Hello, this is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking musings coming to you live. From the heart of Manhattan the Rockefeller Center newsstand studios joined as usual with John behind me. Hey, done doing great. Thanks. Yeah, everything's good. Everything's great. Nice. Got Joe Hayes and rocking the panels. What's up? Hey, man, how are you doing? Doing all right, I guess fine. You look good. sweaty. You like that? You like that? sweating, and sweat. All right. I think on telephone we've got Anastasia the hammer. Lopez. How you doing stars? Good. Yeah. Nice. How's how's the great State of Connecticut? Fine. Great. What is it? Best Small state best state? Isn't that the motto? It's not really not make no one says that. Like on all if you go to a bookstore in Connecticut, and they have a section on Connecticut, which they should otherwise why are you shopping there? Right. It says small state best state. You know I'm talking about John. No. Oh, come on dudes. Don't you remember talking to my Connecticut man behind? We got Quinn up there in Vancouver Island. Yeah, nice. Nice. And we have Mr. molecule's back.

Yes, sir. I'm here.

Jack. How you doing? I'm good. I'm good. Yeah.

All right. Well, depressed, depressed overhearing your pre show chat. But yeah.

We were talking before the airwaves. And as as you know, as we do now, we'll introduce our special guest today is Mark Forgey. Own fino, well known chef of zillions of restaurants in New Hospitality Group he's going to be talking about was the youngest Iron Chef, I think, was that right? Is that Is that still have meaning youngest Iron Chef?

I mean, I guess I'm definitely not the youngest anymore. But you know, I was 13 years ago. Yeah,

if you? It turns out if you don't die, you're not the youngest of anything anymore. You know what I mean? Which is good. You don't want to be you know, you want to stay alive. Alright, so, so we were talking about before we were on yours that you know how robots are going to take over everything. And it's only going to be like this small group of people who actually care right now there's, there's Okay, do you use the term Shoemaker in terms of like a chef who doesn't really care just showing up clocking their clocking their their job and getting out but doesn't really have a passion for it? They're not bad what I call those nine to fivers nine to fivers. So we used to at the FCI the term everyone used to use the shoemaker their shoe, which is freaking weird, because you know what? Making shoes? Not. It's crap. It's a career. It's a freaking great craft. I mean, like a person who's going to make new shoes. Like that's the thing. I don't know why we're insulting shoe makers, but it was like to me, but other words, like, there's not going to be that much room, you know, 20 years from now for the shoe maker? You know what I mean? Yeah, what are the nine to five?

I don't think we have long enough session to go to get into all that. But you know, as we were saying before, it's just a little scary. But, you know, that's why, you know, I try to give advice to people all the time. Like, just, you know, instead of joining, like, try to try to carve your own path,

right, well, is it that we're all going to be in the woods? Like, are we all going to end up like Wally where we're in, like massage chairs all the time hooked up to like, a virtual nightmare? Or like, with, like, stuff being pumped into us? Or in which case, we don't need to make money because it's all virtual doesn't matter. Or right. Are we going to? Are we going to all become rich because we can produce so much are we all going to become poor? Because no one needs us anymore? Who knows? Hey, so we weren't supposed to talk about that on air. But that's what we were talking about beforehand. And Jack was like is depressing. Is that pretty accurate? Yeah.

Yeah.

So now's the time on the show where we shoot the breeze over any interesting food experiences or whatnot that we've had over the past week and for Jack two weeks because he went here anyone got anything? Anyone got anything good? Nothing Oh, man. Yeah, two weeks you haven't eaten one good thing? You haven't made one good thing you haven't eaten one good thing No, no yeah, so Well, I don't know So mark here who is has like what now how many restaurants you work in your opening another one reopening another one right now? He has an interesting food story related to the restaurant, unrelated the restaurant. A little bit of both. Alright, we got what do you got?

So, you know, my family from from Italy to the Italian side. We're from the south, you know, little just above the boot. And the way that we do Ragu, I don't know if anybody on here is Italian but we do we do like a sunday sunday sauce. But one of the kind of interesting things about the southern style is that you take the meat out of the sauce and you kind of keep it warm somewhere else. And you know, I had everything from you know, we had a tongue in there, you know, beef shank, you no porque Copa, a whole bunch of different things like basically everybody in the pot. But then the cool part about it is you puree all the vegetables, and the sauce and the Fat, which is the best part because it emulsifies and then you put that on pasta before you eat the meat. And every time I introduce this to somebody, they're like, you know that it blows their mind that that you can like, you know, take something like this simple and then after you eat this bowl of pasta, then you eat all the breeze meat with like Saul severity and pickled peppers and and we're going to initiate that at 1/5 in a couple of weeks. So I figured I'd practice at home on Sunday. Oh, that's,

that's a super old school like that's it. They do that in Italy, because that's the way my stepfather's family always did it in Boston, like the Boston Italians like that was the way but for you know, there we were always it was always the same. It was always sausage with the fennel, pork chop Brazil. Meatballs. You know what I mean? Like, we didn't have all the other fancy stuff in it. Like, you know,

it's funny the stuff I just mentioned, the peasant stuff.

What do you say, Quinn?

That's where my family doesn't do. Oh, yeah. My, my grandparents are from Calabria. Yep. Southern.

And they call it gravy, not freaking sauce in Boston. Right. And it's macaroni and gravy with in the meat come out comes out separately. But there's something really nice about dodging it in, you know, in stages, because it implies an arc to a dinner that is kind of there that just belongs, you know what I mean? But how does it in a restaurant? Is that work in a restaurant setting? to I guess it does, if they're going to be forced to have a tasting anyway. Or if they're doing a family style, like what's what's the presentation going to be what he says won't work.

We're about to find out. We haven't done it before, or yet. But the idea is, you know, we're going to charge like a prefix but included in that prefix would be a Sunday night thing you know, you know, you get the the two courses. So you're not just like buying the Sunday gravy like on and you get an individual bowl. Like the idea will be like, you know, say it's four people, you guys all over the Sunday sauce. And then everybody will get their pasta first. And then we'll just put all the meat in a giant pot in the middle. And then everybody can kind of just pick at it and have fun and new kind of trying to bring like the Sunday sauce in Boston that you used to have, you know, into a restaurant setting,

man, man. Yeah, I haven't had that style in years because they're all dead. Yeah, like everyone. Everyone that I used. They used to make that for me. In Boston is dead. So yeah. So yeah, it's weird. It would be it'd be interesting to have it again. Like I've had that happen a couple of times. So my stepfather's father who in Boston. He was a butcher, and his specialty was lamb. And so when I was a kid, he would get the baby lamb, you know, the unweaned like lamb. Because they used to slaughter all of his own lamb. And that's why he got out of the business actually, it's like they're not gonna let me slaughter anymore in the city. So FL mouth, you know what I mean? And I remember the first time someone served the baby lamb at a restaurant I almost cried. Oh, my God, baby. I know that people probably are horrified baby is delicious. Of course. Easter time I cooked well last Easter. Really? I didn't do it this year. No,

no, my my in laws don't like lamb. What about go? They don't like God. That's for sure. So I got them a tender line and I ordered a little bit of lamb for me.

Yeah. But I mean, it doesn't take that long. I mean, baby lamb weighs what? Like, I remember once I got one for him when he was like in his 90s and I told him to wait and Africa it was it was like 1415 or 15 pounds. He's like, Oh, that's real. That's not the garbage one. He was like yeah, dude. I mean, I'm gonna buy you garbage. You're 90 This is your last time maybe you're gonna ever have it. You know what I mean? So like, anyway, old school delicious. All right, what about you guys? You got any food? Any food stuff going on? Nope. What about you Queen Queen, you always have good, some sort of good food task or fee that you've been working on?

Actually, I didn't do much but one thing that I found at the grocery store that was very unusual, fresh fenugreek was just at the supermarket. So I made like a basic sort of pesto pasta with like a little Baroda on top. It's pretty good. The leaves of the seeds the rains

I only have the seeds you know? I think I've said it before fenugreek is that spice that I really like and I never cook with it. I have it but like whenever I smell it I'm like oh man agree yeah, like it's like oh you know it's got that Maple Leaf smell from Soto alone and I'm like oh yeah and then I have it at home but I never

like a it's got Dustin they've been in the spice cabinet probably

yeah well yeah my stuff well sealed Mara come tournament stuff well seal but you know, in fact, I just went through so like my photography as my wife. here's the here's a food thing I haven't talked about my I have like been any one time you know a couple 100 pounds of grain in the house. And beans you know all this stuff beans grains, right? Ace all that crap couple 100 pounds. And it was in bags, you know what I mean? Because I don't have like a garage. So I can't like put things into like five gallon drums and store them somewhere. And so they were bad they were rolling around and like I'm always petrified because it's happened. It's how I've never had it spread through my entire pantry but I've had bugs come in on stuff and then get into like one bag, but I've never had a transfer in the bags were flopping all over the place. And so you're looking for a particular thing. So I bought all half gallon mason jars, and I a thing that hooks my vacuum sealer up to the mason jar thing. And through vacuum, like my entire kitchen now is just like perfect mason jars labeled with all this stuff in it. And it takes I forget how many pounds fit in each mason jar. It's like three or something like two or three pounds of three pounds of you know, wheat fit in. And so that's it's perfect now

yeah, my wife would get literally get turned on by the elites, me

and my wife like I went from hating the kitchen. She also made me take all the liquor, which was all like kind of in the open place and put it back into pantry where all these bags used to be. She's like, I don't want to see all these like half empty liquor bottles around like all right, I don't care drink. Yeah. But anyway, so that's something you know. Oh, here's something else. So I had to buy cake flour because my birthday last week. And so my son Booker, he likes to make the milk bar you know, cake which you know, everybody loves that. Yeah, it's but you know, he likes to make it so like the way it's made if in case you know, I don't know you live under a rock you've ever seen his cake and she bakes a sheet cake. Then like a thin sheet cake like on a on a like a sheet pan right not like a thick sheet cake and then cuts out discs. And then chums up one because there's not enough leftover because doesn't want to waste anything and then puts the icing and then mix cake crumbles and smashes it all together inside of an acetate ring inside of a cake ring and then sets it in the freezer overnight pulls it out. And there you go. Six inch cake 60 bucks, whatever it is, you know what I mean? So there it is. So he makes it. And of course totals totals the kitchen, obliterates the kitchen, like I could have made the cake 1000 times faster than it took to clean the kitchen after he was done with it. Because I don't know, wherever he's artistic, whatever, it doesn't matter, but he makes the cake. But he he makes me buy cake flour, because of course he's not going to shell out of his own pocket. He's not going to reach into his own pocket, even though he's 21 to buy his dad cake flowers. No. So I go and I buy the swans down cake flour, which I buy. And for the first time ever I read the side of it. You know what it says on the side of it big lie, this is my thing. They say that it's 27 times times finer than AP flour. That's garbage. That's just a load of horse hockey. That's just garbage. That's just not possible.

You'd have to ask my pastry chef around well,

so like, I didn't have time this morning, because I just discovered this, like, you know, pretty recently I was going to do it. I have a microscope at home, I'm just gonna freakin do it. I'm gonna look at it. And you know, I'm not one of these, like, you know, I'm not gonna be like, we need a class action lawsuit. I need my $3 back. You know what I mean? But like, Come on, man, we

should find a seive that is 27 times finer than the next one and then dump the flowers into him side by side.

See what comes through? Well, so they claim it's like, you know, three times smaller on his side. But then, you know, someone on my Twitter, put it in was like, hey, they measured this back in 1933. And I don't think they've updated their copy. You know what I mean? So it's like, maybe it was true in 1933. But it's just not true. And also who gives a crap, right?

I mean, how's the kid comer? Good.

Yeah. And I have to say, you know, she does a cake crumble. Like, which is like, you know, like, like a streusel top but like, you know, with, with what's it called? What are those things? Sprinkles. And yeah. And he overdid it. And they went Brown. Better. Interesting. Yeah, it gets took on that.

Sometimes. Mistakes turn into the best ideas to kind of

brand that brand better stuff. Anyway. What about What about you, John? Anything? Anything in your restaurant world? No. Now you fixed all the leaks in your ceiling. Finally, you don't have a watertight kitchen. Yeah. Aren't you

fancy at least we'll see.

Where was the leak? Like? What was it leaking on to? To me, that's always the most fun. And what was the source of the leak? Was it rainwater? Oh, now,

it was over every inch of dish pit. Geez, clean now, man shut everything down. That was yeah, it was a lot of fun. Great

New York. You're like, you know, it's like, you're always dealing with some other jerks thing here in the city. You know what I mean? We're

just age. I mean, everything in New York is old. And yeah, I mean,

but even dealing with the vendors every week, like my linen company has been shorting me. And it's just like,

I think they do that on purpose. Yeah. I mean, as he was saying attention, yeah. Is it

would it be cheaper to just I know that I don't know anyone that does Is it? Would it be cheaper just to get like a home washer dryer? No,

not anymore. We had to pay somebody $20 an hour to do it. And

yeah, I guess that's it used to be. Yeah. And I feel like linens is one of those things where we had a guy, I don't even know his name, we just call him mopey, because he was always so mopey. And then he would show up, but he would always get the billing wrong. So we wouldn't pay for like three months, we wouldn't know what happened. And all of a sudden, we would get three months of bills. And then we're like, what the hell's happening here? And I was, linens always a nightmare. You know, how harsh are you with your cooks on the number of towels they use?

I hate to say I used to be but I'm not anymore. But I used to be and I'm not anymore.

Yeah. Yeah, it was. I don't even remember how much is how much does it cost to have one of those things swapped out.

I hate to admit it. I haven't looked at a linen bill since I stopped like day to day on my own. It's all the same, you know, I mean, like, and at the end of the day, it's like, you could shop at 10 Different companies. They're all the you know, yeah, I feel like there's like it's just like, like fight like we'll call it 10 years ago. You know, like, I would say each cookout five towels, five towels a shift. That was it. Couldn't get any more. Don't you know, don't mess it up. Now, it's just, you know, they're everywhere.

23 cents of kitchen towels. One of the quotes I have in my email. What is it? 2323 cents.

23 cents?

Now? I don't know. I don't know the whole thing. Is it

France you get one? What the hell you can do with why swear to God to get one towel? It's a big towel. But you get one.

You get one towel and complimentary food poisoning.

Keep it keep it tied to your to your apron.

Yeah, well, yeah, you make everyone do the old school so that they can reach for the bowl. I

don't I tried it when I got back from France. And like, there's a lot of things in Europe and don't work in America. Trust me. Yeah,

I'm sure. Like, you know, like, I remember while sewing your own butchering note. Well, so, you know, you said that, like, I guess you went to France, you'd already been when you did your stages in France, you'd already been a sous chef here. Right? You'd already started working for Lauren Toronto. But then yeah,

I felt like I got a little too promoted too early for was and I was I was young. I think I was you know, I was like, I was like, you know, one of those guys where, you know, I was the first one and last one out. I'm not like bragging, I'm just painting a picture. I think when chef see that, you know that. They're eager to keep them around. So you know, like, make him the am sous chef. And like, you know, once you become a sous chef, you can't like, go back. It's like the next place you go. You're the sous chef again. You know, I mean? And I just, I kind of wanted to like, I don't know, learn a little more. You know what I mean? I just felt like, and also to, like, hear being live for John Cena was like, especially in New York. Like it was just, you know, some shifts. It was like, I never had a moment where I wasn't live for John's kid. Like, every day, you know, I mean, no matter what we call it good and bad. It's good and bad. If you did, I was just about to say if you did some good. They'd be like, Ah, you father. Mr. Shot, you get some bad like, why would your dad tell you that? Like, you know, me, it was just like, it never stopped still. It's still not really to this day, but I'm okay with it now.

Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, it's been a long, long time. Yeah. But yeah, I didn't like all those factors.

And I was like, you know, I just, I want to go somewhere where, you know, they don't care if I was a sous chef at my last job. They don't care that I'm lying for John's kid. So

so there's more of a culture of like, family lines of chefs. Right? So it's not like

it's not a, you know, a big deal there. You can come from a line of

well known chefs and still have to stand on your own there. Yes.

Well, it's funny. Speaking of my dad, my my father worked at the Connaught Hotel. And believe it or not, his Comey was one of the 12 Grow sons now come on. And my dad says that this kid it was it was Claude who's now like, the biggest chef in Brazil. But he said that Claude The, the amount of you know, the shit sorry, Shi t that he had to deal with was like, it made my dad feel bad. Like, like, Look, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna push it. Like, no matter what Claude did, it was just like, you know, I'm the son of famous blogger. So like, you know, you know, they get it to there. But, but again, I just wanted to go somewhere to like, I hate to say start from scratch, but like, you know, I just wanted to like go and like, get my butt kicked, bleeding speak the language. I didn't took like four or five months to get the language. And again, just to paint a picture, there was no there was no TV. I didn't have a laptop. This was before phones, iPhones. If I wanted to call my family, I went to the payphone in town. So it was literally just the total immersion of good news

is you don't have to call your family that often. Don't think about this. They're like, Oh, you couldn't call your family and like the good news is you didn't have to call your family that often. I mean,

yeah, man. I mean, it was it was total isolation. especially for the first three or four months.

So this was Michelle garage, please write or however you're supposed to pronounce it often say, Hey, John Francophile Michelle? Hey, yeah, that's the reason he's always ears in case we have a French word, he can just bust it out.

You know, three star Michelin, it was the middle of absolute middle of nowhere, you know, again, I wanted to do the antithesis of New York and it was an hour drive in any direction and you didn't hit another city. I mean, it was nothing there, like people who ate there, stayed at the hotel, which was also a five star world renowned spa. And, you know, it was it was exactly what I think I needed and wanted and, you know, I don't think I'd be sitting across from you right now, if I hadn't taken that year and a half.

Was he still doing? I guess, I mean, at what point was cuisine Missoula at that point or however it's pronounced

so when you stay there, again, there's there's no choices like you can't eat anywhere else. So when you stay there, there's three different restaurants to eat at. There's the cuisine Gaumont, which is like the three star then there was cuisine Mensa, which was like the we'll call it the spa cuisine. And then there was this restaurant which really kind of struck me the most was the thermal grief which was very similar to peasant which I know we'll get into you know, you walked into this restaurant and it was very like rustic and French and farm there was a pig always roasting on the rotisserie and you know, everybody started the meal with a mason jar of Fogra Tareen and you know homemade crusty bread like it was

so not the same as the spot because even the

butter that like you have to see it to believe it but like it actually looks like peasant which you know kind of full circle in life you know sometimes universe works that way but

the Zagat you spent most of your time in that in that Whoa, I

never really got to work there. I used to I used to ask if I could hang out in there like my day off or days off or whatever. But I never got to fully work there. I I did min serve first and then go Armand and I really hit it off with the pulse on yet in ligula Oman so like I just basically was his call me essentially the whole time.

So how did it work? If you were there and staying there, do everyone like try to have the spa thing which he's famous for, by the way be famous for his Yeah, yeah. Then then the next day they go to the get the fog run.

I don't know. I didn't follow the guests throughout. I don't think I ever saw the guest I don't know exactly how that all kind of worked out. But he's still kicking right. He's

like 90 years old.

I mean, when I was there, he was in his 70s and he worked if he wasn't traveling, he worked every service Adela Gaumont. He's like this tall.

Wait, we started out at like six foot one and then just keeps getting shorter every year is what happened is

he was a little guy, but I'm telling you to this day. I've never been in a room where everyone you know, stands at attention when he walked in. I mean, everyone didn't matter who you were no matter what position you were like he walked in. And you know, he would walk through and taste your stuff. I mean, the the intensity every day at at 530 or six o'clock, I can't remember. And it was every day, it tasted the sauce. He looked at Jimmy's. And plus, I mean, it was wild

night. So let's do our little bookkeeping here. So if you have any questions for marketing, listen, live on Patreon call in to 917-410-1507 That's 917-410-1507 And how do they join the Patreon there John

patreon.com/cooking issues we got a bunch of different membership levels you get cool things at every level you can get the video feed at all levels you get a discount to books like kitchen Arts and Letters from guests that we have on that have books that can be sold. Yeah, prioritized questions getting answered access to the discord and all these really great things. So you should join patreon.com/cooking issues. And if I can make a quick plug Dave

of lugging a plug in and plug it in, plug it. One of my

friends, for those of you around New York City is organizing a sort of leadership event with Ari Weinzweig from I got what's the Zingerman's in an Arbor Michigan is going to be really great event. I am trying my best to go it's going to be at el correo. So there should be some great food to reach out to me. I'm

just trying to make it just trying. Yeah,

well, it's it's hard to take time off. I feel really guilty whenever I do. But what I'm it's a separate issue. But yeah, reach out to me on Instagram Nivaldo. Thank you.

Alright, so you mentioned your dad, for those who don't know, don't know who your dad's Larry for Joan who's like, in so I've said this a lot to people who have asked me which isn't that much actually. So I haven't said a lot cuz no one asked me but it's like I think that there was in America a huge kind of shift in the 90s Were into the early 2000s, where people really started focusing on American food as American food and like as like a real important cuisine, and we had our own voice as opposed to just mimicking what's going on in France or looking at what's going on in France. And then I had to remember when you were coming on looking as I was like, Oh, my God, but your dad was doing this since the 80s. You know what I mean? Like American Place opens and 8070s 70. Yeah, so he's like, way early in the whole, like, America is a real place for food.

This is a picture that I have hanging in, in Forge, where, you know, he's wearing the token, the whole thing. But it's 1979 standing outside the River Cafe with American asparagus, morels, artichokes, like all in a basket. And that had never been done on the East Coast, up until that point, and that's in the 70s. And he

was cool to go to the airport, he was cooking with country ham putting with things like American not just American ingredients, but also like some American American flavors, American ideas,

it started as French cuisine with American ingredients. And then it kind of evolved into a lot of history, reading books, and then it turned into, you know, him taking dishes from the 1800s. So, you know, the early 1900s of American dishes, you know,

right. So I don't I mean, this is an aspect of American kind of restaurant culture that I, I just don't feel gets enough play in where we became our own culinary force. And really what you know, like, he's doing, he's doing, he's doing that very early in it. So I think this is a well, John here is you're a student of history we can use to work the most Do you think people like, think about this kind of switch in American restaurant culture enough? Or no, no,

I wish they did. Not anymore? I think. Yeah, no, I think in 1990, right. If you had asked chefs, American young cooks, chefs, they would kind of understand who and what was happening this like revolution. But now, you know, I agree like 2023 If you asked, you know, somebody like who are the most important American chefs of all time. And I'm not making fun of these people. I'm just saying this is who they probably say You know, Bobby Flay you know, Guy theory and you know where I'm going with this like it's just you know, that the, you know, the kind of the forefathers of the Mount Rushmore, you know, the Alice Waters alive for Joan, you know, Dean fairing popper dome, like, you know, all the all the Bradley Ogden, all these guys, you know, sad to say, but like anything, they're just kind of getting, you know, washed away, washed out and washed out, or none of those people that I just named are ever on TV.

Right? Well, you know, that's what's so because restaurant cooking is so youth oriented, or can be youth oriented. I feel like, and this bar is probably even worse is that there is a lack of knowledge. So I remember I remember like, you know, all of my buddies in the early 2000s. They were like, none of these cooks know who none of my cooks know who like you know, you know, name name a name of French, you know, name of famous. Yeah. You're always guy. Yeah, that mean rubbish. I'm still working here in New York. So they kind of knew because they're like, Yeah, you know, I tell ya, but like, you know, I mean, but they, they didn't know kind of the history that to the people who are even my age, right, like the chains the Wiley's like those guys, like them, that was still real history, but to the people who are 10 years younger than them, it was kind of gone. And so

I said, I had wide did a guest thing with Wiley. You do this Playing with Fire series that we do it at present? Half my co said, No, it was not me. I couldn't believe it. How do you not know why the frame

Z, the institutional, the institutional memory? And it's like, so people who aren't on TV or don't have like, you know, the books or the you know, it's just bizarre. And like, it's very easy to trace histories, right? If you take the time, but I just don't I feel like, I don't know. Maybe people just don't care about the history anymore. Yeah. I don't know,

if we did it. I hadn't done it in a while. But we used to do these, like, every week, or maybe every month, you know, we we'd like pick one of those chefs, you know, and like, we talked about them, whether it was not every day, but you know, maybe like three or four different pre chips where we would just bring up, you know, a little history lesson that you could do in 10 minutes. I mean, it wasn't like, you know, we gave them a test or anything but it was more just to like, acknowledge cuz you know, that's where I came from. It's where I grew up. Then I know that But I'm kind of lucky in that sense. So it's easy for me to say like, nobody pays attention. Like I literally grew up with those people, I mean, going to the rockville center event, it was all those people that I just named at the city Meals on Wheels. So, you know, they're all very familiar to me. And I have so much respect for it, and so much respect for how hard they had to work, and how hard they had to work to source those ingredients. I mean, if you try to explain it, I even to me, I mean, they used to have a car that would drive to the airport two or three times a day, to pick up ingredients, because it wasn't like, now where I get, you know, from the Tivoli mushroom company I'm gonna make in front of it, like, but now it's I just press, whatever I want into a phone and I have my mushrooms there the next day sourcing this guy, she is here on the phones with a guy named, you know, Justin, that was going out into the woods and picking whatever he could and then driving that to the airport, and then the chef's would drive in the knee and get different and still doing 150 covers a day. Yeah, yeah. It's hard to wrap your head around that it's like,

I think, you know, not only now that I'm thinking about it, talking about it, I think maybe one of the reasons. I mean, back in the, in the 2000s. This wasn't the reason that people weren't paying attention to history, I think that was just different because they were focused on like, all the stuff that was coming out on YouTube. But there's also the phenomenon where, I think because so many different people aren't represented in kind of the canonical history that they just want to be like, No, I'm not part of that. So I don't really want to learn it. And I think that that's valid, but I think, you know, eventually, when more people are part of the history, maybe people want to see history. You know what I mean?

Again, I hate to sound like Old Man River here, but like, like, I don't know about you, but like, you know, I used to come home from work. And I would like read a cookbook. Yeah, yeah. I you know what I mean? Like now, nevermind, when they get home from work that they're on the subway, already on YouTube watching, then and I'll somebody write a donkey into the ocean off a cliff gonna do a backflip, you know what I mean? Because it got a million likes, you know, I mean, like,

that video exists, because that's what I'm gonna do.

You know what I mean? Like, it's just, I love donkeys. It's just different. You know, like, you know, I used to go to whatever name was Barney sloth next bookstore.

We only went, John and I, for the first time only, like, three years ago, when as soon as three months,

I used to sit at Barnes and Noble on the floor for three, four hours. I couldn't afford to buy a book.

Listen, I think it's good and bad. Because I think it's, I think it's good and bad. The people, it was so hard to get information. It was so hard information was like gold, like, even up until the 2000s. Right? You could not get the information. So like, I wanted to learn how to run a rotary evaporator, there was nothing, there was no websites, there was no nothing, nothing. Right. So yeah, well, I thought No, I, I was the guy that anyway, so like, but like, you know, it's we're working on stuff. And now that information is available in a way that allows people to grow so much faster. I think that's 100% Great. But the downside is that a lot of the individual voice has been lost. So the miracle of, of cookbooks back in the day was you could get lost in somebody's mind. You know. And I think that there's a kind of like that kind of understand human to human understanding that's transferred through a cookbook, or long format thing or an album, you know, what I mean? is like, not as prevalent. So I think that, like, for every game, there's a loss, I don't think that anything's 100% gain or 100% loss.

Agreed. You just reminded me like, I'm of those days, like, I remember, I stumbled across the Zuni Cafe cookbook. And, you know, talking about getting lost, like, you know, I was on the, like, you know, I'd bring it to the beach, and like read it as if it was, you know, like a novel. And then I remember the first time I went to San Francisco, and you know what I mean? I could have been more excited to go to go see this restaurant, and it makes it like, you know, but that was before I couldn't just Google what the what the Zuni cafe, you know, videos and like, it's like, it was like a pilgrimage just because I had found this book and like, fell in love with what I was reading in her voice. How was it? How was the meal? Amazing, man, and I'd always stirs the Caesar salad, the chicken, you know, I mean, like everything you're supposed to eat at at Zuni and I was by myself and are you like I was meeting. I don't remember what I was doing there. I was meeting maybe it was my dad. I don't know. I was meeting somebody in Northern California. So I went a couple days earlier specifically to go to Zuni cafe. I was probably like 20 years old or something like that. Yeah. The staff, staff like South makes up by myself. It was just like a magical magical night.

Do you? Do you automatically VIP solo diners.

I always, if if if I'm there and I see a solo diner I will 99% of the time. Go over and strike up a conversation and you can usually get the vibe right away if they want to talk to you or if they don't. But you know, usually bring them like a little Muse boost and then hey, how's it going? It's funny sometimes when people have somebody coming to meet them, they'll they'll tell you that right away. So that unit so that you know that they know that they're not by themselves. Yeah, I just waiting for our Wi Fi. It's all good, man. I was just coming off.

Yeah, like, you know, my ideas. Solo dining is like inserting, like 550 cent hotdogs into my face on the run down the street. You know what I mean? Like,

I love sitting by myself at the bar. Yeah, I do. I love it.

I am not good. You know what I mean? Like, I I'm well known for consuming everything very quickly. So you have very quickly so like, you know, this, you know, the Stasi has had met how many meals have I ruined of yours, Anastasia.

So many, which is weird that you don't like dining by yourself, because you think that you don't care whether people are there with you or not? When you do have people there? That's not

true. It's just I eat so much faster when I'm alone. And even when I'm with people. It's a it's it's uh, so, like, in the same thing goes at a bar. So like, someone puts a drink down. I don't have anyone to talk to. You know what I mean? And then what I'm gonna sit? I mean, you're gonna get shellacked. Or I have to sit there and wait, why am I staring? Like this? Staring?

I mean, you could talk to somebody and talk to them. It's, it sounds like you're pretty good at talking.

Well, not like we have radios. Yeah, yeah. But like, I could talk to people who, like, I guess, like, hear, you're coming here. And it's like, Oh, he wants to talk to us because he's coming. So therefore we can talk. But like at a bar, this person is sitting next to me. I don't know them from a hierarchy, they're gonna want to talk to me for you know what I mean? Anyway,

it's always nice to meet somebody that wants to talk. So it's like, it's like a revelation, especially now,

what do you think about people reading books, but we used to have people that would come in and read books.

I used to do that. But my day off, I set it to sit at a restaurant and at the bar with the Booker.

I find it hard, like part of my kind of mental thing. I find it hard to concentrate on. First of all, I'm only ever reading boring technical stuff. So it requires a lot of concentration. And secondly, I It's hard to concentrate when the people next to you are having conversations that I can hear because it intrudes into my brain. It's like, it's like somebody putting a small icepick into my head and erasing. So then I'll have to read the same line 1000 times in a row. You know what I mean? That's the you read it you read when you go out solo stars. Yeah. You don't I don't like I don't like the I don't like the solo the solo phone stare.

Because when you're doing it just to do Yeah. Oh, I

had it. Well, we're there to sit in there on the phone the whole time. Because it the light is bad. My issue with it is is that they don't look good. You know what I mean? And so like they throw that blue light. I had this idea. So nowadays, you know how your phone now at night? Like it turns kind of yellowish. So that just got the I don't know whether yours does our phone like at 8pm. They it puts like a yellowish tinge on the screen. Yeah. So people don't look as like blue and dead at a bar. Right? But like my idea was what if you had a phone that was like, make me look good while I'm texting. And it had like, like motion like yellow kind of like like a little bit of like a flame background so that you had that like candle light. Instead of this like death pile or you had like this kind of candlelight vibe.

I smell an app. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's a good idea.

By the way, as we're talking about books, I just realized I feel like I have to give a shout out. Because I'm reading a book now that I haven't enjoyed reading a book this much in a while is Peter Hoffman's you just put out. It's called 13 ingredients. You remember Peter from soy?