D. Patrick Rodgers

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City, and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll, and I am your host. Today we are going to be speaking with Megan Seeling. She is the project manager and editor for Nourish Nashville, and it is a new book that the Nashville scene is producing. We're also going to be speaking with Dee Patrick Rogers, who is the editor-in-chief for the Nashville scene. They're going to join the show today and tell us all about the book, how they wrote it, kind of just all the different chefs that are sharing their recipes for here in Nashville, and what the meaning is behind Nourish Nashville. So they talk about that for about 20 minutes, and then we spend another 20 minutes just talking about their lives and what they're going through right now, what their future looks like. But speaking of our future, our future is going to look a lot like us talking about Trust 20. Trust 20 is built on 20 tactics that cover four categories.

01:22There's six tactics on cleaning and sanitizing. There's five tactics for employee health and safety, seven tactics on social distancing, and two tactics on diner health and safety. All in all, there's 20 different categories that they will come in and identify that your restaurant should be doing, and when you cover all of those tactics, they will certify you as being Trust 20 certified. What does that mean? That means that you will be put on their list that they put out of all of their certified restaurants. You will also get a sticker that goes on your door to let your diners know that you are doing everything you possibly can to ensure the safety of your guests as well as your employees. It is vital right now that we are doing everything in our power to ensure that we are doing the right thing to keep everyone safe. So go visit them at Trust20.co. That's TrustTheNumber20.co and get your restaurant certified today. I also want to talk to you real quick about FauxandBow.com. That's F-O-H and B-O-H.com. Guys, they are taking off right now.

02:41Massive numbers of people are coming back to work. Their website is getting flooded right now with candidates that want to work. These are people that have gone to a website that is locally owned and operated that is hiring people for restaurant jobs in Nashville. That's right, Nashville, not any other city. Nashville, Tennessee. Locally owned and operated, woman owned, and they are doing it right. So if you are a candidate, you're somebody who wants to get out there and work, go check out FauxandBow.com, F-O-H and B-O-H.com, and sign up. And if you are a restaurant and you need to hire people now, go to FauxandBow.com. No BS, guys. This is legit. You go on their site, you identify exactly what you need in a position, and you don't have to put a job out there and it posts and you have to wait. It's not like you're going on a social media site and you're saying, hey, I need help and getting 50 people responding. The people are there. You go on, you create the job that you want, and it immediately matches you with candidates that match all the criteria that you're looking for. It doesn't get any easier than that. So if you would like a demo of how FauxandBow works, send an email, a special email set up for people that are listeners of the show.

04:02We have special offers for you. Send an email to Brandon at F-O-H and B-O-H.com and just say, hey, I'm looking for a demo. Let me know who you are and we will get it set up. So we're going to jump right in here right now with both Patrick and Megan from the Nashville scene as they talk to me about their new cookbook, Nourish Nashville. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. We're talking Nourish Nashville today. The Nashville scene presents Nourish Nashville, a collection of recipes from Nashville's best chefs. We are joined with project manager and editor Megan Seeling and editor in chief Patrick Rogers. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, you two. Hey, thanks. Thank you. Thanks for having us. It is my absolute honor. This to me seems like a fantastic idea. More and more people are cooking from home during this pandemic and what a way to highlight local Nashville chefs and to give back to the restaurant community. How did this project get started?

05:18Megan, you want me to take that or you want to take that? Yeah, you take that one because I was not in the room when it. Really, it's actually something that we at the scene have had brewing for a really long time since before the pandemic. In fact, our publisher, Mike Smith, had always kind of wanted to gather up recipes by chefs and restaurateurs and people we've just covered over the years because we have a pretty sizable, you know, rolodex of sources and people that we've reviewed and interviewed and we always kind of wanted to do something that would show all of the sides to Nashville's restaurant scene because, as you know, there's so much to incorporate. And then when the pandemic struck, we kind of had that idea of, well, what if we, you know, silver linings, what if we try to use this as an opportunity to, you know, bring those chefs into people's kitchens? So it was kind of a marriage of the two things. You know, we knew we wanted to do something like this, some kind of project, and just the timing felt right. And, you know, what better way to, you know, support restaurants than to have part of the proceeds from something like this go right back to the restaurants that are participating in it? So, yeah. And then we brought Megan on board because we needed somebody to do all of the actual work of putting it together.

06:40That's a lot of emails. Yeah. So what does that include, Megan? What is the work? You say a lot of emails, but like... There's a lot of emails. Yeah. It was, well, I met with Patrick, obviously, and then Mike Smith, the publisher, and a few other folks who were involved making the list of, like, our dream list. Like, we basically just made a huge list of all of our favorite chefs, restaurants, bakers, and then found as many emails as we could. We had a lot of them, thankfully, and then just got to work of asking people. Like, it was as simple as that. And I think when it initially started, we were really scared that people were either going to not write back or they were going to write back and just be like, do you realize there's a pandemic and our industry is going down the drain? We do not have time for this. But they were all super excited and just, like, within the first couple of hours, we were getting emails that were just like, yes, we would love to take part in this. What do we do? You know, it's funny. I'm sorry. I just feel like people, there's a perception and a fear that you don't want to bother people. You know that this is a tough time, but I found it kind of like you just said, quite the opposite. People said, well, what are you going to talk about in a podcast during a pandemic? And I'm like, everything?

08:03Who's going to be able to talk to you? And I'm like, everybody has a lot of time right now. And there were some people that had to pass simply because they were like, we are struggling to figure out what we're going to do. And they were nice about it. But more than anything, and it was totally understandable. There was a lot going on. But more than anything, people were super excited about the opportunity to share recipes when we told people that they could choose something that's either at their restaurant or just something that meant something to them personally. Like, Arnold Mint shared his mom Patty's recipe for shrimp toast. And so it gave him an opportunity to make his shrimp toast that's like the modernized version versus her shrimp toast that he had when he was a kid. And it was just really sweet to watch people think about, what do I want to eat right now in the middle of the most historically most upsetting time of our lives? There's a lot of comfort food. And it was just awesome to see people just, it really was as easy as just, well, as sort of easy as sending a lot of emails and getting the recipes and then compiling all of them, of course. And I tested some of them and did what I could there. And just, yeah, just, it wasn't as hard as you think it would be. It wasn't pulling teeth.

09:25Well, that was going to be one of, I think you answered it there, was when you sent this email, what were you asking? Were you saying, hey, I want, did you have specific recipes in mind? Were you like, hey, I want the recipe to this dish? Or were you saying, look, we're, we're totally good. Anything that, like you said with Arnold, was it a family recipe? Is it something that's just special to you or is it a specific menu item? There were a couple of specific menu items. Like I remember both Patrick and Mike, and then some of the other people who were on staff, Elizabeth Jones, who laid it all out and scheduled all the photography. Like when we were making the list, there were a few people that were like, I really love this dish at this restaurant. And if you could get this recipe, that would be amazing. You know, like most tacos is in there and it's the chicken tortilla soup, which is what everybody wants for most tacos. And so thank you, Teresa, for being kind enough to share that with the world. But there were, yeah, there were more than anything. We just asked them, what are you making right now? What do you want to eat right now? Or what are you willing to share? But yeah, there were, there were a few people when I emailed, when I emailed them, I was like, hey, if you want to give us this, and we got declined on some of those. Cause it's like, I'm not going to eat that one. That's my cherished recipe. Yeah. Uh, no offense, but I will give you this very good runner up. Very nice. Um, let's name some names. So we've, we've, we've talked about Arnold mint and, um, I forget who you just now said.

10:58Trice Mason from most, most amazing from most tacos. You've, this isn't a cookbook of like B and C restaurants. There's some A list names on here. Yeah. Let's go over, let's go over some of the people. Go ahead. Go Patrick. Go. We lose Patrick. Sorry, sorry. It froze up on me a little bit. Yeah, it's okay. Um, one of my, one of my favorites in the book is Josh Haberger has the Bastion nachos, nachos, which are just, I mean, if you've ever had the Bastion nachos, those are, I mean, uh, I dream of those things. So I was really excited that he shared those with us. He's a favorite of mine. Manit Shohan shared a recipe with us. Um, I'm a big fan of Shohan, ala masala house. Um, there's, um, funk soul brothers shared their, uh, kimchi fried rice.

12:00I'm really excited. I want to try that. BJ, BJ will be on the show next week, by the way. Oh, that's great. And that recipe, I feel like the great thing about that one is when we asked him, he was like, I'm going to give you my kimchi fried rice, but this is how I make it at home. This is like the legit version. And it's a little different than the one in the restaurant. Apparently, like this is, he's like, this is the one I make for me. Um, yeah, yeah, those are just a handful of some of my favorites. I know Megan, you probably got, got some more in the mix. I'm real excited about the dessert section. I'm a big dessert person. So Lisa Marie white is in there, which I think is really great. Um, Tammy from the peach cobbler company, um, there are peach cobbler factory. She gave us a recipe for a jalapeno peach cobbler, which now the peach season is over. Um, it's a little, it's a little less, um, appropriate, but I, at the time it was very excited. So that'll be great for next summer when it's peach season. Um, I think Brian Lee Weaver, his recipe is really exciting. Um, and then yeah, I just, more than anything, I'm just excited to like have, you know, D Andrew's macaron recipe, like, you know, I'm a big, I'm a big fan of the dessert section. Uh, and I'm also a vegetarian.

13:24And so like when I was going through some of these, you know, like, okay, I can't make that, but so many of them are adaptable to a vegetarian thing. Like minutes, um, she did the like hot chicken, pakora. I could use tofu with that, you know, or like TKO is chicken is in there with like six different marinades and sauces or something. Some of these recipes have like so many steps and you could just, you could do a tofu. So I'm excited to kind of dig into some of that this winter and try my hand at turning a few of these into vegetarian dishes. That's awesome. Uh, I will also say that you have recipes from Margo McCormick, you have recipes from Deb Paquette, Jess and Trey over at 210 Jack, um, Carrie Bringle, John Stevenson, um, Julia Sullivan from Henrietta Redd. I mean, you guys, heavy hitters. Yeah. You got the names. So, um, I guess I was going to ask like the, um, cooking, like have you, Patrick, have you cooked any of these yet? Man, I, you know, my, my girlfriend's a better cook than I have, I am. So we're about to, uh, we're, I really want to do, I already mentioned the nachos, but that's the one that's first on the agenda. Um, I know Megan's a baker. Um, I'm, I'm trying to get into baking. It's all about the chemistry and the timing, but, um, yeah, on the short list are definitely the Bastion nachos and, um, and Deb, yeah, you mentioned Deb Paquette, her recipe looks really amazing. I want to try that one too. Um, yeah, really I want to work my way through the whole thing over the winter. Um, probably starting at the, there's a couple of recipes that I think are, are probably more to my skill set, skill level, and I'm going to start there and work my way through difficult things.

15:18Yeah. And none of them looked so incredibly complex that like you couldn't do them. I mean, one of the, I think that's one of the cool things that this, this isn't a, you might, you don't have to be an executive chef somewhere to create these recipes at home. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned Kerry Bringle. He's got a recipe in here that, you know, um, green beans. Yeah. Yeah. Which is like relatively simple. You can make that as a side for, you know, um, for, for a potluck or something. I guess we're not doing many potlucks these days, but yeah, there's a lot of options in there that I think are really cool from sides to, to the entrees and the desserts. So excited to kind of try them all. Megan, were there any good stories when creating the book, any kind of mishaps, any kind of drama? Uh, I wonder if I should talk about the drama. There was, there was one drama thing at the very end when I realized I forgot a recipe. That was, that was the big drama. That was the, that was the getting the text message.

16:23We had shot the recipe. We had taken video of the recipe being prepared and we were all very excited about the recipe. And then we're flipping through the book one more time. And I don't know, I don't remember who noticed it, but somebody was like, I don't think this one's in there. Is this one in there? And it was like a day or two before we wanted to get the final thing. So it's just like flipping through all of the pages, making sure. And yeah, no, I, I forgot a recipe, but it's in there now. It's fine. Nobody needs to know. I'm an excellent project manager. You can trust me. Not even going to ask which one it was. Yeah, no, it doesn't matter. I wouldn't tell you. There's a very special edition. Um, if you get the, the unproved version of the cookbook, you can find out, uh, there's a few copies of it in existence. But, um, but yeah, other than that, everybody was super easy to work with. And I wouldn't say that there was any drama, but more than anything, there were just really good stories. And like some of these chefs, like talked about, you know, like, you know, like I keep going back to Arnold Mint, but just like, he was so excited, like here, can I, you know, he was, he's, he's not in Nashville right now, because when COVID hit, he was in Palm Springs. Yeah. Yeah. And so like, so he wasn't here in Nashville, but he still was like, how can I do this? Can I take pictures and send them to you?

17:46And I really want to, can we do my mom's recipe? And he's the one who had the idea to like put them on the same page and sort of juxtapose them. And, um, and so that was really exciting to see. Um, and yeah, I think more than anything, yeah, it was just awesome. Like, like Teresa from Moss Tacos was like, I'd love to give you the chicken tortilla soup recipe. Like that's, that's what people want. Um, and just like what, what struck me and what has stuck with me more than anything is just how like cool everybody has been with not just sharing the recipes, but then like my follow-up questions, you know, like, um, the Brussels sprouts, um, from, um, from Otaku, um, or not, not Otaku. What's the ramen place? What are the, the Brussels sprouts were from, um, gosh, hold on one second. I just remember looking at those thinking I've got to make those. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jess and Trey. Yeah. I can't believe I just faced that. Um, but like when she first sent the recipe, it made a gallon of that sauce because it was like the restaurant version, you know, and like you could put that sauce on everything. And like, I think we had an issue with many things too, where it's like, you're going to end up with like 10 cups of this enjoy. And it's like, what is the home chef going to do with like a gallon of like fish sauce, vinegar at that you dump on, on Brussels sprouts. So they, all of these chefs were super nice when I emailed them and was like, dumb question. Can this be halved or, you know, or, you know, like you say sugar here and I think you mean powdered sugar or whatever, whatever sort of little things we had to check on. Um, that was, you know, it wasn't drama, but it was definitely, I hope none of the chefs are out there thinking like, this Megan girl is a little dumb. He doesn't know the difference between this and that, you know, like, of course it's fresh ginger and not dried ginger or whatever. So there was some fact checking stuff that they were very patient with me on.

19:52I think, you know, I think that's expected people chefs who talk with and work with other chefs expect things, but when they're dealing with people who aren't chefs, there's a lot of details. I think that they're probably more appreciative of the fact that you're identifying those details versus making assumptions. Very nice about it. So when it comes to recreating a chef's dish, I mean, this is really the cool thing about this is, is it's not just some dish. I mean, I love the title of nourish because that's what they do. I mean, creating food is really meant to nourish people and nourish a community. And when they put something out there, it's an extension of themselves. I mean, to make sure that you get every single facet of that correct, it says, I think they probably appreciate that a lot more than no, no, no, I want to dry ginger versus the, you know, like that's all good stuff. All right. So I'm going to ask kind of one last question here in regards to the book. It's dedicated to Steven Steinhardt, who we all know and love.

20:59Patrick, this is probably a question for you. I would love to talk about him a little bit about why the book was dedicated to him and just kind of give him some love. Sure. Steven, Steven has been at the scene. I've been at the scene for 12 years, but Steven has been at the scene since technically before it was really the scene for 30 plus years. Steven Steinhardt is a mainly he's our sales rep. He's the restaurant guy. You know, if you, if you work in the restaurant world, you've had Steven Steinhardt darken your door before. He's the man who kind of has always been our, our go to for, you know, contacts in the restaurant world. And he's been with the company a really, really long time. He's sort of a gregarious, interesting, funny character. And Mike had the idea to kind of dedicate the book to him just because he's been our food man for so long. And he was met with no resistance. We're all very happy to have Steven on the team. So yeah, we dedicated to Steven, just sort of like, you know, how many people do you know that have been, you know, in any line of work for 35 years and he's been our guy that's kind of connected us to the restaurant scene. So it seemed like an appropriate dedication. And I just wrote up a little, a little dedication to put in the back there. And I think he was pleased to see that. Well, you know what? I think that that's one of the things that is so important right now. Megan, you wrote a column recently, just about stop, take a second for yourself and mental health. And we've been talking a lot about that here on the show. And I think that acknowledging people for their hard work and things that people do just isn't seen enough. There's just not enough times where people publicly or whatever the case is, acknowledge people for the hard work that they do. And there's so many unsung heroes out there. And I just kudos to you because I know Steven and he's just, he's an amazing dude. And I'm just, I love seeing that at the end of the book because I love acknowledging people

22:59who do a great job, especially for as long as he has. Yeah. And it can be thankless work. So we wanted to just say, Hey, thanks. So the book is called nourish nourish Nashville and it comes out on October the 1st. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we, some of the people who pre-ordered are already getting theirs. Yeah, apparently it's out. Yeah. Yeah. So if you pre-order, it might show up even before. How would I pre-order the book? Where would I find it? nourishnashville.com. Yeah. All one word nourish Nashville. We got, we got the URL and a, and a proceeds. What, what is it? Just a percentage of the proceeds go to Nash restaurant split up between all the restaurants that donated their recipe for the book. Yeah. And then there's also, so like a percentage of the sales will go to the, to the restaurants and they can do with it what they see fit, you know, pay waitstaff, like whatever, wherever they're struggling financially, it can help with that. But then if you go to nourishnashville.com, there's also like a tip jar basically. So you can buy a copy of the book. If you want to if you want to add a little more to go to the restaurants, 100% of anything that goes in through the tip, the donation of extra money will go to the restaurants and stuff too. So if you want the book and want to give a little more awesome, if you don't want the book for some reason, maybe you're a jerk. You could just donate to the restaurants. I'm just kidding. No one's a jerk, but yeah, you could also just donate to all the participating restaurants too, either way.

24:42We won't judge you. Excellent. I love that. You know, and this is the time where our locally owned and operated independent restaurants need this so bad. Yeah. Thank you guys for doing this. nourishnashville.com. Go check it out and purchase your copy today. All right. There's my, I thank you guys so much for talking about the book and I want to pivot this just a little bit to you guys. We've talked about nourish Nashville and the restaurant scene, but how has the Nashville scene, the Nashville scene, as in your publication, how have you guys been doing? We're, we're hanging in there. You know, it's been, I mean, who hasn't had to adjust and adapt, you know, over these past seven months, but, you know, the scene's been around. We celebrated our 30th anniversary as an alt weekly last year. So we're 31 and change. And so, you know, we've had a lot of people and a lot of, you know, we've adapted and changed a lot over time. Megan used to be our culture editor. She's still a very regular contributor for us. But, you know, she's seen all the changes we've been through. So we just had to learn to adapt. I mean, so much of the scene is based around events from, you know, what we're writing about to our sales. So that just evaporated, you know, in late March. But we figured out a way, you know, I'm going to use the cliche we pivoted, like everybody did. We figured out, we took our critics pick section, which was all about, here's what you should go out and do over the next week. We made that, all right, here's the films and recipes and records you should check out at home. You know, so we've, we've found a new stride in doing that. We've had to make a lot of adjustments. But, you know, we've been around more than three decades. So, you know, we're figuring it out.

26:38Are you guys seeing a massive increase in your digital versus I mean, because the people aren't going to restaurants, you distribute the magazine typically around town, if you don't not having the traffic. Are you so I mean, are you have you had to pivot so much more towards that? You know, we, we always put everything that we run in print on the web as well. And even though our pickup rates did drop pretty, pretty drastically there in March and April, when people weren't going out, and everybody was a little bit nervous about still like, well, what can I touch? And is it all right? The pickup? So we reduced our print circulation just a little bit. But we've actually had the pickup rates go back up over the summer. And as people are, you know, realizing what they're comfortable with, and, and picking up to go and all that. But yeah, the online, our online presence or digital, digital views, it did kind of go up a lot, like at the beginning of the summer, it kind of got the impression people were spending longer amounts of time on longer form stories. So I got the impression that people were, you know, reading more cover stories over the weekend, and really digging into stuff online a little bit. So I do think that readership has kind of changed how they're, how they're consuming news and where they're getting their news and all that.

27:56What have you personally, Patrick, what have you personally learned? One of the things you've, your biggest takeaway so far from this whole pandemic from March, kind of on we had tornado going into the COVID, like what's something that you've personally changed or you've learned? Well, you know, it's, it's difficult when you can't, you know, community is a big thing for me personally and for Nashville and for what the scene does. And, you know, it's been kind of beautiful to see how people have adapted to that. Take for instance, the Belcourt Theatre, that's sort of my second home. You know, my, our former editor in chief, Jim Ridley, and, you know, my sort of mentor in film writing, he was in the Belcourt virtually every day. And he passed away in 2016 and they named the lobby after him. You know, that's because everybody, well, Jim's always in the lobby. But, so it's been really difficult not to spend a lot of time at the Belcourt, but they recently launched, in late August, they launched the Belcourt Drive-In. And they have this giant inflatable screen they put out in the parking lot and they're still showing repertory films. I went and saw the birds, you know, they're still doing these releases. So, and just, I can't tell you, pulling into the parking lot there, and even with everybody with their masks on, seeing the staff at the Belcourt and some of the regulars there just immediately eyed tears. Because that's something that I've really, really missed. But, you know, people are adapting, they're figuring out new ways to do things. And I feel like, especially in Nashville, people are really good at that.

29:35So, that's something that I've kind of held on to and enjoyed, is seeing, you know, new ways to see their faces. Go to the Belcourt Drive-In or, you know, participate in the online events and, like, the Zoom happenings that they have. So, I'm just glad to see that, you know, that sense of community does transcend. We're able to do it online or in a safe, socially distanced context. So, I'm just happy with how adaptive Nashville is. Nice. Megan, same question. Like, for you, what have you learned? What's been the thing that, over this time, like, what have you learned throughout COVID? I feel like, I mean, I think there is a sense of community in the city. I think I've also, I think I've learned to slow down a little bit. Like, there was a lot of, like, when I left the scene, I was full-time there as culture editor and then went to freelance and was, like, I wanted to explore freelance opportunities and, like, see what I could do.

30:41I had worked at Alt Weekly basically my entire adult life. And I was, like, I want to see what I can do if I branch out, I freelance, I explore other ideas. And so, from then on, and that was in 2018. And it's, like, freelancing is all about, like, you know, like, the, quote, unquote, hustle culture. And you're constantly, like, trying to think of things to pitch and people to contact and what you could write about. And you don't really get a day off. And, you know, like, it's because you could always be doing more. And then when this pandemic hit, you know, I had a bunch of stuff lined up, a lot of it for the scene, some of it for other publications, too, about bands that were touring and comedians who were touring and all of this stuff that was linked to events. And that was all immediately canceled. And so, like, the initial, like, I had built up this month's worth of work. And all of a sudden, it's gone. And so, you panic thinking, like, how am I going to make money? How am I going to spend my time? And there was just this, like, it forced me to sit down and shut up for a minute and just be like, like Patrick said, like, and, like, everybody's saying you had to kind of pivot. But I think my pivot sort of went into, like, it's okay to slow down. It's okay to either take a break or, you know, like, be more thoughtful about what you want to write and when you want to write it. Because so much of the stuff that I was writing about was about events, was about going to restaurants, was about going to concerts. And and to lose that, I had to kind of, I had to readjust and figure out, like, okay, well now what do I want to write about? And it's been, it's been nice. Like, I mean, it hasn't, it's weird to say it's been nice in the middle of a pandemic and, you know, a complete tragedy. But my husband, It's okay. It's okay to say that. Yeah, yeah. Like, my husband is here at home. He actually left his job early on in the year. And that was a plan of his. He had planned that. And so it's me and my

32:47husband and my dog. And, you know, like, I'm still, I'm still doing work and, and stuff now. And it has since picked back up for, but for a while, I was sort of forced to have a vacation, you know, and like, yeah, that's kind of nice. People weren't assigning things and, you know, because they didn't know what was going to happen, you know? So it taught me to slow down a little. And I think I've sort of, I found a better balance, like a work-life balance that I don't think would have happened otherwise. You know, I think it's, I think it's interesting because I've, I'll answer my own question, not that it was asked of me, but I'll give my comments here that, you know, I've, from talking to all these chefs and people in the industry who have spirits of service and give all of their time and energy. And we do that so much for other people that just reconnecting with what really matters. I have two small children and, you know, I'm one of those people that's always working, constantly out doing stuff, working, working, working, just to like be at home and spend time with them and really connect with them was huge. I also realized that, I really liked your article about mental health, you know, just a small thing that, you know, physical health and all the things you do matter, but if you don't have your mental health, like taking time for yourself, finding meditation, reading a good book about, you know, just kind of taking a few minutes for yourself and investing in yourself and your own personal mental health is absolutely invaluable. And I've also learned that you can, anybody can, it takes one person to help. You have no idea what other people are going through. And if anything, I've seen a vulnerability in our city and our people that people need kindness and they need you to reach out and they need it. Just one small phone call you can make to somebody to tell them hi.

34:39One little handwritten letter that says, Hey, I was just thinking about you. How are you doing? Can make such a difference in people's lives. And we need to do more of that. Yeah. So there we go. There's the story. I inserted myself into that, but great. I think that's a great sentiment. I love it. What do you think is the, the best thing to come out of COVID-19? Either one of you first, me first. Oh my goodness. Well, you know, it's been, it's been a tricky thing. I I've been at, so I've been covering a lot of the protests and marches and rallies that have been happening over the summer. And, you know, seeing the community that formed around, you know, this conversation about racial injustice and police brutality has been really something special. And it's been, it's like you were talking about people reaching out to one another. I've gone down there a lot and I'm there in the capacity to sort of cover it and everything, but it's just people constantly asking what one another needs, supporting one another emotionally. And, and, you know, do you need help carrying that? Do you need a ride home? You know, we could use water down here.

35:56You know, there was a two month period where protesters were spending every day and night at the Capitol steps on legislative Plaza and just seeing people would just show up and bring, bring food, bring water, bring supplies. And that's something that, you know, um, I don't know if it's inspired directly by the pandemic, but I think people have this need, this desire to sort of, um, you know, perform acts of love just to support each other. And that's something I've seen, like people more inspired and passionate to do. I don't know. That's sort of a vague answer to your question, but I feel like just my summer was seeing a lot of that and a lot of that desire and need for social change and people just doing the little things that they could. And we're all sort of, sort of isolated now, um, that doing an act like that makes you feel connected to people. So, um, I love, I really love what you just now said. And I love what you said because everybody has, there's one of the things we talked about a lot on the show is perspective and your perspective can be two ways. You can say everything you just now said with a negative narrative. I've seen all these people and I've seen hate and I've seen anger and I've seen vitriol on the other side, people that meet these protesters with vitriol and anger. You can see that or you can see love. And I love the fact that through all of this, you chose that as the positive because I'm with you a hundred percent, man, like a hundred percent. I love that there's, there's love that is being at people are seeing people a different way for the first time in a positive light. And I think that's one of the best things come out of COVID-19 for sure. I love that cancel football and people open their eyes.

37:50What about you, Megan? What do you think the best thing to come out of COVID-19 was? I think, I think it's something similar. Like I, I definitely agree with everything Patrick just said. And then I think on like a smaller, different, like more business oriented level, one thing I've really loved seeing is how people have adapted. You know, there was so much, so much lost work, I think at the beginning of this, that so many people did what I did, you know, where it's like, what do I do? I have to make money. And in order to do that, they founded a business that had been on their mind for a long time. Like there's this woman, this guy, Patrick, I know you're a fan. Like she started a cold brew delivery service, Crisis Cold Brew. And she will, she has subscription services or you can order it online and she will bring you cold brew on a weekly basis. Or if you just kind of, there's a day you just like bring me 20 ounces of cold brew concentrate. So you don't have to keep making your own coffee. I think that's stuff like that is amazing. There have been like, I like this place, or this business called Grilla Biscuits and they're vegan. It's a vegan biscuit delivery service, but it's all themed after like 90s hardcore, like Grilla Biscuits, straight edge. Like it's, it's a very niche thing, but it's, and that started in the midst of the pandemic. The Nashville Free Store is something that Dark Matter, the DIY music venue, they had to stop doing shows. And so some of their volunteers had this idea for a long time that like, and this happens in other cities where they have a free store where they take all of these donations, food, goods, anything, including produce. They have a refrigerator. You bring it down and then they open one day a week to the community and you can just take what you need, no questions asked.

39:44And so Dark Matter, they take donations on Friday and then they're open to the public Saturday. That's something that wouldn't have happened if Dark Matter hadn't had to close down to live shows. And then along with that, there's this thing called Hot Poppy. I don't know if you've heard about them, but they're like the local answer to Instacart. They deliver local goods to your door as like a grocery delivery service. And they work with dozens of local farms and produce suppliers and lots of local, like Aaron's Noodles, Mr. Aaron's Noodles are on there, which I'm a big fan of. I have some in my fridge right now. But they will, you just, you know, you place your order online or on their app and they bring it to you. And it feels a little better to me to do something like that and support, you know, like local egg farms and local, I'm a vegetarian, but like there's beef and meat on there if you want it. Kenny's cheese is on there and I'm giving my business to those places as opposed to like Amazon and Instacart.

40:53And yes, you know, like, yeah. And so that support local. Yeah, that's something that happened like Hot Poppy launched at the beginning of the pandemic when they were like, we can't go to the farmer's market and, you know, and get like Bloomsburg farm stuff. And I think, I think that sort of thing has been awesome to see people have recognized, because the pandemic just blared a light on all of the holes in all of our systems, you know, where we were lacking and where people maybe needed some help. And they got to work. And, you know, like in the space of like Gorilla Biscuits and Hot Poppy and Crisis Cold Brew, they're doing it because it's a business, obviously, but they're also doing it because people needed it. Like they recognize that people needed it. And I think that's, I think that's pretty amazing. And it's still like, that cold brew is great. So yeah. And like, I tell you, yeah, you went first and she, she, she got, she figured it out.

41:56Yeah. Yeah. That's all really good stuff, Megan. I love that. I've loved to see that. I'd love to see how people have adapted. All right. I'm not going to ask you what's the worst thing of COVID-19. I'm going to let you guys, I could talk to you guys for just hours upon hours. I would love to do it. I know you have jobs. You have things that you have to do. I'm a freelancer. I'm going back to bed. Yeah. So real quick, last thing and two separate ways. Megan, what are you, and Patrick asked you the same thing. What do you see in the future? What are you working on? What should we look for for you coming out soon? Besides nourish Nashville, a cookbook that's out now at nourish nashville.com. What do you, what do you got coming up? What are you working on? And Patrick, what's coming up with the Nashville scene here? What do you guys see going into the future? What are you, what do you, what do you see? Just, we'll start with Megan.

43:02Well, I wish I knew. I don't like it's, you know, I'm going to keep writing and doing stuff like that. I'm going to totally jinx it, but I'm going to try to write a book. So we'll see how that goes. Yeah, that's, that's something that that's, that's a thing where I've been like, oh, so I have time to actually do that. And no more excuses to say, I don't have time to work on a book proposal. And the book, it'll be a collection of like personal essays and maybe a little memory about mental health and depression and living with all of that fun stuff for 8,000 years. But also maybe a little funny because depression can be funny. If you know, you're still alive to laugh. Depression can be funny. But, but yeah, so I've been exploring some of that. And now that I put it out into the world, I guess that means I have to go through with it. But yeah, I don't know. Like I really, it's hard to know what's going to happen. And so I think I'm just, I'm just doing a lot of like sitting and listening and just kind of supporting the people who are doing things and trying to, you know, like Mr. Rogers says, find the helpers and see what they need. Because I can't get rid of the like feeling deep in my gut that everything is going to end terribly somehow this year.

44:34So I'm trying to stay optimistic. Okay. And Patrick, I think this will go over well. We're actually working on our annual best of Nashville issue, which there's that October 15th. I'm helping with that also. I was glad I was like, Oh, Megan's gonna say best of Nashville and steal my answer. Megan's very sad. That's great. That's on brand. We love it. We're putting together our annual best of Nashville issue. And that's something that we actually, the process for that takes a really long time. I started thinking about it and I started thinking about it the day last year's best. Yeah, but we started working on putting it together in July. Usually we start about mid-July. We're really in the thick of it now. And I've read probably 65% of the copy. I've got that last, what is that, 35% left. But yeah, it's actually a really exciting year. What I was kind of worried about was, Oh my God, like this year, are people going to have the pitches for our writers picks or are people going to vote in the reader's poll? And it was a huge response, a huge response.

45:51And in part because some of it's looking back, thinking about before the pandemic, late last year and early this year, while there was still plenty of stuff. But even more of it is looking at what's changed and what's adapted. I got so many pitches from writers for best pivot to doing this, best adjustment to doing takeout, best, anything you can imagine. We had more pitches than I expected and it's coming together. It's going to be a really impressive, really beautiful issue. I'm really, really happy with it. But that one on top of doing an issue every single week, I'm also working on that one. So I've not been sleeping a lot, but that's okay. And we're also putting out a book, a cookbook. But no, it's great. And we're coming up on a sort of the end of the year is a time where we have a lot of issues that we do our annual like year and music issue. We pick our Nashvilleans of the year. So we're coming up on a lot of issues in October, November, December that are sort of big, big ones looking back. And I'm kind of grateful as I'm going through a lot of that content to see. Yeah, it's been a traumatic and insane year, but there's also been a lot of really great stuff. So I'm excited to put those issues out and share them with everybody. I love that. That's awesome, man. And congratulations for all the success over there. And I wish you nothing but more of it. Do we have any, are we going to do an iron fork next year? I sure hope so. I hope that we had to, we had to postpone it this year.

47:25You know, we initially, because it was slated for, I think like March 20th or something like when everything was shutting down and initially we're like, okay, we'll try it in July. And of course that came and went. So I really hope so. I've emceeded a couple of times with my partner in crime, Manit. She doesn't know it, but we're best friends. I'm hoping. I got to choose the secret ingredient twice. Did you really? Oh, I didn't really pick it. I used to work for US Foods. I used to manage the iron fork. I created the pantry and did all that stuff with chef Ed Butler. And so when we did plantains and watermelon radishes, those were me. I remember the watermelon. I was at the watermelon radishes one. Why is that so hard to say? Watermelon radish. Yeah, no, that's a, so I love that event. It's such a fun event. And it's always like a big, like it's like a high school reunion, but for like chefs and culinary people, everybody gets together and it's just, it's just so much fun. It is a lot of fun. Yeah. So hopefully, I mean, that will return one of these days when it's safe to do so. But that's, that's a, that's one that I look forward to every year. That's an event that kind of people associate the scene with a lot. And I'm, I'm, I'm grateful that that's what comes to mind when people think of the scene because it's a lot of fun. I miss it. Well, thank you guys so much for spending your time this morning to talk with Nashville restaurant radio. Love to have you both back and wish you both nothing but the best of luck and success in health. Thank you. I always finish off every episode and I let the people, my guests say one final thought, whatever, whatever comes to your mind, whatever you want to say, it could be, you know, thank you Nashville. Bye. Whatever you want to say. Please feel free to say whatever you like. Megan, you want to go first? Yeah, sure. I guess

49:29thank you for having us. This has been awesome. And the one thing that I would really love to leave people with is check out the Nashville free store. They have over a hundred shoppers, up to 150 and climbing every Saturday from the community who come down and it really helps for people to be able to go in and grab some necessities to take the stress of where are they going to get this? How are they going to pay for this? And it's all like, it's mutual aid, like no questions asked. It's not like a charitable here. You get what we're giving you. You take what you need. And so check it out every Saturday at dark matter. And if you want to donate every Friday at dark matter and you can check out their Instagram for more information, but I just, I have, I've loved it. And I've gone on a few shopping trips to get stuff for them. And it's just, if you feel helpless and you feel like you can't do anything. And if you feel sort of like how I feel sometimes where there is no good in the world. That's a really, really great way to remind yourself that people are doing good things. And, and you can be one of those people that does a good thing. I love it. Thanks for sharing about them. I'm definitely going to check them out.

50:43Yeah, they're, they're awesome. Patrick. That's wonderful. Follow that. Well, I also want to say thank you for having us. This has been a lot of fun. It's also nice to talk to Megan, who I don't get to see as much these days. I guess I would say this is going to be, it's kind of broad, but support local journalism. And I don't just mean the scene, although we love your support, but local independent media, I think is something that's really important now and always. And, and a lot of newsrooms are really struggling. So, you know, if you're in a community that's lucky enough to have some independent local news sources, you know, seek those out, see what they need, whether that's, you know, whether they have subscriptions or take donations or, you know, even if it's just, you know, advertising with them, giving them your clicks. That's something I try to encourage people to do who get their news through social media a lot. I'm like, well, are you going to those sites? Are you seeing if there's a way to support them? Are you subscribing or are you just sharing screenshots of that, you know, of that article? So I would just say, you know, and reach out to a journalist. Sometimes we have a hard time. If you read something that you like, you know, or you appreciate, share it and let them know. We get a lot of hate mail.

52:05We get some love mail too. But I think it's, I don't know, journalists are going through an interesting and difficult time right now. But even a little thank you or, hey, I like that piece, or even just a retweet or something that always is appreciated. All right. Well, thank you both so much. Good stuff, Patrick. Thank you so much for sharing that again. One kind word guys near the grocery store, anywhere you are, a smile at somebody, which you can't really see anybody anymore with a smile. But, you know, thumbs up to somebody and say a high five, a handshake. No, a friendly wave in the car. When you're in the car, smile at somebody next to you. Small gestures go a long way and we'll talk to you guys soon. Thanks. All right. Thank you so much for having us. Big thanks to Patrick Rogers and Megan Seeling for joining us here on Nashville Restaurant Radio. And see guys, I tricked you.

53:06I told you this was going to be an interview about a cookbook and it ended up being deep and interesting. See that? Aha. If you want to smile, I got my, it turned out like a 20 minutes of like a nice little cookbook talk. And then I love the positivity flow in there. Patrick talking about being downtown, seeing the protesters and just seeing the love that's going around in that group, which isn't something that's reported on too often. You know, that doesn't sell copies of newspapers that the people down there are just, hey, what can I do to help you? How can we make it easier? Peaceful protests don't get coverage. And I just love that that's what he saw down there. And I love that that's what 99% of people see that are protesting for injustice. And I love it. So thank you guys for listening today. We have got a big, big week coming up. We have an episode of The Roundup coming up this Thursday, tomorrow at 3 30 live on Facebook and YouTube. We will be announcing or I will be announcing the Nashville Hot List, which will be our top 10 restaurants you need to go eat at right now. The best restaurants in our city right now. Next week, we will have Fleming Wilt, who is the CEO and president of the Christie Cookie Company, as well as B.J. Loftbeck of Pinchy's Lobster Company and Funk Soul Brother.

54:40We've got lots of stuff coming up. We have the Mental Strength Coach for the Philadelphia Phillies. Her name is Hannah Huseman. She'll be coming up next week. All kinds of great guests. So stay tuned to Nashville Restaurant Radio. We will be bringing it to you. Season three. Hope you guys are being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.