A moment, Cat Cox is seated in an opulent banquet hall full of the most decorative food and drink names, gratefully shared airspace with business icons. Next, he was on the stage, accepting the James Beard Award for Extraordinary Pastry ChefBefore taking a blind truck for a walking walk with Eli Sussman, who asked him how everyone was feeling.
It looks like much. The Cox brings the most enthusiastic award in the industry for his relatively new business, Bird Bird (which he / she is described as a “Euro-Councy Bakery: European inspiration, with Dolly Parton Vibes”). But he also revealed James Beard's first ever to win for his town in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That was putting him among an infinitesimally small club of Oklahoma winners who included legends Florence Jones Kemp, Andrew Backs (who was all winning in Oklahoma City). Suddenly, the country's bird is no longer a small batch batch with a cult following, but the most prepared response to food outsiders? “(We who live here know the answer is a big yes.)
“I thought, There is no way this little bit of tulsa space only for two and a half years will win“Cox says.” It's not just an award for me and my team. This is an award for Tulsa. I should not stand there without the people who are very dedicated to our business, and who appeared and focused attention. “
And show supporters. The baker, open on Saturday and every one Thursday, can only fit a snippet of line with the bleary-eyed patron, which often surrounds the building like Sigo parody. With only four small refrigerators and a crust of bread, the team becomes approximately 1,500 pastry and 150 loaves of a common service. Turvy tulsans learned to drive to see if the line lacked friends close to the front front to snag an added item.
The effort is worthy for Cinnamon Sumac knots, butterscotch blondies, bread Cacio E Pepe Chocolate Crookies The Shop Has Especially Breads Made with Oklahoma-Grown Grain, as well as items featuring Garden-Grown Produce, and Buttermilk made in-house.
This commitment to make the Terroir of the heart is the more popular creative choice as a behavior. Take the Denmark of the Farmer: A Full Flaky, Book, Crispy, and Juicy, full of rotating rosters of local produce like corn, or tomatoes, or tomatoes.
“You'll see the right inside of it what we got in that week. It's like an edible substrate, or a painting, and shows farmers.
Cox is a lifetime baker, and even her 15 years of restaurant career begins with Marfa, Texas, he is also a Tulsa product. After returning his city, he took workshops with bakers like Sarah Owens and Tara Jensen, run a seminal program Living Kitchen Farm & Dairy (Cox partners Jases Beron Nominee belonged, Chef Lisa Becklund, with Linda Ford), and finally launched his own classes. After a dismissal of gratitude to the left cox with loaves to get, he launched the first independent sale of bread from his balcony. In 2022, a follower of Instagram near Bartlesville he flew about an oven in the secondhand brow, which became the first inkling of the country's bird.
“I like to be my side of his jump,” says Becklund, who, in a whole moment in the circle, attending the awards by the Cox as a finalist of the unique chef category. “But he did the work. He did the research and had love. I love seeing his success.” Tulsa built a momentum in today's victory. The city has made at least 15 nominees since 2022, because the creation restaurants pushed the local palm – less “that expands a place like this.
“Tulsa food scene comes a long way,” Cox says. “When I first moved 11 years ago, people would rave about a restaurant, and I'll try it out, certainly? Now there are restaurants I recommend to people who are heartfelt. “He moved places like The seed,, Cow and cabbage,, India Palace,, Taste of Mandarin,, Tina's (which served fried pie), Coffee in heirloom,, Ava June,, Farmand the new Food Truck Startup Old dog.
“Many people from the shores moved to the ground, and I think that their expectations for food were higher, and so they allowed chefs and restaurants,” Becklund said. “The other uncontrollable thing is that Instagram opens the world with the chefs and cooks in remote places. I think this kind of gatekeepers.”
But city success cannot be dedicated to outsiders. Thanks for its agrarian roots, Tulsa was filled with a certain kind of “Prairie Populism.” Chefs like Becklund are happy to help the next generation succeed, while locals are eager to support homegrown concepts, even if they break the molds.
“I thought it was about the heart,” says Cox, the dismissal of a definition of “Heartland” that describes more than Pulsa's place on the map. “In Tulsa, people attract that feeling of heart and driving, and do something and put it there to share and see.”
Cox felt the power to support from his neighbors since bringing the city's first award, but the opportunity also came to a certain weight.
“You know, more people build you, further you need to go,” he said. “It looks like a lot of pressure, and I'm a man.” He didn't know other chefs who took the city's first James Berard, but if he did it, “I think so long to feel it? '”
Even before victory, the need is over. “Whenever we get any small media, such as New York Times Discuss, and after the process of coming in (James Beard), we get the new guys, “as new guests try something, and we're not for everything; we can't.”
So far, he is bidding with attention to the same shares of excitement and withdrawal. “Now, we only focus on keeping our quality.” While the first natural chefs' is the opposite, the Cox's is to wait and see. In a culture that often insists that business owners will receive the need for open arms, scrambling to make additional supply, small bird store stores the team that checks the actual production limits. “It's not about doing more,” he said. “It's always close to doing – and that expectation is to give me anxiety.”
In locals who are concerned it may be the end of their country bird access, they are encouraged to cox patiently, and online order points as a way around the line. “It's hard for a minute,” he said. “But it's not always like this.”
Cox is correct – in many ways than one. To go to the scene of Tulsa's dining, the country's bird was not the only winner James Beard long. She has expected to see what “fun, scrapping things pop up” the next couple. In the meantime, after a well-taken summer break, the Cox will hang again.
“While working on the farm, Lisa and I said, 'The reward for hard work is harder job.' I thought it was so much week. “