<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0h5n0m_0vkXWpgC00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0h5n0m_0vkXWpgC00" width="1200" height="1200" ><figcaption>Von Harris, aka Fat Jesus Credit: Sandy Noto for Chicago Reader</figcaption></figure>Von Harris wanted to cook his Great-Grandma Shortstop’s greens for his high school classmates and teachers. It was one of a series of lunches that served as evaluations for an advanced cooking class called Chef and Restaurant Cooking. For his prep list, the 15-year-old Hinsdale South sophomore requested collard, mustard, and turnip greens, along with smoked turkey wings. But the next day, his teacher instead produced fresh, raw wings and a bottle of liquid smoke.“I was like, ‘I’ve never used liquid smoke before. I’m not really sure what to do with this.’ And she was like, ‘Oh, just pour it in the pan. It’ll work fine.’ I thought about another process that made sense. I seasoned the turkey wings, and then I poured liquid smoke on them, and I let those sit overnight.” Then he braised the wings until the meat fell off the bone and added the greens.The Black and Brown kids Harris usually ate with knew something was off. “My table was like ‘What is this? What is going on here?’ It just didn’t have the same flavor. It was almost like using imitation vanilla versus real vanilla.” But they got eaten, and he eventually earned an A in the class.Back then, Harris dreamt of opening his own restaurants and seriously considered attending culinary school. Since he was little, he’s been absorbing kitchen skills from three grandmothers, and his mother, while his stepfather taught him his way around the smoker, and a grandfather taught him to work the grill. But after graduation, something turned him away from the professional kitchen.“There’s technique, and there’s being a natural, and I think I’ve always been a natural. At that point, I was like, technique is cool. I want to learn technique, but I don’t want to be boxed in.”Instead, he studied psychology and got into music; he started rapping, promoting shows, and managing artists. One night in a parking garage, he arose from the smoke of a hotboxed car like a vision, and one of his early clients, Roman Flwrs, dubbed him “Fat Jesus.”“It was empowering of the word ‘fat,’” he says. “It’s just one of those things that kept sticking.”<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1OAIwz_0vkXWpgC00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1OAIwz_0vkXWpgC00" width="1024" height="683" ><figcaption>Fat Jesus’s deep-fried chicken wings Credit: Sandy Noto for Chicago Reader</figcaption></figure>Seven years ago, he was managing Classick Studios in Ukrainian Village, sleeping and cooking for himself on-site. People started to notice the meals he’d make for himself and whoever happened to be around, with nothing more than a wok, a crock pot, and a hot plate—elaborate presentations of nachos, seafood pasta, or chicken tacos. Around this time, he developed his smoked wing recipe, rubbed in an herbaceous, smoky, Creole-Latin-influenced blend; the signature recipe was established after a 2017 Los Angeles lock-in with Smino and the Zero Fatigue collective.Eventually he and Classick owner Chris Inumerable began marketing “Studio Munchies” to draw in more customers to the studio: lunch cooked by Harris, with the cost of ingredients and labor built into the hourly rate of a two-hour session.<blockquote>“I never planned to do barbecue. I don’t know what’s gonna happen a lot of time, but I do trust that I’m on the right path.”</blockquote>When the pandemic shut down the studio, he began cooking out of his Humboldt Park apartment, opening what he called “Fat Plate Fridays” up to the public for pick-up and delivery, which was detailed in a deep dive by the Triibe.That kind of publicity, along with his extensive industry contacts, led to catering gigs for weddings; video shoots; a Lululemon staff dinner at which he served Peruvian-style pollo a la brasa, shrimp ceviche, and elotes; and a Modern Notoriety–Adidas–Derrick Rose photo shoot where he featured four variations on the point guard’s favorite—grilled cheese—along with the wings.Like a lot of cooks behind the underground culinary pivots that flourished during the pandemic, Harris was also working through a mental reckoning. “I have an extremely nurturing nature,” he says. “I spent very many years filling everybody else’s cup. During the pandemic, I kind of realized my cup was very, very, very low, and it wasn’t being replenished.”Harris cut his artist roster back from a peak of seven artists to three—Prince Coop, Prodxvzn, Young Pink (formerly Bari)—while he considered what other directions he could take the concept, none of which included a brick-and-mortar. One concept is a line of seasonings he plans to launch with his F.J. Dry Rub that he calls Pudgie’s Cabinet, for the childhood nickname his grandparents gave him.Fat Plate Fridays by Fat Jesus at Monday Night FoodballMon 10/21, Frank and Mary’s Tavern, 2905 N. ElstonBut last October, he ran out of arugula cooking for a 150-person catering event. At his neighborhood Cermak Produce, he slipped on a wet floor and tore a meniscus, which took him out of action for about six months. Pudgie’s was delayed further when he was offered to pop up on the patio at Emporium Fulton Market, which led to a summerlong pop-up stand.These were some of the first official pop-ups Harris participated in, and they reinvigorated him. “Doing deliveries, I don’t get to see people enjoy the food. I remember the day when we first did ribs—there was these two drunk guys that came and they ordered ribs, and they were literally sitting there dancing on their seats sucking on these rib bones.”Still, Harris didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a pitmaster, and after the summer he planned to put away the smoker, something he was forced to do earlier than expected. He was watching the forecast all week ahead of his final stand at Emporium last Sunday, and when the rain started coming down, he polled his Instagram followers on their likely turnout.He decided to call it off, but he had to do something with the 450 wings he’d prepped, along with trays of mac and cheese, baked beans, and his grandmother’s greens and cornbread.Femdot. happened to be playing Schubas Tavern that night, and the after-party happened to be at Emporium. “I actually gave him one of his first shows way back in the day at Reggie’s. So I was like, ‘If he’s down with it, let’s try to make it happen.’”Smoked wings were out of the question, but Harris saw an opportunity to test the idea that Fat Plate Fridays could be a pop-up that can fit any situation, so he rolled in his deep fryer. “People that were planning to come out earlier ended up coming out later, and we ended up getting a lot of people that hadn’t heard of us because of the after-party. I ended up selling out of everything.”<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0Ogvb6_0vkXWpgC00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0Ogvb6_0vkXWpgC00" width="1024" height="683" ><figcaption>Credit: Sandy Noto for Chicago Reader</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4V4GDQ_0vkXWpgC00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4V4GDQ_0vkXWpgC00" width="683" height="1024" ><figcaption>Credit: Sandy Noto for Chicago Reader</figcaption></figure>That left nine slabs of baby back ribs, eight slabs of rib tips, chicken andouille sausage, and hot and mild links, which he hopes to unload this week during his first public Fat Plate Fridays drop since last fall. Keep an eye on @fatplatefridays for details.“Right now, I’m being blessed with something that I have no control over. I never planned to do barbecue. I don’t know what’s gonna happen a lot of time, but I do trust that I’m on the right path. But when I see opportunity—when I see something in my way—I jump.”On October 21, Harris is bringing Fat Plate Fridays to Monday Night Foodball, the ’s weekly chef pop-up at Frank and Mary’s Tavern in Avondale. .</div></body>

Mountain View, CA

NewsBreak

What would Fat Jesus do?

Von Harris wanted to cook his Great-Grandma Shortstop’s greens for his high school classmates and teachers. It was one of a series of lunches that served as evaluations for an advanced cooking class called Chef and Restaurant Cooking. For his prep list, the 15-year-old Hinsdale South sophomore requested collard, mustard, and turnip greens, along with smoked turkey wings. But the next day, his teacher instead produced fresh, raw wings and a bottle of liquid smoke.