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PAUL:

Above all else, I consider myself a storyteller, whether it's through words or art or music. We all convey our stories in different ways. And today's guest puts his tales on a plate.

Hey, it's Paul Wolf with a front row seat to conversations on culture from Jackson, Mississippi. We call this podcast Soul Sessions. It's the people, places and events that make the City With Soul shine. Today, in our season four opening episode, Chef Damien Cavicchi.

The co-owner of Hal & Mal’s and Campbell's Bakery talks about his love of telling a Mississippi story. We had a conversation in the fall during the Community Foundation for Mississippi's first ever Friendsgiving. And so I've been excited to have Damien on since that night to share our commonality and our love of good food and a good story.

DAMIEN:

You know, I think people love a story. I remember at the Biltmore Estate, everything there was referencing something from the past, whether it's a recipe or a tradition for using certain ingredients, ingredients that had been grown on the estate. And so I really look at that as, for me, it's to get started, like writing a menu or thinking of a dish, that's a great jumping off point. It's a kind of like going to a city and experiencing, like outside of Jackson, for example, and like the lower East side of New York, so much history there is just a jumping off point for inspiration. And then going on trips and then coming back and like, being kind of stuck on a menu and then gone on the trip and experience something. And, just the menu writes itself.

PAUL:

My wife, Sophie and I have gone on so many trips in the past 11 years and we always enjoy the culture and the music and the food wherever we are, but we always come home talking about the people that we met along the way.

DAMIEN:

Yeah, I agree.

You know, and I think in the South, we've got plenty of stories to pull from. One of the great things about food is that people have a relationship with it, what's been done in their family, what their grandmother used to make, what the traditions are. It's always fun to riff off of that. For me, it's so much easier to get started that way than just saying ‘okay, well, what's in season right now and what do I feel like making?’

PAUL:

Yeah. You told me a story before about quiche and I love how this ties into what you do at Hal & Mal’s. Can you share that?

DAMIEN:

We had a gentleman that was in his seventies that made really great quiche at a place that I worked at. And then he was about to retire. So we had him train somebody else how to make that quiche. And, we talk about him all the time because, I think I told you this, we had a food processor and that was one of the things he used for the quiche. And he was always fascinated with the food processor because he worked in kitchens at a time where there was no food processor. So, we still make that quiche at Hal & Mal’s today based off of how he, what his recipe was.

PAUL:

What's the name of that dish?

DAMIEN:

It's on the menu as the J Hobson Quiche of the Day. J Hobson is Jeff Hobson, one of our cooks, and he's the cook that trained with Mr. Miller and learned how to make the quiche from him. And so I just let Jeff make whatever quiche he feels like making that day, but it's in the style and with the recipe of Mr. Miller.

PAUL:

Now, because of that story, I think I have to order that quiche at some point, right?

DAMIEN:

I remember standing there at the, we call it the Robo Coupe, but the food processor, like the heavy duty one. And he would, Mr. Miller would say, ‘this is like having another cook in the kitchen. This thing does so much work.’ And he was just fascinated with like how it could chop stuff. This really made me think like, wow, I'd never thought to appreciate the food processor. I just, you know, throw the garlic in and let it rip. And I had never worked in the kitchen in my career that didn't have a food processor.

PAUL:

I think a great way to illustrate how you use stories to influence food is that the Community Foundation Friendsgiving event where we talked, I just remember the dishes you created, maybe at first glance on the menu, they didn't go together, like a Chana Masala sweet potato? And then, the more we talked about it, you come to the realization that the spices or the ingredients all fall along the same latitudinal lines.

DAMIEN:

Yeah, you know, there's an old saying like what grows together goes together. It occurred to me years ago that I was getting into the food of India a lot and the complexity with the way they use their spices and how Indian food to me, it doesn't really matter what the protein is or there's a protein whatsoever because it's a composition already. But yeah, so like India and, say, Mexico are very close on that, the lines of latitude, so, but the way they use coriander and cumin and cilantro is very different. Once I think you learn the foundations of the specifics of India or of, you know, Latin America, it is naturally almost, it starts to overlap a little bit with the ingredients and the way you use them. It was fantastic.

PAUL:

I think I told you at the end of that meal, the one word that I used to describe when food is just so good that I can't say anything else, it was ridiculous.

DAMIEN:

Well, I loved the salad. I remember growing up in New Orleans and going to the Whole Foods, the food bar there with my mom. And she was all into healthy foods. And so it was just such a difficult experience as a child to go have to eat the salad bar at Whole Foods with alfalfa sprouts and vinaigrette. That salad dish that we did, though, was all the things that I could think of that as a child, I never wanted to eat, you know, just raw broccoli and spicy greens. And then to further, you know, tie into the story mom always put a wooden salad bowl at the table and you had to finish your salad or you didn't get any enchiladas. So we have this love hate relationship as an adult with, you know, with the salad somewhat.

But yeah, I mean, a lot of those ingredients, most of them were from Two Dog Farms and they were in the ground, you know, the same week. And I think some of the things I had requested and he was like, ‘well, I don't know if it's going to be available.’ And I was like, ‘well check it’ and that just makes your job easier. As, as a chef is - the ingredient is already delicious and your job in some way is just to not mess it up.

PAUL:

That's a great way to transition to talk about you buying a legacy. You and your wife and partner, Mary Sanders, Ferris Cavicchi, buying Hal & Mal’s. There's a tradition that you've got to protect there, but I have to say as a fan of Hal & Mal’s then and now, you all have elevated it.

DAMIEN:

I have a lot of respect for the history of Hal & Mal’s. You know, it in itself is one big story. I read the book that Malcolm wrote as we were in the process of buying it, read it all the way through. Then, you know, it really connected me with Hal & Mal’s. As a food destination, I think that we definitely want to keep it true to its roots, but also layer in things that are contemporary. And so we've done that with brunch, put some things on the menu that maybe I haven't seen around Jackson. My hope for Hal & Mal’s as we get into 2024 is that we can become a food destination and be in the conversation and have some foods that are conversation worthy, that are, that are exciting, but also culinarily sound.

Brunch has been a really great success for us and that's one of our more creative menus and so that's really the direction that I want to take with dinner and also with lunch. But yes, we will still have a gumbo and Poboys and red beans rice always.

PAUL:

You'll keep old fans and make new ones too. And we should mention as well that Campbell's Bakery has experienced a resurgence thanks to you and Mary Sanders. You also own that place too, a Jackson treasure.

PAUL:

Yeah. About the same time as we got Hal & Mal’s, we bought that, the bakery. And I can't tell you how many, you've been talking about food stories how many people have come in there. One that sticks out was this woman drove from, I don't know, maybe an hour and a half out, and she had a boot on her leg or she had broken her ankle or something, but she drove herself with a boot. And she said, ‘I've had a birthday cake from Campbell's every single year since I was a little girl.’ And she said, ‘last year, I, for some reason, wasn't able to get one and I didn't have a good birthday.’

PAUL:

Oh no!

DAMIEN:

So yeah, she made a special trip, but there's a lot of stories and traditions around Campbell's where, if it's back to school time, people come in and buy tea cakes with the teacher and the holidays, of course, the amount of sugar that people eat. I really, I really appreciate that as the owner of the bakery.

PAUL:

Okay, Damien, I have to ask quickly, Jackson Food and Wine is coming up March 2 and you'll be a part of that. So what does it mean to have a festival of this caliber in Jackson, Mississippi?

DAMIEN:

I think it's so important that we have things to do in Jackson that resonate with the community, but also beyond the community that would draw people to Jackson to expose what's happening here and all the good things that are happening here. I think those of us that are, you know, in the city, we know what all the good things are that are going on here, whether it's food or the improvements with water or the police and a lot of people that are moving things forward in our city. And so for people to come out from outside of Jackson and see that, it's so valuable. And there's just staying on the map and staying on people's radar as a destination in the Southeast. I think that the food of Jackson, there's a lot of people that are going to be able to be exposed that need exposure. I think there's a lot of good things happening in Jackson with food. And so the more that we can get that word out there, the better, really excited for that.

PAUL:

My thanks to Chef Damien Cavicchi for today's conversation. I'll add links to Hal & Mal’s and Campbell's and Jackson Food and Wine coming up March 2. Hey, you better hurry and get those tickets. Those will all be in our show notes.

Soul Sessions is produced by Visit Jackson, the destination organization for Mississippi's capital city. Our executive producers are Jonathan Pettus and Dr. Ricky Thigpen and I'm our managing editor. You want to know more about what we do at Visit Jackson? You can log on and check us out at VisitJackson.com.

I'm Paul Wolf and you've been listening to Soul Sessions.

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