0:10

Welcome to the final installment of our

0:12

from Home series. As American

0:14

restaurants begin their slow march toward a new

0:16

normal, I wanted to share a few more

0:18

poignant insights from three special members

0:21

of the food world. We'll hear from

0:23

a chef, a bartender, and a

0:25

writer about simple home cooking tips,

0:28

essential comfort food memories. And

0:30

they're optimistic and romantic views

0:32

for the new food industry that awaits us

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on the other side of this. First,

0:37

Chef Cory Bar. Hey,

0:40

y'all, my name is Corey bar. I'm the chef

0:42

and owner of Parish Restaurant

0:44

and bar Bar, Food Truck, Heritage

0:46

Catering, and Standard Coffee located

0:48

in Lona, Louisiana. Corey has

0:51

some pro tips for a classic sauce that

0:53

should be in the repertoire of all confident

0:55

home cooks. My wife and myself

0:58

both have a passion for red boulonnaise. It's

1:00

simple, it's easy, it can last

1:02

all week. Well, it can last

1:05

all week if you don't eat it like we do. But

1:07

you know, it's it's just one of those things that's

1:09

not only is it fun to make, but it's

1:12

super delicious. So, as you all

1:14

know, it's it's like mom's red sauce.

1:16

So we start off by browning some wagu

1:18

beef. We use a safritto

1:21

of onion, garlic, and

1:23

carrot. We fold all that together

1:25

with some red wine, bay leaf, a

1:27

little bit of sage. One of our secret

1:29

ingredients we love to add. It's some fresh

1:32

ground cloth. We cook that down

1:34

slowly, then we combine that with tomato.

1:37

It's a very very simple dish that

1:39

just goes well with just about everything.

1:44

Next, a rising star of Atlanta's

1:47

food and beverage world, Tequa

1:49

Sears. Hey, y'all, it's Turkey

1:51

Sears here. I am the lead bartender

1:53

at barmarc and the Four Seasons

1:56

Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia.

1:58

I am a bartender, a exologists,

2:00

a liquid chef. I'm part time comedian,

2:03

best friends sometimes a bouncer.

2:06

I wear different hats. I love

2:08

doing cocktail competitions and training

2:10

bartenders and learning

2:12

about different spirits and talking about

2:15

cocktail culture and history. I absolutely

2:18

love the industry I work in. Tequila

2:21

is a bartender after my own heart, because

2:24

she explains things using precise

2:26

ratios. Pay close attention

2:28

to this cocktail making tip because if you remember

2:31

it you'll be able to fashion not one,

2:33

but many fantastic drinks with

2:35

just a couple basic ingredients.

2:38

I know a lot of people have been making cocktails at home during

2:40

this quarantine, but I found that one of the

2:42

easiest recipes is a simple

2:44

sour recipe that you can use with

2:47

literally any spirit that you

2:49

have already at home, whether you have

2:51

vodka or some gin or some

2:54

tequila, rum,

2:56

whiskey, or bourbon, you

2:58

can use the same standard recipe

3:01

to make some really easy, refreshing

3:03

cocktails at home. That recipe

3:05

is two ounces spirit to three

3:08

quarters ounce of lemon or lime

3:10

juice and three quarters ounce of

3:13

simple syrup. You can use simple syrup, you

3:15

can use honey syrup, you can use brown

3:17

sugar syrup, Turberinado sugar syrup.

3:19

You can use a govey nectar

3:22

syrup. You know, you can make some syrup out of artificial

3:24

sweetener if you want some sweet and little syrup.

3:27

So it's all about the balance and it's super super

3:29

easy. One of my favorite versions is a

3:32

gin gimlet, which is basically just a gin sour

3:34

with lime juice. And I

3:37

love taking that standard recipe and incorporating

3:40

different things that I have in the kitchen. I guarantee

3:43

you have items at home that

3:45

you can put into your cocktails. So

3:48

for example, like right now, let me see in my

3:50

fridge, I have some I

3:52

love fresh fruit. I have some strawberries,

3:56

some raspberries. Got a little bit of watermelon.

3:58

Some people like spicy eat cocktails. I've

4:00

got some surroundto peppers, eggs.

4:03

Always keep eggs, eggs or a staple

4:05

cream. Oh. Also in my fridge herbs.

4:07

Herbs are great in cocktails too. I have some basil.

4:10

I think I got some mint in there, some rose

4:12

mary and some time. But in

4:14

my cabinet, I've got some spices and some teas.

4:17

Oftentimes, when I'm at the store,

4:20

if I'm at the farmer's market, or sometimes

4:22

I'll pick up something out and about

4:24

at a lot of these community gardens

4:26

that have been surfacing

4:28

all over the city, which is absolutely great. I might

4:30

pick up, you know, some exotic honeys,

4:33

I shouldn't say exotic, some rare honeys

4:36

and different you know teas and spice

4:38

blends and stuff like that. But right now, what I have,

4:40

I've got some vanilla black

4:42

tea, got some organic mint tea,

4:45

cinnamon sticks, got some allspice,

4:47

some star an ease. All of those things can

4:50

be used to muddle into

4:52

your cocktail or to

4:54

infuse into your simple syrups to

4:56

kind of elevate your cocktails. So what

4:59

I made this evening A few moments ago

5:01

I made a strawberry gin kimblet

5:03

and so I just kept that same recipe the

5:06

two ounces to three quarters ounce of three quarters

5:08

ounce and moddle some fresh strawberries in

5:10

it. Shook it up really nice and double

5:12

strained, absolutely delicious. Nothing

5:14

beats a fresh cocktail with

5:16

fresh ingredients. I mean nothing

5:19

beats it. And

5:23

our third and final submission comes

5:25

from a writer whom I very much

5:27

admire. Hey there, my name's

5:29

John t Edge, and I live

5:31

and work in Oxford, Mississippi,

5:34

just off the square. I write

5:36

for a living and I direct the

5:38

Southern Foodways Alliance, which is based

5:40

at the University of Mississippi. We tell

5:42

stories about the South to change the

5:45

South for the better. John

5:47

t Edge, or Jaunty as he's sometimes

5:49

called, has a special ability to

5:51

convert the description of a simple recipe

5:54

into poetry. Case in point

5:56

onion Burgers, since the Long

5:58

Paul's Bagel and our son

6:01

Jess and I have been cooking

6:03

more burgers. Specifically, we've

6:05

been cooking onion burgers. Now. I

6:08

first ate onion burgers back when I wrote

6:10

a book called Hamburgers and Fries,

6:12

an American Story, and I fell

6:15

in love with these onion burgers. And

6:17

more recently I've discovered

6:19

a newer style of that, or at least

6:21

newer to me. In a little town

6:23

in Kentucky, a little place

6:25

called le Hayes Red Castle,

6:28

just off the square in Bardstown,

6:30

Kentucky. Ley Hayes Red

6:32

Castle is owned by Nile lehay

6:35

and her husband. And the way they do it

6:37

is they smash burgers flat

6:39

on a griddle aged by

6:42

time and Greece, and then they

6:44

put onions on top of that, let

6:46

them steam, smash it all. Put

6:49

buns on top of that, let the buns

6:51

steam, then flip and cook,

6:54

not the buns, but the burgers until

6:56

they kind of turned black. It's not a

6:58

kind of to it until they've lacking them and

7:01

that grease and that onion

7:03

turns into a mass that coats

7:05

the bottom of that grittle. And

7:08

then what the cooks do, if you want

7:10

your burger nasty, is you

7:12

scrape the grittle in addition to putting

7:14

cheese on your burger and mustard,

7:17

which I usually do, they'll put the

7:19

nasty on top. And to eat

7:21

a nasty burger at lees

7:24

Red Castle in the Hodgenville, Kentucky

7:26

is to taste the I don't know, the the

7:28

apotheosis of beef and

7:31

onion. To taste what happens

7:33

when grocery store hamburger meat

7:36

becomes the best thing it can be. And

7:38

so over the break. Over this

7:40

break, our son and I've been cooking a lot

7:42

of hayes burgers. We also

7:45

if you look at our cupboard, you'll see

7:48

evidence of the other things we cook.

7:50

A lot of beans, a lot of ease. I'd

7:53

like to think we're not cooking them because their vogue,

7:56

but we're cooking them because I always

7:58

like to cook them. I like the way that beans

8:00

or peas start out as rocks,

8:02

and when you cook them for a long time, they become

8:05

something sumptuous, They become something

8:07

luxurious. Also, John gave

8:10

us a great example of how neighbors have evolved

8:12

to help each other with delicious

8:14

results. We also have a

8:16

friend that got even Luke high school who has

8:19

whiskey ranch here at Oxford, and

8:21

I can leave my cooler out on the

8:23

porch and Luke will drop

8:25

in a couple of ribs or some

8:27

ground beef after he kills a cow.

8:30

This is a new development since the

8:33

COVID pause began. Used

8:35

to be Luke sold through other channels,

8:37

or maybe he didn't even sell often, But

8:40

now Luke will text me, I'll

8:42

vinmo him bucks and he will drop

8:44

our beef. All

8:49

three of our guests have been cooking their favorite comfort

8:51

foods, and their menus do not disappoint.

8:54

Corey has found the time to realize how much

8:57

work it takes to make an American classic.

9:00

For me, my ultimate comfort dishes my

9:02

grandmother's fried chicken. You know a lot

9:04

of people don't understand this, I guess through convenience

9:07

or fast food restaurants now, is

9:09

that fried chicken is a process, and

9:11

it's a messy, long process to make delicious

9:14

fried chicken, from sourcing a great chicken

9:16

to cutting it up, to bribing it, to frying it,

9:18

to cleaning up afterwards. And every time

9:20

my grandmother with fried chicken, it was the most special

9:23

times and I would just eat a mountain of it. And

9:25

that's what brings me back and makes me happy.

9:27

When I try my best, which

9:30

I very seldom succeed

9:32

to her level to recreate her

9:34

fried chicken. That's warms my heart,

9:37

warms my soul, and it really brings

9:39

me back to my childhood. Toque

9:41

Will also turned to a memory of her grandmother

9:43

for comfort during quarantine. Food

9:46

is almost like a hug, like a hug

9:48

on the inside. I don't know. One of my favorite

9:50

comfort foods are short ribs.

9:53

I'm crazy about some short ribs.

9:55

I just remember the first time I had

9:58

short ribs. I was probably about four or

10:00

five, and my grandma. One

10:02

of my first first memories

10:04

I can remember vividly, but

10:06

my grandma she was searing

10:09

some some short rips and I

10:11

could just smell just that savory,

10:15

that oh mommy in the

10:17

air. And I was always very inquisitive,

10:19

and so I remember tugging on her. She

10:22

had a little apron and I remember talking on her, her

10:24

chef apron when she was cooking, and asking

10:26

her what she was making. And she gave

10:29

me a little, a little bite, and I

10:31

was hooked. Fatty cuts of

10:33

meat comfort me so

10:35

so good. John t Edge

10:37

has also turned to a family memory,

10:39

but one from their trips into the Big city,

10:42

not from their home kitchen. It's just

10:44

so odd and dear to my heart. I put a recipe

10:46

for it in my book, also called

10:49

From Scratch What I Want to Tap

10:51

the nostalgia vein. I cook Acto

10:54

Young. It's a kind of dish I first

10:56

tasted when my parents and I

10:58

traveled from small town with you, from

11:00

a little town called Clinton that was more like

11:02

fifty people, not really a town, to

11:05

Atlanta. And in Atlanta,

11:07

we were at this place called House of Ing,

11:10

and they had egg dropped soup and they had

11:12

egg rolls, and they served Egg

11:14

for Young, and man, I

11:17

love that Egg for Young, chunks of blackered

11:19

pork, you know, and basically

11:21

a deep fried to omelets smothered

11:23

in brown sauce with white

11:25

rice and so, I don't know, a couple of weeks

11:28

ago, I made Egg for Young for the first time.

11:30

It's a dish that's getting harder and harder

11:32

to find, kind of americanized Chinese

11:35

restaurants as Sesshu

11:37

on this or black Bean that kind

11:39

of pushes it out. But I love

11:42

that dish, and it turns out it's not that hard

11:44

to make. I mean, it basically is a

11:46

deep fried omelet kind of thickened with

11:48

bamboo shoots and maybe some bean

11:51

sprouts. First time I cooked it, I

11:53

used leftover barbecue pork that Jess

11:55

and I had cooked on the Big Green

11:57

egg instead of you know, lacquered

12:00

time. These pork came out

12:02

pretty great. And

12:05

finally, we asked our guests to share their thoughts

12:07

on what they're looking forward to and

12:09

what they think their industry may look like in

12:12

the near future. So I

12:14

wonder what happens after

12:16

this to our industry. It's so hard

12:18

to to gauge. I

12:20

do know that we've been doing a great job of being

12:22

there from one another, but

12:24

it's very uncertain, and it's kind

12:27

of scary. But it's very uncertain and the unknown.

12:31

So I just want to encourage everybody

12:33

to keep their head up. I know that it's

12:35

kind of hard, especially those that

12:38

are dealing with the

12:40

negative effects on their

12:42

businesses and restaurants. And the

12:45

economy is rough right

12:47

now. Lots of people have lost their jobs.

12:49

You're listening to this podcast right now, and you're

12:51

hearing my voice. The people that know me know

12:54

that I support local, Eat local,

12:56

be local. You know, nobody

12:58

travels to your community

13:00

to eat at a chain restaurant. They're traveling

13:02

there to eat at your your little

13:05

mom and pops, your maybe fine dining

13:07

destinations, that barbecue joint

13:09

that really does it right. Those are

13:11

the people that you need to be out there supporting.

13:13

You need to be given them your love, your attention,

13:16

and your finances because that's what makes

13:18

your community special. And without

13:20

you, as the consumer, use the guest, use

13:23

the lifeblood of what we do in restaurants,

13:25

we can't survive this. I

13:27

think that there has been a lot of innovation

13:31

out of these challenging times

13:33

we're in right now. But I do know

13:35

that as an industry, we're gonna definitely

13:37

come back better and stronger and

13:40

smarter than ever. I truly feel

13:42

like over the next three to five years, we're gonna

13:44

see an explosion of restaurants

13:46

and smaller cities across America

13:49

where people have moved back from

13:51

the larger cities post pandemic

13:53

to create their dream and their vision

13:55

for their perfect restaurant. We

13:58

just have to stay positive. If I think

14:00

we just take it one day at a time and take care

14:03

of ourselves, don't

14:06

forget kindness. I'm

14:08

aren't from my wife, who reminds

14:10

me of what

14:13

empathy yields. Be

14:15

kind, because that's that's

14:18

what this moment needs, because this isn't a hugling

14:20

to time. And if we can help

14:23

each other bring a little

14:25

light in the dark moment, we will pull it

14:27

through. We'll pull through, and

14:30

we'll get back to having fun. I can't

14:32

wait to get back in there and greet

14:34

people, welcome them into our dining rooms,

14:36

love on them, tell them how much we missed

14:39

them, and just try to not

14:41

forget, but try to put this into

14:44

perspective and that life is going

14:46

on, and life is wonderful, and how

14:48

fortunate we all are to be here and

14:50

be together, sharing a meal, sharing

14:52

a cocktail, you know, with friends

14:55

and family and and and loved ones.

14:57

When we all get out of pandemic

14:59

jail, and only then, I

15:02

want to climb the stairs to

15:04

the city rosary bar. I want to look

15:06

Cooney the bartender in the eye, and

15:08

I want whiskey Makers

15:11

mark because they've been so good

15:13

to so many in this moment, aiding

15:16

Edward Lee and the Lee Initiative and

15:19

feeding hospitality workers. I'll

15:21

just take Makers on the rocks and

15:24

I'll toast Dad Lee, and I'll toast

15:26

all the people who have served

15:28

in this moment, and we'll serve us

15:31

all when we get to the other side.

15:35

That's what I want. I want to walk into my local,

15:38

I want to climb the stairs. I'm want to claim

15:40

a seat, claim a drink, talk

15:43

to a friend, and toast good

15:45

work that's gone on during

15:47

this long and ugly and fitful

15:50

pause. Thanks

15:53

to Tequia Sears, Corey bar

15:56

and John t. Edge for your powerful

15:58

and inspirational words. I'll

16:00

hope that I can cheers with you each in person

16:02

sometime soon. And thanks

16:04

to all the chefs, writers, beer makers, bartenders

16:07

and more who have shared their thoughts from their

16:09

homes during this series. It's

16:12

been a pleasure to hear from you all, to hear

16:14

about what you're cooking, how you're coping,

16:17

and what you're looking forward to. It's

16:19

also a reminder that food and cooking is one

16:21

of the most powerful connectors we have. It

16:24

brings us together, It reinforces

16:26

memories of those we've loved and lost.

16:29

It brings nourishment and comfort.

16:32

As t Kiwa said, It's like a hug

16:35

from home. Was created by Christopher Hasiotis

16:38

and produced by the food and travel team at

16:40

I Heart Radio from

16:42

Scratch will resume normal publishing later

16:45

this year with season two. As we like

16:47

the restaurant industry returned to

16:49

a semi normal state of being. We'll

16:51

see you then. Stay safe everyone,

16:54

and never stop cooking.