The Art of Manliness - #116： Southern Gentleman's Kitchen With Matt Moore

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so if you've been

00:00:19.300 following the site for a while you probably are familiar with matt moore he is our resident chef

00:00:24.000 on theartofmanliness.com he's written the lion's share of the cooking content on our site and he's

00:00:29.900 done stuff about how to make your homemade pasta how to make gumbo how to make chili how to cook with

00:00:34.180 wild game all sorts of great stuff and the thing i love about matt is he makes cooking approachable

00:00:39.200 and it's not intimidating and it's one of the reasons i love publishing his content on our site

00:00:43.860 anyways matt's got a new book out it's a big deal it's with southern living magazine it's called a

00:00:50.040 southern gentleman's kitchen adventures in cooking eating and living in the new south and today on

00:00:54.760 the show we're going to talk about matt's really interesting background because he didn't start

00:00:58.160 off being a cookbook writer in fact he started out as a musician in addition to this cookbook thing

00:01:04.060 he also has a cologne company that he runs with his friends it's called moonshine cologne he's done some

00:01:08.940 other stuff too it's one of my favorite cologne really interesting guy really interesting backgrounds

00:01:14.100 we're talking about entrepreneurship then we're gonna talk about why a man should know how to cook 0.99

00:01:17.460 we're gonna talk about his boar hunt from a helicopter and cooking that boar that he killed

00:01:22.760 and we're also going to discuss the intricacies and the finer points of cooking the perfect steak

00:01:28.340 uh really fun podcast with some really great takeaways as well i think you're gonna like this

00:01:33.080 so without further ado mr matt moore

00:01:35.340 matt moore welcome to the show thank you so much you know for many many years it's only been me writing

00:01:50.020 so yeah uh i get i get a chance to like ponder over every little word and now i might have to

00:01:56.020 preface this if i say something stupid i apologize no i know how it goes man so for those of you who

00:02:02.040 don't uh read the website regularly and just a podcast listener uh matt has been how long have you

00:02:08.800 been writing cooking content for us writing together for i believe just around five years yeah that's

00:02:16.440 great how did we connect you reached out to me about your first cookbook right i did yeah a buddy

00:02:22.500 of mine had emailed me on facebook at the time that i had just launched the first book have a river for

00:02:28.340 dinner and he was actually living in hawaii at the time and he said hey man you know i've come across

00:02:33.700 this blog i think it's a great fit uh you should reach out to him and see if you could do a guest post

00:02:38.640 and i remember emailing you and you got back with me pretty quickly and i pitched you on the whole idea

00:02:44.700 of guys cooking for girls and uh we just kind of started our relationship there through the internet

00:02:49.760 we met on the internet we met on the internet that's how it goes these days so let's let's start

00:02:54.080 talking about your history because you have an interesting interesting background story right

00:02:58.920 so you you just come with your new book a southern gentleman's kitchen uh done with southern living

00:03:04.220 magazine big big deal and then you did the uh cookbook have her over for dinner you will talk 1.00

00:03:09.860 about how you self-published that but like i was becoming like an expert like cookbook writer

00:03:14.760 was that your initial goal when you started out your adult life or absolutely not so how did that

00:03:22.960 happen what a long strange trip it's been um you know for me i was really fortunate grew up um just

00:03:30.480 outside of atlanta georgia really really active in sports uh some of my friends have gone on to

00:03:36.380 play in the major leagues and football and baseball and for many many years i thought that i was you

00:03:41.340 know destined to become uh the next great baseball player but some injuries came along and i probably

00:03:46.480 wasn't good enough in the first place you know let's not kid ourselves here uh and i went to the

00:03:50.720 university of georgia and my second love was always music so i was uh in a band for about six years

00:03:57.160 um four of those through college where we toured all over the southeast and much of the east coast

00:04:02.840 uh and then i had a dream that i wanted to be in nashville tennessee came to nashville our band was

00:04:08.800 was ready to go and hit the road and then the band broke up and uh i remember at that time when i

00:04:14.520 had moved to nashville i reached out to a friend of mine it was the only guy that i knew here in town

00:04:18.420 he was a songwriter he was the creative director of emi music publishing and i'll never forget it i

00:04:25.000 sent him an email i said hey bruce you know i finally made it to nashville tennessee uh the band

00:04:30.100 broke up but i'm here can't wait to do it and he said you know what matt that's great he said it's

00:04:34.380 a 10-year town he said the problem is i just moved back down to athens georgia to start the music

00:04:40.200 department for the university of georgia which is where i had gone to school so uh you often hear

00:04:46.540 that many many times when it comes to um nashville and how long the process can be in the music world

00:04:52.600 and i kind of kept myself fortunate uh in the sense that my first few years were really fun i got to go out

00:04:59.820 and do a lot of great things as a musician as a performer and a lot of the guys that i know that

00:05:05.180 i featured in this book that are near and dear to my heart are now at the top of the country music

00:05:09.200 charts but to be honest with you brad i really kind of lost my passion for for music it really

00:05:14.660 wasn't something that i uh had my heart into and i really loved writing i loved um teaching guys about

00:05:21.180 uh some of the experiences that i had grown up with with food and that all started from playing music

00:05:25.540 we would go down to new orleans and play shows uh all over the state of georgia and we bring back

00:05:30.640 all this great food and sort of big parties and i kind of had this idea of sorts at that time that

00:05:37.160 maybe writing a cookbook uh was a bit of a good idea and that's really a crazy path that led me into

00:05:44.320 this whole world of food okay and your first cookbook was self-published right it was i had a buddy of mine

00:05:53.080 who was working for uh one of the artist agencies paa here in town and i told him uh hey man you know

00:06:00.580 i think i'm gonna write a cookbook and at the time he was like that's a great idea uh he was a young

00:06:05.280 agent in the music business he never liked my music but all of a sudden he liked this cookbook idea

00:06:09.180 and we we still laugh about it to this day so i kind of put together a book proposal

00:06:14.900 and he uh flew out on a plane to los angeles to meet with the creative folks at creative artist agency

00:06:21.240 and the first thing they said was like well this is real cute like i mean your friend doesn't have

00:06:25.800 a platform he doesn't have a popular blog he's not a celebrity like you know why in the world would

00:06:31.240 you ever think a that we'd be interested in signing this guy uh b he's not a chef so why does he want

00:06:37.060 to write a cookbook and c they kind of made a joke to him they said all of our publishing department

00:06:41.720 is based in new york and not la so we found out pretty quickly that uh i i say it to no avail we were

00:06:50.380 so green back then that we just didn't know any better um which led me down the road of getting

00:06:55.720 a thousand no's from basically every agent and every publisher in new york which led me to the

00:07:01.040 self-publishing process and what was great about though it's it was a hit like the new york times

00:07:07.240 called it one of the best cookbooks of when was this published i think it was like yeah that was in

00:07:11.620 2011 um but that was a long road you know right now um the idea for books and even you know music

00:07:20.520 albums and business i think we have this tendency that when it launches it's like that's our

00:07:26.260 opportunity to seize the moment and you've got to build up this huge bit of momentum your business

00:07:31.600 has to get this much funding or your album has to sell this many copies your book has to do this

00:07:36.780 that or the other for me um you know coming out of the music business especially the independent

00:07:42.220 music business i kind of just started to pepper and build a little bit of a following here uh in

00:07:47.840 nashville and then just outside of atlanta where i was from and it was a slow build it was reaching

00:07:52.460 out to folks like yourself that were starting out uh building blogs and trying to spread the word

00:07:58.160 organically so quote unquote saying it was a success to be honest with you i was probably

00:08:04.160 eight to ten months in post book launch and it was a fun period of my life you know i put up some

00:08:12.060 money and scratched up what i had and kind of went out started promoting it and knocking on a ton of

00:08:16.480 doors and um it wasn't like you know the new york times just got a copy and all of a sudden said this

00:08:22.280 is you know one of the year's best cookbook it took a ton a ton of work and i'd say even more

00:08:28.980 rejection oftentimes people you know see a story like mine and they're like man i could never do

00:08:34.080 that but it's a marathon you know it's something that you have to wake up and i like to say every

00:08:38.980 day i think we wrote an article about this back then that my goal every day whether it's a business

00:08:43.820 or anything creative is that i want to wake up every day and hear the word no 100 times and if i hear

00:08:49.720 that that many times uh a it tells me that i'm pitching hard enough because not everyone's going

00:08:56.200 to like what you do but i also know that the more and more of those that you queue up uh you're going

00:09:00.980 to start to get some yeses and it's hard to to hear the word no and for folks not to maybe like

00:09:07.080 your ideas or what you're doing um but if you're constantly afraid and you're never putting something

00:09:12.460 out there you're actually just never going to grow or get anywhere and that was a lesson that i learned

00:09:17.260 by self-publishing that book and i have to attribute a lot of the later success to those early lessons

00:09:22.680 that i learned well how do you get over that fear of rejection is it just a matter of exposing yourself

00:09:28.040 to it as much as you can where you just sort of become desensitized to it or do you engage any sort

00:09:33.700 of like mindset work to help you like bone you know steal yourself up for the rejection or is it

00:09:39.720 just a matter of just you just get used to it you know it's like my favorite pink floyd song comfortably

00:09:45.300 numb uh i'd say especially in the creative space if you're a writer or you're music uh you're a chef

00:09:52.680 it's tough you know when people don't like what you do uh even as an entrepreneur it almost feels

00:09:59.920 personal um for me i think that one of the biggest strengths that you can have if you're if you're

00:10:05.500 interested in that space is to very quickly get over that uh you know value people's opinions i think

00:10:11.860 i've been told no on a lot of ideas that i did not end up pursuing and in hindsight i'm glad that i was

00:10:18.040 told the word no and i'm glad it gave me pause to maybe reconsider or adapt or change i mean even

00:10:25.140 look when i turn in you know an article for you that you don't feel like is on point uh oftentimes

00:10:30.440 that's a good chance for me to go back and reconsider what i'm trying to do at the same time

00:10:35.740 you know you can be super passionate and i like to sometimes use the word no it's kind of more fuel

00:10:41.680 to the fire uh those words that keep coming up and rejections just kind of provide me with

00:10:47.760 a little bit more ammunition to keep pursuing and and being persistent uh and being even more

00:10:55.720 determined to make sure that i'm doing everything possible to go out and achieve my goals awesome

00:11:01.360 so before we get more into cooking we got to bring up the fact that the cooking thing the music isn't the

00:11:07.520 only thing you've done you've also with along with a group of your friends started a cologne company

00:11:12.640 the reason i bring that up because i'm in my closet right now and i there's a bottle of moonshine

00:11:17.200 looking at me and if you guys haven't checked this stuff out no don't drink it no that would kill you

00:11:23.640 you're a former attorney so yeah that we we basically put that on every part of the box

00:11:29.040 but no it smells fantastic it's my my favorite cologne um so how did that happen right what did this

00:11:37.420 happen like was this a plan for a long time or did this happen just at a spur of the moment thing

00:11:42.820 uh how did you end up becoming or creating a cologne fragrance company you know i i think this is the

00:11:51.100 important lesson that i want all the listeners to take away is you really never know where your path

00:11:55.140 is going to lead right i think we can always try to make plans or study a certain venture and and try

00:12:02.800 to force things down a certain path but if you pull anything from my story hopefully it's like

00:12:07.780 you you never know what opportunity is going to lead you into the next one so i went to the university

00:12:12.340 of georgia um really wasn't sure what i wanted to study my parents told me to study business so i

00:12:17.540 ended up getting a degree in international finance and french uh i really like this girl that was in

00:12:23.600 my french class throughout college and that's why i pursued it so heavily um but then you know you

00:12:29.880 you heard the backstory of moving to nashville and doing the cookbook and then i hit this phase

00:12:35.020 where even though i've had uh you know a bit of success critical success in the food writing world

00:12:41.540 i i had this idea for the book that we we just now have published five years later and still even with

00:12:48.060 you know the new york times and all the cool things that that led to uh could not find a home for the

00:12:54.520 book and so i kind of was a little bit disenfranchised um just wanted to take a little

00:13:01.460 bit of a bit of time off if you will it was i was tired of hearing the word no and i was on a long

00:13:07.660 run one day and oftentimes that's that's kind of my creative space is to go out for a long run and

00:13:12.220 just kind of let my mind wander and a buddy of mine that i went to college with was actually doing

00:13:18.060 some male modeling and trust me we gave him a hard time for that uh for some brands where basically

00:13:24.060 they were taking like polo shirts and instead of it being a horse they were putting i don't know

00:13:28.300 like uh some other icon on it and repackaging it and calling it a southern brand and selling it

00:13:34.280 and it seemed to be a successful venture and i had another partner of mine that was a good friend

00:13:39.760 he's an attorney and i kind of pitched him the idea of like man i've never really known anything

00:13:44.400 about fragrance but in the same way that i thought the cookbook publishing world was this antiquated

00:13:49.880 world that was so driven by celebrity and hype uh i thought that the name moonshine cologne would

00:13:56.020 really reverberate very well with like what i grew up with uh good old boys from from the south

00:14:02.100 a lot of fraternity guys in college that maybe had never worn fragrance because they didn't want

00:14:06.640 justin bieber to tell them what they wanted to smell like and so we just kind of stumbled onto it it

00:14:13.100 was one of those things that were like you know what we're good friends uh this would be a cool

00:14:17.360 business opportunity and at the worst case scenario we're going to have great christmas presents

00:14:21.660 for you know our friends and family for the next three years now again being that green because we

00:14:29.700 were just that green i mean the fragrance business is this crazy complicated business that's really

00:14:34.940 managed throughout europe in the world the united states is actually seventh in the world in terms of

00:14:40.880 per capita spending on fragrance so we launched in like the least profitable market we had to do a lot

00:14:46.800 of international partnerships and in hindsight my parents are very happy because i'm finally using

00:14:50.880 my degree in international business and speaking french with a lot of partners over there um but

00:14:56.340 we saw a void in the marketplace and i think the big lesson learned is that we were maybe a little bit

00:15:02.460 uh green and didn't know enough about it but we weren't phased by the major brands and the major

00:15:08.560 players and we put our money where our mouth was uh it was a smaller investment i think oftentimes when

00:15:14.240 people are looking at starting companies especially if they've come from the corporate world or they've

00:15:18.380 come from a world where they're not floating uh the startup capital they think right on that you know

00:15:24.460 we need a brand manager a graphic designer and a publicist and all these things uh we did everything

00:15:29.740 ourselves and even to this day we still do everything to ourselves and that could be a fault based on the

00:15:34.980 size of the company that we've grown but we just work our tail off every day um so it came about

00:15:40.160 that came about very naturally and organically and we've even told the story on your site from

00:15:43.980 starting out in my friend's parents basement you know hand bottling this fragrance and picking up

00:15:50.180 the phone and calling stores throughout the country and literally selling it store by store it's just

00:15:54.760 waking up and taking that you know first steps that first step forward every single day uh and we

00:16:00.100 built it to a to a successful company and i think there's a lot of luck we're very humbled by it

00:16:04.780 we're very grateful for it but even as we've matured as a company uh we've realized that we've got to

00:16:10.400 continue to to nurture it and grow it and uh you know always keep it at the forefront that if you

00:16:15.720 don't pay attention to it then you know a lot of those blessings that we receive from our hard work

00:16:19.820 will go away all right so let's talk cooking here so you've sort of made it your mission in life

00:16:25.240 to not just write about cooking but write it geared towards men why is that i mean what is it

00:16:30.960 why do why are a lot of men apprehensive about cooking in the first place you know you're right

00:16:38.260 it is kind of a mission statement for me um growing up i was fortunate to to be in a home where

00:16:44.480 uh every night whether i came home from football or baseball practice uh my father not only said hey

00:16:50.700 you got to get your homework done you got to clean the kitchen but you're also going to

00:16:54.000 help mom out and and and be there as well so i you know attribute a lot of the strength of

00:17:00.260 my family and the relationships we have and a lot of my upbringing to the nightly ritual of sitting

00:17:06.720 around with my family uh not playing on the phone not watching tv not at the neighborhood restaurant

00:17:12.180 but just sitting down and having a family meal uh when i got to college and beyond i kind of realized

00:17:20.160 that uh men and women for that matter didn't really have the same experience that i had you know a lot

00:17:27.060 of the the meals were outsourced to the local restaurant or there's a lot of distractions

00:17:31.580 and the central idea of of cooking really nobody knew how to cook i mean it's kind of like you know

00:17:38.540 most people don't think men know how to cook but it really was true for that generation because it 1.00

00:17:43.060 just wasn't a common thing that they saw in the household uh for me i found a lot of joy and teaching

00:17:50.060 others uh what i had learned from family experiences but i also came to find that i believe that men

00:17:57.300 can become better men in the strangest of all places which is the kitchen and that's much of the subject

00:18:03.120 of all the articles that i write for you i like to tell stories about you know what the end goal is

00:18:08.960 it's not just a fried chicken recipe but it's a chance for you to try something new uh it's a chance for

00:18:13.760 you to take on a bit of risk a little bit of adventure and then also the satisfaction that

00:18:19.400 can result from you know uh doing something that you've never done before you've never had experience

00:18:24.580 in doing and i think the niche that a lot of folks have left out and what's been my strong suit is

00:18:31.620 making cooking super approachable yeah uh you know you turn on the tv you watch top chef you watch

00:18:38.080 chopped i mean these are pretty amazing shows but you know nobody even knows how to boil water that's

00:18:44.280 watching these shows yet they could discern to me and critique the the flambe style i mean it sounds

00:18:50.060 ridiculous to me so instead what i wanted to do within my food writing is always really be careful to

00:18:56.340 keep things as simple as possible um make it as approachable as possible make it affordable

00:19:02.140 um if i'm trying to tell somebody to skip the the the restaurant down the street and make something

00:19:08.240 at home i want them to spend less making it at home than they than they do uh just going out to

00:19:14.600 eat and that's often a really tough thing especially if they're single guys or young couples um you know

00:19:20.000 if i told you to make fajitas in your house and you wanted steak and chicken and shrimp and guacamole

00:19:24.860 and sour cream and cheese and everything else i'd say you know what go down to the local restaurant

00:19:28.080 because you'll never make it cheaper than what you can buy it for um so i'm always trying to tailor

00:19:33.420 that for my audience and invite people into the kitchen and show them that it is something that

00:19:38.740 they can do yeah that's one of the reasons we've loved having you write articles for the site is that

00:19:45.640 you do make it approachable like even for me i'm i'm somewhat like my my go-to meals for when it's my

00:19:50.660 turn to cook it's like hot dogs hamburgers chili you know just like eggs and pancakes but when i

00:19:57.720 with all those man yeah nothing wrong with that good it's good stuff but like whenever you publish

00:20:01.840 an article or just flipping through your the book the southern gentleman's kitchen i look at this

00:20:05.960 stuff and i'm like i could do that right even though it looks amazing like it looks like it's

00:20:11.200 something that you have to be a five-star chef to know how to do you look at the prep and the

00:20:16.960 recipe the ingredients you're like wow that's actually not that hard yeah and that's a big philosophy

00:20:23.500 for me um you know i always i'm really conscious about the ingredients i'm using uh the techniques

00:20:29.620 that i'm using and let's get real you know i mean cooking is it something that you're just going to

00:20:33.620 wake up one day and follow a recipe and it's just going to be ta-da everything's perfect uh you know

00:20:38.800 there's nuances of learning and you can follow the written recipe to the t uh and that's one of the

00:20:45.640 things i love about cookbooks especially the one that we just did is it was tested so many times that

00:20:49.900 you should be able to follow it exactly and get the results that that it should yield but

00:20:54.700 at the same time it is a learning process you know i didn't just automatically after cooking

00:21:00.320 hundreds of meals with my mom uh leave and and go out and start to to become this wizard in the

00:21:06.860 kitchen i had to burn some some steaks i had to overcook some things i had to uh to make a lot of

00:21:12.320 mistakes um until i really learned how to perfect certain dishes or come up with just kind of a base of

00:21:19.420 knowledge and so that's my biggest thing is whether or not you ever cook a recipe out of

00:21:24.020 there i just want to intrigue folks that it is something they can do um it's it's a lifelong

00:21:29.140 learning process you know we talked the other week about intellectual curiosity and it's like

00:21:34.360 this never-ending search to be uh knowledgeable and and cooking is one of those rare things that

00:21:40.620 you know whether it's different types of cuisine like smoking barbecue to the ramen trend that's going

00:21:46.480 on to the perfect taco to the perfect chili and hot dog i mean you can constantly you know evolve

00:21:52.600 and keep learning from those things and utilizing different ingredients so it's just such a cool

00:21:57.420 place that people often forget about because i think it's just like a necessity like i gotta eat

00:22:01.820 dinner i want folks to find some joy in that and also realize that they're improving themselves by

00:22:07.200 actually cooking that dinner yeah yeah one of the things i love seeing uh on the instagram our

00:22:12.140 instagram feed is like when people share the food that they made inspired by your post

00:22:17.540 yeah absolutely it's like guys who never really they don't they like i never cooked before but i gave

00:22:23.080 this a go and yeah it was awesome it was something they did with their like the noodle you showed us

00:22:28.540 how to make like homemade noodles i had so many yeah people showing like you know pictures like here i was

00:22:34.520 doing this with my daughter you know i was doing this with my wife i mean that's one of the great

00:22:37.880 things that um about cooking at home is that it it's a great way it's not just about the food it's

00:22:43.080 about the camaraderie and the fellowship that goes along with it absolutely you know being born and

00:22:50.440 raised in the south uh i think one of our greatest attributes is hospitality and and generosity you

00:22:57.440 know um in fact my wife and i are expecting our first here later this week and i've already got a

00:23:03.780 train of friends saying you know what can we bring you in on what day and they're doing it by bringing

00:23:08.420 you food yeah uh it's just a really really simple old tried and true tradition that we share throughout

00:23:14.040 the united states it's not just something that goes on in the south um you know for me uh i like to and

00:23:20.140 as i often talk about i enjoy at the end of the day maybe having a glass of wine or a bourbon on the rocks

00:23:25.480 and it's my chance when i cook it's actually this great form of relaxation uh one of my favorite

00:23:31.600 things going back into into history and into time you know one of the uh the problems when the assembly

00:23:38.880 line came out uh the old ford plants was they found that workers were so disenfranchised in that

00:23:45.860 process because they were basically just like a number on the blocks that were putting together a car

00:23:51.860 and they never had the satisfaction of saying like you know what i built that uh for me cooking is one

00:23:57.280 of those rare things that within 30 minutes you can start with all these raw ingredients and then 30

00:24:02.380 minutes later end up with this meal that not only you're enjoying but that you're providing to maybe

00:24:07.120 your partner to the rest of your family and it's like man i conceptualized like i executed and i enjoyed

00:24:13.480 this one thing all in this 30 minute period and i know that a lot of guys you know especially young

00:24:18.580 in your career you don't feel like you're making an impact for me cooking was one of those things

00:24:22.640 that kind of allowed me to kind of justify to a certain extent or find a bit of satisfaction um

00:24:28.620 in what i was doing that i think a lot of people are crying out for it's awesome um so the book a

00:24:35.160 southern gentleman's kitchen uh it's all about southern cuisine and that's sort of a risky topic to take on

00:24:44.380 because i'm in oklahoma i'm oklahoma sounded weird i don't know if i'm in the south or the midwest

00:24:50.380 or the west we've been labeled all sorts of things but i do know that southerners take their southern

00:24:56.480 food extremely serious um and if you you mess it up they'll they'll just jump on you um so how did you

00:25:06.920 approach this book was it did you want to stay true to the tradition did you add any innovations to it

00:25:13.700 um i mean what was your approach to the book and as far as how you were going to um present the

00:25:21.420 recipes uh you know man i'll be honest i'm going to give you a shout out and a shout out to all your

00:25:27.280 listeners and to your readers uh writing on your site actually i think really prepped me uh to write

00:25:34.520 a book like this and you and i have tackled some pretty tall subjects you know the perfect chili

00:25:40.100 yeah uh to the perfect way to roast a chicken the gumbo one what i love what's that the gumbo that

00:25:45.700 was oh the gumbo you were nervous about that one you were you were really nervous about that one

00:25:50.500 yeah yeah whatever you said that you're going to make the perfect gumbo it's uh it's a tall order

00:25:55.300 but that being said i think what's so awesome is that you create a community for people to

00:26:00.240 not only share like oh yeah that's exactly how i do it um or you know you could never make gumbo

00:26:06.640 and put tomatoes in there or gumbo is only made this way um you know i've probably become a little

00:26:12.820 bit desensitized to some of the comments and and i'd say you know 99 percent of the time everything's

00:26:17.580 super favorable and everybody's really happy to see uh you know us taking on these types of subjects

00:26:23.420 but when it came to southern food i'll tell you one of the greatest things that my editor told me in

00:26:29.080 the process is i think very early on in the book i was trying to showcase uh everything that i knew

00:26:35.920 about let's just take like a pork shoulder you know you're going to smoke a pork shoulder it's like

00:26:40.460 i growing up and being fortunate to travel throughout the south i know how they do it in texas versus

00:26:46.100 north carolina versus georgia versus florida and everything else and i was trying to do like

00:26:50.680 within 250 words like showcase that everybody does it differently blah blah blah blah blah like make sure

00:26:55.340 i covered all my bases yeah and then gave my recipe and she was like you know you're not even

00:27:00.880 speaking in your own voice like just say that this is the way you do it if people have a problem with

00:27:05.440 it then who cares uh this is your book i mean this is your opportunity uh people are going to realize

00:27:11.940 that you know they may have some different changes and nuances to it but people really want to hear what

00:27:16.720 your style is and that freed me up so so much to say like hey this is this is my lifestyle this is what

00:27:24.620 my family experiences has been this is my south uh i encourage you to to take what i give you as a

00:27:31.340 template and maybe add in a dash of this or that or the other um but this is my opportunity to showcase

00:27:37.840 to you what my take on southern cuisine has been is right now and will become in the future so i really

00:27:44.600 owe a lot of credit to her in that collaboration to kind of give me the confidence to speak in my own

00:27:49.660 voice so one of the things i love about your cookbook is that it's like really nice to look

00:27:54.540 at right so like cookbooks there's a there's a ton of cookbooks out there right their cookbooks are

00:27:58.960 a dime a dozen and i we have a lot in our our kitchen and most of them i don't even look at

00:28:05.300 but yours like i just want to pick it up and i've had people come in because it's been laying

00:28:10.140 on our kitchen counter and there's like this is the greatest this looks great and like

00:28:13.980 the pictures are the pictures are fantastic um but the other thing i love about it is that

00:28:19.320 you weave in these stories that go along with the recipes um right like one of my favorites was

00:28:27.780 you talk about a boar hunt that you went on yeah right and then you have a recipe for how to cook a

00:28:34.760 boar so it tells yeah tell us about that boar hunt i mean that's really big i don't think a lot of

00:28:39.620 people understand like boar like pigs are a pest here in the south like we got a ton of them here

00:28:46.100 in oklahoma um so yeah tell us about the boar hunt man again another one of those random moments

00:28:53.360 where like life connections uh just work out to be this amazing experience my wife was actually 1.00

00:28:59.320 uh snowboarding out in utah and she met a gentleman uh with her friend that was unfortunately

00:29:05.880 not there his name's greg arnett and if anybody's ever uh worn or seen arnett sunglasses this is the

00:29:13.060 guy i mean the guy is worth quite a bit of money um but you would actually never know it and she was 0.99

00:29:19.020 telling him all about my story and what we were doing and he was like man that sounds like a cool

00:29:22.920 guy and and this is kind of that southern hospitality he said i own this 8 000 acre ranch in florida

00:29:28.600 you guys should come down one weekend he's a hunter he loves to uh to do adventure and

00:29:33.460 it's be a great place for you guys to do a photo shoot and uh you know just have a good time and

00:29:38.780 it was one of those things it's like careful what you wish for bro we're going to take you up on that

00:29:42.240 offer and uh so we did we went down and set a whole uh three-day weekend outside of uh his ranch

00:29:50.940 outside of orlando florida he also happens to be a helicopter pilot too so we basically read had like

00:29:56.100 the greatest man weekend ever like shooting bows and arrows uh grilling every night you know taking the

00:30:02.100 fan boat out and all the while capturing this whole narrative of a really common ritual if you

00:30:08.380 will it happened to be a wild boar hunt but it could be deer hunting or turkey hunting um and and what we

00:30:14.460 got out of it not only did we have the opportunity to actually harvest a boar and and create that

00:30:20.240 recipe and tell that story but it was an experience that uh will forever be ingrained um as as one of

00:30:28.240 the greatest things i got to do from writing this book now i know that you'll probably see it like

00:30:32.120 this cool picture of me hanging off a helicopter you're jumping out of a helicopter with aviator

00:30:36.760 shades yeah you know it was pretty cool i don't get to do that every saturday um but it was one of

00:30:45.920 those cool moments for me that even though we were capturing it and it was a it was a first time

00:30:49.540 experience for me and it might have been a bit over the top it was just a cool way for me to say man

00:30:54.320 what an experience what a journey um and it is something that people do especially in texas you

00:30:59.420 know they actually fly in helicopters and shoot with ar-50s you were actually flying into the land

00:31:04.220 and then sitting there for three or four hours because the helicopter was so loud um but what i

00:31:09.040 was trying to capture there more importantly for the book is it's adventure you know uh cooking is an

00:31:14.640 adventure and it doesn't matter if you are sitting in in your kitchen or you're going to the farmer's

00:31:20.180 market or you happen to be hanging out of a md 800 helicopter um i've met so many guys that they

00:31:26.800 can tell me the nuances i mean with pride about how they field dress a deer yet the idea of them

00:31:34.080 making an omelet in the morning doesn't sound manly enough and i'll kind of poke at them i'll be like

00:31:39.460 you know like actually you butchering and field dressing is just as cool and just as manly as you

00:31:45.580 perfecting an omelet which you and i have taken that subject off yeah um so that was really what

00:31:51.680 we wanted to get out of the whole board on that's really cool yeah and you've uh and for those who

00:31:56.060 are interested there are other uh game recipes in here as well and you've also written some

00:32:00.860 recipes for wild game on the site i think you had like venison chili um which i think some people made

00:32:07.880 and with great success so check that out yeah it's something that i the boar hunt is something i

00:32:12.520 want to do i got a friend here in town who does it with pit bulls and knives like that's all they do

00:32:19.220 you you got me beat there yeah i'll have to see some pictures of that we'll see how it goes down

00:32:27.040 like the pit bull like just like grabs the boar for you to can then like it waits there for you to 0.94

00:32:31.440 get there and then you just take your knife and you just stab it in the heart and then it's done

00:32:35.620 so that's uh that sounds a little bit risky make sure you come up from behind yeah for sure

00:32:40.880 so matt i always like to uh in these shows with some practical takeaways like something that a guy

00:32:48.560 can do today to put into practice like what we've been talking about so i mean here's a question if

00:32:53.460 there's like one cooking project that a guy any guy who's never really cooked ever before and he's

00:33:01.000 like okay i'm on the way home i'm gonna pick up some groceries and i'm gonna try to make is there

00:33:05.160 like one thing that you think that any guy could do that isn't lame like hot dogs right yeah but

00:33:11.880 that's a little involves a little work um and the payoff is awesome you know i'm it's funny you ask

00:33:19.420 that question uh we talk about flying helicopters and one of the things that i'm working on right

00:33:24.580 now is getting my pilot's license which is an incredibly humbling experience and i've got a guy

00:33:29.120 here that's uh in his late 50s he's been a pilot for 25 years he's been a great resource for me

00:33:35.620 uh part of that was the deal uh he takes me out when i'm not with my flight instructor so i can

00:33:41.220 actually relax with he's like you know i've never learned how to cook a but what i want to really

00:33:47.260 really really really get good at is cooking the perfect steak he's like so i'll take you up as much

00:33:52.760 as you want to practice your flying and give you experience but i want you to come over to my house

00:33:57.500 and teach me how to cook several different cuts of steak in the perfect manner okay and what's cool

00:34:03.520 about that is it is so simple to cook a perfect steak okay so that would be my challenge and what

00:34:11.480 it requires is just a couple different things uh it's going to require number one and you and i

00:34:16.240 talk a lot about this a cast iron pan okay so i'm not recommending that your listeners go out and

00:34:22.480 spend hundreds of dollars on on cookware this is something you can pick up in your hardware store

00:34:27.140 you can probably pick it up in any grocery store across america it's going to cost you 25 bucks

00:34:31.360 uh lodge cast iron they season their skillets they're ready to go uh then it comes to a cut of

00:34:37.740 steak and i think we've written everything from skirt steaks to fillets to flank steaks and everything

00:34:42.680 between but steaks are meant to be cooked extremely hot and extremely fast so i like to use a bit of

00:34:51.340 butter uh which allows you to get a nice caramelization mistake i love to use just simply salt

00:34:57.040 and pepper and in a cast iron pan over high heat get a great sear on the outside of the steak

00:35:03.380 give it a nice flip uh whether it needs to go in the oven based on the thickness of the steak or not

00:35:08.220 or if you're cooking it on an outside grill uh with cast iron on the grill uh you cook it up to

00:35:13.720 your temperature whether it's mid-rare medium hopefully it doesn't go beyond that point

00:35:17.180 um and that's one of my favorite if you can master that it's such like the classic man dish but so

00:35:24.600 many guys cook steaks uh so poorly and all it requires is a little bit of technique the right

00:35:30.160 piece of equipment being cast iron salt and pepper uh and if you can start there then i think you can

00:35:35.900 start to evolve into a lot of different great dishes awesome is there a particular cut of steak that

00:35:40.180 you think is pretty easy to work with you know one of my favorite cuts um you know obviously people

00:35:48.060 talk about your ribeye steak which i think is like the chef's choice steak um you know filet mignon

00:35:54.000 doesn't have enough fat but it's super tender um i happen to be a really big skirt steak guy uh for me

00:36:02.280 it's it's one of those cuts that you can typically find your butcher you can get them to uh to cut it a bit

00:36:06.920 thicker um so that way when i say thick you don't want something that's super super thin because

00:36:11.380 then by the time you get a nice sear on it it's almost going to be cooked all the way through

00:36:14.680 so if you can get something that's like an inch an inch and a half thick um it's got enough fat so

00:36:19.440 you get all that great flavor like you get from a ribeye but the way that it's cut and when you

00:36:23.960 serve it across the grain uh super super tender and tons of flavor and what i love is especially i

00:36:30.040 knew when i was starting out you know it's affordable you know rather than paying like twenty dollars a

00:36:33.840 pound for a cut of steak you can buy skirt steak for less than ten dollars a pound anywhere in the

00:36:38.260 country um and it's a really really big payoff dish that i love to serve awesome i just cook i just

00:36:44.180 cooked skirt steak for lunch oh look at you man it's great goodness you're eating better than i am yeah

00:36:49.100 you know it's another one of my favorite cuts that i've just gotten hip to is chuck eye steak

00:36:55.860 oh absolutely it's like yeah my butcher calls it's the poor man's ribeye yeah and it's for sure

00:37:02.600 delicious it's super good my um my grandfather was a butcher and we talk a lot about that in the

00:37:07.160 book but uh that's one of the things that he would always reserve like the chuck eye and the skirt

00:37:13.280 steak and all these other alternative cuts uh because that was his favorite you know that's what

00:37:18.400 had the most flavor and if you knew how to prepare it in the right manner um you know that's that's the

00:37:24.260 best way to do it in fact i've been really fortunate uh when we talk about skirt steak i do a lot of work

00:37:28.960 up in princeton we're not like canada and cook a lot of festivals there and the butcher it's a very

00:37:32.900 small small town if you ever have the opportunity it's like going back in the 50s beautiful place

00:37:37.280 we cooked skirt steak fajitas and when i ordered it the butcher told the uh the guy that was

00:37:43.360 organizing organizing the festival that it was trash trash steak and we had people lined up on the

00:37:50.260 street and just digging into the skirt steak and the butcher personally called me like three weeks 0.90

00:37:55.700 later and he's like i i have to compliment you because i've never sold so much trash to my

00:38:00.440 customers in my life i'm sold out of skirt steak because everybody's coming in demanding it so i

00:38:06.960 think if you bring a little bit of awareness and get people over the learning curve that's where you

00:38:11.200 have a lot of fun that's kind of a bit of my mission is not always the top cut but how do you

00:38:16.540 make something really humble even better that's fantastic well matt moore this has been a great

00:38:20.800 conversation thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure i appreciate it as always

00:38:24.440 our guest today was matt moore he is the author of the book a southern gentleman's kitchen you can

00:38:29.540 find that on amazon.com go pick it up it is it's a fantastic looking book i'm not a really big fan

00:38:35.300 of cookbooks because they all sort of look the same this one is awesome because it weaves in stories

00:38:39.240 great pictures and the recipes are super easy but they look awesome and they're delicious so check

00:38:45.440 it out amazon.com you can find out more information about his book at matt moore.com

00:38:50.460 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:38:57.400 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy

00:39:01.580 the show i'd really appreciate it if you would give us a review on itunes or stitcher or whatever

00:39:05.540 it is used to listen to the podcast because that will help other people discover the podcast and that

00:39:09.180 helps us out and you know one of the best compliments you can give is just recommend the

00:39:12.700 podcast to your friends so until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:39:17.960 peace

00:39:21.020 and

00:39:34.600 you

The Art of Manliness - May 28, 2015

#116： Southern Gentleman's Kitchen With Matt Moore

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