Hello and welcome to cooking issues. I got to keep it a little bit on the download to keep with the mellowness of the Carvel ice cream. And for anyone who grew up on the east coast, the United States like I did, nothing makes your mouth water more than knowing on a hot summer's day that you can go to Carvel and get some of America's freshest ice cream. Especially if you happen to be able to go on a Wednesday when as everybody knew Wednesday Sunday by free Yeah, Wednesday Sunday. Welcome to cookie issues. I have some special guests first I'll go through we got a full house have a right with us. We got Jackie molecules to my right how you doing? Great. We got John to my left. What's up? Not a whole lot as usual. Anastasia the hammer Lopez. Yeah. And Joe Hasan rocking the panels. How are you? I'm doing great. You can call your questions. If you're a Patreon listener, you can call your questions. 2917410 1507. That's 917-410-1507 but special. Your two special guests? One, okay. Firstly, Seth Godin, I'll just let you know longtime friend of the show. You know blogger extraordinaire, author whose most recent book is the practice shipping creative work in 2020. Best Seller available you know, wherever fine books are sold, I hesitate to mention the a word because now on them a big poo on their on their flaming poo on their porch. But, you know, the fundamental of like, most of the books of yours that I've read is kind of like they are kind of in short chunks, trying to get people into kind of a more kind of creative zone. Would you say that's accurate?

Yes, it's much better than being called a marketing specialist.

Yeah, well, it's so funny. Like, hopefully we'll get a chance to talk about it later. But I just did a seminar for tales of the cocktail, which we should put up a link to it on our on our thing John already done. To the video. Actually the best Lincoln Lincoln bio, it's like Lincoln Park, but better for the so on, like, how to maintain creativity. And you know, one of the three things in your in your book is you just have to work at it right? You just have to work and do some work. Right?

Exactly. And my friend Kathy who's here, which you can introduce in a second is a prime example of this. And I learned from her every day because she shows up and she does the work.

Alright, so also ostensibly, we're calling you because you have some things to say about the everything bagel, we'll get to that. But when you were first on the program back when we were at that other network, and you said I happen to know the person. I don't know how Carvel came up, because it does as as it does, because it really is a delicious product. You You said I know the person who invented Fudgie the whale. I was like shut up. I was like, first of all, like fudge, Fudgie the whale, like I'm pretty sure came down the mountain with the tablets. You know what I mean? It's like it's like

not one. Yeah.

And you said, no, no, I really I know. Or I know the person. I was like, I was like, come on. I was like, you gotta get her back on the show. And lo and behold this many years later, she is here. Kathy Dumas the inventor. Let me see if I get the year right. 1977 940 years

ago, 40 years 4040 years ago last year

last year, so it was later it was 70. It was is like 80 1980 I remember it very well as a child, which came first. Okay, let's just explain. Explain Carvel ice cream for those of people who don't have the good fortune of having grown up on our coast.

Corporate ice cream was a saucer Sillas. Saucer franchise which later developed into not just doing something for nine months, but doing something year round. And Mr. Carville decided to make novelties and cake and everything so that the store would operate year round, wonderful ice cream as healthy as it could be at the time, superb ingredients. And he was in a man who basically lived and died by this product.

It also had a relatively low overrun write it was relatively dense compared to other saucers not going to say that Mr. Softee has a lot of overrun in it but Carvel is a relatively low overrun product right.

30 35% at the time, yes. Yeah. Which actually is the amount of air that goes into a product norm there are a lot of the companies are almost 100% So it's you know, 50% or 50% product, but no, Carville was very, very low and the reason that being the left air of course the Some of the product smoother it is when it freezes. So for a

very key location for every kilo of bass you're putting in, for every for every liter of bass, you're putting in three 350 milliliters only of air instead of another whole liter there. Correct? Yeah, correct. And but his claim at the time I remember very distinctly that Tom Carvel whose voice is iconic demand did his own spots because it was a franchise. It was a friend, he sold franchises, Right? but correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, he used to go out of his way to try to help all of his franchisees make money, right.

If they made money, he made money.

Here's his tagline. He's taught before Ben and Jerry's and all of that stuff. When people became aware of overrun and density. His tagline wasn't the low overrun it was America's freshest ice cream.

Correct? Correct. Because it was we were manufacturing everyday in the store. It wasn't being sent in. We were actually making every flavor in the store. Every flavor started out as soft serve and then later could be scooped. All of it made every day in the store and the dairy would deliver Of course, MC T 234 or five times a week. No, no, there was no product sitting anywhere. It was never nothing was ever delivered. Frozen. Everything came in refrigerated and and fresh. Yes at the time.

Also Westchester zone baby Carville from Westchester. Westchester shout out. It's not a Long Island thing. I mean, they have Carvel Long Island, but it is not a Long Island thing. This is a Westchester situation. Yeah. Now. So I had heard that you just said earlier that it was a way to extend into the winter months to business. But I also heard that it was a way to use the leftover soft serve at the end of the night, you would put them into the cake mold, and then they wouldn't get wasted. Right. Correct.

Absolutely correct. Mr. Carville always said, it's kind of like Italian food cap. It's always cherry syrup, ice cream, crunch, crunch, syrup, cherry ice cream, whatever ways a novelty can be manipulated, to make it look like something different. Tastes like something different use all of your ingredients. You know, he he was an immigrant. And he firmly believed that everybody had the right to make a good life. And the best way to do it was to absolutely maximize everything that you had, with a minimal amount of cost. Now and and that's what he tried to do.

Now a couple of things. One, was he a nice guy or not? Not that it matters because his ice cream is it was on point was he it? Was he a good guy or not a good guy. I mean, I loved his voice growing up, even though it's bizarre.

I loved him. He was for me. He was like a grandfather figure. I met Mr. Carbajal. I was 17. He was 65. So it was a different relationship than let's say, the executives already working for the company. Most of his franchisees liked him because they knew he put in the work. He was a hard worker, they had to work hard. He understood what they were going through. But he was tough. He could be extremely tough. If you were five minutes late in the morning, he'd look at that watch and say, you know, good evening, literally, I was getting married, and we were on the phone. And I'm going to see can I just go get married and we could finish this conversation a little bit later. He was like, alright, kid, go ahead, go get very real really, that's that he always called me, kid. Because we met I met young and it really interesting man. You you liked him? Or you didn't? You had to understand that to be a hard worker, you had to work hard. You have to believe in the product to have to do things, right. There was no shortcuts ever anywhere.

How could you not believe in the product to my

Yeah, you know, it's very I've had three bosses in my life and three of them I mean, I've had others but these three that the boss that I have now obviously to very much the same. Hardcore, believe in their product, believe in truthfully the people that work for them, and they will do anything that they can as long as you are giving your part to. So to me, Mr. Carville, Helene and someone else named Joanne Schoenfeld is not here with us anymore. Perfect people, great people to work for because they love the product they're making. Nice now, no other way to say it. For those

who can't picture Tom Carvel he, first of all, you have to listen to his voice. He looks like a 1960s era comedic actor. He looks kind of like a Buddy Hackett with a mustache. Right. I mean, it's gotten Yeah, I mean, I just the guy has character written all over his face anyway. So enough of that. We're here to talk about a specific Carvel item. Fudgie the whale. Give us first of all what came first First of all, sorry, a lot for people a lot to unpack for people who aren't Carvel people. So there's two main cakes in the in the Carville universe. Right. There's cookie plus, and there's Fudgie the whale. Right now, just so you

know, Cookie plus looks like Tom Carvel?

Ah, yeah, I thought about that. That's true. But Fudgie. The whale is also Santa Claus. PS. Yes. Yeah. Now, were you. Well, were you also the reason that we were like, we could turn this into Santa too. Was that you? Or was that somebody else

was we had a group were a group together. And every mole that we made and there were several just listed as a pumpkin mold, like don't be the pumpkin became, you know, Mother's Day bath kid and became cookie person, just crazy stuff.

I never I never I never asked her pumpkin fudgy I asked for cookie puts I asked

you had to because there was only a limited amount of space in the store. You had to max out every mold that you had. And you only have so much real estate to keep this inventory in. So you had to invent a lot of things to deal with, but a great art team and you had to make sure that it wasn't once the mold was developed. It was wasn't the mold was not developed to be this this and this it was developed to be one thing and after that, then it was okay. Now what else can we do with it? How can we use it? Now you only time he actually. He changed but he's a well you had a problem with the first mold and the tail kept falling off and that's why he became fudgy because originally he was done like a regular Carville cake but he couldn't get the tails except breaking it was just so narrow at one end and second nightmare every time we make the tail would fall off. And finally we talked you know to say I can't do this anymore. i We have to cover this we have to do this somehow. Okay, kid, go downstairs do something you know. And we had fudge out on the autumn container and covered the tail with budget held it together. It held up for photography. And that's how he became such.

Alright, so why a whale,

Carvel wanted was a Father's Day promo. He wanted a fish and we're all looking at him like he lost his mind to TC fish and ice was this is not a go. And he and he kept saying we brought him goldfish and salmon. And I mean, it was crazy the amount of fish that these people were drawing and doing and no, it's not good enough. No, I want more character into it. No, it's got to be child related. No, I don't want it to be off of any other character in the world. And little by little by little. And then he said to me, he said, Well, you know why? Because it's a whale of a dad. I want it to be big has to be impressive. And that's why it became a whale. Not just going out fishing, but you caught a whale. So it wasn't

wasn't like, it wasn't like, I want a fish. And you're like, how about a sea mammal? It wasn't like that. He eventually.

No, he wanted to he wanted that fish. That was it. Yeah. He's got no more ties. I don't want to look at ties have golf said I want something unique for Father's Day. Yeah, it actually became the biggest Father's Day selling item we ever had.

They used to run out when I was a kid, like you couldn't show much was he? I don't remember I was a kid. I didn't pay for anything.

But like, I want to say 995 Oh, come on. Really? Yeah, yeah.

You will go into the store and you'd be like do you have Fudgie that like we're out of Fudgie? Okay. Here's the other thing about Carvel, right. Again, no offense to the Baskin Robbins Corporation, but like Carville to use it. The phrase was the Cadillac of ice cream cakes. You know what I mean? Back back in and still to this day, they now have them in grocery store freezer cases. I don't know where they're made because they're not part of a Carvel franchise. I mean, I don't even really know how it works anymore. But for those of you that don't I believe Carvel invented that weird cookie crumble that goes in the middle of an ice cream cake. Is that true?

Yes, he did. You know why? Because cake molded. There was no way you could keep cake fresh. And put it in into cake. It was really hard. We were cutting round circles. We were cutting squares. You were losing too much. That was wasted. Some people it would move and he said no, no, no. I want fresh products. I want fresh something. And they said oh TC bacon bacon. See if you can make it hard and crumble and he said no, that's not an If and how are we going to preserve it? How are we going to hold it? So we have this product called brown bonnet, which is what a cone was dipped into and hardened on the shell on the outside, which is basically a chocolate shell enhanced with a coconut oil which helps it stay hard and durable. And after baking cake, and we were making flying saucers at the time and flying saucer crackers always had breakage and he looked at me and he goes, here it is. This is it. All this breakage from these flying saucer crackers. We're gonna make throw some banners in a kid. Throw some brown just chocolate on it makes it even crunchy air holes. It's delicious and the ice when and from then on. You know,

the crumbly stuff makes my mouth water for those of you that don't know flying saucer is the Carvel Ice Cream Sandwich. It's kind of like a would call it a cookie a daisy shaped cookie with a swirl but you got to get the squirrel as you as you put the ice cream on to the lower cookie, you got to give it a little bit of a twist. Right?

You know, if you went to work for Carmel, you were first tested to see how you could work an ice cream machine and you had to make flying saucers and you have to do the two and a half squirrels get the right weight. And if you pass the test and you've made your flying saucers correctly, then you got the job.

So my sister in law Miley carpenter who started and runs the Food Network magazine, one of her early jobs like a lot of people's first job was McDonald's and she ran their ice cream machine for exactly one day because she used to just sit there trying to figure out how tall she could make the cone

you know that it's not easy and try and the worst thing is trying to make a cone for a television commercial or a photo seat and have it stand up and have it not melt before the shoot is done really was a nightmare. Well you guys have to be exactly

you guys didn't like the hyper tight swirls right you were kind of like a mid range swirl like you never need a straight up and down but a mid range like like a graceful a graceful swirl had

to be got to be turned three quarters of them upside down. Remember how to be compact and how to be turned in how to stick well because returning when to columns that were dipped all the time.

So one last secret maybe you can divulge. I had people who like know me with cakes with the exception of like, I like I like the icing on a carrot cake. I like I like that kind of cream cheese icing. I'm not a buttercream man. Carville's ice icing on the Carville cakes on point I love to eat that stuff like like that weird texture that like frozen fatty but not too buttery. Like what is that icing on the Caravelle cake.

So Mr. crevel presser actually helped invent that. And we made that it was a whip topping powder that his his brother had made. And we mix that with Carvel ice cream mix and made our own with toppings in house to decorate cakes with

weed. So it's like a it's like a bass. It's like a mix of ice cream bass and Cool Whip.

Yeah. Oh, man. Now wait. I mean, just for cookie Puss was before fudgy.

Cookie plus was

after after Fudgie. Were you involved in the cookie plus or no?

All of them, all of them? Oh, my God all after fudgy.

Were you like, I mean, how much swagger did you have in your step after it came out?

You know, I tell you the truth. None of us had swagger. None of us realize the importance of budgie until many years later.

Yeah, I mean, so you didn't really you didn't really think like there's all these kids who are Johnson after this. After this ice cream?

No. Really, really? No, it was only until people started to really kind of laugh with Tom over commercials and what he did, and he just was you just didn't realize it at the time. Really. Were most of us didn't even believe that this would even work the first time. We were like, Oh, this Father's Day is going to be a disaster. Even some of the franchisees everybody was so hesitant, but it was so out of the box. And it was incredible when it worked. And then it just took off then it was like, Okay, let's make it into this. Let's make it into that. Let's do it with this. And the whole different ballgame completely.

So when you're slicing a fudgy the way

late Seth, Seth, you have like, is this the phenomenon? Like do you have a way to explain what happened since this was your I

think it was just so different, so unique, and such a novelty and it's had ice cream and fudge and what else did you want? It wasn't round. It didn't look like a birthday cake was perfect for Father's Day and then people just wanted it after that for every occasion. So we stopped making it just one time of year. It can continue to go all year round.

Maybe that's why it was always out because you guys only brought it out in certain days. My kid brain didn't know that.

Well. So, Miss dasya what I, what I think we're seeing here is a phenomenon which is it was the first celebrity cake that Tom's incessant radio advertising made the cake famous. And that's one of the reasons why it was even more delicious than even say cookie plus, because it's like, you know, comparing Tom Cruise to a second tier star in the firmament you felt like you were in the presence of something important.

Absolutely. 100% true. Very true. Very true.

Are you are you a cut through the head lady? Are you a cut through the tail lady? That's what I need to know cut

through the tail all the time. Trust me. I had so many problems with that tail. I always I never wanted to make that cake again. Really? The first commercial easily. And because we made we made all the commercials in house, you know and oh my god. Yes.

Now easily system when Fudgie becomes Santa. What happens to the other part of the tail? How do you decorate that? I can't picture him.

Yeah, you turn him upside down. You kind of stand him. So the tail is up in the air. All right, and it becomes part of this hat. It's Red Hat and then it's got a little ball on the other part of the Oh yeah. White, white, little, little fuzzy little Walter.

It's legit, rather than Jackson's picture bottom

of the whale is got all swirls with a beard and you put a Santa face on it and you're done. Yeah.

I had a question in from a listener wants to know how you trained all the franchisees to have such neat handwriting.

It was part of the training course. We had training. We had the trainees for 14 days for two weeks straight. They came to stay with us in Westchester. And they worked there was of course there was schooling, but they actually worked in the stores they work side by side with us and they went through cake decorating courses cake handwriting courses.

What was harder the handwriting or piping the perfect shells on the outside of the thing?

I'd say handwriting the shells you could get the handwriting is difficult. I think it's spacing because you never know what you're writing. You know people ask for Happy Birthday, Tom, you know, and then somebody will come along and say no, I need congratulations on your anniversary. Aristotle and you know, Piniella P or something so it's I think it's harder to do the writing.

Yeah, Aristotle and Penelope that'd be a difficult that's a lot of writing. A lot of writing for him take you know, now I know what to do to really kind of freak out a franchisee I'll just show up and ask for a very long very long scale. Yeah. So what are the what are like what failed? I didn't even remember the pumpkin. That's how little of a that's how little of a of a impact it made on me compared to Fudgie and cookie puss, which, you know, I legitimately think of a lot like what, what were your main failures? What were your main failures there because everyone likes to hear the failure that helped you do something else better?

Well, Fudgie was a failure originally. Only because we couldn't get him to stick together. But eventually, it worked. And I think some of the other failures maybe were John and Priscilla the Pilgrims you missed them somewhere. No, we also had Tom Turkey.

I don't remember that. When was that? What year was that?

The years I don't remember, but they came after dumping the pumpkins so funny to say these things now.

Don't be that fun kid. I mean, the thing is like, yeah, like, like, I mean, like, look, Anastasia and I appreciate self deprecating humor. Love it. But like, you know, you know, don't be I mean, like when I was a kid, you know, we had the Great Pumpkin right? Linus was the Great Pumpkin. You know what I mean? Like that's like, Hey, what's your pumpkins name? dumpy.

always liked. I mean, there were a lot of other names, which I'm not even gonna go. But there were a click to him and it made him laugh. And he thought it was funny. That it went with it.

Nice. And for those of you that are that don't live here but he come out here. Like I still legitimately believe Carvel ice cream is a great product. I'm for it. I'm 100% for it. I haven't had it in a couple years, but oh, you know what's really sad? I heard that in 2008 The original in Hartsdale, closed down. Why would they do that? Why didn't they why don't they landmark that

I never understood. I have no idea why they did they just not the whole thing. And it's like an Andy says something truly upsetting that that happened.

Yeah. I mean, so recently, you know what I mean?

Yeah. You would have thought the corporate at least corporate because cargo sold. He sold the business just before he died and one sold it and then it got sold again, I think it's on its third order now. And the importance loses. I think, for some reason, when the owner has the business. It's so different than when investors come in or corporate comes in or hedge fund comes in. You lose so much. It's just, it's lost.

Yeah, and I want I don't want a hedge fund. Carville. I don't want my hedge. I don't want to hear from Kerrville you know, like that guy from billions who bought that pizza joint, eviscerated? Yeah, I want that. So that's what happened. So now we're entering the section of the program where we talk about not just invention of Fudgie Carville is sometimes credited as popularizing, and by some people inventing the whole software of business in the United States. And the so there, that's a competing claim, right. And the other competing brand claim that we have Seth on to talk about is the everything bagel. So I don't know which one you want to tackle first. I mean, I mean, I think by all accounts, I mean, for my opinion on the softserve debate, it's like whether or not there was another human being who made a soft ice cream because, as Tom Carvel said, in many interviews, all ice cream is soft when you make it he said this many times back back when he was alive. Absolutely. Absolutely. And yeah, all right. Right. And so like, so like, regardless of you know, was

accidental, you know, it was truthfully an accident.

You said, he said his truck broke down, right?

His truck broke down, he was scooping up the time and product sauce, and he tried to hold it together as much as he could to keep it something to sell. And he said people were liking this very much. And he said, Oh, no, no, no, I think I have to keep this in a machine. All the machinery, he did all of that. It wasn't like he went out and bought a nice wooden seat. He developed it in, in the plan. And he borrowed the money, obviously, from his wife, Agnes, to do all of this. And it's a true story, too. Absolutely. True story. And he just wanted to make sure that the ice cream could sit in this machine for the length of time, keep its consistency, and be served always at the same temperature and always have the same product.

Yeah, so you guys weren't using Taylor's or electro freezes or anything like that?

No, we were actually in the original there were some teller machines in an ad of the plants, but most of the most of the machinery was still at never had an avenue in Yonkers.

Wow. Yeah. No, think of Yonkers as being like an ice cream machine capital. But now I know I will. Now I will. And for those of you well, yeah, for those of you that don't know, it's an attached

to the carpet shop. All of that is part of all of that,

like soft serve ice cream is actually a difficult problem, because you don't know when you're going to draw it. And so it can't overlap. But you have to get the right amount of overrun and it has to draw on the texture has to be the same not an easy problem.

No, but you do it with a bunch of controls. And you know, time and temp control how many times it's going to move within that circulating cylinder, How cold is going to get how it shuts on and off all these complicated little I was actually let me go into school I work probably every part of the corporation. I fix machines I have worked in legal I have worked in contract worked in training, you know, worked in stores worked in the field. But it's amazing how much you learn and how much he did himself to make sure that everything was done so working in the plant in the manufacturing part of machinery. I was able to see how all this stuff together and it's a pretty, pretty unique way to make sure that that product is consistent.

Nice. So now for a second let's talk everything bagel. So I here's another thing people might not know that it unless you're like roughly my age or older. Right? You grew up. We're in everything bagel was always a thing. Right? But in the 70s it wasn't a thing, necessarily. Like I don't remember everything bagels when I was The kids like what do you want? I want a poppy. I want I want a salty sesame I want to plain right at some point. You know, all of a sudden, everything bagel was everywhere and then all of a sudden people started taking credit for quote unquote, inventing it right? And I forget the name of the person who claimed to have invent first claim to invent some guy named Gustin. David Gustin, who like a classic thing claims as like a high school student to have swept up a bunch of stuff off of off the floor of the oven, thrown it onto a bagel and been like I invented the everything bagel. Unlikely story, but sene unlikely, especially to get off the field. Yeah, right. I mean, come on. For anyone who's baked anything. This stuff burns, the stuff that falls off his burnt, it's burnt, you know what I mean? It burns. That's what the deck the bottom of a deck and whatever, it doesn't matter. But Seth, you're like, I worked in a bagel shop prior to this 1980. And we were making an everything bagel explain.

Okay, I did not invent the everything bagel. This needs to be made clear to my progeny. And to anyone else in the world.

Yeah, I didn't say you claim to invent it. You just claim to say, Yeah, all right.

Other people have claimed that I claimed, but I did not what I did in my blog post. I wrote a blog post in 2008, in which I said, if this person invented the everything bagel, then I must have invented it because I was a 1976 or 16 year old teenager, I had gotten a job at the local bagel place in Buffalo, New York by walking in and saying, I have 10 years of experience eating bagels. And for whatever reason, they hired me. And in the first week, it was a new place. They didn't have a policy about employees eating the food. And my co workers and I ate hundreds of dollars worth of bagels and lox. And they made a new policy, but they didn't fire me. And then my job was to clean the the mixer and the mixer is big enough to hold a couple people. And as I was cleaning it, it's all dried, hard dough. I would turn it on and off to see if I had missed a spot. I missed a spot and I put my hand in to slow the blade down. And it started pulling me into the mixer.

Was this a spiral mixer?

How to decide? It was like a big dome mixer. Yeah,

like a spiral or like,

side? Yeah, bigger than a Hobart and I had to decide, should I break my finger by pulling it out? Or should I die? So I broke my finger on the bagel mix. The bagel guy screamed and yelled at me the owner. So I didn't last very long in the job. But my thesis is this for something to actually be an invention. It almost always happens when the people around you say that'll never work. That inventions occur when someone has the boldness to lean into something that a lot of other people think that doesn't make any sense. And if you've ever made bagels in a bagel store, and you've got the four bins of toppings, it is obvious that you're going to make an everything bagel is not I did not invent the everything bagel but I definitely sold everything bagels in 1976.

So which finger Did you break and was it ever the same?

Well, my body is a little bit of a battlefield considering how lucky I was growing up, but I believe it was the ring finger on my right hand and it ruined my billiards game. But other than that, I've been fine. Wow.

Wow. And another question that a you know inquiring people are going to want to know. Well, Buffalo is part of New York State. It is not in any way related to New York City. So does the buffalo bagel have which I've never had buffalo famous for many food things. You got your beef on weck you got your wings. You got that seafoam que all that stuff. Right? Great. Now a buffalo bagel? Is it more beholden to a New York bagel? Or is it more beholden to a Canadian Montreal style bagel?

So the guy who started the thing was from New York, buffalo, you are correct is 400 miles away. It is more culturally aligned with Cleveland than it is with New York. But I did not taste a Montreal bagel. Until 10 years after it. There was no sugar in them no malt in them. They were classic boiled New York City bagels.

So you think you're standing by you're saying it was a it was a good quality bagel?

I'm sure it was a good quality bagel. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Yeah. And the proof is they went out of business.

So why is that? Why is that the proof? I like that.

Well, because if you look at lenders, and you look at the whole idea of the frozen bagel, and you look at the idea that you know, for bagels to become popular to how to become unbaked holes, the real bagels the kind that are still hard to find in New York City. Most people don't go out of their way for them because they're special. And I think it's better to make something special than to make something popular.

Speaking to Cleveland wasn't Cleveland the place where that person posted that thing where they cut the bagel the wrong way? And they were like, what? What's wrong with this? And then someone's like, there's a wrong way to cut a bit. Of course, there's a wrong way to cut a bagel. It's like, you know, when when, when my kids were like, oh, I need to do some citrus. Can they cut the citrus the wrong way? I'm like, there's a way to cut it. You know what I mean? It's like a bit. What am I going to do with this bagel? You know what I mean? That you've you've done it like it's Listen, people. It's okay to slice a bagel properly. And then to cut that half of the bagel. Into a quarter. This is fine. You can do this. You know what I mean? But like, just handing somebody a bagel that you've I don't get it. It was St. Louis. Let me see. Yeah, just look at this. This person like put it into an egg slicer? What the hell is wrong with them? You have to wait for it to go stale and do that and turn it into bagel chips. Which bagel chips are fine. There's no There's no dishonor in a bagel chip. A bagel chip is a fine thing. You gotta use the bagels that are leftover. Oh my god. Lenders is such a sad story.

Chips are the Fudgie the whale of the bagel world.

Wow. Hmm. All right. So in in your I learned some things from your book, the practice. One is that you're not a fan of Gilligan's Island. Do you think it's bad television?

Well, everyone knows that Gilligan's Island is bad television. It's just famous television back to this idea that it there are only three shows on at a time. So the network's all got a third as a given. That's table stakes. And when you know if the professor is so smart, why can he build a radio?

Alright, well, I mean, as someone Okay, so Gilligan's Island, I believe, started in 1963. And here's the amazing thing about Gilligan's Island. It only ran for three years. Gilligan's Island only ran for three years only two of those were in color. The vast majority of the ones they showed when I was a kid were the color ones right? After Bob Denver who is Gilligan pitched a fit and said that he wasn't going to do the show unless they added professor and Marianne to the theme song. God bless. I learned that reason recently. That and you love the show? Well, again, you got to understand for those that grew up in New York, know Lady Lady, do you like the most married everyone's a married man? icon. Anyone who's a ginger man is lying or like, whatever, everyone's Maryann. I mean, it's just true. Someone contradict me. Okay? The thing about Gilligan's Island is that they played at the same time every day. Right? And because there was only two seasons in color that they played a lot. You saw the same episodes every so it was the YouTube kind of of my generation. We didn't have VCRs we couldn't rewatch things all the time. But like, because there was this like, small number of Gilligan's islands that were relatively small, you know, short episodes, you could kind of reabsorb them, they became kind of like, like, kind of old friends to you. You don't I mean, like the cosmonauts, like the Exactly, yeah. You know, the, the, the, the, whatever it was, it was Carmen. What was it? It was, it was, they did to the tune of Carmen, they did Shakespeare to the tune of Carmen. And then somehow the producer got rescued, but they didn't. And then he became a Broadway hit, because they had a radio they could listen to, but not they cannot talk back. I don't mean like, stuff is genius. I mean, you know, but I understand how you know, you're you're a couple years older than me, you're a little more of a jaundiced view of Gilligan's Island as good TV. And yes, I mean, I guess from a what's it? What's it from a more objective criticism? Point the sopranos is better TV than Gilligan's Island, I'm sure but you know, you can all agree on, I guess. I guess. So, what? Like are you interested in maybe I mean, I don't want to like you know, force you to you know, give out like your your secrets here for free on our show. But do you want to talk a little bit about because a lot of the people who listen to the show are interested in how to maintain the drive to be creative, both in in in making new menu ideas, or maybe even new concepts for their place or just how to stay mentally fit because to me, the hardest part, the thing that makes me most nervous, is always wondering whether I'm still going to be interested enough to stay fresh tomorrow. You know what I mean? Like it's like, am I going to still feel like what what I'm going to do I always feel okay, when I'm just working. It's when somebody asked me what I'm going to do that I get nervous because then I'm like, I don't know, I don't know, I'm just gonna work. You know what I mean? Like, what do you think?

Well, you one of the reasons that you are a hero, to, to me and to a lot of people is because of your unbridled enthusiasm for better. And I would like to not be known as someone who didn't like Gilligan's Island, or as the person who invented the everything bagel. But I would like to be known as somebody who is not an enemy of quality. Wow, what is going on in cooking, and there are so many reasons, this show should be called Cooking issues. But one of the issues is this there is a tension between the regular kind between doing it the same way between getting your music plus correct and making it reliable. And the tension that comes from doing something that might not work. And a whole bunch of the molecular gastronomy stuff, a whole bunch of the things that you know, you were doing with cocktails at the bar, all of these things are on the frontier. And we can't have a frontier if we don't have the place where we started. And that's why I thought Kathy would be such a great connection for the show, because Kathy has lived on the frontier, but also been a defender of quality throughout her whole career, including where she bakes now. And the same thing is true for the way you approach cooking, because you know what came before you've done the reading. And so for people who are interested in the kind of cooking you are describing, it's I know how to make it the way they made it in 1950 or 9090. But I'm also gutsy enough to imagine changing something, and aware enough to listen to what happens after I change it to see if I did the right thing or not.

You have to be willing to be willing

to because I work with Helene every day, and we go into that bakery. And there's always a new challenge. Helene will say, Well, why don't you do this? You know, and I look at her. And it's a completely new way for me to bake anyway, because I'm used to butter sugar cream. I'm not used to sorghum and brown rice, white rice and all of this stuff. Until say, just let's try whatever happens. happens. Let's do it. Let's experiment with it. Just go with it. Well,

let's back up a little bit. We haven't we haven't described the bakery yet. Let's presume this is the link between this is the link between I assume the link between you Kathy and Seth is the bakery by the way bakery which is known as and it's been there was I think relatively early in being like a like a gluten gluten free bakery. And how many locations do you have now?

We have four locations. And we also do a lot of baking for Whole Foods and for a lot of other people.

Alright, so now we've now we've introduced the bakery. Why now now please go Go ahead.

And every day, if we're not experimenting, or we're not challenging, yes, we can make a muffin. But can you make a muffin that does this, this and this. I think that's the only it's, it's the only way to grow is the only way to keep precious the only way to stay ahead of the curve. And it also makes work a lot more fun. It's, it's enjoyable. The same old, same old gets gets tiring gets bland. And I think that's what happens to people if they're not willing to take the chance or take the risk. And that's what we do every day, we take the chance and we take the risk. What do you what did I think that's why it's successful?

What are your thoughts on the kind of explosion of people who are working in that space in the gluten free space now who are interested in the way things taste rather than in like, you know, some sort of just bizarre idea of what health is because, you know, when I was growing up as soon as you went into any as soon as you went into any one niche away from mainstream, you in order to try to capture as much of that market you would do all of the things you'd be like, Oh, I'm not going to use any sugar and I'm not going to do this and I'm not going to do that. You know what I mean? Which is kind of a nightmare. That's why a lot of that stuff tasted so so so bad. But there's such an explosion now like just in the past five, six years. What are your thoughts on that?