Jeff Tracy
Barbecue cook known as The Cowboy Cook who co-hosts the BBQ Nation radio show and podcast.
“I learned over the years that if you really go more than three or four steps at the max, you lose people. … half a teaspoon of cumin isn't going to do a hell of a lot to the flavor of the recipe.”
BBQ Nation · Food & Beverage · October 2026
Context
His guest had said he simplifies a chef friend's long recipes for demos. The radio host agrees: his early TV recipes had 15 ingredients and seven steps, and he now keeps things short.
Transcript
Oh, yeah.
…if you don't have this, use that. It was like, dude, I'm just going to go buy the horseradish sauce. I'm good. You know, I'm not going to make my own. So I've taken a lot of his ideas and he's got a ton of videos online and it just kind of simplified it. And so that's where a lot of that came from.
You know, I got to interject something here, Jim. I learned quite a number of years ago what you just stated so eloquently was the fact that when I started doing TV and stuff, my recipes, I will say back then were a little more complicated. Okay. And there were 15 ingredients and seven steps and all this stuff. And I learned over the years that if you really go more than three or four steps at the max, you lose people. You do. Yeah. You lose people. And like you were saying, you know, you're not going to go find a horseradish root and grate it and add some mayo or whatever, you know, you're going to do with that. So yeah, it's best just to kind of keep it simple, the old kiss method. And, you know, the other thing that we discovered over the years, and I think most people that work in, especially in the media…
Yeah, what I used to do when I, when I first started doing the cooking demos and kind of focused on basing my travel around, you know, doing some cooking out there, we would, we would tinker with some different ideas at the shop, at the warehouse, and then I'd come home and I'd make something for…
We're talking with Jim Haas, the regional sales manager for up here in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, California, et cetera, from Blaze Grills. Blaze is a high-end grill, but it's very effective. And, you know, you're actually your product line. What one of the things that I like about it, Jim, is…
Right.
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