Becker Hall is a serious cook, so much so that in 2009, he and a childhood friend and fellow culinarian were inspired to co-found Hogs for the Cause, a barbecue competition that raises money for children undergoing treatment for pediatric brain cancer and their families. Today, Hall is CEO of Hogs for the Cause and manages all the event’s music bookings.
But his efforts aren’t limited to special events, or to barbecue.
“If we don’t have specific plans for the weekend, pretty early in the week, I start planning what I am going to cook for dinner on Saturday night,” Hall said.
“He’s obsessed,” said his wife, Brittany Hall, a physician’s assistant and instructor with LSU Medical School. “He will get up on Saturday morning and head to the farmers market to source ingredients, then it’s off to the wine shop for pairings.”
“Then I will spend all day cooking,” said Becker Hall, a business and finance geek, a numbers guy, and co-proprietor of Boucaner Wine, a boutique label. “I match the music I play to what I am cooking. Both music and cooking have a tempo — fast or slow. All I do is cook and play records.”
A kitchen that’s just right
It would follow that such a passion would warrant a sprawling state-of-the-art kitchen stacked with gadgets and powerhouse equipment. Not so in the Halls’ Old Metairie home.
“When we renovated the house, which was built in 1992, we realized ours was the only house around with a galley kitchen,” Becker Hall said.
“The plan was to get rid of it, but the more we thought about it, the more we realized that it worked for us and the way we live,” said Brittany Hall. “It opens into both our formal dining room and our casual everyday family dining area. It has everything we need.”
Ringing in at about 150 square feet, the kitchen has counters — no island — topped in white quartzite. The bright white palette repeats on the walls and the gloss-finished cabinets that terminate at the ceiling. Brittany Hall picked up the room’s runner rug in shades of red, pink and orange on Etsy. It mirrors the colors of her husband’s Le Creuset French and Dutch ovens and braiser collection.
Though his culinary repertoire is vast, he frequently finds himself cooking the Italian foods his wife and daughter favor.
“JoJo is my sous chef,” Becker Hall said of his 8-year-old daughter, Josephine. “She takes cooking lessons at school. She is careful to remind me, ‘The pasta will be ready in two minutes.’”
A room with many functions
The family’s refrigerator, small appliances and additional cabinetry are housed in a large adjacent butler’s pantry that doubles as a crafts room for Brittany Hall’s floral design hobby and art projects.
A gallery over a small desk displays framed examples of Josephine’s work, which includes a spectacularly rendered paint-by-numbers piece featuring Charlie, the family’s Goldendoodle. Britany Hall ordered the kit online from Etsy.
“I just sent in a picture of Charlie, and they sent back everything we needed for the painting. We put it out on the table and for weeks, whoever came by would sit down and work on it for a few minutes. We never thought it would work out, but it looks exactly like her!” she said.
The family’s kitchen table was built of live-edged hardwood by Brittany Hall’s uncle Clint Nunez, owner of Central City Millworks.
The banquet seating surrounding the kitchen dining table is covered in a stylish, yet practical, olive green vinyl with a softened patina that makes it look authentic. A pair of armchairs at the head of the table are slipcovered in breezy white linen. The floors are the same as those in the kitchen — polished concrete with a very convincing faux marble finish.
“JoJo can, and does, roller skate in here,” Becker Hall said. “All the time.”
A sports buff, weekends find Becker Hall at the kitchen table while pots simmer on the stove. “If I angle myself just right and open the window blinds, I can see one television on the covered back patio, and another in the family room simultaneously, so, I can watch two different games at once.”
Disparate styles
“We are opposites when it comes to everything,” said Brittany Hall. “I have an old lady thing going. I love antiques and traditional forms, and Becker likes abstracts and sleek forms, but with Sam’s (designer Sam Burkhardt’s) help, we have done a good job of merging things.”
The couple collaborated with Burkhardt to make the home chic, functional and practical for a couple with a child; Josephine was 3 years old when they undertook the renovation in 2018.
The family’s great room is child- and dog-friendly with white cotton-slipcovered furniture. A lack of window coverings allows an unobstructed view of the rear, covered patio and swimming pool.
The centrally located formal dining room features a set from Becker Hall’s nearby family home. The table is set with Brittany Hall’s grandmother’s lavish dinnerware, crystal and sterling flatware. “She gave it to me because she knew I was the only one in the family who cared about it.”
The focal point in the room is a wall covered in similar floral needlepoint tapestries that once covered the seats of the dining chairs. The tapestries float in glass frames edged in brass. They can be removed to inspect the backs of the needlepoint tapestries that as Brittany Hall describes, “are as beautiful and perfect as the fronts.”
There’s a family story behind these. Following his mother’s death five years ago, Brittany Hall surprised her husband and his father, Marvin Hall, by unveiling the works of art on the dining room wall over dinner.
“They looked at one another and busted out laughing,” she said.
“OMG! She hated those,” Becker and Marvin Hall said in unison of the late Karen Hall. “She hated, absolutely hated, those tapestries,” said Becker Hall. She was always changing everything in the house, but she never changed the dining room because she said she hated them so much she just had no idea what to do with the room, so she left it alone.
“So, as it worked out, it’s great,” he said. “It’s a family joke.”
A getaway room
At the front of the home adjacent to the entryway is Becker Hall’s self-described “man room.” With warm wood floors covered in natural seagrass topped with cowhide, the space resides where a home office would go, but it lacks a desk. That makes it perfect for more relaxed conversationally driven gatherings or planning sessions that end with a libation from the room’s exceedingly well-stocked collection of fine bourbons.
“This is where I come to read. Both my dad and I are big readers — and to write for my website. This is my little space.”
WHERE MUSIC MEETS FOOD
In 2020, Becker Hall started beckerhall.com as a place where he can discuss his extensive collection of LPs, mainly as a memory bank for his daughter, Josephine.
“It’s no secret that music is a passion for me,” he wrote on his website. “Some of my earliest memories involve my parents’ playing records on weekend mornings. That memory ignited a new hobby for me in my 20s. It’s a tradition I now continue with my wife and daughter. Our tradition usually involves Saturday night records, bottles of wine and lots of time in the kitchen!”
Hall inherited his mother’s extensive collection of over a thousand LPs dating back to the 1950s, along with his parents’ stereo equipment, which he has restored.
“(Josephine) will be inheriting my collection one day. My mom battled cancer for 20-plus years and ultimately succumbed to the disease. The records of hers I now possess have allowed me so many ways of resurrecting her past and keeping her with me.“
His discussions of albums on his website are not given as critiques but as “advice for Jojo and an opportunity to learn more about the evolution of musical eras, and the man I am and was before I simply became ‘Dad.’ And of course, hopefully, they will serve as an opportunity to discover some great music! I don’t know, maybe she will just melt it all into tar one day, but it’s all here and this is what I’m doing.”
Hall also includes playlists for his culinary endeavors on the website.
WHAT’S FOR DINNER
On a recent afternoon spent in his kitchen with Inside Out, Becker Hall prepared an Italian-style menu favored by his wife and their young daughter.
“When I’m making a dinner, I usually like to match the tempo of the album with the tempo of the cook. So, for Pasta alla Norcina, it’s a little bit faster of a cook, so a faster jazz album like Charles Mingus’ ‘Mingus Ah Um,’ to me, is a great match.”
Here is his menu:
Pasta alla Norcina
“My wife and daughter would eat Italian every day of the week if they could,” he said. “I’m very close to earning a vowel at the end of my last name as a result. They rule the roost. This is a favorite recipe in our house and is completely elevated using New Orleans’ own Terranova’s Italian sausage.”
Serves 4
1/4 cup olive oil
1 pound Terranova’s (or your favorite) Italian sausage, casings removed
8 ounces baby Bella mushrooms, diced
1 small onion diced
3-5 cloves peeled garlic cloves, left whole
1/2 cup dry white wine (Hall likes pinot grigio here)
1-1/2 cups heavy cream
1 pound rigatoni or other tubed pasta, cooked until almost al dente. Reserve 2 cups of the pasta cooking water (but you probably won’t need it all)
1 pinch nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
3/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano
1. Add the olive oil to a large skillet over medium heat. Add the sausage and cook until brown, about 8 minutes.
2. Add the mushrooms and sauté till brown, about 6 minutes. Add the onions and the garlic and cook for two minutes until fragrant. Fish out and discard garlic. Continue cooking the onions until soft, about 5 minutes more.
3. Add wine and increase the heat to medium-high. Scrape the bottom of the pan to release the fond, then cook until the liquid has reduced by half, about 5 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, cook the pasta.
5. Add the cream and the sauce and bring it to a simmer over medium-low heat. Once pasta is al dente, fold it into the sauce and continue cooking to preferred toothyness. Add the reserved pasta water if needed to loosen up the sauce. Remove the pan from the heat. Add the Pecorino, mix well, then taste test. Season with nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste.
6. Serve with grated Pecorino.
The Left Hand
“I’ve never been a dessert person,” said Becker Hall. “I always prefer a drink post-meal. The Left Hand nails the palate with a degree of sweetness and is a perfect contrast to a salty meal. Sam Ross created the ubiquitous Paper Plane cocktail (which I think is a perfect aperitif). The Left Hand is another one of his creations. It’s a Manhattan/Negroni derivative.”
Makes 1 cocktail
1-1/2 ounces Bourbon
3/4 ounce Campari
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth (can’t go wrong with Carpano Antica … which also makes an excellent dinner gift for hosts!)
1-3 dashes of chocolate bitters (I like Bittermen’s)
Maraschino cherry, for garnish
Combine the bourbon, Campari, vermouth and bitters in a cocktail glass shaker with ice. Strain into a coupe. Garnish with cherry.
NOTE: “I also really like a drink I call ‘Building the Plane While Flying,'” said Hall. “It’s a good glug of bourbon with a 1 to 4 ratio of bourbon to Amaro Nonino. If you have young bourbons or cheaper bourbons that may be a bit raw or high-proof whiskeys that burn a little too much, the amaro rounds off those edges and keeps that wonderful bourbon profile.”
On the Smoker: Spatchcock Chicken
“My preferred cooks on the smoker are 4- to 6-hour smokes. AKA ‘the six-pack smoke’ — six beers,” said Hall. “It’s hard to find time to do either 12-hour or overnight smoking. These quicker cooks allow you more immediate gratification and a chance to hide from all the chaos in the house. My fam loves a Spatchcock smoked chicken.
“Serve as is, or I like to use Donald Link’s Alabama White Sauce recipe with a little artistic license. Dry brine all your proteins. You can also see this recipe in action on our Hogs YouTube.”
Serves 4-6
1. Dry Brine Chicken: Place whole chicken on a wire rack and cover in coarse salt. This will draw out the moisture for a crispy skin and the meat absorbs the salt to break down proteins for a juicy, tender meat. Leave in fridge 8 to 24 hours.
2. Next day: Remove chicken. Remove the backbone of the chicken with poultry or kitchen shears. Save the backbone for stock. This will give us a faster and more even cook. Season the chicken liberally with your favorite rub. I use a yellow mustard binder.
3. Smoke it: Smoke at an indirect heat of 350 degrees until the chicken reaches 165 degrees in the breast. This takes about two hours tops. Remove. Rest the bird. Chop it up.
