November 13, 2025 • 30 mins
Chef Andrew and Lauren are serving up the week’s hottest food stories…from the rise of AI cashiers and fast-food automation to Chick-fil-A’s secret new spinoff café. Plus, they dig into the surprising truth behind “natural” foods and share some essential Thanksgiving cooking tips! Subscribe now for food, freedom, and the real stories behind what’s on your plate!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
All right, welcome back to another episode of American Gravy,
the only show where we mix food, family, and freedom
in the same pot.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And somehow we don't burn it mostly mostly right.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yeah, where the grease is hot, the opinions are hotter,
and somebody definitely burned the bacon.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I am Lauren Gruel.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I am Lauren Girl.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Oh yeah, wait, no, no, no, I'm Andrew Girl.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
He's Andrew grown. Today we are stirring together a little
food family in the occasional political indigestion.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
It is a little bit of political indigestion. Today, We're
going to be covering Chick fil A's new spinoff cafe.
We're going to be covering New York City hiring workers
from the Philippines at the counter. We're going to be
talking Thanksgiving, talking stuffing, talking eggs, talking meat, doing some
sharpening your skills, potato cast iron pizza. As a little
sneak peaks, weight loss drugs. Oh my gosh, I have
(00:51):
a lot to talk about today.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I was like weight loss drugs, so I go, yeah,
that's my eighty six Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Who whoa wha give away? Okay, don't give away the ending,
but we'll start today. We kind of tossed up our
segments a little bit. But we're gonna start with our
WTF segment, which is the what the fork Crazy food stories,
and Lauren's got a good one for you.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
All right. So, Chick fil A has opened a new
spinoff cafe concept called Daybright Coffee, which features coffees, phizzes,
iced teas, and smoothies along with quick bitestoneuts and more.
Does Starbucks have some competition.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
There's a lot of brands that have tried to jump
into this spin off drink space. You saw that McDonald's
did their version of a drink only concept which I
think was was it called Cosmos and they closed it.
But I don't know if they closed it because it
was just a beta and they wanted to get numbers,
or it didn't do well. Swig has been blowing up.
(01:42):
Swig was that concept that started in Utah, which is
a pig Swig, Yeah, which is the drag through soda spot.
I remember, Yes, Okay, that big.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Deal and it was all these craft very unique soda
like I.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Think you pump it right there and you get the
soda fresh, which I thought was really unique. That's gotten
a of investment, independent and private equity. So Chick fil
A doing this.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yeah, but Chick fil A has a huge following. Yeah, right,
like they have like a loyal customer base.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah. But one thing I will say is that when
I've seen brands break away from what they do and
they do best and people know them for, it's not
always that successful. Chipotle's tried to do this with multiple brands.
They did their Southeast Asian street food concept. I forget
the name of it. I think it was Hawkers, or
it might have been.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Clearly it wasn't memorable. I don't even know that it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
It was something else. In any case, they closed them all.
They've tried a couple different concepts, so this will be
interesting WTF.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
But there's only one right now. It's in I can't
hire them Georgia.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, it's in Georgia.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
So Georgia. So we'll see. Let's see how they do well.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
My WTF story, though, is interesting. I love this. I've
seen this video going viral across social media. New York
City is hiring workers from the Philippines and they put
this big computer screen up at the front counter. The
person's in the Philippines walk in and they're like, hello,
how can I help you? And they're working for three
dollars an hour or something, and it's over zoom. They're
(03:05):
literally running this over zoom and then you give the
person in the Philippines your order through this computer screen
and then they put your ordering and it goes back
into the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
But why wouldn't they just do one of those like
mobile ordering where you like do it yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Because people don't. So there's a lot of surveys that
have shown people don't. They will not go back to
restaurants where they have to place the order themselves because
I still think the mobile ordering format or algorithm that
it's still confusing in many cases.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, but at the same time, you're talking to a computer,
so I mean it's a live person, I guess, But
that's such a weird I mean whatever, it's probably is
it working.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I mean, I don't know. You should see the comments section.
When people post about it. They're like higher Americans and
they make it obviously like a much cooler But when you.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Have freaking what's his face trying to you know, increase
a minimum wage of thirty bucks an.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Hour, Yeah, exactly, you're right, You're right.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
To you what they got to do.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Because if you have think about it, if you have
a restaurant, let's just say it opens ten to eleven,
right or ten to ten, so twelve hours. You need
two people, well three people every single day, right, you
need a midshift to cover the breaks of the PM
shift and the AM shift, right, And so let's just
say you have three units of labor right there, and
if it gets really busy, maybe five. So five units
(04:21):
of labor at thirty dollars an hour what they're mandating
minus the three dollars an hour that you have to
pay in the Philippines probably less on the insurance and
the payroll taxes. So forty hours a day in labor,
you know, saving twenty five dollars an hour times four.
That's right there, one thousand dollars every single day you're
saving by doing it that way, thousand dollars a day.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Get it too. I mean this is these are more
for quick service, fast casual spots anyway, so I understand, right,
But at the same rate, it's like, I don't know,
it's taking the.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
How do you say, Like it's taking the service out
of quick service, not the taking this it's taking the
it's taking the well. First of all, you want it
to be genuine, like that's why people love Chick fil A.
Going back to the original, WTF. People love Chick fil
A because they say thank you, they say please come again,
my pleasure, all that good stuff, cliches, very simple, great training,
and they stick to their service model. We're losing it, right,
(05:17):
we're outsourcing it.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah, we're losing that leg I don't know human touch.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Well, speaking of your foot just touched me. Okay, Well,
let's talk about Thanksgiving because it's coming up. And I
saw a study recently that said stuffing remains America's favorite
dish at Thanksgiving, not the turkey stuffing.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Because turkey, unless you make it, is horrible. It's dry.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
That is a funny. That is a funny thing. People
hate the turkey, but it's the centerpiece.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Because it's pretty.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I don't want to mix a I don't want to
mix a sharpen your Skills segment into this segment. But
I will say this just quickly. If you are going
to cook your turkey, I know you want that big
round centerpiece. Separate the legs, the thighs, and the breast,
and cook the breast separately than the legs and the thighs,
because that's how you're going to get the perfect meat
every single time. It's impossible to cook your breasts and
(06:09):
your thighs perfectly. Even when you're doing it just straight
in the oven as.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
A r you've also done it where you kind of
you keep the bird together and you're flipping it around.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, that's the French roast. So if you cook it,
if you roast it and you basically turn the bird
every fifteen minutes on different sides, and you are circulating
the heat in a much more even manner, so you
are going to get a better cook on that. I mean,
the ultimate way is to spatchcock your bird is where
you split the backbone out and you flatten the bird
because then you're going to cook. The breasts, which are
on the inside of the pan are going to take
(06:41):
longer to heat up and the x so your legs
need to cook to let's just say one hundred and
sixty five degrees. Your breast cook to one fifty five degrees,
so you can overcook your legs because they're on the
xterior of the pan. By the time you're the interior
of the bird or the interior of the pan where
the breasts are will cook to one fifty five, so
they actually cook perfectly that way. But whoa, I went
(07:01):
completely off topic there.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
That's okay.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
You like the sides more than the turkey.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yes, absolutely, Like I could eat sides all day long.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I she could eat sides all day long because I've
done that, I've left it in the fridge, and then
she will have breakfast, lunch, dinner, sides.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Like I'll just throw something, I'll I'll make eggs and
then like throw some stuffing and them all make eggs
and throw some cranberry sauce anything.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
You know, generally speaking, when foods, I think I just
like sides overall anyways, because they're fun. That's what was
great about Boston Market. Right, you get your burden and
you pick like thirteen sides thirteen.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
But that's so sixty six percent of Americans would rather
cook sides anyway than turkey, and forty seven percent would
rather eat only sides. That's huge.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Well, so twenty percent difference in that number is because
sixty percent of Americans are afraid to cook the turkey.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Well, yeah, I think there needs to be like one
large zoom class you should like host it, right, Philippines, Yeah, exactly,
you should host it and show everybody how to properly
cook a turkey. Oh my gosh, people actually enjoy eating turkey.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Well, you can find that on American Gravy on YouTube
or any of our channels. Go to dubdubdub dot americangravy
dot com and you can get all of those links
and we'll be giving you all of the Thanksgiving cooking tips.
A little plug there, but I'm buck shameless plug. Are
you ready to blow your biscuits?
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You love this segment about blowing your biscuits. So here's
some food facts that you probably didn't know about. And
this one is really interesting, especially when it comes to
the MAHA space. Did you know that the modern diet
is brand engineered? By that I mean eighty percent. This
is a fascinating stat. Eighty percent of grocery store products
are owned by ten companies. Ten companies, Yeah, like your
(08:45):
Pepsicos of the World, etc. Ten companies own eighty percent
of what you're offered at the grocery store, using the
same chemicals, using the same products, using the same ingredients.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Well it's funny too, because you know, people buy all
these you know, name brand items, but they don't want
to buy the store bot. But it's like probably the
same thing and a lot cheaper.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
That is one hundred percent true. And another one that
I found industry is that And I knew this number
was high, but I didn't know it was this high.
Ninety nine percent of the meat that you buy comes
from basically meat operations that utilize CAFOs. Right, So, CAFOs
is an acronym c AFO, and it stands for concentrated
Animal feeding operations. It's a it's a type of an
(09:30):
industrial agricultural facility. They can find these large number of
animals in a dense space and this is specifically for
food production. They basically mass feed them junk and they
don't let the animals walk, they don't let them leave
these spaces. They're packed together undercover, and that's why so
many animals get sick. And then you have to use
antibiotics on the animals, and that's why there's the issue
(09:52):
of having antibiotics or antibiotic residue in the meats that
we eat. So it's all about the feeding piece of it.
If you let these animals naturally kind of pasture walk
around right, free rain, free range. It's really regenerative agriculture.
It's going to cost a lot more, but it's going
to be a lot healthier for you to much better
quality meat. I think in the long run it will
(10:14):
cost a lot less. I think we have enough land
where we can actually allow the cattle to rain free.
I think that these cafo operations are really, you know,
kind of disgusting.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Just sad, yeah, like really sad for the animal.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
And I know we're eating the animal ultimately, but still
like you want that animal to only have one bad
day and that's the day that we slaughter it, to
eat it, and the rest of its life to be wonderful.
So I think that's that's an interesting number and kind
of weaves back into our food conversation that we had
a couple episodes ago in regards to the meat industry.
But don't mean to depress you on that. How about
(10:52):
this one? This is this one's less depressing blowing your biscuits.
Do you know why we refrigerate eggs?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
I do, I don't think many people do. So when
you wash and sanitize an egg, right, why we have
to refrigerate it? Is because when you wash it, you
remove the egg's natural cuticle, which is a thin, protective
coating that seals the pores in the shell. So when
you remove all of that, you have to refrigerate it. Yes,
there's nothing protecting except a little brectly. But that's why
(11:18):
in Europe. In Europe you see eggs on the shelves everywhere,
it's because they don't wash that coating off. Yeah. And
and do you know that if that was the case,
like if we didn't wash the cuticle off, that they
can be safely stored at room temperature for up to
two to three weeks.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Two to three weeks, Yes, two to three weeks.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
That's a long time. We leave our eggs on the
you know, on the counter for like twenty minutes. And
I'm freaking out.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I've actually sometimes our kids go two to three weeks
without taking a shower.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
What it's not true, They're they're boys.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I was reading along the lines of a blow your Biscuit,
I was saying the other day I read this, I
don't know whether it was like an article or something
on Instagram, and it was like taking a shower every
single day removes your natural bacteria and I just kind
of set it out loud. I think I was saying
it to you.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, so now our boys are taking as normal.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
You weren't listening to me, and yeah the other night
we're like, okay, boys, time to take a bath. And
they're like, well, did you know that.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Dad said it's not good for us to shower every day?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah? Like that one, we're never showering never again.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
So yeah, thanks Andrew.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That's right. So our house smells like a French cheese.
Speaking of cheese and eggs, let's talk Denny's. Denny's wounds
over my Hammi.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You worked at Denny's.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I did work at Denny's. I went to Denny's. I
love Denny's. Actually. I remember growing up in New Jersey
and like the early eighties, and my aunt would take
me to Denny's in the morning. I remember, I was.
I went to Denny's a lot. You did, I did,
But especially.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
You went to Denny's even though you had all those
like unique diners in New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
You know, when I started going to Denny's a lot
was when I went to UH I went to college
up in Maine and go on the East Coast. It
was like the late night thing. Right. I started going
to Denny's when I started working in restaurants, and I
might when my insomnia kicked in, which was around the
age of eighteen.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Oh, that's sad. I used to go to Denny's a
lot with my grammy.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Really, yeah, would you get did you get the All
American Grand Slam, the Della Dinger, the Moon?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
So I got the Grand Slam. I think my grandma
also got the Grand Slam, and she would always get
a cup of decaf black coffee.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Do you know that they don't have like nobody knows
the della Dinger.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
I don't even know the della Dinger. What the heck
is that?
Speaker 2 (13:24):
It's not a move. The della Dinger sounds like a move,
like you're gonna get the Della Dinger tonight, Della Dinger.
I don't know what Denny's della dinger? Right? So what
does it break? The word up? Deli Dinger. Oh, it's
Deli Deli Dinger saying della Delli dinger, Delli Dinger, You're
like della dinger.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So that's why it didn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Well, it's it's a discontinued sandwich that originally from Denny's
was a grilled sandwich with turkey, ham, bacon, cheddar cheese,
American cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise on buttered sour dough.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Should we bring our version of the Delli Dinger to Calico?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Maybe maybe we should? It sounds actually delicious, that's funny.
I actually thought there was always an egg on that.
Oh what's this? I looked it up, the Dell Ding
and it says Della Dinger in New Jersey style, That
is with Jewish rye bread, corned beef, roast beef, and pastrami,
Swiss cheese, deli mustard. Lead it to those from New
Jersey to always change up a sandwich. It's like the
(14:20):
Jersey Sloppy.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Joe, which is my favorite. I'll tell a quick story
speaking of sandwiches. So, my first time going back east
with Andrew to meet his family, this was forever ago.
Andrews was like, you have to get the sandwich. We
stop off at this little, tiny, tiny deli that's like
in a strip mall, Gella Dinger and he orders me
the Jersey Joe. And for some reason in my head,
I'm like, why is he getting me a sloppy Joe?
(14:42):
Like what the heck? But then it was like the
most amazing sandwich I've ever had in my life. Even
when we go back to Jersey, like, no one can
replicate that sandwich, Like where did we get it from?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
No one can ever replicate the first time the good
the sloppy Jersey Joe. When I'm saying sloppy Jo right now,
people are probably memory in the Adam Sandler scene where
it's like schloppy Joe, sloppy, sloppish, sloppy, which is just
like man witch right, It's it's ground. It's bolognaise sauce
with more ground beef on a soft seeded bun. The
(15:15):
Jersey Sloppy Joe is a triple layer sandwich, typically with
white Rye, Russian or Thousand Island dressing, depending on what
your political preference is. Swiss cheese, Coleslaw, Turkey ham, triple
decker just oh my gosh, it drips the Coleslaw juice
just drips down your arm with the Thousand Island dressing
(15:36):
and then that sharp cheddar cheese takes takes over and
takes you on a walk. I like going there. That
is the Jersey Joe.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
But let's go back to our denny story. Why did
we bring up Denny's in the first.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Oh, yeah, we brought up Denny's because that's man. You
can tell we're hungry, because we're allowing the stories to
drive our stomachs and not the news, the food news.
So the struggling breakfast chain actually was purchased than a
six hundred and twenty million dollar deal Denny sold. Denny
said Monday that is being acquired by a group of
investors in a deal that will take the breakfast chain private.
(16:08):
Denny's board unanimously approved the deal, which values Denny's at
six hundred and twenty million including debt. Denny's will be
purchased by private equity investment company Try Artists and Capital
and Advisors, an investment firm Travel Capital, and Yadav Enterprises,
which is one of Denny's largest franchisees.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Is it where do Yadav I think they're here? No,
but we just talked about them.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, they bought, weren't they? Part of it was the
top acquisition. Yeah, there's really only a handful of these
private equity firms and investment groups that trade in food.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
And fast Did you know Denny's was founded in nineteen
fifty three in Lakewood, California.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah. Did you know that it was founded as Danny's Donuts.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I did not.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, the name was changed to Denny's Coffee Shops in
nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
That makes sense when my grandma loved denny so much
because she lived will not in lake She lived in Torrance,
which is.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
There you go, and she and Denny's began trained on
the New York Stock Exchange in nineteen sixty nine. Normally
I'd be like sixty nine, but now it'd be six seven, okay.
And like many casual chains, denny saw its sales plummet
during the COVID pandemic. I don't know why they included
that in the article like that, Okay, that's.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Like real brain er everybody everybody's, but.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
They never followed up with And then the government overprinted
billions of dollars worth of money and gave them all
that money back because they were a large, multi unit
chain and not an independent that we were trying to
crush because the government hates entrepreneurs, they really do. That
just got crazy. But last fall, denny said it planned
to close one hundred and fifty of its lowest performing locations.
(17:42):
At the end of the second quarter, Denny's had one thousand,
five hundred and fifty eight restaurants worldwide.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Do you know that one and fifty eight. Yeah, that's
a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, fifteen hundred Dennys. But in any case, Denny's is selling.
So Denny's isn't going under. They're just they're they're going private, right,
So basically they're not gonna be public company anymore, which
I actually think is good for the trajectory because when
a company goes from public to private, then they can
actually make bigger changes. They're not affected by the obviously
rules and regulations, but the effect that any of the
(18:12):
moves that they make would have on their share price,
because then ultimately the share price drives operations and not
the other way around. So maybe a good thing. Maybe
they're going to bring back the Della Dinger.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
All right, Della Dinger.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
So I'm excited about this one.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
What is your sharpen your skills?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
So I saw this the other day and I'm actually
gonna give it a try. I have not tried this myself,
but I wanted to talk about it. So really, the
skill that we're sharpening is just your cast iron cooking
and your quick foods. So this was a skillet pizza
style dish, but it was with a baked potato. So
you take potato that's baked potato. Perhaps you put it
in a refrigerator, was wrapped in foil, so it's a
cold baked potato. Right, Just grease up maybe a little
(18:50):
beef tallow on a cast iron in a cast iron
pan ten inch twelve inch, and then smash the baked
potato into the pan, like smash it all around as
if it's doe and it surrounds the bottom of the pan.
Then they put tomato sauce on top of it, mozzarella cheese,
a little bit of parmesan cheese, pepperoni, and they baked
it at like five hundred and five hundred and fifty
degrees and it actually slipped right out of the pan
(19:13):
and it cut and et and ate like a pizza,
like a pan pizza.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
That sounds fabulous. We should try it tonight.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, we got a lot going on tonight.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
I'm we really are hungry, and that's why everything that
we're talking about. My stomach is growing, I know.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I'm like, So you take the tree and then you
grate the wood chips off the tree and you put
it in a bowl with some glue and eat it
and you're like, that is absolutely delicious. I could eat
that right now. So what do you think eats to go? Like,
let's get to our eighty sixth segment.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Food transit, because I'm almost getting suckered into this. Every
other ad of mine is a weight loss drug, like
whether it's the GLP ones. A tried zeppatide, the peptides,
and I'm like, oh, should I take this?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
By the way, I have no idea what you just said.
I don't know any of those.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
The GLP one, it's like ozempic. I I'm not going
to take ozempic. But there's all these like you know,
capsules now where you don't need injections, and there's all
this stuff, and I'm like, I just feel like we've
come so far as like a society to kind of
accept like what you look like, and now I feel
(20:23):
like we're going back right and like this has nothing
to do with weight loss drug. But Kim Kardashi and
her brand Skims, which is like her shape wear and things,
they just came out with like basically a bodysuit to
enhance curves, butt pads, hip pads like all these, so
your body shape looks like the Kardashian body, which is
by the way, not natural at all, Like it looks fake,
(20:46):
like that's not how a normal human being looks. And
people are getting insecure about how you know, God made them,
and I just hate it so much.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Can men wear this? You could probably use butt pads.
What I was thinking, like, can you break it up?
Like I need the Kardashian chest, but I could, I could,
certainly you don't want the hip a little bit of
rump in the trunk.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I'm gonna buy you the butt pads.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
I need to get bigger.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
No, but seriously, like I don't like that that's become
such a thing like the weight loss drugs or enhancing
curves and just so unrealistic, unnatural. I don't like it.
And for me, I'm getting like, you know, I almost
got like duped, and you're not.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Gonna get duped. I'm not going to allow that to happen.
Number one, because that's just silly. Number two, get off
your phone. Number three. What I will say is this,
you said, we've come to accept our bodies, which I
think is good, Like body positivity is huge. But I
think that then there's there's a difference between superficiality and health.
So some of the things that we're eating and the
exercises or the lack of exercise, but that in which
we engage are not healthy for our bodies either. So
(21:46):
I do think that we need to be a lot
more active and eat a lot healthier, and that in
and of itself is going to make you feel healthier
on the inside. If it's about looking at these.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Are like quickly, I lost ten pounds in two weeks,
and so people, you know, they're incentivized to like buy
this because they're like, oh, well I haven't been able
to lose this weight on my own. Well why don't
I just try this? You know?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, I mean so I'm with you on that. So
eighty six that what I think we need. Eighty six
is the word natural, okay, you know, because I see
it on absolutely everything all natural. This natural that people
don't realize that there is. Natural is an unregulated marketing term.
There is no definition of.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Now you see, like you know, the natural flavors.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
You can say it on anything. The FDA does not
regulate the word natural. You can say it on anything.
I could take a bag of drugs and I could well, no,
you couldn't know that because the FDA would regulate that.
But like I could take the most unnatural chemically laid
in synthetic food ever and write natural across the front
(22:50):
and be like natural pretzels, but it's made with wood,
you know, powdered cellulose and wood pulp. But you can
say natural. You can say natural on anything. I guess
in theory everything is natural to some degree, right.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Well, I just don't like when they say, like with
natural flavors, like if they're so natural, why aren't you
listening them? You know what I mean. It's it's like
it's duping the consumer.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
We don't have to list all the ingredients. That's the
other thing. Like a lot of times it's just you
can have a certain amount of an ingredient in your product,
but if it falls below a certain threshold of zero
point five percent, then you don't have to list it.
So like MS three MSG free foods can still have
MSG in it, vice versa. With so many other ingredients
(23:33):
in which people are sensitive to that is a problem.
One other thing that I wanted to talk about was
this we talked about the food Allergen bill, but like
that goes back to that natural piece of it. Right.
So in the state of California, they passed the bill
recently that you have to list up to these ten
food allergens on your menu. I recently wrote an op
ed on this and how it's actually going to create
(23:55):
more problems than it solves, and it's going to cost restaurants,
you know, collectively, millions of dollars to change their menus,
to go through the analysis to post this on their menus,
and you know, don well, it's going to start a
cottage industry for lawsuits for people who say that they
had a reaction and it wasn't listed on the menu
by virtue of the legislation. That's why trial attorneys in
California donate so much money to the Supermajority is because
(24:19):
the more laws there are, and the more you know,
kind of ambiguity on these laws, then the easier it
is for them to start a cottage industry basically suing
people and creating frivolous lawsuits. So I think that's going
to be another issue, and ultimately it's going to drive
people out. And that's my point. Is that in the
food manufacturing world, you can have ingredients in your food
(24:41):
and you are not even required to list them because
they're below a certain threshold. But if you have a
food allergy, you can have a reaction.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, it's very scary.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
And the other thing, let's get to the eighty six
it is is I keep seeing these images going viral
on social media where they're like, this is why in
Europe they don't have the same problems we do, and
they'll list in ingredient or they'll list They'll they'll put
a picture of a product on the left with the
US ingredients, and they'll put the picture of the same
product in the right with the European ingredients, and they'll
be like six ingredients versus in the US there's like twenty.
(25:12):
That's because in Europe, once again, it's even more vague.
The labeling requirement laws are even more vague, so you
actually don't have to list all the chemicals that you
do on the US product, So in many cases, not
only are they the exact same product, so the point
you're making isn't real. And I support these accounts who
are trying to make these points in breads. It's a
(25:33):
little bit different. Like that's one where well I will
I will say it's different because they don't use glycasate
on all the wheat in Europe. So our breads are
going to be a lot different in our bread like products,
but in the like bagged products they're they're exactly the same.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah, that's what you always say. But you know what's
I don't know interesting as people say they go to
Europe or whatever, and you know, they came back and
they actually lost weight. But I think it's just because
there's so much walking, like they're you know what I mean,
Like I feel like Americans are so stationary they don't
move as much as people in Europe because everyone's walking everywhere.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I think walking has a lot to do with it.
I think also like the wheat in Europe is different
than the wheat in the United States, and I think
that has a lot to do with it. So like
our food is junk, yeah, but it depends on where
you are in Europe because if you go to Italy
and you eat some of the like the European potato
chip brands, I mean those are caked and seed oils,
those have just as much chemicals on them. Those are
(26:23):
just as disgusting. It's just a matter of whether you're
eating at breakfast, lunch, and dinner or whether you're not. Yeah, well,
I think it's also the timing of when you eat.
I think they eat differently, like.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
And they eat for longer periods of time, like nothing's rushed.
I feel like here it's so rushed. What do they
call it? Oh my gosh, ci esta. Yeah, right where
they enjoy themselves. You know, they're all drinking wine and
like they have like a three hour lunch break. It's
like they get to enjoy themselves and then they move
(26:54):
around and they walk in which helps aid in digestion.
Like it's all the things.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yep, exactly. So we'll see. But I think somebody does
need to do like a more a deeper study on that,
because I do think that's an interesting conversation Piete that
we always go to.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Why don't you and I go to Europe?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
That'd be anecdotal and who knows where we'd end up.
When Lauren and I were working in twenty nineteen, we
were traveling around with the US Army teaching young soldiers
how to cook through a program called BOSS Better Opportunities
for Single soldiers, and I remember one of the one
of this the bases was in Venice, and we would
it was about an hour.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
It was in Vicenza.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Vicenza, yeah, which is Venice and uh, no joking, and
it was it was about an hour and a half
away from well, it was away from Verona, so it
was an hour and Juliet, yeah, which is where the
Montagues and the Capulots fought that horrible war. It was
so horrible, and so I took Lauren to Verona and
stood under a window while she went upstairs in the
window and I read a poem to her. And then
(27:52):
she almost got arrested because it was somebody's house and
we had we had pasta by the by the by
the square. It was beautiful. Then after a couple glasses
of wine, she's like, let's go to Venice.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Okay, why do you make me sound like that. That's
not what I sound like. But we went to Venice
and it was so cool. But we ended up like
going to this random bar and we had shots of
Groppa and.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
We got a hotel in Venice that night and we
were supposed to be doing a presentation on the army
base the next morning. We got a hotel which we
checked into and never went back to.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Never went back to.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
We got lost walking around Venice and we could not
figure out.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
What we Literally I had pictures on my phone. It
was like five thirty in the morning, which is crazy
because I didn't even remember taking those.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Pictures because you have to walk out with there's no cars,
it's just the just the water.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah, anyway, where is this going.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
It's going to the point that we were in Europe
and we were walking everywhere and we were eating, but
we were eating at completely different times and we ended
up losing five pounds each.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, we did. We should go back to Europe. Yeah,
this time we won't have, you know, shots of Gropa
at three am though.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, that is true. But it was a great program,
so go us Army. Yeah, and wow, we covered a
lot on this one. So guys, thank you so much
for listening, and we really want you to communicate with
us and let us know what topics you would like
us to cover, whether it's food stories, food topics, sharpen
your skills, cooking tips, the best sandwiches, anything, So make
(29:30):
sure that you follow us on social media at chef
Gruel on x at Andrew Groul on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And I'm at Lauren Girl on X and at Lauren
Underscore Girl on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
We hope that you laughed and hopefully you learned a lot,
maybe got a little hungry.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Who's hung me?
Speaker 2 (29:46):
We know you're hungry. I am too, and we're gonna
be back with more stories that feed the soul next
week and probably clog an artery or two. Be sure
to also catch our videos on americangravy dot com. That's
dubdubdub dot American gravy dot com and you can message
us through there too.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
All Right, until next time, keep it saucy,
All right, welcome back to another episode of American Gravy,
the only show where we mix food, family, and freedom
in the same pot.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And somehow we don't burn it mostly mostly right.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yeah, where the grease is hot, the opinions are hotter,
and somebody definitely burned the bacon.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I am Lauren Gruel.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I am Lauren Girl.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Oh yeah, wait, no, no, no, I'm Andrew Girl.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
He's Andrew grown. Today we are stirring together a little
food family in the occasional political indigestion.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
It is a little bit of political indigestion. Today, We're
going to be covering Chick fil A's new spinoff cafe.
We're going to be covering New York City hiring workers
from the Philippines at the counter. We're going to be
talking Thanksgiving, talking stuffing, talking eggs, talking meat, doing some
sharpening your skills, potato cast iron pizza. As a little
sneak peaks, weight loss drugs. Oh my gosh, I have
(00:51):
a lot to talk about today.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I was like weight loss drugs, so I go, yeah,
that's my eighty six Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Who whoa wha give away? Okay, don't give away the ending,
but we'll start today. We kind of tossed up our
segments a little bit. But we're gonna start with our
WTF segment, which is the what the fork Crazy food stories,
and Lauren's got a good one for you.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
All right. So, Chick fil A has opened a new
spinoff cafe concept called Daybright Coffee, which features coffees, phizzes,
iced teas, and smoothies along with quick bitestoneuts and more.
Does Starbucks have some competition.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
There's a lot of brands that have tried to jump
into this spin off drink space. You saw that McDonald's
did their version of a drink only concept which I
think was was it called Cosmos and they closed it.
But I don't know if they closed it because it
was just a beta and they wanted to get numbers,
or it didn't do well. Swig has been blowing up.
(01:42):
Swig was that concept that started in Utah, which is
a pig Swig, Yeah, which is the drag through soda spot.
I remember, Yes, Okay, that big.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Deal and it was all these craft very unique soda
like I.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Think you pump it right there and you get the
soda fresh, which I thought was really unique. That's gotten
a of investment, independent and private equity. So Chick fil
A doing this.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yeah, but Chick fil A has a huge following. Yeah, right,
like they have like a loyal customer base.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah. But one thing I will say is that when
I've seen brands break away from what they do and
they do best and people know them for, it's not
always that successful. Chipotle's tried to do this with multiple brands.
They did their Southeast Asian street food concept. I forget
the name of it. I think it was Hawkers, or
it might have been.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Clearly it wasn't memorable. I don't even know that it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
It was something else. In any case, they closed them all.
They've tried a couple different concepts, so this will be
interesting WTF.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
But there's only one right now. It's in I can't
hire them Georgia.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, it's in Georgia.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
So Georgia. So we'll see. Let's see how they do well.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
My WTF story, though, is interesting. I love this. I've
seen this video going viral across social media. New York
City is hiring workers from the Philippines and they put
this big computer screen up at the front counter. The
person's in the Philippines walk in and they're like, hello,
how can I help you? And they're working for three
dollars an hour or something, and it's over zoom. They're
(03:05):
literally running this over zoom and then you give the
person in the Philippines your order through this computer screen
and then they put your ordering and it goes back
into the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
But why wouldn't they just do one of those like
mobile ordering where you like do it yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Because people don't. So there's a lot of surveys that
have shown people don't. They will not go back to
restaurants where they have to place the order themselves because
I still think the mobile ordering format or algorithm that
it's still confusing in many cases.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, but at the same time, you're talking to a computer,
so I mean it's a live person, I guess, But
that's such a weird I mean whatever, it's probably is
it working.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I mean, I don't know. You should see the comments section.
When people post about it. They're like higher Americans and
they make it obviously like a much cooler But when you.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Have freaking what's his face trying to you know, increase
a minimum wage of thirty bucks an.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Hour, Yeah, exactly, you're right, You're right.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
To you what they got to do.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Because if you have think about it, if you have
a restaurant, let's just say it opens ten to eleven,
right or ten to ten, so twelve hours. You need
two people, well three people every single day, right, you
need a midshift to cover the breaks of the PM
shift and the AM shift, right, And so let's just
say you have three units of labor right there, and
if it gets really busy, maybe five. So five units
(04:21):
of labor at thirty dollars an hour what they're mandating
minus the three dollars an hour that you have to
pay in the Philippines probably less on the insurance and
the payroll taxes. So forty hours a day in labor,
you know, saving twenty five dollars an hour times four.
That's right there, one thousand dollars every single day you're
saving by doing it that way, thousand dollars a day.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Get it too. I mean this is these are more
for quick service, fast casual spots anyway, so I understand, right,
But at the same rate, it's like, I don't know,
it's taking the.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
How do you say, Like it's taking the service out
of quick service, not the taking this it's taking the
it's taking the well. First of all, you want it
to be genuine, like that's why people love Chick fil A.
Going back to the original, WTF. People love Chick fil
A because they say thank you, they say please come again,
my pleasure, all that good stuff, cliches, very simple, great training,
and they stick to their service model. We're losing it, right,
(05:17):
we're outsourcing it.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah, we're losing that leg I don't know human touch.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Well, speaking of your foot just touched me. Okay, Well,
let's talk about Thanksgiving because it's coming up. And I
saw a study recently that said stuffing remains America's favorite
dish at Thanksgiving, not the turkey stuffing.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Because turkey, unless you make it, is horrible. It's dry.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
That is a funny. That is a funny thing. People
hate the turkey, but it's the centerpiece.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Because it's pretty.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I don't want to mix a I don't want to
mix a sharpen your Skills segment into this segment. But
I will say this just quickly. If you are going
to cook your turkey, I know you want that big
round centerpiece. Separate the legs, the thighs, and the breast,
and cook the breast separately than the legs and the thighs,
because that's how you're going to get the perfect meat
every single time. It's impossible to cook your breasts and
(06:09):
your thighs perfectly. Even when you're doing it just straight
in the oven as.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
A r you've also done it where you kind of
you keep the bird together and you're flipping it around.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, that's the French roast. So if you cook it,
if you roast it and you basically turn the bird
every fifteen minutes on different sides, and you are circulating
the heat in a much more even manner, so you
are going to get a better cook on that. I mean,
the ultimate way is to spatchcock your bird is where
you split the backbone out and you flatten the bird
because then you're going to cook. The breasts, which are
on the inside of the pan are going to take
(06:41):
longer to heat up and the x so your legs
need to cook to let's just say one hundred and
sixty five degrees. Your breast cook to one fifty five degrees,
so you can overcook your legs because they're on the
xterior of the pan. By the time you're the interior
of the bird or the interior of the pan where
the breasts are will cook to one fifty five, so
they actually cook perfectly that way. But whoa, I went
(07:01):
completely off topic there.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
That's okay.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
You like the sides more than the turkey.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yes, absolutely, Like I could eat sides all day long.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I she could eat sides all day long because I've
done that, I've left it in the fridge, and then
she will have breakfast, lunch, dinner, sides.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Like I'll just throw something, I'll I'll make eggs and
then like throw some stuffing and them all make eggs
and throw some cranberry sauce anything.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
You know, generally speaking, when foods, I think I just
like sides overall anyways, because they're fun. That's what was
great about Boston Market. Right, you get your burden and
you pick like thirteen sides thirteen.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
But that's so sixty six percent of Americans would rather
cook sides anyway than turkey, and forty seven percent would
rather eat only sides. That's huge.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Well, so twenty percent difference in that number is because
sixty percent of Americans are afraid to cook the turkey.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Well, yeah, I think there needs to be like one
large zoom class you should like host it, right, Philippines, Yeah, exactly,
you should host it and show everybody how to properly
cook a turkey. Oh my gosh, people actually enjoy eating turkey.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Well, you can find that on American Gravy on YouTube
or any of our channels. Go to dubdubdub dot americangravy
dot com and you can get all of those links
and we'll be giving you all of the Thanksgiving cooking tips.
A little plug there, but I'm buck shameless plug. Are
you ready to blow your biscuits?
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You love this segment about blowing your biscuits. So here's
some food facts that you probably didn't know about. And
this one is really interesting, especially when it comes to
the MAHA space. Did you know that the modern diet
is brand engineered? By that I mean eighty percent. This
is a fascinating stat. Eighty percent of grocery store products
are owned by ten companies. Ten companies, Yeah, like your
(08:45):
Pepsicos of the World, etc. Ten companies own eighty percent
of what you're offered at the grocery store, using the
same chemicals, using the same products, using the same ingredients.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Well it's funny too, because you know, people buy all
these you know, name brand items, but they don't want
to buy the store bot. But it's like probably the
same thing and a lot cheaper.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
That is one hundred percent true. And another one that
I found industry is that And I knew this number
was high, but I didn't know it was this high.
Ninety nine percent of the meat that you buy comes
from basically meat operations that utilize CAFOs. Right, So, CAFOs
is an acronym c AFO, and it stands for concentrated
Animal feeding operations. It's a it's a type of an
(09:30):
industrial agricultural facility. They can find these large number of
animals in a dense space and this is specifically for
food production. They basically mass feed them junk and they
don't let the animals walk, they don't let them leave
these spaces. They're packed together undercover, and that's why so
many animals get sick. And then you have to use
antibiotics on the animals, and that's why there's the issue
(09:52):
of having antibiotics or antibiotic residue in the meats that
we eat. So it's all about the feeding piece of it.
If you let these animals naturally kind of pasture walk
around right, free rain, free range. It's really regenerative agriculture.
It's going to cost a lot more, but it's going
to be a lot healthier for you to much better
quality meat. I think in the long run it will
(10:14):
cost a lot less. I think we have enough land
where we can actually allow the cattle to rain free.
I think that these cafo operations are really, you know,
kind of disgusting.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Just sad, yeah, like really sad for the animal.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
And I know we're eating the animal ultimately, but still
like you want that animal to only have one bad
day and that's the day that we slaughter it, to
eat it, and the rest of its life to be wonderful.
So I think that's that's an interesting number and kind
of weaves back into our food conversation that we had
a couple episodes ago in regards to the meat industry.
But don't mean to depress you on that. How about
(10:52):
this one? This is this one's less depressing blowing your biscuits.
Do you know why we refrigerate eggs?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
I do, I don't think many people do. So when
you wash and sanitize an egg, right, why we have
to refrigerate it? Is because when you wash it, you
remove the egg's natural cuticle, which is a thin, protective
coating that seals the pores in the shell. So when
you remove all of that, you have to refrigerate it. Yes,
there's nothing protecting except a little brectly. But that's why
(11:18):
in Europe. In Europe you see eggs on the shelves everywhere,
it's because they don't wash that coating off. Yeah. And
and do you know that if that was the case,
like if we didn't wash the cuticle off, that they
can be safely stored at room temperature for up to
two to three weeks.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Two to three weeks, Yes, two to three weeks.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
That's a long time. We leave our eggs on the
you know, on the counter for like twenty minutes. And
I'm freaking out.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I've actually sometimes our kids go two to three weeks
without taking a shower.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
What it's not true, They're they're boys.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I was reading along the lines of a blow your Biscuit,
I was saying the other day I read this, I
don't know whether it was like an article or something
on Instagram, and it was like taking a shower every
single day removes your natural bacteria and I just kind
of set it out loud. I think I was saying
it to you.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, so now our boys are taking as normal.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
You weren't listening to me, and yeah the other night
we're like, okay, boys, time to take a bath. And
they're like, well, did you know that.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Dad said it's not good for us to shower every day?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah? Like that one, we're never showering never again.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
So yeah, thanks Andrew.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That's right. So our house smells like a French cheese.
Speaking of cheese and eggs, let's talk Denny's. Denny's wounds
over my Hammi.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You worked at Denny's.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I did work at Denny's. I went to Denny's. I
love Denny's. Actually. I remember growing up in New Jersey
and like the early eighties, and my aunt would take
me to Denny's in the morning. I remember, I was.
I went to Denny's a lot. You did, I did,
But especially.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
You went to Denny's even though you had all those
like unique diners in New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
You know, when I started going to Denny's a lot
was when I went to UH I went to college
up in Maine and go on the East Coast. It
was like the late night thing. Right. I started going
to Denny's when I started working in restaurants, and I
might when my insomnia kicked in, which was around the
age of eighteen.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Oh, that's sad. I used to go to Denny's a
lot with my grammy.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Really, yeah, would you get did you get the All
American Grand Slam, the Della Dinger, the Moon?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
So I got the Grand Slam. I think my grandma
also got the Grand Slam, and she would always get
a cup of decaf black coffee.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Do you know that they don't have like nobody knows
the della Dinger.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
I don't even know the della Dinger. What the heck
is that?
Speaker 2 (13:24):
It's not a move. The della Dinger sounds like a move,
like you're gonna get the Della Dinger tonight, Della Dinger.
I don't know what Denny's della dinger? Right? So what
does it break? The word up? Deli Dinger. Oh, it's
Deli Deli Dinger saying della Delli dinger, Delli Dinger, You're
like della dinger.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So that's why it didn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Well, it's it's a discontinued sandwich that originally from Denny's
was a grilled sandwich with turkey, ham, bacon, cheddar cheese,
American cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise on buttered sour dough.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Should we bring our version of the Delli Dinger to Calico?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Maybe maybe we should? It sounds actually delicious, that's funny.
I actually thought there was always an egg on that.
Oh what's this? I looked it up, the Dell Ding
and it says Della Dinger in New Jersey style, That
is with Jewish rye bread, corned beef, roast beef, and pastrami,
Swiss cheese, deli mustard. Lead it to those from New
Jersey to always change up a sandwich. It's like the
(14:20):
Jersey Sloppy.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Joe, which is my favorite. I'll tell a quick story
speaking of sandwiches. So, my first time going back east
with Andrew to meet his family, this was forever ago.
Andrews was like, you have to get the sandwich. We
stop off at this little, tiny, tiny deli that's like
in a strip mall, Gella Dinger and he orders me
the Jersey Joe. And for some reason in my head,
I'm like, why is he getting me a sloppy Joe?
(14:42):
Like what the heck? But then it was like the
most amazing sandwich I've ever had in my life. Even
when we go back to Jersey, like, no one can
replicate that sandwich, Like where did we get it from?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
No one can ever replicate the first time the good
the sloppy Jersey Joe. When I'm saying sloppy Jo right now,
people are probably memory in the Adam Sandler scene where
it's like schloppy Joe, sloppy, sloppish, sloppy, which is just
like man witch right, It's it's ground. It's bolognaise sauce
with more ground beef on a soft seeded bun. The
(15:15):
Jersey Sloppy Joe is a triple layer sandwich, typically with
white Rye, Russian or Thousand Island dressing, depending on what
your political preference is. Swiss cheese, Coleslaw, Turkey ham, triple
decker just oh my gosh, it drips the Coleslaw juice
just drips down your arm with the Thousand Island dressing
(15:36):
and then that sharp cheddar cheese takes takes over and
takes you on a walk. I like going there. That
is the Jersey Joe.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
But let's go back to our denny story. Why did
we bring up Denny's in the first.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Oh, yeah, we brought up Denny's because that's man. You
can tell we're hungry, because we're allowing the stories to
drive our stomachs and not the news, the food news.
So the struggling breakfast chain actually was purchased than a
six hundred and twenty million dollar deal Denny sold. Denny
said Monday that is being acquired by a group of
investors in a deal that will take the breakfast chain private.
(16:08):
Denny's board unanimously approved the deal, which values Denny's at
six hundred and twenty million including debt. Denny's will be
purchased by private equity investment company Try Artists and Capital
and Advisors, an investment firm Travel Capital, and Yadav Enterprises,
which is one of Denny's largest franchisees.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Is it where do Yadav I think they're here? No,
but we just talked about them.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, they bought, weren't they? Part of it was the
top acquisition. Yeah, there's really only a handful of these
private equity firms and investment groups that trade in food.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
And fast Did you know Denny's was founded in nineteen
fifty three in Lakewood, California.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah. Did you know that it was founded as Danny's Donuts.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I did not.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, the name was changed to Denny's Coffee Shops in
nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
That makes sense when my grandma loved denny so much
because she lived will not in lake She lived in Torrance,
which is.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
There you go, and she and Denny's began trained on
the New York Stock Exchange in nineteen sixty nine. Normally
I'd be like sixty nine, but now it'd be six seven, okay.
And like many casual chains, denny saw its sales plummet
during the COVID pandemic. I don't know why they included
that in the article like that, Okay, that's.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Like real brain er everybody everybody's, but.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
They never followed up with And then the government overprinted
billions of dollars worth of money and gave them all
that money back because they were a large, multi unit
chain and not an independent that we were trying to
crush because the government hates entrepreneurs, they really do. That
just got crazy. But last fall, denny said it planned
to close one hundred and fifty of its lowest performing locations.
(17:42):
At the end of the second quarter, Denny's had one thousand,
five hundred and fifty eight restaurants worldwide.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Do you know that one and fifty eight. Yeah, that's
a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, fifteen hundred Dennys. But in any case, Denny's is selling.
So Denny's isn't going under. They're just they're they're going private, right,
So basically they're not gonna be public company anymore, which
I actually think is good for the trajectory because when
a company goes from public to private, then they can
actually make bigger changes. They're not affected by the obviously
rules and regulations, but the effect that any of the
(18:12):
moves that they make would have on their share price,
because then ultimately the share price drives operations and not
the other way around. So maybe a good thing. Maybe
they're going to bring back the Della Dinger.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
All right, Della Dinger.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
So I'm excited about this one.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
What is your sharpen your skills?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
So I saw this the other day and I'm actually
gonna give it a try. I have not tried this myself,
but I wanted to talk about it. So really, the
skill that we're sharpening is just your cast iron cooking
and your quick foods. So this was a skillet pizza
style dish, but it was with a baked potato. So
you take potato that's baked potato. Perhaps you put it
in a refrigerator, was wrapped in foil, so it's a
cold baked potato. Right, Just grease up maybe a little
(18:50):
beef tallow on a cast iron in a cast iron
pan ten inch twelve inch, and then smash the baked
potato into the pan, like smash it all around as
if it's doe and it surrounds the bottom of the pan.
Then they put tomato sauce on top of it, mozzarella cheese,
a little bit of parmesan cheese, pepperoni, and they baked
it at like five hundred and five hundred and fifty
degrees and it actually slipped right out of the pan
(19:13):
and it cut and et and ate like a pizza,
like a pan pizza.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
That sounds fabulous. We should try it tonight.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, we got a lot going on tonight.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
I'm we really are hungry, and that's why everything that
we're talking about. My stomach is growing, I know.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I'm like, So you take the tree and then you
grate the wood chips off the tree and you put
it in a bowl with some glue and eat it
and you're like, that is absolutely delicious. I could eat
that right now. So what do you think eats to go? Like,
let's get to our eighty sixth segment.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Food transit, because I'm almost getting suckered into this. Every
other ad of mine is a weight loss drug, like
whether it's the GLP ones. A tried zeppatide, the peptides,
and I'm like, oh, should I take this?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
By the way, I have no idea what you just said.
I don't know any of those.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
The GLP one, it's like ozempic. I I'm not going
to take ozempic. But there's all these like you know,
capsules now where you don't need injections, and there's all
this stuff, and I'm like, I just feel like we've
come so far as like a society to kind of
accept like what you look like, and now I feel
(20:23):
like we're going back right and like this has nothing
to do with weight loss drug. But Kim Kardashi and
her brand Skims, which is like her shape wear and things,
they just came out with like basically a bodysuit to
enhance curves, butt pads, hip pads like all these, so
your body shape looks like the Kardashian body, which is
by the way, not natural at all, Like it looks fake,
(20:46):
like that's not how a normal human being looks. And
people are getting insecure about how you know, God made them,
and I just hate it so much.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Can men wear this? You could probably use butt pads.
What I was thinking, like, can you break it up?
Like I need the Kardashian chest, but I could, I could,
certainly you don't want the hip a little bit of
rump in the trunk.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I'm gonna buy you the butt pads.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
I need to get bigger.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
No, but seriously, like I don't like that that's become
such a thing like the weight loss drugs or enhancing
curves and just so unrealistic, unnatural. I don't like it.
And for me, I'm getting like, you know, I almost
got like duped, and you're not.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Gonna get duped. I'm not going to allow that to happen.
Number one, because that's just silly. Number two, get off
your phone. Number three. What I will say is this,
you said, we've come to accept our bodies, which I
think is good, Like body positivity is huge. But I
think that then there's there's a difference between superficiality and health.
So some of the things that we're eating and the
exercises or the lack of exercise, but that in which
we engage are not healthy for our bodies either. So
(21:46):
I do think that we need to be a lot
more active and eat a lot healthier, and that in
and of itself is going to make you feel healthier
on the inside. If it's about looking at these.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Are like quickly, I lost ten pounds in two weeks,
and so people, you know, they're incentivized to like buy
this because they're like, oh, well I haven't been able
to lose this weight on my own. Well why don't
I just try this? You know?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, I mean so I'm with you on that. So
eighty six that what I think we need. Eighty six
is the word natural, okay, you know, because I see
it on absolutely everything all natural. This natural that people
don't realize that there is. Natural is an unregulated marketing term.
There is no definition of.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Now you see, like you know, the natural flavors.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
You can say it on anything. The FDA does not
regulate the word natural. You can say it on anything.
I could take a bag of drugs and I could well, no,
you couldn't know that because the FDA would regulate that.
But like I could take the most unnatural chemically laid
in synthetic food ever and write natural across the front
(22:50):
and be like natural pretzels, but it's made with wood,
you know, powdered cellulose and wood pulp. But you can
say natural. You can say natural on anything. I guess
in theory everything is natural to some degree, right.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Well, I just don't like when they say, like with
natural flavors, like if they're so natural, why aren't you
listening them? You know what I mean. It's it's like
it's duping the consumer.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
We don't have to list all the ingredients. That's the
other thing. Like a lot of times it's just you
can have a certain amount of an ingredient in your product,
but if it falls below a certain threshold of zero
point five percent, then you don't have to list it.
So like MS three MSG free foods can still have
MSG in it, vice versa. With so many other ingredients
(23:33):
in which people are sensitive to that is a problem.
One other thing that I wanted to talk about was
this we talked about the food Allergen bill, but like
that goes back to that natural piece of it. Right.
So in the state of California, they passed the bill
recently that you have to list up to these ten
food allergens on your menu. I recently wrote an op
ed on this and how it's actually going to create
(23:55):
more problems than it solves, and it's going to cost restaurants,
you know, collectively, millions of dollars to change their menus,
to go through the analysis to post this on their menus,
and you know, don well, it's going to start a
cottage industry for lawsuits for people who say that they
had a reaction and it wasn't listed on the menu
by virtue of the legislation. That's why trial attorneys in
California donate so much money to the Supermajority is because
(24:19):
the more laws there are, and the more you know,
kind of ambiguity on these laws, then the easier it
is for them to start a cottage industry basically suing
people and creating frivolous lawsuits. So I think that's going
to be another issue, and ultimately it's going to drive
people out. And that's my point. Is that in the
food manufacturing world, you can have ingredients in your food
(24:41):
and you are not even required to list them because
they're below a certain threshold. But if you have a
food allergy, you can have a reaction.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, it's very scary.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
And the other thing, let's get to the eighty six
it is is I keep seeing these images going viral
on social media where they're like, this is why in
Europe they don't have the same problems we do, and
they'll list in ingredient or they'll list They'll they'll put
a picture of a product on the left with the
US ingredients, and they'll put the picture of the same
product in the right with the European ingredients, and they'll
be like six ingredients versus in the US there's like twenty.
(25:12):
That's because in Europe, once again, it's even more vague.
The labeling requirement laws are even more vague, so you
actually don't have to list all the chemicals that you
do on the US product, So in many cases, not
only are they the exact same product, so the point
you're making isn't real. And I support these accounts who
are trying to make these points in breads. It's a
(25:33):
little bit different. Like that's one where well I will
I will say it's different because they don't use glycasate
on all the wheat in Europe. So our breads are
going to be a lot different in our bread like products,
but in the like bagged products they're they're exactly the same.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah, that's what you always say. But you know what's
I don't know interesting as people say they go to
Europe or whatever, and you know, they came back and
they actually lost weight. But I think it's just because
there's so much walking, like they're you know what I mean,
Like I feel like Americans are so stationary they don't
move as much as people in Europe because everyone's walking everywhere.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I think walking has a lot to do with it.
I think also like the wheat in Europe is different
than the wheat in the United States, and I think
that has a lot to do with it. So like
our food is junk, yeah, but it depends on where
you are in Europe because if you go to Italy
and you eat some of the like the European potato
chip brands, I mean those are caked and seed oils,
those have just as much chemicals on them. Those are
(26:23):
just as disgusting. It's just a matter of whether you're
eating at breakfast, lunch, and dinner or whether you're not. Yeah, well,
I think it's also the timing of when you eat.
I think they eat differently, like.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
And they eat for longer periods of time, like nothing's rushed.
I feel like here it's so rushed. What do they
call it? Oh my gosh, ci esta. Yeah, right where
they enjoy themselves. You know, they're all drinking wine and
like they have like a three hour lunch break. It's
like they get to enjoy themselves and then they move
(26:54):
around and they walk in which helps aid in digestion.
Like it's all the things.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yep, exactly. So we'll see. But I think somebody does
need to do like a more a deeper study on that,
because I do think that's an interesting conversation Piete that
we always go to.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Why don't you and I go to Europe?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
That'd be anecdotal and who knows where we'd end up.
When Lauren and I were working in twenty nineteen, we
were traveling around with the US Army teaching young soldiers
how to cook through a program called BOSS Better Opportunities
for Single soldiers, and I remember one of the one
of this the bases was in Venice, and we would
it was about an hour.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
It was in Vicenza.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Vicenza, yeah, which is Venice and uh, no joking, and
it was it was about an hour and a half
away from well, it was away from Verona, so it
was an hour and Juliet, yeah, which is where the
Montagues and the Capulots fought that horrible war. It was
so horrible, and so I took Lauren to Verona and
stood under a window while she went upstairs in the
window and I read a poem to her. And then
(27:52):
she almost got arrested because it was somebody's house and
we had we had pasta by the by the by
the square. It was beautiful. Then after a couple glasses
of wine, she's like, let's go to Venice.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Okay, why do you make me sound like that. That's
not what I sound like. But we went to Venice
and it was so cool. But we ended up like
going to this random bar and we had shots of
Groppa and.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
We got a hotel in Venice that night and we
were supposed to be doing a presentation on the army
base the next morning. We got a hotel which we
checked into and never went back to.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Never went back to.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
We got lost walking around Venice and we could not
figure out.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
What we Literally I had pictures on my phone. It
was like five thirty in the morning, which is crazy
because I didn't even remember taking those.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Pictures because you have to walk out with there's no cars,
it's just the just the water.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah, anyway, where is this going.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
It's going to the point that we were in Europe
and we were walking everywhere and we were eating, but
we were eating at completely different times and we ended
up losing five pounds each.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, we did. We should go back to Europe. Yeah,
this time we won't have, you know, shots of Gropa
at three am though.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, that is true. But it was a great program,
so go us Army. Yeah, and wow, we covered a
lot on this one. So guys, thank you so much
for listening, and we really want you to communicate with
us and let us know what topics you would like
us to cover, whether it's food stories, food topics, sharpen
your skills, cooking tips, the best sandwiches, anything, So make
(29:30):
sure that you follow us on social media at chef
Gruel on x at Andrew Groul on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And I'm at Lauren Girl on X and at Lauren
Underscore Girl on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
We hope that you laughed and hopefully you learned a lot,
maybe got a little hungry.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Who's hung me?
Speaker 2 (29:46):
We know you're hungry. I am too, and we're gonna
be back with more stories that feed the soul next
week and probably clog an artery or two. Be sure
to also catch our videos on americangravy dot com. That's
dubdubdub dot American gravy dot com and you can message
us through there too.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
All Right, until next time, keep it saucy,
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Buck Sexton
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