
Dan is live on stage in Memphis with famed local restaurateur Karen Blockman Carrier! Karen grew up Orthodox Jewish in Memphis, and she wanted to be a painter. But after a chance meeting with a caterer in a smoke-filled bathroom stall in New York City, she decided to focus on food. Karen shares the twists and turns of her life, from a disastrous day working for Martha Stewart, to reinventing the Memphis dining scene with eclectic restaurants in an old Victorian home and a former hair salon, to a private chef gig for Tom Cruise.
This episode contains references to drug use.
The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O’Hara, Jared O'Connell, and Giulia Leo. Publishing by Shantel Holder.
Interstitial music in this episode by Black Label Music:
- “One Time” by Jordan Bleau
- “Crystal Light" by Aibai
- “Living Rox” by Nicholas Rod and Jack Ventimiglia
- “Cortado” by Erick Anderson
- “Blues for Anniebelle” by Ken Brahmstedt
- "Hennepin" by James Buckley and Brian Bradley Johnson
Photo courtesy of Dan Pashman.
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View Transcript
Dan Pashman: This episode contains references to drug use.
Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people, and we're coming to you live from the Buckman Performing Arts Center in Memphis! [APPLAUSE]
Dan Pashman: Very good, Memphis. Well done. Thank you all so much for being here. It's great to be here for our first live taping in the South, not counting Atlanta, which I guess is the South, but I mean, uh, I'm probably gonna have to cut that out, because I'm gonna insult people in Atlanta. That's, that's the South.
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: Um. Thank you all for being here for our first ever live taping in Tennessee. We'll go with that, okay? [APPLAUSE]
Dan Pashman: Hey everyone. Quick note before we get into this episode that we’re celebrating the South all month long here on The Sporkful! I recently took this road trip across Alabama and Mississippi, and I stopped to chow down at a bunch of gas station eateries -- something the South is famous for. I dined on chicken spaghetti, gas station sushi, and more. I met a lot of great folks along the way, and we will have that episode for you next week. Then later this month we’ll have a feature on legendary cookbook author Edna Lewis, then a story about a barbecue pitmaster and preacher in rural Tennessee. But today, kicking off our month in the South, we’re live from Memphis.
[APPLAUSE]
Dan Pashman: My guest tonight was born and raised here in Memphis. As a young woman, she moved to New York where she was involved in the art scene and opened Automatic Slim’s, a restaurant that's become an institution there. She returned home to Memphis and started a catering business, often cooking for movie stars who came to town for shoots.
Dan Pashman: Tapping into her art background, she opened a series of restaurants in increasingly unlikely spaces around Memphis, from an old Victorian home to a former hair salon. As ambitious as these restaurant concepts are, she's known to toss them out and completely revamp a place when she feels pulled in a new creative direction.
Dan Pashman: Today she's a fixture of the Memphis restaurant scene and the person behind the Mollie Fontaine Lounge, The Beauty Shop Restaurant, a music club called Bar DKDC, and more. Please welcome Karen Blockman Carrier. [APPLAUSE]
Dan Pashman: All right. You just got back from Jamaica.
Karen Carrier: Yes, last night.
Dan Pashman: Which I gather is a place where you spend a lot of time.
Karen Carrier: Since 1976, every year. And I came back for you.
Dan Pashman: Well, thank you.
Karen Carrier: I would have stayed another week, definitely.
Dan Pashman: Thank you, I'm very honored. What do you love about it?
Karen Carrier: The food, the people, I can go there and just chill out. When I get there, I kiss the ground and I take a drive with my friends to Negril, to the West End. And the rest is history. I can relax. I don't… I de-stress.
Dan Pashman: And has the time you've spent there influenced your cooking?
Karen Carrier: Oh, absolutely. I've worked with Miss Winnie. She was a squatter on the beach. Her son would come and help her bring her pots and pans from Little London, which is a place about an hour from Negril. And he would dig a hole in the sand and she would start a fire. She would actually make her own coconut milk, her own soursop juice, and put everything into like rum bottles and go sell them on the beach, and it was, it was unbelievable. She made patties for us and everything. Once I brought 16 staff from Slim's, about two years after I opened, which was the craziest thing that I ever did. And she cooked for us. Like one night, we got her to cook for us. It was amazing. And just a big communal table with all her food. And people were like, “What the heck? This is great.” But yeah, her food has influenced me for years and still from literally the seventies all the way to what I'm doing now. She's passed away now. But I'm telling you, she was amazing.
Dan Pashman: So we'll, we're going to work our way towards the present day, but let's go back a little bit. Let's go all the way back.
Karen Carrier: Yeah, it's a long way.
Dan Pashman: To 1952. You were born in Memphis in 1952.
Karen Carrier: Gee, thanks.
Dan Pashman: Okay. [LAUGHTER]
Karen Carrier: Thanks.
Dan Pashman: I mean, Karen, you don't seem like the kind of person who's going to try to hide your age.
Karen Carrier: No, right.
Dan Pashman: It seems like you're still rocking it.
Karen Carrier: Damn it, yeah.
Dan Pashman: So, you know, I think it's all good.
Karen Carrier: It is all good.
Dan Pashman: Tell me about the food you ate at home growing up.
Karen Carrier: I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, so we kept kosher. And my mother still keeps kosher to this day. So I never ate any bacon, shellfish. I didn't know what any of it was at all. So, I'll tell you a story. When I was at the Art Academy here in Memphis, it was an art school. And um…
Dan Pashman: This is like when you were in your 20s.
Karen Carrier: Well, actually, probably 19, 20. Yeah.
Dan Pashman: Okay.
Karen Carrier: And so I went to this place called Burkle's Bakery, which was now Overton Square. And it was a meat and three in a bakery. And all our art students went there. So the first year we were there, I think was like the first month, and we went there to have some lunch or whatever. And this waitress came up and she goes, “You know, what do you want?” I said, “Well, what's, what's catfish?” And she looked at me, she had teased red hair and her big eyebrows painted on. She went, “Sug? Where you from?” And I went, “I'm from Memphis.” She goes, “Well, what'd you eat growing up?” And I went, “Brisket, tzimmes, matzo ball soup, gefilte fish.” And she looked at me like I was from another planet. So yes, that's what I grew up eating.
Dan Pashman: Right, right. So did you get the catfish?
Karen Carrier: Absolutely got the catfish.
Dan Pashman: And what'd you think of it?
Karen Carrier: Excellent.
Dan Pashman: And you were like, I've been missing out.
Karen Carrier: Absolutely. And the next day I had some BLT. Yeah. I have a whole ‘nother story about the bacon situation, which…
Dan Pashman: Tell me that story.
Karen Carrier: Oh my gosh. I don't know if I should tell that story. Well, um, we were kosher, so there was no bacon in our house. But, um, my parents were out of town and it was… We had graduated from, I graduated from high school and we were having a party at my house and needless to say it was, you know, 1970 and there was a lot of things going on. And it was early in the morning and we were all waking up, and there was a ton of people there, and somebody said, “Oh, I'm going to cook breakfast.” I didn't think much about it. They started cooking breakfast. I came out and oh my God, they were cooking bacon. They had gone to the store and I'm like, oh no. Okay. So thinking, you know, my parents are out of town, whatever, but I knew I had screwed that house up. I mean, that was really bad. And so somebody goes, “Karen, there's somebody driving up the driveway.” I was like, “Yeah, you're crazy.” They were like, “Karen, somebody's driving up the driveway.” And it was my parents. And I'm like…
Dan Pashman: They had like come home early?
Karen Carrier: “Holy shit. What are we doing?” They came home early. And everybody left. They scattered like ants. They left me basically holding the bacon, you know, it was a mess. And I mean, it was bad. I mean, I had de-kosherized the home. And it was, that was really sacrilegious, it was terrible. She just looked at me. Just looked at me. That look could kill. I was like, I was wanting to run, but I had no place to hide. [LAUGHTER] It was messed up. But um, I had to uh, dig a hole in the backyard and bury all the pots and pans.
Dan Pashman: That's that's what you have to do.
Karen Carrier: That's exactly right.
Dan Pashman: That's the rule…
Karen Carrier: I hope my mother's not listening.
Dan Pashman: …if you dekosherize pots and pans.
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: So, another thing that you did growing up is you had a lot of family in New York.
Karen Carrier: Oh, yes.
Dan Pashman: So as a grade school, high school student, you would, uh, every summer go on family trips to New York City to visit other family there.
Karen Carrier: Absolutely.Yeah, absolutely.
Dan Pashman: Um, and I gather that one family member who had an especially strong impression on you was your Aunt Gloria.
Karen Carrier: Yes.
Dan Pashman: Tell me about Aunt Gloria.
Karen Carrier: Aunt Gloria was my mother's sister. They're completely opposite. So my family came from London after World War II and um, came over. Actually, they got to Memphis because the Belz family had heard my grandfather singing in London. And my grandfather was a cantor. So he came over and…
Dan Pashman: So that's like a notable Memphis Jewish family. They heard your grandfather singing in London, and they said we want him to be the cantor, who's the person who does the singing here at the temple in Memphis.
Karen Carrier: That's exactly right. And so that's how my mom, they all got here, and then she met my father, but the rest of them, my grandfather got a really big job in Jamaica Estates, Queens, at Hillcrest, and so they all moved up to New York. My aunt was a painter. She was an artist, and she was, she mesmerized me. She was just wild. Very, uh, very much in the late ‘50s, she did these big mosaics down in my grandparents’ basement. She would do them, they'd be 15 feet wide, you know. And I would just sit there and watch her, and… But her best friend was Nina Simone. So Nina Simone and her would take me shoe shopping at Bloomingdale's when I was a kid, and they were nuts. They incessantly smoked, and they were just horrible to the shoe people. And they, I'd sit there going, “Aunt Gloria, why are you being so mean?” “Uh, Karen, just, uh, no.” And, uh, okay, okay. They wore turbans on their heads. That's why I wear a lot of hats. You know, my aunt, she was always just really flamboyant. And I was, I just, I loved her. I couldn't get enough of her.
Dan Pashman: So Aunt Gloria, she was an artist.
Karen Carrier: She was a great painter, and a great, she was a great artist.
Dan Pashman: And did you, like, see her and think, like,
Karen Carrier: I want to be an artist. I want to be just like her. I want to look like her. I want to dress like her. You know, when you're a kid, that's sort of like a big deal, you know.
Dan Pashman: Right. In 1970, you went to the University of Oklahoma.
Karen Carrier: That's right.
Dan Pashman: And then to the Memphis Academy of Art. 1980, you're 28, you moved to New York to go to Hunter College on an art scholarship. But even with a scholarship, New York City is an expensive place to live. You realize you could use some money. And you happen to meet a woman who works for Martha Stewart.
Karen Carrier: Well, yes. Now, Sarah Jane's from Memphis. She's from Humboldt, Tennessee. And she had gone up and gone. She'd… I'd stayed in touch with her and said, I'm moving to New York. I'm going to start, you know, graduate school. And she goes, “Karen, if you want a job, you need to go to this New York restaurant school.” I did it for six weeks, 10 hours a day. They started you in sauces and butchering and catering. And, you know, mother sauces, so all French chefs that taught us. And I met all these people. It was just it… I loved it. I think it was also the family, everybody cooking together and really learning, and the taste. I just, it was fun. It was really, really fun. And I was learning something new, and I always like a challenge. I get bored, you know, as a painter, you get bored. It's another painting, you gotta start doing it. But yeah, so what happened was, Sarah Jane had been in New York for a few years. She was living in Connecticut, and she started working for Martha, and then she actually started running her catering business.
Dan Pashman: Did you ever actually work for Martha?
Karen Carrier: Once.
Dan Pashman: [LAUGHTER] Once? For how long?
Karen Carrier: One night. [LAUGHTER]
Dan Pashman: For one night, what did you do?
Karen Carrier: Well, it was actually the opening of her entertaining book.
Dan Pashman: Oh, that's the book that put her on the map.
Karen Carrier: That's the book that put her on the map and she brought all the press into her place in Connecticut. So I went up there, and she had me grilling smelts. Have you ever tried to grill a smelt?
Dan Pashman: Those are like fish that are like the size of anchovies.
Karen Carrier: That's exactly right. But it was on a rented grill. Well, rented grill grates are about this far apart. They're not little.
Dan Pashman: The gaps between the grates are very wide.
Karen Carrier: They just kept falling in, yes.
Dan Pashman: So all the smelts were falling into the grates.
Karen Carrier: They were all falling in. I wasn't getting anywhere.
Dan Pashman: You're like Lucy and Ethel on the assembly line.
Karen Carrier: That's exactly right.
Dan Pashman: Except with smelts going down the grates.
Karen Carrier: That's right. Putting them on, putting them on. And so, you know, anyway, it was like, what's going on wrong over here? I was like, “This is not working.” I said, “You need to put me in the smokehouse.” And she was like, “Excuse me?” So one of her assistants, they said, “Okay, that's great. She's from Memphis, put her in the smokehouse.” Perfect. I could hide. They didn't know where I was. Smoke other things. It was great.
Dan Pashman: Um, then you had another chance meeting. This time in a New York City bathroom.
Karen Carrier: That's right, at the Lone Star Cafe. So we were graduating. We graduated from the cooking school that day. And we all went out to have a big party. And there was a whole bunch of us. And I was in the bathroom. And I overheard somebody talking about… They were a caterer looking for some help. They needed prep people. But I also smelled something coming out of the bathroom. And I kicked the stall door open and went, “I need a job and what are you smoking over there?” And uh, so it was serendipitous. It was weird because…
Dan Pashman: Come on now, Karen. Did you really not know what they were smoking?
Karen Carrier: I knew what they were smoking. [LAUGHTER] Anyway…
Dan Pashman: So she's, so this, this woman's smoking a joint in the bathroom and you say, A) I need a job. And B) Can I have some of that joint? Not necessarily in that order.
Karen Carrier: Well, pretty much the other way around. I need the joint. And I need a job. [LAUGHTER] Exactly.
Dan Pashman: And she says yes to both.
Karen Carrier: Yes. And she goes, you know, tomorrow morning, come to this address. She wrote it down and on Avenue A and I got up and I went down there and oh my god I got out of the subway and I was like, what is happening down here? It was 1st and A back then. It was 1980. It was pretty little sketchy, right?
Dan Pashman: So Avenue A and 1st Street for 1980 was kind of like the end of the earth.
Karen Carrier: Yeah, it was it was a lot of you know junkies. And yeah, I didn't, I was stepping over people. I was like, are they dead? Are they alive? I don't know. I get to her apartment or I get to the place the door and I'm like buzzing, knocking, nobody comes. I'm down there 20 minutes. So finally I was like what the heck and so somebody opens a window and says, “Karen Is that you?” and they're up on the fourth floor or whatever and she throws down a, like a monkey sock with a key in it, you know. And I opened the door and I go up, there's rickety stairs going up and I'm like, “What the hell's going on?” So I get and there's this door is open on the third or fourth floor. Smells coming out of there and I'll walk in and she has all these little apartment size stoves all pushed together to make like a big stove, you know. And there were women from Belize and Mexico and they were getting ready to go to gigs and packing up and, and there was a guy sitting there making gumbo. And this is Tony Garnier, who has been with Dylan for 40 years now. He runs his band. He's a great bass player, but he, him and Susana. It's her and his apartment.
Dan Pashman: It's Bob Dylan's bass player's apartment.
Karen Carrier: Right. But he wasn't with Bob then.
Dan Pashman: Okay.
Karen Carrier: Okay. He got with Bob about three years later.
Dan Pashman: All right. And he's sharing the apartment with his girlfriend at the time, which, who is the woman that you met the previous night. In the bathroom.
Karen Carrier: That's right.
Dan Pashman: And that woman turns out to be Susana Trilling.
Karen Carrier: That's right, Chef Susana Trilling.
Dan Pashman: Who is, for folks who…
Karen Carrier: She's an incredible chef. She has a cooking school now in Oaxaca, Mexico, um, 35 years, and she had a PBS show, uh, she has a cookbook out, um, she was, she was brilliant, and she, became basically my mentor. It really changed my whole life because she said, “Karen, you need to quit graduate school. We're going to open a restaurant.” I was like, “What?” I said, “No, man, I can't do that.” She goes, “Oh yeah, you can.” And I did. Because it was a lot more fun with her than it was in graduate school. And I was like, you know what? You're right. I'm going to start doing this. This is great. And I just, that's what I started doing.
Dan Pashman: So that was really a moment when you…
Karen Carrier: Dropped out.
Dan Pashman: Right, but also that you, you pivoted.
Karen Carrier: I did.
Dan Pashman: That was the moment that you went from thinking, I want to be a painter and I'm going to work in food on the side to pay the bills.
Karen Carrier: Right.
Dan Pashman: To saying, I'm, the painting is going to be a side interest and my career is going to be working in food.
Karen Carrier: But you know what, what she showed me was that food was art. And it changed everything. The way it was presented. The taste. The composition. Everything sort of made sense to me. And also, I was really getting to see New York City. You know, we did unbelievable stuff. We did the opening of the Nile wing at the Met.
Dan Pashman: I mean you were catering Calvin Klein's 50th birthday.
Karen Carrier: That’s right.
Dan Pashman: You catered parties for the director Mike Nichols, where Carrie Fisher and Paul Simon were coming. They were married at the time. Whoopi Goldberg was coming to hang out. then you would get a knock on the door in the middle of the party and who would show up?
Karen Carrier: Jack Nicholson. Ha ha ha, that was crazy, because nobody would answer the door. And so the doorbell's ringing and I'm like, isn't there like, It's a butler here or something, you know? And Susana's out there serving because they had a huge roundtable, you know. They had just put out Heartburn the movie.
Dan Pashman: Mike Nichols had.
Karen Carrier: Yeah, Meryl Streep. They were all there. And so yeah, so Jack shows he's late Obviously, so I like go open the door and it's snowing outside and he's sitting there and he's got this big overcoat on and he's got this big lid of pot coming out of his coat. And I'm looking at him, you know? And I'm pointing at it. He goes, “Are you gonna let me in?” I mean, it's snowing and I go, “Oh, yeah Yeah, right.” So open the door and he looks at me. He goes, “So, you want to smoke some?” I'm like, “Yeah, sure.” So he comes into the kitchen. He's on the kitchen table and Susana's coming there.
Dan Pashman: He's rolling a joint.
Karen Carrier: He's rolling a joint and he and she's like Karen we have to and I go, “Susana. Meet Jack Nicholson.” She goes, “Are you kidding me? You're kidding me.” I go, “Uh uh.” And I'm not telling him to stop doing what he's doing because it’s his shtick now. It was, it was a great night.
Dan Pashman: So what kinds of food are you and Susana making at these parties?
Karen Carrier: Susana is part Mexican. You know, the salsas and tomatillos and roasted porks and everything had like these beautiful chilies that were part of it, but she would do it in a way that was more traditional so people wouldn't be scared of the food. Because back then it was, you know, the ‘80s, people… Tex-Mex was just coming into fad, you know. Cajun food was getting there, but the chilies hadn't really hit the scene in New York City then.
Dan Pashman: But then eventually she decided to move to Australia. You decide to open your first restaurant.
Karen Carrier: Yep.
Dan Pashman: In New York City.
Karen Carrier: Yep.
Dan Pashman: Automatic Slim’s.
Karen Carrier: Yep.
Dan Pashman: Describe Automatic Slim’s for us.
Karen Carrier: Oh my God. Automatic Slim’s has three tables and a bar that seats 16. And that's it. It's a sliver of a place at the corner of Bank and Washington. Um, but my friend's father owned the building. And, um, so I had met these two guys at the, uh, New Orleans Jazz Fest. Uh, that summer before. And the guy had taken my number and he calls me like eight months, a year or two later, whatever. He goes, “Hey Karen, we're gonna open this bar. We want you to come be the chef.” So I went down there I was like, “Are you kidding? This place is teeny!” And but you know, I was like screw it. Susana's leaving. This is good. And I started a catering company called Lunch Catering. We started catering for the fashion photographers, so Steve Meisel and Herb Ritts and all these really great fashion photographers in the ‘80s.
Dan Pashman: And what was on the menu at Automatic Slim’s?
Karen Carrier: It was a Memphis juke joint. We basically served soul food. Pulled pork sandwiches…
Dan Pashman: I assume you didn't tell them you didn't eat catfish till you were 19.
Karen Carrier: No, we didn't serve catfish, actually. We did not do that.
Dan Pashman: But still, that might have ruined your cred, Karen.
Karen Carrier: Right, exactly. But we did serve soul food. It was funny.
Dan Pashman: Right. Um, and it was a success.
Karen Carrier: It still is.
Dan Pashman: I mean, and that opened what year?
Karen Carrier: We opened in 1986.
Dan Pashman: Wow. So that's…
Karen Carrier: …a long time ago.
Dan Pashman: 38 years ago. And you, and it's still there, and you still own it.
Karen Carrier: Yeah, me and David.
Dan Pashman: 38 years, I mean that's extraordinary for any restaurant.
Karen Carrier: Yeah, it is.
Dan Pashman: To be open and successful for 38 years.
Karen Carrier: But you know, the bar, it's a great bar.
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: So, late '80s, you move back to Memphis.
Karen Carrier: Yes, I happened to have to go to New York to meet a guy from Memphis to get married. Unbelievable.
Dan Pashman: And that's what brought you back to Memphis. You fell in love.
Karen Carrier: Yep.
Dan Pashman: With a Memphian who was living in New York. And so, the two of you decided to move?
Karen Carrier: No, he moved back before I did. And then we got married, and I went back to New York. And then I got pregnant, and then I didn't want to move back. I just didn't want to move back. And so I'd come back every three weeks to see him. But then when you're seven months pregnant on Northwest Airlines, they won't let you fly anymore. So I'd wear these big coats. They'd go, “Karen, open your coat.” I'd go, “No, man, I'm fine.” I don't want to come back.
Dan Pashman: Karen, you're cut off!
Karen Carrier: Right, exactly. Well, they finally said, “You've got to make a decision. You can stay here, or you've got to go to Memphis, but you can't fly anymore.” And so, I packed it up, and yeah, I came back and didn't know what to do.
Dan Pashman: Did you always know you would come back to Memphis?
Karen Carrier: Yep.
Dan Pashman: Why?
Karen Carrier: It's my home. I love the city. I love the music. I love the people. I love the energy. It's a great, creative city, you know? It's amazing. It's got a lot of just bubbling energy and people. I mean, I grew up in the music scene here, you know, I grew up during Stax and the soul music and, you know, Sam and Dave would play at our, you know, high school dances, and I learned how to dance to James Brown at the Goodwill Reviews.
Dan Pashman: But with him, with James Brown on the stage playing?
Karen Carrier: He was on the stage.
Dan Pashman: Not like a DJ was playing a record of James Brown learning to dance.
Karen Carrier: No, no.
Dan Pashman: You learned to dance watching James Brown actually perform.
Karen Carrier: Yeah, yeah. The women would say, “Get up, girl.” I go, “Okay.” I get up.
Dan Pashman: That's pretty good.
Karen Carrier: Yeah. It's just, it's in my blood.
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: Coming up, Karen returns to Memphis and launches her career there -- a period that includes opening a restaurant in a century old mansion, and a stint as Tom Cruise’s personal chef. Stick around.
+++ BREAK +++
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful, I’m Dan Pashman. The last couple of weeks we pose some big questions about recipes: Are the cook and prep times listed at the top of a recipe lying to you? What makes a recipe good or bad? And is there a better way to write a recipe for the average home cook? The food writer Elizabeth Dunn laid her frustrations bare:
Liz Dunn: There is no such thing as a 15 minute recipe. If you're really, if you are really taking into account all of the time that goes into executing a recipe, like from the moment I step into my kitchen and I read that recipe to the moment I've washed the last pan, I'm gonna say a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a 15 minute recipe. Maybe ramen. not something that has 14 ingredients and involves getting three different pans out. Like, that is, that is not a 15 minute recipe.
Dan Pashman: We got a big reaction from you, our listeners. Pamela from California expressed her frustration with recipe videos that don’t reflect the actual recipes as written. Some listeners wrote in with suggestions for a clearer way to format recipes, from putting certain steps in bold to noting which ingredients will require prep like chopping or peeling. And Anna in New Jersey emailed us that she’s always griped about recipe times, but quote “I was not expecting to cry. Your segment with Elizabeth Dunn made me feel so seen.” Find out why these two episodes about recipes have hit such a nerve – they’re both in your feed right now. And share with a friend who’s ready to throw all their cookbooks out the window!
Dan Pashman: Now, back to Karen Blockman Carrier. Karen moves back to Memphis in the late ‘80s, and she has to figure out what she wants to do with her life. She’s been gone for almost a decade, but now she’s back in her hometown. She gives birth to her first child soon after she returns. And her husband, Bob, he’s bought this big old Victorian home for the family to live in – and Karen wants to start running a catering company out of the house. From there, she opens her first restaurant in Memphis -- an outpost of Automatic Slim’s that’s very different from the one in New York. For starters, the Memphis Slim’s isn’t straight up soul food.
Karen Carrier: It was everything I had learned in New York, and, and from Susana, and from Miss Winnie, and from, you know, Israel, and it was a, a cross culture of a lot of cuisines, which is my life, really.
Dan Pashman: What are some of the menu items that stick out in your memory?
Karen Carrier: Huachinango. Huachinango was the whole fish from the Yucatan. I was there and they took us deep sea fishing and then we were going to go catch barracuda. No barracudas were coming out that day. So they said well, we're going to keep going. We're going to keep going. They caught all this red snapper And when we came back they had this big vat of oil and they just seasoned it and threw it in there. This fish was the best thing I had ever put in my mouth, so I was like, oh man, if I ever open a restaurant, this is going. So that was one of the things I had on it. And, um, oh my god, we had the cowboy Travis steak, and we had the coconut mango shrimp, and stuff that really, people still remember to this day, which is…
Dan Pashman: Chicken Havanas?
Karen Carrier: Chicken Havana, man you did your homework.
Dan Pashman: I, well I, I was in your restaurant today and I was, I walked by the bathrooms and there were articles up on the wall. And I was reading the articles off the wall. Yeah. And one of them was listing menu items from Automatic Slim’s in Memphis. I was taking notes.
Karen Carrier: Yeah, you did good.
Dan Pashman: The other things the article referenced was something called a Screaming Mimi salad.
Karen Carrier: That's a wedge.
Dan Pashman: And a Brazilian sad salad.
Karen Carrier: That was Bob's favorite salad.
Dan Pashman: What was the Brazilian sad salad?
Karen Carrier: It's like a hot salad. So where you like, take all the turnip greens or you know, collard greens and sliver them up and saute them really quick. Usually you use like a bacon drippings or whatever, but we didn't do that. We just used olive oil and stuff, but…
Dan Pashman: Why is it sad?
Karen Carrier: Because it's cooked.
Dan Pashman: Oh, so it's like it's like it's wilted a little.
Karen Carrier: It’s a warm. Yeah, it's a warm salad. So it's a sad salad.
Dan Pashman: Interesting. I never heard that expression. I was reading that there were reviews from the time when you opened Automatic Slim’s in Memphis that called the restaurant “daring, exuberant, eclectic, and risk taking.” What was it about the place that elicited those descriptions?
Karen Carrier: I don't think Memphis had ever seen anything like this before, because the interior, when you walked in… So you have to realize that the people who actually helped me build this and design it were my friends from art school. So my contractor was not a contractor. He was a sculptor. Julia, who's an interior designer. She was my best friend. We were roommates, and she went to art school with me. I've known her since ninth grade. Um, so it was just labor of love of all these artists that came together, and the bar was made out of poplar, a huge poplar tree. The walls were mango. We had photographs that Bill Speer, who took the photographs of Elvis, we had those on the walls. I mean, it was copper leaf tables, and we had a mezzanine, and we had folk art sculptures that came down the banister, and it was just these crazy light sculptures and lights that my husband was a lighting director. So it was something to see, you know, it was across the street from the Peabody. You could walk out of the Peabody Hotel, walk right in there. It was something really new for Memphis. They could turn their head 360 degrees and see something different and also when you sat down, then the food was visual and then the tastes were different. So it just sort of hit them all at once.
Dan Pashman: It was like full-color, everything. I imagine the restaurant also feeling like, um, crowded in a good way. Like,
Karen Carrier: Oh yeah,
Dan Pashman: a lot of stuff packed in there. A lot going on.
Karen Carrier: Well, it was a lot going on. We couldn't even open for lunch for four months cause we were too busy. It was just wacky.
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Dan Pashman: So Automatic Slim's was a hit in Memphis. Your catering business kept growing. Um, you worked as a personal chef to a bunch of stars when they were coming in through the city to shoot movies. Now this, I'm curious, like I'm sure this is partly because you were known as a great chef in the city, but your husband worked in movies, right?
Karen Carrier: Right.
Dan Pashman: So was that also part of the reason why they knew to come to you?
Karen Carrier: Yes, but when The Firm started here, um, they were looking, they had called me looking for a chef for Tom.
Dan Pashman: That's the, it was a movie based on a John Grisham book, it starred Tom Cruise.
Karen Carrier: Yeah, there was a lot of John Grisham movies made in Memphis, which was great at the time. And so when they called me looking for a chef, I was like, I can do this. So I went and I interviewed with him and I got the job and yeah.
Dan Pashman: Interviewed with Tom Cruise?
Karen Carrier: Yeah. I went and cooked for him. Yeah.
Dan Pashman: What'd you cook?
Karen Carrier: Sesame pecan chicken, which you ate today.
Dan Pashman: Oh, that was so good.
Karen Carrier: That's what they told me you ate today.
Dan Pashman: Yes. Yes. I was, I was at the beauty shop restaurant, the beauty shop restaurant today.
Karen Carrier: Yeah, unbeknownst to us.
Dan Pashman: Sesame pecan chicken, it was like fried chicken, but with this. Sesame pecan crust that was so, so good. Wow. Me and Tom. Who knew? There's so many delicious things on that menu and that just jumped out at me.
Karen Carrier: That's crazy.
Dan Pashman: I guess Tom and I have more in common than I thought. [LAUGHTER] So, so you made him your sesame pecan crusted chicken. Did you do it on a biscuit like I had today?
Karen Carrier: No, no biscuits. I can't remember. It's been a while. I had to squeeze him a lot of beet juice. So my hands were like red every day, it was like, okay.
Dan Pashman: And then did he give you like… How does it work? Does he give you like, okay, these, I need this many meals a week, or this is, these are some things I like, or he must give you some guidance for what to cook.
Karen Carrier: No, not really. I just knew that he was very health oriented, you know, but he rented a house with a moat around it. Seriously, and it was amazing because it not, you know, you drive in there and there'd be deers running around and stuff like that. And…
Dan Pashman: Um, did you ever make him coconut cake?
Karen Carrier: No, I don't bake.
Dan Pashman: Oh, okay. Did he ever request coconut cake?
Karen Carrier: Uh, no.
Dan Pashman: Oh, okay. Because he's famous for this coconut cake in L. A. He sends It's known to be like his, uh, holiday gift to like, everyone he works with, if you work with him on a movie, he'll send you the Tom Cruise coconut cake. You can order it online, and I love a coconut cake, so I've ordered it. I mean, it's gotten too much buzz now as the Tom Cruise coconut cake, so now the price is outrageous. But I did order it, like, a few months ago, uh, for my Aunt Meryl. Well, my Aunt Meryl, I had ordered it for her once as a gift, because she loved coconut cake. And then she passed away, so for her, like, funeral and shiva, I said I'm ordering a special coconut cake.
Karen Carrier: And you ate it all.
Dan Pashman: I ate a lot of it. I shared it. I shared it. But it's really good. Yeah, right? It's really good.
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Dan Pashman: You mentioned that you and your husband, you were living in this 1886 Victorian home. You're running a catering company out of it. But after a while, you decided to do what with it?
Karen Carrier: I decided I didn't want to sell it. And so I made it into Cielo, which was, um, sort of a Caribbean French restaurant. Um, sort of more fine dining, and, which is not really my style, but we did open it up and we had a lounge upstairs. And, um, that tended to be where everybody gathered. And we were open for about ten years, and then I was like, I don't want to do tablecloth anymore, I don't want to do this. And I closed down for three months and then opened the Mollie Fontaine Lounge, which became just the lounge, like walking into someone's home.
Dan Pashman: Like, walk me through the moment when you decide, like, was it just that you decided I wanted to do tablecloths anymore, or was there something more that, that prompted this shift?
Karen Carrier: I got bored.
Dan Pashman: Okay, alright.
Karen Carrier: I get bored every seven years, like a seven year itch, you know, I get bored.
Dan Pashman: Because you know, to, to close a restaurant for three months and completely revamp, to redecorate, redo the menu. That's no small thing.
Karen Carrier: No.
Dan Pashman: It costs a lot of money. You're not making any money during those three months.
Karen Carrier: Right.
Dan Pashman: And, and it's a risk.
Karen Carrier: Yeah,
Dan Pashman: I would think it must also have been a little scary.
Karen Carrier: Well, to some degree, but I just, to me, it wasn't my style anymore. So, you know, it was like, if I don't want to do it and I don't feel it, I have to let go of it.
Dan Pashman: So let's talk a little bit about The Beauty Shop, which I had the pleasure of having lunch at today. It was lovely and funky and cool. And this is a restaurant in an actual former salon.
Karen Carrier: That's right.
Dan Pashman: Where Priscilla Presley had her hair done.
Karen Carrier: Her beehives.
Dan Pashman: I love that you still have those plastic, what do you call those? What's the plastic…
Karen Carrier: Hair dryers. [LAUGHTER]
Dan Pashman: Hair dryers. They're just hair dryers? I thought they were doing something more than that.
Karen Carrier: Just a hair dryer.
Dan Pashman: These are the things like, you know, do they even still have those devices in hair salons today? I mean, you can tell I don't spend a lot of time in hair salons. They do still use those to dry people's hair?
Karen Carrier: Yep.
Dan Pashman: It's like this giant plastic cone they put over your head.
Karen Carrier: Yeah. Some places do still have them.
Dan Pashman: I air dry, I don't know. Um, so anyway, you still have those in place. So I was sitting in a hairdresser chair.
Karen Carrier: Right.
Dan Pashman: With the hairdryer cone thing over it. And not literally on my head, but like up above.
Karen Carrier: Yeah.
Dan Pashman: Um, which I loved. Like, I thought you did a great job of keeping just the right elements from the original space. Yeah. And then adding modern touches, and they like, they blended together in a way that, and they have these like, tucked in booths back behind the hair dryers.
Karen Carrier: And they were all there. I mean, literally, all those glass booths, everything was there.
Dan Pashman: What, what were those used for?
Karen Carrier: That was where they would get their hair done. Washed, and curled, and coiffed, and then, you know, yeah.
Dan Pashman: And, but it, but it also has, has like, all these different materials coming together in a very eclectic way. And then the menu also. I mean you've got carnitas, you've got mussels and frites, a jerk fish club sandwich, and something called adult lunchables.
Karen Carrier: Oh, that's good.
Dan Pashman: What's adult lunchables?
Karen Carrier: Well, actually, I've never been into pimento cheese because I didn't grow up eating it. And I never knew what it was, sort of like the catfish.
Dan Pashman: Right.
Karen Carrier: It's like, what's that? That's pimento cheese. What the hell, Karen? And so, and, but I fry the saltines and put the, but I put a finocchio, a fennel salami. Put the pimento cheese on there and then put the fennel salami, a little bit of arugula vinaigrette. It's yummy. It's good.
Dan Pashman: Does it come pre-assembled?
Karen Carrier: Yeah. So there's four on a plate. We call them adult Lunchables.
Dan Pashman: It sounds phenomenally delicious, but I feel like for it to be Lunchables, it should come separately, and people should assemble it themselves.
Karen Carrier: Well, they're not in a plastic container.
Dan Pashman: But they could be, Karen.
Karen Carrier: Oh, they could be, yeah.
Dan Pashman: This seems like a missed opportunity. This seems like a Karen Carrier home run right here.
Karen Carrier: Right, and that's a good thing.
Dan Pashman: At least get like a sectioned off tray.
Karen Carrier: Yeah, that's a good idea.
Dan Pashman: Like a lunch, like one of those, the plate with the dividers.
Karen Carrier: Oh, yeah, right.
Dan Pashman: And put each thing in a separate area and let people assemble them.
Karen Carrier: They're prettier when we assemble them.
Dan Pashman: That's probably true.
Karen Carrier: Yeah, it's much prettier.
Dan Pashman: All right. When you look at a space for a restaurant, what are you looking for?
Karen Carrier: I have to feel it. I have to walk in and feel it. It's a weird thing. I don't, it's hard to explain that to someone. And so it's interesting, I wanted to open a place in a neighborhood instead of, because I was downtown and we lived in the house downtown. So everything was downtown. And then I was like, well, I'm going to go to Midtown. You know, a lot of people who work with me wanted to invest in a place. And so I started looking in Cooper Young and I saw this place…
Dan Pashman: That’s the cool, cool neighborhood of Memphis where, uh…
Karen Carrier: That's where The Beauty Shop is. Yeah. And so. There was this for rent sign, and it was weird, it was pouring down rain, and the door was cracked open, and, and I went in, and I'd never been in there, apparently it was a hair salon called Hollywood Designs, that a friend of mine, Robert Tucker, had in the ‘80s, but I was in New York, so I didn't know anything about it. But yes, it had been the old Atkins Beauty Salon. It was a barbershop up front, and a beauty salon in the back. And when I walked in and I walked around this wall and saw what was in the back with the hair dryers, I just said, screw it, I'm taking it. It was that cool. I couldn't even believe it. Because I saw it. I saw the, you know, the booths basically, the glass booths where I could seat people for dining, that people could eat with the hair dryers. It was just perfect. But I had to have more room for my kitchen. That's why I took over, there was a gallery next door, and I rented that too. So when I first opened The Beauty Shop, I had The Beauty Shop General Store next door. And we sold old Vespas and prepared foods for my catering business to go and stuff. And then…
Dan Pashman: Wait, did you just say you sold old Vespas and prepared foods?
Karen Carrier: Uh huh, yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. And we had, uh, we had Dinstuhl’s chocolates, assorted cheeses. We had Gerardin Italian shoes for men and women, Amy Downs hats. It was crazy in there, but you know, it was, it was way ahead of its time. It was way ahead of its time.
Dan Pashman: It may still be ahead of its time. I'm not sure. Yeah. I'm not sure if we've hit the prepared foods and Vespa trend yet.
Karen Carrier: Hey, the Vespas were cool. They were in the window. It was very cool.
Dan Pashman: I feel like that's a great example of your art background.
Karen Carrier: It is. and that was the only restaurant I decided to use no color in. So, Automatic Slim’s was extremely colorful. Everything, every surface. Beauty shop's not. To me, I wanted the food to be the color, and that's how I changed that. For me, it's very awkward because it's very white and beige and toned down, but I thought that would be a good switch-up.
Dan Pashman: You, you said that composing a plate of food is in some ways like painting.
Karen Carrier: Absolutely.
Dan Pashman: Is there a specific example, like, is there one dish that you've created that comes to mind that kind of illustrates that?
Karen Carrier: Well, there's quite a few. I do believe that a lot of people, you know, even in catering, they crowd a lot of platters. They put all this food on one thing. They're carting it out to a table. It's, it's, it's ugly. You know, to me, everything needs to breathe. You know, you need almost like a border around everything so that you can really see the food and the way it's laid out and the way it works within each other. You know, how does that crispy duck sit on top of that almond skordalia? Um, and how does that muddled blackberry come down into it and where is that elote corn going to sit? How is it going to sit there?
Dan Pashman: And you're obviously not in the kitchen cooking every meal. So you're training the…
Karen Carrier: That's right.
Dan Pashman: …the chefs not only on how to cook the food but precisely how to arrange it on the plate.
Karen Carrier: Absolutely. And some of them really get it and they pick up on it really quick. But if I do see it doesn't look right, I'll go back to the talk to the kitchen. Yeah.
Dan Pashman: It does seem, Karen, as I think about both your approach to your career, the way that you design restaurants, the way that you design menus, the way that you bring together all these different influences, um, it seems like you, you, you don't, you don't want things to be too, too, uh, Calm, like you like a little bit of chaos.
Karen Carrier: I like chaos, yeah.
Dan Pashman: What do you like about it?
Karen Carrier: I just think that's the way I grew up. I think I grew up in a chaotic situation. Everything was wild. You know, the time was crazy. You know, I think in the ‘60s, you know, we changed a lot of things that our parents were like, what is happening? So I think, you know, I was very rebellious, you know. I was raised in a very orthodox Jewish home, I married a non-Jewish guy, you know, I rebelled against everything. But I believe that, you know, yes, you're born into your family, but I also believe it's very important to, uh, see what else is out there in the family you create. You know? And the things that you learn along the way. And I think that, that's very important to me.
Dan Pashman: Well, I really enjoyed our conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, Karen Blockman Carrier is the person behind the Mollie Fontaine Lounge, The Beauty Shop Restaurant, Another Roadside Attraction Catering, a music club called Bar DKDC, and more. Big hand for Karen Blockman Carrier. And a big hand for all of you. Thank you so much for coming out. Good night.
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Karen Carrier: Thank you, Dan.
Dan Pashman: I want to add a special thanks to all the folks at the Buckman Arts Center for having me. I can’t wait to come back.
Dan Pashman: Next week on The Sporkful, we continue our month in the South with my road trip across Alabama and Mississippi, where I stop at some of the finest gas station eateries those states have to offer.
Dan Pashman: While you’re waiting for that one, check out those recipe episodes, they’re called: “Is Your Recipe Lying To You?” and “The Joy Of Recipe Writing.” As I said, these episodes got a big reaction from you. If you haen’t already listened, make sure you check them out. Those are in your feed right now.
Dan Pashman: And hey before we go, I want to shout out two really important people from our team: Colin Anderson, an exec who’s been a great advocate for our show. And Nora Ritchie, who was our executive producer and editor for the last couple years. Thank you Colin and Nora, for your insights, your enthusiasm, your support. We’re really going to miss you here.