Mason Hereford - Turkey and the Wolf : Flavor Trippin in New Orleans [A Cookbook]

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks, Mom! You got four kids that are now adults and actually friends with each other, an amazing feat that I attribute fully to your superpowers. None of this shit would be happening without your support and the support of Will, Molly, and Saint. Thanks for thrifting all the tables, chairs, and cups we needed to get the restaurant open, and driving with them in a two-story pile on the back of your semi-broken-down pickup truck for fifteen hours in the rain to get them to New Orleans. And thanks for all the other stuff, too.

There are only two things that money cant buy and thats true love and homegrown tomatoes; and if I had to choose, fuck tomatoes. There aint nothing in this world without my wife, Lauren Agudo. Thank you for sharing your time with me in this lifetime. Plus, thanks for all the stuff you do to make sure the restaurants keep rolling down the track. Ill tell ya the rest in person. And thanks to our dog, Darla. Darla is just so great.

Thank you to my brothers and sister. Will, making a book with you as the photographer is a dream come true. Thank you for absolutely killing it, and for letting me use your K2 Fatty rollerblades occasionally when I still had TRS Lightnings, which is a pretty good metaphor for all youve given to me. Saint, I know your waist is slender, your fingers, they are small, but it would not make you tremble to see ten thousand fall in Super Street Fighter II on Sega Genesis. Thank you for putting a strong wit out into the ether for me to strive to emulate. Molly, youre the best Hereford. Thanks for inspiring an entire restaurant and helping me with everything Ive ever written, including papers in college when you were in tenth grade. And thanks for the free therapy.

The most massive thank you to Liz Hollinger, Phil Cenac, Kate Mirante, Nate Barfield, Will Mondros, Scotty Yelity, Bob ODonnell, Migdalia Pabon, Leticia Alarado, Michael Swade Swadener, Sarah Roberts, Mac Folger, Chris Lorio, Colleen Quarls, Daniel Bourgeois, Jess Stokes, Ian Willson, Andew Dupuis, Nadia, Brett, Gail, Caroline, Savannah, Amber, Josh, Mikey, Kevin, Miriam, Christin, Bronwen, Thelma, Wayne, and everyone else that has ever shared their world with Turkey and the Wolf and Mollys Rise and Shine. It aint me. You guys are it.

To Lauren Holton, Turkey and the Wolf would never have taken off without you. Your cocktails were effortlessly cool and so are you, and I know people didnt show up those first few months to see me, so I owe ya one.

To Via Fortier, the host of the party. Im not sure there are enough pages to list your contributions to the restaurants and to my memory bank of good times. Lets go out to dinner tomorrow. And thank your mom for me, for creating you and for all the recipes. Theyre pure gold.

To Kim Witherspoon and the team at Inkwell for believing that I could write a cookbook and then making sure some publishers did, too.

To the team at Ten Speed Press, especially Kelly Snowden, Emma Rudolph, and Betsy Stromberg, for buying that cookbook and patiently and thoughtfully helping me create something that Im really fucking proud of.

To JJ Goode for telling me I should write a cookbook and then actually writing the cookbook, even though you dont understand how to properly use the word yall in a sentence. Seriously though, I wouldnt have gotten down this road without you.

To Shavon for delivering smiles and bread and lighting up the room when you walk in and always wearing our merch.

To Leighann and Dan for making the bologna before you had a place to make it and then continuing to make it after you opened a busy-ass butcher shop that didnt need to be making it, and for being our pals.

To Toure Folkes for your friendship and for helping us grow.

To Dan Stein for being my light.

To Nini Nguyen for being such a good friend, for sharing recipes and pastry knowledge, for charting our path through Hong Kong Food Market, and for showing me my favorite parts of NYC.

To Ashtin Berry for your friendship, advice, leadership, lessons, shopping suggestions, and conversations over too many drinks.

To Remy Robert for expertly testing the recipes and providing much needed input.

To Matty Matheson for doing the all-caps things on Instagram, which I copied and probably helped me get a book deal.

To Joe Trippi and Zane Gould for teaching me to cook the first stuff I ever cooked. To Chris Shortall and Mike Stoltzfus for teaching me the second stuff I ever cooked. And to everyone at Coquette.

To Ashlee Arceneaux Jones for the lettering in this book, the eye for design, the order here sign at Turkey and the Wolf, the undertaking that was the sign at Mollys, and, most important, being my bud. I cant imagine how this book would look without you. Youre amazing.

To David Weiss for manufacturing the shit out of our white bread for us, for putting up with wild bread orders, and always having a backup ready to go.

To Michael Solomonov for letting me copy off his hummus and chicken homework.

To Ann Redding and Matt Danzer of Uncle Boons for providing endless inspiration to this fanboy.

To Leo Gonzales for the illustrations in this book and so many more. You crush so hard every time. To Kenny Cox for the murals at both restaurants, merch, designs, and half my tattoos, including the one that led to an FDA investigation of whether we were running a tattoo shop out of the restaurant. To Stewart Freeman for being the first ever Turkey and the Wolf illustrator and for that time you shaved your head like Friar Tuck and I laughed myself into astral projection. To Seth Fountain, Paul Portis, and Meep for amazing design work.

To Danny and Bonnies Seafood for having the best cracklin, to Rahman Mogilles and the McHardys team for having the best fried chicken, to Adolfo Garcia and La Boca for having the best steak, to Quoc Trieu and the Tan Dinh team for having the best fish-sauce wings and short ribs, to Tiffany Higgins for having the best crabmeat, to Nina Compton for having the best game nights (and food), to Prince Lobo and Addis NOLA for having the best beef tibs. And once more to everyone in this paragraph for being a supportive friend.

To the late Julia Reed for showing us what cool looks like and always being there for us.

To Ryan Pfeiffer, Elaine Marisol, and the Big Kids Staff.

To Tom Bielskas, our most reliable customer. To Brian Gibbs for being our most generous customer. To JJ Redick for being the regular customer thats best at basketball.

To Jennifer Coolidge for being so cool and so generous and so supportive.

To Kemper, Delia, and Mike Maupin for creating and running my childhood home base.

To Southern Solidarity for being there for our unhoused New Orleans neighbors.

To Michael Jordan, Steve Irwin, and Beyonc.

And finally to Robert Hereford, my old man. Thank you. Youre the reason I have a mustache. Youre the reason I always have Guy Clark and the Grateful Dead stuck in my head. Youre why I like drinking beer out of a small glass. My memories of you are a fucking blessing.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Mason Hereford is the owner (and depending on who you ask, sorta the chef) of Turkey and the Wolf in New Orleans, a counter-service sandwich joint that Food & Wine and GQ magazines, both called one of the most important restaurants of the decade. He also owns Mollys Rise and Shine, a breakfast spot nearby that Food & Wine listed as a Best New Restaurant in America. He credits any success to his colleagues who constantly inject their character into the restaurant. Mason was born and raised on rollerblades in rural Virginia; he now lives in New Orleans and will never leave.