The focal point of this podcast episode revolves around the journey of Susie Bullock, the esteemed founder of "Hey Grill, Hey," as she shares her transformative experiences within the realm of barbecue. Throughout our discourse, we delve into the evolution of her passion for cooking and the intricate processes involved in recipe development, particularly as she navigates the challenges of establishing her brand in a predominantly male-dominated industry. Furthermore, we explore the significance of creating an inclusive environment that encourages novice cooks, particularly women, to engage with barbecue, thereby fostering a sense of community around this culinary art. As we unpack her insights, it becomes evident that the intersection of personal passion and professional ambition has been paramount in her success. In essence, this episode serves as a testament to the power of perseverance and creativity in achieving one's culinary aspirations.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. paintedhillsnaturalbeef.com
2. heritagesteel.us
3. bbqnationjt.com
4. oregondungeness.org
5. pigpowder.com
6. heygrillhey.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

1. Painted Hills Natural Beef
2. Hey Grill

It's time for Barbecue Nation with jt so fire up your grill, light the charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.

Now from the Turn It Go Burnett studios in Portland, here's jt.

This is an encore.

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the nation.

That's Barbecue Nation.

I'm jt, along with my co host and radio wife, as my real wife calls her.

Leanne Whippen hall of Famer, I might add.

Camaro, Dave, Chris, and the rest of the crew roaming around back there.

We'd like to thank Painted Hills Natural Beef.

Beef the way nature intended.

It's national.

Is it.

Did they say Ladies Month or Women's Month?

I'm sorry, I'm a little inept.

Women's Month.

Women's Month.

So that's what we're doing.

We're doing another one today.

We've got and very fortunate to have her, Susie Bullock from hey Grill.

Hey, and is that.

I gotta ask you, Susie, right off the top, is that kind of a play on words?

It seems like to me, because it

is a play on words.

There was very.

It's a very old pop culture kind of reference.

There was a character on a.

One of the early, like, reality TV shows on cable, and her tagline was, hey, girl, hey.

Yeah.

And it kind of became, you know, a thing that people just said.

So we kind of switched that around to hey, grill, hey.

And that's how it started.

There you go.

There's no Kardashians involved, right?

I don't.

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

Just.

Just checking.

Just checking.

Anyway, so you've had some great success with hey Grill, hey.

Let's kind of start at the beginning.

And how did you not just start, hey, Grill, hey.

But how did you get into.

To barbecue and cooking and all that stuff?

Yeah, let's take it.

Let's take it all the way back.

So my first daughter is coming up on 15 years old, and when she was about 6 months, I wanted something that I could do that was a little bit, you know, part passion project and could help bring in a little income to the family.

So I ended up getting a job with a blogger who wrote about deals and coupons and how to save money.

And it was really an effective way for me as a young mom living with a single income.

You know, my husband was working full time.

I would stay at home parenting.

And we had to figure out how to survive and support a family on one income.

Sure.

And, you know, this.

This deal culture was really beneficial to us.

And so then I was able to start working for her.

And I learned the back end of blogging, what the back end of a website actually looked like.

I had no prior experience in it or coding or development or content creation or anything like that, But I could just write about what I knew and what was helping my family and what we benefited from, and realized that that was something that you could do to make a living.

Because she was making a great living running this website.

That was really my first exposure to the world of, you know, digital media and content creation.

And I worked for her for several years and learned a ton.

And all the while, food was, like my passion.

That was, you know, feeding my family and feeding our friends and having people over and trying new recipes.

I was an avid blog reader.

I would read people's food blogs and what recipes they were trying at home and try to recreate those for my own family.

And so, you know, blogging was kind of this business side of my life, and food was kind of my passion side.

And I had an opportunity to bring the two together when a grill manufacturing company, one of their marketing professionals, worked in my neighborhood and said, hey, we want to digitize our library of content because we have all these old recipes, but they're all written in PDF format, and they're cookbooks that we give out when somebody buys the grill.

But we want them to be online because that's becoming more and more popular.

So if somebody owns this grill, we want them to be able to cook the recipes.

And I applied for the position, got the job, and it was this magic melding of two worlds where this thing that I love cooking and feeding my friends and family, married with this profession that I was learning so much about with online content creation.

And I learned how to write recipes for people, and I learned how to take pictures of food, and I learned how to cook bad barbecue by following a lot of old recipes, Because a lot of the recipes were really.

They were not written for beginners.

They were written for people who already had barbecue experience.

So they were using terminology that I didn't know or understand.

They were using techniques that I hadn't learned through my home cooking experience.

So it was really valuable for me to be able to take these recipes and convert them to a beginner audience and learn how to teach people how to cook barbecue if that's something that they didn't have experience with.

And at the time, there weren't a ton of resources available online outside of forums.

You know, a decade ago, there were barbecue forums, and you could go on and ask questions and it was like a little bit scary in there and a little bit intimidating.

And so I did a lot of trial and error and I coached a lot of, a lot of bad barbecue and a lot of good barbecue and kind of learned my own, my own style and my own technique and my own way of writing things in a way that was approachable and helpful to people.

And after I did that, for a couple of years, I'd been working from home.

It was the perfect job.

I could test these recipes, test them on my family and friends, try everything out, and then, you know, write up the recipes while the kids were sleeping.

They wanted to bring the position in house because the traffic to that portion of the website had grown so significantly.

They needed somebody full time.

And I wasn't in a position to go full time with my kids at home.

And I found myself jobless for the first time in like six or so years.

And at that point I got to ask myself, you know, what do I really want to do now?

Right.

I have all these different pockets of experience.

I know that there's an audience out there for this type of recipe, for this type of teaching, and I think that I can fill it.

So I.

Especially with women in barbecue because, you know, so many of us were new and getting into barbecue at that time without a ton of prior experience or family history.

I knew that I could write for people that wanted to step into that space.

So my husband said, go for it.

We lived without back to one income again.

And I spent $36 on my URL in my first year of hosting and then poured every bit of knowledge that I gleaned over the last several years into starting hey Grill.

Hey.

And that's been going for eight years now.

And we have over 600 recipes on our website.

We have complimentary app with all of our recipes on there.

We have an online barbecue school and community called the Grill Squad, where I get to be more in depth than what you would read in just a recipe card or a blog post.

And it's kind of a video style format that's really fantastic.

And we have a line of barbecue seasonings and sauces.

So it started with just me loving barbecue and sharing that with people in a blog format.

And it's grown into what it is today.

Wow.

Congratulations.

It's an awesome story.

I didn't know all of that, but I do think that you were one of the first, if not the first, to do that in a very successful manner.

And I mean, the branding, just everything you've done from the get go.

I mean, I'm sure, you know, if you've had some failures, but it sure hasn't shown that you've had any.

It's great.

I mean, it's always learn, adapt and overcome.

It's just like cooking barbecue.

Not every cook's going to go flawlessly and you're going to have to battle ups and downs, you know, throughout the process.

But the end result is usually worth the effort for sure.

Did you get any kind of pushback when you went earlier in your description of how this all happened?

You were talking about, you know, you were familiar with ancient hieroglyphics, barbecue recipes, so to speak.

But did you, but did you get pushback from that kind of set of people when you started creating your own and you said, wait a minute, I we do it this way.

Or maybe you just simply gave it a better explanation and they kind of poo pooed it because you weren't of their world, so to speak.

I think that still happens.

Honestly, most of the barbecue community has been incredibly supportive, but there are always people who, I mean, even with the type of smoker you're using, still have opinions of that's not true barbecue or that's not real barbecue, or that's not the way my granddad taught me.

And barbecue is such a personal experience for so many people, especially if there's a family history of it.

And regional barbecue is so uniquely defined based on, you know, what was popularly cooked in that region.

So if I ever did anything that wasn't the same way their grandpappy did it, then, then I caught some flack, which I totally understand.

Food is so personal and it has so much love, but there are a lot of ways to cook the barbecue and most the community has been incredibly supportive.

And honestly, I'm not writing recipes for the seasoned barbecue cook.

I mean, they can come to my website and get inspiration and ideas and there's a ton of resources for them there.

But I'm writing for people who are, who want to have that experience and don't have that, that backlog of, of community or culture or family that walks them into this lifestyle.

I think there's a lot of power and love in sitting around the table and sharing food.

We know that breaking bread is so, so important.

And so that's, that's who I'm talking to.

I'm talking to people who maybe were intimidated or don't have that experience, but still want to be able to share that moment and that memory and that love with their family.

And so that's that's, you know, those are the, those are the comments that I look for because there's always going to be somebody, especially, especially on the Internet.

Are you, if you share anything on the Internet, there's always going to be somebody.

But by and large, the barbecue community has been incredibly supportive and you know, my audience and my readers that want new ideas and that want to see things done, you know, maybe in a different way or receive inspiration for something they haven't tried before, by and large they're really receptive and really supportive and incredibly positive.

It's been great.

Yes.

Well, the, the Internet, or Interweb some people call it, is like the Wild west, but kind of galactic style, you know, out there.

It's just, and you gotta have a shield now and again.

Yeah, yeah.

You gotta set the phasers from stun to like knock them off their horse type deal.

So it, it just works that this whole time you were doing this, you were talking about Todd, your husband, and, and supporting you.

Did he have any experience in barbecue?

I mean he's a guy, so that kind of, you know, they think all these guy grew up with his dad out by the Weber or something.

Sure.

Um, I mean I think both of us grew up with meals occasionally cooked on the grill.

But we're from Utah.

We don't have a huge barbecue culture.

There's not a big affinity for that low and slow wood fired cooking unless it's Dutch oven.

We are very good at Dutch oven cooking and we produce like national champions of Dutch oven cooking because that's, that's, that's kind of a heritage that we grew up with.

So we would camp a lot, a lot of outdoors.

So there was still like that, that fire element and that outdoor cooking experience, but it wasn't traditional old school barbecue.

Yeah, there you go.

We're going to take a break here, Barbecue Nation so our network affiliates can say hi and sell you something.

But we'll be back with Susie Bullock, founder of hey Grill.

Hey.

Right after this.

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This is an encore.

Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

I'm JT along with Leanne Whippen.

If you would like to email us, very simple, just go to BBQ Nation jt.com and there's a little drop down box there and you can send us a message or you can message us on Facebook or Twitter.

We have the show accounts, we have our personal accounts.

So it's not that hard to get with us.

Today we're talking with Susie Bullock, founder of hey Grill.

Hey.

Very interesting story about how Susie did this.

You know, you said at the end of the last segment, Susie, that the grill company just kind of dropped it off on your front porch, patted you on the head and said, good luck.

I've my, my own experience with that is that I've had that happen.

I've had a, a semi backup with two pallets with, you know, two grills on each one not assembled by the way, and they, and they whip them around in the back deck and they, the driver waves and leaves and you're going, now what the heck do I do?

You know, that can be intimidating in itself.

Yes, it can.

And honestly, I'm so glad that I had that experience because it was very indicative of what I've heard over and over again from people who have had similar experiences.

They, you know, they go to the hardware store or they go to the barbecue pro shop and they walk home with this brand new smoker because the salesman tells them all the amazing things that they can cook on it.

And they tried a sample of the chicken and they knew it was going to change their lives.

And they get at home and they go, yeah, what do I cook on it and how do I cook it?

I've never used anything like this before in my life.

Where's the preheat button that you have on your oven?

You know, they tell it was as easy as cooking in an oven or whatever the sales was for that particular grill that day.

And they're sitting there going, oh, no.

So I have to plug it in, I have to use the fuel, I have to, you know, all I have to manage the vents and all these different things that seem so easy to the person selling the grill because it is, because like I said, if you grew up in barbecue culture or you've been exposed to it for a while, it is easy.

It seems like second nature.

It's not something that requires a ton of explanation.

Right.

And until the person gets home and then they realize, oh, wait, I don't have any experience here.

This is a completely new arena.

I don't even know how to light it.

And so it's been really fun to have that experience, personally, because I feel like when people message me in that panic mode, like, what do I do?

I can walk them through those first steps.

And luckily, nowadays I feel like the information that grill manufacturers are providing is so much more comprehensive.

So, you know, you get a video walkthrough of, like, here's your first time.

Here's how to start it.

Here are the five steps you need to follow.

Like, it's.

I think that educational material is really catching up to, you know, the user's first experience.

But once they know how to turn it on, you better believe I've got a handful of recipes that I can suggest for your first time, because then once you get it fired up, then what, like, what are they going to cook on it?

Right.

So I've got a kind of a. I don't know if it's satirical or sarcastic question, not directed at you, but why is it?

Because I've.

I've had this experience many times.

I know Leanne has.

You're talking to somebody new.

They.

They just went to the Ace Hardware store, whatever, and they.

They got their smoker, and they followed the manual, followed the videos, and.

And I'll be danged if the first thing they don't want to try to cook is a brisket.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, and there's 18 pounds of meat sitting there.

They haven't really even seasoned the.

The grill yet, you know, or the smoker.

It's just sitting there.

And Leanne, how many times on this show when we've talked to the.

The.

The big hitters, you know, toughie.

And at the.

Well, the first brisket I totally trashed, you know, it was not edible, and maybe the first 10 were not edible, but that always just kind of.

That's an admirable goal, I think.

But you might want to start with something smaller, like a pork chop, you know?

Yep.

I don't know.

I think it's that.

I think it's that idealized version of what you get from this, you know, the store, because that's what you see in all the marketing materials.

That's what you see in all the videos.

Like, oh, it can do that.

I can obviously do that.

It can do that.

Yeah, I can do that.

But I will say, my first brisket.

I did my best, okay?

I did my very best.

I pulled the Texas crutch.

I did a tight little foil wrap on that thing.

I pulled it off when it.

I don't know, I thought it was done.

And that thing looked like an asteroid that had found its way through the Earth's outer atmosphere and pummeled towards the Earth.

Especially when I unwrapped the foil around it, so it was like this burned metal, and then inside was just this black hunk of sad beef, and it was like, oh, no.

Oh, no.

And I'd been cooking barbecue for a minute.

Like, I wasn't brand new, you know, and I was.

I was just following a recipe that I found online with terminology I didn't understand.

Insufficient tools and a big amount of overconfidence is what I went into that brisket cook with.

So it was a very humbling experience.

And, you know, I don't know.

So now if people ask me, I tell them to join the grill squad because I have a brisket class.

And it is so informative and so in depth that you should be able to cook your very first brisket and have it turn out edible.

I mean, you still might need to tweak things based on, you know, your smoker and your person, you know, all these things.

But, like, we should be.

We should be able to get you close now.

The information is out there now in a way that it just wasn't before.

But, you know, for people that are making that type of information available to you, you got to look for it.

You got to, you know, you got to follow people online.

Like, if you're going to get into barbecue, like, join the community.

We're pretty great.

People are really helpful and super nice, and they want you to have a good experience.

And, you know, we've made resources available online for you to have a really gratifying and successful experience, whether it's brisket or pork shoulder or whatever the case may be.

I do tell people all the time, like, start with the cheapest dollar per pound.

If you're determined to smoke a big hunk of meat, go for a pork shoulder.

There's a big window.

It's really forgiving.

It's a great place to start.

And dollar per pound, you're probably not going to die if it, you know, if it doesn't quite right.

And worst case scenario, you can always chop it up and put it in chili or something.

Like salvage a pork shoulder.

Leanne, have you.

How many people have asked you that regarding wanting to really attack a brisket right out of the gate?

And you.

That's the number one question.

Yeah.

You know, and even for me, it was the biggest challenge.

A lot of trial and error, and especially with the prices today, you.

You really don't want to lose that brisket.

There you go.

We got to take a break here on Barbecue Nation.

We'll be back with Miss Susie and Miss Leanne and yours truly after this.

Don't go away.

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This is an encore.

Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

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So go to pigpowder.com did I get all that in right?

You did.

Okay.

And I do.

I do ship it myself.

Yes.

That's awesome.

Yes.

Yeah, if I was on your level of products and shipping the amounts, I wouldn't be able to do it.

And speaking of which, does Todd still have a stay job or now because your business is like so big that you need help?

Like is he helping you?

I know he helps you, but I mean like full time now?

Yeah, he has been for about five years actually.

We've been working together.

And if anybody has met Todd in person, you meet him.

And you would not put him in an office with a tie and a shirt and slacks and dress shoes like you just the two images do not go well together.

And you know, he did the responsible thing.

We went, that was what we were told, go to college, get a good job, support your family.

And he did it.

And it was like slowly killing him because he is just not that guy to sit in an office every day.

And so it was a real motivating factor for me to get this business up and running in a way that could support our family.

Hey, grill.

Hey.

He still does actually our accounting.

So that's.

That's legal.

That's legal.

I know, it's so great.

And he has done a ton specifically on the product side of things because, you know, majority of my effort and time goes to what I'm really good at and that's recipe development and recipe writing and you know, creating recipes for people to cook at home and teaching.

And you know, our audience was asking like, hey, we're making your sweet rubber recipe at home.

Can we just buy it?

Like please?

It would we want the convenience factor of just having it pre made instead of having to make it all the time.

And so after enough of those messages, Todd was finally like, okay, fine, we'll figure it out.

And she did everything from sourcing bottles to finding co packers to labels and making sure that had everything on it.

And so from like a procurement and development side, he took all of my recipes and made them into something tangible.

And you know, we have the product line now because he jumped in and said, okay, let's go.

But when he first quit, we didn't have the resources to start the product company or anything.

It was just so that I could keep working on the website side of things.

So he came home and took over a lead parenting of our three kids.

And he was on the PTA school board.

And he knew all Tom's numbers for play dates and picked up preschool carpool and he did all of the, you know, the stay at home dad things for a good year and a half to two years before he came into the company as like, you know, more full time work.

Before that, he was just kind of working on the numbers part time and, and helping keep me afloat.

So it's been really awesome to have him come in, in more of a role.

And it's.

I don't know, it's the American dream, man.

It really is.

It really is.

Amazing story.

And to do it with my husband and for us to be able to build this together has been really, really cool.

And our kids, I mean, I don't even think maybe my oldest remembers the time that he went to work, but she's like, I don't remember him being gone.

I just remember him coming home for dinner.

But now that's weird because he's already home.

Like, they just, you know, they have a really cool upbringing where they get to see both of their parents at all events and, you know, it's been really awesome.

It's so cool.

That's very, very good.

Very inspiring story.

No, it is to, to be able to really stick to something and make it work, you know, and together without killing each other.

You know, I mean, listen, it's not easy and it's not for everyone.

And we talk about it all the time.

Like, okay, like it.

At some point, do we need to pull back one or the other?

You know, we're always reevaluating our position and our role and how much time we're spending in each thing and, you know, checking in, like, okay, how are you?

Are you overworking?

Are you under, you know, where are you at?

So it's an ongoing process and I imagine in the next few years it'll look different than it does right now.

But it's something that can evolve with us, which is really cool because it gives us the opportunity to self evaluate and to make choices that are the best for our family because that's what we started it for.

So if it gets to the point where it's like not beneficial, then we'd make that change in a heartbeat.

What happens, what happens when you have a disagreement?

I'm not saying fight.

I'm saying disagree.

Disagreement on a business issue.

Well, Susie wins.

No, of course.

But I, I was wondering if you did like rock, paper, scissors or what Just to.

It depends on the agree on the disagreement.

The topic of the disagreement.

So if it's anything, we kind of have our own little spaces.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So if we have a disagreement in, like, the product state or the product space that Todd's kind of overseeing a little or the financial side, then he usually wins because he knows more about that than I do.

If he comes to me with content stuff or video stuff, or I'm like, I win that one because that's my space, you know?

So, sure.

We kind of just have our little.

We work.

There's a lot of crossover, but we have our separate spheres so that we can kind of.

Everybody wins sometimes.

Yeah.

My wife and I let the cat decide.

That's probably a better idea.

Ms. Mavis.

Whoever.

Whoever's, like, she comes by and brushes or jumps on their lap.

You went the.

You win the disagreement, so it works out really good.

I. I don't win very much, but.

Because that's her cat, but, yeah, it works pretty good.

What's been your.

I mean, you started this.

You did it on a shoestring.

You've built it up.

But what's really been the toughest part?

Has it been continually developing recipes?

Because that can be a grind after a while, you know, especially when you said the.

The grill company dropped off a grill, patted you on the head, said, good luck, but we need five for next week, and you're going five.

It doesn't sound like a lot, but it is a lot.

It is a lot.

Yeah.

Yep, it is a lot.

And honestly, after, I mean, 10 years now of developing barbecue recipes professionally, I'm like.

I feel like I've done it all, but then I find myself in the kitchen or walking through the grocery store, and I see an ingredient that I haven't cooked with in a while, or I see a cut that I haven't cooked with in a while, and, you know, the inspiration comes back.

For me, that's.

That's my sweet spot.

Like, I love trying new recipes.

I love working on new techniques.

I love, you know, finding different ways to teach people in a way that.

That feels approachable to them.

So I've been lucky because that part hasn't been a difficult part for me.

The hardest parts for me have been, like, the psychological work that goes into being an entrepreneur and a mother and a wife, and sometimes all three within the same five minutes.

There's a lot of.

A lot of give and take with our family, a lot of give and take with our husband, a lot of give and take with our team members and our audience.

And, you know, I also get to be a manager and I get to be a boss and I get to, like, there are a lot of things, a lot of hats to wear and a lot of things to juggle.

The recipe creation part feels like a relief sometimes because I just get to be creative and I just get to put my creative hat on and focus and cook, which is really, like, what brings me so much joy in the business.

And, yeah, I think the hardest part has been learning how to grow an actual company and to make this more than just something I'm passionate about, but something that has value to a lot of people.

And Todd and I sat down years and years ago before he even quit, and we did a whole activity talking about why we were even doing this, because it takes a lot of time.

And I worked for a lot of years before I made any money, like hours, thousands of hours of work before I ever made a penny from the website.

Because that's what it takes sometimes.

And, you know, we just said, if we have to be doing this for the right reasons, it can't just be to grow a big company and a big business or whatever.

It can't just be to have the largest social media account or whatever it was.

And our purpose behind it was always to give people the same experience that barbecue gave us.

Because when we started cooking barbecue, like real barbecue, it changed the way that we lived, it changed the way that we cooked, it changed the way that we ate family meals.

Sure.

And the people that we gathered around our table, we all of a sudden found ourselves posting more and sharing food and breaking bread with people.

And that, that became our why, that became our focus.

And it stopped being about the growth in the numbers and started being about the purpose.

And so always keeping that at the forefront is something that we really have to work at.

Because it's easy to get distracted, it's easy to get stuck in the business side of things.

It's easy to get stuck in the follower count or the engagement or the comments or whatever.

And so, you know, it's effort to continually circle back to doing the right thing for the right reasons, and we've enjoyed the benefits of that work and that purpose and that intention because we keep coming back to it.

So even if the blog, you know, traffic slows down, or even if product sales dip or whatever, you know, we can circle back to our purpose and feel like we've still done something of value.

And that's really great and really gratifying.

And we love that we get to have that opportunity to show up for people that way with the work that we do.

It's really cool you're wanting to go ahead.

Sorry, I was just gonna say it isn't like you're just putting products out there to put a product out there.

I mean, you just recently won big awards in Orlando, which you can talk about.

Next segment.

Next segment.

I mean.

Yeah.

Oh, next segment.

Okay, I'll hold off.

No, no, no, no, no.

We, we do actually have to take a break.

And we'll be back with Susie Bullock from hey Grill.

Hey.

And Ms. Leanne, of course.

And I'll tag along and when we come back, we're going to talk about that.

And I've got maybe one or two other probing questions, you might say.

So we're going to, we're going to take a break.

We'll be right back.

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Hey, everybody.

J.T.

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This is an encore.

Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

I'm JT along with Ms. Leanne Whippen.

We're with Susie Bullock today from.

Hey girl.

Hey.

Her and her husband Todd run that outfit.

And I was gonna say that you are one of, I don't know how many, but it's not very many people that we've talked to on this show.

And I've been, I've actually been doing this show a long time and Leanne's been with me year and a half or something.

It's all good.

But that you stuck to your purpose in doing it.

You didn't worry about, well, you always worry about it.

You're concerned about it.

But the primary focus was your dedicated purpose into developing food and, and sharing and that type of thing versus just like, okay, I'm going to whip out another line of spices and throw it on the market.

And I think that's, I think that has served you well and I think it served your, your public and your consumers.

Well, too.

So that's just my take.

But I.

Like I said, I think in all the years I've been doing this, there's probably less than a handful that I could count on one hand that have stuck to that and not turned it into just totally monetary to try to make it.

So, anyway, it's really difficult because.

And I can tell you firsthand, there have been moments that we've had to recalibrate and we've had to circle back and say, what are we doing this for?

Because when you do what you love, a lot of people in the barbecue space, like, we love it.

And if there's an opportunity presented to you to make money doing what you love, of course, of course we're going to chase that.

Of course we're going to follow that line of, you know, hope to be able to do what we love.

But it is exhausting.

The grind is really exhausting.

And the hustle and what it takes is exhausting.

And so I personally, like, it's good for me to sit in it for a minute and to pause and to come back.

But it's intentional.

We have to work because it's so easy to get swept up.

It is so easy.

And I've been there, I've been swept up, and then all of a sudden, I find myself less fulfilled and the work that I do less enjoyable.

And if I'm edging towards burnout, it's not because I'm working any harder, but it's because I'm working for the wrong reason.

So it is something that we have to circle back to regularly and often with our team.

We have team meetings twice a year, and we always kick off those team meetings talking about our purpose and talking about our intention so that we're all on the same page.

But it takes work to stay in that place.

It's difficult.

So I want to ask you about your recipe development, and you were talking in one of the previous segments about, you're at the grocery store, you see something that you have never used or you haven't used for a long time.

I will give you my very short version of my own experience.

My mind goes way off, and it does.

And Leanne tries to reel me back in some days, but it goes off.

And I'll say, why can't I do, you know, peaches and chicken legs together or something?

You know, whatever it is, and it's all doable, but that's the way I look at things to say, I'm going to try that.

And if it works, then I'll you know, do it again, perfect it to my standards, whatever.

I want to know what your thought process is on that.

I have a really weird brain, and I didn't know that I had a weird brain until I got into this business and was talking to other people.

But it operates in a similar way.

I can.

I feel like every time I try to describe this, I come off like an actual crazy person.

But I can kind of taste things with when I'm thinking about them in my brain.

So, like, I know what each tastes like, and I know what I would pair that with to get the chicken that ends up this way, if that makes sense.

So there's a really awesome book, if you haven't checked out the Flavor Bible.

It's a really phenomenal book, and it talks about the flavor profiles of different ingredients and how they play well with other things.

And that book, when I read it for the first time, I'm like, oh, my gosh.

This is how my brain works.

And so it's really fun for me to be able to find an ingredient that looks like it's in season or sounds really great, or you see that awesome pork chop at the grocery store that day, and to be able to run through my index of different ingredients that I love and what I have at home or something that I would want to try and kind of start to hobble things together before I ever get home and fire up the grill.

So it's a really fun process for me.

That's why I said when I'm at my best is when I'm cooking and recipe developing and testing new things, because I feel the most free and the most creative, and that's where I have the most fun.

Leanne, your turn.

I want to know.

And you and I have talked about this kind of briefly off and on, but your process, too, about looking at.

I know you like risotto, so what do you do with your risotto that you add to or whatever or.

Well, it's very similar, even though you say it's kind of weird for you.

I feel like when you're growing up.

And fortunately, my dad, he was a pilot, and he flew internationally, so he would bring back some really unusual sausages or spices.

So I was fortunate to be exposed to different flavors.

And then being in food and beverage in the hotel industry for 15 years, you know, I was creating menus, and it wasn't.

And it becomes in your head like, you know, what flavors work together, and it's not something that you learn by reading, you know, a book, per se, but it's.

It's inherent to me.

So I know I'll go to the store and not know what I'm going to cook.

And I will look at, like you said, if it's an awesome pork chop or, you know, an awesome beef rib, I always go to the protein or the base first.

And then I build from that.

And again, incorporating seasonal and try to make it a little bit different.

You know, peach, like throw mint in there.

Not that I would do that, but I'm just saying I kind of build from my protein up just from what's in my head.

Yeah, I.

No, I think that's.

I think that's, for me, that's the right way to do it.

There is no right or wrong way, really.

But for my thought process and, and yours, Leanne, and yours, Susie.

I think you just look at that and say, what can I do with that?

That's a little different.

Get a different flavor profile.

Maybe I'm going to hot and fast it, or maybe I'm just going to slow cook it.

Maybe I'm going to put it in a Dutch oven, whatever it is.

But I think you have to kind of let your mind go because I've been accused of not having one.

So it's easy to let go.

But I really think that's.

You can get creative and enjoy it.

You can read recipes, but once you've been cooking for a while and you start to develop that, that sense of taste, that sense of flavor, that sense of adventure that comes with the confidence, that's when you really get to have a lot of fun with cooking.

Suzy, how can people find you, follow you, whatever.

Because we're kind of running out of time for the regular show, so.

Yeah.

How do they find you?

Social media.

Hey, grill.

Hey.

Our website's hey grillhey.com.

we have an app with over 600 recipes.

You can download it in the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.

We gotta get out of here.

Thank you, Susie.

Susie Bullock from hey Real.

Hey.

She is going to stick around for after hours for the abuse segment, but other than that, Leanne and I will be back next week.

And remember our motto here.

Turn it, don't burn it, and go out there, cook something and have fun.

Take care, everybody.

Barbecue Nation is produced by JTSD LLC Productions in association with Envision Networks and media Salem Media Group.

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