Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is a monitor host of cooking issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan the Rockefeller Center newsstand studios joined now as usual, but even though he's not on the booker index crew anymore, we got John John who in the booth Hi, Don, doing great, thanks. Yeah, yeah. Mr. Garcia had to leave. She's getting ready to go to Urbino back to the land of Los Angeles. She'll be on the show from Los Angeles next week, Joe, so there's no the hammer Lopes now and plus, they're filming something for Rockefeller Center. She's like, I can't get the COVID I'm about to get on and she hightailed it out. And Jackie molecules not also on the phone today because he if you remember from the last time is in Alaska, who the hell knows what he's doing in Alaska? I hope when he gets back next week to hear stories of giant mosquitoes that have drained him of half of his blood, you know, something like this. You're rocking the panels as usual. We got Joe Hasan, how're you doing? I'm doing well. How are you man? Okay, I feel like I just shortchanged Joe Hasan. Better Yes, yeah. And all the way from Vancouver Island which if you don't know Canadian geography is not Vancouver. Vancouver is on the mainland. And then he got to take like a boat or apparently a 20 minute seaplane ride over to Vancouver Island we got Quinn Quinn how're you doing?

I'm good. How are you?

Alright, how are you enjoying your first full week as the customer service representative extraordinaire for Booker index?

I think I'm I'm customer service. Pretty good. I hoping to be extraordinaire by you know, week or three.

That's good. I like that's aiming high because there's a lot like already people have thrown him right into we already had a friend of ours take two spins off which is the centrifuge that we made and we'll make again right John? I hope Yeah. Oh my God, dude, I got the new rotors balanced and too much to talk about on air too much too much inside baseball anyway. So like already somebody in Europe has plugged not one but two of them directly into 220 mains power and blown out the boards. So Quinn's getting a real you getting real low. What's it called? One two, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. No, good. John, get the tiny buzzers out going out. Yeah. All right. But I'm super psyched. By the way, call in your questions, too. If you're listening, live on Patreon. And if you want to be able to listen live on Patreon, John, what should you do? Cooking issues are calm, or patreon.com/cooking issues. Yeah, sign up lots of great perks. Cool guests, obviously. And yeah, you know, John set up, like all of those Patreon perks that you guys get, we're on Patreon but Quinn is now looking into getting new Patreon perks. Right. Is that true Quinn?

Oh, yeah, I've got some calculators I'm working on. Some will be exclusive to the Patreon slash discord and plan will be sort of early access to my calculators,

like early early access to a technical cooking calculator like backstage pass to calculation. It's kind of like it's kind of a funny, only our crew, right? Only our crew would be interested in. I love it. I'm for it. I'm for it very much for it. But like when I put out some 3d models on on our Patreon once I don't know that one person has downloaded and printed these crazy 3d models. Listen, there is an opportunity for us at Booker and DAX. Let me introduce the guests first and then we can talk about let's let's do it that way. Let's call in your questions. 2917410 1507. That's 9174010 1507. Today's guest is Greg Backstrom, who comes from Chicago. And guess what people? Even though he's a chef from Chicago, we're not going to talk about the bear at all. Not at all. So don't ask Thankfully, no one wrote in a question about that. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So worked in some of the greatest restaurants, you know, in the, in the world in the country in the world was your first like, kind of like super high in one Alinea or not? What was your first like super high end? Yeah,

I started at Alinea. About four. No, about a week into it being open.

Oh snap. Oh man.

I was there for four years.

Oh my god. So that's right. When I was at the Oh, holy crap. So. Yeah. Okay. So they had already opened it, right. So like, how much of the staff from what was it called? Clio trio, whatever its original one was right. How much of that staff was still there? Like, did he just have key people? Or were a lot of the people in the Alinea kitchen from his other his other kitchen?

I would say about half of the cooks were from trio. And then the other half are brand new and back then. I mean now it's I think they're up to like 20 Something cooks but back then it was about nine I mean we did we did all of that with like nine or two Have something

hmm. And so you were there from then that probably means like, oh, whatever it was. Oh 5209 or something like that. That's right. And was Bobby Murphy there during that time? No. Had you open had they opened? aviary? Yeah, way before all that. Okay. You know, like when you get to be in your 50s like all yours kind of blend together and do nothing has any meaning anymore. Yeah, but I also can't remember Tupac was the opening pastry chef or No,

yeah, when I was there. I mean, it's pretty. It was. It's a David Barron Jordan Kahn, Ryan Bartlow. Alex, Tupac, John shields. David Posey. I'm sure I could keep going just

a bunch of no account losers.

Just it's, it's I mean, when you look at some of those old pitchers, it's I mean, it's like early years, French Laundry pitchers, you know?

Yeah. And the funny thing about so Alinea was, like, along with Wiley and a couple other people at WD. They're really, everyone. Everyone likes to say that, Oh, there was this huge movement going on. Now. There were like four restaurants, you know what I mean? So there was, and what I thought was really funny was anyone who had eaten, I'll just name three of the restaurants at that time, like that early, right? WD 50. Who are doing kind of whatever you want to call it? What do you what do you want to call it? John? What you want to call that kind of cooking? I'm not gonna say even jitsu I will. You know, all these things are bolted. So I can't flip any tables. So I don't know, I guess modernist cooking. If you think

back then they were just saying avant garde. Yeah. Then modernist and molecular kind of trickled in. But I think

modernist was Nathan, at all. Probably Chris Young, actually. So like in that group, Chris Young was still in Nathan's orbit. Right? And isn't the right way to put I still feel like there was a term before the books came out. Modernist. Well, they were pushing everyone. Everyone hated molecular

modernist came out. I think you're right. It was with them. Yes. specific color. Yeah. Was earlier I think, well,

molecular was being pushed by. Listen, I don't talk poorly about people on the show or publicly really, if they're in the food business, just because, I mean, Greg, I think it's hard enough to make a living in this freakin business that like talking bad about other people. You know what I mean? Yeah, right. That's rough. Yeah. So you don't speak ill of people. Really?

Right. I mean, I absolutely used to write but

I mean, like, you know, like, I remember, especially when you're at like a, like a, you know, a hot new restaurant or a hot new bar. You hire like a young, young cook, or young bartender, and they want to show how much behind the daikon cake. And so they go out and they talk smack about other people, especially now social. I'm like, No, like anyone who did that our place you get like one warning, and then you're toast if you talk bad if you go to another place and act poorly. That was it. I didn't want to work with you anymore.

You know, it was great was when I was at Alinea, there was a really healthy rivalry with Charlie Trotter's because we were only two blocks away from each other. And like, a lot of us went to the same bar after work. And so sometimes it was a little intense. But but it was it was pretty great. It was pretty fun. Yeah, I

think a lot of people forget to trot or Olson I even forgot, I wasn't talking about it. But back in like, Oh 405 Like trata was pushing a lot of those same agendas. He was going to Madrid fusion. So all of the people in America who wanted to be in this will call it avant garde, because that's what people were calling it at the time. Right? They were looking towards the Spanish the Catalonians. Right. And it was the kind of the first generation of chefs in America who were doing super high end work whose focus was not at all, like French was.

Yeah, it was yeah, it was just completely different. Yeah. So whether,

you know, whether they were focused on, you know, kind of foreign style stuff, really, like alkyl, archon, Roco. Even was was before it became huge. Internationally. He was punching way above its rate weight and chefs minds. Anyway, back then. Adam, you probably remember this. Yeah. I mean, that's Anywho. So there weren't that many restaurants doing this kind of work. But the other thing I always thought was interesting was that the work that was being done at Alinea was not anywhere similar to the work that was being done at WD or moto or trotters or no one had the same interpretation of what it meant.

Yeah. And it's very different now. Not that in a bad way. But like, what I still love about my experience, there was like, you know, it was weird, there was things played on a pillow, stuff like that, but you could still see the French Laundry training in it. Like, it would have like, all these different ingredients in a weird technique and then just sort of this oddball thing, but you could see the through line if you looked close enough, and then see the technique like we still had to make fields you the proper way. And, and I don't really know that I don't really think that's the case necessarily. Now Not with the restaurant, but just in general, how it's evolved.

Well, all the people who are doing that kind of work. And now let's just focus on WT and Alinea, because as I said, I'm not going to speak ill of anybody's restaurant on air. But oh, I remember who I said I was going to say I hated LVTs. And personally, I don't know the guy, but he was the guy pushing molecular gastronomy. And he is,

right. That's probably where it's, that's right. Yeah.

He's, what's the word? He's a liar. You know what I mean? He's a liar and a huckster. He's a charlatan, he's like a French PT Barnum of food. So it's like, I didn't appreciate that, you know, I mean, there's always either team Harold McGee, or there's team or VTS. I am not that Harold would never say anything negative about LVTs. But like whatever he first of all, he is does not give a rat's behind what any Americans has

not heard that name and probably 18 years. Right. Right.

You know why? Because he's Bucha. You know what I mean? Like, just saying, but maybe he's better. Maybe he's, maybe he's an okay guy.

I know, maybe, maybe, maybe,

maybe. Do we all have? Hopefully, I

hope so. Yeah, really,

really, you think that people, you think people's core can get better, or just they can realize stuff that they've been doing is wrong if their core is good?

I think like everything else, there's degrees. Even within that, you know, I think if people have monumental things that happen in their lives, and that can force him to change quicker than maybe someone else that doesn't have a monumental occurrence.

So you're an optimist. You think most chefs are output both could eventually get to the you're human. You're human optimist. So do you think that that helps in the kitchen or doesn't help in the kitchen?

I don't know. Again, it's so much more to do I think most like most people are disappointing. Right? Like I

said, there's there's

but it doesn't mean that that I look at people with this, it means that not everybody works out or or maybe they're not a right fit for something, but it doesn't make me a bad person for thinking that or that I'm a bad person because it doesn't work out. You know, I agree. But it makes it's becoming increasingly harder to have that conversation.

Yeah. So then did you go so Alinea? Like, one thing that like if for any of you? I've I've had two full blown meals at Alinea. So if you go to Alinea, they're going to do everything. First of all, don't have a cocktail at a bar before you go. Don't Don't nosh before you go take some Adderall. Like take some sort of upper because they're going to convince you to get the long tasting. And the long tasting is not short. No. Like you're, you're in it like like if you just landed at O'Hare, is that your airport O'Hare? Yeah, you landed O'Hare. You're tired as all hell, maybe the plane has been delayed. Maybe they lost your luggage, I don't know. And then you show up. Like, God forbid, get an earlier reservation that's happened to you twice, because, like, anytime I used to go to Chicago was for the restaurant show. And so I would go with Mills Noren who was you know, my compatriot, the French Culinary Institute. And you know, everything was filling up because the restaurant, you know, the week that the restaurant show is there, it's like, it's like here, it's like all the restaurants like, Oh, come on, really? You know what I mean? Because they get slammed, you know, at least that's my memory of it. And so, yeah, they were like, they only could fit us in for the full tasting. But like at like nine. So you're like, you take this long flight, you get in and you're sitting there and then you're there until like, and you know, everyone in the restaurant hates you. They want to go home, and you have the long as tasting. And it's long. I mean, it's all great. I mean, the thing about Alinea, I thought it was so good was like you say you're using all of these techniques. But the base flavors of this stuff by and large. Were just kind of OnPoint flavor choices and flavor mechanisms. And then the the techniques were kind of layered on top. And I think that's kind of fundamentally different. Like Wiley was much more interested in technique, driving weird and different textures with hydrocolloids.

And one time grant said to me food is architecture.

I believe that Oh, we got a caller. Caller you're on the air.

Dave and Dan, can you hear me?

Yeah, I can. Hello, hello. How are you? Okay, I

have I have a I have a critique and a question which one do you want first?

Well, just a critique does the does the critique build on the answer to the question that I have not yet provided

completely unrelated the cookie although it's a critique for last week or two weeks ago, you were talking about the spice store in the East Village.

Do all are dual so it can be pronounced both ways but hold dual. It's called either I've had a conversation with the people at the desk. I've walked up to them right because he had some people who call it do all and you get some people call it dual. And then when you go up to the to the desk and you're like hey, did you get the the the acid feted a rock back in because you shouldn't buy acid feted a powder. You should buy it in like the resin form and grade it fresh. Why could it taste better, right? So when you go up there and you're like, Hey, you got the fresh like, like a bunch of okiya peppers in yet or you got that the acid fetida nuts anyway, so this conversation happens all the time with me with these people. So I walk up to them and I'm like, Hey, what is it really? Because I've heard it both ways. Do all are dual, and they're like, We don't care. They just don't care. Oh,

they told me it's called dual because they sell spices and beer.

Oh, that's hilarious. I know what I like your explanation. And I like what that person said to you. So I'm going to do it that way. From now on. I always used to pronounce the dual because that's the way it looks. And then I had people going through all to me, and I'm like, You know what, again, for those of you that don't know what we're talking about, if you live or work, more importantly, anywhere in the East Village area, this is a spice shop, where you can go in and get spices and teas. But they're also open so damned late. You know what I mean? They are open till what is it like one?

Something like that. If you want to ask for data one in the morning, it might be your only place in the United States.

Yeah, well, if you run out of something and you need the bus prep out, like during service, you can run someone over there and get whatever weird spicing is you don't need anyway, so Okay, so what's the question? That was the critique? What's the question?

Do all countertop icemaker suck? Oh, yeah. Is there some that are good?

No. No, no, they suck. The countertop? We specifically under counter or countertop?

countertop with a reservoir? Yeah, I

don't see how that's going to be good. I just don't see how that's like, is it huge?

I mean, like, big F one that makes pellet ice?

Oh, yeah. I think that's fine. Those are probably fine. But like, you just need to look at efficiency. I mean, you look at efficiency. I haven't used that. I thought you meant like the crappy little ones that are basically Peltier a garbage that like like just do stuff. I haven't used any of the countertop pellet ones. Anything that's designed to be commercial is going to do what it needs to do and just break a lot and cost too much. I mean, that's my gripe with it. Also, like, are you talking about a home or for work? Or home? Yeah, the problem with ice machines. I don't know about the reservoir ones. But the problem with having a real ice machine at home aside from that they're intensely inefficient because they're running all the time and then melting and running. So you always have tempered ice right? A home ice realize maker to a freezer ice maker for those you that no one's heard about, it makes ice and then it stops making ice when the ice thing fills. And because the ice is in the freezer, ice never melts. Ice is also not tempered. Ice is also not clear, typically, right? ice machines like a restaurant ice machine or a bar ice machine, they spray water onto a plate. And as they spray water onto the plate, it builds the layers of ice up into relatively clear assuming that you filter your water properly, ice is relatively clear that it pops it out into what amounts to an igloo cooler, where it immediately starts melting. So it just melts constantly. It's not refrigerated in the thing. And so they're loud as all get out because there's always water going ringing like that onto the plates. And then you got the bust out and then you have the condensate pump. So it's a huge nightmare. I live that way because seltzer is that important to me. And I don't have a I don't have an ice bank yet my next house if I ever if I lived to have another house, ice bank. So I'm gonna say if you if you tweet me out a particular unit, I'll look at the specs. The thing is, is that most ice things are underpowered. And they also put out a boat ton of heat because they just do and so if you haven't on the counter can be a pain in the butt. No, no, it's tweet me out what unit is I'll take a look at it fair, Greg. Is that fair? Interesting. Yeah. I have to say, Yeah, it's really inefficient, but does

have two trays in my freezer, and sits on top of the chicken nuggets that I was keeping there. Yeah.

Yeah. Like what brand are you Swanson just wants to still exist anymore. Like who makes the ovens? Bell and Evans? Yeah,

all right. Good. There's always at least four boxes in my freezer.

I heard a I can't remember what it was. But it was it was so wrong as to be funny. A I hate Bush bull crap, food etymologies. And there was a really bullcrap etymology of chicken nugget. Going back to the author I think it's LOL The Wizard of Oz lol bomb. lol bomb thinks anyway, something about him saying like this early story where like, a turns a chicken into a piece of gold. And so that that is the genesis of the chicken nugget. I'm like, Nah, no, that's crap. You don't I mean, yeah, it's garbage. Alright, so what we'll speed through this, we get this. So you go directly from Alinea to Blue Hill, or was there stuff in between? Or do you want to talk about Blue Hill? Like you were Blue Hill stone barns or Blue Hill Here?

Stone barns? Yeah.

So that's kind of crazy, right? That's kind of a crazy environment. Like you get to use all these cool ingredients. Like, you know, what, what was it what like what?

Well, so it was but in between a Lennox. I went to Eleni when I left Alinea. I had grants set me up with a trip so I did. I started at Have Leonardo's EQ and then I did about five months of marguerites and then when they

both still working at our Zacher know, where they were boasting and

helped me make a dish they were like, show me something.

Oh my god, it's so hilarious. So the restaurant ours Zack, when, you know, I never I never got to go there. How was the food there? It was really good, weren't they? Were they the ones that were using the upside down canisters of Freezy spray and like making those like chocolate things those like or was that barista Tiki who's doing that stuff? At that time, man, I forgot about him. Yeah, yeah. Martin Versace. How could you forget such a great name? Martin parenthetically.

It's a and Dhoni is old mentor. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, it's such a great name. Yeah, I mean, all those people have such great names are

Zach's all of them have restaurants on top of each other in one city?

I've never been there. I've never been there. Anyway. So Sebastian, yeah. Never been, oh my god. No one, I never got invited to any of those conferences. And anyone that knows me knows I only travel on business.

When I was there. I shared a room with about 12 other men. And well, not a room, a two bedroom apartment. There was three bunk beds in each of the two rooms. And not not one of us were from the same country. And, and I only had like, probably two grand that I saved for the entire like six months I was there. And back then I was about to propose to my than my girlfriend. And I had a ring taped to my chest to sleep in and stuff. You know, I was either sleeping with all these guys or I was sleeping in a hostel wherever I could. And I would do it. I would do it again today. It's like such a good city. So.

So like how much of a tape burn? Did you get from the taping? It was uncomfortable. Yeah,

I would move on. I would roll rice. No

good. That's no good. And then like, you know, when you finally propose, he's like, what's this stripe across your chest? And you're like,

No, waxed everything else.

You just change where it was. And eventually you're totally clean. Yeah. Well, for that time, that was relatively new. You were early to the game with that. You know what I mean? Yeah, nice.

After that, after that, six months or five months, whatever was in Spain, then I came to New York. I worked at, per se. I liked it a lot. I learned a shit ton and met a lot of great friends. What year was that? 2009. Okay. And I don't think

I knew anyone in the kitchen there then. Yeah.

And but I don't know, it was one of the you know, I didn't love it. And it wasn't from a culture thing. It wasn't it was because I had already, you know, I already did it at Alinea for four years

grant give me the into per se because of the killer grant. Yeah, he helped set it up is that harder or easier to be there under like, because you have to then not do anything wrong, because you're gonna piss off grant to,

uh, I'm pretty good in that environment. You know, like, I'm, I'm, you know, I don't have a lot of skills. But, but I can, I can thrive in that environment. And, but but I, you know, I just, you really think that this is not a slight either, you have to drink the Kool Aid, if you're gonna, if you're gonna commit yourself, if you're gonna, like, sign up, and I'm a member of the team, and you're gonna go to training every day, and have a coach and you're gonna learn a bunch of skills, like you have to drink the Kool Aid of that. And and I, I will I, what I knew pretty early on, I wasn't going to do that for another four years at that restaurant, right? Because it was just to the food was completely different. But it was just the same thing a little bit in my mind, right. I was still learning a crap ton. But so grant knew that, like, I was not planning on quitting or anything, it wasn't enough to where I wanted to leave, I moved from Chicago to but grant at that stone barns and Chef Beckett's has been like the still to this day, we still talk and he's like insanely pinners with me. And he brought my name up to Dan, when he was just eating, then call me the next day. And then like two weeks later, I put my notice and lift.

So back to the Kool Aid for a second because I think it's actually an interesting point that I don't know where we're going to end up in our industry yet. And you actually the work that you're doing, right, the work you were doing when COVID hit which we'll talk about in a minute, the you know, the kind of shift towards kind of a more mellow fine dining or like a fine dining that you can a afford and be you know, you could probably eat more than once a year without having your your liver blowout or whatever. Right. But if you ever want to do anything great, it's really hard to do something great without there being some amount of Kool Aid drinking because it's not an industry. If you even just,

I mean not to cut you off, but to me, it's, you know, change it from kool aid to something else. But like, it's, you know, I just we just got all of the kitchen for the three restaurants. We got everybody that worked in the back of the house together the other day. And you know, we just sort of were talking just to like, let everybody talk and like, hey, this thing's still broken. You get this fixed into, like what's going on with Rockefeller Center later this year? And

oil? Are they going to open a place here in Rockefeller Center? Yeah.

But I don't know, I think there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a loss of onus of you need to be responsible for your own career in the own the things that you need to learn to get you to the place you planning on going. And for me, that was Greg is going to own his own restaurant and not work for people. And for for most of that career, of working at like, basically only top 10 restaurants in the world was I needed to have my own three Michelin star restaurant, I just needed to make rent proud. Like that was the motivation. And and then, you know, shit happens things change, like, like, by the time I was opening up Olmstead, I had not eaten in a fine dining restaurant for like five years. So I just couldn't be the guy that's like, yeah, give me $250 A portion or, you know, a meal. I just didn't I just couldn't, I would not reciprocate. You know, and so I just opened up something more casual. But, but, but there's, it's not like, then I did something wrong because I don't have the fine dining restaurant. Rubbish still feel garnered, right, I still garnered a like an insane amount of skills. And in an almost equally as important a network. That influential important, people saw that I was really skilled and worked my ass off. So then they were able to come to bat for me when it was time for me to open up a restaurant. I mean, that was the only because I knew a famous food photographer, and a publicist that that I met once and, and Grant Achatz and David Barber, and only because of that was able to sort of leap over being guy guy in the kitchen to guy that owns the restaurant, right? Well,

they're like, people, I don't think people should actually feel bad about leveraging their contacts, as long as they try to give other people opportunities to rise.

I say that all the time I go all of you. Okay, first of all, if you don't know what makes the frozen yogurt here at Ofsted so popular, like then you're, there's only three ingredients in the whole thing. And it's like why very, very popular. So like, it's, you just don't understand if you're going to leave and you don't know how to make it. And then what those ingredients can be applied to elsewhere. And then the other thing is, I'm the only person all of you know that owned four restaurants then open them up in six years. So if any of you want to own anything, like we need to have a relationship now. And that's not just like, I'm pouring it out. You need to you need to give me something, which doesn't mean working off the books or sacrificing everything. But it means it's like we're in this together. I want I only want great restaurants. And you want to own something someday, you know. And so my candidness will only open if there's, if we're beyond just a person that clocks and clocks out of you do you know?

Yeah. But I'm trying to what I guess I'm trying to ask when trying to figure out. And John, you're probably working with this now too, is how do you set up because you know, John just took a an exec chef at a place. It's just not quite one year old, right? So you're just over one year old, like when you're into exam, right? You're totally doing whatever you want to bro. Anyway, the point being that, I think it's an interesting problem now specifically to try to develop a non toxic Kool Aid mix to get people to drink.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, the real, it's everything from like, I mean, it's like the bear, that's generalized chef culture. That's not every remedy. Like, I can't tell you how many men and women chefs that are very skilled that don't act like that, but are visibly upset if somebody is doing something, right. And then, I mean, there's so much rambling that comes out of a conversation like this. I mean, like, peep, if we're really going to change, then we need to change all of restaurants, right? So it's not just like, get rid of the bad culture, it means okay, so then we need to be able to pay the back of the house more, which means front of the house has to make 20% less. And so that's not going to go on because there's only a finite amount of money coming into the business. So if we're going to redistribute that, that money, then then that's going to be its own profit. So then we have to reconcile that and then we're gonna have to reconcile. Okay, so that means just in general, it can't just be that it's crazy. If there's a $25 hamburger and it doesn't come for fries, like now hamburgers are just $25 Even in Iowa, and $40 in Manhattan, like and we have to start to like if we're gonna, we can't cherry pick the polarizing things, the the sexy things of the TV show or whatever, we have to have a real broad conversation because because this is you know, I have my own problems and and, and I've evolved a lot over the years. But this is still the thing that I put a shit ton of hours. Like, I have several 10,000 hours, Malcolm Gladwell, I'm an expert in his field. So this is the thing that I have no desire to leave or change, and that I want to be able to pass it on to people to other people that are, whether they look at it as their career choice, or whatever I would like to pass that on. But they're choosing to be in a very repetitive business that is just hot and small and uncomfortable. And customers don't, you know, really want to be part of the dialogue of, okay, well, the cook that's not very good today is here. So you're gonna pay for a lesser product, but you know, it's how it is, you know, or that my more expensive cook work Saturday, so it's more expensive. Okay, so since like, you can't, you cannot have just the one part of the conversation, you have to talk, you got to zoom out and talk about it all at once. And more people need to talk about it all at once, instead of just being so vindictive. Well, you have not judgmental, it's just a lot of judgment going right. Right.

I wasn't trying to be judgmental when I was talking about like the cool. I'll tell you, here's the thing, because I think there's a lot of what I learned between the two bars that I had, right? Is I learned that not everyone who is valuable, gives feedback the same way that I receive it, like so like, what, that's what I'm more what I'm talking about is like becoming better at like seeing talent, it's not the same as me,

not everyone is the same and not everyone can be treated the same. I mean, that's something that I've only learned recently, I a lot of my kitchen staff now are non culinary school first time, you know, they're in the dish pit, and it was like enough, I'm sick of this. And they're hard working people, I'll just pull them and train them how to do it. I'm gonna stop waiting for someone else to knock on the door. And so two out of my three restaurants are fully staffed in the kitchen by former dishwashers, right? Sick, great. And, and they just don't they want to be taught more skills so that way, then it's just logical. Okay, then you'll pay me more if I know how to do the grill station to and boba. And it's not toxic. It's not anything, you know,

right? It's just I think, I feel like we're as an industry getting better about recognizing different kinds of talent.

Yeah, and people respond differently. So I look, I did not get screamed at all these restaurants. I was six, four people didn't really scream at me, you know, but But I came from like, my parents raised me, right. And I was in the boy scouts for like, 15 years. And so a big part of the Boy Scouts is once you like, learn a task. Once it once an adult teaches you how to do something, they no longer will do it for you. Like that's like the crux of Boy Scouts. And so whether that's wielding an axe to chop down wood for for a fire, or whether that's first aid, or whether it's cooking a big part of that was cooking, and that's why, you know, I got into cooking. Really Boy Scouts. Yeah, one of the things is like over the years, they like they make it for you and hand it to you. And then they eventually give you like a canopy stew and a can opener and you got to heat it up yourself. And then eventually you just have to make the beef stew yourself.

And 20 more was that that was that the beef stew like of record, or

yeah, I've eaten many of those. There's probably one of my, in my pantry right now.

You gotta go check out with us. Check out armour did a movie in the late 50s, early 60s. And one of the things is that ninty more lines, so you can see them packing the old style. Yeah, it's pretty good.

Cool. So I'm just saying like, so I was like, pre conditioned to and I feel like there's a lot of parallels that in the kitchen, right? So you go into a kitchen. And now you know something. And the way I moved, I moved out I was a sous chef at a three Michelin star restaurant when I was 21 or 22 at Alinea. And it was because I just I just made sure I knew all the things that grant wanted me to know. And that I could do it. So he I was just his go to guy for those four years, you know, and but as soon as I saw someone that was ahead of me, I would just start learning there. Okay, give me that. I'll do that dish for you now, and then I'll do this and then I would just go up to Curtis Duffy or whoever one of the sutures was and say I want to work that station now and then they would just move me because there was no argument and I was in control of my own career. And I don't know

what one more linear question because I forget was that was this stuff there because I know. Like an aviary like all of the products were really siloed it was like it was done like, like cattle and style. like one dish, one person, like, all the way through it was a linear like that too. Or were were multiple people working on linear words like, did you just work on this one dish tonight? And then tomorrow, you worked on a different dish, or like, how was that kitchen organized?

No. People had like one or two, or sometimes three dishes on their station, I was put on mute for a long time. And I, there were times where I had like, eight or nine dishes on my station. Because almost every sous chef, almost every Cook had a sous chef that they would turn and pass everything to and then that person would play it for like, almost most of my time there. That person was grant. So we were just sort of on top of each other the whole for like, years.

And I also forget it with a quiet kitchen, or were they talking kitchen?

You could hear the cook Tex fan in that restaurant. And yeah, what about you? But my point was, like, I was pre conditioned for like discipline, right? You know, like, my, the way my parents raised me. And so like, so I it's just my point of all that stuff was just like, so it's just easier for me. And I don't see it as abuse or something. No one was yelling at me. And and I, you know, there's no, it doesn't mean that other people don't internalize it differently. Everybody perceives everything differently. But I can't be that much of an outlier, right? I'm just some random person from

Chicago. So I wouldn't say random but yes, but other people

can work in these environments, not experience. difficulties, or just be accumulating knowledge and applying it to their career, because they want to be the best they want to they, they're there. They're on the best team.

By the way. I love that you call out to cook that cook deck is the Chicago induction brand that everyone everyone used cook tech. Are they still people still use cook tech? Yeah, they were they were the only commercial induction that anyone really used in the US as far as I know. Because the European ones they would break and you couldn't get him fixed. And well, it

was cool because both cook took and PolyScience. Were both in the Chicago area.

Yeah. Phil Preston. He used to hang out with grant all the time. Yeah, yeah. It was a lot. My MP press. Yeah. He's a funny dude. Man. I was. I don't talk to him as much now that he sold most of Polly science to to breva. I wish I had him on the show wants to talk about the history of the of the circulator. He's an interesting cat.

Yeah, yeah. They would come by a lot with like the work on the cold plate and stuff. Oh,

my God. Yeah, he built he built a cold plate for you guys. You know what I mean? And I think you've had it finished. I think the first proto was probably finished before Alinea opened, because So way back in the in, I think it was oh five or Oh, four before Alinea opened, someone that is unaware as grant himself or somebody just started putting out all of this blog content.

It was him. And he got everywhere you go. It was a thing?

Yeah. And it was just like, everyone was like, what? Dog? Because it was just like, he's gonna have this, and he's gonna have this and people were just like, there was not. There was the level of anticipation for that place opening up based on what people in my community were reading was just intense. Yeah. You know, and then,

yeah, I mean, I mean, you go it was like a forum that people just posted, like food questions and stuff on and then I remember being in my culinary school library. And someone was flipping through it. And it was Grant packets at Nikka CONUS. His house like messing around. Yeah. Like, what am I looking at?

Yeah, it was a fun time also, because like, I was trying to build random crap for Wiley. I mean, I don't have the resources that Pete press does, but like, Phillip Preston is was in his garage trying to manufacture snow. And if you ever bring any of that stuff over to you guys, I don't remember he was trying to manufacturers. Sounds like easy, right? Not easy. snow crystals are very specific. And so he was trying to generate flavored snow and flavors knows even more difficult than regular snow. Anyway, good times. Good times. Alright, let's get back more into into into current. Okay, so we'll skip over Blue Hills, stone barns for now. Unless you want to say something about your experience there. I mean, like, I only ate there once or twice. And it had fantastic meal.

Yeah, I mean, the thing that was nice about stone barns was like Dan would pull Hakurei turnips out of the ground. And, you know, I don't mean this to be an insult or the hippie. Like, he will look at me and be like, per se couldn't fucking get these, you know, that he would just so passionately talk about stuff that wasn't really talked about it, per se. And he's that was, you know, he's

a strange dude in his own right there. Yeah. Yeah. I

mean, he's definitely his own person. But it was, but that was the attraction. I you know, I was sort of in the same school with with, per se, and at Alinea, that it was nice to kind of have a different someone that didn't come from that same camp, you know,

right. Oh, that's true. That's true. Oh my god. It's so weird how like, even at that time, Hear level, there's all these weird cliques, or is it clique or clique? Yeah.