EP73: Tom Douglas: The Road to Becoming Seattle’s Food Legend

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I'm thrilled to introduce our guest on Voice Chefs Seattle culinary icon, Tom Douglas.

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He's a James Beard Award-winning chef, restaurateur author and media personality.

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Join us as we explore his journey, passion and purpose.

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Tom, welcome to the show.

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Oh, it's nice to be here.

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Thanks for having me.

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Good to see you at the radio show last week.

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That was fantastic.

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I wanted to get started and kick it off with how was your palate shaped in childhood?

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Are there any foods you loathed or any foods you loved?

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Well, one food that I loathe to this day is the red beets.

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I can choke down the gold ones and I love the greens, but for some reason the beets themselves are just not my cup of tea.

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Oh.

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No, nothing really.

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I'm a pretty good eater and I haven't missed too many meals in my life.

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My, my whole childhood was shaped on my grandmother, who was a terrific cook and lived in an apartment a few blocks from us.

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Had us over for dinner every Friday night.

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My favorite part about her was she would cook in her little house coat all day long and then right at five o'clock she would disappear into the, into her bedroom, in her apartment, and then come out at 5 30 with her pretty dress on, her bright red lipstick on, ear rings.

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I have a highball.

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So she's the one who taught me how to sip Jack Daniels and to slug a Pabst Blue Ribbon.

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That was her, those were her two beverages of choice.

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Of

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course, in my house, my mom, they just didn't drink.

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So it was such a thing.

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My grandmother, we went, she had butter instead of margarine.

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Oh,

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she had liquor instead of, iced tea.

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And she had beef bourguignon, which was very exotic.

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I think I grew up with steakums.

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So yeah.

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So beef bourguignon that's pretty impressive actually.

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She, she was married to an exec on the Santa Fe railroad.

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And at the time in the forties, Or so he was 18 years older than her.

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I think she got married and he was 36.

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She was 18.

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And at the time, some of the finest dining in America was in the Harvey houses along the rails and the train cars themselves, where they had proper waiter service, white jackets, take white tablecloths and eat in the fine dining cars of the Santa Fe railroad.

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Wow.

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So did you end up cooking alongside her?

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Is that kind of where you got your passion for food?

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No, not really.

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It's where I got my passion for process.

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But I probably cooked alongside of my other grandmother, who's more of a baker.

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Okay.

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Yeah, more.

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And also my mom cooks three meals a day, every day for all of us.

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So I'm one of eight.

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Wow.

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Yeah.

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My dad had a big family.

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I think it was nine kids.

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My family, my brothers and sisters are four kids.

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And my dad was raised up.

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In New York and you were raised on the East Coast, right?

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Is it Delaware?

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Yeah, I was born in Cleveland, raised in Newark, Delaware, home of the University of Delaware Fighting Blue Hen.

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Awesome.

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So how did you get from Delaware to Seattle?

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What was that journey like?

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And it was in your teenage years, I think.

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Sure.

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I was intense on not going to college, which my mother never really forgave me for.

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I was her lone black mark on her record

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in

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a good way.

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It was just bothering her that she had one child that didn't go to college.

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I was She's coming out of high schools, 17

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18.

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Didn't want to go to college.

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Of course, I went to a Catholic high school where everyone went to college.

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That was one of the very few who didn't.

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Wow.

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And so my guidance counselor said, What are you interested in?

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And at that point I was working in a liquor store where we would have little wine tastings, The team would.

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I wasn't allowed.

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I was only 16, 17, but I would anyway.

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And so I just got into the whole wine thing probably earlier than a lot of kids my age who were more beer heads and Annie Greensprings and Boone's Farm and things like that.

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So we talked about that and she said I can get you a.

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like, not an interview for a job, but working, following a guy around Mr.

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Ferdinand Weiland he was the F and B at Hotel DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware, by far the best restaurant.

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In the state of Delaware.

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Wow.

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And so I did an hour and a half little walk around with him.

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So the whole operation and then he offered me a cook's helper's job

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at a

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buck an hour at the end of it buck an hour.

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That was minimum wage at the time.

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I know.

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I know.

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Wow.

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Oh, my gosh.

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That's how we got started.

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And then what brought you to Seattle?

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I was ready to see the world.

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I was 18 years old.

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Okay.

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350.

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I had my car.

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It was a Chevy station wagon.

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So there's plenty of stuff to put all my belongings in.

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And I said goodbye to my girlfriend.

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My dad gave me 150 bucks on the way out the door as he did all his kids.

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And just said adios, see you in a year.

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And then I never went back.

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I ran out of money in Seattle.

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That's when motel sixes were 3.

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39 a night.

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Wow.

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I what was your journey like to becoming a chef food influencer really for Seattle and the U.

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S.

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I probably wouldn't have been able to have this journey if I wasn't in America.

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I'll start with that because you have a license in our country to be who you want to be and cook what you want to cook.

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Whereas if you were.

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French or Italian or Vietnamese or Chinese.

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You're pigeonholed into that particular cuisine.

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The American chefs have this weird kind of food freedom that, to borrow from other cultures and to enjoy what you enjoy.

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If I want to cook Vietnamese tonight, I cook it.

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I, at least I try, right.

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I'm not saying it's as good or better.

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And they, but it's something that you're free to do in our country, both Physically, obviously, people in Italy could do the same if they chose, and they just don't think that way.

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At least they didn't back in the day.

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And even today, with all the Latinos in our kitchen and stuff, if you offer them, a fancy meal, they'd much rather have something that, They made themselves very Mexican rather than a fancy meal from one of our restaurants.

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That's just the way it is.

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I can understand that.

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Anyway.

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So that's part of my history is learning from every immigration situation that happened in my cooking career.

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Probably the biggest influence was the Lao Vietnamese, Cambodian.

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Immigration in the late 70s.

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I discovered fresh herbs like nobody's business in salads and green leaf wrapped spring rolls.

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And just all sorts of deliciousness that I had never really seen before.

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My extent of Asian cooking back on the East Coast was going to Grace's diner on the New Jersey Turnpike and having Chinese egg rolls, that's or sweet and sour pork with on a road trip with my dad or something like that.

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That's true.

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I never saw anything like or tasted anything like that wave of immigration that happened.

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And I always have incorporated those kind of flavors into my own menus.

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Can you give an example of a dish like that?

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Sure, of course.

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Come sa vang sau tap.

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Was a Cambodian prep cook slash dishwasher who came over in the first wave of immigration after the Vietnam war, it wasn't until later that I realized that he had crossed the Danang river and under gunfire and picked up English really fast about his wife would bring him in Vietnamese or Laotian style spring roll and with a whole little container of.

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Peanut vinegar and some plastic bag full of green leaf lettuce leaves.

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And that was what she would send him to work with every day for his lunch.

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And so one day I said, I want to try one of those and tried it.

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Loved it.

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The whole concept, my menu was global at the time.

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And I said I want to put these on the menu.

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So his wife started making them for me.

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She used to make 250 a week.

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Until we.

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Sold out of those in a couple of days.

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And then it was 500 a week and it became a staple on our menu.

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And that's how that, I'd never really made them before.

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Plus I'd always had the big Chinese egg rolls, which are very different than the little crispy spring rolls, right?

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Like much better.

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And so that's, that became a fixture on the menu at cafe sport was Comsa Bon Southups wife's spring rolls.

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And I if there was a credit.

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To me would be, I recognized a good thing and went for it.

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Definitely.

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He taught me how to make them.

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I've always had the ability to recognize deliciousness and then try and copy it.

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Yeah.

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Your food is amazing.

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I have no formal training.

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That's how I learned.

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Absorbing and listening.

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Yeah.

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I didn't go to culinary school.

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But there are certain aspects that I loved, and there are certain aspects that I do things a little different now.

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I'm curious about the restaurants that you've opened.

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Can you talk a little bit about what was the first restaurant that you opened?

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Of our own?

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Because that's not the seminal restaurant.

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The seminal restaurant for me was Cafe Sport, which is where I was hired as sous chef.

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Okay.

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And by the time we got it open, the chef had quit and I became the chef.

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We were open a year.

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I became the chef and general manager because the general manager got fired and because we weren't making any money and for me, when you became the chef and GM, you married two sides of the business.

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Now, all of a sudden I'm in front of the house in charge of waiters, finances.

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And so I had said when they offered me, There's GM job.

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I said, well, if I'm going to take the GM job and I'm going to stay, then I want a percentage of what we make.

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And of course they were losing their ass at the time.

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And they said, no problem.

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I said, I'll give you the first 5, 000 a month that we make, but I want 50 percent of what we make after that.

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And they just looked at me like I was an idiot because They'd never even make 500, much less 5, 000.

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I could see what the gym was doing wrong and how little she was working and how overstaffed we were.

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And I could see a lot of things that were going on that I had no control over and they said, check that deal.

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And so I did.

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And within three months we were profitable and within six months I was making bonuses.

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And within the year I was the highest paid chef in Seattle.

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So to me those are all things that help you become who you are because you can be the best cook in the world.

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But if you can't run a product cost, if you can't run a business, then you're shit out of luck.

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You're running out of business and I don't care how good a cook you are.

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So you need to marry the two, right?

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You need to be able to lead a brigade, have a good product cost, have delicious food, I have a nice rent structure that makes sense for the business, all that stuff has to be in line.

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And to this day, that's what I do when I open a new restaurant is I look at the location, I look at the rent, I think about who the chef is going to be, what menu mix needs to happen in this particular location.

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And then I look at how I'm going to finance it.

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And I'm just, I self finance all of our places at this point.

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That's when I decide if I'm going to bet on this hand of cards or not.

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How many restaurants have you opened?

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I would say over time, probably 18 or 20 of 10 food businesses now

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that's incredible.

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That's absolutely incredible.

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And it sounds like what you described is kind of the formula for succeeding with these restaurants.

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Do you have a favorite?

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I just closed one that wasn't successful.

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And I was in it, so it's a million dollar law.

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Don't feel very smart after that, but the new place is rocking and rolling and I'm shucking oysters like a mad man.

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And

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so it's good fun.

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My last partner was my wife's uncle, my original partner, our original partner at the Dalai Lama.

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He put up 50 grand.

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We remodeled, spent every penny without, we had nothing in reserve to even stay open.

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And if it wasn't for the goodness of my parents, I would not be open.

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I would have gone broke.

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He put up that 50, 004 years.

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Five years later, after almost going out of business for six or eight months straight, we paid him off 750, 000.

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Wow.

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Because he owned 50 percent of the business.

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Oh my gosh.

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So what's the new restaurant?

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Like it's Half Shell,

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right?

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In

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Pike Place.

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Yeah, it's called Half Shell.

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It's a classic seafood joint.

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We have steak, free and burgers at the same time, but it's really anchored by our C bar with.

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With wide ranging, varying menu, like right now we have octopus and ready to start and, scallop crudo and oysters, obviously both roasted and raw, that's the anchor.

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And then whatever fresh seafood is coming in at the moment, I would, or just on Columbia river coho, we just got out of copper river.

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Kings, whatever happens to be the run of the moment, that's what we feature.

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And what's your favorite salmon?

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I'm a Copper River King man, for probably reasons that may or may not make sense, but year round is the Bristol Bay Sockeye or quick frozen at sea.

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Okay.

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I really love Copper River for what?

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it has done for the salmon industry.

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And there was a time when this beautiful fish was only appreciated for being put into a can and being plentiful.

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And a guy named John Raleigh, 30 some years ago, talked the fishermen into handling it better.

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He recognized the difference in quality of this particular fish in this particular river, talked the fishermen into bleeding, gutting, and icing the belly right.

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then and there as soon as they caught the fish.

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And so you took the great pedigree of the fish and then handled it properly.

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And it was magic.

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Wow.

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And the other thing it did was it gave value to wild salmon that had never really been appreciated before.

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Like people loved it.

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They ate it, blah, blah, blah, but it was never appreciated if it wasn't.

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sold, went, went into a can or went into this or that cat food, whatever, by it become the famous fish that it did, Copper River, it all of a sudden made Columbia Kings more valuable and Yukon Kings more valuable and Bristol Bay Sockeye more valuable because people started to identify a heritage.

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of the fish and it created this new economy around fish.

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There was a point when Copper River King wasn't getting much more per pound than Yakima Valley.

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Oh, wow.

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That's just the facts.

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And so he created this value.

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And in my mind, saved the wild salmon fisheries, made them more important, sustainable, and manageable, and it's like the filet mignon of the sea.

00:13:18.980 --> 00:13:25.534
We're willing to pay, you go to Met Grill and you pay 80 bucks for a steak, why shouldn't you pay 80 bucks for a Copper River Kings.

00:13:25.875 --> 00:13:30.524
It's the same value from the, or if not, it's wild.

00:13:30.605 --> 00:13:36.825
It's even a better value than a farm raised product is, I just think we had our priorities a little askew.

00:13:36.855 --> 00:13:43.634
And so that's what I really appreciate about what Copper River and the whole process of identifying it has done for the industry.

00:13:44.294 --> 00:13:44.715
Yeah.

00:13:44.745 --> 00:13:48.375
And it's amazing that you support that in your restaurants.

00:13:48.590 --> 00:13:51.370
I've seen it and I love river king.

00:13:51.700 --> 00:13:52.860
That's my favorite salmon.

00:13:53.110 --> 00:13:55.059
There's nothing, there's nothing better.

00:13:57.289 --> 00:13:57.909
No, it's a beautiful.

00:13:58.149 --> 00:14:00.149
So is the Yukon King.

00:14:00.360 --> 00:14:03.090
Like I say, we understand that now.

00:14:03.220 --> 00:14:07.360
We understand that each river has its unique qualities and each fish.

00:14:07.695 --> 00:14:19.345
Species, whether it's King, Coho, Sockeye, Pinks, Kitas, the whole thing, they all have value and now we're valuing them more, they've been trying to put Pebble Mine in the headwaters of Bristol Bay, right?

00:14:19.835 --> 00:14:23.365
Which we finally got stopped right now, but I don't that battle will never be over.

00:14:23.804 --> 00:14:27.215
There's trillions of dollars worth of copper and gold in the headwaters of Bristol Bay.

00:14:27.225 --> 00:14:35.174
And so there's always going to be somebody that wants to get it out of there and build a mining toxic, huge open pit mines up there.

00:14:35.740 --> 00:14:37.210
And we have to continue to fight it.

00:14:37.730 --> 00:14:46.759
You have to create an economy around this fishery if you're going to let people have jobs and send their kids to school and feed their families.

00:14:46.759 --> 00:14:51.330
You have to create the economy of fishing jobs and subsistence living and all that kind of stuff.

00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:52.450
If not, they're going to choose mining.

00:14:52.960 --> 00:14:53.580
They need the money.

00:14:53.580 --> 00:14:53.850
Right?

00:14:53.919 --> 00:14:54.240
Yeah.

00:14:54.259 --> 00:14:58.559
But the fight is going on and you're a huge advocate for it.

00:14:58.960 --> 00:15:02.870
And I know when you speak, you constantly talk about it.

00:15:02.879 --> 00:15:04.070
So people are aware of it.

00:15:05.090 --> 00:15:06.750
And I believe it's really important.

00:15:06.809 --> 00:15:13.389
And so if you're listening, research this because, and get involved because it's really critical.

00:15:14.004 --> 00:15:18.815
To sustain salmon and it's such an important fishery,

00:15:18.875 --> 00:15:22.815
we've executive produced two movies, one called the breach and one called the wild.

00:15:22.914 --> 00:15:36.294
The first one, the breach is all about wild salmon and what we've done this, the tragedy that there's really very little commercial salmon fishery available in the lower 48 at all because we've fished them out or uploaded them out or whatever.

00:15:36.304 --> 00:15:38.424
And we're trying not to let that happen on the last.

00:15:38.850 --> 00:15:41.039
Great salmon are on left on earth.

00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:46.889
And if you go online and you watch either one of these movies, you'll get an idea of the fight, the battle.

00:15:47.039 --> 00:15:58.120
Second one is dealing a little bit more with some personal battles of my, of our director, but the first one is really informative about the process, about the mind and about the fight.

00:15:58.490 --> 00:16:00.190
And I'll put links in the show notes.

00:16:00.475 --> 00:16:01.514
for those as well.

00:16:02.004 --> 00:16:09.754
So tell me about what was your inspiration for rub with love spices because I've I have the salmon rub.

00:16:09.794 --> 00:16:11.424
I have the pizza rub.

00:16:11.774 --> 00:16:15.014
I use pizza, the pizza rub on grilling vegetables.

00:16:15.875 --> 00:16:16.215
Sure.

00:16:16.235 --> 00:16:19.054
But I use the salmon rub for lots of different fish.

00:16:19.054 --> 00:16:21.328
And so what was the inspiration behind that?

00:16:21.649 --> 00:16:27.529
Well, our first restaurant, the Dahlia Lounge, was not going swimmingly well when it comes to making a margin.

00:16:27.620 --> 00:16:33.759
And so I had told Jackie's uncle, Clarence, I said, we have to think of something because this doesn't look like it's ever going to go.

00:16:33.840 --> 00:16:38.129
There's space in the Pike Place Market where Cafe Sport was, where I was the chef GM.

00:16:38.169 --> 00:16:39.179
It's available.

00:16:39.399 --> 00:16:46.330
I think we should do a seafood restaurant there that appeals to all people because Dahlia was a little bit more esoteric and was more of a foodie restaurant.

00:16:46.330 --> 00:16:50.730
I wanted something that appealed to the market audience, which was across the board, right?

00:16:51.879 --> 00:16:53.549
And he agreed and we did it.

00:16:53.809 --> 00:16:59.070
And, he was 50 percent partner and he was fine with going along for the ride.

00:16:59.129 --> 00:17:02.450
And we had lines out the door before we ever opened.

00:17:02.500 --> 00:17:04.210
It was crazy successful.

00:17:04.309 --> 00:17:10.859
And one of the most successful dishes was I had been invited to be a judge at the Jack Daniels World Barbecue Invitational.

00:17:10.890 --> 00:17:13.150
He did what we called the charcoal stroll.

00:17:13.720 --> 00:17:17.295
They gave you a pint of whiskey because it's a dry County, right?

00:17:17.295 --> 00:17:18.825
So the worker's got a pint of the paycheck.

00:17:19.265 --> 00:17:22.535
And so the judge has got a pint because you weren't allowed to buy it anyway.

00:17:22.734 --> 00:17:37.184
So we got a pint of Jack that evening did charcoal stroll, which was walking the campgrounds with all the tent and all the RVs and all the smoke plumes coming up where they were starting their whole hog, 12 hour briskets and all that.

00:17:37.535 --> 00:17:38.315
Deliciousness.

00:17:38.365 --> 00:17:44.884
And I fell in love with the process and I went into a few of them, a few of and I was watching them.

00:17:46.039 --> 00:17:56.099
It's a whole hogs with these their own spice rubs and it occurred to me that if I was gonna open a seafood restaurant that I had told my team and said, whatever we do, everyone serves salmon.

00:17:56.220 --> 00:18:00.420
I want somebody to say that we have the best salmon in Seattle after we open.

00:18:00.589 --> 00:18:01.000
Wow.

00:18:01.059 --> 00:18:02.190
I did this process.

00:18:02.190 --> 00:18:02.960
I came back.

00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:04.390
I was inspired.

00:18:04.450 --> 00:18:06.309
I made a rub for our salmon.

00:18:06.819 --> 00:18:08.089
We would then cold smoke it.

00:18:08.089 --> 00:18:12.759
So we put ice trays over the smoking fire in the smoker.

00:18:12.759 --> 00:18:18.259
We put ice trays over top and then did a cold smoke on the fish so that we rubbed it, cold smoked it.

00:18:18.269 --> 00:18:24.269
And then when you would sit down and order it in the restaurant, we would then just grill it real quickly to order.

00:18:24.990 --> 00:18:27.920
And we made a delicious cornbread pudding to go with it.

00:18:28.585 --> 00:18:35.605
shiitake relish, Northwest deliciousness and three months or four months, Seattle magazine called a salmon dish in Seattle.

00:18:35.615 --> 00:18:40.815
So yay, we were successful, but everyone wanted the recipe.

00:18:40.954 --> 00:18:41.494
Oh, yeah.

00:18:41.714 --> 00:18:43.734
So I said, it's a very simple thing.

00:18:44.394 --> 00:18:45.994
So I didn't want to just give away the recipe.

00:18:46.565 --> 00:18:51.984
I put bags of my spice rub at the front desk to see how it would sell.

00:18:52.015 --> 00:18:53.105
And it sold like crazy.

00:18:53.115 --> 00:18:53.664
I love it.

00:18:53.714 --> 00:18:56.595
So then a grocer came in and he thought why don't you sell these?

00:18:56.894 --> 00:18:58.585
Why don't you sell these in my grocery store?

00:18:58.775 --> 00:19:02.994
And he also said something like, it's works best if you have a product line, not just one thing.

00:19:03.015 --> 00:19:03.325
Sure.

00:19:03.394 --> 00:19:05.125
So I made a steak rub and a chicken rub.

00:19:05.184 --> 00:19:05.974
The rest is history.

00:19:05.984 --> 00:19:07.384
Now, 27 years old.

00:19:07.430 --> 00:19:09.710
We sell about 50, 000 jars a month of our rub.

00:19:09.769 --> 00:19:10.390
There's our business.

00:19:10.460 --> 00:19:11.480
Oh my gosh.

00:19:11.539 --> 00:19:13.019
That is incredible, Tom.

00:19:13.019 --> 00:19:14.500
That is really incredible.

00:19:14.529 --> 00:19:15.269
I'm a huge fan.

00:19:15.269 --> 00:19:16.809
I've given it away as gifts.

00:19:16.859 --> 00:19:19.289
I gave one to Lisa, who I talked to you about.

00:19:19.289 --> 00:19:22.180
You'll see her in some of your restaurants and her and Obed.

00:19:22.210 --> 00:19:24.289
She is a huge fan, just like I am.

00:19:24.329 --> 00:19:30.460
And my wife is, but I gave it to her at the hot stove society when we were there because she bought tickets.

00:19:30.460 --> 00:19:31.670
I'm like, you don't have to buy tickets.

00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:32.890
So she was like, no, no, no.

00:19:32.890 --> 00:19:34.650
And I said, you have to try this.

00:19:34.980 --> 00:19:37.700
And I'm pretty sure it was the salmon rub because that's my favorite.

00:19:37.799 --> 00:19:41.309
And I said, you have to try this because she loves good food.

00:19:41.319 --> 00:19:43.049
She's a diehard foodie.

00:19:43.509 --> 00:19:50.369
So anyway, this episode is dedicated to Lisa because she's the one that really brought me to hot stove and brought my awareness.

00:19:50.369 --> 00:19:52.009
And I'd love to dive into that.

00:19:52.009 --> 00:19:56.670
We have a few more minutes and can you tell me the backstory about hot stove society?

00:19:56.670 --> 00:19:58.940
I know it started, I think, as Seattle kitchen.

00:19:58.990 --> 00:20:01.069
I'd love to hear a quick story on that.

00:20:01.400 --> 00:20:02.910
If you could share that with our listeners.

00:20:03.039 --> 00:20:03.470
Sure.

00:20:03.710 --> 00:20:08.789
We had a, I was part owner of a building over by the palace kitchen, and it was called the palace ballroom.

00:20:08.799 --> 00:20:10.099
And we did events there.

00:20:10.099 --> 00:20:12.289
It was our catering events facility.

00:20:12.369 --> 00:20:16.019
We were doing great except summertime hits and there's no business, there's nobody doing events.

00:20:16.029 --> 00:20:19.920
There's no conventions in that first, especially the first two weeks of July.

00:20:20.009 --> 00:20:23.450
And so we were trying to think what we could do to create business on our own.

00:20:23.640 --> 00:20:30.005
So we started the Tom Buggles summer culinary camp, which was a five day adult Cooking camp

00:20:30.005 --> 00:20:30.394
right

00:20:30.634 --> 00:20:38.285
where we did the cooking demos and tastings from breakfast until dinner and it was debauchery we in the five days.

00:20:38.285 --> 00:20:45.355
We had almost 300 bites of different bites of food and almost 60 different beverages to go with them.

00:20:45.375 --> 00:20:47.375
So it was super fun.

00:20:47.424 --> 00:20:53.128
It was three or four thousand dollars for the week Wow It sold out immediately, 30, 40 people.

00:20:53.358 --> 00:20:55.219
We decided there was a business there.

00:20:55.259 --> 00:21:06.118
And so when the space that we're in now was the former place where the owner of the hotel and I would have our little sipscotch at a putting contest here above Lola, when we had free time, we call it an executive session.

00:21:06.169 --> 00:21:13.489
I said, what do you think if we were to build a cooking school in this space and move our summer camp over to here, do what we do one week a year, 52 weeks a year.

00:21:13.538 --> 00:21:15.588
He thought about it and said, sure, let's do it.

00:21:15.618 --> 00:21:16.469
So we did it.

00:21:16.564 --> 00:21:26.413
That was 10 years ago this week, and it is going strong and we moved our Seattle kitchen radio show here 10 years ago when we had this facility, it used to be in the studios at

00:21:26.413 --> 00:21:27.183
Cairo.

00:21:27.743 --> 00:21:29.344
So this is a much more foodie.

00:21:29.344 --> 00:21:34.173
And so once we did that, we could have an audience and we were still going strong 25 plus years later,

00:21:34.433 --> 00:21:35.124
it's amazing.

00:21:35.163 --> 00:21:37.273
I'm just going to paint a quick picture for everyone.

00:21:37.273 --> 00:21:41.554
So when I walked in to the hotel, it's in a hotel.

00:21:41.808 --> 00:22:04.538
And as I walked in, I walked up the stairs, there's this hot stove society logo and you walk in and you're literally in what feels like a production kitchen and there's butcher block tables that you sit down as an audience member and in the front, Tom sit or Tom stands actually with a microphone to the right of him.

00:22:04.798 --> 00:22:07.058
My right would be Bridget charters.

00:22:07.098 --> 00:22:08.409
Who's the culinary director.

00:22:08.489 --> 00:22:14.929
There's a table there, but behind the table on the left is Becky Guzak and she's the producer for the show.

00:22:14.939 --> 00:22:16.729
One of the producers and wow.

00:22:16.749 --> 00:22:28.189
What an amazing experience as a listener to, to be part of this taping of this incredible radio show about food and cooking and you get served a breakfast.

00:22:28.838 --> 00:22:30.729
And for me, that's my review.

00:22:30.983 --> 00:22:33.084
Right there in voice for chefs.

00:22:33.114 --> 00:22:38.854
I want to send that out to the world for you because that is the coolest thing I've ever done with food.

00:22:39.153 --> 00:22:43.824
And Lisa and I just bonded because we were so excited to be there.

00:22:44.034 --> 00:22:47.503
It's a small group and it was really intimate and it was really special.

00:22:47.503 --> 00:22:50.094
And you've been doing this for so long, Tom.

00:22:50.614 --> 00:22:54.433
And I have been, matter of fact, I can hear the group that's out there right now.

00:22:54.433 --> 00:22:55.854
We have a corporate group right now.

00:22:56.288 --> 00:22:57.068
Oh, they're all laughing.

00:22:57.078 --> 00:22:57.439
Yeah.

00:22:57.440 --> 00:22:59.288
But

00:22:59.288 --> 00:23:02.939
anyway, I wanted to make sure to share with people about the hot stove society.

00:23:02.959 --> 00:23:09.348
So if you're listening right now and you're in Seattle or you're coming to Seattle, you got to book some time with the hot stove society.

00:23:09.348 --> 00:23:12.499
They also have a cooking school with cooking classes coming up.

00:23:13.189 --> 00:23:14.239
So check them out.

00:23:14.288 --> 00:23:18.078
And before we wrap up, we got about six minutes.

00:23:18.078 --> 00:23:19.769
So I know you're really good with time.

00:23:19.769 --> 00:23:21.099
Cause I, I watched you.

00:23:21.515 --> 00:23:22.115
On the show.

00:23:22.365 --> 00:23:26.025
And I learned a lot from this experience because, wow.

00:23:26.025 --> 00:23:31.855
You're a chef, you're an entrepreneur, you're a radio host, and all these things.

00:23:32.424 --> 00:23:41.634
But for me as a podcaster, it's an honor because I watched how you hosted this radio show and you were so casual about it.

00:23:41.674 --> 00:23:46.085
And it was just like, people come in and come out and you interview somebody.

00:23:46.085 --> 00:23:50.625
And it was like almost running a restaurant, and just watching everything, just.

00:23:50.914 --> 00:24:00.275
Transpire and it was really special, but the one thing I wanted to say is there any message that you want to share with our listeners around the world?

00:24:00.605 --> 00:24:04.605
And particularly in Seattle, is there anything that you feel that people should know?

00:24:05.105 --> 00:24:09.515
If you watch Fox News, you're probably not coming to Seattle anytime soon, so stop watching Fox News.

00:24:09.664 --> 00:24:10.535
I'll start there.

00:24:10.845 --> 00:24:11.835
It's a beautiful town.

00:24:11.924 --> 00:24:13.055
I love our city.

00:24:13.454 --> 00:24:16.845
It has had growing pains like every other city and still does.

00:24:17.244 --> 00:24:21.595
Urban environments aren't sterile, so that's just the way it is and we'd love to see you.

00:24:21.954 --> 00:24:22.585
I would say.

00:24:23.265 --> 00:24:32.825
If you were to think about building a city, a modern city to this day, so you, let's just say you went to to architect school and you're gonna, you, your job is to build a town.

00:24:33.325 --> 00:24:36.085
There is no better place to start than the Pike Place market.

00:24:36.174 --> 00:24:49.025
And it has a synergy with our town that I think is what I could equate to a heart and soul from the cobblestones under your feet to the awnings of the old wood market, to the fact that there's a.

00:24:49.724 --> 00:25:16.470
Over a hundred restaurants in three blocks, there's a senior center, child care center, rich people, poor people, it is a slice of our city, and I just think it's a great place if you were to start a town, that's where I would start with, is a market like that, and build from there, and so Seattle's blessed with that, and then when you look out, you can look from the inland sea, which is the Salish Sea, Salt water, Lake Washington's all the way to the Cascade and Olympic Mountains.

00:25:16.470 --> 00:25:19.990
You could water ski or snow ski within 45 minutes of each other.

00:25:20.089 --> 00:25:22.980
It's Seattle is a lovely place with fresh produce.

00:25:22.980 --> 00:25:26.619
We grow tons of our own produce at our processor farm over in Eastern Washington.

00:25:26.619 --> 00:25:28.890
A lot of people think about Seattle, they think about rain.

00:25:28.940 --> 00:25:30.839
And there is 40 inches of rain here every year.

00:25:30.839 --> 00:25:33.960
But if you go right across the mountains, there's less than six.

00:25:34.059 --> 00:25:34.910
It's high desert.

00:25:34.990 --> 00:25:37.509
And so there's just a lot to see and do around here.

00:25:37.559 --> 00:25:48.660
Get up to Vancouver, BC with a beautiful city down the Portland, all the way down the, take the coast highway from San Francisco to LA, just if you were want a summertime trip, this would be the way to go.

00:25:48.660 --> 00:25:56.849
And personally, I wouldn't say stay off the cruise ships, but I would say there's other things to do than get on a cruise with 5, 000 other people and go to Alaska, right?

00:25:56.900 --> 00:26:00.019
In my opinion, the drive from Anchorage to Homer, Alaska is yeah.

00:26:00.229 --> 00:26:06.909
Is a life experience is so beautiful and people don't do it because it's a four or five hour drive, but God, it's lovely.

00:26:06.909 --> 00:26:08.419
And same thing in Seattle.

00:26:08.419 --> 00:26:11.229
You can just take off on trips and we have a great ferry system.

00:26:11.229 --> 00:26:16.118
My wife this morning got on a float lane with my sisters and headed up to Vancouver Island.

00:26:16.669 --> 00:26:19.469
To have tea at the Empress and go to Bouchard Gardens.

00:26:19.469 --> 00:26:22.798
And, there's just, just a lot of things to see and do around here.

00:26:22.818 --> 00:26:23.888
And the food is delicious.

00:26:23.888 --> 00:26:25.618
We have a natural bounty.

00:26:26.088 --> 00:26:30.159
All the oysters I shuck, I've been shucking with my partner almost a thousand oysters a day.

00:26:30.538 --> 00:26:30.878
Wow.

00:26:30.888 --> 00:26:33.808
And, they're all within 20, 30 minutes of our restaurant.

00:26:34.618 --> 00:26:40.808
And so there's a real natural bounty, whether it's crab or oysters, or we're just coming out of our spot prawn season.

00:26:40.898 --> 00:26:43.229
It's just a delicious place to be.

00:26:43.239 --> 00:26:44.929
And the seafood here is incredible.

00:26:44.929 --> 00:26:46.148
I'm a seafood addict.

00:26:46.368 --> 00:26:51.848
I eat chicken, I eat seafood, I eat a little bit of meat and a lot of vegetables, but I eat a lot of seafood.

00:26:51.878 --> 00:26:53.338
And I eat all the food I see.

00:26:55.638 --> 00:26:57.648
We have a lot of your flatbread pizza.

00:26:57.679 --> 00:27:01.568
My wife, oh my gosh, she went to Siri's Pie.

00:27:02.084 --> 00:27:04.673
Because my sister in law recommended it.

00:27:04.844 --> 00:27:05.933
It was a couple of years ago.

00:27:06.354 --> 00:27:09.493
She went and then two days later, she said, we have to go back.

00:27:09.663 --> 00:27:14.663
So we drove all the way from the East side to Seattle at that time to go back.

00:27:14.784 --> 00:27:16.384
So I could go experience it.

00:27:16.413 --> 00:27:17.534
And we go there all the time.

00:27:17.574 --> 00:27:19.953
That's one of our favorites, but I love your restaurants.

00:27:19.953 --> 00:27:21.574
I was in Dahlia bakery the other day and.

00:27:21.959 --> 00:27:23.558
And that's, oh my gosh,

00:27:23.669 --> 00:27:25.439
it's a sweet little something, isn't it?

00:27:25.439 --> 00:27:25.659
Yeah,

00:27:25.659 --> 00:27:26.818
it's just a cute little spot.

00:27:26.858 --> 00:27:27.939
Yeah, it's incredible.

00:27:28.028 --> 00:27:30.798
Tom, thank you for sharing your journey with us.

00:27:30.848 --> 00:27:32.138
Thank you for sharing your gifts.

00:27:32.179 --> 00:27:35.288
And the last thing is, how do we find you?

00:27:35.308 --> 00:27:36.259
How do we support you?

00:27:36.528 --> 00:27:39.578
I have a bunch of restaurants, as not everyone's going to make it to Seattle.

00:27:39.638 --> 00:27:40.818
I have four books out there.

00:27:40.868 --> 00:27:45.538
Go read them online if you don't want to buy one, but they're a little bit about our town and about how I like to cook.

00:27:46.148 --> 00:27:47.429
There is TomDouglas.

00:27:47.429 --> 00:27:49.548
com, of course, a hot stove radio.

00:27:51.334 --> 00:27:51.483
hotstovesocietyradio.

00:27:51.513 --> 00:27:52.153
com.

00:27:52.223 --> 00:28:03.284
There's, I want to say if you want to do more than just, come to one of my restaurants, watch the movie, watch The Breach, watch The Wild, and take a stand.

00:28:03.284 --> 00:28:04.913
These are human conversations.

00:28:04.913 --> 00:28:09.219
These aren't political conversations, salmon either live or salmon die, right?

00:28:09.219 --> 00:28:14.368
We have a choice as humans to help that process and get involved with the food scene.

00:28:14.429 --> 00:28:18.138
Look at the Monterey Bay Aquarium site, see what you're supposed to be eating.

00:28:18.138 --> 00:28:27.743
Don't tell me because you're in the aisle at the grocery store that you don't remember what It's on, it's an app on your phone for God's sake, buy what you can buy and do what you can do to help save our world.

00:28:27.794 --> 00:28:35.163
Well, Tom, I can't say thank you enough and you are truly a voice for chefs and I'm so grateful to you for this interview.

00:28:35.703 --> 00:28:36.213
Well, thank you.

00:28:36.213 --> 00:28:36.763
I appreciate it.

00:28:37.203 --> 00:28:37.733
Have a good one.

00:28:37.733 --> 00:28:38.013
All right.