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.

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Hello, and welcome to cookie issues. This is coming to you live on the heritage Radio Network every Tuesday although I think this is the last one maybe before the New Year. I don't know we'll see. This is in fact the Christmas episode. I'm your host Dave I'm here in the Lower East Side of Manhattan we got Anastasia to hammer Lopez at her undisclosed Southern California location Hi Don good we have John intrepid Customer Service Representative it backup in line is it all line or line is there really a difference? There's only really one line

I think there is a difference but we are in line proper

line proper not old line no you think old line was one of those kind of like post additions where old lines is actually newer but they call it old line and they add like that like an extra D and E like old D line me?

I don't know I hadn't thought about it but you could be right.

Yeah, and Mr. Connecticut the real mystic is mystic and then they have something called oldie mystic II vintagey with like all kinds of like stupid Sharpies. Do you guys hate by what? Okay, got Matt in Rhode Island. How you doing?

Good. I can't wait to hear the end of that question. Yeah. And

and I want to bring him in now. Just because anytime I get to hear his voice is a pleasure. Christmas tradition. We have on the show today friend of the show. Wufu Bravo. How you doing?

Good. Morning, Dave. How are you?

I'm doing well. I'm doing well. And as you know, Phil Bravo is the closest living human being to thermal Ravencroft aka Tony the Tiger. He was also one of the voices in spike Jones's novelty band back in the 40s and 50s. And was most importantly for the purposes of today's show, not the narrator who's Boris Karloff also a great voice. But the singer of the original Grinch. Yeah, no. So I have to go through that every year in case people haven't listened before, but that's that's and Natasha, how long have you been pestering Phil about doing the Grinch

doing the Grinch? Yeah. I don't know. I think you did the first time like 10 years ago, fill out the gaff karaoke Right. Or something

that was really gaff 40/48 and ninth Christmas karaoke. nondenominational holiday karaoke

now That bar which you guys used to like to go to the gaff is named after the hook that you stick through a fish's face, right. I

don't know. I thought it was like when you make, right,

like a gaffe,

or like that. That's, I think that's two F's and II. Really? I think. I mean, I think we just we just assumed based on our behavior,

but also that that bar is near what used to be a film neighborhood. That's why the Film Center building and everything's over there, maybe it was, maybe that's where gaffers went. True.

Yeah. gaffers are their own water kafirs.

Everyone gets their own bar equipment. Everyone gets their own bar. Why can't gaffers have the tape things to things gaff tape.

They tape what

they think tape stuff, the stuff, but you know what I mean? stuff.

I mean example.

It's like, hey, moron, that light's gonna fall and kill the talent get the gaffer and yeah, like that.

We have gaffers gap. And what does the best bully do?

I mean, first of all, are they still call the best boy or do they have a gender neutral? Best Boy, I think that is just like, that's like the highest position you can have without having a producer credit, right? Like Best Boy. Like we I don't know. I'm not in the business. Someone needs to tell me but it's like I thought like, you know, if you if the coffee that you get is really really good. You get like some like third tier producer credit. So like, just below that is like is like best whatever. Right? I mean, I started using I

thought I thought it was most favored dog on Saturday. Oh,

that'd be amazing. The Best Boy you imagine if they just had a bunch of dogs chilling and then the dog starts barking and gnawing on stuff.

What Yeah, and then at the end of the production, they nominate one to offend Best Boy, it makes sense.

It does. What if the what if instead of a dog, it was a rabbit, and the rabbit continuously chewed through all of the cables, so they have to keep going through rabbits because they would electrocute themselves on the regular?

That seems like that would hold up production quite a bit. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know, it's all about tradition. It's a tradition is having a rabbit chewing through your cables. Why do rabbits chew through electrical cables? Or were you guys not aware that this was a thing

that was just waiting for the punch line? Now this is real.

It's not setup.

This is real. This is real. Oh, speaking of speaking of punch line, he thinks the Stasi I have found a fact that I did not know that I think you might actually enjoy not being sarcastic. Are you aware that the end soon? Everyone who knows knows that Nastasia Lopez is works with cooks. But he's actually a fan of comedians. Right. So not a fan of cooks, but a fan of comedians but works in the cooking field. Right. Okay. Yeah. That's fair, correct. Cooks? And comedians, same patron saint.

Oh, what does that mean? I mean,

aren't you aren't you at least part Catholic patron saint. You want to paint? Real? Yeah, it's real. Yeah. St. Lawrence, get this. Here's why St. Lawrence is the patron saint of both cooks and comedians because of one wisecrack he made while being martyred. So he's being well, so the legend goes, who knows how it actually went down? Right? So there's the seven deacons. And they, you know, they he was the last one to get martyred. And the, you know, whoever it was, that was, you know, persecuting him some Roman weasel was persecuting him, and said, You got to bring us all of the riches of the church all of it, bring it all because we're going to confiscate all of this crap. And so I'm on the I'm on the radio show books. And so then what happens is, is he is instead he gives all the stuff away to the poor brings the poor folks to things like here's the riches of the church, it's the poor people want well, that's not why he's the thing though. Here's what happens. The the Romans are so mad that they ordered him to be cooked over a fire, right? And here's, here's where it comes. So they they spread out a big, you know, grid iron, you know, a big, you know, great and they fire up the coals or whatever they had back in the day, and they throw them on the on the, on the coals. And before he dies, he goes, I'm done on this side. Turn me over. And that was it patron saint of comedians and cooks

at school. So if it's if it's Lawrence, I like it seems appropriate that its patron saint Larry. Yeah. Very for comedians.

Yeah, Larry. Yeah. Ricky imagine like being like, I'm gonna get this one last thing or in I'm done on this side. Turn me over. Tell me they had this stuff. You know, they had drums telling me we had drumkits back in the day. Yeah, anyways, yeah, I thought you would enjoy that. Did you enjoy that? That's

good. I picture Larry David as that St. Yeah.

Ah, Ah we could totally do that get

you to figure and we gotta make you

sure they have a Larry David patron saint so we have a meat glue question later

if we get to it so we could talk about getting a Larry David like mask stuffing it with meat and making an actual meat layer like st Larry David that we could grill on one side and then turn over what do you think? I don't know about that? Do you remember how disturbed people were when we were making meat? Easter bunnies and deep frying them Anastasia?

I don't think I was with you then.

Really? We took we took the Easter Bunny chocolate molds that they had the FCI and then we like meat glue because we want to be nice and firm we meat glue and packed meat into the things and then lo tempt them and then we had these meat bunnies and then we would deep fry the meat bunnies and for some reason people found it disturbing

that on the outside that bad

make any sense if you're down to cook some rabid anyway what difference does it make it? Oh, maybe yeah,

here's another thing guys since I since we don't have a you know a bar anymore. Another thing we were going to do last year we didn't get it in time this but this year, you know we didn't do it is we bought some silicone Santa Claus molds, right. And then we packed we took our our chicken liver mousse right and pack them into the Santa mo molds chilled them and then had Santa Slyke Santa chicken liver things they were pretty good. The problem is, is that they get like if you have to kill them too much. They get a nasty kind of bloom when they come out if you let them sit around too long. Obviously they oxidize because it's chicken liver mousse, but the molded Santa mousse I thought was a nice was a nice thing, you know?

Yeah. Where can I jump the line with a cooking question?

Why not? Okay,

I was cooking skate for the first time a few weeks ago.

We will you've never cooked skate before. I had never cooked before. Okay, how did you How have you lived this long as a pescatarian? And just curious how have you lived this long as a pescatarian from Rhode Island and not cooks gate? Well, first of all,

I spent many years as a vegan, so that's part of it, right? Yeah. Okay, okay. Anyway, okay, so, and my wife and I, Kate, we're sitting down on a meal, and all of a sudden, she's like, are your lips tingling? I'm like, yes, they are. And then we look this up, and apparently skate sometimes secretes like urea. Is any of this ringing a bell? To flaw like,

what? How do we feel? So Let's skate is a cartilaginous fish in the way that sharks are. Right? So all of those cartilaginous fishes use, you know, certain kinds of you know, those kinds of compounds for buoyancy, some more than others buoyancy changes and it's just it's just they do that whereas the bony fishes typically do not. Right. Also, some squid are very high in kind of unpleasant, you know, things. That's why like certain squid have to be treated differently than other squid, right? That said, the average skate that you buy in a market does not have, you know, high amounts of those kinds of compounds. Whereas some sharks if you buy him they do ever John, you ever buy a shark and had it be real, like, you know, real stinky real? Anyway. The skates that you buy in the market probably don't. And that's also probably not causing your allergic tingly reaction. There is a relatively well known allergy, some people have to skate. In fact, you know, a, a famous chef, my brother in law won't call him out. But his name rhymes with Bailey Moo Frane. He is allergic to escape. And so as a consequence, because he didn't want to be allergic to everything, he would fabricate it as much as possible to try to like, beat the allergy out of himself. So if it's real, but you know, I wouldn't be concerned and I don't think it's because of residual urea. Could be wrong, but I don't think I am but here's the thing. What's awesome about skate did you notice the best thing about skate mat?

Now? What is it?

It is that it is one of the very few fishes and John Phillip PHIL You know what I'm gonna say? What is amazing about skate? And alas, John,

I'm here. I don't I don't know that there's meat on both sides of the balance. I don't

know it's that you can beat the EverLiving crap out of it. You can hammer it and it still tastes good. It's the most forgiving of all fishes of all fishes created in on this earth. Skate is the most forgiving you can just do anything to I

definitely I read something so after we started to go down this rabbit hole of like, well, why is this tingling sensation happening and I definitely read things like oh, you the more you cook, so skate the more like tender it gets, the better and whatever I was like what and that's that's a little that's a little bit much I try I know so then I throw a piece on and was like you know let's okay let's test this and it was not better having cooked for longer it was

not enough however it is it is the most forgiving I think fish the weirdest fish. cartilaginous fish I've ever cooked is the fresh version. I believe the technical the genus has harped on and it's the it's the fish that is used to make the dried specialty bombay duck, and it is complete when you cook it. The entire interior of the fish completely liquefies like a gelatin. It's with the weirdest fish I've ever cooked. So I used to deep fry them whole and eat them, I stopped because if you let them they're great when they're hot. But if you let them cool off, they are vile, they are disgusting. And as everybody knows, you can't trust your family to eat when you tell them to they just don't do it. So I couldn't have them just sitting around turning file, but those things were great. Yeah. So I'm sorry, I couldn't answer your question other than if you're both tangling. And it it actually you know what, now that I'm rethinking if both of you are tingling, it's maybe something wrong with that particular or something in that particular batch of skate because what are the odds that both of you have the same reaction? Low way yes. Have any of you other guys heard of this? We actually skate? No, no. Maybe it's some sort of like you know Rhode Island is currently like you know a weird poisonous land maybe maybe it's Rhode Island so you only

tilapia, right

but I was gonna, what I was mainly gonna say is I just know the reaction to tilapia, which is you cook tilapia and Anastasia complains for about 37 hours.

fill, fill, fill, fill, fill, rightly so. Listen, it's not like it's not like the Stasi is distaste for tilapia is not known to you. And it's not like it's unreasonable. It is a Phil Fish. It is. It is the it is the Kenny G of fish.

Now, Dave, it's Christmas Eve. You gotta get through Seven Fishes. I got it one's got to be tilapia. Fish don't grow on trees here, man.

Well, apparently they do in North Carolina. indisputably true. Grow dassia Am I allowed? Am I allowed to say this? No, no, I'm not allowed to say this. Alright. Okay, I will not. Now listen, first of all you could do you could do like a salt cod. A great appetizer, right? You could do my chili. You get some salt cod. I think the best thing to do with with that is to you know, like do like a Brian Dodd style or like, you know, like whip it up with whip it up just with with oil and makes a fantastic like cod dip. That's one fish right there. No tilapia, right. Like what else? What do you you're in California. Don't they have fish over

there? He's in Portland. He's decided to spread COVID up there because there wasn't enough cases

just coughing up the western seaboard.

So how long is your beard now? Have you gone full lumberjack? Oh, yeah, no, it's

more ZZ ZZ Top at this point. Nice. Nice.

Nice. I are not allowed to go ZZ Top unless you buy the guitar strap that allows you to flip your guitar 360 degrees in the middle of while you're while you're playing legs.

I didn't realize that. There was a guitar strap that didn't allow for that. Let me

say I was about to lose it. I didn't know

why you go back after that.

Mention this is safe. Once you've had tilapia why go back.

Anyway, I would basically say any other fish would be a good call. Like I would prefer if someone served me eight pounds of SLR and I spent the rest of the night on the toilet pooping out the wax, then. Wow. I'm on the radio here.

Booker's color color commentary as welcome.

I just have to, like escolares the delicious fish, right? But it contains waxes that are shall we say indigestible like the Olestra of fish. And so you know, it can have some results on the way out is all I'm saying.

The main thing is when you're trying to you know create a real holiday event. You you want the full out Frank Costanza coming out of his mouth. So you make tilapia you don't necessarily take the bones out of the salmon.

You know, this is what

the shrimp just let it

go. This is what this is. This is what I don't like about the greater Anastasia universe like Marvel and DC Universe is this is this like friends like I'm okay with messing with each other but you guys mess with each other in ways that are like they just Make your life worse. Everybody's life is worse. Like the classic like Anastasia universe thing is is like, Oh, I'm going to make something to give you gastrointestinal distress. It's also going to give me gastrointestinal distress, but it's worth it because I get to see you suffer. But that's what I'm saying. Like, like, I mean, I don't know. It's like, it's like this culture of cutting off your nose to spite your face. I just don't get it. It's

what our friendship is all based on, I think, right.

Mutual spite.

You meet some sort of like misanthropes camp. Kitchen.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

They should have done you guys for that instead of Jessica Jones and freaking the flash or dash or whatever his name is Daredevil. That's it. All right. All right. All right. So listen, before we get into some Sheriff some some questions, and then we go live. Should we do the Phil and the charity call out the end of the year charity call out first.

I told Phil, he could get off at 50 at 915. So I know. This is a stasiak. We'll have your schedule. So I don't know if you remember

this radio show takes place in the eastern time zone. Yes, this the Stasi is also the kind of person who's like if she's in another time.

What I heard is that until it can stay on for nine more hours.

Yeah, David, I'll do it.

I have a food question, Dave. Okay, right. I have I have one. This is Scotch Scotch eggs. So I want to make delicious. I want to make Scotch eggs. But this is my tilapia, Phil, don't wrap them in tilapia. And then so a nice little tilapia and sausage stuffing. So if you sue me the eggs and get like, if you like, do it, like a ramen egg, Scotch egg instead of like the really hard boiled. Yeah, like on average, every time I do this, I like, you know, I'm trying to peel the egg. And it's like, I destroy, I destroy like 73 eggs on the way to one Scotch egg. So what's more than

you haven't actually done it with a circulator. You've tried to imitate a circulator. And that the super crack out method that is used with a immersion circulator. Right. The problem with those is that they're so soft, that they're hard to stuff, right. So you keep those at 62. Right, or if you want a little thicker 62 and a half, you, you let you can let them cool, whatever you crack them out, then you take them through boiling water to firm up the white on the outside. The advantage of that technique versus traditional, honestly, is that there's less white, and everybody knows that in a Scotch egg. It's really like you got your sausage, and then some sort of thing that's holding the yolk together on the inside, right. So like, I think that the reducing the white ratio is a huge win of doing an actual low temperature egg for a Scotch egg. But what you're doing, you can't, if you're going to do what you want to do, and you want to appeal it traditionally, I would actually say put them into boiling water. Simmering, right because you don't want them to rattle around and get busted, I would put them into very hot water because the if you start from cold water, the colder the water you start with with an egg the harder it is to peel there's been study after study of this that it's hard to peel eggs that were started from cold. So you want to go in super hot, right? And then you want to take them out before the yolk sets. So you have to time it relatively accurately put them in ice water to cool them down quickly so that you don't continue to cook through. Then you should have an egg whose White is hard enough to peel accurately.

All right, I'll give this try this afternoon.

I want to say one thing. The worst friend thing that we did during the holidays, is when Phil Bravo showed up late to my holiday party in my apartment because he used to live below me and grace. And he was supposed to have eggnog as a as a starter drink for everyone. But he just he came an hour late and he had hadn't even made the egg no hadn't even crack the eggs. So what happened Phil

All right. So the way that this went down Dave is that I spent approximately two hours cracking eggs and like getting things prepped Nastasia came this is like this is the story's flipped around. She came downstairs into our bar. Hold

on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Right took you two hours to crack eggs.

No, you know, it's a figurative two hours. It was it was a good amount of time I cracked like 47 eggs or something. Whatever. 18 times three is Dave, you're the scientist. All right, so I crack all these eggs they're sitting in

Tennessee is 47 What are you on crack?

Exactly. This is why I'm a terrible cook. But I leave the eggs in the sink because it's like you know what the hell's kitchen? Didn't tiny sink everything is Tiny Nastasia comes barreling into the apartment goes like take angry turns on the turns on the water into the eggs is like this is all dirty and then it took another two hours to to make said this isn't a great story Anastasia the setup. I was supposed to do

this in this bill filming everything. I'm not taking any any sides here but I'll tell you what, like all of us use the sink for messy work so we have stuff that we're going to keep in the sink. And when people whenever anyone approaches me and Phil you should learn this whenever anyone gets near you when you're working in the sink. You got to do this. Oh

yeah, but I didn't know when to stop you long enough yet so now when to stop anyway any circumstance Yeah, but when it stops anyone any circumstance, it's just

feel any. Jesus comes back from the dead flows through your window goes near the sink. Whoa, don't listen, Jesus. Anyone? Anyone? The Pope, like whatever, Elton John, like, Well, whoever comes in, like you tell them not to touch the sink because it is entirely reasonable for someone to turn on the sink because you know why? It's a sink. But also it's entirely reasonable for you to be working in the sink and so you have to make that clear Anastasia. Do you agree with me or

disagree? Yeah, but I was just angry.

Yeah, she this was my apartment that she wasn't doing anything in the sink. I think she literally just like spied or it's like it's an instinct. Yeah, the spite just came up like you know, welled up through her.

Merry Christmas. Yeah. So by the way, by the way, Nastasia Have you watched Rudolph this year? Oh,

I haven't. You have because you have kids, but I have not.

You gotta get on that Rudolph. Gonna do? They're gonna

say something else. What? Yeah, no, I will.

We've watched. We've watched all the ranking all the Rankin bass stuff. But like my kids are old enough to not really need it anymore. It's just a family thing at this point. Cute.

Yeah. Are you a fan? Are you a fan of elf? Or is that like, you know? It's my homage Do you not? Well, they're fair enough. All right. I just might. My favorite thing of the holiday season is boy, buddy.

Yeah. narwhal?

Yeah. My favorite. Like my favorite elf is. I know him. You don't I mean, when when these like Santa is coming here tomorrow. It's like you freaks out.

I didn't realize how funny because I had rewatched it for the first time in many years. The little person scene is with with Dinklage. Yeah. Where you're l crazy. doesn't call me an elf one more time. And then he does the way he

does the wave and he does the run fly and running. Yes. And Will Ferrell is holding out like he remember when the raccoon hits Will Ferrell he tries to give them you need a hug Mr. Raccoon and the raccoon was so good. Was it the other? Oh, the one that we use in our family all the time is you smell like beef and he likes cheese. He doesn't like beef and cheese.

I feel like at random times of the year and stuff. He just yells at Dave you sit on a throne of lies.

Right? Well, that's just that's not because of alpha. That's just the case.

Wait, Dave. Dave, can you talk about the show that we watched where we were horrified?

We watched it which one would that be? Oh, which which one?

The Ed Asner thing. You and I are texts. I have a screenshot of them. It is so fun. You and I were horrified. Horrified. Okay, so they would cause

really they're doing they're doing a screen. They're doing a read through a table read write of It's a Wonderful Life. And as I say, here's the thing. For those of you that don't know, I don't watch it anymore because I got saturated with It's wonderful if because my crazy Uncle Larry used to come over to the house at Christmas time because it we would all be at the same house at Christmas time. And he would find whatever TNT marathon was and he would keep It's A Wonderful Life on an endless loop. And less loop. And this is before we you know, we didn't own it. It was just it was oh, it was crazy. And so I'm saturated. But it's wonderful life is a Christmas thing with Jimmy Stewart. And so Jimmy Stewart is the main character. And so they instead of Jimmy Stewart. They got Pete Davidson now. I like Pete Davidson and Stasi like Pete Davidson.

Yeah, we did a really good job.

OKAY. OKAY. Jimmy Stewart. well known like old style, like literally a bomber pilot in World War Two, like, like the exact I cannot imagine. Jimmy Stewart getting baked. I cannot imagine Jimmy Stewart even acting like someone who is getting baked. He like, like Pete Davidson and Jimmy Stewart are the exact opposites of each other. And so I think a lot of people reacted negatively to the idea of Pete Davidson doing this table read, but I thought he did a good job. Yeah. Especially this, like, you don't have like a in a table read like you're not doing like the necessarily the full acting thing, because you're just reading it, you know, ostensibly for the first time. But sometimes whenever Pete had to get angry, he went full Staten Island on people and that was real rights to us. That was good. I was like, Whoa, geez, whoa, Pete. I'm feeling that one. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. So but they had some technical difficulties. And your boy Ed Asner, the Santa, the real Santa from El if not the beef and cheese Santa. He's about 800 million years old writes to us. Yes. Yeah. And so he was sitting in this play an old man Potter. He played old man Potter. So he was sitting in this chair. And every time they would cut to him, he would have a different blanket on but he wasn't moving likes. I think people were just swapping out his blanket. And he had a big Kermit the Frog colored mug of tea. And then he would just as it was going fall asleep. In the mid in the middle of the day. They would wake them up. He'd be like, flip through the pages do his line. Reason perfect Potter, because you know, he's like the master curmudgeon. And Vanessa Williams was the narrator. She did a great job, her and her brother who I didn't really know beforehand, and then they cut out. They forgot to cut it as There's Mike immediately when they cut. And he does the classic old man who was on their radar again, and then they cut out. That was the end. for a good cause, though, are good for the Ed Asner Center, which supports people who are on the autism spectrum which obviously is caused dear to my heart. And this leads us into the charity portion of the episode. Anastasia. What's going on?

I thought we're doing Phil singing first.

What does it matter?

Let me get the email. I don't have the Phil's got to go teach recruiter. He can't stay on. No. It's still still on.

Yeah. Oh, Phil's on. I'm like, again, I'm sitting by the like in the basement, like by the Home Alone furnace, so I'm trying to mute just in case.

While Anastasia is getting their stuff together, Can you hum your favorite recorder version of Lady Greensleeves?

Lady greens, I can't even hear Greensleeves in my head right now.

I see that. Yeah, yeah, go. Go.

What is I do do doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. There we go. Merry Christmas.

Used to be that it's not supposed to be that low. It's like supposed to be like, you know idiots with panpipes and stuff running around. What

did you bring? Bravo offers false. Yeah,

I got one range, man.

Speaking of falsetto, there's a new beat. There's new Beegees what's it called? Documentary Athan, I'm sure Anastasia is gonna wish to see because I

haven't watched it yet. Yeah. She's a fan. Okay, ready. So we in our newsletter we had asked for people to send us our charities to call out on the air for people to give at the end of the year, and we have some so from Brady Vickers. He or she said that Southern smoke is a great charity. He's sure it's already on our list.

Since we work it is a great charity. We've worked for them before. Yeah,

change is one a million dollars for them on Wants to Be a Millionaire.

The nice thing about that charity is that you know the people it's like a direct it's a direct give like the story. Were you there with me that night? Or were you did you make it or were you? I know you came but you might have been? You were late. I don't know if you heard his story where like they this line book? Yeah, this line cook got it hit right by a car or something like that. And he was in the ICU and like he didn't have enough insurance to pay for the bills. And so basically, I think they were going to pull the plug on the guy. And the mom heard about Southern smoke and called Southern smoke. And they were like, yeah, they paid his med bills. And he's alive today. So like, that's the kind of thing they can do like direct action for to help actual individual humans in the hospitality industry. So they're good, right? Yeah.

And then the next two are a result of the story that we posted on our newsletter about how you and I made 30,000 cookies for the troops and nobody wanted them. So I think people thought we were doing that again this year. Are

John what's fresh for all? Hell no.

Put him on No. More. Absolutely not. But yeah.

But if people are baking cookies and want to give them their from Julie's snarky or old friend at David Michael Oh, nice. Yeah, she said that. There's a company in Boardman, Ohio called butter made bakery. And they ship pallets of cookies to soldiers around the world. She also works for an organization or an organization called caring for friends. And they're in Northeast Philadelphia by David Michael, and they help people get meals that need meals. So there's that if you're on that side of the world. And then there's also another place Mercer Street friends in Trenton, New Jersey. And then some Robert from SoCal said, he lives in San Diego and he's been to existing conditions. He loves cookies, and he'll gladly pass them to the homeless in San Diego if anyone is baking cookies because Dave and I are not.

Yeah, and and if you weren't, Anastasia will take a bite out of it first and then hand it is not true. Okay, all right. No, we shouldn't take a bite of any of our cookies. But this is a well known Mr. Garcia Lopez trick, which we won't talk about now. We'll talk about it later. If someone is curious, we can talk about this famous trick later, but not today. No, nice. Nice. And so I would be remiss while we're talking about direct action charities, I mean, obviously, whatever, I won't get it. I'm not gonna watch one. I'm gonna say Mofaz, you know what?

I think? Okay. I think this is more like charity, for charity. Charity. Okay, you know what I mean? People that need things type thing. All right. Yeah.

Speaking of people that need things before Phil Bravo, I'm going to talk about a little, little Christmas miracle that Booker and DAX could use. Get this people. So listeners of the show or people who have gone on Amazon and tried to purchase it, we've gotten a lot of emails recently. A wise, can I buy a sizzle? Here's the answer. The answer is, and we spoken about this before that. Amazon, you know, because someone someone didn't follow the instructions and didn't understand that when you sees in a series all you have to burn off the binder in the installation. It says so right on the package. It's a well known thing. There it is. And so but because this person complained, Amazon now is asking us for a quote unquote, certification from a laboratory that is, quote, unquote, certified. Here's the funny part. Here's where we need our Christmas miracle if anyone out there can hear my voice and understands what I'm saying, right? Amazon just wants it to be certified. But when we told them that we have spent, before we ever came out with a series all that we spent months trying to find any sort of standard for what we're doing, and came up with zero because there are literally no standards for it. Right. And to be a standard has to be a standard that was written by a body like UL, like the NFPA national fire, you know, but one of these bodies needs to write a standard that then laboratories will do, right. And so we told Amazon, there is no standard. And they were like, how about this standard? Ul 147, which is a standard for torches. And we're like, well, that standard doesn't apply because we're not making the torch. And they were like, you're right, that doesn't apply, but you need to find something. But here's the thing. Labs won't certify things unless there is a standard and they won't just for instance, like I could say to men, I could say hey, listen, the Sears all is actually a plush toy. Can you just certify it that it's safe as a plush toy? And right, but they will do? Like labs don't play that game because they don't want to lose their their their standing be like listen. And there's no standards for for inner hunks of metal, like there's no standard for a ladle. Right. Other than you could get NSF for a label, but we can't get NSF

a label is dangerous because I could bash your head out with it.

Oh, and have wanted too many tags. But my point is that like, is it that there is literally no standards? So like a friend of ours was like, why don't you try to write a standard but then so I wrote a standard, you know about like how to check to make sure that this inert hunk of metal wouldn't catch on fire, which of course it cannot. Right. And then but the labs are like, this is not a regular standard. We won't do it. So we've been to like, I think four labs in Shenzen and like one in Hong Kong, and no one And cuz here's the thing labs are worried about their name right? And they don't want to put a certification mark on a product if it's not a standard that is recognized. And we're like, we don't need a certification mark on the product. We just need to send a piece of paper on your letterhead to Amazon saying literally that you are a lab and you have looked at it is so meaningless and this is why you guys can't buy a Sears all because the decision of the judges is arbitrary, but also find the best part

day what email did I get yesterday?

Oh, I've noticed that you apply that's not a stock right now. Maybe you should do something because people want to buy it.

We're like I was reading that was from Amazon. Amazon told us we should put more Sears hauls in stock because we don't have any yet they're holding us back from putting it at Indian stock because

they literally removed the search term from the thing and only put up the knockoffs. It's so crazy like they didn't kill the knockoffs which like aren't made to the same standards and frankly probably aren't safe because they don't care about things like balance and whether or not they're going to

interject straight up not safe the what people say about them you know that they emit greeny yellowish gases coming off of them you know not only in our knock up another knock offs I've seen like black metal dust coming out of them like all the knockoffs are garbage. They are not worth the money.

Yeah. Wow. And they they're sold out now because no one can buy the real anymore. So everyone bought the fake.

Yeah. I'm convinced that Amazon is making and selling the knockoffs and this is all just an Amazon thing. While

I appreciate your conspiracy theories, Anastasia, I really do it. I'm not just being facetious here. I think that's giving them too much credit. That's like saying that the US government can do any conspiracies. They can't are too dumb. You know what I mean? Like not dumb. I don't mean it that way people if you work in the government, that's not what I mean. What I mean is, is, you know, look, you know, it's like one person can can paint the Sistine Chapel. Five people can't even paint a house. Do you know what I'm saying? Because they interfere with each other and they can't get get their work done. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't trust that they're that they can accomplish anything like that. Anyway, whatever. That's just me. Okay, so, Phil, Phil Bravo. Or should I say, fu Bravo.

I just want to say Dave that felt like the most Christmas thing of first. You're doing basically Dan Ackroyd with his like, this is a bag of glass and little Johnny. How you gonna hurt yourself with this? Great like, everyone's I can't even remember. But it's like you turned into everyone's on gold. Who at the end was like five people can't even go and like pay the house. The government's not gonna fix it. This is the motion Christmas morning.

Listen, listen, listen, I'm here for you. If you can't see your crazy Uncle Larry and your crazy uncle Ralph.

I'm here for you. Crazy Uncle Dave.

Oh my god. You know what I am in fact, so like the like most of my nieces and nephews. Let's just put it this way. They didn't really get me right. They don't really get like I'm not their cup of tea. But my they like I'm growing on him. Right. I'm growing on actually the ones who moved to Atlanta like they're they're they're pro me. Right. But the the youngest of all of them. Mabel, she has always been on my side. So Mabel has always been down with crazy Uncle Dave. However, she does refer to me as crazy Uncle Dave. which I appreciate. You know, everyone needs a crazy uncle XYZ. You don't need to one. Yeah, I'm here for you, Phil. So are you here for me. Are you going to do it?

No,

I'm here for you, Dave.

Okay. All right. All right. All right. Do you have any plugs? Do you have any plans before you before you go? And sing and get?

Yeah, I don't I don't think I have any plugs. My plugs are. It sounds like those charities that you mentioned. are amazing. Everyone should do you

won't feel bravo.com Do you want Phil bravo.com?

That's a good question. It feels like something I probably like bought 10 years ago like late at night and drunk

to how do people get in touch with you when they want to hire you for voice? Which is what you should be doing? Yeah.

Well if you if you Google Phil Bravo. Basically you're gonna find a very successful high school football coach. So you know, How's his voice? I don't think very good. But I keep on getting emails from like random kids that are like I'm in coach