The ChrissieCast: Foodie Zacchary Bird

Well, good morning, Christy cast. Is On this glorious day, I have spun the wheel and landed on foodies, which is a real interest area of mine. This foodie is a little different, and it's not just his porn stash that makes him so. Zach Bird is a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker, a junk food connoisseur, and also just happens to make all of it plant based. The guy's

It's a pleasure to be here. It's a big life mission, but someone has to do it.

You know, when did you come up with this idea?

Oh about the time I went vegan and no one had vegan conolli for me, and I was like, far out, I've got a bloody figure out how to do this for myself.

How long have you been a vegan?

Ten years? Ten years plus, so it's been a long time of seeing things. I can't eat and going right. Well, that's my mission statement for this month.

I love this so much. When did you decide what was going on in your life that you went, actually, I'm not eating meat anymore.

Look, I went vegetarian as a teenager, I think mainly for attention. And then as I became an adult and I was like, well, how do I sort of qualify this with the rest of my personality? I was like, Oh, I really like this community, and I really like this way of living.

And it's kind, isn't it. It feels good?

Yeah, And I didn't really have a relationship with food, so I think I like the challenge of it, Like if I can complete this mission or this task that I'm rewarded with perhaps the world's vegan tur duccan or canola or what, and yeah, like it makes me feel special.

What is in what is in the canole instead of ricotta?

Well, see, you can make it. You can make your own ricotta. But I feel like you're you're trying too hard to make something that's not going to taste like a real recorder. So I go the other direction. You know, you've got like custed canola, you've got chopped chip canoli. You've got caramel, and I'm a very impartial to lemon and pistachio, which I would wager it's the best kind of canoli.

You're so clever when you first went vegetarian, So I'm thinking, what are you in your late twenties, mid twenties. Yeah, we thirties love you for that though see the vegan lifestyle God bless Yeah shaves decades off. So you were in your early twenties when you went vegetarian or vegetarian.

When I was like thirteen, I was in high school right Protest assignments, where my art assignment was a piece of mints on a plate, and I'd go, well, it's meant to make you think.

I love it's like that banana. Recently I sort.

Of pioneered that I didn't want to take away from that artist.

But get an original idea. Years ago, did you get sick of toast? Because I also went vegetarian, probably for attention as well, and it was just toast and toast.

See veggimite on toast is still a treat for me, I think because they cooked such complex things all day long, like that's actually my.

Are you allowed to have vegimite. Isn't that a beef beef veggiemite?

And yeah, a yeast extracted.

Oh it's yeast, not beef.

Of course, it's actually good. It's good for you. I'm trying to work in vegimite everywhere I go.

How good is Vegemite's anian?

I can't.

What's the weirdest thing that you've ever put veggimite in and had it work? Well?

See, this is the thing. Veggimite is one of the big secrets for vegan cooking because it's got all that umami in savory. Soon, if I'm making like a beef style broth, I'm actually putting veggimite in there so venie might stay stronger. And all my recipes I just don't tell you about it.

I've got carried away. We haven't spun the wheel again. We're going to spin the wheel and see what comes up. As what was supposed to be the first question, we let it get away from us. Oh, yes, this is this is the first time it's spun up on compatibility quick fire.

Hell yeah.

The first question is about chicken. If you were going to eat a chicken, would you go for the leg slash? Thigh or would you go for the breast? This will say whether or not you and I are compatible.

Wow, I am making up an answer out at my wazoo right now. I would between sorry the breast.

The drumstick and thigh or the breast.

I'm a drumstick man. My first file recipe was a vegan chicken drumstick with a bone made out of cauliflower that I handcrafted like Michelangelo himself. So I'm a drumstick man through and through.

So am I I'm also a drumstick man. But that means we're incompatible because imagine one chicken sounds like a very sus thing. One chicken and two of us and we're both going for the for the legs.

I've got good news for you, as the vegan butcher. I can make us a chicken that's all drumstick. It's just sort of maybe like some biblical looking angel of just drumsticks all the way around, Like, oh my god. That's the wonderful thing about veganism is like you, you know, there's lots of assets. But my thing is we're not constrained by rules. If I want to make a chicken entirely out of a drumsticks, baby, I'll make them on for us.

I got I can see like the crown I wore when I was Queen of Moomba. Maybe that's the next step for you. I had the best cashew cheese I've ever had in my life when I was in the jungle on I'm a celebrity, Get me out of here, and that's what you found.

That's where you found the best.

That's where I found it, and I'll tell you the story behind it. So normal meat eaters, which I am, would get a certain menu. But Maureen McCormack, who you may or may not know from her role as Marsha Brady on The Brady Bush, she's a vegetarian, maybe even a vegan. Actually she's a vegan, so she was so

It was just disgusting.

Yes, And then after about two weeks of it, I went, fuck it. I'm going to say I'm vegan too, because your stuff is delicious. So then I was like, I can't. I'm a vegan now and I got this little portion of cashew cheese and I've never tried it since or before. Where can I get?

Well, what's the bed? It was pretty crap, crashy cheese. But you've just eaten so poorly for so long that this was, you know, your drink of water at the oasis? Mate?

It exactly? Do you make your own?

Of course? I make money?

How do I make it?

You soak those cashus down, you blend them with a little secret called nutritional yeast, which you'll find it any little oh you can find it calls them what's.

Your nickname for it, newty.

Oh when you're on a first name basis with our vitamin source. But it tastes like a smoky, cheesy flavor. So regardless of whether you're trying to replace cheese for something that's super healthy, to taste so delicious. It's a great asset. So you soak the cashews, get the nice and creamy, and then you blend that with like a garlic clove and nutritional yeast, maybe a little cap full of minna, and you're done.

And is it solid like a like a boccan chini or.

A mound make you like a cream cheese and that's when you kind of go through that same cheesemaking process of put it in a cheese cloth and let that extra liquid drip out, yes, and show your firmness.

That I make globner that way from Do you think that more people would be vegan if they knew what you knew?

Well, I've been pretty loud about it. I think the thing that people that I find I get to show people is that accessibility of I think everyone knows probably why I'm a vegan, and you know, it's not a big surprise and you're like, oh my god, well I've never heard that. No one's coming from that perspective. They're more going I get why. Yeah, it's not very sexy. And you know, I'm a junk food connoisseur, as you

The best vegan junk food copy that you have achieved. We'll see, I'll bring you into the forefront of breaking technology. Yes, because just last night I finally found Have you had a Lion's main mushroom? Yes, they are gorgeous, but they're so expensive. They're I was going to say this so expensive.

I always look for them, and that you can buy a little thing of powder for seventy dollars and my car's that going to feed six foot dinner? Anyway, I finally found them in their dried version, which is very hard in in Australia, much cheaper, and I made Indonesian crispy chili chicken last night with it, and it was a revelation.

I'm salivating.

Oh my god, I am goodprec where you make really crispy chicken and then you make a fresh sumbult can.

I say that sounds really delicious? But is there a better vegan fast food junk food than the bird's eye potato jym straight out of the bag.

Can humanity achieve more than we already have?

I don't think so, Zach. They are magic, They are magic.

I do concur Have you had the I don't know if Jura McCain has had like cheesy smiles or yes they were accidentally vegan, I don't They didn't. They tried not to tell anyone but you know, how could they.

Be vegan and have cheesy in the title.

I think that's why they didn't want to tell anyone they were vegan, because they were using the word cheesy, but.

They were cashew cheese. Maybe yeah, they heard the podcast How do you have your coffee?

How do I have my coffee? Black? First thing in the morning and in a litter volume. I own an iced coffee cafe, so I feel like it's my duty to start the day with a litter of colebreut.

So sorry, she's calling me back. You're right, man, Yes, do you know how to ovin? Yes? So you get so sorry, Zach I'm at work in my kids as stier. I can have the holidays. So you know how. There's two knobs on the far right of the oven. Are you standing in front of it now?

Yeah?

Okay, turn the left one two to the right and it'll be it'll be like a Mercedes symbol almost. Oh, we're facetiming. Okay, yes, and you go boom boom, that's it. What are you cooking cookies? Oh? Are they vegan? No?

Hang up? Should they be? Well?

I am with Zachary Bird, so just say that they are okay, all right, you sort of don't forget to put the timer on or they'll burn. Let me have a close look at that setting for a minute. Not that I.

Haven't I haven't made to preheat it.

Yep, that's it. That. How do you make one sixty five? You see the one sixty and just a bit? No, that's good, that's good. Okay, bye, I have a good day, Love you bye. How do you make a good vegan chop chip cookie?

You follow my recipe?

Tell me what's in it?

The secret?

It very if your books.

That's embarrassing.

It's embarrassing.

I mean, cookies don't rely too heavily on things like eggs or dairy, so it's very one of the simpler ones to sort of one for one, you know, like sowy milk instead of dairy. I think the secret is what I learned at my cookbook shoot, is if you've got to shove those choc chips on top, no one cares if they're delightfully spread out in the cookie.

That is so true.

And you can't see thirty choc chips. You don't want a bar of it?

Do you put a nut in there? I love a nut in a cookie.

Well, here's my thing. I use a tablespoon of almond butter in my dough, so it's all spread out and it's got that little nutty mess. So I couldn't agree with you more.

Oh my god, I love that.

Have you ever made lace cookies where you get like chopped almond and you put like a golden syrup mixture and bake them in the oven so they spread out and make lacey nutty cookies?

And then you know, but that sounds like a fortune cookie? Have you ever made fortune cookies?

We're doing such a cultural exchange right now? What is that?

I looked up how to make a fortune cookie because I had this wild idea that instead of sending an invitation to a lunch or a birthday party, I was going to make a fortune cookie and put the details inside.

That is such an iconic idea.

They I haven't done it, but it looks absolutely doable, and it sounds like the lace cookies. Are they quite pliable when they come out of this? Oh?

I see what you're doing.

Yeah, And what you do is you hang the batter while it's still pliable and hot, over a glass.

So how you get a message in there?

Then you. There's always a little a little crack in the in the curve on the glass, and you slip it in and then wait for it to solidify in the Yeah, you're going to do that, aren't you?

Neually going to in all of the fortunes you get will be like, go vegan.

Yeah, that's aggressive in there, go vegan. Well I am a part time vegan.

Congratulations, thank you.

And people are confused by that, and I'm like, what's so hard to understand? Because when I'm eating like my dull that I make, for example.

You're dull queen.

Oh god, I love it so much? Yeah, so much, so much coconut cran abscribe.

To it or you won't have a bar. There's no casual dull habit. Everyone I meet is like, it's a lifestyle or I've never heard of it.

I agree, And I'm pulse flexible. I'll put anything in it, like that's.

Going on my dating profile.

Able, and I'll have chickpeas in there. Sometimes I might have black beans, which is really unconventional.

I would actually say, very controversial, very brave of.

You, this sort of next Indian. Yeah, yeah, but I couldn't imagine delightful a bean's a bean, and so much coconut cream and coconut milk.

Yep, yep, yep.

God it makes me fart, though, What does that say about my constitution?

I think it's working perfectly. Things are entering one in and going out the other. I mean, that's all working ass up for the time, and whatever happened in between is none of my business.

Has anything got you beat?

Oh? Yeah, like I come up against my brick wall.

All that I will say certainly doesn't sound like it.

Should I keep it? Yeah? You published the good there's no page on the cookbook that says and here's the one that didn't work.

I tried to do a bit back. Yea.

Yeah. Look, there's two recipes that have beaten me in my whole life. One is on the note of cashew cheese. There's a very famous book called Making the Vegan Cheese Making by Mioko Skinner, who sort of pine me the movement, and she uses something called rejuvalac, which is.

That sounds like something you take for indigestion.

I think it might be its essentially rotten water. You're meant to put your being in and let it sprout, or you know, bubble and you change your water over a week, and at the end the fermented water you use in your cheeses. So it takes you a week to make this recipe. And each time you've made a cup of rotten water, which is what does it smell like rotten water? It smells like septic tank. And you're like, I've worked a whole week of my life and that's just one ingredient for the next recipe.

But then you have to eat that. Yeah, does the cheese smell like something's been living in a toilet?

Well, I've had I've had heard. I've never successfully made it because each time I get to my cup of rotten water and I go, I'm not going to persevere. This isn't exciting me.

Who does?

That's why I haven't written a book on cheesemaking, and I've left it to this Mioka woman.

All right, So that's got your beat? What else?

The only recipe I've written where at a bookshoot couldn't replicate results was Portuguese custard tart. I swear I could make the world's best vegan porcheese custer tart unless there's the camera on me in which they make a hot ball of custard that somehow has puff pastry throughout it and on top of it and below.

How do you make egg custard?

Well, like custed discusted, you know, like if you buy a custard mix market.

I just made custard last night. I made a Christmas trifle.

Oh did you can? I just quickly asked, put your favor scheme for this trifle please?

Well, I'm I'm a traditionalist because it's my grand's recipe and she was, you know, the eldest of seven kids. Grew up on a cane farm in far North Queensland, the middle of nowhere.

My grandparents are from Kane Farmed and Far North Clean whereabouts in Tully. I don't know any cant between Canton Townsville.

Grand was Mackay and a town called Kaylan.

Oh I don't know that one named Makay.

What sounds like something from like the medieval times?

Don't you think like something in like a young adult novel, like the main character came from there?

Absolutely no, it sounds like a character from Bolden and Beautiful kiss Me Calin's.

Breaking many a heart that gout I know.

Anyway, Grand's was the mini jam rolettes must have bolstered up by madeira cake, because you can't have all jam rolettes in the middle where no one can see Madeira cake. Then must be canned, peaches.

Must be or with you so.

Far custard, but not from a carton.

Proper must be fresh air. So use eggs to your custard.

Yes, yes, oh no, no, no packet but it's you know, fosters make it. It's in between, you know, the pure egg and pour it out of a carton.

Yeah, just to clean that process for yourself, whether or not you really helped.

Well, you know you're using a whisk Yeah, yeah, I'm whipped crane, a losh and then on the top of something, oh, the jelly. It's going to prompt I've got three flavors, yes, mango, raspberry and port wine.

Are they used layd or are they?

You make them separately and then you cube them, and then you must it's all about the arranging of it. So you must use a glass trifle bowl for starters.

If I can't see that, there's no evidence anything's happened.

Correct, Why would you ever make a trifle that you can't see.

Seventeen colors for them to come out as an eat and mess absolutely nice.

Exactly, And you've got to slide the jam rollletts on the side so you can see the beauty of the swirl, said, and then fill in all the gaps with little jewels of jelly, saving your port wine flavor for the top.

That's good. And I like this kind of fruit salad made of jelly. Yes, that's like, I really love that vision.

A lot of people do. And this was you know, it was a big no no for Grant. She would never set the fruit in the jelly. Had to be separatesh.

Okay, I agree with her. This is where the grands of the world differentiate, you know. And this is like my favorite thing in life is going to like all my great aunties and asking them to tell me about one recipe and letting them fight and scream at each other over what the exact rules are. And I'm like, this is what a beautiful culture.

What is a really famous bird family recipe?

Bird family recipe is mango chutney. Always family. It tastes nothing like another family's mango chut It's eating on Boxing Day. They have it with fried eggs and ham that's left over.

I'm so hungry.

And we use it like currency. Every time you go somewhere, you check your cousin's pantry and you're like, oh, and he's given you four mango chutneys. You must be a favorite. I love it. I love having And each system makes it slightly differently, and we'll go be embarrassing to put raisins and I put dates.

And I didn't know there was Is there a curry vibe going on in it? Is there a spice hag?

Yeah, it's it's very watchful tang, but it's.

Yeah, right, it's a it's a keen tang.

Malt vinegar in there, like gorgeous.

I have been wanting to try recipe. It's like a seventies thing.

I have it here, seventies brunch.

I know. I'm going to get to that in a second. I'm going to give you the recipe because I reckon you could recreate it. It's not vegans that has never stopped you before.

It's in fact, it kind.

Of exactly chicken mango chutney, other bits and bobs, of course, but the three heroes, the father, Son and the Holy Ghost of the recipe is chicken mango chutney and cream and it's baked it's like.

A coronation chicken sort of like that sort of like maybe I'm I'm hearing an apricot chicken, but you've mixed. See that's so seventies and Australiana and it makes me feel homely and deeply uncomfortable, if there's a word for that.

You're not old enough to remember the seventies, you weren't even born. Going to bring it back, Yeah, I know it's a generational trauma and I'm here for it. Plus, your mother was probably born in the seventies or something sixties.

Maybe for you to say that, yeah, we'll say seventy. Ha.

So what did she cook? What? What was going on in your kitchen that made you go, yeah, I'm not eating this shit?

Haha. Oh, I'm sorry, mum. I actually confronted her a few months ago where I was like, why why do we always have bolonnaise that was so dark and weird? And she's like, oh, i'd hide spinach, and I'm like, well, you weren't bloody hiding anything worse.

It's very like forward thinking, is it?

Because yes, I hate Bolernese. I'm like, oh, I didn't know it didn't taste like rotten greenness.

Yeah, that's sometimes I've got kids and you're so desperate to get some vegetables into them.

Oh and I can. I can really appreciate it.

And there's a fine line. There's a real fine line between going, I've just got to get it in. They haven't had anything good for a week, and then they don't eat anything. There's a you just got to You've got to take it easy, just got to put a little bit in.

Before I spent more time with children, I'd used to, you know, write recipes and go what is this hidden veggies crap? You know, I'm proud. I love eating vegetables. And then I met four year olds and I went, I swear to God that sauce is not made of a blended sweet potato. I swear to God, please eat the orange sauce.

I know it becomes an obsession.

It's maybe not every meal in the world was designed for me specifically, but there's an audience that's all right.

If you could eat, if you could psychologically, philosophically, ethically eat one meat dish, what would have.

They miss anything other than like, I'm a big barbecue boy. I love like you know, if you anyone can walk past a barbecue and smell charring of anything and go like that is a primal response to be like, I must acquire that. So that's I mean, I've me and my daddy put a lot of veggies on the barbecue. I put my king oyster mushrooms, less so food and I'll find access to that. But I reckon, I'm waiting

What would your order be at KFC?

I think, after all this time, if there was something I called al right, it would just be like the pure bucket like whatever. Yes, I just do not give me a particular.

The words you're after Zacha original recipe.

Oh but I think I think I'm a Zinger boy.

Really sure, I'm a It's not controversial given your age. Yeah, because you were you were around when Zinger was zinging, and you really.

Have to give you the shaky stuff for your fries as well, Like I see it everywhere.

I missed that because when KFC came to Australia, Kate Kentucky Fried Chicken it was cool. No, no, it wasn't It wasn't cool.

KFC had more time in these days to say, you know, full word, that's it.

There's no drive throughs. You have to go and eat in with the colonel. And so I will be forever and always original recipe, two drumsticks, one tub of gravy because the snug fit in the car. Dipp dip bang.

Yeah. See. This is one of my favorite things is there's so much demonization of junk food and I could give less of a crap, Like I love, love some junk food. But you see these videos and things where they go have you noticed KFC. You know they crumb their food seven times and they pressure fry for this long and I go wonderful that they're being so specific with the note.

Thank you for that.

I want to say, there's a viral photo of what makes up Natella. You know, how have you seen it?

Oh?

Yeah, yeah, here's how much sugar, here's how much palm oil. I went, that's so convenient. I'll write down the ratios and I'll just put coconut milk powder and instead. So I love those sort of expose a's because they exposed the part I'm looking for.

I've only just discovered coconut milk powder.

Oh welcome. What are you using it for everything? Especially for your doll and whatnot. It's such a lovely way to when you want it in super without making it more liquid, if so you can actually intensify the flavor. Yes, magic, I reckon.

And also I found it because I love Ballei and I'll just just squirrel away there to hide from the world for you know, at any opportunity, I will go to the airport now if I could, And there's this cafe around the corner from where I always stay, and they do this cold drip coffee, coconut coffee. It I would fly there for that. It comes in a glass. The bottom of the glass is a thick disk of ice, like the preparation.

Nowhere does iced coffee. Like the reason I opened an iced coffee bar and Brisbane is because I've done all of Asia and was just obsessed with the exciting flea and just the way they give it to you. And like, if I order an iced coffee in Asia, it comes with this little skirt that covers the top, so it's livers. And I know, Bill, and I'm like the ingenuity of

I introduced my friend Jack to Vietnamese coffee just for a little bun made place. And I have not seen his hand without a cup of ice and coffee in it. What is it? Because also the guy, I've watched the guy make it. There's a ceremony involved. It's not just like.

They use to fiend drip. So it's using the instead of Arabica, which is a light being a used robuster, just robust and dull ready, and so you just let that drip in a traditional fee and drip make really brutal black coffee. Like I'm a black coffee drinker. You could not drink this bite really, you'd have to water it down a little bit. But then condense we.

Make and we make it like almost a like Turkish coffee almost like.

Yes, thick, precisely level, and then you've just got that richness of condensed milk in there that just makes it enough to actually feel consumable. And that's perfection. When I was in Malaysia, they've got copy O and they do a similar sort of process, but they toast the coffee beans and sugar and margarine before they brew the coffee, like you crafty clever cookies with in.

Margarine in margarine.

I love it.

That sounds like do you remember everyone was into bullet bulletproof coffee.

That's exactly what I thought. I was like, oh my god, this is just the plant based version of having a cup of butter with a little bit of caffeine in net for breakfast.

The amount of times that I nearly that went through me like a train through a tunnel.

That's all I could imagine. When it was, you know, the talk of the town and you're like, what are you talking about?

I would have made the error. I started drinking that when I was, you know, still doing breakfast radio. So I have the whole thing in the morning. Sometimes halfway through, you know, NEO, I'd be like, I've got to I've got to go, Like the sweat like it just comes out ready or not.

Real urgent, real urgent.

I want to talk to you about your ice coffee bar. Oh yeah, go on, okay, going to talk to you about ice coffee, but then we're going to do the seventies vegan brunch menu because I'm salivating. Oh yeah, whereabouts is your.

An ice coffee bar in Castle Lane, Brisbane?

I know Castle Dan?

That is, you are the first person to have acknowledging existence of Castle Iron outside.

Of really no, my uncle Bob and Ani Carma lived in Castle Dann.

Oh my god, oh so well, in the middle of nowhere. But you know, when you come to Melbourne, there's so much great vegan stuff if you go to Collingwood or whatever. And I think the reason we chose the middle of nowhere. You know, it's important to try and diversify and take our deliciousness to people who don't have access.

I agree. Is there a great Chinese restaurant in Castle Lane?

I've been there, neighbor that would shout stuff. If you guys are listening, shout out to Limkey and custom.

It was so delicious I remember it. So wellet we're next door. Now, come on by, How do you order, like, what's on the menu.

Oh, well, so we're doing Oh my god, we're about to do a Christmas bagel pop up. So you've got honey glazed hand bagel. You've got Camembert truffle and cranberry loaded fries, like what all vegans? Yeah, yeah, Christmas flavors. But done is just junk food nightmares. You know, we've got sticky date look on, you know, Pavlova Loco Martes.

Are you a bit Greek?

Yes, very proudly so. I'm like one sixty fourth Greek by blood and one hundred percent by heart.

I could tell by the way you said, Luca Martis. And the greatest regret of my life is that I wasn't born Greek.

Oh I would regret that too, if I wasn't able to claim my smarm.

I'm so jealous.

Oh you'll love. I've just come from Adelaide, from their festival, and years ago I went to teach a Greek master class and Adelaide, but because I'm like third gen Greek, my pronunciation sucks. So I did this master class and I was teaching everyone how to make galat.

Oh my god, I love. We've got a receptionist Vicky who makes it.

Oh my god, we're going to have a debrief after give on the road. When I was calling it galactic Barreco, like as I'm teaching a master class, I'm like, yes, I'm part of Greek. Welcome to my culture, galactic Barreco.

Were there were their Greek people?

She came up and told me after this little yea was like, delicious, what is this word that you keep saying instead of Gallic to borco?

So where is your where's your Greek?

My great grandmother came to this country from an island called Cafelonia. Isn't that a cheese good? I'd be the last person to be up to date on the cheese brands. But no, I don't think.

There's something that there's a similar word that's that's that Greek cheese. I can't think I ordered.

I will believe you. But that's why I love Greek cooking, and I think it's other than like Vietnamese in Indonesia. I think it's one of the best cuisine.

Oh is magic. I think it could be my favorite.

It's just such a delightful way to eat, and I love that sort of share plate of you know, you never really just have one thing to eat. No, you're having a roast tonight and I guess there's some greens. You're like, no, no, no, you're having this with the smattering of that yes sat next to it.

That just suits me down to the ground. I've never asked to those people that you go out for dinner with and they just say, you go to Indian and they order the butter chicken and that is their.

Lost in too early.

It's like, well, why would you do that when you could have seven?

That's why I was. I was walking around the Cessol on the weekend handing out plant based klamari and people going, oh, you're going to finish, So I'm like, no, because you're going to come back and share whatever the hell you get with me in treat for the klamari. So I don't just have Kla murray for lunch.

That's how it works.

Strategize, babe.

What about when you're with somebody and you're eating for the first or second time, like it's new, not dating or anything, just a new person, and the vibe shifts if they get a sniff that you're going to say, can I try that? If I get an indication that that person doesn't want to give me a little bite, then they are dead to me. I cannot I can't forgive it, and I can't understand it.

See, I think your problem is you're getting into that situation like haha. As a vegan, I've never gone to a restaurant without like thoroughly looking at the menu and like I'll do the dance for the waiters. But I'm like, oh no, three weeks ago, I settled down on the shuck shuka like I'd already decided. And so you know, strategy means that before they make decisions, you can make it for them.

I couldn't agree more. But that apparently that's very bad manners to free load.

On the menu, Like poor little me, I've got to kind of direct this ship. I'm ordering on behalf of you because I also want to try the civ luki.

Well, it just makes sense.

I don't manipulate trying two.

Dishes or three dishes instead of one. You don't have to come back then, do you know what I mean.

To come back? That's what whenever I look for good food, I'm like, I just want to get it done once, never do it again.

Now let's talk about Zachary Bird's slam and seventies vegan brunch menu. Who what the hell is this?

I'm the boozy brunch king, and we've sort of run out of theme. I tears, So we're onto decades. But the seventies is such a funny decade to do, like a food menu and also like games for like we did Price of the Price is Right Inflation edition. I guess that it costs nine cents for a leader of petrol in nineteen seventy. Yeah, it's the most funny. But also like everyone laughed and then they kind of judge back to their table and sit there quietly as they reflect on it.

My god, nine nine cents a literer out of these? What is your jam? Prawn cocktail? I made a real prawn cocktail last Saturday for my girlfriends, and can I tell you there is no crowd pleaser quite like it.

It's sort of it's a rite of passage, whether or not you have strong feelings. Either way, you're gonna have to eat a prawn cocktail and get into it.

And it's so easy to make tastier than it used to be. Yes, it really is.

But for me, just like it's Aussie Christmas like that sort of like that, I agree, And so much of our Christmas is like a bastardization of you know, you've got a US style roast with some seafood star. You're like, no, let's hold on to the pron cocktail, the PAVs, the good ossie, oh god.

The trifle, if you will. I'm really thrilled to see the volvant you had to do it to them. I love bolivants.

Yeah, you just don't see them anywhere these days.

Do you make the cases or are the cases from the supermarket vegan already?

I haird a little chef to do this. I didn't touch those volivants. I couldn't tell you. I think he made them.

But they'd be butter in them, wouldn't they.

No, I think that's why we make them. But we used them fable mushroom, like a smoky mushroom feeling for them, and it was like, I love bolts.

I'm going to make them this weekend. I don't think my kids have ever had a volivant.

I have never met you or them, and I'm going to assume they haven't. That's bad parenting, no, But for me, the seventies, is things suspended in jello that have no place being there. Yeah, I think there was a time that it could happen, and it was only in that window, And I think, what a delight, Like I love the images from that era of just shoving crap into jello and from like.

Olives, like savory things.

Like it's and it was in pure lime jello that tasted exactly like that sweet lime jello.

You know.

One of my favorite I have I collecked old cookbooks and two the special and that's one I've got from I think it's the early eighties. It's called Gourmet Vegetarian Cooking and the front cover is a shit, you're not a steamed culiflower. I'll send this photo to you, a steam cliflower with just chunky salsas sitting on the top. And it's like front cover image, like the only image the hero dish, the only dish photographed in the book.

Well, we've come full circle. We started talking about fruit suspended in jelly, and my grand's rules answered it, and then we ended with the savory version. I know that we started with the compatibility test, but I think it's very clear you and I would get along very very well. Zachary Bird, I think I win. Thank you so much for coming on the Christy Cast. You're a legend.

It's been a pleasure being here. And may all of your fruit be suspended and Jello do.

Not forget to send me the photo of that hideous qualifier.

Be punishing you with it any moment now. Thanks for having me