I Am all In again. Oh that's you.
Luke's Diner with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Everybody Scott Patterson I Am All In Podcast, one of them productions iHeartRadio, iHeart Media, iHeart Podcast Episode three of Luke's Diner and we are Welcoming Kelly Rizzo.
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Kelly, Hello, Welcome, WELLO. So excited to be talking to you because you are all actually you're all over the world. Now you're you're global. Let me tell everybody a little bit about your background, okay. Kelly Kelly is an award winning TV host a leading expert in food, travel, lifestyle, best known as a creator of the host of Eat
Travel Rock TV love that title. With nearly one hundred episodes over nine seasons, She's traveled the globe getting behind the scenes access and off the cuff stories from world famous chefs, rock stars, and creative industry icons. She was married to Bob Sag at the time of his passing, but has continued to spread her love of cooking throughout her show Comfort Food with Kelly rizoa podcast where she shares meaningful conversations with guests about life, love and loss
all over their favorite comforting meals. Welcome Kelly, how are you nice to meet you so much?
For what a lovely intro? Wow that was?
That was?
That was very nice. I'm like, oh, wow, I did all that?
Really you did a lot of stuff you did? Yes, Hey, did you ever meet Bob?
Did you ever know Bob at all?
I ran into him a couple of time it functions, and he was always so funny and warm and welcoming to everybody. He was just a nice guy.
Yeah.
And what he was a nice guy when in situations where you don't need to be you know, and he made that extra effort. That's what I remember about him. But I never you know, I never got into like a deep conversations with him. We were just sort of with a group of people, you know. You know how these functions are. They're very yeah, you know, it's like you have these little conversations all over the room. But he was he was different in that he was he
reached out and he made everybody feel comfortable. I think I think he generally liked people, you know.
Like they did. Actually, and thank you for saying that, because I've never heard anyone put it that way. Ever, he was nice even when he didn't need to be right, And yeah, I mean that just goes you know, every time we would even walk through an airport, even if we were like running late to the flight, and somebody would ask for a photo, like, he never said no, you know, and those are times when maybe people don't need to be as nice, but he always was. So thank you for saying that.
That was very set. You know, it's my memory of him, and it was shocking. And man, what a talent though, left behind a real legacy and a lot of great memories. Yeah, okay, let's let's let's get into this a little bit. Have you ever had a review written about something that you have made?
You know, I because I'm never I haven't been an actual chef, and I haven't you know, had I mean, I've worked at restaurants, but not as a cook. I haven't been officially reviewed. But you know, I've made so many recipe like Instagram reels and tiktoks over the last several years, and I would say the vast majority have all been you know, when people end up making them at home themselves, so it's never like I'm not actually
making it. For them, so you're kind of not responsible when it's out of your hands, like you put it the recipe out there and then people do with it what they can. But usually it's pretty rave reviews in terms of when people say, oh, I made this salmon, or I made this pasta. Oh my god, it was so good. My kids loved it. Usually that's what it is. But then sometimes every once in a while people will
be like, yeah, that wasn't for me or something. I'm like, all right, well, maybe you didn't do a good job making it.
Well, we're going to talk a little bit about risotto. Very excited, you know some of these recipes classic mushroom, risotta, lemon and asparagus, pumpkin, say, shrimp and saffron. But I'm getting hungry.
Okay, I haven't eaten yet today.
This isn't fair getting I'm getting ready for dinner. Here. I'm in Nova Scotia, so I'm four hours ahead. You're in Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia. It's beautiful here, it's raining, it's very windy.
Do you live there.
I'm I'm doing a TV series up here called Sullivan's Crossing, So we're up here until like I don't know mid December beginnings. Oh wow, anyway, butternut squash and goat cheese, spinach and pesto risotto, truffle parmesan risotto, tomato basil. Oh boy, all right. So Suki in the episode is having a bit of an issue with a review she got from fictional character Lucent Mills, who is the local famous food critic,
the top food critic. And he loved everything that he was served at the Independent in Independence in but he only said that the risotto was fine.
Yeah, he said it was fine, though, Like to me, that's coming from a food critic. Fine is fine is great?
Right?
Right?
And and Laurel I says, I hate to see you get upset over a little review. And Suki has her pride, and Laurel I, this is pride.
I mean you know.
About this risutta. I mean on her mother's deathbed, and you made the risolta live three more years.
Like her magic what do they call it? Her magic risotto?
And right, and they and they dared dared put a box on that risotto. Let me ask you this, could you walk through the ideal technique for making risotta. It's the one thing I have never tried to make how do you do it?
So it's so funny. The first risotto I ever learned to make. This might have been twenty five, twenty four years ago or something. I remember I watched a Food Network episode when Jamie Oliver had his show, and it was a p and prawn risotto and like English peas you know, And I remember it seemed so complicated, but I wanted to make it so badly, and I learned, like I watched the episode, I guess a few times, and then maybe it was in his cookbook too, and
I learned to make it. And obviously starting out with like prawn in pa risotto is a little complicated. It's not like just your typical you know, maybe mushroom and you know, part of me Johno or something like that.
But it came out really well, and I and ever since then I kind of became obsessed with the making of it because there really is a lot of technique and a lot of love that goes into it, and it's not something you can rush, and it's it's one of those recipes where you know, there's certain recipes you can rush, like a quick marinea or like apasta sauce or something. You know, you can whip it up in
ten fifteen minutes. This you can't, not even necessarily because of flavors like certain sauces and certain dishes you want to let you know, the flavors really need to come out over hours. But this it's because the arboreal or rice just does not soak up the broth or the wine or the water or whatever liquid you're adding. It takes x amount of time. And if you have to add, you know, a quart of chicken broth, it just literally can't.
It has to take You have to wait until, you know, add a scoop or like a ladle of the broth at a time, and you have to wait for it to absorb, and then you add another and you wait for it to absorb, and you can't like leave and go watch TV. You have to watch it and stir constantly, and it's very labor intensive, but it's simple. It's just takes a while and you have to follow the process and like trust the process.
So how do they do it at restaurants if it takes so long? How do they do that?
They've got a hat And you also don't want to let it like sit right, So they've got to have some sort of maybe where they're kind of batching it out like every hour or something. And to be honest, I mean, this is one thing that now, of course you've inspired me to when we hang up, text a bunch of chef friends and be like, what's the deal with risotto in restaurant? Because you can't make it to order really, because it does take a good forty five
minutes or so to make it. But they maybe like once an hour they make a batch.
Ah, that's probably you know.
And then whoever orders it in that time gets that kind of fresh batch from that hour, that's my guess.
But I the waiter says, if you want the resulta, you're going to have to order it now before you order your drinks. Yeah.
They might be like yeah, and then sometimes it might come out ten minutes later. And then sometimes if you're on the back end of it, it might take you know, thirty minutes for it to come out.
Right, right, right right. How important is the type of rice when making risota? Do you have a favorite variety?
You can only use arboreo? I mean, if you're making risotto, you can use other types of you know, if you're making a different type of rice dish. You can use a different type of rice, but if you're making traditional, true, actual risotto, it has to be arboreo rice.
M Okay, it gets creamy right.
When the rice when you're treating it properly, with the slow addition of the chicken stock or I mean whatever stock or broth you're using, like chicken broth and the wine. When and then especially when you add the cheese, that type of rice gets very creamy and like very very thick.
That's the technique. It just spoonfuls out of time every I don't know what, five ten minutes.
No, probably a little faster because it just you have to watch it like once it absorbs, then you add more, and then it absorbs and then you add more.
Wow. Okay, yeah, you got to you got to earn that dish. Yeah, so what so obviously there's some obvious mistakes that people Wait, what are the most common mistakes that people make when they're cooking risotto at home?
Oh gosh, I would say, well, number one, if you're trying not to use oar boreo rice, that would be the cardinal sin. I can't even imagine.
And what do you cook it in. What do you cook it in? You just cook it? Can you cook it in a cast iron skillet? Or what? No, what do you do you want something?
I use a Dutch oven, so kind of a bigger like a bigger stock pot type Dutch oven situation, because it gives you all the room that you need and then you know, depending on what you're adding to it, sometimes it can get very substantial. Where a typical skillet, even if you used a bigger skille, it just wouldn't be enough room. So I use a Dutch oven. And oh my god, I haven't made it in a while now, Like I immediately want to go make some risotto, like just for my salve.
When we're done with those, I'm coming over by the way, all right, thanks.
Might take you a bit to get here, might be a little cold and saled by that, but I can keep it warm on the on the stove. But yeah, it's uh a Dutch oven. And then you know you want to start with some like butter saw tayte some onions. You know, could do a little olive oil, but I would probably just do butter sautayto some onions, get you know, season them, and then you put in the rice when there's no liquid really in the pan yet, and so you're almost just coating the rice in like the onion
butter mixture. And then once it gets all coated and starts to kind of that soaks in a bit, and then you start adding like the wine, and then you cook the wine out, and then you start adding the chicken stock, and then forever and ever you're adding the chicken stock.
Right right, right, So comfort food that's a term. Okay, Gilmour Girls is a for show, So it's consumed by people. They don't eat it, but if they could, they would. Yeah. And what does that mean to you that that term? Do you have a favorite recipe that brings you piece into Yeah?
So I'm I'm Sicilian. I grew up my dad was born in Sicily, so I grew up eating kind of what he ate growing up, which was a very pasta heavy diet. And my Nano would always make me, you know, pasta and meatballs, and that's to me, that's my comfort food. I mean any type of pasta, but especially if I can have her specific pasta. She is no longer with us, but I've learned to make her recipe. So that's always my favorite comfort food or a cheeseburger.
I find cooking incredibly therapeutic. It's one of my favorite things that I do for my family because I cook a great deal when I'm home.
What about grocery shopping? Do you like grocery shopping too?
If it's for you know, if I'm going for you know, specialty food, if it's very specific types of food that I want to cook. I mean, you know, the chicken's got to be kosher, so that's as certainly the sausages have to be this. You know, I do enjoy picking that stuff out. I don't have a lot of time to do that. My wife does that. She enjoys that aspect of it, and then she brings it home and I like to just lay it out on the counter and and just start going to town. And I'm very
serious about it. And it gives me great comfort because I love the challenge of cooking multiple courses because of all of the coordination and the timing that it takes to do it right. Yeah, So I love that part of it. Do you find and it's almost like meditation?
Yeah, see that's what I mean cooking, Yes, of course, But and that's also what grocery shopping is to me, like, that's my that's therapeutic for me. Just as long as I'm by myself. I do not like going with anybody else. I just take my time and go down each aisle and love looking at all the things and thinking what do I need? And to me, it's so relaxing.
I just love all parts of it. Yeah, let's say you're having a gathering. Okay, friends coming over, what's the one dish that everyone always asks you to make.
I've been really big into my Italian chili Chilian quotes for the past few years, and people love it. It is a crowd pleaser. It's kind of impossible to screw up, and it feeds a lot of people, and it's just so good. And it's a little different, like I mean everyone, well mostly everybody loves chili. But then that's something I love to do, is put an Italian spin on traditionally non Italian dishes. And so I may my Italian chili.
And it's so good.
Man, because it uses like spicy Italian chicken sausage instead of ground beef. It uses or I mean, you could use any type of like spicy Italian sausage. If you want to use pork, you I put you know, basil instead of cilantro, and I put different types of Italian cheeses instead of you know, Queso fresco or whatever you would use. And then I, you know, put in zucchini and like white bean, like cannellini beans and mushrooms and put a lot of like Italian veggies in there, and it's just so good.
Yeah, you're in La right, Yeah, Okay, you're going down to Bristol Farms to get a lot of this stuff.
No, I go to the very obnoxious bougie Arawona. It's right down the hill for me. It's I could walk technically, and it's ear One's not very relaxing though, because it's very crowded. So that's not my relaxing place. If I want to do relaxing shopping, I would probably go to like Gelson's or something like that.
Mm hmm yeah, because it's bigger space. Let's talk a little bit about Bob please. You know, I've had some losses in my life as well. I like to talk about them because it keeps them alive, it keeps them vital, it keeps them their memory alive? What did you like to make him? What was his favorite dish? What made him the happiest.
He really did love my cooking, which made me very happy. It's funny though, every once in a while he'd pull something out of it. He'd be like, you know, I don't like lemons. I'm like, what what do you mean?
Like?
I made him once like a lemon butter pasta, like creamy pasta, and he's like, I don't like lemons. I was like, what do you mean don't like lemons? Since went like it was, he would get weirdly picky sometimes where he'd be like I don't like that. I'm like, what do you mean you eate? You drink ten quarts of lemonade yesterday? Like what are you talking about? Anyway, But he loved when I made him this shrimp sturfry.
He really loved a shrimp sturfry. And then, of course, as I said, I love making pasta, like that's my comfort zone. And he loved pasta, and he loved my pasta. But he would always say like, I can't have carbs. You know, I'm trying. I'm trying to be healthy and lose weight.
I'm like.
Then don't eat the pine of ice cream after, you know what I mean, Like, it's.
Not the dinner that's really right.
I'm like, it's not the dinner that's the problem. So he did love pasta too, But of course, like many men, he was also a meat and potatoes guy, and he loved a good steak and mashed potatoes and some veggies. So I did make him a lot of too, or you know, like some roasted chicken things. But yeah, I mean, he was he was a good He was a good eater. He really did. Like we'd go out to restaurants. He
was very adventurous. He always tried new things, and so it was so fun to go on foody explorations with him because he really tried everything.
Is there a particular dish that you would prepare for friends and for Bob and when you were having get togethers or holidays whatever that you noticed over time was a particularly good meal to serve that made people really happy and really connecting and all that stuff. That phenomenon happened to you.
Yeah, the Italian chili, it really I kind of stumbled on it maybe about eight years ago or so, so right around the time that I met Bob and I started making it and he loved it and anytime, because it's you know, it's harder to cook if you're having four, six people over or more. It's harder to cook steaks for that many people, or certain dishes for that many people. But if you make a big pot of chili that also has like pasta in it, it's very satisfying. It
doesn't feel like you're just having some soup. Uh, you know, it's really a full meal. And you know, I'd make that with like a really great salad or something too. So that was always kind of my go to and probably will always be my go to for if I'm
having you know, multiple people over. Interesting people really loved it, and that's a recipe I've you know, I've had it kind of published in a bunch of magazines, and I've made it several times, and people still to this day will message me being like, oh my god, I made your Italian chili the other day and my family loved it. So yeah, that one, that one's a keeper.
All right, Great, let's talk rockstar chefs. Who have you Who were your top rock star cooking experiences when you were traveling around the world. Oh, God, did you cook with Bono?
No, I've never cooked with Bono, and so it's you know I would have. Let's see, did I ever cook with Yeah, I don't know. I don't think I've cooked with rock stars. I brought rock stars to restaurants, and then I've cooked with a lot of rock star chefs, of course. But gosh, I I remember in Switzerland. I I mean, this isn't necessarily cooking, but I did work with this brilliant, like real like world renowned Swiss chocolate here, and I like got to make chocolate with him one
day and that was so cool. Like I had the big kind of pastry chef had on and then he's like teaching me how to make the chocolate and that was really really cool. Wow, oh gosh, so many places.
All right, well, think about it, think about it all right. Let me ask you that if you were to come into Luke's Diner. Okay, if you were to come into that place, what would you order and where would you sit?
Well?
I would definitely order the cheeseburger, and because that's I feel like my typical order anyway, although in this episode that pie looked really good too. It's maybe a cheeseburger with a pie and then I don't know, I guess i'd sit. I like sitting by a window because I like getting more light because, especially as the sometimes obnoxious food blogger, I like to take the pictures of the food and I always need good natural light.
Mm hmmm. Who's your favorite celebrity chef or famous chef? They don't have to be celebrities. They just have to be famous for their cooking. Doesn't mean they're a celebrity chef.
Well, I would say the one who's had the biggest packed on me would probably be Giata Okay, because she makes very Yeah, she makes very approachable Italian food, and she makes it very I don't want to say easy, but simple. You know, simple is not always easy, uh. And I just love her take on things and it's been very kind of educational to me over the years. And I met her a few times and she's lovely.
Let's see. I love Tyler Florence. He's super cool. He did he has a podcast, and I did his podcast, and so like my podcast. When people come on my podcast, I eat food with them in person, like whatever their favorite comfort food dishes, we have it. They're ready for them and for his podcast, He's like, what's your favorite food? And I told him like a spicy rigatoni or something and he may but it's virtual, and so like just he got to eat it, and I'm like, that's not fair.
I was like, well it looks great.
Thanks he made but he did make it for you. Yeah.
I love Tyler Florence. I love Bobby Flay. I fangirled a little when I met him one time because he was friends with Bob. But yeah, so I'd say those three, you know, definitely some Food Network chefs amazing back in the heyday. The heyday of Food Network was was my jam.
Right, Okay, so your podcast is golling Strong Comfort Food with Kelly Rizzo.
Yeah, so Comfort Food with Kelly Rizzo. We're on a bit of a hiatus right now, but you know, there's thirty something incredible episodes. So for people who love food or for people who have experienced some type of grief or loss, it is very, very helpful because I've had incredible guests on many of whom are my friends, who
have helped me personally. And then a lot of people, you know, I've had grief therapists, I've had you know Steve Leader, Rabbi Steve Leader on I've had like just incredible guests who've been so helpful, not only to me, but you know to people who have watched the podcast have gotten immense kind of therapy and help from it,
which has been really really nice. But now what I'm really excited about is my Comfort Club, which is my membership that I have right now that I just started about a month ago, and I have very special guests, you know, come in and do live talks. But the nice thing is, unlike a podcast, is that all my members who are in the club can actually in real time ask the guests questions and you know, talk to
them and get feedback. So if I have you know, whether it's a therapist or a celebrity guest, the members can actually talk to them in real time. And and then I also do love you know, live cooking. I do comfort Food Sundays, and so a lot of people have the Sunday scaries, they don't like to be alone on a Sunday, so I cook a meal with them virtually but in real time, and then we can eat dinner together. And then it's just a really nice community
for people to connect. You know if you've gone through something difficult or just want to find some nice comfort. So that's been really special.
That's amazing. That's really amazing. Thank you, Kelly. It has been a pleasure. We're at a time, but thank you so much for coming on and.
Sharing so much. This was wonderful. And I'm a Gilmore Girls newbie. My boyfriend's daughter just started watching it and I started watching it literally just like a month or two ago, and then you asked me to come on. I was like, wait, this is very serendipitous. This is perfect.
Well, it's been a pleasure, continued success and can't wait. Maybe you got a cookbook coming out in the future.
So that's the plan. That's the plan.
All right, good deal. I gotta get I gotta get that recipe for the.
What is it the make sure you get it. I'll send it to us.
I really appreciate that. All right, all the.
Best YouTube, take care okay, by
Everybody forget Follow us on Instagram at I Am all In podcast and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com.