Food was always important to Brooks Headley, even while he was drumming in bands like Born Against and Universal Order of Armageddon, but he didn’t begin a professional cooking career until later in life. Starting in Washington D.C., Brooks traveled the country both with his bands and working at restaurants, before settling in New York and finding acclaim as the executive pastry chef at Del Posto. Later, he left the ultra-expensive white tablecloth world behind to open the wildly popular Superiority Burger, which now has locations in NYC and Tokyo. We talk to Brooks about figuring out what’s important to him, how his restaurant is an extension of both himself and the ethics he learned playing in punk bands, and how to be genuine and honest - as a leader, a musician or a human being. For Full Length Episodes And Merchandise Go To https://www.patreon.com/killedbydesk Follow: Killed By Desk Insta: @killedbydeskpodcast Twitter: @killedbydesk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/killedbydesk LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/killedbydesk
Links:
Superiority Burger - our core value: humility
http://www.superiorityburger.com/
Brooks Discogs
https://www.discogs.com/artist/934626-Brooks-Headley
Gorilla Biscuits
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla_Biscuits
Flex Your Head
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5-c2oc5V-g
Born Against
https://www.noecho.net/features/born-against-flyer-art
Great Chefs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxCQF0UjBH4
Best Italian in Washington DC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Donna
Brooks Headley Cookbooks
https://www.amazon.com/Brooks-Headleys-Fancy-Desserts-Award-Winning/dp/0393352382
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073VXWL67/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
Ramones Review 1976
How Not to Write a Cookbook
https://www.bonappetit.com/person/brooks-headley
GG Allin
https://www.loudersound.com/features/blood-and-guts-16-facts-about-gg-allin
Dicks
https://www.discogs.com/artist/262965-Dicks
999
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMw_u6t3eSU
Junkyard - Not Flex Your Head
Jon Hiltz’s House
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMRjFHobic
https://www.discogs.com/artist/560236-Jon-Hiltz
Champiple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5glk4D0yTfQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEDQG-XpCoQ
Sam McPheeters
https://www.vice.com/en/contributor/sam-mcpheeters
https://www.vice.com/en/article/78dyya/the-dessert-psycho
Ian Vs Steve
Tonie Joy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4IOfN19JkA
That unique smell
https://happydonabelife.com/recipes/earthy-burdock-root-rice/
James Beard Award
https://www.jamesbeard.org/awards
Tomata du Plenty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomata_du_Plenty
Pink Flamingos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVic8sNVjVQ
Union Square Farmer’s Market
https://www.grownyc.org/greenmarket/manhattan-union-square-m
Crif Dogs
Coq Au Vin
https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=coq+au+vin&find_loc=New+York%2C+NY
Pizza for “Display Only”
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KSSkgBDMN9o/TyDTwf_gLpI/AAAAAAAAEAc/rewaw20zPPQ/s1600/PizzaCase.JPG
SB Japan
https://www.instagram.com/superiorityburgerjapan/?hl=en
Bill meant Woodside Thai Places
https://ny.eater.com/2019/8/23/20754728/thai-restaurants-food-nyc-best-elmhurst-woodsive-avenue
Academy Records
https://www.academy-records.com/
Georgia Diner
No Price Restuarants
https://ny.eater.com/2020/2/12/21130516/menus-without-prices-oped-nyc-restaurants
Co2 Shortage
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/20/carbon-dioxide-shortage-us-food-water-coronavirus
Tropical Fantasy
https://newsone.com/2022788/black-urban-legends-tropical-fantasy-soda/
Prune Plums
MIke Watt
https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2019-09-03/mike-watt-minutemen-san-pedro-busy-bee
all right this is bill florio yo this is
mc charlie boswell hey everyone it's
dave harrison hey it's justine cannon
all right now today i killed by a desk
we have brooks headley he is the only
one brooks
is the proprietor of superiority burger
uh which sounds like a gorilla biscuit
song to me
i think that's the point so what did you
guys think of this one
hope they don't taste like gorillapod
thing is that a real food no i don't i
don't think so they don't serve alcohol
there right
they don't serve alcohol there that's
right i do have to say there was
an exorbitant amount of mentions of the
flex your head compilation so i feel
like that definitely has to be uh uh
the soundtrack for this episode that
sounds good it's not a bad record you
know it's funny like for how punk i am i
don't think i've heard
any of these classic comps that we
talked about because i hated compilation
so much that was pretty good that's it
you've you've heard every song on that
separately for sure
but so brooks was in born against
wrangler brutes he was in all these
bands with either sam
and or adam bill you remember that time
we played with born against and we
opened up for
cape fear with robert de niro that's
right and we and we drew more people
i did mention that show because brooks
told me about he
he took one of those shirts home and his
mom saw it i don't know if you remember
those t-shirts but it had like a cruiser
with like
something really big stuck out of his
pants and we saw like 14 year olds
buying them in bulk and we knew they all
just got thrown out so if you have one
of those shirts it's probably worth a
lot of money it's an amazing shirt i had
to google it as a huge born against fan
i was like oh i wonder if i should get a
born against shirt from my 42 year old
self and then i saw that design and
decided i was not going to do it
i sure as hell didn't take one so jesse
decided on a tattoo instead so
stay tuned for that photo you you've got
a born against
but i do have a good board against story
that i used to have a sticker of them in
my car
and a cop pulled me over one time and he
comes over he goes bored against
i usually see that one next to bad cop
no donut
and i said i don't know why there are
christian bands
[Laughter]
this is a fun episode it is a fun
episode i'll say for me this is the
first one we've done
where i've liked the person's music work
and their professional work
all right so brooks we usually start
this out where you introduce yourself
and what you do okay my name is brooks
headley
i am the chef owner
operator of a ridiculous six-seat
restaurant
in east village called superiority
burger i've also been
in a bunch of really ridiculous stupid
bands over the years too cool
so the restaurant industry is at least
on television notoriously a tough
business
is that true and why do you do what you
do
i just love cooking it's always kind of
been my favorite thing even before i did
it
professionally i've actually never felt
that
working in a restaurant was particularly
taxing
physically a lot of people seem to think
that um
i just i love every second of it even
even now
and during the pandemic when things are
really [ __ ] up like but even when i
started doing it and i
started working in restaurants in like
1999 like it's always
kind of been this thing that getting big
boxes
of amazing product and chopping it down
and making
making it smaller and then dipping it up
and cooking things
it's it's my absolute favorite thing i
mean technically playing drums is my
favorite thing but i don't really get to
do that too much anymore so this has
kind of taken its place
well i heard that you played drums and
set yourself to think about
food while you were drumming is that
right yeah i mean like when
like when i was in touring bands or
bands that were
very active and recording stuff like
that like it's kind of one of those
things where you always kind of want the
thing
that you're not doing so when i would be
playing at a show or recording or
whatever like my thought process would
be
like all right i'm making gnocchi like
uh i'm
mixing the dough i'm i am making sure
that it's
nice and airy if i press my finger into
it will it come back like
now i'm boiling it you know so i've
definitely like i've said that and a lot
of people might think it's [ __ ] but
it's not you know because i love cooking
did you imagine like lots of pots and
pans in front of you
no no not really like yeah although i
have had
many people over the years be very
annoyed at
my constant tapping on things which
usually
gets a little more extreme during phases
where i haven't been playing drums in a
band so
before we started this i heard you
tapping i was actually
very impressed with how on time it was
as a record producer
i mean i probably do it when like i'm
not sure what to do too so
[Laughter]
cool uh so i feel like your at least the
history of your
cooking career is very interesting can
you just walk us through it a little bit
sure i'd always really really been been
into food cooking
or just like into like watching
food television that kind of thing like
there was a show
called uh great chefs that was like i
think i want to say it was like late 80s
early 90s
stretching to the late 90s where i was
this like it was on pbs i believe
and um it was just these like crazy
french chefs with like
tall hats making these ridiculous like
uh
kind of like foie gras emulsion this and
that
and uh kind of talking talking through
it
for this tv show there would the thing
that i always really kind of loved about
it but they left the uh
kind of like ambient background noise of
the kitchen like the kind of clanking
and the sound of the hoods
and stuff like that and it kind of like
made it more fun i guess um
because it wasn't it was kind of like
you know this was the kind of thing
where
a producer went in and started filming
these uh
chefs who weren't used to being on
camera so like they're just
kind of doing what they're normally
doing and then all the like
clanking and sounds in the background
they left in there and then there was
also this amazing
um narrator for the show who had kind of
like a new orleans accent
and uh there's this woman i don't
remember her name but it always it kind
of added to it and there was kind of
like this weird sort of jazzy classical
music playing in the background but i
always totally totally loved it and then
basically spent most of the 90s just
jerking around
being in kind of stupid bands and then
in 1999
uh the band i was in at the time skull
control we had broken up i was living in
washington dc
and i found an ad in the
dc city paper and it said uh pastry
assistant wanted and
there was just a fax number and that was
it and for some reason i decided
it was a good idea for me to try to get
this job even though
i had never really cooked any desserts
ever and i
didn't even really care about desserts
either like maybe like making cookies
with my grandmother or something like
that
but anyway it was almost like a prank so
i remember very specifically because i
had just
also um finally graduated from college
with an english degree
so went home wrote this you know
very flowery letter and uh printed it
out
and then walked up to mount pleasant
street in washington dc where i lived at
the time
to the uh i don't know what it was like
a notary
fax place and i took the piece of paper
gave it to the guy and he faxed it to
the number it didn't say what the
restaurant was it didn't say anything at
all just said pastry assistant wanted
basically they called me back
which i thought was strange because i
had no experience
at all and it turned out to be basically
the best
italian restaurant in washington dc at
the time a place i'd never been to
because i
wasn't going to fancy restaurants you
know i was a broke pumpkin
best italian restaurant in washington to
see as somebody who spent time in new
york i imagine it's pretty bad i spent a
lot of time at both
honestly i'm gonna say that when i
started working at this place it was
called galileo in 1999 it was
a phenomenal restaurant i have no idea
how it compared to new york restaurants
at the time in terms of like
technique or ingredients or anything
like that but
when i started working there i was kind
of like clobbered over the head with
what was going
on there and like i was completely out
of place i didn't belong there
i was vegetarian at the time so had i
gotten a job on the line
cooking you know duck and lobster and
veal stock and stuff like that i
probably would have lasted like a month
or maybe
even less a day but because it was a
pastry job i
got this lower level pastry job and
because i was vegetarian it didn't
involve
dealing with any meat i kind of like
fell into it that way so question
i had this preconceived notion i mean as
someone who loves to cook myself but
i'm i'm [ __ ] at any kind of of baking
because i'm not precise enough i am the
kind of person that just like
throws [ __ ] into a pan or whatever and
kind of figures it out based on what i
know the flavors are in my head and i
assumed that there was going to be some
link between
your you know the precision needed to
drum and the precision
and you know dedication and and accuracy
needed to create
desserts in that way but then i read
something that you said that you kind of
just
look at recipes as a starting point and
just kind of you know we'll go rogue
with that stuff has
is that is that still your approach you
know when you're making pastries and
things like that i know it's not your
main thing right now but
you know did you always kind of wing it
or or were you
a super precise person at one point and
then went further after that
no no i've never ever been a precise
person for anything not for
playing drums and not for cooking ever i
pretty much do everything by feel
it actually drives a certain kind of
a certain kind of person that comes to
work at superiority burger that expects
a certain amount of precision
um that's not there it drives them
completely crazy and then they
don't last very long and which is fine
because you know it's totally fine you
know
but yeah like even something like uh
like making ice cream
is one of my total passions i love
everything about it
i love starting from zero where you're
taking
a bunch of stuff and then making
something putting it in a machine and
the thing that comes out
is way greater than the sum of the parts
that went in
and it's all about texture it's about
flavor it's about
balance and it really requires a certain
amount of precision to do it but
even to this day to this day meaning
like today
when i was making ice cream today i just
still kind of wing it and
that was kind of the same when i was
playing drums too like
especially i would always try to do
things that i couldn't do and then a lot
of times those would get captured on
recordings and especially
especially in a live situation or
whatever you know um where
it's almost like i just want the whole
thing to be done with so i can be done
with it and be like all right cool
that's done
so it's it's weird because like if it's
a song you're playing live
it's done nobody cares you know at least
most bands i've ever been in the songs
don't nobody cares
um but like with cooking like especially
something like ice cream like it's done
now
now is the time that it really needs to
get judged
did you do a good job did you make it
work um and you know sometimes it
doesn't work
and then we make it again so when you're
cooking for friends and things like that
do they know like oh listen brooks is
cooking there's like a 40
chance this could be garbage and there's
a you know 60 chance it's the best thing
you've ever had
i absolutely never cook for friends
unless you consider
unless you consider our regulars the
friends um i have
lived in new york since 2006 in
like four different apartments and i
have only cooked it home
maybe six times like totally because
i've always been working
and so there's not a lot of like hey
come over it's am i having a dinner
party kind of thing or like even like
i'm gonna cook for my girlfriend you
know like
pretty much like i'm cooking at work and
then when i come home
i mean if if this was video that you
could take a look in my refrigerator
there's nothing in there so
so you just to get in here so you never
had any
formal training other than on the job no
no no
it's true and then i mean because
cooking is one of those things it's not
like it's not like
being a doctor or a lawyer where you
actually have to be schooled at certain
things to do it like cooking you can
kind of just figure out as you go along
and it really depends on your commitment
to the cause
like if you are completely committed and
you're working at a place where you know
you can learn a bunch of awesome [ __ ]
then it doesn't matter you can start
from zero
and learn a bunch of amazing techniques
and then take those to your next
restaurant in your next restaurant or
perhaps
if you ever get to open up your own
thing that's uh
yeah but i never went to culinary school
i actually don't recommend
anyone going to culinary school i think
it's a waste of money um at the same
time
if you're if your goal is to like learn
as much as possible on the job at
good restaurants or not even necessarily
good at restaurants where you know you
can learn
things that you want to learn um you're
probably going to work for no money so
like you're not your lack of getting
money
as opposed to you're paying a bunch of
money for school for cooking is kind of
to me it's kind of the same it all
really it really depends on your
motivation as a person you know if you
it's something you really want to do
then you can make it work you're
probably not going to starve
right well no i mean that's the thing
you work in a restaurant you're never
going to starve
you're better off than a media intern
i found this review and i wanted to
bring this up because it seems
appropriate for what you're saying here
and it's it was in food 52 and it was
from bill buford it was a review of
fancy desserts
and i'll just read it a section here is
it a cookbook yes
mainly sometimes the photography sucks
deliberately the color is washed out the
photography is amazing it does not suck
it's the opposite of food porn it's what
you go to if you just wasted an
afternoon watching the food network but
is it a cookbook
there's no chapter of pastry kitchen
basics which is curious in a dessert
book
except that here there is no basic
anything the recipes come at you every
which way
they are sometimes complete some of them
probably work they are
all nothing less than very idiosyncratic
and yet they are also somehow not arty
maybe it's not a cookbook now that was a
positive review i know that was i i
like that i mean especially except for
the photography part because i think the
photography in that book is amazing
well i think you know what what it
reminded me of is if you see early
reviews of like the ramones
when like rock critics don't know what
to make of it and they're kind of like
what is this it's great but i don't get
it it doesn't
compute and knowing someone like buford
who like in the beginning of the article
he's talking about oh i was away in
europe and i came back and blah blah and
all that stuff
and he's coming at it obviously from a
very different place he's coming at it
from
the high end if not white tablecloth at
least
very entrenched culinary world and you
put out a cookbook
that is almost like a zine you know so
so how much of that
was a middle finger to you know to to
that
culinary world or how much of it was
just an expression of identity it's
funny like uh when
that book came out because it's kind of
like it's like sort of memoir
sort of cookbook the photography and
design
was specifically i specifically chose
jason fulford and tamara shopsin
to do that because they had done the
the shop sentence cookbook which i loved
um and i was like hey i want to do this
so it was like kind of like a i just i
it felt like the
i love their aesthetic you know in terms
of it being
of course like it meant it was 100 meant
to be like an
anti cookbook for sure and
i still to this day can't believe that
the publisher even put it out because
it's pretty stupid and it doesn't really
make any sense
and people will still come into the
superiority burger now and be like oh my
god i love fancy desserts and i'm like
that's amazing uh it was it was kind of
a joke the whole thing was kind of a
joke except it wasn't a joke at all and
you know that's that's definitely that
that idea is something that i
100 learned from like being born against
you know this thing is a complete joke
but it's also
deadly serious that's fascinating
because i did see you seem to have a
complicated relationship with cookbooks
i mean there
there was that bone app article that you
wrote about cookbooks and all that and
looking at that as and i've always felt
similarly
that a lot of cookbooks are marketing
ploys they're they're these
books that are written that no one's
gonna actually you put it on your shelf
in your kitchen and it makes you look
like you know how to cook
no one's opening that up for inspiration
and you know i wonder
your relationship when you when you did
you know fancy desserts or even more so
when you did the superiority cook uh
burger cookbook were you focused on
making something
that people would actually use facing
desserts i didn't really care at all if
anyone ever used
it like i said even to this day when
people are like oh i did the carrot cake
recipe i'm like oh my god it worked
as opposed to the superiority burger
cookbook which was meant to be
a documentation of the things we had
done up until that point
um when superiority burger opened the
same publisher that put out fancy
desserts kind of that
approached me and was like hey do you
want to do a cookbook and like we had
just opened it was
way too soon to even consider it but i
was kind of all wrapped up in like the
hullabaloo or whatever so i agreed to it
it was definitely way too soon
for that to come out um or to that for
us to even try to start that
at that point um i'm proud of what came
out of it because
it is definitely like a documentation of
a particular
2015 to 2016
ish air time frame when the restaurant
had first started
and we were kind of going crazy in this
tiny little space
um since that book has come out i think
i think
we probably figured out we have three to
400 new recipes
that could be like a series of other
cookbooks but i also decided i will
never ever do
a normal cookbook ever again so i mean
you've worked with some
pretty successful chefs that they weigh
in on like these decisions that they
give you advice
around like you should do this to a
cookbook you shouldn't honestly like
nobody really knew what i was doing at
the time
so it kind of when people that i knew
professionally were like oh you're doing
a cookbook i they kind of had an
idea in their head of what it was going
to be and then when fancy desserts
actually came out
a lot of them were just like oh uh cool
like
like completely like like oh well this
is useless
but i like it you know i like that but
it's the same publisher and the second
one they were like you can't
compare rain and blood to panacada in
this one is that right
well two-fold um they were like why
don't you do a normal cookbook and i was
like i'm
i totally want to do a normal cookbook
you know
um and then also for the for the
superiority burger cookbook it was
supposed to just be more like like i
said straight documentation like you
know not to get
like cheesy here but like i think of
something like flex your head and like
that is like a
[ __ ] total documentation of this very
particular scene that was happening
in washington dc at a very particular
time so as we were like
compiling the recipes and writing the
the intros and all that stuff i was like
oh this is cool
you know this is this is exactly and it
was wasn't meant
it wasn't supposed to be particularly
like a middle finger or ridiculous or in
any way like it was supposed to just be
like this is
what we're doing but i mean uh cookbooks
like the lps of the
food world like when you go see the live
act
is it really the same thing of course
not no no
well i think most people don't realize
that okay all right maybe
the superiority burger book is a little
bit of a middle finger too anyway
i mean specifically like the burger
recipe it's all in one page
it looks very simple but then people
would come up to me and go oh
i tried to make the burger recipe it
took eight hours and i'm like i'm like
that's it
you know but if the recipe was
specifically written
with like verbs and adjectives and nouns
to make it seem
like it might be easy even though if you
really read those words
it's definitely not and then that's the
first recipe in the book
and then there's 90 other recipes that
have nothing to do with
veggie burgers which i also love because
you know it's looks like a like a book
of
different veggie burger recipes and
there's only one and then that's it
so with that so it's eight hours to make
this burger
you're not surprised you are talking
about how
your cooking is a little bit of an
approximation so many of these chefs
like especially like that
elbowly noma thing of that they're like
developing these science experiments of
food
that's not i when i taste your burger i
hear
taste craftsmanship but it's really
exactness
and replication of that is not a concern
for you no of course it is of course it
is like you know like we
we spend a lot of time like making sure
that
when we make something like the burger
that is very uniform
the initial like research and and
developing of the recipe
is a lot more like kind of scavenge um
but once it becomes a thing that we have
all the time
which is kind of a very small amount of
items on our menu like
most of the stuff it's like only five or
six things that are always there like
the rest of the stuff just kind of comes
and goes depending on what we find in
the market
or what we feel like making that kind of
thing so
but yeah the main kind of like meat of
the
menu is you know pretty precise and i
have an amazing
cook named edith and she has been with
the restaurant for
five years you know almost since the
beginning and you know we trained her to
make the burger in a certain way
and she is actually incredibly precise
so
it never actually changes and in fact
since the shutdown
i decided to kind of like [ __ ] with the
burger recipe a little bit which
definitely kind of annoyed her
because i i refused to actually like
write down what we were doing and it was
probably about a month and a half
of me just like dumping things in in
containers and then eventually she sort
of looked at me and was like
all right and then we actually got out
of scale and weighed everything out and
like
you know for the past two months she's
been making the
the same thing and it's always the same
and it's probably better than when i
made it
so so we were going from dc what
happened
after you got that first job with vfx
machine how did that work out um worked
there for about a year
and it was like i said it was an amazing
restaurant
learned all sorts of crazy techniques um
for desserts because i was a pastry
assistant
making ice cream making um you know how
to shoe all these different
things that i never i didn't even know
like uh like we made
you know cremon glaze and i didn't even
i'd never even seen that word before so
i just i thought like if i looked at it
it was like creme
on glaze you know like i didn't i didn't
know any french or anything
so i learned all these things that i
didn't even know i wanted to learn about
but i did and it was kind of a thing
where it kind of changed me as a person
because i got to like
learn this craft that i wasn't even
planning on learning
specifically this dessert because before
you know it was like
i'm making vegetarian food for my
friends nature's burger casserole
so i was like kind of thrust into this
world where i was this weirdo because
at the time i was 27 which was pretty
old to be working
as like a person just starting in a
restaurant i mean
granted at the time things have kind of
flipped now where like
sous chefs and chefs that work in
restaurants are much younger but
when i started working in the late 90s
the the people in charge were actually
kind of old like they were in their 40s
and they were
mean and they were like like bitter and
and totally [ __ ] nuts um but in terms
of in the like pastry world there was
the pastry chef
and all of her cooks were people that
were like 20 and i was 27 which doesn't
seem that like that
much of a difference but at the time it
kind of was and i was really quiet and i
was really shy and i just
kind of like learned from the pastry
chef how to do these things
and like it really stuck with me in this
way where i like i was sort of confused
because i was this guy who was just
had been in a bunch of bands for most of
the 90s and all of a sudden
now i'm making super high-end fancy
fancy desserts
for in like unfathomably rich people
you know which everything about it felt
wrong except at the same time i was
really having a good time i mean you
were used to mean and crazy though
oh for sure yeah you had that advantage
you know
like someone who's 20 might not have had
those those calluses on there
yeah for sure right so where'd you go
after that well i had met
a friend of mine who i'm still friends
with today his name is scott and he
these things happen in restaurants where
people will come work for like a week or
a month because they need a job and
they're going to do it
something else and like their chef
talked to your chef and that kind of
thing
so scott just showed up one day and
worked for like a month and
i kind of hit it off with scott and you
know like my girlfriend at the time had
a dog named gigi
and scott was like oh gg allen
and i'm like you know at the time like
something like talking about
punk rock or anything subculture at all
in a restaurant seemed insane especially
gigi
exactly yeah and so i was like what
technically he wasn't named after gigi
allen but anyway but that kind of like
started our friendship
and he was like oh you should um i'm
leaving here in a couple weeks i'm
going to open up a uh in a true skin
restaurant around the corner and i'm
like in a true skin restaurant you mean
like
like ancient like italian food like what
the [ __ ] you even is that
like why would someone do that and he's
like yeah it's pretty cool so i would
take
i would spend my days off going to hang
out with scott after he had left
and he and we would you know hang out
and we would
talk about the dicks and 999 and stuff
like that
and then he looked at me one day and
he's like hey there's a ritz carlton
opening up right around the corner from
the restaurant where you work i bet you
could get a job there because you'll
make more money
and as someone who had never really
cared about money
all of a sudden i was like huh well
maybe i should write them a letter too
the same way i wrote a letter to get
this job at this restaurant
anyway so he kind of pushed me towards
that and i did it
and i got the job at the at the hotel um
having no idea what i was about to get
myself involved with
um and then when i finally gave my
notice at the restaurant and told
uh lori the pastry chef and then also
the head chef at the restaurant i was
like yeah i'm leaving to go work at the
hotel they were like
[ __ ] you hotels [ __ ] suck why would
you do that like
that's [ __ ] it's not even a job it's
[ __ ] it's
[ __ ] like like you work at a
restaurant and like it's a [ __ ]
career and you're gonna work at a hotel
you [ __ ] like
they were so upset that i was like i
wonder if there's any like basis in this
and they were totally right because
working in a hotel totally sucks
i mean i think i made one dollar more an
hour so it wasn't really that much
different but yeah so
worked at the restaurant worked at the
hotel worked at another restaurant
kind of like worked my way around for a
while and then ended up in los
angeles in like the early 2000s so did
you go there for a job or
for other reasons what was the what was
the plan did you have a plan
i've almost never had a plan for
anything but in this case i had a very
specific plan because
i moved to los angeles to be in a band
that uh
some people that i used to be in a band
with were starting up a band and they're
like oh you should move to la and be in
a band
and i was like i kind of i'm living in
dc i kind of have a good job like why
would i do that and then
went out to los angeles for like kind of
like a three four day vacation and we
kind of practiced and i was like all
right i guess i'm moving to l.a
but which is weird because hold on hold
on these are the same people you quit
college for is that correct yeah yeah
so like moo basically moved to l.a but
because i had kind of like been like
completely enclosed in this
restaurant world for probably two years
at this point and
knew all of a sudden knew all these
things about other restaurants and other
cities and
other chefs and other techniques i made
a plan that
was kind of like i talked to myself and
i was like okay i'm absolutely 100
only moving to la to be in this stupid
band however i'm also going to get a job
at this restaurant where i've heard very
good things about this place
and um i eventually did end up working
at the restaurant it was called
campanile
um you know one of the great restaurants
of los angeles at that time
um and it was funny too because at the
time
i was living in washington dc and if you
were like person working in a restaurant
and you wanted to go
to further your career to learn more and
develop you would go to
100 there was like no other option and
instead i told my bosses i was like hey
i'm moving to l.a
of course i never said i was moving to
la to be in a band because i
didn't even want to start that
conversation so i said i'm moving to la
to go work in a restaurant
and they were just like you're crazy why
would you go to l.a it's like a
backwater like go to new york or or stay
here you know so
um the restaurant where i ended up
working in la um learned
a million different things techniques
in a way kind of started my way of um
kind of like shooting from the hip and
like just kind of cooking things even
though they were desserts
because the the restaurant while it was
very precise
it also allowed for a little leeway in
the way of
the way that we could which really spoke
to me and it was you know like a cool
place to work like where we would do
things
for instance we made like a black
currant ice cream
and the only instructions i remember on
making the blackberry ice cream
cream or like make it look like barney
like
[Laughter]
there was there were no measurements
there was none of this it was just like
two bowls
pour this together pour this together
once it looks like barney
you're good and i'm like how the [ __ ]
could this possibly work and
it worked because the people that were
making it really understood what they
were doing
and i was like [ __ ] [ __ ] like all
right i'm gonna
this is what i need to know this is i
need to hang out here and figure this
out
so so is that typical though did you
just look out and
land at the right place there to find a
technique that fit with you
kind of 100 yeah
um and and again i was you know i was in
a band at the time
and also working at this restaurant
never told anyone i was working at the
restaurant like you know there'd be like
you know because now all of a sudden i'm
in los angeles and like everyone's in a
band um
everyone is an actor like everyone's
trying to make it and i moved to la to
be in this really stupid band that
nobody cared about and nobody in the
band even wanted to like make it or
anything like that it was just like we
did it
because it was something we all felt we
needed to do you know
um so never ever ever mentioned i was in
a band if i needed to go
do a recording or like take a weekend to
go on tour i would always
say something like i have some family
stuff to do i'll be is it okay if i take
these days off
and that's like even taking three days
off in a row in like the early 2000s at
a restaurant was like this
insane thing that no one understood
they're like what do you mean you're
taking three days in a row off that's
that's [ __ ] crazy and i was like i'm
sorry it's this family thing i have to
do
and then i was like i was like listen i
will work the next
25 days straight to make up for and they
would make me work the next 25 days
straight and it was fine
so when did you find the fax number for
the restaurant you wanted to work at
i mean like i said it was just like i
ended up after la
band broke up moved back to dc ended up
moving to new york
it was just a series of like kind of
like bouncing around at different places
okay at what point did you land
somewhere where you're like this is
great
this actually makes like like when you
quit college to join born against was
there a chef moment
that felt that way
for better or worse oh my god but when i
when i quit college she joined born
against the only
way i could explain it to my mom was the
the
t-shirt it was kind of like a tom of
finland thing of like two cops
with like dripping dicks like i was like
yes
i believe i believe uh bhagat society
opened at the
show where those were debuted and i
would say
a hundred fourteen-year-old's parents
threw that out immediately
i very specifically remember hiding it
from her for a while
and then and then of course you know at
one point i just threw it in the laundry
and she but my mom was pretty cool so
she never was like what is this
um she just she would wash it and fold
it and put it with the rest of the
laundry stuff
um but that was the thing like i was
like i'm quitting school
to join this band and they all live in
jersey city and i'm gonna drive up
once a week in practice and then i had
the shirt and i was like this is the
band and she was just like
okay all right all right great you know
but in terms of like a restaurant
situation like
it was never like i never actually got
to like be in
when i got to join born against they
were like 100 my favorite band of all
time at the time so it was
incredibly special for me i was also 20
years old when i
moved finally did move to new york i
ended up working at this restaurant del
posto kind of like
i didn't really belong working there
because it was a very big restaurant
with a very big staff
and i previously had only you know
worked in
kind of smaller restaurants and i was
never really in charge of that many
people maybe one or two but not 10.
um but i impressed the chef
there with the the food that i made and
they hired me so and
i ended up staying there for like seven
years um so you were immediately in
charge of a bunch of people
yeah yeah yeah um it was uh i mean i had
i had had other like kind of like
managerial pastry chef jobs
but not in new york city and we're
talking like
a small restaurant with a couple of
people whereas like
somehow like talked my way into this job
at this enormous restaurant and all of a
sudden had a staff of like 10
which was you know that was definitely a
an insane learning curve about how to
deal with other people for sure
looking back on your on your del posto
times do you see that as
a natural progression to get to as
antithetical as it seems getting to
superiority burger or do you see it as
like your brian baker in junkyard moment
where you're like that was the left turn
oh well done well done oh nice nice
i haven't actually listened to junkyard
in a long time
i wonder if i still have i'll cop to
that i really enjoyed that when i was
12.
i think it was this thing where the same
way that each job
that i kind of procured along the path
of
my culinary career as stupid and
pretentious as that sounds like
that just seemed like another challenge
like well
all right i tricked them into giving me
this job i guess i should make it work
you know
and stayed there for a while but the
thing that
really started and it was it's weird
because this started at the beginning
and then also
like near the end the thing that really
always bummed me out about working in
these super fancy restaurants
was that incredibly exciting
to make to get these incredible
ingredients from the farmer's market
or these incredible things that are
imported from all over and this is i
mean i'm talking about this is still
only dessert at this point um
ethically sourced chocolate and almonds
from sicily and all this crazy [ __ ] and
then
spend all this time you know you're
working 50
to 70 hours a week you never get to see
your friends you never get to like
hang out or go to shows or but you're
you're like committed to this craft
and then the thing that initially when i
first started working
in the late 90s was like the end result
of this is just a bunch of rich people
get to eat this
and that's it and that sucks and then i
kind of like
after a few years like that just seemed
like well that's just normal that's just
that's just what this life is like and
then kind of near the end of working in
this big fancy restaurant in new york
city
it kind of like started to like nag on
me again like can't believe i'm spending
all this time
and like training all these people and
making these things
and only like insanely rich people get
to eat it that sucks
did you feel that way playing john
hiltz's house though
[Laughter]
oh my god sorry you don't have to answer
that
i'm just glad we got a john hilts doug
here actually uh
universal order of armageddon and a veil
there was a late season snowstorm
in 1993 like kind of like mid-march or
something and we
were both of our bands were playing at
hilton's house and then there was this
huge snowstorm and we got stranded there
for like i think like four days
um and it was just all of us and you
know there's no
internet there's nothing it's just
basically just hilts making us tempeh
for like four days
so maybe that maybe that was maybe
watching him make tempeh was like kind
of part of uh
my uh early culinary program i just say
that that should be your origin story
right there
exactly yeah it's
so touching upon that i mean you know i
feel like especially
when food culture started becoming more
popular to the mainstream
and especially you know going
hand-in-hand with cocktail culture i was
working in marketing when when all that
stuff started getting
more popular and i noticed that there
was a lot of
mixologists and chefs that were kind of
playing off of this counter culture cred
you know they'd have sleeves or they you
know they'd look
they'd look the part but they weren't
actually you know you couldn't talk to
them about music the way we're talking
about music or at least
our niche of that music right is there
any conflict
when every interview you do is like oh
he's punk rock he was in bands you
you've heard of and blah blah
like is that something that gets tiring
to you after a while is it just like you
know or is it just such an ingrained
part of who you are
do you ever feel like well i don't want
to be lumped with those posers
that's funny well no it's funny you say
that because even like agreeing to do
this podcast i was like oh god
like i don't want to talk about this
[ __ ] again and then i listened to some
of
the previous podcasts and i was like i
think they're going to kind of get it
like because like
other things i've done like this
interviews or whatnot it's usually like
oh you are in a punk band and then it's
kind of like silence
and but no one's like no one's like okay
which red sea song off
flex your head is your favorite okay
tell me
right now you know um so like
maybe like there were there were certain
points like it like
from the time that i discovered maximum
rock and roll
and started ordering records online like
when i was still living at my mom's
house
up until the point that i started
working in restaurants and all that kind
of thing like even like going back and
forth at times throughout the years like
it's just kind of like it's just who
what i've been and what i've done or
whatever like and
i don't particularly want to like play
it up or anything
and if it kind of comes out or like kind
of vomits out at times like in little
spurts like
i i guess i'm fine with that but because
it's kind of like part of
who i am like like joining born against
and meeting sam and adam when i was 20
years old like
truly developed like how i look at the
world so
at times yes it gets a little tiring to
try to kind of be like yeah i'm the punk
rock pastry show
you know so so right now
looking at the the media that you do do
it kind of splits between like the music
hipsters of like the pitchforks and
vices of the world and like the foodie
hipsters of the world when it comes to
like grub street and eater and all that
what's more painful
[Laughter]
i mean it's all pretty painful like it's
funny too like when fancy desserts came
out
i didn't it was weird because like i was
writing this book that was all about me
like all about me and stuff i had done
food i had cooked and like bands i had
been in and bought a bottle you know
like
and then it came out and i i was like
wow i didn't really
want to tell anyone this and like all of
a sudden it's in a book that
anyone can read you know so it's just
kind of like i mean at this point like i
feel very kind of comfortable in my own
skin at
superiority burger and the restaurant
it's very small
um it's very strange and it's
it's that way because of what came
before
so i'm totally fine with that like you
know that we've had offers
to expand it into a chain and do this
and that
and i've actually even you know had
conversations with very very wealthy
people
about like doing stuff like this and
then i always chicken out at the last
moment or like do something stupid so
they never call me back um so it's not
gonna be like jafar where they try and
open like one in
las vegas well i mean technically we
have one in tokyo now but that's
that's a little that's a different
situation all right we're gonna get to
that in a minute
so wait speaking of mixology uh i see
you have a ripple gelato have you ever
tried to make sham pipple gelato
i i actually have no idea what that is
oh
you got to watch this there's two
episodes of sanford and son
i believe the first there's way more
episodes than two episodes separate
no with champ highlighted so i believe
the first one
uh fred makes it uh with
ginger ale and ripple but then they they
get to fly first class he makes it with
champagne and ripple
okay well can i just say you know
patrick from dealership
has perfected the recipe oh yeah yeah
that's his recipe
and he's a he's a piece of bartender his
was i believe strawberry champale
blue hawaii boone's farm uh a can of
beer
and crushed up adderall i i watched him
mix it in a very large tupperware and a
bunch of kids drank it and then the
second batch he ran out of adderall
and replaced it with scope oh jesus
try that one in tokyo
i mean if i may interject like i don't
know how adderall
once it's like ground up affects the
texture
or um crystallization of a gelato or
sorbetto
but alcohol definitely keeps it from
freezing
so i would have to reduce the ripple and
kind of like remove some of the alcohol
and then
is it really ripple ice cream at that
point because we have really extracted
the flavor has evaporated so um but at
any rate
i think i read this as a dave arnold
article once
i think i think it would look like
barney at some point
well as long as it looks like bars
so talking about going back to media and
all of that how much do you
credit slash blame sam for
for building the myth of brooks when it
comes to that dessert psycho article
i love sam i love i like sam's a genius
i love his writing i was really really
excited
at the time that he was working for vice
and wanted to like write this thing
and he actually came out and like hung
out with us in the kitchen um
and sam sam is the best sam doesn't
really
cook or really know anything about food
so i kind of like that too
and it was really kind of fun to like
have him be in this
situation that was completely foreign to
him and like see what he would do with
it
it happened that was that was probably
like 11 years ago at this point you know
um i don't i don't think one way
negatively or positively about it at
this point like it's just kind of
something that happened
maybe there's things in it that i'm kind
of embarrassed by or maybe they're
things
that i think are totally cool but like i
said at this point like my
i feel like my place and my position
and this kind of like culinary landscape
is just being this
[ __ ] crazy person that's at this tiny
little six seat restaurant
every single second of every day well
talking about your
dedication and reading some of the
things that you've written and what
you've spoken about you've referenced
ian mckay a lot you've also referenced
albini a lot
i feel like that's like a beatles or
stones you've got to be one to the other
are you more makai or albini
like me personally or like like how you
learn things is it is it the
is it the benevolent lord or is it the
iron fest
wait which is which well i'd say albinis
probably the more i mean i feel like
ian's more inherently likable
whereas albini whether it's a bad rap or
not like definitely
gets that taskmaster uh in in more of a
negative kind of uh
i'll bet he penalizes employees for
putting a microphone not at the place
where it's late
that's i it too
but you know i mean i'm joking with that
i actually don't really see it as like a
beetle stones kind of thing like you
know
they're uh albinis approach to
recording and like aesthetics i [ __ ]
love but also
makai's approach to recording and
aesthetics i also love you know so
um i'm not gonna i'm actually absolutely
not gonna take a side on this one i
i [ __ ] apologize because i kind of
like you know
i love i love big black as much as i
love skewball
i was just thinking about this uh john
hilts making you tempeh
so you you hung out with tony joy for a
while i was in bands
i heard this story that people stayed at
his house and there was like a full-on
compost heap in the kitchen is that true
that's definitely exaggerated
[Laughter]
tony had this incredible house like
circa
like 91 to maybe maybe 94 it was still
around
but it was um there he had shows there
that's where
uh uoa practiced a bunch of other bands
practiced there
um it was in like planted in the middle
of this
very very suburban annapolis maryland
neighborhood like almost like kind of
upscale neighborhood too
but it was this crazy house that was
kind of like falling off a cliff there
was
it was just full of stuff like full of
amps and guitar equipment and
all these crazy books and like you know
it always
there's a very specific smell that
always brings me back to that house and
that's like that
and it's not what you think it's a
burdock root and tamari
and brown rice like because that's what
everyone
would always be cooking in that house
and like you know it was this very very
specific kind of scent
um but like there was like a back
bedroom that was kind of like a patio
and it was
absolutely fully fully kind of tilting
off this
basically cliff and at the bottom of the
cliff was
like a public pool or like even maybe
even like a private i don't remember but
like you could kind of like
look out the window of this back bedroom
and like they were just like kids
swimming very pleasant
it was i mean it was a kind of to me at
the time it was a very magical
amazing place and there was like this
weird little parking lot on the side and
like there was a
i think a vw van just full of
aseptic soy milk containers that at that
time
tony was really into recycling and and
still is to this day like we would
go play up in uh western massachusetts
and we would take bags of
soy milk containers up to massachusetts
to this one bin
at maybe a health food store or a
natural restaurant i don't remember
where those could get recycled so like
you know it'd be like the drums and the
svt
and the marshall and then like two trash
bags of soy milk like this is this is
[ __ ] really important stuff
i just i know i just have some i had
this image that he would climb on top of
the compost heap
and then jump off like at the end of the
at the end of the dinner
and at one time you know because he used
to do that and we were so annoyed by it
so me and my friend went to go and we
were like we're making like we're going
to catch him and he got really upset
and he did like the lux interior we just
he climbed down like all disgruntled in
the whole time
now tony tony's the best tony's tony's a
[ __ ] crazy psychopath i love
but like you know there was like that we
had that he had shows in the basement
and this like
and like people would have to park at
like the near the jungle gym and then
like walk down like a stretch of
street past these kind of nice houses to
get to this place and then you'd go see
like you know
heroin or cupid park okay we're talking
about how you kind of like
blindly fell into all this work but at
one point you won
a james beard award could you explain
what that means and how these awards
work
is there like a seedy side to it you
know like
what's up with that yeah no i mean uh
holy cd for sure you know
um yeah like it's uh it's i don't even
know if it exists anymore it kind of
imploded this year so
but it's kind of like it was at the time
this i won the award in 2013. um
the james beard awards are this kind of
it's kind of like this
restaurant awards for like the best chef
of this
region the best pastry chef of the
entire country the best
you know like restaurant design um the
best baker
these these kind of things you know um
so yeah i actually did
like win the award which is still to
this day kind of funny because
i don't know why or how like sometimes
people will get nominated for these
awards for like
nine ten years and they'll have to go to
these ceremonies and wear a tux and then
like not get the award
and then kind of be like wrong and then
like
you know next year the same thing and
like somebody else wins or whatever like
i got nominated made it to the finals
and then won the saint all in the same
year and like none of it really made any
sense because i really
didn't know what the [ __ ] i was doing i
admit that to this day like
like i just haven't been found out that
i'm like faking this one so but yeah
it's like
it's pretty funny like it doesn't
necessarily make you like you don't get
anything
from it like they give you like a little
medal it doesn't actually
even really have your name on which i
guess means they could change at the
last minute or whatever
i don't even know where it is like i'm
sitting in my apartment right now
and i when i moved three years ago it's
in a box somewhere i don't know
did they invite you to cook at the house
too yeah yeah well i mean i've i've
cooked it
at the james beer house many times like
that's something i've done
even at the very first jobs act like
because there's a certain point like i
said it's kind of i don't even know if
the whole thing exists anymore because
it kind of imploded this summer but it's
kind of seen as this prestigious thing
if you get invited to like cook but
it's kind of not because you have to
spend all your own money and do all your
own transfer to pay for all your own
transportation and like it's kind of
shitty inside and like the
the kit the kitchen doesn't really work
i mean the people that work there
like at the house are absolutely
beautiful people but like the
organization is kind of like yeah
you know but um but yeah no it's like uh
like an award i won was for the best
pastry chef in the entire country
at the time which was absolutely totally
[ __ ] stupid because like i probably i
probably wasn't the best pastry chef in
like chelsea
is there like a tasting is there like a
judging contest like
or do people just pick out the names
randomly like they're doing a scantron
test it's sort of scantrony it's sort of
random i don't i still to this day don't
understand it
um the only thing about that night
specifically that i remember
is they they give you a like if you're
if you're up if you're in the finalists
and you're
and you're you're going to be one of the
people that's sitting in the lincoln
center
auditorium and you know they're going to
call your name or whatever they send
everyone these lists of questionnaires
or whatever and they always have it they
had a theme for each
um award ceremony each year and the year
that
i won the thing i think the open theme
was like food in movies or something so
they sent us this long list of
things you had to fill out and you know
i probably you know had had a couple
drinks and
filled it out you know like hate send
went back to them or whatever
but they do this thing where like if
they call out your name and then you
have to walk up on the stage and then
they put this
you know little metal around you um and
then while you're doing that
there's a narrator kind of like oh i
want to say almost the same
kind of uh accent as the narrator from
the great chefs
uh yesterday and it's slightly different
like it's like sort of new orleans sort
of like this like weird wicked
stepmother madonna thing
it's like french but not french yes
exactly and then
but the thing that i had one of the
questions was like if you could go to
any movie
at any time what would you see and who
would you take you know just like
totally stupid or whatever like i said i
probably had a couple like
like a beauty pageant exactly it's
totally like that you know but anyway so
like i remember what i had written down
on that thing was
i would take tomato de plenty from the
screamers
in 1972 to see the baltimore premiere of
pink flamingos and i
remember writing that whole sentence
down
and then apparently because you could
you could actually watch this thing
online
as i was walking to the stage the wicked
stepmother madonna accent narrator
said that exact thing and even got
tomato du plenty's name
correctly pronounced it wasn't tomato or
whatever
so i think that was how i really won and
which i didn't know at the time
but then you know like after winning
this like ridiculous award
go outside and i have like 80 text
messages but one was from my friend
nicole and she was like
tamato do plenty you [ __ ] [ __ ]
you know like i was like all right
i have one so you didn't win the
swimsuit competition you won like the
proper etiquette addiction part exactly
exactly for sure
i feel like esoteric reference should be
totally you know should be something in
these awards
so we didn't actually talk about
superiority burger and like
what what what was the mission there
other than to get
out of cooking for rich people like what
else what is what else is it all about
i'm not vegetarian i i was for a very
long time like
the whole time i was in bands in the 90s
vegetarian maybe like kind of like
leaning towards vegan
um everyone i knew was like that anyone
that wasn't we thought was weird
you know i remember like being at a
grocery store in richmond in like the
mid 90s and like having like a jar of
peanut butter and like you know
sorry to bring back up tempeh but a
thing of tempe and then like
seeing like someone in front of you and
maybe they had a motorhead shirt on
but they were buying bacon to be like oh
you know like well i guess they're not
going to be my friend um
so like i've eaten a lot of really
really terrible vegetarian food over the
years
and because i had worked in restaurants
only making desserts i never had to deal
with meat i never had to break down a
lamb or
like turn like butcher any sort of meat
or like you know take a cow's tongue and
rip the skin off and braise like that i
was just making
cakes and ice cream and stuff like that
and while there were eggs involved like
you know like i've always had kind of
like a
wiggly area for eggs like they don't i'm
i'm kind of fine with them i don't use
them at the restaurant but
i never had to deal with so i always
like so only the only
thing i knew how to cook were like
vegetable fruit desserts and stuff like
that so
when i decided i was going to try to
figure out a way to do my own thing like
i was like well of course it's going to
be vegetarian even though like
at the time i wasn't and at the time now
um
but i kind of skew towards vegetarian
and that's what i know how to do
so that's what the place became i've had
opportunities over the years to kind of
like
turn the restaurant a completely 100
vegan restaurant
um but i always refuse because i don't
want to be
pigeonholed into like a very tight
category so
even though the restaurant now i would
say is like 98
vegan like i'll still make ice cream
with milk because
number one that's that was my job for
almost one that's what i know how to do
and vegan ice cream is difficult so
that's kind of like how it is and then
like i said when i bring up like the
bummed outness of like only cooking for
rich people i always wanted to make sure
that we had food that was as cheap as
possible
and almost to the point of like
self-sabotage at certain points of the
five years um because
and like i said not to bring up flex
your head again but if it wasn't for
flex your head
maybe i would have the most expensive uh
luxurious vegetarian restaurant in all
of new york city but
i don't i have a place where everything
is as cheap as humanly possible
while still using the best possible
things i can find
i go to the green market in union square
like three four times a week even in the
winter you know and
have really good relationships with all
the farmers and like you know
are always trying to get like oh what do
you have what do you have now what do
you have now what do you have now you
know and i'm in line
with the same people that are buying
stuff at the really really expensive
restaurants um
and there have been times where
superiority burger hasn't been doing so
well financially
because it's so small and stuff like
snow or
rain or literally any bad weather
affects us deeply i'll just spend my own
money buying the stuff at the market
because it's important to get this
really good stuff
and then sell it for almost nothing or
like even at cost you know
and like to say that that isn't related
to
crass and discord records or whatever
like of course it is you know like
and sometimes i like get home at night
i'm like wow
[ __ ] oh stupid you know but at the same
time like i love all that stuff and like
that was part of
me becoming who i am so like i can't get
rid of i don't think it's just crass i
think that's part of being italian
hey i'm gonna i'm gonna you know work
myself into the dirt just for a
principal
right yeah yeah i know i i mean you
worked at italian restaurant did that
wear off on you
i mean i mean i pretty much worked at
only kind of italian or
italian-ish restaurants the whole time
so uh
yeah for sure so you had you had uh john
hilts who never wears pants or at least
at up to a certain point he never wore
pants and
and then you got all these italians and
he's refusing to
you know back down i mean is that normal
like do do all like good restaurants go
to the market
in the morning or is there just is there
really like a big machine that they
usually use
it depends it honestly depends there are
you know there are people like myself
that want to get the most awesome [ __ ]
all the time
and then there are places where like
that maybe that's not that much of a
concern or
maybe they don't actually physically go
to the market maybe they get it from
a middleman who buys stuff at the market
and sells it
secondary um because there's there's a
whole thing with like when you
when you work in a restaurant especially
if you're like the owner of the
restaurant or whatever you're just
completely focused on the place and some
people won't even leave there
they like go to work and they go home
and that's it you know even going to the
market or something might be seen as
like you know that's a waste of time i
need to be
um but i've been to really really fancy
restaurants where they don't use
anywhere near the quality or price range
of stuff that i use and sell for seven
bucks and they're
selling it for like 100 and you know i
always get a little jolt when
that happens and like and it doesn't
happen very often because it's not like
i'm always going to place like that but
occasionally
you know it's kind of part of the job
like hey you know like i'm gonna let's
go
you know it's like a good staff
experiment to like gather up a bunch of
people
that work at superiority we're gonna be
like all right let's go to this super
fancy restaurant in midtown and like see
what they got um and then especially
when what restaurant i'm not gonna talk
[ __ ]
but you know like um but it's just like
uh
i i really enjoy and like that's also a
good conversation when we're like
walking back these villages like no see
like we're using really good [ __ ] and
selling it for really cheap and
everybody can get it and it's totally
accessible like that's
the thing and like a lot of times you
know i tend to get a lot of people that
want to work at the restaurant that
have either come up in in kind of like
different subcultures
not unlike punk rock where they'll
they'll kind of get it but a lot of
times it's really fun when there's like
someone who doesn't understand that
stuff at all
and like you know can't quote dick's
lyrics
or what era of black sabbath they love
but at the same time we're like
you're doing this thing and i i'm super
into it i don't totally understand it
but you know i'll go with it i'm going
to take a guess that you you've kind of
built a culture
a superiority burger has have you had
problems with people
being able to assimilate into it yeah
for sure even like
a lot of times it's like sometimes
people will come in that like do
understand like kind of like the punk
rock diy subculture and then
but that in like a playing music and
putting out records and putting on
scenes thing
and then taking it to like working 60 to
80 hours a week in a tiny little space
all brand together and making food
a lot of times it doesn't exactly mesh
um at the same time you know there are
there
like i said there are people that have
nothing to do with that to come in and
like totally get it
it really kind of depends on the person
you said you weren't going to talk [ __ ]
but
in your book you've got a whole section
about best quits and you don't name any
names
i want to hear the best quits at
superiority burger
um i mean who dropped the ball who
disappeared
i mean honestly like there it happens
all the time like people you don't make
a lot of money working in a restaurant
like i'm the first person that will tell
you that because
i spent you know years working in
restaurants making five dollars seven
dollars eight dollars an hour
not actually that long ago you know so i
kind of at this point
i'm sort of at peace with it and i
understand it like if someone's just
like [ __ ] this i'm out
i'm leaving this sucks or just
disappears like i'm kind of i'm kind of
fine with it like a lot of times we'll
like especially if we get someone that's
working in the restaurant that kind of
gets it or whatever like we just tell
them like all right listen when you do
leave
either put in your two weeks notice
finish strong
we high five you know like we trade
records over the course of the next few
years and like we have a good time
or just [ __ ] destroy everything like
blow up the entire restaurant like like
nothing in between please brooks have
you had that moment yet where you've had
to give the talk that you got
when you went to the hotel have you had
to give that to anyone go don't do that
that's stupid like stay here has that
happened to you on the other side of the
table
oh yeah totally totally totally um but
like i said i
i you know i've been doing this for like
we're pushing like 20 years at this
point
over 20 years so like i understand when
people need to leave to go do something
like maybe if it's someone that i really
really liked like that's usually the
thing that's the most crushing to me is
like if i really really like this person
i really really like their work
and i like how they fit into the place
and they kind of like out of nowhere
just split um
that like even in the past couple of
years i've gotten better with that
it's like being like okay no i
understand i mean that's just something
of like being a boss that like you don't
get taught
anywhere like in any school or or
working
in any way like that's just a matter of
like repetition of things happening a
lot of people would disagree with that
and i
disagree with them hey charlie wait hold
on
i've been holding all the trolley
questions charlie do you have any
any thoughts we were suggesting i was
suggesting i'm not going to give anyone
credit for this
that rooks try shim pipple gelato
would you eat chip pickle gelato do you
do you endorse that gosh what [ __ ]
pipple gelato
[Laughter]
that's a little secret brooks we just
cut charlie in after the interview
he's not actually on any of them it's
like the um it's like on the uh
the first born against seven inch where
they had to like uh put the crash them
oh it was that thing wow i thought you i
thought you were gonna say they replaced
someone completely because i've
definitely done that in recordings that
i've been on where we're like we're just
gonna replace all those bass lines
oh yeah yeah for sure yeah it's totally
fine it's cool
i i have ghosts played on two lps
uh hold on let's go back to the vegan
why you're not a vegan restaurant i feel
like
vegan restaurants attract people who
order off the menu and don't know
anything different what do you think
about that um sure yeah
i mean yeah i mean in general like bill
is that because there's meat on the menu
no i'm saying there's there's it's a
vegan menu like there's everything they
could eat
except those are the people who can't
eat even more than that
right then they're like oh well i have
an allergy oh i don't like avocados
so if i go to a vegan restaurant i can
pull like uh wait around the side
can you get me the real meat i mean
that's that's the opposite
i mean that sounds like charlie you're
saying that you're one of those people
on the opposite side of the spectrum
well i mean for me part of the reason
that i have made sure that the
restaurant isn't like kind of
pigeon-holed in this like
it's a vegan restaurant i'm definitely
on the opposite side of the spectrum
charlie's like when you sort of get a
song on the radio like you're like
driving through like a really desolate
area and you sort of get me
and then like it cuts out and you're
like i really just want the part where
he does the voiceover
you were saying i was gonna say like uh
i don't know if this answers a question
but this is something that actually
comes up at the restaurant a lot because
a lot of the people that work at the
restaurants actually are vegan or
vegetarian or i mean we have all sorts
of
a wide range of people that work in the
restaurant dietary speaking but a lot of
times if people are vegan
they know that like even just like
family meal staff meal at
superior burger they can eat anything
and like they can order anything they
want off the menu and
grab it and then go eat it you know
whereas like a lot of other restaurants
that they have to like they'll be it's a
lot of conversations like well what's
the vegan option
and it's usually something kind of like
not that awesome
so like that's kind of the thing for
people that are vegan is like they're
used to
only getting the not that awesome thing
at the restaurant while all their
friends that eat other things get the
awesome stuff you know so
um some that's kind of one of the things
that we do
at the place is like there are things
that we make vegan that
would actually be a lot easier if i
didn't but because
i'm into the accessibility of it and i
want everyone to be able to come in and
get something i mean part of that is
based on space too because the place is
so small like when we first started we
would have things where we would have
like say
mozzarella on something and then like we
would make a vegan version of it too
but like we ran out of space so like i
was like all right well at least for
this it's all going to be [ __ ] vegan
so you know um so it's not necessarily
like an ethical thing for me it's more
of like
i just i want you know like it's like
like you said it's like i'm italian i
want everyone to be happy i want
everyone to eat a lot of food
i want them to come in and like leave
and be like that place was [ __ ] great
you know like and if they can't get a
certain thing
and it's already a vegetarian restaurant
it's like it's kind of weird to have a
vegetarian restaurant
that also isn't kind of a vegan
restaurant so that's just kind of how
it's developed
okay well here's another way to phrase
it who's worse the super rich people or
the people go superiority burger as far
as like
asking for ridiculous things oh the
thing that i always say about
the customer base that we have at the
restaurant at superior burger now um
that i love
is that like most restaurants like if
you're the owner of a restaurant or the
staff of a restaurant there's
probably 95 of the people that come to
that restaurant
that are just the worst you don't you
don't want to look at them you don't
want to talk to them you just want their
money you just want them
their money feed them and they like get
the [ __ ] out whereas like
at superiority burger because it's so
small and it's so weird
it's like flipped like 95 of the people
that come are like amazing and i love
them and like i want to hang out with
them like and maybe there's like five
percent that are like
have a lot of problems or have issues
with this being this way or
or whatnot you know so it's kind of
flipped and part of that
is like kind of the culture that we
built there where it's it's like kind of
like a tough
love thing when you come to the register
but it's also like we really like
youtube yeah
is it does it go hand in hand with the
weird hours you keep changing the hours
up did you ever have to throw anybody
out would you say did you ever throw
anything out did you ever have to throw
anybody out
oh that's a good question oh yeah yeah
you know what
not that many and we've thrown out maybe
four people total over five years so
like uh
i like to for just being [ __ ] total
dicks
um and then one person threw themself
out
like will probably claim that i threw
them out but i absolutely did not
that there you go was there ever a food
fight
definitely was that's a good question
food fight yeah it was their
food fight in the restaurant no no never
never never like
it's just like because i have no problem
filling the coffee or throwing it
that's right well you have no problem
throwing any burger charlie yes this is
true no
kitchens are so hard to clean and like
why would you like have a food fight
like have a food have a food fight
outside i guess maybe i don't want to
clean that [ __ ] yeah
so brooks you were talking about how 95
of uh the audience is good but i feel
like most of the people say like
especially with music that the worst
part of success
is that as you get bigger you get out of
the john hilton's basement
that 95 of your crowd is gonna suck
because what most people appreciate
about you is that you're ahead of them
and that you can do better
than them is that not a common thing in
food wow interesting i don't know that's
like a that's a weird one because i was
actually thinking about something
kind of like adjacent to this the other
day when i was walking to the market
which is like my favorite part of the
morning was when i get to walk to the
market alone
down 12th street i live in the east
village and like keep walking get to the
market
i just got into union square and i was
thinking about if you're in a band
and you like get some kind of success
like when you if especially if you start
out in like a
punk rock diy scene like you play in
different cities and or you play in your
own city and like everyone that comes to
the show
are your friends and then you play in
other cities and it can be
like you know as remote as like minot
north dakota or something but like the
people that come to that show
would be your friends in that city um
whereas like you kind of like as
you're in a band and maybe you get more
popular or more successful or start
making more money
all of a sudden you're not kind of not
playing to your friends anymore
you're playing to this whole new group
of people that you don't actually know
and maybe don't even like but all of a
sudden it becomes your job um i don't
know how specifically that relates to
like a restaurant thing
but it's i mean it's not there's there's
a lot of times where like especially
like
you know when people have like talked to
me and tried to be like well being in a
band is
exactly like being a restaurant it's
like uh you know there's just
similarities
but it's not like everything doesn't
have an exact correlation well you
mentioned before that you know people
try to make some deals with you
is there an equivalent to selling out
like is there is there a reason you ran
away from them or you
might have self-sabotaged it is there
something to look internally there
i mean i just really like having this
like tiny little place
in the east village where i can be there
all the time and talk to people and
kind of do whatever i want and not like
beholden to like anyone with a bunch of
money
or having a huge amount of rent or that
kind of thing
the fact that we've been able to operate
for five years at this point without
with only having six places to sit
and not selling any alcohol which is
that's how all restaurants survive
is selling beer and wine and booze you
know we don't have it i'm not opposed to
it but it's just
the place is too small and and then also
not selling any meat so like we have a
bunch of stuff
against us from the beginning and i
don't know i like the fact that it's
kind of like
small and mighty and it's not like a
normal restaurant at all
in any way i mean have you been around
long enough to make sure you're not a
fad like
i was asking around like what makes you
not
[ __ ] dogs 2015
well for sure this is something i
thought about like it's like a
vegetarian restaurant and like there
have been like even like we've been
around for five years there have been
like little waves where like vegetarian
and vegan
food has like been really cool or
popular and then it goes away and it
comes back again you know
um and i've also had people tell me
since the beginning almost that like
impossible burgers and beyond burgers
are gonna put me out of business
which i always think is kind of funny
because like that's completely different
from what we do
we're doing it's like actual cooking it
just happens to be vegetarian like this
is stuff we're getting at the farmers
market
and processing it and like you know
chopping up vegetables
takes a lot of [ __ ] labor and time
and space you know like
whereas like if you're just selling
frozen pre-made
vegetarian burger patties like you know
if i wanted to take it easy i could
easily do that
i could change everything around and
like people would probably like sell
some frozen french fries people would
probably [ __ ] totally dig it
well let me ask you a question if you
don't serve meat or
alcohol how do you make the cocoa bit
of it i make that for myself in my
apartment yeah with a nice bottle of
bordeaux so you're not breaking any laws
then is that how that works
no not yet it's like it's like the it's
like the sign and the pizzeria that says
this case is for display only right
exactly yeah yeah
that's one of my favorites for sure i
walked into pizzeria once and i was like
who would want to buy this case
like i understand it's for display only
but i don't want this case in my house
why don't you run in your house what am
i going to put in it like vcr oh yeah
yes or vcr will it fit
definitely let's talk about superiority
burger japan how did that happen
and how is that not related to special
funding or someone getting involved that
sounds like a
huge undertaking just by the distance
right oh for sure for sure like i said
like throughout the years people have
always kind of approached us and been
like oh let's open a superiority burger
in toronto let's open one in london
let's open one in uh nashville you know
let's open one in los angeles
it's always kind of like because it's
usually what after
you talk for a while it's like wow that
sounds like a lot of work and
i will make no money so like what's the
point and then i remember always saying
i mean maybe just saying to myself like
the only way that i would ever do this
or anything like that would be if we
could do one in
japan tokyo specifically and then i
don't know if i just willed that from
like thinking like that or
drunkenly talking like that but
eventually it happened
you know like about a year ago we were
approached by this amazing dude who's
vegan
japanese guy and was like i want to open
up a superiority burger in japan
and there were a lot of like
negotiations about we want to do things
a certain way
like this and like this and then
eventually they probably wanted to have
sake right
uh they actually do have alcohol there
but it's like
they don't have sake but um the uh
i'm actually not like i said i'm not
opposed to alcohol it's just the our
current place is too small for it
um but you know i love everything about
japan um wrangler roots toward tokyo
uh osaka kobe like in 2004 it was
it was the first time i'd ever actually
been out of the country at all because
every other band i was ever in
was full of such difficult characters
that we
that mcfeeters you're talking about
not stomach feeders and me so
i include myself in that difficult
character but you made it there
and and i feel like when you play a show
in japan they always feed you after and
it's good
yeah that's the that's what's missing
from punk rock in
in the united states people just go to
denny's or diner yeah
the food you get in japan is like it's
like another level so
and it's funny because when we actually
i was in tokyo from basically
thanksgiving of last year until march
like literally
a week before the shutdown started so i
spent a good chunk of time kind of
getting the restaurant set up and
in a way like it was weird because i was
so excited
to be in in tokyo kind of basically
living there at that point and then also
opening up my own this is like my
restaurant having
a branch in tokyo that's [ __ ] crazy
but then
i met some people there and they would
take me to other restaurants
other places to get food and i'd just be
like oh my god it's so stupid this
superior burger sucks you know like why
are we even bothering you know yeah but
did you feel that way playing in a band
too
i played in japan and every band i
played with i was like wow i feel like
such a schmuck for even
traveling this far i suck so bad for
sure for sure
100 did you find the japanese brooks
no i mean he kind of he kind of found us
and like like
totally cool cool guy and like just
really believes in
the the place you know like obviously
like covet happening basically
as soon as it opened kind of like threw
a wrench in the whole works and the
olympics were supposed to be in japan
this summer and that was like everyone
was kind of like
everyone in the city like there had been
construction going on for years and like
the thing
like even like that tiny little stupid
vegetarian restaurant like you know it
all got affected by that the same way
that like we all got affected by
pandemic you know so i hope place sticks
around and lasts because you know
i really want to go back there because i
love tokyo and i really want to like
kind of see what happens like
serving this food over there you know
like one of the most amazing things
they have this incredible guy osabu and
he made
a menu it was only a couple months ago
like he made it and like i remember
going to tokyo especially the first time
and see
going to like fast food restaurants are
like most burger and there'd be this
amazing like one page full color menu
with like pictures
and he made a menu for sb japan that
kind of looked like that like it wasn't
like it wasn't trying to be cheeky or
anything it was just kind of like this
informative
like menu thing that people could pick
up and i was like i was so
touched and like kind of like reclamped
by the whole thing i was just like holy
[ __ ] like
and then i had a friend who actually
like came to do a pickup
at sb new york and he was like oh i saw
that menu
the the like full color menu with all
the photos
of the sp tokyo and like he's like that
means as
superiority burgers officially japanese
food
all right i got some fast questions here
which is the best woodhaven thai place
wait
woodhaven isn't that right we're in
queens do they have the good thai places
flushing
do you have a favorite
drop it over here louie
i am the kind of person that like like i
said i've lived in new york for
like about 14 years now but i'm always
at work
so i actually almost never leave where i
am currently living or working i'd have
trouble
if i worked where you were being as
close as i would be to academy records i
don't know if you're still a record
collector but i feel like i'd spend all
of my money
at that place because it's two blocks
away well luckily academy is only open
friday saturday and sunday now so i
can't actually
uh go there too often which is it's
funny you bring that up because
i actually went i went there when it was
two or three days ago
i got my very first kind of like adult
turntable this summer like an old
classic techniques and i never had like
a really good turntable ever and so i
finally like kind of like alphabetized
my records and organize them and then i
realized that like my record collection
[ __ ]
sucked so i had to like kind of like put
it into oversurvive this summer and like
i'm like all right
i can't just have it needs to be
diversified for sure you know but it was
funny because i remember
going up like leaving work and then
walking up to academy which is only a
couple blocks away which i've actually
never done
ever in the entire existence of the
restaurant the five years that it's been
opened because
basically i get into work and then i
work until i lock the door
unless i was in tokyo last like last
year i am the person that
does the final prep list and locks the
door turns out all the lights like
that's what i want like
i've never been the kind of person to be
like oh you do this you do this i'm
gonna go do something fun
so when i got to academy the other day i
was it was funny because i told adam the
guy that was working there i was like
feel a little nervous right now because
i've only ever done this one other time
ever like left work in the middle of
work and not told anyone and the only
other time that i'd actually done it was
the day
after we opened in 2015 the melvins
played this secret
show at an art gallery on great jones at
like 2 p.m in the afternoon i'd heard
about it and
people had come in the night before and
been like oh you're going to go to that
melvin show
and i was like well i just the
restaurant just opened like there's no
way you know anyway like i told everyone
i was going to the grocery store and
instead i ran as fast as possible to
great jones and like watch like three
songs and it was totally awesome because
there was no pa
except the vocal pa and it was kind of
like watching the melvins at a house
show and it was very fun and i watched
three songs and i ran back uh
but going to academy the other day but
you were able to go to tokyo so like you
can
say hey take over now is that a
milestone yes
100 but that is like a new thing as of
like
2019 last year like up until that point
i had spent
every second at the place um i had
finally kind of like built up
like a culture and a staff at the
restaurant where i could leave and
that's why
i agreed to do the tokyo and then like i
said obviously came back
open happens and everything's different
so now i'm back to being there every
second of every day which
is not a complaint i love every second
assuming everything turns out okay
you're gonna feel okay to do that again
like it sounds like you're getting out
of this i'm gonna work myself to death
forever i hope
yeah i know i mean i like i i make jokes
all the time like i am gonna [ __ ] die
have a heart attack and pass out and
that's it on this kitchen floor i'm like
that's totally cool
what time do you close normally well
it's different now because everything
is early i know everything's closed it's
like all that you're in all the yards
like what city we live in it's freaking
[ __ ] it sucks i hate it i hate
everything about it but it's an excuse
it's an excuse for people to keep
closing earlier
so they can make us like des moines iowa
or something
no longer the city that never sleeps the
city that goes to bed early
that's it yeah yeah i mean i can tell
you at least for us
like the reason why we've been closing
earlier is because well number one the
subway doesn't run
overnight anymore so we can't be over
that's bob and then also like you know
i have staff that like things are weird
now and they want to get home earlier
so like i mean i'm a [ __ ] psychopath
like i'll work until four in the morning
or whatever because i live
two blocks away but like i can't i'm not
gonna force my staff to do that it's
[ __ ] up i went to freaking georgia
diner the other night 11
20 and they they had the doors locked i
was like yanking on them and the manager
came up some yelling at me
hell yeah well at least the people from
des moines are moving out they're moving
out of des moines no they're moving out
of new york
i don't want to bum anybody out like do
you think there's going to be positive
things that come out of this
at least from your point of view i don't
know i can't imagine anything positive
coming out of vegan hamburgers
it's funny i agree with this guy that
showed up late
i only showed up late because i didn't
want to be there for the pre-show banter
technical questions so is there still a
thing in high-end restaurants where they
don't list any prices or was that like a
1980s thing well there's some places
that still do that like it's like if you
can't afford it you know you don't ask
kind of yeah i mean that's like part of
the reason that we have
the menu that we have like i wanted to
make sure everything at least when we
opened
nothing would be higher than nine
dollars like even like we didn't even
have anything that's ten dollars like
and we've had to change that during
covet especially because
there are certain things that are more
expensive now so like we have a sandwich
that's like 11
and like it crushes my soul because i
know i was like
everything has to be under nine dollars
always no matter what
and they could just give the excuse that
it's a shortage i
i somebody told me there's a national
co2 shortage i said what do people start
stop exhaling well you don't have any
carbonated drinks though right you're at
least unaffected by the co2
do you have tropical fantasy no i have a
special jug just for you man
don't believe the rumors i got a
question so you invented
this uh meatless hamburger then right i
didn't invent [ __ ]
i came up with a thing that uh people
seem to like because in the 80s
i read at white castle they said all of
white castle's meat comes from its own
plant
so i figured there must be a white
castle plant out there somewhere they
make the hamburgers from
but they've been doing it for like 100
years but botanically speaking i just
want to back up charlie here
charlie once convinced the vegan to eat
a surfing of white castles
well he didn't make it all the way
through like he ate the first one
he had a murder burger he ate the first
one and then he i think he bought three
and the second one he was doing good and
then he looked at it and it was over
i have a white castle question though i
i ate white castle three meals in a row
so white castle you gotta wait like 10
minutes for your burger
and there's a lot of people with black
eyes because of that that's right the
superiority burger on that scale
you gotta wait a little longer sometimes
ten minutes is short you're talking like
20 minutes well the thing with the
restaurant is
it kind of looks like a fast food
restaurant and everything is kind of
packaged like a fast food restaurant but
it's kind of a the whole thing is kind
of a joke because it's not at all i mean
we kind of like at least in the old days
like you know nobody has to wait too
long
but at the same time sometimes you know
when we're pretty busy like
people would have to wait but part of
that is like i like the fact that like
people think of it as like a fast food
restaurant when it's
when actually we're getting all this
farmers market produce and like cooking
it and making different salads and soups
and whatever and like you know it
doesn't
it's uh it's it's it's meant to be kind
of like a prank on
restaurants itself well my experience is
that you have to wait a long time for
those meatless burgers because when we
use the barbecue
in the back abc no rio we had to wait
for zach to get there with the tofu
burgers from brooklyn
that's right well they also like certain
people wanted to be uncooked on a
different grill and everything so it was
it was like a kosher kitchen time thing
and some people thought we were going to
cook it on a urinal
actually my favorite sort of white
castle thing these days is is because
they sell
like impossible burger sliders you know
and then i remember
sliders bogus man they were murder
burgers or belly bombers
the is a midwest thing gotcha man
but when they started doing that there
was something where they said like
they're being cooked on a different
griddle which means one of two things
and either means that like every white
castle
has just had this empty space where they
put in this new griddle where they're
going to cook the vegetarian things
or they're just lying so like either way
i'm kind of into
i mean i feel like white castle's whole
thing is the efficiency
every burger fits perfectly square on
that griddle right for sure
that statement sounds against their
whole business model really exactly
i mean i'm a huge white castle fan so i
got no beef with white cats i see what
you did there brooks
wait does that attention all that no
beef with white castle
i'm just trying to polish the third here
it comes from its own plant
what do you think about stewed prunes i
actually [ __ ] absolutely
adore prunes i think they're totally
delicious stewed
it would mean on how it was stewed you
know like probably what you're thinking
i wouldn't like but or wouldn't approve
of but like there's ways to make prunes
absolutely delicious for sure i mean i
went to public school and like
sometimes that was the dessert and like
there was only a certain
group of kids that would eat them and
they did not eat them daintily
so i i'm i'm a little bit i have a
little bit of ptsd
on stewed prunes so maybe you can do you
ever have it as a special
obviously not you know you call it
something else but yeah i mean i
[ __ ] love prince like end of the
summer it's weird to say end of the
summer now but like this is kind of like
the talent of the uh
the market season where i think only the
past couple weeks haven't they been
around but like
all summer long there's these beautiful
plums and like all different colors or
whatever
but then the very very end like late
august september october
you get the prune plums and they're like
kind of gross and like they're not good
raw
and you have to cook them you have to
stew them um but these are the
uh this very specific plums the italian
prune plums that that get turned into
prunes
that you buy that your school bought and
stewed them and maybe read them you know
right where do you get the good ones
well the thing is in the school
cafeteria
i know that well the thing is like you
just have to cook them like they're
as opposed to like it's funny because
it's like right after like beautiful
peaches and nectarines and plums you get
the prim plums which are just not good
raw
but you have to like kind of cook them
and make them delicious and like what we
have done
to make different sorbets like in the
past couple months like since like the
season has ended is like we
like kind of split them and add some
organic sugar and cook them with
hibiscus sleeves
and it kind of like it's like it's like
a like a pastrami almost
yeah no it needs work it's like yeah
it's like the short it's like the short
rib of fruit
all right i'm going to try it again i'm
facing my fears
i'm going to eat stew foods i'm going to
try it i i i got advice from the expert
prunes get a bad rap peru's can be
amazing so did you ever try to buy
500 milks in the school cafeteria never
never once because my friend adam took
out a 50 the milk juice the chocolate
milk used to be 10 cents and he took out
a 50 dollar bill
and asked the lunch lady for 500 milks
did he get him
no they flipped they started flipping
out and then they started trying to buy
them in you know
pieces like 10 and 10 and then they
wouldn't sell more than one milk to
anybody like one kid wanted to give me
two chocolate milks like get out of here
we know what we're on to you
but what was he gonna do with him though
charlie it doesn't matter what he's
gonna do he's just gonna do it
i just thought i was wondering if there
was a plan if it was just like i got 50
bucks let's see what happened
he had 50 bucks i got to buy 500 milks
and i would have figured out something
to do with them
that's kind of like the uh not to get
pastry nerd on you guys but like when
you make chocolate ice cream and it
sucks
chocolate ice cream sucks when you make
chocolate oh you talk about that vegan
chocolate ice cream no i know come on
calm down my friend
when you make chocolate ice cream and it
sucks when you're like tasting it at the
restaurant
and you're like ah it sucks and the
thing is like oh it just tastes like
[ __ ] chocolate milk dave you got any
any other questions before we wrap this
up
yeah i wanted to i wanted to ask brooks
you know as far as
um you know what you've accomplished
both in music and
uh when it comes to to to cooking is
there anything left on the table that
you were just like
still waiting to do whether it's a
restaurant concept or
a certain recipe or even just going on
tour one more time is there anything
else that you uh
you want to accomplish oh god i mean
like i love love
love going on tour but i never ever want
to do it again so erase that one for
sure
someday i would like to have maybe a big
a slightly bigger restaurant where
you know like maybe four people could
sit down at the same time that can't
happen right now you know
someday like i mean i guess that's sort
of like pie in the sky at this point so
but uh
a lot of times people would like say
like oh you have this place
what are you gonna do next what are you
gonna do next and i'm always like this
[ __ ] weird
awesome restaurant in the east village
and i love every second of it like
that's [ __ ] good enough like
it doesn't i'm not looking to be like a
[ __ ] mobile and a hundred percent
that's like comes from
the [ __ ] stupid-ass music that i love
so much i mean that's that sounds like
every
one of my favorite places to eat you
know it's like there's someone who's
been there forever and they like what
they do and that's why their food's good
right like those are the places that i
want to go like where you know like the
owner's there
and like they're it's gonna be good and
like you become a regular and there's
like you can get things that nobody else
can get and it's just like
it's not elitist and it's not like for
rich people it's like kind of like
forever
for anyone so brooks i'm gonna take back
the ian makai steve albini
uh question and i'm gonna i'm gonna
posit that maybe you're the mike watt
of culinary so i think that makes sense
i'm cool with that
mcconnell i like that the amount of
ingredients you're using i mean it's
keeping the cost down while still giving
people quality yeah i mean
minutemen are one of my favorites
forever i'm i'm totally down with that
that's it kids the gig is up the cops
are here and your mom is going jails
hospitals and all your friends houses
wondering where you've been
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