Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Leonard Botello IV: The Truth About Fire, Barbecue, and Mental Pressure Ep. 182

Transcript

Leonard Botello IV: The Truth About Fire, Barbecue, and Mental Pressure Ep. 182 · Chef's PSA Podcast

0:00
Hello chefs, this is Chefs PSA, I'm your host Andre Natera.
0:03
Today I'm joined by Leonard Patella, the 4th owner and
0:06
pitmaster behind Truth BBQ, one of the most acclaimed Central
0:09
Texas style BBQ destinations and the winner of the Michelin Bib
0:13
Gourmand. We talk intuitive cooking with
0:15
fire, the craft of smoking meat, the importance of mental health
0:18
and Wellness in our industry. Let's get into it.
0:20
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Just enter Chef's PSA 20 at checkup I.
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Want to say like 6 to 8 months in, like being open.
1:17
I had this guy who'd been BBQ previously come and work for us.
1:24
He's a good friend of mine and I just remember it.
1:29
It's kind of like all a blur but very like I can still see it and
1:32
feel it all at the same time. Is this the current truth
1:35
location? This is the original 1, so this
1:37
is before. This is before a lot, before
1:41
everything happened for the most part, and it's like always stuck
1:44
with me and I'm pretty sure there's a scar from it.
1:50
Long story short, he'd been in BBQ for a while.
1:53
He knew how to cook BBQ. He knew how to run fires.
1:56
I was on the cutting block serving customers is pretty busy
2:00
that day and one of my guys just comes in.
2:03
He says hey so and so. He's having issues with the
2:06
fire. It's like you need some help?
2:08
I'm like, OK, well he's been doing BBQ for long enough, he
2:13
should be OK. I think he knows how to handle a
2:15
fire Goes away like nothing happens and still serving
2:21
customers still in in the middle of and middle of a, a
2:25
conversation with a customer. He comes back over and taps me
2:28
on my shoulder and just like looks me down in the eyes.
2:30
He was like, Hey, he really needs some help with the fire.
2:33
I'm like, dude, what is what do you mean?
2:34
What do you mean he needs help with the fire?
2:36
He was like, it's, it's, it's getting a little out of control.
2:39
I was like, is he cooking too hot?
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Like, like tell me what's going on.
2:43
And he's he's like beating around the Bush for like 30
2:46
seconds and then finally on me. Dude, just fucking tell me
2:49
what's going on. He was like, there's a there's a
2:52
fire outside. And I was like, what do you mean
2:54
there's a fire? He was like, there's a fire.
2:56
This is like back and forth and we're trying to understand what
2:59
because he's talking in code and.
3:01
He's trying not to panic. Well, he's trying not to let the
3:03
customers know as well and he's trying not to panic.
3:06
So he's trying to like be professional about it, but also
3:09
keep his calm and keep his cool. But I was just not clicking.
3:14
I was like a BBQ fire, like whatever.
3:15
He has what we do every day and it like clicks immediately.
3:20
I'm like, oh, a fire, fire. And I go outside and I just see
3:24
black smoke like pouring out of the top of the pit room.
3:29
Black smoke is not good. Go in there and the temperature
3:34
gauge gauges are just like off. They're just far as far to the
3:39
right as they can possibly go past 500.
3:43
And I was like, there is a huge grease fire in there and I like
3:48
I knew it. I know the smell, like I know
3:50
the look at the smoke, like everything.
3:52
And he's panicking, like frantic, like freaking out.
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He's like, what do we do? What do we do?
3:58
I'm like, I, I just couldn't think in the moment.
4:00
I knew exactly what to do. You want to smother the fire out
4:02
and close off all the dampers, close all the air flow and just
4:05
let it hum and just smother it out.
4:08
And in my head I knew like, don't open the doors.
4:14
Maybe this is something to do with where I am in my career,
4:17
but my favorite movie growing up was Backdraft.
4:23
And that was like one thing. There's been like, don't open
4:25
the door. It's just like going to blowback
4:26
on you. First thing he does.
4:27
He just, I don't know why he just clicks and goes and opens
4:31
one of the doors and it just everything shoots out.
4:34
Like I've been building up, building up.
4:36
All the greats were on fire. Like I'm talking like to the
4:38
ceiling. And I am freaking out that that
4:44
he opened, he opened the door and like I couldn't even talk
4:50
like because it was, it was, it was that bad.
4:53
And I go over to like jump up to grab the door to shut it, to try
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to smother it out. And it was, it was too big.
5:01
I burned the entire upside of my arm like it was just bursting
5:05
out. And like right after that,
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everything was in slow motion. And I see him like looking all
5:11
around the room. And did he get hurt?
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When he opened the door, no, I opened.
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The door. Oh, you.
5:16
Opened the door, I opened the door.
5:17
I still have a scar up here. It was it was pretty big fire
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and everything like I said was in slow motion right after that
5:26
it was like I thought the whole thing was going to go up the
5:29
flames like it definitely should have especially after this.
5:33
I just see him like looking around the room, like just very
5:35
frantic, like we are all, I, I was still, the other guy was
5:38
still and the other guy was just like that caused the fire.
5:41
He was just like trying to figure out what to do to make it
5:43
stop. And I just see him eyeball and I
5:48
can just like see it. He looks directly at the we
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have, we keep, we keep water pans in the BBQ bit so to keep
5:53
it nice and humid in there. And I just see him eyeball the
5:57
five gallon bucket of water And it was like I saw him pick it
6:00
up. And I swear to God, it's like
6:01
still in slow motion in my head and it's like, don't pour grease
6:04
on a fire in the like. For some reason he dumped that
6:08
entire thing on it and it went out.
6:10
But my like, I just saw the whole thing just like spreading
6:13
and going up in flames. And it was like, this is it?
6:17
This is it. Holy shit.
6:19
And then it went out and we like kind of like, are you OK?
6:25
Are you OK? And they were like, yes, yes,
6:28
went back to service, went in front of the cutting block and
6:33
went back to the customer. This all happened in like a
6:35
minute and 30 seconds. How?
6:37
How bad did you get burned? Enough to go to urgent care.
6:41
Yeah, yeah. Wow.
6:44
That leads to probably some important questions for our
6:47
audience. What are some of the dangers of
6:49
cooking barbecue and what what should we do in a situation
6:52
like? That well that was a special BBQ
6:54
pit so there's like a lot of different levels to it and
7:00
corners and stuff like that where grease could get trapped
7:02
into and a lot of people think that you need to keep your BBQ
7:08
pit a certain way because it cooks better to a certain extent
7:12
it does, but you still have to clean them out same way you
7:14
would have cast iron skillet to keep from having grease fires.
7:18
You got to think that if you're cooking a lot of brisket, you're
7:20
getting a lot of pork. All it's doing the entire time
7:22
is just rendering out that it's just collecting and collecting
7:26
and collecting and then it solidifies and then it re
7:27
renders when you cook it again and so it just piles up down
7:30
there and you got to do it like once a week.
7:34
Yeah, I guess I've never worked in a, in a, in a place that
7:37
cooks that much in a smoker. How often do do these smokers
7:43
get cleaned out? At the restaurant, yeah.
7:46
Since then. Yeah, once a week.
7:47
Once a week, Yeah. With like a pressure wash them.
7:50
Now you got to go in there and take like a bench scraper, dough
7:53
cutter. Just go in there and go it like
7:56
in the inside of the propane tank.
7:58
Just dig it out and it's just just sit ash and everything
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that's built up and then you scoop it and it's very time
8:03
consuming because you got to hit the grates you have to treat.
8:07
They're very porous, so you have to treat them like a cast iron
8:10
skillet. You can't really power wash them
8:13
but degrease or anything on there because you want it to
8:17
kind of cake on but to a certain extent.
8:20
Wow, that that's a wild. Story Yeah.
8:22
So each one takes, you know, minimum an hour and a half to
8:25
clean. I would say like to get in there
8:27
and then you got to clean out the chimney.
8:28
You got to take a chimney sweep because it all catches in there
8:32
and those will actually ignite as well.
8:36
If an ember comes. If we could send out like if
8:39
it's like it has to be like the perfect size to go from the
8:42
firebox to have enough momentum to get to the end of the cooking
8:46
chamber through the exhaust. But if it does, everything in
8:50
the fire stack pool also ignite. When I when I went to truth, you
8:55
have one of the coolest operations I've ever seen for
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BBQ. It's massive.
9:00
By the way, for people that have never been, you took me into the
9:04
back and then we went into what, what do you call the room where
9:07
you have the big hot? Room where all the all the
9:10
smokers are. Room of hell is the room of
9:12
hell, right? Remember, you had a guy in there
9:14
and you're like, this guy's like, Gee, he's been here
9:15
forever, but it's massive. How many smokers do you have
9:20
back there? And for people that are
9:21
listening, I took video when I was there.
9:23
So I'll link, I'll, I'll put it up in in the video so people
9:27
could see. But I mean, those smokers are
9:29
massive. Yeah, they're 1000 gallon
9:31
propane tanks, most of them, my favorite one is from 1967.
9:38
So the older the propane tank, just like everything else, they
9:42
use better materials, thicker gauge of metal, so more
9:46
insulation, cooks more evenly. But we have six of those there,
9:52
plus another pit and then a hog pit for direct heat cooking.
9:56
So about 8 pits out there. And and because you're busy,
10:00
you've you have a line out the door about how many briskets are
10:04
you cooking daily? Usually 90 to 100 on the low end
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and then 120 is like the Max you know you can.
10:13
You can cook more, but like there's a threshold for quality
10:16
and consistency, like and you know how many people can manage
10:20
so many pits based off of their shift.
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So you really got to be able to balance that out.
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Like you can't just load them all up and just pray for the
10:30
best thing to happen and everybody to show up.
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Like, yeah, there still might be a line out the door, There still
10:36
might be customers when we close, but do we want to keep
10:41
those customers with a less quality product or do we just
10:45
want them to come back the next day?
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Well, how many, how many people get served out of a brisket?
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Like if we were doing like brisket one O 1, what's the
10:52
average number like? Is there a range?
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I would say maybe 5 to 6. Six would probably be stretching
10:59
it like comfortably. Feed 6 people with a whole
11:01
brisket, yeah. On the on, on the size that I
11:05
like to coke, I would say yeah. I know there's a lot of hot
11:09
takes when it comes to to barbecue.
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So I had Ali on from the barbecue and I put up a little
11:16
social clip about, you know, she's she's hot and fast the way
11:19
that she cooks her barbecue and fuck, everyone in the comments
11:22
was getting upset with she's wrong.
11:24
She doesn't know what she's talking about, which I'm like,
11:26
why? She probably does know what
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she's talking about. She's fucking good at what she
11:30
does, but a lot of people are really upset about the way that
11:33
she cooks. And I didn't realize.
11:34
I mean like everything. Strong opinions and sharpening.
11:37
Everything, I think barbecues, it's the worst, though, is it?
11:40
It's like everybody's a professional.
11:42
Yeah. Everybody has their, their
11:44
what's right and what's wrong. And it's, it's in every corner
11:48
of Texas, every, every Reddit thread, every YouTube video,
11:52
every Instagram posts, everybody's critiquing you and.
11:55
And then people will say, well, even if it is good, it's Austin
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BBQ, it's not real. There's always something, yeah.
12:02
It's good for Austin or you know, whatever they're going to
12:04
say, but so her take is hot and fast.
12:09
She goes in and she cooks it about half the time.
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I want to say she said 6. Hours or 7 hours I.
12:13
Think yeah, What is your approach to barbecue brisket?
12:19
So it's always been different and it's always changed
12:22
throughout the years. I think the same way that Ally's
12:24
has changed a lot of us. I think there's not a lot a few
12:30
of us look at like the next thing, the next thing, the next
12:33
thing, like trying to make things better.
12:35
There's, there's always a there's there's if you, if you
12:39
look at it and you're like, this is the best.
12:41
There's always going to be somebody that either does it as
12:44
good as you or they'll end up doing it better than you.
12:47
So I think it's important to always look forward for like
12:51
better solutions, better answers, whatever.
12:53
And I always tell people that BBQ that I cooked six years ago
12:57
is not the same as it is today. And I hope I guarantee you it
13:00
won't be the same six years from now because I always think that
13:04
there's a better way. And my wife always tells me
13:06
she's just like, because I get upset about, well, this could
13:10
have came out. She's like, you can't cry over
13:12
spilt milk. I'm like, yeah, but I could have
13:15
done it this way and it would. I know the results now.
13:17
Yeah. What?
13:19
What were you doing six years ago that's completely different
13:22
than what you're doing right now?
13:25
Because I think a lot of people could learn from that.
13:26
I think a lot of times we we, we get on YouTube and then we watch
13:30
an old video from 10 years ago and then we get stuck with it
13:33
and then we don't refresh our knowledge for years.
13:35
You get stuck and you get fixated on one thing.
13:39
And I think to the point where you brought up Ally, I wish I
13:45
would have known that there's, there's not, there's a, there's
13:48
a, there's a process of, of BBQ, there's a process of all
13:52
cooking, but there are structures and mechanics that
13:55
apply in so many different ways that you cannot even understand
14:00
until you do it thousands of times.
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So I wish I would have known. I mean, there's times where I
14:07
thought that a brisket had to take 12 hours to cook.
14:12
We don't know if that brisket is £25 or if it's 12 lbs, they're
14:15
not going to cook at the same time.
14:17
But I thought in my head like brisket needs to take at least
14:19
12 hours and I would panic when I would have these 44 farm
14:23
briskets that were nice. They were like kind of pre pre
14:27
trimmed a little bit. But they were good shape, size,
14:29
very small, cook more efficient and they'd be done in 8-9 hours
14:34
with the same process I would use on a regular like a larger
14:39
size brisket. Let's say those were probably 10
14:44
to 12 lbs, maybe Max. Something else would take, you
14:48
know, 1416 hours around, you know, 15 to 20 lbs.
14:54
And I would just get stuck in my head and I'd be like, man, I
14:56
need to slow this down and put the briskets going to be done
15:00
when it's done. And I think the best way that I
15:03
can put it, everybody's kind of trying to like force a cook in
15:07
BBQ, but they don't realize that that cook has to come to you
15:11
like you can't, you can't push it.
15:14
Like you just have to accept it and it's going to do what it
15:16
wants to do. And the environment, the
15:18
weather, the wood, the cow, the beef, it all plays a factor in
15:23
that and you can't force it. It just has to do its thing.
15:27
What are you, what are you looking for specifically when
15:29
you're testing doneness on barbecue?
15:32
And I know a lot of people have a lot of different methods, but,
15:35
you know, I, I, I think about like when I was a chef, I want
15:39
to test the doneness of vegetables, you know, how to
15:42
have a cake tester. And it was like, OK, is there
15:44
any resistance? Yeah, I'm looking for a certain
15:45
feel or, you know, a lot of people test the steak with their
15:48
hands or there's a certain, there's a certain feel that
15:52
things have. And some people go by
15:54
temperature, you know, did it reach, you know, is the, is the
15:58
pork at 155° or 146 Fahrenheit, depending on how they like to
16:03
cook pork? Is there something that you look
16:05
for either texturally or temperature wise when you're
16:09
cooking briskets? All of it.
16:12
I think temperatures like a good guideline, but then if I tell
16:16
you temperature, it would just be around that area because in
16:22
the cold, like if we're cooking today, let's say it drops down
16:25
to like 30 tonight, like you're probably going to pull a
16:27
brisket. It feels done in the high one
16:29
90s in the peak of summer during June, July, it's probably going
16:33
to be two 12215 so. Why is that?
16:38
The exterior environment just plays a huge factor.
16:41
That much? Yeah, that's a lot.
16:43
Then it just was at 20°. Yeah.
16:45
And we're not searching for like a medium rare or medium temp
16:50
internal temperature, like a true, true temperature.
16:54
We're looking for, you know, all the collagens and inter muscular
16:57
fats to be properly broken down. And that's just, that's the
17:01
hardest thing about BBQ. It's it, it goes down to feel
17:04
and there's like a certain resistance that you feel from
17:08
the bottom of the brisket and it feels best way I can put it is
17:11
if you can push your finger through it without resistance,
17:14
it's going to be overcooked. But if you, and if you can't
17:18
push it through, it's undercooked.
17:20
But if you can like give it a little push or you feel like if
17:24
you put some force into it that you can put your finger through
17:27
it, that's kind of where it needs to be at.
17:30
When if you, if you wanted to like give people a basic
17:36
one-on-one for people that have like today I'm going to start
17:38
cooking brisket. Not me, but you know, someone in
17:41
the audience is like today I'm going to start cooking brisket
17:42
and I know nothing. What are the most like?
17:46
Can you walk us through a good universal practice to cook
17:49
brisket from knowing nothing to a reasonably good product at the
17:53
end of it? Honestly, you're staring at a
17:56
fire for hours. Yeah, like people don't realize
18:00
that cooking with fire and not just BBQ, just like grilling,
18:05
like anything cooking with fire, Santa Maria, any type of
18:08
Argentinian hanging grills or anything like that.
18:11
Fire's a major element of the Earth.
18:13
Like, you can't, you can't control it.
18:15
You can manipulate it, but you can't control it.
18:18
And people think that, oh, I got to do it, this temperature, but
18:21
they don't understand that temperatures are just
18:23
guidelines. They're just gauges.
18:25
They're not true ambient temperatures.
18:26
They all woods all combust at different rates, different
18:29
temperatures, they burn hotter, they burn lower.
18:34
You, you can't control it. You can throw it for a loop and
18:38
kind of tell it where to go, but it's going to do what it
18:41
naturally does. And a lot of people think that
18:44
they go through a process they understand a process.
18:46
I can show you a YouTube video of a process of 1000 different
18:49
ways to cook a brisket, but it's never going to apply to how you
18:51
do it at the house. It's a, it's a there's, there's
18:55
more to, there's more of a formula to it.
18:57
And the reason I say stare at a fire for hours, you have to
19:02
understand how fast it breaks down, how it reacts if it's
19:06
hotter on one side, if it's hotter on the other side, you
19:12
have to understand that before you can even jump into it.
19:14
And that's one thing that I wish I learned because that would
19:17
have saved me a lot of money burning up briskets and pulling
19:23
them too early, too late. But like a lot of people don't
19:27
realize that barbecue is more than 90% fire management.
19:34
Really, Yeah, I, I, I guess when I look at it again, I'm not a,
19:39
I'm not an expert in, in this, in this field is why I like
19:42
talking to you guys and, and eating your food.
19:45
But when I look at it, I look at the process like you were
19:47
talking about, it's like, OK, you know, how do we season it?
19:49
How do we trim it? You know what, what's the
19:51
quality of the meat that we're buying?
19:53
Does it, does it make that big of a difference if we're using
19:55
prime versus choice versus, you know, something else?
19:59
To a certain extent. Does it and then like, do we
20:03
wrap it? Do we not wrap it?
20:04
What's the temperature, etcetera.
20:06
And keep in mind, like a lot of people that that might do BBQ.
20:11
I don't know, this might be blasphemy, but a lot of people
20:16
don't have smokers. So they might cook it in a, in
20:19
a, in a smoking rationale with, you know, smoker chips or
20:22
something like that where they can control the, the humidity
20:25
and the, the exact temperature and things like that.
20:32
I think, I think a lot of people just get fixated on BBQ has to
20:35
be a certain way. Like for instance, like I'm, I'm
20:41
talking about fire management, how important that is.
20:44
And then you were talking about Allie and her hot take on
20:48
cooking hot and fast and they're like, oh, that's not right.
20:50
Allie knows the mechanics behind what she's doing so she can
20:54
manipulate a brisket that I cook in 16 hours into six to seven
21:00
hours. She's not going through a
21:01
process. She understands all the
21:04
insurance and outs of what the fire is doing, how the pits
21:07
working, how the briskets reacting, how the mussels in
21:10
the, in the cow or the beef is reacting, how the collagens, you
21:13
know, and until you, you have to understand that aspect of
21:19
cooking, which I wish I knew, like I said we were talking
21:22
about earlier, I wish I knew the stuff I knew this week, last
21:24
week, a year ago, five years ago.
21:28
Until you really understand the mechanics you you, you're going
21:33
to get the same result. Did did you ever have like a
21:35
light bulb moment when you just said fuck, I've been doing it
21:38
wrong? This is way better.
21:39
Yeah. What was that?
21:40
I was cooking in my backyard. I read a lot of BBQ books, one
21:46
in particular that everybody likes, and I just kept on doing
21:52
it the way the books were saying.
21:54
I mean, this was back when YouTube.
21:55
There was nothing on YouTube. Everything was on BBQ was kind
21:57
of hush hush back then in 2012. Thirteen like.
22:00
Fucking 14. It was like the Illuminati.
22:02
Yeah, Everybody wanted to know what they always thought.
22:05
It was like the brisket they were using, the seasoning they
22:08
were using, the pits they were using, but they were.
22:10
Then this stuff came out in books and you go through the
22:14
process of the book and you you get the same results.
22:18
It's not like you had it at their place.
22:21
It's like not even close. And it was like a light bulb
22:24
moment that I realized that they're just guidelines.
22:28
They're not. It's like I told you like I
22:31
could tell you a temperature to pull a Bruce Cadott and that
22:34
might be on that specific day on that specific pit with that
22:37
specific wood, but it's not going to apply to everybody at
22:40
their house. And that was like that light
22:43
bulb moment when I started to realize it was like, oh, now
22:46
this is Tetris. Now this is a game.
22:49
I have to move all the puzzle pieces around to make sure that
22:52
everything fits properly. And there's mechanics to that.
22:56
There's not just a process, if not everything is just going to
22:59
pile up. Interesting.
23:01
Yeah. It's, it's it's fascinating how
23:07
because in the in the culinary world, and I know there's
23:09
different aspects of the culinary world, but it's kind of
23:11
like sauce making. You can make it, but you can
23:15
read the recipe, but you don't really know what you're doing.
23:17
Like you, you're following a recipe, but you know the
23:20
expression recipe has no soul. It's like you, if you make it
23:23
1000 times, you know, it's like, oh, you know what?
23:26
It was too hot. We simmered it too long.
23:29
The bones weren't just right or whatever the case may be, the
23:32
aromats were were not perfect. And you start to you, you start
23:37
to have a connection with the food that if you don't cook, you
23:42
don't understand it. And a lot of times when you're
23:44
cooking for someone, I joke around and I, I tell people like
23:48
when someone asks you what's your special, just like the
23:50
fucking most. And you have a specialty, right,
23:52
It's BBQ ish. But like it's a super annoying
23:56
question for, for chefs when they get asked what's, what's
23:59
your specialty? And I joke around and I say, I
24:02
just say chicken Alfredo because the plugs love chicken Alfredo.
24:06
And then you're going to tell them how to make it and they're
24:08
going to say that's exactly how I make it, like some some this,
24:11
some butter, some parm, some pasta, whatever.
24:14
And then they're going to get upset with you and they're going
24:16
to say that's exactly how I make it.
24:17
How's why's yours so much better?
24:19
You don't do anything different than I do.
24:21
But why is it when you make it and I make it, it's different.
24:24
And it's because, like you said, there's 1000 little things that
24:27
I do that I don't even know that I do that make it taste it.
24:30
That's the way I season it. It's the temperature control of
24:32
the pan. It's how quickly I was heating
24:36
up the cream or emulsifying the butter or whatever the case may
24:39
be. The way I grated the Parmesan.
24:41
Did I do it on the heat or off the heat?
24:43
Did I drizzle it with olive oil? Right.
24:45
It's all these little things that the quality of the cream,
24:48
the quality of the olive oil, how much garlic did I, did I
24:51
slice the garlic? Did I mince it?
24:53
How hot was the garlic when I added a shallot like And I'm
24:57
sure we're taking four or five ingredients with chicken
25:00
Alfredo. It's more than that, though.
25:02
Right. But it it's 1000 little things
25:05
that you don't see and it's that's kind of what you're
25:07
talking. About and I'm glad that we
25:10
talked about this because I had this conversation two weeks ago
25:13
with a guy that I've been working with for a long time and
25:17
it just like it clicked this year.
25:20
Like, I wish I would have paid attention to all the nuances
25:24
that were happening around and, like, gathering, like, you know,
25:28
when the sauce is going to break, like, like that.
25:31
Like you just know and that. But other people don't know.
25:35
You don't pay. Yeah, Yeah, you, you can't.
25:38
I wish I would have paid more attention to all those little
25:40
details along the way. And that's why my wife always
25:42
tells me you can't cry spilt milk.
25:45
And I'm like, but I, I heard it and I saw it and I smelt it.
25:48
I knew it then why didn't I apply it until just now?
25:53
But I wasn't paying attention to all those details.
25:56
And I told him I was like, you want to get better faster?
25:59
I was like, you don't listen to music while you're cooking and
26:03
you have to be focused on everything, all type senses,
26:08
everything. Yeah, maybe the 6th, right the
26:10
the force. You don't realize how much you
26:12
absorb just by osmosis, just by going through those motions
26:16
hundreds and thousands of times. And I think that people don't
26:22
pay attention to how things react.
26:24
I didn't. And gather that data and log it
26:27
in the back of their head or log it in a notebook and be like,
26:29
hey, this, this, this, this. And pay attention to those
26:33
things that make it better. Like, yeah, Alfredo is very
26:35
simple, but there's one guy that probably cooks it really,
26:40
really, really good. Yeah, with the same five
26:42
ingredients, right. So it's funny, yesterday I was
26:44
making, it's simple, but it's it's, it's relevant.
26:47
I was making macaroni and cheese at home yesterday and it was, it
26:53
was pretty much done and I, I could have turned off the
26:56
burner, but I didn't. So I left the burner on and
26:59
while, while it was still staying warm and it was, it was
27:01
very low. I was like, I'm going to throw
27:03
away the trash and I'm going to wash some dishes and I'm going
27:06
to I'm going to do a little. That always takes 30 seconds.
27:08
That ends up at 5 minutes or. Right, so I'm like, I'm going to
27:10
do these little things while the macaroni is gone.
27:13
So anyway, I'm, I opened up the garage door and I'm throwing
27:16
away the trash and I smell scorched cheese.
27:19
You know, if you've scorched the pot, you know exactly what that
27:22
smell is like. And I smell it.
27:24
And I said, shit, I left, I left it on like just above the pilot
27:30
light and it I fucking scorched my Mac and cheese.
27:34
And then when I went back into the kitchen, I turned it off and
27:37
I started and it wasn't scorched and I couldn't smell it anymore.
27:41
And it was an interesting moment because I realized I was pre
27:44
smelling it before it scorched because it was about to scorch
27:47
and my brain was telling. Me like amplified.
27:50
Yeah, like you're about to scorch it.
27:52
You need to go. You need to go back.
27:53
And it hadn't even scorched yet, but it was right there.
27:56
But I could smell it strong. Like if it was about to scorch,
27:58
I was like, this is like fucking super 6th.
28:01
Sense. Super 6th sense, right?
28:02
Yeah. And I'm sure you have the same
28:04
thing. When you're cooking brisket like
28:05
you, you know it's going to burn before it burns.
28:07
Now, one thing that I've noticed, there's only two other
28:10
people that I've ever heard say this.
28:13
When the brisket is done, it only happens in butcher paper.
28:16
When they're done, done the room, that room specifically,
28:21
you can smell it amplified. But even outside it smells like
28:24
dark chocolate, like it goes from just like smoke and and fat
28:29
like rendering. You can smell that it smells
28:30
like barbecue and then it goes to like a sweet, very bitter,
28:35
dark chocolate smell and. And you smell.
28:38
That every time you go in there and you feel me like.
28:42
Now is that is that just a you and your team thing or is this
28:44
other other people that to? To other people.
28:47
Not on your team, no. Interesting.
28:49
Do you think you have like a like a superpower with, you
28:52
know, your olfactory senses? I don't think so.
28:56
I think I do, by the way. Yeah, yeah, I do.
28:59
I didn't know this, and people that are listening can Fact
29:01
Check me in the comments, but I can smell ants and I didn't know
29:06
this. I didn't know this until
29:08
recently, but I didn't know people couldn't smell ants.
29:12
It's a thing. Let me know you could smell.
29:13
Ants. I could smell ants.
29:14
Yeah, I could smell them. Like if they're in the room I'll
29:16
fucking smell ants. From a mile away, I'm just like.
29:18
Miles away, but like, you know, if they were if they were
29:20
crawling on the table, I could be is there ants on the table?
29:22
I could smell them and I could smell a lot of things like that.
29:25
Like I have very good olfactory sense.
29:28
It's like a fucking truffle dog. It's.
29:29
Like more Avengers though. Than it is, it's like, like I
29:32
said, it's like my superpower. Like it's, it's a kind of a lame
29:35
superpower, but it's great for a chef.
29:36
It's for a chef, it's pretty good.
29:38
But I could smell things, like, right away.
29:40
Sometimes I could smell things and I could be like, what's in
29:42
it? I used to be able to like, smell
29:45
and be like, I need salt. Yeah.
29:47
Like, how do you know? It's like, I don't know.
29:48
I I think I could. I know you can't, but I think I
29:51
can. It's like you can already taste
29:53
it before you. Right, Yeah, right.
29:55
Like how do you know I need salt?
29:56
I just know if I can trust me, I need salt.
29:58
I can't, I can't, can't validate this through science.
30:00
So someone will Fact Check me clearly in the comments.
30:03
But I I certainly could smell ants.
30:05
And I want to say I did a little research on this at one point.
30:08
It's like a. Like there's going to be a term
30:10
for. That yeah, it's like a like a,
30:12
it's a special gene that I have, like people that can fold their
30:14
tongue into a Taco or something. That's pretty cool.
30:17
It's something new every day. Speaking of what you do, you had
30:24
said something to me when when I was out seeing you in Houston.
30:28
And by the way, your carrot cake's great.
30:30
Oh, the carrot cake. Yeah, that's my favorite.
30:32
It's fucking delicious. Yeah, you said you got to get
30:35
some of those. It's really good.
30:36
And then when I got home and I fucking ate it, I was like, holy
30:38
shit's best carrot. Cake I've ever had makes you
30:40
feel better. There's vegetables in there so
30:42
you don't feel bad after eating 12 lbs of meat when you go.
30:44
It's slurps. It's so good.
30:47
But you said that we were talking about the wood that you
30:50
were using, using postal correct.
30:52
And you said that there is a chance that we might run out of
30:55
wood because everyone's using it.
30:58
And I wasn't sure if you were serious, if that was a joke or
31:00
is that a is that a real concern?
31:02
That's a concern, especially now more than two years ago, five
31:05
years ago, like there's only a handful of us using that guy's
31:09
wood out of Smithville and it's a crazy operation.
31:13
We took one of my buddies who's doing TV show.
31:16
We did a shoot out there and he was like, I was like, I want to
31:18
take you to, to the source. Like if you want to do a brisket
31:20
cook, let's go to the source and look at that.
31:22
And he was like, he's been, he's I think 1520 years older than
31:27
me. I mean, he's been around, he's
31:28
been doing BBQ long, way longer than I have.
31:32
And even he got out there and he was like, man, this is an
31:33
operation and it's, it's wild. It's kind of normal now that I
31:37
see it. But if I take you out there,
31:40
they just have, I think they have 50 plus acres and there's
31:43
just piles of wood neatly stacked and you can go through
31:48
and you can look at the wood, you can see the age on it.
31:51
You can see the color and you can actually go and tap it and
31:53
you can see like you can feel the age of like how much
31:57
moisture is in there throughout the course of it.
31:59
It's kind of cool. You can kind of see the
32:00
variations of it. And everybody thinks that, you
32:05
know, firewood is just, you can kind of get it wherever, but
32:09
they don't realize that. I mean, I have people that come
32:11
to the restaurant all the time. They're like, I have, you know,
32:14
10 oak trees dead on my property and my ranch.
32:18
Do you need some firewood? I'm like, yeah, I need firewood
32:20
all day long. I was like, but don't really
32:21
want your dead tree. It's still got a ton of moisture
32:24
in it. Even if it's been sitting there
32:25
for five to 10 years. It has to be split and stacked
32:29
for 12 to 14 months. So for them to stay, I don't
32:33
even know how they do it. I mean, they have, I mean, these
32:38
piles have to be at least 30 feet high, 40 feet high.
32:44
They're long. They're just stacked out there.
32:46
But like to to stay 12 to 14 months ahead with the trajectory
32:51
of where BBQ is going now and basically balancing out like let
32:57
me make more money or let me keep this curing process proper.
33:04
I think that that's harder than BBQ.
33:07
Like there's a lot of work that. Goes and everyone uses the same
33:11
the same wood here in Texas. Yeah, for the most part, like
33:15
post oak is basically the standard for Central Texas style
33:20
BBQ because it's very mild. Yeah.
33:22
But but not only that, but like when I was still active as a
33:26
chef and we had wood burning grill, like what are we going to
33:29
use post oak? It's like, well, that's what
33:31
that's what the best guys in BBQ use.
33:33
That's what we should use. So there's a lot of chefs out
33:36
there that are just using post oak for their wood burning
33:39
grills and for their restaurants or for whatever, right?
33:43
Just for for decoration. And it's, I guess it is a
33:48
concern if there's not enough wood to go around.
33:52
Yeah. But I would imagine that there's
33:55
a lot of people that don't know that they're using wood that
33:58
hasn't been fully cured. Yeah, they wouldn't know.
34:02
It'll spit back at you. Yeah, Yeah, it's a little
34:05
aggressive, like well. I mean not not in the BBQ
34:07
community. I mean like in the like the the
34:09
local restaurant that has a wood burning grill.
34:11
They're just throwing it. No, they just throw it on and
34:13
they just add it on. Add it on.
34:15
That's why I say again, you got to steer a fire for you don't
34:19
notice all the things. It starts to bubble in the
34:22
outside around the bark. It starts to spit some moisture
34:25
out. If it starts to smolder out too
34:27
fast, the logs turn black because they're not igniting
34:29
properly. I mean, there's so many
34:32
different things that you can tell from the density of the
34:34
wood. If you're going to get 5/10/15
34:37
degrees, you can drop it on the ground.
34:38
You can hear it if it's where it needs to be.
34:41
It's fascinating, Like you're, you could look at a fire and it
34:44
tells you a fucking story. Yeah.
34:47
Yeah. Or I could look at it like it's
34:48
hot. Yeah.
34:50
Yeah. Well, that's interesting.
34:52
Do you get like, do you have moments of like Zen clarity when
34:57
you're when you're working the fire?
34:58
Yeah. Yeah, I love cooking overnight.
35:02
That's the reason I got into BBQ with crippling social anxiety.
35:06
I don't want, I don't like to be in crowds.
35:07
I don't like to be speaking on stage or anything like that and
35:12
I splits upside down. I have to do some of that stuff.
35:16
But I would love to barbecue because I could just be by
35:18
myself, be quiet. And it was just, that's all that
35:23
I could focus on that's got fixated.
35:25
You fire meat, what do you do? Because I know mental health is
35:30
a huge important topic right now, especially in the in the
35:34
restaurant food and beverage culinary world.
35:37
What do you do for yourself to take care of your own mental
35:41
health? If I'm not cooking BBQ, I, I
35:46
like BBQ because I feel like it's a like, it's a journey.
35:49
Like if we start it, I don't like to start a cook and then
35:52
not finish it. I mean, it's, it's a long, we're
35:55
talking 1416 hours. It's an investment and you know
35:59
that you can't leave and all your attention is like right
36:02
there. I, I love doing that.
36:04
And what I love about BBQ is the woods different everyday, the
36:09
weather is different everyday, cows are different everyday.
36:12
All these factors are playing like it's it's a science
36:15
project. Every time that you start the
36:17
pit again, start a new fire, it's completely different.
36:20
It's not like turning on the stove.
36:21
It's not like turning on the oven.
36:24
You it's, it's a, it's a game at this point and I'm still
36:28
chasing, I'm still chasing the perfect cook, but I don't think
36:34
the perfect you got to be OK with understanding that that
36:36
perfect cook doesn't exist. What's the closest you've ever
36:39
gotten to a perfect cook? Do you?
36:41
Do you have it in memory? I have a couple pictures it, but
36:46
even that I'm like this could have been this, this, this, and
36:50
it's just I mean, perfect cook is every brisket, every slice
36:54
being perfect. And I mean, that's like all the
36:57
stars line and that's like the ranchers raising the cows and
37:00
feeding them to, you know, finish them on cornet all the
37:03
exact same dates at the same weight and like, you know, being
37:07
processed at the right time so that the way the meat is
37:10
perfect, not all brisket is going to be the same.
37:14
Do you do anything for your team in terms of mental health to
37:21
allow them to be successful when they work for you?
37:27
I try to try to educate them on, you know, the guys that are
37:33
cooking that the way that I turn that into it's more of a game.
37:40
It's more of a mind state than it is work.
37:42
And if you start to think of it like that, it's a little bit
37:45
more peaceful than I just got to get this job done to get my
37:48
check cash. If you reprogram it, it's it
37:53
becomes more fun and then you're just getting paid to do work
37:58
that you enjoy. And I think it's very important
38:01
to focus on mental health. I could be a mental health day.
38:05
I get, I get it. Because nobody's going to be
38:08
like all cooks cook with their emotions.
38:10
And if you're not in a good headspace, it's it's just not
38:12
going to come out good. You've cooked Alfredo in a bad
38:14
mood. In a good mood, which one comes
38:16
out better? Right, Right.
38:18
Yeah. Happy cooks make good food.
38:19
Yeah, as they say. Yeah.
38:21
Yeah, you got to get them in the right mind state.
38:24
You know, I always encourage them to talk about mental health
38:29
because they don't think that people like us have the same
38:33
issues that they do. We just don't show it because we
38:38
have to be there for them. But we still have the same
38:42
things and and you got to educate them at.
38:45
Every level on the way up, that's what they don't get.
38:48
And I think a lot of people don't understand, like they look
38:49
at the sous chef for, you know, the head chef, you're the owner
38:53
or the level of stress exists the other way up and and the
38:58
doubt and the uncertainty and the little voice in your head
39:00
saying today I don't feel like doing this.
39:02
Yeah. Yeah, and we'll push him.
39:05
You know, Chris Shepherd, he's a close friend of mine.
39:08
He started Southern Smoke Foundation, which is centered
39:11
around mental health, free mental health.
39:13
You know, we try to push the employees to encourage them to,
39:17
you know, if you need therapy, if you never considered therapy,
39:21
they got a program get you in there and then, you know, all
39:25
that stuff. Do you do anything outside of
39:30
cooking? Do restaurant work for your own
39:33
mental? Health.
39:33
I mean, I have to force myself. Like one of the things my wife
39:38
never wanted me to get a motorcycle.
39:40
Yeah. What kind do you have?
39:42
I went I'm like a nerd for things like if I start things,
39:46
it has to be like it has to be a certain way.
39:48
And I always I loved BMW motorcycles, but I didn't like
39:54
new ones like old ones. So rebuilt A1988-R-100.
40:03
I wanted to understand the insurance and outs of how the
40:06
machine worked. Had no idea how to work clutch,
40:08
no anything like that. And then now my wife will be
40:11
like you need to go on a ride. But before she would be like,
40:14
no, you're it's too dangerous. But she knows that after I've
40:18
talked about it with her. That's the only time that I
40:22
cannot look at my phone. It forces me to turn off.
40:25
And the only thing I can focus on is the road and the gears.
40:29
Like I like to be able to feel, I don't know, the RPMS and feel
40:34
when you need to shift work in the clutch and all the all that
40:37
stuff. It's kind of like a Zen, like
40:39
everything has to be aligned. Gas brakes, clutch, everything.
40:43
Yeah. Anything else that you've been
40:46
doing lately? Guitar about a month ago.
40:50
Yeah. Never had an interest in it.
40:52
And I think one of the things like we talked about earlier
40:56
this year, I just realized like my wife thinks I get obsessed
41:01
with things, but now she realizes that I just want to
41:06
understand how they work. And it's like, once you
41:10
understand that there's like a theory or mechanics behind
41:13
something, you're just waiting to get to that point.
41:17
And you, I get, you know, I just get fixated on it to where I can
41:23
see it. I just need to speed this up a
41:26
little bit. I will, I, I, I think since I
41:32
picked it up it's been like 3 hours a night where she's like
41:36
it's time to go to bed or hey, can we?
41:38
3 hours a night, That's a lot of guitar.
41:40
Yeah, I just, I don't know if there's something about it.
41:43
Like I think it's the same thing like motorcycle, like you can
41:46
feel the vibrations of this, the string, you can hear the when a
41:50
note is wrong, right? And it kind of just clicks and
41:54
you're like, oh, this needs to speed up a little bit faster.
41:56
Yeah, my dad was a is a musician.
41:59
He loves, he loves to play the guitar.
42:01
So listening to the guitar is therapeutic for me.
42:04
Like I just, I don't like to play it.
42:05
I don't know how to play but I I like to listen to it.
42:08
And there's something about like I've noticed, like your, your
42:13
hands don't work. They just don't work, especially
42:16
if you're right or left-handed and then you're trying to use
42:18
your left hand and then you understand that you need to step
42:21
away and you come back the next day and all of a sudden your
42:23
pinky is working. You're like how it's like
42:25
thinking about it. It's already doing it before
42:27
you're thinking it. It's like when you're talking
42:29
about smelling the sauce and you just develop those muscle
42:32
memories and it's kind of mind blowing.
42:35
And I wish I just would have picked up on those things a lot
42:38
earlier on life and appreciated them more because I think would
42:43
have got me to places faster. Or maybe I just needed to learn
42:47
the lesson along the way. But I guess I do it.
42:51
I get obsessed about those things.
42:52
It's interesting because anyone that does anything at a very
42:55
high level, they often talk about that flow state.
42:57
Like it's almost like I don't know how I'm doing it.
43:00
I'm just doing it. And I'm upset.
43:01
I mean, I wish I would have picked up guitar instead of
43:05
barbecue, and maybe I could have sounded like John Mayer.
43:07
Yeah, right. She's gotten fixated on that.
43:14
Michelin Guide coming here and especially because with Michelin
43:22
in Texas specifically looking at BBQ restaurants and there's a
43:26
lot of hot takes and that comes with a lot of pressure.
43:28
Especially being the first group of chefs that are being
43:31
recognized by by by the Michelin Guide.
43:34
Do you feel any sense of pressure that comes with that?
43:37
Any added pressure that wasn't there previously?
43:40
I think if there's any Lister accolade, I've always been and I
43:48
think from the beginning I I wanted to get into Texas Monthly
43:54
top ten. Like that was my first thing
43:56
that I wanted to do. Where you at right now in the
43:58
Texas Monthly? Been on it for three lists.
44:00
It's every four years. We went from 2:50 to 9:00.
44:04
I think we're the only people that restaurant that's been on
44:07
there for three. Nice.
44:08
Congrats 2:50 to 93. All over the place, but my my
44:16
mindset has always been if I'm not going to get that, then I'm
44:21
just done. I talked about just closing the
44:24
doors that that didn't happen like that was my goal and that's
44:28
always been my mindset for like every award or accolade.
44:33
And it's kind of hard because you get it and then you want the
44:37
next thing. So it's there and then you
44:41
realize it's great, like the accolades are great, but then it
44:46
kind of sucks because all it's doing is checking a box along
44:50
the way to solidify what you've done.
44:53
And then you not lose the appreciation for it.
44:57
But it's not like, you know, it's not like the feeling like
45:01
you have that feeling for just a certain moment.
45:04
I told the same guy that two weeks ago.
45:10
I was like, I could tell that there was something unique about
45:15
him. I was like, because you, I was
45:18
like, you always wear, you know, your emotions.
45:23
Like if you have a bad cook, it sticks with you for a day, 2
45:27
days. I was like, I do the same thing.
45:30
Like I'm just focused on it. I was like, I can remember every
45:33
accolade that I've gotten, but I can't remember the feel the time
45:38
where I'm like, I know where I was at, but I don't know that
45:40
like that exact moment. You know what I mean?
45:43
Every time that I've messed a cook up or anything like that, I
45:47
know the smell of the time. It's always like stuck with me.
45:54
And I think it's like probably gift and a curse because then
45:57
you become obsessive because you're like, I got this, but I I
46:01
could have done this and I know that I could have done it, so
46:05
why didn't I do it? So then it's always the next
46:08
thing. So I think the pressure is
46:10
always there and you always want, I mean, it's like every
46:14
Michelin star, you, you have a bib, you want to start, you have
46:16
a star, you want two stars, you have two stars, you want three
46:18
stars. Right.
46:20
I, I think about when I was a chef, Obviously like a lot of
46:24
people, I, I, I had awards that I'm proud of, but the first few
46:30
meant more than like the next 20.
46:33
No, yeah. I couldn't remember the, I can
46:36
remember like, OK, the first one I ever got like, oh man, I was
46:39
on cloud 9. Maybe one that was really
46:41
important. Like we got four stars from the
46:43
Dallas Morning News. That was really important.
46:45
A couple of them between that I don't remember.
46:48
I got, you know, best restaurant in Dallas or whatever.
46:51
And then I don't remember anything after that.
46:53
And there has been some, but they're not as they it was more
46:58
of Ike's. I hate to say it because this is
47:01
going to sound really shitty, but after a certain point you
47:03
just kind of expect it. Like I should be in the top ten.
47:05
I should be on on the list of best whatever.
47:09
Now looking back at, I wish I appreciated that moment, like
47:12
the first one, you always remember it.
47:13
Like I, I really, really appreciate it.
47:17
But I appreciate it even more and wish I, I still wish I
47:22
appreciate it more than because like this stuff in the middle,
47:27
you don't really remember, but that one you always sticks with
47:29
you. And then the rest are kind of
47:31
the rest are kind of like check the box, like they're expected.
47:34
Yeah, that's it. That's the hard part about.
47:39
Yeah. You're expected to be in the top
47:41
ten or the top 20 or or or you're expected to make the
47:44
list. And what's funny about that is
47:47
everyone else also expects you to to be in in the list.
47:51
And it and it gets, it becomes a talking point when you're not,
47:56
you know, and and. You don't ever want to not be in
48:00
those conversations. You don't want to be not in the
48:03
conversation when you're supposed to be.
48:04
What else thinks you should be? It's a, it's a little bit of an
48:07
uncomfortable situation for a lot of chefs and restaurants
48:12
that go through that. Yeah, it's, it's wild Awards.
48:15
Awards are interesting. And I was at dinner with a group
48:19
of chefs and all of them had awards at the table, you know,
48:22
James Beard or a food and wine, best new or whatever, right?
48:25
They all, they all had something to be very proud of.
48:27
And we went around to like what? What?
48:29
You know, I don't know how that came up.
48:30
Like, what's the word that you're most proud of?
48:33
The most memorable? And you know, it was the food
48:35
and wine that was the James Beard.
48:37
It was the Michelin or whatever. And then someone finally said it
48:40
was the busy fucking restaurant award, like the one that had the
48:45
line out the door and we were making money.
48:47
That's the award that that matters.
48:49
And I was talking to someone the other day about this and
48:54
consulting with a restaurant and I, I said, look, you can get
48:58
into the eaters best top 20 or whatever, or you could get the
49:02
$1,000,000. Like which, which one do you
49:04
want? Do you want, Do you want the,
49:05
hey, we're going to be a really small restaurant so we can get,
49:07
you know, the top 20 or do we want, or you can keep that.
49:10
I'll take the, I got a lot of money and my restaurants fucking
49:13
busy. And I'm not worried about the
49:14
bills award. That one also means something
49:18
and I don't think that's often discussed enough because I do
49:20
give a lot of credit to those restaurants that are fucking
49:24
busy and they make money and their their employees are paid
49:26
and maybe they're not on the list.
49:29
There's a lot of those. There's a lot of those, yeah.
49:31
Successful restaurant. A lot of people don't.
49:33
Realize that awards don't pay bills.
49:35
Yeah. It's hard.
49:37
Did you see a a bump with the Michelin recognition?
49:41
Because you guys are pretty busy all the time, right?
49:45
I don't. I don't know.
49:46
I don't know, it didn't, it didn't seem as crazy as I
49:50
thought. I don't, I don't know.
49:54
I don't know if a lot of people in Texas understand Michelin or
49:59
the expectations were just there already.
50:02
I probably, we probably did see a bump.
50:04
I mean, there's a lot of positive momentum in Houston,
50:06
Austin, Dallas, San Antonio afterwards.
50:10
But it's made such a build up like, oh, Michelin's coming and
50:13
then it's here and then it's gone.
50:15
It's like, oh, man, like another thing.
50:18
It's like that moment is like the build up to, you know, are
50:22
we going to get the e-mail from Michelin?
50:23
Are we going to get, you know, we got the e-mail, What are we
50:25
going to get for the award? And then then it's over.
50:28
It's like Christmas, like after you open your gifts, it's like
50:32
it's such a build up for Christmas, like the entire
50:34
month, you know, you put up the lights, you put up the tree, you
50:36
wrap the presents, you unwrap the presents, that it's done.
50:39
I just wish we could stay in that moment of that, I don't
50:43
know, that curious moment. Yeah, for a little bit longer.
50:47
Dealing with everything that you have to deal with in terms of
50:49
restaurants, pressure, fire, how do you take care of your own
50:55
health and your own mental health?
50:57
That's tough therapy. Yeah.
50:59
A lot, yeah. Physical therapy.
51:02
Mental therapy. Gym and regular therapy, Yeah,
51:08
nice lady listens. Yeah, it's important.
51:14
Yeah, it's hard. You know, like you get on, you
51:16
get list accolades, you do a podcast, the expectations are
51:20
there and you kind of especially after Michelin, you don't want
51:25
to lose any awards. And so you're after that you got
51:27
to realize and the staff has to realize that you're playing
51:29
defense as soon as you open up the doors.
51:32
The expectation, expectation is there.
51:35
And I had to cope and understand, which I'm still
51:40
working with, of understanding. Not everybody's going to not be
51:45
satisfied the way that I am and their expectations aren't going
51:49
to be the same as mine. But the staff has to respect it
51:53
and understand it. So it's a balance.
51:56
I have to understand that they're not going to understand
51:58
me and vice versa. That's hard, especially when you
52:03
are on defense all the time. You just expect them to be
52:06
putting out the best work all the time.
52:08
That way that if they were opening their restaurant and
52:13
then you got more employees, you get different emotions.
52:17
You get to, you know, you're, you're the, you got to be the
52:20
rock behind them. It's a lot of pressure on top of
52:22
that stuff and more so being able to separate work from home,
52:32
you know? How do you do that?
52:34
It's hard. You know your your phone's going
52:38
off. You always get reviews you don't
52:40
know. I I never even check if it's
52:41
five stars. I don't even, I don't, I don't
52:43
even read them. You know what?
52:44
I read the 1-2 star reviews and I'm like God I'm like we we
52:49
definitely could have avoided this.
52:53
And having certain cut off times when you get home not to talk
52:56
about work. I, I can relate, you know, the
52:58
podcast gets rated five stars. Some people argue it should be a
53:01
six star podcast. I've written the CEO of Spotify
53:03
so they can make an exception for us.
53:06
But yeah, I, I, I understand you want to perform at a high level.
53:11
And when you're reading the the reviews, the five star ones,
53:16
like you said, you're kind of expected to go right.
53:20
What went wrong? And sometimes there's some gold
53:23
in that, in that negative feedback.
53:26
You don't always want to hear it, but sometimes it's like,
53:28
fuck, I didn't want to hear that.
53:29
But maybe they're. Think you need it?
53:30
Yeah, it might be true. Yeah.
53:33
What do you do for your health? Physical health?
53:36
Jim yeah, usually try to go your runner.
53:39
Exhaust, lift, exhaust myself in the mornings.
53:42
Yeah, clear, Clear my head. You ever try like meditation or
53:46
anything like? That No, everybody said yoga
53:49
meditation. Yeah, I probably need to try
53:51
that. I'd probably be good.
53:53
Yeah, I mean, I like, I like the gym, I like meditation.
53:55
I do both, but I also eat way too much.
53:58
Yeah, I think that's why I go to the gym, so I can justify
54:02
eating. Yeah, if I could eat a big pot
54:04
of Mac and cheese last night. That's just for yourself.
54:07
It was just for me. No, I, it's, it's tough, you
54:13
know, you got to be able to, and I didn't realize either.
54:17
Like you can't perform at a high level all the time.
54:20
You're just not like you can go to the end And I can do like
54:22
physical labor, you know, 16-18 hours and I'll be fine.
54:25
The mental stuff like computer communication, talking 4 hours
54:31
that I'm like taxed. But you can't physically do
54:35
everything. You can't be at the, you know,
54:38
firing on all cylinders all the time.
54:39
You have to realize that you have to stop it, refresh,
54:43
recover. Just like your body, like your
54:45
mental state has to do the same thing.
54:47
You got to, you got to be able to recover.
54:51
Normally when we get close to, to wrapping up the show, I have
54:53
like my standard questions, but I'm, I'm going to change them up
54:58
a little bit for you because I'm, I'm very curious if you had
55:02
a bucket list person that you'd want to cook for you, who, who
55:08
would it be? Living or dead chef out there or
55:11
restaurant out there? Probably Francis Mullman.
55:15
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
55:17
It it's like, I don't know, he looks so cool when he does it
55:24
and it, but the way that he talks about it, he's like, and
55:28
I've cooked with him at events before and just watching and
55:30
just like the way he looks at stuff and like it's like a
55:33
philosopher. The way that he looks and talks
55:35
about food, the way that it's reacting.
55:38
It's like he's telling a story each and every step of the way.
55:42
And it's like an, it's almost like an event when he's cooking
55:46
for the most part. And I've always thought it was
55:49
it would be the coolest thing, you know, like on his videos
55:53
being Patagonia or wherever, he's just out in the wilderness
55:58
cooking and stuff like that. And just like, experience the
56:01
experiencing the environment and like just using the stuff around
56:06
you to make something so simple, so beautiful.
56:11
Yeah. It's interesting, you know, you
56:13
talk about Francis Baumann being a, you know, philosopher, which
56:16
I would agree with you on that. I've noticed that most
56:21
successful chefs or people in this industry are just
56:25
successful people in general, typically operate as the
56:28
exception to the rule and think different from everyone else.
56:33
That's something that I would say about you also because you
56:37
have a background in biology and so we were talking about this
56:42
before we started recording, that you have discovered
56:47
recently that you think a little bit different from everyone
56:49
else. You don't think like the rat,
56:53
like the the typical chef, so to speak.
56:56
I don't know if I, I, I think it might just be I, I, I look at
57:01
things and I just, I get curious and I get fixated.
57:05
And after I get curious, I get fixated on it because I'm like,
57:08
I need to know how that works. And I get distracted very easily
57:12
on stuff like I'll I, I all the way down to like if I'm sitting
57:16
at a dinner table, my wife is like, why aren't you paying
57:18
attention to me? I'm like, I'm listening to the
57:19
conversation next to us. I'm watching the bartender and
57:21
I'm also watching the waiter to see and I'm like looking at
57:24
everything around me and I'm like, how's this working out
57:28
right now? Like trying to figure everything
57:30
out. Interesting, interesting.
57:33
I, I, I was thinking about this the other day because it's
57:35
something I noticed about myself.
57:37
From the moment that I wake up to the moment I go to bed, I'm
57:41
either learning something or doing something.
57:43
Then there's no in between. I'm either learning how to, you
57:47
know, I wake up, I start reading because I want to learn about
57:49
this. I go to bed and I'm reading or
57:53
watching a how to and in between I'm putting into practice those
57:58
things that I've been learning throughout the day.
58:00
And it is from the moment I wake up, literally to the moment I go
58:02
to bed out. I'm either working on something
58:05
or I'm learning or yeah, it's it's wild.
58:09
And I think that's normal to me, but I'm starting to realize it's
58:11
not. How long did how long ago did
58:15
you realize that? I realized this just like 2 days
58:17
ago. Yeah, I think I realized that
58:20
today I do watch a lot of how to videos and stuff too.
58:22
And I was actually watching one last night with John Mayer and
58:27
he was talking about sobriety and he was like 3 years.
58:31
I don't know how old the video is, but he said three years ago
58:33
he was like he was talking about Stevie Ray Vaughan and and his
58:38
sobriety and how he wanted to be able to feel everything, hear
58:42
everything and be in tune with everything.
58:44
And the only way that he could do that was if he was at 100% in
58:47
John Mayer basically said, do you want to function at 100%?
58:54
Or do you want to function at 60 and sacrifice 40 for a good
58:58
time? And he was like, it's OK if you
59:00
want to do 6040. He was like, I'm just telling
59:02
you that I want to be at 100% at all times.
59:06
And I've never even thought about, you know, I don't have
59:12
any addiction, like addictions or issues with alcohol or
59:14
anything like that. But like to think of like
59:18
something like that holding you back is kind of, I don't know,
59:24
it's kind of, I don't know, mind blowing like to think that you
59:30
could be missing out on 40% because of that kind of opened
59:35
your mind of like, oh man, I haven't been working at 100% the
59:38
entire time. The sacrifice for what?
59:42
A night out, whatever. I thought that was pretty
59:45
fascinating. Like that's how in tune he
59:49
wanted to be with his profession.
59:52
Yeah, it's, it's it's super interesting.
59:55
Yeah. I, I realize it might be a
59:56
problem for me. I don't know if I'm going to fix
59:58
it, but I realize it might be a problem.
1:00:01
I'm going to ask you maybe one or two last questions.
1:00:04
If you had a Mount Rushmore of chefs or BBQ makers that should
1:00:11
be on it, Who should be on that Mount Rushmore?
1:00:15
Francis Mallman. I think I forget his name.
1:00:23
He's from Australia. Lennox.
1:00:27
He's on chef's table. He was on the barbecue on his
1:00:32
everything's live fire open kitchen concept, beautiful Wayne
1:00:37
Mueller, Taylor, TX Lily Mueller BBQ.
1:00:41
He's like, he doesn't get enough credit.
1:00:45
He's like Dumbledore of Hogwarts for BBQ.
1:00:51
He's he's just like a wizard. He knows everything.
1:00:56
I would say Aaron Franklin, he's he moved that craft BBQ needle.
1:01:01
You know, I got to say Chris Bianco, the way that he talks
1:01:06
about, I've talked to him about, he looks at fire the same way
1:01:11
that I do. I don't know who else, though,
1:01:19
Chris always stuck with me because he's like, I mean, he's
1:01:22
watching everything. And I think that what he does is
1:01:25
even crazier. You know how the dough reacts,
1:01:29
how long it needs to ferment. It's fascinating.
1:01:31
It's all another science project.
1:01:33
And then how it reacts to fire not meet.
1:01:36
We're talking about a whole different, you know,
1:01:39
composition. It just to see the way that he
1:01:43
looks at is very fascinating for me.
1:01:44
And all these guys look at fire and stuff that way, like very
1:01:47
differently. I just wish I could crack their
1:01:50
heads open for like 5 minutes. Yeah, well where?
1:01:54
Where can people find you on social media and where could
1:01:57
they try your BBQ? Truth Barbecue in Houston, TX
1:02:02
and Brenham, TX Truth Bar at Truth under score barbecue and I
1:02:08
think my personal one is at Leo under score Botello at but Leo
1:02:16
because everybody is like Leonard, Leonard Leon.
1:02:18
I'm like all right, just leave it at Leo.
1:02:20
That'll be easier. Well, I appreciate you coming
1:02:24
on. This is great.
1:02:25
Thank you for all the insight. This is fun.
1:02:29
I had fun, learned something today, Ants.
1:02:31
And how much you absorb watching and reading the things
1:02:36
throughout the day. Yeah, yeah.
1:02:39
Yeah, yeah. Thank you.
1:02:40
Thank you. I hope you enjoyed the show.
1:02:42
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make sure you leave five stars or Apple or anywhere else.
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Nothing less than five stars. It's a five star podcast and I
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