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

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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

255
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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

264
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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,

267
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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

275
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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,

286
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you know, towards the end of the night, you still have to engage in each

287
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platform a little bit. Right? Sure. Yeah. That's part of the deal. Yeah. So

288
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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

296
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and then we like and comment and share on each other's stuff so that

297
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everyone kind of grows together. The algorithm likes that. It's all.

298
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You're slave to this magical algorithm which is super fun. Which

299
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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

301
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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

303
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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

313
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Frank and Jonathan Waxman and Michael

314
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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.

321
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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.

323
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Celebrity chef. Sorry, Celebrity chef action.

324
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That kind of space was probably most

325
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inspired, I would say, by Emeril's show. Oh,

326
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:07,840
really? Yeah. When I was a. When I was a kid is. I guess my

327
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mom would watch it all the time. She loved it. It was always on. So

328
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I was like, this is kind of awesome. This dude is just cooking. He's got

329
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a full audience, and he's just cooking, having a great time. Yeah.

330
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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

333
00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:33,240
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

335
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I hung out with him. He's a super nice guy. We were

336
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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.

338
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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,

340
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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

342
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or the stage for creativity in the food. Yeah. It wasn't really around

343
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before that. You know, it's. It's interesting to see the

344
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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

347
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driving down, there's billboards of celebrity chefs. Wow.

348
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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.

350
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Right? That's right. And Right. It's. It's crazy now. If you.

351
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If you look around, it's never the wine guy. Why is that? It's not. Why

352
00:21:40,870 --> 00:21:44,430
don't I go? Because you guys are just chilling on a couch, having some

353
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cheese. You know, Nancy Silverton's coming on the show.

354
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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
00:22:54,390 --> 00:22:58,230
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
00:23:57,480 --> 00:24:01,000
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.