Columbus' Best Butcher Shop

In Episode 2, come explore another cooking segment featuring bacon filet wraps, paired with a selected wine, plus learn more about the different products you'll find at Carfagna's! 

Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Welcome to on court. I can'tbelieve it. We made it through one
episode and now episode two. Iam Boxer, and of course we are
coming to you taping this episode fromCarfonia's Italian market off of Gemini and Polaris,
and every week you're gonna hear differentguests, but the mainstay is sell
Carfagna in the house. Welcome salThank you, Boxer, welcome you back.

(00:29):
You have somehow you got your brotherto be here too. Carmen,
Welcome Carmen, Thank you, Boxer. Happy to be here. And we've
got Coach with us. Coach,you're gonna be talking about wines and stuff,
is that right? Absolutely, it'sgreat to be here at Kafanas.
Oh and by the way, you'regonna do beatboxing a little bit later,
right, No, all right,And we should mention too the music that

(00:51):
you're hearing underneath. I have aquick story to share. So in the
name of when I was really young, guys, I learned a long time
ago to respect other people's families.And so when we were first giving sending
sALS some different music samples, andof course under your commercials we had the
traditional Italian music. It's like,is there anything we could do to have

(01:15):
more maybe updated modern. And Ithought I always wanted to ask you if
you wanted that sal but I wasworried that I would upset you. And
the last thing you want to dois in a town where business has been
around since nineteen thirty seven, youdon't want to upset the Carfagna family.
Because if you upset the Carfagna family, you best just move out of town.

(01:37):
It's not that serious. So wedecided we went from what meatball whatever
to Italian gangstaff. Well that's yeah, that's the name of the just so
happens to be the name of theaudio. You guys provided these, By
the way, I didn't pick outthese. The options were Meatball and grits
or Gangster Italiano and we landed ongangst a Taliano And are you okay with

(02:00):
with the theme? I like it. It has a little bit more upbeat
modern tune to it. You know, it's not the traditional you know,
I'm like, I tell these guyswhen you know, we do like different
things and people are overlaying those musicto me, it's just it's it's a
bit of a cringe factor. Youknow, we're not the Italian Festival twenty

(02:22):
four to seven. We kind ofare. But you know when we when
we do these things like, yeah, let's let's update this a little bit,
let's get a little bit more upbeat, you know, music in there.
This is a fun podcast, right, We're absolutely this little modern twist
on things that we're doing here,So why not the music to reflect that.
I know coming up we're gonna betalking about meat, your meat departments,

(02:44):
wines with a coach, maybe somebeatboxing a little bit later. But
first, should we start the traditionor should we uncork? Should we uncork
first? Is that what we shoulddo? Or I think we should?
Yeah, who's going to do thehonors this week? Well, we have
Coach from Robert Bali Wineries here andhe is going to be doing the honors
this this week, we are featuringRobert Bali Winery. The wine that we're

(03:07):
going to be on Quirking is blackChicken Zinfandel and there is a fantastic story
behind not only that bottle, butthe Robert Bali Winery as a whole.
And we're very fortunate to have Coachhere and he's going to be explaining that
a little bit later. But Coachwithout coach all further ado, let's do

(03:27):
this black chicken. Thank you,Coach, appreciate that. Yeah, we're
gonna get to more of the wineand what that that would go with too.
I'm curious what you're gonna say thatcompliments food wise. Well, we
just so happened to have a fantasticpairing for it today and we are going

(03:49):
to be cooking our famous bacon wrapfilet mignon. That what that was?
This is our number one steak inour butcher shop week in and week out,
and we are very proud to cookthese up for you guys. We're
gonna be firing it in a castiron skillet. That's your number one cell,

(04:09):
number one in the meat department,week in and week out. This
is a customer favorite for many years, and today we're gonna be cooking it
up cast iron skillet. We gotsome wagu beef tallow that we're gonna be
frying it in there. We're gonnakeep it simple, salt and pepper on
the fry. How did the baconwrapped filet start? That is a good
question, really. How it isis if you look at a filet mignon

(04:30):
right, it can be wonky sometimesdepending on the cut, depending on where
it's at. We use the baconto wrap it around to keep them all
nice and uniform, to keep itall nice and tight. Most people when
they cook a filet mignon, tokeep it very even on the cook surface,
they'll wrap butcher twine around it.And so why use butcher twine when
you can use bacon, right,And so we wrap ours with bacon.

(04:56):
It keeps it all nice and tighttogether so that you get an even cooking
throughout the whole process. All right, Well, if you didn't hear in
the very beginning, this is onCorked. Of course, every week we
spotlight Carfanya's and some of the newexciting things they have. Also the history,
and today we're gonna be talking aboutthe meat department. We have Sell
Carfanya, the general manager of Carfanya's, Carmen Carfana, his brother who's the

(05:18):
director of manufacturing coaches here. He'sgonna be getting into the wines in just
a little bit. Let's talk thehistory though of Carfanya's. The meat department.
Is that how Carfanya's technically started.It is it is how we started.
I'm gonna give you a little historyhere. We're gonna go back in
time a little bit. Okay,all right. The year is nineteen thirty

(05:39):
seven, present day New Albany.My great grandfather, our great grandfather,
Saturnino Carfana. When he immigrated tothe United States, he had a job
working as a meat packer and heeventually had a small farm which is in
present day New Albany. He hadsome you know, small livestock, chickens

(06:01):
and you know, a lot ofvegetables and stuff. He had a dairy
cattle. He actually would sell themilk and cheese in the local farmer market.
Where he would sell all of hisproduce, and his fresh cheese and
milk was downtown in the Albany Thereis now a brew Dog brewery there.
That's where you told me this duringour CEOs you should know podcast. So

(06:23):
that's where this was. That's whereit took place. So that's where he
got his start to build up hiscapital, you know. And his farm
was located just down the street fromthere. Wow, And that's where he
sold the majority of his products.So the Great Depression happens, and coming
out of the Great Depression, theyhad the Great New Deal, right,
and that was government grants to localfarmers that were to boost the the farming

(06:49):
business to have more lights, toaddmal equipment, what they could do.
So he he got the grant asa farmer, and like any good Italian,
he opened up a butcher shop andhe took the butcher shop and he
was supplying his His produce was theproduce he sold out of his butcher shop.

(07:11):
And at this butcher shop was asmall butcher shop and it's in it's
in the Linden area is where itwas single aisle store with a really nice
meat counter and a chicken house inthe back that they would slaughter chickens to
order. So the old ladies,the the funny story is that all the
old Italian ladies would go there andfeel chickens to see which one still had

(07:35):
an egg inside of it, becausethey wanted one more egg, one extra
eggs, a little bonus. Youknow, that's just how that's just how
we Italians are always looking for adeal. And so they would they would
butcher fresh chickens, slaughter them rightthere in the back. And but that's
how we became known. We becameknown for Italian imports. Fresh the specialty

(07:57):
produces and the specialty meats, andhe was first and foremost. We were
a butcher shop and did a lotof poultry out of that place as well,
but then we transformed more into beefand pork as as we went on.
So we moved multiple locations, acouple locations, I should say,
until we finally landed on one sixtyone, which is where I think most

(08:18):
people know us being there for fiftyyears, and we were there fifty years
to the date until we moved toGemini. But one sixty one brings back
a lot of great memories for us. You know, I think people always
missed the nostalgia of it, whichwe do as well, and the old
school butchers, the butcher feel there, you know, the old school market

(08:39):
but sound. I always we alwaysthink back to all the great members.
We had their whole cattle. Weused to butcher whole cattle, and we
had sides hanging in the back.And it was funny because we used to
have kindergarten field trips that came in. We did it as kindergartens too,
and they do a whole field triparound the market and we show them the
different nuances at the grocery store.And then the big thing was that we'd

(09:00):
go in the back and like Rocky, everybody would tape up their hand and
punch the side of a cow.We basically grew up in that market.
And these field trips, you know, you're learning about the food pyramid and
whatnot, and my dad would takethe class around and we'd go through the
whole food pyramid. Right, butyeah, it always culminated with going back
into that back book butcher shop.When that started, you know, that

(09:22):
was how business was done. Wewould partner with the local butcher shops or
butcher shops, the local cattle ranchers. Right. We had a meat processing
facility that was up north in theAshland area that would bring down the half
sides of beef. They would comein a refrigerated truck. We would take
them off that truck and put themon our meat hooks and then wheel them

(09:43):
into that back cooler. There wasso much product back there that the that
the roof actually started to bow becausethere was so much weight on on those
racks. You know, these oldtrail systems that you know you have the
all the meat hooks going there.But you know, that's my earliest memories
of of Carfana's is the back butcher'sshop. Absolutely, my dad's working there,

(10:09):
you know, my dad and myuncle, they worked seven days a
week and they were butchers through andthrough. There was not a piece of
meat that wasn't in our case thatthey did not touch, and they did
everything by hand. And we supplieda lot of the restaurants in the area
too. Back then, one sixtyone was the Polaris Corridor and there was
of today, and there was restaurantsall up and down that row, and

(10:33):
majority of those restaurants would get theirfresh cut steaks from Carfanya's and we supplied
them. As time went on,the USDA started to introduce the box beef
and they started to move away fromthe half sides. There was some regulations
that happened with the mad cow diseasethat plagued the us and that's what prompted

(10:54):
the USDA to start that that process. Now these restaurants could order their whole
primals and if they had somebody thatwas skilled enough in their back kitchen to
cut some steaks, they would doit themselves, and so that wholesale business
kind of transitioned. However, thatfresh cut meat never changed at Carfanya's and

(11:18):
that's exactly still how we do ittoday. And that's one of our key
differentiators all of our meat that yousee in that case, these guys were
here early in the morning, sixam or before, and they are back
in that meat cutting room and they'regetting all of all the steaks prepped and
ready to go cutting it everything byhand. Your meat department is still your

(11:39):
core business, right And it's stillthe core business, your core revenue stream.
That's our mothership. Yeah, that'sjust amazing. Your great grandfather's side
note real quick, and I knowwe have to get to other things with
your great grandfather. Was that clearlyhe had lots of skills and trades,
but as a butcher, was thathis original trade? Was? Was that

(12:01):
his skill? Yeah? Yeah,he was, you know, I know
he's a farmer, but I meanwhat was it was? This man had
a lot of skills. He hada lot of skills. He was the
jack of all trades. But whenhe moved to the United States, he
had a brother that was a workedfor a meat packer and he had a
job for him, and so hehe came here and worked as a meat

(12:22):
packer, save up some money,go back to Italy, leave the money,
and leave my great grandmother pregnant,and then come back and he would
do that happened today. He didthat. He did that, you know,
three four times as he could,until he had enough money to move
the whole family back here. Somy grandfather was the first of the of

(12:46):
his siblings to be born in theUnited States. I think half were born
in Italy and half were born herein the US. And when that happened,
he had, I guess, gainedenough skill as a in the meatpacking
industry as a butcher to realize thathe had he had some skill there.
And he was a driven guy andan entrepreneurial mine and knew he always wanted

(13:07):
to be his own business owner.You know, it's a great American dream.
I think I've asked you this before. South forgive me. Do you
guys still have family in Italy?Yes? We do. Wow. Where
at Vasto Girardi is the Carfanas.It's in Molise, which is south of
a Brutso bruts So Malisi used tobe one region and they split this so

(13:30):
Melissa is south of a Brute.So Relis is a very small uh region,
A region in Italy. There's nota huge city there. You can
liken it to the North Dakota ofthe United States. Oh okay, but
it's kind of central peninsula in Italy. And our family is up in the

(13:52):
mountains. But they still own thesame house that my great grandfather was born
in. Amazing in that house.I know. We have to get to
our cooking demo in just seconds.Sal and Carmen. When it comes to
consolidating and having everything under one roof, has that made everything more visient nowadays
for you? Absolutely? Yeah,absolutely one. Because we have our manufacturing

(14:18):
plant, which we can leave fora future podcast, sure, but we
do a lot of prep work thereas well, and a lot of storage
for some of the stuff that webuy, especially our fresh meats and different
things. So we're constantly going backand forth. And we had the restaurant
separated from the market. It wasyou know, you had a lot more

(14:39):
avenues of travel for for just youknow, ourselves and consulting everything here.
Not only did it help us internally, but it also helped the customer to
have the full experience of Carfonias.And that was the biggest thing for us,
was to give the customers the fullexperience, give them a reason to
come out of the house, youknow, because we can't liver groceries and

(15:01):
we don't deliver groceries to your doorlike some of the bigger chain stores can
do. Yeah, so we needto have a reason for people to come
out. We want to be thatexperiential market that people can that want to
leave their house to come to andspend some time with us, you know,
eat and try things and learn aboutthings, and you know, all
things Italian, all things meet.You brought up a very interesting point why

(15:24):
a family market and a store versushow I mean, how do you compete
against the big boys? I meanis does it come down to customer service
where they don't forget you what Imean business wise. I want to support
you because you're a small business andI love the Carfones, but there must
be other reasons. Absolutely. Yeah, So let's let's go back to the
eighties. Sure, okay, whenCarfaanya's moved to one sixty one from the

(15:48):
London neighborhood. We were a pioneerin the sense that we were one of
the first supermarkets. We offered everything. Not only did we have our butcher
shop, but we had baby food, paper products, dog food. It
was a one stop shop, right, what we know as our quote unquote

(16:11):
you know supermarkets today. Right,That's what Carfgia's was on one sixty one.
It wasn't this independent grocer like thatlike all the little corner stores,
a bodega type of thing. Right. This was a true supermarket. And
now with the big box stores comingin in the late eighties, mid mid
to late eighties, that changed everything. Right. They had multiple store locations,

(16:34):
they had their own distribution, theywere able to undercut all of our
pricing. We had to adjust,and we found our niche in specialty grocery.
And that's when we started to importa lot more lean heavily on the
European imports, not just Italian products, but Eastern European products, French products,

(16:55):
Spanish products. We started getting heavyinto wine, we started getting heavy
into cheese. And then obviously thebutcher shop was the mainstay, right,
that was the flagship, and thatwas the draw to everybody. And then
we differentiated ourselves by bringing in specialtygrocery. That trickled back into more local
products, right, and you startto find your niche on these different products

(17:18):
and now you are offering other productsthat the big box stores cannot bring in
because they have to deal with contracts, They have to deal with store placement,
they have to deal with everything thatthe corporations will will I guess harness
for that location. We do notdeal with any contracts on any of our

(17:40):
suppliers, including our meat. That'sanother differentiator. We can shop around.
We are able to source the bestprice and making sure that they adhere by
our standards. No antibiotics, nosteroids, sustainably farmed, sustainably raised right,
all of these things that our customerswant, would we want right?

(18:00):
And that's what we say. Wealways say, give the customer what they
want, right. But these arethe same things that we provide that we
want for our families as well forour children. And we're that's just who
we are, that's our identity,and we passed that on to our customers.
Selling Carmen real quick though in thisworld of instant gratification, and you
talked about delivery Carmen earlier, Isthere is there any future in that for

(18:26):
carfonas? Is that something you're evengonna go touch? You know, we
we dabble with it. We haveInstacart, right, that is a third
party delivery grocery service, so we'rekind of in there. But what we
are we're trying to do is actuallylaunch our butcher shop e commerce. So
we have launched our butcher Bundles,which are you know, curated boxed meat

(18:52):
that we can ship all across theUS uh and it's you know, three
to five day business shipping. We'reable to offer free shipping because of that.
And so if you go online toCarfaanya's dot com, go to the
shop portion of it carfanyas Shop dotcom and then you can see our butcher
bundles, those are able to bedelivered right to your doorsteps. So our

(19:15):
wild case can be I know,right, that's so wild. Yeah,
So we always adapt, right,you know, the climate and the consumerism
is constantly changing, right, andso you have to adapt. Yeah,
we don't have delivery drivers in thehouse, and we don't have people picking
and packing groceries and taking it toyour car. Is that a possibility in
the future. Everything's possible in thefuture. But right now, what we

(19:37):
can do is do things like Saalawas saying, with our butcher bundles and
different things that we can sell onlinethat we can you know, ship straight
to you. And with this,insta cart is a nice little app as
well. If you're in the deliveryrange, you can get delivered through instacart,
you know. But things are alwayschanging. But I think the biggest
thing for us was that we knowthat when we get people in store and

(20:00):
give them the full experience of Carfoniasand get them to you know, I
guess feel feel the the experience thatwe want you to feel, you know,
and and the love that we takeand and the love that our our
our employees give out as well,and the knowledge that they have. We
want people to experience that so thatyou want to come here, you want

(20:22):
to spend time here, because deliveringstuff straight to your door, you don't
get that connection, you know,not that personal connection. No, I
agree with you, you know,So you have to come in to really
understand that and to be like,Okay, I now know, I can
see it, I can feel it. Now I trust them to give me
some great products, you know.And that's what we really want customers to
have is our trust. And andwe know we have that with a lot

(20:47):
of our customers as well. Butthat's the thing we're always striving for.
And let's face it, covid haschanged so much and the e commerce grocery
aspect of everything took off with Covidand and we're getting up to speed with
that and we want to be ableto offer that to our customers. And

(21:07):
it's something that we are looking atinto the future. But your one stop
shop type of place like us,these mom and pop places, you know,
you need to have your own fleet, you need to do all this
thing. How do you how canyou outsource a delivery service like that to
offer all of these things? Soit's into the future. It's things that
we're looking at and we're very proudto launch at least, which we think

(21:32):
was the hardest portion. How doyou get fresh meat to people's doorsteps?
So if we can figure out thehardest thing first, you know, dry
good products are going to be easyto add on after that, So let's
start with the hardest thing first.We launched that. It just launched about
like the end of Q three lastyear, so we're still still fairly new

(21:52):
into it. What's the furthest youship out to or have Continental US?
Okay, so California, Washington instate are there regulations. If someone in
let's say, I don't know Norwaywanted meat for you, I mean,
is I don't know, we might. I don't know if we're quite into
the export business, the sport beefbusiness yet, boxer, But I love
I love the ingenuity thing thinking outsidethe box. There. Brother, I

(22:17):
don't know here you have in Norwaythat needs meatbox, But tell them not
yet. It's it's where my familyis from. Have you had the Grandpa
sausage from Carfania's market? Guess what, Norway? It's common, baby,
it's coming. So that's the nicething about these butcher bundles is that it's
not just you know, steaks andstuff, but we have our our most
popular items available there. We havecoach coming up with wine in just a

(22:41):
few minutes here. But first,I'm smelling a burner. I'm smelling.
Oh, I'm smelling it, andI'm I'm seeing it. I'm seeing the
bacon rat valets over there. We'reready to go, so baby rat here
you guys. These I'm gonna fryin this cast iron skillet. The the
wagu beef tallow is ready to go. I seasoned this with our nod salt

(23:03):
This is from France. This isinfused with black pepper, so it has
the black pepper and the sea saltall ready to go a R N A
U D yep. This is importedfrom France. It's actually harvested from the
wild salt marshes in France, whichis pretty cool. So these are heavily
seasoned all the way around, andwe're gonna drop these right into this cast

(23:26):
iron skillet. Listen to that.It's a beautiful sound, really is that?
And wine being on court? Ithink you can't get better than those
two sounds right there, folks.So sal you just dropped the bacon wrap
filets in the skillet. It's it'son one side. How warm are we

(23:48):
burnt? Are cooking this? Thisis medium high ten. I don't want
to get a lot of smoke onthis. I want to I wanna have
a nice cook process through it.Right, We're not gonna pop it in
the oven or anything like that.I'm just gonna do it on this cast
iron skillet. So I'm keeping itat a medium medium to medium high temperature
so that we can really get anice pan roast on this and throughout that

(24:11):
entire cook process have I'm gonna cookon both sides, so see her one
side, seer the other, andthen we're actually gonna sear all four sides
of the bacon as well, sothat we get a nice even cook.
We'll then pull them off. Wewill let them rest, get that internal
temperature to rise up, and thenwe'll make our pan sauce. Wait,

(24:33):
okay, you know it's not gonnabe a surprise to anyone here, but
full disclosure, I'm not a cookat all. So how are you gonna
do the bacon part of it?Do you set the fillets up on its
side? Is that what you do? You got it, buddy, absolutely,
So you cook the bacon on eachside, all right, so you
get a nice crust on both sidesof the filet with the beef is visible

(24:56):
there, right, get nice cruston both sides, then seer off all
side. Just turn it on itsside. You know, you'll almost take
treat it like four sizes there.But the best part about these bacon rap
filets is that as you start seeingthat bacon, you get that bacon fat
into the pan and that helps flavorthe steak. And it is absolutely incredible.

(25:17):
So I wanted to talk a fewthings about what makes us unique here
before we switch to wind a littlebit about our butcher shop and still some
of the unique stuff that we're doingthat we've always done, but you know
that we're still doing so that peopleunderstand that, you know, I know,
we have a new store here andyou might lose some of that nostalgonis
with the old place, but we'restill that same butcher shop. The Carfanyas

(25:40):
sign that's above the butcher shop,right, that's the original sign from the
one sixty one store that was abovethe was the facade of the store.
I thoughts took that off and putit above the meat department there to let
people know we're still the same carfunders. We're still doing the same stuff,
right. We still have the samebacon wrap filets. Our ground beef
is still fresh ground in house daily. That's all of our steak trim and

(26:04):
we grind one second on that Carmenour ground beef. What differentiates from from
us from other people, We arezero waste, as Carmen mentioned, so
all of our steak trimmings is goinginto our one hundred percent pure ground beef.
But we also utilize whole muscle sowe're using whole muscle grinds. Right.

(26:25):
What that means is we're not utilizinga ten pound you know tube of
a bunch of different you know cutsand all that kind of stuff. We
utilize just one cut for our groundbeef, right, to go along with
the steak trimmings, and then weoffer the ground surloin nothing but top butts.
Right. We also offer our groundchuck. Those are just one hundred
chuck rolls and that keeps that integrityon there. And obviously we do this

(26:51):
throughout the day, so our grindsare made hourly. Well, and guys,
I hope this isn't a dumb question, but just to educate, why
is that so important versus and I'mnot asking you to diss anyone, that's
not what we're here to do,but what is that one of the big
differences and why is that so importantversus what someone else does? Tenderness,
okay, freshness, You're not utilizinga whole bunch of different steak, right,

(27:15):
It's it's all from think about it, Like you have in one batch
of our grind, you're going tohave maybe four pieces of meat that are
going to be grind into there right, and we're able to control that.
We're able to control the grind process. It's not already pre ground tube.
And here's the thing with ground beefopposed to ground chicken and ground pork.

(27:37):
The more that you grind it,the tougher that it gets. So our
grind process is a very quick process. You know, one to two grinds,
you know, passes through on thaton that meat grinder and then we're
out the door. The more thatyou handle it, and if you've made
meatballs before and you're or hamburgers andyou're starting over, rerolling and padding and

(28:00):
starting over, you're those proteins rightthat you're you're basically bringing them, you're
binding them all together, and it'screating a much more tougher end product.
Now pork, on the other hand, does not act like that. The
more that you process pork, itactually becomes more tender, right, And
same thing with with chicken. Youcan continue to grind it. However,

(28:22):
beef, it's it's the end productthat makes the difference. So it's fresher,
you know what where it's coming from, uh, and it's much more
tender. The other thing we dothat's really cool is all of our All
of the servers on the meat counterare also semi trained butchers themselves, really

(28:45):
just slightly. What they'll do isyou can come in and order a whole
tender loin or a whole New Yorkstrip loin, and those guys will take
it, trim it and cut itto your liking. And so if you
want two inch steaks, one inchsteaks, whatever, those guys know how
to trim it properly, cut younice steaks, executeer liking. Same with
the whole tender loins. They'll cutyou filets, executea liking, trim it,

(29:07):
tie it up for a roast ifyou want it, and give it
right back to all done Fresh endhouse while you're while you're waiting. It's
something that we've always prided ourselves onand it's something unique to us that we
offer that service daily weekly we dowhat we'll have sales going on for the
whole strip loins. Those are reallyreally popular. The some of the new

(29:30):
stuff that we have in this casetoo, with this is this Florentine Porterhouse.
I don't know if you've seen it, but it's standing up on its
bone. It's a thick cut porterhousesteak about two inches thick and it's standing
up on the bone and they theythey'll in Florence. It's it's like the
famous cut there. Right, it'sa Porterhouse, real thick and they grill

(29:52):
it just like that on its bone. Stand it up, slice it down.
It's fantastic. We got those.We've got some high end pork coming
in, Durrock pork that's gonna bebrand new. All right, it's fantastic.
We have air chilled chicken. Whatdoes that mean? Air chilled chicken.
Yeah, we'll go into this.You know our beef, right,

(30:17):
Carmen mentioned that these Porterhouses, thisis all USDA Prime or Choice, high
Choice, certified Angus. So certifiedAngus is the breed, right, and
this coincides with Durrock. Drrock isa breed of hog. So our beef
that we utilize certified Angus, whichis the black angus steer and certified Angus

(30:38):
means that you're getting high choice,which is the top one third of all
choice beef that is able to belabeled Angus certified Angus beef. And then
our short wines are short lines thatt bone right, Yeah, those Florentine
steaks is the best of both worlds. It has a New York strip on

(30:59):
one side and has the Fla mignonon the other. Uh. It is
the famous stake that Carmen mentioned thatthey make in Florence. Durrock pork.
Our Durrock pork. We partner witha dealer's farm. They're out of Iowa.
They have been raising durrock pork sincethe eighteen hundreds, before Iowa was
a state. This family has beenin US and has been raising these hogs

(31:19):
the same way. Uh. There, it's a it's a heritage breed,
which means that it is how itjust it's been like that for generations,
right, since humans have been raisingthese these hogs. Any idea where they're
out of in Iowa? I knowthat's real specific. The other reason I
ask is because I grew up aroundthere, so I'm on a hog farm.

(31:41):
So you guys can find that out. You'll find you want to get
on the on the Google type dealersD E E L E R S.
Right, we got technology in thisroom. Let's utilize that on this spot
and find the location of that farm. So what makes it better in the
differentiator on that the marble on thispork? Okay, and they raise it

(32:01):
all sustainably. This is this iscage free. Okay, this is GM,
non GMO, vegetarian fed, noantibiotics, no steroids. These are
exactly how you should be raising thesehogs. Sure. And by the way,
do you guys, are you guysthrough the years, and especially the

(32:22):
last few years, anyone that dealswith meat, are you getting more pressure
being asked, Hey, non GMOs? Are these were these you know,
animals in a cage? But Imean, do you get that kind of
you get that? It's and obviouslyit's more so in recent years, Netflix
has been posting documentary after documentary ofthe meat industry, and you know,

(32:45):
you have to be upfront with customersand let them know, Yeah, these
are our partners. This is whowe are sourcing from. These are their
practices. Are our beef. Youknow, the local ranchers that we partner
with. We go up and wewalk their farms and we meet these people
and they are doing it the mostpristine way up north, the certified Angus

(33:07):
beef ranchers. They partner with alocal produce plant processing plant and all of
the produce scraps are normally trashed.Right, They're in a giant food processor
and they're getting rid of them,right, and these local farmers said,
hold on a second, we'll takethat off of your hands. And they're
actually feeding their cattle with it.So it is all vegetable fed, you

(33:30):
know, up until the point andthen grass fed obviously, right. But
these the way that they do thesethis product, the way that they raise
these these steers is just absolutely phenomenal. No antibiotics, no steroids, it's
it's all natural, it's local.These guys are doing it the right way.
The majority of them are Mennonite,so they're they're not quite Amish,

(33:52):
right, but they are Mennonites whofarmers, uh. And they raise these
cattle and then they also raise produceand we also buy a produce from from
their communities as well, uh andsell it here during the summer seasons when
when all of that is in season. John, I think found the location
for the mars. Looks like it'snortheast of south of Sioux City. Oh,

(34:19):
so city. Okay, that Aarongotcha, Okay, just it was
just curious northeast of Sioux City.So but John, Yeah, that pork,
all of the care that goes intothat comes through on the on the
final product. The marbling on theduroc pork is so intense, it is
it looks like a piece of wagoubeef. It's it's phenomenal. Uh.

(34:39):
And the tenderness right, the thethe flavor, the full flavor of of
it all is just it's a veryclean product and very high quality premium product.
And now we also mentioned the airchilled chicken. Yes, yes,
and you were wondering about that,Yeah, what does that mean? Air
chill? So when we process poultry, it gets to the point where you

(35:06):
have the whole fryer, right,the whole bird, and that whole fryer
goes through a water bath process tokill off any excess bacteria. That water
bath is obviously changed, right,it's never reused, but they do treat
it, it might be chlorinated,right, to kill off any bacteria,

(35:27):
residual bacteria in the water. Airchilled eliminates all of that. And when
they go through that process, thatactually goes through a almost like a conveyor
belt through a refrigeration and it's almostlike a dry aged chicken process, right,
And they're using that to kill offthe bacteria and to reduce any kind

(35:49):
of bacteria. What it does,it retains all the natural juices from the
chicken. You do not get awater logged piece of chicken. So if
you've ever cooked chicken at home andyou're maybe chunking it up in your pan,
frying in the pan, and alot of water leaches out, and
you can't get a nice brown onit, right, you're almost like steaming
this chicken and by the time itstarts browning, it's all dried out.
Right. This happens to me allthe time. This chicken, it cooks

(36:15):
so pure and true you get thatnice even brown on it every single time.
It retains all its natural juices andretaining obviously that full chicken flavor as
well. Again, cage free,no antibiotics, no steroids. It's just
exactly how that product should be.And so when we talk about we're a

(36:36):
specialty grocery store, right and wehave all of these specialty products, now
we are we are beginning to reallyexpand on that specialty offering in our meat
department as well with these with thesehigh end premium meat products. Speaking of
chicken, I coach, I don'tknow how many glasses of black chicken z

(36:58):
Infidel you've had you know, you'vebeen quiet there for a while. Have
you had any yet? No,I have not. I'm just fascinated by
watching beautiful steaks being cooked. Andjust to let you know, this microphone
smells of meat, which is amazing. It's by design, coach. But

(37:20):
yeah, I'm looking forward to pouringsome glasses for everyone to try and uh
to talk a little bit about carfoniasand the Bali's. Yeah, well,
let's do that. I'll tell youwhat you want to go pour in,
then I'll hand you the microphone whenwhen you're done. We should also mention
in our cooking portion here the baconwrap filets have already been flipped to the
other side. They just once rightto the other side. Got a nice

(37:45):
little crust on there. That allright, coach, I know you want
to describe a little bit the blackchicken zinfandel. We should also mention to
coach, who are you with again? Who do you represent? I'm with
Robert Balli Vineyards. I've been withthe family for about twenty years. I
started in Aldo Biali's garage and toavoid confusion, one of the partners,

(38:12):
childhood friends of Bob Biali's, wasDave Pramick, and to avoid confusion with
too many Daves, they called mecoach because I coached the local high school
boys and girls Varsiti soccer for aboutfifteen years. Left the boys program to
start the first ever women's college soccerprogram at Solano with Jeff Cardinal did that
for eight I made so much moneycoaching soccer, I retired to the windustry.

(38:37):
Now, as everybody knows, youknow, it's a labor of love,
and you know, I was sogracious for the Billies and the Pramics
to allow me to follow a dreamand give back to my community. And
so now I don't coach much anymore, but I do. I'm a great

(38:57):
fan. And actually the last timeI was in town, got a chance
to go to the Columbus game,which was awesome. They won five zero,
which was even better. But Iwanted to talk about the Bial's.
You know, listening to the Carfagnastory, it's so very similar to the
Beali story. The Bialis immigrated fromPedimonte, Italy, around just before the

(39:19):
nineteen twenties. They were farmers backin Italy and when they came to California,
that's what they ended up doing.Pietro, Robert's grandfather, found work
up on Greer Ranch on Mount Vetre, and this was right around the time
that Prohibition started, and it wasa vineyard that survived by a little known

(39:39):
fact that you were allowed to makehome wine during Prohibition, but Greer Ranch
also made wine for the church.Christina and Pietro had their only son,
Aldo, up on that mountain,and when they made enough money, they
moved to the valley floor where theBiali Ranch is today, and they planned
it orchards, walnuts, and plums. They planted produce, but mainly the

(40:04):
Bali's were known in a town forselling eggs. We had a large flock
of leghorned chickens, which are allwhite, and we sold eggs over the
old party line phone system. Nowtoday's youth doesn't really know what a party
line phone system is. I didn'tbecause I just never grew up with one.
But it was a phone system thatthe entire neighborhood, sometimes the entire

(40:27):
town, would share. And thestory was that you were not supposed to
pick up the phone unless you heardyour ring. But when I asked my
grandma about it, she said,oh, we heard the ring, and
all us ladies ran into the phone. It was like our soap operas,
right, So generally a call toBalli was a you know, Pietro,
I want, you know, adozen eggs, a couple of mines of

(40:50):
tomatoes, you know. So on. Now Pietr got a better paying job
at the end of town at arock corry, and tragically, in nineteen
forty two, he died in amining accident, leaving a thirteen year old
Aldo Biali as man of the housewith him and his mom on a very
large farm. Now he's looking atthe books and he's trying to figure out
a way to make more money forhim and his mom. And he sees

(41:12):
that we're getting twenty five dollars aton selling our grapes to the co op.
We weren't making wine, we werefarmers, and so we're selling our
produce. And he knew how muchthe co op was selling the wine.
Form felt cheated and he says,how hard is wine making? So he
writes a letter back to Italy toan uncle who was a family wine maker

(41:32):
and got some advice and gets abook on wine making, and that harvest
he hedges his bets. He sellsall but one ton to the co op
and it goes about making wine.Now he's reading that he has to submerge
the berries the grapes into the juicethe free run to extract the color for
the wine. So he's going aroundthe barn looking for something to use and

(41:54):
he settles on his dad's old man'sneed a walking stick, and it was
almost like throwing a giant pot apostaor something you know, like or pasta
sauce. And he's up there,just you know, going away. And
so he gets through harvest and fermentationand comes springtime, he tastes the wine
and he thinks it's pretty good.So he calls up his dad's all the

(42:17):
Italian families that buy the eggs andproduce from the bills and pours them the
wine. And they said, Aldo, what are you trying to do here?
And he's like, I would loveto sell you this wine to make
more money for me and my mom, and obviously wanted to help this young
man out anyway they could due tothe tragedy. But they said, Aldo,
how would we let you know thatwe want this wine? And Aldo,

(42:38):
with the big old grin, says, I figured that one out.
When you order your eggs. Justlet me know, I'll delivered it on
Friday. Now they are obviously thinkinga little bit more than this thirteen year
old. They said, I'll do. We call up on that party line.
Your nosy neighbors going to be listeningin knowing you're illegally making and selling
wine, but more importantly that we'rebuying wine from a minor. And so
they came up with a code word, and that code word was black chicken,

(43:02):
since all the chickens were white,and anybody listening wouldn't think any different
because the Bialis were known with allthe chicken. And this went on with
these select Italian families for quite sometime, when in nineteen ninety one his
son Robert and Dave Cramick and AlPerry formed Robert Biali Vineyards and we specialize
in Zimpindel. This is what Aldogrew up farming. It was one of

(43:28):
the most widely planted grapes in Californiaand in the Napa Valley up until the
Peris Station is seventy six, whereschat to Montlini's staggs. We beat the
French with Chardonnay and cab But nowin the Napa Valley, Zimfidel's only two
percent when it used to be somuch greater. And so it's our mission
statement to preserve the heritage and thelegacy of Zimpadel in the Napa Valley and

(43:52):
beyond. And so we are ahouse of zen and Petitsera. And we
do make a couple of Italian varietalsbecause Christi Aldo's mom loves Sanchovesi, so
we have some Sancho vec uh.And just more recently, we had a
section of our vinyard that was bettersuited for a white bridal uh and so
we planted Greco mostly well known forGreco, to Tufu uh. And so

(44:15):
it's pretty exciting. But Zimpadel's areour focus. Maybe about ten years ago
we came to Ohio and uh wewere looking, you know, got distributorship,
and we met the carafanas and uhin raj the it works here and
they have since become h kind ofour favorite place. Like I said,

(44:37):
the story are similar. The ingenuity, the work ethic of of the Bialis
and the carfanas Is is absolutely awesome, and and it revolves around food.
Like I just I'm salivating, youknow, just uh I I love everything
about food, and you know,one of the things that we we kind

(44:58):
of I think, uh, wegive Grafania a lot of wine that normally
doesn't get to distribution. It's justbeen a great partnership for us, and
we would like to continue that.And so it's an honor to be here
and thank you for having me onthis on this show. And I hope
you enjoyed the black chicken. Andthe last thing, I just kind of
wanted to go back to that punchdownstick. Now, this is an amazing

(45:20):
story. It was actually noticed bythe Smithsonian Museum of American History, and
so now you can find Aldo's punchdownstick on display in the new well not
so new now food section. There'sa little wine area and Aldo's punchdown stick
is on display there. So it'squite an honor for you know, an
immigrant to come around and to berecognized for you know, the accomplishments of

(45:45):
a hard working thirteen year old.So wow, that was amazing, coach,
great coach, that was an incrediblestart. I was not expecting that
at all. Thank you so much. But by the way, quick question
for you regarding the percentage of zinvidil. You were talking about nowadays, you
were saying it's what like three percentor something like that. What can I

(46:07):
ask why is it? Why sucha low percentage? Now, A lot
of it has to do with,you know, there's a kind of a
hierarchy the you know, the thenoble grapes from you know, the Cabernet,
chardonnay, pino, sab blanc,and it was it's kind of uh
and it's long been that kind ofsought after. They they felt that for

(46:32):
whatever reason, people you know,put cabernet on a pedestal. For me,
there's so many grape varietels growing inItaly alone. There's like twenty two
hundred different grape wild grape varrietls andyou know, we haven't even begun to
explore some of those that are couldbe made into wine. And so there's

(46:57):
a lot of different varietals. Andlike I said, zinfandel's kind of uniquely
what we call they call it,you know, California's grape or America's grape.
Now it goes back to the firstkind of you know, history of
it arriving is on the East coastand around eighteen twenty Murky, I've heard
eighteen twenty eighteen forty. But itoriginated in a nursery on the East coast

(47:23):
and then kind of migrated to theWest coast and really kind of exploded after
about eighteen fifty, mainly due tothe gold Rush. And the other thing
was that, you know, viticulturistsbrought these vines out to make wine and
they planted all these different varieties,and Zimfindel tended to do the best,

(47:44):
very hearty grape. Now they've tracedcyfandel back. Originally, it first got
traced to Suprema TiVo and UC Davisdid a lot of tests and they found
that they were actually identical grapes,and then from there they traced it back
to Croatia too, I can't pronouncethe name of it, but also genetically

(48:05):
identical to Primitivo. And so asyou can see, just like you know,
the immigrants coming to America, sodid a lot of their food and
their and their plant and their theirway of life, and so you know,
first made the journey to Italy andthen Italy to the United States,
and that z Infidel's this amazing grapethat really takes on where it's grown.

(48:30):
So we do about fifteen different singlevineyards, infidels, and you would think
that what they're all, they're allzinfandel, what you know, what's the
deal. But it really takes onthe site, in the microclimates, in
the different weather. And just beforeI came here, because I was a
little nervous about doing a podcast,you know, and but brushing up in

(48:52):
my history, I was talking ina discussion with Bob Yali about primativo versus
infandel and uh and he said,you know, he said, well,
you know he's the premativo, theItalian you know, grown in Italy,
takes on like an earthiness, youknow, is a little bit more earthly
than what is planted in the NapaValley. And you know, for me,

(49:14):
the Napa Valleys infandela has a littlebit more of a spice box,
a little bit more pepper than thisArsenoma product, which is a little bit
more fruit forward. And so it'sreally a fantastic journey to explore zimpandel from
all these different sites. And andagain it's a pleasure of mine to be
able to to come out and tomeet the Carfanas they've been out to the

(49:37):
wine or any of their families,and you know, it's a pleasure to
come here, but it's also apleasure to share this, this wonderful wine
with everybody, especially with food,and it is wonderful. I don't know
if you've had a taste yet ofa boxer, but my goodness, gracious,
this is just everything that you wantto It is gorgeous. And I'll

(50:00):
vouch for coach here. Carmen andI have had the pleasure to do some
cooking for him for some exclusive winedinners when Biali has come in previous years.
We do have one more tonight.We're proud to welcome him back.
Hence why he's in town. Hewill be at Carfana's later tonight doing a

(50:22):
pop up tasting featuring Robert Bali Winesand the single vineyard z Infidels that he
mentioned. They have so much uniquenessto them. They each and every one
of them. You're tasting them allyou're like, no, this is definitely
a different grape. No, thisis this can't be the same one,
right, And it's truly remarkable howwhat he's saying, the the tear of

(50:45):
the land right, the way thatthe land grows tar is a French term
on just on earth right, it'sThis is the all of the different facets
of this land, all the differentthe soil, the water, the climate,
the way that the sun hits thathillside. All of that adds to

(51:05):
that term what is called tearwar,and that tear war fully comes through on
each and every one of those singlevineyard wines. That's amazing, coach.
I'm floored at what I've learned fromyou, especially that incredible story. And
you may have hit this forgive meif I missed it. Your top selling
wine, what is it? Itis definitely the Black Chicken. You know,

(51:28):
a lot of the single vineyards thatwe work with, you can't grow
single vineyards. You can't make themany bigger. You can't add any wine
from other vineyards to increase production,because then you're really not highlighting the uniqueness
of these sites. Now, alot of the vines that we work with
range from you know, eighteen eighty, eighteen ninety, nineteen twenty, nineteen

(51:52):
oh five, Aldo's Vineyard because youhit on a year which kind of made
me smile, was playing in nineteenthirty seven. Uh And so you know
those are limited to just the size. And now obviously you know we keep
losing these beautiful old vineyard sites.Mostly we lose them to houses, you

(52:19):
know, UH or cabernet. Cabernetbrings in much higher dollar. But we
seek out kind of families that arelike our own, that this is what
their grandparents planted, it's what theirfathers worked, this is what they've worked,
that's what their children have worked.And UH. We tried to keep
Zimpadel on the on the ground,and we banded together with other Zimpadel producers

(52:39):
and formed the Historical Vineyard Society.We work with zaps and Padel advocates and
producers UH, and we do everythingwe can to educate people on this wonderful
crape and and hopefully that it's notfalling on death ears. It's easy to
see how Carfanya's and Bile are justa match made in heaven. Absolutely the

(53:04):
family stories and the history and thehard work behind both to get them going
and starting in the same year.It's a perfect fit for our wine shop,
which is full of just hidden gemsand hard to find wines. And
I was talking to Coach earlier andyou were saying that our wine shop has
the largest variety of Bile wines inany shop in the United States, and

(53:29):
that's something that we're extremely proud ofand it's an absolute honor because these wines
are fantastic. Hey, Carby,we mentioned this on episode one and Sally
hit it too when Tom was here. But your wine club has exploded.
Right for those that want info onit, what do they need to?
Just come on in? Right?You can come on in. You can

(53:51):
go online to go to Carfanias dotcom and go to the wine shop tab
and then click on the wine cluband you can learn all about it.
We have a few different options.There's a cork and the cellar club,
and then in each of those clubsyou have the option to do all red,
all white or red and white andyou get two bottles of wine a

(54:14):
month. You also get two tastingsfor two people each month as well,
so you can bring a friend orcome in as a couple, or just
come at yourself and enjoy those tastingyourself. But you get a full flight
of wine, and the tastings changeevery month. We're always trying new stuff.
Raj and the team does a fantasticjob of sourcing new wines and hard

(54:38):
to find wines, so you're notgonna see anywhere else, and they're really
going to help you expand and exploreyour palate. Well, and that's what
I love you, guys, isthe wines that you offer are from all
over the world, not just onespecific winery. Not to diss anyone else,
but your offerings are incredible. Ihaven't seen that anywhere else. The
uniqueness to everything is what really separatesus in that wine shop as a parts

(55:02):
of the Weather Wine Shops. Wewere fortunate enough to be voted Columbus's Best
Wine Shop ye in twenty twenty three. It's something that Raj has been working
very, very hard. He's wantedthat award for many years and he finally
got it this past year. Andto testament to what he brings in that
uniqueness the exclusivity, right, Yeah, some of these wines that just take

(55:27):
Bli Winery for example, the offeringthat we have for Bali wines, you
can't find them anywhere else, likehe said, in the United States,
outside of the winery itself. Youknow, you have to go to the
winery to get some of these wines. But if you're in Columbus, Ohio
or Central Ohio, you can comeon down and see these wines from Robert
Bli wines, some of those singlevineyards infidels we have on the shelf,

(55:52):
and each one is just a fantasticproduct. I mean, I've seen you
can't get enough. I can't getof this coach. This is just delicious,
so smooth, absolutely, and it'syou know, it's one of those
now that I have fallen in lovewith so much, and my wife has
that, you know, when webring it to a to a party or

(56:14):
whatnot and people see that label,they're like black chicken, and it's like
gone, like exactly, I mean, and connecting all the dots with sal
what you were cooking earlier with thebacon wrap valets. This is what you
would consider the best pairing for right, the black chicken. It's a great
pairing for it. It is,you know, traditionally steak. You're gonna

(56:35):
pair it with a heavy like aCabernet savignon. You might want to do
a a a what they call Bordeauxblend, right, a cab merlow cab
franc blend style wine, a superTuscany, you know, any other wines
I'm trying to think o. Thesorgeries are super Tuscans. Those are you

(56:58):
know, Bordeaux blends type of stylewines, right, bold wines like that.
Coach mentioned a couple tasting notes onthis, right, the spice,
the peppery, right, and that'swhy this infidel can transition into these red
meat pairings for that. So yes, this is a traditional right pairing.

(57:22):
You go to a restaurant, they'relike, oh, steak, here's the
cab right, this big, bold, juicy Cabernet savignon that you're gonna,
you know, pair really well withthis steak. This is a little bit
more of a delicate pairing for forthe steak, but Coach can attest that
it does pair very well. Allright, Yeah, there you go.
You know, that's the the amazingthing, you know, it's one of

(57:44):
the things that really endeared me aboutwine was the ability to, uh,
to enjoy with food. And oneof the greatest things is enjoying a glass
of wine over food with family andfriends, which you know is definitely a
not only an Italian tradition, butit's a great tradition across all nationalities to

(58:07):
sit down and enjoy the fruits ofour labor and pairing wise, zifidel can
very wide range pairing just with thefruit components, and that's the fun of
the game, you know. Iimplore everybody to try different wines with their
steak and see what works best forthem because we all have different palettes.

(58:29):
Absolutely, hey, coach. Also, one more thing before we wrap up
here, just out of curiosity,does the winery because my wife and I
have gone out to the West coastand we've done different winery tours and the
bicycle tours. Do you guys havea tour for the public. You know,
it's just kind of funny. Webuilt the winery pretty much after ourselves.

(58:52):
It's a giant barn. You know. We have like five festivals,
you know, the events. Youknow, let the cooler air coming at
night and push the warm area atthe top. We do have a wonderful
patio. So tour wise, there'snot much to see, but the real
thing to see is our view.And you sit in a in a nice
rocking chair with a glass of wine. You have a beautiful view of the

(59:15):
valley and of the the Vaka mountainsand uh, it's it's it's quite stunning
place to be. And as youwalk in you'll you'll pass a chicken coop
that is pretty much the Cadillac ofchicken coops that that Bob designed and built
himself. I was like, man, that's the best kept chicken area,

(59:36):
you know. You know it's abut it's kind of funny. It's a
lot of we play into a lotof our heritage in our history. All
right, that's great. Hey,one more thing, Coach, if you're
out on the West Coast and youyou want to check it out. Website
info Robert b Ali Vineyards. Uh, you know, uh, we're on
Facebook, Instagram, all the socialstuff. And but yeah, we're happy

(01:00:00):
to see you coming out anytime.We are by appointment, you know,
so you just have to call us. We'll fitch you in. It's not
a big deal, but we'd loveto see you out in California and kind
of explore something other than cab whenyou come to the Napa Valley. Coach,
you've been amazing. I love itall right, guys, So did

(01:00:20):
anyone try the bacon wrap falaise yet? So we are just about ready to
create this pan sauce. Now.We talked about how we pan fried it
right right, So the steaks areout of the fryer, they are resting
and you can see the nice puddleof the juices that have collected here.
I'm gonna throw those back into thepan. Okay, the pan is getting

(01:00:43):
nice and hot. I removed theexcess fat from the pan. Okay,
so now you see all the nicethe fawn is what they call that,
all the brown bits stuck to thebottom of that pan. We're gonna deglaze
with the black chicken wine. I'mgonna throw back in some of the juices
that the steak has from resting.We have fresh time, we have fresh

(01:01:06):
garlic. Once that wine reduces toabout halfway, it's going to create in
almost like a mirror look to him. And once that's ready, we're gonna
remove it from the heat, andwe're gonna drop in some butter and you're
gonna swirl that around. And youdon't want to cook the butter. You
just want it to basically coagulate everything. I gotta find mess strainer right here,

(01:01:29):
and we're gonna cut these steaks andwe're going to then pour the sauce
right over top of it. Sowhy does a file at need to rest?
I mean, it's all steaks shouldrest. And Carmen can talk about
more of this. Yeah, whatdoes that mean? Why? Why do
you want it to rest? Allsteaks need to rest, and honestly,
anything you cook should should probably restfor you know, a few minutes at
least. Thick of the steak roastneeds to let rest for a longer time.

(01:01:52):
Okay, these are nice stick cutThese are nice stick cut filets,
so you know, letting them restfor ten minutes at least. You know
after you cook. What that's gonnado is if you took the steak right
off and then started to cut intoit right away, the stak's gonna bleed
out, oh oh too hot.You know, you need the steak to

(01:02:12):
rest so it can all those juicescan just absorb back into the steak and
it heats the steak evenly throughout right, So you're gonna get a It's just
it's finishing the cook. You know, you get a cleaner, nicer cook
on the steak. The juices stayinside of it. You know you're gonna
have a better, juicier, justmore flavorful steak all time. Yeah,

(01:02:34):
okay, Carmen, that makes allthe sense in the world. Now,
sal what did you just put inthere? Those are mushrooms? In is
that right, or what that's actuallyfresh garlic? Go garlic? Sorry,
I got fresh time. I'm keepingthe sprigs hole and I just crushed a
couple of clothes of garlic and wethrew those in the pan. As you
can see, the wine is reducing. Yeah, we're almost there. I'm

(01:02:55):
gonna start slicing the steak and we'lladd the drippings to it. What he
wants is he doesn't want You don'twant all the chunks of garlic and the
time in this sauce itself, right, You want a nice, clean,
simple sauce, but you want allthe flavor in there, so you can
leave them whole. You can justsmash your garlic, throw it in there.

(01:03:15):
You don't gotta dice it real fineand throw it in there. Is
there much of a difference if youwere to dice it up the garlic,
No, No, okay, you'regonna get the flavor regardless. You want
the flavor to pour to pull outof that from into the wine and into
the fats that are left in thatpan. Yeah, the flavor is gonna
pull out into there, and thenyou can just remove the garlic and you
can remove the time and what you'regonna have is all the flavors still there,

(01:03:38):
but you don't have the chunks andthe pieces and everything. So you
have a clean, smooth, beautifulsauce that you could pour right over the
steak and it's flavorful, and peoplewill say, I don't know how you
did it, but this is themost flavorful red wine salt we've ever had.
Carbon You probably just saved someone that'slistening that usually dices up the garlic.
You probably you made them super happy, saving them a lot of time.

(01:03:59):
There's a time plays everything. There'stimes around dice my gucks, I
want it in my sauce, youknow. But there's times where if you
just need the flavor of garlic andthen you don't. You don't need the
dice. They just smash your throatin there and then you can remove it.
Sal is cutting up some butter atthis point is that Now look at
this boxer, and for the peoplewho are watching and the people who are
listening talk about how that has thatsheen. It almost looks reflective, and

(01:04:24):
that's what you're looking for. Youcould do your hair, woman could do
their makeup. I mean, yeah, very much so. And so now
you obviously want the the butter tomelt down a little bit more, and
well, what's the the goal inthe end here? Sal for this is
what you're doing in the skillet.What what's the goal here? What?

(01:04:45):
What is? What should it looklike? You're you're just basically bringing it
all together. This should just lookalmost like a purple steak sauce. The
butter x as a coagulant, sothe fat actually leach onto the butter and
it will leave a very smooth sauce, a complete sauce. You're not gonna

(01:05:06):
have the pools of oil leaching offof it. The butter actually coagulates everything
together. It binds the whole saucetogether, so you have just your fat,
the oils, and your fat andthe wine. They're gonna separate,
so when you pour it in,then you're gonna have a very splotchy,
separated sauce. Right adding the butterto it at the end there the cold

(01:05:27):
butter the heat off helps bind everythingtogether and keep the sauces one. Look,
I know it's not the same withthe process that you guys are doing
right now, but can do yousell that sauce? Like in the store?
Can you buy that. You canbuy the ingredients to the sauce.
The sauce. It's a very hardsauce to keep. This is one of

(01:05:48):
those states where you have to makeand serve immediately. If you try to
keep it the next day, it'llseparate. Oh okay, make and serve
immediately. Yeah, okay, andin the now type of thing. Gotcha.
I was just curious about that.All right, Well, you can
always find the ingredients though. Wehave plenty of Carfania labeled steak sauces and

(01:06:09):
different sauces here as well. Butthat red wine sauce, now, that's
something that you do with the panjuices and and you know, whatever wine
you're drinking, and you know alittle bit of fresh butter, herbs and
garlic, you know, right atthe end, and you got a perfect
little sauce. Yeah. What isit like, Carmen for you? And
even Sal at home? Because youknow, we talked so much about what

(01:06:31):
you have here at Carfanya's what youmake. This is the second episode now
where I've watched Sal cook. Butat home? What is it like for
you? Guys? I mean,do you ever dare I say this?
Do you do you order pizza?From somewhere else sometimes, I mean,
what is it like what boxer?We're American? Yes, we ordered pizza,

(01:06:53):
yesizza. Growing growing up in thisbusiness, I mean, you know,
my dad was a chef at home. You know, my mom can
cook, She definitely can cook.But your mom's a sweetheart, but she
is a sweetheart. But my dadwas Chefenholmes. We watched that, you
know. So Sala and I arethe chefs at our own home and we
cook most meals out of the week. Okay, now we do. I

(01:07:16):
do like to eat out, youknow, more FOODI is at Hearts and
yeah, I love to hit thelocal restaurants and see what's new and exciting
out there. Yes, I orderpizza, you know. And yes I
order this pizza too, you know, but I do I do, you
know? And then you know,working here at Carfanja is this is my
main source of shopping as well.So, but because of the knowledge that

(01:07:41):
you have, especially when it comesto cooking and and your family name and
your background, how picky are youwhen you're dining out and you get something
that isn't quite right? I mean, are you hard to please? You
are speaking to two of the mostleast picky eaters. Ever, we love
all in every food and believe us, the amount of cooking, the amount

(01:08:05):
of food that we handle. Welove to be spoiled. So when we
go out to eat, it isa treat and we appreciate everything and we
love to experience, like Carmen said, the local restaurants. And we have
some fantastic chefs here in town andthey're always doing so much, very unique
and creative things. I think Columbusis right on the cusp of a culinary

(01:08:28):
boom with a lot of these veryyoung, modern chefs, and we're very
fortunate to be able to experience thishere in Columbus. And you know,
Carmen can speak more of this.But when we go out, it is
a treat and we love to experienceit because it gets our creative juice is
flowing and we love to kind oftry new things and get new ideas.

(01:08:53):
I mean, Columbus is a foodyfrenzy. I mean, if you think
about the amount of restaurants and foodplaces in this time, when you compare
it to any other city, likeper capita, if you if you divide
the population versus the restaurants, it'sincredible what you can find. Wow,
look at that. Cheers. Yeah, here we go, get your wine.

(01:09:15):
Cell I got some wago beef tallowon the rim of mine. But
hey, it just enhances the flavor. Baby, salute, salute. Let's
get a little taste on here.This is the famous bacon wrap filet mignon.
We have a red wine, pan, sauce, fresh garlic. Time.
You know, let's let's think aboutthe ingredients here. We have a

(01:09:39):
bacon rap filet mignon. We havesalt and pepper, We have red wine,
the black chickens, infidel, time, and garlic. That's those are
five ingredients right there, folks.Six if you include salt and pepper.
And that's it. We're talking abouta very simple thing. We're letting the
products speak for itself, and we'relike hating all those flavors come through and

(01:10:00):
through. Oh my, oh my, you've outdone yourself. I'll be here
all week, boxer. Wow,I caught a small piece. I I
just want to go for the big, big piece. Now make sure you
get a piece of that bacon inthere too. Yes, Oh, I
can taste. I can taste everyingredient, every everything else you added in

(01:10:26):
there that I watched you add Ican taste it. Oh my goodness.
Uh, this is, you know, one of our staples at our house.
You know, my my children lovethis steak. Our little cousins loved
it. We have one cousin whocalls them bacon steakams. Little little four
year old Stella, she calls thembacon steakams. And it's it's a it's

(01:10:50):
a very forgiving steak to make becauseof how thick it is, so you
can you can grill this on theon the grill and you don't feel like
you have to be hovering over it. I'm so smooth for how thick it
is. It really cooks very nice. For people who are inexperienced grill chefs
there or there, they don't trustthemselves with a steak or whatnot. This

(01:11:12):
is one of those items that ifyou're worried about cooking something and overdoing it,
Uh, this is a fantastic steakto really learn about temperature control.
I have to say, sal Carmenand coach, you nailed it with the
pairing with the black chicken zifidel andthe bacon wrapped filets. I mean,

(01:11:33):
it's it's perfect. Coach, whatdo you think I just want to take
this and go eat it by myselfsomewhere. I need a moment. I
need a moment. What we saylast week, whatever you do, wash
your hands, com now this isuh. You know, the the the
amazing of the pan, the youthe sauce is is excellent, and obviously

(01:11:57):
the meat is of the highest quality. And and and like I said,
this is uh. I think you'dbe a winner cooking this. The simplicity
five ingredients. I'm a huge personon UH. When I was younger,
I used to try to use allsorts of spices and and to you know
the thought that enhanced uh. Butas I grew up, I noticed it

(01:12:21):
sometimes it's just salt and pepper,you know, it makes makes everything great?
And so keeping it simple and youcan be a rock star, I
think, Uh, you know inyour house, you know, you watch
this h podcast and you can uhsurprise your wife or your girlfriend and and
uh, you know, here's ittalent you never knew you had. That's

(01:12:42):
right. This isn't a traditional Italiandish, but that is the traditional Italian
way of thinking. Minimal ingredients anda whole lot of love. Ah.
And I should mention too at Carfoniasdot com. You guys have a plethora
of recipes on there. I don'tknow if this one is on there,
but you have a ton of recipesthat are on your website, so you

(01:13:03):
know what, that's a good point, Boxer. I will upload that as
soon as as soon as available.So for those of you guys listening on,
keep on the lookout on our recipeblog that we have on carfanias dot
com. Check that out and we'llput on the red wine pant sauce bacon
wrap filet mignon. The amount ofBrownie points I could score with my wife

(01:13:24):
if I made this, and Imade this right, I mean I would
owe you guys for the rest ofmy life. And you got a fun
story to talk about with the blackchicken, right, exactly what a story?
Well, guys, anything else thatmight be missing for episode two of
Uncorked. I mean, we reallyunpacked a lot of stuff. This has
been so much fun. Coach,I can't thank you enough for your time

(01:13:45):
in coming in and safe travels backand Carmen, thank you for your time.
I hope you'll join us again soon, join your brother on this podcast.
Yeah, thank you, Boxer,I appreciate that. I've had a
lot of fun. I think I'llcome back. Yeah, it's scan.
It's Carmen's first podcast too. Podcast. Yeah, we should plug maybe the
next episode if Carmen joins back,maybe we dive into our our pasta sauce.

(01:14:11):
Right that that is Carmen's baby.He is the one who is we'll
plug this for next episode, right, But yeah, Carmen is the one.
I'll brag about him a little bit. He is the reason why we
are in thirty different states across thecontinental US right now. Karmen, he
manufactures in that little manufacturing facility withten other people next to him, over

(01:14:34):
five hundred thousand jars annually. That'shalf a million jars of pasta sauce annually,
and that number is growing year overyear. And just couldn't be more
proud that he is taking our greatgrandmother's sauce recipe, which that is true,
is our great grandmother sauce recipe exactlyhow she made it, and bringing
that to people all across America.Incredible. Congrats Krma. Why I look

(01:14:58):
forward to the next step. Well, thanks, it'll be a lot of
fun. Yeah, we'll dive intothat and talk about the history there with
our pasta sauce and where we're at, where you can find us and white
tastes so good, looking forward,looking forward to episode three, Coach,
thank you sal This, I mean, this filet is just absolutely amazing.
Carmen, appreciate your time. Anduntil the next episode, what do we

(01:15:20):
leave with Manga Bene