Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 107 - Kevin Bludso & Noah Galuten

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

Kevin Bludso and Noah Galuten teach us the power of barbecue, friendship and sh*t talking at the table in their new book Bludso’s BBQ Cookbook.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey, it's time for Breaking Bread with Papa. Hey, don't you know? Hey, it's also a show. Hey! Welcome everybody to another edition of Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. I'm Tom Papa. Here we are, kids, inching into the summer. This will air the day after Memorial Day, which means it's summer.

Can we just call it summer? I don't care if you're living in the... in the northeast and you've got a little rain once in a while. You've got a cold dip. I don't care if you live in Southern California and it's a thousand degrees and things bursting into flame. Let's just call it summer for the love of God. When we stop with the details and the parsing and the people pulling us back from the joy in

our lives and just call it the summer. It is summer and we've got a good show for you. It just happens to match up for something. summer. This is so perfect. Ah, we have Kevin Bloodsoe, Bloodsau's barbecue, and his pal Noah Galuton, who the two of them have gotten together and created this great barbecue cookbook, Blood So's barbecue cookbook, and you are going to enjoy this. Two great people, very funny, filled with love, filled with joy, filled with barbecue sauce, and you are going to love this one. So happy summer to you and happy barbecuing.

I don't know. And you'll see when we talk to them. It doesn't matter if you've got a big pit, if you've got a little thing in your hanging off the end of your balcony. One little, that was my setup when I was starting in school. It was just a tiny, it was almost, almost look like a, like the inside of an iron. and I was barbecuing off of that.

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Whipping off those clothes, diving into bed. Should be a good one. Find your perfect mattress at helixleep.com slash papa. So here we are, kids. Now I know the summer, the coming of summer is always filled with joy, and there's always a nice anticipation of getting together with some family and shit-talking around the barbecue. That's how our buddy Kevin Bloodso says about what you should be doing when you're hanging. around. And he should know. He's all family. He comes from family. He comes from Compton out here in

Southern California. And he has just got a great story. He's a impressive figure. And just that thing, it's the breaking bread concept kids. It's just that thing of, doesn't matter who you are, what you are, where you come from. When you get around his pit, you're going. You're going to going to enjoy yourself and enjoy your life and have a good time. And there's, there are roots. There are deep roots in this cooking. And it is very American. And it is very good for your soul. I can't wait for you to hear it. My grill game, truth be told, not that great. I go off a gas grill. It's a nice setup. It's pretty decent. I kind of neglect it. It's filled with a lot of rust and stuff. But, uh,

I just, until you smoke it the way he does and you will get into it and just these small little things you can do to set up your own, your own smoker and your own grill, you'll just get better results. You know, I throw steaks onto my gas grill and it's just tough. I don't get the sear that I want. I've talked about it on here before. I've been, I've struggled. I've struggled. Still like getting out there throwing some hot dogs on the grill. Why not?

Some burgers, getting the veggie side going for the family. It's all about just cracking a beer and standing there. But if I could improve the game, and when you see the pictures in this, again, it's called Blood Soes Barbecue Cookbook. And Noah is his good pal, and they became friends, and Noah actually opened up another spot of Blood Soes here in L.A. And the two of them are really a perfect example out. you can take two people from very different worlds and merge is one, both learning from each other.

Noah learning a little bit more from Kevin, and I have to say that because, well, you'll see. You know they're good friends because they shit on each other. And it mostly goes from Kevin and Noah. And that's the dynamic there, and that shows love, that shows a lot of health. I know that we're also recording this after yet another tragic. and what seems to be piling up in the U.S. of a lot of these horrible things. And just look for people with answers. Anyone that doesn't give you answers, anyone gets in your grill and wants to put up a stance of

why your idea or your want for making it better and trying to fix it, anyone that gets in your grill that doesn't open up with a answer that doesn't come to you with a solution. that is filled with love trying to accomplish the same thing that we all want, which is just a bad or easier life in our country, in our cities, in our towns. Anyone that doesn't, I give you permission, you don't have to talk to them. I think we're beyond that. Anyone that just wants to make noise, get in your face for some other agenda without telling you, no, but I have a way.

I have an answer. this is what we should do, they don't get to come to your barbecue. They don't get to stand there. You don't need to crack them open a beer. You don't have to ask them how they like their ribs. You don't have to ask them how they like their burger. They're not invited. I think we're beyond that.

I think it's time to shut out some of the people that are fueling what I would call the second pandemic, which is this mental health. health crisis of all these young men that are losing it. And the people that turn up the temperature and turn up the noise on that stuff, they are part of the problem. So they're not allowed. They don't get to come. They don't get to come to our little barbecue. Enough of that. You're going to love this. Kevin Bloodsoe and Noah Galuton. You're going to get the book too because it's beautiful. and literally just flipping through it right now as I'm talking to you and seeing just these ribs. It's like I want to stop talking immediately and go just take this book outside and make it happen.

Fried chicken, my God, it's so good. Collard greens. Mmm, buttermilk pie? How about that? Shirley Ann's Buttermilk pie. All right, great people, great book. enjoy the conversation. Thank you for being here. Happy summer to you and enjoy. You can just start going. Congratulations on the cookbook, Kevin.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. I was wondering why a little picture of no wasn't in the bottom, like giving a thumbs up or something. Well, we put his damn name on there. I think that's good enough. I mean, damn, I didn't want to do that, but he said he wasn't going to serve me no more damn Hennessy when I come there. I had to. So before we jump into the cookbook, it's really, it's great. And I have a lot of questions about barbecue and your story. But why don't you tell me the story about the two of you of when you guys started working together?

Go for a no. Well, I started out. I was a writer originally. And, you know, I'm from Santa Monica where, you know, you're raised to believe that barbecue just means grilling a chicken breast and putting a store-bought barbecue sauce on it. And then I finally went down to Compton and had Blood Soes Barbecue with the original location down there and just it changed everything and blew my mind. I ended up interviewing him for LA Weekly. And then I was working at a little burger place that's no longer there called the Golden State.

And I was talking to my friend and colleague James Starr. And I was just saying, man, how cool would it be if you could eat that barbecue and drink a beer and watch a game up here in Hollywood? And we started talking to Kevin and bouncing around the idea. He had a lot of people offering to go into business with him. And then he invited us, I think, as a joke to his granny's 90th birthday party in Corsicanna, Texas. But we bought tickets and showed up. And all of a sudden, a couple of white Jews rolled up at the Martin Luther King Community Center. And Kev likes to say it's like the record scratched.

And he said, these guys are real important to me all right. And everyone said, all right. And cut to 3 a.m. I'm drinking corn, rice. I think I might have been singing a Sam Cook song with your auntie. And we kind of sealed the deal there. And I just started showing up at Compton at 4 o'clock in the morning to train on the pits. And Kev never told anybody I was coming.

I just found out recently on purpose. He didn't tell anybody who it was or what I was doing. He said, if he shows up and he gets scared and leaves, then I know he's not the right person for me. And so I just started in the back cleaning collards and peeling potatoes. And eventually we opened a restaurant up in Hollywood together. and I got to launch that with him and helped him open another one in Australia.

And we've been toward of friends and business partners and brothers for coming up on 10 years now. Wow. That is, that's amazing. Kevin, did he look scared when he first showed up? No, I wasn't there. But, you know, Felix that called me and said some white boy is here. Is he from the IRS or something? And I said, nah, he's going to be working with us for a few days.

And he said, put him through the rain grass. So, yeah, put him on the grains and fill him. potatoes and I'll be in there in a couple of hours. I'm going back to sleep. This is great hazing. I love it. Well, Kevin, you're the, the book is great. It looks great. The story that this, it's nice to see at this point in your career, the story, because you can tell it from this perspective where it's, you're starting off as a, as a young kid and growing up in in Compton and your parents and then you're, the whole story is just so great, and it really gives you this great understanding of why your food is so heartfelt and soulful and successful, because you could actually see this history that you just carry with you is so, so great to read and so inspiring at the same time.

I guess that we have to start, though, with please tell me a little bit and tell our listeners a little bit about Willie May. Oh, man, that was my heart. That was my superwoman. Tom, she was my granny, you know, next to my mom, probably most important female in my life, just taught me a whole other way of life, you know. Like I said, being from Compton and, you know,

never put down my city, love where I'm from. It had his problems like anyplace else. But been able to come out there to my granny or come out here with my granny, I fell in love with country. I fell in love with the country life. I felt in love with barbecue. And I fell in love with living the right way, being somewhere where you could really be like my,

when I come back to L.A., you know, my homies in the hood will call me the black Tom Sawyer, the black, black, Uncle Barry Fid, you know. Because I was in the country doing country things, fishing and hunting and hanging out all night and chasing girls. I mean, it's 100 degrees, so you 12 years old, and you're not even coming out to house, until eight o'clock at night.

And you just allowed to be out until one, two in the morning, you know, and nothing going on, you know, at summertime and nothing going on. Nobody worried about no drive-bys. Nobody worried about nothing. And like I said, I have cousins and friends out here from the time I was little to now, and we still friends. And Granny just teaching me work ethic and, you know, along with my parents, but just working with her at her roadside stand.

and watching how this woman worked a 40-hour work week and then sold barbecue on the weekends and her work ethic. And she always would say, you know, you ain't going to do nothing if you're not working. You're not going to get whatever. You got to work. You got to work for what you want.

And she taught me that early. And one of the main things she always teaches me is the legal hustle. I've lived by that. You need to learn you a legal hustle. You know, legal hustle. She said, I love the word hustle, even though she probably did some illegal hustling herself to make sure we didn't have to do no illegal hustling.

But she always said, learned something to fall back on. You know, and I learned to cook and I learned to DJ and doing tough times. That's what kept my family going many times because I knew how to spend some records and I knew how to cook some food. So she was totally right. I always go with the karate kid

thing, you know, wax on, wax off, sauce on, sauce off. Because she was teaching me something that I never knew and I didn't even know she was teaching it because, you know, the best teacher is somebody who can teach you and you don't know that you're being taught. Right, right. she was. My son, she was the funniest lady you would ever want to meet. I mean, just,

I mean, we could just sit here and tell her jokes. But I could talk to knowing them and just said, and I'd be like, okay, well, I think years ago, they thought some of the stories were so far-fetched. So I just called my uncle, Uncle, tell him about that night old Randy's on cottage, and they'll tell the whole story. And that's really not jumping ahead, but that's how I came about because Noah was like, man, I just sitting there with your family and some of the stories and in the history, that needs to be in a book. And I was like, oh, no, man, I got a, I got a lot more living to do a lot more stories to do. So, you know, it was really knowing, knowing James want to push me to get this project going. Yeah. Now, good thing they did. I love the part of, when you're talking about

Willie May, the whole talking shit part. Yeah. Of the importance of, and as a comedian, it's, it really means a lot of knowing the source of where the jokes come from. from. Yeah, because you got to, I mean, it's humor and everything. You know, that's why it's such a tough, I really feel sorry for you guys now, man, because it's, it's such a tough time because nothing is funny no more. And I always say, my brand used to always say, it's something funny about everybody in every situation. It's something funny about black people. It's something funny about white people. It's something funny about, but when you can't talk about the humor in it no more, that's a problem. And that's, and that's what I'm from, you know, I'm from the Jeff.

and Archie and Red Fox Days where it was more open right after the Civil Rights movement to clown and everybody laughed about everything to where it is now. You can't laugh about nothing. You got to watch, like I say, my granny couldn't be around right now because, and she would always say, you know, one of her funniest things, and I heard some of my eyes said, they stole that from my grandgrine. So I don't like racist jokes. I don't do them.

I think it's messed up. Nobody should do racist jokes. We are all equal. And I don't like nobody doing them. That's why I'm only going to do one and she'll tell one. Yeah, and I love the way that she just said to flip it. It just flip it. Yeah, yeah.

If you feel like it about you, make it about someone else. Make it about it. Because she always said, let me tell you something. She said, and the thing is, and Noah got to meet her, you know, late in the game, but she would just call you over time and say something crazy. Like speaking of the flip of the joke, she would call me over and say, hey, and I say, you know what? Big nose.

Come here. And I say, hey, she said, you know, dumb Polack jokes is just politically correct black jokes. And I was like, I don't know. I don't know what you mean. Then I got older. And I realized what she was saying, you know. They don't know that many Polish people in America. Them jokes was about us.

And it's, but like I said, and she always was saying, and I said in a book about her buddy, and they were friends when it wasn't even cool to be friends. And we called a monk. And they would sit there and crack jokes on each other. You know, and like I said, when he spoke at my grandestrian, which he only lived a few days after she passed because they was friends since they were nine years old. But how they could sit, it taught me how everything is not. It's something, like I said, it's something funny about everything. And when you're cooking food and barbecuing, you party and you laugh and you're playing dominoes, you're telling stories.

You listen in the music. Yeah. And you crack in jokes, but they're all coming from a good place. Right. You know? I mean, on the way to my sister's funeral, we were in the limo cracking jokes. Right. Of course.

You know, went into church and cried, took it hard, but came back out. And she would always say there's something funny about everything. And I like that she instilled that in me. Yeah. And I, you know, I lived that to this day. Like I said, I can be around when knowing him was here, Noah is one of the most serious people. might be bipolar, I don't know, but you got to keep him laughing.

And I can keep him laughing. Even on bad days, I can know he's having a bad day. Yeah. And I use that granny charm and pull him out of the bad day. He's having him. Am I lying on? I always say, I know Kev's really mad when he's not talking shit to me. Right.

If Kev's quiet, there's something wrong going on. But I love, I remember Kev, you told me when you were younger, you used to take Rodney Dangerfield jokes and bring him back to the kids in the neighborhood I love that. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, so we bag. So, so Granny had all these albums, all of them, Rodney Dangerfield, everybody.

Yeah. So I would take, I would take, like, a Rodney Dangerfield joke. And, you know, because we bad. You know, we cracked jokes. We played a dozen. So couldn't nobody see me because I was already cheating way back then, you know? Well, you, you know, your mama, your mama's ugly, so-and-so had to trick-treat by the phone, you know.

Everybody rolling. I stole that from a Rodney Dangerfield 1974 album, you know. Now they find it out now because, you know. internet, but you know, I'm long gone, so it's all good. That's the best. Yeah, I love, the whole attitude of the book comes from that perspective.

And it's what makes the book so refreshing, because it is a cookbook. You aren't teaching people about barbecue, but you even say in the book, this should be fun. This should be getting your friends together. This isn't like

rocket science. This isn't like, This isn't life or death. You should just, you should be having a good time. If you screw up, you screw up. And you just come out in the book and say, just fuck it. Just have a good time. Yeah, I mean, just some people, and I'm not, and like I tell some people, you know, I call it a little child, I don't give it down about catching no flat because that I'm going to say it.

And I'm going to stick by what I said. But some barbecue enthusiast and, you know, didn't appreciate it. But it's real. I'm not saying nothing against it. I mean, I give the crowd of much respect. I say learn your pit, learn your crap. But all I'm saying is when you get to a point that you're doing something outside on a beautiful day with good friends and good music, and it becomes so difficult that you forget about all the reason why you're out there, then you shouldn't be in the game.

Right. It's for fun. You're having a good time. It's a beautiful day outside. You got company, especially right now, coming off that pandemic. Come on, being outside. Nothing smells better than that. then the pit smoke.

Unless you, you know, unless you smoke the good with the pit, then you got double good smoke, but, you know, whatever works for you. Well,

let's talk about, let's talk about the pit for a minute because there is, there's a lot of question when people even just hear us talking about it. And it's like, okay, this book is filled with great barbecue,

with great ribs, with great brisket and chicken and seafood and all this stuff, and it's all about smoking it. And what can the average person, and do is it is it can they create their own pit in their yard how much of a yard do they need how how how do you how do you calm people down i mean that's the best one of the best parts of the book that and that's what me and no was stickler's on we wanted somebody who has a 25 000

pit or somebody who just has a weber in the back on their porch or on their balcony in new york to be able to create some incredible. I mean, we got recipes that you can do on a small weather on your balcony and still do great barbecue. And I tell everybody, the biggest thing is learn your pit. Whatever pitch you have, once you learn your pit, you can cook anything because you're mastering the temperature. It's all about keeping a consistent temperature,

just like your oven keeps a consistent temperature, and you know how to cook something in the oven. Once you learn your pit and keep that heat consistent, you consistently make good barbecue. Right, right. You are a very special person. You have very special needs. Everybody knows that.

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You'll save up to $200 off all mattress orders and two free pillows. Go take the quiz, explore, get a better mattress, and enjoy your life. And then you'll think of me every time you go to sleep. Noah has it inspired you to set it up at home? I mean, you got the place, but that you're, you know, you're toiling away. Yeah, it was a funny thing where I started out, you know, only smoking barbecue commercially. So I was smoking, you know, hundreds of brisketes a week, thousands of racks of ribs. And then Kevin would always tell me, watch, you'll see one day, you'll just smoke one brisket in your backyard.

It'll be fun. And I always said, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll see. Kevin hates me like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But. Oh, my God, I was about to get off this interview right now. And then actually starting to do this book. And we, Kevin and I would laugh, we'd be working on recipe tests. And we'd be like, all right, it's time to get up and season some ribs to work on the book.

And we always used to seasoning 300 racks of ribs. We did two. And I just got to sit there. I'm cracking a beer, sitting in the backyard, smoking a rack of ribs, chickens, a couple of rib tips. And it's, yeah, it's a hang and it's beautiful. And then also some of the grilled stuff we do in this book is incredible too. But at the same time, there's something kind of beautiful about, you know,

there's so much more than barbecue in the book as well, where you have all of this, these deep family recipes, these things that Kevin's been cooking at home forever. Kevin, he's a barbecue master, but he has one of the most amazing pallets I've ever come across. When I give him food he's never had before, he can pick it out, he can figure out how to make something taste better and how to sort of find that level of flavor and consistency.

That's just beautiful. So, I mean, there's stuff in this book. We talk about all the time, but there's like these pinto beans his mom used to make with smoked neck bones in him. One of my favorite things in the world to eat now. Oh, my God. Well, Kevin, that you only developed that kind of a palate from eating a lot of stuff in your life.

I mean, yeah, I show that every day, too. But yeah, and like I say, I give the credit to my mom, my granny, but also give it to my dad because my dad was an LAPD. So, you know, they know all the good places to eat. So being so many places in L.A., hole in the walls, downtown L.A. I mean, if they had health department ratings back when I was a kid, I'm sure we had had some D's and some E's, but just all the whole incredible food. And that's why I respect the L.A. food scene so much even from back in the day. And then even meeting knowing them and going to other places that I probably never would have even ventured to if it wasn't for them and our love for food. So it did. And it just opened up your world to so many different, you know, different types of food.

And it is. It's so many different types. So when we try to recreate somebody else's food, we try to do it in a spectacular way because we don't want to disrespect it. You know. Right. Right. It's pretty, you could feel, because you didn't come into this thinking, as a kid thinking, I'm going to be a chef, I'm going to open restaurants, I'm going to do all this stuff. You just were doing it and getting good at it. And the momentum, it's almost scary to see how it happened where you're making, 20, and then you're making 50, then you're making 100, then 300, then a thousand, it just keeps

growing. I could see how it kind of just took over your life in a very positive way, but before you know it, you must have been like, holy cow, I, this is, now I'm in the tsunami of work. I mean, that is a hard, that is a hard, hard career. I remember I said to, I mean, I tell everybody, because you get, oh, sorry. Now go ahead. I was saying when I was getting ready to open the blood so as the full-time head chef, I said, Kevin, I'm ready for those 100-hour weeks. And he said, 100-hour weeks, what are you working part-time?

And boy, was he right. I think it was 20-hour days for the first probably six, seven months, something like that. Wow. Wow. Yeah, I tell everybody, if you're ready to go 10 years with 12 days and 10 years, and, you know, be ready for that. Working your own business is the hardest job that you ever going to have, especially if you're a stickler. And I say all the time, if you're going to open up a restaurant,

you have to be a stickler. And before you do, who are your first people that test your food? Who are your guinea pigs, your family, and your friends? So that's why on my cookbook, it's what I say, you know, in soul and that's the story. If it wasn't for friends and family, it wouldn't happen. And I tell anybody if you can open up a restaurant,

the people that you're feeding way before has to say it's the best thing they ever tasted. If they're not saying that, and you don't need to open up a restaurant, you end that 90% that fails. Right, right. Yeah, 100%. Back to, I love the family,

the pictures of your big groups of people are so great. I mean, just the Dallas crew and just growing up and you're always just, it always seems like you're surrounded by like 50 people. Well, that's my hunterrise.

That's because I'm a, I don't know if they, no it's not to bring it up, but I'm a rapper too. But I'll tell you about that on the next one. All right, good, yeah. And I like to lie a lot too. Yeah, yeah, let's keep that on the down low for now

because rappers are getting arrested all of a sudden. I know, right? We don't want to get shot at. No, but that's where it was. Anytime it was Sunday was a big day. So anytime it was Sunday or even in the neighborhood, when I would just put the pit out practicing on something, everybody in the neighborhood would come by.

So, and like I said, I would have them testing. So that's where that comes from. Just a huge family, Sunday dinners, and that was a big inspiration in the book. Dinner is to be celebrated. Food is to be celebrated. Getting together and family should be celebrating. And I'm glad you picked up on that because that was exactly what we were trying to lay down in the book of family.

When you close the book up, we want you to feel like you part of the family. Yeah. Oh, 100%. When you were starting out and you said like people were gathering around the pit in your early days figuring it out, what was your pit at that time? I had a regular barrel that my ex-wife brought me at first. And I would still like put the chalk on one side. and barbecue on that. So it was just a regular, you know,

regular barrel, like the old 10 trash can barrels. Right. And that was the first pit that I started on. And that grew up. And then, you know, I was at a hot time doing, you know, the West Coast rap. So I was doing a lot of rap videos and all that. And I brought a trailer, I think maybe in 95, 96.

And, you know, that kind of just, that just set it off right there. And, you know, you start doing video shoots. You start catering. And people say, hey, you need to open up a business. you need to open up a business and bam, bam, you know, about seven, eight years after that, that's when blood soles came. Wow. Okay, so if I want to go one step further, or our listeners want to go one step further than the Weber on their back porch, what would you recommend is the, how do you, what's your little baby steps in putting together your own pet? I mean, get your offset, go to Home Depot, get you about a $250 smoking, jails.

All that and learn, learn about offset. Offset is the best way to go low and slow because you never have to deserve the cooking chamber, the cooking chamber. Your wood, you're doing indirect cooking, so your wood and your charcoal, your heat source is away from your meat. And that is the easiest way to really learn how to smoke. And then that's another way. You learn how to control that smokebox and control that damper and control the temperature.

And then, you know, like Noah said, you practice on chicken. And once you learn how to hold a temperature on that chicken, about three or four cooks. I know how to hold it at 240, 250. Then you ready for brisket, you know, are you ready for ribs? You know, because it's all about, and I can't say it enough,

it's all about consistent temperature. That's what it is. And a good season of, of course, which any type of rub, like I tell people all the time, you know, can you give me help on a rub? Yeah, it starts with salt and pepper and sugar, you know. And it's even salt, even sugar, or it depends on your taste.

And then you add from there, and then you make a significant. your rub of your own, but you add, you know, when you try to just keep doing something that somebody else is doing, that's what confuses, confuses people. Because there's so many different chefs out there. So one minute you like this, one minute you like that. Damn, make something that a chef eat show stuff and say, damn, I like that, you know? And that comes by just testing and trying it. And it's, you know, if you want to cook, then just barbecue every weekend, and barbecue some every weekend.

Within a few cooks, you have that pit master. And if you're going to look up anything online, just look on controlling the temperature of your smoker. Right, right. Any advice for getting a smoker going if you're married to a vegetarian? No, I just, the only advice I can do is get a divorce. All right, I'm going to have to go. I'll see you guys later.

I let myself out. I'm packing my stuff and I'm going to Dallas. I mean, you need a smoker and you need a grill. So, you know, you always grill veggies. I mean, they fought me long and hard just to get a jackfruit plane at the blood soles. But I always say, hey, you guys need this and you need that. I say, well, when I can go on a vegan restaurant and get some ribs, I have some more vegan options at my meat restaurant.

Right. Yeah, exactly. Give a little. Can you smoke fish? Oh, yeah, but, yeah, but you know, you just got to be careful with that on your, on your grill. And depends, you know, fish are so oily. And it's so funny, a little fish can oil can drip into your pit and I, and basically throw off the whole taste of the way your pit smokes after that.

That's why wrap in or using a plank with a drip pan is so important because people don't understand how powerful fish oil is when it drips into your pit. And if you don't do it the right way and you can do another smoke and it'll have a fishy, a fishy smell on it. But yeah, fish is excellent to smoke. The halibut's more of your thicker cuts meats. The flak ruins are cool, but they don't lend theirself to long smoke, smoke to your quick grill, like your catfish or your purchase and all that.

But your black card comes out amazing on there. Yeah, your tunas. and your halibut's and your thicker cuts of me. I mean, you can smoke a tune and have it almost tasting like a steak, you know, our halibut. I mean, you know, with your butter sauce. So, yeah, you can smoke all day. And you can cold smoke it too. You know, once you learn your pit, you can do a five or six hour cold smoke on a salmon

and at about 100. And you can make some incredible fish like that, man. I mean, I smoked it before and sliced it where it looked just like ham. and people really didn't know what they were eating. Wow. Oh, that's interesting. What was the, no, when you opened the spot, was it, was it successful right off the bat? Like, was it?

Oh, yeah. And how do you, how early do you know, oh, we've, we've cracked it, like. Yeah, I mean, we, I mean, the press was crazy for it, because Kevin was already kind of a legend at the time. Yeah. And so once we knew there was going to be, the press. was crazy for it. I mean, opening day, we had a line down the street to come in on the first day. And I think we sold out in two hours on day one. And, uh, yeah, we, it was just, yeah, and it was, it was, it was, it was wall-to-wall crazy. And I, you know, I learned a lot on the fly, too. So it was,

uh, yeah, I remember the, the first night, we, we, we closed up and we were just like, exalted, been a super long day. I was just, everyone else was gone home when I was just standing in the back alone with James actually and we were seasoning ribs for the next day we're like what the hell to we get ourselves into yeah they're going to come back tomorrow yeah this is and it's just continued to grow and grow and grow I mean I think about it all the time that Kevin had this small barbecue stand even that small but you know barbecue stand in Compton you know in the early days of online food media where people were able to find it but it just that it grew from that what it is now is, I mean, think about how many people have opened barbecue shops in the last,

you know, 20 years. And for, you know, we flew to Australia together to open a restaurant in a casino and there's a billboard with his face on it. And now he's on Netflix shows and, you know, all this kind of crazy stuff. And it's, it's a testament to him more than anything else. Kevin, now that you are doing all this other stuff and you're doing the Netflix and you're, but you're not doing those crank. out days anymore of sitting in the restaurant, even though to the average person it would seem

like you're really busy, is this still like, is show business a lot easier? It's really, the only thing that's easy about show business and no one knows, and of course, you know, it's just not day to day, you know. Right. But you can be on a shoot for three weeks where you're doing it, and that makes it worse. Sure. Because you can be on a shoot for three weeks where you're doing 18-hour days. every single day.

It may be one or two, it depends what states you would and how laxia, sad rooms are. But those days are, they're not as hard. The work is not as hard, but the mental work is hard.

And then that is like, when it's so stretched out, and especially, like, coming right out of the pandemic and going right back to work on certain shows, that was tough, man. It was like, like you've been on injury reserve for two years

and you've got to come and run a four minute mile tomorrow. It was like that. Yeah. Everybody was like, wait, I thought we were tired. Yeah, you know, we had to, but it's, I mean, the hard work is what got it to that. So it's well respected, and I do love it. And I am impressed that they want you for so many shows. And you know what I mean? And I love that, even like doing your show, man, I'm honored to be here. And that all comes from opening up a spot in confidence. So it just always pays itself back. Yeah, yeah. No, it's, it's, it's, uh, wait, but you know, there's, there are some chefs, I'm sure who are good who aren't fun to talk to. Oh yeah, I'm sure. It's a lot of those. Is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, was it tough at first knowing, like you had so much control and then you, you, you hand it off and Noah's going up to, uh, to, to L, to Hollywood and he's opening up this spot. Is, was there, was, was there, was, was, was, was.

Is there any of that thing of, was it difficult to give up control and trust the likes of crazy Noah? See, you know his name. See, you must know. I mean, once you, it's not even about to giving up control. It's about the trust. Right. And then once, I mean, we had our issues. Noah felt like he had to try to think he need to change with shit with crow's feats and all that old crazy shit.

And I'll let you do it. Okay. I'm going to let you do it. I'm going to let you get bit bit. by this big ass mosquito in the ass, and then you can have a bump on your ass because I used to always tell them, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

But it's about trust and respect that, hey, you know, I'm going to serve this shit to where it's supposed to be serving the way Kevin is going to serve it. And once you trust somebody to do that, you don't have to be in there every single day, you know? Right, right. And it's still like that to this day.

I mean, I can go in a restaurant, and if I could sit way across the room and see something wrong and get up and go catch it, And I say that all the time. That's the way everybody on your staff should be. You know, bad food, bad looking plates. And I tried to preach that to knowing all the rest of them. It can't get out.

Somebody has to catch it. If they don't catch it, then, you know, we're not doing our job. And if you're not being mentioned or you stop being mentioned on certain things and certain reviews or certain top tens, then that's a problem. You know, you always have to be relevant. And once you see yourself not being relevant, then you know you got a problem somewhere. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, you actually mentioned in the book something about you saw someone putting out day old ribs or something. And you were like, oh, no, no, no, no. At the banquet hall. Right. Oh, yeah. So that was one of my training things. I hope I didn't put her banquet hall in there, though. Did I?

I didn't. I don't think you said who it was. Yeah. But she would serve, that's when I had my trailer. And I said, hey, I went up there to barbecue. I said, pay me $15 an hour and I'll do your barbecue on the weekends. And so first thing, you only got one chance to make a first impression. And so if you have a slow day, especially in barbecue,

the barbecue goes from the smoker to the warmer and then the service. So you don't smoke and you didn't did everything you can do with that rib, but get it pregnant. you know so when it's done it's time to throw it away you can't put it in a refrigerator and warm it back up the next day because you're going to give somebody something that looked like it's been cremated but but they would do this and then wonder why you're not going to have a return customer and so that was my biggest thing when i opened up blood soles whatever was left over was being dumped right because and you have to have that room for that because if you're

holding on it at food because of the you know the bottom line I would whatever, whatever, the bottom line is you're going to be out of business in a few months. Yeah, yeah. And what I would do is I would cook less and embellish the hell out of it, you know. Right, right. You should have got here earlier. The fire department came. We had 30 saps a rip.

They sold us out. Come early. And then people started coming early and we started barbecuing more and more. And that's how we got our counts up by doing that. But you can't, you can. But I still take that as a lesson. I take so many things, so many places, the negativity's and the positives. I take him as lessons, you know, because if I didn't know that,

I might have tried that. If I didn't know this, I might have tried this. Like I said, I went through tough times, but no matter what, I never missed my power. I always remember this story, Moe, my Italian guy, and I was working a bartending at this place downtown Compton. This one, I first stopped working for corrections, and I needed a job.

And I was down there, and he gave me, and I really didn't even know how to bar attend. He gave me the worst night of bar attendant. But within, I had a big following, some people had always come in. So within three weeks, I had the best night of bartender. I was like Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday afternoon. I was making $300 a night in tips.

And I was Mo's go-to guy. And Moe was teaching me so much about the restaurant and the bar business. And this sticks with me every time. So the bar was struggling because the owner was so messed up. The restaurant was struggling because the owner. So he missed payroll one time. One time he missed payroll. and Mo quit, you know, and I didn't even hear from him for like a week,

and I really thought we was friends and all that. And then he called me and say, hey, I'm going to come pick you up. I want to take you out to lunch. So he took me out to lunch, and I was like, damn, well, how are you just going to walk away from me like that? He said, that was the hardest part, was walking away from you. And he was a town. He had that accent was walking away from you because I love you like a son.

And he said, but what I'm trying to tell you is in this business. He said, look at me, what do I weigh? 130 pounds dripping wet. He said, look at you, Kev. you fucking six three, 260 pounds, all muscle. He said, you would beat the fuck out of me about your money.

He said, the only thing I have is the respect of a paycheck to you guys. And he said, once that's a gun, I'm going to be, he said, because you never get it back. He said, because then employees who stuck with you on that week or two that you didn't make payroll, they have an advantage of you.

And that made, he said, never miss. And he was right. And he said he's never been but two places, that missed payroll, and he said they never, they never survived. He said, no matter what bill it is, no matter what, your employees are always the most important thing. And that was some even tough times. I never, even if I had to go do a DJN job to make some extra money for payroll, I would do that back in the days when I, that first year when I opened up. Wow. Yeah. I bet you've got some dodgy old comedy club day payroll stories, Tom.

Oh, man. Yes, you're right. You know what? And it, it didn't have. happen that often where they wouldn't pay or the check wouldn't show up. But the few times that it did, you never go back. Yeah. Yeah. Never go back. And that word probably spreads amongst the community as well. Yeah. It does. 100%. You talk a lot about in the book, you give a lot of great, I don't know if I would call them secrets, but they kind of feel like secrets. Maybe you left some stuff out in the spicing of everything. and how you spice stuff, the combination of spices. How long did it take you to figure out and tweak these spices?

Or was this stuff that was kind of handed down to you? I mean, some things are handed down, but then like some things, like some recipes in there, you know, just straight off the taste. You know, okay, like we do the oysters Rockefeller, which is a barbecue fella, which is a playoff oysters barbecue fellow. What could we do different to make this? reminds you of Oysters Rockefeller, which is a legendary seafood dish, but what can we put our twist on it with that? And, you know, that's what we did. You know, some of the cheeses that we

use, some of the season is that, you know, seasoning comes from taste. You have to taste. When you're cooking, you have to taste every step of your food. And that comes from season. And you have to, I tell people, too, you have to be a master seasoner to get flavor into the food, especially if you you're going to open up a restaurant. You have to know, I do so many shows now where I'm judging and people make such incredible dishes and they underseason. I always say season like you would regular season. Because if you, you shouldn't be a chef if you're oversawting some and you shouldn't be a chef if you're underseasoning something. So don't get nervous, season like you regular season. The ones who do that are the ones who go to furthest in the competitions.

Right, right. And yeah, sometimes, you know, sugar is not for sweet. It's for balance. Same thing with cayans. Sometimes cayans an accent to make something pop without making it have to be spicy. And so I think that's where people, you think about, you know, you eat like great Thai food. It's sweet, sour, funky, spicy, and they all kind of meet in the middle in this perfect balance. And that's what Kevin is so good at with seasonings and with the spice blends and all that stuff. Yeah. No, you were writing a lot about food and stuff just starting off your journey.

Was it where are you now? like what is the, now that you're on the other end of it and you're deep in it and you've had all this time with Kevin and you're kind of like at this point have to know instinctually what makes dishes really successful and what makes them flop. Yeah. Yeah, like what is that, for your perspective, how have you changed? I mean, I've changed a ton. I've always kind of looked at myself almost as more of an academic than a chef. And I've obviously been a chef for a while now, but also on the writing side. And I've had the incredible luxury to be trained and to be mentored by sort of luminaries in the industry.

I mean, Kevin Blodsoe being foremost among them. But the first cookbook I got to write was with Jeremy Fox, who's a Michelin Star Award-winning chef, specializing in vegetables and farmers market produce. I got trained on pizza by Frank Pinello of Best Pizza in Williamsburg and Open Pizzerias throughout Los Angeles, learning from that stuff and you get all these elements and then you know on top of it being a cookbook nerd and an obsessive and now uh you know i've got my own cookbook coming out in january and all these kind of things so i get to kind of learn from all these people and you filter it through your taste uh but you learn from everybody and you know it's this incredible balance of things and i get

to take stuff i learn from kevin stuff i learn from jeremy and combine them into your own filter and you know at the end of the day i think with with recipe writing with cooking at home with with restaurants, it's sort of two things that matter. There's you either, you got to have good taste. And if your taste is good, then you can trust it. And two, you've got to give enough of a shit to try to get it the taste the way you want it to. And I think people fail on one of those two things. Right.

And if you're cooking for yourself at home, you've got to learn how to make food you're willing to eat and that you like. And that's the most important thing. But with a restaurant, obviously, if your taste does not appeal to the matter to more people, then people stop coming. Right, exactly. Kevin, when you are talking shit to Noah, what is your go-to? That he's a 51-50.

What's that? Mental, 51-50 Category J, when that was our corrections for the pinnacle of mental illness, 51-50 Category J. The main thing with Noah is just to keep Noah on an even kill because Noah worries, Noah takes stuff too serious sometimes. Noah is one of the most terrific individuals I have ever met in my life. And when I call him my little brother, he's my little brother.

So what do big brothers do? Fuck with their little brothers. But Noah is the most concerned. And he concerns about everybody and he loves everybody. And if somebody has a problem, it becomes his problem to where it would take him somewhere. And my biggest thing to him, we all have. to learn something from everybody. And Noah's thing,

I try to say, Noah, they don't even kill. Help them, but don't let that fuck up until day. You know, whatever that situation is, let's get up, let's conquer today right from the day. And like I tell everybody, win the day. When you come out of the bed, win the day,

when you're an incredible person and you know you are, as Noah is a heart of gold, that has to win the day for them. And can't nobody see that or don't appreciate that. that and he don't need to be fucking with him. Right, right. I've also taught me that only white people say awesome.

Yeah, white people, white people and Jimmy. And Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy's black. And Jimmy said, awesome man got you the other day on a car. Now, but we had, Noah moved in when he comes down because, you know, he's cheap as hell two times. Oh, no, I didn't know that. We got condos and everything he can stay at here. No, I think I'm just going to stay with Kib.

But that's really how he got everything out of me because it was really like a setup, you know. So I might talk my shit, but no, I got everything he wanted to get out of me every night after a long day of cooking. And him getting on my nerves here just come in and he have two glasses and some ice. And it's cocktail time. He'll turn on that goddamn tape recorder. And that's how he would get the two drinks in. And he would start asking me a question. And it was on from that on.

It wasn't because I was cheap, Kevin, because I was drinking a lot with you. I didn't want to drive to the condos at the end of the night. Now, we had some real, and then, you know, sometimes the story, we'd be writing my book, but I would flip it around and be asking no a question, but we had a lot of laughs, a lot of the tears. And it's a lot that went into this book. You know, we had very life-changing situations that happened to both of us why he was there, you know, family things and all that. So it was, it was, whenever we do book two, it'll be done the same way.

You just need a bigger house. Now, it, that all of that makes such perfect sense. I mean, from your backstory and from the two of you together, because this really does, this is a book. I mean, it's a book that also feeds you. You can get all these tips and you can get all this stuff and learn about this kind of food, but also it's a real story. It's a real heartfelt story.

You feel like, and I'm not even all the way through. it and I feel like I'm like you said like a part of it you you draw us in it's a it is very very much based in family and I hate to say it but you two together make awesome brothers yes sir thank you I'm the I'm the lucky one that's correct well thanks so much for being here everybody's got to go get the book immediately it's uh I'll put it in the in the the links and stuff. It's Blood So's barbecue cookbook. And I just love everything

from the cover, the photos, the stories. And look, if anybody really loves Noah, you could draw a picture of him, like in the inside back cover. You could doodle. Or actually, just last week, we launched the, you know,

my wife, Eliza Schlesinger and I, we did this whole pandemic live stream cooking show thing. And it's now we just started doing it at the YouTube show. So if want to see me cooking food. It just started last week, but don't panic pantry on YouTube. You'll see my actual face, and Kev's going to be on one coming up soon, too. Oh, that's awesome.

I could only hope that I get to see Eliza busting you the same way that Kevin does. We have an overarching theme here, Noah. Yeah, it works. I'm happy to receive it, and honestly, I probably need it more than most people do, so I'll take it. Well, thank you guys so much for being here. I can't wait to see you guys in person real soon. Thank you so much. Such a pleasure.

All right. Talk to you soon. All right. Bye. Bye. All right. There you have it. I told you it was a good one.

Isn't that a good one? That was a good one. A big thank you to Kevin and Noah for coming on the program. Makes you want to go out there and crank up the grill. Very inspiring. Go get their book. Bloodsose Barbecue Cookbook. You're going to love it.

Go on Amazon, just start looking at the pictures, and you'll start salivating all over your keyboard and have to order it immediately. Thank you to all of you for listening. Thank you for spreading the word. We keep growing. The community keeps getting bigger. Keep your comments coming. If you want to hit me up direct, of course, you can hit me on Facebook and Instagram.

If you're watching this broadcast on YouTube, we're also posting a whole bunch of new clips. if you want to share those and tell people how cool you are because you're part of the Breaking Bread community. And here we are. It's summertime. Call in sick to work. Don't take it all so seriously. And we'll see you next time.