GGM: How old were you when you left there?

BT: I came to the U.S. when I was 13 years old.

GGM: You spent your formative years on the move.

BT: Always moving.

GGM: It's easy to understand that as, even today, you are always moving, always in action. (She chuckles) Your father influenced what you embody with respect to Vietnamese food and French cuisine. Would you share what his impact was?

BT: My father was in the medical industry. You know the French have so much influence in our country, they have been there for over 100 years. He had a lot of friends and I was somehow lucky enough to always have been with him when he went to restaurants. I saw him entertain and experienced his taste in food. Those experiences gave me a little bit of memory about the culture. I’d like to preserve that. I think that’s why I carry that with me. We had a nanny, a housekeeper that did the cooking at home. I remember, I’ve always been independent. I grew up in a family with nine (9) kids. My mother always said that she would never have to worry about me because, "all your brothers and sisters are so needy, but you are always on your own." I would follow my nanny and go to the market with her, help her chop, little things.

GGM: Where were you in the order of the nine children?

BT: In the middle.

GGM: When you came to this country where did you end up?

BT: First, we were in refugee camps for months. Then we were on the boat for months and months. Finally, we had a sponsor from Boston.  They are my adoptive parents and we are still very close. We came to Boston, MA. It was a great cultural city to be in.

GGM: I agree, there is a lot of diversity there. We had NY and LA as hubs, but things in Boston were starting to change.

BT: I didn't know that at the time, I couldn’t even speak English. (Grinning) My whole focus was to try and understand when people would talk to me.

GGM: Was that the only adjustment that was difficult for you or was there others that were also as challenging?

BT: Definitely the culture, everything. I left my mother, I came here with my sister. It’s not like my whole family got out. We had to adjust. I don’t remember having time to think about it much though. You take it as it comes and adjust to everything. You deal with what you have to deal with. We were grateful that we got out.

GGM: Out of nine children how was it determined that it would be you and your sister that would leave?

BT: My sister was older and had a family. This goes back to my being independent. When my father died, he died from the war, my mother needed help. So she asked my sister if she could take some of the sisters. I volunteered. "I’ll go." That’s how I ended up with her. I left Saigon and went to Bungtau, on the water, 100 miles south. If I didn’t live with her, I’m not sure I would have been able to get out of Vietnam.

GGM: That’s still an adjustment. You had always lived inland and that lifestyle was different. Now you were on the water.

BT: I also think it’s in my blood now. That’s how I ended up in Florida. I love the water.

GGM: Let’s talk about your schooling and fashion.

BT: I was trying to speak the language first. Because of my lack of English, and just adjusting to the culture, they kind of pushed you forward. You skipped different grades. 3 months in one grade, 4 in another until you get up to where you ‘should’ be. I had a lot of special programs, tutors and stuff like that.

GGM: When did you develop an interest in fashion?

BT: I lived with my sister and we were very poor. I had to make my own clothes. I’d buy patterns and remake them. I went to school where all the kids had the latest fashions. I wanted to look like them and I couldn’t ask my sister because we were so poor. So.... I decided to make my own clothes.

(BT choked up a bit as she recalled this, and we were moved by her emotion enough to have to stop recording and regain our composure to continue the interview)

GGM: It’s amazing how adversity took you to a place that allowed you to do what was necessary to ‘fit in.’ I truly understand what that means. When you are in the moment, trying to be one of the 'American' kids, who has time to think about where it might take you years later? What did you do in fashion?

BT: I got into the whole industry. First I studied textiles, design, jewelry, bags. I put myself through college working at Bloomingdale’s. I developed clients on the side and started consulting for them. I would go to their closet, rich people have so much money, (laughter) I would deliver clothes to them. That was part of my service, I would bring it to them. One thing led to another. I had a little business on the side that helped me pay for all my school.

GGM: What school was that?

BT: I went to Fischer, Women’s College and then continued at BC (Boston College) for business.

GGM: Another door opened for you to experience an entirely different world.

BT: I was just going all over and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was interested in nursing, but I couldn’t handle the blood. (She smiles) I tried a semester of that and quit.

GGM: You got your degree in fashion. We’ve heard that you were known for the lavish parties that you threw.

BT: Wow, who said that? (We are all laughing)

GGM: The story we heard was that you liked to throw parties for your friends in Boston. You threw outstandingly lavish and outside the box parties.

BT: OH! I think I need to correct that. How I got into the food industry is: I believe you are born with it. It’s something you can’t learn. You have to have it in you. If you don’t do it from within, it doesn’t show. For example I have a server come in and say I need money and I want a job. I don’t care how much money they need if he or she doesn’t have what it takes from within to do the job properly. Me, being interested in food, I think I was born with that.

GGM: Well your father had that influence on you.

BT: A little bit. I do believe that you are born with it. My first glass of French wine, I was in love and then I got into it.

GGM: It’s part of who you are.

BT: Going back to the parties. It was not that I threw lavish parties, it was that I was conscious of how the table was set, how the food was presented. Even when I would cook for friends, we would sit on the floor and we would eat like kings and queens did in central Vietnam. Many dishes. Every dish had its own design and garnish, I made it really beautiful. Even though we didn’t have a chair to sit on, the table was very elaborate. Over months and years, the word got out and when I had a dinner party, people wanted to be part of it. That’s how I got it into it. How I got into the food business and became creative about it was, I went to a private school. Most of my colleagues were from very rich families, from NY, Greenwich Village, everywhere. They were very fortunate. They would roll out of bed and go to school. We would get these projects that were always very complicated. I always got 'A’s' on my projects.

GGM: They wanted to partner with you.

BT: They made me an offer. They had an apartment. Four (4) girls lived in this beautiful apartment right on Marlboro Street, which is in the most expensive area of Boston. They were so smart, they offered for me to move in with them. I said I can’t afford that. I didn’t have to. The dinner parties were so elaborate that their parents got to come in and they offered to pay my fourth of the rent. In return I make dinner for them. That was my contribution to living in such a great apartment in Boston and to be able to be creative. I had a very limited budget. About 4 times a week, I would make dinner, and we lived within walking distance of Chinatown, near Haymarket. I’d wait till after hours.

GGM: When they had the best deals. They almost gave it away!

BT: Yes, (she smiles broadly) so much fun! Pasta, Indian food, Thai, Vietnamese, all kinds of foods.

GGM: It gave you an opportunity to access those resources. Everything is so fresh there.

BT: Right, fresh.

GGM: I can understand why people would think you were putting on lavish parties. They would see all those beautiful ingredients, along with your attention to details in plating. Viola! Grandiose party! Do you still do that?

BT: I do. I threw a party for my girlfriend’s 50^th birthday at my house. If you do something you have to do it right. I just can’t stand a half @#*@ job. It has to be from the beginning to the end. Visually... and taste of course.

GGM: The last time we were here we mentioned to you that we had heard about your shoe ‘collection.’ We're not going to let that go. (She is blushing)

BT: I have a certain sickness. (Laughter) I remember during college I couldn’t afford to buy expensive shoes, but I had a lot of shoes. I’d repaint the tops....I suffer from that because it wasn’t good quality and it hurts your feet. I told myself, "Once I have some money, I’m going to lavish myself with shoes." I think shoes make an outfit.

GGM: And you have lavished yourself with how many?

BT: (Grinning) 300 pairs.

GGM: You have a special room just to hold your shoes?

BT: A special closet and each box....

Elaine:.... has a photo of the pair of shoes inside!(both are laughing now). Everyone thought I was crazy when I did that for my mom’s collection. It’s great, makes it so easy, put them together by color.

BT: Oh no, I put mine by name. Jimmy Choo, Gucci, Prada...(Laughter overtakes us). First I recognize by the box, the color. I need to know what’s in it. I haven’t bought a pair in 2 years. I have enough to wear.

GGM: You are a very visual person, in terms of the aesthetics, how something looks. It’s a perfect tie in to your personality, you having to see it.

BT: I’m very bad in articulating what I want to say. I make it up with the visual.

GGM: Your attention to the visual is your articulation.

BT: Personally, I think it’s just my weakness and I need to concentrate.

GGM: What you do with your decor and your plate presentations is influenced by your sense of style derived from your fashion sense. We discussed the soup we had as part of our Chef’s Walk.

BT: You know those flowers were all hand tied.

GGM: We noticed that immediately and that is why we photographed the soup before and after the broth was added. Golden Needles are one of my favorites.

BT: Different countries have different names for it. The Chinese call them Golden Needles. Tiger Lily from Malaysia. We call them Lily Flower.

GGM: Do you agree that your fashion sense is what feeds what you do here. It harkens back to you painting on shoes.

BT: I can make a man’s suit or woman’s dress from scratch, completely. That is the knowledge that you learn. Going back to "you have to have it in you." You have to care enough. I think everybody has some type of creativity in them. We have all the senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting. Some of us put them on the back burner and don’t use them. There are some of us who like to touch every sense. I’m horrible when it comes to computers and technology. I’m technically lazy.

GGM: Technically challenged.

BT: Yes, but if you challenge me, then I want to learn. I hate the words, "I can’t do it." If you challenge me then I’m going to learn how to do it. For example, when I have a wine dinner, I had my daughter teach me how to use the computer to make the menu.'Mom, the fonts over here' and 'this is the size.' I have to learn how to create a menu so it looks clean, edgy, not messy, for that I have to learn how to use the computer.

GGM: Speaking of edgy, someone wrote of you "hip, but not too trendy."

BT: I hate trendy.

GGM: Taking a look at the restaurant you’ve had during your career to this point, you’ve had a number of themes and directions. It’s evident that restaurant bt embodies all of what you consider a fine dining experience. Is that correct?

BT: I think that is an image that somehow people give me.

GGM: From your perspective, is it you? Is it what you feel about food, the dining experience?

BT: It’s definitely me. If I show you my house you will see my life, my philosophies, my friends, my relationships with people. This is the same.

GGM: What is that philosophy?

BT: Balance. You can’t be stiff. I’m very serious when it comes to my job, a dish, or a wine dinner, or something. When I lock the door and go have dinner or drinks with my friends, I let go. I am able to have fun. I’m able to hang with my staff. But at work it’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde. My staff says, "How come you are not the same person we went out with?" I say "It’s because this is my job and your job. This is business and we need to do this and this." I think that is the balance.

GGM: When we wrote the piece on our dining experience here, the first thing I noted was the seating arrangement. We were intimate to ourselves, but balanced, being part of the whole experience. That balance was perfect for us. We could almost forget that everyone else was there. All the diners were experiencing that same thing. For lack of a better descriptor, the feng shui of the room. Not too much of one or the other, just the right co-mingling of both, that put us in a very peaceful place.

BT: I’m very glad to hear that.

GGM: Sometimes, even if we are having phenomenal food, and I’ll give you a perfect example; Marcus had outstanding food, however, the dining room was really busy. Sometimes, if you didn't really concentrate, you missed what he was doing.

BT: You are getting distracted.

Lou: Although the restaurant was busy the night we were here, there was no effort to concentrate, or to be able to focus on what you had done on the plate. That really spoke to us.

Elaine: You could have easily configured your floor plan to include more seats. The fact you have made a conscious choice to allow your diners the option, should they want to be separate, to feel as if they are.

Lou: I also noticed that with respect to your presence in the dining room. Some chefs enter the dining room and take over and some are not there at all. You are there, but just enough. Knowing that you say you are not classically trained, this intuition is something that you must be born with.

BT: The pros and cons for not being classically trained or in training:  When you are trained you are programmed into, "Oh my God, this is the way I must do this." I didn’t have that. I trust my senses, what I see, hear, my taste, but, the con is  I’m not sure what I’m doing is right. As long as he result is positive and it’s good, that is enough for me.

I told my friends, when I retire from the restaurant business I want to go to France and Italy to learn how to cook properly. (We just smile here.) I’m not kidding. I want to go back and to be able to have that knowledge. Probably too late.

GGM: I don’t think it is ever too late to learn. I think that sometimes the ‘media,’ intentional or not, force their own expectations onto their readers, touting this is what it should be. Food critics are a prime example. They will go into a restaurant and say the tables weren’t set correctly, the music isn’t appropriate. We were recently discussing how we, Gourmet Girl Magazine, have evolved to where we are now. Each dining patron is unique unto themself. What impressed me about our dining experience here was how you literally touched, in some way, every single table. There was a group next to us that were in very deep conversation, you unobtrusively paused for a moment, surveyed the table and saw that everyone was enjoying their meal. They had looked up at you, then you simply smiled and moved onto the next table. It was perfect.

It personified for me that you had the grace not to intrude on their evening, but showed them that you are invested in how their evening was progressing. Later, you went back and spoke with them. What do you want your guests to come away with?

BT: They should be able to come away with a sense of happiness and satisfaction. Also a new experience. Being happy is pretty important. This kind of cuisine is not for everybody. I can write a book about the flip side of the story. Unhappy people, emails and letters that I get, you cannot make everybody happy.

GGM: I believe a lot has to do with how someone describes what you are doing when they make a recommendation to come and eat here. If they say it’s Vietnamese, there is a preconceived notion about what that menu should be, how to serve it and the atmosphere it should be served in. People expecting traditional Vietnamese can be disappointed by what you are serving.  (cont. next column)

BT: Wow, I have many rules. (She smiles and we laugh). Do not judge. You have no idea who is walking through that door. Don’t judge. Even if people judge you. But, 'don’t judge' has to go both ways. From us to the customer, and from them to us. A potential diner shouldn't judge me when they walk in here and see that I’m Vietnamese, saying, "Oh, we don’t eat Asian food."

I tell my children and my staff that they should not judge our customers. Whether they are young, old, with ripped jeans, with long hair, or decked out like a million dollars, do not judge. Treat everybody the same.

GGM: Great attitude. Many more people should adopt that philosophy. Do you cook at home?

BT: Yes I do.

GGM: We also discovered in our research, that you used to send linen napkins and silverware with your children to school in their lunch. You also sent non-traditional meals like Hanoi Beef Noodles and Caprese Salad. Do you still do that?

BT: Yes, but it’s a big sad story for me with my daughter. When she graduated from Montessori and whet to public middle school, the first day I showed up with her lunch, as I had been doing since she was three. She told me, "Mom don’t embarrass me." I walked out of the school crying. Fortunately my son still welcomes me. (She smiles at the memory and laughs now.)

My son doesn’t eat cold food. He doesn’t eat cold turkey sandwiches or cold pizza. I believe in balanced meals. I bring him his lunch every day and sit with him for half an hour. My schedule is a lot different than other mothers.

GGM: You are using that as an opportunity to  connect with your child, through nutrition and as a mom. Balance again. You were quoted as saying you want your children to "eat like human beings."

BT: I think sometimes I misuse words. (As she blushes and laughs.) That phrase can turn around and kick me right in my a**.

My kids were lucky enough to be in Montessori school, where there are a lot less people. I get to help the teacher, to teach the kids,. "Eat your food. Stop talking." (We laugh) So, once in awhile I’ll cover for the teacher so they can eat their lunch. I’m part of the school. But I believe I may be the only one that brings lunch. When I went to my daughter’s middle school I asked them, "This will be the only request that I have, that I bring her lunch." Then she kicked me out, so it doesn’t matter. (She smiles)

GGM: So you’ve had to change your balance with respect to your daughter.

BT: I have to respect her. She is a whole different person now. I can’t embarrass her any more. But it hurts.

Elaine: It’s a hard thing when we as moms have to make that transition with our children.

BT: She needs to be her own person. You cannot mold her. I have done my foundational work. (She winks) "She has great taste in food."

GGM: I wouldn’t imagine that it would be any other way. She’s had a great role model. Rumor has it...

BT: Wow, there is a lot of rumor out there.

GGM:  We do our homework ...that you are working on a cookbook. What will the focus of your cookbook be?

BT: I’ve been working on this for a while. I don’t know when it will be done. I don’t want it to be a cookbook. I want it to be a story. I think everybody can write a cookbook. There are so many cookbooks out there.

I want my book to be entertaining, with information and stories about how a dish got discovered. My mistake is what made it become this. Happy, sad, pleasant, just a story. I want to include all my restaurant experience. I have log books. They are a conversation between myself and my management. Any time something happens, they hand write the details and the next day I read it and sign off. If there is a question I will answer it.

One day Joanie and I went back and read the logs. There are crazy stories in there, we just laughed.  Incidents about customers, a server that makes so many excuses you know, "I have food poisoning.," when he was really partying the night before. So our responses back and forth are really funny. I want to incorporate that  into the book. How the mistake of a dessert became a dessert and my story. It’s not about a cookbook with recipes. It about a story that incorporates recipes into it.

GGM: It’s a journey.

BT:  I’m working on a trip back to Vietnam. I feel what I’m doing with my menu is what I take from what I remember. How it tastes and how it smells, how it was. But the Vietnamese cuisine has changed. What I really want to do is to go back to my country with a photographer, a group of people, and do a private journey from south central to Hanoi, with a maximum of 16 people. I would like to visit the market, talk to the local people and cook for this group of people.

I am working on this with a friend of mine, a movie producer, right now. This is what I would like to do, go back and revisit my country and revisit the cuisine. The food has changed, I really want to learn about the culture and the cuisine and be able to execute it. Then pass on what I learn to this group of people. That is what I would like to end the book with.

GGM: What is your time frame to achieve that goal?

BT: By next year, when the economy has improved a little bit. When people can afford to go. It is an extravagant trip. I’ll probably end up learning something from a 90 year old grandmother. "You’ve been doing this wrong all the time. This is how you do it. Things have changed. now, this is how you do it." We’re talking about a country that has been run by people under the age of 35 for the past 30 years. Can you imagine the mentality, the creativity, the culture, the influence that I need to absorb and bring back for myself. It truly is my own curiosity. 

GGM: The people that will get to share that journey with you will be very fortunate. It will be a life altering experience.

BT: It’s like I said, I’m not good with the technical part of putting it together, but I know that is what I want to do. So somebody needs to kind of sponsor this, not sponsor, but manage it. I have the customers, I have a list of people that want to go. I need someone to book tickets, hotels, etc.

GGM: Still photography or video?

BT: Both. Bottom line raw, everything. That’s one of my goals.

GGM:  Sometimes you hold cooking classes. What do you think is the most important thing for the home cook/chef to know?

BT: First of all they need to loosen up and not be intimidated. People think, "Oh I don’t have the same knife that you do, my stove is not the same....." I’m sorry, the stove does not control how you cook. I think it is an excuse for people. It’s easier to say, "I don’t have the right stove." My philosophy is to be able to transcend and experience. Get them information about where to get the ingredients, how to prepare them, it is very simple. My cooking class is 50 percent on food and the other 50 is on wine. 18-20 people maximum, I demonstrate 3 dishes, and after every dish I have a wine specialist come in and they talk about wine. They have 2-3 oz. of wine and food, they learn how to enjoy food and wine together.

GGM: Your cooking class is not a hands on type of class?

BT: If we make rolls then people do it. It’s hard, I don’t have a commercial kitchen. I do have a portable one that I use. The finished product will come from the kitchen. Everybody takes home the recipes. It’s fun.

GGM: What is on the horizon for you?

BT: Wow! As of now, my goal is to stay calm. Maintain my business so we don’t lose. It’s really hard for everybody. It's important that we don’t lose focus or the emotional part of why we are here. I’m wearing a lot of hats. For me, one day at a time, until we get through this economy hiccup and then, I have a lot of ideas.

GGM: You mentioned that it was very difficult right now for the independents versus the chains. Do you see us coming out of this? My opinion, people that love good food are still going to come out and seek good food.

BT: Extremely correct, absolutely I do believe that. To answer your first question, we will definitely come out of it. Somebody like myself has been through worse. Stories of what I experienced in my life.

GGM: Can’t compare to this, is that right?

BT: Last night I made pasta for my friends and we had a bottle of wine. I said, "You know we are still in pretty good shape." We are very fortunate, even though financially we are not in the same place we were two years ago. Nothing is the same. I don’t care whether you’re blue collar making $20,000 or you’re making $2 million dollars, everybody is affected by this. This is global. It’s about balance. When things are so good, people take it for granted. They don’t understand that it is going to go down. What goes up has to come down. When you can’t go down any further, it has to come back up. Life is like this. You have to keep your emotional and mental balance. If you lose your mental and your emotion, everything will fall apart. People are scared. My job right now, when my staff asks if everything is okay, is to say, "Everything will be fine." This is hard. Instead of having a lot of extra help, we all just have to pull together, work harder. We’re going to walk out of this learning a lot. I know I am.  

GGM: I think that those that will survive, and I believe that you are one of them, aren’t doing it halfway. Those that are doing it halfway will not survive.

BT: Because they don’t know how to do it any other way.

GGM: Consumers are being very discerning now. "I’ve only got this much to go out with and I need to go where they are doing it well." Your philosophy is always to do it the best that you can. I believe that chefs and restaurants like yours are the ones that will survive this. Café Ponte, we’re going to see Chris tonight, always making sure that everything is perfect. They will weather the storm.

BT: We’re part of the community. I’m here because I love this community, not because I’m making a lot of money out here. This is a whole different philosophy, a different mentality. I carry this with me. When I go out, I only go to independent restaurants and support my friends. If you don’t support them, they will not be in business. I believe that if you don’t believe in something and support it, it is going to disappear. Bottom line. Basic human philosophy and that carries to what you put in your body, how you treat your staff, how you run your business, how you cook, everything.

GGM: Life lessons from BT. Is there anything about you that would surprise our readers?

BT: I’m pretty real on one-on-one. To be in this business you see so many people. I’m as real as you can get with them and sometimes you have to be polite. You’re not really being yourself. What will surprise people is that I’m pretty adjustable, pretty easy going when it’s not in this (the restaurant) environment.

GGM: There’s more at stake here.

BT: A lot of people see me and say, "I didn’t realize BT is so much fun. She is so serious in her business. She comes across as being such a bit**." Especially to those people that you fire.

We are all laughing here.

Lou: I’m just going to say that I was guilty of that. I’m going to say why. Our first experience with you was when you were in restaurant mode (Dr. Jekyll). You were very formal, you had a restaurant full of people.

BT: (She smiles) I had no idea who you were. I got a message and that was it! So I figured, okay I’m going to roll with it.

Lou: I think that can be a misconception. Sitting here talking to you, you are very approachable. Your are not a 'Diva.'

BT: I understand the different types of personalities.

GGM: You said in the beginning that you have to adjust and that you do that very easily. This is your business, your livelihood, an image of who you are. You have to have parameters when you are here.

BT: Another thing I have very strong feelings about : "I don’t really give a sh** what people think about me."

Lou: I knew there was a reason we get along so well, we're two peas in a pod. (Elaine blushes as we all laugh)

BT:  People, they need to get over that preconception,  pre-judgement of having this image of somebody. You can’t judge until you know someone. I have very few friends, maybe 5. They know how I am. I will always be the same no matter what. I will still go into a restaurant where a server I fired works and I’ll still be me. I couldn’t care less, what people think of me.

GGM: You are an interesting woman. You are so comfortable with who you are.

BT: I know who I am. I have a lot of insecurity like everybody. You just experience so much, you have to overcome those obstacles, otherwise you can’t survive. You cannot make it. You’ll never progress.

My thing is, whatever experience you have, whether it is good or bad, you need to walk away and say I learned something from it. Across the board, in all aspects of life. An experience with an employee or a vendor, good or bad, bad you need to learn more about so that you don’t repeat it again. When it’s good you need to learn to appreciate it. You need to learn not to take it for granted.

GGM: Is there anything that we haven’t asked you that you would like to share with us?

BT:  Don’t believe everything you hear, both positive and negative. I do care that people walk away with the right image.

Lou:  5 minutes to say what you want. This is your chance to stand up and say something that you haven’t been able to say.

BT: I hate to disappoint you, I don’t have that. If people want to know, let them find out who I am and let them be the judge. Let them be themself and I'll be myself and let them be the judge. The only person that I need to prove myself to is my significant other and myself.

GGM:  You don’t feel you need to clarify anything because if somebody really wants to know what you’re trying to say or who you are, you’ve invited them to come and find out.

BT: Find out from the right source. Ask me.

GGM: Do you feel your life experiences have been unique?

BT: I don’t think my life experiences are unique. People are so funny, they say, "Oh, you’re one of the boat people, you came over at a very young age, you couldn’t speak English." There are millions of people like me. I’m not that unique.

GGM: The difference is that they’re not doing what you’re doing. What you’ve done with your life intrigues many people. You’re right, there are millions of people that immigrated here under similar situations. My great-grandfather was one of them, with $5.00 in his pocket.

BT: These are the same stories that people ‘sing.’

GGM: Yours is a story of success. It’s what you’ve chosen to do with what has occurred in your life and where you’ve moved forward with it.

BT: It’s funny, people keep using the word 'success' with what I do. I don’t think I 'll be successful until I stop doing. Then, maybe, I’ll think I was a success.

Lou: When I use the word success, it has nothing to do with money. Success is like you said, 'everyone coming away from interacting with you as a positive in their life. Success is the fact that your children are so polite, or the way you touch other people. Success is not measured by the size of person’s wallet.

BT: I’ll embrace that, that’s great.

GGM: We came across a statement about you made by a NY Times food writer. He was on the east coast of Florida, and people were talking about you. He took the 5 hour drive to have dinner here. He said, "I wouldn't hestitate to do it again, it was worth the trip." 

BT: Wow, who said that?

It's just like BT to not notice that we are all saying it!

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