One of my favorite home cooks / chefs, from right here in the Phoenix Valley area, is Brad Prose. His page, Chiles and Smoke, is an inspiration to me and one that I follow avidly. Hopefully, we’ll have an interview with Brad in the coming months.
Another big hero of mine, from Spokane, WA is Derek Wolf, from Over the Fire Cooking. Derek also has his own line of spices with Spiceology. Derek and Brad are good friends and collaborate all the time.
Marco from Woodfire+Whiskey is someone else that really has a lot of style and a huge following, especially on TikTok. Marco has 1.8 million followers on TikTok. You can listen to our interview with Marco on Google, YouTube, or PodBean.
Tone Ramirez, TFTI BBQ, is another guy I follow, mainly on FB and Instagram. I haven’t talked with Tone personally yet, but I hope to some time in the near future.
Matthew Groark, from Groark Boys BBQ, is awesome. He’s on Season 2 of Next Level Chef, Team Blais, so I guess you know which team I’m rooting for! He also has 129k followers on Instagram, 3.2 million on TikTok, and 640k on YouTube. He’s a former high school teacher with a HUGE heart, he gives to his community and quite honestly, he’s had an AMAZING year.
How to BBQ Right, from Malcolm Reed, is another big favorite of mine. The man just knows how to cook. One of my truisms is, “Never trust a skinny cook.” With Malcolm that’s not an issue, because like me, he likes to eat as well!
Someone who has had an impact on everyone that does any kind of BBQ, whether it be professionally or in their backyard for the family, is Matt Pittman from Meat Church. His BBQ rubs and videos will take your cooking to the next level and he makes it all look so effortless.
