Secret Spoon Society

Secret Spoon Society Private dining. Proper pours. Edible adventures.

09/04/2026

A little R&D for next Saturday’s There Is Something About Bacon.

Because apparently serving bacon like a normal person was never really on the table. 🥓🫧

A few days after the tomato dinner, I got a message from someone who had been there.“Would you be available to do our we...
09/04/2026

A few days after the tomato dinner, I got a message from someone who had been there.

“Would you be available to do our wedding reception?”

Absolutely.

So we started talking. What they like to eat. What they like to drink. The things they definitely wanted, the things they didn’t, and what they wanted the evening to feel like.

This is where we landed.

And honestly, this is one of my favorite parts of doing this.

There’s no Package A, B or C. No menu sitting in a drawer waiting for somebody’s name to be dropped onto it. We start with the people and the occasion, and build from there.

With fall here and the holidays coming into view, I figured this was probably a good time to mention that Secret Spoon Society isn’t only about the dinners you see me posting.

Private dinners. Wedding receptions. Holiday gatherings. Company parties. Or whatever good excuse you’ve found to get your people around a table.

If you’ve got something in mind, send me a message.

Let’s see what we can create. 🥄

Curiosity is key.

’Tis the season. 🏈The Razorbacks open things up in Fayetteville this Saturday, which makes this feel like a particularly...
09/03/2026

’Tis the season. 🏈

The Razorbacks open things up in Fayetteville this Saturday, which makes this feel like a particularly appropriate week to say:

Woo Pig. 🐗

There Is Something About Bacon is officially SOLD OUT.

24 seats.
All spoken for.

What started as an idea involving Arkansas Berkshire pork, a case of bubbles, and perhaps an unreasonable amount of thought about bacon has turned into a full room upstairs at the Candy Loft.

Sure, I could do more.

But there’s something I really like about a room this size. Enough people to give it some energy, but still small enough to actually know who I’m cooking for. A little conversation, a little chaos, and hopefully by the end of the night it feels less like a room full of strangers than it did when we started.

On September 12, we’ll have beautiful Berkshire pork from Bansley Berkshire Ridge Farms here in the great state of Arkansas on the plates, bubbles in the glasses, and Brandon Patterson from the Fort Smith Symphony on stand-up bass keeping time while we see just how far one ingredient can take us.

That’s going to be a night full of new memories.

If you missed this one, shoot me a message and I’ll add you to the waitlist. Life happens sometimes, and a seat or two may find its way back to the table.

To the 24 who grabbed a seat:

I’ll see you upstairs.

Hogs by 90. 🐗

Someone asked me at the last dinner how I come up with these menus and pairings.Usually, it starts with a theme. Sometim...
09/02/2026

Someone asked me at the last dinner how I come up with these menus and pairings.

Usually, it starts with a theme. Sometimes a weird idea. Quite often those are the same thing.

From there, I think about it a lot like improvisation in music. You start with one small idea. Then another texture, another layer, another flavor gets introduced. One thing leads your palate into the next until all those individual notes start becoming something with structure and flow.

The Arkansas tomato dinner was a good example.

Caprese was one of the first things that came to mind. Tomato. Basil. Mozzarella. Balsamic. Everybody knows it.

Which was exactly why I didn't want to serve a Caprese salad.

So the question became: what if?

What if we kept everything familiar about Caprese, but turned it into ice cream? Basil. Tomato. Stracciatella. Balsamic caviar.

That's probably where most of my ideas come from after all these years in restaurants. Looking at something that's already good enough and asking, “Yeah, but what if...?”

Sometimes the answer is terrible.

I’ve probably made 19 okay-to-awful cocktails chasing the one that finally makes me stop and go, “There it is.”

Menus work the same way. I take the box way too far out first. Too many dishes. Too many ideas. Too many directions. Then I start cutting until there’s a rhythm to the evening.

Sometimes the food leads to the drink. Sometimes I taste the wine first and build the dish backward from the glass.

But underneath all of it, I’m trying to do the same thing:

Make familiar food a safe place to be adventurous.

Enough familiarity to give us somewhere solid to stand.

And then we can wander a little.

Why bacon?Honestly, because building an entire dinner around bacon is just absurd enough that I couldn’t leave it alone....
09/01/2026

Why bacon?

Honestly, because building an entire dinner around bacon is just absurd enough that I couldn’t leave it alone.

But if I’m going to do something this ridiculous, I might as well take it unreasonably seriously.

So, why Berkshire?

Berkshire is a centuries-old heritage breed prized for its marbling, richness and tenderness. Its story eventually made its way to Japan, where Berkshire became closely associated with kurobuta, or “black pig,” and helped shape the celebrated Kagoshima Kurobuta tradition.

I’ll give a quiet nod to that history when Berkshire meets dashi later in the evening.

Closer to home, the pork for this dinner is coming from Bansley’s Berkshire Ridge Farm in Harrison, Arkansas, where Sean and Carol Bansley have been raising Berkshire pigs in the Ozarks since 2009.

Whole bacon slabs. Fresh belly. Thick-cut chops.

Because this dinner was never about simply putting bacon on everything.

That would be easy.

I’m more interested in what happens when bacon becomes an ingredient instead of the punchline.

There Is Something About Bacon
September 12 · The Candy Loft · Downtown Fort Smith

Arkansas Berkshire pork.
Several courses.
One slightly unreasonable idea. 🥓

One more pour for August. 🥂It was a heck of a month.September, you're up.We've got bacon to obsess over, margaritas to e...
08/31/2026

One more pour for August. 🥂

It was a heck of a month.

September, you're up.

We've got bacon to obsess over, margaritas to experiment with, and the terribly difficult task of tasting our way through chocolate and red wine until we find just the right combination to share with you all.

The pursuit of knowledge has taken stranger forms.

A few things are already on the calendar. A few more are still taking shape behind the curtain.

See you upstairs.

There is something about bacon.Maybe it’s the smoke.Maybe it’s the salt.Maybe it’s because we’ve never met anyone who he...
08/30/2026

There is something about bacon.

Maybe it’s the smoke.
Maybe it’s the salt.
Maybe it’s because we’ve never met anyone who heard “too much bacon” and took it seriously.

On September 12, we’re giving it the whole table.

Five courses. A few unexpected turns. Bacon finding its place well beyond the breakfast table.

This one is going to be a little ridiculous.

Entirely intentional.

There Is Something About Bacon
Saturday, September 12 • 6:30 PM
The Candy Loft

A few tickets remain. Available through OzarksTix.com.

I keep thinking about the room.A Love Letter to an Arkansas Summer was the pilot for what’s to come.I wanted it small. I...
08/29/2026

I keep thinking about the room.

A Love Letter to an Arkansas Summer was the pilot for what’s to come.

I wanted it small. Intimate. Personal. One table, a handful of people, seven courses, and an idea I wanted to bring to life.

And that dinner was a special one for me. I obsessed over the details from start to finish. Not just what went on the plates, but the room, the table, the pacing, the music, the wine, and all the little details that are supposed to disappear once everyone sits down.

Because looking back at these pictures, I keep coming back to something that really has very little to do with tomatoes.

Look at the table.

For a couple of hours, people slowed down. Phones disappeared. Conversations started. Strangers became a little less strange. We ate. We laughed. We passed things around. We were present.

Somewhere between the food, the room, and the people, something else happened.

And I think I finally understand that’s the part I’ve been chasing all along.

I love creating food. I love taking an idea and seeing how far I can push it. But the more I do this, the more I realize the food is really just the invitation.

This is what I’m building here.

Not just dinners.

A reason to come to the table.

The love letter is written.Today, we put a stamp on it and send it on its way.Last night, our first public dinner at The...
08/28/2026

The love letter is written.

Today, we put a stamp on it and send it on its way.

Last night, our first public dinner at The Candy Loft sold out.

Seven courses. One ingredient. The Arkansas tomato.

The challenge was finding seven different ways to tell the same story without repeating ourselves. Raw. Roasted. Smoked. Savory. Sweet. Even dessert.

And the food? It landed exactly where I hoped it would.

But my favorite moment happened before the first plate ever hit the table.

Everyone was upstairs. Wine, sparkling water and Dr Pepper in hand. People were talking, laughing and settling into this incredible little room.

And I remember thinking: this feels right.

That’s what I hope The Candy Loft becomes. An upstairs room in downtown Fort Smith where something interesting is always happening. From an intimate dinner to a sold-out tasting, a company gathering or a Christmas party. Whatever brings people around the table.

The love in that room last night was a little overwhelming.

Thank you to everyone who bought a seat and climbed the stairs, and to Amy Anderson-Gibbons and Garrison Goodies, Arkansas Wine & Spirits, Riverpointe Wine & Spirits, See's Seafood, Shep Shot You, Jacob Fuson and Michael Torbett for helping bring the night to life.

A Love Letter to an Arkansas Summer is officially in the mail.

And The Candy Loft is just getting started

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Fort Smith, AR

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