GOOD EADS: Former Marine turns grilling hobby into lifestyle

Food&Drink

By Carroll R. Walton, carroll@insidetailgating.com

For most people, a career in the U.S. Marines breeds toughness, teaches responsibility, and develops both technical and life skills. For Matthew Eads, former Gunnery Sergeant turned celebrity chef, it also fueled his passion for grilling.

Wherever Eads went during his 13 years of active duty, first as a jet engine and propeller mechanic and later a flight engineer, during deployments from Afghanistan to Bosnia, Somalia to Iraq, Eads always found his way to the barracks grill.

He had been cooking out since he was a teenager, growing up outside of Detroit, but not until he started grilling alongside soldiers from all walks of life, all around the world, did he feel a deeper sense of appreciation for what a common denominator it is.

“I recognized early on that there was something about food and fire that brought people together,” Eads said. “Living in a barracks in Southern California, you might have a couple of Hispanic kids that were from L.A. You might have a really southern boy from Mississippi. There were people from all walks of life, but all our differences disappeared when we were around a grill, and seeing meat over this open fire. Everybody just came together while we talked about food and flavors and formed friendships and created memories.”

Eads celebrates that sense of connection with a movement he started on social media called “United by Flame.” Using that as a hashtag, he invites people to share grilling photos, anecdotes, recipes and memories with him. That kind of sentiment, his engaging personality and of course, Eads’ skills on the grill have helped him grow a base of 36,600 followers on Instagram and turn a lifelong passion into a new career.

On Instagram, Eads is the “Grillseeker,” which is a play on a Ted Nugent lyric about a thrill seeker from a tribute song he wrote about a bowhunter named Fred Bear who loved the outdoors.

Eads has a website, Grillseeker. com, and a new cookbook out entitled “Grill Seeker: Basic Training for Every Day Cooking.” The cookbook is both a how-to on gourmet grilling, with sections on grills, grilling tools and cooking techniques, and a practical guide to making grilling part of everyday cooking. It features more than 75 recipes including whole chapters on beef, poultry, seafood, sides, appetizers and desserts.

The publisher, who first approached Eads about writing it, said they could consider it a success if they sold at least 3,000 copies. Within 24 hours of its release, Grill Seeker was leading Amazon book sales in several categories. Now it has sold more than 30,000 copies.

Not bad for a guy who was still in the corporate world five years ago and only joined Instagram on a whim in 2016, when his three daughters encouraged him to do it.

Eads had left the Marines at age 30 after his youngest daughter was born. He used the GI bill to go back to college at Penn State, while staying at home with daughter who was five months old when he started. Taking as many as eight classes a semester, he graduated in 29 months and made the Dean’s List.

Eads took a job with General Electric, working the civilian side of what he already knew—C130 transport plane propellers. He worked his way up to program manager and got transferred to Washington, D.C., but eventually he realized corporate life and travel was still keeping him away from his family.

“I was basically outsourcing my entire life,” Eads said. “It was like the nanny was raising my youngest daughter. I was literally paying somebody to get groceries. It was nuts.”

He had some financial flexibility to quit his job and figure out his next move. That’s when his daughter suggested he start posting pictures of all the food he loved to cook.

He rekindled an old passion, found a new niche and developed a business model based on sponsorships with brands he trusted. Knowing that paid promotion can seem disingenuous, Eads made a commitment early on never to promote products for compensation that he wouldn’t be proud to give as a gift to a friend or family member. That core principle has allowed him to remain authentic and trusted in the community, while representing iconic brands like Omaha Steaks and Shark Ninja. Eads has his own tailgate now at Penn State games. And he’s broadened his profile with a series of TV appearances, starting with local news shows to promote his book and culminating in appearances on “Fox & Friends” and “The Today Show.”

He joined “Fox & Friends” last July 4 for a segment showing viewers how to grill Tri-Tip steak in the middle of New York City. He was a long way from suburban Detroit, where he grew up grilling with a childhood buddy in the middle of the woods. Eads’ and his best friend James, who also grew up in Monroe, MI, got tired of eating bologna sandwiches for lunch, so Eads decided to borrow his mom’s cast iron skillet. They created a makeshift grill out of rocks and rebar they found in a trash heap at a nearby construction site.

“The first time I cooked, I was like ‘I’m hooked,’” said Eads, who had toted eggs and bacon a mile through the woods. “You could see a tangible result from something. It was that very primitive meat-over-a-fire kind of concept. That sparked my interest…”

Their menu expanded as he and James took turns borrowing meat from their moms’ freezers. At age 13, they saved up to buy a used smoker.

“I worked for a grocery store,” Eads said. “And Danny—the old man that owned the grocery store—would give us meat that was going to expire the next day and we’d smoke meat on this thing.”

His goal was to be better at it than his father.

“My father was the smartest man I’ve ever met, but he was just horrible at cooking,” Eads said. “He used to cook everything over direct heat, super hot, so we would end up with burgers that were like hockey pucks or a steak that would be burnt on the outside and raw on the inside.”

Eads loved the challenge of cooking something great out of whatever ingredients he could get his hands on. That continued during his time in the military. While stationed in Afghanistan, he used to barter bottled water and candy for local spices. He would use cardamom to season a chicken a la king MRE—meal ready to eat. He learned how to cook goat over an open fire while in Pakistan.

One of those is something Eads calls the “reverse sear” where he brings the meat up to temperature on indirect heat first and then sears it at the end. It’s one of several techniques he explains in his cookbook.

“Anybody can take a good cut of meat and make it taste good, but to buy an old piece of shoe leather and make that taste good, that takes real craftsmanship,” Eads said. “So that’s where I learned the art of some really interesting techniques.”

The more Eads learned about grilling the more he began to see it as a lifestyle, not just something to do on weekends or special occasions. That philosophy comes across in spades in his cookbook. Every recipe, including appetizers, side dishes and desserts, can be cooked on the grill. He’s got everything from French Onion Grilled Cheese Bites to CilantroLime Grilled Sweet Potatoes and even a Grilled Peanut Butter Banana Split.

In both this issue and in his cookbook, Eads encourages tailgaters to keep grilling and the camaraderie that comes with it going all week long, whether at a big event or at home with family.

“I tell people all the time when you go to a place like Benihana, the food is decent. but what you remember is that onion with the volcano coming out of it,” Eads said. “It’s the memories around cooking that I think are so important and get lost often.”

For Inside Tailgating’s spring issue, Eads planned out an entire day’s worth of recipes to use at an upcoming tailgate. (See: Rev Up Your NASCAR Tailgate With Full Day Meal Planner). That includes recipes for grilling out breakfast, lunch and dinner.

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