By JOHN EBY
Dowagiac Daily News

Chef Aaron McCargo Jr. knows his way around the kitchen, but don’t ask Big Daddy to make Rice-a-Roni.

He can recite the recipe from memory – two tablespoons oil or butter, 2 1/2 cups water, cook your rice, add water, bring it to a boil, simmer for 20 minutes, done deal – but his never comes out right.

“It’s because you’re a homemade maker, you aren’t used to a box,” Nick Bogen reassures McCargo.

Ditto Jell-O cake. Leave that to Di’maan McGill.

That’s the sixth grader’s specialty.

“I can never get that right,” he seeks her advice. “Mine is too soggy. What am I doing wrong?”

Overstirring, she counsels.

Other students pride themselves on glazed strawberry cakes, fruit pies, omelets, Reuben sandwiches and tamales.

Though McCargo’s fondness for Buffalo wings is well-documented, his favorite omelet would contain steak, eggs and potatoes. And if you can heap it on rye bread with Swiss cheese and Russian dressing, all the better.

“Leftovers are the best meals,” he offers.

“Chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks and spaghetti on two pieces of bread. That’s a meal at home. I’m the leftover king and I love sandwiches. I break all the rules when I’m in the kitchen. My wife hates me for loving sandwiches. Pork chops, gravy, rice and onions can go on bread.”

He appears pleasantly surprised sampling Mary Squires’ no-bake cookies.

The Food Network host of “Big Daddy’s House” at 1:30 Sundays spent a rainy Friday morning driving away the dreary making a big batch of comfort food with 30 of his fascinating new friends from DMS and Union High School.

He seems as taken with their rural livestock lifestyles as they hang on his every word.
When he thinks of Allyson Wild’s pig Nitro he sees bacon for sandwiches.

His astonishment grows when he hears others raise rabbits, sheep and goats for 4-H projects to show at the fair.

“Anybody got anything normal, like a bird or dog?” he inquires incredulously. “I’m from Jersey. We see taxi cabs. Let a sheep near me and I’d make socks, a wig and eat it. If I come back next year, can I get a tour? Anybody got a camel?”

No, but there are some llamas, and one girl ticks off 18 cows, 37 chickens and five turkeys.
He announces a phone number to anyone who wants to notify his agent Big Daddy is “not coming back.”

Their morning together making magic is the essence of the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival, as he seasoned his dish with motivational advice and behind-the-scenes glimpses at the perks (free products, including an 18-inch knife of which there are but 13 in the world) and problems associated with national television.

Yes, the soon-to-be author (his book drops for the holidays) gets to travel across the United States, like the tiring day he made three flights which took him from San Francisco to Valdosta, Ga., to Oklahoma and back to California while shooting “Outrageous Foods.”

Next week he’ll judging barbecue in Myrtle Beach, S.C., with Guy Fieri, host of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.”

But that same travel takes him away from his family for extended periods of time and missed holidays. He worked Easter, which wasn’t easy for a man as religious as McCargo, and Mother’s Day.

“There are three key ingredients to my success,” he sums up. “God blessed me. I always surround myself with good friends and I always believe in myself. I’ve got nothing to complain about. I did a Disney special and got to meet Mickey Mouse. Nudged him on the head. Found out it was a girl.”

He reveals that at Paula Deen’s new Memphis mansion, the chicken coop is as big as Deanna Horrell’s DMS kitchen.

She picks eggs fresh and makes omelets for her crew. The henhouse has levels and “apartments” for each bird.

“Big Daddy’s House” is filmed at a house – just not his. The family vacates the premises when he and his crew of 30 are taping.

McCargo discusses students’ ambitions and aspirations and makes connections with each he returns to repeatedly during their animated dialogue.

“School is really important,” he tells these future chefs, historians, optometrists and illustrators. “Math is key for a chef. School was fun. I loved it because I met great people. This is the time to really get on your A game. The real world will eat you alive if you’re not prepared, if you don’t have an education, if you don’t have a future plan.

“In your ninth grade year – or even before – you should start planning what you’re going to do with your life when you graduate. Eighteen becomes 21, which becomes 25, then you’re old like me.

“Develop what you want to do early in life, stick with it, be passionate about it. I started cooking at 7 and just kept developing that skill to become the chef I am. Follow your dream, hone in on it and don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do it.

“I got picked on from eighth grade to 12th grade. People would throw my food at me and hurt my feelings. I got jumped because I loved to cook. I didn’t beat up anyone, They just thought it was uncool. I’ve even been hit with a chocolate chip cookie. It had a little too much baking soda and was kind of hard, but dunk it in milk. Don’t throw it at me.

“I walked down this long highway when I went to culinary school, someone threw a bottle at me and almost hit me in the head. But I kept on going. You’re going to run into some bumps and bruises. I hope you don’t run into the same things I did, but you’re going to have some discouraging moments.

“Do not get off track. Stay true to yourself and stay focused. As you get older, more enticing things are going to come into your life. Have fun. Travel the world. But stay true to yourself and stay focused.”

McCargo starts with a discussion of different kinds of noodles depending on the sauce. He concocts macaroni and cheese with wheat pasta (rotini spirals), which takes longer to cook, as well as a crispy bread-crumb crust, smoky paprika, sun-dried tomatoes – tomato jerky, one student pronounces after a taste – and uncooked spinach, although he could have used asparagus, since this area produces the best he’s ever eaten.

McCargo butters the inside of the dish itself for an extra “layer of love.”

He likes to cook his gooey mac and cheese “low and slow,” 15 to 20 minutes at 375 to 400 degrees to get the topping crunchy.

The chef surrounds himself with paprika, garlic and fresh red pepper because “I’m a heat guy. I like heat.”

He likes to make salad with asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes and bacon.

“I wouldn’t put (tomatoes) in a cake, but you can put them on sandwiches. I like to slice them in thirds. Put them in your oven at 225 for an hour and a half to two hours. Season them with red pepper and sugar. They’re so good and simple to make. California has a lot of sun and can take their time, but on the East Coast we tend to cheat to do things faster.”
“I have a problem with people overcooking food,” he says. “Even though we’re going to bake this in the oven, I still want it to have some texture.”

Kelsey Gibbons, the illustrator who likes experimenting with food, such as colorful pancakes, wonders how he knows the proportions are right because he doesn’t seem to measure anything.

“There’s never a real mistake,” he says.

“The more you cook, the more you learn about how to fix things you’ve got problems with. That’s in any career.”

Kelsey’s specialty, though, is leftovers.

“For my brothers I’ve done leftover steak, with fries and a couple of eggs. I mix it in a frying pan with salt and pepper and butter. It doesn’t sound healthy.”

“I’m not about healthy,” he says gregariously. “The unhealthier the better for me.”

His cream sauce starts with a flour and butter base. He works it to a consistency of glue, then thins it and adds onion for “sweetness,” careful not to scorch the milk.

Big Daddy selects Muenster cheese he grates and cheddar.

He seasons with pepper and “a little bit of salt,” though he shakes vigorously for a while, tastes, then adds still more.

“You always want to taste what you’re doing as you go, which I said last night,” McCargo said. “Biggest mistake you can do is to overseason or underseason. People ask, ‘How do you make things so great?’ I taste it. It’s just that simple.”

He desires a return to seventh grade when he sees the modern cafeteria menu – gyros! – compared to the “prison food” served to him before he graduated in 1989 from Camden, N.J., High School.

He crosses behind the kitchen counter like he’s getting lunch in a cafeteria, surveying his Jersey choices: ham and cheese, peanut butter and jelly with a pack of peanuts or a meatball sandwich.

“I was in culinary class, so I took it into the cafeteria and showed off,” he said. “I was knocking back flank steak, garlic potatoes, spicy string beans. I was sitting there with a paper plate in a cafeteria of 800 people and they would just look at me, jealous. We were not as privileged as you guys here.”

Yes, TV chefs get together for potluck while shooting holiday specials.

He made cranberry sauce for Rachael Ray’s Thanksgiving.

Mainly they get together at food and wine festivals like the one he just returned from in Miami.

“We don’t share recipes because we’ve all got a different type of cooking. We just enjoy each other’s company. ‘Ace of Cakes,’ Duff (Goldman), that’s my man. We call each other a lot.”

McCargo has done several episodes of “Best Thing I Ever Ate.”

“Bobby Flay and I see each other a lot. He lives in Chelsea in lower Manhattan. I could call him right now, but he knows I’m here making mac and cheese, so he’d probably laugh at me.”