WOMAN INTERVIEWER: And where were you bornculinary.tulane.edu/chp/data/documents/interviews/Brigtsen_Interview.doc · Web viewWOMAN INTERVIEWER: And you have your I assume, your seafood

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: And where were you

born?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: I was born on

December 9th, 1954 --

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Wow.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: -- at Southern Baptist

Hospital on Napoleon Avenue in New Orleans.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: And where were you

raised?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Raised right here in

New Orleans.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: In the city itself?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: We lived on Calhoun

Street for one year after I was born, then

we moved to River Ridge, or what became

River Ridge.

WOMAN INTERVIER: And where have you

lived as an adult?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, I attended LSU

university in Baton Rouge. And since then,

I've been living in New Orleans, Uptown, in

the Bywater, in the Marigny. And I

currently live in River Ridge.

WOMAN INTERVIER: Right back to the

beginning, basically.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yeah.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: What is your

earliest food memory?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, Grape-Nuts®

cereal. And it wasn't a pleasant one

either.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: It's always one of

my favorites.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Could be about two

years, and we were visiting my aunt in

Miami. And I remember having Grape-Nuts®

for breakfast and then riding in the car and

then having an unpleasant experience.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh. So it wasn't

just the crunch of it?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: No.

WOMAN INTERVIER: No, okay. What did

your family eat on a daily basis?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, my father was

raised here in New Orleans, and he was

always very proud of his German heritage.

And my mother's from Alabama, and she

learned to cook Louisiana food. And some

German things, I think at his request. And

we had a very typical Sunday dinner. Many

dinners had roast beef, mashed potatoes, and

peas. But she also made, probably her best

dish, red beans, which we had at least once

a week, and sometimes more often.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Always on Monday?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: That was -- that's her

best dish.

MAN INTERVIEWER: Would she -- or did

they -- they did red beans, and so there's a

nod to New Orleans cooking. But a lot of

parents are parents of the '50s, you know,

what I call Cheese Whiz parents.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Right.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: But did she cook

fresh? Did she cook canned? Did she -- how

did the '50s kind of --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Probably a little bit

of both. She also made dishes like catfish

and grits, which is still one of my

favorites, fried catfish and cornmeal and

grits. And it was just wonderful. Chicken

sauce piquant, she made occasionally. And

she did some German things, like German

potato salad, which was really, really good.

warm potato salad, bacon and onions. So

that was something I remember too.

But we also had -- you know,

Wednesday nights were poker nights for my

dad, and that was "pick it" night at home.

We can pick whatever we want for dinner as

long as it came out of a can. So Chef

Boyardee™ was very popular.

WOMAN INTERVIER: You had a big

selection of canned --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, you had ravioli

or your -- you know. Usually ravioli.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Were there any

special meals, like for special days:

Thanksgiving, Christmas?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Oh, yeah. I mean, for

the holidays, we always had a big family

meal. And the signature dish at the

Brigtsen holiday table is oyster dressing.

That's something my mom is known for and

still makes today.

And it's -- you know, she only got

her oysters from one person, and he made

sure to save her some oyster liquor.

And the running family joke is

Mom's never happy with it. We always say,

"Oh, this is great oyster dressing." And

she'll say, "Oh, I didn't like it this

year."

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Every year.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: That's her standard

reply.

WOMAN INTERVIER: Every year.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And it's always

fabulous.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Tell me about meal

time at your home as a child. It's kind of

what we went over, but do you mean, like,

did y'all sit down at the same time when Dad

got home from work or --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yeah, pretty much.

Pretty much. I mean, we always -- there was

a lot of ritual and tradition back then,

maybe, you know, not unlike today with a lot

of families. But we always sat and ate. We

always had French bread on the table

regardless of what we were having. And it

was a time for family interaction,

discussing the day's events or things coming

up.

And my dad also had a tradition

that he grew up with. We didn't really do

it that much. But he always tried to impart

some type of education at the table. He

grew up, his father always had a dictionary

on the dinner table, and every day the kids

learned a new word. And although we weren't

that strict about it, he always tried to

teach us something.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: That's interesting.

A good idea, actually.

MAN INTERVIEWER: Do you -- do you do

that or do you -- do you have kids?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: No.

MAN INTERVIEWER: You don't?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: No.

We have the most irregular dining

schedule you've ever seen.

Chefs are like that. We don't eat

regularly. It's very hit and miss. The

only time Marna and I sit down at home to

eat is on Sunday and Monday, because we work

nights. So that's our time.

WOMAN INTERVIER: Did you go out to eat

much as a kid?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh. Where did you

go?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, the two most --

the two places we went to the most are

Charlie's Seafood on Jefferson Highway in

River Ridge, which it's still there today.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: It opened in the '40s,

and it was basically a seafood joint and --

where you buy boiled seafood and -- but

Mr. Charlie, for a time, operated as a

full-scale restaurant. And I have great

memories of that place. I always got a

softshell crab poboy.

And when we were very young, we

were too -- we weren't able to pick our own

boiled crabs and peel our own boiled

crawfish, so Dad would do that for us. He'd

make little plates for us. And then, as we

grew older, we pretended like we still

didn't know how to do it, so we would

continue.

And that was also our exposure to

things like raw oysters, which I really did

not like as a kid. And I really -- he tried

and he tried, he tried to get me to like

them, I just couldn't. But then when I was

21, I fell in love with them, and it's now

my favorite food.

And then the other place we ate at

a lot was Sclafani's. Charlie's was our

Saturday place, and Sunday was for

Sclafani's, which was operated by, you know,

a New Orleans Italian family, and we always

got spaghetti and meatballs and a Roy Rogers

for me and a Shirley Temple for my sister.

And they also made great fettucini,

which my mother, for years, tried to

duplicate. And in essence, later on, I

realized it was really just the quality of

the ingredients, you know, good cream, good

cheese, good pasta and that -- we have a lot

of fond memories of that.

But we ate at a lot of -- some of

the more well-known New Orleans restaurants.

Like, Manale's, we ate at a lot, places like

that.

I have this visual memory from

childhood of what I consider to be the art

type of a New Orleans restaurant, and that

is one that has pink and green neon signs

outside that says "Steaks, seafood,

Italian."

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: That's a New Orleans

restaurant to me. And the left side of the

menu is seafood, and the right side is

mostly Italian, and a few steaks at the

bottom. And that, to me, is the

prototypical New Orleans restaurant.

MAN INTERVIEWER: Would you say that

that's different from the rest of America in

a sense or would you --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Oh, undoubtedly. Once

I started traveling in my 20s, abroad and

then here in the United States, then I

realized that not everybody eats like we do.

I really thought they did. But, you know, I

mean, for us to, for instance, cover the

picnic table with newspaper and throw out 40

pounds of boiled crawfish, which we did

constantly. We did that all the time. And

I thought everybody ate like that, and it's

not true.

And the things I realized in

traveling was that I think what really,

really characterizes Louisiana food is

seasoning. Not -- not spicy per se, but

well-seasoned food. And you just don't find

that everywhere.

MAN INTERVIEWER: Do you think that's

that Italian influence or --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, I think it's -- I

mean, New Orleans has been influenced by so

many different cultures over the years, and

it's really -- you know, "Creole" is a very

all-encompassing word that really -- I mean,

we've had large immigrations of Sicilians,

French, German, Irish, African, West Indian,

so many different cultures, and somewhere

along the way, this thing developed. And

it's really driven by an overwhelming

passion for food.

And as a chef, I think that, you

know, I'm really lucky. Because food is

such a great medium to share with people

because it touches people on so many levels

and -- emotionally, physically, spiritually,

socially -- so many different levels. And

to do that for a living is really quite

special. And growing up in New Orleans, it

comes kind of naturally, to have that sort

of connection with food and what it does to

people.

I know my mentor, Paul Prudhomme,

his real attraction to cooking was that you

could make people happy with food and -- and

he knew that when he was a kid cooking for

his family. It changed people's lives

literally. It can make their day, you know,

I mean.

And -- and to have that kind of

effect -- and it's not a one-time thing. I

mean, eating is something we do every day.

It's really one of the great joys of life

for everybody. And to -- to be able do that

for a living is pretty special.

MAN INTERVIEWER: At what point? Was

it after your travels of the 20s? What

point did you start thinking about it,

making a living?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Oh. Well, I started

working in -- in food service when I was in

college at LSU, and I started in a sandwich

shop just to make money for school,

basically. And I then went on to another

restaurant as a cook, and it was nothing

fancy. And then I managed the place for a

while.

And after college, when I moved

back to New Orleans, I decided to pursue it

as a career because it just felt so right.

It just felt so natural. I was comfortable

in restaurants. I think I was attracted

to -- you know, restaurant life is really

sort of a parallel universe to the rest of

the world because you're -- you're often

working nights, and there's a part of the

world you never see, and that's the 9-to-5

world, and I didn't feel comfortable in that

world. I knew that. And the people that

work in restaurants tend to be pretty

interesting too, so it felt like a natural

thing for me to do.

And I was fortunate enough in the

late '70s to meet Paul Prudhomme when he was

a chef at Commander's Palace and -- and he

hired me as an apprentice. I had a few

years of experience with food, but nothing

serious, and not in any really high-end

restaurants. But he gave me a chance to

learn. And that was a turning point in my

life.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: And you didn't at

that point have, like, any schooling in

food, you know, like culinary school, any of

that kind of --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: No, no. That wasn't

even a concern for me because I didn't know

they had culinary schools at that time. I

studied fine arts, painting and printmaking.

And a friend of mine at that time,

after one year of college, said -- told me

he was going to the CIA, and I was shocked.

Because I knew he's not CIA material. And

then he told me what it was. It's the

Culinary Institute of America, which I'd

never heard of.

So I'm more of a -- I guess more of

an old-school New Orleans chef in that I

learned on the job. And so many great New

Orleans cooks have taken that same route.

And it happened to just -- it was

really sort of magical in the sense that it

happened at a time when American food and

American chefs were coming into their own

and getting recognized for how great they

really were. I mean, prior to 1975, you

probably could not name one American chef.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah, that's

probably true.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Most restaurants,

hotels, and resorts, et cetera, were all run

by European chefs, which is fine. But I

just happened to be in the right place at

the right time. And people like Paul

Prudhomme and Alice Waters and Larry

Fortuon(sp) and Wolfgang Puck, all these

people, all of a sudden, it seemed, were

garnering lots of attention.

And Paul, of course, is simply a

phenomena. I mean, the man is -- you know,

he was put on this earth for a reason, and

it all came to him. And to be a part of

those early years at K-Paul's was really,

really magical.

WOMAN INTERVIER: I'm supposed to ask

you about shopping for food, like, in the

early days, like, as a young person. I

mean, like, did you go to markets, did --

with your parents or your mother, just to,

like, the Winn-Dixie or did she go to the

French Market or --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: I think just like

anybody else growing up in America, we

shopped at the big grocery stores. But you

always had certain items -- like the

oysters, for instance, and the boiled

crawfish, we all -- we only got that at

Charlie's seafood. That's the only place we

would buy.

And we also, you know, really had a

great appreciation for the great seasonal

things.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Okay.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: We always had Louisiana

navel oranges in the wintertime. That was

something we had a case of always. And we

ate plenty of them. Things like that that

you just kind of take for granted as a kid.

As you get older, you sort of appreciate how

special they are because they're only here

for a short time.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah, that's right.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And you learn about

seasonality, which, I think, is crucial in

cooking.

And even today at Brigtsen's, after

almost 17 years, I still do all the

food-buying myself. And it's a big job.

It's a big part of what we do. And we've

developed over the years relationships with

people.

And, you know, this is a food

business, but it's really a people business.

It's the people that dine with us, the

people that work with us, and the people we

get food from. They're very important. And

so we have a -- probably a couple a dozen

specialists that we work with. We have a

shrimp guy. We have an oyster guy. We have

a mushroom person. We have local greens

from a particular farmer. We have a rabbit

farmer. Catfish, we buy directly from the

fishermen.

So procuring product in our

business is crucial, and those are the

building blocks of our cuisine, and so it's

important that you source the best that you

can and -- and it's also really fun to

develop relationships with people that are

trying to do things the right way.

There are easier ways to do it.

You know, the food industry, like many

industries in America today, have undergone

lots of merging conglomerations, big, big,

big companies, and some of them are designed

to be one-stop shopping; in other words, a

restaurant can all up and get just about

everything they need from one place.

But that's not my style. We change

our menu daily. Although it doesn't change

that dramatically, it gives us great

flexibility. And that's what I really

enjoy.

For instance, I have a preference

for wild fish. I don't really like

farm-raised fish that much. And as long as

we have fresh, wild, local fish, that's what

we're going to use.

MAN INTERVIEWER: And so you're dealing

with fisherman as opposed to commercial

fishers, necessarily?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, they have to be

commercial fisherman for me to deal with

them.

MAN INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: But with fish, for

instance, if you think about it, seafood,

and fish in particular, is the last wild

food left on earth. Beef, chicken, all

these things, are farm-raised, which is

fine. But fish is like the last wild food

left, and you have to really understand it,

how the business of fishing works and,

unfortunately, how the politics of fishing

works.

But you have to be extremely

flexible. If I'm making a menu for

something a month away, I can't tell you

what kind of fish I'm going to be serving

because it changes day to day. And here at

Brigtsen's, I mean, we're known to change a

fish in a dish in the middle of service

because of supply and things like that.

MAN INTERVIEWER: But -- and you're

dealing with farmers, you said, for

instance, across the lake or whatever. I

mean, obviously, you don't care to tell who

they are.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Oh, I'm very proud of

who they are.

I've been dealing with our rabbit

man for over 20 years now at K-Paul's and

here at Brigtsen's. And Dan Crutchfield(sp)

at Creek Hollow Farm is his name, and he's

in Mississippi. And he used to work in the

chemical industry, and he had a

life-changing point in his life, and he

said, "This is not the way life is supposed

to be." And he became an organic farmer and

bought land in Mississippi and proceeded to

build up a business for himself, raising

rabbits, growing organic vegetables and

herbs.

And so -- and there are dozens of

people like that that I deal with and -- you

know, essentially, I don't really place

orders with some of these people. I pretty

much take what they have and find a way to

use it, as a means of supporting them and --

in their endeavors, because they're trying

to do it right.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: So you would make

your menu around what's available rather

than --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Right. Many, many,

many of our recipes come from sort of the

"Necessity is the mother of invention"

school of thought. Because we'll have

ingredients, and we'll say, okay, how --

what are with going to do with them. And

that's how a lot of things get developed.

MAN INTERVIEWER: So for you, a lot of

creative work goes on and new dishes and all

that.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Oh, yeah.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Because I know -- I

know your cooking, you respect so much the

traditions of New Orleans cooking, and

you're always doing it in a wonderful,

interesting way.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, I think -- I

think for a time, in the '80s and '90s, you

know, there was such an explosion of

interest in food and chefs and restaurants

and cuisines. And it seemed like every

month Food Magazine was proclaiming this is

the cuisine of the month. South Pacific

cuisine. Hawaiian cuisine, southern Italian

cuisine. And pretty soon, they ran out.

But the bottom lime is, you know,

Louisiana cooking is well over 200 years

old. And it may not be new, but it's still

great. And I have a great respect for that.

I mean, every time I put on a chef's

uniform, I'm putting on 200 years of

history.

And we still make gumbo every week.

And it's not cutting edge, it's not -- we're

not reinventing the wheel. We're just

making good gumbo. But as a New Orleans

chef, I'm proud to do that. I mean, if I

don't make a good gumbo, who is.

So -- and I think, in a sense, we

kind of -- for instance, when we opened

Brigtsen's Restaurant in 1986, I was very

intent on changing my menu daily because

that's the way I was taught from Paul. And

I was changing it dramatically every day.

But I soon realized that we had customers

coming in who were saying, "Oh, we brought

our friends in to try the duck dish we had

two weeks ago and you don't have it." I

said, "Oh, I'm sorry."

And I realized that I'm not cooking

for me, I'm cooking for our guests. And

we're here to make them happy. And -- and

some people want the same thing every time.

We have regular customers who eat the same

thing every Friday night for seven years.

But they are other people that want the new

thing every time they come in.

So you have to have balance and

keep things in perspective. You know, this

is a chef-owned restaurant, but it's driven

by our guests and what they want. That's

what's important.

MAN INTERVIEWER: That's another aspect

to me about New Orleans restaurants in the

sense of that there is a category called the

neighborhood restaurant, that I call the

neighborhood restaurant.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Right.

MAN INTERVIEWER: And, I mean -- let me

see if I can phrase this question.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: That you know what

to expect, that you can always go in and get

the softshell poboy or the -- something like

that, or a certain plate dinner?

MAN INTERVIEWER: And this in terms

of -- I always think of you as a

neighborhood restaurant that's at the high

end of flavor -- of creativity and all of

that, I guess is -- yeah.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: That's really -- that

goes back to what we tried to accomplish

when we opened. You know, people were

asking, "What kind of restaurant is it going

to be?" You know, "What are you going to

call it?" "What kind of cuisine is it?"

And I really had no answer whatsoever. I

couldn't answer that myself. All I knew in

my heart was I wanted a good New Orleans

restaurant.

And I guess you'd have to grow up

in New Orleans to understand what that

means. It has to do with making people

happy and having something to be -- that

could be long-lasting, that could be

gratifying for you and the people that work

here and the people that eat here and have

its roots in a New Orleans sensibility.

I never make any rules when I make

dishes. You know, I don't compartmentalize

what I do. I'm always open-ended and

open-minded. But inevitably, things have a

way of coming back to my roots, which is

here in New Orleans.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Do you remember

being handed down recipes or different foods

from your grandmother or --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: We have a couple of

things. I mean, one of the main things I

try to accomplish in terms of family food is

learn how to make my mom's oyster dressing

and -- because she only basically uses five

ingredients, but lots of them. I mean, it's

green onion, celery, parsley, cooked down

really hard. And oysters, oyster water, and

French bread. And that's pretty much it.

So like a lot of great Louisiana

dishes, it's not the ingredients, it's the

technique. Because in southwestern

Louisiana, for instance, in Acadian country,

a lot of the Acadian people were poor

people: Farmers sharecroppers, fishermen.

They had no money to spend on ingredients;

and if they were sharecropping, they sent

all their best stuff to market for cash, and

kept the lesser-quality ingredients for

themselves; a large family in many cases,

with, for instance, one old hen. And how do

you make that?

And there's where dishes like

jambalaya come from. Dishes like smothered

chicken or chicken étoffée, that's where

those dishes come from. Gumbo.

So it's not -- I mean, I look

across America today in 2003, and, you know,

food is better than ever, restaurants are

better than ever. But a lot of menus that I

see could be from anywhere, really.

And they're very ingredient-driven.

You know, you have top-end, high-end piece

of meat, for instance, with boutte(sp)

gourmet vegetables, some kind of weird

starch or either a reduction or a

vinaigrette sauce. But there's no real

cooking involved. You're grilling, you're

searing, you're sauteeing or something, but

there's no real cooking as we know it here

in Louisiana. So it's very

ingredient-driven cuisine.

So what -- and that's great.

There's nothing wrong with that. But what I

really enjoy -- I mean, I could spend all

day just doing what we call "pot cooking":

Making dressings, making stuffings, making

soups. I could do that all day and go home.

Because that's the kind of cooking I enjoy.

It's long-term cooking, you know, things

that may take hours to make; dirty rice;

jambalaya; soups, I love. That's the kind

of cooking I really enjoy.

And that's technique-oriented

cooking. Real recipes, not just ingredients

that are put together. And I think that's a

characteristic of our cooking too.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: That makes sense.

Has your mother written this recipe

down? Are you writing it down or --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: It's written down

somehow. She's got her little, you know,

index-card box with all the faded recipes.

And another -- I mean, one of my

favorite family recipes is something we

don't make very often, but it's called

paradise pudding, and it's my -- my Jewish

aunt Minyon Epstein, the late-great, made it

for holidays. And it's made in a springform

pan with -- that's lined with ladyfingers

and crumbled almond macaroons. And the

filling is so rich, you wouldn't believe it.

It's butter and cream and eggs and crushed

almond macaroons. And it sits up for a day

and then it's topped with whipped cream.

And I made sure and got that recipe. In

fact, my mom had copies made and framed for

all of us children so that we'll always have

it.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: That's night.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: But I would encourage

anybody anywhere that enjoys their family

dishes to learn how to make them, you know,

make sure they -- that those great

traditions continue. Go work with your mom

one Thanksgiving or your aunt or your

grandmother and learn how to make that dish.

And you really have to do it with

them, I think.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Because home cooks, who

are the greatest chefs in the world, have

their own way of doing things, their own way

of describing things, their own way of

measuring things. You know, how many family

recipes call for one large spoon of

something. And so you really have to see it

to learn it. And that's the greatest food

in the world. Are there any foods that you

no longer see eaten in New Orleans? I don't

know. We're pretty -- we're pretty tied to

our tradition. I mean, to me, New Orleans

is a big small town, and it's a little bit

provincial in a way, and particularly about

food.

And we've seen -- we have seen so

many trends and fads come and go over the

last 30 years in food, yet we still love to

go out and eat Trout Meuniere. We still eat

lots of Bernaise sauce. We still eat all

these things that are no longer fashionable,

that are no longer considered good for you.

But they'll always be a part of New Orleans

cuisine. We have a love for that. And I

hope it never goes away.

MAN INTERVIEWER: You serve that a lot?

Do you get a lot of call for it or --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yeah. We serve

Bernaise every day. We -- when we serve --

when we can get Speckled Trout and do a dish

with -- we usually do spiced pecans and

either shrimp or crab meat in a meuniere

sauce. And that's always extremely popular.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Sure.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And there's nothing

wrong with it.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: It's good.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: I don't care if it's

not cutting edge. I don't care if it's not

going to be on the cover of a food magazine.

It makes people happy, and that's all I care

about.

WOMAN INTERVIER: I think we have --

MAN INTERVIEWER: Well, let me bring

you back, then. Let's go back to the moment

at -- and this kind of plays into, I think,

to cooking techniques, both traditionally

and now, and how they've evolved and all

that -- but the moment of hooking up with

Chef Paul.

Because, really, the restaurant

business or the restaurants -- well, they

weren't mired, but they were serving the

old-style, you know, Antoine's, Galatoire’s

French-influenced food, it seems. And, of

course, everybody you talk to says Chef Paul

changed that.

So you were right there at the

hyper-center of the change, you know. And I

thought, you know, maybe you can talk to

that a little bit. I know you were young

and just learning, but on the other hand --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, I think, to put

things in perspective, I've always felt that

New Orleans is so much different from the

rest of Louisiana; and Louisiana, in turn,

is so much different from the rest of the

South, for instance. And I think those

lines are clearly drawn. I mean, just look

at the way we talk.

But, to me, even though Paul

Prudhomme and Frank Brigtsen were born and

raised in Louisiana, we were so different.

He showed me things I had no clue about:

The importance of a dark roux, for instance;

how to make étoffée and what that meant, for

instance.

MAN INTERVIEWER: How do you mean, what

it means?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, I mean, what does

étoffée mean? It means smothered.

MAN INTERVIEWER: Smothered, yeah.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And I didn't know that.

And I didn't know why that was such a great

thing.

And, you know, I remember, for

instance, as a kid, another great childhood

memory for me was -- I was probably about

seven, and one weekend -- one Sunday, my mom

and dad took us out to somewhere near

Lafayette to visit some people that they

knew. And it was very strange to me. It

was like a foreign country.

And they -- they made a barbecue.

They were barbecuing chicken. And the

two -- well, two of the main things I

remember from that day was my first taste of

Dirty Rice, which was absolutely incredible.

I never tasted anything so good in my life.

And the second was barbecued chicken

gizzards, which, I assume we always threw

away, but it was so good.

And then, of course, I also

remember the large, deep, big cooler they

had in the garage full of grape Nehi that I

must have drank a dozen of.

MAN INTERVIEWER: The perfect

complement to gizzards.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: But it was the -- it

was the same kind of thing with Paul. I

mean, I -- you know, how do you make Dirty

Rice? I mean, that's kind much a mystery,

Dirty Rice.

And really, it goes back to the

humble technique of utilizing every part of

a chicken. Nothing goes to waste, not when

you're poor, not when you're trying to feed

a big family and you don't have a lot of

money. Nothing goes to waste. And that's

what Dirty Rice is.

And I think it was -- it was about

1979 at Commander's that I first saw peeled

crawfish tails available for a restaurant.

I think they had just pioneered that

industry, that process. And Paul, you know,

brought in I don't know how many pounds of

these crawfish tails.

And it was a miracle. I mean, we

grew up, you know, going through all this

work to eat crawfish, and here they are all

peeled already. So it was a miracle.

And he created a dish that was so

simple and so good, a wonderful saute of

crawfish with butter and green onions,

parsley and garlic, served with rice. And

here we were serving this in Commander's

Palace. These things were flying out the

door. We couldn't -- we couldn't make them

fast enough. It was such a phenomena.

And, you know, I mean, when Paul

was hired as executive chef at Commander's

Palace by Ellen and Dick Brennan, I remember

seeing it in the newspaper. It was

front-page news. Because here was a county

boy, Louisiana country boy from Opelousas,

heading up the fanciest restaurant in town.

And that was news, because he was local.

But -- but anyway, he sort of

taught me, I guess, the country style of

cooking.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Today's January 31st,

2003, and we're at Brigtsen's Restaurant

with Frank Brigtsen.

And I guess the first question

is -- and I'm starting back with your

professional career with Commander's.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, after I returned

to New Orleans from LSU, I was working at

restaurants here in town, and I did that for

a year and a half or two and -- and then

came to a point in my life where I had lost

my apartment, my car, my girlfriend. I was

24 years old and wound up moving back in

with Mom and Dad.

And after two weeks of that, I

realized I had to do something. So I

happened to pick up the classified ads that

day, and there was an ad for Commander's

Palace restaurant looking for cooks or

people willing to learn Creole cuisine. So

that was just right for me. So I went in to

apply. Of course, I had to get Mom and Dad

to drive me down there at the age of 24.

So I went in, and the chef at

Commander's at that time was Paul Prudhomme.

This was 1978 or '79 and -- so I filled out

an application, had a long talk with Paul

for about an hour.

And what was interesting was -- I

mean, he looked at my application, you know,

my work history, and things like that. But

the real focus of our talk was, I guess,

trying to get to know each other and finding

out what I wanted out of life and much

broader philosophical terms than simply

applying for a job. And, you know, at that

time, he asked me what I wanted in life, and

I said, "Well, one day I'd like to have my

own little place."

So I came back again twice more for

long talks. So after three interviews, he

decided to give me a chance. And he offered

me a choice. You know, he said, "You -- you

can be a line cook and we'll expect a lot of

you, or you can be an apprentice, and you

can expect a lot from us."

And I knew I wasn't ready to work

the line of Commander's. So I opted for the

apprenticeship route and started at the

bottom, in the pantry, making salads and

desserts and things like that, appetizers.

And it was -- it was many things.

It was the greatest challenge of my life

because it was a very, very busy busier than

I'd ever been. And also, the quality of the

food and service was much higher than I'd

ever been involved with. So it was a

tremendous learning experience, and I had

some very good people teaching me there.

The other cooks were very helpful.

And so I was working night pantry,

a station where, literally, you're never

really completely set up. You're always

just going, going, going, going, going.

And -- well, they didn't tell me it was a

two-man position either.

WOMAN INTERVIER: Oh, goodness.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: So I was doing it by

myself, and -- and it was a challenge and it

was a learning experience. And I really

loved it. I was a nervous wreck, but I

really loved it.

And after a couple weeks of doing

that, one Sunday morning, which is Sunday

brunch day at Commander's, the biggest --

the biggest shift of the week, there was a

schedule change, and two of the saute cooks

didn't show up because they didn't know they

were supposed to be there. So the other --

well, the other cooks were teasing me,

saying, "Frank, you know how to make an

omelet?" And I said, "No, I don't."

And that banter went on for a

couple of hours. And then it got to be

crunch time. It was about 10:30, and we

opened at 11:00. And they said, "Frank,

you're on. You're going to be working

saute, back-line saute. So I said, "Sure,

you know. Just tell me what to do."

So it was an adventure. It was my

first real exposure to hot-line cooking.

The restaurants I had worked in before were

not, you know, really up to that kind of

standard. So, you know, a lot of my omelets

hit the grill, but I finally got it right.

And Commander's really proved to be

a great place to learn because there's such

care and commitment to the food and the

guests. I mean, three or four people looked

at my work before it got to the guests. You

know, including Mr. Dick Brennan. You know,

he'd send it back and tell me do it again if

it wasn't right; and I did it.

And once again, they didn't tell me

that was a two-man station either. So I did

that for a couple of weeks, and then they

moved me to the front line. And I got to

work broiler, saute, and expediting, which

was a real challenge also.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: What's that?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, you control the

tickets and the ordering of the food.

WOMAN INTERVIER: Oh.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: So it takes tremendous

attention to detail and focus and

organization.

So -- now, all these things took

place in a span of six months. So in six

months, I got to work every station in the

restaurant, which was wonderful.

And I think that's what's really

great about the restaurant business is that

you can progress and move up. And it all

depends, really, on your performance and

opportunity. And if you perform well, when

the opportunities arise, you'll get the

chance. And that's what happened to me, and

it was -- it was a blessed thing.

And then came another fateful day.

Again, it was a Sunday {"check}morning and

busy. And I was running around. I was

moving plates around. I had about 50 plates

in my hand and rushing around. And Chef was

in front of the kitchen. He said, "Frank,

come here a minute."

"Yeah, Chef."

He said, "How you feel about

sauces?"

I said, "Well, I really like them."

He says, "No, no, no. Let me

rephrase that."

I didn't know what he was trying to

get out. So ultimately, he asked me if I

wanted to come work with him or for him at

K-Paul's.

He had, amazingly enough, opened

K-Paul's while he was the chef at

Commander's. And at the time, it was just a

lunch place, and he would go into K-Paul's

at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning and do

pot-cooking and set up the lunch line.

And I'd never heard of the place at

the time. It was only seven or eight months

old. But I did whatever he asked me to do,

of course.

So he would go in in the mornings

and set up lunch. And then about 10:30,

we'd go over the menu, and then I would cook

lunch by myself. And he would go to his

real job at Commander's.

And after lunch, I'd clean up and

then start prepping dinner. And then I'd

cook dinner by myself at K-Paul's, me and a

dishwasher. And maybe 10, 10:30 at night,

Paul would come back talk over the day and what

was going on the next day.

And that was an amazing, amazing

time, and again, a tremendous learning

experience.

Because I was pretty green. I

didn't really know much. And I just had the

fire and the desire to learn, really. And

he gave me a shot.

And that went on for about three

months until his contract at Commander's was

up. And -- well, when I came was when

K-Paul's opened for dinner. That was the

first dinner service. And after three

months of that, Paul came over to K-Paul's

full time. And he took over the stove at

night, and I worked next to him expediting

and setting up plates. And that went on for

a few weeks.

And at that time, our nightly

business had grown from 30 or 40 people at

night to 150. And that went on for, I

guess, six or seven weeks.

And it was -- it was -- it was my

culinary school. I mean, standing next to

Paul Prudhomme and watching him cook, it was

a visual reference for me. I mean the

timing, the temperature, the taste, all the

things that go into great food, the little

things that make big differences, that's

where I learned it. And it was a magical

time.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: It's really lucky.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yeah, very lucky.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: He seems like such

a nice person.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Oh, yeah. Well, Paul

is a gift to the rest of us. That's the way

I look at it. I mean, he's a really special

man.

You know, he -- he's a -- you know,

he can be a very strict and stern

taskmaster, and he worked us really, really

hard. But he's also the sweetest, nicest

guy, with the biggest heart, that you'll

ever meet.

And I worked with him for seven

years. And after seven years, he still

remembered that first interview at

Commander's, that one day I wanted my own

little place. And he and Kay felt that I

was ready.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh, really?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And pushed me to do it,

encouraged me to do it, get out and start

looking for a place.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Well, that's

amazing.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yeah.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: So rather than

trying to hang on to you, he --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: No. They felt it was

time for me to do it.

And, I mean, I would have never

done it without him. I certainly had no

money, and I didn't have the guts, really.

And they encouraged me to do it and made it

happen for me and lent me the money to do

it.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Wow.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: At a time when it was

not easy for them. They came up with the

money to fund Brigtsen's, to get it open.

And, I mean, I know in my heart that Paul

and Kay wanted Brigtsen's as much as I did,

if not more. And, you know, so I am indeed

the luckiest guy in the world.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah, you really

are.

MAN INTERVIEWER: Do you remember that

interview, what you -- say a little more

about --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, I don't remember

specific details, only in a broad sense in

that it was very philosophical, and he was

just trying to learn about me and if -- you

know, what kind of values I had and what --

if I realized, I think, what was important

in life.

And, you know, I didn't care how

much money I made, I just wanted to learn.

MAN INTERVIEWER: Considering how you

moved up, you figure they must have run that

want ad all the time and had these --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, back then,

Commander's, like a lot of restaurants,

was -- the larger restaurants in town,

were -- were in sort of a yearly cycle.

Because in the summertime, restaurant

business slows down dramatically, and -- so

they pare down their crews when summertime

comes. And as fall approaches, they hire

quite a bit.

And there were dozens and dozens

and dozens of applicants, you know, for the

jobs that they had. This was in late

September and -- some really good ones too.

I'm still friends with the four or five

people that were hired at the same time I

was.

And some others went on to open

their own restaurants too. Steve Gambel

trained me in the pantry. He went on to

open Gambel's on Metairie Road.

Phil Murray, who came from

Michigan, ultimately moved back to Michigan,

opened his own very successful restaurant.

And Ralph Garcina also was in my

group, and although a little younger than

me, he went on to open Barataria Restaurant

on Harrison.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: So it was a really good

group of people and -- I mean, Paul, one

thing he's really great at and loves to do

is teach. And he and maybe two or three

other chefs in town felt the need to have a

forum to teach apprentices. And they, on

their, own organized an apprenticeship

program. And it was, like, two classes.

And I was in one of them. And we would meet

once a week at a chef's restaurant and have

classes and learn and do things and do

projects. And I did that for as long as I

could, a couple of months. But, quite

frankly, I was so busy at K-Paul's that I

did not come to the class anymore.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: So it was while you

were still working that you were doing

the --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: I would take a break

between lunch and dinner to go to class.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh, goodness.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: But ultimately, I

really went to the class to try and recruit

someone to come back to K-Paul's and help me

that night.

And ultimately, I quit going to

classes because I was just too involved at

work. But that program grew and became what

is now the apprenticeship program at

Delgado.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: The culinary program at

Delgado.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: So he really wasn't

interested in -- so much in the experience

that you had had cooking or any of that, it

was really your desire to learn. Because he

could teach.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yeah. Paul -- and I'm

the same way today. I don't really hire

according to your experience, your resumé.

Those things are important, and we look at

them, of course, but we're not hiring cooks,

we're hiring people. And it's much more

important to me to hire the right person, in

my view, who wants to work with us for the

right reasons. You know, we're here to make

people happy.

And if you have the fire and the

desire and the commitment and understand

what we're trying to do, that means a lot

more than your experience. It doesn't

matter who you were and what age. It

doesn't matter. You have to have it inside.

And that's what you try and find.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: I'm amazed you had

the -- I mean, I wouldn't have had the guts

to go and apply without, like, background,

schooling, or something. It's amazing.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: It was pretty

intimidating. It really was. And the thing

that -- that triggered it was the wording of

the classified ad: "People willing to

learn."

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: That just clicked right

away because that's what I wanted to do. It

was at that time I decided that that's what

I wanted to do for a living is become a New

Orleans chef. And that was my way to do it.

And, well, the way things

snowballed after that was just sheer magic.

Because it was a confluence of events and

timing and things happening in American

culture that put me in that spot at the time

when American chefs were coming to the

forefront. The press was all over us and --

and -- not me, but Paul and others -- giving

them a lot of attention for the things

they've been doing for 200 years. And it

was really phenomenal.

And the growth of K-Paul's, I mean,

was hard to describe, really.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yes.

MAN INTERVIEWER: Well, Chef,

there's -- when you guys met, it was at

Commander's, which -- and you were invited

by ad to learn Creole cooking and all that.

And then he was opening the -- obviously had

K-Paul's in his mind or had just opened it

at the same time, I guess at this time,

and -- well, I guess my question is, is

about the food, about the food at

Commander's and -- and -- I'm not going to

ask you to say whether he was unhappy or not

or happy or whatever with what he was

cooking. But obviously, he changed. When

we talk about the growth of K-Paul's,

K-Paul's is a real benchmark moment in

culinary history in this city.

So I guess what I'm asking is: The

food that --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Why did he open

K-Paul's?

MAN INTERVIEWER: -- he learned there

and then the Creole -- Pardon me?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Why did he open

K-Paul's?

MAN INTERVIEWER: No, just how the --

how the food changed and what you were

learning and -- and --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, I think you have

to understand the larger context of the late

'70s.

For instance, when Paul was hired,

I remember seeing that in the paper. It was

front-page news that a cajun boy from

Opelousas got hired to head up one of the

big fancy restaurants in New Orleans.

And it was revolutionary. There's

no other word for it. The Brennans were

smart enough and astute enough to take a

chance. And rightfully so.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: They believed in him,

believed in Louisiana food, and they -- they

rolled the dice because they didn't think it

was a gamble. They knew it was good.

And I think Paul -- I mean, from my

understanding, he -- he opened K-Paul's for

two reasons, I think: Number one, for Kay.

They had worked together at Mason due pri;

she in the front, he in the kitchen. They

fell in love, and they wanted to do

something together. So he opened K-Paul's

for Kay.

And he also opened for another

reason, which is he wanted a place where his

very large family from Opelousas could come

to New Orleans and eat his food at a place

they were comfortable at.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh, uh-huh.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Because Commander's was

fancy and dress-up and all that.

And I remember in the early days,

oh, God, one day, a whole bunch of his

brothers and sisters came into K-Paul's. It

was, like, 12 of them.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And I had to cook for

them by myself, and man, was I scared.

Because I knew these people knew good food,

and I was really, really, really nervous

that day.

But, you know, K-Paul's was a lunch

place. It was very casual, and anybody felt

comfortable there.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And I think that was,

you know, in his heart and soul, what he

wanted. And I know that neither he nor Kay

could envision the phenomena that K-Paul's

would become. It just plain happened. Kay

referred to it as "The miracle on Charter

Street." Because it truly was.

And the things he was doing at the

time were revolutionary and a lot of

eye-opening things to me. Because I really

wasn't that familiar with the food of

Arcadia that he grew up with because I grew

up in New Orleans. So it was a learning

experience in that sense for me too.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: I couldn't get

enough of that place when it first opened,

I'd get that sauteed seafood platter for

something like $5.00.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Oh, yeah. 5.95.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah. It was so

cheap and so good.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Our record for lunch --

now, the restaurant sat 55 people. And one

Friday lunch, I made 105 seafood platters.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh, my goodness.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: All cooked to order.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Jeez.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: It was phenomenal.

And really, you know, we had just

opened for dinner when I got there. I was

the first night cook. And it was really an

adjustment because it was, you know, a lunch

place.

And I remember one of the most

humorous things -- and it happened all the

time -- was, you know, the transition from a

lunch menu to the dinner menu. And we would

have some new things on for dinner that we

were trying, but a lot of the lunch things

would be transposed to the dinner menu.

And Kay, would say, "Well, you

know, shouldn't we raise the price a little

bit?" And Paul would say, "Nuh." You know,

if something was 4.25, he's say, "Okay, make

it 4.50." And she would say, "Well, how

about 5.50?"

And they used to bicker over 50

cents. And it was so funny, because Paul

didn't want to raise the prices even 75

cents. It was hilarious.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Well, that

certainly changed.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yeah. Well,

inevitably.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh, certainly.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: I mean, Paul opened

K-Paul's on a shoestring, and he didn't have

much money then. And, you know, the staff

was very minimal, very minimal. But in

six-months' time, it expanded tenfold.

And Paul always took good care of

the staff and -- I mean, we didn't realize

it, then -- I didn't. I was too young --

but as a 17-year-old veteran of restaurant

owner, I mean, I know that the biggest

expense is payroll. It's not the food, it's

not the rent, it's not the employees, it's

payroll.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Wow.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: So --

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: And those employee

meals?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yeah, that too.

MAN INTERVIEWER: So you knew you

really had something when you had a Kid who

was willing to work double stations by

himself.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yeah. Exactly. I'm

sure that was one of my most prominent

features, yes.

MAN INTERVIEWER: Did you -- did you

feel overwhelmed or you felt like you had

found a home or --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Both. Both. I felt,

you know -- it was -- it just felt so right.

MAN INTERVIEWER: Um-hum.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: But it's also so

special, because we had a sense that

something was happening there.

At the time, it was me and a helper

during the day and -- and me and a

dishwasher at night; and in the front was

Kay and two waitresses; one of which was

Sandy Hanson --

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: -- who's now my

sister-in-law. I met my wife through

K-Paul's. She came to visit one Christmas,

and we fell in love, and she moved here, and

we married.

But we knew something was special

going on because of the reaction from

people. I mean, people in New Orleans had

never tasted anything like that and we knew

something was going on.

But every day was an adventure,

every day was a challenge. And I'm learning

on my feet, basically. Paul was astute

enough to bring in some more experienced

people later on. So that I could

concentrate on dinner service, he brought in

a very experienced chef to take over the

daytime. And I learned from him and -- and

some of the other people. He brought in

people that he knew were good.

Amazingly enough, eventually Paul

Miller, who was my soup (or sous) chef at

Commander's Palace, came to work for me.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Wow.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: I was the night chef,

and here's a guy who knows 20 million times

more than I do, and he came to work for me.

So that was kind of funny. But it

was that kind of place. Paul brought in

people that he felt could contribute.

And Paul Miller now runs the whole

show.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Paul is -- he's the

chef and general manager at K-Paul's, and he

runs that operation. He's also from

Opelousas.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh, really?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: So I had the benefit of

learning from some really wonderful people.

Another big influence on me was

George Rhodes (sp) who was a phenomena of

his own. At a very young age, he took a

tremendous interest in being a chef and

learning. And he -- although younger than

me, he had an incredible amount of knowledge

that he shared with me and helped me when I

made mistakes, and I owe a lot to George

Rhodes too.

And George went on to his own

successes. He -- his family, whole family,

basically's been in the food business. But

he went on to open George IV in Metairie.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Right.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Then he went on into

more of a consulting chef type of business.

He worked with Al Copeland for many years,

and now he's an independent food consultant.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: I never knew that

was his place on Metairie Road.

So did Paul and Kay help you found

this place, or you actually found the

location and -- or they helped advise you

on --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, as it happened,

one of the waitresses at K-Paul's at that

time was studying to be a real estate agent

on the side.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And so I went out with

her, and she hooked up with, you know, a

real estate agent with the company she was

working with. And those two ladies had the

distinct pleasure of driving me around town

and trying to figure out what the hell I

wanted. Because I didn't know.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Right.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: So they'd take me to

restaurant locations and we'd go look at it,

and they'd say, "What do you think?" And

I'd say no.

And after about six weeks of that,

they said, "Frank, what do you want?" And I

said, "I really don't know, but I'll let you

know when I find it."

All I knew is I wanted a small

place similar in scale to K-Paul's, you

know, 50, 60 seats, 70, 80, maybe. But when

we found this location, I walked in the

front door and knew right away. It was

instantly --

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Was it still Dante

by the River at the time; it was still

functioning?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yeah, yeah. Was here

as Dante's by the River, and she wanted to

make a change in her life. So the real

estate agent was friendly with dialer. And

she put the two of us together, and we made

the deal. And I bought the business from

her and took over the lease and the

building, and we opened five days later.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh, my goodness.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Again, with Paul's,

shall I say, encouragement, he said, "Well,

you know you're not getting a paycheck

anymore, so you better get open quick."

So we did. And those five days

were the hardest five days of my life.

Because I -- I mean, I was a pretty good

cook, but I didn't know anything about

business. So I had to learn again on my

feet and -- but Paul, you know, he didn't

throw me to the wolves. He set me up with

the best CPA in the world and the best

attorney in the world to handle my affairs.

So Beau Perant(sp), the CPA,

continued to be my CPA up until just a

couple years ago. And he was much more than

my accountant. He was my friend and --

still is my friend, of course, and also a

business consultant. You know, he steered

me when I needed help.

And Bill Reinhardt, the attorney,

is still my attorney today and has always

helped me and whenever I have things to look

at and things to take care of.

So you know, Paul, as is his way,

continues to help me today.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: When you opened --

I assumed it wasn't filled. Not like --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, the first night

we opened, we did 72 people.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Wow.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Most of them, K-Paul's

employees.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Okay. Okay.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Including Paul and Kay.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh, that's nice.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And it was an eventful

evening. It was great. Everything went

well.

I think Paul's favorite part of the

evening was when the -- he was sitting in

the dining room, and our new big old

industrial coffee maker flipped a circuit,

and the lights went out in the back. And

all Paul heard at his table was, "Well, jump

over the fence and fix it." So, you know,

it was one of those restaurant nights, you

know, and -- excuse me. So that was a good

start.

And, you know, we didn't really do

a lot of advertising. I mean, we didn't

have any money. We got the word out best we

could. Paul and I did some PR shots and,

you know, kind of spread the word a little

bit.

And again, he -- I think he and Kay

were extremely instrumental in getting the

word out. Our good friends at WDSU,

Margaret Orr and Al Gifford, used to do a

food show, the cooking segments, were so

helpful to me. They had me on several

times. They came out here and filmed a live

piece, which helped get the word out.

But the first few months -- we

opened in March, and it was up and down

and -- and -- you know, for various reasons.

We had some wonderful people who came in to

eat with us and loved the place and -- and

they said, "The food was great. We'll be

back when you get central AC."

Because all -- all we had was

window units at the time, and it was kind of

warm. And so as soon as I got $10,000

together, I bought central AC as my first

big purchase.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And Paul and Eve

Rosenblum have been eating with us every

Friday night at 7:30 for the last 17 years.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Right over there.

MR. BRIGTSEN: Wonderful, wonderful

friends.

But there -- I mean, there was a

night we did four people, and two -- two of

them are friends.

And I wore out the carpet in the

hall pacing. I mean, if you could see

pictures of me from that time, just complete

black circles under my eyes. I mean, I was

just -- I worry a lot. My first business

venture and, you know, feeling

responsibility of everyone that came along

for the ride with me, and -- just worried a

lot.

And then a real turning point was

in June of that year. We'd been open three

months, and we got reviewed by the

newspaper, The Times-Picayune. Gene Borde

(sp) was the food writer at the time and

gave us an incredible review.

And I don't know if Gene knows

this, but someone else at the paper called

us the night before and tipped us off.

So, you know, I guess a former art

student, I'm very sensitive to criticism, so

I wanted to know exactly what this person

was going to do. So the reviews come out on

Friday. So the night before, the Thursday

night, after I finished cooking, I drove

over to The Times-Picayune to get some

papers and -- because I couldn't find them

anywhere, and they said, "You can't get

them." "Well, go over there. There's one

over there."

So I got some and came back to the

restaurant, and we all read it together, the

staff. And it was -- it was really glowing

to us. And, I mean, I had never been

reviewed as a chef before, ever. So it was

a monumental thing in our lives.

And we drank a lot of champagne.

We were second-lining around the dining

room, really having too much fun, and not

realizing that the next day would be the

busiest day of our lives because the phone

was ringing off the hook.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Sure.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: So we're all in here,

hung over, trying to -- trying live up to

our 5-Bean review. So that was fun.

But then people knew about us.

That's really what --

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: That was it.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: -- what got

accomplished, and people knew about us. And

from then on, things changed. Things went

very well. And we went through our own

growth period, you know, and evolution.

And I think -- you know, during

those days, Paul and I still talked fairly

regularly, and -- and he would help me when

I had problems and stuff.

And I mean, you know, when I --

when I -- when I opened Brigtsen's, people

would say, "What kind of restaurant is it

going to be?" I said, "I don't know how to

describe it. I just -- I just want to get

open and cook."

And, you know, Paul was famous

blackened redfish, and I had blackened -- we

estimated that I had blackened about 60,000

of them while I was at K-Paul's. And that's

minimum. So needless to say, I didn't want

to blacken any more Redfish.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Right.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And that's his dish.

You know, I didn't want to come --

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: -- open my own

restaurant and serve his food per se. So I

didn't have blackened Redfish.

And so after a couple of weeks,

Paul called me and said, "You know, I heard

you're not serving blackened Redfish."

"No, you know, it's your dish, and

I don't think it's right."

And he said, "Well, people are

telling me that they want it. That's what

I'm hearing. I know it's how you feel. I

understand your philosophical feelings are

there. But what I would suggest is give the

people what they want. Give them blackened

Redfish. Do it for a while and then do your

own thing. Get them in once and then do

your own thing."

So that's what I did.

And, you know, he helped me a lot

in those coming days. The following year

our first summer after review, things slowed

down dramatically. I really didn't

understand the seasonal patterns of

business, and summertime gets really slow

and our restaurants.

So I called him. I said, "What can

I do?"

He said, "Well, why don't you give

away" -- I mean, people come at 7:30 and

8:00 but they wouldn't come at 5:30, 6:00.

He said, "Why don't you give them a free

appetizer if they come early."

So we started doing that, and we

definitely got a response from it. And that

was the genesis of our now famous, really

evening special menu --

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: -- which is a way of,

you know, boosting business in the early

part of the evening and making new friends.

And I can honestly say we wouldn't

be here today without it, because it's kept

us alive, during the lean times, which

you'll always have.

But the real -- I think the biggest

personal transformation that I underwent

opening Brigtsen's Restaurant was learning

to be a businessperson, because I didn't

know anything. And that was the hardest,

hardest thing. Because, you know, a lot of

people that come into my profession want to

be chefs and have their own restaurant one

day, not realizing how big the difference is

between being a chef and being an owner

chef.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: It's definitely two

jobs, and they're both huge. And being an

owner was really hard to learn. I mean,

number one, you're dealing with people --

salespeople, insurance people, City Hall --

all kind of things. And so my whole day, I

didn't have time to cook. I had to do all

this other stuff that I didn't like.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And I couldn't wait for

5:30, so the phone would stop ringing and

the door would stop knocking, and all I

could do was cook. They couldn't get me.

And -- and it was a real, real struggle

to -- to get comfortable with that. But

ultimately, I did.

And today I enjoy that part of it

as much as I do the food, because it's a

challenge. And it's -- when it works, it

really feels good. I mean, you get a sense

of gratification. I mean, there's 20 people

that make their livelihood here, and Marna

and I care a lot about all those 20 people,

and we just want to keep it going for them.

And the people that teat with us, of course.

But, you know, it's -- we're just a

mom and pop place, really, and it's a family

business. We're all in it together. And,

you know, one of the most gratifying things

is being successful. I mean, it's the

American dream. To work for yourself is the

greatest thing in the world, in my opinion,

because you -- you -- you bear the

responsibilities, but you also get the

reward of freedom in a big sense because you

call the shots. And when it works, it's

really, really gratifying.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: And really hard.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yeah. Oh, yeah, very

hard. Never gets any easier.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: You probably work

harder for yourself than you would -- you're

at it constantly.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yeah. You know, when

we opened, a lot of people in the

neighborhood asked if we were going to be

open for lunch, for instance. And I said

no. Oh, so disappointed. But, you know, as

I told Marna, I said, you know, "Look,

here's our dream schedule. Let's do dinner

five nights a week." At K-Paul's we were

open Monday through Friday and off Saturdays

and Sundays. But I didn't want to miss

Saturday nights. So we open Tuesday through

Saturday; we close Sunday and Monday. And I

said, "Let's try this. If it doesn't work,

we'll change." But we've managed to keep

that same schedule all this time and --

But that said, I mean, my neighbors

say, "Marna, why is Frank going to work at

11:00 in the morning?" I don't open till

5:00 at night.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Right.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: But, you know, a

restaurant is not a retail shop. There's a

lot that goes into it. And -- and my day

starts at 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning and

ends at midnight or 1:00 that night.

And to me, as an owner chef,

Tuesday through Saturday is just one big

day; it's just one continual. Because you

never stop thinking about it. And the first

thing I do in the morning is work, and the

last thing I do at night is work. And, you

know, you find your own time between, but

that's just the price you pay. And it's

well worth it to me.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: And you have

your -- I assume, your seafood people,

crabbers, whatever, come here with their

wares, or do you have to go to --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: No, I don't really have

to go get much. We've developed

relationships over the years that work. I

mean, I still have a rule that I won't buy

tomatoes over the phone. I go buy my own

tomatoes at Dewit's (sp) fruit stand. But

you develop relationships.

And, you know, that's a big part of

the restaurant business is buying.

Purchasing is so crucial, and I still do it

all myself.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh, you do?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And the reason for that

is because I want control, internal control;

and also, I want people to understand that

it's me they're dealing with.

And, you know, you develop -- I

have developed certain philosophies about

that part of the business over the years

that are probably a little -- go a little

bit against the grain, but they sure work

for me.

I mean, for instance, I'm not --

with seafood, for instance, it's a perfect

example, you know, it's -- in New Orleans,

we're blessed with an abundance of seafood,

more so than most other places; and

therefore, it's a very competitive business.

There's a lot of seafood companies in town,

a lot of good ones.

And, you know, from an economic

standpoint, it would make sense to get up in

the morning and call several of them and

find out who's got the best price on what

you're looking for. But I don't do that.

I've developed a relationship with one main

seafood wholesaler who understands what I

want, and I stick with him; and they stick

with me.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: They must be the

ones responsible for those huge softshell

crabs you have in here.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, that's another

person.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh, okay.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: But it's the same type

of arrangement.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: I've never seen

them that big.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: You know, my philosophy

is that loyalty's a two-way street, and you

have to develop trust and understanding.

And I don't nickel-and-dime my purveyors. I

just don't do that. I mean, I shop price,

yes, but that's not the most important thing

to me. The most important thing is quality

and service. Those things are more

important than 10 cents here or 10 cents

there, you know.

For instance, I -- you know, I'm

friendly with other seafood people in town,

and they'll occasionally come in and say,

"Okay. We want to do some business with

you." And I explain this philosophy to

them.

And I say, okay. You've got a

customer calls up and wants a hundred pounds

of Red Snapper. You've got a hundred pounds

in the cooler. It's been there three days.

It's still in good shape, but it's, you

know, been there three days. Another

customer calls up and says, "I want a

hundred pounds of Red Snapper," and you've

got some just coming in the door.

Now, the first customer

nickels-and-dimes you all the time. You

know, I'll give you -- "$4.00. Can you give

it to me for 3.50 or" -- and he's a little

slow paying his bills, and he's kind of a

pain. The other customer is me. I pay my

bills on time. I'm easy to deal with. I'm

loyal. I don't nickel-and-dime you. Just

give me the best stuff and give it to me

when I need it. Good quality. Good

service. Who's going to get the best fish?

I am.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And so that's the way I

do things. You know, and maybe I'm not the

best businessman in the world. Maybe I'm

not making as much profit as I should. But

it's -- it's a lifestyle decision too.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Because it's my

personality. You know, just give me the

good stuff at the best price you can. And,

you know, and be there when I need you. And

they are. I mean, I call these people at

4:00 o'clock and they'll bring me fish.

And so those are the -- you know,

it's just philosophical things like that,

ways of doing business, that -- that I've

developed over the years, and I'm

comfortable with them. If something's not

right, we don't serve it.

You know, we change the menu daily,

and that's one of the reasons we do. Over

the years, a lot of things have become

staples in our menu. And the menu doesn't

change that much every day, but we do have

tremendous freedom and flexibility. If

something's not right, I'll change the menu

at 5:00 o'clock and reprint it. That's all

I've got to do, so...

And then you got other -- you know,

other people that I deal with, you know.

The shrimp guy brings me shrimp every day.

He goes down to Grand Isle, picks up shrimp,

then comes back into the city and sells

them. And that's what he does, shrimp. And

we get fresh shrimp almost year round.

And he also does softshells for us.

And softshells, we really need a good friend

to get good softshells. And Mr. Roy, the

shrimp guy, provides us with that. And, you

know, it's a commodity that's a gift from

God. Softshells don't come out of the

factory.

And he has to develop a

relationship with somebody that does

softshells to begin with, and then he

determines who's going to get the best ones.

And so again, with Roy, I don't

nickel-and-dime him. I don't give him a lot

of grief. Just give me the best stuff when

I need it. And he's always treated me fair,

and we get the biggest, prettiest softshells

in New Orleans, without a doubt.

Roy tells me that when he has them

on the truck, he has to hide them. Because

other restaurants see them and say, "I want

those." "No, those are for Mr. Frank." So

that's -- that's the way I do business.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: They're certainly

the biggest ones. And tender --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yes.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: -- for that size.

They don't have that kind of a leathery

shell.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Papery shell. You see,

that's -- he understands what I want.

And they -- softshells, each one

has to be perfect. No paper shells. They

have to have both claws and most of their

legs and preferably still be kicking, which

they usually are.

MAN INTERVIEWER: What other -- well, I

asked that question. Never mind.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Vegetables --

MAN INTERVIEWER: Because I equate -- I

mean, to me, your duck is the best duck that

I get.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Well, thank you. It's

something we're known for. It's something

we do every day, and it's something I

learned from Paul.

Duck is an interesting thing

because -- well, it's extremely

labor-intensive; and the way we do it,

anyway, it is. In America, in the later

part of the 20th Century, it became

fashionable to have grilled duck breasts.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Oh, yeah.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: You know, grilled,

medium rare, usually, medium. And that's

fine. But it's not the way I like duck. I

love it the old-fashioned way. I really

love roasting meats. And fish too, but

meats especially. And I like natural

gravies. That's my favorite sauce.

So we do it the way Paul taught us,

which is to season them. We stuff them with

onions and fresh rosemary, and we slow-roast

them for five hours. Now, in the early

days, in fact, the first 12 years of

Brigtsen's, we only had two ovens. We could

only get six ducks in each oven, plus all

the other stuff we're cooking: Desserts

everything else.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: So it's always been a

real chore in our kitchen. We now three

ovens, so we're expanding.

And then once the ducks are one, we

take them out and cut them in half and

debone them. And the whole process is

basically to solve two problems. There's

two things people don't like about duck:

Bones and fat.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And the process and the

technique that we use is designed to remove

both of those issues, so that you get

tender, crispy duck. And that's what we do.

And, you know, some people don't

like it. Some people, you know, it's too

try or, you know, I want it medium rare.

Well, this is the way we do it. And -- and

most people love it.

And the great thing about duck is

that we use Maple Leaf Farms duck from the

Midwest, and it's always perfect. It's the

one product that I never have to worry

about. It's uniform, it's consistent, and

the price has been the same for years and

years and years, and they just do a good job

with it. And it's a way of making people

happy, and it's something we do.

And over the years, I changed the

accompaniments. We've been serving it with

cornbread dressing and honey-pecan gravy for

many years. And, you know, we see it every

day, and occasionally get the urge to change

it. And whenever I do, I hear about it.

Gosh. One year at Jazz Fest, I

changed the sauce, and boy, this guy's heart

was broken. He had come -- you know, comes

every year to Jazz Fast.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Sure.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And, oh, my God. I

felt so bad. Oh, I felt so bad.

So, I mean, that's a lesson I

learned early on, you know? I'm not cooking

for me, I'm cooking for our guests. And

that's why certain dishes have become

staples on the menus, because people want

them. Some people want the same thing all

the time, and some people want the new thing

all the time. So we offer both.

MAN INTERVIEWER: I think we talked

about how you're a combination of -- or you

have the responsibility of a neighborhood

restaurant, in a way, to have those same

things, same way, because people want them.

But then you have so many people who come on

a continual basis that who still like that

variety. Plus, you're coming at it from an

art standpoint, so you want to create --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Right. Well, I think

it really goes back to the very basics, the

roots of what is a restaurant. "Restaurant"

comes from the word that means "to restore."

And the first restaurants, to my knowledge,

were sort of a refuge where you can go in

and get a hot bowl of soup. And, well, what

does that mean exactly, or what need does it

feel in people's lives? You know, they can

eat at home. Why do they go out to eat?

And when you think about that, when

I think about that, it helps me understand

what things we should have or offer to

people to encourage them to come see us.

And that's one of those things, you know.

Nobody's going to make roast duck and cook

it for five hours at home. We have that.

We've got it for you.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Boned.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Yeah, exactly. We do

the work. And, you know, those kinds of

things are very basic, and it helps me

understand our -- our role.

I mean, for example, on 911, me,

myself, like every American, questioned the

worth of my own life. What am I doing

that's so important? I'm a -- I'm a chef.

What does that do? I'm cooking for people

for a living. It seems so frivolous and

worthless and trivial to me. I should be

doing something constructive, something more

meaningful. I really questioned everything

that I do, whether my life was a waste or

not. And I felt that way for weeks.

And then I realized exactly what my

role is, and that's to make people happy, to

give people a couple of hours away from

their day-to-day lives, where they have

happiness. That's what I do. I create a

little window of happiness for people.

And, then, in thinking about that,

I realized, man, that's as important as

anything else you could do with your life.

If you can share a little bit of joy with

people and brighten up their lives for that

little bit of time, that's worthwhile. And

that's why I do it.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: You make a

wonderful place for those 20 employees to

come every day.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: That's right. I mean,

I could -- after having done this for all

these years, you know how many days I say,

well, I have to do something else, and I've

had offers to do other things. You know, I

may be ready to move on to something else,

but I'm not putting these 20 people out on

the street.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: If I ever did decide to

walk away from Brigtsen's, I would find a

way to keep it going for them.

MAN INTERVIEWER: Have they been with

you a long time, most of them?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Many of them have,

yeah.

Paul and Kay Prudhomme, when we

opened, were generous not only with their --

their finance, financial help, spiritual

support, they also gave me staff to help me

open. Rhonda, Marna's sister, was working

at K-Paul's, and she came with me to be my

manager.

And Paul said, "You can take

anybody from the kitchen that you want."

And I took a guy named Steve Vangelder from

New York, who we call Yankee. Because,

quite frankly, he's a working dog. The

man's amazing at the production that he can

do. And that's what I knew I needed. I

need somebody that could run that kitchen

and get involved in the business. So that

was enough to build a core around.

And then after a few days of being

opened -- I think we were open a couple of

days, and Sandy stayed at K-Paul's, because

that's Kay's first waitress, you know. And

Sandy told Kay, "You know what? I need to

be with my sisters." So she came too.

And -- so they've been with us since day

one, obviously.

And in terms of longevity -- well,

Marna -- Marna had never worked in a

restaurant before in her life.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Really?

MAN INTERVIEWER: Ever. She was a

court reporter.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: She was?

CHEF BRIGTSEN: A stenographer. And I

appointed her {"check}mat take Dee.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: And she's totally

delightful.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Oh, she -- thank you.

She was so nervous that first night. I

mean, just scared. She'd never done it

before. She never even practiced. You

know, she didn't go work in a restaurant and

follow someone around and see how it's done,

she just did it, bless her heart. And of

course, she's the best and a big reason

people come to Brigtsen's.

And then, you know, I mean, the

most important position in our kitchen is

sous chef, which is, you know, second under

me and really the chef that runs the kitchen

in a day-to-day sense. And in 17 years,

we've had five.

And in terms of longevity, I think

Chris Newton would be the longest. He

started here -- his brother was working here

when we opened, and he started as a

dishwasher about 16 years ago. And he does

all our desserts. He's the man about town

during the daytime. I mean, he does the

receiving, and he makes the dessert and

stuff, the general prep, and fills in

dishwashing if we need it.

You know, so he found a place. He

found home. You know, nobody would give him

a chance, and we did and I think that's

{"check}helpful for me.

You know, Paul taught me lessons

about people. I remember one time at

K-Paul's we had a dishwasher, just wasn't

working out. He was got-darned slow and

couldn't keep up with our pace and didn't

understand things so well. And I went to

Paul and complained about him. "We've got

to get rid of this guy."

And he -- he said, "Calm down." He

said, "You know, I understand your

situation. I understand this guy." He

says, "You know, what you have to

understand, Frank, is that if -- we're not

all equal. If someone is giving

100 percent, if they're doing the best that

they can do, you can't fire them. They may

not be competent, they may not, you know, be

the most talented, but he's doing the best

he possibly can. And so we kept the guy and

we became good friends, and I learned to

respect that.

You know, things -- you know, being

the boss and an employer, you have to

understand that. You know, it was really

hard for me, for instance, to step away from

the stove and let someone else cook because

I was doing it all myself. And I knew from

my experience at K-Paul's, when the staff

grew, that you could give a recipe to ten

different people, and you're going to get

ten different renditions. Cooking is not

exact science. You know, people's

personality enters into it, and you have to

allow for that.

That was difficult transition for

me in the beginning. But you kind of have

to open the door for people and let them

walk through on their two feet. And I

learned a valuable lesson. But in terms

of --

(Changing tape)

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Another tape.

That's awful generous of Paul to

feel that way about employees. They're

not worth --

CHEF BRIGTSEN: Whenever they fit the

mold.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Yeah, and if they

show giving up quickly and cleanly enough.

CHEF BRIGTSEN: You know, as a teacher,

it's the same way.

WOMAN INTERVIEWER: Well, it's true.

Yeah, when you have a student who's -- may

not be the brightest one, they're doing the

best they can, you do respect that. Instead

of kids who are screwing off and not doing

near what they could and make you angry.

(tape is now in again)

CHEF BRIGTSEN: And I think one of

the -- you know, we've only had two

bartenders in our 17 years. And Rob Weiss,

who's with us now, has been here a hundred

years, and he knew the Hanson sisters, Sandy

and Marna and Rhonda, back when they lived

in San Francisco, and they -- they've been

friends for 30 years. And we found a way,

really, to -- we had a spot and we found a

way entice them to come join us, and one of

the best things we've ever done.

You know, over the years, I've

looked at other options like expanding,

getting bigger, opening other restaurants;

and really the thing that -- that stopped it

is the people equation, that part of the

equation. Because we take everything so

personally here. You know, trying to find

someone to plug into a position is not our

style. It's more about finding people and

then finding a place to put them.

And we have our -- I guess we're in

our own little cocoon here, and once you

step out of it, you want to get back in it.

So we've been very blessed in that regard.

And, you know, I mean, some of our wait

staff has been here many, many, many years,

and we're so close.

And our sous chef now, Larry

Herbert, I can't say enough about Larry.

He's -- like me, he's a home-grown boy with

no formal culinary education, just found

himself in a restaurant one way trying to

make a living.

And Larry is the best natural cook

that I've ever worked with, period. And

I've worked with Paul Prudhomme. And, I

mean, he is incredible. He's -- he's a good

man too. His food is impeccable. He's a

better line cook than I mean. His food is

always perfect. I never have to worry about

it. And if Larry's in the kitchen, it gives

me a tremendous amount of freedom to do

other things. So he's been a blessing.

And he came in and, like everyone,

started at the bottom rung of our ladder,

which is -- you know, you work desserts and

then you work salads and then you expedite,

and then you get a shot at the stove if

you're good enough. And.

(Tape ended here.)