu.
There's no spontaneity to thatby the time it gets on the menu,
just very carefully thought outin those terms of what's the
story that we're telling.
When I'm cooking spontaneously,my story is really oh, isn't
(48:37):
this exciting?
That's my story.
It's like taste this, it'sreally fun.
I found this at the farmer'smarket and I made it into this
and it's not all that good butit's fun.
So just enjoy this moment.
And so that's my story when I'mcooking that way.
But I like to cook both waysand I'm very happy to do that.
(48:58):
When I go with this writer'sretreat that I was mentioning
before, I cook a fair amount ofvery spontaneous stuff for the
group and I have a lot of peoplehelping me with it and I may
change my course right in themiddle of prep for the dinner.
I might say you know, I don'tthink that's going to come out
(49:19):
very good, let's do this with it.
And so we change and they allhave fun with that, because I am
telling this story of thatmoment and you will never forget
that moment, but you have tosort of be involved in it.
Max Chopovsky (49:32):
It's almost like improv comedy.
Rick Bayless (49:34):
It is.
It's much more like improv.
Max Chopovsky (49:36):
Yes, you're in that moment.
That might never ever happenagain, probably won't, but it
becomes a snapshot of that time.
Rick Bayless (49:42):
Yes, and it's fun because it went in a certain
direction that you might not goto another time, but you'll
remember it for the freshness ofit 100%, and the attendees will
always take that with them, yes.
Max Chopovsky (49:57):
So last question for you, chef If you could say
one thing to 20 year old Rickassuming he would listen, which
may be a stretch, as it would befor most kids that age what
would you say?
Rick Bayless (50:15):
I would say two things.
I would tell 20-year-old Rickthat he has everything that he
needs to explore the world andbe successful, and that it's
going to be hard and he needs tojust take the tenacity that
he's already developed and holdon to that through his whole
(50:40):
life.
That's a great message.
It's a hard one because Iprobably still tell myself those
two things.
I will say that life is nevereasy.
If you expect it to be easy orlooking for it to be easy,
you're probably not doing verymuch.
But if you're really going tocontribute to the world, then
(51:02):
it's going to be hard.
It's never going to be easy.
You're never fully prepared foranything and I'm always
second-guessing myself andsaying, but I don't have that
expertise or whatever and I haveto go and do this thing.
The truth of the matter is youhave what it takes.
You just have to dig deep andtrust yourself.
(51:24):
A lot of it is confidence.
You read my bio and it soundslike I knew how to do everything
.
I didn't know how to doanything.
I just said yes to things.
My wife always laughs becausethere's times when she has put
on a bulletin board above herdesk just saying no, because I'm
(51:47):
the guy that says yes toeverything.
It's like, yeah, oh, let's dothat project.
That seems right, but I don'thave any background in that,
we'll figure it out as we'regoing along.
I'm that kind of guy.
But then I get in the middle ofit I go, oh no, I don't know
what I'm doing here.
I would tell 20-year-old Rickyou got this, you really do have
(52:12):
what it takes to do all thisstuff.
You just have to believe inyourself, trust yourself and
just have the tenacity, getthrough the hard parts.
Max Chopovsky (52:22):
That's right.
Trust yourself.
Or, in culinary terms, a sayingI've heard before is bite off
more than you can chew, and thenchew it.
Rick Bayless (52:32):
And then chew it, and I think that's exactly what
I've done for most of my life.
I never got a chance to go toculinary school, but now I teach
at the best culinary school inthe country, the Culinary
Institute of America.
I do guest chef presentationsthere and I always felt like
(52:53):
that I didn't have what it takes.
And yet I've read all thosetextbooks, I've spent my time in
the kitchen perfecting allthose techniques and, yeah,
somebody's always going to beable to do something you can't
do.
But it's not that you can't doit, it's that you haven't
learned to do it yet.
And so the time I took taughtmy first class for the Culinary
(53:16):
Institute of America, I thoughtthey were going to run me out of
that place on a rail because Ididn't have the right
credentials or whatever, andinstead they welcomed me with
open arms and said you have somuch here to teach our students,
and that was a big lesson forme.
Max Chopovsky (53:34):
And I'm sure it felt good to hear that.
Rick Bayless (53:36):
It did feel good and it took me a few times of
going there to teach before Ifelt the full confidence that I
actually do have what it takesto teach in this environment.
But I schooled myself and Ithink that lots of people think
that they have to have some sortof formal training to do lots
of things in this world and thetruth of the matter is you know
(53:58):
lots of things you can figureout on your own and just ask
questions and practice and do iton your own and you can do it.
Max Chopovsky (54:07):
That's right, you just have to want it bad enough
.
Well, that does it, chef.
Rick Bayless Culinary Legend.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
Rick Bayless (54:18):
It's been my pleasure, Max.
I really appreciate all of yourvery thoughtful questions.
This has been one of the mostenjoyable interviews I've ever
done.
Max Chopovsky (54:26):
Wow, thank you so much.
That is a huge compliment.
I really appreciate that.
For show notes and more, headover to MossPodorg.
Find us on Apple Podcasts,spotify, wherever you get your
podcast on.
This was Moral of the Story.
I'm Max Dropowski.
Thank you for listening.
Talk to you next time, thanks.
This is Moral of the Story interesting people
telling their favorite shortstories and then breaking them
down to understand what makesthem so good.
I'm your host, max Trapowski.
Today's guest is Chef RickBayless, the culinary legend
responsible for spicing upAmerica's collective palate with
its sprawling culinary empire.
But to call him a culinarylegend would be unfair to his
(00:23):
long list of other interests andaccomplishments, themselves
enough to fill a lifetime.
For Rick, however, these wereall tributaries that would fuse
to create the whitewater rapidsof his remarkable journey.
So where did this hero'sjourney begin?
Well, like most heroes, itbegan in a crucible, more
accurately two crucibles theHickory House and the Bayless
(00:46):
House.
Let's start with the latterHome.
Life was hard for Rick and hissiblings, skip and Luann.
Some icons credit their parentswith nurturing their ambition.
Rick clawed his way to successin spite of not because of his
parents, who often rolled theireyes at his lofty ambitions.
But his parents would learnearly on what the rest of the
(01:06):
world had yet to discover.
This guy would not take no foran answer.
For him it was binary Either ahard pass or rip out the stop
signs on your way to yourdestination.
Go.
At 14, he convinced his familyto travel to Mexico, their first
vacation via airplane, andarriving at their Mexico City
hotel, in his words, felt likecoming home.
(01:29):
The connection was immediateand would inspire a deep dive
into the culture that woulddefine his brand.
The love affair was on.
Meanwhile, rick and his brotherSkip, would join their dad,
john, at the family's barbecuerestaurant Hickory House in
Oklahoma City, cleaning tablesthen slicing vegetables.
Skip hated it, rick loved it,but even so he wasn't prepared
(01:52):
to run the place.
At run it he did at the tenderage of 16 with his mom when his
father became disabled.
For those who don't know, therestaurant business is hard.
Long hours, slim margins and anoften fickle clientele make for
brutally long and stressfuldays.
But Rick saw how good foodserved well can be an emotional
(02:13):
experience, and he embraced theHickory House crucible, which
would in turn begin to forge hispassion for cooking and ignite
the flame that burns to thisvery day.
After wrapping up his undergradat the University of Oklahoma
and getting a master's inlinguistics from the University
of Michigan, where he also methis future wife, deanne, rick
was in the middle of a PhD inanthropological linguistics when
(02:36):
his life took an unexpectedturn, so he followed his gut
quite literally into theculinary world.
And so two tributaries, thelove of Mexican culture and the
love of cuisine, fused into one.
As a rising expert in the worldof Mexican cuisine, it wasn't
long before Rick found himselfhosting the 26-part PBS
television series CookingMexican Shot in a studio.
(02:57):
The show wasn't immersiveenough for Rick's quest for
authenticity, however, and heand Deanne decamped for Mexico,
spending over five years onculinary research that
culminated with the 1987cookbook Authentic Mexican,
which took the world by storm.
Countless other award-winningcookbooks later, rick got his
dream of a culinary showadequately authentic for his
demanding taste hosting Mexico,one plate at a time, which would
(03:21):
go on to be nominated formultiple daytime Emmys.
But Rick never took his eye offthe prize of sweeping people
off their feet with authenticcuisine.
In 1987, rick and Deanne openedthe 60-seat Frontera Grill in
Chicago, following it just twoyears later with Topolabampo,
chicago's first Mexican finedining restaurant, which would
go on to earn and maintain aMichelin star every year.
(03:44):
From the guide's 2011 arrivalin Chicago, both restaurants
have also won the James BeardFoundation's Outstanding
Restaurant Award, anunprecedented accomplishment for
side-by-side restaurants.
Topolabampo's opening completedanother story arc for Rick when,
as a young kid, he saved upmoney to take a bus to a
high-end French restaurant justto experience the magic of fine
(04:05):
dining.
Well, now he was the magician.
His magic caught the eye ofanother ambitious Chicagoan,
barack Obama, and in 2010, rickwas called to DC to prepare the
state dinner in honor ofMexico's then-President, felipe
Calderón.
A few months later, presidentObama had dinner at Topolabampo.
Unfortunately for Rick, us Navychefs had to play to the
(04:26):
president's food.
Now, these culinary escapadesare enough to fill a lifetime,
but the man for whom a beachvacation is too relaxing, well,
he has a few other, shall we say, pursuits.
For anyone who's ever worked theback of the house or has seen a
few episodes of the Bear, youknow that the restaurant kitchen
is not for the faint of heart,but Rick glides through the
kitchen with such grace that youmight mistake him for a dancer.
(04:49):
Well, you would not be wrong.
After participating in thefirst annual Dancing with
Chicago celebrities charityevent and winning first place,
rick was hooked and, being thetenacious overachiever he is,
has trained at the Arthur MurrayDance Center for years.
He's also a yogi who can do thesplits.
Why mention this?
Because learning how to do thesplits takes commitment.
(05:11):
Rick took Rick a decade, and hisAnusara style of yoga is
something he describes as longhold until you want to scream
yoga.
That sounds about right for theman who's been pulling out stop
signs his whole life.
And just as the kitchen is atype of symphony, music has also
shared Rick's life stage, withclassical piano lessons a part
of his life for over a decade.
(05:31):
But the soul of it all for Rickis the moment when a diner
takes a bite of the food thattook years of research and
dedication, closes her eyes andis transported to another world,
perhaps to the streets ofMexico City, where young Rick
first fell in love with theculture, and perhaps to the
small town of Puebla or Oaxaca,where the smells from street
(05:55):
stalls permeate the ancientstreets.
And now, in 2024, rick cancheck another goal off his
bucket list.
On March 21st, frontera Grillturns 37, matching the iconic 37
year run of his parents.
Hickory House, fittingly, mayorJohnson is declaring March 21st
2024, rick Bayless Day,underscoring the chef's impact
(06:16):
not just in the city of Chicagobut the nation's culinary
landscape.
Now, if the culinary experienceis his soul, then Deanne and
daughter Lainey are his heart.
The former the family's moralcompass and the latter the light
that shines in a way that Ricknever could have imagined as a
kid.
Growing up in the Bayless House, crucible, and following in her
father's footsteps or perhapsleaving her own footsteps,
(06:38):
lainey teamed up with her dad topublish Rick and Lainey's
Excellent Kitchen Adventures in2004.
In 2019, lainey, a burgeoningcocktail impresario, stepped up
to the plate herself, openingbar Satineau under Frontera
Grill.
Finally, the tributaries food,art, experience, community,
family have joined to combineinto the raging river of Rick's
(07:01):
life.
So shall we call this a happyending?
Well, not if the chef hasanything to do with it.
If you ask him, the journey isfar from over.
In fact, the next course isjust getting plated.
Chef, welcome to the show.
Rick Bayless (07:15):
Thank you so much, and thank you for such a
wonderful and generousintroduction.
Now everybody knows everything.
Max Chopovsky (07:22):
I am sure that that was probably only 40% of
your bio, but it was just reallyhard to leave anything out.
You've done a lot.
Rick Bayless (07:30):
Well, thank you very much.
I love life, and so I likeexploring lots of things.
You explore them with gusto.
Max Chopovsky (07:38):
That's for sure.
Yes, so you are here to tell usa story.
Okay, before we get into thestory, is there anything that
the audience should know?
Do you want to set the stage atall?
Rick Bayless (07:49):
Yeah, I want to set the stage because the story
that I'm going to tell is astory from my high school years
and what everybody, I think,needs to know is that I come
from a family where my motherand my grandmother were very
public people.
They rose through anyorganization they joined and
(08:11):
within a few years would becomethe head of that organization,
whether it's parent-teacherassociation.
My grandmother was veryinvolved in Eastern Star and
that side of my family was veryambitious.
I'll say that my father camefrom a very different kind of
background and, as you mentioned, my father became disabled.
(08:34):
Well, what it was was that hewas in and out of rehab all
through my high school yearsuntil the fact that he just
couldn't run the place anymoreand my mother had to take it
over.
And before that happened,before that sort of major change
in our lives as a family, wewere beginning to fray at the
(08:57):
edges and it was veryuncomfortable to go home.
I was the kid in the family thatloved the restaurant business.
I worked in the restaurantevery weekend, sometimes during
the week after I'd gotten off ofschool.
I was trying to keep ittogether.
I was trying to keep the familytogether, mostly through the
(09:19):
restaurant because it was ourfamily's restaurant, a barbecue
restaurant in Oklahoma City, andI was the good guy, I was
always doing everything justright in this desire to keep
everything together.
And then I made a turn andthat's the story.
(09:40):
I started looking at this petshop on my way home from the
restaurant.
Sometimes I would even go buythis pet shop on my way home
from school, even though it wasway out of the way.
But I would go into this petshop and this pet shop was known
to have all kinds of veryunusual pets.
(10:02):
They had a whole section ofmonkeys and I was looking at
this one monkey one day and Ijust thought, man, that monkey's
got this great personality.
And I went back the next day,and I went back the next day,
and so it was like every day.
I was driving past this petshop, stopping and saying hi to
(10:26):
this monkey, and I was workingat the restaurant, I was being
paid, I had money in my pocketand one day I walked into the
pet shop and said I want to buythat monkey.
Now, one thing that everybodyhas to understand is that a
monkey is not a casual pet, andI hadn't really thought through
(10:48):
that part of it very much.
But here's this young man who'ssort of very upstanding, doing
everything right, that walksinto a pet shop and buys a
monkey.
And the fellow, as he'schecking me out, says, you know,
there's no returns, right?
And something clicked in me andI said that's fine, and I put
(11:13):
the monkey in my car.
And I'm 16 years old.
Okay, I have my first car thatI've bought with my own money,
which is a triumph spitfire.
That is really close todestined for some trash heap
someplace.
It barely runs.
I'm a two-seater, you know,with a convertible top.
(11:35):
I have no idea how I ended upwith this car, because it was
also not like me at all to dosomething that was that sporty,
because I was the upstandingyoung man.
So here I am in this brokendown sports car with a monkey in
there and I drive to my houseand we had this cage that we had
(11:57):
had for a pet rabbit and it'sin the garage and I'm thinking
I'm going to use this for mymonkey.
I've got it all planned out.
I walk into the kitcheneverybody's at the dinner table
and I say I have to tell yousomething.
I've just bought a monkey.
Well, as you could imagine thatthe family's fraying anyway and
(12:19):
putting a monkey in the mix wasnot necessarily going to make
it any better.
And my mother just blows up Ithink she's already mad at my
father who started drinkingagain and she says you get that
out of here, you've got to getit out of here.
And I say I'm sorry, I can'ttake it back.
There's no returns for monkeysat this pet store.
(12:41):
And I sat down at the dinnertable and start to eat and my
mother's like what are you doing?
You're supposed to get thatmonkey out of here.
And I said no, I'm keeping themonkey, I'm keeping the monkey.
This was so unexpected for mebecause I was the kid that
always did everything right andto have done something that was
(13:04):
that bizarre, almost egregious,was like so out of character for
me.
My father's sort of in a stuporand he doesn't say anything and
I guess things sort of settlefor a little bit.
I go back out in the garage andI sit down by the monkey and
(13:26):
try to get to know the monkeybetter.
Max Chopovsky (13:28):
Okay.
Rick Bayless (13:29):
So there's peace with the monkey in the house,
there's peace in the familyovernight.
And the next morning I find myfather out in the garage trying
to make friends with this monkeyand the monkey is going crazy
like he hates him.
(13:49):
He's screaming and all.
It's like my father.
Every morning for the next fewdays my father's out there
trying to make friends with themonkey and my mother starts
going, spending time in thegarage and the monkey likes my
mother, hates my father butloves my mother.
And so the next thing I knowshe's taking food out to him and
(14:12):
she's starting to play with him.
And still you have tounderstand that this is a monkey
in a house and monkeys don'tbelong in houses.
They belong in zoos or hugecages where they can jump and
everything.
So things settle down, myfather begins to make friends
with them.
But my father spends so muchtime out here in the garage
(14:36):
sitting by the monkey, playingwith the monkey, I'm thinking
it's like.
I don't know, it's maybehealing our family.
This monkey's bringing peopletogether.
I don't know what it is, but themonkey would have them on a
leash most of the time on top ofhis cage or around his cage.
But when I would go out in thegarage, I would let him loose,
(14:56):
and so I started playing thesegames and he would climb up high
and he would jump on me.
And then the next thing I wouldput him into my car and we'd
put the top down and I'd drivearound town with this monkey on
my shoulder.
And so it's like, all of asudden I became known as the guy
with the monkey and I would letthis monkey be out in the
(15:16):
garage playing around with me.
And then one day I walk outinto the garage and he sees me
coming and I'm walking prettyfast and he jumps Like he'd
always loved to do, and he jumpsand he's going to land on my
shoulders.
But I stepped away and themonkey hit the ground and
(15:38):
suddenly he goes into some sortof epileptic kind of fit and I'm
like, oh my God, what's goingto happen here now?
What is it?
So then he recovers and I thinkit's okay, except that the next
day he has another epilepticfit and he's trying to find a
vet for a monkey.
You know, you go call up yourlocal vet.
They won't take a monkey.
You have to go to somebody thatdoes zoo animals.
(16:02):
So I had to investigate andfind the person in Oklahoma City
that dealt with zoo animals andI took the monkey out there and
he goes no, he's got epilepsyand they gave him some
medication or stuff, but he wasmuch more involved in that kind
of thing, regularly every fewdays going into epileptic fits,
(16:23):
and I probably most people don'tknow this, but monkeys have
very sharp teeth and the firstthing you have to do when you go
into an epileptic fit is to prytheir mouth open, pull their
tongue out so they don'tsuffocate themselves with their
own tongue.
So what I thought was going tobe bringing our family together
suddenly became a sort of crisisin the family.
(16:44):
And then one day I came homeand the monkey had gotten out,
figured out a way to take hisleash off and gotten into the
house Okay.
So again I will tell youmonkeys are not like home pets.
And so he had gone through thekitchen pulling everything out
of the cupboards eating sugar.
I found him when I got home.
(17:06):
He was sitting in the livingroom unwrapping pieces of candy
that were in a candy dish there,one after another, eating them
all and throwing the wrappers onthe floor.
So this side like makes mefirst think about.
Oh my God, he has eaten nothingbut sugar for the last four or
five hours here.
He's wrecked the kitchen, he'slike done all these crazy things
(17:28):
.
And so I'm beginning to get veryworried about this, because not
only is our family fraying frommy father's behavior, but now
it's fraying from my behavior.
So my impulsive desire to dosomething completely unexpected
and bring a monkey into ourhouse was actually contributing
(17:52):
to its demise, my family'sdemise.
So this goes on.
For a little while further, mymother becomes super attached to
the monkey, which surprised meto no end.
My father's still trying tomake peace with the monkey.
I'm loving the monkey, butrealizing that I have no ability
(18:15):
to take care of the monkey.
And I'm trying to figure outwhat I'm going to do, because I
talked to the people at the zoocould he go out to the zoo?
And they said no, they wouldn'tbring him out there because he
was domesticated, some, and hewould probably just be devoured
by the monkeys that were reallywild monkeys that were in the
zoo.
And so I'm getting really,really perplexed about it and
(18:38):
trying to figure out what to do,still driving around in my
little sports car in theafternoons with the monkey on my
shoulder and the craziness ofthis.
So my father, in an attempt toplacate my father, I tell him
I'm going to take him two hourdrive to see his mother.
Maybe that would help him,maybe that would make him see
(19:00):
the error of his ways and thingswould go.
So I decided that I'm going totake the monkey and my father on
this two hour ride to OakMulgee and I guess I didn't plan
very well.
This whole thing shows I wasn'tplanning anything.
But I get in the car with thismonkey and my father and
realizing about five minutesinto it that monkey really
(19:25):
doesn't like my father, he stilldoesn't like my father and I
think maybe said they've made upor something along this road.
And so I start driving and myfather starts talking to the
monkey and the monkey getsreally agitated and starts
peeing on me and so I've got peerunning down my back and we've
(19:47):
got a long way to go.
And when we got to mygrandmother's house in Oak
Mulgee I had to change clothesand see if I could find
something there that I could puton and all of this stuff and by
the time we had had what was afruitless journey basically up
(20:07):
there and gotten all the wayback to home again.
I was drenched with monkey pee,dropped my father off where he
was staying at that time and gothome, probably the most
exhausted of my life, got mymonkey put away in his cage,
only to come back the next dayto discover that that monkey had
(20:31):
had an epileptic seizure,fallen off of the top of his
cage, broken his neck and nolonger was my pet.
It was a really hard lesson tolearn.
I'm still not quite sure why Idid it, other than the fact that
(20:51):
I had been so boxed into doingall the right things for so long
that I wanted to do somethingjust outlandish, only to find
that it came back to haunt me,because it was probably the
hardest six months of my life,not only watching my family fray
(21:12):
and eventually dissolve, butalso learning that I had
committed to something that wasnot sustainable for me and that
was just what was causing memore and more struggles as I
went along.
When I buried that monkey, Iwas both sad and incredibly
(21:35):
relieved that I didn't have totry to figure out a different
ending to that story, that theending had been actually given
to me.
What a story.
Max Chopovsky (21:48):
It's kind of crazy.
Thank you for sharing that.
Yeah, you're really hard onyourself.
I mean, I don't know any16-year-old that is a good
planner and has all the answersto all the questions held.
They don't even have thequestions, but it's interesting
(22:09):
when you walked into the petstore and you're like I'm going
to buy this monkey, and youthought that the cage in the
garage would be just fine, andyou thought that the monkey
would be fine to survive there.
It almost makes me think,though, that perhaps that's the
way it's supposed to be, becausewe're not supposed to have the
answers and we're supposed tomake all these mistakes, because
(22:30):
that's how we learn our lessons.
Yeah, yeah, do you think thatit was an act of rebellion for
you to buy that monkey?
Like?
Have you thought about that?
Rick Bayless (22:39):
A lot.
I was never a rebellious kid,ever.
That is really my only act ofrebellion.
Growing up, like I said, I wasalways the one that was doing
all the right things andsupporting the family.
At 16, when my father finallycouldn't work anymore, I took
over the whole catering divisionof our restaurant and I did
(23:00):
that all through the rest ofhigh school and all through
college I ran that division.
It was great for me becausecatering is sort of on and off
and usually it's at nighttimewhen people want to have parties
, or on weekends, and so I wasable to run that whole thing.
By the end of college I wasactually running the whole
restaurant and going to schooldoing the whole thing by that
(23:23):
point, because the family had sofallen apart.
Max Chopovsky (23:27):
You were in University of Oklahoma first.
University of Oklahoma for myundergrad and Michigan was the
master's yes, gotcha, okay, whatwas the monkey's name?
Rick Bayless (23:36):
Well, it's a really really silly, boring name
, but we called him Punky.
Max Chopovsky (23:41):
Punky, I feel like the story would be
incomplete without reference.
Rick Bayless (23:43):
Without Punky's name.
I have a picture if you want tosee it.
Max Chopovsky (23:46):
I would love it.
In fact, we'll put that picturein the show notes of Punky.
Rick Bayless (23:52):
This is like an old photo here that's yellowing
and it's just him lying besideme.
There's another one that I canget you as well.
That is from my high schoolyearbook.
Like I said, I became known asthe guy with the monkey, so it
was in my high school yearbook.
What kind of monkey was it?
(24:13):
He's called the ring tail andthat's because they have a
prehensile tail, which was thereason that he could sit on my
shoulder when I would be drivingaround town in my little sports
car convertible and he wrappedhis tail, which was very long,
around my neck and he held onwith his tail.
People are probably going whatis this all about?
(24:35):
And it's really a true story inmy path.
Max Chopovsky (24:38):
It's exactly the kind of story that I want, which
, in all the research that we'vedone on you, never did a monkey
come up.
Rick Bayless (24:44):
No, never did a monkey come up.
Max Chopovsky (24:46):
So this was.
You nailed that part of it whenyou were walking back to your
house and Punky jumped to get toyou and you stopped and he fell
.
That wasn't what precipitatedhis first epileptic seizure.
It was, yes, it was.
Rick Bayless (25:03):
He loved to do this thing where he would hide
up high on shelves or somethinglike that, and when I would walk
through he would jump onto myhead or onto my shoulders and
grab on, and I was used to that.
I was just walking really fastand he misjudged exactly where I
was going to be and so I keptwalking and he came down and
(25:27):
that's what started theepileptic fits, because he hit
his head really hard on thecement pavement.
Max Chopovsky (25:33):
Okay, Okay, I'm sure you've thought about this a
lot.
What lessons did the Punkyepisode in your life teach you?
And maybe which of thoselessons have you then taken into
your career as a chef?
Rick Bayless (25:51):
I would say number one I learned how to deal with
the consequences of choice andgetting through it because I
made that choice and so I had todeal with having that monkey
after I had committed to it.
I had to take care of him.
(26:13):
I had to figure out how he wasgoing to be taken care of in our
house, which was like almostimpossible to do, and I just
kept working on it and, as Isaid at the end of the story,
when I buried him, that I wasboth sad and relieved because I
loved him he was really a funpet but relieved because I knew
(26:38):
it wasn't right to have him inour home.
Max Chopovsky (26:43):
Did you have a ceremony for him with your
parents?
Rick Bayless (26:45):
No, I just did it by myself.
Max Chopovsky (26:49):
And what did your parents?
What was their reaction whenthey learned that he had passed
away?
Rick Bayless (26:56):
I remember nothing At that point.
Everybody was kind of on theirown in our house and so I think
I told them, but that was it.
I think I remember my motherbeing saddened by it because she
had sort of gotten used to himbeing there and she would play
(27:16):
with him some and all.
I was the only one that wasreally super physical with him
because he loved to be physicaland so he crawled all over me
and jumped on me, like I said,and that sort of thing, and I
loved the physicality of itbecause our family was not a
physical family.
When I went to graduate schoolit was the first time that I
(27:37):
knew anybody ever hugged anyone.
So it was not a very physicalfamily and I loved the
physicality of being with thatmonkey and so I really missed
that after a while but at thesame time it wasn't right to be
having that monkey in my house.
Max Chopovsky (27:52):
Yeah, I can see how you would also be relieved,
because the decision was kind oftaken out of your hands.
Rick Bayless (27:58):
It was and I wasn't sure where I was going to
go with it.
But again, I learned the lessonthat when you make your
decisions, you have to live withthe consequences, and I had
made that decision and wasliving with the consequences of
having this monkey.
Max Chopovsky (28:12):
Correct, and the interesting thing is that all
parents at some point have toteach their kids about the
consequences of their actionsand the fact that you made your
bed, you live in it, but nothingquite does that like a massive
decision that impacts yourentire family.
Rick Bayless (28:28):
Exactly.
Max Chopovsky (28:31):
And it did.
Did your dad ever?
Was he mad that he never quitegot along with Punky?
Rick Bayless (28:36):
I think he was sad .
I think he wanted to make thatand they got to where they could
tolerate being in the same room.
But when I put them together inthat little tiny car, yeah man,
that monkey was not at allhappy with it and I had to live
with the consequences of that aswell.
Max Chopovsky (28:57):
Yeah, can you imagine arriving at your
destination at yourgrandmother's house?
You must have been a sight forsore eyes.
Oh, I was a mess, is what I was.
I mean, your hair was probablycrazy, covered in monkey urine,
with your dad probably frazzledthe monkey, probably wanting to
be anywhere.
Rick Bayless (29:13):
But that time car.
He knew about that, yes, yeah,and he was like I'm not going to
be able to get into that monkeyin her house, and so I had to
just shut the monkey up in thecar while we went in for a
couple hour visit or somethinglike that.
Max Chopovsky (29:28):
And then we headed back and I had to go
through the whole thing again.
Rick Bayless (29:34):
Punky must have been like that's the worst day
of my life.
Yes, I'm sure of that.
Max Chopovsky (29:37):
It was definitely up there as one of the worst
days of my life as well, Ibelieve it.
I have three kids, and they'reall fairly young, and a car ride
with the youngest one, who'stwo, to daycare.
On a bad day it could be tough.
Our drive to daycare is sevenminutes and then we drop her off
with a professional who caresfor her for the entire day.
You had a monkey for two hourswho did not want to be in that
(30:02):
car Exactly Unbelievable, allright.
So when you think about thatstory, about the punky chapter
in your life, what is the moralof that story for you?
Rick Bayless (30:14):
I don't regret having made that decision.
I guess the moral of the storyfor me is, no matter what
decision you make, it can betransformative.
Even if it's the wrong decisionor a bad decision.
(30:34):
It's something that you sort ofregret having done.
You can learn something from itand if you don't try to run
from the decision that you madeor try to abort things in some
unhelpful way, then I think youcan learn lots of things.
(30:55):
And I learned tenacity throughthat, because there were days
when I didn't wanna have to dealwith the fact that I owned a
monkey and I had to take care ofthat monkey and I had to give
that monkey plenty of time torun around and all that sort of
stuff.
I just wanted to go be withfriends or something like that,
(31:17):
but I couldn't.
I had to go back and take careof the monkey and I guess there
was partly that aspect of havingmade that decision that it was
exerting some independence fromthe family, which I felt like I
needed at the time, saying thatI'm old enough to make my own
decisions.
Now they may not be greatdecisions, but I'm gonna make my
(31:37):
own decisions and that, I think, is a good lesson too.
But I would say the moral forme is that you can learn stuff
from every decision that youmake, whether it's a good one or
a bad one.
Max Chopovsky (31:52):
Well, I think you have to embrace the decision,
because it's one of the manydecisions to make you who you
are.
Yes, so I'm reading this bookcalled 4,000 Weeks.
It's a really fantastic bookabout.
It's called it's TimeManagement for Mortals and
basically the takeaway is you'llnever have enough time to do
everything, so stop being sohard on yourself.
And there's a chapter about thisguy who is from the US but he
(32:18):
wanted to become a monk.
So he went to this monastery,knocked on the door.
They didn't let him in.
He kept trying, he kept tryingand finally they started letting
him do some menial tasks aroundthe monastery.
And then he finally got thechance to take the course that
allows you to become a monk.
And one of the first things theyhad him do was put a was take a
bucket of ice cold water in thewinter in mountains in Japan
(32:40):
and pour it on his head.
And he had to be naked for this.
And he was like this isridiculous.
Like this is, and it's so coldthat the water freezes when it
hits the floor.
So you're slipping around onthe ice as you're trying to pour
this water over your head.
And like he's like why am Idoing this, and, as he would do
this every single time, he wouldtry to think about being
somewhere else, because the lastplace he wanted to be is and
(33:01):
that little hot pouring water onhis head.
And it took him months torealize that the more you try to
run away from an experience,the more it beats you over the
head and prevents you fromrunning away from it, and so he
took the opposite approach.
He said you know what I'm goingto lean into the fact that
there's cold water running allover my body, and it made it
(33:23):
more bearable for him, and so,after he ended up becoming a
monk, he's like part of life isbeing able to lean into any
experience that you have, evenif it's the result of a
questionable decision, and Ifeel like that's the lesson that
you learned through punky.
Yes, absolutely so.
You've heard some fantasticstories in your day, and you are
(33:47):
also a master storytelleryourself.
What makes for a good story?
Rick Bayless (33:54):
Well, definitely, setting a stage so that you know
where you are in the story, Ithink is really important.
And then clearly there has tobe something suspenseful in a
good story, because you have tobe invested as the listener to
that story.
You have to be invested in theresolution of something that's
(34:19):
going on in that story.
I feel that a lot of times whenI listen to other stories being
told, some of them reallyengage me that way and some
don't.
Some I'm not involved inthinking what the outcome is
going to be, or the outcome istoo predictable and that sort of
(34:41):
thing.
So I will say that theanticipation of resolution is
really an important part of anystory, and then how things get
resolved.
I think when somebody's tellinga story is important too.
You can do the sledgehammerapproach, where you just like
dump it out there, or you cansort of let it unfold more
(35:04):
slowly so that you think, as thelistener, you know where it's
going, but you're alwaysuncertain as is it really going
to end there or is there goingto be a twist at the end?
And I like stories that dragout the ending.
So it's like a little bit ofslow motion going on there so
(35:25):
that you really don't knowwhat's going to happen.
Max Chopovsky (35:29):
That's how I felt with Bunky.
Rick Bayless (35:31):
Oh, good, good, good good.
Max Chopovsky (35:33):
Where's this?
Rick Bayless (35:33):
going.
Where's this going?
Max Chopovsky (35:35):
But he kept developing in really interesting
ways.
Rick Bayless (35:38):
I have a bunch of theater friends that we were on
a writing retreat one summer andmy wife we had all these
artists around and she's not oneto let a group of artists or
people in general go withoutdoing something.
She likes these soirees, and soone night I had made a big
(36:00):
dinner for everybody and she hadannounced early in the day okay
, everybody's going to performsomething, okay, and so you can
read a poem, you can tell astory, you can do whatever you
want, and there's a lot ofwriters and artists in this
group, and actors as well.
And so everybody planned whatthey were going to do and I
decided to tell the story ofBunky.
(36:23):
That was what was going to bemy thing, and since it's not a
story that I tell very easily,nobody knew if I was making it
up, if it was a piece that I hadwritten, that it was just the
story I was telling, if it wastrue.
And I told the whole story inslow motion, basically to keep
(36:44):
them all really engaged andguessing whether this was a true
story or not, and at the end ofthat people were always like,
no, no, what, what, what tell us?
Did you just make that up, didyou?
Is this something you'vewritten?
Is this, does this reallyhappen to you?
Because nobody could believethat it really happened to me,
(37:05):
so they assumed that it was apiece that I had written for
something else.
But it was really fun to gettheir reaction to it at that
point, because I told it in thestyle that I was just describing
.
Max Chopovsky (37:17):
And I think that part of what makes it so good is
you have a story arc in thatstory and Bunky has a story arc
in that story.
Bunky has, yes, a distinctlyseparate but also like equally
contributory story arc, whichmakes you kind of root for punky
but also root for you, yeah.
So then, what makes for a goodstoryteller?
Rick Bayless (37:41):
Almost always, I would say, a glimmer in the eye,
meaning that the storyteller isletting you know that he or she
is going to take you someplaceand this is gonna be a fun
journey and we're gonna go on ittogether, and so I like that
kind of storyteller.
A lot of times when I'mlistening to somebody tell
(38:02):
stories, I can tell whetherthey're doing it in a rote way
or whether they're actuallyenjoying telling this story, and
that's the first thing thatcomes to my mind.
Max Chopovsky (38:15):
For sure, and you can tell immediately if
somebody has a glimmer in theireye or not.
Rick Bayless (38:20):
Yes, exactly, you can hear it in their voice.
You don't have to see theirface.
Max Chopovsky (38:24):
For sure, for sure, it's appropriate for the
podcast medium.
Rick Bayless (38:28):
Yes, absolutely, if somebody's just listening to
it.
Max Chopovsky (38:30):
So my very first job was in a French restaurant
and I washed dishes and theproprietor of the restaurant his
name was Franck If you call himFrank he'd smack you.
It had to be Franck.
The kitchen was a U-shapedkitchen and I was on one side
and then Dave the prep cook wasbehind me and Franck was on the
(38:51):
other side cooking right.
And one time I remember he said, max, come here.
And I literally just turnedaround and ran to the part of
the U from which you could seeboth sides of the U, just in
time to see a hot pan flying atme.
I didn't have enough time tograb my towel, so I just grabbed
(39:13):
the pan and I heard the sizzleof my fingers on the hot pan, so
I immediately threw it into thesink from where I was standing
and it made it into the sink.
But I remember one of thelessons I learned as a result of
that story was obviously alwayshave your towel ready, but also
tenacity, right.
I could have quit right thenbecause I had blisters on my
(39:33):
hands and it was just an awfulnight.
Tenacity, I feel like, is oneof those things that a
restaurant tour anybody inhospitality really, but a
restaurant tour really has tohave in spades.
So when you opened FronteraGrill, the first people that
walked in were a four-top thatsat down, opened their menu,
(39:54):
closed their menu and then theguy came up to you and he said
you're gonna be out of businessin six months.
That's a hell of a message toget from your very first clients
that walk into your restaurant.
Rick Bayless (40:04):
It was devastating .
He said this isn't Mexican food.
We don't recognize anything onthe menu and we were doing the
food of Mexico, not MexicanAmerican food.
So we didn't have burritos ornachos or anything that he
expected to see on the menu andhe predicted that we would be
out of business in six months.
I'm happy to say that here 37years later.
(40:26):
He wasn't right, but I lovetelling that story because,
especially to young cooks andfront of the house people that
dream of having their ownrestaurant that you're not gonna
hit it out of the park from dayone with all of your guests and
it takes time to develop yourown clientele, to get your own
(40:51):
stride, because you open thedoors, you don't know what
you're doing, you're justthrowing a whole bunch of stuff
against the wall and seeing ifit's going to stick.
And especially if you're new tothis whole thing and you
haven't had a restaurant beforewhich is the case for my wife
and me but we had a lot oftenacity, we supported one
another through that.
When she would feel down, Iwould be the one that was
(41:13):
boosting her up and vice versa.
I will tell you that my wife isone of the most long suffering
people I have ever met in mylife.
She can get through anythingand I think without her I
probably would have not gottenthrough all of the trials and
tribulations that we had to face.
Max Chopovsky (41:34):
Behind every crazy man is a pillar of a woman
.
A pillar of a woman, I can saythat, without whom none of the
craziness would be possible,absolutely so.
You obviously tell storiesthrough your food.
Yes, your canvas in that casehappens to be a 8, 10, 12 inch
(41:59):
diameter ceramic canvas, right?
How do you see yourself as astoryteller when it comes to
that particular medium?
Rick Bayless (42:07):
It's a very interesting thing because
flavors tell very clear stories.
So you have to have clearflavors on the plate.
Second, you have to putsomething in front of a guest
that they can see what the partsare.
So trend these days to pilestuff on top of a plate and the
(42:30):
thing that you think you orderedyou have to discover further
down.
I think that's bad storytelling.
Yes, if you're the diner thatlikes to discover everything as
you're eating through, then youmight like that style.
But most of our guests want tosort of see what it is that
they're getting and you want totell them that story pretty
(42:53):
quickly once they get intosomething.
So flavor and visuals two veryclear things but that flavor can
tell you a story that you maynever have heard before, because
we're doing a lot of food fromsmall villages in Oaxaca say
(43:14):
okay, so once we put that flavorin front of you, this may be a
new experience for you, but wehave to help you get into that.
So we're always thinking abouthow do we set the stage, because
if you don't know what thestage is, you may taste that
flavor and say, whoa, this isnothing I've had before.
(43:34):
I don't know whether I like itor not, but if we give you
enough touchstones and set thestage well, then I can get you
into that other flavor.
So a good example would be wheatla coche.
Okay, so wheat la coche is thismushroom I'm going to say that
in quotes that grows on an earof corn.
In an ear of corn it actuallythe mushroom grows inside of the
(43:59):
kernel of corn, making itballoon up and look like it has
elephantitis or something likethat, and it's highly, highly
prized in Mexico and absolutescourge in the United States.
Here we call it corn smut andthink of it as a blight.
In Mexico they call it wheat lacoche, which translates,
(44:21):
interestingly enough, asexcrement of the gods.
So it's both good and bad, Idon't know, but anyway it's very
expensive and highly prized inMexico.
So if I want to introduce you tothat and you've never had wheat
la coche before, I'm probablygoing to put it inside of
something else that you're goingto feel really good about.
(44:42):
So you recognize something thatmakes sense to you, you start
eating it and then you discoverthis new flavor, this new
texture that you haven't hadbefore.
But your already set mindset isa positive one, and so you're
going to hopefully love whatthat discovery is, because I
(45:04):
haven't slapped you in the facewith it.
If I were to serve you a tacowith wheat la coche, which you
can easily get in Mexico City,it would just be a tortilla with
the wheat la coche on top of it.
You might say I'm not sure Ireally want to have that, but if
I set the stage right, I thinkyou're going to like it.
Max Chopovsky (45:25):
I love that because you are taking them on a
journey that introduces them tothe wheat la coche sort of
gradually and maybeincrementally.
Rick Bayless (45:34):
Yes, exactly what we say.
Yes, and we talk a lot aboutthe story we tell with every
plate.
When you come to our staff as asous chef and usually that
means you've worked here as aline cook for a long time and
then we have given you this newresponsibility of sous chef and
once you hit sous chef, you haveto start creating dishes and
(45:55):
you have to create theappropriate dish for the
restaurant that you're in.
It has to fit beautifully inthat menu and the first thing
when you put the new dish thatyou're proposing for the menu in
front of me, the first thingI'm going to ask you is tell me
the story of that dish and youhave to be able to articulate
all of that and you have to tellwhat you want the diner to
(46:17):
experience in this, where it'sgoing to take them.
Because you talk about narrativearc.
There's a narrative arc onevery plate.
We just don't use those wordsvery often when we're talking
about food, but it's there,especially I mean, maybe not at
McDonald's when you're eatingthere.
It's a very short narrative arc, but if you're in a restaurant
(46:39):
that has a chef that is creatingfood for you, there's a
narrative arc on every plate,totally.
Max Chopovsky (46:45):
Totally.
Now, with a dish like that, alot of planning has to go into
it, because you also have toplan the journey from the
diner's perspective.
You sort of have to putyourself in their shoes.
But there are also times when,like with you, for example, when
you're picking the produce outof your garden, you might be
(47:07):
walking through it thinking Ithink I'm going to do this, I
think I'm going to do this andit could be a little bit more
spontaneous.
And I think there maybe aretimes when you're a little bit
more spontaneous with your mealprep.
I ask and the question that I'mgoing to ask because so I'm
usually the cook at our houseand, in order to be able to prep
(47:27):
the meals throughout the week,we'll go through a planning
process on the weekend where Ihave to figure out what the
recipe is, get all theingredients in line.
My wife, however, can go toTrader Joe's, walk through the
aisles and, in 45 minutes, pickup this and that and this and
that, and then she'll be readywith the ingredients for the
meals that I can make for thatweek.
So there is the intenseplanning versus complete
(47:50):
spontaneity.
What's the relationship betweenthose two approaches for you?
Rick Bayless (47:56):
So really good question.
When I'm cooking at home, I'mvery spontaneous.
When I am cooking at therestaurant, I am very thoughtful
and lots of planning goes intoit.
For a dish, to say, get on themenu.
In Topolobompo it has been madefor a group of people four,
(48:16):
five, sometimes six times beforeit's finalized and gotten on
the menu.
There's no spontaneity to thatby the time it gets on the menu,
just very carefully thought outin those terms of what's the
story that we're telling.
When I'm cooking spontaneously,my story is really oh, isn't
(48:37):
this exciting?
That's my story.
It's like taste this, it'sreally fun.
I found this at the farmer'smarket and I made it into this
and it's not all that good butit's fun.
So just enjoy this moment.
And so that's my story when I'mcooking that way.
But I like to cook both waysand I'm very happy to do that.
(48:58):
When I go with this writer'sretreat that I was mentioning
before, I cook a fair amount ofvery spontaneous stuff for the
group and I have a lot of peoplehelping me with it and I may
change my course right in themiddle of prep for the dinner.
I might say you know, I don'tthink that's going to come out
(49:19):
very good, let's do this with it.
And so we change and they allhave fun with that, because I am
telling this story of thatmoment and you will never forget
that moment, but you have tosort of be involved in it.
Max Chopovsky (49:32):
It's almost like improv comedy.
Rick Bayless (49:34):
It is.
It's much more like improv.
Max Chopovsky (49:36):
Yes, you're in that moment.
That might never ever happenagain, probably won't, but it
becomes a snapshot of that time.
Rick Bayless (49:42):
Yes, and it's fun because it went in a certain
direction that you might not goto another time, but you'll
remember it for the freshness ofit 100%, and the attendees will
always take that with them, yes.
Max Chopovsky (49:57):
So last question for you, chef If you could say
one thing to 20 year old Rickassuming he would listen, which
may be a stretch, as it would befor most kids that age what
would you say?
Rick Bayless (50:15):
I would say two things.
I would tell 20-year-old Rickthat he has everything that he
needs to explore the world andbe successful, and that it's
going to be hard and he needs tojust take the tenacity that
he's already developed and holdon to that through his whole
(50:40):
life.
That's a great message.
It's a hard one because Iprobably still tell myself those
two things.
I will say that life is nevereasy.
If you expect it to be easy orlooking for it to be easy,
you're probably not doing verymuch.
But if you're really going tocontribute to the world, then
(51:02):
it's going to be hard.
It's never going to be easy.
You're never fully prepared foranything and I'm always
second-guessing myself andsaying, but I don't have that
expertise or whatever and I haveto go and do this thing.
The truth of the matter is youhave what it takes.
You just have to dig deep andtrust yourself.
(51:24):
A lot of it is confidence.
You read my bio and it soundslike I knew how to do everything
.
I didn't know how to doanything.
I just said yes to things.
My wife always laughs becausethere's times when she has put
on a bulletin board above herdesk just saying no, because I'm
(51:47):
the guy that says yes toeverything.
It's like, yeah, oh, let's dothat project.
That seems right, but I don'thave any background in that,
we'll figure it out as we'regoing along.
I'm that kind of guy.
But then I get in the middle ofit I go, oh no, I don't know
what I'm doing here.
I would tell 20-year-old Rickyou got this, you really do have
(52:12):
what it takes to do all thisstuff.
You just have to believe inyourself, trust yourself and
just have the tenacity, getthrough the hard parts.
Max Chopovsky (52:22):
That's right.
Trust yourself.
Or, in culinary terms, a sayingI've heard before is bite off
more than you can chew, and thenchew it.
Rick Bayless (52:32):
And then chew it, and I think that's exactly what
I've done for most of my life.
I never got a chance to go toculinary school, but now I teach
at the best culinary school inthe country, the Culinary
Institute of America.
I do guest chef presentationsthere and I always felt like
(52:53):
that I didn't have what it takes.
And yet I've read all thosetextbooks, I've spent my time in
the kitchen perfecting allthose techniques and, yeah,
somebody's always going to beable to do something you can't
do.
But it's not that you can't doit, it's that you haven't
learned to do it yet.
And so the time I took taughtmy first class for the Culinary
(53:16):
Institute of America, I thoughtthey were going to run me out of
that place on a rail because Ididn't have the right
credentials or whatever, andinstead they welcomed me with
open arms and said you have somuch here to teach our students,
and that was a big lesson forme.
Max Chopovsky (53:34):
And I'm sure it felt good to hear that.
Rick Bayless (53:36):
It did feel good and it took me a few times of
going there to teach before Ifelt the full confidence that I
actually do have what it takesto teach in this environment.
But I schooled myself and Ithink that lots of people think
that they have to have some sortof formal training to do lots
of things in this world and thetruth of the matter is you know
(53:58):
lots of things you can figureout on your own and just ask
questions and practice and do iton your own and you can do it.
Max Chopovsky (54:07):
That's right, you just have to want it bad enough
.
Well, that does it, chef.
Rick Bayless Culinary Legend.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
Rick Bayless (54:18):
It's been my pleasure, Max.
I really appreciate all of yourvery thoughtful questions.
This has been one of the mostenjoyable interviews I've ever
done.
Max Chopovsky (54:26):
Wow, thank you so much.
That is a huge compliment.
I really appreciate that.
For show notes and more, headover to MossPodorg.
Find us on Apple Podcasts,spotify, wherever you get your
podcast on.
This was Moral of the Story.
I'm Max Dropowski.
Thank you for listening.
Talk to you next time, thanks.
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