Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to American Gravy. Look this
is where food meets fun, family, freedom, Lauren Andrew, you
got it, and flavor meets the absurd. So I'm chef
Andrew Gruhl and I'm Lauren Gruel, and today we're going
to be diving into some of the funniest, strangest, most
mouthwatering food stories, a little bit of politics, everything that's
making the rounds this week, because, let's face it, food
news has officially gone off the rails. We've got people
(00:24):
deep frying ice cream machines. We got the world's most
expensive grilled cheese. Heck, we've even got a chef who
accidentally created a viral trend I think I saw with
pickle cupcakes.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Ooh, that sounds horrible.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Have you ever noticed that food stories are getting weirder
and weirder.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
They are getting weirder and weirder, and I think people
are just trying to be over the top. They are
trying to create that viral moment, and so they're just
doing the most ridiculous things.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
And that's going to be a theme in a lot
of our stories, is the way in which people keep
trying to push the limits I mean ten years ago,
the craziest thing we had was like the double double
it in and out and now somebody's serving sushi in
a shoe.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Oh, it was like the deep fried oreo at the Fair.
Like that was the craziest thing.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I never liked that. That's discussion.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Well, you don't like oreos.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I don't like fair food.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
You don't not even like the turkey leg.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
The reason I don't like fair food is because at
fair Food, I know what the food prep situation is.
Like they're prepping off site in like an RV or
a food trailer in the back. It's hard enough to
set the fare up. These people are on the go,
on the run. They're going and picking up their food
at like restaurant depot, who knows how long it's sitting out,
And then they prepare the food in these little cubicles.
They almost look like jail cells, and nobody's actually checking
(01:35):
the sanitation.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Let's not ruin it for the people.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
But that's why they deep fry everything. Oh, to kill anything,
I mean theoretically, right, just do you worried about bacteria?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You just kill it off, just fry it off.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Well, today we got a few that are gonna make
you laugh, gag, who knows what else in between, probably
questioned humanity all before lunch.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Oh boy, yeah, depending.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
On what time you're listening to this. So one of
the stories that's been in the news the past, you know,
week plus what have you has been And it's funny
because I went on X and then Facebook and it's
just Katie Porter, Katie Porter, Katie Porter, Katie Porter.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Everything anyone is talking about is Katie Porter.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Which stems from this viral clip where she basically was
incredibly rude to a reporter that was doing nothing more
than trying to ask questions.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
She was, yes, they were follow up questions. She took
it very personally, which was very odd. I mean, come on,
they weren't even hard hitting questions.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
They weren't hard hitting questions. And I bring this up
because Lauren and I always make the joke that if
you want to judge a person's character, you can see
the way that they treat people in restaurants.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yes, we always say this.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
If so, we'll go out to dinner sometimes with some
friends and you know, they'll treat the wait staff kind
of mean ex friends, ex friends exactly, And I'm like,
and that just shows who they are deep down because
they treat like the help yeah, you.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Know, exactly like crap. And what I found is what's
so funny is that the people in politics who are
always building a platform that's so pro worker, pro worker,
pro worker, had never run a business and dealt with
team members. And when they do, they're typically in their
political campaigns because their career politicians usually they some people
(03:15):
like Porter work through education into politics. And then the
way in which you can see how they deal with
and truly think about workers, or in her case, she
thinks of herself as elite and in the pleabs underneath
her is the way in which they treat their team
members or other people's team members. So the first video
that went viral was the way in which she was
(03:36):
communicating and treating the reporter, who, frankly, if you go
back and look at that reporter's history, it was very
friendly to her general party.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Just in that interview clip, you can see how nice
she was. She was kind of taken aback, like wait,
what is happening.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Because it's a friendly right, Like that's the thing is
that are you interviewing with a friendly or are you not?
Why did you give me that look, I got nervous
there for a second. Larren does things with her eyes.
We're not on video right now, but it makes me
wonder whether either my pants are falling off or my fly.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Is open, or both sometimes both.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
But don't worry, I've got pants on. So Katie Porter
trashes this person. Then another video goes viral where she's
in her kitchen and she's doing some sort of a
pre rehearsed interview and the team member staff member, I
think it was like.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Her hurt or assistant or something, and she told her
to get out of my effing shot.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah. She walked into the scene in the background, and
this girl, stoically and with zero emotion, just takes the berating,
takes the beat down, and then corrects Katie Porter and says, well,
the reason I was in the shot just so you
know those numbers are wrong about electric vehicles, et cetera.
And then she's like, well, you still came in my
shot two or three times.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yeah, I mean she's trying to justify her bad behavior.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
She was trying to justify it. But the thing is
is that it was the most disgusting example of how
you treat someone who's ultimately working for you. And I
think that that's just a bigger conversation about the way
in which we treat our service workers. And I think
that it's important to mention too that Katie Porter is
somebody who has pushed hard and pushed against businesses, small,
(05:12):
medium and big business as being the bad guys, the
villains we saw it, especially during the pandemic, and that
we need to pay our workers more and we need
to treat our workers better. And she's championed all these
labor bills. She's obviously, you know, kind of working hand
in glove with the AFL and so many of these
different unions, especially through AB twelve twenty eight, the restaurant
and hospitality workers unions. But then she treats these people
(05:34):
like absolute junk.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, I mean, come on, pop, what is that little phrase,
pot calling the kettle black?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah, pot calling the kettle black. Which brings us to
our next conversation, Peach, which is pans, pots and pans.
A lot of people ask me about how I what
types of pans I used to.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Cook with so many questions about.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
This, always about the pan ye our knives, and I
tell everyone that I like to have there's like if
you want to to go buy a set, and I
think this is important because that's a question like what
type of a set should I buy typically going into
the holidays, or I want to buy a gift for somebody.
There's really only four pots and pans that you need,
and you don't buy them as a whole set because
(06:14):
when you buy them as a whole set, there's usually
one good potter pan in a set, and then you're
paying extra money for something you're either not going to
use or is just junk. So they can make their
money as part of the set. So buy them individually.
And here is the breakdown. So first and foremost everyone
needs a cast iron pan. Okay, a twelve to sixteen
(06:35):
inch cast iron pan. Typical cast iron pan. You can
go to most Goodwills or second hand stores and find
an old cast iron pan, because the beauty of a
cast iron pan is is that even if it's destroyed,
all you need to do is reseason it. And we'll
talk about that in a second. The second one, which
kind of dovetails into the cast iron. If you don't
(06:56):
want the cast iron because it's too heavy and bulky,
hard to pay up, store, go the carbon steel pan.
A carbon steel pan is essentially a lighter cast iron pan.
You'll see me cook with those in a lot of
our videos that we do on American Gravy on YouTube.
Just follow that at Andrew Gruel on YouTube. A little
plug there. The carbon steel pan basically has the same
properties of the cast iron pan, but it's easier to move,
(07:19):
it's got to handle, it's lighter. Now, the reason why
you want to use these cast iron pans is because
they're so thick and they hold the heat well. The
way in which you gauge a pan is based on
the thickness of the whatever the pan is made up from. Right,
So you've got cast iron, then you've got stainless steel,
and you've got aluminum. Now aluminum of the thin pans
(07:41):
that you're gonna buy for like five dollars, ten dollars
at what's that story? You like to go to Michael's.
What's the story? You go to off Beach Boulevard there
or off of Ed and Jerry where we get you
get chochkeys, good get home goods, chotchkeys. We have a
lot of chotchkeys.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Okay, I just want to say I'm very impressed how
we went from Katie Porters.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Talking about the pans. A smooth transition there.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
I'm a smooth operator. I'm a mulcifying all of the time.
Here we just get an artificial a mulsifier like xantham
gum or Dijon mustard. Got to keep the food in there,
so your pants right back to the pants. And then
you've got the so once again, the gauge the thickness
of these pans and what the material is. So the
cheapest is going to be aluminum. Now you might want
(08:23):
to use an aluminum pan if you're boiling water. Right,
if I'm boiling water, who cares how thick the pan
is and how it holds the heat, because all you're
doing is boiling water. As opposed to an aluminum pan
where you're gonna seer meat. You get that pan blazing hot,
and then you put up a cold piece of meat
in there because it's not holding the heat and the
illuminum doesn't hold the heat as well as stainless steel.
And then up the ladder to the cast iron. Well,
(08:45):
then you're going to cool the pan down so quickly
it's going to go from a seer to a steam, right,
And that's how you don't get that deep browning or
it's gonna burn, right, if you're cooking eggs. So the
first thing you want is that cast iron or carbon steel.
I'll merge those into one. The second one is just
a cheap pan to boil or poach things in. Right,
that's the one you don't need to spend a lot
of money on. The third pan that you want to
(09:05):
use is an egg pan. Right, you just want an
eight inch egg pan. I like to go thicker on that,
all clad. You can have the nonstick surface on there.
I know a lot of people don't like the nonstick pan.
The key with the nonstick is that once it starts
to degrade, throw it away and buy a new one.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
And what would you say for a fourth Oh my god,
I was daydreaming.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
She was. See, we weren't going to go into this
pan talk, but then we did.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
That's why I said, I can't believe we went from
Katie Porter to the pans.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah, well she could. She's sautaining her her political career away.
Unfortunately she's burning it. Yeah, she's using the aluminum pan.
She is the aluminum pans of the political world. And
then right, so back to we've got the nonstick pan
for eggs. Oh, and then a nice hard stainless steel
eight to ten inch pan for sawteing vegetables and doing
(09:54):
basic cookery, searing scallops, et cetera, which you can also
do in a cast iron. That's it. That's all you need.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
That is somebody's Christmas shopping list right there.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah. Now, if you want to get one thing, one
item that captures all of that, it's the Dutch oven.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Love a Dutch oven. Yeah, not what you've done to
me in our bedroom.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Oh my gosh, this just went from uh, this went
from a daytime show to after hours.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Very okay, listen, Dutch ovens are great.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Our kids do that all the time. The old Dutch oven,
what does it smell under the sheets? Oh no, we
trapped her under the sheets.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
But Dutch oven is so versatile. Yeah, you can do
anything in there.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
We've had that Dutch o who made the one.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
We have like the cheapest Dutch of it.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
It's by Queasin Art that I got at Home Goods
Poison Art, and we use it for everything we do.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
We do, so you can use that's one where you
can see her in it. You can brazen it you
can poach it. So sorry, let me throw that one
in there as the fourth. So we got the cast iron,
you got the egg pan, you got the cheap pan
just to boil stuff, and you got the Dutch oven.
There you go.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Some Dutch ovens are super expensive.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, but you don't need the super expensive one. As
long as it's thick. It's got that a nice enamel
of coding on it.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
So what is that one?
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Brand?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
La crusade, la close. They're like five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
That's because it's French. The French always overcharged for things
just because they have an accent, and they think that
it's the language of romance. Frankly, I think that German
is the language of romance.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Don't even happen here.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
We go on Hania and off Son and Dach.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
He knows a little German, and I said, I don't know.
I don't.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I said, look out, you have a chicken on your roof.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
That's all he knows.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, But it applies in so many different areas of life.
I mean there's many. It's a it's a metaphor, it's figurative,
it could be literal. If you're hanging out in a farm.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, could be.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
So what are we moving on to next? What's happening
in the industry these days? What's a good food story? Politics? Policy?
Speaker 3 (11:45):
So good news somewhat. Schools in California are phasing out
ultra processed foods by twenty thirty five.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I mean it's a step in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Keep going, all right.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
So California is implementing the Real Food Healthy Kids Act
AB twelve sixty four, which banned certain ultra process foods
from school meals by twenty thirty five, with the goal
of phasing out items with harmful additives, high levels of sugar, salt,
or unhealthy fats. The law requires the state to define
ultra process foods of concern by twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
There you go, There you go. So the state is
going to define what's ultra processed foods. So yeah, this
will be interesting, and they're going to do it by
twenty twenty eight. Right, keep in mind it's twenty twenty five,
towards the end of twenty twenty five, so two plus years.
Here's why I have a problem with this Newsome and
the administration just decided within one to two weeks that
(12:43):
they wanted to completely upend our redistricting process, a process
by which the voters voted to have an independent redistricting
committee that would set the districts in California, and they
would revisit that every decade. Within a month or two,
he actually created in a way to flip that upside down,
establish a proposition, build out the framework for a special election,
(13:07):
which is coming up here in November.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
By the way, vote no on yeah, vote no on fifty,
Vote no on fifty.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
And then he's spending two hundred and fifty some say
over three hundred million dollars to have this election rolled out,
so they can get that done within weeks. But when
it comes to defining what ultra processed foods are, which
we already know what ultra processed foods are, is going
to take two plus years, and they're holding themselves to
a timeline of twenty thirty five to remove these from
(13:37):
the school food system.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yet ten years.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
This is virtue at its best. There is no appetite
to get this done. They're strictly doing it because they
want political points.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
And who knows if this is even gonna happen by
twenty thirty five.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
One of the benefits of having a supermajority, and also
on one of the threats of having a supermajority is
the speed with which you can pass things through legislatively
and get things done. You can get it done in
a split second, and when it comes to some of
these virtue signaling issues, they're happy to push these through
the state legislature and get it done and enacted and
implemented immediately. Food and our children, the kids that this
(14:14):
would affect haven't even been born yet.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Exactly, or the kids that are in school, and yeah, exactly,
none of them are going to benefit from this. These
they're going to be out of school by twenty thirty
five exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
So you know, I give this a one out of ten.
I think that this is strictly them just trying to
pat themselves on the back for saying that they're doing something,
but they're not.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
And all the headlines are all you're praising this as well,
So that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Are they praising it? I don't even know.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
I mean, I've seen like California first, you know, to
do this.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Blah blah blah, whatever it is.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
It's like, but it's nobody reads beyond the headlines, so
they don't know this is going to take effect ten
from ten years from now.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
If it even happens, My beautiful, lovely light wife hit
the nail on the head there. I'm going to repeat it.
Nobody reads beyond the headlines. One bit of a recommendation
that I would give to anybody, especially parents who are
teaching their kids how to digest the news. Read the
final paragraph of the story before you read the headline.
And the final paragraph of the story never matches the headline.
(15:11):
The truth is always buried within the story, and they
call that news. Oh yeah, yeah, but you're getting the
real news here on American Gravy. So something a little
bit more fun lifestyle? What are they rolling out these days, Lauren?
When it comes to food.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
All right, So Pizza Hut debuts a Macha cheese pizza.
I mean, I don't personally love Macha.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I know you don't.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
First yeah, that was your eighty six, But I don't
love it either. I've tried it, and I just something
about it. People say it's so much better for you,
the health benefits, blah blah blah, but I can't get
past the taste.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I don't like it.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
So I can't even imagine what a macha cheese pizza
would taste like.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Well, first of all, let's I think probably a lot
of people don't know what macha is, and we touched
on last week, but I'll just define it specifically. It's
a finely ground powder made from specially grown and processed
green tea leaves. Okay, so it's tea, Macha's tea.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
It's green tea.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Now, so imagine taking a tea bag and grinding it
up into a powder and then dusting it all over
your pizza. Those are two flavors that don't go together, no,
and never. Traditionally they don't go together, which is what
I even find more ironic because in Japanese culture, what
do they not eat dairy cheese? Like, you're not gonna
find much cheese nowadays. You'll kind of find some fusions
(16:32):
of like cheese, but there's not much cheese in Japanese cuisine.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah. I don't think macha and cheese wherever supposed to
go together.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Exactly, So macha and cheese, lamon, tuna, fish, anchovies, nice cream, sundaes.
Sometimes ingredients are great on their own, but they're not
great together. Just like humans, we're not all meant to
be married what. I don't know. I felt like working
love into that one. I'm feeling very deep today, religious, spiritual.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
We have another interesting food take well food, I guess,
I don't know, conversation. Arby's launching a viral steak nugget.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, I've seen this one. But is it it's it's it's
like these these little bites. It's these little steak bites
that you buy and they are going to come in
a cup.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
So is it a nugget or is it just like
like Chick fil A like chicken nuggets.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I think it's like that. I think it's the grilled
chicken nuggets. That's yeah, that's exactly what it's. But it's
got this specialty seasoning on there, and it's going to
be incredibly salty and rich and full of umami and
batter process No, oh no, why would they batter it?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I don't know, like to make a nugget, Like, why.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Would they batter it? They would beat it up?
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Oh Andrew, what, don't go there?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Battered?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Battered?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah? Oh, battered with like a like a crust or something.
The well, you know, with Marx Sanchez being in the
news and then somebody said that he was battered, you know.
I saw that. I just had this image of like
Mark Sanchez dipped in tempora and fried or his victims.
Somebody was battered.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I wonder what happened there. That's another story. That's another
story for another time, but interesting.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I'm still really confused about it. It hasn't come out. More
will come out, but that one, Yeah, that one definitely
threw me for a loop. I think the food angle
there is that he was hungry and it was the
DoorDash driver who he battered, and then.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
He was an old man.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
He was an old man, and then he stabbed him.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Good I mean, not good for him. It's just a
weird story for him.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
No, I meant, like you, Cancel was protecting himself. I
don't know the situation, so none of us do.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
None of us know the situation. But one of the
facts that is apparent is that he was ordering door
Dash past midnight. When you ordered door Dash past midnight,
unless you're an overnight worker, that's never good.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
It's never a good sign.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
It's never a good sign. You know that. One time
and I ordered we ordered door Dash past midnight. This
was before we had kids, and we were certainly overserved
and we somehow ordered seventy three dollars worth of Del Taco.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
And we found it. We started door the next morning morning.
Who ordered this?
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, this is somebody pranked us. So we had a
breakfast that morning. Nothing like eight hour old, well six
hour old Del Taco that's been sitting out that bean
rice and cheese. Oh they don't have rice. Why don't
they do bean rice and cheese burritos at Del Taco?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
They do? Oh no they don't.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
That's a l poyol Loco El Poyo Loko, which they
closed the one down by us, and they did.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
They replaced it with a Starbucks.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
With another Starbucks. Not like there's one on every corner.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
I know. It's like people just cannot They won't do
a U turn to reach the Starbucks. They have to
put a Starbucks on both sides of the street.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Ex hilarious darned coffee.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
So yeah, the Arby's. I will say this about Arby's.
When I was in college, I used to go and
get the Rarby Sandwich all the time. I didn't love it,
you know. I knew that the meat was like fake
and it was kind of and the bun was horrible,
But I actually liked the arby sauce the Horsey sauce too,
so I indulge in Arby's from time to time. There
is an old school Arby's right on Edinger and Beach
Boulevard and Huntington Beach with the original neon sign that's
(19:50):
really cool. Every single time I drive by, it's empty.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
I don't know one single person who eats at Arby's.
I'm I'm just wondering how they're still around.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
I don't know. Arby's was bought out by Rourke Capital
for like a billion dollars or so out. I mean,
it's obviously a legacy brand that's got a lot of value.
But wouldn't it just be so cool if arby See
this is what I say about all the fast food brands.
People are focusing on what they're eating. This is the
first time in thirty years where people are actually asking
where does our food come from? Thus the genesis of
this podcast, because we think people want to hear more
(20:24):
about food. Why wouldn't one of these major fast food brands,
especially one that's got declining sales and is already at
risk and going into a chapter eleven or having some
sort of a buyout. Why wouldn't they say, you know what,
we're gonna do freshly sliced roast beef in house, Like
we're gonna flip the system upside down, go back to
what like McDonald's was originally intended for. They were cooking
the burgers fresh on site right there, very in and
(20:45):
out style. Yes, and let's Steak and Shake is kind
of doing that a little bit. They're leaning into the
tallow thing, but they're still buying pre cut fries that
are poached in seed oil and then fried in tallow.
Once again, not going to trash them for that. At
least they're taking a step in the right direct. But
why isn't one of these brands who's trying to reincarnate
themselves doing it? Though?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Well, maybe that's why they're coming out with the steak nuggets.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
The steak nuggets that are probably like seventy percent steak
and thirty percent.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Okay, we we should go buy these, that's what we'll do.
We'll buy them, not the Machi pizza.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I can't. I'm not spending my money on buy the Manopza.
Oh dear. Anyway, we should buy them and see how
they are.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
What the Fork, What the Fork? Andrew, what is the latest?
What the Fork?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
WTF Crazy food stories? This one's wild. It is so
we might even have to touch on this into one
of the next segments because Guy Fieri's tequila heist, Louren,
why don't you tell us about this one? This one
is wild.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
So there was two semi trucks full of Guy Fieri
and Sammy Hagar's tequila brand and they went missing full trucks.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Right, So this was your entire production. This took three
and a half years, it was, right. So the tequila
they got to go in. They got to buy the farm,
not to buy the farm, but they got to invest
in the farm in Mexico. And then they've got to
make the tequila. And it takes so long. So just
imagine three and a half years of production and filling
two semi trucks that they were going to roll this
product out into the holidays of twenty twenty five. Now
they go through a logistics company in order to truck
(22:09):
it across the Mexican border, and what happens.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
So this is interesting.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
So say it was supposed to be delivered on a Friday, right,
then the trucking company started sending more excuses about why
it was late, right to.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
The CEO to the Semi and Guy Fieri company.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
So they start sending them pictures of the Semi truck
broken down on the side of the road. They're tracking
them on GPS, and it looks like they're on their
way to I think it was Pennsylvania where their warehouse was,
and they're still not there. And it's just the weirdest
story because it involves so many layers and so many people.
But why would you Also, what are you doing with
(22:47):
all tequila?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
That's a good questions, But so people understand what happened
is is that so when you're bringing all these products
in from another country or from another part of the country,
you're using these like broker logistics companies, trucking companies, right,
so then they'll they'll be the hauler, they'll bring it
across and then they'll drop it either with another distributor.
But what happens is some of these people subcontract or
subbroker So you have like layers of trucking companies that
(23:11):
and brokerage companies that are getting subcontracted, which we've seen,
like trucking is a very difficult industry.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
I mean, you hear all the horror stories with even
moving across the country all the you know, these trucks
just disappear full of your belongings.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
So apparently this is like there's some true crime associated
with these brokerage companies. So there are these fake companies
that create fake company names, fake websites, fake.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Legs, email addresses, phone numbers, and they look legit.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
So then use broker out to them and then they
basically they abscond with whatever the goods are that are
in the truck. And even they're even so highly refined
in their approach that they're creating a fake GPS.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Yes, so the thieves had manipulated the GPS to make
it look like the tequila was still on its way
to Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, so now I guess my question is what are
they doing with this tequila? Where's it going? Are they
bringing it back to Mexico and then selling it there?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I mean, why would they do that? I don't know,
I mean, I don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
That would be the only place in which they could
sell it, because if they try and sell it anywhere
in the United States, it's obviously going to have the
brand on the tequila unless they relabel it and sell
it as something else. But then there's going to need
to be some change of customers.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I think it passed the US Mexico border.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Initially coming in. I'm sure it'd be easier to get
back in.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
So then they just turned around, and yeah, that's that's
your thoughts on.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
My thoughts is they turn around bring it to Mexico
and sell it there because there's they don't there's less
requirements on that chain of custody there.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
This is just really really weird. I mean the levels
in which people go to to steal and.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
But but Guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar, I mean, who
knows if they have enough insurance to cover this obviously,
like you know, this by all measures, even though they're
both very successful, this is still a small business. So
this is their entire product.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Line, which is why they're using you know, secondary truck
exactly because they don't have their you know, they don't
have their own distribution center, you know, with all their trucks.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, so this is a weird one. I think that also,
I Lauren and I always joke about like there's and
this maybe should become a new segment on the show,
or all the restaurant scams and all the food scams
or business scams in general, because we've seen it all.
One of the ones that we got hit with, uh
was the is the utility scam?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
So we get this phone call and I'll keep this short,
but we get this phone call from so Cal Gas
and it has their number, it has you know, the
caller idea so cal Gas. They're telling us we didn't
pay a bill. They have a guy down the street
ready to shut off our gas, but they'll give us,
you know, an hour to pay the bill. And I'm like,
this doesn't sound right. We're on auto pay. I don't understand.
And so I'm like, why are they calling me?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
But it looks.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Legitimate, it looks real. So I end up calling so
cal Gas, like I call myself because I'm like, something
is not right. And long story short, They're like, no,
your bill is paid, everything's fine. People are doing this now.
They can somehow manipulate the caller ID to show the
phone number and ID to show so cal Gas. So
(26:10):
I'm thinking, if you and I weren't, you know, on
top of our stuff, you know, we would have fallen
for it and then paid whoever it was, you know,
the the three thousand dollars or whatever they were saying
we owed them.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
That is and so many restaurants have been hit hard
with that utility scam. That's that's a tough one.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Well, they call you in the middle of service. You're thinking,
oh my gosh, what am I going to do. We
have a dining room full of people like, oh my gosh,
I need to pay this. The one thing that tipped
me off was you can pay to this phone number,
and they go, you can pay through Zell And I said,
why would I pay you through Zell? That makes no sense.
Give me the website. Oh no, no, no, this is
the quickest way to do it. And I'm like, yeah,
(26:48):
I don't know. I don't know about that.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Yeah, this is this is a wild one. And we
could go into some of these stories, and I think
we should start doing that every couple of weeks. But
you know, we want to keep this tight here, so
let's maybe move on to the next one. Let's talk
about sharpening your skills.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
What do you got, baby, what do you got? No,
what do you got?
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Oh my god, I got so many Sharpening your skills
ones on this. So we cook a lot of ground beef,
and ground beef is relatively inexpensive compared to all the
rest of the different cuts of meat. Right now, one
of the things people do with the ground beef is
that they steam their meat, right because what happens is
you put the ground beef in a small pan and
then you keep stirring and string and string, and it
can never really get hot enough, and then it kind
(27:27):
of steams, so you've got this watery mess of like
gray ground beef, and then maybe you mix it into
a sauce. The key with creating a lot of flavor
in the ground beef is to actually brown the ground beef.
And it should be easy to do because if you
think about it, there's actually a ton of surface area
in the ground beef. So one suggestion that I'll give
everybody with their ground beef is that when you put
it in the pan, spread it out across the pan,
(27:49):
blast the heat up. You can even throw a little
doll up of whole butter in there because that'll help
accelerate the browning processes. The milk solis in the butter
brown and then don't touch it. Let it be right,
just let it see it almost as if that layer
of beef in the pan is a piece of steak
that's seering. And then stir it after about I don't know,
(28:11):
you want it to see it for like a good
four or five minutes. Don't be afraid, don't constantly stir
your ground beef. Then give it a stir at the end,
because then the deep flavor that you're gonna get from
what's called that mallard browning, when the amino acids in
the protein's actually brown on the exterior, is going to
be unbelievable. So that's my trick right there, is with
ground beef. And I also suggest what everybody do is
(28:31):
is that cook a lot of ground beef in batches,
leave it in your refrigerator, and then use the ground
beef to like fold into sauces, fold into salads, fold
into different dishes. It's a great way to get high
quality protein without spending a ton of money.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I love it all right, let's do eighty six it.
What do you got?
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Well? My eighty six it for this week. Things that
we think need to go is the is low quality oil, well,
truffle oil in general, anything truffle and I've talked about
this at length, but like truffle fry is drizzling truffle
oil over the food, like everything. Truffle, which you'll find
now at you know, most casual restaurants, is like the
truffled fries what have you? All that is is basically
(29:11):
like it's a truffle perfume that they use by soaking whole,
real fresh truffles to get that perfume out, and then
they emulsify it with like a really really low quality oil,
like a vegetable oil, and then you're drizzling it all
over everything. If you're gonna eat truffles, you're going to
enjoy truffles. Get the real thing, or like even the
(29:32):
canned hole truffles, and then chop it up and mix
it in yourself. Black truffles hard to find, white truffles
in that in that manner. I don't like the truffle
oil trend.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I don't either.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
It kind of smells and tastes like gasoline, Like what
I imagine gasol.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
When the last time you smelled gasoline, well smell it
and not smell it, but well when the last time
you tasted it. I have never tasted what's what do
you want to see? Go? What's your eighty six? It?
Speaker 3 (29:53):
I cannot stand ASMR. There's certain things I like, but
the clicking of the name.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
What's ASMR? It's those For those that don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
It's like the sounds like, you know, somebody's doing their
get ready with me today, and then they're clicking on
every every product with their nails and or ripping open
a package, and I'm like, what is happen? I can't
stand it for some reason, but it's so funny. There's
actually something came up in the New York Post about this.
This ASMR spa doesn't do massages, but will scratch your head,
(30:23):
brush you with feathers, and whisper in your ear. For
one hundred and fifty dollars. Just put a fork in me.
I would never do that.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Put a fork in me? What the fork? Just so
you guys know, ASMR stands for autotonomous sensory meridian response whatever.
I don't know why meridian's in there. It's that tingling,
calming sensation some people feel in their scalp, neck or
spine when they hear certain softer, repetitive sounds.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
That has never happened to me.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
No, I've had that like every now and then. That's
like when you're like, oh, touch my back or what
have you? Like, that's I don't know why you give
me that look. She'll say. She'll be like, touch my back.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I'll say, we're not touch my back.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
I'll back dump dump some hot ground beef on my back.
I think that's ASMR yeah, or that's WTF. But whispering
or soft speaking, tapping, page, turning, paper crinkly and all
that weird stuff, and it's gone once again. People take
things too far. Every single YouTube video now is like
some weirdo going.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
No, they're clicking, they're using their nails, or there's this
new thing of people are doing get like unready with me,
Like in the morning, I forget exactly what it's called.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
We've lost our collective minds.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
You like people have, you know, they start taking off
these masks and they're wearing chin straps and mouth tape
and like this crazy like heatless.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Curls, And I'm like, what imagine if I went to
bed like that?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Oh wait, so they go to bed, they go to
bed with everything on, and then they take it off
in the morning. And but it's it's all the noises
they're using the ASMR noises.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
It trives me insane.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
What just happened to go into bed with a couple
of fat pieces of cucumber on your eyelids?
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah? What the heck?
Speaker 1 (31:50):
You used to do that and I'd wake up It's
so funny.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Never done.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Late, go to bed with cucumbers on our eyes and
by the time I rolled over on them three or
four times we woke up we had pickles in the bed.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
What.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Okay, first of all, none of this is true. Don't
listen to him ASMR.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
So this is ASMR. I'm gonna finalize it.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Ready, that's not like this.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Oh my gosh, it's blowing my mind.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Is your head tingling?
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah? Because I have a tension headache. Well, on that note,
why don't you guys give us what your favorite or
least favorite items are? Just give us some more stuff
to talk about. We want you to be involved in this.
You can, obviously. The best way to communicate with us
is on.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
X at Chef Grol at Lauren Girl.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
You can email us. That's I'm actually I'm not gonna
put my email app email. People say email us whatever, Yeah,
follow us at X. But most importantly, make sure that
you follow the podcast right, so, whether you're on iHeartMedia,
the iHeartMedia app, Apple iTunes.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Spotty iTunes, Apple podcast Pod.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
I'm like an old man, like where's that iTunes? But
be sure to leave us a review. That's most important.
Download the episode and just get in touch with us
and let us know what you want us to talk about.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah, give us your w tfs and you're eighty six.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Eighty six, WTF what's happening today? What do you want
to saute? Deep Fried? Peer? Peer? Poach?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Peer? What do you want to peer?
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I want to I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
All right, that's good. That's a wrap, ye,