Chef Clayton Parrett: A Student for Life

0:00If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Hi, I'm Sean Evans from Hot Ones and I want to tell you about YouTube Premium. It has offline downloads so you can watch without Wi-Fi. Background play, so you can lock your phone and it still plays baby. Oh, and it is completely ad free. Yes, I said it ad free. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. File eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. Want to know you're on the best path to the right car? Start at CarMax where every car is CarMax certified and backed by a 10-day money back guarantee at a price that's up front from the start. Visit CarMax.com for details. Want to drive? CarMax. Chef Clayton Parrot grew up in rural South Louisiana surrounded by sugarcane fields, swamps, livestock hunting and fishing. His family didn't have much but they knew how to live off the land. Before he was even out of high school, Clayton was working around the slaughterhouse, processing

1:01animals, cooking cracklings and learning where food actually comes from. Then life got harder. He left home young, lived with friends, worked 70 hour work weeks and took whatever kitchen jobs he could find. Eventually that path took him off shore. For nearly two years Clayton cooked on drilling operations in the Gulf, sometimes spending three weeks at a time on a platform where there was no clocking out and going home. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, sleep, repeat. He says those years hardened him but they also taught him discipline, patience and perspective. Today after more than two decades in this business, Clayton is still chasing the same thing that kept him moving back then. Knowledge. He doesn't believe in mastery because in his words, there is simply too much left to learn and maybe that's the real story. Not how far Clayton has come but how hungry he still is. Clayton, when you look back at growing up in the Louisiana swamps, what was being built in you before you ever understood where this life was headed?

2:02The biggest thing to me is always been community. It's striving together, growing together, learning together. It takes a whole churchful to move forward. On our call, and by the way, we've known each other for a good long time. This day has been coming for years. Welcome to the show. I'm glad you're here. Appreciate it. On our call, your words, hey man, we didn't grow up with a bunch of money. Good family, good people, lot of love. Kind of animals, fishing, hunting, all that good stuff, right? Call out the pleasures of life. Did you actually realize you might have had less than other kids? Ultimately as a child, it's a wonderland.

3:03You don't even realize it. It takes a little bit of getting older and education to understand where you come from. To me, nature gives you so much back that words can't really explain. I can almost identify with where you come from. In the 70s and 80s, my family was up and down both. I ended up in rural Broward County, growing up. A lot of basically the Everglades. Exactly. It's very similar to what you had. I was a kid too. I was like 9, 10, whatever in that racket. It was snake hunting, looking for gators. That's right there. When I would go visit family up in the Northeast, they looked at me like, who the hell are you? Dirty jeans and... Yeah.

4:04But the education that you get from that upbringing is so different. It's life that's the true origin of life. Being in touch with nature, everyone says it's going to take a hike, but it's going to take a hike and look around you. I know, breathe. It's a different environment. Especially when there's a lot of animals that can get you. You learn to watch out a little bit more. Patients. You left home pretty young. You were telling me how early age, sleeping on friends' couches, but you still made yourself finish high school while you were putting in the big hours at work. You don't see young folks typically with a work ethic like that. Where did that come from? That is ultimately the determination of just seeing what's around you.

5:07You have options. You have choices every day. I have some good people in my life. I have some rough people in my life. If you listen to your patient and you hear from them, and for years we were told, you don't work hard, you don't get anything. When you start to add all that up together towards the end, if you start something, you finish it. Over and over and over. It's more of a piece at my mind that I did start it. I am going to complete this. It might take me years and years and years, but I will get this done. Speaking of Louisiana backwards, I think we should mention that Miss Lee Wilson from Creative Loafing is in the house. Oh, yeah. Welcome back. It's been a minute. First of all, go Tigers. Would you say go Tigers? Go Tigers. We go, go Cains. I keep hearing that. What a tie. Go Tigers. Okay. Got it.

6:08Got it. You got two of us in here. Oh, I love you. I have them. You X. Oh, my God. That doesn't even spell anything. Look, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, so we get John and I both here from Miami. Go, that's the you, baby. All right. So before I, I'm going to wrestle. Okay. Here. Lee Wilson, it's been a minute. We've been trying to work out the schedule and get you back here for a little bit. And today is the day and only that. This was like a trifecta kind of a deal here. Right. It was. And listen, I'm not mad at you. My man. Okay. Because I know the only reason you came, Christopher Lee, not because we've known each other for a long time. I get it. Like I totally completely understand too much. Miami in the house and when some support. I am very persuasive. Clearly in stubborn. I'm not going to say a word. Mm-hmm. Mama raised me right. Let me tell you what's hot in Tampa Bay.

7:08Right now it is all best to the bay. All best to the bay all the time. So if you don't know because you should, best of the Bay starts in May. Starts out with nominations. It is the longest running best of competition in the Tampa Bay area. It's been going on for over I think 37 years now. So long before my time. It is the biggest one in Tampa Bay. It is amazing. So it starts out with nominations and then the top nominees go on to the voting round. And then at the end of the voting round, we have a winner and two runners up and it's all very, very, very hush, hush until the party happens. And the party is where it's at. It is the who's who of Tampa Bay. And we have one of our very fine restaurateurs and chefs in the house today who is going to be sampling at the party. Along with many, many, many other chefs, many of them have been on this show. And in fact, many of our winners and runner-ups have been on this show. I think that's out freaking standing.

8:09Mm-hmm. So what you're saying is the one teaser out of this whole thing is the fact that this dude, my man, is actually participating in this whole thing. He is accepting awards. He is picking up a lot of awards and he's not the only person in this house picking up awards. What do you mean? I mean, the walk-in talk podcast might be picking up an award too. You're just going to have to come to the party and see. I mean, if you want me to go to the party, I go to the, do not bait me to go to the party. I'll be there. John, you're going to go, right? We're going to be there. You should totally be there. Everybody should be there. It's open to the public. You just buy tickets and go and come party with us. It's one of the biggest things that we throw all year long. Okay, okay. Look, we're going to, we're doing it. What's the date for that? October 7th. And it's at the Coliseum in St. Pete this year. So the Seminole Hardrock Hotel in Casino is my presenting sponsor. We love them. It's normally at the Hardrock, which is super fun because then you can get a hotel and

9:12you can hang by the pool the next day and then you can call in and quote unquote, sick to work because you stayed up until four o'clock in the morning at the poker table. But they are expanding their non-smoking casino this year. So we have decided to move it back across the bay like it was many, many years ago into the historic Coliseum of St. Pete. And we've got the city of St. Pete involved. We're getting other cities involved. There's a rumor that some mayors might be there as well. Yeah. Oh, you mean Leacuino? Okay. Oh, okay. There will be some food mayors there. There will be some other mayors too. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Hey, listen, I'm totally down for this. And by the way, you know, what you just said a second ago, I'm, you know, John is too. I'm speaking for me right now. I know he is. This is exciting. It's very exciting. I want to feel very big deal. I know. I want to be a part of an award. I mean, we love this. Yes. Yeah. And just let's, let's clarify something, right?

10:14Because we are audiences all over the place. When we say the greater Tampa Bay area, what is that geography? That is covering all of panelists, all of Hillsboro. We've got Pasco County. There's parts of Polk County and there as well. We definitely cover stories like Joe Dodd and opening up a new king of the coop out here. So it really does encompass like we'll cover stories up to, you know, North, like Crystal River and whatnot. So you, you really do have like the greater Tampa Bay area and this is, this is the who's who, this is the culmination. This is the list and it stays up all year long. So anytime you're ever like in the mood for something different, like I want to go Middle Eastern tonight, we actually have a category for best Middle Eastern restaurants. You can just go to best of the Bay and look out Middle Eastern and you've got a food guide right there. Support for walk and talk media comes from Metro food service solutions trusted by kitchens that need storage and workflow that actually does the job. Learn more at metro.com.

11:16Who's picking all of these things? The public. So that's the amazing part about this is that this is truly court of public opinion. It is all based on votes. I have over 8 million impressions on my website. So like hundreds of thousands of y'all turn out to vote for the entire time, the entire month of July and August. Voting is voting is a month, nominations are a month, voting is a month. And I mean, the competition is just cutthroat. Let me tell you, we have people calling us that are like, did I win? Did I win? Did I win? Who won? Who beat me? Who did? What do you mean? Like it's, it is nuts. And I love how serious people take it because it means so much to them because it is like, it's truly a recognition of all of their hard work and their heart and soul that they, they put into their business and they put into their kitchen and they put into their customers because we really, it's a wide range of things. I promise. I'm excited. And we're going to be there.

12:17No question. Done. Yeah, 8 million impressions. That is impressive. And we might or might not have Mr. St. Dennis Phillips, our Lord and Savior, Tampa Bay weather coming. He is cool. I follow that guy. He is amazing. I think he is like the calming voice of all of the craziness during hurricane season. So with Dennis Phillips, it is not freaking out. I am fine. I use the coconut method. Yeah. You know, I mean, look, from, okay. So like from Miami, we had Brian Norcross. That's what we had. I needed a great job. And he was, he was that soothing voice. But since, you know, now, central Florida, that's the guy right there. 100% Dennis Phillips is a man. So that wagyu, let me tell you, first of all, perfectly cooked because if my steak isn't still moving on the plate, I don't want it. And then you top it off with my favorite thing in the whole wide world, just caviar.

13:18I love that caviar is having a thing right now. And you pair that with that steak that is so perfectly cooked. Oh my God. It's perfection on a dish. And if you're, if that is the direction that you are going, we are going to be having a very different conversation next year for Best of the Bay for Best Acos. And topple and 100 chef real quick before we get into the rest of your story. What was that? Any, tell me about that. All right. So there is all these different classifications across the world. And there's a lot to talk about when you're trying to sell somebody a steak. One of the coolest pieces is when you get to the higher classifications, they start reading you go from one to a five in Japan. And most of your countries are one to five. Here we do a select commodity up to a prideful. So that piece is from Mizaki. It's in a southern region down in South Japan. It rates at a five. And then there's an extra step they take where they test the meat itself for its,

14:24it don't as a BMS. And you can rate from one to a 12. The steak that we had today rates at a full 12. So it's the purist form of Japanese beef that you can actually collect. You've actually made friends with folks in Japan. Were you getting product straight from origin? Yes. That's not typical. No. That is a synergy relationship. I got friends in New Zealand at Zellas Land. But when you're in this community, you meet so many different walks of life and you never know what they do. So I'm just a good open conversation. I mean, it doesn't hurt that you're at the Fenway. You're not at the Fenway. That is probably top five most beautiful hotels on Florida. It speaks for itself. I'm going on 100 years. That building is stories. Yeah. I'm putting a grade or a number to that, but I'm putting it in there like with the dances are or the built more in Miami, you know, stuff like the breakers, things like that.

15:28It's in that sort of category. That's it. It has its own identity. It's once in a lifetime go see it. You spent some time offshore. And when I'm nearby offshore, we're in Florida. You're from Louisiana. Yep. We're on the Gulf. Not only do you get the beautiful warm waters of the Gulf and all the beautiful fish and shrimp and everything that's in there, but you get oil rigs. And being that you are a culinary guy, kitchen guy, you spent what about two years working the oil rigs, but on the culinary side, your feet, people, you're sharing with me your experience while you're on this rig and just like the sheer mental capacity that you need to have in order to do that. And for me, if I'm stuck out, you know, 50 miles, 100 miles offshore through all the weather, through all of the alone time, the work, all of that stuff, and you're not getting

16:30off unless somebody comes to pick you up, meaning like the coast guard. Yep. Yeah. Dude, that's serious mental stuff right there. That's a, that's a commitment. I know it's, I guess not getting your feet wet. It's when you sign up, it's, you go get certified. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you get a quick card and a national, you know, license to get out there. And then when you sign off, that's what you're signing off for. I mean, everybody has a different, you know, each field has its own rotations and how long you're there for, but it's most of our sides were 21 days and then you get a nice week back wherever you live that, you know, you shipped over to an area and go home, you come back and then you're on that rig. You probably sit around 18 hours a day, just working in those kitchens. When you're isolated in that way, what do you learn about yourself?

17:30Always go back to patients. And I was, there's times where, you know, we talk about regulation emotions, you know, trying to control yourself, control, you know, how you think about things. It's structure, you know, routine daily routines. It's finding comfort and small things as opposed to trying to figure out outside of your box of churro would be stuck in mellow. You know, I'm just thinking if it were me, and I'm going to be stuck somewhere for, you know, 14 days, 21 days, whatever, that helicopter ride out to the rig, that has to be probably the most in thought, surreal period of time for that particular trip. That's probably one of the easiest things. It's as simple as like you would go to the airport and you get on, you have your stuff,

18:34you get up, you go, you know, it's, it's the, it's almost like a connection piece when you lose the connection to, I guess we'd say the real world. It's like going off shore and about, you get to the docks, everything's fine, you get on that boat, you can fill a little bit of moment, but there's the almost like a disconnect. When you leave that land, you stop seeing land, you're in open water. That's the filling that's weird. How small are you when you're on the platform and you're just 360 degrees just alone water? Like, you're like a baby. And that's a, there's a good comedian that I watch every now and then, but he says, if you think you're in Florida, zoom out, and I was a safe concept, do you think you're big and do you get there? And that's, that's just a blank slate of, you know, blue skies and whatever else is around you. Did mention that those years working that platform, it did harden you.

19:34It did turn you into something that has inner strength. Do you take that experience and apply that to anything in your life today? I'm gonna present that out. It's a minutes is for any given chef. You know, there's some, there's some jobs out there that, you know, when you're running 80 hours a week, you shut a restaurant down, you have to turn around and get right back up. It's it, it mentally breaks you, you know, I don't think anybody's ever been like, okay, I love waking up and running 20, 30 hours, but it's, you get this form about you that it's, I have something that I have to do, you know, and it's, I'm responsible for these things. So then you start to build habit. Once you build that habit, it becomes a little bit easier as you go along with it. And then from there, you refine that and you hone that in and it's, you know, it becomes a way of life. This episode is brought to you by TriMark, the largest food service design equipment and supplies provider in North America. TriMark works directly with operators bringing design

20:37build expertise, supply sourcing strength, project management, installation and servicing together to power smarter hospitality kitchens. Learn more at TriMarkUSA.com. Your entry point to food was in the spirit of survival. That's not enjoyable. That's not where the passion, I don't think, starts because it's a job. It's survival. I got to get that paycheck. And you, you know, you go through the motion, you learn what you have to learn. And knowing who you are today, you love this industry. You love food. At one point in time, did you go from, oh man, I need a, I need a good paycheck to, you know, man, damn, I love this business. It was the moment that I learned to fill. You know, that's, that's a, that's not the thing to say. Most people don't teach you. I had some good mentors that kind of taught me in a different approach of things.

21:40It's the moment of saying it's okay to not come through with this, you know, but you still have to try. And it took until, you know, it was 15, 16 years in and every day you have something that goes wrong. You know, we run around fires all that. But living pressure wise, and you know, there's the mental beat down of, you know, you're not good enough for this dish. Once you learn to fail and realize it's okay, and that, you know, it's, I'm going to try again. And we're going to keep trying. And we're going to keep trying until, you know, I get what I'm looking for. And then once that's there, then I can move forward. That's when I started to develop, because it's, you live a little bit get more careless with what you're doing. You still got the structure, but it's, and I only if it's a steak, maybe I want to do more than just a steak. And maybe you know, let's go suck it first. But once I get what I'm looking for right, and then whatever's in my head is coming out, I have the technique, I have the skill, the discipline. And now just want to, you know, play with this food and see what happens. And most of the time,

22:43it actually comes out pretty well. I think that happened today on one of the dishes. No, a couple of tuffs. Yeah, let's, there's two. So you did three things today. What was the steak? And then you did two beautiful dishes. One of them was this colorful, like, just, it looked like something that should be hanging on a wall. All right, like artwork. That's it, artwork. You know what? It doesn't matter if I explain this, chef, please. I mean, their first piece, it's 100% Louisiana. It's every little bit of nod touch that I remember as a child. That was one of the questions. Is what did you do in Louisiana? Explain yourself. And so we made, on the very bottom was a persimmon thal. And I remember, we go deer hunting, persimmon trees everywhere. You pick about, you eat them. They're beautiful. The next piece was a set summa gel. That is, I've made myself sick so many times with

23:45set summa just eating them raw and too much that off. The next piece, let's provide it. Shogun Farms got me these beautiful little tinterloins that came off of one of the wild boar. We took that wild boar. It's considered a forest, but kind of like a pot of meat. I blended field peas. So back home, we call them purple whole peas between Louisiana and Mississippi. But I ended up blending them back to that boar, put them together, and then we wrapped it in a col fat, which is a little bit more of the porcelain top of that. And then pan roasted that so you get this nice crispy little skin and then paired those two together. Top of it, you have a little citrus twill that a little sumac touch to it. So that way you just get the full Louisiana vibe. I enjoyed the hell out of that. I think with a little alteration, that turns into a boodan, no? Yes. I think so. I think if you cooked it down a little bit further, there's some rice, some stock,

24:48a little bit more spice. Make a little put a little heat down. I believe it could be there. I'm not saying you should do that, but I'm not saying you shouldn't, but I think you should. I like that. I don't know. It kind of sounds a little good. Yeah. I mean, that looks like it on everything. I only got introduced to boodan about three years ago. Okay, but I fell in love with that. It's freaking amazing. And anytime that I can find it and get it, I do it. It's, and then, then once you learn how to make that, get your friends over. It's a whole, that's a reward system. Felt 20 times, but when you learn to make boodan, it's, yeah, that can be my meal for life. Yeah. I mean, I got a thing pooch for that one. Pooch was my pusher on the boodan. Let's talk mastery. There's shaps who focus on a thing, a method. You don't subscribe to that.

25:52I will never say I don't appreciate anybody in this field. You know, it's, if you've been through this field and you've worked your way there, it's 100% you are, do your credits. I prefer not to use the term mastery. And it's just my philosophy. There's, there's masters out there that have seen that under their skill, if it's one item, sure. But the overall term mastery to me, it just, there's so much more for me to learn. You know, it's a 195 countries. It's everybody has their own varietal version of something and that's, that's kind of my path and what I want to know. So you're saying it could be dangerous to a chef because it stymies their overall growth. I, you know, if you have a passion, let's say pizza, by all means, if you go through that and that is it, and that's all you ever wanted to do. And no, I, I am poor. You've had like that's,

26:53that is 100% you can master pizzas. I know. If you were looking to break through and culinary, and then not just as a work farm, but just as a, you know, a student, I, I think there's so much more. I just think it's, you know, the study just continues and continues and then there's development. So every year we get better. We learn new things, we learn new things to cook with. That's kind of where I see, you know, that I prefer to say I'm a student for life. I mean, I've mastered eating pizza, consuming it in the, in the biggest way possible. You know, and I am a student of that for life, both master and student equally the same. So first of all, let me clear this up. Clayton and I are both from the same one third of Louisiana, because very similar to Florida, I feel like when you move to Florida and Clayton back me up on this, when you move to Florida, it is a very easy transition because the level of crazy is the same.

27:59A cool. And just like, just like Florida, Louisiana is broken up in three different parts. There is north Louisiana, which we don't talk about them because they're look a stars close at certain times. In some places don't even have look a stows. And then south Louisiana, which is where we are from, which is anything from my parish, was there's a Valls parish, which is right next to Clayton's parish, because we have parishes and not counties. We don't do the counties. We don't do the counties. And then there's New Orleans, which is a completely different world in and of itself. It might as well be its own state. So, so as, as I say that Clayton, I say, you've worked in everything. Basically, because that's what we do, right? We just, we go to work. We go to work and we work hard and we learn everything. So you work from everything from like slaughterhouses to the small restaurants because we have some amazing small restaurants to the greatest university in the world, LSU, in their convention centers. And then, you know, all the hotels and luxury hotels and everything.

29:00And we learn something from every little thing that we do because that's how we're raised. And that's how we're taught. What, what did you pull from from each of those experiences and each of those walks of life? Every time was completely a different scenario. So I didn't gain one particular thing from either one of them. It's good or bad experiences, you know, one fire, me fire, me want me to keep going great, you know, am I doing great? Maybe, maybe not. Coming out of Louisiana, though, it's, you know, they're old school. It's, we praise the Julia child's care. We praise the pauper domes like because everyone learned. You don't, you can have a culinary degree. It doesn't matter. You're still washing those dishes. You're going to start at the ground bottom. You're going to spend two to five years there. And you're going to move and, you know, let's you prep a little. But every single step what I could tell you I did learn is, it always goes back to patients and then refinement. So you might know one thing and you could read a

30:04recipe. That's great. But how do you make that better? Walking talk media is proudly supported by Rack porcelain USA creating durable, beautifully designed tableware for chefs and hospitality professionals learn more at rack porcelain.com. I don't know because anybody, if any given person could do these recipes, whether you want to be a chef, you better be as good as your last dish. And that's why we were taught, you know, new work hard. You go in, you learn first, and then you can move forward. I think one of the beautiful things about that too is that we have in our culture, there, there is such a want and an open willingness from any of our elders to teach us the ways. So my grandma taught me, my daddy taught me, you know, and there is the importance and this openness in the younger generation too to accept that because you can go from one side of the state to the other side of the state and you'll get 70 different variations on the same dish. And it's all

31:07generational and it's all like this teaching and everybody there is like yearning to learn the culture and like keep it alive. I think there's more similarities between Florida and Louisiana. First, I think we can both settle around that we don't like no role tied. Absolutely not. Yeah, okay. Immediately now. Yeah, so we're okay, okay, so right, we're on the same, okay, okay. And then we have to deal with hurricanes a lot. Okay, chef, you go from living in Louisiana, Hurricane, yeah, alley, and then you come to Florida, Tampa, by the way, like this area which never gets hit and all of a sudden like in the last, you know, handful of the years, it's like every year there's hurricanes now. And you got you got banged up good. Yeah, we were, yeah, we had a full pine tree take out all our power and rubbed out some stuff out the back. Took about a month as far as work, you know, we went north for a little bit. I took

32:11the family up, you know, never know what's going to happen. Got ourselves ready, came back and ended up moving over into the hotel for a little while and working out the hotel. No, it's, you pray that, you know, it's not you and you know, everything's safe, but you never know what's going to happen. And sure enough, we got to act pretty hard. And, you know, luckily, the first, the first one I came through, you know, the ward didn't get us or poor neighbors, they went under. But second one was all wind and power and it ripped up all the backs out of our house. When disaster happens. And for you specifically, what's the separation between Clayton, the husband, dad versus Clayton, leader executive chef? You know, it kind of, it's hard to, it's hard to say separation, you know, for a group of people, it's, you protect everybody. When disaster strikes, it's not

33:13just you. It's not just my family. And then we raise our family the same way. It's everybody that's around you is in the same, same boat. You know, it doesn't matter who you are where you come from. It's for the next 24 hours, hopefully not that much, the next two weeks, three weeks of month. We're in a bind. And the only thing that I've learned over my time is to our families abourds our families. And it doesn't have to be blood relatives, you know, it's our community needs to be there for each other. I think it's hard when you have, when you're in a leadership role, you have your family, of course. And then you have your, your company life. And if you're in a leadership role in your company life, you have to give up yourself and be there for people. It's almost mandatory. And I found it difficult in those scenarios to have to explain that

34:14to your own family. Like, okay, I am here. We're going to get everything squared away here at home. But I have to take a piece of me and I have to apply it for these people. I always felt that that is a very difficult tightrope to walk. Everybody has these conversations as in our industry. Now it's finding a good support system. That's been the biggest piece to it all. The boy for the rest of my life. We come to terms that, you know, if I want to continue, you know, in this industry, there will be times, there will be days. And even with my children, daddy has to go to work. There's a bigger importance. And I was learning that a little bit of self-giving, we typically, for the most part, could it back in return? You know, it's not, it's not just thrown away. Most of our, the companies I've worked for have, you know, reinvested and

35:17put it back into me, my family. There's a better understanding when you, you know, you don't look short term. You look long term. And it's, if you're there for me, I'm there for you. Kind of deal. And, you know, the family kind of starts to see a little bit of it as well. And it's, you know, my children are well loved at that hotel. And my wife's been there multiple times. We know it's, it's almost a small family that works together. And if I need a break, I get a break. If they need a break, it's vice versa. But, you know, it's, if we're there and we're working, we understand that we have that responsibility, which is hard because you go home and it's like, I'm not coming home for Christmas. I'm not coming home for Thanksgiving. But we do know at the very end of this, there will be times where I will have the my moment with my family and the people that I work with will also be there with me to, you know, kind of rejoice with, with the group is not just, you know, one side of thing. Mac the culinary. A lot of people see food. But what do you see?

36:24Chaos. My brain rolls. It might be the ADHD, but I, you know, it's, it's so much more, it's so much more. As it, when I say, well, life, it's, you know, and you don't eat food, I guess necessarily, but it's nice to have and it's nice to have good food. And it teaches you way more than you ever would imagine. So food is an education. 100%. It's, it's, it's more than just what you eat. I don't know. I mean, it's an ecosystem. We, we live inside of what we're eating. No, it's, it's essential. There's, I mean, if you get towards the biology side of things and you start understanding what lives in these waters and lives in the skies and what their essential functions are, I know it's, it's way more than just food itself. I mean, you're still a relatively

37:26young guy. In the career of things, even though you've been doing this for a long time, you're, you're into your, you know, 20 plus years in the business, but you still got a ways to go. But you've spent your whole life chasing this, this knowledge thing, right? Our titles school, yeah, you're not really chasing them per se. But when you get to a point, when you either start working at a country club, or you become a sales rep someplace and you're winding down, you know, like you, you, it's, you know, part of your exit plan. What do you want to be remembered as in this industry? The really cool guy that knew a lot of stuff. And oh, it's, it's been a fun ride and it's going to continue to be a fun ride. And I'm going to ride it out until I can't walk anymore. It's some of my heroes, you know,

38:27the Peku side. And man retired in his kitchen. There's, there's so much that I've not done yet and haven't covered in the, I don't have any plans of stopping until the forces stop. Support for walk and talk media comes from crab island seafood dip creating chef driven crab dips made with real seafood and bold flavor. Learn more at crab island seafood dip.com. Were you serious about wanting to be top 100 stay houses? I am as, you know, we talk about the awards and our property. And I'm not, I'm not 100% for an award. But I know as if they come great. I am, I want to showcase what my students, what our workers, what our very highly qualified and trained people do. There's one list that everyone can agree on. There's 101 best stay houses in the world. We have over the last four years have

39:31geared ourselves to be even considered for something like this. So it is, it is a dream for our entire team right now that, you know, we're going to put together this global collection of beef. You know, it's in the experience for them to we're learning a lot, especially international trade and some other wild things that we got ourselves into. But no, that's 100% our goal. You know, we want to be if out of any of the list, that's the one we want to be on. All right, hold up. We talked about this day enough. Let's talk about that second dish because that's second dish. That's second dish. That is a wild card. I think, girl, I mentioned, there was some, wellness happened. That was one of them. So we used it in art theory. So, triptych, it's pairs of three. You know, it's what three things that you combine that almost separate themselves, they have different identities, but in the very end of it actually come together.

40:33So that dish, none of that should have worked out. So we made an old school fridge. That took the traditional croquette inside that croquette. They used a U-competado. We season it very well. It had some amazing smoked gouda out of Holland. And then we took anilip. Adds a little bit of ground aniloup. We tied that up. We deep fried it in a little bit of sunflower oil. Super crispy. When it came to the sauces, we had no clue what we wanted to pair any of this with. So add a little bit of help from our city scene or sous chef, but we ended up natural elements. And he was like, don't do much to it. And I was like, you're right. I don't want to overthink this. So we made a carrot curry, a puree out of it, made it into a finer, little bit of a, you know, beautiful little sauce that would glow in glisten. And then it just kept rolling down from there that we did spinach. We had a nice mirror foie that we put to it and blended

41:35it till it was thick enough. And then the last sauce was our little cherry peppers. Added a little bit of dry cherry to it. Nothing else. Maybe it touched a salt and pepper. Mone each three of them and blended it. And you had three wild sauces that once again still shouldn't work. I thought it was brilliant because you took old school Frenchy French. And you smashed it together with like the wild west of the states. And out of it came this really amazing dish, which I would order the absolute hell out of. Like that needs to be a menu item. That might be on the topic. So I think we, I think all of us were a little surprised today. So we'll bring those back to the guys and let them go for it too. Just those sauces alone. I mean, I like the, those were stupid delicious. Sometimes overthinking things just exploded, you know, getting in touch with nature. That's

42:40a simple, easy element and then flavor, learn flavor. Okay. So Clayton, we've known each other a lot. And I know that being on the top 100 steak houses, that's great. That I love that. Jordy for you. We could put it on pause. But it is not nearly as cool as being on the best of the Bay list. Don't worry. We'll be there. And it's not nearly as cool as being on the best of the Bay list. What is it? Six times just this year alone. Six times. We are beyond honored and I will be there. I don't think there's a cooler list than Tampa Bay. Can you, can you make something like what you made today for me? If you won't just keep a little, like a little doggy bag, like under the table. That'll be the only thing that I eat all night long. It'll be great. I will definitely have more than just a doggy bag. We'll make sure you have a whole buffet of it. So that sounds good. If you're talking to like do not forget about me.

43:44All right. This is okay. I'm private stash. I want the private stash. We're taking over a kitchen somewhere at the end of the party. Okay. Sounds like all right. Now we're talking. Now, definitely going to be there. Today was awesome. John, as usual, photography, banging, chef, photography, right? No, phenomenal. Oh, yeah. Okay. Wow. How do people find you? I get Facebook and get on LinkedIn. And if not, you know, come the way. Come see me at the Fenway Hotel and to need me. I recommend that one. Miss Lee Wilson. How do people find you? In so many different ways. Website is CLTampa.com. You can find us on Instagram. Please follow us on Instagram and the TikToks at CLTampaBay.com. And then go to the best of Bay website, votbtampaBay.com to get those tickets now. They are going fast. I missed you. I'm glad you made it today. We are hard break right now. Hey, we are out.

44:46I started or not in 2013 and we make bike apparel. The best part of Shopify for me is our ability to run the business as essentially non-technical people. We're able to admin everything on the back and front end and sell things online easily. If Shopify were a bike accessory, I think it would actually be the bicycle. It's the thing that you do the thing on. We run the business on Shopify. Start your free trial on Shopify.com. This episode is supported by FX's The Drop, a snowfall saga. Wanda and Leon are back, but this time they're chasing a different kind of legacy. As West Coast rap begins to take over 90s Los Angeles, Wanda is betting on a new generation of artists, but in a city where every opportunity comes with a price, they'll have to decide what they're

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