E185 Cassandra Brownrigg

This week we are joined for an in-person interview with Cassandra Brownrig who is currently the head chef at the Rich Uncles Tavern. We had a terrific time with Cassandra discussing how she'd gotten to cooking at a young age, how she wound up attending a post-secondary culinary program where her work ethic and skill was quickly noticed. We also discussed the benefits of moving on to different restaurants to learn different techniques and cooking different styles of food as a way to keep learning. And we also talked about some of the more notable influences in her culinary career plus a host of other topics.

Make sure you check her out on Instagram at castbrownrig and that's spelled C-A-S-S-B-R-O-W-N-R-I-G-G. Or check the show notes for the link. Enjoy the show. Okay, welcome back to another episode of the industry podcast.

My name's Kip. This is Dan. What's going on, buddy? Not too much.

It's another one day. You better hang over yourself? Yeah, we'll still hang over on Saturday. Yeah, thank you.

I'm trying my best. We'll be turning on this time. Congratulations. Yeah, I'm a don't.

I don't think it's going with you. The same old same old everything's all right. Nice memories working out at the bars. Okay, yeah.

That's good. Yeah, we also have a new gig going on and hosting the single in the city nights in KW. So look out for those on all of our platforms. We do speed dating and singles mixers.

So those will be happening in bars around the KW, Guelph, Cambridge area. So keep an eye out for that. It's single in the city.ca. And then if you're in the region, you want to come to one of my bars, there's Sugar Run at Sugar Run Bar on Instagram.

That's downtown Kitchener. And Babylon Sisters Wine Bar, Uptown Waterloo at Babylon Sisters Bar on Instagram. To find out all the stuff that's going on there, we got live music. We have comedy.

We have burlesque. We have speed dating. Yeah, so all kinds of shit. So stay tuned for that.

Check us out on Instagram. Yeah, and if you like what we're doing here on the show, you should definitely follow us on your platform. You're listening to say that follow button. It helps out a great deal.

You can rate and review the show there as well. And that helps. If you'd like to be a guest on the show, it's info at the industrypodcast.club or on email or you can DM us directly at this industry podcast on Instagram. Or you can run into me at a bar like I guessed it today.

But I just mentioned before we get to our today's guest that the artwork on the Instagram page is done by the amazing Zac Hannah. He's got a whole new thing going on at Zac Hannah.co. So you want to check that out? Check him out on Instagram.

Zac Hannah.co. He's rebranding a little bit of things like so. Nice to know. Always up to something new there.

But anyway, many thanks to Zac for the artwork he does for us. And now we, unless you've got any more shit you want to pride along about? I have a smart say as always. We'll bring in our guest then.

It's Cass Brown, right? How are you? I'm good. Great.

Thanks for coming over. Thanks for doing the show. As I mentioned earlier, we just kind of ran into each other at a bar and got talked about the show and you said you'd be interested in being on. So thanks for coming over and doing this.

That's where people usually run into me. That's where people run into me. So I was going through your bio like it's said to us and you've had a pretty interesting career for someone who's still quite young. But one of the things I was interested in is like when you, so you're born here in Kichor but then you moved to New York for a while.

So how old were you when you were in New York? My mom did American and remarried. I was only eight years old. I moved to a small town called Courtland, New York.

It was very what you see on the movies like live, big football games, all the high schools came together, school dances, prom. And I felt like as a teenager it was a very cool experience that part of my teenage years in America and the cool bus that everyone sees. I never knew I wanted to be a chef. I was very into photography and design throughout high school.

I took black and white photography classes. I went to a separate trade school and did graphic design. The culinary program was one of the options and I didn't even think twice in care to even be in that program. Which is very interesting seeing how my career has gone down a way different path.

My mom growing up could not cook. She'll even agree to this. So growing up I grabbed cookbooks and I cooked with a family. I cooked with my friends.

When I moved out at a young age I hosted barbecues and dinner parties and I was working at a grocery store at the time. And this is also in New York. This is also in New York. And so when you say your family like who moved out there?

You, your mother? My mother, my sister, my brother and I. Okay. And then you moved out of your house at what age?

18. 18. In the same small town in New York? Yeah.

I was like upstate New York or what? Central New York. So it's kind of near all the finger lakes between Rochester and Syracuse. Go up.

Nice. Very hilly, beautiful. I grew up on a ski resort. Sorry.

I've been to Rochester and Albany and Syracuse several times in my life and those are shit holes. Yeah. So it was right in the middle. How was the town itself?

Was it shitty or was it nice? So it was courtland New York. It was very small. It definitely had its methods and its crack heads and its interesting array of people.

But behind the people and there was a beautiful valley. I lived in a small town called Virgil actually right next to it. They were considered the same area and I lived next to a ski resort. So you move out and you're working at a grocery store and you're working in the Bontatella counter learning about butchering.

And then you're hosting these like barbecues for people. Yeah. So I actually would go talk to the butcher and ask him how to cook different cuts of meat. And he was like take this one home tonight, try this and I'd take home like chicken cutlets and track it for my friends.

And I didn't know yet. I wanted to be a chef but just the fun I had hosting people over. And I was good at what I was doing. I don't know.

It kind of sparked something. But that didn't show up till later when I moved back to Canada. That's cool. That's like an old school way of learning how to cook.

And people just like if they think they like it, they just go to school for it. Or they don't even like it. They just think it's an easy way to get a degree in something. Yeah.

I like it's kind of like this industry chose me. I didn't pick it. I wasn't passionate about it at first. But everything kind of lined up because then I went on to moving here and working at a produce market and doing the same thing working behind a deli.

Working, taking fresh produce off a truck and adding to the shelves. And also customer service was a big thing of mine. I would come and say people would come in and I would talk to them. They only mean my name.

And it was kind of like I was hosting at a restaurant but in a deli. Yeah. What sparked a move back? I miss my family.

I had been there three years by myself. Also they moved back before you. My sister and my brother did. My mom had stayed there.

But other than my mom being there, I really didn't have any other family around. But I took these three years to just get really close with my friends. Basically I had my own apartment. I had friends over all the time.

Just basically learned how to be an adult. And then one day I don't know what it was. But I worked at the local grocery store with all of my friends. I just announced to them, hey, I think it's time for me to go back.

And they were all shocked. They were like, what really? And I was like, yeah, I'm going in a month. And I texted all my family and I said, hey guys, I want to come back.

It's time for me to be with my family. I've done these three years. I'm kind of figured out life. Not lonely at times but I had a great group of friends that kind of were my family.

And so I moved back here and I lived with my dad. Everyone in my family was obviously super excited to have me back. It was a very hard adjustment. I left people.

I'd known for like 12 years. I was 21 years old. So everyone here already had their friend groups. I did meet them.

So it's like you're moving to a new city? Yeah. I feel like somebody grew up. Yeah, definitely did it feel like someone's growing up.

Like my sister's had friends that I had known for a while. But other than that, I was kind of starting from scratch. I left all my friends behind. I left everything to my friends.

You can have it all. I'm just going. And I took nothing but a small TV in my clothes with me. And that's when I started at the deli produce market.

And I eventually moved out of my dad's and moved in with a bunch of students. And watching them all go to school at a university student's water, Lou and Laurier. Did you know what you learned before you moved in? I met one of them at a party.

So my sister connected me with a friend of hers that she went to high school with here in Canada. And he took me to a university party and I met a girl that needed roommates. So I was like, okay, I want to go to my dad's. This was only temporary.

So I moved into it was like $500 a month at House on Columbia Street. I had a rooftop balcony built in shelves in the walls. I was like a really cool student housing spot with keggers. But I watched all of my roommates and friends basically going to university.

And I knew university wasn't for me. So I looked at the culinary program and I looked at the graphic design program. And I ended up choosing the culinary program because it was a walk away from my house. I didn't even choose it because I was like, yeah, this is exactly what I want to do.

And at that time I left the produce market and I was working at a coffee shop. And I had started my first week of school and a teacher actually pulled me aside and was like, what are you doing right now? And I said, I'm working at a coffee shop at Marista. It's kind of fun.

And he said, get yourself out of that coffee shop and go to a restaurant right now. He's like, you're ready. He's like the speed you have compared to these students and all you have. You are blowing them all out of the water.

You're finishing all these projects before them and then doing all their dishes. One class he actually made me sit down. He said, stop working. You're working way more hard with all the rest of the students.

You get a 95 today you sit down. Did you think that your experience hosting these parties at your house in New York and stuff has something to do with that? Like you almost had a leg up on some of these? Oh yeah, absolutely.

And then working obviously around food all the time since I worked at that grocery store since I was 16. And I think also the hard work I was helped me surpass these students. And cooking is not all about knowing techniques, knowing how to mix sauces and all the steps. It's also about working very hard and doing everything with a purpose and timing.

And I think I had all that. I think it's interesting to talk about if you had to put a ranking almost on those characteristics of what makes someone good in the kitchen. How would you rate them? Is talent innate talent or skills or is it hard work or organization?

The first thing is passion because you have to have passion to work in this industry. The second one would be just willingness to work in hard work and a positive attitude. Honestly, before the talent. Talent can be taught.

It's the passion and hard working that's a lot harder to teach. Have you ever worked with somebody who had the talent and the ability to do the hard work but just wasn't going to fucking get it? Yeah, definitely for sure. Especially some students.

I could tell right away and some teachers would pull me aside and kind of look at this person. They're not going to do well. You can just tell they didn't have it in them as much as that seemed harsh. Well, it is the thing.

Some people I think even got more of a front of the house person. But there's people who they were trying hard. I can tell they're trying hard but I can tell they're just never going to get it. And a lot of it is just like they're never going to figure out how to organize their time properly.

This job, front of the back, takes so much organization of your time and quickly. You can't stop and think, okay, what am I going to do and what order you have to know when to do things in order and do it very quickly. It definitely takes a certain kind of person. If you have it, you don't.

I definitely see a lot of people in the industry that don't. But they try so hard. I feel terrible and I try to teach them and guide them throughout this. Like you said with the timing.

Timing is a big thing. I also think what helped me in this industry is that little time I had the coffee shop. I had a little headset on. I had four open windows for the drive-through.

I was making espresso for the dining room. It was a pretty bumping coffee shop at the time. It was right by Conestoga Mall. Very big location.

And I was working Saturdays by myself from 9 to 5 on this section. Everyone lattes for the restaurant and the drive-through and taking all these orders. And the timing also helped me later in working in the restaurants. Yeah.

And it's like, you mentioned really, there's a lot of things you can teach people. People have that innate ability to organize their time properly and in a quick fashion. You can kind of teach them the skills and use their job. Some people have more better at that than others.

But I'd rather have someone who can do the time organization and the speed. That brings me into the next restaurant. My first restaurant, Beer Town. Beer Town was only 2 years old.

It was crazy busy. Probably one of the most high volume restaurants in the city. And that was my first place. And so the...

Can we have a location or Waterloo? I think that's their first location too. And I remember going to eat there before I was in the industry and being like, wow, this place is busy. The food's good.

Like, this is such a cool restaurant. And then a year later I'm standing there, a little culinary student, nervous doing the nachos and salads. I'm quickly realizing how busy and how much of a beast this restaurant is going to be. But again, the timing, I just kind of clicked.

I worked the app section. I would call board for that. And I kind of organized all the apps. And we had 6 deep fryers.

We went through 300 pounds of fries a day that I was punching by hand. It was pretty crazy back then. Just because they were so new and so cool and so big too as well. So that's got a little bit of trial by fire to get into this business.

But it probably taught you a lot. And one thing that the charcoal group restaurants do very well is when you work in a corporate spot like that, everything's laid out very... You know what your role is, what your job is. There's no freewheeling there.

No. So there's no room for me to be creative. There's no room for me to come up with dishes and do all this stuff I do now. But it just taught me to set myself up for success.

It taught me volume and it taught me timing. One big thing was having all your sets out. Having pre-grilled tortillas for their special taco trio or having fish fried off or wings ready. If you weren't set up for success, you were going to turn to their service.

And all that Tommy later, then when I got to the fine dining and to the little bit more intricate plates, I had the speed already. And I just had to teach myself to be creative. Right. So how do you do that?

I teach myself how to be creative. A lot of books, YouTube videos, trials. So after that I went to guilt. Very different change of pace.

I went to go work with Alex Yonke, who has now passed away. He taught me so much. Just something simple like pochin egg during brunch very quickly. Because they did a really great brunch there.

My first day we sat in the fridge and he's like, I want you to make a feature. And the excitement I had because I had just been working up here town. This was almost a year. And I was just making nachos and fish and chips and tacos.

So I was just sitting in the fridge and just like, Hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? And then putting a dish together was super exciting for me. And that's where I started seeing the more creative side of working in the industry.

And got myself a little bit more excited. Obviously I wasn't there yet. I was still in school. Oh, no, I actually just graduated school.

But I hadn't really seen that side of the industry and having a coach with me and showing me how to come up with dishes was really cool and a different side. And it was a little bit slower pace. They did tapas. So it was just making these cute little plates, making everything look really pretty.

We take pictures. What was that place called? Guilt. Right.

So that was in downtown Kitchener. Yeah. So when you were talking about Alex, I thought maybe that was a different spot. No, but yeah.

Yeah, because he was at Taco Farm before that. And his hot sauces and he showed the process and his hot sauces. Whereas like, your town was more corporate and you're just writing a list every day, prepping the same thing every day. There's no features, but I'm learning the speed.

Nice. What hours wide compared to like a corporate establishment like that to like an independent spot? Is it fairly similar? I worked about the same hours.

Sometimes at beer town, obviously, I had a little bit of overtime. But they had the same amount of hours for me at both places. Guilt. I was also doing catering for the businesses in downtown Kitchener.

So that helped me with my hours. Every Tuesday and Thursday, I was working 14 hour days. Making a company lunch, a snack and dinner with over 100 people. Dinner was a little bit smaller, but the lunch and the snack was around 120.

And they all had dietary restrictions. Everyone was gluten free. There's about 30 vegetarians. So I had a vegetarian table and a non-vegetarian table.

I did this every day. Sorry, every Tuesday's and Thursdays. And I had to get really creative with those dinners. Also, we had like non-dairy.

So I make everything non-dairy and I actually made ribs out of chickpeas. The shape of ribs because meat eaters were getting barbecue ribs. So I made rib ribs for the vegetarian. So it was a huge opportunity for me to...

How'd you go to stick together? Chippy flour. Yeah. A couple of binders.

Also making gluten free and everything too. It's amazing how everybody suddenly became gluten free at the same time. Now when I cook, I pretty much just base dishes around being gluten free. It's interesting to talk about because if you go to the charcoal restaurant or whatever, they have regular menu, plant-based menu, gluten free menu.

We're just good for them. They can afford to do that. They can afford to buy a lot of product. But it's probably the safe way to go on a small method, right?

Because so many people and some people are legit, silly act. But I think we all know that a lot of people are doing it for lifestyle reasons. Exactly. It's pretty easy to do.

If your starch is just potatoes or rice or a lot of maintenance, it's just easy to gluten free. You're just kind of working in that second restaurant. My brain just automatically went to making things mostly gluten free. So after guilt, you went to where?

I went to wildfire. It was that restaurant. Oh, I know that we played the black hole. Yeah, the old alleybobas.

The old everything. Every city has the black hole, right? It was alleyboba forever. And then when that closed down, then it became one of those black hole spots that just couldn't.

Nothing. What's a huge spot? It's huge. That was a small change, wasn't it?

Because I know they had a well-fucked alcohol. Yeah, in awesome. Yeah, I think it's still there. It's still there.

It's a very version of fine dining. Yeah. It's pretty things actually. I grew up there.

I thought the inside of that restaurant was so pretty. I was amazed when I walked in. So the head chef, he was the sous chef at Beartown reached out to me. I was like, hey, I need a grill cook.

Any sous chocu? Yeah, but I never grilled anything. So I was like, hey, I need a grill cook. I think you do really well here.

I didn't stay very long at guilt because I felt I wanted to learn how to cook every cut of meat. A lot of things, a lot of movements I've done in my career is basically to learn more. It wasn't that I wasn't learning a lot of guilt. It's just I wasn't learning anything about the proteins yet or really steaks.

I was offered this and a couple of my friends were there too. And the location was closer to me. So I was like, you know what? I put in my two weeks at guilt.

They're like, can you do one of your last cast cleans? Because I'm very clean or can I? So I left on obviously good terms and said goodbye to Alex and the team. And they all understood that it was a movement I wanted to do in my career to learn how to cook steaks.

So do you find that when you move around because you've worked at a lot of places? That's the main driving force is because you want to learn something new? Or is it over monetary or schedule or whatever? Most of it is I want to learn something new.

I want to build my career. One of my teachers had actually told me when I got the job at your town, now go to every restaurant through the chuckle company. And learn from every restaurant or go to a different restaurant. Move a lot in the beginning of your career.

That's interesting now you work for, well we were talking with us before we started recording, but you work for like, well what was previously in that group is getting split up or whatever. But like, do you find that if you work for a sort of corporation that owns multiple different types of restaurants, that's a good way to, would you recommend that to someone for their career because they can move from restaurant to restaurant to restaurant that are slightly different, but you're under the same umbrella? Yeah, I would absolutely suggest that. Not necessarily doesn't have to be the same company for me because I'm later in my career.

I'm more okay with doing that because I don't want to do the whole introduction and move on to another company. Sure, but it is easier. If you work for a track like you were mentioning earlier, then they have a lot of the restaurants are similar, but they're all going to be slightly different from each of them. And yeah, that's definitely a good way to for your career and also be noticed within the company too.

Right, because that's the other thing. If you move to a different ownership group and different, then you're starting from scratch. That's what you're actually a reputation what you can do. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, I would suggest anyone to do this for their career. Just keep learning. Once you're done learning at a restaurant, you should just keep going. Unless you're really high up and you're making good money and you're comfortable where you were.

But I was only into my second year cooking. So I wasn't getting a head chef position or running the company anytime soon. How do you feel about it? Because I know you've been doing a head chef work recently.

How is that job different for you than compared to being a sous chef or just working on the line or whatever? Because I know a lot of my friends or people we've been on the show who love to cook and love the chaos of the line or whatever. And then when you get to the executive chef type role, well, you're not really on the line as much and you're doing a lot of ordering and paperwork and all that shit. Have you found that different?

So luckily with what I'm doing now because of places so small, I'm the head chef and I'm doing all the ordering and all the paperwork. But I also get to cook a little bit. I don't really work on their sections. I kind of call things in plate.

But I do find a lot of fun out of creating dishes. Yeah, menu creations. Yeah, exactly. So I still have a little bit of that.

I do work for graffiti as well. One thing I love about that is I am still working the line as a sous chef. So I'm doing a little bit of the ordering and the chef support. But I'm also getting crushed online, which is what I absolutely love.

The reason I'm sort of screwing around this question, but I kind of feel like even in a small conversation we've had, you wouldn't be that comfortable being just like the executive chef. No, like the exact chef position, I don't think... It's good money, but I don't think I'm ready to be there yet. I definitely enjoy being a part of the team.

So even though I am a head chef, I still get a little bit of that working online and being kind of like a line cook. But yeah, an exact chef position, I would definitely be missing it. What's your favorite part of the job that you do? Honestly, the people.

Just like, because you're with the same people almost every day, you're getting crushed. You're in a high stress situation. And just the connection you have with people while you're in a high stress situation. A lot of people know me as being very bubbly and funny and giggly.

And like, I'll be getting crushed and it does not bother me. It makes me happier. So just when everyone's on that same level, this is fun, we're busy. No, go ahead.

I was just going to say like the front end was back as the same. If the person who everyone's looking to for direction, if that's your attitude, then it's hard for the rest of the team not to have that attitude. And it's conversely the person who's directing that ship is the guy throwing pans or whatever the fuck right? Then you're going to have an angry stress-out team, right?

That's a big thing I instill, especially at this big place where I'm kind of a soushavic or fuedi back and forth between Cravidian and Rich Uncle. And I was just showing like, for example, I had one line cook. He was getting crushed and his prep wasn't getting done. And he was just getting grumpier and grumpier and grumpier.

Same thing was happening to me. I was getting crushed and my prep wasn't getting done. And I looked at him. I said, I'm the same boat as you.

Let's get through this. And so him and I started making a game. We were chopping Rosemary in time. Both things we need for our section that we're running out of.

We're giving each other pinches for our dishes. And we're laughing while we're doing this. And we're getting crushed. And I think just that example of me showing one of the line cooks like, hey, we're in this together.

It's fine. No one's going to die. This is where- I fucking know that feeling. I know because I have a use of the task that needed to be done has not done yet.

And you're getting crushed at the same time that we bought at me during an entire shift of heart-tapping. I still haven't fucking cut those lemon wheels. That's something I really had to kind of grasp and learn over the years. Because I used to freak out.

I used to have an attitude. I used to be hard to deal with. Definitely in my beer town days. I wasn't an easy cook to deal with.

I was mouthy. I would get frustrated if something wasn't working right. And then now that we're looking at 10 years later, I'm watching it happen to others. And I'm leading as an example of not to act like that.

Don't you find too when you're watching it happen to younger people? And it's like even though you knew it used to be that person, you're just kind of like, dudes relax. I watch it with my team's legs on the bar and I see them like the egg or people freaking out about being too busy. I always try to tell them the people I work with.

They're just like, nobody's saving lives here. It's fine. If you have to wait a couple minutes for a drink or whatever, that person's going to be just fine. These people are out for a good experience.

But they're also living on a high side of life here. They get to go out to a restaurant for a meal and none of them are going to die tonight. No, it's just food. We're not splitting the atom.

We're not reinventing the wheel. You can only work as fast as you can work. Once you get that mindset, it's way easier if you've been in the industry for a long time. When you're younger, it's very difficult to get that mindset.

Another thing I've kind of learned is I always wondered why my chefs didn't want to hear me complain or come to them or over explain myself. Oh, sorry, I don't have this one. They cut me off. I don't care.

I'm so rude of them. I'm like, how are they not care? And then now that I'm in a spot where I have so much going on. So many things to think of in the restaurant.

I need to order this. I need to do this. I need to make sure this section is good. I need to make sure their section is okay.

I understand. I don't want to hear people explaining things to me. And I'm just like, it's fine. And they're like, well, what would meet it's fine.

And they get all nervous. I'm like, it's fine. Like, cool. I don't need a story.

I don't need an explanation. I don't need basically all these ins and outs. Why things? Let's just keep going.

Let's just keep running. Especially in the moment, right? Maybe come to me with that on Monday afternoon before. I'm like, this is why all my chefs did not give the fuck away.

They did not care. And I'm like, no, I get it. There's so much more going on and so many more bigger things in the process of what's going on. These little things, these, oh, I can't get this done.

Or sometimes I'll have a cook and they'll all stress it out. I'll see it on their face. And they're like, what's wrong? And I'm like, oh, well, I have this whole list.

I'm like, look at the list. I'm like, cross off this, cross off this, cross off this. I got it. And they're like, what?

I'm like, yeah, you don't ask for help. It's okay. And I just leave on their face where they're stressing themselves over so much. Which means they care, which I like.

But they stress themselves over something that's so minuscule compared to the big picture. Right. And you'd rather have that person who's trying to get all that done and not disappoint you for sure. But it must be so, that's a great style leadership.

Because you're coming to them and be like, just let me tell them about your plate. You're okay. Everything's gonna be alright. And as a leader, I also want to be someone that everyone can come to if they have an issue with something at work.

Really? I don't want to hear any of their... It's like, yeah, like the time of country they do myself. I don't care.

But like, if they're nervous about something, I want to be able to solve the problem right away, then rather have them bring down the team. Right. Yeah. Oh my God, I got to get some.

Your method's right. Yeah. We're going to be in the other cook, grabbing a pinch of rosemary time. Give me it to them for the pizza in my pasta and like, passing back and forth.

And then we laughed about it. And it was just like, remember you're stressed out about that instant when you just made it a joke and made it something fun. So you were doing all kinds of different restaurants at this point, like literally. What's your favorite style of cooking?

So I really loved working at Bemas and the Luan. That job actually helped me with learning flavor, learning sauces, learning the gnommy, like your acid, your heat, your sweet, your salty, your... Oh, I already said spicy. But making curries from scratch, making these special sauces that I had never even heard of some of the ingredients.

Just the layout of the Bemas kitchen, opening up Luan. I worked under Naveeta and Spencer specifically, or two chefs I really look up to. Spencer Villo worked for Red House. He was a sous chef and then went over to Luan.

I really liked the way that he taught people. And I really liked the way that he was organized. He made a lot of spreadsheets. That's how I am now.

I make spreadsheets for everything. Just the calmness he had in the kitchen. You can just see this passion when he was doing a new feature, a new prefix menu. And then Naveeta specifically because she taught me pastries at Luan.

So I think those two restaurants with Luan Bemas were really big, little part of my career. What's Dibita doing now? She's still doing it wrong? She's still doing it wrong?

She's still doing it wrong? She's still doing it wrong? She's still doing it wrong? She's at a high school.

She went to college, teachers college. She was out doing a pop-up at Sugar Run. But it was right before the pandemic and then the pandemic and then I didn't hear from her again, which was understandable. She's just teaching herself out of the industry.

She wants to start a family. Her and I definitely bumped heads a little bit when we worked together. But when we kind of got each other, I kind of got each other. We bumped heads a little bit first.

We're both very strong, well women. She's a pro-sbro and sounds like you are too. That's what you're going to come together at the end. Exactly.

So we really had a good understanding for each other. And then I bragged to people still. She worked at Langdon as a pastry chef. And she taught me some stuff.

And I still have her short recipe. And I bragged about her still. She probably doesn't think this because she probably thinks I don't like her. I love her.

I really like what people get when you go to war with these people on these busy nights with her front house or back house. Even if you have a personality clash. If you can work with that person, maybe you don't want to hang out with them so much after work or whatever. But you do develop this kinship where it's just a level of respect.

And I'm like, you know what? I don't love that person but I can work with them. That's a big deal. We definitely developed a kinship.

You can definitely say she went to Paul's staff parties and we talked a lot. But definitely at the time, I was also still healthy at this time. I was still a firecracker. Wait, does that go away at my point?

It goes away in my head. I just told me it eventually will for me. It's a little bit more, I'd say these things in my head. So I know I wasn't the easiest to deal with but she still took the time to train me and show me all these methods which to this day, like I did pastries over at Trio.

And I'm known for my bread now. I brought my bread to the rich uncle and I brought my bread to graffiti. She's definitely a big part of my career. Paul's a big part of my career and so Spencer.

And I think that time at Lola Ona Bimas is what really separated me from being creative and knowing and being fast and then knowing flavor. And then so a big thing to be taught me with when we made our prefix desserts is you need something crunchy. You need different textures and that's what helped with the creativity and new development later. It's so true.

Those different textures are way more important than people realize when you're eating food. If someone is eating a lot of good food in my life, that's the thing that people paid not enough attention to. Especially in desserts. Especially but if everything's in the same texture, things shouldn't all have the same flavor but they also shouldn't have the same texture.

You're not close for cocktails as well. Actually, I run into Paul all the time and have drinks with him and I've been trying to bully him to come on the show many times. You'll be a character to the chair. I want you to tell me to be ridiculous.

Hopefully you listen to this and then this is more bullying Paul. You need to come on the show. He always gives me a heart maybe. He'll tell me this unbelievable story about cooking for Ozzy Osborn.

This weird hotel that you used to work at. This could be on my podcast right now. The other person needs to be bullied a good friend of ours, Leanne Amord. Who needs to come on the show also.

Shout out to the beamers. If you're either of you two are listening. Paul is definitely a character. I was very fortunate enough.

I was a kid at Lola One first and then I sat at the bar and sat next to me. He goes, what do you think about being my guest chef? I was like, what do you mean? He's like, work next to me Fridays and Saturdays nights.

I was like, I'd love to. Awesome. Yes, I would. Okay.

The first day I went to beamers, I watched the other guy cook and I just had a notebook and I wrote everything down. There's a notebook. I still have it. There's food stains all over it.

There are menus in a different language. When I write out their menu, I write Bistic and that's their steak dish. Bebacch. They're duck dish.

First you're learning a different language. Then you're learning that they have so many garnishes on everything. They have different variations of the same vegetables and everything. They have cool little names like Fancy Butts.

Fancy's are their fancy carrots and butts are their button mushrooms. I was next to him working side by side after the day of writing notes. It was really cute after a dinner service. He tweeted, the new girl in the kitchen is a star.

Everyone was talking about it. I was like, oh, he loves you. He's been trying to confidence. Yeah.

Who knew about beamers? I know how to work Twitter. He goes off on Twitter. He goes off on Twitter.

He talks about the leaves a lot. He loves Twitter. Twitter is his thing. He's his iPad.

He doesn't even know what he's email. He doesn't know what he's emailing. He doesn't know what he's text. He doesn't know what he's text.

He doesn't know what he's text. He doesn't have a phone. He doesn't have a phone. He was so silly too.

I loved his vibe and attitude. He was such a team player when him and I worked side by side. He taught me how to make curry. I was just like an aw, watching him make this curry paste.

It's one of my favorite things to make now, the red curry paste. I can imagine someone who you could glean more knowledge from than that man in where we live. I called him around the book. He's also an amazing hilarious dude.

I love the death. I've known him for going on 30 years now. He's the best. I remember we had music playing and he was dancing with his tongs and playing with his tongs together and doing this dance.

I was rolling my eyes like he was an embarrassing father. He had his Christmas party where we all exchanged gifts and then he also had a staff party at his cottage. It felt very family-like working with him. You'd see the same people every day and it was a very strong, fun crew.

I'm very thankful that in my career I got to work next to him because I don't know how much longer he's been cooking online. I did. They're going to fucking wheel him out of there. I can see why.

I'm going to eat the same way. Honestly, he's basically in the same position as me and I don't get jumped behind the bar and bartend anymore. He loves it so much that he still wants to and also he takes great pride in the quality. The combination of those two, he's going to do it until they bring in the privilege.

It was really cool to see that. I can see why he loves it because I see him just glean while he's doing it. Also, if I'm getting busy, he runs over and helps. You just tell this is what he's meant to do.

You think you're going to get that person at one point? I think so. Like you said earlier, what do you feel about being corporate behind the scenes chat? I don't know if I can get offline.

That's where most fun happens. I think it comes across as you're super passionate about it and this industry needs people like you. Thanks so much for sticking with it. Thanks for coming on the show.

This was super fun to talk to you. Sure. What's the fun you want online? What's the best way to go about that?

I have an Instagram handle. It's at Cast Brownrig. Perfect. I'll put that in the show notes so I can link to it.

I also do home cooking. I do private dinners. You can also message me on there if you're looking for private dinner. I'm available Sunday through Tuesdays for that.

Great. The best way to get in touch with you is just maybe DM. Just a DM. Alright.

Cast, thanks so much for doing this. It was super fun. We love the in-person ones the most because it's just a much more casual conversation. I love the Zoom interviews as well but there's just a disconnect with those ones.

Yeah, for sure. Thanks again. Thank you.