Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand new series on heritage radio network called the culinary call sheet where we give a peek into the back kitchen of culinary media. I'm your host, April Jones,

and I'm your co host, Darren bresnitz. Part of why we started the show was to offer an unofficial mentorship for anyone who's interested in learning about all aspects of food and video, whether that's TV, social media online, or just something you want to do for fun.

Absolutely what was once niche or a little silly, as I'm sure you remember, Darren, when we started out, this man has now become such a massive playing field for so many creatives using food as the medium.

It's something that has driven us professionally and personally, for so many years. What excites me the most about this show is that we're going to sit down with some of the industry leaders to hear how they made it and what drew them into this industry.

With 20 years in the culinary production game ourselves. We're hoping we can give through these conversations an insider's view into personal stories from the field, as well as an in depth behind the scenes look into some of the most popular food programming. In today's evolving culinary media landscape.

We'll be covering everything from how to style your food, to how to license IP, to developing your own ideas, and some tips from the masters of how to host your own show.

Yeah, it's a little bit of conversation, how to and how do you do the things that you do in color media, which I'm so excited about? I love so many of the guests that are coming on this season. We have talent from Food Network from Vice media eater refinery 29,

we've met some of the best people in the world both in front of and behind the camera. And we're bringing them all together to share their stories, their delicious adventure and their unique journey into this crazy world.

So to be the first to hear our episodes when they launched this fall, go to wherever podcasts are streaming and hit subscribe and make sure to give us a follow at the Culinary call sheet on Instagram.

My name is Sarah Kim and I'm from Austin Texas. I'm a cheese Landy and because while life is great cheese makes it better go to cheese landia.com to learn more and if it's for you sign up

hello welcome to cookies used to save all your cookies can we do that work every Tuesday whenever from whenever to whenever I'm at my oh, by the way, just so you guys know a little bit behind the curtain. Wizard of Oz style hear. We forgot the clap beforehand. So we can't actually sync this up. So this is how we do it. Dave. See? Very good. Yeah, yeah. We have when we when when each person talks, maybe they can clap and be awesome. We got Matt up there in in Rhode Island. How you doing?

Very good. I will do that because I'm recording. Yeah,

we got John Customer Service Representative extraordinaire. He's more than customer service representative. I'd say he's in Lyme, Connecticut, where I was recently. How're you doing, John?

Not too bad. Thanks. Hello, ready?

Nice. Nice. And Nastasia from her undisclosed hidey hole somewhere in Southern California. How you doing? Good. Yeah, you can clap. Are you not recording? Whoa. Was that just punching the mic?

Is that holding the mic?

Or you're doing this like stage style?

Yeah. Are you like are you headbanging? No. Like,

we usually when we hold the mic, I like to like, bang the head with it right now. You know what I'm saying? No, no, you're not a headbanging mic sort of person. No more of a stage crooner?

Yes. Yes. I have a glass of scotch with me.

Oh, yeah. So wait, so like you so when you think of stage crooner you think of like the whole kind of Dean Martin drinking while you sing in kind of a thing?

Oh, yeah. You can hear like the ice cider hitting the wolves when? Yeah,

yeah, it's rough on the pipes. You know, I'm saying like drinking like, for those of you that don't know, Anastasia Lopez and I along with my brother in law, Travis Huggett, years ago flew to Modesto, California, right. I wish it was Bakersfield. We almost got to go to the Bakersfield concert which would have been sick because that's where the Bakersfield sound is from Bakersfield. We flew to Modesto. You actually can't fly to Modesto. Right? Sounds we had to drive there from San Francisco. Yeah. And to get Merle Haggard back when he was alive, it would have been a different thing if he was already dead to school where we had this project where we were like getting all of these people. Some, you know, mostly chefs, and bartenders, but like some non chefs and bartenders to do this thing where you You have your shot of aqua VT, you look at the camera, which is supposed to be the other person that you're drinking with. You're down at all. And then you look back at the camera again and you have to end it. The whole thing is is that it's the before and after the before stare versus the after stare. How does it look like? And we went to do Merle Haggard, and we got him before the concert. And he's like, I don't drink before concerts anymore because it's bad for the pipes. Remember that? Yeah. Yeah, for the pipes. But anyway, that was fun. And in that photoshoot we do with Merle Haggard, Travis, just as he normally does, because one of the reasons Travis was so good at this is Travis is very good at like just taking with whatever light is available, like found light kind of a situation and like dealing with kind of uncontrolled situations. That's why he shot. That's why he shot my book liquid intelligence because I knew that someone who was going to work with me would have to deal with uncontrolled situations, as they say. And so he just was like, you know, shooting during the during the time we were talking to Merle and one of the shots he took there happened to be like morels next album cover, which I thought was pretty cool was that I wonder whether that was his last album when he came out with another album afterwards? I don't know. I have to look it up. Now right so what do you guys cook over the holidays? Anything? What do you guys have all of you for the so all of you guys are Christmas folk. Right? You're all Christmas folk? Yep. All right. So what do you guys have for the Christmas dinner?

I did some Japanese wagyu Yorkshire pudding roasted carrots. sauteed mushrooms. I think that was at the beach dinner well for dinner or for dessert.

I say that with the Frenchie accent again. There's still no idea. Yeah. Hey,

John, are you gonna forget your accent and forget your English and go for it.

I wasn't going to bring this up because I didn't think Miss dasya wanted me to but the Stasi. This dossier is incensed, incensed over the whole Hilaria Baldwin situation that's going on right now. I'm not going to explain it all to you guys. Because that's why Google was invented. But are you

incensed? Matt?

No, I'm not. I mean, I I'm only vaguely aware. But can you tell me like why should I be pitch me on incense? Why should I be incensed?

She's been faking a Spanish accent. And being born in Spain, and pretending not to know English words for over 10 years. And even though that just came out that she was born and raised in Boston, went to Spain on holiday sometimes with her parents, her parents retired to my Orca. They did not live there full time. Like she said they did. And when she was young, and she went to NYU, so

it's amazing. It's like so bold, because this is also happening in the age of the internet, too. So isn't this like a foreseeable thing that maybe somebody would turn around and be like, did not go to Mills? Yeah, that person?

Yeah.

I have the the the opinion of who gives a crap. But the the thing is, is that so I was saying to Nastasia and John, I haven't spoken to you about this that you and Hillary are basically the exact same person only you haven't faked it right? You have a similar profile in that you could all of a sudden start going by Jones. And then also busting out like the hardcore like, you know, accent like Belgique accent, you know, I'm saying and like, you could do that. And then I was like, would Nastasia get as penciled up over?

That would be so weird. Well, I think the thing that bothers me is that she she pretended not when it's convenient to not know certain cultural things like you know, Alec I guess is into a lot of opera and stuff like that or books or TV shows you said she didn't grow up with with a TV and Spain.

Well, how does the opera like shuffle with that? As soon as the opera is separate opera is not part of the whole ARIA discussion, right? Because that's all European. I mean, no offense to you know, Philip Glass and his so called No, no, no, I

mean, she feigned not to know much about like opera because it wasn't but that's not an American thing. Anyway, well, he was the commentator for the I like how now

she's pretending to not know opera. Clearly. She knows opera. She went to NYU. Clearly she knows opera.

But do we? Do we believe that she has lied to Alec

Baldwin? We don't know. We don't know. i We there are people that have a theory in my close circles, that when she met him, she was like, Oh, crap, I need to be interesting. I can't just be Hillary from Boston. And you know, I need to like keep this guy's interest. So she So she created a thing and he loves or loved the fact that she had this accent and was like, you know, very Spanish and dance with the whatever it's called. So

now I see the route in for John's transaction so be on the first day it'd be really he's like, I'm really excited about this one guy. I got a good feeling and all of a sudden just spray Belgian.

So John, John, give me some. Hey, you see a bump feet in English. Give me some Give me some. Um, hey, Tom, I'm glad what you had to go you have to go for fake accent. All in English, except for you forgotten how to say french fries.

That's how I used to drink underage. I would scan a photocopy of my passport and then like Microsoft Paint moves some numbers around and then I'd walk around, you know, a photocopy of a 21 year old passport and I'd put on the fake French accent everything and it worked. Most of the time. It was pretty impressive.

So so so give me some I would like a beer. Give me some I would like a beer. How you say french fries? I would like to be what would you say? French fries? Yeah, there you go. There you go.

I would definitely give you a drink. Nastasia now how are you currently about John's sins?

Are not not incensed at all.

I think it's about John. No, no. Yeah. Oh, you're saying?

I mean, yeah. Just checking.

The big thing about

Hillary Anastasia is not Nastasia is never gonna get mad at someone for scamming for a beer

scamming for her husband. Even that,

first of all, like correct me if I'm wrong. If SAS here if I'm speaking out of turn, we can we can bleep it out of the whole show. It's up to you. But it's not that the Stasi has her eyes on Alec Baldwin. That's ridiculous. But she considers him Prime Material and is upset that she has been he has been scammed this.

Yeah, true.

But what's the bigger and what's the overarching thing? Yeah,

if if it had come out that, like hello Korea had you know that she was Countess Bathory and was drinking children's blood to stay young. That would be fine. by Anastasia. The fact of the matter is, is that because of Alec Baldwin. She is constantly quote unquote, forced to go to Saturday Night Live tapings and they're after parties and is so over it is going to Saturday live and this is why Anastasia hates her. Yeah,

yeah, she sleeps backstage while he while he does his trump thing and then makes him leave as soon as he's done with the cold open.

We've gotten to the meat of the issue here. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, true story. And that's where the hatred comes from. So you know, if you're gonna get mad at, you know, John, going by Shaw, and not remembering how to say little french fries, or whatever. No, that's all fine. That's all good. You know? Alright, so John's like. Alright, so let me ask you a question. John, back to cooking for a minute. So I'm a big fan of Yorkshire pudding. How'd it come out? Did it puff up? Or was it sunk in and said,

very puffed up. My mom makes it every year and it was yeah, it was good.

Beautiful. So for those of you that aren't in the know who aren't like a roast beef kind of a situation person. A Yorkshire pudding is basically a large a large popover slash Dutch baby slash, whatever What the It's a thin batter that puffs up and gets area in the middle. Heavy on eggs and fat and in Yorkshire pudding. The fat is the drippings from the roast beef that you just cooked. And while the roast beef is resting, you pour in the batter into the theoretically you pour it into the roasting pan and throw it in although a Yorkshire pudding made in a popover pan with drippings is a good idea because it's easier to cut and serve out. However. So that is what it is. How does your mom do it every year?

I actually don't know. And that's the recipe we don't use. We don't do the beat fab. Well, we didn't this year.

Well, because you've cooked wagyu and who has enough wagyu fat? Yeah. Right. That's what that's where I was getting with my question is is it traditionally you would make this with the with the fat from the roast but I'm guessing you didn't have that this year. Because to cook the wagyu so hard that you have the fat from the roast would cause you to be the lowest quality individuals are great. Yes. Yeah. So what was the form factor of this Yorkshire pudding?

She does like a nine by 13 glass.

Familiar the Pyrex casserole pan. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I have several such casserole pans even though my family not a fan of the casserole. Okay. That's when we had Joey squid. Donnie on I was like yo tuna casserole. He's like, yes, but tuna casserole is widely hated. widely hated. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I don't think any of the other people here like what Anastasia and Matt What are your thoughts on the tuna casserole?

haven't had it in a very long time. I don't mentally though. I don't think I'd like positive

associations with it.

Here's my issue why not?

Hot Tuna? Hot Tuna?

Yeah, great conjunction of words was not a band or a

problem. That's a better band name that it was banned in my opinion. Yeah,

Ban name fantastic Hot Tuna. But okay, so if you don't like Hot Tuna What about tuna melts? Also you don't like tuna melts?

No, not really.

Okay, how about this it served cold tuna Mac I think tuna Max a fantastic thing. So I was

like yeah like tuna Mac but I don't the tuna does not get hot and when I do that,

no no I'm saying if you if you guys are anti Hot Tuna the band and anti Hot Tuna the foodstuff? Maybe I can get you guys on board with tuna Mac but I think a lot of people also don't like the tuna Mac whereas to me I'm like, I like tuna salad. I like pasta salad. Although a lot I'm sure Anastasia does not like pasta salad because of how abused it gets. I'm not sure I haven't discussed this with her but then if you like either of those two things, the conjunction of them sounds like a good idea and by the way is

tuna many an episode of Cooking issues has been brought to you by tuna Mac because it's the thing that I make in like 30 minutes right before you know getting on here. Like I like a quick

grab look to where do you have your cold macaroni?

Oh, no, man. I this is like hot. This is hot macaroni. I mean, well, you know. Yeah. Approaching hot macaroni. I don't know it's not the whole the whole dish is not cold. It's a whole like mixed bag. This is not restaurant food. This is like I have 15 minutes do this before the show. Go

and are you doing with instant ramen? Is that how fast you have to be?

No like mac and cheese like Annie's mac and cheese or whatever.

With the cheese pack. Yeah, dude. So this is basically tuna casserole you're saying you're doing you're doing tuna Mac but in fact you're making tuna casserole.

I guess I don't know what to do casserole is them. Yeah, that's

well it's usually superior. Right so like it's it's superior than mac and cheese but you're you're doing an exact halfway and you're serving at loop temperature so because it right because it's not hot. You don't want to be hot so you're you're folding the tuna into cooled off at the end letting it cool for five seconds and then eating it

and then shoving it in my face. Well I set up this call Yeah, yeah. So okay, so I do so I do love tuna casserole

and random show. What brand of mac and cheese do you go for? To Danny Sudan ah, oh, Annie's Yeah. I am not like Booker likes the and he's not a fan too thin. How do you thicken up that sauce too thin. I guess the tuna.

The tuna tuna helps there. I mean, a lot of bunch of random stuff and I throw extra cheese into if I've got something.

So you're an Annie Annie's Mac doctor in the way that whatever her name was Sara Lee, what was it? What was her name that used to be married to Cuomo, Anastasia? Anjali Sandra Lee. Like her big thing was doctoring cake mixes. Maybe you have a cookbook and your future Matt like the Annie's Mac doctor.

think oh, that's someone else cooking. Here's us listeners. You can have that one for free.

Here's another one. Like on mac and cheese while we're on it. Like how many of you guys like sad thin mac and cheese? I probably shouldn't have called it sad because that means that I think it's bad but I don't like a thin sauce mac and cheese I prefer the more substance you guys

like too much substance your medium

substance sorting.

I get sad when I am rushing things and accidentally found it out more than I want for sure.

Sassy What are your mac and cheese opinions? Didn't you do a great min Stasio was the queen of mac and cheese What do you like Nastasia had the best fast mac and cheese when she was doing pasta flyer her mac and cheese recipe was like next level mac and cheese and fast as fudge

so yes like four minutes I think but

I don't remember the consistency that you that you did what was she's not gonna tell you the secret dude she's not like me

No, no I don't remember it consistency was was was silky and well covered across all pasta pieces.

First of all, have you and Booker been talking to each other because whenever whenever you know Booker's favorite like high quality indicator is silky, usually reserved for fish. I like that you've moved it over to the pasta thing. Silky silky. We spoken on the air since I made the since I made the locks are him right. Yeah. Alright. Won't won't get into that. All right. All right. So should we rip through some questions here. Let's rip through some questions. Now listen, there's been a lot of Uh, talk in our chat room. Right, John about this kind of aseptic ASAP cooking technology that's coming out of I guess, either Australia or China or whatever it is on like, you know, advanced like Soviet aseptic packaging. Yeah, but I don't but there's no real question here involved, right? No,

no more for a few wanted to share that with everyone. It's just something that was said. And I thought it would be of interest to you,

guys just long. I don't know that. Yeah,

you definitely. Yeah. You should not read the full thing. I just said to you, in case you're interested, because it was a very lively discussion going on in the chat.

Yeah, I bet. I mean, like that, like, look, in general, my issue when something new comes out is that the less people tell you and apparently, the owner of the company came out to talk to one of the chat people and because they I think I talked to them on the side to explain exactly kind of what the processing is. But Okay, check this out. I was once in a think tank situation with a large manufacturer of equipment. And one of the this is before we had the series all and all that stuff, which, you know, at the end, Anastasio can wind me up like one of those. One of the I'm more of a cymbal monkey, right, Anastasia? Yeah, you are, yeah, she can wind me up and I'll changing, changing changing at the end. You know, I gotta go get my little, my little my symbol, monkey hat. And, you know, my ears actually are pretty big, I could probably just fluff them out a little bit and go full symbol monkey at the end on what's going on with Amazon, because people are asking for Sears halls and whatnot. So we'll get into that maybe at the end. So I'm in this meeting with the with these with these people. One of the people who was brought to the think tank was a product developer for a very large, he was a brand actually developer. So his job was, he would go out to people's homes, like potential customers homes, and just sit in their home all day and ask them questions that they didn't understand and then relate that to food technology. And what they were going to sell them the next year, visa vie soup. So he would like sit, he didn't work for Campbell's. By the way. I can't tell you how he worked for it. But he would like he would go to someone's house, like with his you know, like I'm a researcher outfit on, and just sit there and talk to randos all day without really asking them specific questions like, hey, what kind of soup you folks like he would never ask that right? And he told me this is years ago that there was a revolutionary, revolutionary new technology for soup that was going to completely change the entire soup category, and make things taste fresh and not canned at that. And that pasta was no longer going to be a pile of mush. And that like potatoes weren't going to be overcooked and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, can you tell me how it works? And he couldn't. And guess what happened? Nothing. Soup has not been revolutionized. If people can't tell you how exactly they're going to revolutionize something, or they can't, like disclose it because they can't get a patent or they can't do whatever they can't protect it then odds are if they can't tell you about it, unless they say I'm going to tell you about it at this date when this happens, right. Odds are it's not real. When you say that's true, guys. Yeah, yeah. Like for instance, if someone says, I'm gonna give you my taxes, and they don't for like six years, I'm just kidding. No, no, no, no politics, no politics, you know, politics.

We can go into it if you want. I didn't say no,

I didn't say happy. Connor Connor wrote in from Instagram, and Chow. I have a cooking issue. I'm a bartender. I was working with moanin puree today. They're moanings yuzu I've never seen moaning purees I just see their their syrup. So you guys ever seen the purists? I'm not know. It sits in and around 70% sugar that's intense and contains pectin that's intensely sugary for a puree. Obviously, it's very gloopy, almost jam like and so it's hard to work with a drink without shaking with the other ingredients. My work around my mama told me You better work around she also tell you that Anastasia. You don't even have to shop around. Oh, really had that workout? You know? Yeah. My work around was a huge shake to emulsify without adding too much dilution to the drink. But this has gotten me thinking what could I do with a product that has a high sugar content and contains pectin to make it more workable in a cocktail without adding water into the into the situation a few online resources suggested pectin can lose his gel making abilities after being exposed to high temperature. That's not ever been my experience. In fact, what do you do to jelly to make it set anyone? Anyone? You boil it, and then you chill it to set it? Right? I mean, you don't just blend fruit with sugar and it becomes jelly. Jelly. Ah, that's by the way from. That's fruit off. Who wants a water gun that shoots jelly?

That's not Rudolph. That's Rudolph. That's not the character.

No, it's the land of misfit toys. It's the water gun that shoots jelly. He's friends with that little doll that no one knows why no one wants her. Have you ever figured out why no one wants her a Jen had a theory

because they cried I think but a lot of adults cry

and people want him that's one of the main things dogs do is that they write no one wants to play with a Peter in the box. We know that no child wants to play with a Charlie in the box. That one he's basically like, King Moon racer second in command. You have like the the cowboy that rides the ostrich. Right. But what's wrong with train with square wheels train with square wheels? Although I think it's just the tender car that has square wheels, right? Doesn't a train itself have round wheels? The engine itself? Maybe they could just lose the tender car? No, ma'am.

They find the dolls issue. Go ahead.

Yeah, you figure out the dolls issue. And what does he say again? When? When when they think that Santa is not coming in? Is he like, could now I have my movies confused now I have Charlie in the box saying skunked again. Now anyway. By the way, it

says the reason for dolly being there was never explained.

So we have to make it up. What's wrong with her? Leave me

wondering why she was a misfit do to her normal looking appearance.

She's just there to make all little girls feel bad about themselves. Be like, what's wrong is on the inside. It doesn't even have to be visible. And there's still something wrong with you. Right? That's what it's there for God. So hardcore,

I mean the thesis on that. But

first, let me write the book. And then you and I together, we can write our way. Okay, so the question is, didn't Stasio and I write our own separate? What's plural of thesis? Thesis? John, you're the ex professor here. What is it? Is there a plural of thesis?

I thesis if I can't be right.

We will each write a thesis. The choices are we each write a thesis on? Or I should say, an exegesis of the story of Rudolph, right? And then we publish them in its own on their own in a chapter book format. Or we could try to combine our thoughts and write a single thesis. What are the feelings?

I think you and I should someday write a book on all of like, the crazy things that we've done that people don't know about, like, the eating the fruit at the place in California, and then I'll explain the lunch

like never talked about that we have. But on the air. We've never talked about the bathroom aftermath.

No, no, really like the Peter walking in on you.

Like all we talked about that a million times.

All of the things that we don't talk about, we should talk about, we should write in this book. All the things that we talked about when we're out with people, and they're horrified. We should write in this.

That's all the things we ever talk about. Yes, like, the fact of the matter is, is that like, I honestly don't understand, like, unless you're eating, like, why are any subjects really off limits when you're just having a conversation? Right? Like, what are you supposed to talk about the stuff that you always talk about? Am I supposed to sit with you and be like, No, how about them mats, all the eggs? The price went up? And then it went back down again? I mean, what are you supposed to talk about? You know, then yeah, but yeah,

yeah. Yeah.

I mean, seriously. Alright, we're back on the moaning my workmen. Remember people what we were talking about, maybe I should start doing this in the future. What we were talking about was Connor has a yuzu puree, and it's too thick to mix in and was having problems with the pectin. Then Connor said, you know that it's jelly like and that we talked about boiling. And that's what sent us into the me into the tangent on Rudolph, which is how we got here. That's a short recap of the last like five minutes are incredibly

helpful for me.

Yeah. All right. All right. All right. Okay. So anyway, so Connor thinks that making a pact and lose its jail by overheating seems counterintuitive know what they probably mean that pectin can lose its strength if if it's heated too long, is that pectin like pectins interesting among hydrocolloid, and that it requires a certain amount of acid to set properly, right, especially native pectin in fruits. However, in acidic conditions, when you boil them too long, the acid actually can break apart a polypeptide sorry, a polysaccharide rikes It's pectins a polysaccharide. It can break the it can hydrolyze the polysaccharide thereby destroying its chilling ability because one of the things that aside from the variety that are hydrocolloid is the actual chain length of the polymer, which can be different. So like two different, two different pectins can have two different chain links, right. And two different gelatins can have two different chain links, even though that's not a saccharide, that's a polypeptide. And the shorter the chain length, the less something has gelling ability. So if you boil it for a long time in the presence of a lot of acid, then the acid will start to hydrolyze break apart the pectin and it will lose his gelling ability, that's probably what they're talking about. But you'd have to cook it a good long time. Anyways, what I would do, if I were you, is I would just buy some enzyme, some, some pectinase enzyme, and hit it and see whether or not it might be a little too high in sugar for it to work, but, and it might be a little too high and acid, but you'll probably get some Pepto lytic activity in there. And that will thin it out. Another thing that we like to do with ingredients that are unhelpful is to like say, Okay, listen, I know that I'm going to put a drink on the menu with this yuzu puree, and it also contains this other liquid, that doesn't cost a lot and then I don't care that I'm like putting it only with use with the you use you and then pre diluted a little bit now your your shelf life is gonna go down significantly, but your portability is going to go way up. And so you know, that's what we would we would do a lot of times a third scenario that you can do in terms of making it work in a drink that's going to be shaken as you can by dosing pumps. So speaking of moanin, who made your puree at the bar, we would have milk syrup and cream syrup, and those things are very hard to jigger. They don't mix very well. And so what we would do is we would put them into dosa metric pumps and dose them directly into the shaker and it made our life easy that a good enough answer there Anastasia.

My name is Sarah Kim and I'm from Austin, Texas. I'm a cheese Landy and because while life is great cheese makes it better. Wisconsin cheese has proven time and time again to be a delicious expression of craft hard work and tradition. As a cheese landing, I'm able to share a good experience with fellow cheese and food lovers nationwide. As well as connect with cheese producers and cheese mongers taking my love of cheese to another level. I invite you to join tes Landia because during these difficult times, it has been even more important to take it easy and get cheesy. The cheese Landy community and events have been the glue helping to keep us together and connected. And I would love it if you would join me. And let's face it, if you hear the word cheese and get a little hungry, then you found a place you can call home. To find out more about cheese Landia go to cheese landia.com

from Max, my name is Maxime I'm from Kazakhstan. Man, I really want to go there. Like you always say that you should just go when first of all, like I almost thought I was gonna get to go once right? But like what how am I going to just go to Kazakhstan?

Why it when the pandemic is over? Why don't you and Jen take a vacation to Kazakhstan instead of waiting for someone to pay for a trip for you for free?

You know, or I have I don't need a business reason to go here's another thing you know, in order what?

Why do you need a business reason?

What do you mean? What do I need a business? I don't take vacations to randomly we do like one a year I don't think that'd be like gym, where are we going to go to Kazakhstan? It'd be awesome. I want to go. But I have to also go at the right time of year and get a guy to take me up into the mountains, etc, etc. I wonder whether that guy we met at NAMM. Forget it anyway, I learned about you. I learned about you from a book by Adam Rogers wrote a book I was his book called proof I think he wrote a book about bar mixology. You are described as the best in the business very kind. Can you give advice or literature young bartenders. So if you're going to buy books, I mean, there's not that many books on kind of the style that I wrote about, right? So obviously get you get my book that would help me. Or, you know, if you want like also some modern, take something more Morgenthaler books, and then just give some of the classics like you know, get, you know, me hands book, get Gary Reagan's book, get, you know, get it actually I have a bibliography in at the end of my book that are books that I think are good for people to read when they're when they're starting, and then just go to a lot of bars. That's always the answer. If you're interested in learning how to cook, or learn how to make drinks. The first thing to do is to go have the food and the drinks of people who are doing very interesting things because it's impossible, not impossible, but it's very hard to come up like it's very hard to create an internal metric of what's possible, using only just your own skill because you're limited by yourself. All right. So, you know, I always thought was funny. And I think we've talked about this before, but I've always thought was funny like, like, it's American famous pizza places, old school ones, and they don't ever eat anyone else's pizza. Why would I use someone else's pizza? Their pizza sucks. My pizza is the best, or like burger places where they're like, I've never had the other person's burger. Why would I have that their burger sucks. Mine's the best. Right? And that works for a very specific kind of category where everyone says they like your stuff. So you feel like you don't need to change. But you know, New Yorkers who think that way about pizza have been completely lapped right? By pizza knowledge. I mean, pizza is one of those things were growing up in the 70s and 80s. Pizza soft, let's just be honest, pizzas sucked, like New York Pizza was still better than pizza you could get elsewhere. But compared to a modern person's idea of pizza, it sucked. Right? And people who are still thinking of pizza in terms of what was great pizza in the 80s. Right? Like, I'm not trying to insult them. But like Sally's and Pepys in in New Haven, they make a delicious pizza. Right. But they've been lapped mentally, right other, they should continue to do their thing. I'm not saying they should ever change. But to say that they're the being all the end all because they don't go around and taste other people's pizza. Right, specifically. So I think what you need to do to make yourself better is to go and just eat and drink a lot. That's always the answer. Because every time that I've thought I've known something, and then have gone on taste excursions to taste other people's stuff, I realized, I don't know nearly as much as I think I did. And that's the best way to learn. I don't know what do you guys think?

Yeah, that's good, dude. It's like that guy in Japan.

Yeah, right. Yeah. Bartender is like, came to United States was invited to United States and won't call him out right? And famous and doesn't drink very much, which is fair, but like was taken around all to cocktail bars here in the States. Not even interested in seeing what people were dying. You know, I mean, not interested. I guess he thought maybe it would pollute his mentality and what's going on? But I think like, you know, the older you get right now, I'm 49. Pretty soon gonna be 50 I think we might have to because of the pandemic, Anastasia? Let's postpone like our deadlines for happiness one year you accepting this or not? We have to do it on air.

When was it supposed to be

supposed to be this year supposed to be? Well, not this year? We're supposed to be 20 They're supposed to be 2021. We're pegged. We're pegging it on my 50th birthday, that we were going to get in stable happy situations. But you want to you want to push it a year. Do you want to just publicly go on record saying we're pushing it a year? Can we push it six months instead? pandemic's been going more than six months, and our business has been pushed more than six months back.

Yes. So I'm only willing to go six months. Six months from your 50th So like,

not even this year, I have to be on my 50 so it had to be six months from your 50th 50th is in March? Yeah. 50 years old in March.

So November 2026. There's no way

like even if we're lucky. Even if we're lucky. We'll just be getting our new product online then.

I have faith

well that is heartening. Because usually you do not I am very heartened by this I'm not even being sarcastic. That's it's truly heartening especially in light of what's happening to our business right now.

We're gonna get into that now since you brought it up and just get it

I'll spool off like like you told me

quickly quickly, I'm gonna give you a time limit

and I ask a stupid question that's probably maybe inflammatory

there are no stupid questions just stupid people remember that?

Why is Amazon the only place that you can get us early

he really liked it the

the because we could sell it on our own but the distributor Amazon has amazing distribution for all their faults and the biggest problem of doing something yourself is logistics of distribution and shipping.

But are we doing that CNN thing Anastasia are not Rebecca's on it. She's gonna work she's gonna she's gonna be

Dave Dave's yes though. Oh, my God.

You're definitely I did not curse.

Definitely.

For review the tapes, my mind did not curse my mouth.

God, she said she doesn't listen to the show. So that's, you know, it's like the

truth. No, no, here's the thing. This is not has to do with Rebecca. This has to do with any person I've ever dealt with whose job it is to protect a brand, right? Their job is to protect a brand. So they are inherently worried. When someone goes out, and there's a potential to damage the brand by, for instance, talking crap about Amazon on a, you know, something that someone from Amazon might watch like CNN, right. And so like when they the PR person at the French Culinary Institute at the time, you know, when the Department of Health was cracking down on cvwd packaging in, in New York City, like I had just gone on, I had just written the curriculum for Suvi cooking at the French Culinary Institute. You know, I was 30 something I was raring to go. I was like, you know, let's do this. I was like, weak, I pitched I was like, listen, we have an opportunity here at the French Culinary Institute. And at the time, no one was teaching low temperatures to the cooking no one no one understood it, no one understand stood the rules. I had just like I had been working a lot with Wiley, who was one of the foremost people using cvwd at WD 50. At the time, and like I had done all of the all of the research, I knew I knew more on the technical on the technical aspects of it than anyone right at the time, from a cooks perspective, not from a science and process perspective, but from a cooking perspective. And I was like, listen, we can be the people who are the face of this, we can be the place where everyone goes for information, like this is our chance, like we can get everyone we can be the people we can be the voice and the ability to be that voice doesn't come up very often in anything, right. And the PR person at the time was like, it's not important part enough of our brand. And it's too risky. So no, you have to shut up. And I couldn't talk to the NY Times about it. I couldn't talk to anyone. They didn't even really allow me to talk to chefs anymore. And I had been on the phone almost constantly, like eight hours a day talking to chefs calling asking me questions about what was going to happen because I could talk because we didn't use cvwd in the restaurant downstairs at the French culinary. Because we didn't use it. I was thoroughly free to talk to the Board of Health because the Department of Health because it didn't matter. Like like I could ask them questions. And they wouldn't be like, Why are you doing that? And then come and inspect us because we weren't doing it. You know what I mean? We legitimately weren't. And so like I was in this very, very privileged position. And they said no. And maybe it was a good PR. Reason. Maybe it wasn't and like time and time again, like when we were at Momofuku, while when we were associated more with Momofuku, like the PR, like, isn't the job of not taking big risks like that. And for you know, me, especially when you're younger, your job is to take risks. So that's why that reaction is that makes no sense to us here. No. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just like, you know,

but anyway, Amazon is screwing us hard.

Oh, yeah. Real hard, real hard, real hard. So, I mean, it's just it's honestly, I don't know why we should have done it the ads too long, too long to get into. But like we went with Amazon solo, Matt, because there are parts of Amazon that are incredibly enticing, right, because they act they act as not your customer support from a standpoint of like what John does, but they act as when Miss Dawson says distributions, not just distribution, like from warehouse to warehouse, but like, their fulfillment is amazing. Their ability to get the stuff out to the customers to handle returns seamlessly to make you seem cool on that standpoint, is kind of unparalleled. Because Amazon is truly or was until the pandemic it truly great at customer service, right? The problem is, is that for as good as they are on the customer side, they can be as bad on on our side, because, you know, computers will make decisions. And you can't get in touch with a human being like you have zero meaning to them. Like even if you're doing several millions of dollars of business with them a year, you're still relatively meaningless. But for us, especially, you know, we're a very small manufacturer. And so our margins on our products, even though people think they're expensive or low, right, because we're not producing enough product to get really good rates on making stuff. And so in order to sell things at a reasonable price, we can't sell at a William Sonoma we can't sell at a bunch of places and because it's just Anastasia and myself it was until John came on board. No, you know, we had Matt but I'm saying you know, John, Matt was part time John's full time but you know, we just don't have the facilities to deal with like 20 different accounts or to sell to mom and pop stores and so Amazon because they take a relatively low percentage like so that you know, the cost of doing business on Amazon is what between 18 and 20% associate Yeah, like 16. Yeah. I mean, it depends on the item and all of that and whether they actually pay you, right. It's very enticing to use them. But then as we've discovered, like one, like one blip can ruin the whole business and we've been blipped now like three times, aside from the fact that they owe us hundreds of 1000s of dollars never pay us on time. And it's caused us to be late and to like have to take loans and all of this other stuff. Yes, we have to take out loans to loan sharks. Yeah, to subsidize Jeff Bezos. And that is a true freakin story. We Booker and DAX have to take out loans to subsidize Amazon for real right.