Welcome to the solid verbal hull.
That for me, I'm a man, I'm forty. I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. You want to be happy for a day? Edith Steak is that woo woom?
And Dan and Tye, welcome back to the solid Verbo Boys and girls. My name is ty hilden Brand, joining me as always on this magnificent Friday, the one and only Dan Rubertstein. Sir, how you doing.
I'm pretty good, Ty, I can't complain. I just had a nice mug of coffee. We're recording earlier than usual, so I imagine both of us have more energy than people may be used to, So I can't complain, Tie. And the only thing I will say, and I'm about to say it now please, is I can't guarantee anything in the way of staying in this room behind this mic after drinking two bucks of coffee to take a break here and I don't know from eighteen to twenty three minutes if.
We hear dead air, We're just going to assume that your teeth are floating. You needed to step out, take care of some business, and then in Thista here.
Welcome back to the show. I'm ty.
He is Dan. Happy Fridays. Hope everyone is excited for the weekend. We are recording a little bit earlier than usual. As Dan said, this is a Thursday morning tea time for us, as we're going to talk through the news and do an interview with the gentlemen. We haven't had on the program in quite some time, which I don't know why, I have no reason for it, but Michael Felder, longtime friend of the show, it's going to stop by and speak with Dan here in just a little bit.
We're going to go through that news. As I said, if you don't already subscribe to the show, please do so. Now we got all sorts of excitement coming down the pipeline.
Here.
Soliverbal dot com is our website. You can find all the download links there. You can also find all the links to our social media accounts, our Instagram, our Twitter, our Facebook, our YouTube channel, and of course, if all those things aren't enough to satisfy you as an enterprising verballer, you can go on out to solidverbal dot reddit dot com and join up with the teeming community overballers that talk about each and every show long after the final bell.
Daniel if you want ties specifically write this down six to one, oh ur, just go straight to the source. TIS got you covered. So yeah, I think that covered everything. Ty, Let's get into some I don't know, Let's talk about what's going on. Let's talk about what's going on.
We have breaking news. I'm not gonna yell. I'm trying to maintain my voice for tomorrow. I'm in a big golf tournament.
I'll do an NPR boot boot boop.
A boop boop, which begs the question why do I need my voice for a golf tournament? But nonetheless, the Big Ten says it won't revisit decision to postpone fallse sports. That is, according to Kevin Warren, as you know, Dan, because this is kind of like a weird time, a lot of stuff going on. You check Twitter, fifteen minutes, you check it again, and pretty much the whole world changes. Yep, we've now firmly entered into that territory of fans who
have sources. There's always the worst time as it relates to sports content, but we're there now. And so amid all of this backlash with the Big Ten pulling the plug on its fall season, first Kevin Warren, new Commissioner, felt the need to speak out. He said on Wednesday via an open letter to the conference community that the vote by Big ten's Council of Presidents and Chancellors was quote overwhelmingly in support of postponing fall sports and will
not be revisited case closed. Quote. The decision was thorough and deliberative and based on sound feedback, guidance and advice for medical experts. Despite the decision to postpone fall sports, we continue our work to find a path forward that creates a healthy and safe environment for all Big ten
student athletes. Blah blah, blah blah blah. Okay, a number of headlines I guess that you could unpack from that, but chief among them is the fact that they're not going to be revisiting this plan to postpone fall sports. Stand Does that surprise you at all?
No? I think the surprising thing was the initial thing where there wasn't too much clarity. The messaging seem pretty muddled by the Big Ten in terms of who decided, how they decided, what factors went into deciding what the plan is moving forward, what the plan is for the fall, what the plan is for the winter or spring eligibility testing as it stands now testing goals as it relates to what they didn't feel like they could meet, what unknowns they we were concerned with, Why they were concerned
with it. I don't think they were hitting those specific messaging targets, and so now they seem to have done a better job of communicating the bullet points of their thinking. So I think it's if you make a decision, if it's based on what you consider to be sound reasons,
I can always appreciate sticking to that decision. It's the clarity thing to me, and the Big Ten is now at least taking a step forward for that, and I don't think they wanted to take a step of Okay, we decided this, but now there's saliva tests that we can get back further after. I think they send them to a lab. Don't quote me on that. It's not on site. We can get the saliva test back, so maybe that's encouraging. The thing is, though people are not
fully on campus, some schools are. I think you sent me a Penn State video that wasn't not great. No, it's not great, So I think it would have been even worse to say, you know what, maybe we'll do a five game season and just keep flip flopping. I think you got to stick to a plan and then do right by that plan instead of saying, well, make it, might change something next week and then the week after that. I think you just got to go with with what
the consensus seems to be. And that's what Kevin Warren pointed to.
Yeah, and to that frustration James Franklin. I think this was actually before Kevin Warren released the open letter. Franklin expressed frustration by the lack of communication from the Big Ten in canceling Fall Sports. I have the quote here from him. I am extremely frustrated because we still have very few answers to communicate to our young men and their families about their futures, and very little understanding of
the factors contributing to the decision. So, as we said on our Wednesday show, the interview we did with Ross Dellinger from SI part of the problem here, of course, the virus is what it all stems from, but the communications effort on behalf of the Big Ten especially has been sorely lacking. Hopefully this open letter from Kevin Warren
can do something to make that better. I did see Gene Smith offered a letter of his own, talked a little bit more about actively planning out how they might go about a season in the winter or the springtime. They're starting to think about those things now. Sandy Barber from Penn State had mentioned earlier in the week that she was starting to see plans for what she called
a compelling plan for a spring or winter season. My guess is, now that the Big Ten is here, we're going to find out more and more information regarding what that plan looks like. At least that's what I would hope for. But I understand the frustration, frankly, if you're a player on one of these teams, if you're a coach on one of these teams. Again, it's unfortunately, this
is not a problem isolated to anyone program. Within those programs, the little bubbles that they've created for themselves, by and large, they're all doing a pretty good job.
Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely, And I don't think that was ever really too much of a concern. On the Big ten level. We saw some you know, the Florida State thing popped up, and then the receiver Warren Thompson said Okay, I think I miscommunicated and I spoke too quickly, and then there were you know, Syracuse stoppage, and they weren't happy with how often they were being tested. But now the ACC is I think, did you see three times a week?
Yeah?
I think that's right.
Yeah, yeah, three times a week. So they're really ramping up efforts despite you know, I'm sure we're going to get to it in a second. Here some issues on campuses in terms of clusters, but yeah, I didn't see a specific Big Ten school that wasn't taking things seriously. I mean, even as it relates to James Franklin. If you remember the story that I think he was separating from his family because of health issues within his family. So James Franklin was sacrificing and taking this very seriously
to have a season. So just for him personally, the lack of clarity, the lack of communications, it had to be infuriating, especially as he is the one that has to explain it to his staff and everybody within the program and every single player, and when he isn't armed with the information, it's got to be maddening.
I get it, No, I do completely, So all right, We'll find out more on the Big ten front, but at least for the time being, let's put aside the fan rumors that I know are out there on Twitter and imors.
Though.
Did you see there? What was it the Biden VP pick? There were certain people were paying attention to tail numbers. I was like, oh, private plane tail numbers, and they've done that.
Y'all takes the back all right. You mentioned some of the on campus issues that are out there. We're seeing it at both North Carolina and Notre Dame. In both cases they have paused temporarily their athletics programs amid some rising case numbers on their respective campuses. On the Notre Dame front, this is a quote from Father John Jenkins. He says, our contact tracing analysis indicates that most infections are coming from off campus gatherings. Good going, guys, way to go, great, Thank you.
I wish you had got more specific. Most of most of the cases are coming from Brandan, Brandan, we see you on Orchard Street.
We see you.
Yeah.
Here is the thing, Okay. As Ross alluded to on the Wednesday show, there is a divide not just within the sport but around the country. We all know it regardless of how serious you take the virus, and there is a spectrum. I think we could all agree that the sheer optics of a large gathering among unmasked students is not going to bode well for college football.
No, not necessarily, it's not going to bode well.
It makes it harder for these institutions to move forward with any degree of normalcy. Consider the fact that they are coming at this almost entirely from a liability standpoint. You may not like to hear that, but that is reality. That's where we're at right now.
It's at least a large portion for sure.
That is where we're at right now. So to see pictures like that on Twitter and social media and in the news, it does not help our cause here, guys, that's all I'm saying. Please keep that in mind before you go out you're part of one of these off campus gatherings. I know a lot of people in the Notre Dame world were tweeting about some of these off campus gatherings, in particular two parties that some seniors through as students got back to campus. So, look, this is going to be recurring.
If you even tried to reason with a seventeen or eighteen year old tie, I don't. I don't fault them.
No, I get it.
I get it.
I you know how old are we. We're much older than that at this point.
I'm in my early to mid twenties, and I just I get it. I mean, being young and virile and all those things tight. You put hundreds thousands of frankly horny eighteen year olds, and I'm not saying horny for each other's bodies. I'm just saying horny for being eighteen, for doing just going out and having fun and being in college and getting away from mom and dad. Like what do you throw a bunch of beef into a lion pit? Like the lions ate it?
What?
Come on, guys, respect the beef.
Yeah, it's hard to it's hard to in earnest get angry at seeing eighteen year old college freshman nights, you know, sophomores, junior whatever, acting like college kids. It's on the schools for expecting anything different.
I would say I would, I would. Can't you agree with you?
Yeah?
I mean you've talked multiple times on this show. You're talking dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, of lucky Penn State freshmen coming into and out of your dorm room.
I get it.
It's sure this is something that you stick to and you stop talking about it recently, but you know, nobody forgets on this show.
We'll see what happens. I don't get down it, but I think we all understand that this is what's going to happen on college campuses, right, And look, we hope everyone's healthy. I don't know, I'm not rooting for this, but we hope everyone's healthy in that. Surely we can continue on with the sport that we love. But you know, as Ross said, well we'll have to give it a few weeks to find out where things end up on
the case front. By the way, on other Notre Dame fronts, they did announce that they're going to host South Florida on September the nineteenth. That's going to be their non conference game in place of was it Western? It was Western Michigan because the mac carceled so they needed to fill that spot. And looks like it's going to be USF on the nineteenth.
Bowls on a winning streak against Notre Dame. This is true, yes, very true. I don't remember if they've played since they beat Notre Dame. I can look that up, but I'm just going to decide not to. They did lose. Charlie Weiss was the coach or was that early? I might have been early, Kelly.
I don't even remember. I think I blacked out.
I just hope that you're sweating just a little bit.
I am a little bit, a little bit clammy underneath the arms right now. Okay, Florida State's gonna allow tailgating. Uh okay. Parking lots are going to open three hours before kickoff. Patrons must tailgate at their own spaces, and everyone should maintain a six foot social distancing standard between families and between tailgating areas. Face coverings are also encouraged
while walking through parking lots and socializing. Dan, you used to do digital series for a little website some may have heard of called Sports Illustrated dot Com SI dot com for short.
Yeah, SI tour Guy.
SI tour Guy. Can you elaborate a little bit on how you feel this plan will or won't work Once out in the wild.
I've seen every color of jello shot tie. I've seen shades of jello shot that would blow your mind. I've seen gradient jello shots. Bottom of the shot cup. It's green maybe, then a lime green, then a blue, and then an indigo. I've seen it all tie and what it leads to is social non distancing. Social cuddling is the word in the term I would use. It doesn't seem like a smart idea. It doesn't seem like we
need this now. If the idea is we should all really be taking care of ourselves to prevent both infection and perhaps unknowingly spreading infection, we should limit all of the things that are not fully essential around college football. And I get it because this show is about food. I mean this specific episode, if not the show at large, is about food and community and yelling about college football. And I think it can be argued that tailgating is
the single best part of college football culture. But we can take a far off. I think we can take a fall off and just do things at home and then show up to the game and practice safe procedures. You know, it's just it's not going to end well. Tailgating is a community thing.
That's the key point. There are probably a million people, not a million people, A lot of people who will go will tailgate responsibly and will enjoy themselves, and they'll say, well, I'm keeping to myself, I'm not interacting with anybody. I think this is safe, and in those cases it is safe, I would agree with you. There are a lot of cases where people will not abide by the rules, and that's where I think the whole ending badly thing is is a more realistic possibility. But I don't know. We'll
see how it goes, see how it goes that. I haven't heard of many other schools addressing the tailgating thing. My guess is that we'll probably hear more about this the closer we get to our purported kickoff of this twenty twenty weird fall season. We've got power three if you will.
But let me tell you something tight about what it's like at eight forty eight am at ten oh four am, at nine to twenty six am at West Virginia, at Washington, at Oklahoma State, at Tennessee, at Ohio State. We're talking about twenty two year old women, twenty seven year old dudes, nineteen year old dudes, sixty three year old women, fifty seven year old dudes, all putting their arms around me and saying, let me tell you about azyzy football. Let me tell you of Loma State so overrated.
You have the video footage you prove it.
I do, I absolutely do. So that's my own personal experience that those gradient colored jello shots lead to a lot of social cuddling.
So with strangers like me, with strangers like you, Yeah, total strangers.
They were very quick to say you need to put me on. Let me tell you about Clint.
Shelfeah at North Dakota State. They do it intense with like jet engine heaters to keep themselves warm.
Incredible a site to be hauling. Believe, peable bacon everywhere. I loved it.
But it's tough, throws our asses off, but incredible.
Yeah.
Final tidbit here that I have on the list before I interview, and this is actually very significant. This goes to one of the points I think that James Franklin had expressed some frustration with, and that was a whole thing around eligibility. The NCAA Council is now recommending that twenty twenty fall sports athletes retain the year of eligibility.
The Division one Council is recommending to the NCAA's Board of Governors that all college athletes whose sports are traditionally played in the Fall be allowed to keep their year of eligibility that is Yahoo and twenty four to seven sports as of Wednesday, naturally, after we hit the stop button on our podcast. This is a measure of potential eligibility relief that could ease the burden for schools and
players amid the ongoing pandemic. This is a big deal, Dan, This is something that I think we've addressed a little bit here and there in our conversations with Richard Johnson and Nicole Auerback. The whole idea of eligibility to some extent goes out the window in what could effectively be a lost cause for all fall sports in twenty twenty.
Sure, yeah, I know this is just good sense. And I know schools are going to have to figure out how to juggle because we have incoming freshmen and not necessarily outgoing underclassmen or seniors if they're maintaining eligibility, So scholarship juggling will become a thing. And they're not cheap. These are They're not just in class for free. Are There are checks being written by athletic departments. And I commend the schools and the NCAA and the conferences for
honoring scholarships, honoring eligibility. Because you're right, don't you know? We've already seen two major programs in North Carolina I think Michigan State and they're not playing, but North Carolina, Michigan State and now North Carolina as well Notre Dame. Excuse me pausing, already pausing things to get a sense of what's going on because of clusters and positive tests.
I saw the test. The positivity test right at Notre Dame was around twenty percent after three or four days, which not ideal in terms of spreading, especially to older people. So I do appreciate that the kids will not be affected in pursuing their dreams and completing eligibility and maximizing their NFL potential. So tip of the cap there, all right.
As always, if you have any further commentary, please do hit us up. We are Solidverbal at gmail dot com. You can also find us on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook. We love to keep the conversation going. I know, by the way, we still do have a reverblind open. I lied when I said last week we'd keep it open till Wednesday. We'll keep it open until this coming Wednesday. That's sound okay with you, Dan, that's great by me. Four toh eight verbal one. That's four eight eight three
seven two two five one. Call in if you've got any hot takes or thoughts about what we're seeing around the world of college football as it relates to postponements and delays and cancellations and all that. We'd love to hear from you, We really would. We'll mix it together. We'll get our boy Ryan to cut up a off season reverb segment.
Yeah. Also, I totally forgot when we were talking about the Big Ten perhaps exploring January options indoor facilities in various you know, Indianapolis and Detroit and places like that that are drivable to a number of schools. With Midwest and January inclement weather, I wanted to fit in the term tiodome, and I just didn't want that to be not in the ether. I didn't want that out in
the universe. If that's what we are getting, some combination of Midwestern dome play, I'm ready for it, the TiO Dome.
Our conversation today, specifically your conversation today is with longtime friend Michael Fielder. We haven't had Michael on in Forever for no good reason. We love Michael, we haven't just for whatever reason connected in what seems like forever. He is a video analyst for Stadium. He's also a co host on the Hand in the Dirt podcast, arguably the best podcast logo in the entire podcast year.
You do like it. I mean it's a really great title because it's regarding football and gardening and growing vegetables and all things that I think we all should be doing. So great title, great logo. Yeah, and with that, I could not be more excited to only tangentially talk college football because we have Michael Felder of Stadium. You've seen him breaking down games, players, plays, schemes, anything you could possibly want to learn about college football. He's doing it
for Stadium Michael Felder. But also if you follow I believe it's It's Felder on Instagram, you know that he does not eat store bought food. He makes food. He is in charge of his stomach and his family's stomachs, and that's why we have him here today. Michael Felder, thank you so much for rejoining the solid Verbal.
Yeah. I'm super hyped to come on. I'm excited and yes, I love that you the way that you put it to tangentially talk college football. There's so much madness up in the air and so many balls up in the air. But to be able to talk about it from this angle, I'm very excited because I do. I love food, I love ingredients, I love cooking. One.
There's no college football without food. Be it tailgating, be it watch parties, being it sad Thursday night acc game alone, eating something. They're just tied together, and they've always been for both of us for as long as we've been covering the sport. Let's start here. You cook, and you cook a lot, and you bake, and you smoke, and you grill and you roast and you saw Tay, How did you get started cooking? What was that process like for you?
Man? I think it's a kind of a two. There's two different paths. One. I loved cooking growing up, so I started cooking all this stuff my mom made because in my house and it's my mom and my two grandmas. If you wanted to, I wanted to be around my mom all the time. Is the way that my dad said it. I was always upper skirt and just following her around attached to her leg. But if you wanted to be in the kitchen, which is where they were, you had to do something, provide some value. Otherwise you're
just in the way. And so I started. The thing that got me started cooking was wanting to be near my mom and my grandmother's And it was literally, you know, you pull apart the greens, or you chop vegetables, or you do these things. And I graduated up the scales of pulling apart greens with my hands, to being able to use a knife to soak greens, to washing greens, to now all of a sudden, you can peel potatoes. And once you peel potatoes, now you can put them
in the water to bowl them. And then once you put them in the water to bowl them, now you can mash them, and you can mash the potato and then you can now work on the sweet potato pie.
And you can do this to the point where when I was probably I guess fourteen, maybe fifteen, I fried my first turkey for Thanksgiving for my family, and up until I moved to Chicago, I had been frying them ever since, for my not just my mom's, not just for my family, but also for my grandparents who lived in Fayetteville, which is like a three hour drive, but I would make sure to fry one for them, drive
it over, bring it back, and then come back. But then also for my brother's family and his in laws, I always did two twenty pound turkeys for them every year. And then we got to the point where my wife's co workers were like, Hey, we want to fry a turkey, but we're really scared, and so I would fry a turkey for them, And so we got to a point one year I think I fried probably seventeen or eighteen turkeys, what yes, for a couple for us. And this I
will tell you this is a pro tip. And we're out at Thanksgiving yet I know that, but pro tip for frying turkeys. Fry one bird first, put that bird out for people to eat off of in the morning they can pick off of it, and then fry the next bird that's actually your bird for dinner. That's just a pro tip because everyone wants the smell gets through the house, Everyone's going to want some, so fry too,
and you want those leftovers. And then the other thing, Dan is the other thing that got me into cooking and I was always I could cook. I cooked through college and made dinners for everybody and a lot of my mom's like her classic recipes. But then when I was at Bleacher Report, I was working on a really
big project and there was no demarcation. And as someone I understood you work from home as well, right, yeah, and so well we all work from home now, but correct as someone who was working from home, there was no demarcation from work to family, like time with my wife to bedtime.
Yeah, I didn't.
Have a hard out or and so I just worked around the clock and I was snacking and maybe we ordered something or we bought like a to go thing or and I was like, I need to get back into cook and I just I felt horrible, and so I had to get back into cooking. And cooking gives me a hard shut off on the day. It allows me to say no to doing radio when someone's like, let's do radio at six fifteen and I'm like, I don't. I don't want to do that.
I want to I'm dry brining. Then yeah, well.
It's good time with my family and shut things down. And so it gave me a good shut off, and then it also challenged my mind in a different way than football. And I don't know for people that don't work in this industry, and I know the forballers are they come from all they come from all walks of life. But when you work from you know, seven or eight in the morning until four thirty five o'clock in the afternoon, and you're all I'm doing is watching football. That's it.
That's all I'm doing. And so I needed something that challenged my mind in a different way, and cooking gave me sort of a decompression time, but also still felt challenging. Like that was my Rubik's cube, was figuring out how things worked. And I spent I spent one whole year roasting chicken, and it was split breasts to wings, to whole chickens to spat spatchcock cold chickens and figuring out the thing that worked the best and doing them on
the grill for stealing them in the oven. And then I spent a year working on braising, and it started in like twenty fourteen, different liquids, different proteins working on braising, and it really became a thing that I looked forward to once I could put sports down for the day. So that's those kind of two pairs. It's two separate paths, but they worked kind of together. I had the base knowledge that I needed because of my mother and my growing up in my family, but then I took and
expanded it. And then obviously with Hand of the Dirt the podcast expanded it to like growing my own stuff instead of just buying everything. And yeah, we with the exception of like some like super my Wife favorites, we I don't think have had from an ingredient standpoint or a composition standpoint, we haven't had a repeat meal since probably twenty fourteen.
That is a wild thing, So let's go there. I think a lot of people listening have their standbys, right They know how to make a burger, they know how to make a chili. You know, they'll throw together case ida is in a pinch or something like that. Where should people start If they're listening to this and they say, Okay, I want to push myself, I want to make more. And I think what you mentioned in terms of working all day and needing that hard out because people are
in less control of their lives right now. You can't go out to eat in the way you could. You can't see friends in the way you could right now. So cooking actually gives you a little bit of control back. You can control what's going on plates in a way that perhaps you didn't think about before. So if people are looking to get away from what I think we consider to be sort of mainstream standbys, winch are great. Where should people start to get more control of what
they're cooking? Is it on the grill, is it vegetable wise, is it bread wise? Where should they go?
I think there's a couple of different avenues. One, if you're someone who's super ambitious and wants to go into like you want to really challenge yourself, I think baking
is the way to go. From a baking bread. Not this sour dough that was like all the rage for the first month of quarantine, but like baking, like looking at make finding out how to make your own white loaf or your own wheatloaf, Like that's the thing we don't We haven't had store bought bread in a long time, because I have my own white loaf and I've modified the recipe to fit for me and what works from a consistency standpoint, I think that's what avenue if you're
really ambitious baking and pasta making if you really want to make.
Oh, you can control the sugar too. There's a lot more sugar in store brop bet store bought bread being go realize bingo so much sugar. I cut the sugar in half. And the other thing that I do is I use honey instead of sugar. Nice and it really it works. It works really well. And it's freezable too.
Yep, exactly. And that's the way because there's no actual preservatives in the bread. The way that you have to preserve it is I put it in the freezer. When I need it, I put it in the freezer, sliced, I slice it hand, slice it, put in the freezer slice but when I need some I take it out. It takes fifteen minutes to thaw and you can toast it and it's fine and there's no preservatives, which is awesome. So I would say pasta and bread making or my go to would be my like if you're super ambitious,
including like pizza Do. And if you just look up Thursday Night Pizza Do, it's a one hour Pizza Do recipe that is without fail. We'll give you what you get you where you need to be the other one that I would say, that's kind of not it's I think it's it's not to say that it's least it's less ambitious than baking, but I think it is more intense because baking there's so much time where you're resting things, right,
something's rest overnight. But for me, I would say, yeah, grilling or smoking, especially in I'm gonna I'll say it. I think grilling feels like some sort of a male dominated situation, right. And I'm friends with Nicole Auerback who works for the Athletic and she just now started grilling during quarantine and she absolutely loves it and didn't realize it was a thing that she could do, and she's like,
I'm learning so much. So I think grilling, if you're a person that has not grown, if you're a woman that felt intimidated by the grill, get into that. I think it's a cool way you can you pick your proteins, You learn about the balance of the fat, the salt, the sort of that sour umami flavor, You learn about all those things, and you really feel more power because like you don't have to have your boyfriend or husband come over and do it for you, like you can
do it yourself. So I think that's a huge thing for people who either have not grilled, and specifically for women who felt intimidated by the grill because it always seemed like, you know, you see your dad and your uncles gathered around the grill, huddled around the grill, looking at the grill. I think that's a I think it's a really cool skill to learn and to challenge yourself and to feel some power over that fire, those flames and whether charcoal or propane, you can get that job done.
And smoking is an extension of that. And I love using the smoker because it is I'm from North Carolina. I love eastern North Carolina barbecue. I think it is to me that is barbecue. I love vinegar.
So one of the things that's interesting about grilling, and I'm sure everybody listening to the show doesn't necessarily eat meat. You know, you have some vegetarians, you have some vegans, plant based people out there. And one of the things that I think I was probably too late to and this could be grilling, it could be roasting, it could be smoking, is and I laughed looking at your feed because you got very excited this spring about ramp season. Yes,
a root vegetable, what do you like? And ramps are fantastic. And when we can talk ramps, we can talk leaks, we can talk whatever you want, parsnips. But one of the things is, I don't know if people think about vegetables and charring and really getting crisp vegetables without having to deep fry that much. What do you do in terms of, you know, sort of bringing vegetables more forward.
So, oh man, this is I love this question because I love so going back to using your oven when we talked about baking. If you use your oven for roasting things like carrots, oh, it's the best. You get the sugar out of those carrots, and they're so delicious. You throw a little bit of cayenne, salt and pepper, olive oil, a little cayenne on there, and the robust.
Some spicy honey on there.
It's yes, there we go. It's so good. And on the grill, I'm going to tell you mentioned vegetables, but I'm going I'm gonna go fruit too. I think that do it. Watermelon on the grill with a little balsamic and maybe some goat cheese or some feta is fantast It sounds like it's so much, but the reality is, you slice those wedges pretty thick, you throw them on the grill. There's still a little chilled on the inside, but the outside gets a good char and they have
those natural sugars. Like when you grill, whether it's steak or it's chicken, you have to add something to get those that caramelization. And with fruit, it already has it because it's naturally sweet. Vegetables have a lot of that too, because even though they're vegetables, they still have some sweetness. And so I love you mentioned ramps. I love a grilled ramp. I also, we're in hatch chili season right now,
and hatch hatch chilies on the grill are remarkable. And yeah, so from a grill standpoint, the other thing I would say is take things that you cook inside, take them outside. You you're used to roasting a chicken, take that outside, put it on the grill. You can get a lot of the same flavors, but you'll also get a little bit more char, a little bit more that grill, especially if you using charcoal that grill, that smoke flavor. I
love that. And the other thing I was going to say, and you beat me to the punch when you when you mentioned the vegetables. I was going to say, is pick a different ingredient. Yeah, if you pick a new ingredient. We don't get parsnips on the regular in North Carolina. So when I moved to Chicago, I saw them when I'm going to the grocery store and I was like, let's try these. And you you know, you can google recipes, you can just try it out yourself. But through some
of those on the grill, and they were great. Put some in salt, they were fantastic. That's how I hate carrots. I have hated carrots my entire life. And I realized that if they are charred, they are good. They taste good all the way.
They're so good. I was, it's funny. I was talking to my parents about this, and my mom was complaining that she can't get my dad to eat vegetables. My dad loves crispy food. And I was like, just char the hell out of some cauliflower, chart the hell out of some broccoli, and hit it with some sea salt. It's not it's not all that complicated. You just have to think about what you can do to vegetables beyond
just putting them on a plate and steaming them. And by the way, your fruit thing, I will I will quarter some peaches and put them in a honey bath, just some honey.
I've had a major Chicago find good peaches.
I haven't yet. I had them in New York. I had some decent peaches, but I haven't found them in Chicago yet. But just big picture, anytime you can grill fruit and you get that charred sweet, even grilling vegetables charts sweet. It actually makes if you're also eating meat, it makes your meat better. You're adding variety to your plate, and all of a sudden you're having a more complete
eating experience. So I could not recommend enough. Whether it's pineapple, whether it's watermelon like you mentioned, and you get that a sweet salty thing that's hard to get with meat, you're getting actually a more complete flavor profile. Messing around with vegetables and fruit on the grill.
Oh, I am so excited, Like I am, like this is this is the stuff I love to talk about because it's it's kind of like where are my passion lies? And I think that choosing a different gradient, whether it be a fruit or a vegetable. I also think look at what meats on sale. We're living in like a weird time right now, and part of that weird time is looking at different cuts of meat because everyone is so locked into boneless, skinless chicken breasts, which I will
say this are the worst. They're the worst meat you can buy.
It's just it's difficult. I mean, you can it's the hardest thing you can make.
It's the hardest thing to cook. But it's the thing that most people go to that aren't good at cooking, right. It's no, It's totally true. Get your thighs. Thighs, you can cook them to death and they still are juicy. But you try a new ingredient, like we've been. I'm a New York strip guy, but New York strip has apparently it's people, that's the thing people know how to cook.
So it's been more expensive. So I've been buying a lot more of flank and skirt steak, and with flank and skirt, the good thing about them is I don't feel bad about a cheaper cut of meat, about throwing that waking up in the morning, going through going through my more routine late mid late morning, throwing that into a marinade that I make. You throw some hoists and some soy sauce. You work in a little bit of olive oil. You know, whatever spices that you're looking for,
you put those in there. Your fresh herbs or your dry herbs, you put those in there. You turn it over throughout the day in the refrigerator, you take it out an hour before you want to cook it. And now you've got a great skirt steak that you can use to as just eat a slice steak or guess what it's great on tacos tacos. Yes, it's fantastic.
And it's one of those things too where it's going to take three minutes aside, it takes no time once you're actually making things. And something I discover with this, and because everybody's life is a lot of people's lives are thrown sort of backwards right now, that's sort of a zen time too. You can throw on a podcast
and just sort of have your own little time. If you've got kids, if you're you know, with family, friends, whatever, it allows you to go outside and just sort of do your thing, whether it's turning a steak, whether it's making that sgetables. I wanted to ask you, and so I'm going to saturdays specifically, how do you strategize? Because I think like most people listening to here, and it's worked for you, it's a passion, it's fun for everybody listening.
But how do you build your saturdays around both cooking and watching? You know, because it's going eleven central to one central. How are you programming your schedule? You're doing it ahead of time? Are you waking up early? How do you strategize?
Yeah, it's an ahead of time thing because once eleven hits and everybody I know you're West Coast guy, like originally like it's yes, it's so people love this idea of nine am football. I'm North Carolina kid, I'm used to noon football. And what nuone also meant for me was I got to kind of lay around in bed until ten ten thirty, then get up, shower, get all my get my station, my workstation set up for the day,
and then go out and do my thing. And now that eleven o'clock cuts eleven o'clock plus a kid cuts that down so much that I got to do everything before and so we do Fridays, we do Burger Night and it's we grind our own meat here and handcut fries.
Wait, hold on, you grind if you have a hand grinder? Is an electric grinder with.
The kitchen aid using the kitchen aid, okay, grinder attach?
And what is what is the big advantage because people listening to this, I'm sure you go buy, you know, a couple pounds of ground beef at the market and you form it into patties and it goes on to the grill. What's the advantage of grinding your own meat? Is it a blend thing?
The two? Well, there's I think the blend is really good because depending on what meat, what beef is on sale. If we're doing beef burgers, you can pick your blend because let's say, you know, if hanger steaks on sale or short rip bone the short ribs are on sale, grab those and I can juice the fat up. I can juice the fat with a little bit of bacon fat.
Yep.
Can Also I've done burgers where we do burger we do beef with bacon in the burger.
Yep, we do Lamberger ground. You grind down like a pork belly.
Yeah, and so that's been really cool. And so I've started making my own bacon, which I got to get some to you. It's been really fine. Oh my god, it's been great.
It's so you buy your buying a pork belly. Are you grinding yourself, curing it myself or curing excuse me?
Yeah, curing it myself. And then then I put it on the grip, put it on the smoker, smoke it. Then you have your bacon. I freeze you know what I'm not going to use. You can take it off, you cut what you want. It's great.
Wow, what isn't worth the trouble? Because I hear you, and I'm hearing everything is worth the trouble. I'm hearing bake your own. I'm seeing pretzel buns. You're you're tweaking and figuring out, and I love the passion all around. But there has to be something where you're just like storebod is good enough as an element to something bigger and better.
Probably tortillas, I would say, if I had one thing, tortillas.
Tortillas are really they They are difficult because you're you're needing to get the right temperature, you're needing to get the right mix and water level, and you got to get really good corn flour or you need lard with traditional flower tortillas. I don't know if you've had the Milagro brand in Chicago. They're fantastic.
Yep, that's and we by we buy those or La Bandarita's because I just when i'm tacos are, I will admit this, and I don't want anyone to don't come.
After me safe plaisus are.
They're an afterthought for me. That's a thing I would never order or would never pick to have. But my wife loves them. So when it gets to be three thirty in the afternoon and I'm wrapped, getting close to wrapping up my work day, and she's like, what are we having for dinner? And I say, I didn't get that far yet. I know I want to make this, you know, I want to braise this pork. But I was thinking maybe we do sandwiches. She was like, she goes,
what about tacos? And I'm like, I have a tortilla press, yeah, but I say, don't. I don't want to make taco I don't want to do that tonight. Luckily, in the pantry we've got some pre made tacos that we can roll with.
It's and one of the things with tacos or anything with tortillas, if you throw them on your stove, not in a pan, just throw them right on the burners and you char them up on each side one. It sort of rehydrates them a little bit. It steams on the inside and you get a nice char on there. Any store bought tortilla is made thirty five percent better by charring it right before you you throw in your filling.
Yeah, and I'm I will say this, I'm lucky my my sister in law, she is Mexican and they they they don't make all their own tortillas either, So I'm like, I feel better about that. But oh, always on a gast of throw it's throwing the tortillas on the gas stove and just right on top and getting it done out. It's a thing I learned from them, m hmm, and from her that I have carried into my regular life.
She is who bought me the tortilla press because she was like, I know you're gonna want to make them yourself. And there are times when I do make them myself, right, especially if we want like mission burritos or something right, and you got to have those big boys, and you can't always find those in the store. So I'll make those myself and then I'll i throw them on the grill to get that same toasted effect. But if it's if it's Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday night tacos, we're gonna we're
going to the bag. That is the thing to me that's not worth it.
When you are in the market, what are your standbys for multi purpose that? Okay, this is what I'm always buying because I know I can get five different meals using this ingredient. That it's always just like, if you look hard enough, this isn't a lot of what I cook. Whole chickens, yep.
And I know they're intimidating to people, and I know a lot of people don't like bones, which goes back
to our boneless, skinless chicken thing. But I'm telling you, if you can get yourself comfortable with cutting out the backbone of that chicken, you can get depending on how much your family eats or the size of your family, but you can get at least two meals out of that, and you can get where you have a nice like a French country roasted you know that, you know what I mean, Like that roasted chicken with the rosemary and the lemons or stuffed in there, that herb roasted chicken.
You can get that and then that, whether it's the next day or the day after that, you pull that chicken apart and you either have soup or you have tacos, or you have a pulled chicken sandwich, or you have a Philly cheese a chick a chicken cheese steak. You have all those things. They're on the table for you. It's great. True. I'm gonna go with onions too. I think onions. Yep, that's an auto buy at the store. Get your onions. I'm a red onions guy. What kind of onions are you? Do?
You like sweet? Yellow? Usually because they saunte up nicely if you go raw, they're not as harsh on a a burger or cutting up on you know, into guacamole or something like that. I'll go with the sweet yellows. I like red, but that's generally the direction I go. I was gonna ask though, just with burger, because I know a lot of people listening that's going to be their plan for a lot of saturdays burgers and dogs. What is worth the effort? Is it the bun thing?
Is it blending your own meat thing? What to you is that first step where it's just like, okay, let's take what you were doing with burgers and let's just make it thirty percent better. What's the priority?
So I don't want to exclude anybody based on whether it's social economics or just space or equipment totally, So I'm gonna I'm gonna go buns. Anyone can make a bund. If you have a kitchen, you can make buns. Yes, So I'm going to go buns first. I am partial. I'll get to this in a second, but I'm partial to buns. I think buns are great. You can do it brioche, you can do the pretzel, but you control all of it. I will also say this, I don't know if you've had them before. English muffin hamburger is
top notch. Which is a thing you can buy at the store.
Yes, Oh, it stands up to a burger really really well.
Yes, those nooks and crannies they stand up to the juice really well. They stay together. Love English muff and burgers. So that to me, if you're if you're looking for a twist this week on when we get to the season, you're looking for twist this season English muffin burgers, people are gonna be like, what is this? And I had my first one. I believe it was in New York City, good grip. We're on the Upper East Side. I think some little bar restaurant and they did their their burgers
on an English maybe mellons. It might be, okay, I don't remember that. I don't remember the place it was. It was also the time when I walked up there from Midtown and saw Chris Fowler. I didn't say anything to him, but I saw him.
That is yeah, he lives uptown. I forget if it's the Upper East up or West.
Might be the West West, Upper West. Okay.
My big thing with burgers that has that has improved him by thirty percent that I get the most compliments on is over time. And you've talked about tweaking recipes and just finding what really clicks my burger sauce. It has made burger so much better. And I know a lot of people are quick too, and it's delicious. Just mix ketchup and mayo. Call it a day. Maybe throw
some salt in there and call it Thousand Island. If you look up burger sauce recipes, and I found one that I really liked from a restaurant called Husk both in it's in Charleston and Nashville. Now I think it's in Greenville. I started with their recipe for their burger sauce and I made it my own. And it's mayo and a thicker barbecue sauce, mustard chopped like really finely diced dill, pickles, serracha, lemon juice, salt, pepper onion salt, and I thrown a little bit of tortilla masa to
thicken it nice. And it's such a game changer to put thought into a burger sauce.
I'm a sawt listen sauce boy right here. Of course, I absolutely love sauce as I could go all day on those. If we were going to add to the things that I said that people can do to step their game up, sauce is another one of them. Learn how to make a gas stream, learn how to make an aoli. Those are all things that you can do. They're great. I love sauce, so yeah, I think adding
a sauce is fantastic. I've been playing with my own barbecue sauce, and the issue that I had had for a while is that once it's not warm anymore, it thickens too much. Yes, And playing with the vegetable oil or the olive oil component of that to keep it a little more loose so that I can pull it out of the fridge to use is important. But I mean molasses with bourbon you throw in you know, your onion and your garlic and all those things, and a
little seasoned salt and whatnot, and you get it. I love, I love a saucy burger, So yes, I think I would go bun, I would go sauce. Then I would go if you've got the time, the space, the ability to grind your own meat, I would go there. And the reason I say that is the thing about ground meat. That and I'm not one of these like weird I'm like, and I'm not going to call people freaks, but I'm not one of these people just like weirded out by
like meat. I'm not weirded by it, of course, but what I am weirded out by a little bit at least is the fact that that ground beef comes from a bunch of different cows. Yes, And there's something too knowing that that meat that I'm grinding came from this one cow. It's one piece of that cow's origin.
It's homogenous.
Yeah, yeah, that to me, I don't know. I find benefit to that. The same thing with like that's the same thing with vegetables, right, like you, I like to just get that one whole onion or that one whole bell pepper. I know what that is, and then I can I can cut it up myself. But I think it's the same thing with meat for me where I know, which is also probably why I buy whole chickens most of the time, because that's the whole thing. That's it,
that's the guy and that so. And I do think that there's a difference in quality, and you can do it in a food processor. I use the meat grinder, but there's a difference in the consistency where it's not those long strands, right. That makes it a lot easier to not just patty out. But it also I don't know, when you when you bite it, when you eat it, it tastes you can taste. The difference is what I'm.
Saying would have been your biggest failures. I mean, you mentioned barbecue sauce. But what if you were going to tell people I have failed at this already, so don't do what I did. What what are the failures people should skip or at least get beyond.
Oh read the instructions like it sounds so easy, but read like. There have been times when I was making what I've been baking bread, especially early, when I was baking bread, that I, you know, left out the vegetable oil, or I left out you know, I wanted to add rosemary into it and then I left that out, or I left leaving ingredients out because I wasn't reading close enough is incredibly frustrating. Pay attention to your oven. Oh yes, not knowing your oven is another huge sveil that I had.
And I will say this this is not my tip. This is a coach illustrated tip. But if you take just go buy the cheapest white bread you can find at the store, Put it onto a sheet pan, put it into your oven, turn your oven to three p fifty, give it ten fifteen minutes, and look where the bread is burned versus the bread is not cooked at all. And now you know your oven's hotspots very important, but I just didn't know. When I moved to Chicago. I didn't know the oven, and so stuff that I was
doing at home in Charlotte kept not working here. And the good thing is I've cooked enough that I could save stuff or turn it into something else. But there have been braizes where I take the lid off to get a char at the end, and all of a sudden, we've burnt something and we don't have any We got no more juice at the end because it's the broiler works way better on a gas oven than it does in an electric one, and so we've kept all the
juice out. And now I've got to figure out what I'm going to do with this meat that's a little bit dry we've got. Oh goodness, gracious, I have I told you missing ingredients on bread? Look looking, check and see if you're using baking soda or baking powder. Oh yeah, that is another one that's been huge, and it's they
don't do the same things. And when you're substituting ingredients, I advise that you write them down because maybe everyone's smarter than I am, but Dan, I have forgotten in the middle of trying to double a recipe, to double everything, and gotten to the point where, oh, this looks like crap. Well we're going to have to restart.
Yeah, restart Yeah.
And my most recent fail this key lime pie, and it's I forgot to spray or butter the pan, and so the gram crack her just kind of stuck to my Pyrex dish and I couldn't get it out. The filling tasted great, couldn't get the crust out. And that's happened to me two times. I think it happened to me with a pecan pie a couple of years ago. It happened to me with the key Lime pie, simply because I was so anxious to get the crust done
in the crust in that I forgot to spray. And guess what, you can't go back in spray once you've pressed out a gram cracker crust into a Pyrex dish.
Where do you look for recipes? Where are your sources? What do you look for in a recipe? Where do you what do you trust?
So I am I stand Chef John all day. Chef John. I think he's on all recipes yep. I love his white bread recipe that I've modified a little bit English muffin recipe. Same chef. John's the man. He does his thing, he handles his biz. I am a humongous Vivian Howard fan. And she is you know, she's from She's on PBS. Okay, she's from. A chef. She owns a restaurant called The
Chef and the Farmer. She own she does a show called it Chef in the f and it is I love it partially, well not even partially, largely because it's North Carolina recipes and like food that I grew up eating and food that I know really well and how to make it. But she puts little she's a classically trained chef where she puts a twist on all this Southern cuisine, right, this soul food, this southern good home good, down home eating. She puts an elevated twist on it.
And that kind of inspires me to take, you know, to take my mom's pork chops that she she spent her time like she made those, and now I'm and she used to get the pork chops, toss them in the in the flower, the seasoned flour and then we would fry them and they were so good, to the point where she used to fry decoy pork chops so that my brothers would take those, but not the ones we're going to have for my brother and I would not the ones we're gonna have for dinner.
But the seeming like a theme here, like the pre cooking theme to keep everybody happy while they wait.
Well, listen, if you cook, you know that you're eating the whole entire time, and of course you're not. If you're not eating while you're cooking, you're not tasting your food, then you don't know what you're putting out there.
That's a huge, huge deal is taste your food as you're cooking in to always be tasting your food as you're cooking in. Also, by the way, with recipes, one thing I really like to do. I don't have a ton of huge preferences in terms of destination, like I find bone appetite recipes are usually pretty good. America's Test Kitchen pretty good. I look for consensus where it's just like everybody's using soy sauce in a brine for this. That's that feels like the right move. If I across
the board. If I'm looking up recipes, I want to make an Asian skirt stick or whatever, and everybody's using, you know, honey and ginger. Okay, I'm noting that, and I want the whatever recipe I end up using to have honey in ginger's. That's me is crucial.
Oh, you're spot on when I'm looking for something that So I mentioned already find a new ingredient. So when I find a new ingredient, I'm like, does this go with this? So I look up. What I like to do is google the two ingredients, see if they go together, see how people have used them together. And then you pull up you know, if there are four or five recipes that call for the same ingredients in the same
kind of configuration. Now you pull up those four or five and you can kind of create your own Frankenstein's Monster of all those ingredients. Yep. To get to where you want to be. And I think that's really I think that's crucial. I think that's huge. And yeah, it just but to go back to what I was saying, the thing I've been doing the same reason. I love
Vivian Howard. I have her cook cookbook. My wife tried to go get her cookbook signed for me, wow, because I was on a work trip, because you know, I love She's I mean, she's from Kinston, North Carolina, Like that doesn't happen routinely, and she elevates all this stuff. And so what I've been doing is take the things that my mom cooked, the things I grew up learning how to eat, the things I grew up or grew up learning how to cook the things I grew up eating.
Let's add fresh herbs instead of dried herbs. Let's add a little brine or a little soak, a buttermilk brian or a little buttermilk soak. Let's add that to this mix to see if we can take it to the next level. And it works. It does, It works. That's what. There's a reason why there's a restaurant in like what is it, Tennessee that has like crazy expensive fried chicken because they do this expert buttermilk brine versus just what Popeye's does or what somebody's grandma does on Sundays for church.
So yep, it's that little elevation is something I'm always looking for. And once you think you got to this next level, try something else. And I'll tell you this, Dan, I love I love plating too. I absolutely love it. And I think that's another way that people can get more out of the cooking. Is it's not just stuff you slop on a plate and then and then and then you know, just you shovel down your throat. It's it can be art. Yeah, and you talked about it
with sauce. You spend your time making a gas streak and then what do you want to just slap it on there? Now, let's drizzle that on the plate and then find a way to put the things on there nicely and make it look good. And hey, it's not just that, like we're all we're all at home now, so let's make dinner a time that's visually pleasing to the eyes and it tastes good.
Let me tell you it's this as well. If you are dating, if you're single, and you have an ability to have go to's that are very clearly homemade, it is enormous. It is such a big deal because just selfishly, you will come across as thoughtful, You will come across as considering somebody's meal more though he made this for me, Yes,
oh absolutely, it's thoughtful. And is there. And this is something that I don't think people think about as well, just in terms of when you get started cooking, because you can do breaking bake desserts, whether it's cookies or brownies or whatever. You can make very simple desserts right out of a package from the grocery store. But if you go just a step further and make cookies and make brownies or make some kind of bar or whatever, it's something that, especially with dudes, I find because I
love making cookies. Cookies are great. I've got a lemon ricotta cookie that I sort of made my own from a Jota da Lorentis recipe of a salty chocolate chunk toffee recipe. I think it's a bonappetite cookie recipe. What is it that if you were to say, okay, specifically, let's be as specific as possible. There is a dude listening who wants to make dessert for a date and wants to be seen as sort of unexpected. What's the recommendation with I would say a relatively beginner skill level.
Beginner skill level, Oh, I think cookies are Brownies are your go to?
I think it's such an easy call.
Especially because with a brownie or a cookie. Nobody expects you to make your own ice cream. Correct, So you can have store bought ice cream with a homemade brownie and you still look like a star.
Oh it's I would, and I would lie if it's not true. I would lie and say it's your mom's recipe or your grandma's recipe, because that also makes you seem very connected to family, and you just oh, yeah, this is just you know, it's a special date. So I wanted to make special cookies. I think that's a huge deal.
Yeah, I think you're I mean the idea off you make, Like you mentioned those, the chocolate salty toffee cookies. Imagine if you make two of those, you get out your briers or your eaties or your dryers or whatever it is where you live. You scoop one scoop of ice cream out, you put it in between there, you make an ice cream sandwich. You guys go sit on the patio and watch, whether it's fireworks or you do whatever. That's I think that's I think that's amazing.
It's a no brainer. It's an absolute no brain. You mentioned a little bit of gardening. That's that's a level. And you talk about it on your podcast. Hand in the dirt. That's a level that I don't think people even if if they're living in an apartment, if they're living in a house, whatever. Where should people start with gardening? Is it just basil and cilantro, something that you can grow out a pot on just a porch or whatever?
How far should people go? Where are the difference makers in the dirt?
Yeah? Go herbs first? Yeah, you think about how much we spin on herbs in the grocery store. True, go herbs first, and you can harvest your own herbs. You make your own fresh pesto and pro tip, freeze that stuff and like an ice and like an ice cube tray. Ooh interesting, you got Yeah, you got it for days
freezing an ice cube tray. I got Listen. I'm a tips and tricks guy because I am always trying to figure out how to maximize the space, especially now in Chicago where we have we do have we're lucky enough to have two refrigerators with fringers on the top, but we don't have space for gardening. So herbs first, rosemary, basil, cilantro,
great love tomatoes. My neighbor, they get all the sun we don't get any of the sun that they get, but they're growing a bunch of tomatoes and peppers which are fantastic.
And people are happy to give them away because over a summer bucket full, you get a bucket full. And this goes back to charring your fruits and vegetables. I just made a charred tomato salsa where you just you char up the halopanos, tomatoes, onions, garlic, you throw it in a blender with a little bit of lime, maybe cilantro, and salt and it's it's maybe a twenty two minute process. It is a nothing process, and it's so much better than any store bought salsa you will ever find.
Yeah, I'm right there with you. We did a show with Elizabeth Flake, who's she's by trade. She's a wedding planner, which their industry has been hit hard obviously. Yeah, but she also has been working on the farm that she grew up on in Pilot Mountain, North Carolina, and she they canned forty jars of salsa and they're doing a bunch of different types of pickles. So like that. Yeah, salsa is a great way and if your neighbors give you some tomatoes and then you can give them back salsa.
That is a great kind of way to be neighborly type thing. So I am all for it. I think herbs are where you start. I also I'm a I'm not gonna I'm a flower lover, like it doesn't all have to be food, but I love a flower too.
No, it's true.
You can get some flowers in there's what's your go to Vinka's and geraniums.
Wow, man, you are you were covering the entire table. Yeah, this is not just the food part.
You are.
You're creating centerpieces in your lawn working on it. That's amazing. What do you what is your big picture? And I just asked this, I think on the solid Reble Instagram feed. What is your big goal for the fall season in terms of mastering, tweaking, totally learning something new food wise? What is the fall of twenty twenty? Hopefully we have a season where you're just like, Okay, this fall I am I'm getting reps in doing blank.
If I'm talking about what I want to master going into the fall from a I want to grow lettuce more lettuce. I had some success in North Carolina growing Swiss yard and spinach, and I want to figure out how to do Swiss yard cabbage spinach, grow that in Charlotte, but then also use it here. And I feel like I've got pasta pretty down pat. So the next thing that I want to do, and this is a little ambitious. And we talked about my me not particularly gloving making tortillas,
but my wife loves raps. She eats a rap in the morning for lunch, for breakfast, she eats a rap in the midday for lunch. She loves raps. So I want to be able to go from spinach or Swiss yard in my own container garden to in my house to make a spinach rap for her that's made from my spinach that I hand roll out or hand pressed, that was spinach mixed.
With a flower of some kind to make to make some sort of rap.
Yes, right, I can do it imposta. I've done it in pasta. I've done it in pasta very well. I can do it in pasta. I've made red pepper pasta. I've done squidding pasta. I've done spinach pasta, jalapeno pasta, done all that. Have not done it from a rap standpoint, from a tortilla standpoint. And that's the thing. It does feel intimidating. And I say, this is someone who's a relatively accomplished cook, but it feels intimidating. And so that's my next that's the thing I want to do this fall.
So is there anything that your average ambitious person, but your average at home cook beyond burger buns? Beyond getting better with a whole chicken? And we haven't really mentioned seafood at all, But if you are coaching up somebody at home, is there anything else this fall that they should make the added effort to not necessarily master, but at least.
Try try out all your tools. Oh okay, yeah, I'm going to go. Listen. I didn't mean to turn it, drive the car to the left, but I'm going to go try it all your No, you're good. Like there are so many people that I know, and you know, back in the before days, I would go and we would have dinner at someone's house and I would be helping them cook. Or I would go cook dinner at someone's house as that because they hosted the party, but
I would do the cooking. And I'm going through their drawers and cabinets and they have all this stuff that they've never touched. Because you get married, you get all these things, and you've you've you've gone through bed bath and beyond or Creighton barrel whatever and clicked all these buttons, and you have all this stuff. You have to start zesting. Yeah, use your garlic press. Use your garlic press, use your zester. Find out what that weird thing that looks like it
looks like? Uh like, find out how to use your your juicer. You like your lime and limon juicer to do that out use those things.
Use a magic bullet because get a smooths.
Yes, get us Oh my goodness. Yeah, like use that stuff. And I think that's to me, that's number one one. To get good with.
Knives nice, keep your knife sharp too.
Oh that is my best friend Scott Ryan Taylor play for the packers for att while. What do you even see with me? He never hesitates to repeat. The most dangerous thing in the kitchen is a dull knife.
Yeah, oh absolutely, and it costs nothing. It costs nothing to sharpen your knife, and it makes such a big difference as you slice things all day if that's what you're doing.
Yep, get good with knives. Get sharp knives, because food should be sliced, it should be dice, it should be minced, it should not be sawed, which is what you have to do with a dull knife.
I also will say this, look up go to YouTube. Go to YouTube and look up dishes you want to get better at, and you will not only learn recipes, you'll learn techniques. You'll learn, oh, don't chop like this, or this is how you roast something like this, and you will find channels you like, you will find recipes you like, and you will get better at technique. It's
just it's doing it every day. It's getting comfortable, because nobody's good when they start, but it's And I also say, if there's a restaurant you like, if there's even like a national you know, food personality you really like, and you see something that they make, or you've eaten something at the restaurant you like, google the recipe these.
People have out of copycat.
Yeah, there's copycat stuff. There's cookbooks where it's just like you go to the meatball shop in New York and like, oh, those were really good chicken meatballs. You can just google chicken meatballs, meatball shop and you're probably going to find that recipe. More of those exist, More of those recipe sites with specific things you've eaten and like exists than you realize.
Yeah, it's I mean, it's a combination of muscle memory when it comes to the actual technique and tools work. It's expanding your skill set and it's just looking just look. Yeah, you want like And I think the thing is is you want to have pizza tonight. Instead of ordering pizza, google the ingredients to make your own dough, make your own sauce, and throw some pepperoni on it, and you're good to go.
Yeah, and you know what, the first time might not be great, but one you're not just tasting the food. You're tasting accomplishment because you're actually producing something. And the second time is gonna be even better. Third time even better than that.
Oh man, Okay, and yeah this I'm gonna I know, I know, we're gonna go. I just two things I was gonna say, please. One, I will give this pro tip for cooking pizzas. Get yourself a pizza stone. They are not expensive, yep. And get yourself a pizza peel. They are also not expensive because then when you have those two things. You throw a little corn meal on
the peel, a cornmeal on the stone. You can put your uncooked pizza on the pizza peel and put it off into the stone like a pizza parlor or like a pizza restaurant, instead of par cooking your crust and then taking it out of the oven and then topping it and then put it back in. It's a great way to do it. Pizza on the grill. By the way, if you put your pizza stone on your gas grill, it's going to get hotter than your oven will ever get. Yep,
it's a pro tip. The other thing I was going to say, Oh my gosh, I think I just forgot about it. I think it. I was so excited about the pizza peel thing, I forgot about what else I was going to say. But oh, oh, cooking. Cooking it's the same as podcasting. And this is the thing that I have said to a couple people. It's like sex. You're not going to be good at it the first time, but the more you do it, the better you're gonna be.
Yeah, especially if you learn all the tools like you just mentioned, If you learn about all of your tools at hand, you're just going to get better. Oh, it's so true. It's one thousand percent true. I think that's a perfect place to end this. Felder, Please tell people where to find everything in anything you produce, and where to find the pictures of your food. And by the way, I think that's the one place. And this is I know this is antagonistic for for having a guest on
and criticizing them. Your plating is fantastic, but I think the photography that's that's become a passion of mine. And I don't know if it's a phone thing. I don't know, if it's a light thing, I don't know if it's whatever it is. I think we need to have a conversation about your food photography. That's my only criticism.
Yeah, I got to get better at that. Listen, it's you and it's my brother, both of you guys coming at me for this. I listen, at some point, I'm just going to break down and get the DSLR. And and they're not pricy.
It's you don't even need the DSLR. It's more about And I have this conversation with our friend Jeff Schwartz all the time. He's trying to get as good as his brother is. At food photography, it's about light. It's about sometimes you just got to move your plate next to the natural daylight at the window and get like, get a good scene.
I can't.
Yeah, I mean I might.
I might just have to start moving these cameras around and dialing in the light and just go that way.
Oh you get You get a nice camera though with the light and you get that bouquet, that creamy blurriness in the background. It does. It makes a difference. As somebody very vain about food photography, I will say.
I'm taking the criticism. I'm taking it. I'm hearing it. I'm appreciating it because this means that you care, and I appreciate it.
Of course. I look at your food on Instagram. It was like, damn it, this dude is so good and so dedicated and this food looks so good. But I think that's the missing piece for you right now. That's that's my note. That's it.
There we go. I got it, So listen, folks. On that note, make sure you follow me at in the Bleachers on Twitter, yep on Instagram to see my not properly lit photos at It's Felder. I'm on watchstadium dot com. We're doing we're working on some digital series include and as well as the shows that you can find depending on who your cable provider is. And I do Trash
Treasure podcasts with Amina Smith. But and I will say this, and we talked about it a little bit when it came to grow, I'd love doing Hand in the Dirt podcast. It is so awesome to do to talk about not sports or sports adjacent.
Yep.
It's basically hand of the Dirt. It's a gardening podcast about football, and we have college football people on, but we also have gardening people on. And if you want to send a voice memo, win send us in a voice memo. But we love doing the show. It's been really fun and this has been really fun as well. Thank you so much for thinking to me, of.
Course, Mike Felder, thank you very much for your time.
Already, Dan, good chat.
Yes, Ty, if you are going to give me a vanity episode to nerd out about food and cooking and growing vegetables and figuring out ways to utilize ingredients and multiple dishes and strategize for saturdays and leftovers, I'm going to take that opportunity, and I'm going to run with it. So I'm very thankful that you were able to step aside and allow for me to take off on the caloric runway that I was able to do.
Caloric runway. It seems like a good way to wish people fond to do as they head into the weekend. Look, whether you're out there on the golf course or whether you're out there having a picnic with friends and family, hopefully keeping your distance and staying safe. We wish you all well. We thank you so much for supporting the show, for downloading the podcast, don't forget, Please do subscribe, Please do leave us a review, preferably of the five star variety.
If you like what we do, all that stuff helps us and follow along on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and the like. Daniel, hope you have a good weekend.
Hey, Ty, you too, Stay stretching, you know, ice your knees, if you have a heating pad, treat the lower back correctly, get plenty of sleep, drink plenty of water, and do your best to unwash how washed. I'm sure you and I already are.
For that guy over there, my good friend Dan Rubnstein, for myself, Ty Hilton Brandt, have yourself a great weekend. We'll catch you all on the flip side in the meantime. Stay safe, stay a solid peace MHM.