Speaker 1: My name is Jeffery Z. Carrion, and you're listening to
Speaker 1: four Courses with Jeffery Z. Carrion from I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and four Courses, I'll be taking you along for the
Speaker 1: ride while I talked with the top talent of our time.
Speaker 1: In each conversation, I focused on four different areas of
Speaker 1: my guest life and career. And during those four courses,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna dig deep in and cover new insights and
Speaker 1: inspirations that we can all use to fuel ourselves to
Speaker 1: push forward. My guest for this episode is one of
Speaker 1: the most sought after cake makers in the United States.
Speaker 1: He's known for his intricate, sensational cake designs and he
Speaker 1: hosted his own Food Nework show for ten seasons. Without
Speaker 1: further delay, let's get into my conversation with Duff Goldman
Speaker 1: look at Chip silver Fox for my first course, I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask Duff about growing up in Detroit, Virginia
Speaker 1: and coastal Massachusetts and what smells of focus sense of
Speaker 1: childhood for him today. Duff knew his answer right away,
Speaker 1: and it had nothing to do with cakes or pastries.
Speaker 1: Chicken soup, chicken soup, chicken soup. Yeah, and it's funny. Uh.
Speaker 1: Friend of mine, she's under the weather and I made
Speaker 1: her some chicken soup yesterday and I was outside and
Speaker 1: I can't walked back in the house, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, it smells like being a kid again. That's
Speaker 1: just what. It just always smelled like chicken soup. Chicken
Speaker 1: soup was constantly cooking. Did you guys chicken I gotta
Speaker 1: know this because you're Jewish. Did you remove the schmaltz
Speaker 1: and use it or did you leave it in there
Speaker 1: and just as a cover when it was like sitting
Speaker 1: in the fridge. Oh, no, you leave it in there.
Speaker 1: You leave it in there. Yeah, you leave it in
Speaker 1: there because you're saving it from montster balls. So so
Speaker 1: you you use the soup once, twice, three times, you
Speaker 1: take it off and that's the montster ball schmaltz. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Once all the fat is nice and hard and you know,
Speaker 1: solidified at the top that goes in a jar, and
Speaker 1: you're saving it from mounts balls. Oh my god, I'm
Speaker 1: like so excited. Now she's knowing that. Yeah. And but
Speaker 1: now here's the thing, my my, my mom and I
Speaker 1: kind of like birge and having some Yeah, because you know,
Speaker 1: I've worked in restaurants and like things that have been
Speaker 1: roasted taste better than things that happened. So I roast
Speaker 1: all my bones my chicken static dark yeah, and she like,
Speaker 1: she's like, that's not how you make our chicken soup.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I don't care. It's delicious. It's better
Speaker 1: than your So okay, So let's let's for people. I
Speaker 1: want I want people to understand there are two ways
Speaker 1: to cook chicken. Do you roast and then cook simmer
Speaker 1: real slow? And do you use wings or anything else?
Speaker 1: Are you just a whole bird? Very simple guy? I
Speaker 1: use wings and drumsticks. I can't find backs, like there's
Speaker 1: nowhere there's nowhere to find a chicken back anywhere, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's like, I can't you know, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: get a fifty pound frozen case of chicken backs living
Speaker 1: in my house. So I've been using I use drumsticks
Speaker 1: and wings. Drumsticks and wings to make the actual stock.
Speaker 1: What about the chicken you add to the soup? So
Speaker 1: I take all the chicken off of the legs and
Speaker 1: dice it up, wait till the soup is done out
Speaker 1: of back, So you don't use breast or thigh. I'm
Speaker 1: surprised you not a thigh guy. I mean, I'm a
Speaker 1: thigh guy, I am, But they're the thighs when you
Speaker 1: put them in chicken soup. I just feel like there's
Speaker 1: too much meat to the meat to bone ratio. It's
Speaker 1: too much meat, you know what I mean. So I
Speaker 1: like the wings and the drumsticks because you're getting nice
Speaker 1: big bones. Yeah. Wow, God, I'm learning something. And I
Speaker 1: also this is something a lot, but I put um.
Speaker 1: I put a couple of pinches of cayenne in there
Speaker 1: because for me, chicken soup is restorative and usually when
Speaker 1: I'm making it, somebody doesn't feel good and a little
Speaker 1: tiny bit of cayenne. Nobody knows it's in there, but
Speaker 1: they just know that their throat feels better after they
Speaker 1: after they have my soup a little bit of cane.
Speaker 1: So okay, So you perfected chicken soup. The smell brings
Speaker 1: you back, and the reason why you're doing it multiple
Speaker 1: times and giving it away is because it's why was
Speaker 1: in your childhood, so your cures everything time your mom
Speaker 1: was she the person that did most of the cooking,
Speaker 1: or did any of that transferred to anyone else. So
Speaker 1: my great grandmother, what was her name, Dova Esther Steinberg.
Speaker 1: We called her Mamo Mamo. Yeah. She was the baker
Speaker 1: and she was a weaver and a millionaire. She made
Speaker 1: like ladies hats. Yeah, I told her she was super
Speaker 1: nuts and u but she was like the cook, like
Speaker 1: the baker, and then kind of skipped my grandma. My
Speaker 1: grandma's incredible artist. She was a photographer, she was a
Speaker 1: silver smith, she did enamel work. She was incredible. But
Speaker 1: she didn't really like to cook very much. My mom
Speaker 1: was the one that really like got all of my
Speaker 1: great grid Like she got all of her recipes, um,
Speaker 1: and really kind of learned how to cook from my
Speaker 1: great grandmother. You know, we grew up with delicious food.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, like the thing is, like I
Speaker 1: kind of grew up in the burbs, right, I don't
Speaker 1: know where you grew up, but like you probably had
Speaker 1: like other friends who were also sophisticated that also ate
Speaker 1: good food, right, living in like the burbs in Northern Virginia.
Speaker 1: Like when I started going to friends houses right as
Speaker 1: a elementary school, and like their parents would cook dinner,
Speaker 1: you know if you were having a sleepover, and like
Speaker 1: I would taste like their parents. You know their food now, granted,
Speaker 1: like other people's food always taste a little weird when
Speaker 1: you're a kid, But nobody was cooking like we used
Speaker 1: to get. I want to turn my nose out by
Speaker 1: the way swans and TV dinners. I was a snob
Speaker 1: at five because, like you, everything was cooked fresh from me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this isn't spinach? What spinach tastes like? You
Speaker 1: just you sawte it? What's some olive oil and garlic?
Speaker 1: When you're ready to eat it? It's ready in one minute.
Speaker 1: It's not like frozen. What do we's like this patty
Speaker 1: of whipped meat with brown goop on it, and you're
Speaker 1: just like, this is groat sleep, you know, while you're
Speaker 1: very lucky. So you grew up you know, the Middle
Speaker 1: East and on Middle Etern as well, and I grew
Speaker 1: up with We made our own yogurt and it would
Speaker 1: sit around the floors and the corner over the registers
Speaker 1: and the heat. But when you take and you taste
Speaker 1: lebni fresh, you stick a spoon and it stands up
Speaker 1: and you're like, no one gets that. No, it's hard
Speaker 1: to explain people that you become a snob early on
Speaker 1: and not in a bad way. You just tasting food
Speaker 1: as it should be. At five, six, seven, eight years old,
Speaker 1: you're like, well, this is okay, My my threshold is here.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden the floor falls out
Speaker 1: when you go to someone's house. And it's interesting now
Speaker 1: being a dad, like I'm really aware of like, okay,
Speaker 1: like you know, I mean, she's gonna eat some McDonald's.
Speaker 1: Of course she is. McDonald's is great, but she's gonna
Speaker 1: know what it is, you know what I mean, She's
Speaker 1: gonna understand its place in her universe. You know, she's
Speaker 1: gonna And don't you think, like you want a hamburger, well,
Speaker 1: let's let's make one. You want some French fries, Let's
Speaker 1: let's make some, let's say, you know, and then you
Speaker 1: see the work that goes into it, and then okay,
Speaker 1: let's go buy some and then you know, actually it's
Speaker 1: fun to buy them. But the ones we made were
Speaker 1: really good. And that's the education right there. It's like
Speaker 1: you'd spend time making it. It's kind of fun to
Speaker 1: spend time cutting up and like, you know, having stories
Speaker 1: and like making a mess with your kids. It's nothing better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're putting in a wood fired oven. She's gonna learn
Speaker 1: that if she wants pizza, we need to start making
Speaker 1: it three days ahead of time. Isn't that beautiful? You know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna make dough and the next day he's
Speaker 1: already can we look at it, you know, and it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: we gotta punch it down. You know, It's I can't wait.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be great. So I I was we have
Speaker 1: a similar sort of glide path because I grew up
Speaker 1: watching galping gourmet at twelve, and you watch Chef Tell
Speaker 1: on TV, and like that said a lot to me
Speaker 1: because I already had this great food and then here's
Speaker 1: this guy traveling to Europe and like coming back and
Speaker 1: drinking wine in a suit and and if you know,
Speaker 1: you know, I know, you know me, But that's kind
Speaker 1: of like who I am, and I never knew it
Speaker 1: tenoral leven that thing would get through and become so
Speaker 1: important to me. But tell me about Chef Tell. Chef
Speaker 1: Tell he was kind of a I'll do right. It was.
Speaker 1: He was wild guys, really funny, like yeah he was
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. He like he wore like leather pants, like
Speaker 1: he was just like total like just swinging, super cool
Speaker 1: guy and like it wasn't I think what I mean,
Speaker 1: I was really young. I was probably five or six
Speaker 1: when I was watching, but like I was just like,
Speaker 1: this guy's nuts, you know, And like I think when
Speaker 1: I was looking at him when I was five or six,
Speaker 1: I was like most of the adults I know don't
Speaker 1: look or sound like this guy. This guy is different,
Speaker 1: and I like this adult. Most adults are like I don't,
Speaker 1: we're we're not speaking the same language. But like this guy,
Speaker 1: you just kind of got And there was something about that,
Speaker 1: Like my relationship with Chef Tell, I think really informed
Speaker 1: what I try to do when I'm on TV now,
Speaker 1: and I tried to like when people watch Jasy Cakes,
Speaker 1: I think that you know, there were a lot we
Speaker 1: had a lot of kids that watched Dacy Cakes, and
Speaker 1: I think the thing is was that they were looking
Speaker 1: at us and they were like, wait a minute, those
Speaker 1: are adults, and they're acting like that they're silly and
Speaker 1: they're doing cool stuff and like they dressed weird and
Speaker 1: they listen to music and they like goof around and
Speaker 1: like I want to be that kind of adult. And
Speaker 1: I think that that was like not necessarily conscious on
Speaker 1: my part, but I think it was definitely part of
Speaker 1: the d N a of sort of you know who
Speaker 1: I became. In our second course, I had to understand
Speaker 1: how Duff first found his way into the kitchen. He
Speaker 1: got his start as a fried cook at McDonald's, which
Speaker 1: thought him valuable lessons about cooking that he carries with
Speaker 1: him to this day. So I can make twelve big
Speaker 1: macs in a minute, I was like, I was good
Speaker 1: at it. They put me on the register and that
Speaker 1: didn't go so well. So they were they were like,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be cooking, and so one of the things
Speaker 1: I used to get in trouble. And granted, here's the
Speaker 1: thing I was. I had to get a permission slip
Speaker 1: from my guidance counselor at junior high school to get
Speaker 1: that job. And I mean I was young and even
Speaker 1: back then, like I was cooking fries. And the way
Speaker 1: it would work is you would you would open up
Speaker 1: the frozen fries, you drop them in the bask, you
Speaker 1: drop them in the oil, you hit the button. When
Speaker 1: the timer goes off, you pull them out, salt them
Speaker 1: and serve them. I personally thought that they needed another
Speaker 1: fifteen seconds, and I agree with you, right. I mean
Speaker 1: that Crisp doesn't stay, they don't take crispy, and they
Speaker 1: need they just need a little color. They need a
Speaker 1: little more color. And my managers were like, you gotta
Speaker 1: stop doing that. And I'm like they're better and they're like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter that like and and it was, well,
Speaker 1: it does matter. It's McDonald's taught me some really serious lessons.
Speaker 1: And I think that anybody wanting to get into culinaries
Speaker 1: should go work at McDonald's first, because you learn all
Speaker 1: the dumb stuff that nobody wants to teach you. You
Speaker 1: run nice kitchens that are putting out really crazy food.
Speaker 1: You can't have people that don't know what they're doing
Speaker 1: walking in your kitchen be like, hey, I want to
Speaker 1: I want to work it right. There's just some things
Speaker 1: you're not going to teach people, like hey, when you
Speaker 1: do this, do it the same way every single time.
Speaker 1: You know, like you know, I'm not painting to think
Speaker 1: pinion your technician. You know you're a technician. It's just
Speaker 1: seth McDonald's. You're a technician. But it's important because I
Speaker 1: tell people it's three shows a day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Speaker 1: You do the same thing every day. You better do
Speaker 1: it right fifteen hundred times a week. Well, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna have a job. That's what it is. It isn't
Speaker 1: this artism. Art Artistry comes and goes like a meteor,
Speaker 1: and when it comes you grab it. But you gotta
Speaker 1: put in a bottle. You're not selling your artistry. You're
Speaker 1: selling like, Okay, I had this, I spent all this
Speaker 1: time on this fantastic coat of birth of four. But
Speaker 1: they want the cheeseburger. They sell more, They want more
Speaker 1: of those, So you gotta like accept it and move on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a bitter pill to swallow. It's a bitter pill
Speaker 1: to swallow. But I love that the fact that you
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in um Sandwich, on Cape
Speaker 1: Cod mass And I'm a Massachusetts boy, So what the
Speaker 1: hell did you do? And sich I did. I graduated
Speaker 1: school in Sandwich. We moved up there from Virginia. Kind
Speaker 1: of split up, so, you know, we got out of
Speaker 1: My dad was in government, so we got out of
Speaker 1: the DC area, and my mom watched too much northern exposure,
Speaker 1: so she wanted some sort of brand adventure as a
Speaker 1: recent divo se and so she was like let's move
Speaker 1: to Cape Cod, you know. So we moved to Cape
Speaker 1: Cod and she, you know, it's lovely, you know her
Speaker 1: my stepdad like, oh, it's beautiful. It was like we
Speaker 1: moved there and I was like, there are three stoplights
Speaker 1: in this town. I am not cut out for this,
Speaker 1: and I ended up it's just my spiritual home. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a really wonderful place. And I love clams. I
Speaker 1: fun fact about Duff. I think about clams at least
Speaker 1: once a day. Wow, they're that good there, aren't they. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just love clams. Clams. You have to understand people's
Speaker 1: like it's a religion. They're so expensive. People don't realize
Speaker 1: they're like a fortune. A gallon of clams is like old,
Speaker 1: but like frying a clam, Like everybody in the world,
Speaker 1: there's like nine nine point eight percent of the world
Speaker 1: thinks that pride clams are clam strips, and nobody understands,
Speaker 1: like what a real ipswitch clam fried with the belly on,
Speaker 1: and like what the difference? Tell us? How you would
Speaker 1: tell him to walk us through a fried clam demo? Sorry,
Speaker 1: if I was gonna fried clams, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I've ever fried a piss plam before. So they're called
Speaker 1: piss clams because when you when you dig for him
Speaker 1: and you pull them out of the sand, they squirt
Speaker 1: water at you. Um. But so you had sort of
Speaker 1: had these sort of long squid way bodies and they
Speaker 1: got a big belly. They got this big round belly.
Speaker 1: Do you like the bellies and no bellies? You like
Speaker 1: the whole thing? Right? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the bellies
Speaker 1: that's the part. Right. It's the it's like you get
Speaker 1: all you get all this crunch, you get all this
Speaker 1: chew from like the clam meat, but then you get
Speaker 1: the belly and it's like a gusher. Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. So I do like it with a roll
Speaker 1: toasted or you like it, um, just in a in
Speaker 1: a pint cup with mayonnaise or or or tartars. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like him. I like him in a huge I
Speaker 1: Am pole and a big thing of tartar sauce and
Speaker 1: a Parker House roll cold butter. Yeah. Man. So you're
Speaker 1: like you're sort of like graduating Baltimore. You've got a
Speaker 1: history degree, philosophy degree, and then you just said, screw it,
Speaker 1: I'm going to culinary school. You know, it's funny. So
Speaker 1: when I was when I was a kid, when I
Speaker 1: was young, the reason I got a job at McDonald's
Speaker 1: was because I was a graffiti artist and you know,
Speaker 1: I couldn't ask my mom for money for spray paint,
Speaker 1: so I had to get a job. And so I
Speaker 1: got a job so I could make enough money to
Speaker 1: buy spray paint. That was kind of my intro to cooking,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, everybody finds it differently, you know.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm sure you have a crazy story about like,
Speaker 1: you know, how you actually started doing it, but it's
Speaker 1: like that was it. I just I needed a paycheck,
Speaker 1: and so that was my first job. And then, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like as I went through high school, I
Speaker 1: just kept working in different places. I worked at pizza place.
Speaker 1: It's just what I did. And then when when I
Speaker 1: was a senior in high school, and I like, I
Speaker 1: remember the moment I was working at Sandwich Pizza, which
Speaker 1: is the pizza place in Sandwich, Massachusetts, not a place
Speaker 1: that makes sandwiches out And so I was making a
Speaker 1: steak and cheese and so I had a big block
Speaker 1: of frozen shaped meat banging it on the flat top
Speaker 1: and I'm cutting it up with two big grittle spatules yea.
Speaker 1: And I noticed as I was doing that, my brother
Speaker 1: was in the kitchen and he like came to the
Speaker 1: restaurant because he wanted to take and cheese. So I
Speaker 1: was talking to my brother and the whole time I
Speaker 1: was like and so I like realized, I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm just doing this. My hands are just doing this
Speaker 1: completely on their own while I'm having a whole conversation
Speaker 1: with my brother, and I'm not at all focused. I'm
Speaker 1: good at this. I should be a chef. I was like,
Speaker 1: that was the moment that I was. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to underground Billy for our
Speaker 1: third course. I dug into how Duff followed that drive
Speaker 1: to become a chef all the way to the top.
Speaker 1: He skyrocketed from culinary school to the French laundry, to
Speaker 1: executive pastry chef and a ski resort in Colorado. But
Speaker 1: Duff says it all started with cornbread and biscuits. So
Speaker 1: I was working at you do you know Cindy Wolf? Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I was working for Cindy Wolf and she was like, look,
Speaker 1: you know, she wasn't gonna hire me to cook because
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to cook. She's like, I'll teach
Speaker 1: you how to bake cornbread and biscuits. You can do
Speaker 1: that Tuesday, two days a week. Watch these guys, and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe, you know, we'll see what happens. So
Speaker 1: I ended up baking cornbread every day for two years,
Speaker 1: and I just fell in love with it. Got good
Speaker 1: at it, Yeah, I got well, yeah, I got real
Speaker 1: it at it. I just would notice, like I I
Speaker 1: saw how my awareness of the world changed in that,
Speaker 1: Like I knew if it was going to be humid,
Speaker 1: I knew that, like the cornbread wasn't gonna caramelize the
Speaker 1: way that he usually does, or you know, I would
Speaker 1: like if the butter milk was to gloppy. I knew
Speaker 1: that it was going to be a thicker batter, you know,
Speaker 1: it was going to be a standard mean, just like
Speaker 1: all these little things that I started noticing because you're
Speaker 1: doing the same thing over and over every day for
Speaker 1: two years. It's like being in solitary confinement. You start
Speaker 1: noticing the minutia. And I loved it. I just loved it.
Speaker 1: I loved trying to understand the side I didn't even
Speaker 1: know where to look at this point, you know, but
Speaker 1: trying to understand sort of like what was happening here.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I have a degree in philosophy.
Speaker 1: I'm analytical, so I was. I was at our exact
Speaker 1: seu's house and on his coffee table there was brochure
Speaker 1: for Graystone, and I was just like, whoa, look at
Speaker 1: this place. Looks that looks best way you saw. I
Speaker 1: love this brochure. Let's go. It's great. And then I
Speaker 1: was reading through it and they're like, yeah, they have
Speaker 1: a pastry program. And the thing that I really liked
Speaker 1: about it was that they had a certificate program. It
Speaker 1: was like thirty weeks right. I was like, look, I
Speaker 1: just graduated college. I don't need another degree. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be in school for two years. It's like
Speaker 1: this place, man, thirty weeks in and out. And I
Speaker 1: was like, that's what I'm doing, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: isn't that People understand how beautiful it is. It's like Hogwarts.
Speaker 1: I mean you walk in there and it's just the
Speaker 1: staircase that just goes all the way up and then
Speaker 1: you get up there and the teaching kitchen, I mean
Speaker 1: you have every amazing piece of equipment that you could
Speaker 1: ever want that you'll never see in the real world
Speaker 1: because nobody has a steam injected bone guard oven unless
Speaker 1: you're you know, Daniel Blut, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just it was just amazing and like
Speaker 1: the teachers are incredible that you know, you have every herb.
Speaker 1: California is you know, California is awesome. Everything grows there, everything, everything,
Speaker 1: And so I also so the great thing about that
Speaker 1: program is you've got to stage at some really good places.
Speaker 1: So you're now in the thick of it. You're in
Speaker 1: the weeds and the swamp, but you're in like Nirvana
Speaker 1: at the same time because you're working at French Laundry,
Speaker 1: one of the greatest restaurants in the world, as a
Speaker 1: stage and you met a gentleman Stephen was a great
Speaker 1: great pastry shift. So what was that experience like and
Speaker 1: how did that sort of push you? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: how did that push you in what? And in which direction? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think, um, you know, people ask about the French
Speaker 1: Launge is like, you know, what did you learn there?
Speaker 1: I think the thing that I learned the most is
Speaker 1: digging deep, right, like making sure that like my first
Speaker 1: plate and my last plate are identical, and that there's
Speaker 1: just as much heart and love and soul that went
Speaker 1: into the last plate of dinner that night that went
Speaker 1: into the first plate. Everybody expects an incre doable experience
Speaker 1: and you have to give it to him. And I
Speaker 1: think that was one of the things where you know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the night, you know, I was young,
Speaker 1: and like you know you you like, oh man, I'm
Speaker 1: just kind of beat, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter that play has to be absolutely perfect every
Speaker 1: single time. And I think that it was that like
Speaker 1: I learned the depths of myself there, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And Stephen himself, Like the thing about Stephen is,
Speaker 1: uh Stephen Derfy is he's like next level smart and
Speaker 1: you've got to really pay attention, and you know, you
Speaker 1: don't have time to be taking notes like you really
Speaker 1: you learn to be on your toes. Tell us people
Speaker 1: about like the chef life when you're working in a
Speaker 1: place in the stage and what's the chef life hours
Speaker 1: your lifestyle out of the restaurant. Many people have a
Speaker 1: very glorious view of what it's like to be in
Speaker 1: the chef in the chef world, and I think that
Speaker 1: people don't really understand, like basically, you get up, you
Speaker 1: wash your clothes, and you go to work and the
Speaker 1: print and repeat. Yeah. So I was there for about
Speaker 1: eight months. I didn't get paid. I would usually get
Speaker 1: there at about seven thirty. I was one of the
Speaker 1: first people there, and I would get the pastry station ready.
Speaker 1: So I did take a Q tip and I got
Speaker 1: to make sure that all of the chocolate molds are
Speaker 1: perfectly clean, you know, because if there's any little speck
Speaker 1: of anything, and you know, we're making all these chocolates
Speaker 1: because at the end of the night, when you get
Speaker 1: your billy, you get these really nice little chocolates make
Speaker 1: and if any of those molds had any specum anything,
Speaker 1: that chocolate wouldn't come out to total waste um. So
Speaker 1: that was one of the first things I did. I
Speaker 1: would pull out all of the sorbet from the night before.
Speaker 1: I'd have to pull all those out and let them
Speaker 1: melt so we could re spend them so they were
Speaker 1: fresh for service at night. Can't do that with ice
Speaker 1: cream because the fat starts to congeal. I would also
Speaker 1: do the prep for the cheese guy, so I would
Speaker 1: like get a bunch of his herbs altogether and get
Speaker 1: a lot of his stuff ready. I had to unwrap
Speaker 1: his roque because the guy had really sensitive skin, and
Speaker 1: the Brian on the Yokfort the Roefort used to like
Speaker 1: chap his hands, so I have to like unwrap and
Speaker 1: portion all the rokeeford for the fromager. So there was like,
Speaker 1: you know, that was kind of my uh my morning.
Speaker 1: And then after that it was like here, make these
Speaker 1: potato chips. Here, duff, make these gugers. You know, it
Speaker 1: was that kind of thing. And then when all the
Speaker 1: other cooks started getting there and everybody, you know, you
Speaker 1: really start getting ready for service. My station was a
Speaker 1: cutting board on the hamper, uh in the parking line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thirty cooks and that you know, not anymore. These expanded it.
Speaker 1: But it was a small little place. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that's very important. Like you said, you didn't get paid,
Speaker 1: but like you just mentioned the like twelve techniques that
Speaker 1: you learned, and I would say that that's a lot
Speaker 1: of payment. You learned things. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, invaluable.
Speaker 1: The reason I said, because I know there's a lot
Speaker 1: of there's a lot of debate back and forth with
Speaker 1: about paid internships and unpaid internships. I gotta say I
Speaker 1: would I would have stuck around there for two years
Speaker 1: not getting paid. I mean I was the things I
Speaker 1: was learning at that place, you know, I mean just
Speaker 1: learning how to move, learning how to think, you know,
Speaker 1: just learning how to put stuff together. It was you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred whether I wasn't complaining, you know what. I
Speaker 1: didn't mean for it to come out like that. No, No, no,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't mean at all. And I have
Speaker 1: the same problem today. It's like it's very hard to
Speaker 1: have people that want to actually do that. It's a
Speaker 1: very much. You know, You're walking in the kitchen and
Speaker 1: they say, well, is there a four one K plan here?
Speaker 1: And I'm like wrong question? Yeah, like wrong question. Go
Speaker 1: back out, come in and asking that question again. You know,
Speaker 1: I tell people like specially when they're going to Coliner
Speaker 1: sm like listen, like you know, cooking, if you need
Speaker 1: a job to earn a paycheck, cooking is not what
Speaker 1: you want to be doing. It's not easy. It's not
Speaker 1: you have to love it. You have to be obsessed
Speaker 1: about food. And when you take a bite of something,
Speaker 1: you know, say it's a I don't know, a Reese's
Speaker 1: peanut butter cup. Right, you take a bite of a
Speaker 1: Reese peanut butter cup the way I think about a
Speaker 1: Reese's peanut butter cups, Like you know, I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: all right, the chocolate that's on the edges is like
Speaker 1: really kind of thick, and you get a little bit
Speaker 1: of a snap to it when you bite it into it.
Speaker 1: The chocolate that's underneath it super duper thin, and with
Speaker 1: your tongue you can actually like press it and it'll
Speaker 1: mush into the peanut butter a little bit. And then
Speaker 1: when you bite down the little ridges they kind of
Speaker 1: hit your lip here and here and like that. So
Speaker 1: that's like this, that's sort of the bite, and then
Speaker 1: you're getting like sweet chocolate, sweet chocolate, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you know, here's a bunch of salty peanut butter, right,
Speaker 1: and what a big crazy gear ship that happens in
Speaker 1: your in your mouth. Right, That's how I think about
Speaker 1: a Reese's peanut butter cup. And if you don't think
Speaker 1: about the food you enjoy, why you enjoy it cooking,
Speaker 1: you just it's not for you. It's like it's hard,
Speaker 1: it's hard, hard work, and you know, you get burned,
Speaker 1: you get yelled at. It's not you know, it's just
Speaker 1: not an easy thing for people to keep doing over
Speaker 1: and over again unless you love it. You know, you
Speaker 1: have to love it. And you you're learning this for nothing.
Speaker 1: You moved to California, I mean to Colorado at Cascade
Speaker 1: Beautiful Resort, and now you're the exact patroyship. That is
Speaker 1: a stunning leap. That's like, come on, ye, So have
Speaker 1: you ever lived in a resort town? If I ever
Speaker 1: lived in No, I've moved back and forth. I mean
Speaker 1: I've gone to them many many times. I've never actually
Speaker 1: seen a lot of time. So one of the things
Speaker 1: about a resort town is that talent is hard to find.
Speaker 1: And in Veil, you know, it's like, you know, the
Speaker 1: One Eyed Man as king in the Land of the Blind, right,
Speaker 1: and there's just not a lot of people that know much.
Speaker 1: And so I got there. I had some buddies from
Speaker 1: high school that were kind of waster snowboarders, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I left California actually walked out of French laundry.
Speaker 1: I was like, just like I felt like somebody took
Speaker 1: a bur mixer and kind of blended up my brain,
Speaker 1: like I for a year at that place. I was
Speaker 1: I was crazy. So I was like, all right, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go hang out. My friends live on their couch
Speaker 1: and snowboard. Right. I was done. I just I was broken.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know if I wanted to cook anymore.
Speaker 1: Like it was crazy. So I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: I gotta get a job. After a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: I was like living on my credit cards. So I
Speaker 1: gotta get a job. So buddy mine. I knew a
Speaker 1: guy who was a room service runner at the Veil Cascade,
Speaker 1: at this beautiful hotel, and so he got me an
Speaker 1: interview with the chef. I went in there. I was like, look,
Speaker 1: I just want to bake bread. Let me come in.
Speaker 1: I'm a good bread baker. I'll break you all kinds
Speaker 1: of delicious bread. I'll go home. It'll be like a
Speaker 1: nice show job. He's like, I I need a bread baker,
Speaker 1: but I also need a executive facer chef. And I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm twenty two. I was in culinary school.
Speaker 1: I worked at the French laundry. I don't know how
Speaker 1: to make desserts for people. I just don't know how
Speaker 1: to do it. I've never done that and he was like,
Speaker 1: you'll figure it out. I love Yeah, Yeah, he's amazing.
Speaker 1: His name is Jesse Lapatan, And I was like, I
Speaker 1: really don't want to be the executive pacier chef. I
Speaker 1: don't know how to do it. I don't have the
Speaker 1: I don't have the soul for right now. I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm broken. Let me just do my thing. And he
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not gonna hire you. I'm only gonna
Speaker 1: hire his second of pat. So he was a really
Speaker 1: funny guy, and uh, he talked me into him. He's
Speaker 1: like the cook whisperer, you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 1: I came to him like completely broken. And when I
Speaker 1: left there, I was doing sugar sculptures. I was doing
Speaker 1: chocolate sculptures. I was carving ice, you know, like I mean,
Speaker 1: he just really like, you know, he found me this quivering,
Speaker 1: you know, hunk of meat and he built me back
Speaker 1: up in New you know, somebody who was actually useful. Again,
Speaker 1: that's incredible, what incredible story. Well, he saw something, obviously,
Speaker 1: I think he just saw somebody that knew what the
Speaker 1: difference between ap flower and cake flower was. Honestly, for
Speaker 1: our fourth and final course, I got to ask stuff
Speaker 1: about how all that incredible training prepared him for his
Speaker 1: own ventures and for all that's next. Turns out, the
Speaker 1: beginning of Duff's career working for himself started in a
Speaker 1: very humble Baltimore apartment. Well here's what happened. So, um,
Speaker 1: I think one of my cousins went to olives in
Speaker 1: Boston and uh saw Tied English in there and he
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, my cousin is a pastry chef. So
Speaker 1: Todd's like, tell him to send his resume. So my
Speaker 1: cousin calls me all excited, like Todd Englis told told
Speaker 1: me to tell you to send your resume because he
Speaker 1: needs a pastry shop, and like he probably says that
Speaker 1: to every idiot that walks up to and says, hey,
Speaker 1: my cousin's a pastry shop, right, Like what do you say?
Speaker 1: You know? So I was like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: send him a resume. So I did, and then I
Speaker 1: got a call and he was like, hey, I'm opening
Speaker 1: up a place in d C. Come in interviews. So
Speaker 1: I actually ended up moving to d C. Back home,
Speaker 1: I was a bread baker there. So then I was
Speaker 1: like really close to Baltimore, which is where I went
Speaker 1: to undergrad. That where all my friends were, and that's
Speaker 1: where all my like musician friends were. So I started
Speaker 1: playing music again, like seriously. We started getting good, and
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, I'm gonna move back
Speaker 1: to Baltimore. So I left all. I was at Alls
Speaker 1: for about a year, moved back to Baltimore in two
Speaker 1: thousand two. Open Charm City Cakes so I could pay
Speaker 1: the rent. Right, So I was making cakes in my
Speaker 1: apartment in Baltimore so I could make enough money that
Speaker 1: I could, you know, pay the bills and I could
Speaker 1: become a big famous rock star in my emo band,
Speaker 1: which was called Two Day Romance. What a great name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good. So the thing was we were actually really
Speaker 1: good band, and like we were played some pretty big shows,
Speaker 1: you know, were like opened up for some really big bands,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, we were like we were doing
Speaker 1: the thing right. And the thing was, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I was still like in my early twenties, so I
Speaker 1: was like, if it's good, if I'm gonna be a
Speaker 1: like a rock star, it's gonna happen now. It doesn't
Speaker 1: happen when you're in your thirties, right, And he likes
Speaker 1: the old fat rock start every like young, young fat rocks.
Speaker 1: So I was, you know, like trying to be in
Speaker 1: a band. And so I was like, all right, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna open up. I'm gonna start selling cakes and uh
Speaker 1: that's how I'm gonna pay the rent. Well, then all
Speaker 1: my buddies were musicians. So my friend Jeff is a musician.
Speaker 1: He was like he was working as an architectural model builder,
Speaker 1: and he was like, all right, I'm done with this.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to do with duffs. Do duf's
Speaker 1: like playing music. I've owned the business. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, if I'm gonna be on tour for two weeks,
Speaker 1: I'm not taking any cake orders and I'm going on tour. Right.
Speaker 1: It was great. I was broke, but it was great.
Speaker 1: So Jeff is like, all right, I want to work
Speaker 1: for you. So I hired my buddy Jeff, and then
Speaker 1: my other friend Chris hired him. Basically, were like a
Speaker 1: group of dudes working in my apartment and like something
Speaker 1: that weird, like word gets out right, like a bunch
Speaker 1: of dudes and rock bands are making these like beautiful
Speaker 1: Martha Stewart wedding cakes. Like that's a very Baltimore thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and so we start to get bigger, you know,
Speaker 1: and like you know, and started get more orders and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I was like, man, we need some help because like,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to work this hard. So I got
Speaker 1: an email from this young lady who was a like
Speaker 1: a sophomore at MICA, the Maryland Institute College of Art,
Speaker 1: which is the art school in Baltimore, really really good school,
Speaker 1: and she's like, I want to be an intern. And
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't even have a Health Department certification,
Speaker 1: Like I can't have an intern like these place isn't legal.
Speaker 1: And so she was like, I really want to know.
Speaker 1: I want to work there. I want to make cakes.
Speaker 1: I love this stuff. And so she came and I
Speaker 1: remember her first day. I taught her how to make
Speaker 1: pastiage roses, these you know, little roses out at a
Speaker 1: gun bay and she's doing that and I'm making a pug, right,
Speaker 1: so I'm carving this cake to look like a dog.
Speaker 1: So I'm carving this thing and she's making the roses
Speaker 1: and she's like she's like nineteen, like eighteen, nineteen years old.
Speaker 1: She's like I think I could do that. And I
Speaker 1: was just like, let's like learn how to walk before
Speaker 1: you learn how to run, you know what I mean, like,
Speaker 1: you know, do the roses. And she's like, okay, I
Speaker 1: get it. So I'm like, you know, I'm just doing
Speaker 1: my thing. And then she's like, you know, I really
Speaker 1: think I could do that. I was like, you know what.
Speaker 1: She kind of seems like very sure of herself, and
Speaker 1: I was like, whatever, it's his cake. You know, if
Speaker 1: she messes up, we can make another. So I give
Speaker 1: her the cake and I'm like, all right, go for it.
Speaker 1: So she starts going for it, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: she never decorated a cake in her life. She's like
Speaker 1: carving at it. And then like we iced it together,
Speaker 1: you know, I showed her how to is so buttercream.
Speaker 1: We put fonding on it, and I give her the
Speaker 1: airbrush and she starts airbrush on this thing, and like
Speaker 1: she makes a photo realistic looking dog light years better
Speaker 1: than anything I would have. And I'm pretty good, right,
Speaker 1: I'm a good cake that greater and she absolutely killed
Speaker 1: And I was just like, man, you got any friends?
Speaker 1: And she's like yeah. So then her roommate showed up,
Speaker 1: and her roommate back then is now my g M.
Speaker 1: She's running the whole East coast. Yeah, it's crazy crazy.
Speaker 1: So then we got all these kids from art school, right,
Speaker 1: So it started out just like a bunch of dudes
Speaker 1: tattoos and rock bands. And now we have like all
Speaker 1: these like kids with like blue hair and you know,
Speaker 1: a bunch of like weirdo art school kids. And it
Speaker 1: was great because like we were like the stuff that
Speaker 1: we were making was just like, you know, there was
Speaker 1: no rules like that. You know, there was no there
Speaker 1: was no guide book for this, Like there's no like, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's how you make a cake that has a motor
Speaker 1: in it, right, Like we just had to sort of
Speaker 1: figure it out. It was fun. When did a food
Speaker 1: network find it? So it was like two thousand and
Speaker 1: four and I got invited to compete for Bone Appetite
Speaker 1: in Beaver Creek. They had a big bone ampete and
Speaker 1: a big and so I was like, yeah, that'd be awesome,
Speaker 1: so you know, I could go see all my friends
Speaker 1: and bail. So I went to Beaver Creek and I
Speaker 1: never competed in a professional cake decorating thing before I've done.
Speaker 1: I did like ice carving competitions and like some other stuff,
Speaker 1: but never cake decorating. So you know, I didn't really
Speaker 1: know what to expect. I get there. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: you could have bring an assistant, right, everybody had an assistant.
Speaker 1: I didn't. And then there was all these like rules, Right,
Speaker 1: you have to stay in your station, you can't like
Speaker 1: walk around to the other side of the table. You
Speaker 1: get like, this wasn't a televised thing. Long story short,
Speaker 1: I broke all the rules. I made an amazing cake,
Speaker 1: but like I literally set the table on fire because
Speaker 1: I was welding. I brought an arc welder with me
Speaker 1: because I was making this crazy big tree. It was
Speaker 1: super cool. And so the judges to two of those
Speaker 1: judges were on Food Network Challenge, but they went back
Speaker 1: to food I mean they were like, hey, there's this kid.
Speaker 1: He's like twenty five. He's an idiot, but like he
Speaker 1: makes really cool stuff. You should probably have him on
Speaker 1: the Food Network Challenge. And so they called me and
Speaker 1: they were like, hey, do you want to compete on TV?
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, sure, you know, so I
Speaker 1: asked Jeff. You know, I was like, hey, man, you
Speaker 1: want to you want to go do this? It was
Speaker 1: actually really good because, like, you know, I'm very from
Speaker 1: the hip. My style is very kind of like loosey goosey,
Speaker 1: and Jeff is like, you know, he was an architectural
Speaker 1: model builder, right he was, you know, and uh so
Speaker 1: like our style, it was good. Like we we complimented
Speaker 1: each other. And so we started doing those Food Network
Speaker 1: challenges like we never we never did good, like we
Speaker 1: always our cakes would fall apart, or like we'd come
Speaker 1: in like maybe third, you know, or something like that.
Speaker 1: We were never waiting. But they kept asking me back,
Speaker 1: and like one day, I was like, why do you
Speaker 1: guys keep having us back? Like we're not very good,
Speaker 1: you know, we're not as good as everybody else. And
Speaker 1: they were like, you guys are funny. You're the only
Speaker 1: one that tells jokes. And I was like, okay, well
Speaker 1: you know I can tell jokes. And uh then they
Speaker 1: wanted to get some be wroll and so what they
Speaker 1: did was they sent a crew to the bakery. They
Speaker 1: come to the bakery, it's all these like dudes, tattoos
Speaker 1: and people with blue hair. There's like eleven of us.
Speaker 1: And they were like, it's not just you and Jeff,
Speaker 1: it's like all these crazy Baltimore kids. And so they like,
Speaker 1: you know, they were like we need to make this
Speaker 1: into a TV show because you guys are nuts. And
Speaker 1: so they showed up with cameras and that was it.
Speaker 1: I got tense. How many seasons? Ten season tense? And
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's crazy because like you're trying to
Speaker 1: run a business like I was, like, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: run am trying to run a cake shop, trying to
Speaker 1: pay the bills, and like you're also making a TV
Speaker 1: show in the middle. It's crazy. Well, it's just if
Speaker 1: you speak, if you speak your mind, and it's amazing
Speaker 1: that all the bullshit you can cut right through and
Speaker 1: people actually see the authenticity. And I think that everybody
Speaker 1: sees your authenticity is such to the fact that you've
Speaker 1: got like how many of these studios you have now
Speaker 1: the cake makes places? Oh man, well we had five,
Speaker 1: now we have one. You you open some of the pandemic. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we are pandemic. Like I mean, it was really you know,
Speaker 1: you think about like my studios were a bunch of
Speaker 1: people come and inside of a building and you know,
Speaker 1: a bunch of kids running around decorating cakes, working with
Speaker 1: their hands. I know, I had my two daughters there.
Speaker 1: We had a blast doing it and there's so there's
Speaker 1: it's fun. It's so fun, and it's like so unusual
Speaker 1: in the middle of a big city. It's like, let's
Speaker 1: go on, let's make some cakes. And you make it
Speaker 1: so easy, and it was so well, it was so
Speaker 1: smartly organized, and it was such a clean space, and
Speaker 1: kids need that kind of vocational sort of stuff that
Speaker 1: sometimes the parents, you know, we don't have those things anymore.
Speaker 1: Mom and dad. Who knows how to make a cake anymore?
Speaker 1: I'm scratch it's hard, yeah, you know it beyond that too.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's something that I found and this was
Speaker 1: after I opened it that I noticed this, or at
Speaker 1: least articulated it. The thing that I love seeing as
Speaker 1: kids come in there and you can tell they're a
Speaker 1: little aloof and they might be like a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, a little bit nervous about trying something like
Speaker 1: this because it's crazy. And when they're done and they're
Speaker 1: looking at this thing they made, they're like, I am
Speaker 1: a pastry god. You know, just this sense of accomplishment
Speaker 1: that you've been able to give somebody And when you
Speaker 1: think about like where that can go, and it's I
Speaker 1: like to think of like, you know, when when you
Speaker 1: give somebody an opportunity to have that sense of accomplishment
Speaker 1: for themselves. If that's like a new feeling for them,
Speaker 1: well then now it's like, well where else can I
Speaker 1: get that feeling? I'm not trying to make everybody into
Speaker 1: a cake decreater. I just want everybody to be awesome.
Speaker 1: You can be like, wait, I want that sense of accomplishment.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna like run sprints every day and you know
Speaker 1: I'm gonna run a four four forty and right and
Speaker 1: when I hit it right, you know that's it. Like
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm gonna see this happen. I can
Speaker 1: there's something in my mind that I know that I
Speaker 1: don't know how to do. Right now, I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna do this thing like I'm smart
Speaker 1: enough and I can figure it out. So it seems
Speaker 1: like you've got a lot figured out, but you know,
Speaker 1: you never can figure out a baby. And you have
Speaker 1: this beautiful daughter, Josephine. So everything's changed, and what what's
Speaker 1: next for you? What's the future look like? The immediate future,
Speaker 1: no one knows the full future, but as far as
Speaker 1: your brand and your family, you know, where are you going? What?
Speaker 1: What do you way you want to go? First of all,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean the thing is is like
Speaker 1: like mentoring kids on kids making championship and um great.
Speaker 1: So you know, I've been really just like you know,
Speaker 1: with my daughter, like I've been really getting into kids stuff,
Speaker 1: like I love I just wrote a kids cookbook, Super
Speaker 1: Good Baking for Kids, and it's like it's amazing the
Speaker 1: messages I'm getting on Instagram, like hey, my kid has
Speaker 1: your book. Look at this cake they just made. She's seven, right,
Speaker 1: you know, And it's just like that kind of thing
Speaker 1: for me, I think is you know, that's the most rewarding.
Speaker 1: I think like doing stuff with kids. Kids are so excited.
Speaker 1: A lot of times, like adults, like life has beaten
Speaker 1: them down. We lose our, you lose your your joy
Speaker 1: and your verb and your curiosity and your your enthusiasm,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think like with kids, like they
Speaker 1: still got it. But it's like I love doing this stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, like I just love it. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's next. I don't know what's next season.
Speaker 1: But all I know is I've had at delightful hour.
Speaker 1: It just flew by. It's just wonderful to talk to you.
Speaker 1: You have such a great calm viewpoint of things, and um,
Speaker 1: I know it doesn't come from you being calm, because
Speaker 1: I don't think you're a calm person. I think that
Speaker 1: you know, part part graffiti artists, part musician, part rock
Speaker 1: star and great human being. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: spending time with me, Ma Man, Thanks Man, back at
Speaker 1: your buddy, Thanks very much for listening to Four Courses
Speaker 1: with Jeffrey Zcarean, a production of I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Corner Table Entertainment. Four Courses is created by Jeffrey Zcarrion,
Speaker 1: Margaret Zecarrion, Jared Keller, and Tara Helper. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Christopher Hasiotis. Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Haws Dressler.
Speaker 1: Our research is conducted by Jesselyn Shields. Our talent booking
Speaker 1: is by Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent. This episode was
Speaker 1: edited and written by Priya Mahadevan and mixed by Joe Tistle.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Katie Fellman for help as recording engineered.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.