Garden of Eat'n

Earlier in the conversation, you said you grew up poor.

Yeah.

Your parents did a really good job of covering it, you know, and one of the things you mentioned is we always had good food and they were, they were great cooks.

Yeah.

Did that translate to you?

Yes, man. I probably will. You know, I'll say it like this. I suck at pretty much everything in life except for two things. Okay. One is prayer, and that's just through. I mean, reps, man. I do reps daily, weekly, monthly. I spent a lot of time in prayer because I believe in the power of words. And I've seen the, the answer to prayer and the power of prayer work instantaneously, like I said. And I've seen it over, over time. I've seen prayers go what you would think is unanswered for 10 years, 20 years now. Right, right. I had my 42nd birthday on Tuesday, and I can tell you that there's a prayer that's been resonating in my, my media family for, for over 15 years. And, and, and, and it's still what we, what, what we might think and we see as unanswered. But I, I believe that God's going to do a. A good work with that prayer. So back to that. I'm good at prayer and I'm good at cooking. So there is definitely not a person who I've ever cooked for that. The. From the time they've had the first meal. When I say, what would you like for your birthday? It's never a gift of materialistic things. It's always, can you come over or can I come over and have you cook for me? So that's when, you know, God's given. God gave me a gift. And, you know, that gift is intentionality. I've been that since I was a little kid. And so I've been able to use good times and bad times, whether it's been a funeral, a wedding celebration, officiating a wedding, even attending any type of event, it's going to be always over the best meal, even if I'm not the one cooking it. We're going to, we're going to have good food, man.

And I think it's one of the best ways to connect with people. That's where, like, actual fellow. That's why I, I wish I was better at it. I wish we as a family were better at it. Eating at the table and breaking bread together. My wife is an amazing cook. She's right up there. I'm pretty good outside. I can throw down on the barbecue.

Yeah, we Talked about that, man. That's a gift too, man. That's still cooking. Yeah.

But I find that I have more enjoyment from it in sharing it with others than I do in the actual act of doing it. Although that is a joyful part of it. And I like the process and the science and just art of that all goes into all of that. It's when somebody takes that first bite and you see them light up, right? Like, oh, my God, I've never had barbecue like that before. And. And then the conversation starts, and then the, how did you do this? And then that conversation gets deeper and deeper and deeper. And funny enough, it tends to almost always flow back to, hey, you know, it's a gift, it's reps. It's something that. I don't know why, but God's given me a, you know, a little bit of a blessing to be able to do this kind of stuff. And I love sharing it with others, and it's a lot of fun to do. My wife has the same attitude about it. It's where we pro find the most joy. And I already know this story about you, but I want you to share with the listeners and people viewing on YouTube out there. How did the breaking of bread thing become a thing for you?

Well, you know, probably started with my nana, I would say, going back to the. Something more elemental. So she's never made it past 4 foot 10 and probably 97 pounds. Had 10 kids and living in northern Michigan where there's snow, lots of snow. You, you know, we did things outside, but some of the activities, I ended up like, you know, I like to migrate and spend time in the kitchen. And that was something where I really connected with her. And she was a phenomenal cook. That's my mom's mom. And that. That really, you know, that segue. My mom wasn't as good of a cook because of the story we told earlier. Right. You know, being out of the house and not having access to that. And, you know, her and my dad spent a lot of time together on my dad's side of the family, you know, being French, they made a lot of, you know, the three most important ingredients in French cooking, right. Butter, butter and butter. So, like, we had lots of butter, right? We had lots of butter and our food. And it was really. It was really good, though. You know, I just had this. I had this desire to not just feed other people, but it was. It wasn't. I knew from an early age, Jim, that I didn't want what you talked about, conversations, how it Opens up a conversation. That fellowship, so to speak, we'll call it fellowship. I knew that if I wanted to break a barrier and really get to know somebody, and it wasn't going to be surface level conversation, and I really wanted to get to know somebody sharing a meal and cooking them and being intentional through cooking something that they enjoyed. So I'd ask the question, hey, what do you like to eat? If you can go out and eat at a restaurant, what's something that you don't cook at home that you go eat at a restaurant? Well, that's what I'm going to make. And I'm going to make it better than they've ever had before. Like, I'm going to make sure that they will always remember how this made them feel, because they might not remember the things I did for them or said to them, but they'll always remember how this made them feel. And so that just. That translated into something naturally with some young men. We started a cooking group. It started with just two guys that wanted to learn how to cook, and I started cooking.

Did they ask you?

Yeah, they asked. They're like, hey, dude. Because we're all hanging out, we're having, you know, we open up a bottle. Wanted to learn about wine. They knew that I had, like, a background of being a wine kind of sewer. And so they're like, hey, man, I want to. I want to know what a good bottle of wine is. Because both of them, these two young guys, at the same time, they were in their mid-20s. I was in, like, my mid-30s at the time. So this is a hot minute ago. They had this idea like, hey, I want to be able to, like, cook something good. And they thought they were good cooks. Right? Everybody thinks they're a good cook when they put chicken in a pan and not to roast some zucchini in the oven. Right? That's my go to. And so lime juice. Right. It's ridiculous. So they. They wanted to learn about wine and not spend a lot of money on it. So we'll come over, we'll do a pairing. And so for me, it's just another Tuesday. For them, it was like the. And. And. And I'm. I am going to say this to brag is because it just opened up this. This idea to them. They were like, oh, my goodness. I had no idea how easy this can be by being intentional. The selection of an ingredient. You don't need a ton of stuff. It's what you choose. Right? I'm not just gonna go buy the chicken at the grocery store that's induced with tons of sodium, so the pounds are higher because it's got a bunch of salt water in it. Right. I'm gonna go buy the best chicken I can buy. I'm not gonna be like, you know, frugal with it because I want a great piece of chicken. I go buy the a really good middle price bottle of wine that's gonna pair with it. I'm gon veg or something. A side dish that's going to pair well with that. I think the first time, though, wasn't chicken. I made a meal that is near and dear to my heart, and it was cioppino. So I made chioppino, which is like a seafood stew. And so we made. We made shapino and paired it with some wine. And these guys were so blown away by such a simple dish that tasted so good. They were like, dude, can we. Can we both of them at, like, same time? Like, this is awesome. Can we do this more often? We'll all pitch in. I want to learn more. And I went, yeah, sure. I mean, we're going to hang out anyways, right? We were all serving together at church. And so I was like, oh, this is a way I can kind of give back to these guys or volunteers. Let me get back. So it started with two. And literally the second week before we decided to do this, the next week was, hey, can I bring a friend? And I said, yeah, sure, bring a friend. And. And within by the fifth week, I had, I think, 27 grown men in my kitchen. Little.

Little pack in there and, like.

And I'm paying for this, right? So I'm going, geez, like, now it's costing me like $1,000 in groceries because we got 27 guys attending and we're still running out of food. But the cool thing about that is, let's rewind with what I just said we had. They invited a friend the second week, each of them with four guys. And out of those four guys, the two new ones asked if they could bring a friend or two. And it wasn't just the food. Now, the food was what attracted the men, okay? But what kept them coming back was the fellowship, because we introduced, hey, let's pray together. I had YouTube. I would just play worship music, and sometimes I would just leave. I would delegate some responsibility in the kitchen. Like, hey, we're making, like, one. We're making risotto. I said, hey, everybody's gonna take a turn, add in some liquid. You see, you start getting, you know, I'D go through the process of. Hey, it starts, you know, starting to dry up, gets a little mushy. Add another quarter cup of chicken stock or white wine or whatever it was. And, hey, you're gonna be up in five minutes. Set a timer. We can't stop stirring. Just keep folding it, folding it, folding it. So guys felt like now they had a hand in making something they had never made before. And I believe that that's when it tastes better. When you have a hand in something, it tastes better, right? Because you feel a part of it. And so we. We would be in the living room worshiping to a music song, and some guys would sing, and we had other men of faith from church there. And then we just saw this organic growth of guys, like, breaking off into their own little groups and praying over one another. I saw guys, like, laying hands on the back of someone's head and praying for them because of what they were going through. And it just elevated into, like, this men's group of prayer and worship and food. And I was like, man, just one day, someone's like, dude, we should name this. And I'm like, I mean, might mess it up. I don't know if we should register a name at church or call it anything. And we were. I was driving to Dallas with a couple of guys that were in the group, and they're like, hey, we want to go with you. I was sick at the time, and I wasn't supposed to travel alone. And so I had a couple of guys from the group that got close to me ride with me, and we're on the way, and they're like, hey, man, if you could ever open up a restaurant or you were to do, like, a group where we charge people to do this, like, where they come and they learn, and we can turn this into a Bible study, and we could, like, not monetize it. Like, give back from any profit, but at least it'll help you pay for the groceries and stuff.

Yeah, it's getting expensive.

It was, right? I mean, dude, I was spending, like, five grand a month. It was ridiculous on food for these guys. And you know what? It was. It was fine. I mean, not once did I ever make it about that, right? It was just. I did it because I was like, oh, my word. These guys are hungry for more than just food. So the. The money was independent, Just meant nothing at the time. And. And they brought it up. They're like, man, this is a way we could give back. And I was like, you know what would be cool? Let's call it garden of Eat 10. Like we're eating Garden of Eaton. And, man, it just took off.