The Ellison family has been on a not so quiet buying spree the last several years. From what I’ve read, they now own CBS, CNN, and TikTok.
How the fuck is that even legal, buying up that much land on an island? Unreal. And you also got Zuckerberg buying huge swaths and building survival bunkers.
Back to food.
I didn’t even know that was possible with dough. I’ve worked in some large buffet places where we routinely took the leftover trays off the buffet at the end of the night, maybe 1/4 full, and stowed them in the walk in. Next day we’d mix them in with fresh ingredients. I’m talking casseroles, Mac & cheese, mashed taters, etc. and recook them. Maybe it was technically safe if recooked, but still.
I’m sure there were bits and box in there retained from months ago. After seeing that I never ate that shit again. I stuck with steak or fried catfish.
I guess that private land can be bought or sold without government permission? Pretty lame though.
They take the old skins and put them in plastic dough bags and stow them in the walk in freezer then re-roll it with like a 2 to 1 ratio, I don’t remember which direction though. I think it was 2 of new to one of old, but there’s a lot I’ve blocked out from 30ish years ago which is when we’re talking about.
No, I get it. I’d love to have some land myself. But 98% of an island? Seems pretty extreme. I don’t have a solution or anything. Just seems kinda wrong. Especially given some of the history of the place.
Been meaning to ask this for a while. I know some of you on here really know your shit and have worked as chefs and in nice restaurants.
Have any of you ever tried catering or starting your own business?
I’ve been playing with the idea of doing a very small BBQ business. I mean very small. If things work, maybe slowly scaling up. But probably never opening a physical space.
I’m talking things like:
Catering for 15-20 person football parties/tailgates.
roadside BBQ plates. The type you see in gas station parking lots. A tent, coolers, and a smoker.
Pop ups at events.
Selling plates, and/or in bulk, on Facebook Marketplace and/or Instagram.
I’d be doing traditional items like brisket, pork butts, sausage, ribs, Mac & cheese, slaw, tater salad, deviled eggs, pickles, onions, white bread. Nothing crazy.
I’m not asking for legal advice or anything. Just interested in your experiences, positive or negative, if you have any. Thanks.
Looks good. When I was a kid my dad would buy a shit ton and we’d dip them in a bowl of hot sauce, vinegar, and black pepper, and eat them on saltines. Maybe that’s a south Mississippi or Louisiana thing? Or just a weird dad thing. Haven’t really seen it since. The older I got oysters got all fancy and expensive.
Yeah, I’ve watched a bunch of videos on it. Makes my back hurt.
I guess I was also thinking about keeping initial start up costs low, etc. I wouldn’t have room on my current smokers for much more than 15-20 person tailgate or football party, wedding shower, or roadside stand, etc.
If I could start small and enjoyed it, found a modicum of success, I could maybe scale up to a 250 > 500 > 1,000 gallon trailer smokers. That shit is expensive.
Local laws about prep kitchens, etc. is also tricky and can be a pain to navigate.
Basically, I tend to talk myself out of it before even attempting. But there’s that little spark of hope that won’t die damn it!
We do have some shared prep kitchen places around. I need to check out the prices.
I’m not even going to be in the same building as a Hobart. Never. Nope. The fear has been solidly instilled. Martin’s potato buns from the store will do me just fine.
Friend of mine used to do catering and had planned to do a food truck but it was harder to get off the ground than to open a small physical location, which he did, but ended up having to close up shop around the panorama years.
It’s a lot of liability and physically taxing. He’s a pretty accomplished sushi chef and so half of his catering was handling raw fish which is really risky. Just for the sake of discussing oysters and similar it’s a lot of liability.
Just consider whether you want to waste your good health on it. Maybe you could bottle bbq sauce at home and sell it as craftmade to hipsters. Not even joking!
I worked for a couple catering companies in Portland as a mercenary cook on their rosters and it was steady work if I needed it in conjunction w my two other job cooking in restaurants.
I had a lot of fun, and the changing changeability of catering also kept you on your toes. You have to be quick to problem solve on the fly and adapt to weird situations. Cooking with a headlamp in a rainstorm under a quickly thrown together lean-to because the weather went a way it wasn’t supposed to, a hole in the pavilion allowing a stream of rain water to pour directly into one of the rented deep fryers while it was heating up, causing a boil over all over a snakes nest of electrical cords running power to convection ovens and such while a small river of early spring downpour ran all over same power cords
I second what @micabeza said: it’s a TON of work and when you’re finally done serving at the event it’s time to pack it all back up, drive back to the shop, unload everything, wash everything, stow everything…
I do not miss that about it at all…
What good health? See, this would motivate me to get back in shape. I’d have to train like Rocky to do this.
No, that’s a legit idea. There’s a billion of them already, of course. But if you just want a small local thing, I think there’s always room. I’ve had people tell me I should bottle and sell some BBQ sauce, and salsas, etc. But you never know if they’re just being nice.
I think it’s an idea that could take off. You need someone with a good mouth on them to hustle for you though, to potential locations or get private business. A good website with some real low tech mail order distribution would take you a long way though.
I think that a person gets to a certain age where you’re either making your existing injuries worse or keeping them in check.
Physical therapy isn’t the same as repetitive motion. You might get to a point where you’ve improved your cardio, for example, but still destroy your back or shoulder or legs or feet. It’s just not necessarily the same.
I thought I remembered you saying that you had some issues you were dealing with currently due to previous injury.
Don’t give up on your dreams though, if you want to take it on I would love to see you do what makes you happy.
