August 20, 2021 • 16 mins
This episode of “Summer Series: From The Beach” was recorded poolside at the W Hotel South Beach on a breezy Miami day in February of 2020.
Michael Symon’s most recent cookbook is “Fix It With Food”. You can find it at his website here: http://www.michaelsymon.com/
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“Four Courses” is created by Geoffrey Zakarian, Margaret Zakarian, Jaret Keller, and Tara Halper. Our executive producer is Christopher Hassiotis. Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Hawes-Dressler. Our research is conducted by Jesslyn Shields.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, listeners of Four Courses with Jeffrey Z. Carrion. It's
your host, Jeffrey. I'm here today to share a very
special announcement. One thing you may know about me from
social media is that I love meeting my friends from
the food world at events around the country, and I've
even made it an annual ritual to interview many of
them at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival in Miami.
So for the rest of this summer, we will be
(00:23):
bringing you our Summer Series from the Beach. Each Friday,
will be publishing short and intimate conversations that I've had
with some of the top talent in the food world.
And even beyond. The conversations you'll here for the next
six weeks were recorded pool side at the w Hotel
and South Beach as my friends and I enjoyed great
cigars and magnums of rose as we discussed our past,
(00:44):
present and future. Without further delay, please enjoy Summer Series
from the Beach with my dear, dear friend, Chef Michael Simon.
How do you do it all? First of all, let's
talk about your organization, because everyone's fascinated by that. What
is I mean? We all say, it's a random bunch
(01:05):
of misfits that we all come together and when we
do right, we create. Oh yeah, it's the people rest
business in the land of misfit toys, you know. And
and I think that's the one thing that you have
to accept right away. I've been cooking. I've owned restaurants
for twenty five years with my wife Liz and our
business partner Doug. Same business point you've had the whole time.
And one of the things I learned early on was
(01:27):
one of the keys I think in life, not just
in the restaurant business, but is at some point your
career you get the confidence to surround yourself with people
that know what you don't and then you need to
listen to those people you know, as hard as it
is to do. It's hard because I think when you're younger,
you think you know everything, and then you know, as
you age, you realize maybe I didn't know as much
as I thought I did. Um. But I think the
(01:50):
key to being to have some kind of success in
life in general is is really to put people around
you that know what you don't know, and then listen
to what they have to say when they're advising you.
On the things that you don't know, and you have
a great team behind you to do that well. We
have great people and we have longevity. Like our corporate
chef Derek, who's here this weekend with me, has been
with me seventeen years. My culinary director Katie has been
(02:12):
with me fifteen years. Frankie Ritz who you know who
now ran runs Angeline, has been with Liz and I
for twenty seven years, you know. So we have a
lot of fifteen to fifteen year plus employees that has
allowed us to grow and give them more responsibility as
we've grown, which really, I think in the for our
(02:33):
restaurant side of things, has that's been that's been our
secret sauce? When did you know? When did that switch
go off for you? Fifteen years ago, twenty years ago
when you knew that, you know, the New York market
was something you wanted to be in and that you
saw a market not only that could have been in
the food world, but now mostly in the television world.
(02:53):
Because you really have done both very well and for
a long time. You have There's not many chefs that
have as many establishments and have as many TV successes
as you have. What was that time was it when
you came to New York with ches? I mean, I
think there were like success and failures a little bit
like anything else, and that aha moment kind of always happens. Gosh, Jeffrey,
(03:14):
I really don't know. I don't know if I've had
a full high yet in my life. I mean, I
think we've like we opened a restaurant, we opened Lola
twenty almost twenty four years ago. We didn't open our
second restaurantuntil ten years later, you know, and now since
then we've opened fifteen more. But you know, we waited
ten years to get the number two, and then we
grew and then like my life changed, My life changed
(03:37):
started to change a lot. When you know, I was
in Cleveland and having some success in Cleveland as a chef,
and then in Food and Wine named me one of
their best new Chefs, which no one from Ohio had
ever won that prior to that. So all of a sudden,
then I'm on a national stage with you know, chefs
from other cities, and I go to the Aspen Food
(03:57):
and Wine and that something, you know, sort of that
was the ten year anniversary, so they put the chefs
on the cover. Back then it was the first time
chefs had ever been on the cover. And all of
a sudden, you know, having lunch with Drew and with
Thomas Keller and Charlie Palmer and all, you know, all
these chefs that you looked up to when you were
younger and Danielle and that was a special moment. And
(04:17):
then shortly after that, I started becoming a guest on
Food Network shows. And then the first show I hosted
on Food Network was a show called The Melting Pot,
and that was I believe in ninety eight, maybe late
in the early ninety nine, and I you know, I've
been doing things on an offince Food Network ever since.
And I never looked to be on TV. I just
ended up on TV. And I think that's maybe the
(04:38):
difference on you had successful restaurants, and he always fell
to you you didn't like, you know. And I still
think of myself as a chef, like people go, I'm
a chef, you know, So I always think of myself
as a chef before anything else. And then I mean,
the chew happened like it was hilarious, Like Gore Nelly
had called me up one day, were two days away
from opening up a restaurant, and you know, he said,
(04:59):
h hey, I want you to read for the show
I'm doing for ABC. I said, what. He goes, it's
called a chew It's gonna be a daytime talk show.
ABC is green lit it, but they want us to
get different hosts. I go, when do you need me
in New York? He said tomorrow. I said, we're sending tomorrow.
I'm eating up a restaurant in the day. He goes,
I'm gonna send he had a plane. He goes, I'm
gonna send you a plane. You're gonna get in the plane,
(05:19):
you're gonna come here, you're gonna read, and I'll have
you back by dinner. Wow, that's fairytale. Yeah. Crazy, And
then fift episodes later just incredible. Yeah, really really wild.
So your daily routine performance is something to me that's fascinating.
(05:40):
We talk about working hard, it's not just about working hard,
it's about out performing someone. As we know a lot
of hard workers. We could not get where we are
without people that work really hard. Nope. But there's a
different strata of performance that happens five years, ten years,
fifteen years, twenty five years, in your case, thirty years,
thirty five years in a case of Alpha Portal you
know everything and and John George, it's just kind of remarkable.
(06:03):
How do you start your day when you wake up
and I'm responsible for X y Z, I gotta get better,
but your mind, Like I wake up every morning, I
usually I'm up at thirty, which I mean a lot
of us are at my double Espresso right there, double. Yeah.
So what I always do in the morning, even before
like I read the news, is I make my list
(06:23):
for the day. And I do it old school. I
don't do it on a phone or a computer. And
I always look from the list to day before to
see if there's anything I didn't get done. So I
kind of make my I make my list here's what
today entails. And I just started, like even if there's
only four things on it, you make a list. Make
a list. But that's one of those things that creates
a performance test for you. Don't have to worry about
(06:44):
it because you've written it down, so you've imprinted it
in your head. It's on a piece of paper. I
like to do a list and I have it on
my calendar, so I have a backup, because I don't
trust backup. I don't trust the calendar, the iPad. I
don't trust it. It's getting older. We could lose the list.
The list exactly. So do you exercise every day? What
do you do? I know you do yoga. I don't
do as much yoga as I used to. Unfortunately, I
(07:06):
do meditate every day every day. So you know, I
usually make my list that I'm meditate, what type, what
type of menute? I just do like deep breathing meditation. Simple, simple,
very like what I learned how to do in yoga.
I just I always do that. Um I lift like
two days a week. I stretched one or two days
a week. And you know, I keep it pretty simple
like that. You've been working on. You worked on a
(07:27):
book that was incredible best seller New York Times bestseller, Congratulations.
It talked about your your lifelong battle with the rheumatory
authoritis and lupus. And now you sort of really took
your diet and wrestled it to the ground basically without
you moderated it a lot, but you wrestled it to
the ground. And I noticed I was watching your your
reset show you did on Instagram, and it was day
(07:48):
I think he did ten days, ten days, uh, and
that was fascinating because it was a very engaging information
medical but it was also really delicious food. It was like, Wow,
this doesn't seem like it's a stretch or you're not
like you're not missing anything. No, we want to come.
I mean if I got diagnosed with r A and
external lupus when I was like twenty, and I think, like,
(08:10):
so you've been just eating and drinking the entire life. Correct,
And I think what happens with when you're young, you
just grunk through can a little more. You're like, this hurts,
who cares? Let's go? This hurts? Who cares? Let's go?
And then as you get a little older, you get
a little acre And I mean we're chefs. So at
the end of the day, I'm like, I know that
there's probably things I could do with adjusting my diet
and it will affect the way I feel. I mean,
(08:30):
that's just kind of common sense. And unfortunately, I think
what's happened with food now is eliminating certain things from
your diet has become trendy not healthy. Correct. You know,
like people are like, I'm gluten free, why are you, Celia? No,
I'm just gluten free, man. I can't gluten, you know,
and then that's so they go on this gluten free kick,
and then they go to the grocery store and they
buy a bunch of process food that says it's gluten free,
(08:52):
but then they're really just eating a bunch of process
ship and they're not going to feel better than a
lot of rice. That's actually was the worse thing louting. Yeah,
then we went through the whole like fat free Atkins,
like we could name as when you are a chef
of a restaurant, you can name every fat diet doesn't
last for about five years and customers make you insane.
(09:12):
You know, for five years we didn't sell a single
carb in the restaurant, and now it's carbs of back. Yeah,
you know, like it just so goes for this thing.
So I'm like, let's do this in a way where
I just I'm not going to write a cookbook if
the food is not good, if I can't make food
that's gonna make me feel better than taste. Right, Quite honestly,
I'd rather feel like ship because I'm not going to
go through my life eating not tasty food. But you
you're Sicilian and Greek, so if you just went back
(09:34):
to your roots. Isn't that half well for me? So
the way that the reset works is you pretty much
eliminate everything for ten days everything ten days? What is everything?
You're basically a vegan for ten days vegan to figure
out what you can add back. And then after the
ten days are up, as a carnivore, after the ten
days are up, you're angry, but you feel very good,
(09:56):
like your body feels good, but you're pissed because you
want to steak. Like that's how pretty wauch how I
kind of was feeling every day, Like I'm thinking to myself, Man,
my wife is a vegetarian and she's been vegan, and
she doesn't seem anger. She must be angry inside. I'm
not sure, but like, and so after the ten days
is up, for two days, you start adding back one
trigger at a time, Like how did you know what
triggers they were? Sugar? For the elimination, you eliminated meat,
(10:20):
all meat, no fish, nothing, all meat. You eliminated all meat.
You eliminated sugar, dairy, alcohol, and wheat and wheat for
ten days, I mean ten days. You could do anything
for ten days, um, well, not at our age, not anything,
but you could do most things attended. So when you
(10:50):
say trigger, what's a trigger for you? Minor dairy and sugar?
So you found that out. I found it out because
when you said you didn't know, no, I didn't know
because I was eating everything, So how was I supposed to?
So you loved cheese, love cheese. You've ben eating cheese
since I've known you. I mean, you're cheese cheese and
I love ice cream, by the way, like my favorite
thing eating the world. So you don't eat cheese and
ice cream anymore, very rarely. But what I explained in
(11:11):
the book and how I feel is like, look, my
livelihood is food, and I am going to enjoy life.
And I think of it kind of like you think
of drinks. We know that if we have two bourbons,
were good, If we have five bourbons, we're gonna feel
a little hungover the next day. So as long as
you know what your triggers are, so like, there's gonna
be days where I'm gonna eat ice cream, but I
(11:31):
know now the next day I'm gonna not feel great
because of what I ate, and then you just eliminate
it again, you know. So it's just about knowing what
kind of gets you off kilter. You went from eating
everything to like moderating sugar, dairy and anything else. That's it.
That's it. So you can have wheat, but what but
I also I I don't eat wheat that's been bleached
(11:54):
or bromated to you very particular. I'm very particular. So
when you look at the Greek and Sicilian diet, it's
pretty much moderation, fish, omega, trees, poultry, a little lamb
when you can get it, because lamb is expensive, but
not da but all the hard cheese is too, don't
hurt you as much. And all the dairy, though is grazed.
(12:16):
Cows and sheep that eat they don't eat ship and
you you don't process anything. There's no process in it.
So it's really you've gone way backwards. Hunt to go
back and say, okay, you know what, if I just
ate like my grandmother ate, I would probably be half
that perfect, but way ahead of the way ahead of
the game's kind of remarkable. It is kind of remarkable percent,
you know. And then like my grandfather who's from eastern Europe,
(12:38):
you know, I watched how he's he's from the Carpathian
Mountains and he made party, made his own wine. Yeah,
and he's but he'll eat a ton of meat and
none of that stuff affects him. So I do think
there probably is a connection between your heritage and what
has to be there has to be. But you know
right now that you're gonna, like once in a while
go off huc off the track. Yeah, hundred percent. My
(12:59):
son oled a dolt on ice cream shop. I mean
there's gonna be days I sugar and dairy. Yeah, it's
a great donut chat. When you're bringing that to like
New York City, I can talk to him. I don't know,
you know, that's his world out mine. But I'm happy
for So you just recently signed to be You're on
(13:27):
Kiki and Michael and uh Sarah, I'm Straight Morning. I'm
Good Morning America's new resident shop. Yes, so that's exciting.
It's exciting for me. So, yeah, you're down the street
from I do. I do g M A sometimes, I
do Sarah's straight hand sometimes. But yeah, it's fun. I'm
gonna actually start doing a weekly food thing for g
(13:47):
M A and Serence straight and so it's a good time. No,
it's great. And although everyone now is if they don't
have a robust food element and entertaining and drinks element.
It's just it's one of the biggest parts of the show.
It used to be get one minute here too many
a talk about Yeah. Now it's a full segment, sement
and a half. Well they have you know, they go
back to back. Rachel Ray is one of Thank god,
she what she's done is amazing. Rachel is like eighteen
(14:09):
minutes of like talking about food and preparation and problem.
I mean the you was an hour we talked about
food for an entire show. It's just so fascinating. What's happened.
What's on the horizon for you? As far as restaurants,
what about the Burgers show? You gonna like blow that out,
not do it anymore of them work? You know? Why
is that we're in a pretty comfortable place right now.
I think that the world changes a little bit. Like
we opened our first burger place ten years ago, you know,
(14:31):
and as you know better than anybody, beef prices have
doubled in tenure. You can't double. Burger prices can't alastic.
I mean in the Midwest, I can't say, yeah, the
Hamburgers sixteen dollars, so the burger prices have doubled and
labor is tripled. Yeah, and the burgers that one can't
do it. Yeah, it's not. I don't think it's a
good growth model, so to speak. What is next for
you is to sign I'm not sure, you know. We
(14:52):
just opened two restaurants in Las Vegas at the Palms,
which I'm enjoying very much. We did a Mabel's there,
which is our barbecue concept, and then we did a
little It's very you would love it. It's a very
table side. It's a thirty five set Martini brow back restaurant. Yeah,
that's small, shaved prime rib. I'd love it as small.
(15:13):
A small restaurant, by the way, makes it very little
money money. It's a lot of fun and you can
control everything and it's sort of like you do it
when you can. Yeah. Mark Vtory just opened up a
fourteen seat restaurant. He's my idol fourteen seats where in Philly.
He writes a menu every day at Chalkboard Menu. He
puts on one salad, seven pastas in a dessert, first come,
(15:33):
first serve. Menu changes every day. They open it five
by four o'clock. There's fifty people in line, which is
pretty much half the night service. And you know they
sit at the bar, they cook them pasta and they go, wow,
I mean that's just that, that's a passion play. Oh man,
it's a dream. That's well, he's amazing. You're amazing. Thank
you for coming on, man, thank you. Cheers, cheers. Pay
(16:06):
t
Hello, listeners of Four Courses with Jeffrey Z. Carrion. It's
your host, Jeffrey. I'm here today to share a very
special announcement. One thing you may know about me from
social media is that I love meeting my friends from
the food world at events around the country, and I've
even made it an annual ritual to interview many of
them at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival in Miami.
So for the rest of this summer, we will be
(00:23):
bringing you our Summer Series from the Beach. Each Friday,
will be publishing short and intimate conversations that I've had
with some of the top talent in the food world.
And even beyond. The conversations you'll here for the next
six weeks were recorded pool side at the w Hotel
and South Beach as my friends and I enjoyed great
cigars and magnums of rose as we discussed our past,
(00:44):
present and future. Without further delay, please enjoy Summer Series
from the Beach with my dear, dear friend, Chef Michael Simon.
How do you do it all? First of all, let's
talk about your organization, because everyone's fascinated by that. What
is I mean? We all say, it's a random bunch
(01:05):
of misfits that we all come together and when we
do right, we create. Oh yeah, it's the people rest
business in the land of misfit toys, you know. And
and I think that's the one thing that you have
to accept right away. I've been cooking. I've owned restaurants
for twenty five years with my wife Liz and our
business partner Doug. Same business point you've had the whole time.
And one of the things I learned early on was
(01:27):
one of the keys I think in life, not just
in the restaurant business, but is at some point your
career you get the confidence to surround yourself with people
that know what you don't and then you need to
listen to those people you know, as hard as it
is to do. It's hard because I think when you're younger,
you think you know everything, and then you know, as
you age, you realize maybe I didn't know as much
as I thought I did. Um. But I think the
(01:50):
key to being to have some kind of success in
life in general is is really to put people around
you that know what you don't know, and then listen
to what they have to say when they're advising you.
On the things that you don't know, and you have
a great team behind you to do that well. We
have great people and we have longevity. Like our corporate
chef Derek, who's here this weekend with me, has been
with me seventeen years. My culinary director Katie has been
(02:12):
with me fifteen years. Frankie Ritz who you know who
now ran runs Angeline, has been with Liz and I
for twenty seven years, you know. So we have a
lot of fifteen to fifteen year plus employees that has
allowed us to grow and give them more responsibility as
we've grown, which really, I think in the for our
(02:33):
restaurant side of things, has that's been that's been our
secret sauce? When did you know? When did that switch
go off for you? Fifteen years ago, twenty years ago
when you knew that, you know, the New York market
was something you wanted to be in and that you
saw a market not only that could have been in
the food world, but now mostly in the television world.
(02:53):
Because you really have done both very well and for
a long time. You have There's not many chefs that
have as many establishments and have as many TV successes
as you have. What was that time was it when
you came to New York with ches? I mean, I
think there were like success and failures a little bit
like anything else, and that aha moment kind of always happens. Gosh, Jeffrey,
(03:14):
I really don't know. I don't know if I've had
a full high yet in my life. I mean, I
think we've like we opened a restaurant, we opened Lola
twenty almost twenty four years ago. We didn't open our
second restaurantuntil ten years later, you know, and now since
then we've opened fifteen more. But you know, we waited
ten years to get the number two, and then we
grew and then like my life changed, My life changed
(03:37):
started to change a lot. When you know, I was
in Cleveland and having some success in Cleveland as a chef,
and then in Food and Wine named me one of
their best new Chefs, which no one from Ohio had
ever won that prior to that. So all of a sudden,
then I'm on a national stage with you know, chefs
from other cities, and I go to the Aspen Food
(03:57):
and Wine and that something, you know, sort of that
was the ten year anniversary, so they put the chefs
on the cover. Back then it was the first time
chefs had ever been on the cover. And all of
a sudden, you know, having lunch with Drew and with
Thomas Keller and Charlie Palmer and all, you know, all
these chefs that you looked up to when you were
younger and Danielle and that was a special moment. And
(04:17):
then shortly after that, I started becoming a guest on
Food Network shows. And then the first show I hosted
on Food Network was a show called The Melting Pot,
and that was I believe in ninety eight, maybe late
in the early ninety nine, and I you know, I've
been doing things on an offince Food Network ever since.
And I never looked to be on TV. I just
ended up on TV. And I think that's maybe the
(04:38):
difference on you had successful restaurants, and he always fell
to you you didn't like, you know. And I still
think of myself as a chef, like people go, I'm
a chef, you know, So I always think of myself
as a chef before anything else. And then I mean,
the chew happened like it was hilarious, Like Gore Nelly
had called me up one day, were two days away
from opening up a restaurant, and you know, he said,
(04:59):
h hey, I want you to read for the show
I'm doing for ABC. I said, what. He goes, it's
called a chew It's gonna be a daytime talk show.
ABC is green lit it, but they want us to
get different hosts. I go, when do you need me
in New York? He said tomorrow. I said, we're sending tomorrow.
I'm eating up a restaurant in the day. He goes,
I'm gonna send he had a plane. He goes, I'm
gonna send you a plane. You're gonna get in the plane,
(05:19):
you're gonna come here, you're gonna read, and I'll have
you back by dinner. Wow, that's fairytale. Yeah. Crazy, And
then fift episodes later just incredible. Yeah, really really wild.
So your daily routine performance is something to me that's fascinating.
(05:40):
We talk about working hard, it's not just about working hard,
it's about out performing someone. As we know a lot
of hard workers. We could not get where we are
without people that work really hard. Nope. But there's a
different strata of performance that happens five years, ten years,
fifteen years, twenty five years, in your case, thirty years,
thirty five years in a case of Alpha Portal you
know everything and and John George, it's just kind of remarkable.
(06:03):
How do you start your day when you wake up
and I'm responsible for X y Z, I gotta get better,
but your mind, Like I wake up every morning, I
usually I'm up at thirty, which I mean a lot
of us are at my double Espresso right there, double. Yeah.
So what I always do in the morning, even before
like I read the news, is I make my list
(06:23):
for the day. And I do it old school. I
don't do it on a phone or a computer. And
I always look from the list to day before to
see if there's anything I didn't get done. So I
kind of make my I make my list here's what
today entails. And I just started, like even if there's
only four things on it, you make a list. Make
a list. But that's one of those things that creates
a performance test for you. Don't have to worry about
(06:44):
it because you've written it down, so you've imprinted it
in your head. It's on a piece of paper. I
like to do a list and I have it on
my calendar, so I have a backup, because I don't
trust backup. I don't trust the calendar, the iPad. I
don't trust it. It's getting older. We could lose the list.
The list exactly. So do you exercise every day? What
do you do? I know you do yoga. I don't
do as much yoga as I used to. Unfortunately, I
(07:06):
do meditate every day every day. So you know, I
usually make my list that I'm meditate, what type, what
type of menute? I just do like deep breathing meditation. Simple, simple,
very like what I learned how to do in yoga.
I just I always do that. Um I lift like
two days a week. I stretched one or two days
a week. And you know, I keep it pretty simple
like that. You've been working on. You worked on a
(07:27):
book that was incredible best seller New York Times bestseller, Congratulations.
It talked about your your lifelong battle with the rheumatory
authoritis and lupus. And now you sort of really took
your diet and wrestled it to the ground basically without
you moderated it a lot, but you wrestled it to
the ground. And I noticed I was watching your your
reset show you did on Instagram, and it was day
(07:48):
I think he did ten days, ten days, uh, and
that was fascinating because it was a very engaging information
medical but it was also really delicious food. It was like, Wow,
this doesn't seem like it's a stretch or you're not
like you're not missing anything. No, we want to come.
I mean if I got diagnosed with r A and
external lupus when I was like twenty, and I think, like,
(08:10):
so you've been just eating and drinking the entire life. Correct,
And I think what happens with when you're young, you
just grunk through can a little more. You're like, this hurts,
who cares? Let's go? This hurts? Who cares? Let's go?
And then as you get a little older, you get
a little acre And I mean we're chefs. So at
the end of the day, I'm like, I know that
there's probably things I could do with adjusting my diet
and it will affect the way I feel. I mean,
(08:30):
that's just kind of common sense. And unfortunately, I think
what's happened with food now is eliminating certain things from
your diet has become trendy not healthy. Correct. You know,
like people are like, I'm gluten free, why are you, Celia? No,
I'm just gluten free, man. I can't gluten, you know,
and then that's so they go on this gluten free kick,
and then they go to the grocery store and they
buy a bunch of process food that says it's gluten free,
(08:52):
but then they're really just eating a bunch of process
ship and they're not going to feel better than a
lot of rice. That's actually was the worse thing louting. Yeah,
then we went through the whole like fat free Atkins,
like we could name as when you are a chef
of a restaurant, you can name every fat diet doesn't
last for about five years and customers make you insane.
(09:12):
You know, for five years we didn't sell a single
carb in the restaurant, and now it's carbs of back. Yeah,
you know, like it just so goes for this thing.
So I'm like, let's do this in a way where
I just I'm not going to write a cookbook if
the food is not good, if I can't make food
that's gonna make me feel better than taste. Right, Quite honestly,
I'd rather feel like ship because I'm not going to
go through my life eating not tasty food. But you
you're Sicilian and Greek, so if you just went back
(09:34):
to your roots. Isn't that half well for me? So
the way that the reset works is you pretty much
eliminate everything for ten days everything ten days? What is everything?
You're basically a vegan for ten days vegan to figure
out what you can add back. And then after the
ten days are up, as a carnivore, after the ten
days are up, you're angry, but you feel very good,
(09:56):
like your body feels good, but you're pissed because you
want to steak. Like that's how pretty wauch how I
kind of was feeling every day, Like I'm thinking to myself, Man,
my wife is a vegetarian and she's been vegan, and
she doesn't seem anger. She must be angry inside. I'm
not sure, but like, and so after the ten days
is up, for two days, you start adding back one
trigger at a time, Like how did you know what
triggers they were? Sugar? For the elimination, you eliminated meat,
(10:20):
all meat, no fish, nothing, all meat. You eliminated all meat.
You eliminated sugar, dairy, alcohol, and wheat and wheat for
ten days, I mean ten days. You could do anything
for ten days, um, well, not at our age, not anything,
but you could do most things attended. So when you
(10:50):
say trigger, what's a trigger for you? Minor dairy and sugar?
So you found that out. I found it out because
when you said you didn't know, no, I didn't know
because I was eating everything, So how was I supposed to?
So you loved cheese, love cheese. You've ben eating cheese
since I've known you. I mean, you're cheese cheese and
I love ice cream, by the way, like my favorite
thing eating the world. So you don't eat cheese and
ice cream anymore, very rarely. But what I explained in
(11:11):
the book and how I feel is like, look, my
livelihood is food, and I am going to enjoy life.
And I think of it kind of like you think
of drinks. We know that if we have two bourbons,
were good, If we have five bourbons, we're gonna feel
a little hungover the next day. So as long as
you know what your triggers are, so like, there's gonna
be days where I'm gonna eat ice cream, but I
(11:31):
know now the next day I'm gonna not feel great
because of what I ate, and then you just eliminate
it again, you know. So it's just about knowing what
kind of gets you off kilter. You went from eating
everything to like moderating sugar, dairy and anything else. That's it.
That's it. So you can have wheat, but what but
I also I I don't eat wheat that's been bleached
(11:54):
or bromated to you very particular. I'm very particular. So
when you look at the Greek and Sicilian diet, it's
pretty much moderation, fish, omega, trees, poultry, a little lamb
when you can get it, because lamb is expensive, but
not da but all the hard cheese is too, don't
hurt you as much. And all the dairy, though is grazed.
(12:16):
Cows and sheep that eat they don't eat ship and
you you don't process anything. There's no process in it.
So it's really you've gone way backwards. Hunt to go
back and say, okay, you know what, if I just
ate like my grandmother ate, I would probably be half
that perfect, but way ahead of the way ahead of
the game's kind of remarkable. It is kind of remarkable percent,
you know. And then like my grandfather who's from eastern Europe,
(12:38):
you know, I watched how he's he's from the Carpathian
Mountains and he made party, made his own wine. Yeah,
and he's but he'll eat a ton of meat and
none of that stuff affects him. So I do think
there probably is a connection between your heritage and what
has to be there has to be. But you know
right now that you're gonna, like once in a while
go off huc off the track. Yeah, hundred percent. My
(12:59):
son oled a dolt on ice cream shop. I mean
there's gonna be days I sugar and dairy. Yeah, it's
a great donut chat. When you're bringing that to like
New York City, I can talk to him. I don't know,
you know, that's his world out mine. But I'm happy
for So you just recently signed to be You're on
(13:27):
Kiki and Michael and uh Sarah, I'm Straight Morning. I'm
Good Morning America's new resident shop. Yes, so that's exciting.
It's exciting for me. So, yeah, you're down the street
from I do. I do g M A sometimes, I
do Sarah's straight hand sometimes. But yeah, it's fun. I'm
gonna actually start doing a weekly food thing for g
(13:47):
M A and Serence straight and so it's a good time. No,
it's great. And although everyone now is if they don't
have a robust food element and entertaining and drinks element.
It's just it's one of the biggest parts of the show.
It used to be get one minute here too many
a talk about Yeah. Now it's a full segment, sement
and a half. Well they have you know, they go
back to back. Rachel Ray is one of Thank god,
she what she's done is amazing. Rachel is like eighteen
(14:09):
minutes of like talking about food and preparation and problem.
I mean the you was an hour we talked about
food for an entire show. It's just so fascinating. What's happened.
What's on the horizon for you? As far as restaurants,
what about the Burgers show? You gonna like blow that out,
not do it anymore of them work? You know? Why
is that we're in a pretty comfortable place right now.
I think that the world changes a little bit. Like
we opened our first burger place ten years ago, you know,
(14:31):
and as you know better than anybody, beef prices have
doubled in tenure. You can't double. Burger prices can't alastic.
I mean in the Midwest, I can't say, yeah, the
Hamburgers sixteen dollars, so the burger prices have doubled and
labor is tripled. Yeah, and the burgers that one can't
do it. Yeah, it's not. I don't think it's a
good growth model, so to speak. What is next for
you is to sign I'm not sure, you know. We
(14:52):
just opened two restaurants in Las Vegas at the Palms,
which I'm enjoying very much. We did a Mabel's there,
which is our barbecue concept, and then we did a
little It's very you would love it. It's a very
table side. It's a thirty five set Martini brow back restaurant. Yeah,
that's small, shaved prime rib. I'd love it as small.
(15:13):
A small restaurant, by the way, makes it very little
money money. It's a lot of fun and you can
control everything and it's sort of like you do it
when you can. Yeah. Mark Vtory just opened up a
fourteen seat restaurant. He's my idol fourteen seats where in Philly.
He writes a menu every day at Chalkboard Menu. He
puts on one salad, seven pastas in a dessert, first come,
(15:33):
first serve. Menu changes every day. They open it five
by four o'clock. There's fifty people in line, which is
pretty much half the night service. And you know they
sit at the bar, they cook them pasta and they go, wow,
I mean that's just that, that's a passion play. Oh man,
it's a dream. That's well, he's amazing. You're amazing. Thank
you for coming on, man, thank you. Cheers, cheers. Pay
(16:06):
t
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