Skyler Bush

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. Happy Friday to you and yours. We got a great one today. Skyler Bush is our guest today and he is the chef at Edible Nashville as well as his own food truck called the Ninth Ward. It's an homage to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans and we have a great conversation, a lot of fun with this one and we just have a lot of fun. You're going to love listening to this.

01:02Brandon's Book Club. It is June. We are starting a new book and this book is Patrick Lencioni's The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. This is a big one. There's a lot of teams out there that are learning each other, trying to gel as we come back from a pandemic. People are displaced. We've got new people. We're all trying to figure it out and this particular book is the answer to so, so many of those questions. So the five dysfunctions of a team are as follows. They start with lack of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoiding accountability and attention to results. These are the five things that will ruin any team. What we're going to do is we need you, if you want to be a part of this, this is open to anybody and everybody and I would love to get your feedback. Go to Facebook and in Facebook we have a group called Brandon's Book Club and every Sunday night I am going to release reading of the books.

02:11You do not have to buy the book, although I prefer that you buy the book and you write in it and have it for yourself and support the table group, which is Patrick Lencioni's group. I'm going to be playing the audio version in that group. You will get an hour at a time and it's going to be at 1.25 speed so you'll be able to listen to the book through the Facebook page. Go join that group, Brandon's Book Club and from there we're going to open the discussion. But if you are a leader in a restaurant, this is a book that you absolutely need to read. If you haven't read it before, this is a game changer. I'm excited to lead everybody through this. If you're a restaurant and you want to sign up as a partner on this and get everybody involved, let's do it. This is a lot of fun and I'm excited to bring it to you for the month of June. It may go into July, but we're going to do every week, every Sunday night, a new video we put up on our Facebook page, so go join that group. We are going to do an on-brand today.

03:13We have a brand new on-brand with Sharpier's Bakery. We are so excited today to bring in Erin Mosso, who's the owner of Sharpier's for this very special on-brand. Hey, Erin. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. Sharpier's Bakery, you guys are celebrating your 35th year of serving Nashville's best restaurants. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. As a new sponsor for Nashville Restaurant Radio, you're a listener. Thank you so much. This is exciting. I can't wait to get the word out for everything you guys are doing. Yeah. I was a big fan of your podcast. I've been listening and I just thought it's so fun to listen to the local restaurants and our friends that are in the business and hear what they have to say. I know them personally, but to listen to them talk is ... I love listening to you interview them. Well, I love interviewing them. It's so much fun. You know what? I want to do a full interview with you. I would love to do that.

04:13While you're a sponsor and all, but I want to do an interview with you before we were doing this because I love you. We've got a good story. Yeah. You've got a pretty interesting story. I mean, 35 years, you growing up your entire life in this business, I imagine you've got some stories. Yeah. I certainly never thought I'd actually be working here for real as an adult, but here I am. How long have you been working for Sharpies? Nine years. I moved back to Nashville in 2012. Yeah. 2012 and nine years at Sharpies. Tell me something that most people wouldn't know about Sharpies. I think a lot of people know we make hamburger buns because we make a lot of them, but we actually make so many different kinds of bread. We have like maybe 130 different types of rolls, buns, baguettes, custom delis, table bread, anything you're looking for, we can make. Wow. So you could, let's just say I dream up a bread that I want to make.

05:13Can you guys make pretty much, can you customize bread? Absolutely. Yeah. And if you see a product, it can be something as simple as you've seen a product that we make that you like, but you need a different size, a different shape, a different egg wash on it. So you can do that really easily. If you have a big idea about a particular menu item you'd really like to create, we can work with you to make that happen. That is, that's amazing. I don't think a lot of people know that. I think the restaurants I've worked, I've known about Sharpies for 20 years at least, but I didn't know that you guys could do custom things and do you deliver daily? What do you, what's your delivery schedule like? We're getting back to this. Every day, but Sunday, getting back to that after COVID and anywhere in the Nashville metro area, six days a week. Wow. So if I'm listening to this right now and I'm a restaurant owner and I'm buying my bread from just a broad line, I'm adding bread to frozen bread or whatever I'm getting, I'm sure you're competitive price-wise, I could order almost daily and get fresh baked bread from a locally owned family bakery here in Nashville for roughly the same price.

06:25Exactly. Yeah. Wow. That's, that's, that's, that's where dreams are made of right there. This is why I love doing these on brands because I love introducing people. If you don't know about Sharpies, you don't know about Aaron, then you need to check them out. So they do have an Instagram. It's scrolling on the screen right now. That's at Sharpies Bakery. And the way you spell that is C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S, right? That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S Bakery. So they're at Sharpies Bakery. You can check them out online at www.sharpies.com. Again that's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-Sharpies.com. And you can see pictures of all the different types of bread that they make. I'm sure that if you would like to come down and tour the facility, they'd be happy to have you just get, check out their website, go find them on Instagram, follow them, or just give Aaron a call 615-356-0872 and you could be serving your guests fresh baked bread daily.

07:27Do we cover it? I think so. The front end for our very first on brand. I'm so excited to get to work with you guys and continue to learn all about the things that you do and the bread that I get to do. You guys also do desserts, don't you? We do. We make a flourless chocolate cake and we actually just started making a cheesecake again. We made it for years and we stopped making it. It's amazing. I'm really happy it's back. Yeah, I love a good cheesecake, I'm telling you. It's amazing. It's very simple and delicious and creamy and perfect. You can get those two flourless chocolate cake as well as cheesecake. Check them out. Sharpie Ice Bakery. Aaron, I am so excited to have you guys on. I'm excited to learn more about you. I'm excited to eat some bread because I don't know about you, but I love bread. I do too. Do you get tired of eating bread, being there all the time? People ask me that all the time. They're like, do you get tired of that smell?

08:28I don't smell it anymore, to be honest, but fresh bread, like warm bread, never gets old. Ever. No, never. Well, thank you so, so much for joining us today and I look forward to doing many more of these and thanks again. Thank you. So excited to have Aaron as a new sponsor in Sharpie Ice and cannot wait to do that interview. Hey, if you want to be notified when these interviews come available to you, go ahead and click the subscribe button to however you're listening to this. Subscribe to it and you will get notifications when new episodes come out. Also, if you'd like to watch these videos, head over to YouTube and we have a Nashville Restaurant Radio YouTube page where you also can watch the video. So go check it out. We got a ton of videos posted and I'm posting new stuff all the time. Let's jump in now with Mr. Skyler Bush. Super excited today to welcome in Skyler Bush and he is the chef at Edible Nashville in the Ninth Ward.

09:29What's going on, man? Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Hey, man. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. It's our absolute pleasure. Thanks for doing this. So this is pretty fun. I don't know a ton about you, but I'm excited to learn. So tell me about Edible Nashville. What are you guys doing over there? Man, so we're a local food publication, right? So basically we're focused on all things local, farms, restaurants, artisan makers, pretty much anybody that's kind of branching out and doing their thing in Nashville. That's what we're focused on. We're writing articles about them, doing as many videos as we can with them, just trying to get the name out there for us and for them and for Nashville. I think this is all about the synergy and community and that's kind of like what we're focused on. Wow. That's interesting how similar versus like what I'm doing, you know, talking with people. I want to talk with local, find local, promote local and see if we can connect people in the community.

10:31So this is a natural fit, I think, for you guys to come for you to come on here and kind of talk about that. What about the 9th Ward? Tell me about the 9th Ward. The 9th Ward, that's my little baby. It's my little pet project. We found a food truck for super cheap, found a lot here in Midtown for super cheap and put the two together and here in about two weeks, we'll start slinging some po' boys and Cajun fare. You know what I mean? Nice. There's a 9th Ward in reference to obviously New Orleans. It is and it's honestly an homage to it. After Katrina, it kind of disappeared a bit. It's always been one of the more poverty stricken wards in New Orleans. And I think for us, it was it was about naming it the 9th Ward was about just kind of giving a new life to that area because it's kind of desolate at the moment. We also have my investors is a minority and they are from the 9th Ward.

11:33And so the kind of it's kind of a synergy between, you know, what they're trying to do with their cash flow, you know, and investing in minority owned things and really trying to bring the plight of their people up in the same way that the 9th Ward has always been that beacon of light. Wow, there's so much you just said right there. I want to get into the New Orleans. Are you from New Orleans? I'm from Mobile. Well, Orange Beach specifically, but but yeah, there's a there's a definite Cajun connection and a connection to New Orleans, for sure. So we're coming up on the 16th anniversary of Katrina. I mean, it's 16 years, the 9th Ward is still do you think it's ever going to come back? I don't think so, man. I mean, you know, you have the Army Corps of Engineers deciding if if if New Orleans should ever come back, if anything happens again, you know, so it's it wasn't built on stable ground.

12:36So I don't know if it will ever be revitalized, to be honest. So you are bringing a little bit of New Orleans to Nashville in Poe Boys, an authentic Cajun fair. How did you let's get into some of your story and now we know what you're doing currently, but let's go back to growing up in Mobile, Orange Beach. When did you come to Nashville? I came to Nashville probably seven years ago. After college, I studied music in college. That's kind of been my thing since I was a kid. I was in a band that did a couple of legs of work tour. Nice. Yeah, it's very it's not really my style these days. But but yeah, it was kind of music's just been my my guiding light for a long time. What do you play? I play guitar or anything with strings, but my focus is guitar. OK, when you played on the work tour, did you who did you play with? Did you get to meet anybody like any of your heroes or anybody that's really cool? Yeah, I mean, they're not really cool, but they were definitely my hero.

13:39No, I mean, yeah, a bunch of cool people. I mean, the work tour is just full of incredible acts, new and old. So so it was a good time. It was definitely fun being on the road and being able to do that. Did you move to Nashville for music? I did. My band that I was in at the time, we all graduated from University of Alabama and then moved up here. And then for me, it turned it turned into more of a business than it did a passion. So I'm just not that guy. So I moved on. You know what I mean? Tell me about that. When you say that, what was the name of your band? First of all, I was in a band called Somebody Houston. And then when I moved up here, I was in a band called Organic Androids. Organic Androids. Yeah, it was a cool name. Yeah, we had like a whole storyline and like graphic novels going. It was it was deep. Trust me, people still listen to your music. Is it like on iTunes or anything? Organic Androids still on iTunes.

14:41We kind of fell off with Somebody Houston. I was honestly about my sophomore year of college. We kind of stopped that project, but it had the most reach. You know, we get messages from people from Prague being like, we love your music. But yeah, we just kind of we were kids and just trying to have fun, to be honest. That's so cool, man. You get messages from Prague like, oh, it's the best. Right. He's like, I have it on in my pub all the time. And I'm like, it's weird, but cool, you know. OK. Yeah. When did cooking come into your life? Because you're very talented. I mean, some of the food you're putting together is absolutely amazing. Like when was that something that's always been a passion or when kind of in a side project and then when the business music became a business, you went over to that? Yeah, I mean, it was always kind of a side project. My mother is one of the worst cooks in the world. So and she'll tell you that. So it's like it was necessity. It was born out of necessity, for sure. And then just became a passion. I have a a pretty, pretty talented chef aunt who I learned a lot from just growing up and just kind of rolled it into it.

15:49I wanted I wanted to do something that I love. And so once music became just dollars and cents, I was like, man, what else is out there for me? So and the Nashville food scene was kind of blowing up at the time. So I kind of jumped in. I want to ask you about that, the dollars and cents side of the music business, because so many people in this town are in the music business. When did it change? Was there a moment that all of a sudden, like somebody like a manager came up to you or you guys, did somebody take advantage of you? Like what happened that was that was like a pivotal moment that just turned you off? You know, I don't think there was one moment. It was mostly a conglomerate of moments. But it was just seeing the ins and outs of the business go into studios, like realizing. Your producers aren't as connected with you as you think, you know, that it's not a it's not a it's not a passion project for the people who are actually disseminating your work. Yeah. And so for me, if we can't do it ourselves and make it some our passion and really try to to propagate ourselves in a way that doesn't look fake or anything like that, that's what I wanted to do.

17:04And it was going the other direction, like more geared towards audience, you know, which is obviously what the music business does. But I guess that's just an interesting take. I grew up in the music business also, and I think that that's a side of it. I think a lot of people listen to music and they go, this is awesome. This music is great. And then bands evolve over time. And a lot of that is because of the business of it. And they hey, we've I used to be a passionate thing and there is anger and angst and creativity. And then it becomes, do you think people will listen to this? Sure. And you have to pay your bills at the end of the day, right? Yeah. And if you decide if you decide art is what you're trying to do for a living, you have to be able to separate the left and right brain and say, this is the necessity part. This is what we want to do and try to find the middle. We had a band of six people, so I don't think that would have ever happened. But I would say, you know, if I'm in the music business solo, probably still in the music business.

18:05But just that band of brothers kind of broke up. And I was like, I'm done. I'm trying to move on. Find another band of brothers, if you will. I feel like that's what killed Kurt Cobain. I feel like he was that I'm going to do the music I want to do that I feel like. And it became too much of a business. And he was like, now I'm in the middle of I didn't I never wanted this. I don't want this. I'm responsible for too many people kind of a thing. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, ego is a big thing for musicians, right? Like, that's that's kind of what drives the creativity, I would say. So once you're kind of squashing that ego for the sake of the masses, I don't I don't know how you can survive. Well, so this is an easy transition because the same thing happens with chefs. Oh, absolutely. You know, I mean, we're rock stars, you know. I mean, you go from being on the stage to like in the kitchen. And how is it different with what you're doing now? It's not a lot different. I think, you know, I come from a composition background and composing a dish is no different than composing a tune, right?

19:13So you have all your pieces, you know, what you're trying to do. You guide everything the right way to make it happen. So I've always looked at at at cooking and even plating to a degree as as composition. OK, well, that's a that's a fantastic take. Can we build the dish together right now? Yeah, let's do it. Can we walk through the process? Do you where do you start? Like, hey, look, I'm going to create a dish for one of these farm dinners that you do. Do you start with identifying the local producers that you're going to be that are going to produce the product and then you go with the product and create it? Or do you start with like what type of plate you're going to use? Or do you start with the environment? Where does your inspiration come from? I think it depends on the dish, much as it would depend on the song. It's it's I'm a color guy. So for me, a lot of the times I start with color and I know that's weird, but no, but it translates. You know what I mean?

20:13It I start with color. And so if I see some beautiful, bright orange carrots, then I know that's the direction we're about to go, which then in turn guides the direction of the plate. You know what I mean? So that first piece of inspiration can be the plate, can be the vegetable, can be the farmer themselves. You know, I mean, it really or just the vibe of the farm. Well, it's specific because you have a summer creek dinner coming up on August the 21st in at Hatchland Hill in Jolton, Tennessee. And this is a dinner that people are going to be eating in a creek. Yeah, shoes off in a creek, man. Shoes off, eating, running water underneath you. What an absolutely innovative idea to do when you're cooking food in a creek. What do you have those dishes prepared? You know what you're making? Can you walk through how we can we talk about one of the dishes and the whole process behind how you made it? Yeah, so we do. We've done maybe two or three of these creek dinners so far.

21:16So I can just I can just pick a dish from maybe the last one we did. So we did a rabbit and spatsle dish. Oh, that was some spatsle. Me, too. I'm German through and through. And so spatsle is just kind of what was being cooked at my grandma's house most of the time. Yeah. But the rabbit, it's kind of so with the creek dinner, I'm kind of focused on. I don't want to serve someone trout because that's a little too on the money. But, you know, I'm thinking, what does run around the creek? Like, what's what's in that area? What makes sense? Connect with the plate. And that's, you know, rabbit, that's deer, that's even crawfish, to an extent, not here. But so so definitely taking those elements of of just the natural fauna and flora and running with it. So that's kind of that that dish was rabbit because we thought, you know, this is this is where it lives spatsle just because that's a piece of my heritage that I love.

22:19And I love a good rabbit pasta, love a good rabbit spatsle. We ended up doing that with like a smoked tomato because tomatoes were in season and we are in Tennessee. So we're trying to both that smoky barbecue yum yum. And then I believe we toss that with with some, you know, just fresh herb. And it's very simple dish. But at the end of the day, it was just just quality and being on the creek, eating rabbit, eating good smoky tomato, water running over your feet. I don't know. It just had it had such a vibe. That dish just felt right. And I was able to put a piece of myself into it, which is what I always want to do with my food. And and so that's where the spatsle comes into play. But honestly, every dish is so it's so different in the thought process for me. I'll just be real with you. But no, I love the creativity there. And I love how you can channel your creativity in a dish. Do you ever just make a dish and it just looks perfect but tastes terrible?

23:23Yeah, all the time. How often do you make mistakes? How often do you mess a dish up and have to start over? Well, I mean, I think in the beginning, it was it was a little harder, you know, when I first started cooking. Give me one second, please. Hey, John. Sorry, we have people in the shop. No worries. But anyway, so in the beginning, I think it was a little more a little more difficult. You had your ideas, but you didn't have the fundamentals or the foundation to really get it through. I was able to train under some pretty awesome chefs. So they helped guide my creative process and help guide my palate. And now it's not so hard. Like, I mean, I think you you make a dish and it doesn't taste exactly how you want it. But when you have the right tools, you you know exactly what you need to do to get it there. You know what I mean? So when you talk about the right tools, how important is it? You guys work with a ton of local farmers, right? You local people. How important is it to use foods in season?

24:24It's the most important. I think like that's something that I've always really thought about. It is like the American mindset of I should be able to have a juicy, delicious tomato in December. And if I can't, like, why are you a bad chef? You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's always just kind of like cracked me up. It's like we want what we want when we want it. But that's just not how it works. You know what I mean? I mean, it it's not how it used to be. I mean, if you're a caveman, you only got to really have sugar in the summer months because that's when fruits were ripe. That's when fruits came on trees. And in the winter time in our bodies, naturally, when we eat sugar, they start storing fat because they think it's summertime. And now that it's essentially summertime all the time because there's just all these things are genetically done. You can do whatever you want to. So, I mean, that's a part of it. If you're a chef working through different seasons using the same ingredient 12 months out of the year, there's months that ingredients can be better and there's months that that's just it's just not going to be good.

25:30So you what you're saying is you've got to be using foods in season on a regular basis. The flavors is there. It's just there. And I think the I mean, it kind of it's sacrilege almost not to write like if someone's going to spend the time to grow that for you during that season when it grows the best, why would you not use it in that time? You know what I mean? Obviously, there are preservation techniques that work and they're amazing. But if we're talking like fresh stuff, it's got it's got to be in season. Otherwise, you're just kind of shooting yourself in the foot, I think. I mean, why not use the best product at the best time? So you're familiar with all of the local farms and local purveyors. Can we talk about some of them? Because if I'm a chef and I'm listening to this right now and I don't use foods that are in season, I'm using asparagus all year, right? And I'm like that you don't need to use asparagus all year. What are what are some and I want to start buying foods in season. I got to find local farmers who are the best people for me to maybe contact.

26:32Man, so I'm loving Bloomsbury farm right now. I think they're going to be on the show next week. Perfect. You know, they do a fantastic job. Everything they grow is is just perfect. To be honest, it's hard to find a job. It's it's crazy. I'm a big fan of West Glow Farm out in Kingston Springs. Love Delvin. I think what Delvin what Hank does is is insane because he's able to provide some of the most delicious local veggies, but on such a grand scale, but doing it the right way. And that to me is is the future, right? Like like doing it the right way, but still providing for multiple, multiple communities. Hank and Cindy and Amy and Brandon, all the people over there. Amazing people. Tell me, are they selling to restaurants? Because I've I see them like farmers markets and stuff. Are they selling to restaurants? Yeah. Yeah. You just hit Hank up and tell him what you need, man. He's such an OG like. Oh my gosh, pretty cool.

27:33But yeah, I mean, any any farm around here, it's all about the quantity, right? So Hank's one of your better people. If you're if you're a restaurateur, if you're a chef to go through, because he can he can get you as much as you need when you need it. You do find it's hard to do that on a grand scale with some of these smaller farms. It's because they're only going to grow 50 pounds of carrots. And I'm going to run through that in a week. Oh, yeah. So it's about finding that balance. There are some, you know, Hank is probably the biggest farm in Tennessee doing that and able to provide good local veggies. But there are other farms, you know, outside of outside of Tennessee, North Alabama, Mississippi. And to me, you're still local at that point. You're still if you if I'm able to call the farmer and meet him halfway and pick it up. It's I don't see any difference than it being 15 miles down the road. You know, I was just going to ask you if you had a definition of what local is. For me, it's like 150 miles. OK, I know that. I mean, it's and that's arbitrary. I'm not saying that, you know, I live my life by that rule. But if you can get something within 150 miles, why would you not consider that local, especially if it's grown with love and you can actually connect with the person growing it?

28:44I mean, I think local slash regional, especially since where we are located in the state of Tennessee, Huntsville, North Alabama and southern Kentucky, the Mennonites, Scottsville. I mean, there's so many different areas to buy fresh product. And it's closer than Knoxville. It's closer than Tri-Cities, but that's still Tennessee. So like, well, I want to buy from Tennessee. I'm like, but these other places are a lot closer to where we are. And truly, we're just trying to support farmers that aren't these huge. We use the word conglomerate earlier, but like these gigantic farms that are in Salinas, you know, that we're traveling product across the country on a truck and it's hydrocooled and it arrives at your kitchen door packed and it's probably three weeks old at that point. But it still has, you know, can be has this hydrocooled like buying product close by or supporting people that are putting back into our community. Right. Is that the goal? Sure. And I mean, you're squashing that carbon footprint as well, which is important. You know, I mean, if it doesn't take three trucks to get to me, I'm definitely going to be way happier. And so it's another earth, you know.

29:55So I think that's a lot of it too. And a lot of it for personally is the connection. Like I was saying, like, I want to be able to talk to my farmer. I want to be able to plan with my farmer to have a vision and have them be a piece of that vision to create it. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's a lot more personal for me. I know it's not for a lot of people and it's about quality of ingredient and that's a big piece of it. But just the actual connection, the actual community that's being built, that's a big piece for me. We're going to take a short break to hear from our sponsors. And these sponsors are amazing people. They're not only people that sponsor the show and sponsor locally owned and operated restaurants in Nashville, but they are people that I currently work with. I think every single sponsor I work with and can absolutely vouch for what they do. If you have any questions or need a recommendation about any one of these sponsors, feel free to reach out to me. Brandon at NewlightHospitality.com or Brandon at NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Be happy to answer any questions you have.

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32:27Click the Sponsors tab, find the link for Supersource, and if you sign up there, you will get three free months of dish machine rentals right now. You can also check him out at Supersource.com or you can call Jason Ellis directly at 770-337-1143. Nosey College of Art was started by an artist, Mrs. Nosey. For nearly half a century, it's where a future artist in Nashville has found a home. If you're looking for a home in a kitchen, this is your place to start. At Nosey.edu, you can take a tour of their all-new culinary facility. Culinary Arts Program at Nosey College of Art starts this fall and classes are filling up fast. They're filling up fast because these are not huge classes. They're small classes, so you can be intimate with the chef Anthony Mandriota and Brian Manich. They are going to be teaching curriculum as far as knife skills, baking, the general things you need to know to run a professional kitchen. At Nosey, you can let your creative mind run wild as you train for your career in an awesome field. Like being in a kitchen, but they also offer photography, graphic design, illustration, video and film, web and interactive design. Step onto the campus and it won't take long to see why our students say, I am different.

33:50I'm Nosey. Where does all this come from with you? I mean, just with you and wanting to give back and be part of the community and be philanthropic volunteer your time like this, this there's a gentleness and a thoughtfulness about you. Where does that come from? I mean, I do believe, you know, happiness is is really only amplified like when shared, right? So, so for me, it's about I mean, I think I spent five or six years in my 20s, just meandering around like a nomad, not knowing where I belonged or or where anyone belonged or I didn't care for that matter. And then, you know, some some life trauma, I lost my father, probably 2012, I would say, and that hit me pretty hard because I realized I didn't have anything to fall back on anymore. You know what I mean? It's kind of like you're on your own now. And so whatever you want to do from here on out is is up to you. How old were you in 2012? See, I'm 33 now. So, you know, like, here's your 25, 25, 24, 25. Okay, so young man. Yeah. And that was right at my music transition where I didn't know what I was doing there and didn't know what I wanted to do.

35:14So the community aspect for me is strength, man. It's a it's a it's a reason to carry on, right? Like, it's having someone rely on you and being able to rely on someone else. And just knowing, like, like the strength that we have in numbers, and what we can do when we're connected, and when we're all in the same mindset, and just trying to better our surroundings. You know, I love everything you just now said. And I want to read a post that you put the other day. But kind of what I hear is, you never know what happened to somebody. You have no idea anybody's story around you. You have no idea if somebody lost their father and is looking for community is looking for somebody to help lift them up. You have no idea if somebody just their dog just died, or if they just won the lottery, you have no idea what people's state of mind is. And sometimes just a smile or like a kind gesture can mean the absolute world to somebody just put wind beneath their wings.

36:19And I'm going to read a post that you put out the other day. And you you work with the Heimerdinger Foundation, right? I do. That's like my my lifeblood right now. So I want to talk about that. You wrote and this is three paragraphs, you had how you fly is the thing how you fly this thing is completely incumbent upon your focus, gravitate towards the beautiful things hone in on honest to goodness, goodness, let love flow ever so gently around your wings and stay airborne. But most importantly, look out for those flying around you. Take initiative when you see that they're starting to sink. Use your focus to fly just underneath them in case they fall, lift and be lifted. Sure. You wrote that? I did. Where did that come from? Just your normal life just something that's a thought that you had? Is that in direct correlation with the Heimerdinger Foundation? I would say every Tuesday when we finish our our volunteer Monday, Tuesday volunteer gig, I'm just filled with words and filled with with love and hope and passion. And I try to get it out and so it's not stuck inside of me and can hopefully affect someone else like I've just been affected. But but yeah, so I mean, it's just about getting it out. I'm a writer at heart. I'm a musician at heart. So you know, if it's in me, I'm gonna try to get it out. I'm gonna try to put it out there into the world. That's amazing. I just thought that was so beautiful. Tell me about the Heimerdinger Foundation. What exactly does the Heimerdinger Foundation do? Can anybody go volunteer?

37:49Yeah, so it was created by Kathy Heimerdinger for her late husband Mike Heimerdinger. He was a offensive coordinator at the Titans. Yeah. And he died of cancer, pretty rare type of cancer. And basically what we do is we're feeding feeding about 100 people right now going through chemotherapy. And they're all antioxidant and anti inflammatory mineral based meals that help aid fighting cancer and help help you feel better and want to eat when you're when you're going through chemotherapy. So it's kind of our focus is, is community education, we do have like a team training program. At the same time, we have a lot of senior citizen volunteers. And for me, the Heimerdingers is just that embodiment of community, right? It's it's young and old coming together for a common goal. And just trying to help their neighbor. So Heimerdinger incredible foundation, honestly, you can volunteer. I mean, it's at what is it? mhmills.com. I think I'll have to get you that the real the right website. But it's just a it's a mission of mine. I've been volunteering with them for about a year.

39:13They lost their chef. I don't know if you know Laura Rodriguez. She's a chef in town, pretty cool. But they lost her right before the pandemic. And they didn't have anyone. They were friends with our editor at edible Jill. And basically, she was like, Hey, can you go help these guys out? And I was like, Yeah, for sure. And then fell in love and hadn't. So I put it up on the screen here, just their their Instagram handle, which is at Heimerdinger foundation, at h e i m e r d i n g e r foundation. And you can go check them out, follow them on Instagram, they're posting videos and random things of all of the stuff they're doing. And if you want to volunteer, I think there's a link on here that you can sign up to help volunteer. So that is that's amazing, man. What important what important work that helps keep my ego in check for sure. Is that is that something that needs to happen all the time?

40:14Always? Yeah, I'll be real with you. That's just, I'm just in my nature. And and that's, you know, I'm constantly trying to to tamp it down. And I think that's a good place to be right, like, to know that you have those capabilities, but to constantly try to keep them in check. It keeps a tight rope, if you will. I can certainly Are you married? Not. No, no, no. You have a girlfriend? Oh, no. You're a single dude. What's that? Other than my food truck. I'm married to my food truck. All right, well, so if you're watching this, ladies, single 33 year old, you're a handsome guy, man. You've never been married before? No, I haven't. I've always been a solo dolo guy. Do you have any pets? I know pets. Wow. Yeah, no, I mean, I am. It's hard enough keeping this thing clothed and fed. Do that so I can imagine having to do something else. I have a I have a wife.

41:22Okay. Almost 16 years. Wow. She keeps my ego in check. Cool. Like a champion. Yeah. I'll say something. It should go imagine. What's that? I said most wives do I would imagine. Oh, yeah. I get this look and I'm like, okay, I'll stop. Yep. Yep. You have any kids? I do. I have two boys. They're six and seven and we have a seven week old puppy. Oh, wow. What kind of dog? It is a Bernadoodle. I don't even know what that is, man. Yeah, I didn't either until recently. I knew I wanted a dog and I knew that I have really bad allergies and I started googling like hypoallergenic dogs and obviously you want to you want to go and adopt a dog. That's the number one thing. But in order to get I really wanted my boys to have a really I wanted to raise puppy and kind of go through the process of training together and learning all that stuff. And for the first dog that we're going to get I wanted to get a really chill loves kids and just everything puppy. So we got so as we did we got the puppy and and now we're now we have like a baby again. Yeah. Yeah. I remember you know I'm sure we had dogs before I remember but I remember getting like the first dog you know growing up and gosh that's a feeling that's like it really is it's been pretty special the kids all day just like the way they hold her and look at her and snuggle her it's just it's my heart just gets it's overflowing every day it's it's kind of amazing. Yeah dogs are incredible.

42:59They are you know I've wanted one for a long time so I'm really kind of over the moon right now. Sure what's her name? Dolly. Dolly why not you know. I mean come on yeah both of my kids grew up reading books from the imagination library gotcha and you know obviously she's the patron saint so we she's an enigma man she's a dolly yeah that's cool. Is there any who's like your hero like I mean I mean obviously name our dog Dolly and we are big fans of Dolly Parton but like who's somebody who's been a huge influence to you? Yeah okay um it's probably a little weird but like Winston Churchill very big influence uh weird well you know just the ability to stay that drunk and be able to make good decisions you know I'm just kidding you know he was uh such a great leader you know what I mean and and at the end of the day that's that's all I've always been a servant of people I've known that you know from since I can remember um and I really believe in in leading by serving and I really believe in in leading by example and I think he was one of the one of the best at that you know um on top of that I don't know maybe Thomas Keller even I know it's food related but he is okay I can listen to him speak all day long about anything he's just a genius you know what I mean um and just just really gets what he's doing I I find I have mad respect for people who understand what they're doing and are able to do it well and like aren't confused by the things around it you know what I mean you're like no this is what I do and and it's just such like I'm right you know there's such a gall about it that's like I don't do things wrong and I love that that vibe I think Winston had the same vibe I think it was just that oak of human being that is very focused and not letting anything around them kind of push

45:02them off track I think there's like a synergy around everything that they do yeah like it just everything works and it just makes sense and they get it and they're they're stoic and they just have all of I don't know there's a gravitas about yeah obviously I've never met Winston Churchill over the opportunity too but uh I have eaten at some of Thomas Keller's restaurants and uh the innovation that he does I'm I'm totally blown away by people that do stuff that shouldn't work like I think the the cliche the term think outside the box I mean like is everything sure but not that term and thinking outside the box I think everybody uses logic way too much well if one plus one equals two then two plus two equals four let's just do that versus why can't six plus five equal fifteen like that doesn't make sense like exactly like I love I love let's do a dinner in a creek yeah like that sort of thing like well why would you want to do dinner in a creek you eat dinner in a restaurant like well tonight we're gonna eat dinner in a creek there's a creek we can put a table in let's do it like people that have ideas like that and then execute them I am just teach me more like I love that thought process sure no I mean yeah it's it's about it's about focus right it's about it's about knowing like being able to clearly see the end goal uh no matter where you are in the process I don't think I think for most people when they have a great idea that end goal never really shifts you don't pivot too much from it I mean the journey may pivot a little but yeah you still know what you're wanting to do um and I same here like I have I'm just in awe of people who who say like you said yeah I'm gonna do something illogical you know and these are my steps to get there and obviously everyone looking at is like this is not gonna work um but you get to the end and it's this pristine beautiful

47:05thing that they've had in their head the whole time you know like it was never not gonna work for these guys you know yeah like no and that those type of people to me are just fascinating I think I wish I could emulate them in a more appropriate way um let's you know I'm just curious about you I just want to get to know you type questions which is a little bit different we've talked about food we've talked about what you're doing at edible Nashville what do you do at edible Nashville as the chef it's a publication are you writing for them are you cooking for them like what do you do there yeah so I have a page in every issue uh where I'm able to write creatively whether that be a poem or an open letter to a chef that I'm loving you know or um recipes from chefs that I love in town that I've gotten that I've got to work with um you know research and development that I'm doing um I even have a music to cook by section in it so that like it's generated a cool playlist since the beginning just it's just a place for me to you know brain vomit um and luckily they give that to me I don't know why it doesn't make it fantastic yeah I'm like thank you you know but uh at the same time we do we do four farm dinners a year usually two creek dinners we have um multiple cooking demos at farmers markets online things like that so I stay busy uh cooking with them but the writing aspect is is I would say 50 50 for sure so let's talk about your kitchen playlist yeah if you're listening to music in the kitchen are you do you listen to like classical if you're baking heavy metal if you're grilling rap if you're doing pastry like do you or do you have like a set genre that you just kick it with no man I'm all over the place and it doesn't even matter what I'm doing so I mean I could start with it could start off with you know the strokes or like you know Interpol or something then slowly gravitate to to Pink Floyd then go to Gershwin then go to you know Coltrane like I mean

49:12it's all over the map I love metal too like I there's not a lot of music I don't love um maybe Ariana Grande is like the only one I don't really love um but you're cool you're cool you suck you're cool yeah no I mean if it's if it's real and raw and has emotion I'm gonna listen to it uh if it evokes something in me then it's gonna be on my playlist but I have found that Fleetwood Mac dreams the most diplomatic album you can put on in a kitchen really doesn't matter if it's if it's a kitchen full of Hispanics it's a bunch of you know hipster white dudes like it like everybody's gonna jam out to some Fleetwood Mac so that's usually my go-to in a new kitchen just so people like me I like it like that that's I love that there's thought around that like when I go to a new kitchen Fleetwood Mac dreams is my go-to hey I'm a cool guy I get it right yeah yeah yeah but I'm not too cool because it's Fleetwood Mac you know what I mean yeah like putting on like white zombie like that leave that's a distinct impression like I or like rage or something you know you know what you're doing you seem like a very passionate guy like I that you're in touch with your emotions yeah it's taking a while to get there but yeah um what's your favorite movie of all time I'm a Wes Anderson guy uh I think he does some of the most beautiful movies I've ever done uh Darjeeling limited I think probably I actually lived in India for about a year and a half because of seeing that movie so I would say that movie and moved to India for a year and a half yeah well you know not directly after but I was like this is something I need to do um so yeah after after college uh took like a year off and and moved to India wow yeah learned to cook there a good bit so I was definitely I would wherever we were I went with two buddies so and we would basically just kind of travel around the train system there is just insanely good so we would find a place we like stay for two weeks

51:17I'd find a cool guy cool restaurant or something be like hey man can I come cook two nights a week here like teach me you know what I mean um and you okay just to walk up to somebody and say hey I'm from America and I want to cook here can I cook here for a couple nights yeah yeah um yeah we'd get a hostel or something and stay in town but yeah I would be like yeah can I cook with you and then you'd be I mean everybody wants to teach right like anybody that thinks they're great at something wants to teach so yeah it was like teach me show me the ways um did you go by yourself you said we I had two two friends two buddies okay what's your favorite restaurant in Nashville oh lord let's see here there's so many it changes like I'm all over the place okay let's see we can't say a favorite because you'll leave too many people out that that's the question that no chef in Nashville will answer because they're like I got too many friends and you're like okay so if there's like five if I'm listing this and I want to know where I should go eat right now if I want if there's a playlist of restaurants for Skylar Bush like where where should you send people to go eat right now okay um I think Dad Paquette's one of the best chefs we have in town so you know etc etch for sure um I love what campaign does at uh at Red Perch I don't know if you've been there I have not oh my gosh they're opening in Sylvan supply coming up they used to be in the arcade um but go check that out for sure Australian fish and chips man it's it's simple and perfect like it's just good food we gotta do a show with them oh you should yeah Cam's a great dude and he has the he's a beautiful man and has the coolest accent in the world so yes why would you not um let's see I love Julio I love Mais de la Vida I think he does incredible job same with Edgar uh they're kind of the same to me so I would I would send somebody to to Julio on Saturday and then Edgar on Sunday probably but um let's see who else is killing it in town Manit obviously

53:18gosh she's a whirlwind huh she's she's incredible what is here I love Alex's food I really do his carrot dish is on my death row wish list oh yeah man that carrot dish is off the chart insane it's yeah um but yeah and I know Alex is a little outside town I need we need to get him in a restaurant fast like I need more of his food I know right he did some work with me recently and I got to eat a lot of his food and I was really really excited about that like it was a lot of fun just watching him cook and watching him do some of the things that he does sure sounds guy who's doing his own podcast now I saw that like life in the weeds is what it's yeah yeah so he's you know he's like one of those people I thought had just like the best personality you know he's so he's so what's the word I'm looking for um he has so much like energy and just this gravitas almost around him I mean he's so funny he's on episode four in like three days or something like you know yeah he's he's on fire yeah he does that with the like his prep too yeah I just like watching prep and he's just like and he's done you know insane yeah after he's worked out for three hours he's he's hard he reminds me a lot of myself just which is which is good except for we're in different kind of worlds but uh two boys yeah wife kids working like 19 hours a day just constantly on the go making it happen and I think his podcast is going to be excellent I think that um what he's doing is really cool and uh hopefully he has all the success in the world and I think it's it's always like I'm kind of like you like if there's local people that we can create something that helps then hell yeah let's spread the word you know I wanted to kind of do something where I got to bring people like you on a show and hear your story you know I think it's really fun sure no I'm all about it man like I said communities my my my reason to live man you know what I mean like it's a reason we all should be living is for each other all right so let's do

55:24some plugs if somebody wants to date you how do they get a hold of you um you know I'm pretty elusive uh no I mean uh you can hit me up on Instagram I'm there a lot um you know um maybe find me at a bar at honey tree metery that's a good place to find me good find honey tree metery yes Drew and Ross those are the two best human beings on the planet all right well there there's another place you need to go yeah no on your playlist you got to go to honey tree metery actually you should come this Friday at five because we're doing a pop-up that's this Friday at five so that would be Friday the fourth the fourth yeah okay so this episode will come out on Friday the fourth oh how cool well Thursday night they'll come out that we're recording this the day before so it'll be Thursday night it will come out and then Friday so people listen to this come we'll do it like this come tonight to honey tree metery at five o'clock for a pop-up is it with edible Nashville or is it with ninth ward with ninth ward it's our second one we did our debut pop-up uh two weekends ago and basically what we're doing is is running through our menu our menu has like five po boys on it so each pop-up we're doing one of the different po boys uh just trying to get some feedback and vibe before we actually open the truck cool and what is your instagram is i'm your at i am skyler bush absolutely do you have facebook i don't thank goodness okay so you're not on facebook uh twitter no no twitter so i i ran a uh i was a campaign manager for a guy running for congress uh this last year and i got so burnt out on facebook and twitter that i just i just couldn't do it anymore after the campaign i was like done so how did you become how'd you be how were you a campaign manager i think i was going to do that free adoption no i'm just kidding uh just a buddy a young guy running for congress against jim cooper not a big fan of the the machine

57:27so i was like let's jump in and see what we can do um yeah i don't know i mean i've always been a logistics guy you know i i stopped cooking for a while and and was the coo of a a home cleaning business called home bird uh with hubs in dc and here and yeah so i mean honestly i just took the the executive chef mentality and just you know put it towards day-to-day operations um i guess the guy running for congress liked the work i did with home birds so he asked if i wanted to run his campaign nice yeah that's so cool did you anything and are you completely turned off of the political world now uh a little bit yeah um i mean there's a there's a huge disparity there right like um you know i mean i know i don't want to get too far into it but but if you want to run republic or if you want to run one of the two big parties in nashville you need 26 signatures to get on the ballot if you want to run as an independent or a libertarian you need 60 000 so it's obviously set up in a way that is it's kind of you know 26 versus 60 000 yes sir yes sir um and that is fair and we wanted to run independent and and not really worry too much about the affiliation and run more on policy and and uh ideology but it's hard to find 60 000 people that actually live at the address they say that go through the election commission and check out so i can imagine damn it's crazy right it is crazy all right what am i missing anything you want to talk about anything that's on your heart that you want to like get out there and we're i'm going to ask you in a minute to finish the show and you get to take us out with whatever thoughts you have whatever you want i'm going to open the floor to you to say your like jerry's final thought here in just a second so don't go into that but anything that we uh anything we missed that that you talked about let's see here man

59:30uh anything yeah i mean honestly just promoting the ninth ward that's where i'm at uh it's my baby i've got some money invested in it i've got some time invested in it so it's uh it's time to get that out there i just you know for me uh um just being independent being able to to do what i love without any restrictions and affect as many people as possible which is is kind of the philanthropy side of it and one reason i went to food i would say i mean you can affect a lot of people through music but i think it's a more tangible a more tangible goal to to really affect people through sustenance you know what i mean so so yeah for me i mean that's just that's just how my mantra is is how can we all get better you know um we all get better and how can i help others yeah excuse me what you're what you're doing all right so thank you man let's let's do let's do a let's do i want to keep some stuff for the next time you come on yeah we can delve even deeper but thank you so much coming on the show and taking time and just kind of talking about all the stuff um you have a farm dinner it is a dinner for edible nashville and it is going to be on august 21st 2020 you're eating in a creek yes hatchland hill jolton tennessee there's another is a fall farm dinner october 23rd 2001 location to be determined if you want to buy tickets to this go to edible nashville events dot com edible nashville events dot com click the tickets button you can buy tickets and tickets are 200 dollars a person for the summer creek dinner you can have a dinner do you have a guest chef for that or is that all you yeah so hocklin hill has a a little kitchen and and chef there so we're going to work with him but we do get a guest chef every time that's

01:01:32actually my favorite part of it is being able to collaborate and learn from other people we had alex at our last farm dinner yeah and you know i was able to actually learn that carrot dish so now i can die a happy man so yeah that's what it's about for me it's it is about community but it's also about becoming a better chef and working with people i i really look up to um and it's fun just cooking on a farm in the middle of a field so yeah it's a good vibe i mean everybody that comes seems to have a really good time great music uncle nearest is always there we're having a good time so it's kind of like i had tom morales on he said you know when you create a kitchen in the middle of a movie set and you're feeding all these different people and you're having to create a kitchen in the middle of a field you get back into a restaurant it almost seems too easy that's who i learned it from that's who i first worked for when i moved here was tommy oh really yeah he's a good friends with a guy down in alabama chuck morgan um charles morgan who uh i guess was kind of tom's business mentor uh but i worked for my first kitchen job ever was for uh charles in tuscaloosa and the end of it he was like i'm gonna connect you with my guy tom and get you a job up there so so this guy i love tom morales he's a he's a he's a cool dude yeah talk about it yeah the the nash a treasure for nashville the city of nashville stuff he does for our city is amazing it's insane all right man take us out uh the floor is yours whatever you want to say whatever you whatever you got take us out uh it's you yeah well brandon i appreciate you having me um i love what you do with this podcast i think it's amazing um i do listen to it on the regular i liked your conversation with shang porter fucking insane um but it was awesome wasn't it he i do he's one of the greatest guys he came to our pop-up at honey tree um last week or two weeks ago and and it's such a pleasure just to be able to be around him his presence is amazing

01:03:37but um but yeah so we're popping up this friday five o'clock honey tree metery east nashville the ninth ward you can catch us at ninth ward at ninth underscore ward on instagram um we're slinging po boys in cage and fair and just trying to do the best po boys in town and we'd love to see you honestly so if you want to come out to honey tree also have edible nashville doing the farm dinner and the creek dinner so look that up as well um a lot of stuff going on and the most important if you need a place to volunteer hit me up we can get you in the heimerdinger we can get you in you know second harvest it doesn't matter but if you're feeling that that need to reach out to your community and give back it's very easy to do here in nashville and i would love to help you find a way to do that awesome dude thank you so much for being on the show i wish you nothing but the best of luck and thank you for listening to the podcast that means a lot to me that you enjoy it and um man we'll talk to you soon all right brandon i really appreciate it thanks dude i'll see you all right there it is the interview with skyler bush thanks man for doing the episode that was a lot of fun and i hope that you enjoyed it too and uh hopefully his date card is full tonight at his pop-up uh i'm cracking up myself listening to that again you guys got to watch this video on youtube and um we've got some amazing shows coming up so stay tuned to nashville restaurant radio hope you guys are being safe love you guys bye