Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live from the heart of New York City, Rockefeller Center. newsstands studios, joined us via telephone with the Stasi to Amarillo, potato and stars. And good. I would normally ask you if you did anything interesting over the week, but we actually recorded our normal show yesterday. So I'm assuming that you had nothing really interesting happened in the past 24 hours from a culinary perspective. Is that true? Yes, true. Yeah. True. And also joined back in the studio. We have John How you doing, John? Good, thanks. Yeah, yeah. He's glad I didn't have you yesterday. So you have a whole weekend days worth of time to come up with some interesting culinary facts for me and the look on your face tells me that you have not

false a false Oh, I went to the British Steakhouse. Hawks more. Oh, yeah. How was a very good very Yeah, good steaks. Yeah, cooked over the charcoals and ate a lot of food for one person. Yeah, I got a 26 oysters 24 ounce Porterhouse spinach fries, sticky toffee pudding cheesecake and a cheese course.

Now am I allowed to have the same hot take that everyone else has about the Porterhouse? Not possible to cook it, right? Yeah, true. Like why? What made you go for the look, I understand there's a certain like being 70s about the Porterhouse. There's a certain like, you know, yeah,

I think that was you know, just felt like a mystique. it up. Yeah, I don't know. Just I wanted to. I just wanted like a, like a classic steakhouse kind of meal.

So which side was cooked properly? The filet or the other side? The other side. So the fillet was he murdered? Yeah. Yeah.

Very good. Very good.

I'm also going to take another and you know, I like this. Someone remind me to get back to the hot take on steak. We'll get back to it. Go through the whole thing. Do we have a senior molecules on the on the line we have Jackie? Or is he not? Is he here? I haven't spoken to him yet. Today. molecules on the on the line here. What's up, Jack? How you doing?

Man? I'm great. It's actually rain this morning in LA. Crazy. Is that uncommon? Yes. Yeah. In the summer.

You know what I like? I like rain. What? I like to remember that. Remember that group? Garbage?

Oh, yeah. I'm only happy when it rains. Yeah.

only happy when it's complicated. Great song. Great band. Do people still listen to it? Do people still listen to garbage? Or did that fall by the wayside? I mean, it's a perfect name for me. Anyway. The reason that I'm a Scottish?

I don't know. No garbage was here from the States. Right, weren't they? They're from Wisconsin. Really,

isn't it? Maybe I'm mistaken, Wisconsin is pretty much the Scotland of the US are recorded that smart studios because I wanted to work there. Oh, really? Nice. Anyway, I will go to that reunion concert, assuming everyone's still alive and decent. Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, by the way, you're right. Yeah. Madison. Wow, that makes sense. All right. The reason we are recording on a special day. So for those of you that are just you know, listening on the regular internet, you know, you won't notice that this is special day. But the reason that we're recording on a special day is because it is the day that the founders chip malt and J K lick from Maidan are here. And it's the first time is that true? No, we've had a nova come on to talk about things. But about a specific oven. This is the first time we're bringing in a basically a whole equipment company to talk to us because we thought it was something that our listeners would be interested in hearing the process on, because that's who our listeners are. So welcome, guys, how you doing?

Thanks for having us

as it hasn't been got. What do you guys in town for you allowed to say? Is it super top secret evil?

Half of it's really exciting. The other half will probably put those who's asleep? I mean, Chip, do you want to talk about your project in town?

So check them out here. I run the E commerce and digital side of the business. So I'm in town speaking at a conference.

So okay, that's the part that will put everyone to sleep. So not everybody loves a conference. I was just having this conversation with Dr. Jessica Harris yesterday. You know, the curator for African slash American, which you can still see up, it's got extended for a month at mo fed, please go to mo fed, you have an extra month to see it. Don't sleep on it. And we were just talking about the fact that it's those kinds of conferences that actually have the money to go to cities when it's nice to go to them, as opposed to tales of the cocktail which was started with no money and therefore had to be in New Orleans in the middle of July, which is no offense a crap time to visit New Orleans unless you really really really like physical discomfort. If there's something about you that doesn't like to be dry or comfortable. then New Orleans is a fantastic place to be in July. And she's like, Yeah, essence festival started there at same time, same reason, same reason, you know, we just not an industry with a lot of money. So I'm sure the E commerce folk have the cash to spend on a nice crap toss as we used to call it in the trade. Right, a good little convention.

That was a great conference. I mean, a lot of talk about future marketing, obviously, a lot of disruptions in the marketing world right now with Apple privacy and things like that. So a lot of trend talk, but also, as you mentioned, a lot of great events. We're able to go to Nobu and a couple other nice restaurants out of it, so that's great.

You know, I've never been to Nobu. Yeah, now we have the no booze Nope. Now, you know, why, dummy? The dummy. Here's, here's some other places back in the day, even though it was literally my job to do so I never went to El Bulli. Right. I never went to trotters restaurant when it was open. Which was dumb. Because I knew the guy. I just, you know, when I was in Chicago, I didn't go. I did go to Alinea, obviously, in I even went to moto. Back in the day. I didn't go to I didn't go to trotters joint. I've never been to per se I went to Alain Ducasse, his Essex house. Okay, but I missed the multiple. So for those of you that don't know, Alain Ducasse, is that he's still super famous, right? Yeah, that but for those young people were like, I don't pay attention to anyone who's old. Right. Ducasse was a middle of the road. Correct me wrong. There's a middle of the road chef gets in an airplane accident. Like, like, gets caught. It's like trapped out, like after this airplane accident. And I think that's how he injured his eye. I could be making all this up. This could be a fever dream, but I'm pretty sure it's true. So while he's waiting to get rescued, and God checking up on me here, well, well, well, he's waiting to get rescued. He's like, I'm going to become the world's greatest chef. And then and then he just started like, goes bananas and like goes on like a Michelin star frenzy you know what I mean? And when he opened up Essex house here in New York, I don't want to say this is like oh eight or something I don't remember exactly when cuz you know, time blurs. John is so not believing me right now. But he's literally going on the internet to check this out. The word of the word back in the day was that he was hanging upside down from a tree clinging to life that I'm sure it's an exaggeration. Anyway. So when he opened up in New York, New York is famous for being buttheads right just extreme jerks you I mean to people if you're trying to do anything outside of our box right you guys know this as as selling to us because I'm sure we're a decent sized market

their customers are all very nice no jerk

you know, I found that in our bar to like I really liked our I think it what it is, is if New Yorkers get rubbed the wrong way in media, we go bananas right. So Essex house was a very kind of stayed. You know, old school French stuff with the frills? Were old school front frills, right. And one of the things that they did and this is remember when WD was going great guns, and you know, Grant was doing his thing over in in Chicago, and all this stuff was happening was all about being new. America had just started looking away from France as being the leaders in everything and they look towards we're looking towards ourselves and other places. And they had this thing where the meal was absurdly priced. And they would bring out like a pen selection so that you could choose what pen you wrote your check with. And they just got freakin hosed in the media for that. They're like, just she lacked anyway,

what made you choose? Alinea? Not trotters in this first that not that?

Well, Alinea when I was in Chicago, we had two meals that at that time, and I was going to which we can talk about the McCormick Place world's worst. Click. I don't know what's worse. The Javits Center, which is our convention center here in New York or McCormick Place in Chicago, go discuss habits.

I'd say. I'd say McCormick, because you're McCormick there is so little food options around that place like Javits. I think you can get to a decent restaurant quicker. Now, you can sell your stock here at McCormick with nowhere to eat all day. And you're waiting for

that bus. You have to take the McCormick bus back to wherever your hotel is. But the Javits when you're inside of it, when you're in a trade show situation, that Javits was designed by the devil to show you that you weren't worth living. You know what I mean? I mean, standing on the trade floor, which I've had to do several times on the Javits all day is just like, it's just a punishment. Depressing lighting. Yeah. You know what, anyone who is going to start a business so I hope that someone out there is thinking of starting a business and what we're about to talk to is somewhat useful for them. Because believe it or not, well, people don't like direct competition, like every person that I've ever met, who I like, wants other people to succeed. Going forward. Right. Would you guys agree with that? Yeah. So one thing that you guys, new people, younger people won't have to do. is probably stand on a trade show in the old school way because not the way it used to be like I'm sure they can't be as bad as they used to be like orders trade trade shows where you have to stand around and wait for orders to come in and like

a dominatrix was worth it. Now we don't get orders, we just stand there. But why Why even go anymore? Are you kind of have to kiss the ring of the cookware elite, you know, do the whole whatever. But you learned something, you see new ideas, but I think they're going away. We were just in the Chicago house where trade show it was pretty quiet, I think people to COVID has a chance to break the traditional, you know, events.

I mean, I remember like a lot of the a lot of the old trade shows kind of started going out of business, some of the ones still were like, especially the ones where you have to eat stuff. So the so called Fancy Food Show. You know, I get it and I feel for your stuff, like people want it to like touch the product. And you don't necessarily want to ship a full line out to people. And you can kind of show people up close, I get it right. There used to be a book that you were supposed to read that I was started reading in, in like the late 90s. Like you know how to do your first trade show. And it was this book called trade show guerrilla. And like guerrilla not like what like, you know, like guerrilla warfare. And it was kind of an amazing book. Because when you're doing a trade show, you can't really be a person, it's kind of it's similar. And believe it or not, if you've ever worked a shift on the floor of like a restaurant, you know how like, punishing it is to have to be on all the time and everyone's looking at you and you're always catering and you can't be yourself and you can't like just look at your watch. Like you're bored and you can't like you know, go on your phone and start like looking at stuff or reading some sort of book, you have to be in service mode the whole time. Now, imagine doing that, in a trade show situation where even when there are no guests in your place, you have to have that eager beaver look that I'm doing because it is a nightmare. It's like How tired are you at the end of the day after a trade show?

Exhausted. We actually had a pretty interesting trade show experience. We did a trade show. And then we did a Food and Wine Festival, which is essentially a trade show for consumers. Right. And the restaurant trade show was dominated by vendors selling impossible burgers and other kind of non meat based things. That was the theme of the show. Next week, consumer based didn't see one of them. So super interesting. I mean, if that's you see that as a lagging indicator, you see, obviously those things are coming in coming in force, and it was probably probably 80% of the floor we were on was was those kinds of alternative meats and non meat.

Really? Yeah. Do you feel misplaced, though, that's the other thing. When you're in a trade show, you get a giant map of the trade show floor by the way McCormick we can get so we're gonna get so you get a giant map of the trade show floor. And you have to pick where you're going to be while you're correct. anymore.

I used to pick up your two years old they play in the back of the back of the bag. She's Louise

it used to be because I haven't had to buy my own trade show slot since like the early 2000s. And it used to be you're like, oh, yeah, well, first of all, you don't have the money, you're in a crappy little booth. But you get to say you least tell them what they do. And you're in a section of people related to you. If you get put in the wrong part of the trade show you're toast. Because the buyers just don't come next. You

know what I mean? That's the kiss the ring. I was saying, like, you got to do your time you get to move up, you get more selection, you get to be in a better area.

We were like the bathroom vendors with like the candy, right, right in the way back.

Oh my God. The only time I had my own booth, we were we were selling handbags. My wife and I had a leather handbag business. And we were we were selling them. I forget the name of the show. And the second time I had my own booth was the very first museum of food and drink event I did to American country hams in like oh four, and they gave me a booth that actually wasn't punishing, because I felt like I was doing something that I needed to it wasn't punishing the leather bag one punch. Terrible. And we were next to people who were selling like cut rate jewelry stuff. So none of the leather handbag people were coming. It's okay. If you're a buyer and you're going to one of these trade shows go to the wrong zones and just scan because you're gonna find the jam but the other fools didn't find right or wrong. Good spins on. I like that. Yeah, yeah, please and help those persons. Okay, so interesting that we're talking about McCormick because actually, the restaurant equipment that housewares business really kind of started although our first show apparently was first couple shows were in New York but really the actual like the the what was it was the NRA right and all that stuff started with at in the McCormick area. And so it's kind of like hyper historical important. Those shows to Chicago shows to the housewares industry. Is that maintained to now?

Yeah, NRA was great. We were there a month ago. Yeah. Yeah, I won't say anything negative of the restaurant. NRA.

Yeah, yeah. Right. The other NRA. Yeah. Yeah, I used to do shows anyway. Okay. So, Jake, you come from so you come ship you come from a ecommerce background Correct? Right? Which obviously is vitally important. Oh, for those of you that don't know made in is a brand of what do you call the kitchenware kitchen where they go because you do you do start with like pans pots and pans but you also do knives at apparently your wooden spoon is much beloved.

That's Jake's brainchild following called Paul on

the wooden spoon Yeah, I noticed Steve your engineer was was pushing for using the wooden spoon on your on your Teflon on your on your Teflon pans

we could get into customer service here but we get into a lot of trouble when we show videos of of our of our cooks using metal on nonstick because in the writers write and say I use metal and I scratched it and it's broken so we try to make it as foolproof as possible

all right well before I get into history then let's get down to utensils on your clad section right so your the first products that you guys launched were the were your clad were your clad pans. Right? And what do you what do you call it? What's the non branded fully clad, multicolored, multicolored? Like in other words like the difference between like disk versus like fully cloud, you call it multi cloud? Yeah, right. And, John, should we just get into this? We do this as we get and then jump around back and forth for history and equipment, history and equipment back and forth. We're okay. And did you look it up? Was I correct about about your boy

because the sole survivor of a plane crash was stuck out there for seven hours. But he'd been cooking a long time before that. He

was but he was basically he was like a high and normal dude. He was middle of the range. He wasn't a charmer saying he was a shoemaker.

Yeah, he was working for like, five hours a day and working for working for.

Does he still have the most Michelin stars of any chef? I think he does still to this day. Yeah.

Yeah, he wasn't freaking Alain Ducasse. I sat across from him once a lunch at WD 50 It was crazy. It was Ireland to cos Jose Andres freaking what's in it for on Adria. Right. And because they were they were, they put them next to each other so that they you get a yak because not everyone could speak you know, Catalan. Right. And, and then I think that Dave Chang was at that table because he even though he wasn't famous yet. He was he was kind of famous. He was like Noodle Bar famous, but he wasn't like, you know, the chain monster that he is now. And he was there because he was Wiley's body. And they put me there because I you know, knew Chang, you know what I mean? And so that was kind of it's surprisingly intensely boring conversation. It's like, super, super boring conversation because foreign was like, just like, speak the language at these buttheads speak and so he just kind of stared around or whatever, you know, I mean, do cost. So just sit there being do costs. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, Miss dassia. You agree with this? You'd rather just hang out with your buddies and hang out with it with a with a with a bunch of people to stay hung out with him, right? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, stars like the stars. He would rather. I mean, she doesn't dislike hanging out with with big wigs and famous people. But if someone's going to be boring, she doesn't want that. He hates that. She still does not let me forget. Anytime I make her hang out with someone that she considers boring. She freaking hands it to me for years and years, right?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that's it. Yeah. Get back. Get back to me then.

And the other thing is, though, is that whatever, whatever. Okay, I'll get back to what we're talking about. What the hell were we talking about? Oh, pants clad. So that was the first thing that you came, you came out with right? In your care instructions, because I carefully read your care instructions yesterday on your website. You also don't recommend metal tools on the cloud. Is that a mistake? Or do you really not recommend metal tools on the cloud? Or did you have somebody hit it with a with a mallet, like what, what

we serve two kinds of customers, right, we have a pretty big customer base, we have what we call the prosumer customers or even the professional cooks that understand that you can use this fish bat on a multicloud piece of cookware, and it's just fine. We have some customers that see us on TV, and like the idea of Grant Achatz using our stuff and buy our stuff and who knows what they're using on it. So in order to keep those kinds of customers as happy as possible, we try to make sure we accommodate their cooking styles, right?

But I'm gonna say this though, I'm gonna say this if I'm like, you know, like, you know, random consumer, let's say I'm random consumer, which I definitely, you're not, I'm not not just just because like, sometimes I intentionally punish things just to see what the hell is going to happen to them. You know, I think I told that story where this person told me that her blender pitcher was unbreakable. So I threw it on the ground as hard as I could and start stomping on it. Like Uncle Buck. Remember, I see Uncle Buck. He's like he accidentally dropped some play. He goes unbreakable and then shatters it anyway, we've

done it we've done similar stuff. I mean, we've run run over the pans with cars and trucks and things like that. So similar so

hopefully you didn't have any Elon Musk moments with your your your Windows browser truck. Yes, every truck moments with your windows break. Although I have to say my Subaru windows would not have survived Fred's hitting him with a sledge hammer either. I don't know that you want a guy named Fritz hitting yourself with a sledge hammer? Like in a guy that type black T shirt named Fred's hitting your any brick anything? Yeah, he'll break anything. It's gonna go through it. So if I'm a consumer, and you tell me not to use metal in my cloud pans, and there's a there and you know who they are, you know, I'm talking about there's that consumer out there who's going to listen to you? And they're going to use crappy, because let's face it, John, back me up. And it's not going to make them say anything. Nylon sucks. Yeah. Yeah, nylon spatula is freaking blow. And before you guys, like get angry at me about it. First of all, if you're cooking with proper heat, in a lot of situations, the nylons gonna get this little weird like lip where it like semi melts. I'm not saying nylons getting into your food. That's not what I'm saying what I'm saying it's just the surface of it, like lips over. But even that I can tolerate because I can shave that off with a knife. What I although, you know, be careful. But what I can't tolerate is that a nylon spatula. When it gets warm. When you do like a rest over in an oven, it gets a permanent set. And that permanent set on your nylon means that when you're when you're moving stuff out, you get so many drops off of that nylon and it never acts the way you want. It doesn't move stuff around the way you want. It's just trash, right? Silicone is typically too soft. No one has figured out a way to you know, no one has figured out a way to make I'm fine with nylon tipped tongs. And yeah, you know what I mean? Although, you know, Steve, you know, who did the video legend? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I was watching his videos. So he, he said that you're going to use these nylon tongs on the nonstick pan to move fish. And I want you to know that I'm not forwarding that to Wiley or Dave Chang, because I think I mentioned on the air before that, like the closest I ever second closest, the Stasi remembers the closest I ever got caught getting hit by Dave Chang. In a meeting. Remember that stars?

Yeah. And we should not tell that

story. I told that story. But let's just say a lot of silver backing in that meeting. Do you got well, we'll get back into me. But like was when an argument I had at a restaurant, about the use of tongs, wherein I said, tongs are an appropriate tool to use in the kitchen. And they shouted at me saying that they weren't ever appropriate because someone might use them on fish. And I was like, amen. Amen. You know, hey.

I mean, we, we do wholeheartedly agree that we're coming announcement, we're coming out with a Utensil Set in the fall. Nice five pieces, breaking news, no, five pieces of metal fish bat, fully metal tongs. And then we've got the apostille upsell nonstick spatula, for those for those customers that want a nonstick spat. So. So we're very much in your camp, right? Like, we know, we know the tools that that makes sense. But

the good news is the customers who will not use the people who know what to do, they'll ignore the care instructions, right? But I'm making those care instructions for the customers who really don't know what they're

right. But my point is, though, my point is, is that the person who doesn't know what they're doing is going to have a more negative experience than they should because they're going to follow your instructions, and it's actually going to make their life worse. That's the issue I have is someone's using nylon, or silicone spatula in one of your fully clad pant. That's that's the only thing that makes me it's it's it's a fair point.

And it's we could talk about, like, the struggles in running a business and you have the stakeholder that oversees customer support, versus the stakeholder who designs product. And it's a consistent wrestling match about who wins in the voice of the room rally.

Yeah, no, it's terrible. Like, the stuff that we have. I was talking to someone the other day, and just like the fact that you have to put prop 65 warnings saying that your materials cause cancer on your boxes, and then people are like, then they write negative amot. Well, you know, for us, they write negative Amazon reviews saying, It chews on the package, it causes cancer and like, I have to say, it's like our lawyers won't let me sell it. If I don't write that there's nothing that's going to cause cancer in it. You know, it's like

a hertz rent a car had a prop 65 warning. Really? Yep.

I mean, I have to say, there's a lot of stuff in the car that will cause cancer, but me know more so than anybody else's car. You know what I mean? Like, anyway, so

we're trying to do it. That YouTube channel is teach people how to use our products to The best of their abilities and inspire them to cook. And so when we have the utensil collection, which hopefully PR doesn't get mad about us leaking here for the first time, like that will be a great opportunity for us to come out and teach people how to use utensils correctly, because that will be from us. We designed it, and then we can show them how to use it. So

I like that. Alright, so since this is new information, I can't I literally people, this is not staged. I have no idea that this is coming. So I'm going to ask some random questions. John, what's the worst problem? What are the two worst things that happened with tongs? What are you what are your two least favorite things? And maybe they're different from mine?

I don't know. I've had my tongues for 12 years. I like them a lot. Really? Yeah. Okay, average metal tongs. Yeah, they've never failed me. They're extra long, but they're great.

Well, first of all, as a home person, I have a set of supermini tongs that I use for salad bowls because they don't fall out of a salad bowl, one of the big people, you need a small you need more you need more than one set of tongs you there's not one time for all things. Everybody who's ever used tongs to serve salad for family meal knows that the way you should serve salad is with tongs. And if you're sitting there using two hands with these goofy 1970s, like freakin like, you know, giant like weird, like sporks Forget it. You don't I mean, Tom also a decent way to toss salad. Tom is a great thing for salad. But on the table, the long tongs and cooking tongs that you use, keep getting knocked out of the bowl leaves everywhere nightmare, you need to get a short set of tongs for salad. However, the two things that go wrong with tongs from me is not all of them. But certain locking mechanisms fail like so the old hip lock ones where you, you can't see what I'm doing, folks, but you clench the tongs and then you pop the back again, they fail constantly hate hate. Whereas the ones that pull, they're the ones that you pull, while it is a two handed operation instead of a one handed operation. They do lock better, but they don't lock as tight as the pop guys do. So in my opinion, the the handles of tongs could use the thing. But here's it and maybe there's only specific to people who loves deep frying the way I do. Deep frying with tongs is dangerous. Your your gut tells you I want to fry with a tongue because hell yeah, I want to fry with the tongue, I want to turn that thing over, I want to take that piece of chicken and I want to move it upside down into my oil while I'm drilling jiggling it around. But anyone who's ever taken something out of a deep fryer with tongs and lifted it over 90 degrees or over parallel with the floor has gotten a terrible burn to tell you about from the oil running down. And is this a solvable problem? Are you going to solve it? Maybe not in the first rev maybe you've already been thinking about this, but the oil down the tongue to me is like if someone could solve that problem of the of the fry person having the burnt wrist. That would be they would be doing a good service. Even if no one ever knew that this had been engineered into their tongs. You know what I mean? Yeah,

the big problem for us solving is the locking mechanism, right? Because Because I used to sell restaurant equipment to shops, right. And that's where the business started. 95% of chefs by the headland tongs that don't have a locking mechanism, right. 5% do but at home,

right, you know, other way around them. Yeah. Because in a restaurant, we're all just gonna pop up, up, up up and we're sticking them over the metro. You know what I mean? And we just went we're grabbing the one side of the tongue and flipping going right, right. And yeah, so the restaurant tongs are also like, they're all beat to hell. I don't know what the hell people were playing drums with them. I don't know what the hell how beat the hell they are. I think

they are. They're playing rhythm with them. Yeah, of course. Right. And they

never go out to the table anyway. But at home their mate moment, maybe people are using your locks. Yeah. So you've been working on the locking man working on a

lock that locks my prom with locks is they get janky. And then they don't allow the tongs to fully open all the way. So you end up like, Oh, I hate stopping whatever you're cooking. So that's the first thing we're working on. I have

a bunch that like I said before that over the years the lock, no longer functions and you'll put it in your drawer because home people put them in drawers, and then pop in the drawer. And then when the tongue turns as your drawer opens, I said this he says before, if any kitchen designers are out there any designers at all when you make drawers, the average drawer when it's designed there so you design the box out of ply. And then there's another piece of wood across the top to brace it to give it strength. Yeah, just push that wood all the way to the back make that piece of wood go all the way to the back. Because there should never be a situation where a tongue can pop or god forbid a knife. I've had to happen to my knife drawer and it sticks into the top then what now what you have to you have to get like your your child when others are small enough. Yeah, get oh wow, that'd be smart. I've had to get a borescope out. I've had to get a borescope out to open my my utensils. Sure. I have a lot of utensils though. Yeah, I'm not very much I'm not a minimalist. I know if you can tell. Not a minimalist. Alright, so alright, but how can you Have the oil drip problem? Can anyone solve the oil drip problem? Is there a way to put like some sort of like, like, some sort of what like a sleeve that or like some sort of like, like a like a something that like vents it away so that it spills out of the tong before it gets to your wrist? Is there some way to stop that hot oil from getting to your wrist?

There's gotta be, there's gotta be, maybe that's our collaboration.

All right revision to revision two. And I'll just sit there for I'll just sit there picking pieces of fried chicken out of a deep fryer, and like lifting overhead and look at this chicken. Ah, you know what I mean? Like, lift the chicken over your head and see whether the oil goes down on my wrist. A real labor of love. Yeah, yeah. Well, it fits back into one of my last art projects that I never did, which was trying to deep fry myself. It was after I burnt myself with the with, you know, after I horribly burnt myself with St. George and the Dragon piece. I was no longer allowed to consider deep frying myself probably good. Most likely, most likely good. Yeah. Remember, when people used to sell silicone gloves that they told me you can put into a deep fryer and pull stuff out? Yeah. They cut really easy. Yeah, yeah. So if I put my body into one of those and deep fried it just like one mistake getting caught on something I hadn't ground down

toast. And then it gets like, what's it seems like it's your toast? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

All right. Okay, so, Jake, let's get into this. So now, you alluded to the fact that you come from restaurant business. Why don't we talk about that? Because I think a lot of people are like, I want to start a business. Well, like, it's not that easy. It's not that easy. Like how small a community I mean, I used to know when I was at the French Culinary Institute, I used to hang out with the Mercer knife people. And you know, they were kind of giving me an insight even into the knife world about how small it is. How small is that? Is the community, like not tiny. In other words, it's pretty small.

It's pretty small on the same people that run each company, get fired from one and go run another and then go work for someone else and go work for someone else. My grandma, my family started a foodservice equipment business in 1929. So my grandfather was building bars and cigar cases in downtown Boston in the north end. And in over the years that changed from a bar building business to starting to sell the supplies, the bars used to going beyond bars into restaurants and hotels. So harbor food service, commercial restaurant, equipment, supply, design, installation, that kind of thing. So

were they selling bar stuff out of a catalog? Like the like the like, what was the company like the same billiard company used to also do a lullaby? Yeah,

at one point at one point. Yeah. And that was that was when North Washington Street in Boston had, you know, 10 different food service equipment dealers. Now there's, there's none, because the Big Dig drove them all away. And I joked, I gave a toast at chips wedding two months ago, congratulations. And I joke that like, nobody else could have found a way for me to leave my family business and make a salary. Besides chip, bringing his knowledge of EECOM to my knowledge of pots and pans and commercial tools.

I mean, but that's undoubtedly true. Yeah, right. I mean, like eight, like, you can't like your business has done amazing things. But it's built on this kind of relatively new concept of direct to consumer. We're a much worse version of that, because it's through Amazon. And then Amazon controls your money tab. Not only that, we don't have the connections or whatever, when you know, we don't sell things that people want as much as you do. But yeah, so like, you really need kind of both. So where did you guys meet up?

So I was I was running my family business and, and we've known

each other forever. Yeah, we learned each other since we were three years old.

Ladies, but you're not like you weren't still family wasn't still in Boston at the time. I

know. We were I was I was working in Boston. I was I was outfitting commercial kitchens. So So I had the firsthand knowledge of like, what chefs were buying. We were also wholesalers for the big ole clads. Mom's got the better cannoli. Modern. Okay, really? Yeah. Yeah. Very, very big believer in that. I see. I grew up in the north end. Yeah.

But my stepfather's butcher shop was there that he retired in the 80s, though, and it turned into something else. It doesn't even look like a butcher shop now.

There's only one one butcher shop left in there, I think. Yeah.

Addonizio Addonizio and Sons Lyza. Yeah, but that was back way back. That was like a closed like I say in the in the mid 80s

still kept a lot of its term in the north end. Yeah. For a big city.

Yeah, modern. Hmm. Modern, modern. I can you how many? I can't, I gotta be honest, people gonna get mad at me. I don't, I can't eat a whole cannoli. It's just too much.

Well, you know, they make mini cannolis now, like, come on, like

the mini tongs? Yeah.

Like, it doesn't flip your cannoli ball out here when you I mean, for any of you a chocolate chip on your cannolis kind of go on dopey.

I look, I eat any cannoli, I lean but like you know when I went to was the other one Mike's right or whatever. I went to Mike's and Mater On the same day, which you know, you got to build in your linetime Geez. And I was just like, I said a lot of cannoli. So I got the planes because I'm like, I gotta try the plane. Yeah, just a lot of feeling.

Would you thank you Mike sky. I You know,

I don't I don't remember I believe my memory was I like one person's filling. And I like the other person shell better. That was my feeling but I don't remember which is which. I just remember thinking that this is something too deep for me to get into. And so but you know, yeah, yeah. Oh, that was now we're talking food. Steak. Right. What are we talking about with steak we're talking about filets, not a bad cut of meat. Not a bad cut of meat. Everyone ranks on filet who lose money. It's not supposed to be beefy. It's supposed to have be amazingly tender. It doesn't taste bad man. Like, you guys with me on this affiliate is not terrible. Like why hate it? What's the point of hating, I can see why you don't want everyone to go order it because it's ridiculous to jack up the price of one little cut of meat that's only a little bit other than the whole cow. Right? It's bad to eat filet at the expense of other pieces of meat. But if someone hands you filet and they haven't overcooked it, and it's not dry, you're like, that was enjoyable eating. No, you disagree. I have faces

talking about how difficult it is to cook a Porterhouse. How it's like the Thanksgiving turkey of beef, right? You can't cook one side without overcooking the other. So

Correct. Well, no, you shouldn't serve it as Porterhouse. But I'm saying fillet on its own. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that. All right, beef. That's amazing. That's what's for dinner. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you start out making bars in 1929 29. Oh, bad year to start making bars that year to start making anything. How the heck did you guys

survived good year for bars actually.

Cigar cases? Yeah, we

didn't really make those anymore.

We did. So the business is still that part of the business is still alive. No, no

carpentry anymore. No, we buy the modular bars, you know that that you know, so. But now it's heavy design and installation of commercial kitchens. And then we sell them everything they need once they get up and running.

So you're like a competitor like Sony Mattel and those kinds of guys and try Mark wasserstrom

that is, yeah, we're more boutique regional New England. But yeah, so So I was I was selling 15 different brands of cookware, everything from the wind COEs, and, you know, import stuff to the all clad Mavi all set trim. So can kind of see firsthand what chefs wanted where the value was. I had people calling me every day saying I'm moving into a new apartment. What what cookware my buy? And I have no idea. So you know, say like, I'll sell you some maveo. And I'll just sell it to my wholesale pricing, which was 50% of what they made I sell it for right, which is a lot. Yeah, it's a lot lower. Yeah, that's no deal. And then and then one time chip called me and he said, Hey, I want to do my own business in the E commerce space. And I was looking at the kitchen, nobody had really disrupted the kitchen space direct to consumer. And that's when it clicked. I was like, yeah, like nobody cares about kitchen tools outside of the super passionate home cooks and chefs. Right? How do you how do you build a brand that people are loyal about that teaches you why the tools you buy matter, and get them excited about investing in tools, like they're excited about investing in grass fed steak and curating the perfect recipe and finding the right wine producers and that kind of stuff.

And I think what was interesting about having Jake as a partner in this was he was a product guy first and he had been selling products for his family 100 years, as he mentioned. And I think that's a lot different than a lot of the DTC companies out there, which, you know, the first thing they run to is, what brand are we going to create? What are we going to stand for? What are our color palette, etc. The first thing we did over the next 12 months after that kind of initial call he mentioned was work on the product and have chef's tests, test the product, get it in the hands of all the chefs that Jake had relationships with in Boston. So it really was like a product driven company. Once we landed on where we wanted to go with the product. It was what does the brand stand for? And what's the color palette and all the stuff that comes after that?