Katie: This is Katie Laird with the BusinessMakers Overtime Show heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com. I am sitting in possibly one of the most splendid interview settings that I ever been in. We are smack in the heart of Alpine, Texas, and I'm sitting here with none other than the legendary Radio Host, Food Critic, Food Writer, and many, many more things, John DeMers. John, welcome to the Overtime Show.

John: Well Katie, thank you so much, and you know, if it weren't gonna be the CF Ranch north of Alpine today, then we'd have to do this where, like on a gondola in Venice –

Katie: Yeah, seriously.

John: – because, you know, there aren't that many places more magical than this. (Laughter)

Katie: (Laughter) Maybe the next interview we do. I'll totally take you up on that.

John: I'm in, I'm in. Count me in. But you know, this is great place. I mean, I think Far West Texas – and actually you see the words Far West Texas, all capital – you know, capital F, capital W, capital T, as though it's a real geographical distinction. I don't believe it actually is. But people who live here are so fueled with their sense of separateness as well as their sense of uniqueness. You know, the towns like Alpine, which is about, oh, 12 miles to the south of here, or Marfa, famous for artwork, or Fort Davis, or Marathon where the Gage Hotel is pretty much the only thing worth stopping for there. But – so it's like a hotel where you stop just because there's a hotel –

Katie: Yay. (Laughter)

John: – rather than because you're doing something. I mean, each of these incredible towns, you know, are ranging in population from, you know, like 3 people all the way up to 6,000 or 7,000 maybe in Alpine. Each is different and yet each is really an amazing place. And in the last few years of my life and career, I've really felt that it's the single greatest thing that I've managed to do or that has been given to me, because it's, you know, I didn't make these places. It's been given to me as a great gift to come here to begin to understand them, to see them, and I mean you know, Katie, we're sitting here, and what we're surrounded by – mountains and rocks and trees and scrubs. And some people come here and think they're in Africa. Some people come here and think they're in some –

Katie: Colorado!

John: Colorado, you might –

Katie: New Mexico, yeah.

John: Exactly.

Katie: Enchanting.

John: I mean it looks like bits and pieces of a whole bunch of places, all of them worth being.

Katie: Exactly, so why are we here today (Laughter) in this crazy land?

John: Well we are here at CF Ranch, and you know, again, by Association Alpine and Marfa, we're here celebrating the publication – and I do mean celebrating, because I mean, I don't care what you people think, I am so excited my first ever novel. I mean, imagine a guy writing 39 non-fiction books and –

Katie: Thirty-nine.

John: Yes.

Katie: Three-nine!

John: Three-nine.

Katie: Ho ho!

John: Not three point nine –

Katie: Holy moly! (Laughter)

John: Thirty-nine. Most about food and wine. And then to have his very own publisher be silly enough to come to him and say, "I think you need to write a novel and we need to publish it." So we're actually celebrating the publication of Marfa Shadows, which is the first in the a series of mystery – call it crime fiction, call it mystery novel, all set in Far West Texas based around Marfa, which is a very odd, wonderful place all by itself.

Katie: But it's this artistic haven, I mean, kind of in the middle of nowhere. It's amazing!

John: Well let's see, it's more than kind of. It is in the middle of nowhere.

Katie: Alright, I was being gentle. (Laughter)

John: And um, but over the years – I mean, one of the reasons the books are set in Marfa and it's – the hero if you will, is a chef named Brett Baldwin who has a restaurant in Marfa called Mesquite. Well first off, it would be really hard to pull off a hip-happening, you know, sheik nationally known restaurant anyplace around here except Marfa –

Katie: Okay.

John: – which has its share of New York and LA, you know, efficient autos, as well as many, many, many thousands in the course of a year of people who come here from, oh, of course Houston, of course Austin, and Dallas-Fort Worth area. So those are the main Texas feeder areas in terms of tourism for Marfa. And back in the early '70s, Marfa was discovered by a New York minimalist artist that you've gotten to know well Katie, named Donald Judd.

Katie: Yes.

John: And Judd came down here and basically bought everything. The result of him buying everything was that he chose Marfa with its big sky and wide open spaces, as the perfect place to display his own vision of minimalist art, almost as though the place you see art is every bit as important, maybe even more important, than the art itself. I mean, I'm not an artist so I don't understand that weird high-falutin talk. But I mean, if he was looking for what he was looking for, what he said he was looking for – and he was a great art critic, so he's an oddity in the sense that he wrote as much about what he believed as just did it.

Katie: Okay.

John: If he believed in that kind of stuff, he found the perfect mixture of big sky and drama and wide open spaces in Marfa. So thus, since 1970, huge numbers of art lovers, particularly modern, contemporary – you know, avant-garde types if you will – have made their way to the Chinati Foundation which you toured, and so –

Katie: It's a fascinating place. I mean, think giant, giant fields full of these – I mean, concrete structures, these old artillery warehouses full of just the most amazing minimalist artwork that I've seen, I mean, in years in Marfa.

John: I guess that's how you be a minimalist, you surround your stuff with a bazillion square-feet of air, you know. (Laughter)

Katie: Yeah, kind of. (Laughter)

John: But so, this feeds into the novel Marfa Shadows because of this global, weird, unexpected, sophistication that Marfa has, it would support theoretically, even though no, I don't have to actually open a restaurant called Mesquite and fill it with customers every night. It explains why a local boy named Brett, who would go off to Houston and beyond to cook here and there and do great things, and be you know, a semi-famous chef even elsewhere; why when he came home after a divorce, because that's when people do come home, and found his own restaurant in Marfa. That's why there's a clientele, that's why this restaurant becomes famous. But the thing to remember about Brett and his restaurant Mesquite in the context of Marfa Shadows, and maybe soon Marfa Rocks and then Marfa Blues –

Katie: This is just the first of many, I cannot wait.

John: It is. I don't know how this guy has any time to cook because he's always being dragged off by Hollywood movie stars and Mexican drug lords and his Native-American huge friend, Judd Garcia. And there's always gun fights and there's always massive amounts of explosions –

Katie: We're in Texas, John! (Laughter)

John: Yeah exactly, and thank God for Gilberto Cruz, his four-foot-ten little Aztec of a sous chef, because it's Gil or Jil, whatever the hell you wanna call him. It's Gil who keeps the joint running because Brett's always off being like – being shot at and running as fast as he can to avoid being shot at.

Katie: Oh my gosh. So one of the most interesting aspects of Marfa Shadows is that it's not just, "Oh, I'm gonna write a story and it's gonna sort of take place in this town that's sort of, kind of real." You actually pool in real people and real businesses in the area. I mean, to weave them into the fabric of your narrative –

John: Yeah.

Katie: – how are you incorporating this small business world in a city like Marfa, in this first novel of yours?

John: Well first off in a city like Marfa, there are only small only businesses so –

Katie: Okay, true.

John: – there's no Fortune 500 companies in Marfa.

Katie: True, true.

John: But you know, there was no moment of actual decision where – I mean, now looking back at Marfa Shadows with its visits to so many of the Paisano Hotel where the stars of giant – you know, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean –

Katie: Yes.

John: – you know, that's in the book. The Food Shark, this bizarre taco truck on steroids. It serves falafel in the heart of town between the bookstore and the public radio station. I don't remember thinking, "You know, this is a cool idea. I think I'll weave in all this real stuff." It's just, I have fallen so much under the spell of Marfa, and indeed of this whole region, that you know, when I started, I sometimes feel like I'm part novelist and part movie location scout, because you kind of know what you want to happen. It usually involves somebody dying in a novel like this.

Katie: Okay.

John: But so you think, "Okay, where should they die?" And then –

Katie: Okay, and what a question to be pondering, to kill off your imaginary friend. (Laughter)

John: (Laughter) Right, right, right. Well it doesn't seem to happen to my real friends, so that's good news, especially now that we're friendly and all.

Katie: I'm glad to hear this, really. (Laughter)

John: Yeah. But you know, it just sort of happened. Again, when I was thinking of where to go and how do people place and set the stuff that happens in this book. Because I mean, no, people aren't always dying. Just mostly, there's a lot of conversations. I do a lot with dialog. So it's like people have to talk somewhere. Just like you and I are at CF Ranch north of Alpine listening to the birds and the dusk and all this beautiful mountain air we're breathing, well when people have a discussion in the novel, they are somewhere, and that somewhere became this long series of love poems to the places that have embraced me –

Katie: Beautiful.

John: – and I don't mean as a novelist, they didn't know that.

Katie: Right.

John: I mean, they've embraced me as a person. And Marfa is so embracing of strangers. I won't say strange strangers, so that certainly applies. I mean, people who are sort of on the run from the law or an ex or whatever. I mean, that certainly applies to many people in Marfa. You know, the sheriff, whatever; or you know, the bill collectors. But it's just so use – there's one word that really just talks about Marfa, and that word is "reinvent". I mean, the minute you set foot in Marfa, the minute you fall in love with Marfa, you start reinventing yourself, and therefore your life. It's like you were a lawyer, you were a doctor, you were a CPA, you were – often time, some little kind of smudgy little skriveling sort of serious job in the big city, and you come out here and you wanna be like freaking Alexander the Great.

Katie: Right. (Laughter)

John: I mean, you wanna be an outlaw, sort of Willie Nelson, you know, meets John Wayne, you know, meets James Dean of course.

Katie: Of course. (Laughter)

John: And you wanna be way, way, way more interesting and romantic than you ever were on your best day. And so that's partly why Marfa Shadows is – I don't know how to be more interesting and romantic than I've ever been, I'm just sort of it. But I can make it up Katie and I can put it on paper!

Katie: You can still too. So, can I remove you just for a moment from the magical spell of Marfa –

John: You bet.

Katie: – and let's talk about some of the other projects that you have going, that aren't just in Texas, aren't just in the United States even. What else in the world do you have time to do besides Chef Brett? (Laughter) What do you do?

John: Um, you treat me like Carmen Sandiego?

Katie: (Laughter) Ha ha! Where in the world is John DeMers? (Laughter)

John: Yeah exactly. Well, you know, one of the – I call them gigs like any ol' rock and roller, you know –

Katie: Nice.

John: – and one of the gigs I have is ongoing, is that I'm the kind of person who can work with chefs, and there aren't that many (Laughter) because they're pretty obnoxious sometimes.

Katie: Said with love I'm sure. (Laughter)

John: Um, I must really need the money. But so when publishers sign chefs to do cookbooks, they often call me and say, you know, "Parachute in," – that's the word I use, "Parachute in and make a book, because this guy is such a great chef, but he's such a flake that he'll never have a book." So recently – and actually these two guys are, not just as a disclaimer in a politically correctness – but they're among the most focused and normal and considerate chefs I've ever met, which you might say isn't saying much. But David Denis' of Le Mistral in Houston, who's a French guy with a restaurant in Houston –

Katie: I love that restaurant!

John: Yeah!

Katie: Le Mistral is divine.

John: Well you know – so he cooks French in Texas. I of course, love the restaurant as well, but now I love it even more that David has partnered up with a good friend of his, kind of a buddy. So David cooks French in Texas, his best friend is a chef, is a guy who cooks Italian food in Finland, Jani Lehtinen.

Katie: Jani cooks Italian food in the country of Finland.

John: Right, he's Finnish –

Katie: Okay.

John: – you know. Can't you ever finish Jani? But no, um, there's innumerable bad jokes in that of course. So in order to write a book called Energy Cuisine, now what's interesting here is David cooks French in Houston which has an energy corridor, which is Eldridge Parkway primarily where he is. Jani has Bocca, the Italian restaurant, although many things are served, but it's mostly Italian. In Pori, Finland, which has an energy corridor of its own, and it's like company, after company, after company has offices in Houston, Texas and Pori, Finland; and that's how the two guys met. They were brought from place to place, guest cheffing for these huge, wonderful energy companies, CITGO and Technip and all these great companies that support the energy industry as well as are the energy industry. Sooner or later, Jani was brought to Le Mistral in Houston, loved the food so much he said, "Could I meet the chef? Well who's the chef here?" He met David, they hit it off. So for this book called Energy Cuisine, the guys wanted me not just – I mean, they didn't have to do this and it certainly could have saved them a bunch of money – but they said – you know Jani said, "I want John," AKA me, "to come to Finland and see what life is like in Finland." And David, you know, never to be outdone by a guy from Finland said, "I want John to come to the South of France and see what life is like in the South of France."

Katie: Oh! (Laughter)

John: So with photographer Shannon O'Hara who is well known from his work in Houston Magazine and all kinds of other things, we became the Four Musketeers, and we went to Finland in the, you know, knee-deep snow and then flew down into the sunshine of the South of France. So within a couple of weeks, we would trudge, trudge, trudge to a fish camp, you know, on the edge of the Baltic Sea. We took a souna – which is sauna to you and me. I avoided being thrown into the sea which is apparently part of the ritual, but the ice –

Katie: Ah, lame. (Laughter)

John: Yeah, the ice was too flakey and they were afraid to carry me out on it, so they –

Katie: Oh my gosh. (Laughter)

John: I was so afraid of getting thrown into the ice cold frozen sea.

Katie: Okay, excused, excused. That's fine. (Laughter)

John: Good. And so one day we were taking a souna on the Baltic and the snow, you know, pushed up against all the cabins. The next day we were in Kashish, the port on the Mediterranean Provence, drinking Bandol wine and eating pizza. It was terrific!

Katie: I feel like you lead one of the most delicious lives that I have ever heard in my life. (Laughter)

John: (Laughter) Well that would be one of my goals. And you know, if you declare that I've succeeded, I don't know what that means, but I mean, it's been a wonderful journey, filled with amazing people. I guess if there's a gift here at all, it's because I kind of take the form, I'm kind of chameleon-like. You know, I take the form of whoever I'm working with, working for, working toward hanging out with, and so that whether it's chefs or other people or archeology scholars or different people in my life who've played a role, I kind of become a different person because I love them and I wanna be them. And as long as it takes, I'm seriously wanting to be them, and then it's over and I wanna go back to being somebody else I guess.

Katie: Right. You're on to the next person. (Laughter)

John: But it seems to be – you know, it's kind of like acting, but I'm not that great of an actor, so this is what I do instead.

Katie: That's wonderful. (Laughter) Now, do you have any tips for any aspiring food authors, maybe aspiring chefs? What should somebody know right now that's jumping out there in the food industry in really any capacity?

John: Well probably the most important thing to know is that, you know, the older I get, I don't wanna retire. So you can't have any of my jobs.

Katie: (Laughter) Hands off Overtime.

John: Right. But I mean, we live in a time – because I'm in the media. I don't own a restaurant, I'm not a chef. I live and breathe media – radio in Houston and Austin. You know, I'm slowly adapting to the Internet, you know, that new fangled thang.

Katie: You're doing well.

John: Alright, thank you Katie, you know a lot –

Katie: He's on Twitter.

John: That's right. Oh, Twitter's new.

Katie: Twitter.com/demerswrites.

John: Oh my gosh, yes indeed.

Katie: That's right.

John: But I mean, what I do is media – newspapers, magazines, TV, you know, you name it. What is important now, and it's for an older guy or a veteran if you prefer, because I've been doing this for 25 years on food, 35 years in journalism and all. It's a very scary time because everything is changing. Nothing you can say is true is necessarily true anymore. I mean, in terms of whether you'll be working for a newspaper. I mean, newspapers are under great amounts of financial pressure. Radio says they are. I love doing my show, I hope that never goes away. It's the best gig ever.

Katie: And hold up, we've gotta plug this. If you've been thinking that John is a natural on the radio, it's because obviously he is and he does this all the time.

John: Ah, 20 years, non-stop.

Katie: Twenty years, alright, whatever. What is the name – how can we find you on the radio? Where are you? Who are you?

John: Okay, who am I? I do two shows on 740 KTRH in Houston, both called Delicious Mischief, which incorporates food, incorporates wine, because my main sponsor is Specs and they love me to talk about wine.

Katie: Excellent.

John: So we get winemakers from all over the world. Scotch-makers from Scotland, for God's sake. Grappa-makers from Italy, whatever. And so that's Delicious Mischief, it's on 740 in Houston, Saturdays and Sunday from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. And then recently – and this is really exciting – I took Delicious Mischief on the road like a good Broadway musical, and we're now on in Austin on 1370 AM –

Katie: Wonderful.

John: – and actually, that more or less gives me more work because it ends up being an Austin show, where I go to Austin, you know, several times a month, interview the heck out of the chefs in Austin, food people, organic – you know how Austin is – organic free-range tomatoes and, you know, cucumbers that have never touched human hands, and everything like that. It's Austin man. But I love it. Austin lives for me more and better and deeper than it ever has since I've been on the air there. And so that's kind of where it seems to be going. I mean, I got a call from San Antonio, "Don't you wanna be on here?" I don't know, but maybe.

Katie: Maybe, yeah, why not.

John: Because I, you know, I love Texas. And as we know, I mean, Texas isn't really one state, isn't really one other country, it's a thousand different little corners and curves in the road, each with a different culture, each with different attitudes, each with different people from different places and who speak with different accents, and even different parents and language, and it's kind of a lifetime deal, you know. I mean, you're sort of getting your arms around Texas – one, it's way too big. But getting your arms around Texas is above and beyond any mission I could ever take on, so therefore, I'm taking it on.

Katie: (Laughter) You're up for the challenge. John, thank you so much for being on the Overtime Show.

John: What a pleasure. Now let's see, next time it's the gondola in Venice, right?

Katie: Yes, yes, yeah, and we have witnesses.

John: I'll sing "O Sole Mio".

Katie: Okay, that's fabulous. (Laughter) And that will get on the Internet, I'm just saying. (Laughter) Thank you.

Monica: What an awesome interview Katie.

Katie: He has such great energy and certainly has the whole radio thing down pat, he's awesome. (Laughter)

Monica: Got two radio shows. I mean, when you've got a radio guy on your radio show –

Katie: Man.

Monica: – dream come true, huh.

Katie: Like, I should have had him interview me or something, you know. Like he's amazing.

Monica: (Laughter) Throw some questions out at ya.

Katie: Exactly. (Laughter)

Monica: Yeah.

Katie: He's a pro. (Laughter)

Monica: Yeah, John's great. He's got a lot going on and just super, super nice guy, so –

Katie: He is.

Monica: – always good to promote our friends projects.

Katie: Absolutely. And again, his latest book, his very first novel Marfa Shadows, and you can find out more about Marfa Shadows at –

Monica: Brightskypress.com.

Katie: Excellent, excellent. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Overtime Show heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com/overtime. Stay tuned for a fantastic Chapter 3 where we get the skinny from Miss Monica Danna on event planning like you wouldn't believe. See ya there.