The Meat Mafia Podcast

TMM.JesseGriffiths_2024-11-08
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[00:00:00] Jesse, welcome to me. Mafia podcast. Thank you. It's been a long time coming. We're excited to have you. Great. We were saying beforehand, I do is the top of our list of Austin restaurants, which is no small feat. So excited for this conversation. Thank you. Well, you've got the word meat and the title. So I think that we have a slight edge.

Yeah. Yeah, it was. Yeah. Like you said, it was a long time coming. We, Harry and I were doing some calculations before we were sitting at the kitchen table this morning. Cause we're roommates as well. And we're like, how many times do you think we've been to die? Do a And we've calculated probably somewhere between like 30 to 40 times between the two of us in the last three years So we dude, thank you for creating just such a special place.

Oh, thank you. That's like that's hall of fame numbers right there Fame numbers only to be beaten by our friend matt wagner Like we were telling you about who ordered the the two quad burgers in the porterhouse every time he goes at the bar Yeah, I didn't know the name but his his legacy precedes him.

Yeah, definitely He's talked about often somewhat of an icon. Yeah Uh, it's [00:01:00] amazing, the food scene in Austin, just I feel like you, I don't know if you realize it, but I feel like Dai Dui has just been the tip of the spear for this whole renaissance of, of uh, this style of food that's coming to Austin.

It's pretty incredible. Well, thank you. That's very kind. You know, we're, we're not reinventing anything really. You know, it's, it's very, you know, Much. I like to say it's like the second oldest idea known to mass. It's just taking food from around you and preparing it simply over burning wood. You know, that doesn't, yeah, I, I appreciate it.

But at the same time, it's like, we're really just, just doing what we think is, is quality work with quality product. Yeah. We, we had a lot of fun just doing some more research on you in history. around the restaurant. It, so you initially got started, was it around like 2005, 2006 more as like a pop up concept?

Is that, is that correct with like really high quality ingredients? [00:02:00] Exactly. At the time, I mean, it wasn't called a pop up. We called it a supper club supper club. Um, started it with my business partner, Tamra. And, uh, yeah, it was 2006. Just decided to take this idea that I'd had for a long time. Again, here. I just, I just took credit for this idea.

I guess, uh, applying, uh, Uh, this idea to a local concept into Texas, uh, which I'd, I'd been thinking about for a long time and, uh, just doing dinners at farms, hotels, houses, anybody that would have us, you know, we would just, uh, move in there, drop off our chairs and tables and tablecloths and all the stuff we'd cobbled together from thrift stores.

Mm hmm. Put on a dinner based entirely on ingredients that we sourced locally from farmers markets, picking up from farms, maybe some wild caught stuff. I think the statute of limitations has expired. I can probably start fessing up to some of the things we served back [00:03:00] there in 2006. Sorry about that. Uh, but yeah, it was, that's, that's it, you know, in a nutshell.

What was, uh, what was some of the initial feedback from people who, uh, We're allowing you guys to come in and host these dinners. They were excited. I mean, we, it was this parallel road to this revitalization of, of the ideas around local food. I mean, it was happening in California, but I'm always like, big deal.

Like California is like, you know, you, you walk down the street and avocados are just falling on your head. You know, it's different there to apply it. Uh, Texas is it's it's harder, you know, I've likened it before to again, not to poke too much fun at California, but you know, the, the indigenous peoples that live there were hunters, gatherers, they, there was agriculture foraging, whereas the people that lived here were the Comanche who, uh, would ride for days without, uh, Eating or drinking and then they'd finally just [00:04:00] open a vein on their horse and drink a little blood to keep going definitely a different growing region, so Getting it done here was different and I was just you know, I was fascinated by that people were very excited Still are I think as this was happening and we started to see people more interested in You And ancillary topics like gardening, raising chickens, going to farmers markets, driving out to the country to pick up chickens from, from a farmer that they trusted, um, grass fed beef.

I mean, you start to hear those words said for the first time. And maybe a couple decades or, or a while before maybe beef was just assumed to be grass fed. Things like that, where there was just, there's, there's this spotlight kind of head in that way. And we were lucky enough to kind of come up during that time where this interest was, was really generating.[00:05:00]

Um, and, and it was, it was a fun time and the people that hosted, the people that attended, they felt, they really felt like they were a part of something and it couldn't have been done without them foundationally, because there was a lot of people that would. Host farmers, people that had big houses, hotels, uh, you know, there's a couple of hotels in town that were just like, yeah, you can come and use this space.

It was really cool. It was very community building as well. Yeah. So it's almost like what you're doing with the supper clubs, you know, you're going the extra mile to source these ingredients. So that alone for the people you're setting these experiences up for is really like a labor of love. And it's funny because you hear all these.

Incredibly well esteemed Michelin starred chefs and it seems like the almost like the better the chef is it seems like they understand that mother nature is the true artist and a lot of their best best dishes seem to be really simple and that seems to be your philosophy for the last two decades right definitely I mean look at an oyster right yeah [00:06:00] it doesn't really need much more I mean or the argument can be made that it absolutely absolutely doesn't need anything else Um, but the oyster needs to be really good, you know, or, you know, there's this time of year.

Same thing could be said for a strawberry. You know, it's so, so yeah, I think so. And then just the connection to that and then just lack of, uh, you have to like pull back on the ego a lot with, with this type of food. Um, you know, I was always really fascinated by the restaurant in California, Chez Panisse, it was like a pioneered this, um, not to, I don't mean to disrespect California, the cuisine and the input they've had at all.

Uh, but you know, Chez Panisse was this very formative, uh, Um, influence on me for still is, and they would serve a dessert and they would just serve a peach like on a plate with a knife and it was like the balls. [00:07:00] Wow. But then he like, Oh, I get it. I mean, they're not just slopping peaches onto plates, right?

You know, they're probably 20 to be, to have that, you know, that, that spotlight and be like, here's a peach. I think that's cool. Yeah. So when did the supper club take it's that next evolution to something that could have like a bigger vision to it as opposed to, you know, just going to people's houses, maybe now thinking about it as a more of a concept for a restaurant.

Yeah. It, it became a thing where it was just so exciting that there was just multiple avenues that could be taken and we decided to take multiple avenues. So the, that grew into a farmer's market stand. Uh, where that gave us kind of a retail outlet and also our first opportunity to cook for the public, you know, and, and then, and also make like kind of simple, [00:08:00] more, I mean, cheaper items than a supper club ticket, which at the time probably wasn't as much as it should have been, you know, in retrospect, something like that these days would probably cost three or 400 and we're probably charging 65 for that.

Yeah. Um, so. But the, the farmer's market gave us an opportunity to cook food at, at the source too, which was really special. And we're making the first thing that we ever made at the farmer's market was biscuits and gravy. And so just really targeted as simple, very down home. Approachable food that everybody's very familiar with, but just made with really good ingredients.

Um What a home run dish. Yeah. I mean, again, but like how much credit we can't take, you know, it's not our concept, but to take really good, good milk, and really good flour, and then protein, you know, we eventually started making that with venison breakfast sausage. And so, [00:09:00] you know, a little bit more signature, uh, items, and just kind of steering it in this one direction.

But so the farmer's market gave us that, that avenue, it's really cool. And we're also selling pickles and brine chickens and sausages and charcuterie, anything. You know, we were making anything, sauerkraut and kimchi, um, you know, specials, whatever was in season, we're doing it. Artichokes will come into season with two weeks, just saturated with artichokes.

Strawberries, same thing. Peppers, same thing. You know, um, you know, we might get some cool fish in and we'd do something with that. Um, and then shortly after that, uh, we started the New School of Traditional Cookery, which was another avenue for us to go and that's education, hunting. And, uh, more in tune with these butchery classes and that approach to so, so we're at one point we're doing all three of those things, um, just [00:10:00] hard, a lot of, a lot of travels, like unloading an apartment every week, you know, like moving, you know, there's just a lot of that.

Yeah. I was recently asked, it's like, why did you? Open a restaurant. And I was, I said, you have to understand how hard things are to move around that much deal with weather and all the things that come along with that, that opening a restaurant seems to be the easiest solution.

That's amazing. So that, so that culinary school is really like a blend of all your passions and your unique guy, where you don't, you don't have a classic culinary background, right? It's all just. Kind of self taught or just learn through experience. Is that is that right? Yeah, I think learn through experience um is is more accurate self taught would be Disingenuous for me to say because I was taught by many great people And [00:11:00] learned from a lot of great people whether I was reading it or maybe I saw a video or maybe it was an in person mentor um, so Yeah, uh, it, it is, absolutely.

And some people, education appeals to them. It, it's very appealing to me. In fact, that's, I've learned, you know, as you get older, you figure out the things that you love to do. Like what's the, what's the best thing. And for me, it's education. I love that. Whatever form that's in, whether it's taking my daughter hunting, teaching a class, writing a book, those are my favorite things to do.

Um, and because you can still learn while doing that, but imparting what you've learned is, is, uh, is important because that's just, it's how. I got to where I am, how we got to where we are is, is because other people shared that. And I think it's, it's super important. I think one of the biggest gifts to your point [00:12:00] is figuring out what you truly love to do at a young age.

Um, that way you can just chart your course down that path. How old were you when you really started to realize, Hey, this, this unique blend of interests that I have, it's, it's unique and I love it and I just want to dedicate my life to it. I think it was pretty early on. It's hard to say. I, I feel like I fell into like the restaurant or hospitality industry because it was a good job because it was, uh, it was a money making vocation.

I became, I started waiting tables. I'm sorry. I started busing tables. When I was 15, I had three jobs when I was in high school at the same time. Three at the same time. Weeknight, weekend night, and weekend morning. And I, I just, I worked and worked and worked. I drove myself into the ground too. I had lots of cash.

Yeah, you're the rich friend, right? Dangerous, when you're a dumbass kid. You're like the richest man alive [00:13:00] at 15, right? He just wants the cash. Yeah, cassette tapes were the thing, you know, I was like, a cassette tape was around ten bucks, and I just measured my wealth in cassettes, you know, it was just like You know, I've got enough to buy seven of these things, you know, it was my thing, it was music.

And, uh, yeah, it, I don't know, I forgot what the question was. I think just, like, kind of how old were you when you started realizing, like, this is the path that I really want to go down. But you said, so you were waiting tables at a really young age. Yeah, and I, I, I soon started, yeah, waiting, bussing tables, waiting tables, bartending, managing and then by the time I was about 19 or 20, I felt like the real, um, the most solid foundation in the hospitality industry is gonna be the back of the house.

At the time, you know. Cash is cash is dangerous. Yeah, it's very dangerous When we opened the restaurant, we we went on a no cash [00:14:00] tip system. We distributed tips via paychecks You know in a very very did you know like a determined way to do that because it does it pulls that End of the night cash equation out where everybody's gonna go out and party, you know, we like don't want don't do that Yeah, I mean you can't do whatever you want, but we don't want to enable it in the least You so I felt more security.

Uh, it looked like a secure place. I didn't particularly grow up in an environment that, that valued fancy food or high quality ingredients. We ate well, I loved food. Um, but we, I mean, we weren't, we weren't. particularly well off. And so it was a lot of TV dinners and fried catfish, you know, fried chicken. I grew up on a lot of that, those staples.

Uh, you know, if we went out, it was to go get fried chicken. You know, it was, that was a treat. Um, and [00:15:00] so I, I did, something was appealing about. The back of the house and then I guess it was just comfortable for me to remain in an industry that I'd been in for forever. I didn't go to college. I didn't go to culinary school.

I just kept, kept working. I just, I got out of high school and I was just like, I did travel. Um, but I, I knew, I knew from an early age, I guess that this was the industry that I want to be in. And I'm so happy because I, I absolutely love what I do. And, um, and it, and it never. It's not an exciting day. I mean, it's like, it's everything changes, you know, if you're hunting and fishing and cooking and serving and classes and books and the culinary world, it just like people are always going to be hungry, you know, and it's just, it's, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm very lucky that I, that I was able to kind of steer myself in that direction at an early age.

Did you have any early travel [00:16:00] experiences that shaped your culinary vision? Absolutely. Um, I mean, as a young adult, uh, you know, I went to, uh, I'd been cooking already for a few years and I traveled to Europe. Uh, I went to Italy, uh, and that was, I went to Italy on January 1st, the year 2000. So, I don't know if you recall, everything was supposed to be, Over.

There was Y2K was supposed to drop every airliner. So you were just like, I'm going to Italy. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I was in the air, you know, when all the planes were supposed to just drop out of the sky. Oh, jeez. Um, and I made it. Um, and landed in, uh, in Italy on January 1st, the year 2000. And that, that was kind of the, the formative trip.

After that, there was a couple more trips to Europe, a lot of travel to Mexico. Uh, Um, and that was really it, you know, just like those places alone and just with a hyper focus on the [00:17:00] foods there and the wine, uh, uh, that they, that they're producing and how the, how and the, why the interaction has with the culture and resources, just like I couldn't get enough of it.

Is that where the name? Is that paying homage to that trip? Yeah, it is. It's that is it's Italian. It means from the two in it. I don't recall exactly when I saw that proverb written. It was in a book. It was in a book that referenced that proverb. And I was just like, that's really cool. I'm going to confuse the hell out of people one day with those two words.

They're very hard to pronounce. And, uh, But, uh, yeah, that was, that was it. And it's also confusing cause it's not an Italian restaurant. Yeah, right. Where, uh, where in Italy were you? Originally, uh, just in the, in the Venice region. So, uh, that, that time I went to a, it was a continuing education class for people in [00:18:00] hospitality.

And it was a two week course, um, That was just like intensive on Italian food. We were, we would study different things every day. We would go visit, you know, we'd go to a rice farm where, you know, eating risotto with carp caught out of the rice patties, you know, stuff that I was just like overloading on how beautiful that was.

And then I had a few days at the end of the trip that I had open ended and the chefs were the instructors were, were, were kind enough to be like you. I'm like, yeah, they're like, what are you doing? for the next 10 days. And I'm like, I got no plans. They're like, you want to go work? And I was like, I want to go work.

Yeah, I do. And they're like, we're going to, we're going to send you up to this hotel in Venice. And they put me up in the hotel, which was opulent. Like I was just like, what is going on here? This place was amazing. But every day I would just go downstairs and And I just, I just [00:19:00] worked in the kitchen and it was the slow season.

So it was really, it was kind of weird because there wasn't a lot of customers, but at the same time he was just like, you want to make a rabbit terrain? I'm like, yeah. It's like, you want to go buy some fish? I'm like, sure. How do we do that? And he's like. We're going to get on a gondola and go to the fish market.

And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. We're going to get on a gondola with a gondolier and go buy fish. And it's just, you know, there's experiences that you're like, oh, these, this, this level of romantic notion does exist in the world where something can be so just like a storybook. It just, it's, it's.

I'll never forget those, those, those moments and we'd go and we'd buy these fish, um, take them back and then, you know, a few people would trickle into the restaurant and he would cook them however he wanted to. There wasn't a lot of choices and it was in, and this is very, [00:20:00] very formative. It was in January, nothing's in season, this is far northern Italy, so it's quite cold.

There's arugula and there's radicchio in that region. And so, well why would you need anything else? They're not gonna outsource anything, they're just gonna deal with it. You know, come May, things are gonna be amazing. It's also citrus season, they got some olive oil. And I've told this story before. Many times, but he served this dish one night and he took a soul, a little flatfish from the Venetian lagoon, and he put it on a plancha and he cooked it on both sides.

He put it on a plate and he had three sizes of arugula in his refrigerator because he was very particular about which one would go with which dish. He picked the medium arugula out and put a little bit of that on the plate. A beautiful lemon, you know, and that's another thing that we just never think about is like what, you know, like these, these [00:21:00] staples that we, whatever, a lemon, like a lemon, like, like, like, you've never smelled anything like this lemon, a wedge of lemon on the plate, and then he took some olive oil and put it on top, and then he put it in the window for the waiter to come, and I was like, what are you doing, man?

Like, that's it, you know, and I kind of, I mean, I wasn't like combative, and I did definitely do not say that to him, but um, there's, The slow, you know, wheels turning in my brain as I'm watching him do this thing, and it's, and I mentioned ego earlier, it's like, this man, It required, it seemed like it required nothing of them to serve that food, but at the same time it requires a lot to have the ability to just, the grace to just say, these individual ingredients are so good.

That's all that my job requires. Not out of laziness, but this is perfect and send it out [00:22:00] great arugula, an amazing lemon, beautiful olive oil from that region and a fish that he didn't even season because he said it was salty from the lagoon. And at that point I was like, Oh, okay, I get it. It's ingredients, it's culture, it's locality, it's resources.

And it's this, I mean, just this love of serving things, beautiful things like that to people. And I was like, that's really cool. I want to do that in Texas. I'm imagining the tone of how you said, that's it. Because probably after you're asking that question, the way that your thoughts are formulating, it's changing everything you've ever known about food before.

Like the quiet confidence of this chef to be like, I'm paying such homage to where we source this. And I'm respecting the customer so much that all it needs is that piece of fish, beautiful lemon, a little bit of olive oil. And if I do anything more to it, it's actually almost like disrespectful to the, to the quality of the fish and the dish itself.

That's incredible. And so when you come back to the U S are [00:23:00] you, are you just inspired to just say to yourself, how do I make this? Whatever I do, I was going to be, how do I make this happen as quickly as possible, or just start cooking with this new philosophy that I have, that I picked up in Europe. Yeah, there's still a few years before.

I mean, there's a gap and where I, you know, I, I played around with growing food. I played around with, you know, working on a couple farms, um, continued to fish a lot, you know, um, Going to farmers markets, but which were very sparse at the time here in Austin, Boggy Creek, you know, it's really hard to, you know, tell the story without them there.

It's literally a block away from us. And the importance that that place had because they were doing it better than anybody else. Well, before anybody else, there's, there's a difference between just like growing [00:24:00] organic vegetables and selling them. And being really good at growing organic vegetables and selling them, and which is what they are, just crafts people, like just masters of it.

And when you go there and you see that produce, it's like, to me, it's inspiring. It's like, I can't wait to cook that or not cook it. You know, I can't wait to, to put that on a plate. That, I mean, it just, it's vibrant, it's glowing. Um, and they, they were very formative. And, uh, instilling confidence that that it could happen here because, like I said, it's the farmers markets are few and far between getting a chicken.

In 2003, in Texas, from a very reputable small grower, it was exceedingly hard, um, and with any consistency, you know, that's one thing, you know, you can get 12 of them, but they're not going to have another 12 for four months, you know, so it's, [00:25:00] you're cobbling this together. And so it's, it's different now. Um, But Boggy was the, was kind of, you know, a cornerstone in that, you know, in that, oh, it can be done.

And as the years progress, it's just gotten incrementally easier to source these things because people are stepping up, the market's there, which is huge. Um, you know, it's financially feasible for farmers to, to, to raise chickens, things like that. Mm. So, yeah, there, there was a gap, uh, between the, the first time I had the idea and then some implementation and just, but, but not time wasted, you know, just kind of testing the waters, seeing what we could do here.

Mm. Thinking back to that gondola ride that you took to the fish market. One of the things that we talk about a lot on the show is just Closing the gap for people when it comes to just understanding where their food has come from And I feel like the way you were talking [00:26:00] about that story There was like a real intimacy with just the romanticizing of we're going to this like market to go Like on this boat to go find the fish that we're gonna cook up for these patrons later on this evening Do you actively think about that as a chef today?

Like, I want this food to convey a message about, like, the, where this food is really coming from. Absolutely. I mean, I think it's, it's constant. I, I mean, if you walk down the sidewalk right now, I mean, or if I walk down the sidewalk right now, all I see is pecans. And so I bought a pecan sheller. And I'm like, I'm, I'm We're just going to pick up all these pecans this year.

All the pecans for this year are going to be pecans that we picked up and shelled. And to your point, every time we use those pecans, I want to think back on that. Like, oh, we shelled these pecans because they fell off of this tree, which is a state tree, by the way. Um, it's cool. You know, it's, it, it's [00:27:00] cool.

It is never, the fascination around it never ends for me and it can be as subtle as going to pick some berries and making jam out of that to shooting a 200 pound axis and like filling the freezer with this really, you know, incredible meat after a really incredible hunt that involved a lot of adrenaline and sweat and this and that, you know, there's definitely levels to it, but every little bit of it.

Um, it's still like really fun to me and just that, that connection, whether it's a gondola ride or just going out in the backyard and, and, and grabbing a few sage leaves, you know? It's still like, it's still there and I'll never, it'll never go away. And what do you think about kind of the other side of that coin where we've grown so distant from our food?

Does that stir anything up in you? Just kind of the simplicity and convenience of, you even said you kind of grew up on the TV box dinners. [00:28:00] That's kind of like, you know, the other side of what you've grown to revere from a food standpoint. Right. Yeah, I mean, I, I used to be, I think, more militant about it or more upset about it.

And I realized in my mind, I think you get more done by working, working within things and giving people plausible solutions and never try not to make people feel bad about their decisions. Um, but just try to educate and, you know, just like, Hey, if you can. If you can go buy a chicken from the farmer's market once a year, it's better than never, you know, things like that.

Um, and what would we do with that chicken? Do what you'd normally do with that chicken. Yeah. You know, don't, you don't have to get. Just because, you know, it's like, it's every day, you know, and it's, it's a [00:29:00] Acknowledgement of resources too, I think, and those little lessons, whether it be hunting or going to the farmer's market or, or Or just getting a really nice dozen eggs where you might just take an extra second to be like, oh, that yolk is Different color than I'm used to.

Even something like, there's those little incremental Realizations, I think are super helpful and acknowledging where not only food comes from, but where essentially any resource comes from. Yeah, I think your broiler chicken story is great too, because even on on the show and everything we do or what you see on the internet, it's so wired to be like, Oh, but if we could just keep pushing the health system forward, there's so much more work we need to be done.

And there's truth to that, but like you're saying. You have such a cool perspective because you're in 2003, 2004, you couldn't really get a great broiler chicken that was, you know, corn and soy free versus now you're saying it's a totally different landscape, or even I would imagine maybe in the early days of died.

Do a, there were some [00:30:00] people that really knew about beef tallow, but I would think that why people were going was just the deliciousness of the food where now there are so many people that we know that come to Austin and they're almost, they're almost seeking out died. Do a. Yeah. As like beef tallow, number one, and the fact that it's delicious food, number two.

So like just that alone, we've come such a far, a long way since you really started getting in the game and thinking more about this stuff. But it's, yeah, it's, it's tough to, it's tough to remember how far we've come too. So I, I really appreciate that point that you made before. Yeah. And I mean, to your point, you, you, you see these shifts in interest.

When we first opened, we served grass fed beef and we had to, we had to like, Yeah. kill that program and go with a, with a product that was a really a great compromise and that it was a pastured, uh, beef that was allowed free choice access to grain. Uh, but then, you know, maybe two, three years ago, [00:31:00] we see this resurgence and not only interest in grass fed beef, uh, conceptually, but actually an appreciation of the flavor as well.

And so we've seen people. Becoming, uh, if they want to, they become educated around what it means to, to have grass finished beef and what that's going to taste like. Uh, and so we are, we are seeing this shift in, like you said, they're, they're coming for the tallow first, you know? Uh, when we were at the farmer's market selling lard, people would come by and point at that word and snicker and be like, lard.

And I was just like, what do you, Oh, okay. You know, like, really? You know, like, okay, canola oil guy, you don't, you, I, I don't see, um, the, the, The problem with that, but it did have, you know, things like that needed education and we've, [00:32:00] we've gotten there. And it's, it's really exciting to see things like that, where we can kind of conquer these misconceptions around certain things and people embraced them.

Um, we, I love this story as we used to kind of. I think it's important that the approaches that you take, um, to maybe enlighten or educate or just at least present some ideas are really important. Um, so, you know, like the, the artwork that, that goes around. Like the design work is all very, uh, it's not like cartoonish, but there's like, it's just like little renderings of animals and stuff.

It's not like hardcore beef, you know, like come in here, fire, horns, you know, it's like, it's, it's really like subtle and maybe quaint and dare I say a little bit feminine. You know, like, and that's all very purposeful, you know, it's just like, you know, [00:33:00] we were like, listen, you know, there's fires, there's giant pieces of meat.

And then there's like, kind of this cute duck, you know, like, and so along those lines, we used to do this, uh, we would do a contest. And it was one, maybe the most, the smartest thing I've ever done was that I convinced people to buy jars of lard and then make a peach pie and then bring me that pie after they purchased the large apologies for everybody that entered in the pie contest because now the, the, the curtains have been thrown apart.

The truth is being revealed. Yes. Okay. So it turns out I like pie a lot. Um, and so, uh, We would do this pie contest and it was during peach season. And so it's, it's also trying to garner a little bit of excitement around peaches, which are people naturally get excited in central Texas because we grow great peaches here.

So we're kind of, we're going to harness that a little [00:34:00] bit. You have to use lard in your crust and you have to make a peach pie and then you have to bring us a pie. And then we'll announce a winner. And then the winner gets a case of lard. And it, it, it really worked. And we had, we would just get all these submissions with pie, people would show up to the market.

Cause we'd have a day like bring your pie this day, you know, and so we'd sell a ton of lard and then they would bring us the pie. And, you know, we'd judge and, you know, and, and. To be clear, the winning pie is always going to be straight up peach pie. Don't put anything else in there. Simple. Yeah. Don't try to gild the lily here.

Like we're just looking for great crust and peaches. Um, and so the winner of the pie contest gets the case of lard. And, and it was a really good way to kind of like soften that approach and you'll be like, Hey, Lard makes the best pie crust. Crisco is modeled after Lard, you know, it like the, the, the composition of it.

[00:35:00] Um, it makes great pie crust. We all love peaches. We all love pie. Make it as simply as possible, um, and then a little bit of capitalism thrown in there too. It's so genius, like incentivizing them to bake and lard. And were you getting stories of women or men that were like, you know, so funny when I did this challenge, like my great grandma used to make like the best whatever and she would use lard and we just stopped you.

Were you getting that often? Often? Yeah. Um, again, I, I mean, I, I've told this story many times too. Um, I was in the butcher shop one day and this, this man walked by and he had been eating in the dining room. He had taken his hat off in the dining room and then he put his hat back on as he was leaving and it was a cowboy hat, of course.

You know, I'm like, that's, you know, that's my, my great grandfather would remove people's hats in dining rooms, in restaurants. [00:36:00] Um, He put his hat back on, he walked down, and he was, he looked at me, and he's an older man, he's probably in his 80s, and I could tell that he kind of wanted to engage, I was busy with something, I looked up at him, and he said to me, I know what you're doing here, and he kind of smiled, and then he left, and I was just like, floored, I was like, because I understand, not only did he know what I was doing here, I knew exactly what he was saying, and he was saying that, and I think that that, Is to go along with pie contests and cute ducks.

The best way to appeal to people, especially in our proud culture, with a really rich history, a really, uh, generational, really familial history here in Texas, you know, so bound by tradition, one of the best ways to present this [00:37:00] old way of eating is to appeal to that. You know, say this way, you know, if you think this is wrong, but your great grandparents did precisely this after World War Two, we changed everything.

We went with cans and then microwaves came after that. And then, you know, things got really off kilter. But really, like, probably the best way is to say, Listen, this is how it just used to be done. You know, this is a really cool, cultural and traditional way. Therefore, what dishes do you want to make with that?

And then the answer to that is biscuits and gravy. You know. Love it. What's uh, what does that, did you have like a conscious thought of not using seed oils? Was that something that you were just like, you never even would have considered putting canola oil in any of your dishes? No, we did for a long time.

Did you? Well, to an extent. Um, You know, we were [00:38:00] heavily reliant on butter, olive oil and animal fats. Uh, when we opened the restaurant, um, we, uh, we didn't have a fryer in the beginning and then we had a fryer. And at that point it was just a cost issue. We're like, how do we do this? So we went with GMO for our GMO free canola oil for a while.

And I did not like it. I did not like looking at those boxes and so much the credit. Uh, for that shift has to be given to Janie Ramirez, who's the executive chef at Dido Aid, has been for eight plus years. She came on in year one. Um, she is a powerhouse of a cook. I mean, my favorite cook ever. Um, she's an incredible human, incredible leader.

And she, uh, really drove that initiative to get seed oil free, which I was like, once she said it, Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's figure it out. Really, [00:39:00] the only things that we had to conquer were what we put in our fryer. Easy enough. Well, not easy. It's fraught with peril, like, I mean, finding enough beef fat.

Yeah. In one person every week. Grinds and renders beef fat for a day, like one every Monday, somebody that the restaurant, if you like the smell of beef fat, I would say, stop by on Monday. We're closed, but poke your head in. Um, there's a lot of beef fat getting rendered in there. Um, and so we had to figure that out.

And then the next step was mayonnaise. Uh, Janie is, uh, not only obsessed with mayonnaise, but she makes the best mayonnaise you'll ever have. It, it, I mean, if you're into mayonnaise, you would appreciate that if you ate it and whatever. Um, so we had to figure out how to make stable emulsified sauces in which point we were able to start bringing in the fermented sugarcane oil, uh, that is a stable [00:40:00] non seed oil, um, in which we use in very small amounts.

We fill the fryers with beef fat, olive oil, butter, all the cooking is done with one of those fats. And so we were able to go completely seed oil free. I think that was a couple years ago, a year and a half, two years ago. Before then we were 95 percent or whatever, but we are now. And it feels really good.

To do that. I mean, it just, it seems like it's another, um, just step towards this transparency that I really want to achieve and that when you walk into the restaurant, you just know that everything is thoughtfully sourced. We thought about every single thing in there. I'll tell you another story. Our sugar.

We, Janie did a lot of research and she was like, you know, like if we source sugar from this place, they, they literally like drive, um, vehicles up on [00:41:00] these piles of sugar and she's like, I just, I did all this research and I'm just, I'm not into it. And then we found this one source of, um, this non or, um, unrefined, uh, cane, organic cane.

Cane sugar, you know for making desserts and so forth, you know, sure we use it and so we we found out how to get it and it's kind of hard and Interestingly enough. The only place we could get it. It's Walmart and they'll deliver it. And so You know every once in a while this truck shows up from Walmart and just drops all the sugar off at the restaurant And it's interesting because You know, you think Walmart, maybe, forgive me, but maybe low quality or, or just, or maybe not in keeping with, with our standards, but.

That was where we found it, you know? And it's like, that's where we wound up. And I remember one time we were getting this delivery, and this guy [00:42:00] saw it, he walked by, he started taking pictures. Like, he's doing an expose. And I, it kind of made me, I mean, a little upset, because I'm like, what you think you see is actually the complete opposite of what you see.

Like, you're not busting us. You're actually just exposing the level that Janie has gone through to the world. To make sure that every ingredient that's on your plate is really good. And it just happens to come from Walmart, man. Like that was not done lightly, you know, it's like, I was like, go ahead and post it.

And like, like, like, call me out, please. Let me tell this story if you want. I mean, nothing ever came of that, but I remember thinking like, it's, it's a very nuanced world out there and trying to find the best ingredients, you know, you never know. But if you start poking around, you might find out some very disturbing things about where your food comes from.

Oh my gosh. I would never even think about, um, just the sugar quality and that intuitively makes so much sense. [00:43:00] And I think we need, we need as a country, restaurants like you guys that really don't compromise on anything where Um, The quality of food is so good. It's so well sourced. It's really like a labor of love in the food is just absolutely delicious to like that.

Um, is it a, is it the Chipotle mayo that you guys serve with the fries? We always get the extra Chipotle mayo because it's so good. You don't even realize that mayo should or can taste that good, right? I mean, we're, we're Make it we're buying peppers in season and smoking them and drying to you know So there's there's so many layers to that, you know, so we're not buying Chipotle's, you know We we make our own we buy red jalapenos and smoke them and dehydrate them And we buy, we make our own paprika, which is one of the, like, somebody asked me recently, I was like, what, what is your like favorite thing?

And I was like, oh, it's paprika. What? I'm like, yeah, it's, we buy several hundred pounds of thick walled Hungarian [00:44:00] peppers. We smoke them over post oak and then dehydrate them. And then as needed, we grind them to a powder. And, you know, with, you know, apologies to Spain and Hungary. Some of the best paprika in the world, you know, I think it's just it's magical it smells chocolatey and smoky and it's really cool And it's this ingredient that maybe has been lurking around in the back of your cabinet.

It's just this cakey red Yes, stale flavorless mass and it's like But, or it could be this and then, and, but it's just another one of those things that as, as, as an, as an employee, when you sprinkle paprika on something and you've seen the team, you know, in August and September laboring to make that stuff, you don't just toss it on there, you know, you understand that that's a dehydrated pepper that came from that nice lady.

You know, who, who carried every one of those cases in herself, like, you know, um, and that whole [00:45:00] process. And then the guy who dropped the firewood off, that's the only other ingredient that went in there. You know, it's like just this respect for all these little nuanced ingredients. I think it's, it's just really, really cool that, you know, you can just, you can dive as deep as you want into this stuff.

That's so cool. Yeah. The way you're describing the. Level of detail that you guys are going into source and create all the ingredients raw materials makes me think that that probably reframes how you guys think about food waste and just Like when it comes to food that needs to get thrown away It's probably hurts that much more because you guys are going through and making sure stuff's coming from the right places Yeah, Janie says all the time, you know to in the kitchen She says everything is expensive and it's true because it's like we're not using everything we use is it's expensive for a reason Not that it's a luxury ingredient, but because it's coming from people.

Yeah that need to be [00:46:00] To feed their kids and keep their farms open and stuff like that. So they're paid an equitable rate. And so waste hurts, you know, and we go to great lengths not to waste anything, you know, whether it's compost or whether we're feeding bread scraps to chickens that we'll then get eggs from, you know, we'll.

We'll try to utilize everything out of necessity, you know, and there's no escaping the financial aspect of this, you know, like we're, this is not a 501c3, you know, we are, we want to pay our employees as well as we can, we want to provide them insurance, we want to throw them a party every once in a while, we want to buy them pizza on a busy day, we want to We want people to stay there for 10 years, which they have.

Wow. We want, uh, our farmers to be equitably treated. So, um, it's a, it's a [00:47:00] It's a really hard wire to walk, you know, when it comes to to the financials of it, too, because you have to like, you don't want to be seen as a super fancy restaurant. Um, uh, you want to be sustainable financially, just like you want your farmers to be sustainable financially.

So. Yeah, these, these products cost more and that forces a utilization that that's one driving factor to force the utilization and not wasting anything along with that incumbent standard of, of these things are everything is precious. So, uh, yeah, waste stings. Um, but you know, over time you, you just, you, you figure out better ways and develop better systems to deal with it.

I think when, um, when you go into the restaurant, your [00:48:00] eyes just so naturally gravitate towards just like the over fire cooking setup that you guys have. Was that when you, when Ddue was, when you're going from, um, the pop, the, um, the supper club concept to brick and mortar restaurant, did you know from day one like, we need to find a way to just build this over, over the fire cooking, setup indoors?

'cause I've, I don't think I've ever seen that in another restaurant before. Sure, there's, there's places that are doing it now. I'm not saying, again, I, not. To imply, you know, over the fire cooking, we invented it in a restaurant fire door on Netflix. Beautiful places like that. Yes. We always cooked over fire at the dinners or when possible.

Sometimes we'd be in a hotel kitchen and we just had to deal with it. We changed the menu fire being a huge part of it. Fire also being a huge part of our cultural approach to food. We. Are in [00:49:00] what has historically been a big forest, you know, a big oak forest, a big oak and pecan forest. And then you go southward, a big mesquite forest.

So, uh, yeah, there is, uh, there is that aspect too. I think it is appropriate to cook over fire here. That's, that's how barbecue happened. You know, it's like, it's really cool. And why barbecue doesn't necessarily exist. And Ontario, you know, I mean, where, where, you know, like that, that style of cooking or preservation is as necessary as it is here, um, in designing the restaurant, we wanted to tell a really short story when you walked in the door and that you, you come in, the first thing you see is a counter.

There's currently a bunch of, uh, beef rib rolls in there aging beyond that is a table. where people are making food, prepping food. Um, and there's a [00:50:00] rail, the butcher rail, the people at the table are prepping bread and desserts, they're making sauces. They're also cutting up a pig, you know, it's all happening at that table.

And so that everybody knows there's no area in the back of the restaurant where that happens. Every single prep. Item is prepped there. It's meant to be not like a theater, but it's meant to provide transparency. Like, we have nothing to hide about what's going on. And, and, or not hide, we're proud. Of the entire process, you might walk in there and maybe somebody's put off by someone taking a cleaver to a side of pork, but that's how the pork chops happen, you know?

And so it's in all these processes beyond that. is a fire. So, so far you've come in, you've seen a cut of meat, people [00:51:00] cutting meat and a fire. And my concept pitch is done. Like, it's like, this is like heaven for them. I don't have any more explaining to do. You've already figured it out. Like the old man said, I know what you're doing here.

Yeah. You know, And and that's it. And then there's crocs full of in season. They're in potatoes. There's tomatoes laid out on sheet trays because we don't refrigerate our tomatoes. They come in and the only place that we have in the whole restaurant is this right there. We're not showing them off. We just don't have another place to put them, you know, and, uh, you know, other fruit might be ripening.

There's definitely something fermenting. I mean, on purpose, uh, somewhere in there in a crock or more likely in a 50 gallon bin. Uh, there's, there's some, Huge batch of sauerkraut or kimchi going. Um, there's, there's jars of dried peppers. There's a little bit of retail space. And then there's a place [00:52:00] to sit down and have all that.

And then there's a bar. And then there's the wine and there's the beer and done. And then beyond that, in the back of the restaurant is a, a walk in that will never be big enough. And an office that will certainly never be big enough and a dish pit that's actually kind of roomy. The way you're describing, I'm like, I can't imagine where this actually is in the restaurant.

Yeah, it's, it's, uh, and that's it. That's it. That's I've described the entirety of it. There's a nice machine back there, but The only thing that you don't see is the dish pit, the boring stuff that happens on the computer and the place, the big place where we keep the stuff cold. That's it. What's changed in your philosophy around food since you started Daidue until today?

That's a great question. I mean, I think that I've just, I've. I've mellowed, you know, young, maybe a little too idealistic or opinionated. [00:53:00] Um, I feel like things are better when you're open and not Not judgmental. I used to be very hardcore. Like, oh, you know, I'm not gonna eat any meat unless it is like this and But I think more more than that.

I really appreciate like I've been so fortunate to witness these other Entities grow in like a business way, you know, like farms that have gone from small farms to medium sized farms and You know, farm to table who has really enabled the serving of locally produced foods because they, they made it very convenient.

And that's, that is key, that wholesale, that, that distribution model. Um, you can get. [00:54:00] milk and apples and all kinds of vegetables and some meats and all this stuff from them delivered tomorrow morning. Um, that's been really cool to see that happen. Um, and things like An appreciation for H E B, you know, like a great company.

Now, do they serve a bunch of non locals or sell a bunch of non locals? Of course, yes. I mean, that's, but you know what they also quietly do is sell a ton of really good local produce, like, I mean, from larger producers. It's affecting the landscape in a really beneficial way. I think, you know, it's still promoting farming, a lot of organics.

Like just today at central market, I bought okra, red onions, cucumbers, and mushrooms, uh, all locally grown from central market, you know, HB, uh, pretty [00:55:00] cool. And that was not even everything that they had available, you know, is so an appreciation for these. Huge bottles that are incorporating those kind of things in there and really helping that whole food system quite a bit, in my opinion.

I mean, I could be wrong about that, but I'd say that I just like an appreciation of wherever we can make strides is beneficial. Yeah, so we can't just immediately flip the model on its head. You got to solve for feeding people at scale versus the constant improvements like you're talking about. I think that H E B story is great because I guarantee you there's probably a ton of people locally around the country that just assume that.

Every piece of food you're putting into, into your mouth is something you've hunted or something from a farmer's market. I think that's really encouraging that, you know, go to central market and get some, some great food and vegetables and meat. I've got a kid too. So, I mean, you know, bananas, [00:56:00] you know, and, and I mean, we really try, really try, I mean, the protein, yeah, I've got that wrapped up, you know, I've, I've got, um, a lot of deer and hog and fish in the freezer.

Um, But the other stuff, yeah, I mean, sure, it's cool. Don't feel, yeah, guilt or anything, but just make those strides, you know, um, yeah, I, I think that I've definitely just mellowed on this, like, local militancy, you know, the restaurant. You know, we're still doing it. I mean, it's like, it's our thing, you know, it's our concept now and people after 10 years, people realize, hopefully we still have people walk in and be like, yeah, I'll take a Jack and Coke.

And we're like, we don't have either one of those things, uh, you know, or, or, you know, we don't have salmon, you know, like, you know, there's still conversations around it, but, um, I, you know, we've had a lot of time to talk about. Yeah. One thing [00:57:00] unrelated. I wanted to bring up is I think it's. I think what's one of the most admirable things about you as I'm getting to know you better is you just seem really humble and genuine, and I'm just curious, like, has that humbleness just always been part of you as a person?

Is it something you you learn from your parents or life experience? But it's an ironic question. I'm just curious. Well, let me tell you. Uh, that's very, very kind of you to say that. This is how humble I am. Yeah. Um, very kind. Uh, my parents are very humble people, are hardworking, uh, yeah, incredibly humble people.

I, I don't ever think I know best about anything. And that is, uh, in my mind, highly advantageous. I love learning and I might not love being wrong in the moment, but eventually I'm like, Oh, that's cool. Learning better. You know, I'd rather, so, I mean, there's certain things that I feel very [00:58:00] confident about, um, there's certain, um, ideals that I will stick to that I think are probably better, you know, like a model of, um, you know, sourcing food.

You know, I do think that it's proven. I think it's better for everybody. Um, and I can speak with some confidence on that, but I still think that it's kind of in the vein of food in general. Every day is a new day. Um, you're gonna wake up hungry. After you've eaten the best meal of your life, and I think you can apply that to your knowledge like as you know Smart as you think you are you still can learn something the next day and so and from anybody, you know And that's one thing that I I get to surround myself by all kinds of people.

I'm in Austin. So I'm in Texas I'm around every different type of community You could hope to be around and I for one love that I love all different kinds of people [00:59:00] and you might think that this person will hold this belief system and you might be proven wrong or you might hear why they hold that Belief system and you might be like that's cool because that person was really nice and it changed my my perspective on the whole thing so Maybe I'm selfishly humble because I just, I just, I like to, to, to know more things.

Yeah. Is there any, are there any other local chefs in Austin that inspire you and, um, that you're constantly drawing inspiration from? Definitely. Um, Todd Duplachin, uh, he's, he's always been such a, like a natural. Um, and just his food is so intelligent. He's so just like, just crazy smart. Um, for me, Nunez, definitely my, like, I had, I had a rare night off maybe [01:00:00] three weeks ago where nobody in the house was around.

And on top of it, I didn't have anything to do, which is just like, never have that alignment. And so I, I was like, I am going to go to dinner and I'm going to eat exactly what I want and I'm going to go by myself and I'm gonna leave my phone in the car. I'm going to stare straight forward, hopefully not make the bartender real uncomfortable, but I'm just like, I'm going to go and eat.

And all I want to do is sit there and think about that food and I'm going to eat whatever I want. So I chose Este and it was an easy choice for me. Um, actually let me back that up. Not an easy choice because I might've chosen his other restaurant, Suerte. Um, I, I don't know what it is stylistically. But his food is just very, very appealing to me.

Like, I love his food. I love his cooking. Very simple, very refined, excellent service. Incredible desserts. [01:01:00] Um, yeah, Fermin, uh, Fermin's great. Um, um, Michael Fotege, he's great. I mean, there's, I, I, all over town. I just, I would fear more if, if, if, Leaving somebody out, right? Um, right now, uh, there's, there's incredible talent here.

And, uh, I'm very appreciative to be in a town that, that, that We're held to very high standards and it's just, it's great, you know, there's just very, very thoughtful, uh, chefs in this town and it's, it's great and, you know, we're lucky we kind of sit back in the corner and throw salt on meat, you know, whereas other people, I'm like, how did you think of that?

You know, but like, that's their lane and I'm so, you know, Appreciative that there are so many lanes. Yes, we're in the we're in the slow line. I mean that the best way It's probably it's inspiring how you're you're all [01:02:00] probably pushing and learning from each other just like you're saying Oh, how did how did this chef do this that same chef is probably like wait So with their chipotle mayo, they can trace back Not just the pepper but the wood that they smoke the pepper on or whatever right like we all you guys all have your own superpowers and I love the uh Some of some of the best meals I've ever had are with groups of people, of course, but I also love the concept of just leaving the phone in the car.

I'm not going to get this unnatural dopamine hit. I'm going to sit at the bar, sit at the table by myself and just like appreciate this incredible meal. It was good. It was so good. What'd you get? I, I, I had it mapped out. I was like, you brought the menu and I was like, I don't need that. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, oysters, three oysters randomly, you know, just like bring me three oysters.

Um, three oysters. Um, one fish taco. Cause this fish taco is, you know, perfection. Um, he sent out a tostada. It didn't like mess up my, my [01:03:00] form or anything. It was perfect. You welcomed it. I welcomed it. And then I got a steak. I got a steak at a seafood restaurant. I know but um, uh, it was I love the steak there and then I had uh chocolate ice cream.

Dang. Yeah, that's perfect. That's a home run meal Yeah, it was so good How has uh your hunting experience? Influenced that I do it or just how you think about food because I feel like it is a massive part of your story And we haven't really touched on it too too much. Yeah, I mean it's drastic. I came to hunting later in life Um, like many people these days, uh, grew up fishing, uh, my dad and I fished all the time and it was, it was a huge part of, of what I did and being outdoors.

And I think that hunting was just a door that I'd never unlocked. I always wanted to be outside. Fishing slows down if you don't have a boat kind of in the winter, , [01:04:00] you know, it gets kind of a little slow. And I was always just like, oh, I wish I could be outside. And then one day I was like, oh, I could be outside.

Turns out, um, if, if you just, you know, learned a million things, you know, and, uh, you know, surmount. A bunch of barriers to entry, uh, then you too can be, uh, hunting all winter and manage to kind of put that together. Um, and yeah, it's, it's changed everything. I mean, we are, we're known as a game restaurant, uh, by design.

Uh, we serve a lot of feral hog. We serve a lot of no guy. We serve, um, you know, whatever deer we have access to, you know, exotics, you know, maybe red deer or axis or fallow Psyche. Yeah. We serve odd ad, which is a wild sheep. I'm very proud of that because people say it's inedible. Um, which is if you want me to serve something, just tell me it's inedible.

Um, [01:05:00] and, uh, so yeah, it really, it's guided, uh, the concept of the restaurant a lot. Mostly because I view Central Texas as being, uh, a place where hunting is part of the culinary conversation. Whereas, um, a restaurant in New York City, it would feel a little weird, you know? Not to say that in New York, and the environs around New York City, but Central Texas is home to a lot of game.

Also, the rocky areas of the, you know, Uh, um, the hill country and the cross timbers, uh, are not really great for growing anything besides goats. And so game enters into the equation very naturally, I think. Um, as does fish out of the gulf. And so that's, that's really why [01:06:00] it's not done for any exotic reason.

It's definitely not a gimmick where you, you, you can see game on menu sometimes where you feel like it's just kind of gimmicky or it's like, Ooh, that's, that's very exotic. Are you serving, you know, it could be weird, you know, like, like yak or something. And it's like, okay, uh, why, but you know, and I can tell you why we're serving, you Farrel Hogg and Nilgai and Audad and they're invasives and they're delicious.

So, yeah, hunting has informed it extensively, you know, and I've made, um, a, a living off of incorporating hunting into food, you know, through, through books, which is, you know, Really fun or hunting schools, which is really fun, you know, like all these very rewarding experiences, um, and kind of this narrative that we've been able to take, um, [01:07:00] incorporate that into like a standard restaurant or, uh, or, uh, a stance on food and incorporate.

Uh, game into that. And I always try to push back a little bit when it's like, Oh, it's all about hunting and game. And it's like, listen, I, like I was saying earlier, I love picking berries. You know, I love all of it. Uh, hunting takes up a lot of time and currently I'm, I'm fairly obsessed with turkey hunting.

Um, Just for, for a bunch of reasons. Um, but it, it is, it's part of it. It's, you know, just, it's just like getting good eggs. It's just like getting a good radish or a pepper or some really cool salt from the Laguna Madre or some milk or a great cheese or a perfect peach. You know, is it from, is that peach from the Fredericksburg area?

Is it from Lake Buchanan where they might be a little bit better, you know? Um, hunting to me is just, it's just another aspect of it. But it. It's, it's [01:08:00] a attractive as a topic. How do mere casuals like me and Harry actually make our Thanksgiving turkey taste good? Because it's such a bastardized bird.

Right. But I feel like if we know how to do it the right way, it could actually be delicious. Yeah, so that's. That's, that's tricky, um, turkey right now, the topic of turkey and Thanksgiving, like wild birds, domestic birds, is, is a very nuanced conversation. I think turkey, be it domestic or wild, is just fantastic, I think, I love the flavor of turkey, I think it's just a wonderful, wonderful bird, and they're big, you know, that's cool.

It's the biggest bird out there that you can eat. I mean, besides an emu, um, buy, uh, buy great turkey and just, it's like anything. It has to be cooked well, you know, I always tell people to cook sausages like steaks, [01:09:00] you know, you don't just have to. forget about something or just treat it like, Oh, it's just, it's just a blank.

Um, you have to cook a sausage with the precision that he'd cook a steak, you know, and it just, and a turkey is the same way. You have to cook these things with precision. Um, it doesn't mean that you have to fret or worry, or just sit there and stare at the thing, but just do some research and And try to achieve that that goal, you know, but it's but make it fun, you know, like, like, you know, enjoy cooking.

Uh, yeah, I can't. I can't really do the 10 tips to make your holiday bird, but it's possible, but it's possible to make it because Brian. Yeah. Is it LA BBQ that has the really juicy turkey? LA has very good turkey. I've not had it, but I love turkey at a BBQ place, so It's just so juicy, it just like defies everything you think about the bird.

We all just think that it's just this dry bird. Yeah. You have to soak in [01:10:00] gravy or whatever. It's like I was saying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's It's not the turkey's fault, you know, that's definitely not, um, that it requires just some nuance and it's like, you know, a big, a chicken breast is easy to cook because it's small, but a turkey breast is hard to cook because it's big, you know, it's like there's going to be gradients of heat affecting it and things like that, but, you know, do your research and like figure out what it is.

It's going to make that turkey better, you know, it's like I just put out a book about. Yeah. Turkey, wild turkey and wild turkey hunting. And so this question around Thanksgiving comes up a lot. And I, I keep saying, it's like that book is kind of written about the other 364 days of the year, you know, like where, where Turkey is regarded as a, as a daily food source, like a Tuesday night.

Um, and it's also very specifically [01:11:00] about the wild bird, the conservation efforts that have gone into saving that bird, the hunting of that bird, the enjoyment of that wild animal. And it's very complex relationship with our, the, this collective psyche where we, where we think that you eat turkey, uh, one day a year or in a sandwich.

You know, it's like barbecue is actually kind of bridge that gap a little bit, but we do have the sometimes the strangest food, I would say maybe a more a or maybe a tradition or rule. Uh, you know, like, like, I mean, consider, like, very simply, we eat embryonic chickens until noon and then we eat chickens after that, but we'll not eat them, embryonic chickens, afternoon, you know, like, I mean, if you, if you rephrase things like that, it's like, it [01:12:00] sounds just downright silly.

Yeah. Would you like chicken for breakfast? You're like, Are you crazy? Is that even legal? Yeah. Like, you know, or, you know, scrambled eggs for dinner. I mean, people might do that, but it's still, it's like, Ooh, or what are you, are you feeling lazy? You know, it's, it's, it's very, very, uh, interesting that we have, uh, all these rules.

That was way more answer than you asked. There's a great answer. It even reminds me of like the mental aversion of, um, you love sushi, but you're weirded out by, Beef tartare and tartare or something like that when it's like you're already eating raw foods. It's just interesting our conditioning around some of these things.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. When you're over in Italy, did you ever imagine that you were going to be writing a book on hogs and turkey and weaving these narratives together? Like, no, no idea. Especially, I mean, if you go back to, you know, when I was, you know, working in Denton and be like, yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna write a book about it.

Hunting wild turkeys? I mean, what are you talking about? [01:13:00] I mean, although, in the book I do mention that one of my, probably my earliest hunting, um, desire was when I, when I realized this, like, I want to do this thing. I was a kid and we were, my grandparents lived in Central Texas. We lived in North Texas and we would travel down to see them.

I don't remember where we were, but we pulled over and the side of the road, I remember looking down at this Canyon and seeing all these turkeys. And my first thought was, I want to kill one of those things, and I was probably like eight at the time, you know, and I was, it was, it was interesting and I, I discussed that in the book.

Um, I. So I knew I mean that was there, you know I didn't know how to go about it or anything All I knew was like I know people do that. I want to do that I want to chase those things that are down in that Canyon I could see him where like a roads like a call it a rest stop and and and we're just looking at those birds So, but yeah, I [01:14:00] the path has been interesting.

I wouldn't trade it for anything though. Hmm How has uh, how is Steven Rinella influence to you? I mean he's been You an incredible supporter. Um, he keeps me on my toes and I get a, like a random, I'll get a phone call. It'll be like, Oh, and it's always a cooking question, which is very flattering. And it's, but it's always the most random question that I see.

It's like, Oh, what's this going to be? And they're like, no way. Really? Okay, let's, let's do this. Let's walk through it. Um, uh, been great. You know, he, uh, Steve. In my mind, is one of the, one of the most intelligent people I've ever met. Um, he, he goes to bed and reads every night. And that it's going to be some very specific, probably historical or natural book.

Um, incredibly well read [01:15:00] knowledgeable, um, just a fascinating human. And I think it's really, it needs to be said that it's, it's very real. What you, what you see around that production, he's, he is an excellent hunter, he is an excellent outdoorsman, an excellent shot. Um, when they, when they film things they don't do.

Second takes. It's really cool. And, um, I think that, uh, integrity and that being that genuine has been inspiring. Um, and that, I mean, that level of success around it, it says, you know, like he's doing Steve things and people listen. And it's just really cool to see that it can achieve. Uh, that level, uh, with that much integrity.

So he's just hitting you up with random cooking questions? Not often, but random enough where it's like, oh, you know, kind of like wasn't expecting [01:16:00] him to call me. Keeps you on your toes a little bit? Oh yeah. Yeah. What do you think is the best, what's the best compliment you could get from a customer that comes to Daidue and has a dining experience there?

Besides I know what you're doing here. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I don't know. Uh, I do know, um, bring, bring your kid in just the two of you. I love, there's nothing that I love more than seeing like a little kid and a parent eating together. You know, it's like for whatever reason, you know, dad had to go do something.

Mom had to do something, whatever. And it's just the two of them enjoying a meal. There, which would insinuate a certain, I don't know, they, they had to buy in both of them would have to buy in. So it's not going to be a spoken compliment. I think it would be that, like when I [01:17:00] see like that, that situation, I love that more than anything because it's always, it's going to be an indelible memory memory for, for both probably that one on one time over a meal, maybe it's considered fancy or, you know, like, Oh, this was interesting.

Or maybe it's the first time I ever ate this. Um, That, that would be, that is, and because it happened, I would say that that is the biggest compliment that I could get. It's just like a, a one on one sharing that with, with your kid. Wow. Like just being able to play a part. In that memory that they're, that they're creating at your restaurant.

And like you have in a menu where if the, if the child wants, you know, fried chicken or fried quail or something, they can get that. And then if the parent wants something a little bit more leveled up, they can get that too, but both are equally delicious. Yeah. I mean, or yeah, they just, or maybe they, they step out a little bit and they get something that they might normally not normally get chicken hearts.

[01:18:00] Yeah. My daughter's favorite. So good. She loves chicken hearts. It's one of those things where you just immediately sit down and have to order it. I feel like I've had it every single time I go to Desiree, um, is there, and are there any concepts that you have floating around in your head that you're like, I need to do this at some point?

Well, I guess I'm talking to investors now. So anybody out there like a million dollars. Oh, what am I saying? Eight million dollars. Uh, I, uh, restaurant life is hard. I mean, being honest, it's really hard. Um, if somebody was to come to me and be like, all you gotta do is create a menu, man. I'd be like, yeah, that sounds fun.

I don't have to worry about staffing and like the dishwasher breaking. I'd be like, I'm all in. I, I, I, there's, there's two, like, I guess we can call them concepts, uh, that I find really intriguing, [01:19:00] uh, one being seafood. I love. Seafood a lot. And I love really simple seafood restaurants. Uh, quality seafood to me is almost a perfect restaurant, especially in the winter when oysters are good, because we go in there and we'll get oysters, peel and eat shrimp, maybe an order of fries.

You know, you haven't lived until you've eaten French fries and Raw oysters together, trust me, uh, and maybe some sparkling wine, like a little cava or something. Oh my God. So good. Um, quality seafood might be a perfect restaurant, but something like that, where it was just like, this is what we got. We got a fryer.

We got a grill. Uh, that's it. We got a fryer and a grill. Like, uh, or we won't cook it. Like, like, those are your choices. Um, you know, couple vegetables. Maybe like one dessert or something. And then, I don't know, I've always thought that that would be really fun. You'd have crawfish in the spring. You'd have [01:20:00] blue crabs.

You'd have shrimp. Just like a, like a, um, A big place that just had like cranking out family style platters of, of just Gulf seafood. Really fun. Oysters and shrimp and squid when you got it and grouper and snapper and whatever it is that was looking good. It'd be really fun. The other would be, I, uh, I'm obsessed with German food.

You wouldn't expect that one. No, let's go. I love, I love German food. I think there might be something genetic about it. Um, my grandparents and my dad, my father, they lived in Germany after World War II. My grandfather was stationed there. Um, actually he was stationed there before the war was ended as well.

Um, so, And they, they grew to love everything German. They always drove Volkswagens. And then they, when I was. visiting them, they would, they lived in New Braunfels, you know, so German community. They really just, They just [01:21:00] couldn't let it go. Um, and, uh, they just, they love German food. And they kind of introduced me to that like Texas, German style food.

And I've always really liked it. And I think it's, uh, it's a really cool cultural deal here, because if you go out to Fredericksburg, New Braunfels, you have German enclaves out there and there's a real, Old history of that, that influence. And I think it's really cool. It could translate really well. Um, lots of game smoked meats, um, lots of pork, uh, preserved vegetables.

You know, we could, we can execute. German here on a local level. Um, I know what's interesting too, is like we can almost execute Vietnamese food here on a local level too, which is pretty cool. It speaks to the diversity of our, of our climate and our region. Um, and also that we've had such an influx of, of people from more recently from Vietnam have come here and really.[01:22:00]

added, uh, so much to, like, the, the culinary composition of Texas, which I think is, is fascinating to me. Because if somebody was asked, like, what are the major influences in your mind of Texas, Mexico, Germany, and maybe, you know, maybe some Eastern European and Czech stuff, Vietnam. You know, where else in the world would those be the top three answers of, of like, of like culinary influence due to this incredible, uh, immigration here, which is just like making our food so much better and all translates to the regional ingredients.

So, so. German would be fun, but, uh, for now I'll just cook German food. You know, here and there. Sometimes we'll just bust out a German menu for a special event and that'll kind of, that'll do it for me. Sounds so good. So you guys, have you guys put like tallow fried schnitzel on the menu or anything like that?

We, we [01:23:00] have done little cutlets and schnitzels before. Sometimes you could add it to your biscuits and gravy. Um, but it's been a little while, it's been a while, but we've, we did a special dinner not too long ago where we did. Some schnitzel, and yeah, it's, as you'd imagine, it's quite good when fried in beef fat.

That sounds incredible. I hope that we get lucky enough to come to Dai Dui one night where there's schnitzel on the menu. Yeah, schnitzel is. And you guys used to do, um, fried chicken and now it's fried quail, right? And tallow? Right. I mean, not to get too far into the weeds, but we had a, a farmer, a chicken farmer that we used for, I think like 16 years.

Uh, and then they just, they. Closed shop, you know, health issues, stuff. And it was heartbreaking because it was so dialed for us. Like, they, they, they grew exactly what we [01:24:00] wanted and exactly the way that we wanted. Wonderful people, uh, very consistent. You know, we were getting our 82 chickens a year, uh, a week, um, in this perfect size for frying.

And then when that went away, it was really hard for us to find, you know, You know, kind of almost regressing back to those early days where we, it was kind of hard to find not just chicken, but of a certain size and a certain volume every week to do this. And so we just made the decision to go with quail from my friend Todd out in Lockhart.

He's one of the biggest quail producers in the state. And we just went with that. Um, it was a shift. It was hard in the beginning, but it was informed by, we couldn't get exactly what we wanted in the right numbers of the right quality to the right standards of this other thing. So that's what we went with.

Got it. I feel like I'm asking a very, very [01:25:00] selfish question. So I'm sorry. I was just curious about it. Cause I just remember the shift happening and being like, well, I don't think I, I remember consciously being like, I don't know if I've ever really had quail before, but if they're serving it and it's cooked in towel, it's probably delicious.

And just being just amazed by the dish and loving it. So I appreciate you sharing that story. Sure. Yeah. I mean, transparency is important, you know, like where we could source. Chickens, but they're gonna come from California, right? And that's not our neighbors. I'm more power to them I hope that your California neighbors like, you know, but it's not we're gonna we're gonna support Todd Yeah, have you heard of the new restaurant grocery store concept called radius?

That's something we have You excited about that? I am. I know Joe really well. Nice. And Kevin. Um, definitely. Uh, we've, we've had a lot of conversations about that. I'm excited for them to come on board. I think they're gonna do really well. Yeah. I'm sad to see Salt and Time go. They, we, we came up together.

Um, [01:26:00] known them forever. I've actually met Ben out in California when we were out there for a convention many years ago before he had moved here to open up. And so, uh, way back, they did it really well. Very high quality, really talented people. And so, but, um, he's gonna do something great. Yeah. Yeah. We're excited to see that come to the east side.

It'll just be another evolution of this whole food scene here on the east side of Austin. Yeah. It's been incredible. Well, brother, we, uh, we appreciate you so much for doing this, man. As, as Harry had mentioned before we recorded, we've wanted to do this for over a year. And, um, your restaurant has been home to a lot of really special memories for us.

And, uh, we just appreciate just the, the integrity, the story, you being willing to share that with us. It's, uh, it means so much, man. And we just appreciate you. Thank you. It was, it was great. I really appreciate the opportunity to come and have a conversation. It's, it was a good time. I'd do it again. Sweet.

Let's do it soon. Thanks, Jesse. Thanks, [01:27:00] Jesse.