TN Flavors Feat. Margot McCormack, Alyssa Gangeri, Max Knoepfel, Kris McCorkle, and Paul Brennan

00:00We are supported by Robins Insurance, offering protection you can trust. Robins Insurance is an independent insurance agency known across the Southeast for their customized insurance policies, sound guidance, and attentive service. They're also known here at Nashville Restaurant Radio for protecting some of Music City's best restaurants. Look, when it comes to insuring your restaurant or bar, you don't wanna leave the job to some strip mall insurance agency with no background in hospitality and expertise in the local market. You need someone who knows the industry, who understands your business, who will create a policy that protects your physical space and protects you and your staff too. Y'all, Matthew Clements is that guy. He's the agent at Robins Insurance for the hospitality industry. With extensive industry experience himself, Matthew has the knowledge to create a policy that'll protect you and your business no matter what comes your way. Visit Robins' website at robinsins.com. That's R-O-B-I-N-S-I-N-S.com to get in touch with him or reach out to Matthew directly at 863-409-9372.

01:10Protection you can trust. That's Robins. ["The Tastiest Hour of Talk in Music City"] Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. ["The Tastiest Hour of Talk in Music City"] Hello, Music City. And welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. We've got a special bonus episode for you today. My name is Brandon Styll. I'm gonna be your host. And we are powered by Gordon Food Service. And this, like I said, this is a bonus episode. This is gonna be a lot of fun. We are talking about Tennessee Flavors today. What is Tennessee Flavors, you ask? Tennessee Flavors is the annual fundraiser for the Randy Rayburn School of Culinary Arts over at Nashville State. What is it? Let's talk about this.

02:10So Tennessee Flavors is Tuesday, March 5th, 2024, from six to eight p.m. at the Nashville State Southeast Campus. It's at 5248 Hickory Hollow Parkway, which I believe is in the Old Hickory Hollow Mall, if you guys know where that is. And there's gonna be a bunch of people there. This is a 21 and over event. Beach Haven Winery, Burger Bar, Deakin's New South, Ever Bowl, Hilton Green Hills, Josh Sellers, the Midtown Cafe, the Randy Rayburn School of Culinary Arts at Nashville State, Old Hickory Bourbon and Old Hickory Whiskey, Saverino's Bakery, Stonehouse Winery, Tzatziki's Mediterranean Cafe, Turtle Anarchy Beer, Black Diamond Culinary, the Buttermilk Ranch, Elliston Place Soda Shop, the Frothy Monkey Roasting Company, Honky Tonk Brewing Company, Little Harpeth Brewing, the Music City Center, Old Smoky Tennessee Distillery, Scout's Pub, Tailgate Brewery, Urban Grub, Black Tap Corsair Distillery, Etch, Happen Harry's, Jack Daniel's, the Nashville Chef's Association, the American Culinary Federation of Middle Tennessee, New Heights Brewing Company, Puckett's Restaurant, Southbound Tequila and Tanteo, 100% agave tequila.

03:32All of these people are gonna be there. So you can taste all of that. If you heard people you like there, you can taste all of that stuff. And there's gonna be a very special table there that I will be standing at with all my recording equipment. And I'm gonna be doing live interviews from Tennessee Flavors. So that brings us to today's episode. What are we talking about today? Well, I've brought on a bunch of these people. This is a fun episode. We got Paul Brennan, who is the director there, Dr. Paul Brennan. He runs the whole Randy Rayburn School of Culinary Arts. He's gonna be our first guest. Then we're gonna talk with Max Knopfel. He is the executive chef of the Music City Center and an absolute legend. We're gonna be talking with Alyssa Ganjeri from Buttermilk Ranch. Margot McCormick from Margot's Restaurant. They're gonna be there as well. Margot brought in Hadley Long, who is the executive chef at Margot. That's a fun conversation. And then we have Chris McCorkle, who's the owner over at Black Diamond Culinary. All these people are gonna be on this episode today kinda talking about what they're doing at Tennessee Flavors. And then I extended the conversation with Chef Max and Chef Margot to make full episodes out of that.

04:38That'll be coming out the next couple Mondays. So we're gonna get a sneak peek of our next two episodes in this episode. So lots of fun going on there. So I hope to see you March 5th. If you'd like to buy tickets to this event, all you have to do is go to tnflavors.org. That's tnflavors.org. You can purchase tickets. Or if you're feeling lucky, you can go to Instagram and you can find the Nashville Restaurant Radio Instagram page and you can find the post where I'm posted about this episode. And on that post, you can share it in your stories. You can like it. You can tag the restaurant or the distillery. Whoever you're excited about tasting in those Tennessee flavors, I want you to tag them. And then you can tag a friend you like to take. I'm gonna give away two tickets to the event. And they're $100 a ticket. So this is a pretty cool giveaway that we're gonna have. This is not a sponsor, they're not paying me to do this. This is something that I like to do because I like supporting people who are making our restaurant scene better.

05:42And the culinary, Randy Rayburn Culinary Institute is doing that. They are doing that. And I love Randy Rayburn and I love Paul Brennan and all the people that are supporting it. So I wanted to get involved. And then I'm gonna be there doing interviews. So there will be another interview around this episode that's gonna have random people from the event that I talked to. We're just gonna do 10, 15, five minute interviews and just learn who's at the event. So I think it'd be a really good time and I can't wait to get that episode out. Like I said, next week, we've got Max Knupfel and then we've got Margot McCormick and Hadley Long. And then after that, we're gonna have Chad Nguyen and I'm sorry, Chad Newton and Gracie Nguyen from You Are Here Hospitality, which is East Side Banh Mi, East Side Pho, Suiza Super Quesadilla, SS Guy they're involved in. They got all kinds of stuff happening. They're celebrating the four year anniversary of East Side Banh Mi. We're gonna have a great conversation around that. And so lots of fun things to look forward to.

06:45We're also talking to a fishmonger who's doing really cool seafood out of Alaska and Florida. And so we're gonna learn a lot about that from a man named Kelly Probst and lots of fun episodes coming. We've got the next five episodes already planned, already getting in there and there they are. That's what you have to look forward to if you're on Nashville Restaurant Radio. So give us a follow wherever you're listening to this, click the follow or subscribe button, follow the Instagram page and maybe you can win tickets to this event and I look forward to meeting you at the event. But I have talked long enough. Let's start this episode off with Chef Paul Brennan. All right, we are super excited today to kick off this amazing episode based around Tennessee flavors with Dr. Paul Brennan. He is the director for the Randy Rayburn School of Culinary Arts at Nashville State Community College. Your title's a mouthful. Yes, it is. Man, I tell ya.

07:45How are you doing today, Chef? Oh, I'm doing great. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for having me. I'm really, you know, every year we do, you guys do Tennessee flavors and it's such a great event because it highlights local chefs and then it benefits your school. Tell me about the whole event. We're very fortunate to have Tennessee flavors. We're going, this will be our 12th year that we're hosting the event. It'll be on the Southeast campus in Antioch at where our culinary arts program is located. Okay, so that is a big change because it's always been held at the Whitebridge facility of Nashville State. Now this is not gonna be held at the Whitebridge. So if you buy tickets and you just naturally start driving towards Whitebridge Road, you're going to the wrong place. Correct, we moved it over to the Southeast campus. So we have a chance to spotlight and highlight where the culinary program is. Guests will be able to get to see the academic facility as well as the laboratories and students working in the labs while the event is going on. Oh, so you'll actually have classes going on while the event's happening?

08:47Not classes, we've partnered up with a couple of local chefs that are gonna be in the lab with our students doing chocolate work where they'll create something in the lab and then students will pass it out to the guests as they're walking around trying the fabulous food from all the different restaurants. Oh wow, what a neat component to this. So where is that campus? Like is it in a big building? The Southeast campus is actually attached to the old global mall. The Hickory Hollow Mall? Hickory Hollow Mall. Okay, so if you know the Hickory Hollow Mall, that's where this event is being held. Correct, right off of Bell Road. Right off of Bell Road, right past 24, you go past 24, right there on the left-hand side, you have, so it's kind of over there in that Percy Priest, close to Percy Priest area. Well, no, you come up, if you're coming out of the city, you get off on Bell Road's exit, and as soon as you come down, you hang a left, go under the underpass, and start to go up the hill a little bit where there's a red lobster, or back behind, or that corner of the mall. Very nice. Now how many students do you have at the school?

09:49Each semester we've been averaging about 150 students in the degree program. That's fantastic. Now how many of those people who get degrees go right back into the Nashville community to find jobs? Do you have job placement programs? We're fortunate we don't need job placement. No, because we're in such a need in Nashville. About 80% of our students are already in the industry while they go to school. So a lot of them are coming back to get the degree so they can advance their careers. So you'll see a lot of the restaurants, the hotels, and country clubs strategically partnering with us because they know their employees are gonna get good training, and then in turn we give them back to the facilities a better employee than may have come to us in the beginning. I love that. So when you, let's just say I'm a line cook, or I work somewhere and I wanna hone in on my skills, what are some of the things I might learn if I go to the Randy Rayburn School of Culinary Arts at Nashville State Community College? We're very fortunate, and we have two technical certificates and a degree, so depending on how long you wanna go through, there's a 15 credit technical certificate you can do in about one semester.

10:59Okay. There's a 30 credit technical certificate you can do in two semesters, or the full degrees roughly two years. The classes they get in the laboratory range from garbage work to fundamentals of baking, advanced baking techniques. They'll do an international cuisine class where they each week is a different country that they focus in on the food. Oh wow. They learn the basics like all culinary schools, and culinary one they learn about soups and stocks and knife cuts and sanitation. All our graduates come out as SurfSafe certified, as SurfSafe managers, that's one of our requirements of the program. So if you hire one of our graduates, you know they're already coming in SurfSafe certified, which saves the facilities to have, from having to invest in that extra training for their managers or supervisors and such. Yeah, I mean that's a big deal too. It's, in Nashville it is, cause as the city grows and the food scene expands, we always wanna make sure we're keeping our customers safe. So it's just a way that we can help the restaurants and the hotels by graduating students with the actual certification, which not all culinary schools around the country do.

12:04That's fantastic. How long have you been doing this? I was brought to Nashville State nine and a half years ago. I was actually a professor at Oklahoma State University. Really? I was, and then I got a call to come to Nashville to rebuild the culinary program, change it around, bring it to what the industry needs today, as well as I also designed our hospitality management degree. So over the last nine years, we've been very busy. When I came, the big focus was, I believe in culinary education and should start at the fundamental skill sets. They can learn creativity at work in the industry, at home with their family. We're gonna teach them how to do the basic skills, but do them very, very well. Knife skills, mother sauces, type things like that? Knife skills, mother sauces, proper way to clean a kitchen, how to clean equipment, soft skills, you know, teach them time management, responsibility, respect for the industry, respect for themselves. Do you teach anything that deals with vendor relationships?

13:06Like how to negotiate a vendor deal or what you're looking for in those type things? We touch on it. It's not actually part of a curriculum. That's the benefit of our adjunct instructors and our full-time. Everyone that's part of my team is industry, is either currently in industry or came from industry. So they're able to incorporate their experiences that they had as owners, as chefs, pastry chefs, with the students. And that's one of the topics that comes up with, if you have a vendor and you're trying to figure out how to do your menu mix on what to sell something for, you gotta know how to look at PFG and Cisco and all the different companies and be able to see the ingredients and know what they mean. Yeah. Because some people just look at the screen and be like, oh, what is it? I don't know what it means. So we try to give them just a touch of experience on it because that's a skillset that develops over time. It is. And experience and doing it and doing it and doing it and make it better and better and better. I just, I see so many people with adversarial relationships.

14:07And tell me if you think I'm crazy. It's a theory that I've had. We're gonna get into a whole different thing here that is not for this episode, but it's okay. Let's just jump off topic. I had this theory the other day that since we are people in the hospitality industry, we're constantly dealing with people who may want whatever they want. I wanna bring my dog into your restaurant. I want this, I want that. And we have to be nice and kind and cordial to people that any normal situation where we weren't at work, we might not be so nice and cordial. Does that make sense? Oh, it completely does. Yes, okay. I think that builds up animosity. I think a lot of people release that animosity on their vendors. My Cisco truck is late and I go, you need to get it together. And all this just comes out. And I think that our vendors are partners. I look at vendors as some of the most valuable people that we could ever possibly be dealing with because they are in all these other restaurants and they have so much information.

15:09If we lean into them and we work with them, we can get so much more out of that. But I think that we tend to, I'm gonna buy from five people because you're ripping me off and you're this and you're that. And it's like, that's not helpful. It's not a helpful thing. And I think we have way too much of that in this industry. Am I all the way off base? Am I crazy? Oh, you are right on base. I see it. It's taken me a long time. I spent many years in the industry. So I personally have understand coming from running restaurants and hotels. I've learned over time, you gotta treat everyone nice. You get a lot further, especially with vendors being respectful, being nice to them. When they come into your building, offer them a cup of coffee. Yeah. Ask them to sit down and have lunch. Because without them, we're missing one of the key ingredients to running our kitchens. We don't have food. Well, you'll get food, but you won't be a priority. Not a priority to them. Hey, everybody out there is using this new octopus.

16:11You may wanna get on board. Everybody's doing that. I didn't know everybody was doing that. Yeah, this is the new thing. I've got this guy's doing it, this guy's doing it. That's good information. What is everybody else doing? Well, we take it a step further. It's just not our reps that we're nice to. We're extremely nice to the drivers that are delivering the food. 100%. Because they're the ones that are in control of our product once they leave the warehouse. Yeah. So they can really dictate if you get it on time or if you're way behind on the time. So we always make sure that we're very friendly. We teach the students, when they come through, say good morning to them, if they need anything, open the door for them. If they need help, help them carry the product and if you see them carrying product. That's part of teaching the students when they go out into the industry, everyone matters. Should we be tipping those drivers? That I don't know. I know they should make more because it's a hard job. Okay, so you buy a pizza and the guy brings you a pizza. I tip him. You tip him.

17:12But this guy brings you nine truckloads of things and drives them to your building and carries them and puts them away in your walk-in cooler, but we don't tip them. Never thought of it that way. To be honest with you, I've never thought of it that way. Why do we think about pizza? We pay a premium for a pizza. We pay a delivery fee for the pizza. They pay that driver a fee. Why do we tip that driver and we don't tip our GFS driver? Never thought about that. That's interesting because it's the same with the bar. Getting your beard dropped off is the same thing. We tip the bartender. 100%. But this guy, imagine if you, hey man, here's 10 bucks. What? Maybe the free lunch or the free coffee is our version of a tip? Could be. But I think the tip, I mean, tipping is way out of control. There's tipping everywhere in my opinion. But why don't we normalize tipping our driver? Because if you gave your driver a 10 spot every time he came in, guarantee you don't miss that delivery window. That is true. I mean, you see it with all kinds of things. This is to ensure proper service, right?

18:13I don't know, it's just random thoughts. See, we've got way off topic here and this is what we do on the show. It's okay. Let's bring it back to Tennessee flavors. Anything we can expect from Tennessee flavors that's different, I mean, we've got the people making the chocolates and they're gonna be handing that out live. Any new restaurants or any new breweries or anything that you wanna, that are exciting? There is a slight new mix. I'm not sure all the restaurants have actually been named yet and all the breweries and that there still may be some on the website, you'll see a list, but that may not be all of them. I know they're still working with a couple of them trying to get them in. Last count I heard was 42 vendors that will be present. The cool thing about this event versus other events in the city is it's not only you get a chance to meet the chefs, the owners, the servers, stuff like that, face to face at the restaurant you like to eat at, but the students are highly involved in it. So the students will be working with the chefs, the students will be working in the culinary labs. So as you're walking through, one, you get an experience of what they go through on a daily basis.

19:17And two, when you walk up to the students and talk to them, you're helping them develop their personal skills. Because a lot of students come to this culinary school and they're real nervous and like Chef Max from Music City Center is such, he walks into a room and he's a presence. So it's taken our many years of chef coming to our facility all the time and students to get comfortable with him. That now they'll walk up and they'll have a conversation with him. They'll ask him for his business card and such. But five years ago, they would shy away from him. Well, I mean, this guy used to be the chef at the Kennedy Center. Correct. I mean, well that, and he's also six foot four, six foot five, he's a very large chef. But you know, for a very large chef who has that stature, he is the nicest guy I think I've ever met. He's a big daddy bear. And he will be on this episode today. He'll be on this episode a little bit later and then follow up, we'll have Chef Max will do a full interview. We're gonna put a snippet of his interview on this episode.

20:19You can hear the rest of it in about two and a half weeks. I just had an idea. You know what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna be at Tennessee Flavors and I'm gonna have a table set up there and we're gonna have a Nashville restaurant radio table and I'm gonna be doing live interviews throughout the event. I wanna interview some of your top students. We can do that. I want your students to come on and you wanna talk about media training. I wanna sit down and interview them and I wanna talk to them about their aspirations, what they wanna do, what they're learning throughout your school and kinda get their perspective from a student and then they can come on the podcast and we'll put it out there for the world. So maybe five different students I'd love to talk to. So if you know who those students are, we can pick them at random. It doesn't matter to me or whoever has time. Sometimes it's fun to do it at random. It doesn't matter to me. I'm whatever you wanna do, but if you have people that might need work in that area and you wanna bring them on or whatever it is, let's do that though. Let's bring some students on and that'll be a fun episode to put out later on to hear what culinary students are doing and what their aspirations are.

21:23That would be great because one of the topics that we're actually developing a class around is social media and how they can use social media to expand their brand. Oh yeah. Well it's huge. It's everywhere now. So and it's not the younger generation. They know how to use everything. It's the more mature generations that we have to bring up to speed on these things. So we're actually creating a class focused around social media that they can then use to get jobs, take to their own businesses if they own something, just get themselves out there in the Nashville community. I love it. We're gonna get on to a bunch of interviews here. We've got Margo McCormick, we've got Alyssa again, Jerry, Chris McCorkle, and of course the aforementioned Chef Max Knopfell from the Music City Center, all gonna be on this episode today. Paul, would you like to leave us with anything we need to know, whatever it is you wanna say about Nashville State, about you, about the industry? What do you wanna leave us with as we head into these other interviews with these amazing chefs?

22:24Please come out and see us, see our culinary school, see the facility, meet the students, meet the faculty that will be working there. Just come out and expect a good time, good food, good beverages, just an event that's very, very comfortable. The big thing to remember, it's a 21 and over event. So it must be 21 years and over because there's alcohol being served from the different vendors and such. Understood. So come out, see what we do. If you have any questions, please stop me, stop anyone from my team, stop any of my students. Ask questions, we're here to just show you an experience that's maybe a little different than you've ever had before. So it's an immersive culinary experience. How do people buy tickets? You can actually go on the Tennessee Flavors website and if you go onto our website, it has a breakdown of the history of it, what vendors are participating. You can actually buy your tickets through there with Eventbrite, which are currently $100 a ticket. $100 a ticket? $100 a ticket. Okay. There's still quite a few. Which is a value. Correct, especially with the number of vendors that are gonna be present.

23:27The food you're gonna get is just, it's top shelf. Oh yeah. So it's worth your value. To me, it's a perfect date night. Oh man. You can't go to 30, 40 restaurants in one night. You'd be in Nashville, it's not possible, but you can go to an event like this and not only get the best restaurants and the best beverage vendors, but you get a chance to see who their chef is or who their general manager is or meet their owners, which you might not necessarily get sitting in their dining room. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna give away two tickets here. Awesome. I'm gonna give away two tickets to the event. Here's what you have to do. You've gotta go to our Instagram page at Nashville underscore restaurant underscore radio. And I will have a post that is gonna be generated around this episode. On that post, if you comment, first of all, you've gotta follow Nashville Restaurant Radio. Does Tennessee Flavors have its own page? An Instagram page? I think they do. Maybe it's a Nashville State Culinary. I'm still learning the social media stuff myself.

24:27You're gonna follow both of those and then I want you to comment with the restaurant. I want you to tag the restaurant you're most excited about trying their food for and then you need to tag a person who you'd like to bring with you. We're gonna pick somebody at random. It'll be a 48 hour contest. We'll put it out there and then we're gonna give away two tickets. So a $200 value free date night. All you gotta do is go to Nashville Restaurant Radio on Instagram and we will make this post and from there you can win Chef Paul. Brennan, thank you so much for joining us here today. Thank you for having me. All right. Big thank you to Chef Paul Brennan for joining us here today on the show. Next up is Chef Max Knopfel who at the beginning of this episode I thought it was Chef Max Knopfel but I was wrong and this is a really funny and there's some great stories in this interview which we're gonna get into right now, right after this quick word from our sponsor. Unleash the wolf with Campo Bravo Tequila. Campo Bravo is a 100% agave tequila with a bold, smooth flavor perfect for sipping neat as a shot or in cocktails.

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26:40You can try it at the tap room over in the nations or you can order it right now from Debt Distributing. This is their seasonal release. Daisy Hazy IPA from Fat Bottom Brewery. Super excited today to welcome in my good friend Max Knopfel. Did I say that right? Yes, actually some friends tell me how do you say your name and I say Knopfel is like a cup full so just say Knopfel. Oh, so the K is not silent. No. Knopfel. Yes. Like a, say that again. Knopfel. Knopfel. Yeah. Okay, Max Knopfel. Thank you. This is one of these things I get in here and like how hold them back. Whoever he says how hold, it's like how hold them back. And I learned these little things. You say, hey, how do you say your name? And that's what it is. Welcome in studio for your first ever visit in a Nashville restaurant radio. Brandon, great to be here. We are gonna do, we're gonna talk about Tennessee flavors.

27:42Yes. That is what we are here to do but we're gonna extend this conversation out in this episode. We're gonna have a full episode with you that's gonna come out in a few weeks but Tennessee flavors is coming up and you guys are gonna be there supporting the Randy Rayburn School for Culinary Arts at Nashville State. Yes. How many years have you guys been doing this? We've been doing it for six plus years. I've been co-chair now for four years with Andy Marshall. Okay, from A. Marshall Hospitality? Yes, yes. Great, great, great team there and Andy's fantastic. Randy Rayburn, obviously a culinary school at Nashville State. It is amazing how he has taken off. We have some great students. And obviously, as you know, since the explosion of Nashville since 2013, we need professionals and it's a great school. I think one of the things that people say is that there's just not enough people and it's like, well, we need to create those people.

28:43Send them in, send them to culinary school, send them out into the job world and let's go. Do you hire a bunch of people straight out of school? I hired apprentices and I hired people straight out of school, yes. And there's actually the culinary school and then there's the hospitality management school. Oh. Which is run by Tom Truffle and he used to be a general manager. He's a city council and he's really involved in it now since about two years. Fantastic and you know what I didn't do at the beginning of this interview is say who you are and what you do. Uh-oh. Max Knupfel. Yes. Is the executive chef for the Music City Center which is no small undertaking and the ACF Chef of the Year last year. Yes. Congratulations. Thank you, Ben. And you come via, where are you originally from? Where's this accent from? I'm originally from Switzerland and thanks to my dad, we loved him very much but we thought that our two, my two sisters and I thought that there was something wrong with him because we were born in Zurich.

29:51My mom was Hungarian. She left in 57 Hungary, got a refugee in Switzerland, fell in love with my dad. And so I grew up around Swiss language which is German, French and Italian. But I grew up speaking Hungarian and Swiss German. Then we moved to Lugano. So I had to learn Italian on top of that. And in school, obviously, all immersed Italian. And then we moved to Geneva and it was French. So by the age of six, I had three languages. Wow. Of the Swiss language, Switzerland has four official languages. One of them is Romanish which is a mountain language. Not used that much, maybe about 15% of population. I don't speak that language. But I grew up and then I learned Spanish and the kitchens and traveled to Canada and arrived in Canada in 1982 with $20 in my pocket and had to learn English.

30:52So. So English was your fifth language? Fifth language, yeah. Wow. That is incredible. And so I'm from Switzerland originally. I did my apprenticeship, very classical, but I did my apprenticeship starting at almost 15 years old. So 14 and a half. I dropped out of school, told my dad I want to be a chef. He tried to promote that in a way, my dad's way, which was tough. Put me with the most top chef in Geneva that he was a good customer of. It was the Intercontinental in Geneva. Ronnie Rastello had traveled the world for Hilton and Intercontinental hotels. We started the apprenticeship and I was 14 and a half years in a man's world. The kitchen was very classical, like a little brigade and so on. And so that's why I like to talk to students. I like to talk to my teams that I work with and so about the classicals and what happened and how it was and how classical cuisine has developed and so on, flavors and so we need to know Escoffier, you need to know the basics and then you can go crazy and do the today's stuff.

32:04You really have the heart of a teacher. And 15 years old, you said you're 66 years old? I'm 66 this year. So that was over 50 years ago you started in this industry. No, in my head, okay, so every morning I wake up, I go to the bathroom, I look at the mirror and I say, who's this old guy? Because I think I'm 20 years old. I'm the same, dude, I am exactly the same way. Like I turned 45 in like two weeks. Now you're like, I'm a spring chicken, right? I get that. But I feel like I'm like 18, like I'm, I just go like, I just have fun. I look in the mirror and I do this. I'm like, who is this gray bearded dude? Like I just have fun. I still absolutely love what I do every day. I love walking to restaurants and I love meeting that young 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 year old kid, I call him, who has a great attitude and loves hospitality and just is a sponge.

33:04Like I cannot get enough of that person. Right, and I mean, I tell them, we have apprentices. So we have one apprentice, Dee. She was spent to us two and a half years and she's graduated. And I mean, from a background that was socially on the borderline and good family and so, but really wanted to find her way and she went to school and I interviewed her. She had worked somewhere in Nashville for about six months, didn't learn much, was peeling stuff and putting away stuff and just setting it up, but no education. We brought her in and I mean, it was amazing. And Paul, who is the Dean of the Korean High School in Nashville State, told me, says, I think we have somebody great there. And I sat down with her, the first 10 minutes, I just heard her saying, what does she want? What's she looking at? She was an open book of, show me, teach me, make me go through it, I wanna see, and I wanna feel it.

34:08And so we brought sea urchins in, we brought a whole scallops in the shell, we brought in boar, we brought in pheasants. I mean, it was, she's like, oh my God. I said, you might never see this again in your life. You might never use it. But what I tried to convey, and that's also the students and so on, is be adventurous and open. Have your blinders off, take it in. And I think Nashville State and the organization, the people that are behind, and so Dr. Jackson is the head of Nashville State, just put so much energy also into the campus and all the stuff, it's growing and so on. And we had these years of COVID, COVID-19. And I have a 24-year-old, Maxine, my daughter, and it was tough for her, and she's in engineering. And I lived through that and seeing what she had done.

35:10And so we said, okay, let's put them to work. I mean, at MCC, we all stayed working, but my role was parking cars and parking attendants, doing tastings, face shield, face mask, and we didn't know when we were gonna restart. But during that, we also talked to the students. And we actually, school went back and was off remote. Well, I think you, the Music City Center, donated their space to the Department of Health to really set up a hospital. And I wanna get into all of that. That's gonna be the meat of what we're talking about here in just a second. I'm gonna pause you, because that is really good stuff. I wanna get back real quick, because I want people to know when they go to Tennessee Flavors, and they, are you gonna be there? You'll be, so when they walk by the Music City Center booth and whatever you're doing, I want them to know who they're meeting. Because I want them to come by and say hi and shake your hand, because I think you're a treasure. And we are a better culinary city because of you.

36:14You were 15, you started working at the Intercontinental, you said? Yeah, in Geneva. I know that you were in New York, and you had, so let's go into your progression a little bit and some of the places you've been before you came to Nashville. I wanna just, let's do like a 90 second, two minute, three minute. What is your history? What are some of the places you've been? So I worked in, I took my apprenticeship in Switzerland. Then I stayed one more year and I did charcuterie and meat fabrication and so on. Then I started working as a professional, as a chef de partie in Basel at the Hilton. And where? At the Hilton Basel, in Basel, Switzerland. Okay. Then I did a stunt at Paris in St. Moritz for about winter season. And at that time, we had no CVs, we didn't send resumes out. The chef picked up the phone and said, hey, I have a garmanger guy.

37:15And the guy said, I need a saute guy. Okay, you know. And then he told you, he said, hey, next week, two weeks from now, pack your suitcase and you're gonna show up to that chef at that hotel, you know, and I mean, you didn't know how much you were making, nothing. And then I did my Swiss Army service at the age of 19 and a half. I became sergeant in the Swiss Army. And they wanted, because of my languages, they wanted to keep me. I didn't see the pleasure of that. I was involved in food and I loved it. And then in 1982, my chef called me and says, hey, we have a job in Brazil at the Copacabana Hilton. In Ipanema, like in Rio? Yeah. Right on the other side of Ipanema right there? Yeah. In the Copacabana? Yeah. I've been there. And so I flew to Brazil. I was there for three months and I got blood poisoning. Oh. Really bad, went to the hospital there, was not good experience. And after 10 days, the general manager, the HR person came and said to me, hey, we really think you should go back to Switzerland, take care of yourself.

38:24And so they flew me back to Switzerland. I was in the hospital for about a month, got better, went back to work at the Intercontinental. The chef there said to me, okay, get better. We worked about six months. And then he said to me, okay, are you ready to go back? I said, yes. So, you know, I thought Brazil, I know where I'm going back. No, he gave me a plane ticket to Montreal, Canada. And I immigrated to Canada in 1982. Arrived in Montreal with $20 in my pocket. I was three. Yeah. I had a job. I had a job and I had a hotel night at the hotel for three nights paid. And then it was probably about 120 people at the Queen Elizabeth. The chef Albert Schnell was an amazing chef. I mean, he was a pioneer in the culinary world in Canada. And I worked with him for about two years as Chef Gare Manger. 19 people in Gare Manger, the youngest one 17, the oldest one 67. And I was like, you know, 20 years old.

39:26We did everything from scratch, from patties to all the dressings, mayonnaise. I mean, mayonnaise was cracking eggs and, you know, making, you know, it was a fiber oil and vinegar. And make sure you have the right seasoning, right? And so I learned a lot of things. And so, so then I started working for Canadian National Hotels. I was the chef at, I worked, I went to Jasper Park Lodge in Alberta. Was the sous chef there at the clubhouse. I worked at the Hotel Vancouver. I was a chef with the Roof Hotel, which is on top of the Hotel Vancouver. Iconic Hotel downtown Vancouver. I was the team captain of culinary team competing on culinary competitions for Vancouver. I moved back to Ottawa. And in Ottawa, I was the chef, the chef de laurier, which is an old hotel. It's a Fairmont Hotel now. Fantastic hotel, fantastic crew.

40:28Kitchen had 120 foot ceiling with a plate up. I mean, it was iconic. We did events, we did almost $27 million in catering. And I was 26, 27 years old. My executive sous chef was 61, Italian guy, as wide as high, mean looking, fantastic guy though. People would come in the kitchen and he would point and said, now the chef is this guy. And I was a skinny little guy, 26 years old, but I mean, intense. And I had so much experience already because, you know. 11 years in at that point. I mean, at 26, that's pretty impressive. $26 million, gosh. And so anyway, so I did a lot of competition still. We did a lot of exposure. We did cooking demos and so on. We did ice carvings going down to the river and cutting out ice blocks and putting ice carvings during the winter in Canada. You know, apprentices would have to- Go down to the river and cut out ice blocks and then you'd make carvings out of that?

41:30Yes, and we put them outside the hotel. So the apprentices had to come in the morning and they would dust off the snow and remove the ice carvings. And you know, every three, four weeks we would do new ones. It was a fun time. We did a death by chocolate buffets on nights. And I mean, we would egg each other on. What could we do else? And so anyways, I wrote a letter in the Canadian Chef Association magazine about working with unions because I had worked in hotels in Canada as well. Unions. And Kevin Devich, General Manager of the Capitol Hilton in Washington, D.C., read it and said, I wanna bring this guy in to talk to us because we had some union issues in Washington, D.C. I was invited to come down. I was like, okay, Washington, D.C., sure, never been. Let's go. Landed in Washington, D.C., got to the Capitol Hilton, the chef that didn't want to talk to me at all. He was just, I was an intrusion and so on. Everybody else was very welcoming. I left there, the whole kitchen was like, hey, hope we see you again, you're a great chef.

42:33And so, you know, I told the chef, I said, listen, I'm not here to disturb anything. I'm here to just let you know my experience. Maybe you can pick up with that. And that's what your GM wants. Sure. I crossed back, flew out of National Airport and I said to myself, this is a fantastic place. That's the center of the free world, you know? And what opportunities. And so I had some dinners in Washington, D.C., met some chefs and so on. And you learn from every experience, you know? And I said to myself, okay, what could I do next? What can I learn from this and so on? But I had met some fantastic individuals at the hotel. Three weeks later, I got married. We purchased a house with my wife. And two days later, after we came back from our honeymoon, I got an offer to go work in Washington, D.C., at the Hilton, the chef had left. And I said, no, I just bought a house.

43:35I just this, you know? And he said to me, well, all this is negotiable. And he made me an offer that I could not refuse. He gave my one month resignation and worked out and went down to Washington, D.C. So I was a chef there for about two and a half years at the Hilton. Then I went to be the chef at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. with Restaurant Associates, who was a group out of New York, which did fantastic jobs. They had the United Nations, they had Carnegie Hall, they had all these big venues in New York. And Max Pine was the owner of Restaurant Associates. Worked with him for about seven years. And- You're the executive chef at the Kennedy Center. Yes. Like they do the Kennedy Center honors. Yes, the honors six years in a row. Do you get to meet all the presidents and people and all the celebrities? Yes, I picture with the presidents. I did inaugural, for example, for Clinton and Gore. And I remember doing that, it was crazy.

44:40But funny story, Paul Newman got honored at one of the things. I come around the corner, we had orders and they had misplaced the orders, we redid them. I'm running down the hallway, I come to this end and there's this guy with his blue eyes staring at me. I almost had all the orders on his lap, you know? And he looks at me and he says, hello chef, and what do we have here? And I'm like, oh, and the guy says to me, and I said, nice to meet you, you know? And Paul Newman, I mean amazing. Wow. I went into one of the rooms and it is just amazing. I watched probably Phantom of the Opera about 25 times from the rafters upstairs, you know? But we did some amazing stuff. And Jose Andres, you know, obviously I invited him in for operas and so on to do food in collaboration. Jean-Louis was at Jean-Louis restaurant at the Watergate across the street, you know?

45:42And I mean, it was a who's who that you were working with. It's a pretty exciting time as a chef, isn't it? Oh yeah, it was great. So anyways, so then I opened my own restaurant with a partner, we had a restaurant called Times Square and Bethesda, we had this for about two and a half years. I had some great ideas and we did the great food, but the investors were really a little bit over the top. And after two and a half years, I said, that's not how it's gonna work. No. So then I went to work at the convention center in Washington, DC, the new convention center was built. They had hired a chef, didn't work out. And about two weeks after that, I started as the chef. I loved the magnitude of it and the intricacies of opening this new convention center, featuring obviously Washington, DC. And then after that, about two and a half years in, I got offered a position at the Bellhaven Country Club in Alexandria, exclusive country club, $37 million of innovations.

46:48John Marger came from Ritz Carlton and we wanted to really do wow the customers because across the street, we had the new Gaylord opening and I mean, the members were just amazing. A lot of senators, congressmen, political, it was a busy, busy, busy club. And in 2010, Westchester Country Club, which is one of the top 10 clubs in the world, opened up the chef position and I took the position. You were the chef at the Westchester Country Club. Yes. And the year I made the most money, I worked with most incredible buying power. I mean, there was no money, there was no object and so on, best teams and so on. I was the most unhappy. So my home life was very difficult. My daughter was about 12 years old. She went through some difficulties in schools and so on, bullying and all this stuff.

47:51My wife was working crazy. I didn't spend any time at work. I was always at work and in a club, it's a little bit different. So the members really dictate what they want and so I was looking for something else. After two and a half years, I got a call and they asked me if I knew somebody for Nashville and I looked what was going on here in Nashville and so I didn't really know exactly what was happening. I came down for an interview the week of Thanksgiving, 2012. Met with Charles Starks, who is the CEO of the president of the Music City Center and explained to me his vision of what's gonna happen here in Nashville. And so we spent about two hours talking and I asked a lot of questions and he said to me, I need a really good community center chef. And I told him, I said, Mr. Charles, if you want a good community center chef, I'm not your person. I'm an event chef. I wanna do a farm-to-table.

48:53I wanna do organic. We wanna bring this out and so, you know, and I spent 24 hours in Nashville. Flew back, filled up five pages of questions on the flight back to New York and I spoke to my daughter and my wife about Tennessee. They both looked at where the hell is this? We had lived in Washington, D.C. for 23 years, New York for three, you know? And so, but long story short, I came down to Nashville a week later. We spent a week. We parked somewhere in a hotel near Franklin, drove around and so, and we said this would be great. And I accepted the job. Okay, so we're gonna pause it right there. We're gonna pause it right there because I wanted people to know when they show up to Tennessee Flavors and they walk up to your booth, who they were talking to and who they got to see and an absolute legend. Somebody who used to run the candy center and the Westchester Country Club and the Washington Hilton and all of these things and when we come back from this break, we're getting into when I met you and what your experience in Nashville has been like and we're gonna talk about all the things.

50:06Thank you. Sound good? All right, so check back with us. If you're listening to this right now in a couple weeks, you can hear the rest of this story on our full interview with chef Max Knupfel. Did I say that right? Did I do it right? Are we gonna get it? We'll be right back after these words from our sponsors. Man, I love that guy and I say there at the end that we're gonna be talking with him in a couple of weeks. That episode is coming up this week. That episode will be up this next Monday and the event is on Tuesday. So you get to learn a lot more about Max on the way in there. So thank you for listening to that and next up is Alyssa Gangeri. Alyssa Gangeri is a partner over at Buttermilk Ranch and she is absolutely hilarious and so much fun and every time she comes in the studio, we just laugh and it's just, it's a great time. I can imagine what it must be like working over there at Buttermilk Ranch. One thing she did for me while she was here, she read a couple of one-star reviews about the Buttermilk Ranch and you can go to our TikTok page.

51:07I think it might be under Brandon Styll or Nashville Restaurant Radio or both. I don't know, TikTok. Go find it, it's a funny video and there's all kinds of chefs reading one-star reviews. So go find it, follow it. There's just random stuff on our TikTok page that is funny and fun and all that good stuff. So let's jump in with Alyssa Gangeri right after these words. Cali Sober, the totally legal THC infused mocktail. Cali Sober was created to provide a better alternative to alcohol. No dependence, no ulcers, no liver damage, and no nights you wanna forget or mornings asking, what happened? They only use non-synthetic, all-natural delta-9 THC derived from the hemp plant. It is the real deal. The same buzz, the same chill you'd expect from THC. Best of all, Cali Sober is federally legal because it is made with hemp-derived THC, which is a legal substance under the 2018 Farm Bill.

52:08If you're a restaurant, you can pick this up through Litman Brothers. They offer three different flavors, Paloma Spritz, Ranch Water, and Berry Ginger Fizz, all with less than 3% THC by volume with five milligrams of THC per serving. Please enjoy responsibly. Hey guys, we're talking about the Chandler James retail team at Lee & Associates. We're talking about Miller Chandler and Lee Ann James. They are here to be your broker to find your next retail space. They're located downtown in the heart of it all at the Batman Building. They're serving all of Middle Tennessee. Both Miller and Lee Ann are both Tennessee natives, so you know they know the neighborhoods, they know everything you're looking for. They can help you find and negotiate terms on your next restaurant location. They represent both retail tenants and landlords in our market, which means they can also help you with lease versus buy decisions and act as your leasing agents as should you ever decide to go all in and purchase commercial real estate.

53:14I know what you're wondering, how do I get a hold of these amazing people because I am looking for retail property? You're gonna call Miller Chandler 615-473-2452 or Lee Ann James at 731-335-1121. That's the Chandler James Retail Team at Lee and Associates. We are joined with Alyssa Ganjeri, and she is one of the partners over at the Buttermilk Ranch. Hi, Alyssa. Hi, how are you? I am wonderful. You are gonna be participating in Tennessee Flavors, and we're talking Tennessee flavors today. You excited about this event? Yeah, Tennessee flavors. Whoop, whoop. What are you gonna be serving to the people at Tennessee Flavors? Do you know yet? I was gonna keep it a secret. I like to keep people on their seat. Well, it's like four days away. No, it's not. It's more than four days away. When this is released, it'll be four days away. Oh, shit, I better start prepping. It's like four days away.

54:19I, Tennessee Flavors, so I, this is my first year doing Tennessee Flavors. I am partnering with Edgar Pendley, the chef partner of Urban Grub. So we're kinda doing a Buttermilk Ranch, Urban Grub collab for Tennessee Flavors. Oh, really? I did not know this. We're taking 12 South across the street, combining it together. Hell yeah. We're kinda taking the best of what Edgar does, and the best of what we do at Buttermilk, and kind of bringing it together. So like savory croissant. We're working on a smoked beef belly, and then we're gonna do something really wild and crazy with that beef belly, and turn it into almost like a Wellington-style wrapped in a croissant bite. What? Maybe there's some pate coming. Maybe there's some other things coming, but yeah. Okay, so this is a scoop. Yeah, I know, right? Tennessee Flavors, if you see Buttermilk Ranch, and you love Buttermilk Ranch, because your pastries and everything you do over there is so amazing. Thank you. But you're gonna be partnering with Edgar Pendley and Urban Grub.

55:20Yep. That's a secret. Is that on? No. I like to throw some different things in there. I get bored. I told you that last time I was here. I just get bored. I wanna do my shit. Let's go. Yeah, let's go. Wow. I didn't wanna do something sweet. I wanted to do something a little different, so that's why we're kinda taking that beef belly. We've gotten some wagyu beef belly in recently, so we wanna smoke it and get it super, super tender, and kinda manipulate it to a point where it just melts in your mouth. I'm all about the fat. Mo butter, mo fat. It says it right on the door right here. Last time you were here, I have a door that guests sign when they come in, and you signed the door. You said butter makes everything better. It does. Mo fat, mo better. Mo fat, mo better. I shoulda wrote bed-da. Bed-da. How have you been? I've been good. I've been busy. Busy bee, I am. Busy just in the sense of, hey, we're a really busy restaurant, and I'm staying busy there, or busy as in, hey, look, I've got other projects I'm working on.

56:24Very, very busy restaurant, obviously. Very grateful for that busy restaurant, but I also have multiple other projects in the works, and a couple consulting projects that I'm working on, and got a couple properties that we're trying to put some other restaurants on, so. Really? Can't stop now. Just gotta keep moving. I feel like everyone wants a buttermilk somewhere, and I'm just like Huntsville, Alabama, Florida. I'm like all over the place. I can't. Are you gonna put a buttermilk ranch in Huntsville, Alabama? Maybe. Maybe. It's like a new development down there that we're in talks with. I've just never been there. You've never been to Huntsville? No, I'm from New York City. Dude, Huntsville's awesome. That's what I hear. Huntsville is fantastic. Here it's like NASA people down there, like super smart people. They have the Space Center. The Space Center. And then they have like an armory down there, this huge area where they keep all the missiles and stuff for like our government. Like this huge space that's like, that's a lot of engineers there in Huntsville.

57:28The dining scene in Huntsville is fantastic, and it's just blowing up. That's what I've heard. I have to go visit it. I mean, but I also have to like clone myself to be able to do all these things. But this is a good problem to have. Oh, it's a great problem to have. I mean, I'm super grateful for my situation. How many guests do you guys serve a week at buttermilk ranch? A week? God, oh man. Saturday, last Saturday and Sunday, we saw over 900 people on each day. So that's 1,800 people over the weekend. You're looking at another six to 700 on Friday and probably another 1,000 through Wednesday and Thursday. It's like 4,000 to 5,000 people? Yes. It's insanity. That's, and you're not, are you having dinner? No. Just breakfast and lunch? We do those numbers between eight and 2.30, three o'clock. What time do you go to bed at night? I don't know. I don't think I sleep anymore. I just hang upside down and just do this thing.

58:33Yeah, I mean, it's a very, very humbling thing to be honest. Obviously this was a concept that I wanted to open and I just knew I could have do it in New York and I thought Nashville would take very well to it and they have, and obviously a lot of tourism comes through cause it's where it is in 12 South. But at the same time, it's, I've gotten into like a really cool group of chefs and this is a really fun city to have a restaurant in, to be honest. It really is. Who do you hang out with? Who are some of these chefs you hang out? I don't hang out. I don't go out. I have a restaurant that does five to 6,000 people. I don't have time to go out. Oh my God. I met a chef one time and he was nice. That's my community. Somebody met me yesterday and they're like, oh, like I've never met like a chef restaurant tour before. I was like, yeah, probably cause they're always fucking working. That's what we do. Or it's just always working. No, I don't really go out that much. Yeah, I don't right now. I just don't.

59:33I've got so much going on and I took on two consulting partnerships and that keeps me kind of busy on my time off and yeah, just like trying to figure out where I'm going to put this next buttermilk and then other restaurants that we have concepts and locations for. So the Pennington's keep me very busy. I'll bet they do. That's a great company to work for. I mean, Jay and Blaze, they know their stuff. I mean, those guys are, I mean, there's people out there who come in and they want to open restaurants and they think they can do it. Everybody's like, it's going to be fun. It's going to be so great. And then there's guys like Jay who've done this their entire lives. I mean, he knows it like the back of his hand, you know. It's almost like the guy, how you can't fail at this point. I mean, he's so smart. Yeah, yeah. You got to get him on the show. Yeah. I've never had Jay Pennington on the show. I mean, I might be able to get him on the show for you. I might need your help with that. Okay. Let's do this. I'll try. I'll try. The whole Pennington family. Yeah, we can get Jeff, Blaze and Jay in here.

01:00:35Now that. Yeah. Would be epic. We'll get some Davidson reserves, some pickers. I'll just sit back and listen to them talk. They could do a takeover of the show. Yeah. Holidays with them is a little wild. I can imagine. Yeah. I can imagine. Yeah. How's your, now your husband, let's talk about John for a second. Okay. He was a sponsor of the show, John Ho. And he is a real estate agent. With Parks. Is he doing well? Yeah. I haven't talked to him in a little bit. He's crushing it. He's all over. I mean, I think also too is like when you transition like out of hospitality, like he was always, when I met him, he was a bar owner. You know what I mean? And so like he's been in hospitality for so long and then COVID hit and you know, we were like 90% done building buttermilk and COVID hit. So we had to obviously stop everything. I kind of hunkered down in grub with like 10 other people and we just did like take out and this like traveling meal thing. And he got an offer from Gary Ashton to like join his team.

01:01:37And he was like, should I do it? And I'm like, why not? We don't know when bars are gonna open again. Like we have a, you know, we live in a city where they shut down our bars. I was, I curved myself right there. But yeah, I mean, and then he got this offer to go with Parks and he's just, he's a hustler to begin with. So I think like he moves at a much faster pace than most. So. He has so much energy. He has a lot of energy. I think we vibed that way because we're both just like, it's like, oh my God. That's what I loved about him because he's a real estate agent, but he also understands so much about what we do. And I thought it was so cool. His Instagram is housepitality. Housepitality, I know. I can't believe he got that too. When he got it, I was like, that's genius. Dude, like, yeah, like you crushed it on that. But like he can help people, but he also understands this business and how people get paid and all that stuff. So it's like. Correct. Like I think he's more of a person that like he doesn't look at it as like a money thing.

01:02:39He looks at it as like an experience that he's giving people. And I think that's the hospitality side of him. And that's why like I think that tag name on his Instagram like works perfectly for him because he looks at it as, okay, like this is a huge thing for somebody. Like they're buying their first house or like buying any house is a huge, huge purchase for people. Huge. And to be able to like make it a fun experience for people and kind of give them an experience that most are not going to give them. Cause like why, why shouldn't it be an experience? Why, like why should it be this like cut and dry? Like take a look at a house, like it, okay, let me write a contract. You know what I mean? But I also think he's like super smart and savvy. Like he is a person that's, people have gotten frustrated before, but he's like, I'm not going to write a contract that I know that I'm not going to win. Yeah. It's a waste of time. You know what I mean? And that's a very real real estate agent for somebody. And I think some people are scared by that, but at the same time, it's like, he's like me. It's like, I don't have time to waste. And I, the last thing I want to do is waste other people's time.

01:03:41You know? And you want a guy like that in your corner. Yeah. When you're, especially if you're looking for a house. 100%. Yes. Yeah. I knew, I, I talked to him a couple months ago and I was like, I got to bring you in and we'll do a show on real estate and what's happening. I think going into the spring, I got to do that. Yeah. So stay tuned. We're going to, I mean, we got to bring- Oh, look at all these people I have to bring in for Brandon. I got to bring John in, I got to bring Jay in. Yeah. Do you know- I'll start making my list of people. Who else do you try to bring in? Do you know Trevor down the street? Cause I cannot get him to come in. He keeps telling me nobody wants to talk to him. Yeah. Trevor's a, Trevor's like closed a little door. He likes his little spot right there. I love Trevor. Trevor does a great job. He's amazing. His food is spot on. I hope he wins James Beard. I, yeah, I haven't been in probably like six months, but I mean, I love that he changes it up. I love the shave ice. I just, he is, what I love about his food is it's so clean. Like it is clean and just, it's nothing like crazy fancy.

01:04:45It's just fucking good. Just good. Just good. You know what I mean? And like, you know, they got a good team over there and I love Josh too with Bastion. So, you know, good people, good people. All right, Alyssa. I am so excited to see you at Tennessee Flavors. And now you guys know that you have to go by the buttermilk bench table. Lots of things going on there. Lots of butter. Thank you so much for coming by today. Hey, you're so welcome. Of course. You're the best. Tennessee Flavors is going to be awesome. We'll see you next week. Yeah, for sure. All right. All right. Wow. I tell you, I love talking to her. She's so fun. And she brings a good energy into the studio when she is here. And man, I am really excited to try what they are doing over at Tennessee Flavors. It looks, sounds absolutely delicious. All right. Our next guest is going to be Chris McCorkle. She is the owner at Black Diamond Culinary.

01:05:46Her husband joined us in studio and it was her birthday when she was in here in studio. I've been friends with her for a really long time since the beginning of the pandemic. And she talks, I didn't know what she was going to talk about today. And she talks about that and some experiences that we've had together in the past and she was very kind. And I just, I just love her. I adore her and I adore what she's doing over there. So if you guys are looking for a fun place to do a culinary event, check them out, but go meet her when you're at Tennessee Flavors. And hey, I want to talk about the initial ad that was on this show for Robin's Insurance. This is one of those companies that just, if you don't know who your insurance person is, like it's so important. I have a guy at my house. He does HVAC, he does plumbing and he does electrical. And he's, he's my guy. And you know, I think it was, you know, six months ago, I mean, hot water heater went out and it was fortunately, unfortunately, this was sarcasm, it was a Sunday afternoon.

01:06:51And if you've ever had a water heater go out on a Sunday afternoon, if you've got kids and you're getting ready for a school week and you're like, damn it, who do you call? And this is the type of scenario, this is what I'm getting at is that I called my guy who does all three of these things at my home. And he said, hey, go down and look at the actual, he answered the phone first of all. And then he went over and he said, go look at the actual water heater. What's the date on it? I sent him all the information, took picture of it, sent it to him. He called the water heater manufacturer, it was still under warranty. And then the next morning, he went and met me at Home Depot and we traded out, got a free water heater and then he installed it for me for his normal rate, which was amazing. But like, that's what you get when you have a relationship with somebody. When you work with somebody, you can say, hey, it's Sunday. Otherwise I gotta pick up a phone, I gotta go online and call a random company and get somebody to come out to my house. That would cost me 10 times much and they're not gonna do all that. What Matthew Clements does with Robin's insurance is he's that guy.

01:07:52When something happens in your building and you need somebody who understands your building to get you an answer quickly, he's the guy you call. He's your guy. And if you're using some company that's a 800 number that's online that you don't know anybody for, but they're saving you a couple dollars here and there, like it's not worth it when you need them. And this is one of the reasons why I love Robin so much. And I've had to call, he's my guy for insurance and I've had to call him with these type things because you never know when it happens. So it's just one of those things today I wanted to talk about in between this episode. Just how amazing Matthew Clements is and how much I appreciate him. And so go back to the beginning and listen, get his number, give him a call at least and just see what he can do because him and society, they work together and he's just amazing. All right, let's jump in right now with Chris McCorkle in Black Diamond Culinary. All right, and we are back here. We have Chris McCorkle and her husband, Tim, who's hiding in the back.

01:08:56He's not gonna be on the episode, but say hi, Tim. Hello. There's Tim, okay. Tim, we're turning your mic off now, Tim. But Chris McCorkle is the owner of Black Diamond Culinary. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Thank you for having me today. It's been a long time. We've been kind of communicating back and forth here, haven't we? We have. And tell me about Black Diamond Culinary. So I was really blessed as a child. My father was a pilot. My mother was a flight attendant. We traveled all over Europe. There were big foodies. So I enjoyed culinary luxuries all over Europe. And I joined the airline myself back in 85 and had the luxury to travel, met a French pastry chef, married him, lived in France. Am I sitting across from him? No, you're not sitting. This is the next husband, second chapter. 2.0. 2.0. Gotcha. And being married to a French pastry chef and having the luxuries to meet other gorgeous chefs and executive chefs from France and all over the states kept my culinary interest.

01:10:04And I retired from the airlines when Delta announced they were buying Northwest Airlines out. So unfortunately, taking care of aging parents, my parents and my current husband's parents and kids were still in high school. Unfortunately, once everybody passed and the kids flew out of the nest, I said, okay, is everybody done here? I'm ready to start a second chapter of my life. So if anybody knows the history of Nashville, Bob Wagner, who was the executive chef at the Wild Boar restaurant. Oh wow, we're going back. We're going back 30 years. My former husband, Jean Claude, was the executive pastry chef for the Wild Boar. Really? Yes. Knowing Bob and being a young mom at 23, but being an older mom at almost at 40, my daughters kept me very young. And six years ago, she looked at me and said, mom, you need to get with the program of life. You need to get on Facebook and Instagram. And I said, we need to do this because. Why? You're a foodie, mom. You want food and wine, so you can look up all that fun stuff all over the world. So my husband hooked me up on Facebook.

01:11:04She hooked me up on Instagram. I ran across Bob Wagner in Charleston. I said, what is this guy doing? My current husband didn't know Bob. And so we had the luxury to travel to fly. And I said, let's see the United States from the ground. So we drove to Charleston, met Bob. I said, Bob, this is amazing. Tell me everything you did right and tell me everything you did wrong. And on the way back from Charleston, I look at Tim and said, we're doing this in Cool Springs, Brentwood, Franklin, Williamson County. Okay, so you have this long history, Wild Boar. Wild Boar. Bob Wagner, you get on the internet, you're on social media and you decide, hey, we'll drive to South Carolina, we'll go to Charleston. We'll see what Bob Wagner's up to. And then you're inspired to come back and start a business in the Cool Springs area, which is today, Black Diamond Culinary. Black Diamond Culinary today, before the pandemic. Now we're talking about, that wasn't even in our vocabulary, the word pandemic. No, when did you open?

01:12:04So we opened the week of the pandemic when the universe was shutting down. Like March 14th, like that week? I opened up. Wow. Yes. So I started the podcast that week too. Yes. So we both started businesses that week. We did. And how's it going? So it was a tough start at first. I can imagine. And my business partner at the time, we got to know Cyrus at the Nasi School of Art in Madison. Yeah, sure. Oprah Winfrey said, if you go into business, always find people that are smarter than yourself. So I called Cyrus and said, I know we're all trying to figure out crazy, but are you willing to share 10 local influencers in Nashville with me to help me figure out how to stay in business during this crazy mess? So Cyrus shared 10. And your name was number 10, by the way. Oh, really? I called the first nine, followed up with emails, call after call, went to voicemails, no return phone calls, and no return emails.

01:13:07I called number 10. You literally answered your phone. I was like, uh, uh, uh, uh. You're like, who's this guy? Why is he answering his phone? Why is he answering his phone? Do I have the wrong number? And I introduced myself to you. And you said, I'll be there tomorrow morning at 10. I said, I'm there. And you came. And because of you, Black Diamond's culinary is still standing here today. What? Because you brought your young social media girl. And this is when last year, when mass mandates were starting to fall off, corporations were starting to get back together. And she said, start using the hashtag corporate events. You know. We'll just give you some good social media advice, like things to do. Yes, very much. And of course, my dear husband was saying, how is a little hashtag gonna help us? Let me tell you, with hashtag corporate events and hashtag team building, all those corporate hashtags business, the phone started ringing and corporate events were starting to book. Because of the pandemic, like my husband retired during the pandemic, older people were leaving companies, but new people were coming on.

01:14:13But there were still people in companies that had been there for a while. So introducing the older people in the companies with younger people in the companies. And companies are softer with their employees today. So team building events is really a newer thing, bringing people together. But what more fun to come to Black Diamond to do a culinary cooking class and have a competition making beautiful foods. Now your facility is really cool. When I first walked in there, I was like, oh, this is neat because it's so uniquely set up for that. Like, it's just this, it's like a small kitchen stadium where everybody, oh, hey, Tim wants to jump in here. Go ahead. What do you got? The piano. You were the one that helped me get rid of the piano. She had a huge, like a baby grand piano in there. The state of the art Yamaha. Yamaha piano. And you said, this is, and I go, I don't think you need the piano. Your exact words were, love your baby grand piano. How much money is it making you?

01:15:13The light bulb went on and selling the piano gave us more money for rent money to stay in the business. That was a fabulous piece of advice. And of course in tears. And after you left, I was in tears. Because I thought I wanted to be the female Emeril Lagasse. I wanted music and Nashville music and food and wine and people to come together. What better thing to bring people together than food? And Tim looked at me later and he said, honey, if Black Diamond is successful, we can always buy another piano. That's a true story. That is a true story. If that's what you really wanted. And I'm sorry. I know. I feel like I make a comment like, is that piano making you money? No, you need that space. And you're like, well, we'll get rid of it. I'm like, whoa. I did not know that I had any. You had such a kind of an influence on that. Because like I said, if you go and ask for advice, like Oprah Winfrey said, and you want to stay in business and you're asking people that are smarter than you for advice and you don't follow through, I would not be here having this beautiful conversation with you today.

01:16:13Wow. Between your social media young lady and you, Black Diamond is here. Yeah, well, I'm super humbled by that. I don't even know what to say about that. And it was Jennifer Ichikawa. Yes. Was who it was. And she was my co-host on the show at the time. Yes. And she worked with me at Mayor Bowl and some other different areas. And she's amazing. And I love her to this day. Yeah, but if it truly wasn't for you and meeting you, we would have locked the doors two years ago, seriously. And hopefully you're doing well now. We are, finally do. We're not quite where we are. But let me tell you what, our bills are all played for. We own every stick of everything in our beautiful, gorgeous space. And it is a gorgeous space. And we made our first little profit. Wasn't much, but it was a profit this last year. Well, congratulations. Thank you. That's hard work, determination, and bootstrapping the shit out of it, too. And passion. I mean, that's passion. I have met chefs that are cordon bleu trained that have totally lost their passion.

01:17:19And one thing my husband is so proud of me every night, he goes, one thing, Chris, through all these hard times, that you have survived because of your passion. Without the passion, no matter what it is you wanna do in life, if you do not have it, whether you're a doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, it doesn't matter. Chefs and sommeliers work so hard all over the world. If you don't have that passion and drive, there's no reason to do what you're doing, find something else. Amen. And I completely agree with that. You gotta have the passion, the drive, and you have it. And he says, I'm as passionate today since the day I opened the doors, and I'm not gonna stop. So Tennessee Flavors is an event. It's gonna be at the new campus in Antioch. And you guys are gonna have a table, and you're gonna be, what are you gonna be serving? We're gonna do a beautiful little tasting of something creative that everybody can enjoy, and hopefully get to recognize Black Diamond a little bit more.

01:18:20Do you know what it's gonna be yet? Not 100% sure yet. You're still figuring it out. We're still figuring it out, because we don't wanna be overly creative, like too far Michelin star quality, but we want a beautiful quality that somebody can enjoy and make as well. So a lot of times, I've got three restaurants, and a lot of people want us to come do these things. A lot of times people can go to these events and they can mail it in. Here it is, we have to go do this event. You've seen me doing air quotes. A lot of people, it's a pain in the ass to set up a kitchen, go somewhere else and do it. But I have a feeling, you take a lot of pride in this. I'm gonna be there to showcase what we do, and I'm gonna knock their socks off. Exactly, because I want to show people that you can still cook beautifully, that you don't need 25 ingredients to make an elegant appetizer, dinner, or whatever your little party that you wanna throw together. Now how do people, if I wanted to book something through Black Diamond Culinary Film, listen to this right now, and I'm like, wow, this woman's got passion.

01:19:23I have a team that I would love to bring into your facility and host some sort of event, some kind of food challenge, or we can all learn together, a team building experience. How would I do something like that? So you can look at our website. You can go on our Instagram or Facebook, or you can email me, or you can text me, or you can call me directly on our Black Diamond phone number contacts, et cetera. What is your Black Diamond phone number contact? Our Black Diamond Culinary phone contact is 615-715-9059. 615-715-9059. That is how you're gonna book your next corporate event, or 40th birthday party, 50th birthday party. We have anniversaries, birthdays. Anniversary party, holiday party. We have tennis groups, we've had Dave Ramsey's groups. We've had tech groups. We've had the Omnia Partners groups. We've had the Pet Mars group. We have so many corporate people that are booking beautiful events, because like I said, corporations bring people in from all over, and they want them to have the Nashville experience.

01:20:31And mostly my experience are French and Italian style cooking, but we're bringing other chefs in that showcase their style. Like we bring the Aloha Fish Company in. A Jenner and her husband are delightful people. They teach sushi classes once or twice a month with us at Black Diamond Culinary. I'm bringing a young lady in from Texas that just moved here recently. She wants to share her family's Mexican recipes. We're doing a tamale class in March. So anybody, if I just, let's just say my wife and I want to have a date night, and we're like, hey, I would love to learn how to make sushi. I love, we love sushi night. That is something we absolutely love. Can I just book a two top to come in there? Is it a part of a much larger class? It's part of a much larger class. We like to kind of keep it intimate. So we can hold up to 40, but it's hard to do cooking in the kitchen with 40 people. So we kind of keep it a little bit of hands on, a little bit of sit back and relax because we know everybody's had a long day. And you have booze I assume. I have my wine license. I do not have a liquor license. So you do get to enjoy a couple glasses of wine with all the dinners.

01:21:34Nice. And we do four course dinners by the way. You know, there's a new, there's all these new THC brands out there that you don't have to be licensed for right now. Right. And we have somebody that you could bring in that there's through all of these different brands. And we represent one right here called Cali Sober and they're fantastic. And so you could add a different side of something too. We can add a different side of something. I don't know if people like that kind of thing. Corporate events, people are like, oh, well, let's not all get high together. But I mean- Some corporations do a lunch class and they need to go back to work. So that would work out delightful with a lunch class. We never know. But that's a new option for you also. Absolutely. Okay. Well guys, I am excited to see you at Tennessee Flavors. And I wanna do another episode where we bring you guys in and I'd love to talk to you with Caroline and do like a full interview because I'm fascinated by what you're doing. And I'm so excited that you're doing it so well. We just enjoy what we do. We just, I mean, what better than bring food and wine and people together.

01:22:34And my place is not only elegant, but it's comfortable. Yeah. And what happens when you're at somebody's home at a party? Where does everybody end up? In the kitchen. I was like, in the kitchen? In the kitchen. So I have an elegant kitchen that you feel like you're at your own home and you can just be yourself. BlackdiamondCulinary.com. BlackdiamondCulinary.com. People go check it out. BlackdiamondCulinary.com. The phone number we just had, go check them out. Book your next event there, but also come to Tennessee Flavors. And if you go to Tennessee Flavors, stop by their table, introduce yourself, tell them you heard them right on Nashville Restaurant Radio and come by and see me too. But go by and see Blackdiamond Culinary. And I just want to say thank you guys so much for coming by today. And we'll do this again soon. Definitely. All right, guys, we'll see you on March 5th at six o'clock. Six o'clock. All right. Be there. Okay, Chris McCorkle, Blackdiamond Culinary. I know you guys are all excited about seeing them at Tennessee Flavors. March 5th from six to eight at the Randy Rayburn School of Culinary Arts at Nashville State.

01:23:40Their campus is in the old Hickory Hollow Mall. So there it is. That is what they are doing. And I'm going to give you the address to this place as it is 5248 Hickory Hollow Parkway. And the next interview that we are going to be talking with is Margaux McCormick and Hadley Long. They are the, Hadley is the executive chef at Margaux and Margaux is Margaux and she's amazing. And so we kind of saved this one for last because she's a saint and I absolutely love her and I love their restaurant and Hadley was amazing. We're going to bring Hadley back on to do a full show. We did a full show with both of them though. And that's going to be out in two weeks. So if you like the beginning of this and you're dying to hear more and you should be because they're amazing people and I love this interview. So we're going to jump in to talk with them. Right after these words. Sharpies Bakery is a locally owned and family operated wholesale bakery providing bread to Nashville's best eateries.

01:24:47They've been operating in Nashville since 1986 providing high quality fresh bread daily for restaurants, catering companies, hospitals and universities. Their bread is free from preservatives and artificial additives. Learn more at sharpies.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S.com or you can give Erin Mosso a call directly. Her number is 615-319-6453. That's Sharpies Bakery. Y'all today we are talking as always about SuperSource. And you know, one cool thing about SuperSource is did you know that they develop most of their cleaning products and chemicals in their in-house facility? They're environmentally conscious and only use dyes that are safe for the employees and the environment. They carry a number of products for keeping your dishes, flatware, services, floors, restrooms, laundry, basically your entire facility clean, bright and smelling and feeling new.

01:25:48This is just one of the many reasons SuperSource is taking over this city for dish machine and chemicals. You need to call Jason Ellis. His number is 770-337-1143. And he would love it if you would give him a call and let him come down and just check out your operation, meet him, say hi, see if there's any way he can help. He is here to help you succeed. That's Jason Ellis with SuperSource, 770-337-1143. At What Chefs Want, they deliver the seven most needed product lines to meet the unique needs of chefs and restaurateurs. From local to global and from staple items to gourmet rarities, they have the variety of products to cover all of your needs. Produce, seafood, meats, gourmet, staples, to-go and dairy. At What Chefs Want, they're transforming food service by eliminating minimum orders, offering split cases and providing daily deliveries with 24-7 customer support.

01:26:52This means chefs have the flexibility to order what they need when they need it. Experiment with new ingredients and keep their kitchens consistently stocked with fresh supplies. It's all about empowering culinary creativity while streamlining operations. Check them out at whatchefswant.com or give them a call at 800-600-8510. We are super excited today to welcome back to Nashville Restaurant Radio, Margot McCormick. And I'd like to welcome Chef Hadley Long. Hadley Long, right? Yes, Hadley Long. Who is the executive chef at Margot Cafe and Bar to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Welcome back, Chef. Thanks for having us. And welcome, Chef. We're very excited to be here. So today's gonna be a fun episode. So if you're listening to this, you are right now listening to our special Tennessee Flavors episode. And we're gonna talk about Tennessee Flavors because I'm so excited about this event, but we're gonna continue the conversation past this. You can find this interview in a couple of weeks.

01:27:54Look for it on Nashville Restaurant Radio. Tennessee Flavors, March 5th. You guys are gonna be there. How many years have you been doing this, Chef? Golly, you know, I'm just sitting here thinking you were gonna ask me that and I have no idea. I feel like I've been doing it forever since they started it. I think they've done 12 or 15 years. Okay, all of those. All of those. Every single one of them. How important is it to you to support the Randy Rayburn Culinary Arts School at Nashville State? You know, Randy and I go way back. He was all over Nashville when I was coming up at Faison's. He was at obviously F. Scott's, which is where I was for a short time, not with him. And then Sunset and always had high regard for him. He was a big guy in Nashville. Still is. Yeah. So, you know, anything that Randy reaches out for and says, hey, can you help me?

01:28:58Can you do this for me? I'm like, absolutely, I'm there. Because I know it's gonna be a good cause. I know it's gonna be worth my while and that he wouldn't ask if he didn't need it. Yeah, and Chef Hadley, how long have you been, I think I saw the post not too incredibly long ago that our new executive chef, Hadley Long, how long have you been the executive chef over at Margo? I've been the executive chef for two years. Well, maybe it's been a lot longer than that since I saw the announcement. Yeah, it's been a good thing. I think it was June. June 20, what year is it? I always think what year is it now? I don't know. 2022. Well, the last three years was the longest decade of my life. So I'm trying to put it all together. It's been a whirlwind. So did you do this last year with him? We have been, you know, I don't think I was physically there in body, but I definitely was there I'm sure in helping, you know, them get all the things ready for it. Margo probably went to do the event and I think Lou went with you maybe last year.

01:30:00And, you know, we made all the things beforehand to make it happen. I'm trying to remember what- We don't have a deep roster. So sometimes- This is maybe most of the kitchen. This is it right here. Yeah, this is a quarter of the kitchen. So sometimes you have to go on your own, but you have the staff to help you get everything ready and then they send you off and wish you well. If I'm gonna be attending the Tennessee flavors this year, what should I be excited about to try when I walk by the Margo table? Oh God, you know, I thought you were gonna ask that. I don't think we've really gotten a grip on what we're making yet, but we usually like to focus on vegetables because everyone else is so pork belly, chicken wing, barbecue happy, that we like to do something a little bit more refined. And a lot of people who come or who are vegetarian or would like some, they're very, very appreciative. So we've gotten a lot of positive feedback doing that.

01:31:02But this year we're sending our sous chef, Lou the Sous, and Caroline Shrope, they're going to head up the team this year. So we need to get with them and figure out what they're thinking about. So Lou the Sous will be there and you're probably gonna be something vegetable centric, potentially a vegetarian dish that, so if you're a vegetarian showing up to this thing, now you know there's gonna be high quality vegetarian option from Margo. That's what I need to know right there. That is the thing that I wanna know what's coming on. You don't have to tell us exactly what it is. Little teaser. It's a surprise. It's a surprise. I like it. Now tell me, I did an interview not too long ago with Hal Holdenbache and White Squirrel Farms. He loves White Squirrel Farms. And we had, I can't think of the guy's name from White Squirrel Farms. Do you know who I'm talking about?

01:32:03Very interesting dude. Loved this conversation because he grows his vegetables and he puts chakra rocks around the vegetables and he grows happy vegetables. Mystic vegetables. And then his vegetables come into, he wants to sell them to a good environment and so he actually measures the vegetables, how happy they are and then they come into Chef Hal's kitchen and they're treated well and that's why his vegetables taste better. I kid you not go back and listen to this episode. It is fantastic. That's definitely worth a listen. Hadley's right in there with the new age vibe. Let's get spiritual about it so that sounds wonderful. Do you guys do anything like that with your vegetables? Are you serving happy vegetables that have been like petted and? We definitely like to think that we serve happy vegetables for sure. We have lots of farmer friends of all different types and we feature lots of female chefs. We like to, or female farmers, pardon me. We have two main farms at the moment that we support. We have Sam at Farm and Fiddle and we also have Brittany from Blue Heron Farm.

01:33:09In the past we've also always worked with Tana from Eaton's Creek Organics so those are our three main, but Tana's unfortunately now retired so we have the next gen of wonderful female farmers and other farmers that we support which is one of our, I think, main focuses and one of the many things that we love the most about what we do on a day to day basis. So I think that if you ask the question vegetable centric, you just said you like to cook that. What is your favorite thing to cook? And I'll ask both of you this question. You can think about it. I'm gonna ask Chef Marko first. Oh God. If I was to say your favorite, like the thing that makes you feel happy and like this, I love cooking this and I love sharing it with people because this is like, if you think ratatouille, when he makes that ratatouille and he puts it out there and then he just ego, Anton ego eats it and he's like, oh, that's it. Just brings him back to his childhood. Is there a dish like that for you? Golly, I like to cook so many different things.

01:34:12I really like to cook a beautiful piece of fish. I love to make pasta. I love a good salad, but I think this, just in your describing the ratatouille dish and I don't wanna make any mistake in thinking that we're bringing brunch back, but I always got a lot of satisfaction and kudos for the way that I cook eggs. People were like, oh my God, your eggs are fantastic. Be it a poached egg, a scrambled egg or an omelet. They were just like, so I think my eggs are top notch. Is there something special that you do to the eggs that makes them top notch? Is it the eggs you're buying or? Well, I think the Kentucky proud eggs, sure have something to do with it, but I'm really not that, you know, we call ourselves a French inspired restaurant and then I start thinking about all the things that we do that are totally against the French way and the egg cookery is one of them.

01:35:13I like to start off with brown butter, which in culinary school and perhaps in France, if you brown your egg, you fail. That's a fail. So they want an egg with no color at all. I mean, yellow, but no brown. Sure. So it's a very slow process. You know, it's a very tedious process. When you're making 200 and some odd brunches, you don't have that kind of time. But also I think the brown butter brings a certain flavor to the eggs. And so that's, and also the look. I don't think Americans really like yellow runny looking eggs. You don't think they do? No, rarely you get a person that says soft scramble, but it's more, hey, my egg isn't done enough or that kind of thing. And I know my wife wants a done egg. She does not want any drippy yolk anywhere. I can see that.

01:36:16I mean, I can see how that could be a thing. Just the way that we're raised in this country and the way that we eat eggs. It is a full hard scramble. Sometimes you took some cheese on top of it, but if it's under a little bit, it's like, oh, this isn't done. I think those are the most delicious eggs in my opinion too. What about you, Chef Hadley? What is your comfort dish you love to cook? If you're- Love to cook. That's always the question I think that we're often always asked and you always think, oh, I'm surely gonna have a great answer for this. I like cooking vegetables. We were just talking about vegetables and I felt like I draw my main inspiration from vegetables. Obviously seasonality comes into play. So whatever time of year that we find ourselves in, I think is just a pinpoint for maybe the inspiration behind our point of view. We love just lots of delicious salads. We love making wonderful sauces that make things that are crisp, light and easy, feel luxurious and super flavorful and bold with herbs and things like that.

01:37:26We do lots of fun in-dive things. We like to play with that particularly this time of year. It always kind of reminds me of the winter wedge salad with crispy lettuces but thick, delicious blue cheese. Curly in-dive or Belgian in-dive? We like both. We had some curly last week but we do the Belgian in-dive probably the most because I think it has a very dramatic look and we're into the drama and making things look pretty. And yeah, we just love that. We do lots of beats at work, which we love eating, serving and also eating ourselves. So yeah, I think for me, I always start with the vegetable and then I like to think adding the protein on maybe towards the end of it, if it's a protein-centric dish. I think most people maybe go around with the protein first as the inspiration but I do think- And then they find everything around that. I feel like I'm maybe opposite of that. Yeah, we tend to start with the season and say, what's in season now?

01:38:29Because chicken doesn't have a season really. Steak, your proteins are pretty much the same. So it's an opportunity to say, oh, what are these beautiful vegetables that we have to use first? And then we'll figure out like, what goes better with this? I love that. And this time of year, obviously in February is a really difficult time if you love to cook vegetables, especially local vegetables, but man, do you get excited because the end of March is coming and you start getting ramps and fiddlehead ferns and all this stuff starts- I have to hold him back. I have to hold him back and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, it's too early to get that. That spring peas are like calling my name. I can't wait for that. And come fall, I'm like, nope, nope, you gotta wait until October to get the Brussels sprouts. And you gotta make sure this is ripe. But as soon as we get into a food, then we're like, okay, we've had enough of this, let's move on. Because sometimes we can kill ourselves with corn or tomatoes or- So I want to take this interview in a different direction.

01:39:31I want to talk about, I guess with like a writer's room, if you're a musician, you guys have writing sessions when you're writing a menu, how that process works. But we're gonna say goodbye right now to all of the people listening for the Tennessee Flavors episode. So we're gonna say goodbye. Thank you for listening to the Tennessee Flavors episode. Come back in a couple of weeks when the full interview with Chef Margot and Chef Hadley is put out. We're gonna continue on to the next question about how we create all of this stuff. And we're just gonna chit chat about life and all of the things. And you not long ago went to Julia Child's house, I believe. You stayed in her house. Yes. I want to know all the stuff from that because that was so fascinating. I mean, watching you on social media, I'm like, that is the coolest thing. So we'll get into all of that. We'll see you later. Okay, there it is. That is our episode around Tennessee Flavors. Again, that's gonna be on March 5th from six to eight at the Nashville State Southeast Campus.

01:40:355248 Hickory Hollow Parkway, Anyonk, Tennessee, 37-013. If you have a favorite place that you are dying to try, go check them out at tnflavors.org and you can see who all is gonna be there. You can purchase your tickets there or you can go to the Instagram and you can see our post around this episode. And it's going to, we're gonna give away two free tickets, $200 value to Tennessee Flavors. And I would love to meet you. I'd love to meet you there. So if you are going to Tennessee Flavors, stop by the Nashville Restaurant Radio booth and say hi, because I want to get to know you. I want to say hi. So let's do it. Thank you for listening today. Stay tuned. We got Chef Max Knupfel coming up. Margot after that, Chad and Gracie went. We got all kinds of people coming up. This is me hoping you're doing well, staying safe. Love you guys. Bye.