Hello Food Fam . This is The Walk and Talk Podcast , and I'm your host , Carl Fiedini . We are podcasting onsite at Ibis Images Studios , where food photography comes alive . Get with John Hernandez . Check him out at Ibisimagescom . Alright .
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So , whether you're a small business owner or a large corporation , Citrus America has the right juicing equipment for you . Find out more at CitrusAmericacom . Alright . So , Jeffrey Schlissel , my man , how the hell are you Just shush ? talk about the chicken and dumplings . Let's just get into that , because really that's all that counts right now .
You mean not the third time is a charm . Third time is a charm . It took me a while to get through that .
You've been gone for a little bit . You know You've got to get back on the saddle again .
You ain't lying . That is the truth . That is the truth .
Last time we did this it was shooting Dirty Dash for White Claw , which we're actually having some of their drinks .
Yes , we are indeed . I am actually having the wild cherry .
The peach is peachy Pea , tolly peachy , yes , peachy keen , yes . Throwback from the back in the day , yeah for sure .
Alright , so talk to you about chicken and dumplings , bro .
You know , getting something like chicken right . It's not spectacular , it's not sexy , it's chicken , it's a yard bird as everybody calls it . But to do something with chicken thymine , because you were like , hey , i want to challenge you . I'm like , oh okay , this , this , i love this game . So you said , hey , what can you do ?
And originally I was thinking , maybe doing I think I didn't go that way because we couldn't do it would be the chicken kottamblu , yeah . Yeah , that wouldn't have worked out for the thymine . I mean , i could have , but it would have been a little more difficult than what I was thinking of . So I'm glad I switched gears into the chicken and dumplings .
That's a kind of M2 . Yeah , because you know what ? Something about chicken and dumplings ? for me , it warms your soul .
Yeah , this food is . It's a spirit's food .
Yeah , it's comfort . Yeah , i mean it feels like me , ma just kind of hugging you as a kid and just bringing you in after you've like bumped your knee and they give you a thing of ice and a little bit or whatever .
I'm not a me ma say , or I was just grandma , But I do . I embrace me ma , though .
Yeah , i embrace it because my buddy , denny , introduced me to his me ma , who used to make cat head biscuits and she actually did the recipe . She was 95 when I met her and she literally walked down to the root cellar . And she's like Denny , you need to take him down to the root cellar . And I'm like what the heck is a root cellar ?
Being from Florida , you don't even know . Being an Appalachian , you do . It's called a root cellar . Where they stop , you know they have the cellar of all their pickles and jams and all that stuff . Literally walk downstairs . This is really cool .
Me ma had finished the biscuits And why we're talking about biscuits is because if you take biscuits , instead of baking them and steam them , you got dumplings .
And that is exactly what we had today is we had this wonderful , you know chicken stock and fortified that and with the thigh meat chicken and we kind of smoked it first , giving that little more complexity than just chicken thigh meat And then adding that layer of cream of sherry onto it brings it a whole nother level .
But I think what really was my experiment today was bought black garlic and black garlic is just amazing , you know spice and it brings some sweetness and complexity . And to make black garlic , normally it's like a three week , four week process of just putting it into a rice cooker and letting it cook down or ferment And you know day in day .
You check it and stuff . Or you go to restaurant Depot or somewhere else who supplies it and you pick up a bag yourself . Yeah , just buy it . Yeah , it's much easier . Who has time for that ? Not me , but the flavor of complex and the flavor profile is just amazing for it .
Well , so how we got to this was at Peninsula Food Service , where you know , obviously it's a protein distributor here in central Florida which everyone should know about . I mean , if you're a chef or an F&B , you know purchasing and whatnot . you know , check out Peninsula Food Service . So there was .
we had an extra case , yep , and you know the chicken thigh is on hand . So I said you know what ? And I thought about it . She was like you know what I'm going to do , i'm going to get this . We'll see if I can stump them , and well , i mean , chicken is chicken man , right , you can't , yeah , but this is fantastic . And the photography Even better .
He's even . Well , i don't know if it's better or worse . I mean , the photography is phenomenal , yeah , and the food Profile , the flavor profile of those dumplings man , it's stupid . Thanks , stupid . You know the good stupid , not the bad , right I ?
And again , it's like John when I sent him the recipe originally because you know I wanted to make for his wife because she's gluten-free , you know , free and she can use . She has other issues . So we plant-based as well , and all it is just swapping out the flour , for , you know , gluten flour , plant-based or non plant-based , with plant-based butter or cream .
Hmm , but it's so Ridiculously easy . I mean we have Caitlin , who's in the house helping out and she's doing some videos , and Mike It's 15 . It's like 20 minutes total . It's 15 minutes of coke and 10 minutes of , or five minutes of , prep .
Yeah , there wasn't much to it . What , what then ? what were the ingredients ? Well , so , because you do things a little bit different , yeah , it's not , you're just not traditional . I mean , this is southern , southern .
Floridian yeah , inspired , or whatever , yeah what ?
did you do ?
so it has a gluten , high gluten flour in it , has baking soda , baking powder , salt . I use smoke salt because I want to get layer of a little more complexity than just regular kosher salt . You can do sugar too . I use organic sugar or coconut sugar . I don't use like the plain process , like no , no offense to fluoric crystals .
I want to use organic sugar so it's less process . And then you then layer in the actual dumping mix what you want . You could do anything . I mean you could even take the powdered sriracha and put it in there , or lemongrass , black garlic , so you can add an Asian twist . Or you can go totally Korean and have some kimchi in there .
Go go Jang or go go wrong . You can do tithe influence . There's so many different avenues that you can put inside the actual dumping itself to make the flavor profile of the dumpling . Every time you hit the dumpling might be a different flavor than the actual sauce or the gravy or the soup that you're doing .
I don't want to get in the comp the whole thing , the sauce and the gravy thing .
I mean , but there you can . You were able to detect the layers you know , between . You know , if you took a bite and you had the , the chicken , the dumpling some peas on there , plus you have that , that sherry that was , you know , in the .
You know that was in in there as well , yeah , you know where the sherry came from in the restaurant . You and I both know it's on 17th Street causeway in Fort Lickardale . Okay , it's the one that used to be by the Aquarium Ocean world you . Then it became a culinary institute .
Okay for Elton , All right , for sure behind Bimmy twist .
No , not been me twist Bimmy Boatyard , Oh but a boat house that when they used to serve their conch chowder They used to bring you a side of cream of sherry and he would hit the conch chowder . That was the red base , bohemian style . There was something when you hit that cream of sherry in there that it leveled to the eighth Degree .
That just was like I gotta have this in a lot of different things .
That was a cool place . I remember when they built it . Yep , We used to do some business there too . Is it still around ?
Yeah , it's still there , the gene , the old GM . His brother was a famous guitarist . Look at yeah , Steve Vaughan .
No way .
Yeah , Ray Vaughan is was the GM Yeah , it's it's . It was a great guy , he . I was in the culinary industry , so my every time I could get out to go , my dad and I used to go over there . No , the other place we used to get to , the Southport raw bar , which is , you know , that's . That's been around for Flipping years . Think 50 , 60 years .
It's a long time . Yeah , that's a staple down there in Fort Lickard Hill , but again , that's where I got the whole idea of using that cream of sherry . And then , because of that Oakiness and the way they fortify that wine , it adds layers to it .
But when you're adding that layer and you've noticed how I cooked it went from Taking the butter and making what's called nizwets , which is the almond flavor that we got , and then once it hit that almond or that popcorn , as you said , yeah , adding in the flavor of their flour rather , and then mixing the flour , letting it cook .
So then what happens is the gluten activates once you hit it with the liquid . Then you start building .
But your flour , you had something in there . Right , you had a mix in there , some yeah .
The flour that I had had everything . I had all my mesm plus ready to go , and mesm plus means everything where it needs to be , and a lot of people think cooking is this Long and tedious thing . There are aspects of cooking . It is . Yeah , there are aspects . Mole is one . I will definitely say is probably the longest sauce that I make .
It's 23 steps , 23 to 25 steps . It could take me a good hour to do that .
I'm looking for step , just one step . Then ask me sitting down and eating you know that's .
You had it here today . I made everything in one step correct and you ate .
Regardless of the steps it takes for you . It's one step right , it's really just forked them out exactly .
But once you like , you put , start with the butter , you put in the garlic and then you build from there . You end up building the same layers and flavor .
When you have and here's a trick , pro tip If , if you're sauteing something in here , you're gonna have to add Dry herbs to it , hit it with the oil as you're sauteing , when Right at the beginning , unless you're gonna have to cook for a long period of time . So you don't want to burn those herbs .
If it's a quick saute , they're gonna know what we call Sweat . Sweat means that you're just getting a little bit of cook and then you add through it , like when you're sweating the onions . If you hit your herbs , then what will happen is you infuse the oil with the herb blend . So every Spoonful of sugar I call the spoonful of yumminess .
You're gonna have that yumminess in every single layer . And that's one of the things that's keyed for me , and I've learned that over a period of time working with different cultures and different cuisines . Like , why do you do that ? I was always the guy that would sit there and go . Why is 2 plus 2 equal 4 ? I wanted to know the intricacies .
Why do you put the butter ? than this than that . Why does it have to be these steps ?
You always struck me as the 2 plus 2 equals 7 . Yeah , usually , yeah , yeah .
I'd like to break it and rebuild .
As you know , with this show great , but you know it's delicious , speaking of a , you know delicious , this wild cherry with the La casada , did you try it with the ?
what she did ? She said you make a old-fashioned and then like do his floater on top , no .
Yeah , yeah , we're gonna . Hopefully we're gonna do more of these And we'll be able to experiment . Well , ashley's listening , so I'm Ashley , if you're hearing this . Wherever you are wherever you are . Let's make it happen . You hear me ?
not only that , we need to bring food into it , like a peach Marinated pork right , so that okay , yeah .
Yeah , now we're talking and and that's a whole another , that's a whole another deal . And you know What we're doing with chef Jefferson Schlissel of the Hollywood Schlissel is , we're expanding him into what we're doing here with the and within the whole you know walk-and-talk sphere Ecosystem .
If you will , so When we start filming some of your episodes , i think we should totally bring oh , heck , yeah , yeah .
I mean the peach , i mean even the pineapple , the pineapple with even doing something a whole tri-tip Smoke and a whole tri-tip and then putting like a pineapple black bean relish on top with that pineapples . Yeah , you see , your eyes are like can we do today ?
Well , you know what I'm doing every time my eyes go back and forth . It's No , i'm bringing in a flavor from memory , right , and I'm actually I'm doing my mental tasting .
Well , and that's funny because that's how people always ask me my wife always says don't you taste your food ? I'm like , yeah , i taste components of it , but I can't taste your steak going on to your table , right , because you're gonna be like why'd the why is there a piece missing ? Well , not only that , but don't touch my food exactly .
You know what I mean . Like so most of the chefs , what we do , and I call it like the matrix , we kind of see the stuff coming down and trickling okay , this is the flavor profile of a tri-tip or steak or whatever . Well , goes well with it . We start pairing it down and I'll give you a for an example .
You know Marvin had he wants to do a cooking thing and I was trying to think of just watermelon go with avocado , just just a thought , because I was trying to think how I can do different things with avocado and feta and do salad . So I opened up . This is a great book .
Another pro tip flavor matrix is one of these books that scientifically looks at the science behind why and how we Smell food , taste food and , if it will , they go together . And they broke it down and turn off . Melons and avocados go well together .
So when I do the pressed Content that I'm gonna do for him , his is gonna be more of a salad , but what I want to do for like a picture , is gonna be compressed with layers of , like , feta , watermelon , and I'm gonna have some kimchi .
We'll smoke something in a brulee the avocado one day just for my own , for me , because I might have told you the story before . But Years ago , when I was single , there was nothing in my refrigerator but I had a couple of pork chops and grapes , right I there was like no food , right , my favorite refrigerator .
I had some you know condiments and things like that , but I was starving . I was like man you know , what ? All right , i'm gonna have to do something here . So I I butterfly the , the pork chops , and I took the grapes and I just kind of smashed them in my fingers through in the frying pan .
Through in the frying pan I put some Some syrup whatever , some little spices that I had in there , and I sauteed it And it was awesome and I stuffed it and you know , i cooked the , the chops , whatever . I stuffed it in there and , dude , that was like how could it be wrong ?
I was amazing , but you know , as it turns out because I've told that story before and Somebody said well , you know , that's , that's Italian , like you're talking about mm-hmm as it turns out it is . I looked it up and it was . There was some sort of cuisine from way back , when it turns out that it's kind of where my family's from .
Oh , so maybe you know was DNA .
The whispers of the of your ancestors , ancestors , yeah , yeah , it's funny because I was doing some research and I don't remember the where I saw it . they were doing like roasted grapes and brie canapes , hmm , and they blistered the grapes . Oh my god , they were fantastic . So I would like you to recreate that .
Yeah , maybe we do like a little pasta , you know mm-hmm , and have that .
What kind , though ? like what's your go-to pasta ? and For me it depends on the meal . Like , what am I eating ?
Yeah , I mean at the end of it It's always Ricky's , you know really . Yeah , i Love Bukitini , i love them all , but when it comes down to like you said , like what you're go to , at home It's always well , it's like you gonna have pop a dell .
I mean you're gonna have like meat , because it's a fat wide noodle .
Well , you could do a lot with it . Yeah , but the return you know you can . You can put that with it down there .
Anything Well , you can stuff them to be it .
Well , that's too much work . It's for you , Right ? I mean I'll I see something like that like right on the menu look here on the menu . It says this that I'll have that .
I'll do it . Yeah , for sure . For me I've been the great as an appetizer and have like little , real little tonies and stuff with whatever cheese Moscow Poe or something like that and a little lamb in there .
You know what I ? you know I am a fat ass , right .
So I get to yeah .
I get the , the , the marshal pon , and I just get sugar and I just kind of drizzle the tarp and I eat it like right out of there .
Yeah , oh my god Yeah yeah , we , when we were in Detroit this past week , we ate at a restaurant We had to go to twice . Who's that good , it was Lebanese . And again , again , you look at food and you look at what .
What's why food is what it , the way it is for me Joseph , our good friend over at Malina . Oh , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah .
Remember he gave us the little oil that has the spice in it .
We talked about the olive smelling .
It was over at the Carol hotel . No , no , no , that's Dean Oh .
Dino right , and I never met Joseph . Dino's also from a dean is an awesome dude . Joseph is Lebanese . Oh , cool , cool cat . You know , we should do something with him too , with this .
Yeah , but that the Sammy over at Sahara , over in Dearborn Michigan , he we're gonna have him on the show . His garlic sauce Hands down some of the best stuff I've ever had .
There's actually , so right now I think we're there's almost a backlog of People we need to get on the show .
Yeah , Jeremy Abbey is one of them .
I'm gonna be working with him in next month . I'm thinking there's about a dozen We need . It's not more . We need to get cracking here .
Well we your schedule kind of opened up now so we can do it . I'm sorry .
Gotta , i gotta tell the way it is . True story ? Yeah , I mean it's . It's true , Yeah , but you will have fun doing it .
I mean not everybody's like waiting .
Manny , the one I just worked with over in Detroit so if the , if , the algorithm and Google is picking up on the , the vocal , the voice and the whole thing in words , mclaren .
Yeah , that's a big one . Mclaren team . Mclaren did a great job , team .
McLaren . So yeah , so talk about that .
Yeah . So my buddy out of California called me up . He's like , hey , would you like to do some work with me again ? It's been about three years that we worked together over at our mother job the big and glomerate And I was like , heck , yeah , man , i definitely want to go out and work with you , want to dance in the kitchen with you .
And he showed me pictures of this 53 or three foot Yeah , it's a 53 foot trailer and And part of it's like an office and part of it's a storage facility , and then the back one quarter of it is a kitchen to rationales four or five refrigerators and a six burner stove .
And that was it and We pumped out food for about 850 people in four days , hmm , and the last two days . That that's hell . That was pure hell . It was breakfast , lunch for n and snacks for 165 people times three , times two it's a lot of work .
Yeah , and , and people don't realize when you're out in the parking lot , because that's where we were , it's called human matrix services , right off Franklin and Jefferson . So we were at literally turn . One Funny thing is I'm on the plane and I'm talking to this girl and she's like what were you in there for ? I was like , oh , we're Detroit .
One of our drivers , place third , one of them place fourth , and the guy next to me on my left Goes . You cook for McLaren . I was stunned . I was like did you see us ? How did you know ? and he goes . You mentioned your guys . They were three , four , like oh , and you are , he goes . Well , my name is so and so and I do the audio visual for NBC .
Sports for .
F1 . I'm like nice to meet you . So cool , yeah . I mean , what the what are the irony behind it ? Like here's the dude that actually did the video was talking about it . He's like , yeah , the Catering scene is just unbelievable and that's a facet I ever , never , ever knew . That Chef's , every racing team has their own chef . That cooks .
Yeah , you know it's funny because back in That would have been like oh , maybe , oh , three , or four , my grand-predator , you were telling me about right , yeah , they did it . It was in downtown Miami and I was selling produce to the Audi team , audi , and it was cool .
So cool man , because first of all , chef walked me all behind scenes , i got to see the cars and you know they were doing some practice runs or whatever , and we were out on the golf cart on , like right on the other side as it was going right . Yeah , man , that was like .
That's one of my best memories and experiences in the food world , because and I think it was like a week , maybe it was a week or something like that but , dude , they spent like $6 or $7,000 .
I can tell you one of our drops from a major one We .
I'm talking about a hedge , just on veg and ours was eight grand .
Yeah , just for the one drop and forget about going to Costco and get the retail stuff . That was a problem . Another grand .
But I you know Mark and Tim , and all the guys over at team McLaren , steve the coach , the drivers , i mean never thought in my life that I'd be sitting in the middle of a parking lot in 90 degree weather Having and let me tell you something those trams hands flying by . Oh my god , the , the Decibels . You would hit over a hundred decibels .
A plane taking off 120 sounds like my wife and you . But that was what's even worse is the echo off the buildings and even with the door closed . I was talking to my daughter . I'm like hey , hold on . I opened the door . She's like my god , what is that ? and like that's the cars running ? and it would .
It was funny because you knew who was in last place , because you heard Boom , boom , boom , boom and it was pause near like last place , which you don't want to be that guy , but I understand . But the guy was really interesting , the . So they had races going on Saturday and Sunday . A 13 year old kid won the trans am one . It's his third time in a row .
No kid 13 years old because there's no age limit For that , that particular class . But let me tell you , those guys , those cars , the main event , that Grand Prix that that day was later on in the afternoon , i think was around two o'clock when McLaren and all the other teams went first , first lap .
They went , started Bing , boom , all this in the guy next to me . He's like , oh , that guy got a yellow . I'm like what happened ? What do you do ? He's like I don't know , it's probably somebody crashed . So literally on the first lap somebody crashed and they had a caution . So I mean , these guys do amazing 200 miles per hour .
Oh , there's that music . So listen what I want to do . I just want to talk a little bit about what's coming up here real fast . So a couple of weeks ago We did you were there , we did the , we did the video shoot for white claw . Yeah right , with their new line of the vodka and sodas . So came out awesome .
I just published , literally just now , the video , the first video that was with the Chef Julio behind the bar .
Yeah , yeah , this Saint the Saint , the dirty saint , a dirty saint on the dirty dash .
Yes , really cool . So that's the name of our cocktails . Show the dirty dash cocktail hour , and They actually came up with a cool drink called the dirty saint , and it's it's with wild cherry by white claw Through their spirits division . Amazing , in fact , we're drinking them right now . You know the just the cans and really awesome stuff .
So if you're out there and you didn't know that white claw actually produces Actual spirits , not just vodka and not just what we just found out . Yeah , so check them out , get on the website and Find out where you can get them . I know that right now you can get out to Sally Marr in Midtown Tampa . Have a good time . You're welcome .
Yeah , man , just good stuff also coming up . Is our again . I'll bring it up again . Is chef Jeffrey over here ?
I'm kind of expanding the role a little bit and we're going to be doing more of these photo shoots and You're gonna have a blog and you know we're almost done revamp in the website Where you know you're gonna have your own page along with the other restaurant recipe chefs you know ?
Here's the thing about that too . I mean , we're gonna have recipes to go along with it .
So if you want the recipes of the stuff that we're talking about , comment when you see these things we want to know , give us some feedback , let us know what we're doing , how we're doing , and if you want the recipe , throw it up there , because you guess what , eventually , we're gonna have this whole little library .
That's right , and there's more awesome stuff .
Coming up as well . You want to tell them what we're gonna do after this podcast . Quick chicken melt . Just think about that . Instead of a patty melt , don't a chicken melt , adding some kimchi , some Gruyere and some yumminess ?
Oh yeah , thanks again Penancella food service for the chicken , chicken thighs that we're doing this with . but yeah , man , i mean I'm super , super excited about kind of where we are and where we're going . Um , i , i want to get these recipes up there .
Like I want to have that whole situation tied down where you're going to put your stuff out there And Food stuff . Food stuff yeah , not the other stuff , no , no .
We don't need to see that .
Nobody does . We want listeners and viewers , right , this is true .
We don't want to turn them away . Okay , You know . this is why I get comments Like friends . tell me like your podcast is hysterical .
It will , because it is .
Well , we say stupid stuff like that . It totally You know . Thank God John wasn't in the room , he would be in his arms and just gonna shake it in the head .
So what you don't know is we had access to your bathroom at home .
Oh , that's wonderful , And there's a hidden camera where you are . Yeah , thank God . Yeah , i'm sorry , everyone .
True story . All right , did you want to kind of run into ? So did we talk about all the ingredients in the Pretty ?
much . Yeah , i mean , there's some spices inside the dumpling stew . I did a little poultry spice , some garlic , some sage , you want to . You know round it , but you can literally Listen . A recipe is just a recipe . Nobody's reinventing cuisine . It's been around . Unless we discover a new form of something like Fred and Adrian and his brother did , albert .
There's nothing else out there that we can do . That's gonna be different . Just use your imagination . That's the only thing that's gonna stop you , all right .
Well , you know . all right , everybody , we're gonna sign off . People look out for Chef Michael Calantes from Saseki . We're gonna be doing some big stuff with him too . I can't wait . There's some Michael things out there .
I can't wait to do the throw down over at the farm with Marvin Not the one that he wants to do , but I'm talking about all the chefs from the walk-and-talk . Imagine that , man , there's so many things , the food's gonna be ridiculous . I'm gonna gain like 70 pounds that day .
I already am . You know , i'm up like 20 pounds plus . It's not my fault , no , it's partly your fault .
No , listen , i didn't put your gun to your head . You can stop . I'm not the one that's feeding you . Spoon feeding you ? You are . No , your hand goes like this You literally Thank you , John . How many helpings did you have ?
You're like a dealer , You know you're gonna try this .
Well , hello , I am the kingpin of the baking cartel .
You're my fat dealer . You know what I mean . That's what you are My calorie dealer . Oh my God , you're terrible . Thank you , i resemble that . You're a terrible human . I'm gonna tell you what I guess you know . It's the first time back in the saddle .
You did good Little bit . You only said fat ass once .
But it's true . There I said once I'm a fat ass . Yeah , twice Yeah .
He didn't cuss John Today .
No effin' way , no effin' way . It's golf clap in the background . Yes , indeed , all right , thank you . Out there everyone . Check out Peninsula Food Service , out Malina international trading . Check out white images , white claw . Check out the bacon cartel . Check it all out soon , coming soon .
we're waiting for John Hernandez to finish the website he's got time you know , he doesn't , he does man , he's a busy person now we got to do this mass rapido man mass rapido , mass rapido .
Alright , we are out , haha , yeah .