July 2, 2025

Armenian-Mexican Fusion with Chef Ara Zada: From Lavash to Laughter| Wine Talks

Armenian-Mexican Fusion with Chef Ara Zada: From Lavash to Laughter| Wine Talks

When I told my wife I was interviewing Chef Ara Zada...she was like..."I follow him!""He is great!" She never says that about me. I guess I need to learn how to make "fusion"cuisine with Mediterranean food!. Chef Ara Zada has a storied career and now turned food influencer. We had a blast together.

Ara Zada is the kind of guest who makes you wish your phone had a “smell-o-vision” app—and by the end of this episode, you’ll know why. Step into the kitchen-turned-studio where Ara, chef, content creator, and avid bow hunter, cooks up much more than what’s on the plate. You’ll discover what happens when the authenticity of Armenian-Egyptian family recipes gets filtered through French culinary training and the relentless demands of social media stardom. Ara dissects with candor the creative (and literal) balancing act behind daily content creation, sharing how his brand blossomed from a commitment to consistency, pressure, and staying “on message” while still keeping things decidedly fun. Beyond that, you’ll hear firsthand how the nostalgia of food can collapse decades in a single bite—how a dish, made with the right memory and technique, can bring both chef and eater “back home.” There are surprising lessons too—from the truth about hacking legacy dishes (hint: your grandma may have had more time on her hands than you do) to honoring every part of an animal in sustainable, hands-on cuisine. Paul and Ara delve into why culinary traditions resist—or embrace—modernization, how taste buds evolve, and why memory and flavor are inseparable companions. You’ll walk away with an intimate look at crafting a culinary career in the digital age, the importance of staying curious and genuine, and why giving someone a hot plate of food is still one of the best ways to connect. Whether you’re here for the food nostalgia, the mindset behind a thousand viral videos, or inspiration for tomorrow’s dinner, this episode promises to feed your curiosity—and maybe remind you of your own family table.

✅ What does it take to turn food memories into culinary fame?

✅ Chef, content creator, and bow hunter Ara Zada spills his secrets on building a mouthwatering brand, going from home-cooked classics to viral foodie stardom.

✅ Host Paul Kalemkiarian takes you behind the scenes on Wine Talks as they dive into food, culture, content creation, and why authentic storytelling wins in the kitchen (and online).

✅ Get ready to learn, laugh, and feel hungry—this episode is pure flavor and heart. Tune in to hear how nostalgia and innovation can launch your next delicious adventure! #WineTalksPodcast #AraZada #PaulKalemkiarian

#winepodcast #winetalks #winelover #winetasting #foodandwine #armataste #arazada #culinaryinspiration #armeniancuisine #fusionfood #foodmemories #cookbook #contentcreator #socialmediaforchefs #chefslife #wineculture #pasowine #bowhunting #foodstylist #familytraditions

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For me, cooking is like, I love eating, of course, but the

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reaction that people give is more

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validating than anything. I'm looking for

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somebody to eat the food more than the finished product.

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And in that excitement, when someone says it brings you back home.

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When I make a video and people say, I haven't seen this

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dish since my grandma made it. Thank you for bringing this back to me.

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That warms my heart. Sit back and grab a glass.

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It's Wine Talks with Paul K.

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Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay. And we are in studio today,

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but to have a conversation with Ara Zada. Zada or Zeta Zeta

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Ada Zeta introductions in just a second. You gotta listen

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to Zaya Unan. It's

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up now. This gentleman came from Iran at 13

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years old. The story is, I'm gonna say, freaking

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incredible. So have a listen to that, but not while we're here. We're here to

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have a conversation with Ar Zada. He's the chef, an entrepreneur, a

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snowboarder, a bow hunter and a content creator. And I think the list

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goes on. It goes on and on. Welcome to the show. There's a lot. Thanks

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for having me. Thanks for having me. I was like fascinated because I was reading

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about your history and when I told my wife that you were

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coming on the show, she goes, how do you know him? I said, I don't.

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I just saw him at the, I mean, I just saw him across the room

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at the Armenian basketball thing. And he says, she says, well, I follow

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him. Yeah, you know, it's.

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A lot of people follow me now. It's kind of crazy. It's, it's. Social media

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has kind of blown up my space the past three years, I. Would

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say, you know, it's interesting because we were talking about some of our background and

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history and I mean, let's think about it for a second. You

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are, you grew up in an Armenian family, an Egyptian Armenian family, as I did.

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And we were just sharing notes on the foods that we ate, which is pretty

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unique cuz my wife is Bar. Oh, okay. Amazing. So I had to eat that

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stuff. That's great. I love, I don't necess. I wouldn't call it, I don't, I.

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Like, I like this Stewie hearty, like Persian Armenian dishes.

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Amazing. But then, you know, now we fast forward all of

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sort of that culture into social networking. Exactly. And

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it's, it's blown up. You have great stuff, people

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follow you and it becomes, it's so interesting to me because of. It

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becomes the Persona who you are. Really. Exactly. It's.

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Social media is a, is a wild space. It's crazy, it's fun, it's

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exciting. You get to do a lot of things

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and you know, some people create a character that they kind of

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play, right? I'm just myself, right? So I'm the same person.

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I get this a lot. People see me on the streets, like, wait, you're exactly

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the same as you are in your videos. Like, yeah, just, I'm just

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filming myself having fun. I think that's an important part of it.

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But you've, you've, your whole career has

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now because of that. Do you feel pressure? Like I feel pressure when

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I'm got to create content. I was just writing something when you walked in and

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I'm like, ah, you know, I'm going to get in front of the camera. And

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I think you're, I think your position is the right one. Just be yourself. You

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know, it. There is a lot of pressure. This is the parts that nobody really

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knows. There's, there's a demand. And I, I

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committed three years ago, it was 2022,

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December 16th. There was a reason for all this, but I

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committed to making a new video every single day. And when I did, everything

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blew up. And now, I mean, fast forward, we're up

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in the thousands of videos that have created new content.

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And there's a pressure of like, what am I doing? What am I doing this

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week? What am I scheduling? What am I putting out? Is it going to be

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good content? You know, know, is it new? Is it creative? Is it exciting?

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And so there is that pressure and there's

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a demand for it. I mean, people want it. People. So you think, but do

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you think it's accurate? Like I, you read about how to do this

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and, and I've done a long time. I have 1500 videos on YouTube. I

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was filming tasting notes long time ago. But wine's a very

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narrow subject. But I always feel like I might.

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Are they going to be interested in this? Is it trendy?

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Should I follow the trends? Shouldn't, shouldn't I follow trends? Should I just, you know,

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those things weigh into it. But most of the pundits just say, just

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do it. Yeah. So with social media, I tell people a lot of the

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times, like a lot of people get wrapped up in like,

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is it going to be good? I need to make it perfect. I need

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to make it a certain way. You know, just doing

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it is half the battle. Right. But following trends

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is key. Staying on brand is another

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key. Like for me, for example,

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I eat a lot of sushi. But if I do

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on it, you know, that's the thing. If I do like fish dishes,

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they, they don't do as well in the video. So I do raw fish. It

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doesn't do as well. So, like, you kind of have to stay on brand and

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in your space, so. Interesting. But I'm French trained. Right. I did

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recipe and product development for a very long time, so I can literally cook

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anything. And I don't. I'm not like in a space,

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but through my social media platform, I am in a certain space.

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I like to open up a little bit and then you kind of come back

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to where you need to be. But my favorite thing to do is fusion food.

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So I like to mix cultures and ingredients and I

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think that's how you evolve in anything. It's evolving

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food in its, in its finest form. If you mixed different

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colors of paint to create new colors, you can have

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magical artwork. Right. If you just stuck with red, yellow and

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blue forever, art would be stagnant. So this is kind of like the same

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space for me. And you went to Cordon Bleu, the one in Pasadena? I

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did. I did like Cordon Blue.

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Well, I mean, my, my daughter's French trained Bleu anger. She went to

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Paris. Amazing looked there. And she's. She. But she ended up at the ICA in

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New York for savory and

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great career. It's a very challenging career and a very competitive career.

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Did you go into Cordon Bleu thinking you're going to be a TV chef or

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your dream was to be a TV chef? My dream has always been to be

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in front of the camera. That's just, even when I was a little kid, I've

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always liked it. Oh, you have three cameras here. Hey, that's what I like. That's

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why I'm here. So I've always liked it. I've always enjoyed it.

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I've thrived in that space. Yeah. When I originally went to

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culinary school, I left the family business, which was printing,

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and I was like, I'm going to culinary

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school. My grandpa's like, no, you'll never make a career. Cooks don't make

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money on all this stuff. But I, I realized I was

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going home every day from the family business to cook, to

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kind of decompress. And that was like my outlet. And I was like,

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if I'm doing this to, to, you know, for fun, why not make money?

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I went to culinary school. I had a dream of opening up a restaurant.

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It was a bar and grill. I love it and that

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I still do. That dream quickly changed because

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I realized that all the work it would take to

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open a restaurant and maintain a restaurant and be in the restaurant,

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it wouldn't allow me to have family life. And for me that was super

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important. And I wanted to. I wanted to be able to

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hang out with my kids as they grew up. And that was already in

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the back of my head. So I found different avenues. I did a bunch of

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restaurant stuff coming out. Then I got into food TV

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and I got into food styling. Wow. So kind of back of the

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house stuff. And I remember I worked my way

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through that space pretty well. And then I became a lead

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food stylist on some big talk shows in la. Is that a. Do you think

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that was. I mean is. You have to have a break in this industry

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like you would the movies or any. Anything else has been like you get that

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break that you get a chance to do that or is just hard work and

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you know, persevere. It was a lot of that kind of

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came from the people you know. Right. And you kind of. I made some connections

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pretty early on at a culinary school. I

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interned with Jamie Oliver. Oh, well there, that's pretty good name.

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I did really well in culinary school. I got straight A's. Not like that

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matters at all. When you come out, nobody goes, what were your grades in culinary

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school? Nobody cares. Yeah. But I got straight A's

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and I was always in school. I was always like a

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B student. Yeah, I was always good at remembering things,

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but I wasn't good at applying homework. So I'd get A's on all the tests,

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but I'd never do classwork or homework. Sorry. And so I was always a

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B student. Yeah, I went to culinary school. I was an A

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student cuz I was doing everything and I was really into it,

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so. Applying it, applying it. And I was. I was good at what I

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did. And I got an internship with Jamie Oliver

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after that. He asked me to teach on his. He had a

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mobile cooking truck and he asked me to teach

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on that truck. Pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. So like. And then from that

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space I met a bunch of his food stylists. We worked on a TV show.

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It's just. It just worked. There was a lot of things happening.

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You know, essentially you said decompress. Let's go back to for a second. Yeah,

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my mom was incredible cook. We were talking about that since we both grew up

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in a similar household making, you know like Bamia and. Yeah. And the

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fool we love Fool. Like my friends In Palace

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Verdes, you know, Surf's town. Yeah. We're like, what the hell is that smell?

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Yes. Yes. And I go, but you gotta taste this palace. So,

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so much. We had similar backgrounds, and my daughter, who

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loved my mother and loved being in the kitchen with her, but

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she had the exact same response you did, which was when I got home from

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work and she was cooking or baking. I knew she had a tough day at

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school. Amazing. Either at softball or whatever she was doing, because that

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was the way she shed everything. It's.

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There's. And I love it too. Some people just do that. Yeah. You know,

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it's. It's. And some people hate it. Yes.

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We like our. My daughter lives. Our older daughter. Her house did not

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burn in the fire, but she's living with us. And I will

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refuse to let them call doordash and all that stuff. And

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we cook every night. That's the way to do it. So I'm very happy to

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have these rubs. There we go. Because I get this. And I just smelled a

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few of them. They are, like, smelling my home. It's. It's

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pretty crazy. It brings you back. Yeah. You know, you open some of these things

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and it brings you back. So we were up. We

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went to. When my daughter was trying to figure out what to do with Savory,

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we went to Napa, and I go there all the time. We're going there tomorrow.

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Amazing. And. And we went to Greystone, we went to Ica, and we got

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this lecture. And I want to get your opinion on this. The guy, first of

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all, he made some stupid dish for the potential students of

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this thing. I don't know what. It was like a tomato wrap, cheese thing. I

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was really dumb. But the. The

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pitch he was giving was more like, skip

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college, go to go to school. And.

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And it wasn't saying you're going to become a TV star,

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but certainly it was in the background of everybody's mind that this potentially could

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be what we're doing. And, you know, that's the furthest from the truth. It could

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be because once you go into the workforce, you're on the line. Yeah. You

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know, for eight hours. It's different. It's different. It's different.

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There's a lot of advantages, you know, to going to college, to

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going to culinary school, to doing all of these things. You know, being

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on the line for eight hours teaches you a lot of stuff.

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Yes. Grit. But it's.

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It's different than trying to be in front of the camera and being a,

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you know, a TV star. Yeah, right. No, it's two different things.

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Completely, completely different things. And it's a different. It's a different animal, different beast.

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Both have their perks, you know, but it just takes,

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I think it takes a certain kind of person

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to do both of them. Right. You know, it's really hard to do. I mean,

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she, my daughter had her

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ambition to be a cook and a baker primarily.

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Yeah, a baker. That's the thing. I don't. I can bake, but it's.

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It's not my favorite thing to do. She sought out, went to Isanjo

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outside of Leon. Then she cooked in Paris for Alain de Cast, came

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to, came to la, fixed a bunch of bed bread programs for people, worked

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at Superba and then went to New York and worked at Lincoln.

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Amazing. And then started with Jonathan Beno. That's amazing. Yeah.

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And then he were. They earned a star. And then co

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hit three, six years later and it was, that was the end of it. And

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somebody stole the star off the building. No way.

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But all that to say this

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is a hard, tough road and you chose that road to do

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and you're successful at it and you have to continue to manage the

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success. Yeah. You have to work it. Yeah. So

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like with anything, and I tell my kids this

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all the time, it takes work. None of this stuff will fall

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on your lap. None of this stuff is easy. No matter what it is you

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want to do, you have to put in the time, you have to put in

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the hours. With social media now, I

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basically wake up at 6am and I don't finish doing

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what I'm doing usually till around 10. Wow. I do everything myself

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and yeah, I. Know what that feels like.

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So start to finish editing everything I do. We're at a point

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now some of my longer format stuff which we're working on is my YouTube stuff.

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I now have an awesome cameraman and he helps me with

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that because my short format stuff is so time

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consuming. So it is, it is work and

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you gotta make it also seem like it's not that much work. That's

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what makes it fun. Yes. So I enjoy it. I love doing

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this. It's fun and it just takes time. I was just writing a script.

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I plan on making some content today. I'm not as prolific as you are,

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but I did find some help in Serbia. Serbia? Yes. Oh,

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some editing. Yes. I love that. It's unbelievable. I'll happy to

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share the name with you because he does a really good job. Yeah, it's very

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reasonable. Okay. I love it very Quick. I love that. So what happened was

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I was in Italy doing a podcast. They put me in a glass room. Okay.

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Like the worst acoustics in the world, right? Yeah. And then. And they gave

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and then they turned the air conditioner on. Okay. So it's. Now it's loud and

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the voice is bouncing all over the place. I wasn't using these mice because they're

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too big to carry to Italy. So I have my little road

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band mics, which pick up everything as they're supposed to. So I.

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I gave it to five audio engineers in

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through upwork, and this guy's came back like. Like we were in

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studio. No way. Yeah. Because he's done about 200 episodes for me. No way.

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Yeah. It's pretty amazing. That's awesome. So. So what is that

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daily routine now? Exactly. Like, so creating content,

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doing recipes still. Yeah. So

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6:00am, I kind of wake up and I start my posting.

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So I post on IG, Facebook,

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TikTok, and YouTube. Wow. You fill

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in captions on all of them. You have to.

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I fill in the auto captions from each platform.

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So it takes time because the platforms like using their own captions for sure.

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Yeah. So there's that portion. Then we kind of kick

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into what are we cooking today? Shopping almost

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daily and coming shooting. I try to

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shoot, if I can, two to three,

254
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so that I can leave the other days to

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editing. But usually it doesn't work out that way.

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Best plans? Yeah, I like to get a little bit

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ahead. And then the biggest thing is I try to create enough content. So at

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the very least the weekends when my kids are home,

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I'm not scrambling to create or edit. So I like

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to try and take Saturday and Sunday off from the

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filming and editing portion.

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So you've got to schedule it in your head anyway, at least what you. Want

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to get done, mapped out. And then now

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there's, you know, and as I keep growing, there's various things that pop

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up, like today. So podcasts,

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things like that, appearances, events,

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live cooking demos that I do. So those. All those things

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plug in, kind of take away from a whole day of work in

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production. So you have to do like yesterday I shot three videos.

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Today I'm not going to be able to shoot, but I have things in the

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pipeline. Wednesday, I'm out all day shooting a YouTube video.

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Right. So I have to look forward or kind of think ahead. Thursday,

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I'll have some time after the morning to edit and

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shoot so that I have things for the weekend. And it just goes

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again. That's the you know, going to Napa like we

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are tomorrow, I have to worry about what I'm going to publish

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and then, But I do get four or five episodes in the can.

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That's it. And then you. But you. Then you want to keep that. Yes, you

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want that. But it's not that easy. Yeah, yeah. So if you can keep the

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can full, like right now I have three in the can and one edited.

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So I'm ready to go. And then I need to edit those three

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and then I can move forward. But I like to it in an

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ideal situation, I would literally have three fully edited ready to

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go. Wow. And those are already scheduled in my head when

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I'm posting. But it, it always gets mixed up. And then,

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you know, towards the end of the night, you still have to engage in each

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platform a little bit. Right? Sure. Yeah. That's part of the deal. Yeah. So

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I moved. I. And I try to tell my kids this now to stop

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consuming, to start creating. But you have to

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engage in a certain way when you are creating. So like you can't just

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leave the platform dead. You can't post and post and ghost is what they call

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it. You can't just put. You have to post now. You have to engage a

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certain amount in each content. So I have colleagues

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or associates, if you will, friends that I've collabed with and

295
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people that are all content creators and they pop up on my feed

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and then we like and comment and share on each other's stuff so that

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everyone kind of grows together. The algorithm likes that. It's all.

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You're slave to this magical algorithm which is super fun. Which

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nobody knows, but. Yeah, but it's mass. It's awesome. My niece

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started a salad dressing line. Amazing. Armenian infused, Armenian

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influenced. Okay. And she's, she

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used to work here. Okay. And she's very prolific socially

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and she's now relaunching and she's changed some of the recipes.

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But one of her, I'm not gonna say disappointments, but one of her understandings because

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she, she thought you could become an influencer, you know, with relatively little

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work. And, and now she's like. She did 25

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salads in 25 days kind of thing. Yeah. And it's, you know, that's a lot.

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What's the salad dressing called? Love. I know I have that dressing. She sent them

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to me. So she's, she's. I was like, I don't want to say it if

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it's not the right formulated. She's got new. She had sent some

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to Me? Yeah. Let me ask you about this. I'm a huge

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devotee of the 80s when Joachim Splichat was here and Ken

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Frank and Jonathan Waxman and Michael

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McCarty, all these guys were creating what is today's food culture. And of

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course, it's evolving. Is that part of A, inspiration or

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B, sort of understanding the history of how this stuff came about and

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what might bring. Or not. It's not part of it. Not really. Not for

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me. I know a bit about it, but

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that wasn't. That didn't lead me into this path.

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I would say my.

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The love for food, my grandparents, my grandma, my mom kind of

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inspired that portion of it. Sure. The. The. The food.

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Celebrity chef. Sorry, Celebrity chef action.

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That kind of space was probably most

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inspired, I would say, by Emeril's show. Oh,

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really? Yeah. When I was a. When I was a kid is. I guess my

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mom would watch it all the time. She loved it. It was always on. So

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I was like, this is kind of awesome. This dude is just cooking. He's got

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a full audience, and he's just cooking, having a great time. Yeah.

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I was fortunate enough to actually work a TNT show with

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Emerald on camera. You

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sell convection oven form. I work with

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him. So we did three. Was it eight. Sorry, eight episodes on TNT

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on this show called on the Menu. And

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I hung out with him. He's a super nice guy. We were

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cooking backstage together, doing family meal, and it was super cool.

337
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That's really cool. Very nice guy. That's really cool.

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You were talking about something that just gave me a thought that I thought

339
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was so interesting. But the. His. The history part of this food part,

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which I think is really interesting. I think it's really important that that

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happened in America because now it set the platform

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or the stage for creativity in the food. Yeah. It wasn't really around

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before that. You know, it's. It's interesting to see the

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evolution of food, how

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it's gotten bigger, how celebrity chefs

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are now the rock stars. Like, if you go to Vegas and you're

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driving down, there's billboards of celebrity chefs. Wow.

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All over the hotels, you know, where. You know, in the

349
00:21:29,790 --> 00:21:33,310
80s and 90s, it was all rock stars. Right. Like music.

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Right? That's right. And Right. It's. It's crazy now. If you.

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If you look around, it's never the wine guy. Why is that? It's not. Why

352
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don't I go? Because you guys are just chilling on a couch, having some

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cheese. You know, Nancy Silverton's coming on the show.

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Soon. Amazing. And her boyfriend is Armenian. Really? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know

355
00:21:51,830 --> 00:21:55,470
that. Yeah. Their mates, they've been forever. His name is Michael Krikorian.

356
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That's awesome. He was the LA Times writer for the Gang

357
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Beat writer, actually. Oh, really? Interesting guy. No way. Yeah. So I was

358
00:22:02,910 --> 00:22:06,150
bugging him to get her on. Get her on the show, but there's another guy,

359
00:22:07,190 --> 00:22:10,950
he was on the show recently, too. Crazy story.

360
00:22:10,950 --> 00:22:14,750
He's. He's a critic. A food critic, basically. Okay. He's from

361
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Lebanon. Okay. Ryan. Ryan. I have to look up his name,

362
00:22:18,710 --> 00:22:22,310
but he was a dentist. Yeah, yeah, I know. You're talking about. No.

363
00:22:22,310 --> 00:22:26,160
No onions, no garlic. Yeah, that's fine. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this

364
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:30,000
guy was a dentist and he was watching TV with his patients

365
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as he's, you know, pulling their teeth. And it was the Bourdain

366
00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:36,200
show. Yeah, yeah. And he thought, I could do that.

367
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He's killing it right now. He's killing it on YouTube. It's unbelievable. And he dumps

368
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his whole career as a dentist and kills. And he's just going around reviewing

369
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food. And you were talking about equipment when he walked in. He sat where you're

370
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:50,990
sitting and he certainly appreciated the microphones, but

371
00:22:50,990 --> 00:22:53,110
took his road. New road.

372
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Wireless Pro, they're called. Yeah, I have those. Phenomenal. He just clipped

373
00:22:58,230 --> 00:23:01,910
it here and he. Just recorded the whole thing. Two iPhones. Amazing. That was the

374
00:23:01,910 --> 00:23:05,630
whole show. And here I am lugging all this equipment across the world, trying to,

375
00:23:05,630 --> 00:23:09,190
you. Know, shoot something that, you know, it's. When it comes to equipment,

376
00:23:09,350 --> 00:23:12,150
I have some really nice cameras, but

377
00:23:12,230 --> 00:23:15,990
95% of the time just iPhone. And they're going to get better.

378
00:23:16,230 --> 00:23:19,830
It just. I. That's another thing. But I always buy the newest and latest and

379
00:23:19,830 --> 00:23:23,580
greatest, so I'm always working over money. But that's the livelihood. I mean, the

380
00:23:23,580 --> 00:23:27,420
camera quality is so high that you don't necessarily.

381
00:23:27,420 --> 00:23:31,260
For what I do. Yeah, you don't necessarily need much. Oh, great. I

382
00:23:31,260 --> 00:23:34,980
don't need my 6k black magic. I'll tell you what, when I.

383
00:23:34,980 --> 00:23:38,740
When I shoot lighting, the lighting is important. So I have full

384
00:23:38,740 --> 00:23:42,580
lights. Oh, yeah, there is full light set up. There's. There is different tripods everywhere.

385
00:23:42,580 --> 00:23:46,020
The camera moves constantly. Mic setup. So audio

386
00:23:46,340 --> 00:23:50,080
and lighting is very important, but it's

387
00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:53,640
critical. So you're talking about shopping.

388
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:57,480
And this is another part of America changing. You know, one of the things

389
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I envy about European culture, particularly the French,

390
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:05,320
that they protect their regional stuff like they protect their butter, they protect their

391
00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:09,080
cheese. Regional. And it's a very important part of their culture and we don't have

392
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:12,840
that here. Really. No, but we have moved into, you know,

393
00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:16,410
what you eat eats mentality. Not just you are what you

394
00:24:16,410 --> 00:24:20,170
eat. Yes. But you are what you eat eats. Yes. Whatever the

395
00:24:20,170 --> 00:24:23,810
animal is eating. Right. Is organic and

396
00:24:23,810 --> 00:24:27,530
biodynamic, something that, that you gravitate towards.

397
00:24:27,530 --> 00:24:31,130
So beef culture. Because he talks about your. Yes. That's

398
00:24:31,130 --> 00:24:34,530
interesting. I am an avid bow hunter.

399
00:24:35,170 --> 00:24:37,970
Yeah, right. Bow. I am. Like, I didn't. For me,

400
00:24:38,770 --> 00:24:42,360
harvesting my own food is really

401
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:46,360
what I like to feed my family. So and, and doing it

402
00:24:46,360 --> 00:24:50,040
in the way that I do it. I mean, I talk to a lot of

403
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:53,480
anti hunters. Right? Yeah. And many anti

404
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:57,119
hunters. Oh, you're killing animals and this and this. And like if you eat

405
00:24:57,119 --> 00:25:00,840
meat and you're, you have a problem with killing an animal

406
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:04,280
to eat the meat, it doesn't make sense. No. But every

407
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:08,010
anti hunter I've talked to, by the end of the conversation, it's always, it

408
00:25:08,010 --> 00:25:11,770
always ends with, well, we like, we can appreciate what you do. I just

409
00:25:11,770 --> 00:25:15,530
don't like the other guys. It happens all the

410
00:25:15,530 --> 00:25:19,170
time. But I train. I'm an avid bow hunter. Archery

411
00:25:19,170 --> 00:25:23,010
is part of my life. Yeah, Right here. Yes. Always have an

412
00:25:23,010 --> 00:25:26,450
arrow in. And I shoot my bow every day

413
00:25:26,610 --> 00:25:30,410
to make sure that when I'm killing an animal, it's

414
00:25:30,410 --> 00:25:34,250
in the most humane way possible. One arrow, you're out there. It's very primitive.

415
00:25:34,250 --> 00:25:37,990
You versus them. You have to get close. You can't pluck them off from

416
00:25:37,990 --> 00:25:41,710
2, 300 yards. And then I do every step of the

417
00:25:41,710 --> 00:25:45,390
way. So. Wow. I, I feel dress it,

418
00:25:45,390 --> 00:25:48,790
I bring it, I skin it, I butcher it, I pack it,

419
00:25:49,910 --> 00:25:53,350
freeze it, cook it, I feed my family with it.

420
00:25:53,350 --> 00:25:57,030
Wow. So people say from field to plate. I like to say from field to

421
00:25:57,030 --> 00:26:00,830
toilet. That's the whole cycle.

422
00:26:00,830 --> 00:26:04,350
I do the whole thing. It's like this, like literally

423
00:26:04,750 --> 00:26:08,110
this is, it's a passion for me and

424
00:26:08,670 --> 00:26:12,470
I honor the animals as best as possible. I constantly talk about

425
00:26:12,470 --> 00:26:16,310
them. I do mount my animals and people always like, oh, when

426
00:26:16,310 --> 00:26:19,230
you're mounting them, it's a thing. I said, no, it's a way to honor the

427
00:26:19,230 --> 00:26:22,750
animal. Because when I feed my kids the food

428
00:26:22,910 --> 00:26:26,590
and like I point to the deer or the elk

429
00:26:26,590 --> 00:26:30,270
or whatever it is, I go, it took seven days

430
00:26:30,270 --> 00:26:33,550
to get that animal. It was, it wasn't like we walked up side of the

431
00:26:33,550 --> 00:26:37,070
road and just shot it. Seven days of hiking 10 to 15

432
00:26:37,150 --> 00:26:40,990
miles, we finally got an animal. Now we used every

433
00:26:40,990 --> 00:26:43,950
single part of it. I mean, I use the bones for stock.

434
00:26:44,590 --> 00:26:47,550
I mean, one of the deer, I've took the femur bone and had it turned

435
00:26:47,550 --> 00:26:51,230
into a knife. I. I literally use every part of it. Wow.

436
00:26:51,390 --> 00:26:55,160
And. And I know what that animal has been eating. I

437
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:58,920
know what my kids are eating now. And I also like to pair,

438
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:02,840
you know, the food that they are eating with

439
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:06,600
the meat. So like, let's say we go to sage country and the deer are

440
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:09,960
all eating sage. I like to cook some sage in

441
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:14,200
with the meat. And it's not like it comes out of the meat, but there,

442
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,840
there's different highlights. Like if you do a white tail deer that doesn't really

443
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:21,550
eat sage, you know, they're feeding on berries and stuff. You put

444
00:27:21,550 --> 00:27:25,310
sage in it. It doesn't hit like a mule deer that eats. That would be.

445
00:27:25,310 --> 00:27:29,030
I. That would make sense because it's just like the Iberian pigs when they eat,

446
00:27:29,190 --> 00:27:32,790
you know. Exactly. Acorns. Exactly. Get that character. Fatty. You get the

447
00:27:32,790 --> 00:27:36,390
character from it. We can't eat acorns. But yeah, you get

448
00:27:36,390 --> 00:27:39,910
that. That. The nuts, you know, and that, that. That actually

449
00:27:40,230 --> 00:27:43,910
your description just then is. Makes it so much more. I don't say romantic is

450
00:27:43,910 --> 00:27:47,670
not the right word because when I. My first career was selling copiers,

451
00:27:47,670 --> 00:27:51,390
I used to sell in Vernon. No way. And so you would, you'd go

452
00:27:51,390 --> 00:27:55,190
to these lunch places and you'd watch the cows coming off the truck.

453
00:27:55,270 --> 00:27:59,070
Yeah. And by the time they got the end of the shoot, you know, they

454
00:27:59,070 --> 00:28:02,830
been. They'd been killed by the over the hoffy plant. But how could you,

455
00:28:02,830 --> 00:28:06,550
you know? Yeah, exact. Yeah. Right. Calan dog food was there all the

456
00:28:06,550 --> 00:28:10,390
way there. Right, Farmer John? Yeah. Yeah. But the point being, you're right

457
00:28:10,390 --> 00:28:14,150
if, if you're doing it that way, how can somebody who eats meat or

458
00:28:14,150 --> 00:28:17,930
fish or anything object to that? You can't. Compared to what the

459
00:28:17,930 --> 00:28:21,690
alternative is. And that's, that's the conversation I have. Like, I am not

460
00:28:21,690 --> 00:28:25,210
a trophy hunter. I am after the meat. And I

461
00:28:25,210 --> 00:28:28,770
honestly don't really care if they have huge antlers or they

462
00:28:28,770 --> 00:28:32,410
don't. I mean it's. It obviously it's cooler if you. They do have big

463
00:28:32,410 --> 00:28:35,810
antlers, but it doesn't really matter to me. I'm literally after the meat. And I

464
00:28:35,810 --> 00:28:39,610
have four freezers. I fill them up. When it comes to beef, I like

465
00:28:39,610 --> 00:28:43,410
to buy. I split a cow with a friend of mine. Right. I don't

466
00:28:43,410 --> 00:28:47,080
want to do. I do a half cow. My buddy does a half cow.

467
00:28:47,080 --> 00:28:50,880
It's grass fed grass finished. And we. It's

468
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:54,240
about 400 pounds of meat or so. We have a freezer dedicated to that

469
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:58,720
and that's where the majority of our protein comes from.

470
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:02,720
So I know exactly what the animal is eating. Now.

471
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:06,160
Does that mean I don't go to the grocery store? Sure, of course. You know,

472
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,320
I go to the grocery store and I make a bunch of videos from things

473
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:13,150
I buy at the grocery store a lot because I just want people to

474
00:29:13,150 --> 00:29:16,270
get out there and cook. Right. And if I make it accessible, like I go,

475
00:29:16,270 --> 00:29:19,870
oh, now you grab this elk loin. Somebody's be like, I don't have an elk

476
00:29:19,870 --> 00:29:22,950
loin. I'm not going to cook with this guy you made. So this is

477
00:29:23,350 --> 00:29:27,150
fascinating. You touched on a lot of things. Because

478
00:29:27,150 --> 00:29:30,870
I want, I've been looking to, to split a cow with some friends and

479
00:29:30,870 --> 00:29:34,590
I don't know which farm to go to. And then the grass fed meats

480
00:29:34,590 --> 00:29:38,360
I've purchased from like Restaurant Depot, which is really, really gamey. Yeah. And I don't

481
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,960
think it has to be that way. So it's, it's grass

482
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:45,400
fed. Grass finished. Definitely has more of

483
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:49,240
an earthiness. Yes. Now, so I have a

484
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:52,960
big problem with the word gaming. All of my friends know this. Everybody

485
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:56,440
uses the word gaming. I think the word gamy

486
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:59,920
describes something that's not common. Not your

487
00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:03,690
standard beef, chicken, pork. That's grain fed, grain finished.

488
00:30:03,690 --> 00:30:07,130
Right. You can't describe the taste of a quail

489
00:30:07,850 --> 00:30:11,370
the same way you can describe the taste of lamb

490
00:30:11,850 --> 00:30:15,330
or the same way you can describe deer. Yeah, that's a good point. Right. They

491
00:30:15,330 --> 00:30:18,890
all, somebody eats it, they go, oh, it's gamey. And I

492
00:30:18,890 --> 00:30:22,490
go, what is it that you're tasting? You're actually tasting

493
00:30:23,050 --> 00:30:26,570
the earth. You're actually tasting what that animal ate. And

494
00:30:26,810 --> 00:30:30,410
the typical chicken, beef and pork, those

495
00:30:30,410 --> 00:30:34,250
flavors are super bland. Right. So it's not. Or they're just more

496
00:30:34,250 --> 00:30:37,690
common to your palette where you go, this is gamey. Like wild boar.

497
00:30:38,010 --> 00:30:41,730
That would be Right. Wild boar does not taste like elk. No. But some,

498
00:30:41,730 --> 00:30:44,530
oh, I'll give you a wild boar chop and somebody be like, that's kind of

499
00:30:44,530 --> 00:30:47,930
gamey. Yeah. And then I'll give you a lamb chop. I get that. So it's,

500
00:30:48,170 --> 00:30:51,810
I don't. I think it's hard to describe all of the game

501
00:30:51,810 --> 00:30:55,570
meat with one word. Most people are trying to, they're talking

502
00:30:55,570 --> 00:30:59,290
about that irony type of taste. But it's

503
00:30:59,290 --> 00:31:02,850
not that. I mean some game has. Well, it's the same problem with wine. I

504
00:31:02,850 --> 00:31:06,530
mean, let's face it. Yeah. You know, if you're not. I don't

505
00:31:06,530 --> 00:31:10,290
say educated, but if you haven't, your palette hasn't been refined enough to describe those

506
00:31:10,290 --> 00:31:13,450
characters. You just pick one word. You're going to pick the word. Yeah. And I,

507
00:31:13,450 --> 00:31:16,690
and I often will demonstrate that

508
00:31:17,170 --> 00:31:20,890
by showing some of this. Say two wines, let's say

509
00:31:20,890 --> 00:31:24,400
two cabernets from the same vineyard. Same winemaker, same

510
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:28,000
vintage. Yes. But different parts of the vineyard are different vineyard

511
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:31,560
plots. And I'll say, are they different? Yeah, and they'll say

512
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:35,320
yes. I said extract. Tell me the difference. They don't. They

513
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:39,159
can't. They can't. It's one word. Or stronger. Light or sharp?

514
00:31:39,159 --> 00:31:43,000
Yeah. So I think it's right. But the game meets an interesting problem. When I

515
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:46,560
was, when I was eight, we went on a camporee at Cub Scouts

516
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:50,340
and my scout master brought his shot.

517
00:31:50,340 --> 00:31:54,060
He shot an elk. Amazing. We ate elk in Mission Bay.

518
00:31:54,300 --> 00:31:58,140
Camping, you know, the best meat and. But then through the. When I started

519
00:31:58,140 --> 00:32:01,740
this company in 1988 with my father, I started with him in 1988.

520
00:32:02,140 --> 00:32:05,740
So the 90s was a huge part of. And

521
00:32:05,820 --> 00:32:09,580
now I'm thinking of putting in. In time reference.

522
00:32:09,900 --> 00:32:13,180
It's just right after the evolution of food in America.

523
00:32:13,500 --> 00:32:17,320
So. So we were. Did a lot of

524
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:21,160
wine events where they served game meats. I love it. I'm not saying

525
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:24,520
gamey meats. Game. Yeah, game meat. And so we did a lot of elk, we

526
00:32:24,520 --> 00:32:27,680
did a lot of deer, we did a lot of bear.

527
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:32,040
And awesome. It's interesting. And even Parkway Grill used

528
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:35,280
to have a game meet of the week. They don't do it anymore. Is that,

529
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,480
is that sort of left our cultural food

530
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:42,770
plate that makes any sense? You know, people,

531
00:32:42,850 --> 00:32:46,130
I think now, when I say now in the last

532
00:32:46,850 --> 00:32:50,530
four or five years are getting back into

533
00:32:51,010 --> 00:32:54,650
wild game. And I think there's like a movement now of, you

534
00:32:54,650 --> 00:32:58,170
know, high protein carnivore diet. You know, eat,

535
00:32:58,170 --> 00:33:01,850
eat wild, eat predators, eat. Like people will say a lot of

536
00:33:01,850 --> 00:33:05,530
different things. Sure. And, and I think people

537
00:33:05,530 --> 00:33:09,090
are more inclined to eating it now. But every wild game

538
00:33:09,170 --> 00:33:12,730
that you eat from a restaurant or

539
00:33:12,730 --> 00:33:16,450
grocery store is farmed. So. Yeah, I'm

540
00:33:16,450 --> 00:33:19,810
sure in, in the United States it's illegal to sell

541
00:33:20,130 --> 00:33:23,569
wild game. It needs to be certified by the

542
00:33:23,569 --> 00:33:27,090
usda. And the only way something can be certified by the USDA

543
00:33:27,090 --> 00:33:30,650
is essentially by farming. There's a couple

544
00:33:30,650 --> 00:33:34,390
animals that you can access. Deer is

545
00:33:34,390 --> 00:33:37,830
one. So access deer from Hawaii is the. Is

546
00:33:37,830 --> 00:33:41,670
hunted meat, but it's hunted by a certain

547
00:33:41,670 --> 00:33:44,670
company and there is a USDA official

548
00:33:45,390 --> 00:33:49,150
on site. While they're hunting it. Yeah, yeah,

549
00:33:49,150 --> 00:33:52,750
it's kind of. It's wild. Well, it's like there's a USDA official at the

550
00:33:53,150 --> 00:33:56,990
plants. And then after. Yeah, so it's, it's, it's the exact.

551
00:33:57,150 --> 00:34:00,980
So the, the killing of it has to be in a certain way and needs

552
00:34:00,980 --> 00:34:04,620
to be processed in a certain way. So other than that, it, it's all

553
00:34:04,620 --> 00:34:07,580
farm. So, like, it's farmed elk that is harvested,

554
00:34:08,140 --> 00:34:11,900
which honestly is still, to me better meat than. Is there

555
00:34:11,900 --> 00:34:15,740
a difference then? This is

556
00:34:15,820 --> 00:34:19,460
older information. I think it's still accurate. Where if a

557
00:34:19,460 --> 00:34:22,860
prime cow comes in, they've got to butcher the prime cow. They got to get

558
00:34:22,940 --> 00:34:26,540
all the prime out. And then the USDA guy says, okay, you bring in the

559
00:34:26,540 --> 00:34:29,430
choice, then they butcher the choice and they separate all that and then they can

560
00:34:29,430 --> 00:34:33,230
bring the select, etc. And same with Angus. So

561
00:34:33,310 --> 00:34:36,670
it's, it's my understanding that

562
00:34:37,230 --> 00:34:40,830
when the cow is opened up, then it's graded. Graded. But I mean,

563
00:34:41,230 --> 00:34:44,870
they can't mix grades, though. They won't know until the cows opened

564
00:34:44,870 --> 00:34:48,190
up. You know what I mean? So you won't know what a cow is.

565
00:34:48,590 --> 00:34:51,470
So they open up. So maybe the idea is if they open up a prime

566
00:34:51,470 --> 00:34:55,190
cow, that, that, that cow is completely butchered and removed

567
00:34:55,190 --> 00:34:58,750
before they bring in the next one. This. And this is from the book of

568
00:34:58,990 --> 00:35:02,590
the famed restaurant Lutes, New York. Andre

569
00:35:02,590 --> 00:35:06,350
Saltner just passed away. But that's where I learned this from. But

570
00:35:06,350 --> 00:35:09,790
I also learned in that same book that Angus has its own

571
00:35:10,030 --> 00:35:13,830
category. Category. Yeah. Yeah. So Angus is itself. That's just

572
00:35:13,830 --> 00:35:17,590
it. It's Angus beef. It's not graded with prime choice select. So

573
00:35:17,590 --> 00:35:21,230
what about game meats then? Are they. Game meats are not graded either, period.

574
00:35:21,230 --> 00:35:24,420
They're not graded at all, period. They're just. Just what they are. Yeah, they're just.

575
00:35:24,420 --> 00:35:27,180
They have a USDA stamp. It's almost like

576
00:35:27,900 --> 00:35:31,420
fish. But fish is. Like, fish isn't usda,

577
00:35:31,500 --> 00:35:35,220
it's fda. Yeah. What cracks me up because we, we. We

578
00:35:35,220 --> 00:35:38,300
spent a lot of time in Hermosa beach and you walk on up here and

579
00:35:38,300 --> 00:35:41,860
there's this whole list of fish that my brother used to catch when we were

580
00:35:41,860 --> 00:35:45,340
kids that you can't eat because they're contaminated.

581
00:35:45,500 --> 00:35:49,340
It's. Honestly, I was just in Hawaii last summer

582
00:35:49,340 --> 00:35:53,130
with the kids, and we had this kind of cool space where

583
00:35:53,130 --> 00:35:56,090
there was like a barbecue area and stuff. We were like this resort, but we're

584
00:35:56,090 --> 00:35:59,890
like, let's just do a barbecue one of the days. Yeah. So me

585
00:35:59,890 --> 00:36:03,610
and my Buddy went. We went to, like, this fish market. Went to, like. We

586
00:36:03,610 --> 00:36:06,970
try to find a bunch of different ones. We went to this one and we

587
00:36:06,970 --> 00:36:09,730
got like, you know, it was a pound of this and a pound of this

588
00:36:09,730 --> 00:36:13,250
they already filleted. And we're like, let's take a pound of this one. And the

589
00:36:13,250 --> 00:36:16,930
guy's like, okay, just remember, don't eat more than

590
00:36:16,930 --> 00:36:20,210
4 ounces and. And don't feed it to women or children.

591
00:36:20,530 --> 00:36:23,490
And I was like, what? I don't want. I was like, I don't want that

592
00:36:23,490 --> 00:36:27,090
fish. It's like, take. Take that fish back.

593
00:36:27,730 --> 00:36:31,250
Yeah, he's. I was like, why? And I was like. He said, it's very high

594
00:36:31,250 --> 00:36:34,930
levels of mercury. Yeah, it was. The fish was wahoo. And

595
00:36:35,570 --> 00:36:39,250
that's terrible. I was like, I don't want to eat anything that

596
00:36:39,250 --> 00:36:42,930
my kids can't eat or. Right. No, that's ridiculous. Don't feed it to

597
00:36:43,010 --> 00:36:46,800
women or children. That's ridiculous. I got

598
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:49,640
a couple questions about Armenian food. I want to. Let's do it through.

599
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:54,520
In watching my parents watch my mother, and

600
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:58,760
as Sandra, my wife, and I work on foods, we try to shorten the

601
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:01,960
cycle for immune food. Because it seems to me that clearly

602
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:06,280
a. Armenians are good about using all the parts of the animal

603
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:10,440
and processing them. Reminds me of Bukuza's. You know that

604
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:13,800
fish, that bladder with the chicken. Yeah, but

605
00:37:14,590 --> 00:37:18,270
they had. They're very long cycles to cook these foods.

606
00:37:18,270 --> 00:37:22,030
Yes. You'd think these old Armenian women are in Armenia and they got

607
00:37:22,030 --> 00:37:25,310
all day to do this stuff. Exactly. And they're working it.

608
00:37:26,670 --> 00:37:30,430
How do you do that? How do you make it authentic without doing it? So

609
00:37:30,990 --> 00:37:34,830
my theory, and it's the theory, but it's kind of been

610
00:37:34,830 --> 00:37:38,670
proven, is that our grandmas and grandpas

611
00:37:38,670 --> 00:37:42,430
and not grandpas, grandmas, had all the time in the world to cook these dishes,

612
00:37:42,950 --> 00:37:46,070
and that's why it took that long. And using

613
00:37:46,630 --> 00:37:50,110
kind of my French techniques and the understanding of food and

614
00:37:50,110 --> 00:37:53,670
cuisine on how to cook certain things. Certain things are just

615
00:37:53,830 --> 00:37:56,950
passed on, and they're not

616
00:37:56,950 --> 00:38:00,710
folklore, but it's not something that

617
00:38:00,790 --> 00:38:04,270
has to be done. I mean, there's certain soups where they're like, you have to

618
00:38:04,270 --> 00:38:08,070
stir it only with a wooden spoon. Oh, yeah, it's gonna break. That's right. You

619
00:38:08,070 --> 00:38:11,030
know what I mean? There's stuff like that. None of that stuff actually

620
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:15,840
is true. And not to kind of. I don't want to on

621
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:19,360
anybody, but like, it. If you're told something

622
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:23,480
by your grandma and then she's like, yeah, that's it. It's. It's fact to you.

623
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:26,080
And then now you tell it to your son and it's. Or your daughter and

624
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,360
it's fact to them, and then they pass that on. Its fact. And then somebody

625
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:32,960
comes along and is like, actually, this isn't true. You're, like

626
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:36,760
hurting somebody's soul. It's like their cultural heritage that you're kind of.

627
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:40,030
It's like talking about their religion. You know what I mean? Right. That's true. But

628
00:38:40,030 --> 00:38:43,470
knowing French techniques, I mean, there's dishes like

629
00:38:43,950 --> 00:38:47,550
harissa, which people go, you gotta cook it

630
00:38:47,870 --> 00:38:51,670
for hours. I know. Hours. Well, I can

631
00:38:51,670 --> 00:38:55,470
do the whole dish, start to finish, in about 45 minutes. You're kidding. Yeah. And

632
00:38:55,870 --> 00:38:59,550
I mean, no, that's impossible. You nuts? If you lost your mind. Yeah, yeah. And

633
00:38:59,550 --> 00:39:02,110
people are like, no way. It's not. It's impossible.

634
00:39:02,670 --> 00:39:06,290
Araxia from Good Day LA came and we did

635
00:39:06,450 --> 00:39:10,050
a couple years back and. And we did it on

636
00:39:10,050 --> 00:39:13,770
camera. Good Day la. And she's like, this is impossible. My grandma would sit and

637
00:39:13,770 --> 00:39:16,530
say, you have to mix and mix and mix. She goes, it tastes just like

638
00:39:16,770 --> 00:39:19,730
the way my grandma used to make it. And I go, yeah, because

639
00:39:19,810 --> 00:39:23,490
understanding the technique and what it's actually doing,

640
00:39:23,970 --> 00:39:27,610
sure, you can cook it for hours. But it's not absolutely

641
00:39:27,610 --> 00:39:31,420
necessary. It's not required. It's not required. So certain things are more tedious

642
00:39:31,420 --> 00:39:35,140
to do. And that's something with Armenian cuisine, like, let's say, rolling grape leaves. You

643
00:39:35,140 --> 00:39:38,860
know what I mean? It. That's tedious. It'll take you some time, you know.

644
00:39:39,500 --> 00:39:42,860
But the cooking part of it, it doesn't take that long. That's a funny story.

645
00:39:44,220 --> 00:39:47,540
My wife's uncle Art, I kind of passed away a few years ago, but he

646
00:39:47,540 --> 00:39:51,180
invented the spoon straw and the flexi straw. No way. Yeah.

647
00:39:51,340 --> 00:39:55,180
Those are his patents. And he's a mechanical genius.

648
00:39:55,260 --> 00:39:59,050
Okay. But a simple guy. He's a great guy. And he

649
00:39:59,050 --> 00:40:01,610
went to MIT because he came out of the war and they, you know, he

650
00:40:01,610 --> 00:40:04,450
went on the GI Bill and he got, you know, went to mit. But he

651
00:40:04,450 --> 00:40:08,250
invented a sarma rolling machine. No. Maybe it's

652
00:40:08,250 --> 00:40:10,970
the one I've seen that's like. Got a lever. I don't remember.

653
00:40:12,250 --> 00:40:15,370
But he had to sit down. His son had. Had

654
00:40:16,410 --> 00:40:19,810
Ike's Chicken, which was a Zanku sort of type of thing up in San

655
00:40:19,810 --> 00:40:22,790
Francisco. Yeah. And he was. Had designed a

656
00:40:23,110 --> 00:40:26,870
machine that would take a variety of grape leaf sizes. That was

657
00:40:26,870 --> 00:40:30,510
the problem. They're not all consistent. That's the biggest Right. That's the biggest issue. And

658
00:40:30,510 --> 00:40:33,710
roll them. And I thought that was hilarious. That's awesome. I know. Because the ones

659
00:40:33,710 --> 00:40:37,270
I've seen, it has to be almost the same exact grape leaf size. It's almost

660
00:40:37,270 --> 00:40:41,110
takes more time to set up the machine and pull it than

661
00:40:41,110 --> 00:40:43,750
to just do it with your hands. You know, it's funny, you were talking about

662
00:40:44,230 --> 00:40:48,030
the process of food, and I mean food. And my wife, you know,

663
00:40:48,030 --> 00:40:51,850
Fasui was a huge part of my. My life growing up. My mom made it,

664
00:40:51,850 --> 00:40:54,810
but they used to cook the crap out of it. Right. And the beans got

665
00:40:54,810 --> 00:40:58,610
like, you know, army green. Yeah. So she's made this version that's

666
00:40:58,610 --> 00:41:02,290
just bright flavors and fresh fruit and crisp beans. Love it.

667
00:41:02,290 --> 00:41:06,130
Yeah. It's kind of interesting. It's. It's. With that, there are different techniques

668
00:41:06,130 --> 00:41:09,850
that people use. Like, my grandma used to do this a lot. Like, take

669
00:41:09,850 --> 00:41:13,410
the meat and then just boil the meat for a long time. And once the

670
00:41:13,410 --> 00:41:17,010
meat was done boiled, then she'd put everything kind of together.

671
00:41:17,770 --> 00:41:21,610
I mean, proper cooking, not proper. I don't want to say proper. So that's the

672
00:41:21,610 --> 00:41:25,290
wrong word. A cooking method. French. French cooking techniques tells us.

673
00:41:25,690 --> 00:41:29,450
They tell us that adding the mirepoix or

674
00:41:29,450 --> 00:41:32,850
the, you know, the sofrito, whatever language you want to say to the onions and

675
00:41:32,850 --> 00:41:36,330
garlic and all the good stuff into the cooking liquid will

676
00:41:36,490 --> 00:41:40,170
enhance the liquid, and it'll implement flavor into

677
00:41:40,170 --> 00:41:43,760
the beef. So we're using those techniques and. And

678
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:46,760
then, you know, cooking the beef with all that other stuff, and at the end,

679
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:50,600
throwing in your green beans, or at the end, throwing in your okra,

680
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:54,440
then you're going to yield this delicious, crispy,

681
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:58,200
bright. Like you said, it's adding those

682
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:01,720
techniques. Yeah. More farm to table. Exactly.

683
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:05,760
So that leads me to the next point, which is I

684
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:09,480
have not had, though I'm going to Middle Eastern

685
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:13,020
fusion food. It's the. That's. That. That seems to be a very

686
00:42:13,020 --> 00:42:15,820
difficult culture of food to

687
00:42:15,820 --> 00:42:19,380
contemporarize and either add a French character to it or an

688
00:42:19,380 --> 00:42:23,220
Italian character to it or whatever. Whatever fusion you're trying to do. It

689
00:42:23,220 --> 00:42:27,059
seems to be very difficult. Or have. Like, if you go down to Glendale

690
00:42:27,059 --> 00:42:29,740
Boulevard, you go down to Brand Boulevard, you go to the carousel, you're going to

691
00:42:29,740 --> 00:42:32,700
go all those places. And it's all the same stuff. Yeah. You go to Rafi's.

692
00:42:32,700 --> 00:42:36,420
The same stuff. Everything's the same. Yeah, yeah. Just like going to Armenia, like 2007,

693
00:42:36,420 --> 00:42:39,780
when everybody was kebab and vegetables. Everything you get. Yeah, yeah.

694
00:42:40,020 --> 00:42:43,300
Is it A difficult cuisine to modernize.

695
00:42:45,300 --> 00:42:48,860
No, it's not the what

696
00:42:48,860 --> 00:42:52,340
with. The trouble is nobody wants to accept

697
00:42:52,340 --> 00:42:56,180
it. Nobody wants to accept it. Being modern,

698
00:42:56,180 --> 00:42:59,740
interesting people are like, no, stick to the

699
00:42:59,740 --> 00:43:02,500
classic. And I get this a lot on my profile. I'm sure you do. This

700
00:43:02,500 --> 00:43:05,700
is awful. My grandma's rolling in her grave.

701
00:43:07,130 --> 00:43:10,890
Stick to the. No, thank you. I'll stick. Stick to the classic way.

702
00:43:10,890 --> 00:43:14,570
That's fun. Traditional method is the best way to do it. But

703
00:43:14,570 --> 00:43:18,170
there is a handful of people that are really looking

704
00:43:18,330 --> 00:43:21,610
to modernize it, and they're excited about

705
00:43:22,169 --> 00:43:25,770
hacks and techniques, the implementation

706
00:43:25,850 --> 00:43:29,130
of different cultures. And I think

707
00:43:29,770 --> 00:43:33,530
for me, that makes things exciting. I mean,

708
00:43:34,350 --> 00:43:38,110
making Lula kebab. But instead of beef,

709
00:43:38,190 --> 00:43:41,710
I've done it with al pastor, so pork. Wow.

710
00:43:42,030 --> 00:43:45,390
All right. Yeah. One of my favorite. The best, right? Yeah.

711
00:43:45,790 --> 00:43:49,550
Now, something like that. Traditionally, serve it on some

712
00:43:49,550 --> 00:43:53,270
lavash with some other stuff. You know, put some jalapenos on there. I

713
00:43:53,270 --> 00:43:56,990
love Mexican food. I love Japanese food. I love

714
00:43:56,990 --> 00:44:00,790
mixing in different seasoning, spices, and flavors from these

715
00:44:00,790 --> 00:44:04,380
cultures into ours and. And creating something new, something fun.

716
00:44:04,460 --> 00:44:08,060
That's really cool. Yeah. Well, because wine's the same way,

717
00:44:09,100 --> 00:44:12,860
and wine's in a very tough spot right now, because there is.

718
00:44:13,020 --> 00:44:16,700
The Gen Z's aren't really drinking that much. Millennials. They never figured them out,

719
00:44:16,860 --> 00:44:20,700
though. My daughters are very well versed in wine, obviously,

720
00:44:20,700 --> 00:44:23,580
because we did it every day in our house, but still, they still appreciate it.

721
00:44:24,620 --> 00:44:28,300
And now it sounds like palates are changing,

722
00:44:28,460 --> 00:44:31,670
as they always have. And to contemporarize

723
00:44:32,070 --> 00:44:35,550
takes thought, it takes interest. And now you happen to be part of the Armenian

724
00:44:35,550 --> 00:44:38,870
culture, the Egyptian culture that you're focused on that.

725
00:44:40,870 --> 00:44:44,510
Is there wine in your. So

726
00:44:44,510 --> 00:44:48,310
I drink a lot of wine. Wine

727
00:44:48,310 --> 00:44:51,910
is. It's crazy because my wife used

728
00:44:51,910 --> 00:44:55,680
to hate wine, and. We

729
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:59,360
wouldn't get along then. Yeah. But now she loves wine. And I used

730
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:02,240
to do wine in the winter and whiskey in the summer.

731
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:07,840
And then I used to do tequila in the summer,

732
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:11,360
whiskey in the winter with wine occasionally. And now

733
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:15,120
lately, in the past five years, we are just drinking wine all the time.

734
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:18,480
So at home, regular occurrence.

735
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:23,490
We're a couple people. One bottle, two bottles. Depends on

736
00:45:23,490 --> 00:45:27,290
what. How we're feeling. We're regular. Regular wine drinkers. And

737
00:45:27,290 --> 00:45:30,690
what's. Which one? What's our go to? Well, because

738
00:45:31,090 --> 00:45:34,930
it evolves like food. Yes. Right. You. My palate's changed incredibly

739
00:45:34,930 --> 00:45:38,770
over the last 40 years. But what is the current Goat.

740
00:45:39,330 --> 00:45:42,370
So we drink cabs from Paso.

741
00:45:42,850 --> 00:45:46,210
Really big, giant wine. That's like

742
00:45:46,690 --> 00:45:50,010
our go to daily drink

743
00:45:50,010 --> 00:45:53,770
Kiami. Like the Armenian guy. A lot of Armenians in Paso

744
00:45:53,770 --> 00:45:57,170
make wine. A lot of Armenians out there. A lot of Armenians. I mean,

745
00:45:57,650 --> 00:46:01,490
honestly, we have this thing where anything from Paso that's a

746
00:46:01,490 --> 00:46:05,330
cab is going to be good. Wow. And now there are ones that aren't good.

747
00:46:05,410 --> 00:46:09,090
Right. But we have our. Our go tos. And

748
00:46:09,730 --> 00:46:12,890
it's. My wife doesn't like white wines. She doesn't like

749
00:46:12,890 --> 00:46:16,670
roses. She really. My wife's gonna get

750
00:46:16,670 --> 00:46:19,950
along with your wife. She'll.

751
00:46:20,270 --> 00:46:24,030
She likes cabs. She likes merlot. She's not

752
00:46:24,030 --> 00:46:27,070
a big fan of pinos. Yeah, I like pinos.

753
00:46:27,630 --> 00:46:31,430
I honestly, I like everything pretty much. Well, they say

754
00:46:31,430 --> 00:46:34,990
all unophiles. Yes. End up in Burgundy. That's

755
00:46:34,990 --> 00:46:37,470
right. Exactly. At like 500 a bottle.

756
00:46:39,150 --> 00:46:42,970
Not to tell you if I started there was. We. This office was down

757
00:46:42,970 --> 00:46:46,650
the road at the train station, and we sold the property to an Armenian

758
00:46:46,650 --> 00:46:50,490
developer. And he didn't really want the

759
00:46:50,490 --> 00:46:54,090
project, but it was Covid. He needed the work. He had his own crew, blah,

760
00:46:54,090 --> 00:46:57,850
blah, blah. And I promised him that if he closed. When we got

761
00:46:57,850 --> 00:47:01,010
close to that date, I said, I'm going to give you two bottles of DRC

762
00:47:01,010 --> 00:47:04,850
Domain Roman Conti Latash. Nice. Which I was only

763
00:47:04,930 --> 00:47:08,730
offered to buy a bottle, like, four times in my

764
00:47:08,730 --> 00:47:12,500
whole career. Wow. Because we were not in that category of wine sales.

765
00:47:12,500 --> 00:47:16,100
Yeah. We sold 21. Yeah. But the three times they offered me to

766
00:47:16,100 --> 00:47:19,820
pay $3,000 for the bottle, I took it. And

767
00:47:19,820 --> 00:47:23,580
they sat in my cellar. Wow. And we

768
00:47:23,580 --> 00:47:27,420
closed on the deal. This is a big deal. He built 250 apartments.

769
00:47:27,500 --> 00:47:31,180
Wow. And he was there the next day. He came here.

770
00:47:31,580 --> 00:47:34,780
He goes, where's my wine? No way. And I said.

771
00:47:36,150 --> 00:47:38,630
I looked at him. He goes, what, you think I did this for the money?

772
00:47:42,230 --> 00:47:45,630
And we had lunch the other day. This is four or five years ago. He

773
00:47:45,630 --> 00:47:48,590
goes, yeah. I only did that deal because you were going to give me those

774
00:47:48,590 --> 00:47:52,070
two bottles. I'm like, how powerful is that? Wow. But

775
00:47:53,190 --> 00:47:56,310
there's two things that came up in this that you just said. One was

776
00:47:57,510 --> 00:48:00,910
Arakchi tasting her Herissa and going, this is like my

777
00:48:00,910 --> 00:48:04,750
grandmother's. And there's something about food and wine that are very synergistic in

778
00:48:04,750 --> 00:48:08,600
that memory bank. Yes. Of what you tasted. Who knows?

779
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:12,280
It could be 50 years ago. And you tasted again. Yes. And you

780
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:15,920
can go, oh, my gosh. It brings you back. Yeah. It brings you. There's. There's

781
00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:19,680
a smell. Yeah. You know what I mean? And this happened to me in Paris,

782
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:23,400
not that long ago, somebody brought me a quiche, and it was my mom's

783
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:27,080
quiche. That's incredible. And it was probably. I hadn't probably had it 30

784
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:30,200
years at least from that. That moment. And my wife's like, what's wrong with you?

785
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:34,040
Because my face changed. Yeah, the smell is. It brings you back. Yeah, it brings

786
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,400
me back. But the other day, I was tasting in. In

787
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:41,480
la, a Bordeaux tasting nice. And I'm not a. I'm not a dessert

788
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:45,080
wine guy necessarily. I love them, appreciate them, I get them. Chateau came all. Yes.

789
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:49,080
So this is a bar sack, which is. You can, like. Okay. You know,

790
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:53,000
Saturn, like. It was the most emotional

791
00:48:53,720 --> 00:48:57,400
smell, really, of a wine I've had in 50

792
00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:01,170
years. Wow. I didn't even want to taste it. I put my

793
00:49:01,170 --> 00:49:04,610
nose in that glass, and the complexity of the nose and the character that was

794
00:49:04,610 --> 00:49:07,690
coming through and the terroir and all the things that go into a glass of

795
00:49:07,690 --> 00:49:11,090
wine. And I looked at the presenter, I said, this is the most

796
00:49:11,090 --> 00:49:14,650
emotional glass of wine I've ever tasted. He goes, right.

797
00:49:15,290 --> 00:49:19,090
He goes, I feel this, too. Last year wasn't like this, but this

798
00:49:19,090 --> 00:49:22,010
year it's like this. Is that happening in food?

799
00:49:22,810 --> 00:49:26,320
You know, there, I think that

800
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:29,760
comes through with a person's, like, core memories

801
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:33,760
and like, that. It's not it. If I give you a dish that

802
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:37,440
you've never tried before, it's. I. I don't know if you're gonna smell it and

803
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:40,680
be like, you go, wow, this is the most incredible thing ever. Yeah. I mean,

804
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:44,200
there. There is that. The smell of onions will kind of do that to anybody.

805
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:46,960
That's why when you drive by in and out, everyone's like, I'm hungry. Yeah,

806
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:51,680
that's true. But I don't know. I mean,

807
00:49:52,250 --> 00:49:55,970
the. The stomach is. Is. Is different, I think, when it comes to that.

808
00:49:55,970 --> 00:49:59,490
Yeah. But when it comes to, like, a core memory is something that brings you

809
00:49:59,490 --> 00:50:03,290
back to home, brings you back to grandma, brings you back. People at

810
00:50:03,290 --> 00:50:06,570
that point will kind of lose it. My mother wrote a

811
00:50:06,570 --> 00:50:10,370
cookbook. Yeah. At least 200 recipes. No

812
00:50:10,370 --> 00:50:14,050
way. We didn't publish it. We just have it loose. That's awesome. And my

813
00:50:14,050 --> 00:50:17,650
daughter in Glendora, she was to make my mom's

814
00:50:17,650 --> 00:50:21,440
hummus and bring it to whatever we were doing. And I had.

815
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:24,080
You know, we have hummus all the time. You know, you buy it from the

816
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:27,920
store, you make it yourself, whatever. And the second I put that pita chip

817
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:30,640
in there and ate it, I go, I looked at my daughter's name. Is Lena.

818
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:34,320
I said, lena, this tastes like my mom. That's incredible.

819
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:38,160
Whatever the unique recipe was, it was her recipe. Same with her guacamole. No way.

820
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:41,800
Because they used to own an avocado ranch. Her guacamole just like, it just

821
00:50:41,800 --> 00:50:45,510
tasted like my mom. That's incredible. That has to feel good as

822
00:50:45,510 --> 00:50:49,230
a chef, to know that those kinds of things, you know, earmark you. It does.

823
00:50:50,110 --> 00:50:53,790
It's very exciting. And for me, cooking is. Is it like. I love eating?

824
00:50:53,790 --> 00:50:57,230
Of course. But the reaction that people give

825
00:50:57,390 --> 00:51:01,150
is more validating than anything.

826
00:51:01,150 --> 00:51:04,990
It's like this. Oh, I did to me, I'm.

827
00:51:04,990 --> 00:51:08,110
I'm looking for somebody to eat the food

828
00:51:08,590 --> 00:51:11,860
more than the finished product. Y. And that

829
00:51:11,860 --> 00:51:15,460
excitement when someone says it brings you back home. When I make a

830
00:51:15,460 --> 00:51:19,060
video and people say, I haven't seen this dish since my

831
00:51:19,060 --> 00:51:22,620
grandma made it. Thank you for bringing this back to me. That

832
00:51:22,780 --> 00:51:26,540
warms my heart. Wow. Well, I think that's the only way you can get through

833
00:51:26,700 --> 00:51:30,420
being a restaurateur. And my daughter's

834
00:51:30,420 --> 00:51:34,100
telling me, my daughter, the boulanger, she made sarma for her

835
00:51:34,100 --> 00:51:37,840
psychology teacher. Wow. At high school. Wow.

836
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:41,360
Right in Arcadia. And he was a brilliant man, a PhD kind of guy.

837
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:44,880
And I saw him at a softball game that she was playing in. He was

838
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:47,840
standing the stands. We started talking. He goes, you know, I have a lot of

839
00:51:47,840 --> 00:51:51,640
kids. Bring me cookies, whatever. Yeah. He

840
00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:55,360
goes, first of all, no one's ever brought me sarma. And I go

841
00:51:55,360 --> 00:51:58,960
second, no one's ever presented to me with such glee to do it.

842
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:02,490
That's great. And that's really what it takes to do what you do. That's great.

843
00:52:02,810 --> 00:52:06,090
You know, it's giving

844
00:52:06,090 --> 00:52:09,410
somebody's giving somebody food in any

845
00:52:09,410 --> 00:52:12,490
shape, you know, in any way form.

846
00:52:13,130 --> 00:52:16,970
You're at the end of the day, we're animals. Yeah, right. That's right,

847
00:52:17,530 --> 00:52:20,810
everybody. All you're kind of doing, if you actually think about it as you're walking

848
00:52:20,810 --> 00:52:24,610
through life trying to figure out where you're going to eat next. And when you

849
00:52:24,610 --> 00:52:27,530
feed somebody, there's this

850
00:52:28,610 --> 00:52:32,130
soul warming sensation. It is. And when the food is good,

851
00:52:32,290 --> 00:52:35,290
it's even better. Does it drive you nuts when you don't get to serve it

852
00:52:35,290 --> 00:52:39,090
hot? Because it makes me mad. I. I'm so. I

853
00:52:39,090 --> 00:52:42,610
have four kids and like when the food

854
00:52:42,610 --> 00:52:46,330
comes off the stove or whatever, I'm like on

855
00:52:46,330 --> 00:52:49,770
a time crunch. I still think I'm back in a restaurant. Like, order up. Should

856
00:52:49,770 --> 00:52:53,330
be. Let's go. Like the food. Let's eat it. Come on, get to the Table,

857
00:52:53,330 --> 00:52:57,140
let's go, table six. I hate, like, not that I hate

858
00:52:57,140 --> 00:53:00,980
cold food. I'll eat cold food anytime, but I hate putting food down

859
00:53:00,980 --> 00:53:04,780
on the dinner table and then just watching it wither away. Cuz to me,

860
00:53:04,780 --> 00:53:08,420
it's like it's. I'm a timing. Like, my timing is on completely.

861
00:53:08,420 --> 00:53:10,700
Like, I know when this is going to be done and this is going to

862
00:53:10,700 --> 00:53:13,380
be done. And it's like, I work at a restaurant. That's what it's for. So

863
00:53:13,380 --> 00:53:16,900
it comes out and I'm staring at it and I'm watching it start to dry

864
00:53:16,900 --> 00:53:20,540
out and like, pieces of it start to whip. Like the mushroom

865
00:53:20,540 --> 00:53:24,220
is starting to sag a little bit. Like, come on. And it's cooking. It's still

866
00:53:24,220 --> 00:53:27,980
cooking. It's still cooking. This steak was medium rare. Now

867
00:53:27,980 --> 00:53:31,820
we're pushing to medium, where I'm losing it. We're gonna even go

868
00:53:31,820 --> 00:53:34,780
even further. I wonder if that's a control thing, because when I worked, I worked

869
00:53:34,780 --> 00:53:37,500
at a beachhead back in the day, and I was in charge of the kitchen.

870
00:53:37,500 --> 00:53:40,260
So I made all the food and I was

871
00:53:41,300 --> 00:53:45,100
fastidious about making sure that burger got out there hot of the barbecue sandwich.

872
00:53:45,100 --> 00:53:47,580
And I was making meatloaf and all that stuff at the time. And if they

873
00:53:47,580 --> 00:53:50,740
came in my kitchen and messed with me, I was so mad. Yeah. Like, they'd

874
00:53:50,740 --> 00:53:54,160
say, hurry up, you gotta get. I'm like, hey, it's. That one's mustard only. That

875
00:53:54,160 --> 00:53:58,000
one's grilled onions and chicken. Yes. It's, you know, it takes

876
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:00,520
a certain kind of person to do that and to know it. And I think

877
00:54:00,520 --> 00:54:04,280
that will define you as a cook and a chef. Some people don't

878
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:07,800
care. Yeah. They're like, the food's done. It's already done. It'll sit there, like,

879
00:54:08,199 --> 00:54:11,840
let it sit under a heat lamp. And then like, nobody cares. Do you think

880
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:15,480
that's rubbing off on your kids? Yes.

881
00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:19,680
But they don't know it yet. Yeah. So no, that'll happen later in

882
00:54:19,680 --> 00:54:22,200
life. They're gonna realize. And I tell them this all the time. You guys have.

883
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:25,120
I go, you have no idea. Okay. You guys are going to go out into

884
00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:28,320
the world when you guys are like 17, 18, 19, you're gonna be shocked.

885
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:31,640
Like, the way you guys are eating, the way you guys have been treated. Like

886
00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:34,280
you're gonna go out with your friends and be like, I don't. Like, can we

887
00:54:34,280 --> 00:54:36,800
just go here? Like, I want a tomahawk. Yeah.

888
00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:42,120
Your friends are like, what? Yeah, wagyu tomahawks

889
00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:45,080
for me. Because I didn't. You know, we cooked a lot in our house. My

890
00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:48,800
mom was. Whenever my mom babysat. So all

891
00:54:48,800 --> 00:54:52,200
three of my daughters now are great cooks and very

892
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:56,000
conscientious about what they're cooking. Very conscious about where the food comes from. And I'm

893
00:54:56,000 --> 00:54:59,280
very proud of that because they all just really appreciate the

894
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:03,000
gastronomy of it all and the history of it all and the ancestry of it

895
00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:06,160
all. Yeah. And the fact that, you know, my mother would be happy

896
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:10,640
that they were doing it. So we're already past our way past our time,

897
00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:15,520
but I do want to know what's. What's next on the media side. We're going

898
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:18,400
to continue with our social. But is there any shows coming up, things like that

899
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:21,840
that you're working on? So I'm working on a new

900
00:55:22,140 --> 00:55:25,980
book. Oh, yeah. Lavash was the first book. Lavash was the first book.

901
00:55:26,380 --> 00:55:29,820
We're in the, we're in the market of pitching the new book.

902
00:55:30,540 --> 00:55:34,380
The cookbook market is kind of like crazy right now. A lot of it

903
00:55:34,380 --> 00:55:38,060
has to do with your numbers. They, they. Some publishers are like, hard.

904
00:55:38,060 --> 00:55:41,900
No. And I don't want to self publish. So getting the publishing deal is super

905
00:55:41,900 --> 00:55:44,860
important for us. But that's in the scope.

906
00:55:46,540 --> 00:55:49,800
Other than that, There are no TV

907
00:55:49,800 --> 00:55:53,480
projects in the space at this exact moment. But

908
00:55:53,720 --> 00:55:56,920
YouTube is pretty much my main focus at this moment.

909
00:55:57,400 --> 00:56:01,000
So I haven't been pushing YouTube for a long time and now

910
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:04,640
creating full length, kind of longer episodes of

911
00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:08,480
things. I just did this five food spots in

912
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:12,000
Glendale video and it did really well. I saw that one.

913
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:15,800
Yeah. So it's doing really well. I just did 46,000

914
00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:19,400
views. Yeah. Yeah. And then I just did five burger spots in L. A

915
00:56:19,720 --> 00:56:23,560
and I'm shooting another one on Wednesday. But my number is. Since

916
00:56:23,560 --> 00:56:27,320
I started, like, everything, you just got to work at it. My numbers, as

917
00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:31,080
soon as I started focusing on it, have like rocketed. So I've

918
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:34,880
gained. I have, I think, like 15,000 subs right now. Oh,

919
00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:38,120
that's great. But like 8,000 of them came in the last 30 days.

920
00:56:38,360 --> 00:56:42,000
Wow. So it's really just kind of moving. I've started just

921
00:56:42,000 --> 00:56:45,630
putting a lot of energy into it and I. My dream would

922
00:56:45,630 --> 00:56:48,990
to be to have a, you know, my own show. And I think using.

923
00:56:49,230 --> 00:56:52,910
Utilizing YouTube, that is the methodology. Exactly. And.

924
00:56:52,990 --> 00:56:56,710
And it can get picked up from there. Yeah. You. You can't. You don't go

925
00:56:56,710 --> 00:56:59,469
to a production company anymore and say, I want to have this idea and then

926
00:56:59,469 --> 00:57:02,990
show me the paid. It doesn't work. Yeah. I've, I had, I've had multiple interviews

927
00:57:02,990 --> 00:57:06,750
with Food Network. They've reached out and they've told me, like, you know,

928
00:57:06,750 --> 00:57:09,830
it's all about a competition show. Oh, I did a competition show that should be

929
00:57:09,830 --> 00:57:13,610
airing out, airing on in July. So that's

930
00:57:13,610 --> 00:57:17,450
coming out. I don't. There's so much I can't. I literally, there's so many things

931
00:57:17,450 --> 00:57:21,290
that happen at once. I look forward to watching your

932
00:57:21,290 --> 00:57:24,850
career. I look forward to trying these rubs tonight. Yes.

933
00:57:25,010 --> 00:57:28,810
Because they're just fascinating. Yes. And just thanks for coming out and saying hi and

934
00:57:28,810 --> 00:57:31,010
having a chance to talk about it. Hope we can do it again. Yeah. Thanks

935
00:57:31,010 --> 00:57:31,970
for having me. This is awesome.

936
00:57:34,770 --> 00:57:38,290
Little egotistical. I like it. I like it. Cheers.

937
00:57:38,290 --> 00:57:38,850
Cheers.