The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Meet My Friends: Chef John Folse

Episode Date: April 5, 2019

Jeff is talking to Chef John Folse, restaurant owner, television host, leading authority on cajun food, and devout Catholic. From growing up in the swamps of Louisiana during segregation, to serving food to President Reagan and Soviet Leader Gorbachevat, to meeting St. John Paul II, Chef John says he strives everyday to ask God, “What do you want me to do now?” _Snippet from the Show It was fifteen years before I woke up in the middle of the night one night, I sat up in bed and I said, “Oh my God, I did not go to Russia to serve Reagan and Gorbachevat, God sent me to Russia to bring her a Bible.”_ Check out this episode at ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow

I'm Chef John Falls, and you're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show, the best podcast on radio. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavans. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show. Welcome to the show today. It's one of those shows where I want to, I want to.

I want to introduce you to someone who's a very good friend of mine, somebody that I met years ago, actually going over to Israel, and I'll tell you a little bit about that story later, but found out on the trip to Israel that he was actually a world-famous chef. And since then, we have been friends down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which is where I'm coming from right now. I'm not deep in the woods of Minnesota with the loons around us and the four feet of snow, but I'm at the camping grounds deep in the swamp in Louisiana with my good friend chef John Falls. Let me give you a little introduction about him. We're going to talk about how the Catholic faith, how his faith has really been a part of forming who he is today. And I can tell you that

is absolutely true. He's become a real best friend in my life and really enjoy being around him. He opened, let me tell you this. He's from St. James Parish in Louisiana. and he is known as a restaurant owner, television host, leading authority on Cajun and Creole Cuisine, and I know it's way beyond that. In 1978, he opened up La Fitte's Landing Restaurant in the historic Viala Plantation House. He'll probably correct me on that in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. He introduced Louisiana indigenous cuisine to Japan, to Beijing, Hong Kong, Paris. It goes on and on.

But one of his most noted meals is he fed President Ronald Reagan with, I think, four other presidents at different times, with Mikhail Gorbachev. And that was that famous summit in Moscow. And we'll talk a little bit about that probably as well. But I want to welcome to the show one of my good friends, chef John Falls. Good to be here in the swamp with you. Well, it's nice to have you as well. And in fact, we have a beautiful day in the swamp lands of Louisiana. One of the days that I really love, the temperature is perfect.

The birds are flying. It's just a magnificent day. And thanks for inviting me to the table. And this has been unlike any other trip that Emily and I have ever taken before, that you invited us, I think, last year, just to come down and spend some time in the swamps. And we're really in a very nice plantation folks right now. And we took you up on it. We've been spending almost a month down in the south with you and other good people

going around and speaking at churches, even taking part a little bit in the Mardi Gras this year in traffic jam and came back home. But, you know, tell our friends a little bit of how you and I actually met. I think that's fascinating. Well, I was lucky enough to hear about a journey that was being done by a group. here in Baton Rouge to the Holy Land and they said oh you're going to love it because Jeff Kavens is leading and I said who's Jeff Kavana? Those words came out of my mouth too I'm just kidding there but anyway so ended up going on the trip and absolutely fell in love

not only with not only with your commentary on each one of the spots that we were in but then getting getting to know you and getting to walk the Holy Land. and spending the night in the Holy Sepulchre. I was one of those guys who were chosen to be in there, which was a miracle. But anyway, I think we really met when you walked up to me and said, what are you recording? What are you recording with that camera?

And I said, oh, Jeff, you know, I'm a chef from Louisiana, and I just love all of this. And you mind if I record all of your messages? And you're not going to sell that, are you? I said, no, no. Anyway, we ended up meeting that way. And, of course, I think you were baffle when you saw me trying to cook a tilapia, a Jesus fish on the shores of Galilee. And you said, that guy really wants to cook. Yeah, he's got something about food. I don't think you knew I was a chef man, right? No, because I took my phone in, and I googled your name. And I suddenly realized, I said to him,

I said, oh my gosh, this guy's a world famous chef. I thought this was a hobby or something. But it was, I mean, just fascinating. The trip was fascinating. And I have to say, it really changed my life because the things that I saw, your messages while we were there, mass on the seashore with the wonderful priest, it was a life-changing moment for me. It really was. And I realized that it's all about food for me.

so I'm always searching food, and I'm always trying to, and it all begins with the last supper for me, you know, so, yeah, so that's how we met, we met, we met on the shores of Galilee. Think about that, right? That's amazing. No, it's amazing. And our friendship has only deepened, and, of course, I didn't know, you know, up in the north, up by the deep in the woods with the loons up there, chef, I was a chef, actually, one time at McDonald's. And so being a chef, up north that didn't mean quite as much as down here. And I got to say that when I take you out or you take me out to restaurants around here, you're kind of a rock star when it comes to being

a chef and rightly so. But your roots go deep into the swamp. And that's something that in the north that would sound different to someone, but down here, that's a reality that your roots go deep. You're not only of cooking, but your faith goes deep back in the swamps when you were growing up. Bring us back and talk to us a little bit about your growing up and some of the things that you faced and how your faith began to really form John Fulse. Well, that story is really one that's emotional for me because growing up in the swamp lands means that your father was probably a trapper. He trapped for us for a living. There was not much money. We didn't exchange goods for money. We exchange pelts for food, pelts for mink or alligator or things like

that. You know, we lived in a loving environment, a very Catholic environment. The church was centered to everything we did. The Catholic Church was really center. The greatest gift any parent could have would be to have a son who wanted to be a priest. And our grandmothers was always preparing us for that day when we would announce we were going to the seminary. It was that important to them. The church was the center of our lives. It was hard. It was a difficult living, but at the same time, we had extended family.

Most of the people in the area were related in some fashion. You lived off of the land. We didn't have a January and a February and a March in our calendar. We had crawfish season. We had deer season. We had duck season. And we lived that way. In 1955, my mother passed away in our little Cajun cabin.

She left eight children behind. Her first child died in birth, and her last child, number 10, died in birth with her. And at that point in time, you know, that this extended family, this very Catholic family in the South, really came together to make sure that there. the false family was going to continue to survive in the home. And, of course, church was a very big part of it. But the greatest gift that I had in my life was a knock on the door back in 1956. And when my dad opened the door of our little Cajun Cabin and all of the eight children gathered around the door to look out,

there was no company coming in the swamp lands. You know, and somebody knocked on your door, there was a message to give. And it was an African-American woman who reached in and told my dad that she was there to help. And when my dad asked help what, she said, I'm here to help you raise these children. My dad never remarried. He reared all eight of us. And the twins were 14 months old when mom died, and the oldest child was a daughter, 10. So Mary Fascia was the mother we knew.

And was that normal back then? I mean, what was normal if your mother passed away and there's nothing but children running around with your father? What was the norm? Well, the norm in the Catholic Church with the godmothers and godfathers, the godparents, the role was for them to take the children. My godmother, I knew when we got back from burying my mom that I was going to be packing my clothes to go to my grandmother,

to my nan, as we call them. my godmother's home. That was the responsibility as the church had planned if the parent, if the dad or the mom couldn't raise all of us. And of course, in the Cajun family, it was always large families. Again, the Catholic Church demanded that you just keep having these kids, you know. We need more out of the office, you know. And we were very, very Catholic.

The whole neighborhood was. So Mary Fasho came in and my dad told us, gathered us around. the bed the day after we buried my mom and he said something that was just magical for all of us he said we're going to stay together as a family what did you think at that point well it gave us not only the encouragement to know that we were safe that we were going to see our brothers and sisters again that at the end of the day a fact is the most pronounced thing that happened that day my sister ruth it was 12 years old when my dad gathered us around and said we're going to stay together my sister ruth looked up at him and looked up and said dad who's going to say the rosary tonight

and today that resonates more with me than anything else because it showed even though mother was gone and i was only seven she had already instilled in us this strong faith the faith that we were a family, that the church was important, that the blessed mother was needed to be in our home every night around that big bed, as we knelt down to say the rosary. And my sister's only question, who's going to say the rosary? And my dad said, that's your job now. So I'm reminded of that, and as I speak today to groups,

I remind them of how important and what a strong web that was that just wrapped. around us, the faith, the family, the church, in the swamp lands of Louisiana, really got us the way we are today. Without those three elements, we wouldn't be here. Wow, that's really, that's powerful. And you can, you can see the two things. One, you know, the faith of your mother passed on, the faith of your father passed on and what family meant, but also Mary, this lovely lady who, how did she get into that kind of agreement? where she said, I'm going to, I'm going to raise these children. Does she have children of her own?

She had six children of her own, but she didn't tell the story till many years later. But one day we were sitting together, she and I, and she said, I said, Mary, how did you come to be the only mother we really knew because of my, we didn't remember my mom. She died so young. And Mary said, one day I was walking down the dirt road coming out of the swamps, and I passed your mom and dad's little Cajun cabin, that little trapper's cabin in the swamps. And here was a woman nine months pregnant. I could tell she was about to give birth again. And it started to rain while she was hanging clothes on the outdoor clothes line. And she says, I noticed immediately that every piece of

clothes was a diaper, which meant that house was full of children. Sure. And she was giving birth a I didn't know how many children she had. But in the rain, I walked through the gate, into the yard. I sat this pregnant woman down on the little step, and I said, let me hang the clothes. And after she hung the clothes with my mother sitting in the rain, my mother grabbed her hand and said, if anything ever happens to me, would you look in on these children? Two weeks later, my mother was dead. Isn't that something?

So my mother had the premonition that she was not going to make it through this pregnancy. This was a 10th child. She was 38 years old. Big Cajun families were important to sustain in the swamplands of Louisiana. But Mary Fasher was a gift from God to come knock on that door and tell my dad, I promised your wife something a couple weeks ago that I have to fulfill. She asked me to look in on these children. She looked in on us for 22 years.

Isn't that amazing? Raised her six children to great success. Raised each one of us to great success. And again, in all of my lectures today, I always thought off by saying, my mother was a beautiful African-American woman. Isn't that great? Not the mother who gave me birth, but the mother who gave me life. Did you see her at church? Oh, my God, yes.

Because in those days, unfortunately, it was all about. segregation. Sure. But the Catholic Church in all of our little villages had the African-American side of the aisle and the white side of the aisle. But as when my dad would march us in and his eight children into the front pew as he would, and I'm sure all the congregation said, oh my God, why don't they sit in the back of the church? These kids are going to be making all this noise. We would look across the aisle and on the pew right across the aisle was made. Mary Faschle and her family. So as little children, all we would do would be look across the island.

Hey, Mary, how are you doing? And thank God that ended at some point in time. And it was odd because most of the African Americans in the area were Baptist. They went to the Baptist Church. But we had a large congregation of Catholics, and we were fortunate that Mary was Catholic because she could bring us up into faith. She could be. And Mary was there at every conference.

confirmation. She was there at every wedding. So she was there just like the mother who would have given us birth to support us all through our formations all through life. Well, it makes you think too, you know, and I know a lot of you, you're driving in the car right now and, you know, thinking about this amazing story. And the people that are two, three doors down from you, the person in the apartment next to you, you might not know it, but they might be playing a key role in your life at some point, you know, and that's one of the beautiful things about making friends and opening up your life to other people. When you say, Chef Falls, that she raised you kids, what does that mean? I mean, what did she do on a daily basis? Because this is a sacrifice.

Yeah, yeah. She was a gift directly from God. That's the end of that story. Because Mary Fasher, when she took mom, when my mother took her hand, that was the hand of God saying, you're going to raise your six children and you're going to raise these. She didn't know it. My mom didn't know it. All my mom knew was that she needed help, and this was the person in front of her face, right? Mary Fasio would fix breakfast for our six children. Luckily, she had two daughters who were teenagers who could kind of help at her home. Mary would be in our home. It's a little bit. seven in the morning. She'd cook breakfast for all of us. She'd get us dressed for school, just as mom would. And that's amazing, yeah. She'd, she washed the clothes. And remember in those days, you had to

hang everything on tree limbs outside because there was no washes, no dry, it's very little electricity. She did for our family. She was in our home at seven. We all went to school. A lot of kids stay at home who weren't in school. She would cook lunch for us. She'd go home and cook dinner for her children. She'd come back in the afternoon and cook dinner for us. She washed the clothes. She ironed them. She put them away. And she sat in that big rocking chair on the back porch and gathered us around her to tell stories of life. The reason we never had any issues in the South in our home, even in the days of segregation, is because we saw Mary as the mother who raised does. And we never had any issues whatsoever with people saying, there's an African-American woman

here or whatever. We never had issues like that. We were so dependent on people in our area, the African-Americans, the Spanish, the Germans, the French, like we were. All were family. We didn't know what segregation was. We didn't know what black and white were. All we knew was that we strongly depended on everybody in the name. neighborhood and we came together often whether it was to kill a pig and divide up the meat so that we could survive on or to go out into the swamps to fish and share the fish that's what our community did and that's what i see missing in the world today we saw no color we saw no language we saw no barriers all we saw was one family helping another in times of need and that's all we knew

And we grew up that way. And your faith has a lot to do with that. And absolutely, my faith today is so strong because I realized probably more and because of the community I grew up in just how important it is that we realize that God has put all of these things together in your life that guarantees success, whether it's your faith,

whether it's your workplace, whether it's your family. It doesn't matter. he's given us our own Garden of Eden to live in and how do we approach it? How do we value it? How do we share it? These are the kind of things that we were taught at a very, very young age

not to see beyond the colors or the clothes the war but to see that this is family. Everybody was family to us and that's why we survived the way we did in, I mean, tremendous poverty when you look at cash, but the greatest wealth

when you look at family and family. Right. We're talking with chef John False, and we are down in Baton Rouge, my wife and I, and having a wonderful, a wonderful time. We're going to take a break when we come back. I want to talk about how your faith has followed you all these years and colored your life because a lot of people would say, well, you know, you left the swamp a long time ago, and you've been before presidents and the pope and all kinds of things, but you didn't leave the swamp. You brought the swamp to the world, and we're going to talk about that.

You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. Reading the Bible is something we as Catholics know we should do, but let's be honest, it can be kind of complicated. Even though it's a complete story, the Bible isn't really one book. It's more like a library, with dozens of books and dozens of genres. There's poetry, prophecy, and prose. There are apocalypses and revelations, historical accounts, and allegories. No wonder it's difficult to keep a finger on the story of God's love and plan of salvation for his people, the thread that keeps all of it together. If you're wishing there was a simple guide to help you tie all of this together,

then you're just like Jeff Kavins and Tim Gray. That's why they wrote the book, Walking with God. Walking with God is a single book that traces the story that ties the Bible together. It helps you to understand the big picture of the Bible. If you're looking to read more of the Bible, walking with God will help you do it with confidence, peace, and clarity. You can find out more and order Walking With God on ascensionpress.com or on Amazon. I want to welcome you back to the Jeff Kaven Show.

day about one of my good friends. And this episode is part of Meet My Friends. And this is chef John Fulce. And he is an amazing chef. And we've had a wonderful time down here in the swamps of Louisiana learning how to cook. I went through my first Boucheret chef. That was wild. I've never been through anything like that in my life. Tell my friends what a Boucherie is. Well, a Boucherie is a coming together family and friends in a community. We're in Cajun country, Louisiana, where community and family is very important. We depend so much on each other. And in the old days, prior to refrigeration, 10 families would come together.

Didn't matter race, creed, color, didn't none of that matter to us. And 10 families would come together to go to one of the family's homes to butcher a pig or to butcher a calf. It was an all-day affair. the women would chop the onions in the celery, in the bell pepper. The children would run out and pick up little sticks to build the fires on our communal pots. The men would slaughter an animal and scrape the bristles from the pig and butcher it. And then we would cook the sausages. We'd smoke the sausages.

We'd make a very famous undoer, one of the sausages. The hogs had cheese. We'd cut the pieces of meat to pork chops or whatever it was going to be. And then at the end of the day, we divided the packages up between the 10 families. Everybody would leave after a nice fade of dough, which was a dance at the end of the night, with fiddles and accordions, and the children would learn to dance the Cajun dances and sing the Cajun songs. Again, it was a place where your education was out behind the barn. There was no universities in our area.

You learned from your hands in the dirt, so to speak. And then two weeks later, you'd do it again at the next family's home. Sure. So we always had fresh meat. We always had fresh vegetables from each other's garden. So the bus shrie was an annual event where these 10 families, the company, the bushrie, it was called, the company of the butchers. And they would meet, and it preserved the meat. It gave us the sustenance we needed it.

And at the same time, we learned about each other's family. We learned about each other's skill. If I wanted to be a butcher, I would go sit next to Mr. Zoom, that African-American man who just scraped that pig so perfectly. I wanted to be just like him. Boy, you and I grew up so differently. A moonshot. We went up and got a pizza.

That's what we did. Well, but what it did, Jeff, when I look back at it today, it was so much more important than just a bushery. It was exchanging ideas. It was learning about some person's skill. It was storytelling where you could actually sit down. There was no TVs. There was no radios.

I mean, we were in the swamplands without electricity. We had pot-belly stoves we cooked on. And I'm talking about 1955. But, my God, I cannot. I wasn't born then. But I cannot think of a better place. to prepare me for the life that God chose me to lead. Well, you had me as a part of this bushery in 2019,

but I was a little confused because I've never heard of this dish before. You had me on the raccoon and roosters stew. And I thought it was a joke until, yeah, that's what we did. Well, you know, every bushery had a set of the ten butchers, but at the same time, the butchers needed someone to cook the butcher's lunch. and of course being in the swamps we had no grocery store so somebody would say okay well get the gun

and let's go outside and we're going to go ahead and gather the food for the butchers so they'd go out into the swamps and they might shoot a squirrel or they might shoot a rabbit or they might shoot lucky enough we could get a raccoon because we really love the meat of the raccoon

I know everybody's thinking are you kidding me but I got pictures by the way folks I'm going to put those pictures on the show notes so you can see my raccoon stew and by the way there's another there's a big gumbo contest in Louisiana about a week or so ago and uh I think you tied in that kind I don't know if you won or tied but I got video of that too and that was of course chef John Fals and I with a gumbo contest I got to be I got to be honest can you imagine I brought him

into my home because he was challenging me to create the perfect gumbo that great super You didn't want it on TV. That's why I went into your home. You did pretty doghorn good. In fact, it was a good gumbo. I'd sell that gumbo. Well, you know, you came from the swamps. Your heart still is here in Louisiana.

But yet, you have gone around the world, you know, and you brought me over to that St. James parish area in Donaldsonville, Tibodeau. And now there is a four-year degree. in culinary skills from Nichols State University, and you have cooked for the Pope, you've cooked for five, was it five presidents? Final presidents, yeah. How do you go from the swamp to doing that?

And I know that your faith has a lot to do with it, because you're one of the most giving philanthropic men I've ever met. And I think that has a lot to do with your recipe for success. Well, it's the culture, you know, when you came from such, and I hate to use the the word impoverished because we were so wealthy in friends and food and all the things that's important in life. But at some point in time, I decided that, in fact, as I was talking to my wife, Lolly, one day, and I said, you know, what am I going to do with my life? I mean, we're successful in the restaurant business. We're in the swamps of Louisiana still. We have a

beautiful little restaurant right on the outskirts of the swamps. Now it's a tourist area. People are coming in to see the crawfish industry and to look at the plantation homes that are still standing today. And, of course, that's on the edge of my world. So, Lolly said, what are you going to do now? I mean, you're successful in the business. I know you don't want to just stay here and cook all day long. What do you want to do? And I said, well, I really like to share our experiences with people outside of Donaldsonville.

And she said, well, why don't you just take it out? I said, take it where? And she said, take it to the world. I mean, what are you waiting for? You're proud of it, you're passionate. And I said, but Lolly, we don't have any money to do anything like that. She says, no excuses. Just make it happen.

So I was lucky enough to be invited when the Cajun Cray has took place many years ago. Everybody wanted Cajun food. I got invited to Japan to open a Louisiana restaurant in Japan just as a festival. for about two weeks. And that made me realize, I can do this. I can do this because when I went to Japan, the media wanted to hear more stories about the swamps. They wanted to hear that description again.

They wanted to know about the foods. So I decided, you know what? My goal should be to bring Louisiana's culinary, cultural, and just passion for our faith to people who will never get it. I'm going to go to China and Russia. I'm going to bring our culture to Russia and my wife said yeah right you're going to imagine you at 9, 10 years old

sitting in the swamp trapping you know with your brothers and saying all this is going to Russia but you know as God works as God works and I've come to learn that God God is there every moment and he's challenging you to do exactly

what you're able to do he's given us the skills so I started to write to the Soviet embassy make a long story short after three years I got a courier from the Soviet embassy in Washington knocking on my door in Louisiana with two tickets on Araflaught to fly to Russia to discuss this restaurant I wanted to open three years after I started.

They didn't have Western restaurants at that time. Oh my God, there was nobody getting into Moscow in 1988, nobody. So, naturally, I jumped on Araflot, flew to Moscow, was there for 10 days before anybody even knocked on my door. I started to get worried about whether I'd ever get home. But eventually, I knocked on my door, somebody brought me downstairs to meet this group of 10 men who sat there for a moment in that Russian style beating on the table and speaking Russian to my interpreter. and finally the interpreter looks at me a wonderful lady and she says they want to know what is it you want I said well I would like to bring the culture and the cuisine of my state to the Soviet people

and after much discussion a couple of days they came back in for another meeting with cameras and said we have a protocol of intention a contract that will allow you to do that well I was I mean I was just beyond belief only to find out later that the dates they gave me to open that restaurant just happened to be the dates that was still secret around the world that President Reagan was going to be meeting with President Garbage John. You didn't know that, though. No. They gave me these specific dates, which was only three months later,

and I was to bring all of the food, all of the labor, I was to bring the equipment, everything needed to, open a restaurant without telling me it was for the Reagan Garbage Javs Summit. Interesting. 80% of the world's press were there in Moscow when I opened my restaurant that night. Sitting right in front of me was Yuri Gagirin,

the first man in space. President of the United States was sitting there. The Reagan White House was there. The Garbage House were there. And Jeff, that was the day I said to myself. I mean, it just hit me so hard, right?

Between the eyes, as I'm looking at this room. I can see it right now. And I said to myself, how did you get here? How in the world did you get here now? If mama could see me now. And I didn't quite realize that I was going to get that answer how I got there. And I told you the story that it was just a couple of days later that my guide, my interpreter, and I went for a little walk and she grabbed my arm as we walked into one of the closed cathedrals of Russia, of Moscow, and she squeezed up close next to him, and she said, Chef, when you come back, can you bring me a Bible?

A Bible. A Bible. And I mean, you know, from your experience, that that was pretty dangerous in Russia at the time. And she squeezed my hand a little bit more, and she said, but it's very dangerous. Be careful. And I realized, Jeff, it was 15 years before I woke up in the middle of the night, one night, as God is my witness, I sat up in bed and I said, oh my God, I did not go to Russia

to serve Reagan and Garbachev. God sent me to Russia to bring that Bible. Wow, that's insight. That's why I was in Russia, but I didn't know it. I was thinking to myself, oh man, I did all of this. But you cooked for a pope too. Which one was that? Well, that was John Paul the second. And again, I went to do the Vatican State dinner for the bishops who had all come into Rome for their meetings and I was really hoping that I would get to meet Pope John Paul

being there to do the dinner and that night after the dinner realizing the pope wasn't in the room I said my thank you to all of the bishops I don't know about 500 of them were in the room it was at the American College, American University and in that conversation Cardinal Marchenka's got up and walked over to me and he said that was a big cigar in his hand

he was with the Vatican Bank then and he said this was fantastic he said if there's anything you want to do he said just I can arrange it and I said oh my god I can think of something I said is that any way I might be able to tour some of the places in the Vatican that you know that's you know the library things that uh and he says uh i said because i really was hoping i could meet the pope or see the pope and he said oh you want to do that i said yeah he said no problem he said i'll get back with you and when i got back to my hotel that night there was a message that said to be ready at five in the morning right that the military was going to drive me to gondolfo for mass oh you went to the summer home. I went to the summer home. I went to Gandalfo. So, and I didn't know. The first thing I said

was, oh my God, I need a priest. I said, I need confession right away. True story. I finally found a priest on this walking. I said, I need to do confession right now. And I said, and I'll never forget, I told the priest, I said, because I'm going to see the Pope tomorrow. I'm going to Gandalfa and I'm sure the priest said, yeah, sure you are. Well, I did. I ended up, For morning mass at Gandalfo, there was 10 people in the room, and there was a missionary who sat next to me. He was 80 years old, and he said, all of my life, I've wanted to come to Gandalford at Mass with the Pope, and I'm here today. And I thought to myself, oh, my God, he's devoted his whole life to the church. And he wants to be here.

And he wants to be here. And I'm here for the first time, like, how did I get here? And it was a real. all seeing you that day. It was fantastic, and the Pope gave me a nice message as he came through. He says, he says, you're American. He says, America has a tremendous responsibility in the world. We should talk about that.

That's what he said. Really? Anytime. Yeah, what are you doing for lunch? I'll hang around. But anyway, you know, to have him put his rolls. in my hand and give me a little kiss on the cheek. And when

I was kneeling there, right as he knelt down on his little pre-due, his little kneeler to say his morning prayers in front of the altar, I said to myself, I could reach one foot in front of me and put my hand on the shoulder of Pope John Paul.

John Paul's, how did you get here? I kept asking myself then this reoccurring statement, how did you get here? And then I finally realized, it's God. It's God in my life. You're doing the things he's asking you to do.

What are you not doing? What do you need to do more of? What do you need to do to earn what I'm giving you free of charge? I'm putting you in places. I ended up opening my restaurant in 12 countries of the world. I ended up opening in China and I opened in Russia and realized that I was in the Soviet Union. Just the two of those. Before the wall fell.

Right. I have a chef jacket that's in a museum in Paris that was the first foreign jacket on the Great Wall of China. And Jeff, I know that at each one of those answers is now that God has given me gifts that are impossible for me as a human being to get or achieve. And I'm always asking the question of myself, okay, Papa, what do you want me to do now for what you've given me? Because I cannot pay him back for what I've done, what I've been able to do. I just can't do it, no matter what I do. And so I try to be as involved as I can in charity, et cetera.

And you do an incredible job. And you're just going around the Baton Rouge and New Orleans area over the last few weeks. If your name comes up, that's actually the first thing that people bring up is that he does so, much for the church. And I don't think people realize how much you really do. And I don't, you know, you don't want to go through that list. But I think you're even going to be involved in the big Napa meeting. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a speaker at Lagadas. Yeah. I'm now writing you and I are going to be in the same issue, by the way. Yeah, we're in the same issue. That's right. But imagine that I didn't even know what Lagadas was. I mean, imagine until

I was invited to speak and to do that annual conference in Scottsdale. And I spoke about my story. And after the president of Lagadas came in and said, you have to be a speaker for Lagattas. You have to be. And now I'm invited to do to Congress in Napa in July, which I'm very happy about because that's the whole world Congress of Lagadas. Be honest. Is that why you wanted my gumbo recipe? Be honest. Well, I figured that, you know, I could start, you know, with teaching them gumbo at your level.

Because, I mean, you know, my level is so high. I mean, I don't want to embarrass these cooks. I mean, I can start with kind of like, what would be the right? I got pictures, you know. Maybe light or something like that. Tell our, by the way, the people that listen to this show are the best in the country. They are the best in the country. Tell them who cook grits for you this morning.

First of all, for two people, Emily and Jeff Kavins. to cook grits in itself is a miracle that happened right here at White Old this morning and blue grits at that. But let me commend you, you're a fast learner. Well, no, I shouldn't say you. I mean, Emily cooked the grits. And you are too. I got quiz you right here.

Old Testament, New Testament. Which one's bigger? Hey, back to Rome for a second. Did you actually cook for the Pope? Did he eat your cooking? No, what he did was this. I told him, he told me in passing, he said, when I was in New Orleans to lay the cornerstone on the redoing, on the renovation of St. Louis Cathedral, I tasted this great soup.

Now, this is from Pope John Paul. Okay. He says, what was the name of the soup? He said, ah, the gumba soup. Gumbah. I said, oh, I said, gumbo. I said, the gumbo, I said, he said, oh, it was delicious, very nice. And I said, well, I can send some to you.

I can send it through Leonardo da Vinci and I can have my guys delivered. That's a hotel. He said, it's not someone you know. Right, the hotel, right? I said, we can, I can send it to you. You said, it's possible. And I did. So I shipped gumbo.

Now, whether he ever got it or not. I'm sure you must have. We sent it to the places they ask us to send it. When I gave him a sample of my Lutophis, he never mentioned anything about your gumbo at all. He never mentioned your name. I ask him about you. Well, I'm going to provide some pictures for the show notes of our gumbo contest

with your lovely wife, Lolly. And we did. We went to your home, and that was a wonderful evening. Both Emily and I enjoyed that very much. We had a great time. Well, I want to thank you for spending some time. with us telling your story about, you know, beginning in the swamp, how the faith really touched your life, the key people in your life. And thank you for being faithful to Christ and in the

church. And you've done, you've done so much. And I just pray that more, particularly young people, because you're so good at mentoring people. And I've been here for a month with you and speaking in the area. And I can, I can watch and I can see a master mentor when I, when I, when I say, see it and you have a big impact on these young culinary students over at Nichols University. We went over there in Tibido and you are giving back in so many different ways. And that's a lesson for all of us. You know, my friend, when Jesus said to whom much is given, much is required. And that's a, that's a truth in the scripture. If you've been given much, and as Chef John Falsa realized, even in the swamps of Louisiana, much was given to him.

him. And he was required to give back, and he certainly did. And Jesus also said something else. To whom those who have little, they'll have even less. You know, if they don't do something with it, and to those who have much even more will be given. That's a truth in scripture. And Chef John Falls is a great example of that. I want to end with this, chef. I noticed you gave me your your cookbooks, and I have never in my life until the other day realized that a cookbook could be so big, so heavy as to ward off traffic down at the Mardi Gras. All they do is they set your books up, they open it up, set it up, cars go around them. It's an amazing thing. Tell me real quickly about your books, because I do want people to know you and meet you in the cooking,

in the pot. Well, Michelle Yark and I, who's on staff and my communications director, she and I decided a few years back about 12 years ago that we should write encyclopedias on the importance of the foods of Louisiana. Sure. We started off with the encyclopedia of Cajun and Creole Cuisian, which I think is a 10-pound book. I know we have about 900 pages. He's not kidding.

But it's a complete history, including the faith, I might mention, on cooking in Louisiana, the importance of it, and the seven nations that founded Louisiana, mostly Catholic, the French, the Spanish, the Germans, the Africans, the English, and the Italians, those seven nations founded Louisiana in the 1700s. So we devote a chapter to each one of them, and there's about 600 recipes. But then we decided to keep going. We decided to showcase the fishing industry, the wild game and hunting,

where my family made their living and then the vegetable book which had just come out. And there's so many great pictures that bring us back to the swamp. Oh, yeah. So if you're intrigued, my friend, and you're into cooking,

even if you're not into cooking, if you're into swamps. I mean, if you're not into swamps, you just want to get to know John better. There's a lot of unbelievable pictures. And where can people get the books? Well, you just go online in Amazon or any of those places. The Encyclopedia of Cajun and Creole Cuis

is the one you should start with, and it gives you all of the history, the faith, the church. All of that is packed in there pretty good. And where would people go to get my recipe for gumbo? Well, let me see, probably, let me see, you're from Minnesota. Let me see, probably somewhere in the Twin Cities up there. It's not ready for prime time. Well, let me say again, just to all of you out there, I don't want him to hear me here, but I'm going to say it quietly. it was a pretty good combo.

And on that note, on that note, we will leave. And I want to end with prayer. And again, my friend, I want to encourage you listening, that God has a purpose for your life. And wherever you came from, I find that that's part of the recipe of life. You know, that my life goes back to Iowa.

I was raised in Iowa on the university, Iowa State. My dad was getting his Ph.D. I was just a little kid wandering around, and I can still go back to my parents raising me, and that's a big part of the recipe of who I am today. And people along the path have put other spices and wonderful things into the recipe of my life, and I am who I am today, and you are who you are today because of other people and their influence in your life. And so I want to encourage you to give free samples of spice to other people

and to be kind to love them. As Bob Dylan's mother said, be kind to everyone because everyone's going through something in their life. And you can be a real agent of change and love and an expression of Jesus Christ and his love for the world. Let me pray with you, and everything we've been talking about here is in the show notes. Don't want you to write that stuff down while you're driving.

So let's pray right now, shall we? In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord, I thank you for my friends. who have joined me once again to meet my friends today, Chef John Falls, and the great work that he has done and the great heritage in which he comes from, the Catholic swamps of Louisiana, and the influence that he has had. I pray for my friend you today that are listening that God would use you in a powerful way and to always look to what he has dealt you in life and given you as gifts and opportunities

and make the most of it. So your life into the kingdom of God and allow him to use you in a powerful way. Never let anybody tell you you can't do something because of who you are, because of your family, where you come from, or anything else. Because God will use us to change the world.

In Jesus' name, amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thanks for joining me today. Hey, thanks so much. It was great. Thank you.