Joseph attended the University of Mississippi where he received a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science. He serves as the bar director at Sant Leo Restaurant in Oxford, Mississippi, and has also worked at Bottletree Bakery and Proud Larry’s in Oxford.
This has been a dream come true. Oxford, where I work, is about a town with about 50,000 people, including a major D1 University, so without that we’re about 12-13,000 people. It’s a very very small town. To be able to do something like this is a dream come true. The places that are on this list are places that you see on Netflix and YouTube, so the thought that I get to work there is kind of mind-blowing and humbling at the same time.
I hope to bring back a lot of knowledge. With this fellowship, hopefully more connections with purveyors, food growers, winemakers locally to see what is going on and bring that back to the restaurant and make it definitely more homegrown and local-focused. We are right now, but even more so and really intensely focus on that. The local aspect of what goes on in Mississippi.
To see these places work in action, and also to take back to the kitchen staff techniques that I saw and learned there, and say, “Let’s kind of use this in the way we present food,” to showcase what we have in Mississippi. Same aspect, in food service, telling the servers, waitstaff, and bartenders table maintenance in order to properly break down a table in a calm orderly fashion that isn’t noisy.
Probably the Larder. We broke down some pigs and made sausage and sobrasada. We also made cheese. That was really cool to see; the sheep’s milk and cow’s milk come in, actually start the cheese process that people use on property which was kind of like, whoa, this stuff is really made right here. That was kind of an intense thing to see. This is as local as it gets. The cheese is made 50 feet from where people are eating and serving it. I worked with garden and livestock, just seeing the garden in action and also cleaning out the chicken coop. You know, that’s part of it. When you have animals, that’s a lot of fun. It’s a far cry from what I do, which is bartending and beverage directing, so cleaning up after animals is not typically what I do on a day-to-day basis.
No, I didn’t think I would be doing that, which was a pleasant surprise. I thought it would be more classroom-focused, like 'study this, then try to implement what we studied into action,' but this is more organic, and I think you learn better in a sense in an environment like this, where everyone is willing to help you if you have any questions instead of you reading a textbook then trying to implement what you read. That’s kind of rigid. This is definitely more flexible and fluid, which helps when you work in a restaurant.
Have an open mind. Be willing to accept any advice given. Ask questions. Be hungry for knowledge from anyone that can give it to you. Always be hungry and have an empty stomach because you will eat a lot. They feed you well.
