Two Run Farm - New Orleans

How often are you in a restaurant and find out that their meat is from a local farm? While I was in New Orleans I found many restaurants that were serving meat from local farmers. One of those farmers is Charlie Munford of Two Run Farm's. He delivers to a lot of restaurants in Louisiana and Mississippi. I had the luck of finding Charlie on Twitter while I was out running around town and couldn't think of a better way to end my trip than by finding out where it all started.

With the cost of raising animals being so expensive I wanted to find out just how hard it was to be a local farmer and deliver your meat fresh to local restaurants. Even if some of these restaurants are 250 miles of you. To actually stop and think about what a piece of meat has to go through before it ends up on a plate kind of blows me away.

I got a chance to come by and meet Charlie and find out what it was like to run a farm and one of the only USDA approved processing plants in the southern midwest. After a nice 2 hour drive from New Orleans I found myself in the middle of nowhere with the hard working Charlie Munford.

MEAT ME: So where are we exactly?

Charlie Munford: This is a…

MEAT ME: Well you can’t tell me exactly, but… Are we at a special, secret location?

Charlie Munford: Laughs) Not really. We are here at the processor that we work with. We have a really close relationship because I do so much custom butchering. We bring animals in from the farm and they do the slaughter once a week on Monday. Then early Tuesday morning we get here and do all the processing. The calves are aged either 9 days or 16 days and are hanging in the cooler already from the previous week. The lambs are processed the day after slaughter. We just cool the carcasses down and go ahead and butcher them up custom to each chef’s specifications. We have a several different orders going out today.

MEAT ME: So what type of animals do you process here?

Charlie Munford: Beef and Lamb. We have worked with our customers on improving the calves and lambs more and more trying to get a good carcass that yields well. We are looking for an animal that is fat but is also pasture fed up until the day they get here. They wake up in the pasture and come straight here.

MEAT ME: So is this classified as a custom exempt butcher shop?

Charlie Munford: Yes this is a slaughter and processing plant.

MEAT ME: So how does that work?  Is there an inspector here? Is it inspected once a week? How does it work?

Charlie Munford: Yes. Pete is always here. If there is not somebody here, they are gone for lunch. They’re here pretty much everyday that this place is running. If we run overtime we have to pay their overtime.

MEAT ME: Really?

Charlie Munford: They are only covered during the day so if they have to stay because we are running overtime, it’s on us.

MEAT ME: In the scale of production in the United States where would you say you guys fall? Medium. Large. Small?

Charlie Munford: We are super, super, super, small. The vast majority of meat - I would say 97% - was slaughtered at a plant that kills over a quarter million calves or lambs a year. I don’t even know.

Most animals come from the commodities stream. They come off farms (like across the road) and they get shipped to a sale barn, then sold to stocker operation where they take calves and put a few more pounds on them, then they are sold into a feedlot.

We intercept that process, we raise our own and buy from local farmers that would otherwise be shipping their calves to a commodities feedlot and we finish them on a pasture. We do feed them a little bit of grain. We try to focus on non-GMO (genetically modified) grain like oats and rice bran. We feed them a little bit of grain so we get a good carcass so the chefs are happy. They are pasture-fed and free-range until they are ready for processing. We feed them by hand right out of a bucket, same with the lambs. We have to work really hard to be consistent and relatively uniform so people know they will get exactly what they expect when they buy from us.

Our custom butchering adds an extra service besides making it a better product. We are customizing the way these animals are being butchered for an individual customer. They get a more sustainable product and a better tasting product. We take extra steps, and of course that costs a little more.


MEAT ME: Now, is this considered certified organic?

Charlie Munford: No, its just as close as we can get it. The USDA created the organic certification so that big agriculture could get involved. It can happen in a place like California where you might have certified organic grain, certified organic hay, certified organic pasture, and organic certification program that is paid for by the state… and so forth. But in a place like this we just don’t have access to organic hay. It’s not certified because it would cost each farmer $10,000 to get that hay certified. Every other piece in that puzzle would have to be certified organic too. Realistically, what we are doing is better and beyond that certification process and our customers recognize that and they are happy with it.

Honestly, even our most progressive customers have moved past “Certified Organic” because they see organic in Wal-Mart and they are like, “Wait a minute…” (laughs) “If Wal-Mart can do it then what’s really going on here?” Obviously Wal-Mart is doing everything on a huge scale and that’s not really what it’s all about. People got into organic to support small local farmers and get a healthier product.

So I don’t give them any antibiotics. I don’t give them any growth hormones. As far as that goes our process is pretty much organic.

MEAT ME: So how has the whole pink slime thing affected you?

Charlie Munford: I haven’t heard anyone say anything about it. I know a lot of our customers that eat at the restaurants have heard about it on the news. They are even more excited about what we do than they would have been already. They are already pretty excited about us. I think that’s pretty cool.

I am really excited about our growth because financially, it is really hard. You have to measure everything very carefully because the big guys do that. Every dollar we spend we have to be really careful. It’s really exciting to know that people would rather buy locally grown sustainable products.

MEAT ME: How much more expensive is your food then say a restaurant that sources commodities?

Charlie Munford: I couldn’t say because we are not really comparing apples to apples. Our beef is dry aged and it shrinks. We are not charging for the extra water that’s in the commodities package.

MEAT ME: How much more expensive is your food then say a restaurant that sources commodities?

Charlie Munford: I couldn’t say because we are not really comparing apples to apples our beef is dry aged and it shrinks. We are not charging for the extra water that’s in the commodities package.

MEAT ME: So you guys aren’t charging the before aging price? You are actually weighing it after you age it?

Charlie Munford: We have to because we are customizing each carcass. Part will go to one restaurant and another section will go to another, so it is overall more expensive. I can tell you that it’s more expensive than commodity prices but on the other hand there are some meats that I think are ridiculously priced and some others are cheaper. I just do it based on cost of production and I don’t cut any corners.

MEAT ME: So where are we?

Charlie Munford: This is the cooler where we do our dry aging. We cool down the carcass and do our dry aging in here. We are actually opening up a specialty dry aging cooler on the other side so we can control our humidity more precisely. The carcasses from here to here (pointing) are off the cows that were killed yesterday. These others are dry aging for another week and will be processed next week.

MEAT ME: Now the fat on these other carcasses looks a little different. Does the dry ageing shrink the fat on them?

Charlie Munford: The fat is a little different from calf to calf. That is part of why we have been able to make a good reputation for ourselves - I hand-pick the calves that we bring in. As you can see, this one here has much more fat than this one. That’s still pretty good. If I raised all of my own calves we would have a lot of variation. That’s why I go to other farms and ask for their top 3% and I’ll pay a little extra. Then I’ll take them and put them in my pasture and they eat nice grass and gain weight pretty quickly. We get them up to a certain weight and handled a certain way. My land manager, Tyrone, picks them out while I am down in New Orleans working with the customers. He’s up there keeping it going. This could not have existed before cell phones.

The lambs get handled the same way but we only cool them down for 24 hours. We don’t worry about aging lamb.

MEAT ME: So what is the deal with the lamb’s head inside the rib cage?

Charlie Munford: With the lamb’s head, sometimes we use the tongue or we use the cheek. The first thing I do is double check to make sure it is a baby lamb by the teeth. The teeth are really narrow at the bottom and then they widen. What I am looking for when I select a lamb is the heaviest baby lamb from hair sheep. That’s a really specific requirement. I like hair sheep because their meat isn’t nearly as musky. It’s a lot sweeter. Baby lambs are tenderer and taste better. We want them to be fairly big and hair sheep by nature are fairly small, half or less than the size of a commodity lamb. People are already paying extra so I want them to be happy.

We have worked with these lambs a lot. I have been working with them for over 6 years and my family has been doing it forever.

MEAT ME: Is this a family business? How long have you guys been around?

Charlie Munford: It is to some extent. Skipping one generation, my grandfather grew up on a farm. Two Run is actually the family name that came from his childhood farm. He ran this place in Vaughan it till he got too old and I started to run it. Out of college I took over and tried everything under the sun. I grew about 45 different varieties of vegetables, flowers, turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, mules and pigs. I kind of settled on what I could do best and try and make a go of it.

MEAT ME: It is a really nice set up.

Charlie Munford: It’s a great match because he does the Hallal slaughter which is just beef, lamb, goats and chicken for human consumption. I don’t do goats or chicken. Combining our specialty niches has allowed us to work very close together. We are a small-scale operation and that allows us to focus on doing it right - down to the smallest detail.

MEAT ME: What is Hallal?

Rasheed (butcher): Hallal is the Muslim equivalent of kosher. When the animal is slaughtered it is cut through the underside of the throat. Both arteries are severed but you can not cut the spinal cord because the heart has to be able to pump all of the blood out of the animal. The brain tells the heart it needs more blood so the heart starts kicking and it pumps all of the blood out of the animal. By the time we get ready to dress it out (skin it and clean it) there is no blood left there are no impurities in it from the shock of being slaughtered.

MEAT ME: So where are we headed now?

Charlie Munford: To Jackson, Mississippi. We have two small deliveries to make. We are going to drop off a rib eye section to an Italian Restaurant called Bravo. They use a lot of steaks and middles. They have a great reputation and Dan Blumenthal is the head chef over there. Table 100 is a fairly new restaurant we are doing a custom ground beef for them. All Two Run Farm. We take pride in going that extra step in bringing them something custom.

MEAT ME: So what is a typical weekly schedule for you guys?

Charlie Munford: We basically do a slaughter every Monday. Tyrone picks out all the animals on Saturday and delivers them on Sunday. We get up here early on Tuesday morning for processing day. We try to get as much done as we can in one day and make Wednesday our delivery day for everybody. Sometimes we have some special deliveries on Thursday. That’s our weekly schedule at the bare minimum.

We are trying to be as convenient as the large commodity businesses but still stay local, sustainable, and totally customized. You kind of have one and 7/8 hand tied behind your back. This business is really challenging and that is why you don’t see a lot of us. We are working really hard; my dream is for this to be really transformational. I think there is a huge gap in most cities between restaurants and small farms that are sustainable because it’s really inconvenient to buy from these small farms compared to the big commodity distributors. There is nothing in the middle. You don’t really have an option. If you run a restaurant, you can’t buy a whole calf. Some do, but it’s rare. 95% of the fine dining restaurants aren’t geared up financially to purchase that way. We are trying to make it convenient for those customers who want to buy local and sustainable.

Even if restaurants wanted to participate, there aren’t enough local farmers to supply them with good quality beef. For beef to even be served to the public it has to be federally inspected. In Louisiana, beef can be state processed but it still has to be good quality. Sourcing great quality beef is a big challenge for a restaurant to undertake; even for a large restaurant group or chain.

My biggest customer is John Besh. When I met John, I told him what I was trying to do, that I had experience doing it and that I was going to be reliable year round, delivering every week. I told him if he made a commitment to me, I would make a commitment to them and try to improve every week. Their response was. “That is awesome! We have been trying to do this for years!” It was just so difficult for them to bridge the gap between farmers and their needs. It requires a lot of specialization, a lot of knowledge, and a lot of legwork. That’s where I come in.

MEAT ME: What is the difference in slaughter styles between Hallal and the regular small farm slaughter?

Charlie Munford: A normal slaughter house they use a bolt gun that shoots them in the head. Hallal is the traditional Islamic way of slaughter. They cut the throat with a sharp knife and it bleeds out. I think its better. I think it is more humane; it was always the traditional method. As soon as they loose their blood pressure they black out and the bleeding out makes it taste better. The heart pumps the blood out which is different then the bold system where the blood kind of stays in there and clots up. It makes a better tasting lamb too.

MEAT ME: What is the difference in slaughter styles between Hallal and the regular small farm slaughter?

Charlie Munford: In a non-Islamic slaughter house they use a bolt gun that shoots them in the head. Halal is the traditional Islamic way of slaughter. They cut the throat with a sharp knife and it bleeds out. I think it’s better. I think it is more humane; it was always the traditional method. As soon as the animals lose their blood pressure they black out and the bleeding out also makes the meat taste better. The heart pumps the blood out which is different than the bolt system where the blood kind of stays in there and clots up. It makes a better tasting lamb too.

MEAT ME: So it is an Islamic style of slaughter?

Charlie Munford: Yes and kosher is done the same way. They have the same rules but there are a few differences. I am not sure if they turn them towards the east. In the Islamic Halal slaughter, the butcher turns the animal towards Mecca, says “God is Great!” 3 times and then slits the throat with a really sharp knife. The only other way the method differs from kosher is that there is no Rabbi present. In Halal, any Muslim is authorized to do the slaughter.  I am not Muslim. I’m not really religious and my customers don’t mind. They just care that the animals are humanely slaughtered and that we take good care of them. I don’t market it as Halal meat. I just say it is pasture raised and locally grown. Those guys take a lot of pride in their method of Halal which I am very happy with. I am glad someone is praying over our meat. It can’t hurt. It’s a good thing and I have reverence for the life of our animals.

MEAT ME: So where did we just stop? And what did they order from you exactly?

Charlie Munford: They are called Table 100.

They ordered a custom ground beef - a secret recipe! We have worked with them over the past couple of months trying to make it the perfect burger. I am very happy that they have placed it as a standing order and I just fill it every week.

MEAT ME: Do you work with most of the places you source to, in terms of getting them exactly what they want?

Charlie Munford: Yes. This is exactly what I do.

MEAT ME: When customers come in to the restaurants, how do they know that the restaurant is sourcing directly from you guys?

Charlie Munford: They tell their wait staff. I have met some of the wait staff and I talk to them about what I do sometimes. They put some information on their menu and talk about it on their web sites. It is an opportunity for them to get credit for buying locally.  People appreciate restaurants that support local farmers especially when they are spending a lot of money for their food. Typically they see a big bump in business when they put us on the menu. If something doesn’t sell well, the restaurant usually comes back to us and we work with them on it. We try to get something that works well, and sells well. That is how we try to keep our customers happy.

Next time I sit down and eat a steak I will really appreciate all of the hard work that goes into making just one piece of steak. I would like to Thank Charlie for having me out to Two Run Farm's and sharing his life with me. I really do appreciate it.

If you are looking to find out more about Two Run Farms you can find them at:
http://www.tworunfarm.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Two-Run-Farm/149425771794410
Twitter: @tworunfarm

Photographed and written by Sean Rice, Edited by Aaron Black (Meat Inc.)

He's tasty and he knows it,
MEAT ME
aka Sean Rice

Quest for the Best! The Joint BBQ, New Orleans

At this point I am noticing that more and more restaurants in New Orleans are either really good or really bad; or it is me and I have really bad luck. I have not found a middle ground, although I did find a little southern café on Magazine Street called Joey K’s. It is super simple and super good. No matter where I go people keep telling me that my trip won't be complete unless I eat at The Joint.

After a few phone calls I was finally able to get a hold of the owner Pete and he said come on down anytime and that he’d love to have me.

That Sunday was the last day of Fleet Week and I wanted to get shots of all the navy ships while they were still in town. Before lunch I headed east over the 90 bridge and after a few turns found myself in the Fischer Development Neighborhood. With in seconds I was among hundreds in a southern black neighborhood with no way out. Everywhere I looked I there were custom tricked out low riders bouncing and motorcycle crews doing burn outs till the smoke filled the streets.

I found myself, in what looked like, an episode of “The Wire”. I pulled my hat brim down over my eyes untill I could barely see. My white knuckles gripped the steering wheel over the dash board and sweat pouring down my face. I’ll be honest I’m fuckin' scared to death; my heart is pounding so hard I can barley hear the engine. I was a lone Cali boy lost in the middle of a southern black street party and my California plates made me stick out like a sore thumb. It was obvious I lost was not welcome here.

Every side street I looked down was filled with more and more people. At one point I even hear someone yell, “Are you lost son?” It felt like there was no way out. Finally up a head I saw a small opening under the bridge surrounded by tons of motorcycle crews. I thought this is my way out. I got to the intersection and just as I made a left I thought I was in the clear  but a crew of about 12 bikes pull right up in front of me and start burning smoke as hard as they can. I thought, “This is it!” I’m stuck here in the middle of the street I'm toast. At this point I'm shaking pretty bad. The smoke starts to clear and all the guys are sitting off the side of the road laughing their asses off.

I popped some heart medication and finally decided it was best to just head to The Joint which was on the other side of the river, and in a way better neighborhood. I was done with sticky situations. After all I had no idea what I was doing. So the shots of the NAVY ships never happened, but when I finally arrived at The Joint I could not wait so sit down and enjoy what all of New Orleans was talkin’ about.

MEAT ME: This is obviously The Joint.

The Joint: You are at The Joint Barbecue. Yes.

MEAT ME: It says on the website “Always Smokin’” how does that tie?

The Joint: Well we smoke all the food, and we are literally constantly tending the smoker.

MEAT ME: How long have you guys been out here?

The Joint: June 2004 we opened.

MEAT ME: What is your background in Barbecue?

The Joint: Well I grew up in Baltimore, which is not much of a barbecue town, but I went to college in Virginia and there was and there was an older gentleman from eastern North Carolina. He was there cooking really vinegary barbecue. That was the first time I had ever had barbecue. It was not about this sweet tomato’y sauce all over the meat. I liked that. I was just one of those moments. I moved down here in 1999 and started cookin’ just at the backyard level. Circumstances kind of came to me where I was looking for a job and there was this building right around the corner from our house and there was the opportunity and my wife and I decided to go for it.

MEAT ME: So what is your specialty?

The Joint: Everything. We started out doing pulled pork was the first thing I learned to do. Then ribs and moved on towards brisket and chicken. We have a great sausage that comes in from Brokerage, Louisiana; that we smoke here.

MEAT ME: Do you get all of your meats locally?

The Joint: No. It’s not like we have local purveyors. It’s mostly commodities market and nationally sourced probably.

MEAT ME: Do you get involved in Barbecue Competitions?

The Joint: A little bit. We had some friends who used to live here before Katrina and work took them back up to Memphis. They ended up with a barbecue team up there. We actually went up there for a few years and hung out and cooked at the Memphis in May. Overall the restaurant isn’t dying to spend my off time cooking barbecue competitively.

MEAT ME: So you guys are basically smoking barbecue here 24/7?

The Joint: Well may be 18 hours a day, something like that.

MEAT ME: Do you also make your own sauce, and all that?

The Joint: Yea all the rubs and all the sauces; everything is made from scratch.

MEAT ME: Have you noticed any change in the food and barbecue culture since Katrina?

The Joint: Yeah, I guess there are more restaurants and more people who are opening barbecue restaurants in town. I had always thought that New Orleans; primarily in this neighborhood compared to some parts of the city, is a bunch of people who aren’t necessarily from New Orleans but all the people are from the south have a good understanding of what good barbecue is like. I just feel that all these people have had an appreciation for it; just another nice offering coming to New Orleans. There are a lot of people post Katrina who come from other states, who are very barbecue-centric places. As far as people who open places that are from here and have always been here and decided to throw their hat into the ring.

MEAT ME: What separates barbecue out here from say Carolina, Texas, or the West Coast?

The Joint: Well I guess there isn’t necessarily the barbecue tradition in Louisiana. There is to some degree the andouille sausage which is exclusively a Louisiana thing, but smoked. There is the cochon de lait which is a young whole pig roasted on a vertical spit with hickory logs in the background. There is a festival dedicated to it in central Louisiana in mid May. New Orleans has always just always been New Orleans. It always had so many culinary traditions that barbecue just hasn’t taken root here.

MEAT ME: What are you guys doing so different that no matter where I go people are asking me if I have eaten at The Joint? If you can tell me…

The Joint: I’ll tell you what we do. We make our rubs and we make our sauces. We severe all the sauce on the side and we only do barbecue. We don’t do anything else. You know there are some places that are doing other things with their barbecue; like taco’s or something. That’s not us, we are just doing barbecue, and we do it the old fashion way. We start with charcoal in the morning and then it’s logs all day long and I think that does make a difference. I don’t have a lot of experience with a “set it, forget it” style smoker where it gas powered and it’s kind of pumping smoke into there. I am very suspicious of the results.

MEAT ME: What type of wood do you guys use?

The Joint: What ever we can get our hands on. Right now we have a lot of oak, pecan, and hickory. We try and get some kind of format with those 3 woods.

MEAT ME: What is your favorite kind of MEAT?

The Joint: Ribs are great. Brisket. You know the brisket is the hardest one to get right. We consistently try to pull the briskets off at the right time. A great brisket is my favorite it always depends. Ribs, pulled pork, brisket I certainly try it all.

It truly was delicious; the meat came right off the bone like a snake slithering into my mouth. I felt relieved that I finally got this amazing barbecue off my chest and lived to actually tell about it.

While I was there I ran into 4 guys who drove out from Toronto just to have his delicious barbecue. It that doesn’t tell you how good it is then I don’t know what will.

You can check out the joint at: http://alwayssmokin.com/
You can follow them on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/alwayssmokin
Find them on Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-joint-new-orleans

Keep it simple stupid,
Sean Rice
aka MEAT ME

Quest for the Best! Toups' Meatery, New Orleans

Most people are used to someone taking a piece of brisket, rubbing it up, and smoking it over a barbecue. Chef Toups' likes to do things a little differently. Like taking the neck of a lamb and serve it up as tender as you can, why not do a meat platter with a side of Chicken Jelly. This is the type of innovation Chef Toups' is bringing to his restaurant.

I heard about Chef Toups' from several different restaurants around town. He has 13 years of experience and left quite the impression in the mouths of people adventurous enough to devour his skills. He isn’t doing traditional New Orleans, he is taking you to his roots and letting you taste a little piece of his family history.

Toups' Meatery open just 2 days before I got there. With 2 full nights of service they were completely out of food. Not only was Chef Toup’s overwhelming the city with his meaty delights he couldn’t source food fast enough to open for lunch the day I arrived. I was told to come at 5 pm and that is exactly what I did.

Toups' Meatery is doing things with meat you could never even think of. This Chef has broken the food barrier with items like Chicken Jelly, and Sheep Neck. This is not to mention all the places your taste buds will take you. Chicken Fucking Jelly I thought! I couldn’t believe it. It tasted like a well done chicken soup (in the form of a jelly) spread over a slice of bread, I even have the option of topping it with duck gizzards. I walked out of there thinking I was 20 years into the future. They were not just breaking the laws of food physics they were reinventing the way MEAT is served. It feels like the museum of meat and I am the guest of honor.

I was dying to find out the details so I sat down with Mrs. Toups' to see what kind of shenanigans they are up to:

MEAT ME: So you are?

Amanda Toups': I am Amanda Toups I am married to the chef Isaac Toups and co-owner. We have been conceptualizing this restaurant since he was a lily line cook; you know 12 years.

MEAT ME: What is his experience?

Amanda Toups': He worked for Chef Emeril (Lagasse) for about 10 years. He was at Del Monaco during Katrina we moved around with the company and then back to where they needed us. We then came back to Del Monaco’s. In the last two years we bounced around. He felt he had gotten as high up as he was going to get there. Got as much knowledge and experience and it was time to start the voyage moving towards our own place. It really took 2 years to make it all happen.


MEAT ME: So what is the concept behind Toups’ Meatery?


Amanda Toups': Contemporary Cajun is the concept and really everything that we talked about. From a women’s perspective it is Rustic Sheik. Isaac takes rustic ingredients and finishes them beautifully. He has got that fine dining eye with attention to detail and he is taking a lamb neck, he is taking…

MEAT ME: Ok I get it.

Amanda Toups': Right. So his ingredients are rustic and he’s finishing them with attention to detail. We wanted to be very communal and this is really the entire concept of the restaurant. All the pictures you see around us are of his family members; every single one of them. This one is of his grand mother feeding her chickens that is from around 1930. When you meet his family they are such characters. His family has been in Louisiana about 300 years and it is all about their indigenous way of life; they were very into sharing and eating what they kill.

Amanda manages the tickets before they go out.

MEAT ME: So where do you source your meats?

Amanda Toups': He gets his from various places locally; we mostly source locally. We have talked about getting bulk amounts of pigs from where his family is from, but we did just open on Tuesday (April 17th).

MEAT ME: How is it going?

Amanda Toups': Overwhelming. We probably turned away 30 people last night. We couldn’t even open for lunch today because we ran out of food. He just had to much to do he had to come in and prepare so we could do service today. We just didn’t expect to being doing 110 to 120 a night the first week.


MEAT ME: That is really great.


Amanda Toups': It is a wonderful problem to have. Believe me I am not complaining. It makes us realize we need to get our stuff together ASAP. With Jazz Fest next weekend… I mean it is right there. They are going to punch us in the face for a week and a half straight.

Isaac preps the food to go out.

MEAT ME: So what are some of the featured items on your menu?

Amanda Toups': Almost every single table is ordering a meatery board; almost every single table.  It’s pretty hot. It really gives you a chance to see the breath of his charcuterie background. He was one of the major guys handling charcuterie at Del Monaco’s. They have a beautiful program so he has a lot of experience. He doesn’t call it a charcuterie board because charcuterie is mostly talking about cured meats; he also has a lot of fresh meats on his too. So we are calling it a meatery board which includes rillon. We are very cookly. Rillon is actually a very French way of preparing pork belly. It is basically candied pork belly. We were joking that we are going to have to name our next restaurant Rillon. He has boudin; he has daily sausage specials; he has his cured meats that he is doing by hand as well. It shows the wider variety that he has.

The duck dish has been huge for us. We are really excited about it. It is the roasted duck with turnips; it is a very classical dish that they did when they were duck hunting. They would kill the ducks and rub them with brown sugar, they would brine them then roast them with turnips. I was skeptical at first but then when it came out on the plate people started flipping out. We have had a lot of positive feed back.

Then there are Isaac’s cracklins. It is fried pork belly. Sometimes you get a little bit of meat on them but most of the time is skin and fat. It’s amazing. Isaac has gotten his crispy but chewy. You can chew threw the fat with a little bit of meat on there; he leaves a little bit more meat. Some of our dishes aren’t for the faint of heart, but we like to think we have a little something for everybody.

The foie gras.

MEAT ME: I love your uniqueness. I love places that you kind of have to go out of your way for, something that you can’t find everywhere.


Amanda Toups': We are trying to do something different. For the first time the food is come together really easy for him and it is because he is finally cooking his soul food. He told me right before he opened, “I don’t want to cook anything I am not gonna wanna eat.”


MEAT ME: Are you guys originally from here?


Amanda Toups': Yes, but not from New Orleans. Issac is from Rayne’s, Louisiana the frog capital of the world. They have a frog festival; when you drive through the small town all the buildings have murals of frogs on them. Some are dancing, you look them up and they call themselves the frog capital of the world. I grew up here on the North Shore: the suburbs of New Orleans. We met in Lafayette where we went to college which is sort of the major city over there. He was like, “I’m gonna go cook professionally” an I was like “Not with out me.” Then we left and we have been here about 12 years.

The meat platter with duck gizzards.

MEAT ME: So you guys are changing the menu weekly?


Amanda Toups': We change it daily. He is still figuring things out. We did just open last Tuesday and we didn’t expect to be doing these kinds of numbers.  When he was a fine dining chef and he and an army of cooks with a 2,000 square food kitchen it was different he could do what ever he wanted.  Now he is in the smallest kitchen he has ever been in. It is small. It’s like if those guys aren’t already intimately acquainted but the end of the shift something is wrong and your not working hard enough. Cause it is tight! He is still working out the logistics as to what is going to work in this space so we can have some variety to the menu.

MEAT ME: What about the deserts?


Amanda Toups': We are sourcing those from a local baker in midcity from one of my dearest friends Debbie Doberge. She is incredible and we just started with another local baker that is just right up the street. Baking is not Isaac’s thing. At first I thought I would do it because I am ok at baking, but we have a 13 month old and a new business and I was like… No, I can’t handle this.

MEAT ME: I love deserts. If I had the time I would have to sites one for MEAT and one for BAKING.

Amanda Toups': Yeah. It really is a science. I think that is why Isaac really isn’t into it; regular cooking is more intuitive and baking is a little more of something, or little less of something and it doesn’t turn out.

Cracklins

MEAT ME: Yea éclairs and creampuffs are my biggest nemesis!!!  I will make 25 batches and only 10 will come out.

Amanda Toups': Absolutely. My girlfriend Charlotte, who does Debbie Does Doberge, is incredibly obsessive compulsive so she loves baking. You know Doberge is a classical New Orleans desert. Classically it is chocolate or lemon; she does all of these wacky flavors. She has done really well in the city. I know it does sound a little pornographic. (we are in hysterics)


MEAT ME: You mean Debbie Does Doberge?

Amanda Toups': Yea we came up with that one in a bar room one night.


MEAT ME: That is awesome!!!

Amanda Toups': Yea she’s amazing!

MEAT ME: So the double cut pork chop, what is that?

Amanda Toups': Isaac brines his pork chops for 2 days, they are about this fricking big (shows 2 inches), and then grills them. I have had people tell me it was the best pork chop of their life.

A lot of his stuff takes a lot of preparation. So that is why we are still feeling our way around the menu. Are we gonna be able to do this every night? Or are we gonna have to take a few things off here and there and then add them back on.


MEAT ME: Yea I totally understand. Everybody that I have talked to has 2 to3 days of prep and then they are creating the sauces over night. I am starting to learn that people that are into barbecue and meat probably never sleep.


Amanda Toups': I don’t know how he does it. I didn’t get to sleep till 3 o’clock because we didn’t leave here till 2 am; and he was back here by 8 cooking. I am just like… What? And the baby was up at 7:30 I was like… (laughs hysterically) My background is wine and wine education we didn’t work this hard.

The amazing chicken jelly.

MEAT ME: I noticed the Tequilla Sauce with the Shrip Po’ Boy?

Amanda Toups': Yea. Isaac has always done a little bit of booze with his cocktail sauce.  It really adds a little depth to it; I like mine really ethereally hot, with a lot of horseradish. We had people not liking our deviled eggs because of my horseradish. If my eyes aren’t watering then I don’t think it is hot enough.

I love that horseradish burn. Same thing with crawfish if your whole face isn’t numb then it probably isn’t hot enough.

MEAT ME: Soon Foie Gras will be illegal in the State of California. What is your take on Four Gras?

Amanda Toups': Isaac is a huge foie gras eater. It is a super fine dining item, expensive, and high end. His concept was always “foie gras in your shorts”. You come in some flip flops and a pair of shorts and eat foie gras. I can pour you a glass of champignon and you could be here in your shorts eating foie gras. We just got so tired of dressing up and going out. Who wants to do that any more? I’m tired, I work so damn hard all week.

I wanna eat really good food in my flip flops.

MEAT ME: That is so funny. I was so worried when I drove out here that I didn’t bring any nice clothes. It is nice to know this.

Amanda Toups': Yea not New Orleans. Even one is like why are you so dressed up?

MEAT ME: Sir why are you wearing shoes?

Amanda Toups': Yea! Rollup your pants, get dirty! It really has changed since Katrina. Pre-Katria restaurants would turn you away if you where not dressed properly; the high end ones.

MEAT ME: Really?

Amanda Toups': YES! Del Monaco where Isaac worked the men had to be wearing collared shirts, you could not wear tennis shoes, you could not be wearing jeans. They would turn you away. Post Katrina all bets where off. It was like any business is good business.

MEAT ME: How has Katrina changed the New Orleans dining experience?

Amanda Toups': Again, I think things became a little more casual. Everybody started uniting in the food community; we really stuck together. Even when we were with Chef Emerald all the cooks got together and were like all right where are we all going? We all, in mass, sort of went to different cities.

MEAT ME: I heard a lot of the guys with the mobile barbecue units were going out to different places.

Amanda Toups': It is a very supportive community. BP was a really hard hit. I was kind of dead in New Orleans for a while.

MEAT ME: Now with BP how did that effect you guys?

Amanda Toups': Well it was another one of those things where everyone had to pull up their boots straps and said are we going to stick with it? Are we all going to switch to meat? What are we going to have to do to get the tourists back down here? Luckily enough most people stuck with it. We’ll source our seafood where we can. It is  a way of life we always eat seafood. I didn’t think it was ever going to be one of those things where you weren’t going to see it on the menu as much; and may be you didn’t see it for a while. A lot of the big oyster houses, for a long time, started importing oysters. It was so sad. Most of the time they came from with in a 50 mile radius of New Orleans. I think its back to local and it’s looking good.

I read the paper and I see headlines like 2 years of bad news.  I don’t know what you are talking about because I got some pretty good-looking shrimp back there. It’s amazing and it came right out of the Gulf.

MEAT ME: Yea they are pretty big.

Amanda Toups': Even fried they are about this big. (Shows me 6 to 8 inches)


MEAT ME: You know I wonder if not fishing for a while has let them grow out a bit.

Amanda Toups': Yea may be so. You know what it was also hot this winter. I think they just bulked up.

MEAT ME: Even in Los Angeles it was “freaky” warm this winter. I only wore a jacket about 5 times. I rode the bus for one winter and couldn’t go without a jacket for about 3 months. Not last winter.


Amanda Toups': Yeah last winter I was pregnant I wore a jacket the whole time it was freezing; it was hell.  This winter it was warm I feel like I haven’t had a winter in 2 years.

MEAT ME: Yea fishing was bad the summer before that. It was horrible I do a lot of deep sea fishing and nobody was catching anything because it was so cold.

Amanda Toups': Really… Yeah, we didn’t get any of that. (chuckles)

MEAT ME: I remember one time the captain on the boat was yelling out the window about how cold it was and didn’t look or feel like summer at all.

Amanda Toups': You know what you should come down here next year for “Hogs for a Cause”.

MEAT ME: Really what is that?

Amanda Toups': Yeah. It is right here in City Park in March. About 100 to 150 different vendors, restaurants, and individuals come out here to raise money for kids with cancer. The entire festival is all pork. It is a competition; who has the best whole hog to best avant garde pork dish it is amazing.

MEAT ME: So what am I looking at here?

Amanda Toups': This is Isaac’s house made craklins, this is boudin, this is candied pork belly, and these are smoked duck gizzards. This is cured pork shoulder, pork capicola, rabbit rillettes with a little pickled cabbage, 2 types of mustard, and right here this is chicken jelly.

MEAT ME: Chicken Jelly?

Amanda Toups': Made from chicken fat.

MEAT ME: What about this one?

Amanda Toups': Cured foie gras, muscadine jam, and spicy pecans with French bread.

I will really miss Toups' Meatery. They are leading the way with different cuts of meat, innovative types of jam and platters of food you have never even heard of. This restaurant was an adventure inside of an adventure. Chicken Jelly? Not only was it amazing but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s best friend bacon is right behind it. (wink, wink)

I am never going to run out of nice things to say, but if I’m silent it’s probably because my mouth is full. This is definitely one of the highlights of my trip and you can bet I will be back for more.

You can check out Toups’ Meatery at: http://www.toupsmeatery.com/
On Twitter @toupsmeatery
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ToupsMeatery

Foie gras in your shorts,
Sean Rice
aka MEAT ME