A Story From The Kitchen • 2016 → today

we've come a long way

A decade on the road, a decade in the kitchen — and the recipes that came out of both.

PORT OF MIAMI — 2016 First press photos we ever made. My friend borrowed a tripod.

Bobby Butter didn't start in a kitchen. It started in a van, on a stage, at 3 in the morning outside Omaha with a dead engine and a bag of gas-station peanuts. Ten years of touring in a band called Magic City Hippies taught me how to feed the people I love with whatever's around — and eventually became a way of cooking. These are those chapters.

The Chapters

how we got here

MIAMI METROMOVER Playing acoustic on a downtown train because we had no rehearsal space.

2016

born in the port

We were three kids in Miami with no rehearsal space and one working amp. We wrote choruses on the MetroMover between shifts. The first press photos we ever made were shot by a friend with a borrowed tripod on the Port of Miami rocks — cruise ships in the background, me mid-jump with a white bass I'd bought used the week before.

The band was named after the city. The recipes I make now still start there — bright, salty, a little bit humid.

we had one working amp and every chorus was written on a train

OMAHA, NE — WAITING ROOM LOUNGE The van died between Omaha and Denver on the Hippo Campus tour.

Winter 2017

omaha, 3 am

Winter 2017. We were opening for Hippo Campus, driving Fargo → Omaha → Denver in the middle of the coldest February the Midwest had seen in a decade. The van died in a parking lot at 3 in the morning. I remember standing on the asphalt with a bag of gas-station peanuts thinking: I'd give anything for a hot skillet of something. Anything.

The recipe that came out of that night is a corn-and-crab skillet you can make in twenty minutes with a stick of butter and whatever's in the cooler. It's the first thing I ever cooked for the whole band the next morning.

i'd give anything for a hot skillet of something

→ The Omaha 3AM Skillet

WYNWOOD YARD — MIAMI, FL Newspapers stapled to the ceiling, an AKAI MPK Mini, a hometown packed to the walls.

Dec 2017

the wynwood yard

December 9, 2017. Hometown show at the Wynwood Yard. Newspapers stapled to the ceiling, an AKAI MPK Mini on a laptop-stand, the whole place packed to the walls. Someone in the crowd was wearing a 'Magic City' trucker hat. That was the first show where I realized this thing had legs.

Post-show, we ate croquetas at Enriqueta's on Miami Avenue until the sun came up. The Bobby Butter cubano recipe comes from a version of that morning.

someone in the crowd was wearing a magic city hat

→ The Wynwood Morning Cubano

THE FILLMORE MIAMI BEACH Album-release-week show at the Jackie Gleason Theater. Modern Animal dropped 7 days later.

Aug 16, 2019

modern animal, hometown

Modern Animal came out August 23, 2019. A week before that we played the Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater — the room we grew up looking at from the outside. Crimson wash on the stage, teal wash on the amps, a blue ring light halo somebody in the crew rigged up for the encore.

The next day we drove up to St. Augustine and played the amphitheatre outdoors. Post-show BBQ recipe is what happens when you eat backstage food for a month and finally miss real charcoal.

the room we grew up looking at from the outside

PARK CITY LIVE — PARK CITY, UT Sundance week. 40 degrees on stage. The mountain kitchen was the best food of the whole tour.

Feb 8, 2020

park city live, utah

Park City Live, Sundance-adjacent week. It was 40 degrees on stage and the pedalboard kept freezing. But the mountain kitchen at the hotel served the best trout I've ever eaten — pan-butter, capers, brown-butter over the top, right off the grill.

The Park City Trout recipe on this site is a straight tribute to whoever the chef was that night.

40 degrees on stage, the pedalboard kept freezing

→ Park City Brown-Butter Trout

HOME STUDIO — BOZEMAN / MIAMI Tracking vocals for Water Your Garden in the middle of the year the road went quiet.

Nov 13, 2020

water your garden, at home

The road went quiet in 2020. We wrote Water Your Garden by mail — demos flying between Miami and Bozeman all fall, then LA tracking sessions once travel opened up. This is a vocal-take from November 13 in a friend's apartment. Yellow long-sleeve, one condenser mic, coffee going cold.

Being off the road was the year I started cooking every day. That's actually the year Bobby Butter started as an idea in a notebook.

the year the road went quiet is the year bobby butter started

TOUR — PRESENT Encores in the crowd. Post-show suppers with the band.

today

the kitchen is the encore

The band is still on the road. Bobby Butter is what happens between the shows — post-set suppers on the bus, brunch with the crew, the recipes I write on hotel notepads when I can't sleep after an encore.

Every recipe on this site has a show attached to it. Every jar of butter I make has a chorus in my head.