Chefs Without Restaurants
Join Chris Spear as he interviews food and beverage entrepreneurs who've taken a unique path in the culinary world. His guests include caterers, research chefs, personal chefs, cookbook authors, food truck operators, farmers, and more – all individuals who've paved their own way in the culinary world. With over 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry, including his own personal chef business, Perfect Little Bites, Chris is dedicated to helping others grow and succeed in the food and beverage industry. Tune in to hear their inspiring stories and valuable insights on the road less traveled in the food and beverage industry.
Chefs Without Restaurants
Stolen Recipes, Scrapple, Bill Murray and Bad Service
This week I'm sharing a clip from another podcast I was featured on a couple of years ago. I share a couple of funny stories that I've never shared before. The first story is about how actor Bill Murray inadvertently ruined my anniversary dinner. I love Bill, and this isn't something he intentionally did, but the story relates to good (and poor) customer service.
The other story is about scrapple, an original recipe of mine, and how a large spice company might have appropriated this recipe, passed it off as their own, and it subsequently ended up in a book. I've joked about it, but I'm still kind of salty. In today's content creation era, it's something that I think is relevant.
PEOPLE AND THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST
Plum Luv Foods Episode 362 with Chris Spear
Chef Plum on Instagram
The ORIGINAL Scrapple Dip Recipe
The Bill Murray dinner incident post from 2012
Buy the book Pennsylvania Scrapple
The Chefs Without Restaurants Private Facebook Group
Chris Spear's personal chef business Perfect Little Bites
Hey, this is Chris spear. And you're listening to Chefs Without Restaurants, the show where I usually speak with culinary entrepreneurs and people working in the food and beverage industry outside of a traditional restaurant setting. So I'm just getting back from the UK had a great time, I spent eight days driving through England and Wales put 750 miles on the rental car. So that gives you any indication of how much traveling I did. But I had a really great time. As a chef, you know, it's always interesting to see food in other countries and, and look at things that they're doing, like, let's say sustainability, and I'll save that for another episode. But what I'm getting at is, I didn't have time to edit and produce any new episodes for this week. So I'm doing something a little different. A couple of years ago, actually, I was on another podcast as a guest. And we talked for an hour, much of it relates to my background, and I talked about some of the things that I've talked about before, like how to use Airbnb to get more customers for your personal chef business. I didn't really feel like I wanted to rerelease that whole episode here. But we did talk about a couple things that I think are both funny, and I got a little fired up about. So this is gonna be a different episode. The runtime actually is only about 16 minutes. So we talked about scrapple dip, but we talk about it as it relates to maybe stealing recipes as the best way to put it. And you know, I have fun with it on the show. But this is something that is kind of a sore spot for me a little bit. And I'm not gonna give it away here. But this was a recipe that I had created, thought was pretty unique. And then a couple of years later, a big corporation that showed up on their website. And I know you can't trademark recipes, or whatever. But I did feel like that this was something that was pretty unique to me, and that they actually just took something that was mine. And then there's a funny story that I sometimes tell them, it's about how Bill Murray inadvertently ruined my anniversary dinner one time. And again, while on the surface, it's a funny story. It actually relates to customer service. And, you know, treating everyone the same regardless of whether they're a celebrity or not, which I think is an important point. Because this comes from a show that's not mine, the tone is very different. It's more funny, lighthearted, not that my show can't be those things. You'll also notice there's maybe a little more profanity than you might be used on the show. It's not outrageous, but just wanted to give you a little heads up here if a couple F words fly here and there. So if that's not your thing, I understand that you might not want to listen, but it's not like a, you know, vulgar Stand Up Show or anything like that. Again, I think, you know, the stories are both funny, but also there are real points to them and some lessons there. So I've had some great conversations the past couple of weeks, so episodes that will be coming up soon. I had Nathan Myhrvold of Modernist Cuisine, I spoken with Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills, Steve Sando, of Rancho Gordo. These are all episodes that are going to be coming out in the next couple of weeks that I'm really excited to get to. But because they're a little more long, thorough in depth, they're just taking a little more editing to do so, once again, that's why we have this little snippet here from a podcast that I was on a couple of years ago. As always, thanks so much for listening and have a great week. As a lifelong bourbon enthusiast, I've always been captivated by its rich complexity and fascinated by its history. Bourbon was the first spirit I tried when I was old enough to drink and only wish I'd started with the good stuff. 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Chef Plum:awesome, man. How did Bill Murray ruin your anniversary dinner?
Chris Spear:Ah, yeah, I put that in my bio. So, husk restaurant Charleston, South Carolina. And if anyone's ever been
Unknown:very well, yeah. Many times I trained with Sean Brock actually.
Chris Spear:So, you know, big fan I had been the McCrady is my sister in law was living in Charleston, and we made reservations to go. And after we had made reservations, it was the year that it was named, was it the best new restaurant in the country by Andrew Knowlton, bon appetit. It had just been announced. And then we realize that we were going to be eating there during Restaurant Week, which is notably a shit show. And he's having there's a Restaurant Week, although you know, Sean's awesome. And I had super high hopes. But we go in the restaurant, Bill Murray, who's amazing is sitting in my section, which is really cool. So he's at the next table off, what that also means is he's going to have for waiters, including like your waiter. And if you're not Bill Murray, you don't really get good service. So that means like, getting your first cocktail at seven. And like, by the end of dinner at 930. Nobody's even asked if you want a new one. And when your ice cream comes, they don't bring you a spoon. So your ice cream is just like melting and you're trying to eat it with a fork and stuff like that. Yeah, it was like my wife and I talked about the worst dinner we've ever had, like, we talked about having better service at like a diner than we had. And we have been so excited. It was our wedding anniversary, you know, it's not cheap to eat at a place like that. And we were so looking forward to it. And this was like, again, like back at the heyday, you know, they really had been open, you know, maybe a year or so. They so they were super good about getting us like a Compton or McCrady is the next night. So like, I'm not even recognize it. Yeah, I'm not like a Yelp or anything like that. Like I went over and talk, you know, talk to the front of the house manager who I knew a little bit like we had already talked previously on Twitter over the years. And just said like, yeah, service was like, really disappointing. It was super hard to even get a hold of anyone. Yeah. So they said like, I don't know what you're doing tomorrow night. But we'd love for you to come into McGrady's and McRae's has always been awesome. I've known almost all the chefs who've cooked there over the years and it's great have had just some amazing dinners there. The
Unknown:pig year with with you know, butter leaf lettuce, the pig, you're taught to leave tacos with pig ears. It was delicious. Yeah,
Chris Spear:I mean, we had some good food when we were at house. And then you know, you want to go over and say hi to Bill Murray. But it's like you also don't want to bug the guys there with like his wife and kids and fucking your dinner. Of course you go say hi to go over and make a big scene like bang on the table be like, at least I'm gonna get to say hi to you because my dinner was garbage. But when you see like four waiters coming over to a table, and they all like simultaneously, like sync up and put a plate down all at once. And then like some busser comes by and like just drops your dessert on the table. It's annoying. Yeah,
Unknown:it is annoying. And it's up behind him. The cigarette Your mouth is going Venkman Thanks, man. And I
Chris Spear:think the thing that really annoyed me is like, places like that, because I think so many chefs love Sean Brock and so many of the food writers. There's no bad press on it, right? Like everything you read. And I think of food reviewing in this country gets skewed sometimes it's like, not a single person out there saying anything bad about this. Like everyone pretty much says this is like the best restaurant around and let me tell you, it was the worst experience I had. And I did a blog post on it for my website. And then I was like, that's kind of shitty. And I like took it down. And then I think like, put it back up. I don't know, because I didn't want to be that guy. I felt like it was like writing a Yelp review. I know. I know. But yeah, but I don't know. Again, this was like this was like, this was like 1012 years ago, I was a little younger and probably more brash then so I wrote it out of anger. And then but Sean's Sean's great. And I like and you know, I've liked his restaurants. I'm sad that he left Charleston and now you have to go even further down to Tennessee to get his food.
Unknown:But talk about how beautiful city Charleston is the right How gorgeous is that city? Oh,
Chris Spear:amazing. My sister in law just moved away from there this summer, like two months ago. So I don't know how often we're going to get down there. But we were going every single year and had been for like a
Unknown:decade. I leave for Nashville on Sunday, man. I'm gonna be there for three days. Sounds like fun. I can't wait. I know the boys have a couple of questions for you too. Yeah, but one of my mouth the whole time here. Jeffy. I apologize, Dan. I apologize. Yeah, maybe before we get to questions, there's a plug out there. Before those questions get those plugs out there for him. Sorry I got out there. Real quick. Does some bullshit. Fuck Bill Murray. You're a customer like you should know there's no fucking everybody's a VIP. Everybody should get the same service. Everybody should be dealt with the same way. Because Bill Murray shows up one day, man fuck that everybody's customers are important. Like that shit drives me crazy. Like you've ever seen a grown man, buddy. Sorry, I had to get that out there. Check out my man Chris spear Chefs Without Restaurants and iG chefs without restaurants.com and his Stop perfect little bites. Perfect little bites.com doing big things gonna take care of you. You're gonna make sure everybody's happy. Everybody's happy even if Bill Murray. Bill Murray, everybody, he makes the best food. I would not fuck Bill Murray. It doesn't seem like a lifestyle. It smells like mothballs. I think. I bet he drink scotch. What was he drinking it chef? Do you remember? I
Chris Spear:don't I don't remember. I could barely even look over them. And then you know, like, my wife's kind of annoyed because like, it's our anniversary, right? And I keep looking. She's like, it's just he's just another guy. I'm like, No, it's it's Bill Murray. Bill Murray. How can I how can I sit here and eat this like fried chicken skin buffalo wing thing with Bill Murray's, like right over there. I'm trying not to and I guess it's not a big deal. Like he lives down there and is like, you know, I guess he's a regular there and people like oh, it's just like another day Bill Murray is in here all the time. And like if he's in here all the time. Why is he getting like all the service? He's
Unknown:there every time regular there because it gets nine servers every time you go. Go back to true. Or Jeff eats the floor is yours my friend. I apologize. I've been talking a lot. Oh, please. I interject loudly it's fine. Um, I I would be remiss if I didn't talk to you about scrambled up. You know, shout out to Scotty society. scrapple Johnson. Oh, yeah. Over at Mac media. He's good friend of mine from his from down that way. uracil Tukey, a friend of ours, friend of ours. friend of ours. Sorry. Talk to me about scrapping hurtful.
Chris Spear:Oh, yeah. There's a whole I have a whole bunch of attitude about scrambled eggs. One the deliciousness into the fact that McCormick stole it and pretended it was theirs. But where do you want me to start? Well I didn't grow up with you know, everyone know what scrapple is like baseline we do love. It's I had to explain to my kids the other day, why it's called Scrabble, it's made from scraps. Usually, you know, pork, right, and it's organ meats, all the stuff you don't really want. It's like the heart, the kidneys, the liver, there might be some anus and they're like, they just take everything left and they boil it up with some cornmeal and then let it set. And then you buy it that way. So it's already like everything's pre cooked at that point. And then you just slice it up. And I like it nice and crispy. Some people like to, you know, put a little flower on it to get extra crispy and do it in a pan. It's delicious. So kind of like a sausage. I don't like too much liver in it like around here. Some people say it's scrambled and it's really liver mush, and then you heat it and it just like slacks out and it's like runny liver. That's, that's not my favorite. But you know, as a chef, I think I hated waste food waste. And, you know, working in a place where you have a hotline like a retirement community, there's an opportunity to have a lot of ways so we would have scrapple on the menu for breakfast and it you know, it took a little time to cook and my cooks would always say they couldn't cook it order they had to cook it ahead of time. So they would, you know, batch the makeup powder two at a time. And every time they made it, they'd like take this pan with like five or six, seven slices and throw it in the trash and like what are you doing? They're like, it's scrapple like we we can't do anything with this. I'm like challenge accepted, like we're gonna see. And one day I just took it back and I threw the half hotel pan on the counter back there and then we're doing something and it was like one of those Reese's Peanut Butter Cup moments like we were prepping out some Maryland crab dip for a party, which is you know, like cream cheese and cheddar cheese and mayo and all this stuff was like an old bay and I was like, why don't we just like not for the party but like why don't we just take the crap out put scrapple and cokes are like are you kidding me? I'm like now like, what if we like took the scrapple and pureed it and the food processor with some cream cheese and mayonnaise and cheddar cheese and hot sauce and all day and then broil it up like it was crab dip but with like scrapple the cost $1 A pound instead of like $40 a pound crab and that's how it was born and it started as kind of like a joke you know, like sometimes those things ended up on staff meal that ended up actually on the restaurant menu. So that's so that's so that was one of my recipes and I tell people like you don't even need the recipe if you have a recipe for like Maryland crab dip, just pound for pound ounce for ounce take out the crab and put it in scrapple but wow, okay, I blogged about it. I posted it up on social media it's got Old Bay in it and then I don't know I'd like people can steal your stuff all the time and you don't see it. But there was a It was right before the Super Bowl a couple years ago and there was a blog post and McCormick sponsored it and put it up and they said 50 dips from 50 states we want to pick us dip from every single state every single state and they didn't know what to do for Delaware I wasn't even living in Delaware this was like Maryland right? And they called it Delaware scrapple dip and I looked at it was like what the fuck is this like? Like, you can say there is nothing creative left in the world but nobody in the world had made damn scrambled it before that and they They changed like one slight measurement on there. And then they put it up on their website like it was theirs. Yeah, it's like, Are you kidding me? Like if you Google scrambled up, you're gonna find like two recipes. You're gonna find McCormick's, or you're gonna find mine. Or you're gonna find it on like one of those, like, all all recipes website. Yeah. But then the more annoying thing is some woman literally wrote the book called scrapple. And she included that recipe in the book designing McCormick is the Creator. No, there's a woman who wrote a book called scrapple. And the recipes in the book and nobody will answer me about this, and I kind of sub to
Unknown:Jackie, let's find out who she is. I'm gonna have you on. Fucking sidewise
Chris Spear:I'll just like get on Twitter and be like, hey, it's national scrapple day. It's also the day I like to remind you all that Amy so and so put this recipe checking McCormick stole it. And like nobody will ever answer my tweets or even respond to me. And it's, you know, it's kind of upsetting because McCormick's here in Maryland, and I actually know a few chefs who work there, and I'm pretty sure they're people who are like Facebook friends with me and probably saw it and just thought they're gonna be real slick. And I don't know, even though I sound really angry and aggressive here, I'm kind of non confrontational. And I've never reached out to them to say like, Hey, I have a question like, Are you the one who saw this recipe on my Facebook page and then stole it and pretended it was yours? Here's
Unknown:the good news. You got new friends now here and the boys? Yes, we are confrontational. All we can wait right? We're getting all honest. So check.
Chris Spear:Check the dates like my website. It's like 2014 like dates don't lie like find it anywhere in existence prior to 2014. And I want I want the story. How did you create scrambled up you guys thank you created awesome. Tell me the origin story. And it's something so weird is to taking scrapple and basically making Maryland crab dip with it. You don't have a story, but we
Unknown:can get NASA on the phone to be on the fucking podcast. We can get McCormick's or that fucking weird writer Jeff if we gotta get her on? If
Chris Spear:that's my story, I'm sticking with the book is called scrapple. It's if you just her name, I think is Amy something and I could find it. Like there's not that many books on Scrabble. There's like two books on scrapple. Alright, Chef.
Unknown:So if we get her on the show, will you come on here with us? We'll do all the talk. salutely Yeah. Boys doing this. Tell
Chris Spear:her you want to. I mean, I want to listen to a whole podcast episode about scrapple. Anyway, so we'll do a whole episode with Amy Kraus. Amy Strauss, that's her she will not answer my tweets about how that recipe
Unknown:recovered for you. Listen, we'll do the whole episode with her. And then the last 10 minutes or so we got a question about this recipe. And here we're bringing in the expert, Chef Chris spear. He's a scrapple expert. And we're gonna talk about a scrapple dip on page 347 or whatever. What
Chris Spear:I think, you know, again, what I think is really so annoying is because I felt like it was the first unique thing I'd ever done. And I actually had been in conversation for it to be published in a publication. And then once it kind of like came out that like, oh, well someone else kind of has this on their website, then it looked like I was copying. That was annoying. But I really felt like when they say there are new, no new recipes out there. And this was something that I felt was like super unique that literally I couldn't find any reference point anywhere in the world. That like it was the first time that like I saw that someone took something that I felt was mine and you know, nobody if you had said like hey, this is really awesome. I'd love for it to be featured on our website be like oh yeah, just attach my name to it. Dude,
Unknown:we're doing this this is just just understand remember you said yes to this like I said yes. This is yes. The Deep End of the pool just giving you a heads up.
Chris Spear:People who know people who know me know that I'm kind of salty about this whole scrambled up.
Unknown:You should be it shouldn't be like you a lot so we're gonna meet the dannimal here, Dan Tom. Yeah, fuck that lady funk Korean Bill Murray. She's, he's gonna bring up Bill Murray to her. He's gonna blame your Bill Murray dinner on her to you want to bring us
Chris Spear:we got we got so many hot seats here tonight. You're still here. The podcast is over. If you are indeed still here. Thanks for taking the time to listen to the show. I'd love to direct you to one place and that's chefs without restaurants.org. From there, you'll be able to join our email newsletter. Get connected in our free Facebook group, and join our personal chef catering and food truck database so I can help get you more job leads. And you'll also find a link to our sponsor page where you'll find products and services I love. You pay nothing additional to use these links. But I may get a small commission which helps keep the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast and organization running. You might even get a discount for using some of these links. As always, you can reach out to me on Instagram at Chefs Without Restaurants or send me an email at chefs without restaurants@gmail.com Thanks so much.
