I am all in again.
Let's just do.
Luke's Diner with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast. Hey everybody, Scott Patterson, I Am all in Podcast, one of our productions iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, iHeart Podcast. We are going to be doing another episode of Luke's Diner with none other than Jeff Morrow. And we're gonna discuss what he does in the kitchen, his cooking shows, even he's got a little band. We're gonna bring him in any minute now. We'll be back after these words.
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What's happening, Scott? How you doing?
I like that? You got a drum kit back there? You drummer.
My son's a drummer. I'm a guitarist. We have bands. I'm in a band, He's in two bands. We do it all.
Let me tell our listeners, our audiends, what the hell I am? What's going on here? Jeff Morrow is an Emmy nominated chef, television personality and host. And you're from Oak Park, Illinois, known as the Sandwich King. And you gained fame after winning season seven of Food Network Star Wow. Congratulations and fourteen pressing judge.
Yeah, cracking your career really now you meant how young I was.
You impressed the judges with your humor, Jeff and your charm. I think I prove that it's a fan creative approach to handheld meals. And You later hosted Sandwich King and twenty four Dollars in twenty four showcasing your love four sandwiches in Chicago's culinary scene. Since twenty fourteen, you have been the co host of the Food Networks hit series The Kitchen alongside Sonny Anderson, Katie Lee and others. Also hosted Kitchen Crash, and has served as a coach on
Worst Cooks in America. Jess is also the founder and CEO of Marl Provisions. What inspired this love of sandwiches?
How did it?
How did it become a culinary trademark?
How tell us my first job, you know, fourteen years old, slinging sandwiches at the local deli, trying to make some scratch for you know, my turbographics sixteen games. And I was like, you know, I was always in theater too.
I always did Second City youth programs in Chicago from the time I was in third grade, all the way throughout high school and college, and I always loved comedy in the stage and when I had my first job at a deli and experience not only the crafting of food and learning how to make soups and schmears and salads and sandwiches obviously, but like that interaction between the person ordering it and that deli case was kind of stage for me. So I can also create in cook
which I always loved doing. Come from a giant family, food was paramount, but like it was at exchange, and you can really lighten up a person's day with a little humor in that exchange. And I always viewed the deli in the sandwich is an extension of that is just,
you know, the greatest connection. And I went to culinary school later in life, and I did all that, I've worked in restaurants, but to me, like the interaction between the customer and the delicate testineer was the word I made up, but like it was always in exchange that was greater than just putting food out on a plate and not knowing the results.
No, you know, deli's are underrated, aren't they like diners and delis, and we were just I just had some friends come up from La were outside of La Now and we went to this deli and we had the best time. We were there for hours and hours and hours in that booth, eating this incredible chicken pot pie that didn't seem to and we were just laughing and crying. So we were laughing so much with tears were streaming
down ours because we're in this comfortable space. You know, it wasn't this snooty place where you couldn't let loose, But that's that's the beauty of it, right. What is your favorite Chicago inspired dish that you make at home or make for your friends or your family.
Probably my most popular that gets requested is in that my family makes and that the internet makes. Is my Chicago style Italian beef pot road style done in the tradition. It's like melding these two words worlds like my classic French training with you know, my my my down home you know, neighborhood style Chicago training, and it's like our Italian beef sandwich obviously very popular, made pop even more
popular by the bear. You know, usually big raised, slow roasted chuck rolls different tougher to me, shave thin right and you dunk it in the gravy or the ajew and it's this on the spongy bread with the jardin era and the sweet peppers and you need it. But like, you can't replicate that at home unless Scott and I know you're into food, but do you have a deli slicer at home? Probably not. It's not a very common, you know, countertop appliance in America. I mean, I'm the
sandwich gang. My wife won't let me have one, you know what. Now on you know, it takes up a lot of real estate. So my recipe, which you can find on on food network dot com, it it mimics that without the need for a slicer by taking that chuck and slowly braising it in wine, in beef stocks and aromatics and herbs so it's pullable. So you get this like almost just soft melt in your mouth texture that you do on the same bun with the same peppers.
And then but the key to this in any sandwich you make at home, there you're trying to replicate let's say, like a you know, fast food smash burger or a hot dog from the hot dog stand, or even like an Italian sub from the deli, right, is you got to wrap the sandwiches for like a minimum a minute to two minutes in butcher paper or deli paper and just let it sit and let it chill out. So something magical happens in there. Depending if it's a cold sandwich,
something magical happens. But it just marries up in there, right, kind of really solidifies the relationship, right, consummates with itself in the wrapper. And uh, you know that's probably my favorite go to because whether it's like, you know, you're watching the game or having a bunch of people over stays nice, it's there. You can eat it for three hours, you.
Know, right, beautiful, beautiful. All right, So we watched this episode, right just forget this this stuff? Episode ten? So the Santa Berger? What do you think of the Santa Berger?
I mean I saw it, okay, and I saw it and then I was like, no way, Like my first question was like how many of these were sold at Luke's, you know, like how many did he?
Like?
What was because that wasn't a La Minute.
Now, that was the one he made for her, and that's that's it.
That was it. It wasn't even a special, no I know that's not that's that's lovely. It's the sentiment is is huge. But I don't you know, even her character do not want to take a bite of that. It's we do that they try to make us. Like I've been on the kitchen right on every Saturday, and it's like we explore some of the internet's finest things a lot of the time that you you know, the the viral foods that are on the internet just to you know,
get a click or alike. But like that's we find that food shape like creatures, right, sometimes don't just don't hit like you want them to, you know, like like the we've made like cheeseballs that are in the shape of penguins with like olives for a beak, and then you get that orange, you know, peppers for the for
the eyes, and you got all this stuff. You like, by the time you craft it and you look at this cute little thing, nobody wants to eat that, And I feel bad, you know, I was, like, he put all that work into it, and she's not going to eat that.
Dam right, it's not having it. It's not having it.
But you got appreciate the effort. Right, He's an artist.
I think that was just really the point, right, you know? Okay apple tarts they served him at the Gilmore family Christmas party. I think, do you make an apple tart?
You know what I am? I'm a big fan of like a cheat quick apple tart using a puff pastry store bought. And if you have, like you know, come fall, you got a lot of like my people, I don't. I don't like it on like apple picking. I don't know if you've ever been apple picking? Have you is a human?
I mean I picked a lot of apples in my youth.
I mean I was gone on a sojourn.
I'm an organic, spontaneous apple picking. I wouldn't say it was planned.
And here we go, Oh you didn't go on an event? Sure, you know, with a loved one to go pick apples for the afternoon. It's a miserable experience. There's bees everywhere, and then you're left with like literally a bushel of apples that that's like a eighty apples. I mean, what are you gonna do with them? So I always wait for that time of year, and it's like my in laws or my friends down the street that still have
little ones. I have a six year old boy, I'm not going to take you know, that ship is saled. There's no apple picking in our immediate future. Like when these people bring me their bounty and they're like, hey, man, you want some apples. Think they're gonna give you four apples, they give you, give you like eighteen apples, which is barely making a dent into a bushel. So I'm there, and that's when I tart it up. Because it's usually
nice green like tart apples and that stuff. You only have stuff laying around the house that you can whip
this up. And all you need is to kind of procure the store abought pup pastry, and I'll do it in a large or medium size like cast iron skillet, you know, break down those apples with butter and sugar and brown sugar in like vanilla bean paste, and just make it this ouyguy thing and then just literally like put the puff pastry on top, finish it in the oven, and then that puff pastry kind of drips down the side and then you can turn it out the pan and you kind of have this like quick and easy
I don't know cheat apple tart, but man, something about an apple tart to me, especially if you have some ice cream with it, or fresh whipped cream. I'm a huge fan, way more than like like classic apple pie.
I bet you have fun cleaning that pan.
You know what, It's not as bad as like cleaning a burger in there or a steak. Is way harder because of the fond that's left over.
You know, you got to pro So how do you do it? I mean, okay, So this is the question I have because I just got two cast iron skillets.
I love them nice, I love them.
I cook my omelets in there for my boy. I got a ten year old. I cook them and we do we do the salmon in there. But boy, it really sticks right, no matter how much olive oil I put in. So now, so let me let me ask you this the technique for cleaning. Here's what I do. I don't fight that what's left over too much. I want to dry it. I want to get a dry fast right. You don't want to let it sit, so I wait until the next day it's all dried, and then I scrape all the stuff up. So I do it again.
I mean, listen, if you're going to leave it a month with all that stuff on there, right, it'll just probably rust up and right then you got to like re season it. That's a whole pain in the butt. But if you like salmon's precarious, right, because even if you put a lot of oil on there, I would always start with the skin side down and maybe it's not hot enough, but that's I'm sure you're getting your cast iron band hot enough, you know, and that's why
stuff sticks. But for me cleaning it up, like I swear, I know this is people say no soap, no, just warm water in a brillo pad, and you're like, you know, sometimes my I was like, just can you please clean this band? She will not touch the cast iron pants. She bleeds that up to me, and I'll just a little soap, little warm water, scrape it down with the
abrasive side of the sponge, get everything up. And what I think the most important thing to do is to just write I dry it, don't let it air dry, dry it, and then just a little bit of neutral oil on there. Oh, really rub the oil in there and put it back in the pan before you do it. Neutral oil like we use avocado oil or a canola oil or a vetcha oil something like. Besides olive oil.
You know, you want to something heavy duty, and then you just light coating just so it shines up nice and that'll keep it a from rusting, and we'll prepare it for nonstickedness the next use, okay, and then you can kind of beat it up a little bit with a little bit of soap and warm water. You know you can, okay, I mean people get crazy. They want
to see the reflection in these. There's a whole community out there that try to get their cast iron skillet is nonstick as humanly possible, right, because it is like nature's best way to achieve a nonstick surface with eggs omelets, you know, sticky salmon without having to go to like you know, the the chemical route or like the teflon route. Then got a lot of you know, people misuse those and hang on to them too long. The next thing you know, you're eating bits of this chemical. It's been
proven to be very bad for you. But there's other options. I'm not that obsessive. I use my like if I'm gonna make an omelet, I'm gonna use like I like the hex clad pants. I think it's a nice happy medium without you know, all that coding on there. But I'm always gonna use fat and that's kind of what people,
I think, want to remove themselves from. But at the end of the day, a little bit of butter or a little bit olive it on the pant, you know, I mean, what's gonna kill you is you're you trying to make this cast iron things slick as possible by like treating it like a newborn baby. Slow down, put your energy to something else. Maybe take care you know of your family first. Stop neglecting your kids, all right, or running around on your old lady. How about we
start with the home first. Make your own bed, you got you got me rolling here? Brother?
How do you make your perfect burger? What's what do you put in the burger? What do you do? Nothing?
Eighty twenty chuck. Here's here's the thing I don't preport, you know. I try to get the freshest chuck possible from the butcher case, not the pre cell of faint stuff, because you know, sometimes you take that home, it looks red and you open it up and then there's a great meat inside a little little extra chocolate center in there. I'm like, I don't want that, so I'll get the
good stuff. I'm a I'm a big fan of the cast iron or I'll use my cast iron like griddle on the grill to make and I make them outside so it doesn't splatter everywhere. So I like a nice heavy, flat bottom, flat surface, salt and pepper, maybe not inside. So see people like I got an uncle. He's like, you put an egg in there, you put some ground beautifully. I'm like, stop, All burgers need a salt and pepper, maybe a little granulated garlic only on the outside, right,
because you want that beefy flavor, you're gonna season. There's gonna be enough salt and toppings and stuff.
Right.
If you season the patty well enough, you're gonna it's it's gonna to carry through the to the to the middle. Nice my artifact, super crust on both sides. Right, Try to not prod it, don't poke it, don't smash it. Smash it at first. If you like a smashberg, I
do love that. And when I'm feeling a little frisky, you know, I take like my my my like my my my calck dowl thing, and I will like smash it with a super super dramatic shmeard lacy edge right and only really cook it on one side, flip it over piece of cheese, and you have this kind of just this beef skirt that forms, and if you do it right enough and you bring it up right enough, it comes right off and you scrape a little bit and then you put that on like like a Hawaiian
roll or a potato bun, some squishy bun with not much on it, like I like, I'm I'm like a purist a little maybe a pickle Hollopano American cheese beef soft sweet bun.
Yeah. No, yeah, we we do that. We do we We like that onion because I do the same thing I used. I used to do the egg and some of onion seasoning and all kinds of stuff. And it's like, you don't need it. You don't need it. You know, if you're gonna put that onion on there, you know that's the flavor that you want, that's what you want. And I do that, and I'm doing that a lot more because my kid said, Dad, can you somehow spice
up this sauce? You know, he's got a pretty refined palate, fri kid, And uh so I'm throwing more onion in the in the marinara sauce. Now like I'm I'm grilling the onion and you know, kind of liquefying it before I even put the meat in, you know, scause I do it in a skillet. Yeah, on a red sauce for a pross. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I do.
There's this great recipe that I've I've read about from New York Times Mars Marcel Hassan. It's a it's the easiest but tastiest marnar sauce. And I've never made it this way, but it's literally like good tomatoes. Half a stick of butter and an onion quartered and you simmer it right and then you take out the onions. You get all that onion flavor and it's like the silkiest, richest, quickest, easiest tomato sauce. Look it up. It's I haven't made
it again, so I don't know. I mean, someone's listening out there and they ate it. But like to me that, I mean, that's not the world I came from. I came I do, my mom my, grandma, my aunt's right.
Iss.
You saw te an onion, a little bit of garlic and a lot of olive oil and dried Italian spices till it's like liquefied, right, And you add one hundred cans of tomatoes and then you cook it for two days. Then you throw like a gallon of basil at the end before serving it, and then a tub of ragatta cheese. And that was like, that was our that was how
we ate red sauce. So I was like butter an onion that's not even cut, you know, but it seems like an easy thing to kind of zip through on a weeknight, you know, especially we got littles.
Let me ask you this, have you ever watched a film or even a TV show that inspired you to cook somebody something? Not somebody, but something.
I would I've been hungry enough looks, you know what, like the Live movie when they're eating the frozen butt, like you know, you know, Day thirty seven, You're like, that's a good looking ash and they take the window, you know, the glass and no, I've never wanted to eat a few and can when I get that out there first, I know people have gone down for less. Let me think what if I've been watching recently?
When you watch Goodfellas, do you not get hungry when they're in prison and they're like.
No, it makes me ill, dude, you don't like that.
You don't like that.
It was so dark and I just there was no ventilation. I just rewatched it like three weeks ago, really, And I know guys that have literally been in jail and have cooked in jail have been like pretty lined up nice, you know, where they can have Sunday dinners. To me, it's like, oh, it's just like so musty in there, and and it's dark and there's no ventilation, so you smell the garlic, and then Henry's running around, you know, dropping off drugs everywhere. It was just like, I want
to be relaxed and not not incarcerated. Uh.
But godfather, godfather. When they're making the tomato sauce.
Yeah, when they're making and they're.
Teaching, they're teaching Mikero, make the tomato sauce because you might have to cook for a hundred guys one day.
That was great. And then Clemenza drops the raw meatballs into the sauce.
Well, yeah, the sausage and the pork and the and.
The work and you got the buck and the veal and you put it in a sauce that makes me good. But that was like my you know, like I wanna I'm trying to think of what I do. I was just watching Landman with Billy Bob Thornton, and she the wife made paea for everybody. It was like communal pie, and it was like, you know, these guys are all oil men, you know, they're like, you know, they're Landman, they work in oil rigs, and she's trying to impress them with baya. It looked very good and I'm not
even and that was I was. I think I was really hungry and I was watching this because I'm not a big piea guy, you know, but they made this look very good on a show you know that you know what makes me and I want I got back into Yellowstone. This is not food, but this is all
these shows, right. I don't know who drinks this much out of crystal goblets, you know, in rocks glasses, brown liquor, all day long, all night long, when they get home from work, they're always just like pouring just like thick brown bourbon into a one hundred pound glass. Right, So every time I watch it, I'm like, I think I'm gonna get I'm to start that. Well, white kids, these guys,
guys are running a ranch. What's stopping me from just like having, you know, having a decanter right by the you know, on its own little tray by the TV right way, be like, what are you doing? Like just pouring a little schnuffer here of thick brown liquor. And I never get around to it, but it makes me want to drink.
Right they are. They're drinking a lot. She's always drinking, She's drunking the costs. Always drink. Kelly Riley's always having a trink. Always drinks, I know. And great glasses is great, tumblers.
Great, just like etched crystal right right. And then they occasion, like at least one episode someone's throwing a glass in a fireplace or something like they you know, no wonder they're losing the ranch. It's just blowing glassware. Right.
It's expensive, it's unbelievable. Give us a trick. You got a trick that you use for it. Give us one clever thing you do.
The most underutilized thing in the kitchen that everybody has the most under like that, I don't know, nobody uses it never gets enough. Love is the broiler in your stove, all right, the oven broiler to reheat, to put a little color on a steak maybe you made outside, to crisp up the top of some badgetables to quickly cook some roasted vegetables that don't need, you know, an hour in the oven. They just want to put a little
color on. Like to me, it's like so underutilized in it mimics what most restaurants do to put color on food is use that salamander or that kind of broiler they all have. And this is we all have that. And if you learn to kind of play with the levels of your rack in the oven, you can really master it. You know, I love it. And then when you're like, let's say, okay, here's another trick. This is what people do. Don't ever, rarely order an extra large
pizza at the most large, preferably medium. Never when when you're on the phone with them, tell them uncut. Do not cut my pizza. I will handle it myself at home. It's twofold number one. When you get that pizza. We're in Chicago, it's like a bit of every time we order pizza, it's an event. Don't cut my pizza because
when it transports via delivery to your home. You know, those cuts will allow moisture right to penetrate and compromise the crust, right, and then you get in it's floppy or it's you know, sometimes it's wet, depending on them. And if you get vegetables on your pizza, it's miserable. So it'll preserve the Cristmas of the crust in the integrity of the pizza. If you get it on, don't get it cut medium being a perfect size. Sometimes large
they extra large pizzas. They're just like you know, the centers are inedible sometimes right, and they cut our PiZZ thin crust in the squares here in Chicago. But even if you're eating triangles number two, if you get that pizza and you don't get around to it, or they're late, or you got some you know, your delivery guys not
not getting there expeditiously, right. I always put my oven like either heat up a sheet pan in the oven, knowing that pizza is coming through the door a little late, and I'll put it on a hot sheet pan, uncut boom the bottom. Or if you have a large nonstick skillet, you could do that as well. Throw it in the oven for on a hot sheet pan just for a second, and it's like activates from the bottom and you throw it in there for two minutes just to reheat the
top without cooking it more. And then you got re crisp crust.
Yeah, come on right, that's good.
Even lives here, that's good. It's off the top of you think I wrote you didn't. There was no pre interview for this.
People don't appreciate that what you're doing for the world.
What's going on? I'm just sitting here in my dusty basement trying.
It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Do you have any exciting projects, new recipes in the works. What's going on with you?
Well? You could. You can watch Man Worst Cooks in America, Okay, which is premiered a couple of weeks ago. It's on Food Network at eight eight pm Eastern, which had on My which is I'm one of the chef mentors. There's two chef men towards This is the Heroes Versus Villain's Celebrity edition. So a man that you worked with on Gilmore Girls If I'm Not Here, played a legendary cover tune on your show. The great Sebastian Bach was on my team, who is definitely, unequivocally one of the worst
cooks in America. I mean, he was a hardcat to wrangle. But it's a fun show. So that's on the kitchens on and if you want any Chicago Staples premium products such as our craft jard and Era, which is our famous pepper medley of fermented peppers packed in oil, or an Italian beef kit which is the best beefs you will ever have, transporter from Chicago that you can make it home with the sausage, the bread, the peppers. You go to Marl Provisions dot Com and we'll ship to
your door in two days. We got plenty of fun stuff there. But you know I'm playing that jewel bags are playing Roberts West Side here in the neighborhood. King of Hearts dance on Valentine's Day, February fourteen. Once of the chagrins of the wives of the band members like, what are we doing romantically? Oh, you're gonna come watch my band play.
You know what your problem is, you don't have enough fun. You gotta get more fun out of life. I'll tell you.
Something.
We gotta have a talk with you. You got to come back on.
I would love to Scott and anytime.
I want to hear more about the jewel bags, what's going on with them, their future, the tour, you know, the globe.
You know, I told I told the guys. They all believe the to her words. You know, I'm like, I'm the only one in the business. If you will, they're just dead, you know. I go, Guys, I got some great news. Were just nominated for for a Daytime Grammy. Today They're like, no way, and then nobody realized, right, I mean there's the Daytime Emmys, which I've been nominated for Daytime Grammy. So I'm like, we're changing our name
to the Daytime Grammys. Good, We're going places. We're gonna get an award from this.
That's beautiful. All right. So if I ever come to Chicago, I'm looking you up.
Please do man, We'll go. I will. I will make you uncomfortably full.
Well, we're going to party now. I'm really great talking to you.
Great meeting man.
Uh check this dude out. He's uh, he's a ton of fun. Jeff, So appreciate the time. Good luck with the band, Good luck with the cooking. Good luck with the Food Network show Worst Cooks in America, Jeff Morrow, Ladies and gentlemen, Thank you, Scott, and that's gonna do it for Jeff Morrow. Check him out on Worst Cooks in America. Check out his jewel bag songs. They gotta be good. I mean, if they're half as entertaining as he was on this podcast, you can have a good
time anyway. Thanks for downloading. Best fans on the planet, and remember where you lead, we will follow.
See you next time. Stay safe, everybody.
And don't forget. Follow us on Instagram at I Am all In podcast and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com.