Full Episode HERE.
This week, I sit down with actual master chocolatier Randy Page: a chocolatier whose viral pistachio bar may or may not be involved in causing an international nut shortage. (You’ll see.)
Randy’s story stretches from the kitchens of fine dining to the counter at Cricket & Fig, his much-loved chocolate shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We talk about how a TikTok-fueled chocolate bar from Dubai created a global frenzy, how he reverse-engineered it in his own kitchen, and what it actually means to make good chocolate… like really good chocolate… in a world drowning in Hershey’s.
Expect to Learn:
- How culinary school changed Randy’s life
- The science (and heartbreak) behind chocolate tempering
- Why Valrhona is the first growth Bordeaux of the chocolate world
- When going viral is a curse and a blessing
- And how using better ingredients is kind of like cheating, in the best way
- Can you mess up chocolate and still eat it?
- Is this the most desired dessert on planet earth?
- Will Tulsa become the next Paris?
Pull up a chair. Maybe grab a truffle.
Links:
FIX (the people that started the chocolate sensation)
Kakawa (The chocolate shop mentioned in Santa Fe)
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk mostly to people in and around the service industry space. I’m looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in restaurants. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess of a life, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. You can find more of my work at my blog, and all my social links are at the bottom of that page.
Classic Episodes You May Like:
-#10:Nat Harry, cocktail expert!
-#14: Dr. Shalini Bahl, mindful marketing
-#23:Jeffrey Morgenthaler
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
Transcript
Andrew Roy (00:01.873)
Hey, how’s it going, Randy? I’m good. How’s Tulsa?
Randy Page (00:02.542)
Hey Andrew!
Good buddy, how are you?
Randy Page (00:10.478)
Hey, let me fix my, shoot, we were better off before. That’ll be great.
Andrew Roy (00:13.295)
No. Yeah. Man, it’s been a while. good. Good. It’s cold up here. Not right now, but over the winters.
Randy Page (00:18.05)
Good to see you, how you been? Yeah?
Randy Page (00:27.202)
Yeah, I’ve heard that.
Andrew Roy (00:28.305)
Very continental. Yeah. I saw a
Randy Page (00:30.518)
I’ve heard that. have a very close friend from Nebraska City. been there, I’ve not been to Omaha.
Andrew Roy (00:38.767)
Okay, I’ve driven by Nebraska City. It’s one of the exits I take when I come back from Oklahoma, which is like a lot of the small towns here.
Randy Page (00:49.25)
So do you do chili and cinnamon rolls in Omaha?
Andrew Roy (00:53.317)
That is a thing, yes. Yeah, the food’s good. A couple of pockets of kind of stranger cuisine, but I like it in general. Yeah. Before we get going, just a couple of the, like I call them just general housekeeping things. If you don’t mind leaving your browser open until it says it’s uploaded.
It’s usually pretty instantaneous, I like to give that little heads up just in case. Yeah. yeah, at the very end, exactly. And then are there any time constraints, anything I should know about or?
Randy Page (01:27.234)
sure, at the end.
Okay, sure.
Randy Page (01:36.374)
Nah, unfortunately we’re pretty slow and I’m well staffed and they know that I’m busy and not to disturb me.
Andrew Roy (01:43.555)
Okay, I’ve heard worse problems, so perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Well, cool.
Randy Page (01:46.744)
Nah, I guess I’ve had worse problems.
say what I am going to.
Little dry eye.
Andrew Roy (01:57.796)
sure, sure.
Randy Page (01:59.503)
Have you guys been affected by any flooding up there?
Andrew Roy (02:04.581)
No, I mean, I think it’s similar to what’s been going on in Oklahoma. I’ve visited a couple times this year already and it’s been rainy. I do feel like we had more intense storms last year, but we do just have some just decent downpours. I was actually in Oklahoma last weekend and I mean, there was a point on the highway that I thought maybe I should pull over. This is insane.
Randy Page (02:14.179)
Yeah.
Andrew Roy (02:33.551)
It was flooding in Oklahoma City. was crazy. But Ann’s parents live in Tulsa still and they say it’s rainy.
Randy Page (02:34.755)
Yeah.
Randy Page (02:39.072)
Yeah, it’s been,
Andrew Roy (02:43.601)
Randy Page (02:44.046)
Yeah, well, I mean, obviously we haven’t had the stuff that they’re having in Texas, but we have had like record rainfall. But then I saw, I guess they’re having flooding. They had flooding in Chicago. They’re having flooding in New Jersey. Big year for rain.
Andrew Roy (03:07.515)
Biggie year for rain, hey. Better, I’d take that over the fires pretty much most days, yeah. Yeah, but I guess to jump in, I wanted to start, Randy, if we could. I wanted to ask, I know I’ve heard a little bit of your past just from me and my wife visiting your shop, but can you tell us a little bit about how you got into being a master chocolatier?
Randy Page (03:15.117)
right
Absolutely.
Randy Page (03:34.978)
How candid should I be? How candid do you want this to be? What’s it rated?
Andrew Roy (03:37.041)
Tell it all I mean hey, there’s a there’s a there’s a PG. No, it’s a it’s open book. So go for it
Randy Page (03:47.948)
You know, so my background, I grew up, my mother was a fantastic cook. She was heavy on desserts, but I mean, just everything across the board. grew up on scratch cooking. The first time I ever had McDonald’s, which I had for dinner last night, by the way, the first time I ever had McDonald’s, I drove myself to McDonald’s. It wasn’t…
Fast food just wasn’t a huge part of my family growing up. I’m from Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s kind of southern, you know, not the deep south, but and my mom was just a great cook and she was a great baker and I grew up on scratch food and home cooked meals and I had a very early age. I was attracted to learning how to produce some of that stuff myself and you know, I just I remember
one day, probably eight, nine, ten years old, I grabbed a bowl and took all the stuff that I’d seen my mother putting into cakes and I just threw all that stuff in a bowl and stirred it up and baked it and the result was just absolutely horrifying. It was just terrible. So, yeah, no good. So,
Andrew Roy (05:10.011)
World’s worst cake, yes.
Randy Page (05:15.054)
I really learned respect for recipes and I learned about structure and discipline in cooking from that. From then my mom brought me a book on French cooking and I started cooking. Years later, my first job was in fast food.
a little family-owned burger place. was, so I don’t think I really cared for fast food that much, but I was a teenager. didn’t, you I didn’t think I didn’t really recognize that I was gonna have to really, hadn’t sunk in that I was gonna have to work for a living when I grew up. So as I got older, in my older teens, I just didn’t have any idea.
Andrew Roy (06:07.471)
At some point, yes.
Randy Page (06:12.479)
I knew I didn’t want to do fast food. That wasn’t fun. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I just never lost that love for food. I was going through some of my rebellion in my late teens. things were not going well. My life was not going well.
and wasn’t really contributing anything and i have a friend that was going to culinary school and he worked at a restaurant he said you you should try this again randy you love food and and i mean this is we’re going to learn how to make real food and something you know i like i i like paul it seemed
Randy Page (07:02.455)
seemed like something to try. I did go to culinary school at a little community college, Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina. And they actually were going through a transition to doing, it was more like just kind of a local, kind of a housewife, homemaker type program that they were launching a new.
professional program that ended up being an associate’s degree program. So they brought in some talent and some really qualified professional chefs that were teaching classes and I went to… I didn’t go through a whole program but I went through a lot of it and I… heavy on baking and I learned the basics of working with chocolate back then.
And then…
As I got a little proficient with some skills, I got a job in a hotel and then started moving my way up to better restaurants and ended up going to culinary school at CIA in New York, Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. After that, I just lived all over the country.
lived and worked in 11 states coast to coast and just done a lot of different stuff. I did fine dining, done a lot of catering, I’ve taught at a couple of different culinary schools. And in the last 10 years, I started playing around with chocolate. I learned the basics of working with chocolate. had been really impressed and
Randy Page (08:59.979)
with some chocolates that I had when I was younger, when I was a kid that made a huge impression on me and I always thought, someday I’d like to learn how to make these myself. And I started, I had the time in the last few years and I just started, I bought some equipment and started teaching myself and grew that into what is now a chocolate shop. So, cricket and fig chocolate.
Andrew Roy (09:10.193)
you
Andrew Roy (09:22.755)
Yeah, a great chocolate shop too. Yeah. Now for the listener, you know, and I’m kind of counting myself in this, you know, I’ve never made a chocolate in my life. What are the subtleties of making chocolate? Like how, do you, your chocolates differ from store-bought chocolates? I’m saying that because I’ve had your chocolates and their world’s better. So I’m just wondering like, how do you achieve that big of a difference? And is it just something you iterate on or?
I know that’s like 15 questions wrapped in one, but.
Randy Page (09:57.31)
no it’s not really it’s not just that’s that’s that’s a pretty simple question i think andrew i think it chocolate is is just it’s like anything else you you get out what you put in and i think the the real secret is just great ingredients and so i’ve had
Andrew Roy (10:18.961)
Hmm.
Randy Page (10:25.537)
You know, everybody’s had Russell Stover chocolates, or C’s. C’s I think are little step up from Russell Stover’s. The chocolates that made a huge impression on… I think the chocolates that made such a great impression on me as a kid were actually Godiva. Because when I was a teenager, when I was in high school, I had some Godiva chocolates. I don’t know…
Andrew Roy (10:32.433)
Shout out Nebraska, yes.
Randy Page (10:54.925)
At least where I lived and probably not the case in New York or Chicago or you know so much more cosmopolitan markets at in in that day But we didn’t have a lot of great boutique chocolate stores But we had Godiva and they were just something different about Godiva they were you know today I look at them and they’re they’re they’re a commercially
made very large in a big box chocolate company just like so many others but they are a cut above and their chocolate just tastes different you know if we’re as Americans if we’re used to Hershey’s and Mars and and kind of chocolate that’s made for our American palette Godiva is it’s different it’s
decidedly european chocolate it’s belgian and it’s just different they had textures in their feelings that were just different they they were creamy they were some of them were were fruit flavored in and just kind of drift out of the the chocolate shell instead of just this firm filling that you could stand on you know they were they were just
They were more delicate. They were more elegant. those, so those textures and different flavors were things that kind of stuck with me that I wanted to try to duplicate. So, you know, fast forward to 10 or 15 years ago is being a chef, working in fine dining, following fine dining and pastry. I’m very familiar with what the best products in the industry are.
my favorite chocolate and there’s lots of other great chocolates. I there’s plenty of boutique chocolate companies all over the world. But there is one brand that stands above all the rest. It’s probably one more international competition than any other major chocolate company and that is a French company called Valrhona. That is the chocolate that most French
Andrew Roy (13:15.153)
Hmm.
Randy Page (13:20.232)
and high-end European chocolatiers and pastry chefs use. It’s just well-known. It’s just a bulletproof, very big, well-established European brand. And that’s the chocolate that I started buying to play with and to serve in the restaurants I was working in. I started making chocolates. All the things that I was learning, I was making them as gifts for friends and family.
and I wanted to give my friends and family the very best possible product I could give them. I bought some chocolates from a chocolate shop in Paris. I ordered them and had them shipped here. I’ve bought chocolates from chocolate shops all over the country. I’ve Googled and it’s easy to find this stuff today.
30, 40 years ago when I started in this business it was a different world, right? I mean all that stuff was there and none of these are, you know, 10, 15, 20, 30 year old companies. They’re all old, well established companies but today anybody can find them. 40 years ago maybe not, you had to look a little harder. You had to really be exposed.
Andrew Roy (14:20.952)
Not so much, yeah.
Randy Page (14:45.824)
to stuff that I wasn’t necessarily exposed to in Charlotte, North Carolina in the 80s and early 90s. So, you know, we just, we live in a time that is really cool and we can, we can really, we can try a lot of different stuff and we can get products that we didn’t used to be able to get so easily. Now they’re expensive and that’s why the finished chocolates are expensive, but
Andrew Roy (15:09.115)
Mm-hmm.
Randy Page (15:14.346)
There’s just, and I can’t tell you what’s different about Velrona. It’s, I don’t know, there’s a… There’s a depth. There’s a… The way that it feels on your palate when you snap it and you smell it and you bite into it and it melts over your palate. There’s layers of flavor that have just been developed by…
a company who seeks out the best cacao, the best raw materials, and then they treat it in a way that brings out its best qualities. And they do that very consistently.
Andrew Roy (15:54.747)
Hmm.
Andrew Roy (15:58.863)
Yeah, I might even say because it’s a question I had with that chocolate. It’s almost analogous to like a coffee roasting house. You know, they can’t say exactly what makes this batch of beans better, but they know that was sourced ethically that they tried to bring out the best flavors. You like you can’t maybe point to one specific thing about it, but it’s treated with care throughout the process. It’s a you end with a superior product.
Randy Page (16:30.22)
Well, well, it is coffee, absolutely. But also something that you’re absolutely familiar with is wine and grapes. And if you look at, you know, if you compare Valrhona to any of the first growth houses in Bordeaux, you know, you’ve got people that are, you know, they’re getting the best grapes from the best terroir and they’re handling them in a way.
Andrew Roy (16:38.541)
yeah?
Andrew Roy (16:47.473)
Mmm, that’s good, Colin. Yeah.
Randy Page (17:00.15)
that produces predictable results and you know it’s it’s it’s it’s a generational industry and you get people that just these big brands produce high quality product
Andrew Roy (17:16.047)
And gotta assume even the worst from the best will generally be better than sometimes the best from the worst. So yeah, yeah. Cool, that’s a much better analogy. I like that.
Randy Page (17:23.814)
Absolutely, absolutely. know, yeah, so it’s, you know, that but it’s, but so then I have watched a lot of videos. I’ve read a couple books. I actually did take a class, but it was like a four or five day class from a very well respected chocolatier who’s actually here in Las Vegas, who used to
be a pastry chef for Joel Robichon. And I learned a lot of things. learned some basic and the stuff that she taught, she learned from another chocolatier who is a very world renowned chocolatier from Spain. You know, so it’s everybody learned from somebody. And a lot of this stuff, there’s just some kind of basic
stuff, some basic science. There’s a lot of science to chocolate making. It’s very unforgiving material. And there are some very simple rules, but you must follow the rules. And once you do, it’s really not that difficult and you can do a lot of different stuff with textures and flavors.
And so I’m always trying other people’s stuff. I’m looking for interesting flavors. I’m looking for stuff that, you know, what are they doing in Paris that we’re not doing yet? What are they doing in Barcelona that we’re not doing yet? South America and Spain actually are huge movers and shakers in the,
in food right now and certainly desserts and chocolate. So just a lot of interesting stuff and you know it’s not all going to work for the American palate especially here in middle America but so we have to kind of do the basic stuff that you know people understand chocolate truffle they understand a raspberry truffle but
Andrew Roy (19:25.329)
Your chimichurri chocolates.
Randy Page (19:42.751)
we’ve won the trust of some people with with the stuff that we do and we’ve been able to to sneak in some some cooler stuff that that’s actually become more popular than i expected but
Andrew Roy (19:54.299)
Yeah, no, I haven’t been down there in almost Two years, but I’m thinking back through some of the favors. I really enjoyed from you guys I enjoyed the one with the sparkles in it little pop rocks almost effect I remember there was a black sesame that I thought was really fantastic there was a Paprika maybe or chili. There was one that had sort of a spice element if I remember Guy and yes, thank you. Yeah, no and
Randy Page (20:08.469)
Yeah? Yeah?
Yeah?
Randy Page (20:19.145)
We did it, we did it Kai-en, yeah.
Andrew Roy (20:23.833)
Not exactly the lineup you’d regularly expect to hear about in a chocolate shop, yeah. But no, that’s really cool. Is there a crazy flavor? sorry, you go first. Yeah.
Randy Page (20:33.641)
Well, chili’s… Huh? No, well, chili, chili is… and spice is kind of the origin of chocolate. Cacao was grown… 3000 years ago in… in Central and South America and it was a… it was used as a ceremonial drink. It was pounded and boiled in water with…
Andrew Roy (20:43.761)
Hmm.
Randy Page (21:03.093)
with spices and chilies by the Aztecs and the Mayans. And it’s really only been in the last couple hundred years that Europeans added sugar to it and turned it into what it is today. So.
Andrew Roy (21:20.005)
Now, funny enough, being from New Mexico, I don’t, know, disclaimer, I don’t know if this shop survived COVID, I left before that, but Cacao Chocolate House in Santa Fe serves the original drink style recipes still. So it’s all chocolate drinks like they used to, yeah. Several of them have spiced, which I hadn’t thought about for forever, but yeah, definitely worth trying.
Randy Page (21:35.903)
Really?
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
Randy Page (21:45.608)
I need to make it over there because I’ve heard about, I’m sure they’re probably still going strong because so many people have told me about them. And I’m not sure they’re the only one. Yeah, well, I think there’s a couple in Santa Fe that are just people just, whatever they did, they made this incredible impression on people. And just so many people have, have told me about this, this
Andrew Roy (21:54.702)
specifically that place? yeah.
Andrew Roy (22:07.515)
Mm-hmm.
Randy Page (22:15.453)
wonderful chocolate shop in Santa Fe. So, I need to go.
Andrew Roy (22:17.744)
I guess same way when I hear people going to Tulsa now. I say go check out creating big go say hi Yeah, so I I did want to ask because You were sort of touching on this earlier getting inspiration elsewhere one of the reasons he crossed my Radar and I realized I should reach out to you. Tell me about to buy what happened there. There’s a big blow up. Yeah
Randy Page (22:43.787)
So… Wow!
Andrew Roy (22:45.615)
But not in a bad way maybe, but yeah. So.
Randy Page (22:49.351)
Well, so there’s a company in Dubai called Fix Dessert Chocolatier, FIX. And it was built by and is owned by a couple, a young couple. I think the wife is kind of really the one that runs the company and this beautiful woman.
good looking young couple, very charismatic. mean, they’ve got the marketing. They’ve got everything it takes to attract people to what they’re doing. And so about three years ago, end of 2021 maybe, and I guess when we think about it, it’s just right in the middle of COVID, or maybe just coming out of COVID-20, 22.
They started this company and they were doing these really big thick bars that were filled with all kind of just gooey stuff and I think kind of the story was she came up with all these ideas from her pregnancy cravings and hey let’s here’s what I’d like in a candy bar today and so she came up with these bars
There were like different kind of weird combinations, very decadent, really thick fillings. And one of them was pistachio, which is a very big part of, of, Middle East cuisine throughout that region. pistachio also sesame tahini, and then this Katafi dough, which is like shredded filo dough. It looks like shredded wheat.
Andrew Roy (24:44.529)
Hmm.
Randy Page (24:44.714)
and they make a dessert called Kanafe in a lot of the different Middle Eastern cultures and she gives these kind of fun names to all of her bars and so she did this one the Pistachio Tahini and Katafi or Kanafe she called it can’t get Kanafe of it and
Andrew Roy (25:12.817)
No.
Randy Page (25:14.76)
You know, cute names. three years ago, one, you know, and I guess everything just kind of moved along its pace for two years. All of a sudden, one year ago, a little longer than that now, a Tik Tok influencer over in Dubai or who was visiting Dubai or something was able to get one album and she broke it open.
really slow and this gooey delicious decadent filling and all the texture that you see from the canafe and she’s eating it and it just went completely bonkers took the world by storm and i’m not a tick tocker i’m i don’t you know i don’t anything about this stuff but
Andrew Roy (26:07.537)
Well, that’s why I was asking you I don’t I don’t use tick-tock because I want to preserve my brain Yeah
Randy Page (26:14.664)
Yeah, yeah, I’m hey, I support you. It’s well, and I still don’t use TikTok, but I’ll tell you what did happen is about a year ago, maybe a little less than a year sometime in August, maybe last year, we got a phone call one day and asked, are you doing the are you doing the viral Dubai chocolate?
Andrew Roy (26:21.691)
Mm-hmm.
Randy Page (26:40.358)
No, I don’t know what that is, but I can tell you if it’s a viral internet thing, we probably won’t be doing it. And by the end of that day, I’d gotten like a dozen calls about it. And I went and found the video and I said, okay. So what’s happened is the people in Dubai fix, they, the entire planet.
has erupted over this chocolate bar. They can’t produce enough of them. Even the company in Dubai, they’re a small company. They’re a little mom and pop company. And they make these great products and they’ve got great packaging and great marketing, but they don’t have a store. They tell you today, you can go on their Instagram page right now. They don’t have a store. They don’t have a website and they don’t have any authorized resellers. And you can
They can barely keep up with production. They make their bars available twice a day, every day, and you can only get them in Dubai and in Abu Dhabi. And you can only officially get them through this very specific method of ordering through a courier over there somehow. And you can get them at like two o’clock and five o’clock every day. And then they start over every day.
So nobody can get them, but everybody on the planet wants them. So now this has created this enormous market for every chocolatier and everybody that can figure out how to make them. And they pretty much tell you what’s in it. There’s no secrets. can find, I researched and I found a picture of their bar with their ingredients list. And those of us that know how to work with chocolate and how to make stuff, it’s pretty easy to figure out how they’re doing it now.
Andrew Roy (28:19.451)
Mm-hmm.
Randy Page (28:34.698)
does mine taste exactly like the earth? Probably not, but it’s really close. I’ve had a bunch of them. I said a guy, I had a friend that was going to Dubai and I asked him to get me one and he brought me back three different bars and one of them was looked like the real one, but I don’t think it was. He didn’t get it and oh, absolutely. They’re counterfeited.
Andrew Roy (28:56.674)
Man people are already imitating them. That’s that’s wild
Randy Page (29:03.22)
constantly. They’ve told me that. so, yeah, it’s very difficult. But so we started making them. Then we got just before Valentine’s Day this year, we had a TikToker who has got a huge following here in Tulsa and in Oklahoma in general, that came and had one of ours. And that went nuts.
Dude, I had… I… Okay. So I got enough molds to make like 80 of these things. That video was seen…
I could never find this number but somebody, two different people told me that her video had been seen 380,000 times. So I got 380,000 people that want something that I can make 80 of. And it takes me two days. it just, I just started chasing my tail. I was, well,
Andrew Roy (29:55.025)
Hmm.
Andrew Roy (30:00.185)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Roy (30:07.269)
Yeah. Yeah. Is it still going on?
Randy Page (30:13.833)
It’s not going on like that. what happened is we sold out in just an hour and we made more. Okay, so we’ll have some at two o’clock on Thursday and you can buy two and no pre-orders and no holds. You can’t call in advance. You’ve got to be here. Must be present to win. by 1.15 Thursday, I had 60 people in line for it.
Andrew Roy (30:15.416)
yeah.
Andrew Roy (30:21.816)
yeah.
Randy Page (30:43.731)
They were, I you’ve been in my place, they were lined up all the way to the candy counter, all the way back to the wall, and then all the way back to the door, and out the door. And I got regular customers here wondering, what the heck is going on? And man, it was crazy. And so we did the little snacking bars, and we did the big hearts. I think you’ve probably seen the big hearts that we’ve always done that were.
Andrew Roy (30:45.905)
That’s not most of the space, yeah.
Andrew Roy (31:12.411)
yeah.
Randy Page (31:13.213)
hazelnut. actually did finally just last week I finally broke down and I bought the molds to do the really thick bar. I’ve resisted investing in another mold for this sink because I didn’t really think it would last but it’s been going on for a year now I don’t get people lined up for them but I’m out of them right now and I had at least two people come in last week wanting to know when we’ll have more.
and i’d told him i’d have some by the end of this week so i’ve got to go make them it’s just insane so let me tell you what’s that so
this demand worldwide I had heard and I saw a couple I mean I haven’t had a hard time getting any of the ingredients but I have read articles that said that this this trend has caused a worldwide pistachio shortage so that’s kind of nuts yeah yeah so
Andrew Roy (32:14.221)
Mmm, just that increased demand. Yeah
Randy Page (32:22.665)
It’s been interesting, man. It has been called by several people the most viral product on planet earth. The most desired product on planet earth. So I don’t remember.
You know how we always talk about how, you know, what was the big thing before sliced bread? Because everybody always says the coolest thing since sliced bread. This, whatever the world was like before sliced bread, now we’ve got the Dubai chocolate bar. Crazy.
Andrew Roy (32:46.801)
Yeah.
This is it. This is the Beatles, but it’s the chocolate. Yes.
Andrew Roy (32:57.265)
Yeah, well, I’m sure that’s been great for you guys. I’m guessing, you know, because I always thought your chocolates were, you know, some of the best I’ve tried. I was actually introduced thanks to someone giving me the heart chocolate. That’s when I got to try that. Yeah, classic form. I didn’t need it. I gave it to my wife and she said, we have to go there. I okay. But I heard that that helped. You’ve got some support we were saying earlier before we jumped on and started talking.
Randy Page (33:13.694)
Well, nice.
Randy Page (33:22.461)
Well…
Andrew Roy (33:27.329)
yeah. Any plans to expand or take over some more spaces or.
Randy Page (33:32.028)
Well, it was…
Randy Page (33:36.165)
Well, not yet. mean, right now we’re kind of in the summer slump where we’re, it’s, but it’s mean we’re, we’re, it has been a really good year so far, Andrew. is, it’s, February. mean, Valentine’s day is not the time that I really need help with marketing, but I got it. And buddy, I got to tell you, we had a rough, it was a rough February and own into March.
Andrew Roy (33:55.183)
Mm-hmm.
Randy Page (34:04.74)
It was really hard. It was really hard. We worked a lot of hours. I had a very diminished staff and I started hiring new people and just going through hiring the wrong people and getting people trained and people not working out. It’s just been, man, sign of the times. It’s just been insane. It’s been rough, but it’s been a good year.
Andrew Roy (34:24.753)
a lot.
Randy Page (34:34.729)
And I tell you what, there’s that… I just keep thinking about that speech that John Kennedy gave when he was talking about going to the moon. We don’t do this stuff because it’s easy. We do it because it’s hard. We do it because it’s hard! Anyway, it has been hard and…
Andrew Roy (34:51.409)
Yeah, who knew that’d be true of a chocolate shop?
Randy Page (35:01.895)
But it’s been good, It’s been good. it’s, I mean, we, we, we, so the, the version of the Dubai chocolate that I make is exactly, it’s elevated from what the original is because we are using that French Valrhona chocolate. We’re using the originals made with pistachio cream, which you can buy on Amazon. You can buy it a lot of places, but it’s.
It’s kind of like peanut butter but made with pistachios but it’s got other oils and a lot of sugars in it and the version that I make is we use pure Sicilian pistachio paste that’s just nothing but 100 % pistachios. I get pure tahini that I get from a Middle Eastern market here that’s imported from Lebanon. And I get N4
Andrew Roy (35:43.95)
Step up,
Randy Page (35:56.775)
the sugar we don’t add any extra oils we just we use white chocolate so it’s cocoa butter and and just the sugar from that from that great white chocolate and then the katafi is you know we toast in butter and it’s it’s just really good I mean it’s it’s we’re back to where the conversation started is just the just the best ingredients you put the best in you get the best back out and
Everybody that’s had all the different versions that everybody’s tried to make in town Everybody has liked ours best and I’m grateful for that. But it’s I mean, it’s really nothing I’ve done. I’ve just I’ve just assembled You know, I’ve always felt my whole career that I’m I mean I I do have good basic skills I don’t necessarily consider myself a great chef. I don’t consider myself a chocolatier at all
Andrew Roy (36:54.064)
Hmm.
Randy Page (36:54.333)
Sockless was just kind of a hobby for me. What I am really good at is I think I’ve been good at discerning good recipes. I think I’m good at producing consistent results. And I think I’m good at sourcing high quality products. And I think if you do all of those things, you just…
you can’t lose you can’t yeah you win by default it ain’t got nothing to do with talent you know it’s just I’m just I just know where I just know what the good stuff is you know and if you’re willing to pay for it you can have it it mean it’s not cheap Valrhona is the best chocolate I think but it’s also about the most expensive chocolate and back last fall chocolate went up globally 50 percent
Andrew Roy (37:24.101)
You win by default.
Andrew Roy (37:35.215)
Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah.
Andrew Roy (37:53.079)
Yeah. Yeah.
Randy Page (37:54.601)
So, I mean, it’s just crazy stuff’s happening in our world today. I don’t know where it’s all gonna end, but we’re keeping up so far. It is. Well, all chocolate, all chocolate’s important. So chocolate cacao grows all the way around the planet through the equatorial region of the planet. But 65, 70 % of the world’s commercial
Andrew Roy (38:01.169)
That’s important, isn’t it?
Have you, yeah.
Andrew Roy (38:16.785)
Mmm.
Randy Page (38:23.346)
Kakao comes from the west coast of Africa, Ghana, the Ivory Coast. through climate change and just three consistent, three consecutive years of drought, aging trees that are producing less.
just a lot of different stuff.
Andrew Roy (38:51.899)
going up. Yeah. Well, I wasn’t sure if the possibility of tariffs was coming your way too. that was, yeah. I know.
Randy Page (39:00.328)
You know, I think tariffs as I understand them, think there’s a lot of misconceptions about tariffs and I don’t The only thing I’ve been able to glean so far I think a lot of the tariff stuff is gonna have to is gonna relate to Finished goods Manufactured goods as opposed to ingredients
Andrew Roy (39:26.385)
Yeah. And see, that’s why I’m running terrified, because I’m wondering if that includes spirits and whines too. Because we’ll see.
Randy Page (39:35.376)
Hmm. Yeah, maybe. don’t know. think that… Well, I feel like, you know, and without getting too deep into politics, I mean, I don’t… I don’t fully understand economy. I don’t fully understand tariffs, but I do think the intention of the tariffs is to create more jobs.
and more manufacturing back here in America and I’m all for that. And I think that because of that, the intention of the tariffs is not going to apply to things that can’t really be made here. Perhaps. Maybe.
Andrew Roy (40:08.186)
sure, yeah.
Andrew Roy (40:21.211)
Yeah, and if that’s true, yeah, you know the tequila for Mexico is the one that like you know I mean that’s one of the big things we sell we’ll see we can’t make that here and Legally, yeah, you have to make it down there. Yeah Yeah, yeah, so there’s these Yeah, maybe we’re not the ones to be talking Yes, exactly We’re not the ones that
Randy Page (40:30.77)
Yeah!
Randy Page (40:34.856)
And we can’t grow cocoa beans here. We can’t grow coffee here. So we could make more t-shirts here.
We can build cars here.
Andrew Roy (40:48.265)
the tariffs aren’t aimed at us, our industries maybe. Yeah.
Randy Page (40:52.7)
I don’t think so. don’t think they are. And so far, I think we’re good. I I get my boxes for our chocolates from China. I am in direct communication with the company that makes them. I help design them. I send them a design. They tweak it to work with what they can do. And they make a very luxurious box that doesn’t cost me that much. The thing is, there’s nobody in the United States that’s making them.
They don’t have any competition here. I’ve tried to find box makers. They can make them here and they’ve all told me, can’t make that box here. We can’t afford it. We can’t afford the labor. So, and that’s the sad truth of it. It ain’t me that’s choosing to not buy an American product. There’s not one to buy. So, just like the iPhone, they can’t make them here.
We can’t afford it. We can’t afford the labor to make them. You and I would not be able to afford the finished product if they were built here.
Randy Page (42:04.425)
but have talked to the box people in china and they’ve said that the tariffs don’t apply to their products so you know i think there’s i think there’s a finite list of products that are being tariffed and i i think there’s i think it’s still very misunderstood and i think it hasn’t all been quite figured out yet too so and i’m just not worried about it’s nothing i can do about it
Andrew Roy (42:11.536)
Mm.
Andrew Roy (42:26.353)
Yeah, I trust me. I was not I was not speaking with any certainty at all I was it’s speculative as far as I understand right now. Yeah Yeah Before
Randy Page (42:35.573)
yeah, Noah!
Randy Page (42:40.506)
But it is crazy. It’s,
Andrew Roy (42:45.521)
Before I forget, I did want to ask, because you kind of mentioned there are certain rules that you have to follow when you make chocolate. But I was wondering, what are some of those? I know most people are like me, have never tried this before.
Randy Page (43:01.8)
Sure. Well, so chocolate is… So you’ve got a cocoa bean. You’ve got this pod that’s filled with these little beans that are basically the seeds of the cacao tree. And they are covered with this very sweet, very rich, decadent, citrusy flavored fruity flesh.
Andrew Roy (43:02.417)
Yeah.
Randy Page (43:30.344)
and a lot of that kind of gets destroyed in the process of breaking up this cluster of of little beans that are about that big. About, a little bit bigger than a nickel. Not as big as a quarter. And so all of that sugar, they take that so that the bean is fermented. All that sugar and all that fruit is fermented for
just a couple of days. Very, very instrumental in the flavor of chocolate. And then that bean is spread out on tarps, usually in the sun and dried. And after a couple of days, they’re then roasted. And then they’ve got a kind of a chaff on them that is peeled off in a process called winnowing. And then we have what most people these days recognize as a cocoa nib, which are just the little pieces
of the inner portion of that seed or that bean that just tastes like unflavored chocolate and it’s got kind of a fatty richness to it and it’s not sweet.
Andrew Roy (44:40.849)
It’s not very sweet, right? okay, yeah.
Randy Page (44:43.717)
Not sweet at all, but it’s the essence of chocolate. That is then ground into over a long period of time through a series of rollers and grinding to particles get smaller and smaller and smaller and so that your palate can no longer detect an individual little grain. And that is called chocolate mass or chocolate liquor.
Andrew Roy (44:44.689)
Yeah.
Randy Page (45:14.459)
and that’s basically unsweetened chocolate and it is comprised of cocoa butter, fat, and cocoa solids which is cocoa powder and commercially you can add sugar to that and you can make dark chocolate and that’s that simple but commercially what’s done is that the fat and the solids are separated
So it’s just kind of like making olive oil. You take the olives and you press them and you separate the water and the solids from the oil. Kind of the same thing. We’re separating the solid from the fat. Then they’re put back together in exact ratios to achieve different results with sugar and milk in the case of milk chocolate.
So chocolate is a a very fragile emulsification of fat, solids, sugar, and milk where necessary. If you take out those solids, then you’ve just got the fat, the sugar, and the milk. That’s white chocolate. So white chocolate is chocolate. It does come from the cocoa bean.
Those little white melting disks, those are not chocolate. They have no cocoa butter in them. So we’ve got this emulsification. Now that emulsification has to be, if you just take that stuff right out of the machine that it’s been pressing it and making this very smooth paste, and you just let that cool, you’re gonna have this grainy product that’s.
Andrew Roy (46:47.088)
Okay.
Randy Page (47:09.137)
gonna have all the flavor that you’re used to from chocolate but it’s not gonna have the texture it’s not gonna it’s not gonna set up and be firm and have a nice crisp snap when you break it it has to be tempered and that’s where the science comes in so you’ve you’ve extracted the raw material you’ve gotten it ground down to this very smooth decadent silky paste
and higher quality chocolate companies grind it finer than lower quality chocolate companies do, they might add less sugar. Yeah, to make it smoother they might add less sugar, they might add more solids, the solids are a lot cheaper.
Andrew Roy (47:43.312)
Okay.
Which would be smoother, yeah.
Randy Page (48:01.126)
then the cocoa butter the cocoa butter is the most expensive part of the whole process so if you can take less of that and throw in more sugar and more solids you can get a cheaper product and that’s what you get when you get something like Hershey’s or some other really cheaper you know cheaper sugar, cheaper milk products
Andrew Roy (48:23.323)
Yeah, sugar hides a lot of flaws too. Yeah.
Randy Page (48:26.439)
it does it does and it stretches things and just make it sweeter and we all know that as americans were known for having a very sweet palette you know compared to a lot of most of the rest of the world but so chocolate has to be tempered and we do that by melting it all we’re looking for a certain type of crystal as it melts and then as it
Andrew Roy (48:36.635)
Mm-hmm.
Randy Page (48:56.465)
comes back together and re-solidifies, we’re developing certain types of fat crystals that are called beta four and five crystals. And so the chocolate is melted to a certain temperature that melts all of the crystals and then it is very carefully cooled to a certain temperature that allows the crystals we want to develop and not so much the other crystals.
And so that’s kind of the science and it’s really it’s a it’s very specific temperatures, a very specific type of agitation, because as as those crystals start to grow, we want to disperse them throughout the pool of chocolate we have. But we don’t want too many of them that we end up with problems. So there’s just there’s a lot of tiny little nuances. Most of them you can’t tell just by looking at it.
Andrew Roy (49:45.712)
Okay.
Andrew Roy (49:53.169)
That’s why you’ve been talking about the flavor and the breaking and okay.
Randy Page (49:53.7)
You- you- you get it?
Randy Page (49:58.885)
Yep, yep, but a pot full of or a bowl or a pool or whatever full of melted chocolate looks like melted chocolate, but there could be so many different things going on in there. we’ve got a, we’ve got a temperature and experience and experimentation is, is, you know, kind of creates the product that we’re looking for.
Andrew Roy (50:28.369)
Cool, yeah, that was awesome. I’m glad I asked.
Randy Page (50:29.146)
There’s just a lot to it.
Yeah, there’s a lot to it. And once you learn it, but… So I’ve been doing this stuff pretty, you know… But I’ve done nothing but chocolate for the last six years. And for a good… five to eight years before that…
So we’re coming up on about 12 to 15 years that I’ve been playing with this stuff a lot. Just last week, I ran into something that I had not run into before and ruined a half a day’s work and had to start over because something wasn’t quite right. And it was the temperature of the room. It was a little too warm. And this time of year, heat and humidity
have an effect on that stuff.
Andrew Roy (51:30.469)
course it does yeah that makes sense do you do you your mistakes or give them to friends and family
Randy Page (51:32.491)
and and there’s stuff
Randy Page (51:38.626)
I do, I, well, I do, and in this case, I was able to melt them back down and start again, because that’s one thing. If you don’t get it filled, you can remelt chocolate. Chocolate doesn’t really go bad and it can be long as you don’t get it too hot and scorch it or get any water in it. You can just melt it and reuse it. So that’s pretty nice. So just what you’ve lost is all the time that you put into the initial, you know, whatever, but.
Andrew Roy (51:41.297)
cool, yeah.
Andrew Roy (52:07.067)
Definitely a non-renewable resource, but sometimes better that than money and chocolate, right? Yeah. Cool. Well, Randy, where would you like people listening to find out more about you? How can they try your amazing chocolates? And how can they find out when they do buy chocolates ready and all that?
Randy Page (52:13.028)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Randy Page (52:27.99)
Well, they can. So we’ve got a website cricketandfig.com. Cricket and Fig are my little dogs. Everybody should know that. And they just got all their shots last week. They’re very healthy little pups. Cricket’s nine, Fig’s eight. And they are my children and they are the great pure joy in my life. Anyway, cricketandfig.com is our website.
Andrew Roy (52:34.213)
Yep, cute dogs, love them.
Andrew Roy (52:46.25)
man.
Andrew Roy (52:56.005)
this.
Randy Page (52:57.67)
our store if you’re in Tulsa we are at 58th and Lewis 5800 South Lewis Avenue in Tulsa and the London Square Shopping Center we’re here Tuesday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. we do breakfast and lunch until 2 o’clock and after that it’s chocolate and great coffee you can also follow us on social media we’re on Facebook and Instagram
cricket and fig on both of those.
Andrew Roy (53:29.977)
yeah, and I’ll make sure I’ll have all those listed at the link notes for those of you who are driving and can’t type that in quickly just to click away. Awesome, yeah, it was awesome to see you. I’ve got to get back.
Randy Page (53:43.14)
And we ship nationwide, I’m shipping some stuff today, even in the dead of summer, we’re shipping stuff and…
Andrew Roy (53:47.691)
They’re shipping. I am actually going to be there at the end of the month so I’ll probably stop by with Ann when we’re down there because we got to get some more chocolates. Yeah, so maybe.
Randy Page (53:58.93)
Well, we do get to see your parents-in-law from time to time. They’ve been in a couple times lately and it’s always a joy seeing them.
Andrew Roy (54:03.827)
yes.
Good, good. That means that they’re getting out of the house, which is always good.
Randy Page (54:12.858)
They are, they’re getting out of the house some. It’s always good to see them.
Andrew Roy (54:14.693)
Yeah, that’s why we’re coming down there. cool. Well, Randy, thank you for taking a couple of minutes today. And it was a real pleasure. Yeah. I’m going to stop. I’ll cut this out afterwards just so you know. So this should be out next Tuesday. I’ll send you a link. I’ll send you the audio a little bit before in case there’s anything you want to look at. But yeah, it was awesome talking to you.
Randy Page (54:18.5)
Awesome.
Randy Page (54:40.73)
I was going to say, somebody, actually a couple of my staff asked where your podcast is, because I guess all podcasts are pretty much wherever you get podcasts, right?
Andrew Roy (54:51.663)
Yeah, if you search it on Spotify, you search it on Apple, then it’s also our RSS feed on a couple of others. So any major one, if you search for services, you’ll find it, but I’ll send a link over if you want to have something easy to share with them. Cool. Well, I’m going to.
Randy Page (55:02.288)
Sir, is she right?
Randy Page (55:07.354)
Yeah, awesome.
Well man, I’ve enjoyed talking to you.
Andrew Roy (55:12.825)
Yeah, no, I don’t think about chocolate too often. So it’s always cool. I’m like, tell me how to make it. But yeah, cool. Well, I’m gonna have lunch with and and good, good. We’re up here and man, the restaurant it’s coming up on the second year of being open. So it’s it’s good up here. It’s cold, but mahogany still rocking and rolling.
Randy Page (55:23.278)
thing’s going with you.
Randy Page (55:41.056)
How cold? Come on man, you keep saying that. How cold is it?
Andrew Roy (55:44.231)
well, it’s something I was shocked at it. God, I think it was negative 20 last year. And like, yeah, it was for about a solid week. So you wrap up and you go inside outside and you don’t stay outside at all. we got Zeus boots in our great day. We let him out and he runs for five seconds and runs back and yeah, it’s it’s a blizzardy land.
Randy Page (55:50.916)
Jesus, for how long?
Randy Page (55:56.485)
Okay.
Randy Page (56:07.93)
Wow.
Andrew Roy (56:13.369)
Sometimes so it’s it’s a whole thing But it’s cool
Randy Page (56:18.918)
So I gotta ask, is Warren Buffett a customer?
Andrew Roy (56:22.829)
No, no, no, he goes to McDonald’s, you know, no, he doesn’t. Some people that work with him do, but not him. But that’s, mean, I kind of figured that would be the case. He’s not the type to enjoy fancy food and all that sort of thing. He’s retiring too. He announced it last year. Or no, this year, this Berkshire halfway, he announced this is his last year.
Randy Page (56:25.444)
He doesn’t come in?
Randy Page (56:42.874)
project.
Randy Page (56:52.368)
think I did hear that,
Andrew Roy (56:53.233)
Yeah, that’ll be interesting. That’s wild. Berkshire Hathaway Week. The town grows by like 50,000 people and it’s, yeah, all these people come out and, yeah, it’s…
Randy Page (57:04.596)
oooo stockholders and meetings and stuff
Andrew Roy (57:07.129)
Yep, a whole week of it. Well, we go from just decently busy to a week of chaos and then back to decently busy. Yeah. So that’s cool. Yeah, if you ever get a wild, wild edge to come up here, let me know. I’ll show you around. It’s a cool place.
Randy Page (57:09.882)
Wow.
Randy Page (57:15.168)
Jesus, I bet. I bet.
Randy Page (57:26.566)
I do want to come up there someday. I’ve always wanted to go to Omaha. Ever since I was a kid, mutual of Omaha is a wild kingdom. Always wanted to know where Omaha is.
Andrew Roy (57:29.489)
Yeah.
Andrew Roy (57:34.939)
Yep. And yeah, if you ever look for another spot for another Cricken Fig, downtown Omaha could probably use it. You never know.
Randy Page (57:48.259)
well between you and your your counterpart here
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