Hello chefs. This is Chefs PSA.
I'm your host Andre Natera. Today I'm joined by Chef Patrick
Mitchell, corporate culinary ambassador for Benny Keith Foods
headquartered in Fort Worth, TX Chef Patrick was named the 2016
ACF National Chef of the Year, and he's also the author of The
Plating Window with a second book on the way.
We're talking chef certification, culinary
competitions, what it takes to keep pushing yourself as a
professional chef. Stay tuned.
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the industry doesn't need more noise.
It needs more leaders. For people that don't know, we
work together. I don't know, I've probably
close to 10 years. Obviously I've known you for for
27 years, right. And you know, I talk about this
often on the on the podcast is my early, you know, my culinary
childhood and my upbringing being around competitions and,
and, and the ACF and, and growing up in that environment
around a lot of chefs and the network and the food grazers and
the competitions, everything that goes with it.
But the missing part to a lot of those stories is a lot of that
was with you. So I think for the audience
listening, I would probably say the the first question I would
ask you is throughout your career as a chef, approximately
how many competitions have you competed in?
Oh wow. Well, you know, the book talks
about the 40 year journey from my first competition and how I
got started in it until I I really quit competing.
But in those forty years I would say, you know, 70 I think would
be a good guess. I didn't do 2A year every year
religiously, but there were a lot of years that I didn't do
any and a lot of years I did two or three, maybe 4, so I think
that's a good number. 70 Yeah. How many of them did you win?
Oh geez, Andre in my mind. I should have won all of them,
but. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a tough,
you know, I think I won a little bit in every one of them because
you learn something in each competition.
And I tell people when they when their first competitions, the
most important part of the competition is the critique
because that's where you really learn.
And, you know, you can put all kinds of great food out there
and all that stuff. But but when you get critiqued,
that's you learn the secrets. Yeah.
You know, you, you carry so much knowledge in, in competition and
professionalism and I will commend you on the show here.
About what a professional. No, correct me if I'm wrong, you
won the ACF Chef Professionalism Award.
For the central region, yeah, it was a big honor.
I won that I think in 2005 and it's the LJ minor
professionalism award and and they awarded to one chef out of
each of the four regions. And then they have the national
champion that they select one of those four for national.
But it's based on things that you've done, bringing up
apprentices, doing things to really promote the industry and
the profession, you know, and, and.
Well, the reason I bring this up because I have a great story,
which maybe you haven't thought of in 20 years, but it's about
the professionalism that you have.
So we were doing the you had won the Dallas Morning News Rising
Starship competition. Do you remember this?
Yeah, you remember. I don't remember what year you
would have. Won.
I don't either. But it probably was like 2002 or
so, right? And I want to say the year or so
after I was competing in the competition for the Dallas
Morning News Rising Star Chef, right?
And it was my first year competing.
And you had really encouraged me to compete in this, in this
competition. And it wasn't my first cooking
competition, but for me it was, it was still early.
It was like the second or third. It was, I hadn't done many.
I had done a couple in Denver, but nothing, nothing really.
And we had, we had done a lot of coaching, but you were very
strict about coaching me because you're also judging.
Do you remember? Was I judging that?
You were judging. You were for sure judging.
And this is exactly where this story is going.
OK, so you were judging the competition.
This speaks to your professionalism in a good way.
And you know why I despise your professionalism so much still to
this day. So I'm in the cooking
competition. And for people that don't know,
back then this was kind of a big deal, this rising star chef
competition in Dallas. And there's questions you had to
qualify to get into it. Yeah, right.
And it was at the Fairmont. Yeah, it was at Inside the
Brasserie, Inside the Brasserie at the Fairmont in Dallas.
This was when the Fairmont Dallas was the Fairmont Dallas.
And Roger Hyde was the chef, I think at the time.
And I remember they had camera crews in there and they're
filming everything for the competition.
And I don't remember what I was making.
I was making like some knock off of a Charlie Trotter dish and I
was making mashed potatoes and I was mashing them and I was
pouring the cream. And I got nervous because the
cameraman was standing on the stainless steel above top shot
down watching me mix. And I was pouring in the cream.
And I got so nervous that I poured too much cream.
And it was just like soup, right?
And so I ended up losing the competition.
And I remember the first thing you came out because you didn't
know which one was my dish. You did not know which one was
my dish until after you came up to me and said, was that your
dish? And I said, yeah, that was my
dish. And he said, I'll never forget.
He said, what the hell happened with the potatoes?
And I was like, well, you knew it was my dish.
Why did I not win regardless of the potatoes?
But I ended up winning later on when you weren't the judge.
So. But for people that often talk
about, sometimes there's a conflict of interest in
competitions because you're judging your friends, you're
judging your peers, people that you you travel with, you compete
with people that you've known through through the federation.
And sometimes you got to be hard on them and tell them, hey,
potatoes suck. Well, you know, that's the same
people people talk about. You know, I try not to get
myself in those situations, but if I have a competitor that
worked for me or that I know or something like that, and I have
to judge them, I have to judge them.
So you have to be fair. You have to be honest with them.
Nobody appreciates winning something that's been given to
them, so you know it would do them a disservice.
Yeah. What is What is your current
role with competitions and when was the last time you competed
in a competition? Well, the last time I competed
was at the Global Chef's Challenge in Kuala Lumpur, and
that was in 2018. Currently, after that, I I've
stepped down from competition and I am judging, I'm mentoring,
coaching, doing those kind of things, helping support those
coming up. So I want to get into the
mindset of a competitor. And by the way, great book for
people. So for people that are
listening, can you tell people the the title of the book?
Yeah. It's the plating window and it's
culinary competitions, stories of culinary competitions, a
chef's journey and it's the 40 year journey of how I got
started and introduced the competitions until that Kuala
Lumpur competition and then actually a little bit beyond
that into mentoring and then kind of giving back.
Yeah, the beautiful cover too. Is that me on the cover with
you? Not, is it?
That's interesting choice. Well, this interview's over.
I. Knew I was going.
To be that short. One, no, I'm kidding.
It's a great book. But the reason I want to get
into the competition's a little bit is because I think
immediately people think competitions are not for me and
why would I compete there? You know, sometimes from the
outside looking in, you might not immediately see the value of
a competition. I recall a time that you had
come and helped one of my sous chefs prepare for a competition.
You came in and you did some coaching for them and there were
so many little things that we don't think about when we're in
the culinary operation, when we're in the restaurants of how
much crossover there actually is between culinary competitions
and the daily culinary operation, how they improve each
other. Well, I guess the first question
is why is it important for a chef to compete?
What are some of the advantages that you received from being a
culinary competitor and what are some of the advantages that you
think that someone just, you know, a chef in a hotel or a
restaurant would get from competing?
Well, you know, a lot of people say competition is not, it's not
real life, it's not what you do in a kitchen day-to-day.
And, and I argue that point with the fact that what you gain out
of competition, it forces you to work at a very high level of
competency for extended period of time.
And when you up your game and work at that level for extended
period of time, when you go back to work, you don't say, OK, now
I'm going to go back to the lower level that I used to work
at. That's, that's your new
standard. And then people in the kitchen
see that new standard and they, they kind of emulate that
standard as well. So, you know, that's, that's
what I've gained out of competition.
There's, there's creativity, there's seeing new, new ideas,
different things that other competitors are doing.
And it's, and it's also, it forces you to be very organized,
setting up your workstation, organized, working, clean,
working, meticulous. These are all things that that
just translate to success in the industry.
And in general, what are the, obviously there's all sorts of
competitions, but what are the main types of competitions that
most people will compete in that you could probably find, you
know, throughout the United States and all over the world?
So the American, the American Culinary Federation and Wax, the
World Association of Chef Society kind of aligned pretty
well. And most of the the competitions
these days are hot food competitions.
Could be a wild card competition where there's a specific
protein. There could be a mystery basket
competition where you're given ingredients and you have to
create whatever the criteria is. There's also cold food
competitions and that's whether it be hot food or cold food
presented cold. So it's usually glazed with
aspect and put on a mirror and and displayed that way.
Not not cooked in front of the judges, but cooked off site and
brought in pastry. Competitions are the same.
I want to talk a little bit more about hot food presented cold
because I think a lot of people don't understand that and they
possibly don't understand what the benefit is of doing a hot
food presented cold. But I know, I I know you've
coached me through a couple of those way back.
And I learned so much just from and I didn't win, but I learned
so much just from competing in those competitions of the hot
food presented cold. Yeah.
Can you talk about what are some of the important things that
separate a good competitor from maybe someone that's not going
to win in a hot food presented cold competition?
Well, you know, it's attention to detail.
It's attention to, you know, you're, you're cooking the food
just like you would cook it on the line, but then you're
cooling it and you're glazing at an aspect.
And the aspect is is really a gelatin mixture.
And the reason you're glazing it is to seal it, keep it from
drying out, give it a nice Sheen and A and a good appearance to
it on the plate. If you don't take care of the,
the first things properly, the proper cooking and, and things
like that, some people will say, let's say a grilled scallop.
I'm going to put this grilled scallop on this plate.
Well, they'll take the scallop and you know, you probably
aren't going to cook it on a grill.
You're probably going to take a, a skewer and heat it up and, and
make those lines on there perfectly spaced.
So it's beautiful, but you got to do the other side too, even
though it's, you know, a lot of people think I just have to do
the top. Well, judges look at that and
and then say, OK, if you did it that way, that's fine.
But that tells me you don't know how to cook a scallop because
you're not going to put it on there and just do one side.
You're going to do both sides. So, you know, little things like
that, attention to detail, the sauce, the way the sauce is done
with gelatin in that nice Sheen to it.
You know, I can think back to the competition that I did and,
and you were coaching me through it and I had to do a consume and
I remember having the process of so we had the Consomera ready
with gelatin in it. We pour a little bit and then we
put a little garnish vegetables. Then we pour a little bit more
and set it, put a little bit more garnish vegetables, then
pour a little bit more into it would have the appearance of it
being floating throughout. And so, so those are some of the
little things that I think people like, Oh, it's just cold
food. No, there's a lot to it.
Yeah. And, and yeah, you want it to to
look like, you know, so, so back to a hot plate presented cold.
You know, you're going to have some vegetables on there.
You're going to glaze those vegetables, you're going to cook
them. I put a Sheen of aspect on it.
We'll then also sprinkle a little seasoning on that and
then dip it again in aspect so that that seasoning is so now it
looks like a a nice seasoned vegetable.
The sauce I talked about, you're going to put everything on the
plate and then you're going to pour the sauce in so it flows in
under. So it looks like that product is
sitting in the sauce. Rather than putting the sauce on
the plate, it hardens and then you set the the steak on top of
the sauce. Well, you can see that it's
sitting on top. So it's little things like that
that make a difference. When, when you're judging those
competitions, how, how big of a difference typically is it
between gold and silver? Like, what are some of the what
are some of the things that a gold medalist would do that the
silver medalist isn't catching just yet?
Wow, that's really hard. There's there's so many things
that they go into it, but it's the finesse of the work, the
craftsmanship, the the again, attention to detail.
You know how if they're showing technique instead of just, you
know, doing a, a piece of meat on the plate or you know, a
piece of fish on the plate, maybe they're, they're making a
nice seafood sausage to go with that piece of fish and then a
grilled scallop to go there too. So they're, they're showing
multiple cooking techniques and, and just, you know, just really
precise cuts, precise things in that sausage.
Even there may be some vegetables that are in there.
What's the cut on those vegetables?
When you think back to your career of over 70 plus
competitions, is there one that sticks out more than others like
a highlight? You know, I think, I think when
when we won National Chef of the Year, that was a really fun
competition. What year was that?
That was in 2016. What?
What does the competition look like to win National Chef of the
Year? Well, it changes.
I'm on the national competition committee now.
But when I did it, it was we were assigned 2 proteins.
I could bring in two apprentices to help out.
Those apprentices could work on anything but the protein.
I had to fabricate the proteins. I had to do all the work on the
proteins I could get it ready to go into the oven and hand it to
The Apprentice that was working there and then say.
You know what's the requirement for The Apprentice That's with
you. Well, they can do anything but
the proteins. They could do any, yeah.
So do they have like a certain age limit that they?
Have to. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There were. I can't remember what it is.
I think it was under 22 or something like that.
That that's what you're doing? Called me.
Yes, yes. Among other reasons, no, but,
and you know, we had, we were given rainbow trout and rabbit
and we had to do 4 different dishes, 2 with rainbow trout, 2
with the rabbit, had to do 4 portions of each of the four
dishes, fabricate the product, bone it out, do all that stuff.
And we had one hour and we were cooking our asses off.
We, it, it was fun. It was just just an energy that
I, I, you know, can't express. What are, what are some of the
things that you can do 'cause I'm thinking, OK, now it's not a
lot of time, especially to come up with that many dishes.
And so I'm sure there's a lot of practice that goes into it.
But I'm sure you have techniques that you have, you know, ready
to go that will give you maximum flavor, minimal amount of time.
So what are some of those techniques that you use that
maybe maybe that other competitors could learn from,
but also maybe people that are in the restaurant could say
that's actually a great technique that I can incorporate
into the operation? So, you know, one of the first
things we, you know, we, we took a look at it and you're, you're
talking, you know, when you, when you start doing 4 different
entrees, I mean, that's, that's a lot of food.
Plus, are you going to get 8 portions of eight entree
portions out of out of a trout? No, you're probably going to
have to bring in 2 trout, probably going to have to bring
in 2 rabbit. So we looked at the rules, we
got clarification and everybody's assuming entree, but
we said let's, we're going to do appetizer portions.
So now I only had to fabricate 1 trout.
I only had to fabricate 11 rabbit.
And then, you know, you kind of look at some different things.
You want to show technique, you want to show classic skills.
So one of the trout dishes, you know, I, I did a, a classic
poach where I, I cut the medallions of trout.
I put it in a buttered pan, put some, some shallots and, and
celery and dill in, in the pan, a little bit of white wine and
then covered it with a buttered cartouche and put it in the oven
and, and just a classic poach. I pulled that out.
It was, it was well seasoned. Oh, and I piped a, a seafood
mousse on top of it. And then I, I took that, that,
that white wine that it poached in and I created a sauce out of
that. So I, you know, I'm showing that
technique of, of using the, the pan drippings, if you will, to,
to create your sauce and, and just a small little thing
beautiful with some fava beans and turned that into a, a bur
Blanc sauce. Different things.
You know, I, you know, I've done a lot of reloads in my life and
the rabbit, one of them I, I did a reload of took the two
tenderloins out or the two loins out of the rabbit and took the
rest of the rabbit and made a farce, wrapped that and did kind
of a Ying and a Yang with some mushroom and red bell pepper
between them. It's all talked about in the
book. But it it, it, you know, showed
really some technique and some skill, and that's what they're
looking for. Leading up to the competition,
what is the preparation for you and The Apprentice like?
How far out are you preparing? How far out do you know exactly
what you're going to make and or is there some you have an idea
of what you're going to make and then when you get there you
might have to call an audible? They in, in those competitions,
in the, in the regional competition and the national
competition, they gave us the ingredients and told us.
And in the global competition too, they, they told us what the
ingredients were going to be. And they gave us probably 4
weeks, 5 weeks maybe in advance so that you can kind of write a
menu, you can practice it, you can look at timing, you can do
all that kind of like I said, one hour is very quick and.
So we had things down orchestrated.
It was almost like a dance. Everybody had their steps and
this and that. And, and then there's going to
be things that'll happen, you know, and, and when those things
happen, you got a you got a punt, you know, and hopefully
those things will happen before we get to the competition.
So we can kind of practice through that and understand this
is a possibility and, and prevent it.
But you know things will happen in the competition as well.
How far out are you starting practice?
Well, as soon as you get the ingredients, yeah, as soon as
you find out what those ingredients are now for, for
national, you know, I started probably two, 2 1/2 months
because I had to identify my apprentices.
Who's going to going to do that? You know, I say apprentice, but
it's really more of a comedy, you know, a young, young
culinary and that's that's working with you in the kitchen.
So then we kind of had some conversation about what, what if
we get this? What if we get that?
You know what, what are we going to do?
And then before you know it, ingredients are announced and
and it's on. And do you, I mean leading up to
this, are you practicing for time is and do you have a coach
coaching you and your comedy or is it or do you take with all
the years of competition, do you take on the coaching role and
the competitor role? Now, no, I, I take, I bring on a
coach. You do, you know somebody, you
can't ask everybody. So you kind of pick one person
that you really value their judgement and and, you know,
bounce things off of them because I I may look at
something and think that's great.
And the coach says, yeah, that sucks.
So we retool it and go at it again.
But you know, and it's, and it's funny, the whole process.
And I, I tell people this all the time when whether I'm
coaching them in a competition or I'm coaching them through
their practical exam for certification, you're going to
have an idea what you want to cook.
And you get into the kitchen and you start going and man, the
wheels fall off and it's just a train wreck.
And it's like, I've been embarrassed at times like this.
This guy's going to think, I don't know how to cook.
I mean, it's been that bad. But you have to work through
that to get to the other side. And, and if you quit and give up
on that, that train wreck, you'll never get there, you
know, So I mean, that's, that's a, it's a learning experience.
And it's really all about getting things in the right
order. You know, you can, you've got
this, this, this and this to do. If you do them in the wrong
order, you'll never get done in time.
If you get them in the right order and put that puzzle
together then it can be very successful.
As culinary has evolved and trends come and go, how, how
much are competitions affected by, you know, culinary trends
through social media or through restaurants that are very
popular of the moment, restaurants.
But also how has some of the, I don't want to say the modernist
cooking movement, but you know, using hydrocolloids and cooking
with circulators and things like that.
Is that starting to be commonplace in competitions #1
and is it? Is it frowned upon, or is it is
it looked upon as a tool to make it better?
Some competitions it's frowned upon.
Other competitions it's acceptable to a degree.
It's it's another cooking method.
You know, when you talk about circulators and things like
that, think in the student competitions, they don't allow
circulators. They want, they want students in
competition to be focused on classical techniques, classical
preparations. They'll use those circulators
down the road in in the operations.
But but we really want to kind of use these competitions as a
learning experience. So sometimes, you know, and if
you, if you get into that molecular gastronomy and a lot
of people are doing jellified, you know, whether it be a little
caviar or things like that, you know, I tell people one, one of
those, if you want to do it, do, do one, but don't, don't try.
And you know, I judged the competition years ago and and it
was a dessert entry competitor did a fried egg the as as a
dessert and it was an egg white was jellified coconut, the yolk
was mango. Like the old Wiley Duprey thing
from WD 50? Yeah.
And, and I said, you know why?
Well, because it's cool, you know, and it's just.
Yeah. But you know, you wouldn't
really serve that dessert and it has nothing to do with, you
know, so. So you can get kind of too crazy
with it if you. Yeah, and and you're not showing
like I'm just putting myself in in your shoes that day.
It's like I would have been happy with a beautiful tart.
Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, a perfectly executed tart.
Yeah, and that shows a lot of technique, you know?
And sometimes the simplest things show the most technique
you know. Yeah, it's, it's funny because
I, I want to say at this year's Bo Custior, they also removed a
lot of hydrocolloids from being allowed in the competition.
And Matt, Matt Peters and I had a really long conversation about
this, about how at the end of the day, it's about cooking and
it's about making it delicious. And you can't use tricks and
gimmicks. And you know, magic tricks only
take you so far, but you got to. It's got to taste good.
Yeah, yeah, you know, that's, that's really the essence of it.
And I think you had a a kind of a conversation with Matthew
Peters on the podcast about, you know, just just that basic, you
know, well seasoned steak. You know, of course in a
competition you do have to show technique.
So, you know, you got to get past that.
But there's there's things that you can do.
So how much then? So that leads to question like
how how important is the taste? So have you ever been in a
judging position? I'm not trying to put you too
much on the spot, but have you ever been in a position as a
judge where that tastes exceptional?
Not a lot of technique on it. That one has a ton of technique.
Yeah, that one has to win or, or I mean, how do you, how do you
decide? Well, you know, just two days
ago I was having a conversation with the, with the chef talking
about the score sheets for, for national coming up.
And the, you know, I think the primary thing when you look at
scoring kitchen and, and taste, you know, taste is the number
one. It's got to have the highest,
you know, I'd say probably 40% for taste.
Then craft skills and technique. You know, you got to show some
skill here and then after that, how does it look is kind of the
third. And then, you know, after that
you start looking at organization and then sanitation
and work habits and then all those kind of things.
But, but back to your question, I I think taste is the most
important thing, but it can taste great, can be, you know,
the best flavor you've had. But if the technique isn't
there, and if they're not showing any skill and they're
not, you know, really showing much else, it it drops pretty
quickly, you know? Yeah, it's interesting because
you're also being measured on how clean do you work and you
know, your professional skills and everything that goes with
it. You're being measured as a chef.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not being measured as
you're being measured as a chef. And, and that's kind of another
thing that we talked about is that, you know, this past year,
when we judged the Chef of the year competition, they, they
could bring in one comedy to help them in the kitchen.
And that, that it was really restricted as to what, what the
comedy could do. And it's, it's really, at the
end of the day, it's the chef's decision.
If he asks that comedy to do this and to do that and that
comedy doesn't execute it well, it's going to fall on the shaft.
You know, now if if that chef is is just leaning on the comedy,
you can tell that the comedy is really the culinary in here and
the the chef is just, you know, then that's a different story,
certainly. But but even if that is the
case, like how many, I mean, not I'm, I'm just playing devil's
advocate here, but how many great chefs out there in the
world? It's their chef de cuisine that
really, well, there's a lot of that.
There's a face, but it's really the chef de cuisine in the
kitchen that's like the really the one making all the great
food. And that's very common.
So going back to competitions, mystery baskets, because I know
this is probably one of the more common ones, especially for a
lot of the local shows, you know, and I'm just throwing out
the local shows, but it's like I'm putting on a cooking
competition tomorrow. It's going to be a mystery
basket. It's not affiliated with it.
It's just like it's the go to. Not only is it the go to for
competition, it's also the go to for a lot of job interviews.
Sure, right. A lot of a lot of yeah, yeah,
yeah. A lot of culinary job interviews
for chefs, the first thing you can do is you're going to throw
them a mystery basket. Do you have anything that you do
strategically to prepare? Cause how do you prepare for a
mystery basket competition or a mystery basket job interview?
Well, you know, you have to kind of think what what, what is it
that you might get? You know, you're going to get
lamb, you're going to get pork or you're going to get chicken
or you're going to get seafood. You know what, what are you
going to get? And then, you know, what's the
old adage that we try and take the mystery out of the mystery
basket. Usually there's a pantry there
and, and they, they tell you what's going to be in the
pantry. There's some vegetables or some
starches, potatoes, rice, you know, pasta, those kind of
things. The mystery basket is usually
going to be the main protein, maybe a secondary protein and
then an ingredient, whether it be a fruit or a specific
vegetable or something like that.
And those you can always deal with.
But it depends on on what the competition is it, is it a one
course? Is it a three course?
Does it require dessert? Does it, you know, but, but
going back to those proteins, if I get chicken, here's what I'm
going to do. If I get duck, here's what I'm
going to do. I can fabricate it, do this and
the other do a roulade, do a balantine, you know, do do
different things like that. If I get duck, you know, maybe
I'm going to cone feed the, the legs, take a pressure cooker in
with me and, and cone feed the legs.
You know, when I got pheasant for regional and that, that was
a difficult one for me. Not the pheasant, but just
trying to figure out the whole thing.
But you know, I, I did a braise on the legs and then I was
trying to, to stuff the, the breast and roast it on the bone.
I wanted that nice crisp skin and I tested it and it was
beautiful, but I couldn't get it done in time.
I couldn't get the, the, the breasts to cook all the way.
And when the end of the time came, I was, you know, uncooked
pheasant. So you you can't go into a
competition like that. And I just realized I kind of
way got off of your mystery basket question.
No, no, it's OK. Bring it back to the mystery
basket. But you know, yeah.
So you, I mean, you just kind of plan, plan that way.
You know, you take a look at, you know, if I'm going to get a
loin of lamb, you're not just going to take it and bone it out
and. Lion, lamb, lion.
Do you remember? I don't remember what menu we
did and we misprinted it and said lamb lion.
I think I typed it up before I knew how to spell.
We did a, we did a venue and I remember you saying that's a Lab
Lion or a Lab Lloyd. What are we doing here?
Oh. Geez, that was before we had the
little red squiggly. We had to.
Yeah, that was back in the day. The spell checker.
The spell checker was missing. Or actually, it was spelled
right. It's lying.
Spelled correctly. Yeah.
So take the mystery out of the mystery basket.
Yeah, I mean, we could, we could get into that because that's
something that I've used a lot. Like I think back to what we
work together, you know, the certification tests and all
that. Having to go through that and
doing so many cooking interviews, The cooking
interview that we did way back then is something that I've took
with me and I talk about now on the podcast.
And I encourage people like just use this as your, as your
cooking test. But before we get into that,
because I do want to get into certification and cooking tests
and things like that for people that are interested in
competing, they don't know where to begin.
Like, let's just say I'm your one culinary school graduate.
How do I get involved? How do I get involved with
cooking competitions? How do I find a mentor?
Where? Where do I start?
Well, you can go on to the American Culinary Federation.
They've got a on the website, they've got competitions, they
have a competition calendar and it's posted there where the
competitions are. You can contact anybody in in
those competitions. It it says who the chairman is
and who the lead judge is and say, look, I'm interested, can I
come and observe this competition?
Some are kind of close competitions maybe for just a
company or something like that. But nine times out of 10 they're
going to allow you to come over and then take a look at it.
You can call go again on the American Culinary Federation
website under competitions, there's a list of ACF certified
judges. I think any if you found, and
it's by state, if you found somebody close to you and said,
I want to find out about it and called one of those judges, I
can't think of a single judge that wouldn't, wouldn't say,
yeah, if somebody called me, I'd say sure.
Texas Chefs Association has different competitions as well.
So there's, there's a lot of things out there.
Just find out where the competitions are and you can
just do a Google search and, and, and go to 1:00, ask
questions, see how it is. That's the biggest thing in a
person's mind is the unknown. They don't know what it looks
like, they don't know what it's you know.
So if you can go and see and experience it, you you get a
better opportunity. It's funny, I was, I was judging
a competition, culinary competition, and I was also in a
position similar to you when you were judging me.
Yes, I, one of my, one of my chefs was competing in the
competition and we spent so much time training and preparing him
for this competition and really focusing on technique.
Like it was a mystery basket 'cause he had no idea what he's
getting. But I was, I was trying to
explain to him like show a lot of technique.
You get tomatoes, peel the tomatoes, you get asparagus, you
know, collar them or peel them or whatever, sear it perfectly,
make sure the sauce is right. Like just you know, make sure
your knife cuts are correct. Everything.
Like we were so focused on the technique.
He ended up losing the competition.
I remember I was very upset because what he lost to was like
0 technique. It was like, I don't remember
what it was, but it wasn't good. And but it was more delicious
according to some of the other judges, but it didn't show a lot
of technique. And I remember I was upset.
And by the way, one of those other judges, your boy, I won't
say who, I won't say who's one of your guys.
Unlike you, I made sure my guy had a Ted of Ted.
He wasn't going to lose the competition.
But all joking aside, we digressed.
So he ended up losing the competition.
But his he had so much technique on there.
But it tasted, I don't want to say it tasted flat, but it
tasted like asparagus tasted like asparagus that was seasoned
tomatoes tasted like tomatoes that were seasoned, but it
didn't. It wasn't exceptional where the
other person, you know didn't have a lot of technique, but it
tasted really good. You'd put it on your restaurant
menu, you'd go back and order it again.
And I think back to those moments where it's like
sometimes maybe you could you could focus too much on the
technique and and lose the plot that it still makes it taste
good. Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, that's, that's another great point.
Everything that goes on that plate has got to be the best
tasting. If it's a carrot, it's got to be
the best tasting carrot those judges have ever tasted, you
know, so, so do whatever you can.
If you, if you blanch that, that carrot, you've got a certain
cut, you blanch it, you, you go to sweat it out.
You know, maybe a little bit of sugar in that water that you're
blanching it in just to give it a little bit of sweetness.
You know, saute it hit a little butter, maybe a little stock to,
to go in there and reduce that all down.
So it kind of creates A glaze. Season it with a little salt and
pepper, toss that all and now when you pull that out, that
whole butter and that that chicken stock and it's all
reduced down. It's got a nice glaze to it and
it's just got a really, really great flavor.
So you know, that's the thing. So again, all these techniques,
I say flavors, it's, you know, the the highest points, but you
know, you can show all these techniques and then have
horrible flavor, you know, So I mean, it's all got a it's a
balance. How do you how do you manage
your time? So you're, you're going into a
competition and you have one hour what we we've talked about
the, the technique and everything else that's going
with it and you planned it, but how do you manage your time?
Well, you know, you, you try and on an individual competition,
you try and do like I like to get the butchery and, and that,
that process out of the way quickly because I can go in
there. I can have that laid on the
cutting board. When when they say, OK, start
now I can just grab it and, and butcher, get that out of the
way, wrapped up, put away, sanitize the station and then
get a new board. And now I can start working with
vegetables and things like that and I don't have to worry too
much about cross contamination. So, you know, there's just
different techniques that you pick up.
Do you do you create a timeline? Because I remember when when we
were watching Bokus, you know, you have the the coach there
with the iPad clock and OK, you need to start mincing shallots.
You need to start doing this. Yeah, yeah.
Is your coach doing that for? You no, I in, in the now we're
switching from mystery basket competition to a, a category a
contemporary cooking kind of a thing where you know what, what
The thing is, the protein that you're going to bring in, you
either know, have have decided or you were assigned.
And in those I definitely have a timeline and I tell people to,
to do a timeline more in 15 minute increments rather than
minute by minute because in a 15 minute increment you can put
down, you know, butcher the protein, whatever it is, start
the process of the, the force meat or or whatever you know,
and do do all those things next 15 minutes, clean, sanitize.
Now you're working on your vegetables because what happens
is you post that timeline and if it's minute by minute and you're
not doing this task that was 10 minutes ago, the judges are
looking at that saying, OK, this this person's behind, you know,
but if it's just these kind of blocks of, of things, but yeah,
you have to have something that that shows them you, you're
organized, you know what you're doing, you've got a plan and
then work, work. Through that, but you're also
working very clean trays are organized.
Yeah, yeah, 1 task at a time, one knife, whatever knife that
you need for that particular task, that's all that's on the
table. You get done with that task, You
you clean that up, put that knife away, maybe change a
cutting board, bring it out, bring the next knife for for
that next. One.
Why is that so important? Because clutter, you want to
remove clutter. You know, sometimes you go into
these competitions and a person throws out their knife roll on
the on the table and pushes it off on the side.
And, you know, they're going to use three knives out of that
knife roll, maybe the steel, but you know, they're not going to,
you know, use all that other extra stuff, you know, so.
We would have like a speed rack, everything labeled for time.
You know, this is your sauce maze or whatever, right?
That's good. And and by the way, for people
listening, that same organization, I would also apply
it to the kitchen. So I used to do the same thing
for for my team. It's like I have a time block.
So you know, your first 15 minute blocks you need to come
in, you need, you need to make sure everyone has salt, fold
your towels, you know, fill, fill your pepper mill, blah,
blah, blah. Next 15 minutes, get your stocks
on, turn on the ovens, whatever. Right.
And I'm just kind of throwing it out there.
But that way for new cooks that were coming in a a lot of times
new cooks and you know, we have the curse of knowledge as chefs,
We assume everyone knows what we know, but they don't.
The new cook coming in doesn't know where to begin.
And I remember being a new cook, it's like you get your prep list
and there's 1000 things on there, but you see, you know,
cut some parsley and like, we'll just start there.
Like you start with the thing that like, it's so easy, but
it's probably not that important.
But if you come in and you have a system and you say, OK, no,
you're going to come in, you're going to start with the the
proteins, the sauces. And if you don't get to the
parsley, it's not the end of the world.
But if you don't get to the proteins.
Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah, great point. Yeah, let's talk certification.
OK. So you're, are you still a
Proctor for certification? I am, yeah.
So what are the different levels of certification just through
the American Culinary Federation?
There's, there's a multitude of them.
Of course, the highest is certified master chef.
There's, there's savory and pastry in, in all of these.
So certified master chef, certified master pastry chef,
certified executive chef, certified executive pastry chef.
And then you come down certified chef to cuisine, certified
culinarian, you know, I don't know all off the top of my head.
There's there's a a number of them in there and there's,
there's just basic entry level certifications too.
That fundamentalist I think is, is like the first one.
And you can get those in high school even really.
So yeah. So there's there's a lot of
them. That's that's cool.
I didn't, I didn't realize that now there, there's there's an
argument to be made, right. A lot of chefs are like, why
would I? Why would I need certification?
But then a lot of chefs do believe in certification.
So can you Lex Friedman is you ever watch the Lex Friedman
podcast? He always asks these questions
like can you steal man the case for certification?
So chef, can you steal man the case for people that need
certification? Well, you lost me, but I think I
know where you're going. So you know, it's, it's a
personal journey. You know, some people say it's
an ego thing and it's, it's not an ego thing really.
What it is, is it validates your level of proficiency in, in
things. So when you're going out and
interviewing for a job and, and I'm, I'm looking for a chef and
I see somebody that's a certified executive chef and I
see somebody that's not, you know, I, I know that that CEC is
at least at this level or certified chef de cuisine.
And they've, they've proven themselves at that level, you
know, and whether it's leadership, whether it's skill,
technique in the kitchen, you know, all those kind of things.
So, so that's, it's a validation of, of your abilities.
But but then it's also a personal journey, you know,
that, that you, you do for yourself.
And, and I think there's, there's a lot of good positive
things that come out of that. And it's not just some rubber
stamp thing that that people put on.
You have to take a written test. You have to have certain classes
depending on the level that you're doing.
And then you have to do a practical exam where you go in
the kitchen and you cook and you're observed by proctors.
And so there, there's going to be a certain level of experience
that you need to have before you're eligible for certain
certification levels. That that's correct, right.
So at least that it validates that.
And then like you said, there's there's going to be some sort of
classroom exam and and written exam, I'm assuming.
Yeah. So I'm, I'm assuming it's and
I've never taken one of these certifications, but I'm assuming
it's probably like technique questions, vocabulary, food
costing, things like that. Yeah, there's, there's a lot,
yeah, management, human resources, especially depending
on the level that you're going. For did you pass the human
resources once? I did, did you?
Thanks. Thanks to you, I passed all the
experience you gave. But yeah, there's, there's a lot
and, and the, the, the written exam is not an easy exam.
I mean, it's they, they've got a lot of questions.
You know, you gotta do a, a multiply out a recipe.
You've got a, you know, calculate food cost.
You've got a, like I say, some of this human resource stuff.
There's some legal questions in there.
There's some, you know, there's, there's a lot of.
Different things, yeah. Yeah, yeah, a lot of that stuff.
And then you get into the into the kitchen.
In the kitchen, the practical exam, again, depending on what
level you're at, practical exam is looking for you to, to do
proficiently certain techniques. They want to see how well you
can do those, those techniques, you know, butchering a, a, a
chicken, a round fish, a lobster, and then creating these
plates and artichoke. Artichoke, Yeah.
And you know, I always tell people when they're doing the
exam, you know, you can bring in stocks because it's a limited
time. They want to see the butchery of
that product. They assume, you know, how to
make a stock so you can bring that stock in.
So as, as a person, let's say butcher's a chicken and they've
got those bones from that chicken.
A lot of times they think, OK, well, I'm going to fortify my
stock and I'm going to put it in there and I'm going to, you get
no points for that. They don't ask you to fortify a
stock. So, so wrap those bones up, put
them in the refrigerator, label them for, for stock for later,
and then put it away. Focus on the competencies that
they want to see. Is this for time as well I'm
assuming? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because the the time that you spend on fortifying that stock.
No extra credit. No, nothing.
The payoff is 0. I have a question.
So obviously there's multiple ways to do a thing.
Yeah. When you're going for
certification, is it a specific way that they have to
demonstrate this or I'm just kind of making this up?
There's this page that I follow on Instagram.
It's an artichoke page. And have you seen this?
The guy just stands there, like with a sharp knife and just
turns the artichoke, like in a second.
Yeah. And just throws in a bucket and
I look at that, it's like he's good.
Like I look at this like he's good.
But then a lot of chefs on there like, well, he's taking off the
he's taking off the stem and he should he's throwing too much.
He's like, he's good. Like you don't know what he
needs it for. He's good.
He knows what he's doing. I'm sure he knows that he's
throwing that away. And if he needed it for that,
he'd probably save it. But if someone's going into a
competition, I'm sorry, a certification test and they just
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I know how to do an artichoke,
but are you looking at that? But that's not how we want it.
That's not that's not where you're.
Supposed to it, it it does ask for the artichoke to be cleaned
and prepared a certain way. So, you know, you're going to
have to have that stem on there. You're going to have to, you
know, this out of the other. So yeah, there's from that
standpoint, but but how that person gets to the end result,
as long as it's a good technique.
I remember we were in a competition and, and somebody
was butchering a salmon and I heard the judges, I was
competing at the time and I heard the judges talking about
the knife that the person was using to clean the salmon.
And it's not, that's not the proper knife to use to clean the
salmon. The hell, you need to use this
knife, not that knife. And, you know, at the end of the
day, how's the salmon cleaned is, you know, that's what we're
judging is the technique and the, the, you know, 'cause you
know, how would you fabricate a chicken?
You'd take a boning knife out and you'd, you'd break down a
chicken. Well, you know, I've seen people
do it with a Chinese cleaver. Yeah, very efficiently.
Very efficiently, in fact. Faster.
So you know what's the right knife?
So I have something that I don't know if you told me this, but
it's definitely something that I say now, it's like the most
efficient path to get to the most delicious result, right?
The shortest path to get there, right?
So if that means that, and again, this is this is how I
would train my chefs in the restaurant.
If that means that you use this or that means that you use that,
is it most delicious and most efficient for the ideal outcome.
So don't waste your time doing something that because it's
proper, but it doesn't yield the most efficient result.
But also at the same time, I'm not pass.
It's not a pass or fail test. It's to the guest enjoy.
And we need to be ready for service.
So there's some some some nuance there.
Yeah, there's, you know, there's techniques, there's classical
techniques, there's all this kind of stuff, which is great.
And, and I'm a firm believer in teaching those because it
teaches people the basics, you know, and I, I kind of equate
that to basketball players. You can have the greatest slam
dunk in the world, but if, if you can't make a free throw,
you're you're no good to the team.
You know, if every time you get to the free throw line and
you're so focus on the basics and then you can practice on
those, you know, those kind of fun.
Yeah. And, and like in boxing, the big
basics win fights. A good jab, a good jab is going
to win, right? Yeah.
It's not all the flash. And so you take that idea.
And for people that don't know, when I, when I started doing
cooking tests and, you know, we began this together, when we'd
hire chefs, we'd give them basically the certified
executive chef exam. Here's a whole chicken, here's a
whole lobster. Artichoke fish make something.
And it was amazing to me, and I've talked about this a lot at
length, but we haven't talked about it in some time.
It's amazing to me having so many chefs, how many crumble
when they get that test, it's and they're applying for
executive chef level. Like if I'm a chef hiring other
executive chefs, I've seen them crumble.
It's like the worst is like they hand their artichoke.
The artichoke is like the Achilles heel, is what I've.
Used for my chefs. That seems to be the one that's
like, oh, give it to my colony. Or, you know, you got to, you
got to do that one. Yourself.
Yeah. It's your exam, not theirs.
Yeah, yeah. But but the whole chicken, and
it's something that that we discussed, it's something that I
picked up from you, is that when you get the chicken, it's like,
well, are you just going to take the breast off or are you going
to make stock? Are you going to make a farce?
Are you going to make a roulade? Like what are you going to do
with the skin? Are you are you going to trust
it? Like demonstrate so much just
with the chicken. There's hundreds of techniques
that you could demonstrate, but a lot of people just think saute
the breast. Yeah.
And you know, to take that a step further, you give them the
chicken, they're going to make a sauteed chicken breast,
whatever, even pound it out, whatever they're going to do
with it. They take the, the breasts off
the chicken and then they put the rest of that carcass with
the legs and the thighs and the, the wings and they put it in a
pan and put it back in the refrigerator.
No, if you're going to use the breast, that's fine.
But butcher the chicken because next person that goes over to,
to use the rest of that chicken, they're going to have to start
the butchery process also. So do the do the butchering
process in one, take what you need and leave the rest for
later utilization. So for people that, so you have
the certified executive chef, but above that is the certified
master chef and that is probably a little bit harder to pass.
So what, what does the typical CMC exam look like 'cause I know
it's changed recently, right? Is it only done?
Is it part? Is it still done at the CIA?
You know, it's, I think so. I think the, the majority of
them are done at Schoolcraft College these days up in
Livonia, MI. And you know, they've revamped
it. And I'm, I'm not that familiar
with all the changes. I know they've shortened it.
It was a 10 day exam. I think it went down to, to 8
days and it might be down to six or something like that.
But you know, it's, it's really intensive and they, they touch
on all the things they touch on obviously garmische work, they
touch on some baking work, they touch on mystery basket, they
touch on continental cuisine. They assigned you a dish from a
country that you may not know. You know what, everybody gets a
different country. There's and it's a high
pressure, you know, and it should be, I think it's, it's a
low success rate. There's a lot of people that are
kind of, you know, not, not too crazy about that.
I'd like to see the success rate maybe come up a little bit, but
I think it should be a hard test.
It's certified master chef. You know, it's it's, it should
be a hard test and to get to that level.
And how How many are? Are there like 60?
Or something, yeah, 68 to 70 something, yeah.
And there's some legends in there like Ferdinand Mets, Fritz
Sauna Schmidt. If you know, it's funny, here's
a funny story. So Fritz, we, we did a dinner.
No, we didn't do a dinner. We did an event in Dallas and
certified master chefs at Leonard Fritz, Sauna Schmidt,
Ferdinand Mets were there and it was a lot of other chefs.
I was there. And, you know, it was one of
those things that was like great to, to sit at the table with
them and, and, and spend some time with Fritz.
And I know you know him and we bumped into him at events
together. Sure.
And it's funny because years, years, years, years later, he
commented on one of my chef's PSA posts like, who is this
doing this? Who is this chef posting all
this? And I, and I responded to him as
a chef. You know, Andre Inter, we met
years ago and I, I, I, I named the places that we met.
You know, we cooked together in Dallas here at blah, blah, blah.
And he's like, OK, good job, chef.
OK, I just want to say good job. He was like, who is this person?
Maybe to be the chef's PSA That's.
Too funny. That's too funny.
But I got a lot of respect for those guys.
So you went to the CIA, by the way, I was just there.
I did. I just came back from the CII.
Teach some leadership stuff for the hospitality Academy, the one
in SAN. Antonio in San Antonio, yeah, I
went to Hyde Park and actually when I went, that was the only
one, Hyde Park. Beautiful.
By the way, have you? When was the last time you went?
You know, I went up there about 3 years ago.
We went up there with the Colavito folks.
Their their dining room for the. Oh, beautiful.
It's. Yeah, insane.
It's it's insane. I see.
I I like, I kind of regret now not going.
Yeah. I mean, it was beautiful.
It was, yeah. It was a great, it was a great
time in my life from a career standpoint.
It, it really, you know, it's, you know, you, you kind of get
up there and all of a sudden all the, the rains are, are loose
and you can explore this and try that and so much knowledge up
there. The, the, the library.
I I went 79 to 81, graduated in February of 81.
But the interesting thing about culinary schools is culinary
programs are, it's a very interesting world right now.
I'm curious to see where it's going to go.
I bumped into the new director of the CIA when I was in Chicago
recently. We had we had a good
conversation. Maybe I'll get him on the show.
He was talking about how the industry is different now.
It's not, it's not the industry that you and I got into now.
There's so many different career paths for a chef.
You know, you can go into content creation, whatever the
case may be. But what's, what's really
interesting is the mentorship aspect and culinary schools are
now incorporating AI. There's more online training.
You know, the ability to learn is much quicker than it was when
we were coming up. It was just, you know, the book,
the library or the classroom or work, right.
And I know you do some work with some high schools and they, they
have incredible. I went to a culinary school in,
there's one here in Austin that I went to and I did another one
in Dallas where I went and I, I did a lecture.
But the, the school's kitchens are nicer than some of the nicer
than the culinary school I went to.
They're incredible and the programs are really incredible.
Yeah, what what they have now, it's, it's so refreshing because
you look at these culinary programs, when I was coming up,
we had home EC. That was it.
Now they have these career centers and you know, there's a
a great one in, in, in Mansfield.
There's one great program up here in Georgetown.
Emily's the instructor up there, and I've never been to her
facility. Yeah, I've never been to her
facility. But I've seen what she does with
those students and brings them to competitions.
I'm I'm heavily involved in the Pro Start competition, which is
a high school competition for high school teams.
You know, I've done some FCCLA stuff.
You know, there's a lot of programs out there.
And as long as we're shouting out Chef David Roberson in
Mansfield, his program is a tremendous program.
They're, they're mentoring these, these young culinarians
to, to really, you know, excel because, you know, we, we get
back to that, that first thing about competition, wanting to
know if you start in high school, you've already gotten
past that, that fear factor of, of the, the hardest competition
for a, a chef that's been in the industry is that first one,
because they're afraid to fail. They think if they don't get a
gold medal, then it's going to question their cooking
abilities. And it's not.
There's certified master chefs that, that compete and things
happen. You know, they don't, they don't
gold medal all the time and they don't sometimes, you know,
whatever. But what they're doing in these,
these culinary programs in these high schools is amazing.
And, and you see the skill level of these students.
I judge that. I judge, judge college stuff.
And sometimes I'm doing the high school competition and then I I
go to the NACOS competition and I look at the professionals
there and stuff from the high schools a step above.
But I think it's because they have mentors.
Yeah, really, really honed in. And I think that's important
because mentorship, I mean, we've, we've had this
conversation many times. Like if you're not giving back
to the next generation, what are you doing?
Yeah, Yeah, it's the most important job.
Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
OK, as we start wrapping up the
show, let's talk about the Mount Rushmore of chefs.
OK, if you had your Mount Rushmore personal to you, who
are the 4/4 chefs that you can't say me?
Oh well. So besides me he gets stuck you.
Can't say me. So you know, I've heard you ask
this question, you know, when on your on your podcast and you
know, there's some greats out there.
You know, people mentioned Thomas Keller, they, they
mentioned Danielle Belude, they, they mentioned, you know, Paul
Bakus and Ilan Dukas and, and I mean all those, those guys are
great. But you know, I, I started kind
of thinking about, first of all, Mount Rushmore itself.
Why are those 4 presidents on Mount Rushmore?
I don't know. And I, I don't want to get into
that. But you know, for me, whoever
did Mount Rushmore, I think it, it would be who, who had an
impact in my career. You know, I think Ferdinand Mets
for sure, Fritz Sonnen Schmidt for sure.
My my first mentor, chef Artie Dupuis.
Big part of your book. Yeah, got me, got me started
into competitions. And, you know, I worked for him
for a very short period of time, relatively speaking.
Well, just a short period of time.
But the impact that he had on me as as a a culinarian, A
competitor, a father, a human being, you know, just.
This is New Orleans. No, this was up in New Jersey
before I went to school. Yeah, and then the 4th 1.
I can't use you, huh? Jeez, I yeah, I'm.
Really stuck. Yeah, well.
But I don't know who it would be, but you know, somebody
that's that's really had a had a big impact on on me, you know,
Chef Andrea Puzzo in New Orleans, that when I graduated
culinary and I went down there and worked for him.
I worked for him for four years and.
You know, that was a influential time in my my career.
Yeah, yeah. And for people that don't know,
like I love busting your chops. People that don't know I love
busting your chops. But thank you so much for
everything that you. Did for my career.
Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you.
I cannot be the chef I am without having the mentorship
from you and working under you and instilling so much
professionalism and not letting me win even when I thought I
should have won. But it was there were some great
valuable lessons and a lot of what I teach now in Chef's PSA,
what people don't realize, you probably pick it up.
It's like I think I said that to Andre.
He's regarding my words, but it's true.
It's true. So I want to make sure that you
know that that I acknowledge that here while you're while
you're on the show, where can people, first of all, where can
people find you and where can people get your book?
Well, before you get off onto that, I, I, I want to say, and I
say it in the book, you know, I, I think you give me a lot of
credit for things that I taught you, but, but I think you taught
me every bit as much, if not more just working with you and
watching you. And, you know, the goal for a
chef or for anybody, a mentor, is to see the mentee do better
than they have. And, and, and that, you know,
that that's been a great experience watching you do that.
But I can be found on Chef PD Mitchell on Instagram and the
book is available on Amazon and it's also available as an e-book
on on Amazon. Awesome.
Well, thank you chef. This was fun, and this was tame.
Yeah, it's because I well. I have a cut in my mouth.
Well, how'd that happen? I was.
I was licking stuff. I shouldn't have been licking
you. Know you you told the audience
that you love busting my chops and and when we sat down Andre
told me he says you know you got to push farther down the so the
camera can get a good good and the farther I got down there's a
leak in this in this and it's dripping on my shoulder the
entire time I. Won't edit that out.
Thanks for being Doc. Thank you.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode.
If you want to support the show, if you're watching on YouTube,
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I'm a five star man. If you want to get chef brains,
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We'll see you next week at the Porno Music, no?
Small Andre in the kitchen mixing, dropping chef knowledge,
no fiction, stirring up the BT enough the session, listen close
classes in session.