Kelsey Barnard Clark Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everybody. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe. I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. Today's guest is Kelsey Barnard Clark, the winner of Top Chef season 16 and author of a brand new cookbook, Southern Grit: 100+ Down-Home Recipes for the Modern Cook. Kelsey also is the force behind KBC, an eatery, bakery, and catering operation in Dothan, Alabama. You'll understand why Kelsey called her book Southern Grit when you hear our interview. She is determined and driven and is very open about the lessons learned from her early chef days. I enjoyed talking to Kelsey about her new book, her favorite recipes and her love of mise en place
Today's show is sponsored by Fridge No More. You promised to make chocolate chip cookies for the school bakes sale or the office birthday party, so you preheat the oven and measure everything out and you are missing a crucial ingredient. We've all been there. Fortunately, there's Fridge No More, a new delivery service that gets groceries, fresh produce, or any missing ingredients right to you in 15 minutes or less. Fridge No More has free delivery, no minimums and no subscriptions. What they do have is their own cloud grocery stores across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. And they'll be opening a new area soon. And I know this is important to you, Fridge No More does not utilize gig workers. They hire packers and couriers as valued employees of their company
I downloaded the Fridge No More app just the other day and ordered some things and it couldn't be easier or faster. They even have a Thanksgiving section for all your upcoming holiday needs. The generous folks at Fridge No More are offering Radio Cherry Bombe listeners 50% off their first order. Yes, you heard that right. 50%, with the code CHERRYBOMBE. Check the delivery map at fridgenomore.com to see if your neighborhood is in the current delivery zone. Today's show is also sponsored by Cypress Grove. If you don't know the story behind Cypress Grove, the leading producer of delicious American goat cheese, well, grab a cheeseboard and gather round. It involves a mom on a mission and a herd of goats.
Mary Keehn the founder of Cypress Grove wanted fresh goat's milk for her children. So she wound up with some goats and more goats milk than she knew what to do with. Mary taught herself how to make cheese and helped kick off an artisanal cheese making revolution in the US. Fast forward, today Cypress Grove is an international award-winning cheese maker that promotes humane goat dairying. Is still proudly based in California and is known for its gorgeous cheese, like one of my absolute favorites, Humboldt Fog, the distinctive soft, ripe and goat cheese.
Want to try Cypress Grove for yourself? Visit your favorite cheese shop or the cheese counter at your local grocery store. You can also visit cypressgrovecheese.com for store locations, perfect cheese pairings, and more. A little Cherry Bombe housekeeping, thank you to everyone who has joined us for a very Cherry Bombe Friendsgiving, our week long celebration of food, gratitude and new traditions. Our big chef panel is today moderated by Chef Nyesha Arrington. We love her. If you are curious what chefs love about Thanksgiving, what their favorite recipes are, their tips and tricks for cooking for large groups of people, be sure to sign up.
And tomorrow we're making a fruit cake with Megan Keno of Country Cleaver. I've got my fruit soaking in brandy right now, so I am ready. Fruitcake has always gotten the bad rap in the past, but I am confident you'll love this one. So definitely sign up for our demo. All of our Friendsgiving events take place on Zoom. They are free and open to all thanks to our sponsors, Kerrygold, Sanpellegrino, Sir kensington's, California Prunes, Cakebread Cellers, and Sequoia Grove Winery. To sign up, visit cherrybombe.com. Now let's check in with Kelsey Barnard Clark.
Kelsey, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm thrilled too. I was reading through Southern Grit and one of the very first things that struck me is that you are a very organized human being.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Yes. Neurotic a little sometimes, is a better word, but yes, I am, 100%.
Kerry Diamond:
So mise en place isn't just something you do when you're cooking. It's a way of life for you.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
People are like, "Oh, I wish I could be as organized as you. I'm like, "Yeah, I was literally born this way." For Christmas for when I was 12 I asked for a labeler for Christmas. That's all I wanted. And my room was... Literally could be in like probably … or something. I can't function without full... I'm probably less organized now than I used to be and it's still really nuts. It's the way my brain works. I have to have things in order physically for me to... I'm very ADD and I think that's part of it, is that I very easily can lose attention. And so when things are out of order around me, I can't focus. I can only focus on the things that are out of order.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so interesting because I think you and I have very different brains.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
I'm sure.
Kerry Diamond:
I struggle to stay organized. So I would love to know what some of your organization rules to live by are.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
And I think that I get asked this a lot by my friends, by just people in general and what I see... Because I'm more interested in the unorganized people. And to me, it's easy, because it's just second nature, but I'm always more interested in what's hard about it to you. Tell me how I can help you. And I think that what I've found with people is it's very overwhelming to get organized. I can totally understand that. For example, my holiday decorations upstairs are not organized and it feels very daunting and overwhelming to go up into my attic and do that. So I tell people as hard as this may sound, the best advice I have is to start out with some sort of system, period. I don't have these bed bath and beyond perfect clear boxes like an Instagram model.
I use what I have, but you use what you have. That was one of the best advice I ever was given while I listen to a podcast once. And she was like, "You see so many people that are wanting to get organized and they rush to somewhere to buy all these organization things where in the process of cleaning things out, you're like I had 18 tupperwares with no lids. Oh, yes, here's my new organization thing." That's really the best advice I have for anyone is don't overthink it. Don't go rush to the store and think that you have to look like the home edit to get organized. It can really just be cardboard boxes, that this is not my rubber band box. One of my very favorite things I use is...
Do you know the Trident gum containers? It's the clear plastic things. So I use those for organization a lot. And they fit in drawers. Every time you have a thing, a gum, it's technically trash, it's terrible for the environment. You might as well use it again. So things like that. I love to use stuff like that. And that's the best advice I can give people, is just try to take a very small task a day. If you're really unorganized and overwhelmed with it, don't organize your entire kitchen. Don't start there. Start with one drawer, "How can I get this one drawer better?" Might take you 30 minutes. And then every week, every day, whatever your goal may be, just try to make it incredibly small goals.
Kerry Diamond:
Kelsey, this might make you laugh or maybe it'll horrify you, but it wasn't until later in life that I learned that phrase everything in its place and a place for everything.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I wish I knew that as a kid.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
It's funny because my husband will call me and say... And my friends always make fun of me because he'll be like, "Where is something we haven't used in two years? I'm like, "It's in this drawer on the left side in the bottom and this box." And they're like, "You're a psycho." And I'm like, "I just know where it is because I know I put it there." That's what I love about... Especially being someone who travels and is very busy, the only sense of... To me I also see it as helping for when someone in the house needs something and they're helping me, it's helpful if I know where it is to be able to guide them to it. The mise en place thing was so easy for me as a chef. And I think probably why that so easily became my career path because it's the way I work. So walking to a kitchen with total just organization when it's working properly is how I roll.
Kerry Diamond:
What does your fridge look like at home?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
What you probably would think it is. Everything has a container and we all know social media's not real. So I'll tell people all the time, even organized things, there's some... All my pickles are in the back behind stuff because I have so many hot sauces and pickles. I know they're all back there. So if you got to be practical too about just what works for you and your family, I actually just did this huge thing on refrigerators recently of... The refrigerator's just like, "This is for produce, this is for..."
And I did this huge revolutionary moment of like, "This makes no sense." If you're looking for the milk, you get the milk. If you're looking for your drink, you get your drink. That should be in drawers. What vegetables do I have? That should be on display just like a grocery store would be. And I did this huge flip of my refrigerator where nothing goes where it's supposed to go, but everything makes sense as like a chef would see it. And it is so enlightening.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, is that on your Instagram?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
I'm going to do it actually now that I've perfected the fridge and it's there. My husband even the other day was like, "Why have we been putting our drinks in the biggest fridge where..." A family like us, we are huge vegetable produce eaters. And so for us the most room in our fridge needs to be vegetables. And also I want it open because when I cook and... I think everyone is this way and I am guilty as well, how many times have you gone into that drawer and you're like, "How long has this been in here?" It is definitely molded in the back because you didn't see it. Where the new organization I have is that's not possible because it's all on display. You pull out the drawer that's in the bottom that's the flat drawer, so you always see everything at once. Where typically the drawer you're supposed to put produce in is deep and dark and short, so everything's just piled, which just does not make sense. Can you imagine going to a grocery store that way?
Kerry Diamond:
You know what? I never thought about that, but I'm going to stop throwing… my produce in what they say is the produce drawer. Tell us, I don't know how to say it, is it FIFO, FIFO?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
First in first out. Yes. FIFO. I mean, I think it's either way. Some people say FIFO, some people say FIFO. Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us what that's all about.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
So it's a chef thing. And so many chef things I think are so wonderful and great because they're just based on practicality. There's no real logic and this huge story behind it. It's strictly practical. So the FIFO is first in first out, which my kids do it even. My four-year-old knows this, which is do not open something until that thing is empty. That goes for drinks. That goes for milk. That goes for everything. Nothing drives me more crazy when I go into a refrigerator and there's two sticks of butter half cut in half. What? What's happening here? Or two onions that are cut in half. So that's basically what first in, first out is, is you don't use the next thing until that one's done.
Kerry Diamond:
You would have a hard time with my fridge even when you come over.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
I would have a heyday, honestly.
Kerry Diamond:
You probably would. Let's talk about why you decided to be a chef. You mentioned that that mindset made a lot of sense to you.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
It's so funny because on the one hand I've always been interested in food, loved food, just that was a career I knew I wanted, but then equally on the other hand there was never a time I thought I would be a chef. I didn't seek it. I didn't want it. I did not want to work in a restaurant. It just kept happening that I kept seeing it's necessary for me to do this if I want to succeed. It's necessary for me to work in a kitchen. So I really have never been someone who's two-year plan, five-year plan, 10-year. I think I respect and admire people who do that. I think it works for some people, but I also feel for me my career, it is incredibly important to take opportunities as they happen and they're not foreseeable.
They're impossible to see them coming and very frequently and very often last minute and also usually really, really, really inconvenient. So you have to have this willingness to just do it and not be scared. And my biggest lesson lately and my biggest... If I'm questioning something, my question that I ask myself is am I not doing it because I'm scared? And if I'm scared, I'm doing it. And that's pretty much my answer. So that was how I became a chef. The only interest I had is that it looked scary as crap and I wanted nothing to do with it. And that was my answer to do it because if it scared me, there was a calling there to do it and there was a reason I should be in there.
And so for me my path went from, I want to go to culinary school, got to culinary school. And I had this thought in my head of like, "I'm here. Everyone thinks I'm going to fail. Everyone's betting on me to come home. I'm going to say yes to everything that scares me." And it was a huge thing.
Kerry Diamond:
Why was everyone rooting for you to fail? Why did you think that?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
I wouldn't say rooting. My family definitely wasn't rooting for me. I think they just expected it. I'm from a small town. I went to a very conservative college where at the time, I mean to be frank and I know this offends people, but it is what it is, the women that I was around with the exception of my very close girlfriends that are now my friends, we were one of the only four who had a career and had any interest in having one. And with the exception of that, just to really be honest with you, the biggest goal when I was there at the time... I'm not speaking for everyone. I'm speaking on my behalf and my experience, your biggest goal was to have a diamond on your hand when you graduated. That was it.
So that was what was pressed in you. Was just find your fiance, get married, have kids, move back to his town or whatever it is. And that was really all that was discussed. The thought of having a career and being driven by success was very taboo for where I was in the space I was in. So not only was that taboo to even think it, it was incredibly taboo to drop out of college, to go to New York City to pursue said unstable career, especially a female in culinary school at the time it was not popular. It was not cool. It was not even really heard of. And then I went so far to work in a French kitchen. I was the only female there.
Kerry Diamond:
You're not even that old. So when you went to culinary school it still was primarily male students at the school?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
No, it wasn't. The only female figures you saw in the culinary world were stand and stir TV stars. Listen, I'm a huge fan of those stars, don't get me wrong. Huge fan. You did not see these digging in chefs on the line, female chefs. It was not even remotely really... Wasn't just unpopular. I truly had not seen it. Even in the first kitchen I worked in, I was the only female in a Michelin kitchen. So there's no negative tone to it. It just is what it was. So for me it did seem like wild decisions. It did seem very wild because it was. It really was. And my best friends the first few years I was in kitchens were... There were three females that I knew that were working in Michelin kitchens in New York City. That was it. Three of us in three different restaurants.
Kerry Diamond:
So you wound up at Café Boulud, did you intern there during culinary school?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
I did. The president of my school which was Tim Ryan, his wife is from Alabama. For a number of reasons there's very few people from Alabama who'd gone through the program, especially female. So he took an interest in making sure I stuck with it. I'm sure is what it was. And it was really irreplaceable because he 100% guided me in making difficult decisions, not what was easy. And I went to him... He would have these... I guess it was about quarterly or monthly coffee, just coffee conversations where we'd meet in the cafe at the school. And he would just say, "What's going on? What's your decisions? What's the next step you're taking?" And it was right about the time I think with our first coffee talk is what we called it on. He was like, "Where are you going to do your internship?"
And I was like, "I really don't know. I'm considering going to Birmingham, which was Alabama." But then at the same time I was like, "But I want to go to New York. I don't know. I need guidance here. I don't know what I'm doing." And he was like, "Well, do you want the hardest internship or do you want me to tell you what you want to hear?" And I was like, "I want the hardest." He said, "Well, you're not going to get in. But the hardest one is Café Boulud. They hire one intern every six months. It's competitive." He's like, "You most likely will be the only female in there. You have zero experience. I'm just giving it to you."
And I was just like, "Fine. Here we go." And that really was the takeoff point for my career for me, because I had to work so hard, harder than I've had to work. I've absolutely lived up until that point a privileged life. There's no denying that. And so for me, this was very difficult to get into that kitchen. And I loved the fact that they didn't care who you were, where you were from. It was all about work and all about your eagerness and your desire to learn. And Gavin Kaysen was there at the time and he pretty quickly actually gave me the internship and we've remained a close relationship since then.
Kerry Diamond:
He's a great mentor to many people in this industry.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Oh, wonderful. Yes. He's just good. He's good.
Kerry Diamond:
What are some of the things you learned in that kitchen?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
The biggest thing I learned is there is no replacement for hard work. I think that that will never ever go away. I love that. I love the fact that in a world we're in, especially now, no one cares about anything but hard work in a kitchen. I don't care who you know, I don't care who your daddy is, I don't care anything. We only care your performance in here and your attitude now, which I really appreciate as well, is the biggest thing these days. It's your integrity and your attitude. Those three things are the only thing that matter. And other than that, we don't care. We don't care what your record is. No one cares. It's truly an enlightening thing to me. I really love that about a kitchen, is there's so many second, third, fourth chances that can occur in the realms of a kitchen in a restaurant that don't in any other career. And I think that's a breath of fresh air.
Kerry Diamond:
But that is a very particular kitchen. Not only do they prize hard work, they prize like [crosstalk 00:18:44] a real precision. I was at a really lovely event with Chef Daniel Boulud at the Decor Kitchen the other day and he made this gorgeous quiche and he baked the crust first, did the partial bake of the crust and trimmed the excess crust around and then filed down the remaining top of the crust with a micro plane. I've never seen that done.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
I've told so many students this and so many people starting out, start at the most perfect, the hardest, because nothing from there is acceptable and you need to remember it. It's not realistic. It's not really attainable, but that's now your standard. And so anything less than that is still the best probably and it's less than what's you were used to. It was the best decision I ever made to start out in the restaurants I started in and to work in Dovetail and Café Boulud, because it was unattainable perfection. That was our goal. But when striving for that, you fall short, pretty much chill a perfection.
And I'm not saying that I'm a huge component of someone who fails and get back up and try again. But I think having that background and having that base for me, I know what's acceptable and it's very black and white and I know what's unrealistic and that's very black and white. And I think that at the time it was... I'm always honest in saying at the time it was hard. It was not enjoyable. It was not fun. I very rarely enjoyed my days, but that's not what it was about. And that's not what you should be doing in your first job or as an intern. You're meant to be pushed to your breaking point. It's meant to be you're the clay and they're molding you. That's your job, and I think that it just was... I only admire that job and that scenario more the older I get.
Kerry Diamond:
Isn't that something that you see a lot of folks pushing back on today that it shouldn't be that hard because sometimes that crosses into abusive behavior in the kitchen?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Listen, I've had my share of that too. Let me just be honest with you. Any female who grew up in these kitchens in that time period, we have a book of stories. We have books, we have pages. We all are aware, but there's a line there. And I think that I would tell any female specifically know what your line is before you walk in there, because it will get pushed. It will get moved. I didn't know I didn't have them. I didn't know I was young. I was 19. I had no idea what I was expecting. So I would urge anyone, female or male, but it's definitely a different scenario with a female to walk into the kitchen knowing what your boundaries are. What is your absolute no? And if your absolute no is I will not work over 40 hours, don't do it because that's not going to be it.
So I see a little bit you got to... To me, you have to marry the two of there are apprenticeships and France and Italy where you don't get paid at all while you're there. It's just an honor to work for these people. And that's not an abuse of power. That's not an abuse of anything. It's the way that this is. Now I do believe in getting paid. I was paid, but I don't think there's anything wrong with working hard and working too hard when you're this young and eager and inexperienced. You're there to learn. However, that's where the line is drawn. Any other abuse past that point I think you have to know what your line is.
Kerry Diamond:
I think some folks will challenge you on the working for free today though.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Oh, for sure. Listen, it's different now.
Kerry Diamond:
How has this shaped the kind of boss you are today?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
I like to be honest in saying I've been a lot of different bosses. I started when I was 23. So I made a ton of mistakes in the beginning, which is also what not to do. My first restaurant failed. I sugar-coated it for a little bit in the beginning because I was embarrassed, but the bottom line is my first restaurant was a failure. It was a failing company. We closed and now we have a pretty successful company and I truly blame myself for the reasons of it. It wasn't all on me. I'm fully aware it wasn't. It was a lot of things out of my control, but at the end of the day I am the lead. I am in control.
So as a boss now I think that my integrity level with my staff is so different. My staff is that priority and my employees are really what matters and everything else is a trickle-down effect. So it's really important to me that they are comfortable working here. Listen, there's always going to be issues. But at the end of the day, my goal always is to have an honest, open environment for people to feel safe here, to feel welcome and for anyone to walk in and feel like they could find a place here. That is my number one goal.
Kerry Diamond:
So Kelsey, I skipped a whole step. So you eventually left New York and came back home to Alabama. Why did you decide to return home?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
I burnt myself out because I do that. I am someone who will do that to myself, no longer really anymore. I have to be careful with it, but I'm someone who will kill myself in striving to get to where I'm trying to go. And that's just my personality and that's what I did for two years. So then I needed a break for every... My body needed a break, everything needed a break. And the caterer that was basically my mentor, I worked for him starting when I was 15. He was a fine dining caterer in Dothan, Alabama. He was one of the only gay men I knew ever that was out in my town, which I really respected and admired and really loved him. And he was a teacher.
So he was a teacher at the local high school. He was a teacher in life and he passed away while I was in New York. He left a void. There was no fine dining caterer here and I had a lot of people being like, "You know what he did? Why don't you come down here and carry it on?" My company is actually named in honor of his, he was Larry Paul Catering, we are Kelsey Barnard Catering. That's where KBC came from.
Kerry Diamond:
So tell us what you're up to today.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
So now I am all over the place trying to get more involved in TV. I love TV. I really have always. That's how I grew up learning about cooking, was TV and I'm a huge fan of it. And doing some book tour stuff, traveling a good bit. And I don't know. I think more than anything for me the year after shutdown, I don't want to say after COVID, because we're definitely still in it, but after shutdown is a really... So probably feel more fire under me to just chase anything more than ever. So I'm just trying to keep going and keep growing and keep learning. That's the goal.
Kerry Diamond:
So tell me what you're up to in Alabama today.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
So I have a restaurant which is KBC. It's grown exponentially since we first opened. We have been open since 2014. So this location was my dream. It's in downtown Dothan and it's a huge building that's actually now... We accompany three buildings. So huge. It's over 10,000 square feet. We have a catering company. We travel everywhere and I'm working on my second restaurant concept. But the biggest thing is that we're downtown Dothan, which was my goal in the very beginning. This was a dying street. Whenever I left high school and then whenever I came back there were no businesses here. And now I think probably one of my proudest things is this is a budding street with businesses popping up everywhere.
And it's because of the businesses all working together and people say who's my competition all the time, I'm like, "Us yesterday is our competition. We do not look at other companies. We want to lift them up. We want to work together. That's not the mentality we have here." And in doing so I like to really challenge other companies, it works because all of us get along and we send each other to our businesses and we all have done better for it. It's less about the dollar signs for me with this company than it is just the atmosphere, the... And we're not always perfect. We have a lot of learning curves and a lot of things that I'm still trying to figure out, but we are always striving to be better. And that's what matters to me.
Kerry Diamond:
How did Top Chef come about?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
So Top Chef was actually my general manager who has been with me for as long as the restaurant. We have a lot of staff that's been with me since day one. I'll never forget we were at my other restaurant because I hired her for the other restaurant, the one we closed and we were sitting there and she's like, "I think you should do Top Chef. There's an open casting call." And I was like, "You can put my name in the hat, but you're wasting your time." I'd really never seen it. I mean, I knew all about it, don't get me wrong, but I just was never a Top Chef watcher in the beginning. So she applied for me and we all know what happened. I actually got slated to be on Colorado season which Joe Flamm won, but I got pregnant.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you have a plan for winning Top Chef?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
No. I'm telling you such a no. I wing that. I had watched two episodes to the tune... And I have a little bit of a reason, I was a horrible test taker all through my education in every way, shape and form. Anytime I sat down and overthought a test, I would fail and I always did. Not fail, but not do well. So I know the signs for me if I start panicking and all that, I'll overthink it to the point that I'll just... Just my brain leaves my body and I don't think. So in preparing for Top Chef, I watched two episodes and that started happening where I was like, "Oh my God, I can't make okra. Oh my God, what am I going to do?" Overthinking everything.
And then I just turned off the TV and I was like, "I'm either going to cook my food and I'm going to be myself or I'm not doing it." So I really did straight up wing Top Chef. I still truly don't know how it... The only thing I know of why it worked... Because of catering I'm proned and just like riding a bicycle know how to put out fires easily because of catering. So I just went into autopilot mode with everything, which that's really, I feel like the only reason I did well, was just muscle memory because my brain wasn't really functioning a lot of the time.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell everybody what your winning dish was.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
So my winning dish was a five-course meal and I would like to say it was a five-course meal, but really I think it was the oyster. In fact, I even said at one point during the finale like, "Why did I start with that? I should have ended with the oyster and then they could never say no." I do think I'm a big fan of telling stories with food and the story of the finale meal with summers in the South, and I do really feel that the stories came out in the dishes. They weren't all perfect. We made some mistakes with the food, but it worked and the story was there and the passion and emotion was there and I was in it. I was really in that finale and I think that's important too.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us what the courses were.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
The first course was buttermilk and cornbread, which is a very old school... I really like to say country tradition, because some Southern people are like, "What are you talking about?" So it's really more like a farmer's tradition where... Started out way back in the day. Very frequently you're going to have cornbread sitting on the counter that's leftover, always butter milk in the fridge. And the tradition is farmers would come in waiting on dinner, which typically was at 4:00 you all and starving, dump the cornbread and butter milk, eat it really quickly. Just something to coat their stomach while they're waiting on dinner. And that's the tradition.
It's still something people do today. And that was the theme of that dish. And then my great-grandmother Will was famous for her buttermilk ice cream. So basically what I did was make a buttermilk on glaze that was not sweet. It was ice cold and then everything in there was things you would see sitting on the table during the summer, so cucumbers, watermelon. It's basically just this huge, refreshing palette cleanser. Second course was the oyster, the non-toppable oyster. And this was 100% just a nod, an appreciation, a love letter to Café Boulud and French cooking. I am 100% French trained. I'm obsessed with French cooking. I love the classics. I love the way that they use only classic thing. I love how time consuming it is. I love it. I'm a huge fan.
It's very similar to the South. We're not in a hurry, neither are the French. So that was that dish. It was just classic oyster that was soft poach and a... So it was actually a warm vichyssoise, typically cold. So it was literally just perfectly... It was poured over the oyster to order, perfectly poached on the outside, but chilled on the inside. And then it was topped with a little cheese straw with caviar and green onion. And I actually called Gavin Kaysen about that dish before I left. And I was like, "This is for you. Give me your tips." He's like, "I got nothing. Serve that." So that was the winner.
The next dish was the one that I would redo right now. And it was not a great dish. It was soft shell crab, lima beans with chimichurri and then... It was like a field peas thing. But the soft shell crab was just... We had a lot of issues with it. It was a lot of issues across the board with that dish. Just not a great dish. Yeah. And then the fourth dish was what they refer to as a love letter to peaches and cream. So it was a take on peach cobbler. It was buttermilk biscuits. It was completely deconstructed, honeysuckle ice cream. And the entire memory I had was, for me, we would stop at the roadside stance and anytime I smell peaches, I smell honeysuckle. That was every dish for me. Was thinking on my most strong and fondest food and scent memories, which honeysuckle is sort of a weird thing to think of with peach, but it was fun.
Kerry Diamond:
Kelsey, do you have any advice for someone who would like to be on Top Chef?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Do it. I've had a few people ask me like, "I don't know if I'm ready," and I was like, "Listen, listen, dude, I was definitely not ready." I was years away from my Michelin training and been a minute since I was in that kind of kitchen. I felt completely inadequate and ill prepared, just go hungry. The thing that people don't understand about Top Chef and competing is forget the competition, forget the money, forget winning. You're getting invited to go and learn from the best of the best in your career. Win or lose, you get to cook your food and get critiqued by absolute Forbes best of the best basically.
And I think that's what people really need to remember in competing is... And I wasn't thinking about winning. I wasn't thinking about money. I was there to learn and I think that ended up why it worked, is because I listened, I learned, I used it as a learning experience. Do it. To anyone who's interested, it is remarkable. And the aftermath, whether you win or lose is it's a wonderful organization.
Kerry Diamond:
Totally want to talk about your cookbook, Southern Grit. My first question about Southern Grit was going to be why that title, but now having talked to you, I have an understanding of why you called it Southern Grit.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Yeah. I swear I think some people title the book and then write it. It was hard for me to do it. Oh, my team really helped me name the book actually because I was like, "This is what I'm trying to get across as Southern and roots, Southern and traditions, but the grit to change it, the grit to move forward, the grit to be a hardworker." And that's where the title came from, is when you think of the word Southern very often people think of sweet, innocent, I don't know, all the words people sometimes think of. Those words to me are more like antonyms if you really want to think about it. And that was the goal with the title.
Kerry Diamond:
I feel like the title's more reflective of you.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Well, probably, but it's also my grandmothers and my family in general is just very... Lots of gritting your teeth and getting through some things.
Kerry Diamond:
So tell me which recipe is most sentimental to you.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
For me, the crab meat omelet sandwiches. It's one that it is not a Southern thing. It is not traditional. I've never seen anyone do it in my life and my great-grandmother made up this recipe and we made it. We really didn't make it often, it was strictly... Which I love this about any traditions and it's amongst so many cultures, especially with mine, there are certain things you only make at certain times and certain dishes and certain ways with certain people. And this was one of them. We were not allowed to make them by ourselves. You're not allowed to make them not at the family function. You're not going to whip that up on a Tuesday night. It is special. And I think the coolest thing about it is when we first did it, the way it was always about, you had to pick all the crab.
That was part of it. Is we have to have enough crab to make these. This was the mentality of everything. And it was just this huge treat. It was pre-running to the store and picking it up. And maybe we could have, honestly we just didn't. But that was the way these were. It was very similar to the gumbos, the same thing, we had to catch enough crab before we were allowed to make it. And those two recipes are just... I still could teardrops on the pages writing both of those because it just was flipping through all these handwritten recipes of my grandmothers of just multiple versions of these recipes and multiple variations from different generations of how they saw it made. It's such a true to my family recipe. And when my grandmother passed away, we made them at the funeral. That's what we do with that recipe. So it's just irreplaceable to me.
Kerry Diamond:
Walk us through how you make it.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
It's incredibly simple. Like I said, I love French cooking. It's definitely French technique. They didn't know they were doing it, but they were. So you separate the egg yolks from the egg whites, you make a meringue, just a classic meringue, no sugar. And then with the egg yolks it's super simple. You just fold in crab, egg yolks, parsley, salt, and pepper, that's it. And then you fold that in with the meringue, you do these... Really pancakes is what it is. We just call them omelets, but it looks like a pancake. It actually really looks like Japanese pancakes. That's exactly what they end up looking like. Has to be fresh white bread. It has to be lots of mayonnaise, sliced tomatoes, salt and pepper. And that is it. And I could eat 15 of them. We always joke like, "I could never eat four sandwiches," but I could eat four of these.
Kerry Diamond:
What is the most Kelsey of the recipes?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
That is a tough one. I actually have not gotten asked that. The most me, I would say probably the roasted chicken. If there was one to really describe me in lots of ways it would be that because one of the things that I'm incredibly known for... For anyone who knows me well, or who has worked with me and some people might say the word scrappy. Some people might say, "I get KBC," my company. Everyone calls me the MacGyver. I get called a lot for questions like that. And it's essentially just making things work with nothing. And that's what that recipe is. We talk about using a hair dryer to dry out your chicken. And that all came from when I worked at Café Boulud and Dovetail. I was really obsessed with these air dried meats, right?
Where we put them in the walk-ins with the controlled temperature and the skin would get so dry. And it was such a beautiful product that I thought, "How can I go back? How can I go back from having meat this way and chicken this way and duck this way?" But I'm also so practical and so realistic. I'm not doing that at my house. I know no one else is doing it. How can I do this? How can I figure out how to do this at home and teach other people to do it? And one day I was like, "There's a cool setting on the hair dryer. Let me try it. I don't know, who knows?" Because it's even so practical as to like I don't have time to let my chicken sit in the fridge for two days nor the room nor any other thing you want to talk about.
I don't have it. So I did it with a hair dryer one day. I did a cool setting and blow dried the skin of the chicken and it worked. And I was like, "Whoa, what just happened here?" And then before the cookbook even came out, I did a cooking class and I talked about the hair dryer. We did it in the class and my Instagram blew up for days. It was for Thanksgiving of people blow drying their turkey. And I was like, "Is this my legacy? Is people blow drying for turkey on Thanksgiving. Whatever, here we are, this is it." So I'd say that recipe because at the end of the day to me what is me and what is cooking, I like simple food. And I like really well done simple food with very humble ingredients and what you have. I don't want to force you to buy things that you don't have.
So that's what this recipe is. The vegetables are interchangeable. I tell people in the recipe, "Use what you have. If you have a carrot going bad, put that in the bottom of the pan. If your onion's a little moldy, cut up the mold and put it in there." That's what I would love for people with my book and just in general. I would love people to learn to love to cook. And I think that with confidence and with the freedom to know how to do things, they will love cooking because they're not stressed in the kitchen. And that's what this recipe's really about.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. So once you've blow dried your chicken, what are the next steps?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Rub it down with butter or olive oil and salt. Stuff it with lemon herbs, done. Nothing crazy.
Kerry Diamond:
Anything underneath? You said you could throw a carrot and onion, something like that.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
The recipe is for chicken fat vegetables, which is, oh my gosh, I love chicken fat vegetables more than so many things. It's also a one pot meal. Everything's in the bottom, perfectly cooked if you do it like you're supposed to obviously, and you pull the pan out to this amazing show-worthy meal. I think too, it's an impressive meal that if you master this one recipe, you can make it 19 times, add a little bit variations, no one really knows it's the same thing. I love things like that.
Kerry Diamond:
And do you change the temperature or one consistent temperature?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
No, it definitely is different temperature. So you put it in at a really high temperature and it depends on your oven setting. Some people's ovens only go up to 400. So the highest it'll go is really what I say. The goal there is searing in your oven. And so you're searing the skin which locks in all that moisture. And then you continue to cook it at a lower temperature and then you turn the oven off and you leave it in there, which I strictly tell people that leaving it off in the oven is where the steam happens.
So you're essentially creating a comby oven at your home, in your house with no tools. That's what the chef version of that is that I would tell people, but I don't put all that in the book, but that's what it is. Is searing it at a high temp in an oven and then cooking it low to roast it and really get the juice out and then turning the oven off and creating a hot box that creates steam. It just is the juiciest yet crispest chicken you've ever had.
Kerry Diamond:
Now that the book's been out for a little while, what is the fan favorite?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
The buttermilk biscuit. That's probably another one that I'm real proud of because I put a lot of work into that recipe, but I would say the buttermilk biscuits and the fried chicken even, I get a lot of tags about. What I love to see is when people are like, "Look at my biscuits," and it's this perfect layered biscuit and they're shocked. And I'm like, "I'm not shocked. That looks great." But I get a lot of those where people... I think too because pastry's intimidating to so many people and they don't think they can do it. And then when they do do it, they're like, "Oh my gosh, look what I did." So that's probably the most fan favorite.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us how you make the biscuits.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
The biscuits are really easy. It's five ingredients. It's all about the technique. And it's really only three steps that matter. We list them out. I kept the recipe very short and simple and only said what mattered. And if you follow it to a T, you will have zero problems. It's really that simple. And I think the reason why the biscuits are such a hot topic is that every southerner can make a biscuit, but no southerners can make biscuits. I've had more bad biscuits than good. They're usually terrible. And honestly, lately, very rarely do I see someone make them. They're just using frozen biscuits because they just don't know how easy it is. It's actually easier just to make them. And I think that it's a fun thing to learn to make your kids get involved with it. Guests want to do it with you. I think it's a show stopper type thing to pull it out. And again, it's things you just have sitting around at your house and no one hates a biscuit. I really don't know anyone who hates them.
Kerry Diamond:
That is very true. All right, Kelsey, we are going to do a speed round.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Oh, I love speed round.
Kerry Diamond:
Coffee or tea?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Coffee.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you take it?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Cream.
Kerry Diamond:
One of your most treasured cookbooks?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Julia Child.
Kerry Diamond:
Most used kitchen tool?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Knife.
Kerry Diamond:
Song that makes you smile?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Anything James Taylor. What is the one that's like “something in the way she moves?” That one. That one always makes me smile.
Kerry Diamond:
What is the oldest thing in your fridge?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
My great-grandmother's pepper sauce.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, tell us about that.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
She was a gardener and she gave me... It was always these recycled jars. It was never a real one. And you put the cayenne peppers or any of the small peppers in and it's just as if like a starter for a bread. You feed it, as it gets low, you just add vinegar to it and you keep it in the refrigerator. So I have her peppers, her jar. She passed away 15 years ago. She was 103. She gave me that well before she passed away. That's how old that is.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. And you continue to feed it?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Oh, yeah. You just feed it, feed it vinegar. So easy.
Kerry Diamond:
What was your last pantry purchase?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Randomly I got kaffir lime leaves.
Kerry Diamond:
What are you streaming right now?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Oh, gosh. I just finished You season three. So good. And then Maid. Maid was a heart wrencher. That was good though. Great show.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm only on episode two, but yes, definitely a heart wrencher. Yeah.
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Yeah, it was hard.
Kerry Diamond:
Dream travel destination?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Dream travel destination, I'd say this is a dream because most of my travels are usually food, in search of food education. So a dream and I consider a dream something that's a little flippant, a little non-logical, so African safari. I would love to do it.
Kerry Diamond:
If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
Celebrity, Ina Garten. I mean, come on. Of course.
Kerry Diamond:
Why Ina?
Kelsey Bernard Clark:
I don't think I could possibly be wrong, but she's just lovely and she seems very calm. You want someone calm on a trapped island with you. She's very witty. Her life is very interesting to me. So I feel like I could sit there and ask her questions for as long as it takes to get off an island.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Kelsey Barnard Clark for joining us. Be sure to check out Kelsey's cookbook, Southern Grit: 100+ Down-Home Recipes for the Modern Cook and Alabama Bombequad. If you find yourself near Dothan, Alabama, go visit Kelsey's KBC. Thank you to Fridge No More and Cypress Grove for supporting our show. Don't forget to check out our last two Friendsgiving events happening today and tomorrow. Visit cherrybombe.com to learn more and sign up. Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine. If you enjoy this episode, check out our chats with other top chef winners, including Melissa King and Kristen Kish wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks to our assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu. Happy early birthday, Jenna, and thanks to you for listening. You are the bombe.