Joel Hoekstra: Bite and Sound

Joel Hoekstra (cook, musician, owner of Meyer Music) hosts Aaron McCall for dinner as they discuss creativity, instinct, and finding room to breathe inside the things that matter most. He gets into the connection between food and music, how growth comes from pushing beyond structure, and how both create joy, healing, and a real sense of community when they’re done with care. As a music education advocate, he speaks to the importance of access to music and why it matters. They talk about creative freedom, cooking as expression, and the version of yourself that starts to show up when you finally feel at peace.

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This episode is supported by:
Creative Mornings Grand Rapids
Merchants & Makers
Revue
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Writer/Producer/Editor/Host:
Aaron McCall
aaronmccall.net
IG: @aaron_mccall
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Co-Host/Sidekick/Photographer:
Joe Matteson
themattesons.co
IG: @joe_dustin
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Music:
"Noises" by Mike Mains & The Branches
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Support the Podcast:
Buy Merch
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Follow Bad Idea Social Club:
badideasocialclub.com
IG: @badideasocialclub

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Sometimes when you're home by yourself, you want to put the party music on. It's a real thing. It's a real thing. And you need to feel good and you need to feel that energy because you need to get moving a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

You gotta throw those hips around.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Absolutely. I was blasting the pop music out there. Just absolutely blasting it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

What were you playing?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Uh Carly Ray, because that's always the go-to.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Unapologetic Carly Ray Jeffson fan.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

I don't know that I've ever changed in front of you before.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Oh, that can't be true.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

I that I mean it is shocking to say it out loud, but I just I don't know that I have.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

I know that you have. You probably don't know that you have.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

I just got a very strange. I know that you I was gonna say, I just got a very strange erection I'm not familiar with. It's very good.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Hey everybody, welcome back to Bad Idea Social Club. My name is Aaron McCall. And I'm Joe Madison. This time we packed up the gear and made our way to see Joel Hoekstra. Uh Joel co-owns Meyer Music uh here in Grand Rapids and is wildly passionate about the impact of music education, but he's also a chef of sorts. Um he doesn't work at a restaurant or anything like that. Uh he does it for the love of the game. We actually set up in his kitchen so uh so he could show off a bit while we chatted. We talked a lot about the commonalities uh and parallels between music and food and how they contribute to the fabric of who somebody is and how they experience the world. Um but but you know what I think is is really interesting, Joe? Yeah. When I have these conversations, it's usually just me and whoever I'm talking to.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Nobody else in the room.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

But it seems to me that when there's a nice meal on the table or or something delicious to be consumed, look who shows up, just happy as shit to be there.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

I'm a straight up rodent. I'm an opportunist. If there's food laying out, I'm gonna pull up and I'm gonna do something to help, but I'm gonna be there. I gotta say, I love that about us. Very excited to fill that role. Um, yeah, that point of those two things being interconnected had me really thinking back and going back to like the very beginning of me getting involved with those two. I'll call them hobbies, but I know they're so much deeper, and it's more than that. Um, I used to stay up late to watch Food Network, Emerald Legacy specifically, and then I used to wake up early to catch as many music videos as I could before school. So I like would condense my sleep window just so I could get as much Food Network and as much music video as I could. And I think that like really, like you said, I think that deep rooted into my psyche.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah, I mean it has to, right? Like uh for me growing up, like food wasn't necessarily like a like a uh like an experience thing, right? Until my until like my uh my grandma and grandpa on my on my mom's side got really serious, you know, Christmas morning or any any anytime they would they would show up for food, it was like they fucking showed up. That's cool. Um but music was like celebrated around my house.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

And your house celebrated music for sure.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Oh, and and and so did yours, you know? Yeah. Um I think my relationship with music is is not just that it like even today, it like works its way into every single thing I do. You know what I mean? Like the only time that I don't have music on is if we're we're doing this because it's gonna make editing a fucking nightmare.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Yeah, right. You know? But you're still a little bit itchy. I'm still kind of itchy for it.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Like I want to bop a little.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

You should have one AirPod in under your headphones. Yeah. I think I just came up with a good fucking idea. I don't think you did. I'm all out of love.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

You're listening to air supply.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Before we dive in, don't forget to follow wherever you're listening. Leave a five-star review, and don't forget to tell your friends.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Also, this this thing runs on merch sales, listener support, and reviews. So please head over to Bad Idea Social Club. Pick up a t-shirt. Shipping is always free. Um done with my spiel. Here's my here's my conversation with Joel. I like your uh I like your vagina rag.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

These are oysters.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Thank you. They should be shockingly like vaginas. Sweet in a good way, kind of salty in a good way.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

If you can get a little horseradish in there, perfection.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yeah, a little marinette or whatever. I don't see it. I don't know what that means. It's the it's the shallot vinegar mix.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Do you still have like the dream of uh the oyster bar? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

We're gonna talk about that. Ask me those questions.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

There is a dream, and it has changed to a logical one. Are we actually doing this now? It's been recording this whole time. Yes. Again, edit out. Remember, it's work related. I got you, baby. And also, welcome to my house. Yeah, thank you for having us. I'm I'm glad I can cook you dinner. It makes me really happy uh to do so, and it's fun to do it with the podcast. So, what are the the long-term vision of what do I want to do when it relates to food? I would like to have something where I can remain creative, and I don't see a day-to-day restaurant giving me that room. I have so much respect for people who own restaurants because they pretty much have to live by a couple factors. What does the customer want? So, right, you got to cook certain things that are gonna move and sell, and then you got to live also in a practical space where you got to buy product that's price points and things that actually are gonna work, and maybe there's like a uh a number of things that you can or cannot do. So, in general, a restaurant to me doesn't feel like I could stretch my legs very much, and then the next layer is just the realities of staffing and dealing with yeah, you don't actually want to run a business, you just want to make it currently, right? It's I mean, right. I already know that what that looks like, and I'm currently very blessed to work in one that generally speaking is a you know favorable hours. Nine to five is a pretty normal work day. And you own a restaurant, you're the inverse. You're gonna be running it when people want to be out, and that's when I want to be out. But the creative outlet, I think, and I've been having a lot of fun doing this, is the side work of it's not even work, it's just having the opportunity for people. People have been asking me to do some dinners or would uh doing a graduation party or some things where I get a lot of joy out of that because one, I can get an idea of what they want and then I can stretch my legs on it a little bit and make food that's exciting to me. Maybe add a little flair. Um, we did a graduation party for super good friends and able to make, you know, not just a barbecue sauce, but why not three? Why not just do a bunch and just see if you're a sauce guy. I'm a sauce guy and see if any of them stick or if people really like them, or and it's fun because you get to try different things. You don't have to worry about did the inventory turn, did you did you make a good financial decision, right? That sort of that sort of space.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

So it can be about the craft.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

That's right, and having fun with it. And I enjoy having the opportunity to be creative in that sense.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

Well, it's funny.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

And it wasn't how I cooked early in my life. No, not necessarily. You know, I think you got to build up enough skill set where you feel good about it. And if you don't have the confidence that you're gonna go in the right direction, you you're gonna probably have some stuff that tastes wrong and weird. Sure. One of my really early ones that I can think of, always super inspired by Rick Bayless' PBS show. Maybe you've seen it or not. Um he had his his PBS show about his travels through Mexico, his restaurants in Chicago. You see the frontera stuff at Meyer, etc. Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Huge, huge empire of food, right? So Rick Bayless had some cookbooks of his early on, and he had some cool dishes that I just love making. And I was like, what if I made that into a pizza? What if I took this stuff and I made it into a pizza and I did it, and it was almost inedible, like painfully spicy, which made no sense because I'd made it like as a salsa, and then I used it as a sauce, and it was like, it's all wrong now. And you just don't know until you try some of that stuff, and you realize the ratios have to be the ratios, they have to be sustained. And you just can't kind of flow with things until you have a pretty good idea of what works well and how much of each thing is gonna have to be needed to work well. And you also still have to be willing to take some risks and be like, that didn't work out at all.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

It's can you can you pinpoint the moment that you realized that food was the uh uh the avenue where you wanted to put your creative energy?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Oh um, I don't know if I ever had a good avenue for my creative energy. And so once it started to develop, that was just a really enjoyable process. Mid-20s, 30s, probably.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Um, just really started looking at food differently, probably to a point of everywhere I went, every time I ate, just really interested in what people were doing, how it tasted different, ingredient options. Um, and then over time, I just really enjoyed making food at home, testing that. And what I've found, and this is definitely true for me on a creative outlet or just a maybe just on a how do I put that like a release, that necessary release, you know, the opposite of work, right? Yeah, right. Like just that flow state where you can enjoy things is I don't like cooking a recipe. I don't think that means I believe recipes are wrong. They're a recipe for a reason. They probably are the best way to make something, but I don't personally like cooking that way because for me, that does it binds me back in and I can't get into a comfortable flow state.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Right. So you need a little bit of flexibility, you need a little bit of room to breathe.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

I gotta know enough about what's going on in my sequences to just kind of have it in my own psyche.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

And it took me like 15 years of cooking to get there. Really? Probably. That seems about right. Yeah. So like eight, nine years ago, it really started to click where I could cook without having a book open or referencing my phone. And I think that was a big shift for me where it really started to become more enjoyable. And then I could let creative energy kind of take over and I could design plates differently, and I could think about the layers because I wasn't really trying to follow something, I was just in it, thinking about what I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yeah. Man, I feel like when um when I kind of think about you, I think food and I think music, right? Because you, you know, you you own uh Meyer Music. Um, is it is it is it based out of Grand Rapids? It is.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yeah, our our store location where we use is our address is in Grand Rapids, and it's always a tricky company because we service schools all over the state. So, yes, if you want to go visit our retail store, we're in Grand Rapids, and a number of our families love to take advantage of that opportunity. But really, we're a we're a store-to-school service operation. So uh over the years, uh, I became the owner of the company in 2018, and alongside our co-owner, we developed a model where we'd always been school music specialists, but we really just took that to another level. We got rid of a couple things, even though we like those things. I mean, for example, I play guitar personally, but we no longer sell guitars or what in our industry we'd call combo equipment. That's the drums, more of the rock and roll type music. We no longer sell those. We didn't feel like we're good at it. I like being good at stuff. So does our team. And so, as we were geared towards more of that band and orchestra side, we got rid of that product. We got rid of the private lessons in our buildings.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Not because any of us wanted to see lessons change. We almost every single one of us, myself included, took private lessons while we were students in school. But again, we didn't feel like that was our best space. We didn't feel like we could be the best and the experts at it. So we opted to move away from that. So we became school music specialists to the best possible way we could. The vast majority of our business happens outside of our building. So I like the question of where do you do your business? Like, well, our business is located in Grand Rapids, but we service schools down to St. Joe in the southwest, Monroe in the southeast. No kidding, all the way up to Manasee, Cadillac in the north, and in and most of our schools that we work with are in the Greater Grand Rapids area. But we're servicing schools all over the state of Michigan, and we really are passionate about taking our energy, our love of music, putting it in your community, giving you the best chance to make music in your school where your teacher is working so hard to make that a possibility.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Man, what do you think? What do you think that means to those kids who who you are kind of supplying access to music and and and music education to?

SPEAKER_01 14:03

I and as a former student, I don't think they realize how unique it is.

unknown 14:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

How about that for a thought process? We almost don't realize what we have because we have no alternative view. So one of the things that I think is very important in the United States, we have music as part of our curricular day. We are the pretty much the only place in the world that does this, where we have music part of the school day. Most other places they're gonna have music outside of the school day. You take private lessons or you work with a tutor or something like that. We've decided, and I think this is exceptional. No, we're gonna part of our day, we're gonna make music.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

If you sign up for this class. So it could be band, it could be orchestra if your school has one, or it could be choir, it could be even physical arts. I'm gonna add that in there, right? The art classes. We're making that curricular in the United States, which I think is amazing, but it's not an accident. So to answer your question, I think most kids don't think much of it because they're like, yeah, cool, I do this and it's part of my school day. We have done a great job of making it an expectation that this is something that students can access. But I can tell you that's not an accident. It's not something we can take for granted. We have to fight for this all the time.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

And why do you why do you think music education, and I guess arts education overall, why do you think it has to keep justifying itself?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

I don't think we often recognize the relationship between how the human brain works and the role art plays. We want everyone to be good at math and science, understandably. We have concerns that if we fall behind one of those categories, we're not prepared for our best selves. But I think we take for granted what role music plays in helping with that development. I was actually pretty shocked. I was, I was kind of came in again, part probably due to I follow a lot of things in education. Um, there was an individual, a doctor, he was reporting to the Senate. I want to say Senate, double check that. But his whole conversation with the committee he was reporting to is that for the first time in their research, this generation has less cognitive skill than the prior. That's that's like literally in like a hundred years of doing this research, we are seeing cognitive decline for young adults. They're tying it directly to the amount of time and energy students are on screens, for example.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

I was gonna say that's gotta have everything to do with their.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah, right, right, yeah, right. Cover our hands and all the stuff we had to learn. And like students are just coming into the classroom with a whole different level of technological understanding compared to what we had when we were in our middle school and formative years. They don't need that support. We almost have to undo it, slow it down, give them something tactile, yeah, right, and give them something completely different to allow their brains to expand and explore, and that's a pretty exciting thing.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Well, that's huge, especially with like as as fucky as AI is getting. You know what I mean? It's like the fact that people can just plug stuff in and have I'm gonna call it music for lack of a better word. Yeah, right. Same thing with art, I'm gonna call it art for lack of a better word. It's I don't think it's actually either of those things. Um, it's just the ones and zeros and bullshit stacked on top of each other. Man, if it it feels like it's more important now than ever for these programs to be in schools.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

There's certain music that's very easy to recreate via AI, the formula-based music.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

It doesn't mean that it's bad per se, but it doesn't expand or explore. It ties back to what we're talking about before. That's fallen to me, that's following the recipe. The recipe exists, it will be good. Why? Because it will be good. Yeah, but it doesn't, it's not risky, it's not interesting, it doesn't have an edge to it or a perspective, uh, but it hits what people want, which is why I'm noticing with some of the AI-produced music, I'm like, it's perfect for background music.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

It's so neutral, but that's already been happening with so much of our music anyway, even before AI. Every music genre seems to be, if you're looking at the popular space, especially, it's all merging to essentially the same sound. We used to have such distinct sounds in rock and roll, distinct sounds in country music, distinct sounds with uh places like pop music, even was separated. But now it's all essentially it's like homeite. You can you have so many songs with the same beat, same concept, same genres, right? Overlapped into these sounds. So I think AI just naturally just hopped into that train. But no one's ever gonna say that was the best song of the year. Right. Or that pushed the boundaries. I certainly hope not. Well, it just won't. Uh and if it does, then that's a benefit to all of us because, like, cool, we're producing better, more interesting things faster, but I don't want to be afraid of it, although I do get anxious. I get a little anxious too. But it's like I don't want to be afraid of things that are positive. It's just when we're seeing that being vanilla, it's like, well, that doesn't help us. It didn't necessarily hurt us. It just took streams away from the vanilla artist anyway. And I'm like, hmm, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

I feel like too, when I look at music, like you can very much like look at music created in the 60s, and you can say that that was created in the 60s, that was created in the 70s, 80s, 90s. Correct me if you think I'm wrong, but I feel like once we got to like uh 2000, 2010 or something, at least popular music kind of stopped progressing.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Correct. And you can't tell what genre it is anymore. Yeah, that's kind of what I was talking about.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Yeah, and it's the same thing. And and I feel like this isn't gonna make it better.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

I wish I could remember the name of the book. It's a great book, history of music uh in the last 50 years for like a number of genres, but no question. The movement of sound over time and the benefit we had of that sound evolving, and I do think it still is, and I think we actually have more of it than maybe we've ever had access to ever before.

unknown 21:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

What a positive thought process there, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:24

Yeah, but like quantity over quality isn't necessarily the move.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

No, but I'm just saying there's more artists than ever before that can be found because of our access.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

And there's a lot of artists that would have never even been heard that might slide into somebody's algorithm and therefore becomes a little more popular and then maybe can even have an expansion moment, which is pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

I always I like that. I like that. Sometimes like, well, I didn't get to see the underground person. I'm like, well, they don't shouldn't be underground, their music's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Yeah. This episode is supported by Creative Mornings Grand Rapids, our local chapter in the world's largest face-to-face creative community. Creative Mornings believes everyone is creative and everyone is welcome. Their monthly lecture series is free and spans over 240 cities across 69 countries. Visit Creative Mornings.com to see what's going on with your local chapter. And by Review, West Michigan's Arts and Entertainment Guide. Find out what's going on in the world of local music, art, dining, events, and more with print magazines at over 500 locations, a weekly newsletter, and online stories at ReviewwM.com. And by Merchants and Makers, a collective of local artists, makers, and small businesses, Merchants and Makers puts on markets across West Michigan connecting people with real artists and makers at events that include food trucks, live music, and local shopping. Visit merchantsandmakers.com for information on upcoming events and how to get involved. Something that I found really interesting is that between food and Like those are like two of the most communal inventions from humans ever.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Yeah, definitely. That's probably one of my passions with food. Makes people happy.

unknown 23:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

You know, if I'm and again, it's just been some exploration. And I think long term, my hope is to be more of that private specialized work for people. Yeah. It's not being a chef, it's being a cook. It's taking advantage of skills learned over time and creating a space for people to have a great experience. And I that that communal aspect is just, it feels really good to bring people together, watch them be joyful. We had a chance to do that for my sister, and it was super fun. We had the chance to make food that I think really hit what she loved and her friends loved. And so this is my fiance's with me. She was working more like what we call like front of house in that situation around doing the plating. And it there's something to be said about the music's on, and they are just laughing and having the night of their life. Or at least the night of a while. You know, it's like maybe not another one.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

It's like the food was pretty good. The food was again, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

I would say the food was great. I really did take it seriously. I thought about it for a long time, and again, it hit that creative edge. I was able to try some new things, repeat a couple dishes, which that is not my norm. I usually don't repeat a lot of the food. What'd you do? Uh that meal was uh Italian inspired. She has always wanted to go to Italy, and I know they will at some point, but it was kind of this idea, let's bring them Italy in January. I love it. Yeah, it was super fun. Uh started with a crudeau that involved a lot of different ingredients I'd never made before. That one felt risky. I kind of warned them ahead of time. I'm like, I don't know, guys. I think it's gonna be really good. And interesting, the one guy gave me perfect feedback because I totally agreed with him. He said, I think it needed more green apple. And I thought I totally agreed with him because the one that I ate, my leftovers had all the leftover stuff and it had way more green apple compared to his. And I was like, You're right. I ate mine. It was right, it was right. The ratio was better.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

You do okay with the criticism?

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Yes, I used to not because I don't know what that was. You know what I mean? Being younger.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

I don't fucking like criticism. I'm 41 and I don't like people being like, Well, you should, it should have been red.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Yeah. Fuck you. I used to definitely not handle it well. There's certain days I probably still don't. Um, I also have just come to realize I again I have enough confidence in what I'm doing to be like, it was good to me.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Yeah. I mean, I mean, and that's kind of really the way it was good.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

It was good to me. And I'm usually the things they say, I'm like, I actually have already thought about that with certain aspects of it. And then why not try to take the feedback and maybe hear someone out? And it's a different palette, it's a different experience.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Um, I I like dinners that have multiple courses so that if it's a little bit of a whiff for one person, it doesn't matter. We got another one coming. Yeah, that's the danger, obviously, with like the big one thing. It's like, and I'm doing one thing today, by the way. So it's either gonna be good or it's gonna suck, and we're gonna deal with it, right? And I'm just gonna tell you it's great. It's not gonna be bad. That was what we talked about before. I know it won't be bad, but there again, it's a new dish. It's it's got a concept, it's a fun story. Tell me the story. Tell me the story. So I talked to you the other day, and one of the things I really enjoyed doing, I didn't get all the way through all the dishes, and that's fine. That first dish for the the meal we made was probably the most out there, and then the rest was just really trying to hit foods I know she wanted.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Um, in this case, we talked, and one of the things I really enjoyed doing is thinking about what is something special. You did you talked about it earlier that uh food is very communal, it's very celebratory, music is the same way. So it's like making someone food to me is well, who are you? What do you want? What's your story? So remember, I asked you what are a couple important things to you, like when you were growing up, what would be a meal? And you told me spaghetti. Yeah, I love that. Tell me a little bit, tell me a little bit more about that in this conversation.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

It was kind of the go-to, right? It was like uh it was it was cheap, you know what I mean? It was delicious, and uh, dude, I remember it was always uh spaghetti with like red meat sauce. Uh basic. Yeah, very basic. Um, you know, out of a jar, ragu or whatever. Um, and uh there was always white bread and butter. Okay. Just sliced bread and uh glass of milk. Okay. And that was like that was a pretty standard about once a week?

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Regular enough that it's almost like no one's surprised.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Right, yeah, yeah. Like, uh, yeah, uh, but it was like also one of those, it's like, oh fuck, dad made spaghetti.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Yeah, it's gonna be good.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Yeah, we're fucking with this.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yep, today's gonna be good.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Um, and then the the the really special thing is that my mom would my mom was I say was, she's very much alive.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

My mom is is is uh But this is when you were younger, yeah. Was in that sense, makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Yeah, she knows her way around the kitchen, but not everything she did stood up. But man, her pot roast, it was like when she busted that thing out with the with the with the potatoes and the carrots and the onions and the that was man, that was where she shined.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

That's the celebratory meal. Yeah, right. That was it. The bigger deal, maybe someone was coming over.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Yeah, or if you know, like or if like I go home now for for like uh birthday or something, it's like we're making pot roast.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Yeah, right on. Yeah, right on. So I made you neither of those things. Awesome. But I worked, but I sort of made you both of those things. Yeah, I I don't know what that means, but I am excited. Okay, so what I did is I I had beef cheeks that I've had in my freezer for a while, and I didn't know what I was gonna do with that.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

Also, a new nickname.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Yeah, yeah, cool. Perfect. Uh so had beef cheeks in the freezer. I went and I know I wanted to braise them in some form, had no idea. I just picked them up at the butcher when I was there because I was like, cool, you have beef cheeks and they're in the freezing section. So I just grabbed them. Uh when you told me, because you you had told me two things spaghetti and the pot roast. I was like, perfect, beef cheeks, that hits the pot roast side, right? We're talking slow braised beef, we're gonna get in that space. Uh, the spaghetti side, we're gonna do be eating more of a um an Asian noodle dish that is those braised beef cheeks that I braised in. I it was like 10 onions. So this is caramelized down now, down to just a puddle of beef, shiitake mushrooms, and onions. Yeah. With a number of different vinegars and sauces that I wanted to add into that. I also, when I was gone last week, we were traveling, we were in France. This chef made a dish that to me felt like he had made French onion soup and he'd fused it with a lot of different of those aromatics, specifically, tasted like lemongrass to me. So I wanted to tie in what I tasted last week into this dish. So there's a lemongrass component in here. And because those onions have caramelized down all the way down there, essentially French onion soup level, they're gone. They're just in here. They're just oh, I love it. And so, and we're gonna add then this. I'm gonna chop this basil up. I'm gonna add these green onions. So we're gonna boil water, should be getting there pretty soon. It's in process. We'll boil those noodles up, we'll toss it in that braised beef, which is again your not spaghetti, not pot roast. Yeah, but kind of both. That's too many. It's just way too many.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

I just can't get tested. You know, something else I love about the combo of of music and food is I think in a lot of ways it can be really healing.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

It is actually very interesting right now because of the nature of the podcast. I don't have music on with you right now.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

I know.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

And and that's okay. That's just very abnormal in this home. There's going to be music on pretty much every time you walk in, or most of the time when you enter the house. And this topic actually came up with someone who was doing some work here, and they're like, they had they had said to me, Wow, you listen to pretty calm folk music. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, it makes me feel good. I'm trying to stay calm. It's the middle of the work day, yeah, and I was here so that they could get into my house and I was doing things that none of it was actually making me feel calm. So I had calm music on, and and then he was like, Oh, I usually listen to like higher energy music, you know, keeps me going through the day. And I said, I totally get that. You know, sometimes you need that pump-up music. But I did ask him, is it positive for you? Does it create positive energy for you? Or does it make you make you more agitable? So the power of music, right? Sometimes we want to be agitated, sometimes we need to be calmed down, sometimes we just want to be bopping and feeling great, right? Because we want to have that party energy. Music will get you there in a hurry.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Is that a conscious thing for you, or or is it something that just kind of uh the the type of music?

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. What am I in the mood for? What mood am I trying to get to is important to me when it comes to that energy. And the type of music that I listen to is always gonna have that movement. I like that. I like that at a party you can feel different. I like that when you're at home by yourself, you can feel different. I like that all those things can be true. Sometimes when you're home by yourself, you want to put the party music on. Party one. That's a real thing, it's a real thing, and you need to feel good and you need to feel that energy because you need to get moving a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

Yeah, throw those hips around.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

Yeah, and we all know this, but this happened like two days ago when it was 65 and sunny. You absolutely I was blasting the pop music out there. Just absolutely blasting it.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

What were you playing?

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Uh Carly Ray, because that's always the go-to.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Unapologetic Carly Ray Jepsen fan.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Love that.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

She's amazing. And she, for whatever reason, had that monster hit, and then everyone thought she was a one and done. And it's like a lot of her best songs came after that. She continues to churn out great music.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Okay, so there's your there's your Aaron's. Oh man, Joe, get that. Get a shot of that. I'm in there.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

There's Aaron's pot roast. So real talk, you know, it's like, how do I feel about things? I don't love the mushrooms in this. I'm gonna be curious how you guys feel. I actually don't wanna, I probably shouldn't even have said that because I'm now potentially moving the needle for you guys, but don't be afraid to be like, I like the mushrooms in there. You know, that's not gonna hurt my feelings one way or the other. I just feel like it might be hiding that caramelized onion flavor I was trying to create. There's nothing that's a lot of onions. There's so many onions in there, they're not there anymore, they're just brown now.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

I'm into it. It's not gonna suck. Hey, let me take this baby for a spin. Yeah, it's not gonna suck. It doesn't suck. Wish it didn't have mushrooms in it, though.

unknown 33:30

I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

What do you think though? They're strong. I honestly I don't think they're as strong as as I took as you were leading on.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

I took like 75% of them out. Oh, really? Yeah. One of the other things that terrifies me about a restaurant. Yeah, terrifies us on the right thing. When I think about a restaurant, and it it would still be true if I was doing the private cooking, like legitimately doing that, where I was charging for it, etc.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

But I don't want to have to worry about so much certain aspects of like, did I store it right? Where do where did it come from? Yeah, right. I mean, I get why we have those rules, but I also am like, that's stressful. Like, I'm I'm gonna do this right for you guys. I don't want anyone to be hurt by my food ever because it's that's not cool.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

But that's also like a terrifying notion.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Yeah, it's like man, how about respect for the restaurant industry? The things they have to do with there. Is that like a quick pickle? Uh, I wouldn't even call these pickled, I'd just say I'm trying to cut them a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

They're they're I want them raw. I don't quite want them pickled, but that vinegar and that acid is gonna take an edge off of them. So they don't they still might give us flamethrower breath, but at least we have a chance here.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

But I also want them to taste very shalloty. Yeah. Like I don't want them to taste cooked because we have again, like just a catastrophic amount of caramelized onions in here already. So same thing in free onions. We're just going to cut those. We don't have to cut those. That lesson was free.

SPEAKER_03 35:02

Alright.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Joel, are you drinking a beer too? I am. Are you drinking that one? Well, are you gonna drink this same beer though? No. Okay, got it.

unknown 35:14

Okay, got it.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

I'm not. Okay, very good. Joey, why don't you put that camera away and grab your food and pop over here and enjoy it with us? I'm gonna do it. Dude. You know what's funny is that like I watch like a lot of like uh like food stuff on Instagram. So do I. And then like when you see someone take a bite and they go, Oh, this is I'm like, you bitch. You're like, you're just doing the same thing over and over, but that's literally just the reaction I just had.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

I liked your reaction, made me feel good inside. Oh, good. I can handle the criticism, but I definitely prefer the this is really good. That's always better. I love that. Okay, so I'm gonna talk about it here for a second. What I like that it really hit, it does feel very much like pot roast to me. Weirdly, because we're eating a noodle dish, but it feels like that that beef cheek, that's killer. I've never used beef cheek before. That's really good.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Dude, this is outstanding. Thank you. If anybody's watching on video, I mean you you can see how good this looks. You can see how good this looks.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

I like that a lot.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Good. I like it as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

I do need some of this.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

But I didn't want it to be a mushroom dish. Yeah. I wanted it to be a caramelized onion dish.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Oh, perfect timing.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

I think I'm blacked out now. Can't even see it. Yeah, you are. We'll get it fixed.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Did that fix it?

unknown 36:45

No.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

This is what I like to do. Easy girl. Completely off the dome. Never made it before. But yes, I've braised meat a bunch of times, so I'm not scared to do it.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Like I know what I know what to do to make the components. It's like, are the components gonna get happy together?

SPEAKER_02 37:03

Alright, we got some lights, ready to go topic happy?

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah, give me a second.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Alright. Quick thing, real sharp turn. Okay. When you're gone, what do you hope people say about you? Oh, that's the first question. That's the first question, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

So when I'm gone, what do I hope people say about me? That I was kind.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Fuck, we're not using lights.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

We're here still.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

And I was reliable. I don't know if that's important to everybody, but I want to be really known as a reliable person. And it's not that I've always been great at that all the time. You know, but that would be a true thing to be remembered by. Also, whatever happened to Jimmy Stewart at the end of It's a Wonderful Life, I want that done for me. Not asking that much. I'm not asking that much. I just want everybody in town to show up and give like a couple bucks to charity and my choice. And somehow end in the equivalent of me who's still alive crying every time. Sure. That's all I want.

SPEAKER_02 38:05

Finish the thought. Okay. Creativity requires freedom.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Freedom of opportunity, space, the ability to breathe. Yeah, whatever the opposite of, again, I go back to what I was talking about earlier where it's like the recipe is correct, but it constraints. What would your last meal be? Oh man, it's gotta be pizza, but that's probably wrong. Maybe a taco. I don't know. That's terrible. Gotta be pizza.

SPEAKER_02 38:33

Um, what is the worst or the best advice you've ever received?

SPEAKER_01 38:38

Man, I've had so many good people in my life give me good advice. Hard to narrow to a best. Um, I thought this was good advice. This has always stuck to me. I had a teacher I was teaching with, my first job was in education, and he had already gone through an entire career in the New York City area in finance, exited that career, moved out with his family to Arizona. So essentially he was retired teaching economics. And he said everybody, when they're young, should live in New York City or Chicago or San Francisco. And I lived in Chicago area near suburb. L Line still ran their city, right? Um, I lived there for two years, and I think he was spot on. It is different living in a major city of that nature and feeling that. So that's like an interesting one, right? That was a good, yeah, interesting advice. Like, hey, you're gonna decide what you want to do with your life. And I'm out in Yuma, Arizona at the time. And he's like, you should live in one of these three cities for a while. I mean you have to live there forever, but you should go feel that.

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

And it was, it was different. It was it was a different experience to get up at 5 30 in the morning just so you could get on the highway and it wasn't jammed up.

unknown 39:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

And some people be like, I hate this, but I loved it. I was like, look at all these people doing stuff. Yeah. Right? So there's two ways to look at it like, oh, I gotta get in that. It's like, but look at everybody doing stuff. And so now, if anything, at this stage in my life, I might actually have more of an inverse where you kind of careen towards the comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

That created more of a you had to have an attitude of gotta get this. I like that. Good advice. It was interesting. I don't know. I don't what was your exact question? Best advice or best or worst. That was I'm gonna call that an interesting piece of advice I once received. And I'd like to share that with those of you listening today.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Love that. What would your walk-up song be?

SPEAKER_01 40:26

If I'm messing with the crowd, I'm probably like bony bear. Because I would love it. Like it's a little which I'm probably not messing with the crowd, but I'm probably this came up again. I'm probably doing Carly Ray. I'm doing Runaway with me, Carly Ray.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

What makes you what makes you feel most like yourself?

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Probably being on the water. I love being on Lake Michigan. I love being around Lake Michigan. I know we've had some chances to be on the water together.

SPEAKER_02 40:55

You're my you're my boat friend.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

Yeah, yeah. And I'm really grateful we have what I would describe as a great, reasonable boat that allows me to not worry so much if I bump it on a dock or put it on the bottom and it fits people and we can go out and have fun. But Lake Michigan is really, really important to me. And that's no surprise where I live. Yeah. And so the ability here to get into the woods and walk. I did it today, actually. So, you know, you just go when your exercise can be part of where you want to be. What a great feeling.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Yeah, God, that's killer.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

It really is. And so I I definitely take advantage of that as many times as I can.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

Do you have any regrets?

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Always. Don't we? All uh yeah. Do I have any regrets? Um wow, that's not a great life mindset, though, is it? And I try, I do try, uh, and that's an act of choice to not live in that mindset, even though I know I can fall into that trap. So if anything, I can dwell in that too much, and I've noticed that as I've aged, I have to intentionally accept the path forward.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

That's not an easy, that's not an easy place to get.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

No, but the path forward gives us a chance to then make best decision now going forward. So if I chose door one, and I probably should have chosen door two in retrospect, giving myself enough grace to say, but at the time, with what I knew and what I had access to, I made a right choice, or at least I made a decent choice. And giving myself enough grace, you know. I think you have to do that. And I think that life has taught me that.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

That's so awesome.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

So, yes, of course, we all have regrets, but don't beat ourselves over it. That would be my bit of advice. Don't beat yourself up over it. Move forward. Move forward, make the best of where you are, make the best opportunity out of where you got.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

Last question I have for you.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

That's it. I don't want to be done with questions.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

Questions are. I know it is fun. But are you okay?

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Yeah, very good. Probably best I've been in a lot of years.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

You know, I I don't I don't want to cut you off, but I do want to say uh I've known you for about a decade-ish, on off. Fuck, maybe, yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy. That just blew up my whole brain next time. But I understand. Yeah. But I'll say the the the Joel Hochstra I'm looking at right now is the happiest version that I've ever seen, and I fucking love that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

Yeah. There's no follow-up, there's no story there. I just wanted to say it.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

No, and maybe that's why, you know, why we're here, and I feel good cooking. I'm not so worried about it. You know, I can put my heart into it, and I'm like, it's gonna be good. Because I feel good, right? If we can let ourselves feel good, we produce our best product, it's not easy. We're still gonna have you just ask me a second, you know, we're still gonna have regrets, we're gonna still have things we wish we did different, but and maybe it's just the product of you know, you live just long enough, you start realizing maybe I should ask for forgiveness or be kind to a person that I maybe did something to a little faster, right? Things clean up differently, you know, feel good about it. So, well, thank you for the kind words though.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

Well, yeah, that's what you get for being a it's because I sped you the noodles.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

It's the noodles, it's more of a noodle thing than anything. And one of the things we've learned today, everybody, is if you give Aaron noodles, he thinks you're great.

SPEAKER_02 44:17

That's I mean, that's that's black and white, one plus one equals two.

unknown 44:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. All right, man. Before we get out of here, um, where can people find what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 44:29

What I'm doing. Oh, that's uh, I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. That's such a great question because you have so many people on this awesome podcast where you can tell them, point them towards things. I'm currently, and I have at least one person that has me doing a dinner this summer. Um, so for me personally, I don't really think I'm ready to launch that whole concept. One, I'm still working full time where I'm at. So let's tie back to that. Here's my thing that I Hope everybody does. If you got a young person in your life and they're hitting that grade, whether it's fifth grade at your school or sixth grade at your school, where they have a chance to start in a band or orchestra program, I can't encourage you enough to have them try. It's okay if they don't stick with it. We obviously hope they do, but just give them a chance. Maybe it's not your normal family legacy. We have we have hundreds of families who tell us we have never done this before, we have no idea what this is about because we didn't play in school, and we tell them it's okay. One, your teacher is gonna be your teacher, and that's gonna be great. And two, we've got you. We're gonna make this as easy as possible. That's our role, right? So that's my thing, probably is where can you find me? Don't worry about me. Help your kids play music because there's joy in it and there's fun in it, and it'll help expand their minds in spaces they and and hopefully find relationships and friends they've probably never thought they could make relationships with. So that's my pitch. Find that.

SPEAKER_02 45:52

Amazing, dude. Thank you for having us over to your home. Yeah, thank you for making us a delicious meal.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

Yeah, pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

Thank you for having me. Let's get out of here. Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:03

Eat more noodles.

SPEAKER_02 46:12

Bad Idea Social Club is an independent podcast made possible by merch sales, reviews, and listener support. And is created and hosted by me, graphic designer Aaron McCall, and co-hosted by photographer Joe Madison. Music is noises by Mike Maids in the branches. Get Bad Idea Social Club wherever you get your podcasts.