What’s Your Beef?

(Theme Music plays) I spent the better part of the last nine years trying not to make beef the star of my menu and now I'm gonna exalt it.

(Theme Music plays- The Avett Brothers "Will You Return") I'm Vivian and I'm a chef.

My husband, Ben and I were working for some of the best chefs in New York City when my parents offered to help us open our own restaurant.

Of course, there was a catch.

We had to open this restaurant in Eastern North Carolina, where I grew up and said I would never return.

(Theme Music plays) So this is my life.

Raising twins, living in the house I grew up in, and exploring the south, one ingredient at a time.

Previously on A Chef's Life.

We have finally hired a chef at the Boiler Room.

So, this is Eric.

He's our new chef at the Boiler Room.

We're super excited to have him.

I am trying to write and deliver a cookbook by January.

And everybody told me, my editor, my agent, everybody told me that is not possible, Vivian, you're not going to be able to do that.

So now I have basically almost a whole another year to finish my book.

That's the money shot.

(Music plays) I'm missing a lot in Kinston.

The city has changed so much.

I moved away ten or eleven years ago.

I lived in this neighborhood for a while.

Ben and I met working at a restaurant in the West Village called Voyage or "Voy-Ah-ge."

At that time the meatpacking district was still the meatpacking district.

In the mornings there would be like big cow carcasses hanging like dripping blood on the street.

Twelve years ago this was like so grimy and raw just kind of electric.

There's Hogs and Heifers.

This is Hogs and Heifers and it holds kind of a pivotal moment in my life.

I was living here and struggling to pay my rent so I decided I would go in for an interview because I knew that these bartenders made a lot of money.

So, I walked in, kind of you know naively and one of the bartenders yelled at me, if you wanna work here you gotta get on the bar and dance.

And I was like stone cold sober and terrified.

So, I got on the bar and that song the Devil Went Down to Georgia was playing and I started clogging because I grew up clogging.

The bartenders were link slack jawed and they said you are hired.

Come back at 5:30.

So, I'm walking home and I'm playing over in my mind what taking this job would mean.

It would mean that I would make friends.

I would make a lot of money.

I would have a place in New York.

I would have made it kind of, but it would be this path that I never really wanted to be on.

And I pass a "now hiring" sign in front of what would be Voyage and I walk in because I think I'm on a roll and I get that job too.

That's where I met Ben.

That's where I met Scott Barton.

That's the path that I went down and I'm so, so glad.

But I am gonna clog right here just so y'all know what it is.

Okay here we go.

This is gonna be quick so you better get it.

(Laughter) Oh my God.

Okay!

This is the wagon wheel.

I used to be a lot better at this.

(Music plays) Unfortunately I'm not here for just a trip down memory lane.

I'm in New York to meet my new editor who was just assigned to my book.

So, I'm nervous to meet him because it's really important that he feel invested in the project.

I have real live butterflies in my belly right now.

We're gonna meet at David's office.

David is my literary agent.

Hey.

Hello!

I'm gonna come and give you a hug.

Is that okay?

Okay.

I'm doing good.

How are you?

I feel great.

So, you read the material?

I read the material and I loved it.

You put me in a world.

You transported me.

Thank you.

It's really deeply felt.

It's clear that what the stories you're telling were things you really experienced the ups and downs and the recipes are incredible.

I think that the reader for a book like yours is really a lot more sophisticated than many people give them credit for.

What we're looking for is something that is really rich in specificity, tell us real information on exactly how something is done.

And then we can modify it.

That's what I want people...

I don't want people to like use the recipe like a bible.

One of the things I'd like you to begin thinking about if you would, Michael, I want us to start getting a sense of size.

I want to see how big it's gonna be.

How big can it be?

How much can you charge?

And I don't, what I don't want to do is I don't wanna chince on the recipes.

What is that?

150 or even 200 recipes?

No, 26 ingredients.

We're talking about 260 to 270 recipes.

This is the type of thing you can kind of murder somebody with, this book.

Yeah, me.

(Laughter) And you.

How we put all that together, I'm not sure yet.

And to the degree that's possible sometimes your voice is a little discursive and that's what makes it your voice.

What's discursive mean?

I'm sorry.

In order to find the center of a circle you trace the entire perimeter of it.

Okay.

We can condense some of that stuff too because you don't want to lose anybody.

Yes, absolutely.

And that's my job to help you with.

I just want to keep what's really important to me is there are 260 recipes.

I want to keep 260 recipes.

I feel like we're already in a fight about the number of recipes.

He is, isn't he?

He's not discursive as you said.

I'm not discursive.

No, no, no, no.

I think we're on the same page with the recipes.

Okay.

We're in the same place.

When you're focused on the book how much of your head is back in the kitchen in North Carolina?

Oh not much.

My life the past year has taken me out of the daily workings of the restaurant.

When I'm at home I spend about two to three days working at the restaurant developing new dishes, writing new recipes, and making sure everybody knows I'm still...

Watching.

Watching.

And I'm not pretending to be a chef who wants to be in that kitchen for the rest of my life expediting every single night.

It's just not what I want.

I want to be able to like go to my kid's soccer games or dance practice.

So that's what I'm trying to make happen.

(Music plays) I feel so much better having meet you.

I was really nervous.

You think you were the only one?

No, I'm sure not.

Did you see me sweating?

Sweating bullets here.

(Laughter) I really like Michael.

He's kind, thoughtful.

I mean I don't think he's gonna like squash my dreams, if you know what I mean.

I think we'll work well together.

(Music plays) So the more people we hire the more people call in sick or have problems it seems like.

The busier we get the harder it is to kind of fill in all the holes but that's okay.

So, today we're getting our cows.

We get them every three weeks.

They go to the Boiler Room and then we come and take what we need over here.

So, we're gonna do this new dish.

It's kind of like a take on something that I grew up eating.

I think everybody all over the country grew up eating hamburger steak.

Typically, you would have it with some kind of gravy and in my house we ate it over rice.

So, I'm gonna make this kind of beef fried rice.

I'm gonna start with some rendered beef fat.

There's a million ways to cook rice.

The best way to do this to make sure that each grain cooks separately is to toast it and coat it with this fat.

Beef fat has this really wonderful unmistakeable aroma that reminds me of... this is gonna sound terrible, McDonald's.

Typically cube steak would be served with a gravy that is made from the pan drippings, but we have such an issue with gluten intolerance now so I'm making a gravy using caramelized onions and red peas.

And then I've taken all the stems from the herbs that we're gonna fold into the rice once it's fried off and I'm gonna cook that in the rice.

So, we're really making a big effort not to waste anything.

I'm going to add scallions and a little garlic.

The liquid I'm going to cook this rice in is beef stock because with these cows we get a lot of bones.

When you're making something pilaf style you really have to get the measurements right or otherwise it's going to absorb too much liquid.

Alright, so I got everything in here.

I just need to add salt and pepper and then I'm gonna cover it really well and bake it.

And then cross my fingers.

Alright, so I'm gonna set this for 15 minutes.

Beef is like crab and shrimp.

If you put it on the menu it is going to sell like crazy.

That bothers me a little bit.

I'm mean I'm the champion of things like rutabagas and greens and radishes and turnips, not beef but it is so good.

I recently did an interview where they asked me what my last meal would be and I said a steak and then I was embarrassed and then I tried to take it back.

You know, if I were to leave this rice in this pot just to let it cool there it would continue to cook on the bottom.

So what we do here is cook the rice and then spread it out in a very thin layer so that it can cool down evenly and stop cooking.

(Music plays) Hey.

So this is two cows?

This is two cows.

This is what two cows look like in a box.

Yes.

About three years ago we started buying our cows from Lane Angus Beef in Gates County.

Marinda Lane is a stay at home mom who contributes to her household income by farming on the side.

That's interesting because I see a lot of women doing this now and I think it's super cool.

People love filet mignon or beef tenderloin or whatever but this is what you get from two whole cows.

So, that's why a cut like this is so incredibly expensive because it's basically ten pounds on one cow.

Yes.

That hanging weight would be?

750 pound hanging weight.

That sits you in a cow at about 1250 pounds and when you have a hanging weight of about 750 pounds you're only going to get about 400, 450 pounds of meat back.

Right.

Break these down.

Grab the tenderloins out and bring them back.

People love cow.

Actually, can I have one tongue?

Because I'm doing this thing tomorrow at Buy Local and I'm doing tacos and I thought it would be fun to do tongue tacos.

Beef tongue is something you really love or hate.

Typically if people don't know what it is they love it because beef tongue has more fat than any other part of the animal.

You can see here all that marbling right there.

If a ribeye or a strip had that much marbling people would literally freak out.

So, tomorrow I'm gonna do the brisket tacos and then I'll do some tongue tacos.

Okay, thank y'all.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, chef.

(Music plays) This is a bone in brisket and actually what we know as the brisket you'll see is right in here and I'm gonna come in here and uncover that.

Hey Vivian.

Hey.

I thought we were doing asparagus today.

I brought all this asparagus.

Is that all you got?

Are you ready for tomorrow, Warren?

I am.

Are y'all doing food or something?

I'm cooking brisket and tongue tacos.

I'm all over it.

Tomorrow there is a show at this new gallery in town.

The work that's being celebrated are paintings of Warren's farm.

My friend Joe Kavanagh and I are doing the food for the show and he's doing the salsas and the sides and I'm doing the meat.

Alright, so I'll see you tomorrow?

Oh yeah.

Absolutely.

We are gonna use a combination of short rib and brisket for this chopped steak.

Even though we are grinding it, it is very important that we use a tasty cut.

And short ribs and brisket both have an incredibly beefy robust flavor.

See all this really beautiful marbleization.

This is gonna give me a really nice combination of lean to fat.

And I'm looking for like a 75 to 25 fat to lean ratio and lots of times when you're dealing with burgers you'll be looking for an 80 lean to 20 fat, but we want there to be a little bit more fat in here.

And I'm really just gonna eyeball it, so it probably won't be exact.

I'm gonna add very little to this once I grind it because I really want the flavor of the very fresh meat to shine through.

The whole point behind this hamburger steak is to have very freshly ground beef.

So we don't want to grind so much so we don't sell it all in one night because if we grind the beef and we have it left over tomorrow it's not going to be freshly ground beef.

I'm really trying not to overwork this.

I want this to remain light and fluffy and airy and for all of these fat globules to remain in tact so that when it renders out it's like eating a steak.

It's not like eating a hamburger.

(Music plays) Let's really try to get this right because when I told Ben I wanted to put it back on the menu I had to fight for it.

You know, I love this dish but Ben is not a fan.

Not because it doesn't taste good but because we've had trouble with temperatures.

You know, when you cook ground beef to medium and you cook a steak to medium the appearance of it is slightly different.

Cool.

Okay, so we are doing something that we have done before but in a different way so this hamburger steak idea or chopped steak.

Instead of making a traditional gravy I made a red pea and caramelized onion gravy.

So what it looks like is gravy, but what it is is a bean puree.

Okay?

Anyway, you will take a temperature on this.

One of the big issues we've had is on medium or medium rare steaks in the middle and we have more rare pieces that a medium eater will not eat.

We'll just have to see how it goes.

This makes you smile.

Everybody real quick.

If you look at the book we've got 160.

Everybody get mentally ready.

You'll be very busy from the get go.

(Music plays) This is the best like hamburger steak from when you were a kid.

If you order that I would probably do it medium rare, but we can cook that to your liking.

I'm gonna have the chopped steak.

Chopped steak, yes sir.

So the first thing we're gonna bring in two minutes is a chopped steak medium, okay?

Heard.

No matter what these other projects are that I have going on like writing the book, the realities of our restaurant always rear their head and people call in sick and I'm going to be expediting tonight.

Alright ordering two chopped.

Got another chopped med well.

Three minutes, can we bring a chopped med rare and a medium?

Yes.

Alright, ordering a chopped med well.

Somebody do something.

So Ross wanted me to let you know that we're gonna have 8 chopped steaks coming through.

He tried to push other things but everybody was dead set on getting that.

Alright, ordering 8 chopped steaks.

You get all your side working and I'll make sure you have everything else working.

Just make it right.

This always happens.

The first night a dish goes on the menu the servers get really excited about it, they sell a ton of it and then you have a line cook who's inexperienced at cooking that particular dish and you're forcing them to do it over and over and over again and that's all you're selling and sometimes we struggle with that.

Do I need to 86 the chopped steak?

Are we gonna be able to execute it?

I'm trying to Portland to show her how to do the rice so we can get this going.

This is what you gotta do.

Make sure the pan is really hot.

Put the rice down.

They want a med rare and medium.

Med rare and medium.

So you got medium, medium, med rare, med rare, medium.

Medium's here.

That's med rare right there.

We got em.

I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay.

I'm not like thrilled but uhh...

Okay.

So I'm waiting on my chopped med rare.

Med well.

Chef, I got some steaks.

Steaks up.

For you sir, a chopped brisket with beef fat rice.

I think this is the best meal I've had here.

So good.

Amazing.

86 chopped steak.

86 chopped steak.

86 chopped steak.

(Music plays) Well, we definitely didn't grind enough beef.

We'll have to do more tomorrow for sure.

How many did you make?

32.

They sold out already?

Yeah, there was 8 in the wine shop alone.

Wow.

Haven't lost your touch have you, chef?

It's just stressful.

It's too stressful.

It's a young person's job.

You're 37.

Suck it up.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I have a steak and... What's the brush for?

Oh it's for you or me.

(Laughter) Whichever needs it, but I think yours looks good this morning.

Thank you.

(Music plays) I have two major beef memories.

One, every Friday night my mom and dad and myself would go to the Baron and the Beef.

My dad would get a steak and a baked potato.

My mom would get a steak and a baked potato and I would get a piece of hers and a Shirley Temple.

That's a good memory.

My other memory is every now and then my mom would make something she called cubed steak.

Basically, it was a cheap cut of beef that she breaded in a little bit of flour and pan fried it and then made a gravy and we had the gravy over rice and that is an even better memory.

So, how do you start?

I salt it on both sides and pepper.

Some people put their salt and pepper into the flour.

I think that it's better to just go ahead and salt the cubed steak.

I would agree with you on that mom.

What about seasoning the flour a little bit too?

Well you can but I don't think it needs it.

Okay.

Then we're gonna...

I dredge it lightly.

It's called cubed because the tenderizer makes little cube shapes in the beef.

Let's put the oil in there.

How much oil?

About 4 or 5 tablespoons.

Because of where this meat comes from on the cow it's not tender so I put it back in here after I make my gravy and let it cook really slowly for about 30 minutes or more.

Oh really?

I made this for Theo and Flo one time but I didn't do that step and it was very tough.

Okay, get some water.

More water?

And gravy is one of those things that makes southern food southern.

Put the lid on it and let it continue to cook.

So Mom, how long are we gonna let this go?

30 minutes or more.

You know, tonight there is an art show.

We are doing tacos.

So I cooked this brisket overnight.

I'm going to have to shave this really thin to make 100 tacos.

So, we probably need to check this.

I think the gravy looks perfect.

I love that it's not so thick and it doesn't seem like it's all flour.

It's amazing that's just water and pan drippings Mom, what's that?

This is steak and rice and green beans.

I don't want any steak, daddy.

Well, you can eat some rice.

The rice is good.

I want to eat the rice.

Okay.

You can eat the rice.

As you can imagine I have done everything in my power to make my children eat what I want them to eat but Flo...Flo eats what she wants to eat.

I didn't want the brown stuff inside my rice.

This is what we're having for lunch.

(crying) Stop.

Stop.

You're going to thank me one day for this, I promise.

(Music plays) One thing you do need to think about when you're slicing brisket and several other steaks is how you cut it and you want to cut it against the grain so what you see are a lot of little short fibers rather than going long ways because this would be very chewy even though it's been cooked a long period of time and it's tender and this will be less chewy, actually not chewy at all because of the way it's sliced.

So, this is a cow tongue that has been cooked for several hours.

I'm gonna slice it really thin in an effort to make it more palpable for someone who's not a tongue lover.

You don't like tongue, Kim?

I would probably try it to make chef happy because she's all about trying new things.

See it just looks like a really nicely marbled piece of flesh.

For a long time it was the Ben and Vivian show in downtown Kinston, but in the last few years a lot of other people are looking at our downtown as a place to open businesses.

It's very very exciting.

I'm Vivian.

Hey, I'm John Silver.

Oh awesome.

I think you really got her expression here in the large one.

I love this one too where it looks like she is telling Warren what to do.

She's the boss.

Oh she is.

No question.

She is.

Hey Warren, don't you look spiffy?

I know.

He does.

Brisket or tongue?

Tongue.

Tongue.

Tongue, okay.

Okay, so are we ready to make one?

Okay.

(Singing) ♪ I stand alone on this lonely highway.

♪ I never dreamed life would turn out this way.

♪ Every town I've been in, it feels like home.

♪ Don't know what I'd do...

It's delicious.

It's great.

If you had told me nine years ago that I would be drinking beer brewed in Kinston and serving beef tongue tacos at a gallery downtown I would have laughed in your face.

But I am.

And these Kinstonians, they are loving that tongue and the art.

(Music plays) For more information on A Chef's Life visit pbs.org/food A Chef's life is available on DVD.

To order, visit shopPBS.org or call us at 1-800-PLAY-PBS.