- 2 months ago
Cowboy Kent has cooked meals on the open range and gone head-to-head with Bobby Flay and beaten him. But his success didn’t stop in the kitchen. He’s built a thriving YouTube channel, a successful catering business, and written cookbooks. In this episode, Kent shares why faith and family aren’t just part of his story, but the foundation of everything he’s built.
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00:00I got to thinking when I did some TV the very first time, I remember we were doing something for
00:04the Family Channel.
00:05And this lady said, now this is live. There will be like 3 million people see this. Does it bother
00:10you?
00:10I said, I can't see them. Don't bother me at all, ma'am.
00:13You know, I can remember a producer telling me, you're one of the few people that we get a camera
00:17in front of, you never change.
00:19And I said, ma'am, I ain't changed socks in a week. Why change and be something or not?
00:29Hey, everyone. Welcome to How Success Happens. I'm Dan Bova, writer and editor at Entrepreneur.com.
00:35So let me just start by saying, if you're hungry, I'm going to suggest press pause, go have a snack,
00:42and then come back.
00:43Because today's chat is going to kill you otherwise.
00:46Because I am talking with a man who knows his way around a steak.
00:51I'm talking with Cowboy Kent Rollins, a real deal cowboy who turned his knack for feeding hungry ranchers into a
01:00wildly popular YouTube channel,
01:02a TV show on the Outdoor Channel, and his own line of cookbooks, seasonings, pots and pans, and all that
01:10stuff.
01:10So please join me in the comments and give a big yeehaw to Cowboy Kent.
01:16Well, thank you, Dan, so much, brother.
01:18It is my pleasure to be here.
01:20And cooking is something that's always come pretty natural to me.
01:24So if people want to tune in and get hungry, hey, I'm all for it.
01:28So let me ask you this.
01:29So you're originally born and raised from Brooklyn, right?
01:33And then you, like, kind of put this whole thing together.
01:35It's pretty close.
01:36It's very convincing.
01:37Yeah, pretty, a little, probably about 1,900 miles southeast of there, you know, or southwest.
01:43I'm sorry.
01:45Before we get into the cooking and all that fun stuff, why don't we get into the fun stuff of
01:52you?
01:52All right.
01:53Tell us about Cowboy Kent.
01:55How did this phenomenon come to be?
01:59You know, I was raised southwest Oklahoma, pretty close to the banks of the Red River.
02:04Farm and ranch operation.
02:07We were poor as dirt, but mama made sure we eat pretty good.
02:11We raised some cattle, done a little farming.
02:14But we found out that the kitchen was not just a place to cook.
02:18It was a place to where people sat down and eat and visited every day.
02:23And you talked about life's problems and maybe how you could fix them.
02:26But it was always done over a meal of some sort.
02:30And my mother used to always say before we blessed a meal,
02:33it's not the legs of the table that hold it up.
02:36It is the family that is gathered around it.
02:38And we always learned that there was strength in numbers.
02:42And we made sure then, and I wish it was that way now,
02:47there was always holding a fork and a knife.
02:49There's too many people at the table now holding a cell phone.
02:53I wish people would put it down and just go back to eating.
02:56But my mother taught me to cook at an early age.
02:59Sometimes it was a lot warmer in a kitchen than it was a horseback,
03:03you know, when it was 10 degrees.
03:04So I thought cooking was all right.
03:08Always helped her in the kitchen when I could,
03:11especially around the holiday time.
03:12We were pretty busy.
03:13We'd have folks over.
03:15From that, went to Guadagnale Conners in the southwest New Mexico
03:18in the mountains and learned to cook really there in cast iron and Dutch ovens.
03:23Food cooks a lot different at elevation.
03:27You know, when I come from 1,800 foot,
03:29and then you go to cooking at 8,000 foot,
03:31there's a lot of things that factor into that,
03:35which mostly is elevation and humidity.
03:38And bread don't rise as good.
03:40It takes longer to boil a pot of beans.
03:42And nobody taught me this stuff.
03:44It was all trial and error.
03:46And I think that's really how you learn the best is if you burn your finger,
03:51you know it's hot.
03:52You won't do it the second time.
03:53So it's something that when I got out of there from Guadagnale Hunters,
03:58I'd worked on ranches, eat off some old chuck wagon cooks.
04:02Some were decent.
04:03Some were bad.
04:04But I bought a wagon late in 91 after my dad died
04:08and went to cooking on ranches.
04:10Back then, there was no such thing as social media or any of this.
04:15Word of mouth and a full stomach kept me busy.
04:18I could start in February and cook on ranches from south to north
04:23all the way to November, you know.
04:27So my mother told me one time I'd been gone, not consecutive days,
04:31but that year I'd put in about 240 nights at a chuck wagon
04:35and sleeping in a teepee in a bedroll.
04:37Wow.
04:37She said, didn't you miss me?
04:40I said, I did, Mama.
04:41But the thing that I miss most was a sit-down toilet, a stand-up shower, and carpet.
04:49I love that.
04:50You know, we, meaning me, are people maybe that live in New York.
04:56We have this fantasy about being out there in the wild
04:59and, you know, being on horseback.
05:01And I don't know, it's like 45 degrees out today when we're recording this,
05:06and I was walking my dog this morning, and I was like,
05:08I felt like I was freezing to death.
05:10So, like, I don't know if I would have made a very good cowboy.
05:13Well, you know, it's, I'm glad that people are drawn to the cowboy though.
05:18It was whether film or real life or something you just dreamed about it being.
05:23The cowboy was always an American icon.
05:25People wanted to be like him or do something that he did.
05:28But it's so much different in the real world than what it is you might see on a movie screen.
05:34And they're the most respectful, most polite people I've ever been around in my life
05:39that have the values that were instilled in them to know that they are stewards of the land first,
05:46and they take care of cattle and family.
05:49God always is present the first thing.
05:51But it's a lifestyle I'd never change.
05:55How do you know if what you made was good, if they're always polite and smiling?
05:59They'll come back and fill it up a second time and a third time.
06:03Okay.
06:04When you try a recipe, and cowboys are great experimentation
06:07because they ain't got nowhere else to eat.
06:09You know, they're still a few miles from town, you know.
06:12So, you know if they come back twice and even a third time,
06:15you better write that recipe down.
06:17It's worth having.
06:18Right.
06:18What if they only come back or they don't come back?
06:22What do you do with that recipe?
06:23I've never had that happen.
06:25Okay.
06:27You know, I've been on some old wagons to where you were polite.
06:31I mean, the cook fixed something that was really unedible or not good.
06:35You didn't tell him.
06:36You just went around there behind a tree somewhere and scraped the plate out.
06:39You just went hungry.
06:41Right.
06:43So let me ask you this.
06:45Obviously, you're an incredibly authentic person,
06:48and you speak and dress the way you speak and dress.
06:51Yes, but I'm curious, as you started to gain notoriety and you've got the TV show,
06:59I wondered, did anyone try to slip in and try to Hollywood you up at all?
07:03Did anyone give you some ridiculous advice about maybe your beard,
07:07maybe your mustache should be shorter or you shouldn't wear a hat or anything like that?
07:12No, not really in what we're doing now with the TV show and our YouTube channel.
07:17You know, we got called by producers a lot for many years,
07:21and they would say, hey, we have the perfect show for you.
07:24And I'd say, you know, you're too much reality and we're too much real.
07:28People can spot a counterfeit 100 miles away.
07:31Just be what you are every day and try to do it better than anybody else,
07:34and you'll never have a job.
07:35So your YouTube channel, you've got about three and a half million subscribers.
07:42Talk me through that.
07:43When did you decide to start the YouTube show,
07:47and how long did it take for you to start building this huge audience?
07:52I would say we probably started it 12 years ago, maybe 11.
07:57We were on a ranch in New Mexico that is 295,000 acres.
08:02We were there six weeks.
08:03Shannon took a little camcorder,
08:05and Shannon is my most beautiful, hardworking wife I've ever seen in my life.
08:10And she just went to filming every day that we was doing something,
08:14and we'd make little episodes.
08:16And we decided that we'd put one of them up one time
08:19just to sort of advertise and see what happened.
08:21And we never did really be consistent at that time.
08:25There wasn't just one video and then another and then another one.
08:28And then we put another one up on cooking schools that we did.
08:31And then we finally learned as producers kept calling us and saying,
08:35hey, we have a show for you.
08:37We thought, no, we have our own show on YouTube.
08:42We can, we're in control of our content.
08:45We can say, let's pray for somebody.
08:47Or God bless America.
08:48We're not offending anybody.
08:49But we want to keep it true and real and authentic to what it is
08:54and be consistent.
08:56Because if you can set up, it's just like feeding cows.
09:00In the wintertime, you feed cows and you're going to feed them over the morning.
09:03They know you're going to be there.
09:04If you're going to do a YouTube video and you want to be a success
09:07and have it be something that will grow and grow,
09:11be consistent, just like feeding them cows.
09:13Have a video that comes out a certain time every week where people know.
09:18And we finally figured that out.
09:19And I remember when we got our first play button,
09:22that was 100,000 subscribers.
09:23We're thinking, I don't even know 100,000 people.
09:27You realize how far you can reach with a channel.
09:31Yeah.
09:31You know, it's the greatest platform, I think,
09:34that there is to really connect with fans.
09:37Because I'd done a lot of food TV at the time, too.
09:40And people would recognize you from that.
09:43But with YouTube, it's a whole lot more interaction.
09:46When did this idea to be in front of the camera and talk to people,
09:49obviously you're a great talker.
09:52You have great stories, have incredible expressions.
09:55Like, when did it dawn on you, like,
09:57hey, maybe more than just the people around me might like this?
10:02Well, first of all, I need people to know I made a D in high school in speech.
10:05I hated to get up in front of people.
10:07You know, but after my dad passed away, and I realized at time,
10:13sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone.
10:15And I've told people this a lot.
10:17If it doesn't challenge you, it will never change you in life.
10:21I got to thinking when I did some TV the very first time,
10:24I remember we were doing something for the Family Channel a long time ago.
10:28And this lady said, now, this is live.
10:31There will be like 3 million people see this.
10:33Does it bother you?
10:34I said, I can't see them.
10:35Don't bother me at all, ma'am.
10:37And it come pretty easy.
10:39You know, I can remember a producer telling me,
10:41you're one of the few people that we get a camera in front of,
10:44you never change.
10:45And I said, ma'am, I ain't change socks in a week.
10:47Why change and be something or not?
10:52That's great.
10:53So now you famously beat Bobby Flay.
10:58How long did he cry when the cameras turned off?
11:01Well, it was about 97 degrees that day when Bobby came.
11:04I didn't know he was coming.
11:07He was ready to go home when he got there, I think,
11:10because of the heat that was happening.
11:13I think he thought he was a little out of place.
11:16And I don't really even remember him saying bye.
11:19He just got in the vehicle.
11:20Oh, really?
11:21So I think he was in a hurry to get away.
11:25But, you know, it was good to have him there.
11:29He's welcome if he wants to come back.
11:31Right, right, right.
11:32I will tell him this.
11:33Ain't nothing changed.
11:34It's still hot and it's still heavy.
11:37You said when the cameras turned on, you weren't nervous and it just felt natural.
11:43When you have been nervous, or if you've ever been nervous,
11:46is there anything that you do to kind of calm yourself down?
11:50Yeah, when I first did Chopped Grill Masters, I don't know how long it was,
11:55probably 10 years ago, 15, something I'd never done was a food competition.
12:00And this was the Food Network's largest outdoor production at the time.
12:05And they took 15 chefs across the United States and one cowboy.
12:10And I was a little nervous, didn't know about Chopped, anything about it.
12:14Finally watched the episode and I told Shan, I said, these people are crazy.
12:17I ain't never heard of these groceries in my life.
12:20You know, nobody buys this stuff.
12:22But she told me, when you feel fire, you'll be okay.
12:27But the thing that calms my mind, if I'm ever in any kind of stressful situation,
12:33is to think of her, the amount of love that we have for each other,
12:37what we share every day together.
12:39And I just think about the most peaceful places we've ever been.
12:43And that's always usually been with a chuck wagon to look out across two or 300,000 acres.
12:48And it's just pleasant, you know.
12:50And that's just get back to reality of what you are, not what you're trying to be.
12:55Oh, that's beautiful.
12:56Have you ever had a cook-off challenge with Shannon?
13:03No, we've never cooked against each other.
13:06We've had so much.
13:07We catered for a long time, too, in between cooking for ranches.
13:11And we'd feed thousands of people in a year.
13:14But there was never a wasted motion after I taught her really what went on with the wagon.
13:20This is the way you bake biscuits.
13:22This is how you make pies.
13:23This is how you make a cobbler.
13:25And she knew where I was going to be, and I knew where she was going to be.
13:28And because when she first came along, she didn't cook at all.
13:31And she feels probably more adept to cooking outside than she does inside.
13:37She's a great baker in a Dutch oven, but she's a great baker in the house, too.
13:42So talk to me a little bit about, so when you are cooking, your hands are literally in it.
13:48You're making it happen.
13:51But when we start to talk about products like seasoning and your books and the pans, there's a lot of
13:58people involved.
13:59So how do you manage that from going from the guy who's literally buttering the biscuits to trusting a lot
14:10of people who are not directly in your site to carry out what you want them to carry out?
14:16I've always believed in a team.
14:18And a team to me was a team of horses that I hooked to a wagon to pull it.
14:22And it was a team I had to trust.
14:24Because if they run off or they turn that wagon over, you're out of business.
14:28I never do judge people.
14:30My dad taught me a long time ago, you don't judge a man by the hat he wears on his
14:34head or the clothes he wears.
14:36You see what's in his eyes and you feel what's in his heart by his handshake.
14:40And it's always been true.
14:42We have a great book agent.
14:45And she sort of steered us in the cookbook world.
14:48A lot of people have ghostwriters.
14:50They bring in people to take pictures.
14:52They help you with everything.
14:54Me and Shan didn't want that.
14:55We wanted the cookbooks to be totally us.
14:58Because all the recipes were ours, all the stories I wrote, all the pictures she took.
15:04Because it's a process to where when we get it done, we want to say, this is more than a
15:10cookbook.
15:11This is a book of life.
15:13Because there's so many great stories and pictures in there.
15:16And we have folks that work for us that ship product.
15:20We have folks that make our product.
15:23But they have the same values that we do.
15:26They know at the end of the day, I've done the best that I can do to make sure that
15:31when I fulfill this order or I make this product, that Kent and Shannon would be proud of me.
15:37And that's what it's about.
15:38That's great.
15:39So how do you go about finding people like that?
15:41That's the dream.
15:42People that care as much about what you're doing as you do.
15:45I think a lot of that, and I don't mean this bad towards anybody, comes from rural America.
15:50You know, there's a lot of little small places, especially where I grew up.
15:55But Sherry that works for us lives in a little small town that was 28 miles from where we used
16:00to live.
16:00And she knows what we want out of this business.
16:03Good Christian folks that know, hey, I'm going to do this today because I know it's going to be right.
16:10And we've teamed up with people that we've worked with, done collabs with, and everything else.
16:15And they want what we want out of it.
16:17And that is not only to better us, but to put forth an image out there that we're not ashamed
16:22of.
16:23That's great.
16:24Wow.
16:24All right.
16:25So talk to me about these recipes for someone who's just getting to know you.
16:32Maybe this is their introduction to you and your cooking.
16:38Tell them what recipe to try first, the thing that's going to flip the switch for them.
16:43Well, if you're wanting to cook outside in a Dutch oven, the first thing you should think about baking is
16:49cornbread.
16:50Cornbread is the easiest thing to put together.
16:52If you don't want to make it homemade, follow the directions on the sack.
16:55You know, it's pretty easy.
16:57But when you bake something in a Dutch oven, there's coals underneath which have heat.
17:03There's coals on top which has the heat.
17:06But cornbread will tell you when it's nearly done.
17:09Everything separates as you cook from the outside walls of what you're cooking it in.
17:14It'll begin to shrink.
17:16And cornbread shrinks higher than anybody.
17:18Now, do we just have plain cornbread?
17:20No, most of the time it's got green chilies, cheese, maybe some hominy in it we'll mix in there on
17:25occasion, or spicy sausage.
17:27Cornbread can be a complete meal.
17:30But when you master what you can cook in a Dutch oven, because anything you can cook in the house,
17:35you can cook outside.
17:38There's a few things I won't cook, and it's just things that I can't spell.
17:43If it's food that's got a weird name, I'm probably not going to cook it.
17:47We do a lot of casseroles.
17:49There's a baked bean casserole, just ground beef and onions, a few jalapenos.
17:53Then you just pour some canned beans in there, let it cook, serve that with some fried potatoes and cornbread,
18:00make you some homemade apple pie for lunch.
18:04It's pretty good eating.
18:05Oh, man.
18:06See, this is what I was talking about in the beginning.
18:07If you're hungry, like you're dying right now.
18:10All right, Cowboy Kent, now is the time of the show where we enter the speed round.
18:16I think you can handle it.
18:17So let's get going.
18:19So let me ask you, what is a habit that you are happy that you have, and is there a
18:27habit you wish you could ditch?
18:29I don't know if I've ever had habits.
18:32I have pleasures in life.
18:34And the thing that I pleasure the most is being with Shan and cooking when the weather is really right.
18:41I'm talking a day that might be 45, 50 degrees to where a fire actually feels really good.
18:47But you're looking across wide open spaces.
18:49There's nothing in sight but just God's green earth and Mother Nature.
18:54But the other bad part of it, too, is a habit, if you call it a habit, is having to
18:59cook when it's 117 degrees before you build that fire.
19:03Right.
19:03No.
19:03I had a heat stroke in 96.
19:05It took me a while to get over.
19:07Oh, man.
19:09I don't know.
19:10If you go about it right in life, I don't think there's anything you really need to change because it's
19:16there for a reason.
19:17That's awesome.
19:18I love that.
19:19What is something or is there anything that most people seem to love but you secretly can't stand, whether that's
19:27food or social media or anything?
19:31For food, I would say cottage cheese.
19:34Oh, really?
19:35Okay.
19:35No, I don't.
19:37My mother ate it growing up, but I see so many people eat it now, and Shan does at times.
19:42She'll take cottage cheese, really high protein, you know, mix it with turkey or something.
19:46And I'm thinking, why didn't you just have a hamburger and some french fries?
19:49You know, we could have made this feel pretty easy.
19:52And I think if it's people-wise, it's just the people that are, I won't say complainers, but they're negative
20:02people.
20:03They never look at what it could be.
20:04They look about what it wasn't.
20:06This didn't happen.
20:08This wasn't going to happen.
20:09And the only way you can make something happen in life is to get in there and get dirty and
20:14try it.
20:15You know, I've always heard people say, and I believe this, and I told a man a long time ago,
20:20there's people that read stories in life.
20:22Don't read the story.
20:24Be what the story's about.
20:25I love that.
20:26That's fantastic.
20:27I was just about to ask you, too, on YouTube, you're talking about the comments, and you, you know, pray
20:35for your viewers if they request it.
20:39You've got this beautiful back and forth with your audience.
20:43I wonder, you know, as you were kind of developing your show and developing everything, was there any mentors who
20:50were really instrumental that maybe told you something or showed you something that really kind of flipped the switch for
20:57you that really put you in the right direction?
20:59That would be my mother.
21:00A lot of people say, what chef inspired you to cook or be who you are?
21:04I said, she didn't have the title of chef.
21:06She had the title of my mother.
21:08She taught me, cook what you love for the ones you love, and cook because you enjoy it, because the
21:13joy of cooking is not really cooking the food.
21:16It's watching the people eat it, and so many times on a ranch, when I know them guys have been
21:22out there, and it's been three degrees all day, and the wind and snow have been beating them to death,
21:26and they can come into where the wagon is, and it's got tarps all around where they're eating, and it's
21:30warm in there, and you sit down, and they take that first bite of the very most tenderest ribeye they've
21:36ever seen in their life,
21:37and you see that smile come on their face.
21:39That's what cooking is.
21:41I love, so you just said the word tender.
21:44So anyone who's experimented on, you know, sometimes we nail it, and sometimes we do not.
21:51What are the secrets of nailing the tender steak?
21:56Well, first of all, it depends on what you're buying.
21:59Are you buying select, choice, prime, whatever it is?
22:03Because, you know, I always take lime juice, and I'll squeeze on a ribeye.
22:09The acid in the lime juice breaks down connective tissue in the meat, which is going to make it tender,
22:14and I do all this four to five hours in advance if it's just a steak.
22:18Go ahead and season it with our original seasoning.
22:22Put it in an ice chest, let it sit, but I always bring it out about 30 to 40 minutes
22:27ahead of time to let that steak warm up.
22:29It's a more even cook.
22:30You're not shocking the meat as much.
22:32I always told people, if you've got three teeth or you've got a mouth full, you can eat my steak.
22:39I love it.
22:42And finally, how are you having your steak, rare, medium, or well done?
22:47Well, he done died once.
22:48I ain't going to kill him twice.
22:52I would, I like a steak that's rare, right at the edge of medium rare.
22:58You know, if it's a filet, it's always going to be pretty close to rare.
23:02I eat a lot of wild game.
23:04I cook a lot of wild game.
23:05It's always going to be rare, you know.
23:07But I've had people, when I catered, say, hey, I can't do that.
23:10Can you cook mine well done?
23:12I said, I can't, but here's the tones.
23:14I said, I'll have to watch you do it from a distance, man.
23:19I love it.
23:20I love it.
23:21You know, we talked about the YouTube show, obviously.
23:23Is that the best way for people to keep up with everything that you and Shannon are up to?
23:29Yeah, I mean, we have a large presence, I guess, what you could call on social media,
23:36from Facebook to Instagram to YouTube.
23:39You know, the Cast Iron Cowboy comes on Monday nights.
23:43I think it's 8.30 central time.
23:45We've already filmed the second season.
23:48It'll be out next year, probably September.
23:52We're pretty close to maybe finalizing the third season, so we'll see what happens.
23:57But it's YouTube every Wednesday at 2.30 central.
24:03Well, this has been really great talking to you, a lot of fun.
24:07And I'm making a mistake tonight.
24:09You've inspired me.
24:09There you go.
24:10There you go, brother.
24:11I've got great faith in you, you know what I mean?
24:15I don't, there was a little, I don't quite believe that one.
24:20You want to try that again?
24:21I do have faith in you.
24:23That's what I mean.
24:23I have people that tell me they'll get on YouTube and they'll make a comment and they'll
24:26say, you know, I've never cooked in my life, but you've inspired me to cook.
24:31I said, I have faith in you not only being a cook, but being a great cook.
24:35Well, this was great, Kent, really, really great talking to you.
24:41It's my pleasure, Dan.
24:42And you're welcome in camp anytime.
24:44Oh, I'd love it.
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