October 3, 2024 • 51 mins
What happens when nature’s fury meets human resilience? Our latest episode takes you to the heart of a catastrophe that has shaken Appalachia, especially western North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene's wrath left a trail of devastation. Chef Pooch Rivera joins us from the ground zero of disaster relief, sharing his pivotal role in nourishing the spirits of first responders with fresh meals. As we explore the emotional and physical demands of this crisis, we promise you'll walk away with a newfound appreciation for the unsung heroes battling against the odds.
Our discussion unfolds the immense logistical challenges faced in Asheville, with resources stretched thin and unexpected barriers testing the resolve of relief teams. We witnessed the extraordinary commitment of chefs who traveled from faraway cities to cater to the needs of those on the front lines, ensuring that morale remains high with hot meals over canned goods. This conversation draws powerful parallels to past disasters like Hurricane Katrina, emphasizing the crucial collaboration between community and state agencies, and the profound personal sacrifices made by individuals.
In the face of overwhelming destruction, stories of hope and solidarity shine brightly. We highlight the remarkable efforts of AJ, Brianna, and their team, who rapidly organ
Introducing the SupraCut System - the automated solution that enhances safety, quality, and efficiency, cutting up to 120 perfect citrus wedges per minute, 6 times faster than manual. Patented tech delivers uniform slices, reducing waste and eliminating plastic, while the hygienic, contactless design lowers contamination and injuries, integrating seamlessly to transform your operations and improve profitability - get started at SupraCut.com and ask about risk-free trials.
Elevate your dining experience with RAK Porcelain USA! As the exclusive tableware brand for the Walk-In Talk Podcast, RAK combines exceptional craftsmanship with innovative design. Whether you’re a chef, a restaurant owner, or a food enthusiast, RAK’s high-quality porcelain products will enhance every meal. Discover the artistry of food presentation and make every dining occasion special. Visit rakporcelain.com today and see how RAK can transform your table
The following brands and companies help us continue supporting the food industry - have a look below!
Walk-In Talk Podcast
Where kitchen culture meets raw storytelling.
Hosted by Carl Fiadini, founder of Walk-In Talk Media, this #1 Apple-ranked food podcast dives deep with chefs, restaurateurs, farmers, and frontline pros. From trade shows to short films, we bring the food world to life—one honest conversation at a time.
We’re the Official Podcast Partner for the NY, CA & FL Restaurant Shows, Pizza Tomorrow Summit, and U.S. Culinary Open.
Brand Partners:
RAK Porcelain USA
Metro Foodservice
SupraCut Systems
Aussie Select
Crab Island Seafood
Pass the Honey
The Burnt Chef Project
Citrus America
Walk-In Talk Media proudly serves as the North American media partner for The Burnt Chef Project, supporting mental health in hospitality.
📩 Partner or pitch a story: Carl@thewalkintalk.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Thank you on-site at Ibis Images Studios, where food
photography comes alive and Iget to eat it.
Here's a humble request to giveus a follow on Instagram at
walkandtalkshow, please andthank you.
All right.
Hurricane Helene has hitAppalachia hard, especially in
western North Carolina, wheresevere flooding has caused
(00:41):
devastation and claimed at least180 lives, including over 50 in
Buncombe County alone.
North Carolina State ClimateOffice has called it a
worst-case scenario for theregion, with some areas
expecting over 31 inches of rain.
We know that happened Headinginto rivers, overflowing those
rivers, landslides and peoplebeing trapped in their homes.
(01:03):
We've been seeing the videos.
Emergency officials havedescribed the destruction as
biblical, interesting Drawingcomparisons to Hurricane Katrina
.
Jeff has some interesting dataon that.
Rescue efforts continue,concerns are growing that the
death toll could rise furtherand unfortunately, I believe
that's what's going to happen,and the sheer scale of the
(01:24):
damage suggests that's what'sgoing to happen.
And the sheer scale of thedamage suggests that the
recovery is going to take years,leaving many communities
grappling with the aftermath fora long time to come.
I mean, this is all a shockingthing to me.
You know we're in florida andthe reality is we deal with
hurricanes always and this was adifferent one.
This was just different.
Florida coastline smashed,tennessee, north Carolina.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Georgia.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, in the midst of this crisis, walk and talk
media personality and chef PoochRivera is in North Carolina
aiding in the relief effort bycooking for those on the front
lines first responders.
He and the culinary team areworking 18-hour days serving
these first responders andmilitary personnel who are
tirelessly working to help theaffected areas.
(02:12):
You know I've been on the phonewith Pooch every day for the
past week and you know I hearhis decline.
Pooch is with us on the showtoday to share some insights as
to what disaster relief cookinglooks like.
And you know, in spite of allthe tragedy, you know the
incredible work being done inthese communities.
(02:35):
There's a lot that goes intothis and it's, yeah, take your.
You know like I'm sitting hereand I wrote a bunch of stuff
down here that I'm reading, butthe truth is, you know, is it
doesn't worth to read.
It's so difficult to even talkabout these things because we
all have friends, family,colleagues spread across the
country.
This is something.
(02:55):
Big Pooch, how are you doingbud?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yes, sir, I can't lie and say that I'm not tired and
feel my immune system kind ofabout to give out on me, but I'm
good man.
There's a lot of passion,there's a lot of pride in what
we're doing here.
And you know and I happen to bea part of something that
knowing that people are reallytrying to make sure that these
(03:21):
people are OK and sadly we don'teven know if that's a status
anymore Okay, maybe out thewindow, because I'm here on day
six, day seven, actually seven,and it's just been a crazy wild
ride, man, it's a lot of.
You know, we've already beengiven a medal, some sort of
medal.
I don't even know where it is,it's lost in some bag but they
(03:42):
presented us a medal because ofwhat we've, we've done here in
what we do.
But there's no, really no timeto lax in any way.
It's just constantly trying tomake sure that everyone's fed
and just to let everybody knowthat we're not feeding.
You know, refugees or I hate touse that term refugee, but we're
not feeding any of thesurvivors or anyone who's needy
of anything like it, such thatwe're in a FEMA camp, cannot
(04:05):
disclose where we are, but weare the primary FEMA camp for
this endeavor.
We are the first.
So this was actually a slowsummer, thank goodness.
It was a slow summer forhurricanes and, as you can see,
a lot of major hurricanes, andeven in the Gulf right now.
That's one thing that goes inthe back of everyone's head is
(04:27):
like where is this hurricanecoming?
You know the new tropical stuffin the gulf right now and um.
But so when you get intodisaster relief, people were
kind of picking up their stuff.
You know it's a seasonalbusiness and you know you have
some fires in California and welearned some fires in Virginia
(04:49):
and certain things.
So people, a lot of people thatare handling those kind of
things and feeding the people,the firefighters that are
fighting the fires and all thosedifferent things out there.
They're out there, they're faraway.
They can't make it to thesoutheast.
Even if they did, you know,know a splinter crew off, it
would take so long to get there.
So, and I know I'm probablychoppy guys, but I haven't slept
in, I can't even tell you howlong so what was your describe,
(05:12):
your initial reaction when youactually got up to north
carolina?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
obviously the hurricane had just hit and you'd
you know.
You basically got there withinwhat?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
48 hours, right, 24 hours, something like that we
well the first call, so I'llstart from the beginning.
So, in the how I can do that, Ineed to give a shout out to
maddie mcshay, amin tinkler andmaddie's wife, georgia mcshay.
Like you know, I got a phonecall from from maddie mcshay,
who's an old chef friend of mine, who, ironically, we worked on
(05:41):
disaster, disaster relief andsnowmageddon for Atlanta and he
said look man, there's no pay,there's no, nothing.
But we're hearing rumors thatthings are really really bad and
we can't even get in touch withhalf the people that we know up
there Because a lot of theAsheville people work in the
(06:05):
Atlanta food scene with TV showsand whatnot.
So it's a very tight-knit.
You know TV set, catering andthings like that and you know
the Vast Relief kind of fallsinto those same things, because
if you have a food truck and youhave trucks and this, that, the
other tents, all that, you kindof fall into that.
But we knew that we had a lot ofallies there and it was like
look, dude, you want to come outhere because we can't get
anybody to come.
And we really think that we'rehearing that it's something
(06:26):
really really bad and it touchedall of us because of the fact
that we're from New Orleans andNew Orleans had Katrina, you
know, not 20 years ago, almostto the date, you know.
So we really wanted to make ithappen.
As far as like getting here, Idon't even remember that as of
now, but we we wrote, cause wewrote at night and we we came
(06:49):
overnight.
We just loaded up a convoy.
I was in a big old reefer semitruck.
That was.
Once you got to North Carolina,the roads were really horrible,
especially into where we werecoming in, having to drive, you
know, 35, 45 miles an hourbecause of debris things in the
interstates, all of the above.
(07:09):
Ironically, we took a long timeto get where we were going
because of roads being down andwhatnot.
I'm sorry, guys.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
What sort of specific challenges have you faced while
you're you know, while you'redoing this, this, yeah, I mean
while you're trying to execute?
Well, listen, we we.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
We can actually talk to all that too.
We can help him out as soon ashe doesn't remember.
So I mean we, we, we, we, we we.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
We were trying to figure out where I am Forever.
I wasn't trying to even John,silent John, but thank you for
speaking this one time.
Johnny, you mentioned that it'sbecause of wherever the tower
is pinging.
The only tower available ispinging 83 miles away from where
I am, but we're not wherethey're.
So it's Katrina-esque when theysay biblical and all these
(08:00):
different things.
It's Katrina-esque To thereason.
Reason we get here and there wasnothing.
We get to the space camp andthere's nothing.
Here there's maybe a, you know,there's one trailer there is
for, like, the people on thecoordinate, this thing.
There was no tents put up yetthere was a bathroom-type
scenario, kind of scenario goingon.
It's because all of the effortshave been already put.
(08:23):
Number one, people were off andcouldn't mobilize that quickly
because off the season.
And then, number two, and I'mgoing to put many factors, but
number two of these factors isthe fact that everyone was in
Florida, the Tampa area, thatarea, Then they went up into the
Alabama and the Georgia areawhere it got hit, and then they
went into Tennessee andTennessee and all these
(08:44):
different things.
And then, last but not least,is the worst one, in Asheville,
the worst occurrence, and it'snot even because of the
hurricane wind forces oranything like that.
There were a few tornadoes, butit's just because of the
massive amount of rain thatdumped on them within a
four-hour period.
You couldn't do anything.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
This happened a few months ago over in dubai.
You remember that yeah, oh yeah, and it was like out of nowhere
just massive rainstorm yeah,and again they I think they used
biblical in in their uh, youknow definition of that as well,
their description of that yeah,and I saw a stat and I don't
know how they come up with this.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
They said something like 40 trillion gallons of
water went through northcarolina and I was seeing
statistics that by the time thehurricane actually hit, it was
moving at 30 miles per hour andit dumped a 14 inch inches of
rain in that matter of timeperiod.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
What did you say?
That's crazy.
What did you say?
The the very size.
Yeah, so, Katrina, it's it's.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
it's eyeopening.
I saw this on social media andI just kind of was like this is
ridiculous.
So everyone realizes how badKatrina was for New Orleans.
Katrina was a Cat 3.
It was 125-mile-an-hour maxsustained winds.
Diameter of the storm was 400miles.
The wind field was about 230miles.
That's wind field is from thecenter of the storm out to where
(10:03):
the bands are.
So Helene is a cat 4.
Maximum sustained winds are 20more miles per hour, about 145.
Diameter ready for this one 822miles in diameter.
Wow, wind field is double thesize, almost of whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
When you think about that being over the water and if
it's 800, you know 20 miles,whatever the term how much
momentum is picking up from thatheat of the water over that
wide?
You know it's just, it'sbananas.
How to do that?
Just think of that even.
But it happened.
We got here.
But all the reason what thestory was trying to say is that
all the resources were beingutilized in all these other
(10:47):
states that were hit first andno one expected it to be as
catastrophic as it would be.
Here in the Asheville area, teamof people, including FEMA, the
state of North Carolina andother people who were Virginia
(11:10):
shout out to Virginia who I sawthem pull in last night with
some big old military vehicles.
I couldn't tell you what theyare, but there's every kind of
vehicle here from all over manydifferent states I probably
haven't seen yet and that we'repulling up and the momentum is
starting here now on day sixthat things are kind of gelling
so we still don't have a placeto sleep.
(11:31):
You know, a lot of times we'resleeping on a floor or we're
sleeping in our car or the truck, things like that.
We are piece of milling thingstogether to try to be able to
adapt to how many people we areactually feeding and we're going
to have to feed, and it's justan ongoing's just a.
It's an ongoing thing.
It's exciting and it's it'samazing yet just to be a part of
(11:54):
it, to see how it happens.
But to be four chefs, you know.
And shout out to Maddie Morgan,as well as another chef that's
up here with us, and a shout outto Victor Duran, his son, brian
Duran, and they came down fromChicago, some friends of us in
the industry.
They came down and they showedup last night.
They got in town and they'rehere right now really relieving
us.
Them being here is allowing meto come get on the phone with
(12:18):
you guys for a few minutes, butit's ongoing.
It's meals breakfast, lunch,dinner and then basically a
midnight meal which is alreadyplated.
So we plate those, so we havetime to like, get somewhat rust.
But in the middle of thosethings it's never stopping
because you're prepping for thenext thing.
One thing that we're trying todo is we're refusing to use
(12:40):
canned goods, we're refusing touse anything.
Those type of things we wouldprefer to go are donating.
Donate those things to thepeople we take pride in
providing for the firstresponders, the police, military
, fresh food, as fresh as we cando it, and just making people
realize that their morale isgood.
(13:00):
Well, you know.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I wanted to ask you that.
So you know, and I'm glad thatyou got fresh legs on the ground
I came in last night with you,with your pals.
I mean I'm thrilled that you'regetting some, just some help.
But have you seen, you know?
So all this, with all thistragedy and everything that's,
it's still you know, we're stillin the midst of it.
How's everybody, in terms ofdealing with each other?
(13:27):
I mean, everyone must be onedge is it?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
random acts of kindness, or is it?
You know, are there people,people just having to work with
each other, like this?
Yeah, as far as our team, likeI'm the team I'm on personally
or within each where you are.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I mean you've got you've got different
municipality workers and federaldifferent, obviously egos that
are involved in it.
There's got to be something andattention has got to be high,
because you're trying to savepeople, you're trying to feed
people, so how is everyone?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
getting along.
We're getting along.
At the end of the day, we knowthat resources are going to get
pulled from us.
Everything is extremely fluid.
No one has been rude to us inany way.
Fluid, no one has been rude tous in any way, as we in the
industry know that seeingsomeone's face every day and
being hot and sweaty and havingbathed in three days, and you
know just all these variableswill make, you know, us ticking
(14:17):
time bombs with our own brethrenin this industry.
So yeah, of course sometimes itgets testy in between what
we're trying to get done toaccomplish things, because these
are tall tasks, these are tallfeeds.
You know they'll come at us andsay this is a certain number
that we think we're going toneed you to feed, and then,
minutes before it happens,they're adding two to three
hundred people or more.
(14:37):
You know so, or more.
Yeah, you know who's counting.
You know I'm not sitting therecounting how many people.
It's just a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
This may seem like a silly question, but what are you
feeding these people?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
What is being served.
We're trying to provide aprotein.
Lots of pasta has been donated,so we're doing pasta.
The crazy thing is proteinssuch as meatballs and chicken
your typical chickens, we dopork.
We roasted some pork butts.
A lot of people donated somebriskets your typical chickens,
we do.
Let's see pork.
We roasted some pork butts.
We had some.
A lot of people donated somebriskets, things like that.
You know, things that kind of.
We wanted things to boost moraleas well when we were getting
(15:12):
people to send us some stuff.
And then now some good, somebroadliners have decided that
they might come drop some reefertruck off for us.
Those things I'd like to.
You know, call it a call toaction.
Anyone listening, anyone in theindustry, I can't tell you that
you can come out here and comedonate your time.
Please donate your time toanyone else, but please donate.
If there's anything wherethere'd be an apron, anything
(15:34):
like that, we could use thosethings, send an email to walk
and talk and and we cancoordinate how to get that to us
.
But it's going back to yourquestion, jeff.
It's a morale thing and it's amental health thing, but I can
tell you, when we come together,everyone's going to bicker,
whether it be whoever it may be,especially in these stressful
situations.
(15:54):
But we all come back to therealization that we're here and,
number one, we're alive andthank God we're alive, and I
feel so bad for how many numberswe don't even I don't want to
fathom they didn't stop thinkabout or talk about how many
numbers that are up there butalso that we are here, able to
still do our passion, and wetalk about it every night before
(16:16):
we like wrap up, we sit, we sitthere and we hold hands and and
we just meditate and pray andjust concentrate our energy to
have a good day the next day andum you know they're gonna get a
little choked up guys sothere's there's there's some
resources that we can work onand I have already reached out
to aaron boyle over at chow,which is culinary hospitality,
outsource wellness there it's afree service that they talk to
(16:40):
restaurant people.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I'm trying to coordinate to maybe getting some
people there.
I can be counselors to you knowthe workers and I'm not just
talking about you guys, I'mtalking about the chefs and the
service industry, people thathave been affected by Asheville
or by the hurricane in Asheville.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Well, jeff, it's really crazy to think, brother,
I don't know if there is anAsheville anymore.
Well, that's why.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
I kind of changed my whole comment.
It's the people that were inthe service industry that have
been decimated because of whathappened, of this natural
disaster.
There's got to be, you know, alot of mental health issues
moving forward and forget aboutjust losing the income or their
job or their restaurant if theywere the owner of it.
(17:22):
Think about the family membersthat have been unfortunately
passed away because of this.
So there's multiple.
There's multiple trauma, thatlevels of trauma that we're
talking about with PTSD.
You know, you know this is along term effect, mentally.
That's going on.
But the short term, which isamazing, is that hot food, when,
when you don't have the abilityto make anything, that hot food
(17:46):
, that hot meal that you'regiving those first responders,
that changes morale instantly.
You know just what they'regoing through and how they're
dealing with it.
Coming back and having that hotmeal that you're doing, that's
what's worth it.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
You know, I just want to say something too.
Yeah, dude, I've been, you know, in the conversations that I've
had with folks in describingwhat you're doing right now.
Pooch, you know and listen, andpeople like you it's not just
you, but I mean, obviouslyyou're our friend, so I have you
to talk to.
(18:19):
I don't know any of these otherfolks that are out there, so I
just appreciate what it is thatyou're doing.
It took a lot of balls to do it.
Like that's a lot of, that'sjust a lot of guts, because yeah
, I mean, yeah, it's cooking,it's.
You know, you've been choppingvegetables your whole life, but
the truth is you're doing it nowfor a huge cause.
You're doing it with, you know,with passion, with purpose,
it's, it's, it's an amazingthing, man.
(18:40):
So I just, you know you, yourespect tons of respect to, uh,
to what you're doing.
Thank you, man.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Thank you, you know, and I want to give a big shout
out because I know a lot ofpeople I found out today via
social media.
Two high school friends thatlive in Asheville made the
announcement that the New YorkFire Department is actually now
in Asheville helping out.
So that was one that just camethrough the Allstate over in
South Carolina.
The rental LEAP please give acall to Pooch.
(19:08):
I of the rental leap, pleasegive a call to Pooch.
I told you, can I give you ashout out?
They need some help and what weneed is to get a dishwasher out
there not a person, but anactual physical dish machine, so
that you can get that done.
We're looking for commodityfoods.
I talked to Chef Greg over atMercy Chef God, I love that
group.
He admitted to me that he'sactually stretched thin.
I know that one of our goodfriends, gaston, is leaving with
(19:30):
his catering company from tampa, driving up to north carolina
as well.
So there's a lot more that'sgoing to be coming through,
because you got to realize, 820miles, it affected a lot of
different and you got to realizelike it's, it's, you know
there's, there's a budget forthis.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Fema has a budget.
We're not going to pay us andwe wouldn't want the money
anyway, but FEMA has a budget tobuy stuff.
Stuff is just spread thin, man.
It's all over in all thesesites of every places, and so
it's just hard.
You know we're like I'll goahead and say it.
You know, cisco, drop us off awhole reefer truck sitting there
with all kinds of.
Can you drop us off A wholereefer truck sitting there with
(20:09):
all kinds of?
We have to give you one bydaily trucks, and it's minimal
things on the trucks.
We're barely scraping byrationing one onion for four
different things, because it'sjust what we got to do.
But I want to just elaborate alittle bit more on that.
This reminds me so much ofKatrina, and what really drove
(20:34):
me to come here was that Ididn't want the industry to have
to go through what it didbefore.
Hold on, you're next.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, look.
I wanted to say I wanted to.
So take a second there, pooch.
I wanted to say something aboutthe turnaround time.
You know, we know chef gastonreal well and you know shout out
to him, I love that guy andwhat he's doing.
It takes a long time, you know.
It takes time to put theresponse effort into place
(21:07):
because everyone you know in inflorida we got hit too.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
So the fact, anna maria, anna maria decimated.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, the the gulf coast is a mess, you know we
have, I have friends that theirrestaurants filled to the
ceiling with water.
It's bad, but I want to.
I do want to mention aboutresponse times, metro shelving,
you know pooch and I run.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Wow, yeah, but well, pooch and I were on the phone.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, but we'll put.
You and I were on the phone theother day and it's like carl
man, you know I'm like what doyou need, what?
I don't.
There's nothing that I canphysically help you with.
But what do you need?
Yeah, you only eat, or call, Ionly eat.
But he's, you know he's.
He says, well, I'm in a tentand there's nothing in the tent
we're getting.
You know, we have supplies, buteverything's on the floor and,
and you know we came up with,hey, let's give AJ a call over
(21:51):
at Metro.
Do you know, like there'salready that they have, I don't
know, 16 racks?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
We have a caravan of people coming in to put up stuff
for us.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
They mobilized, aj and Brianna and their team
mobilized and I'm staring at thethread there's 15 people in X
amount of States that put thistogether to where they're
actually getting that product.
The product is on the roadalready, like the material is on
the road and they're going toinstall it and do everything.
And they and they did that fast.
(22:22):
You know we had theconversation and you know AJ is
like well, you know, look, thisis this is going to take a
minute.
Like this is not something wecan do today.
We have to figure this out thenext day.
The plan was in place andeverything was in motion and
it's amazing.
I just wanted to say, becauseit's important, that you have to
(22:42):
compare, you have to look atwhat things are.
Thank God for Cisco, thank Godfor the broad, thank God for
anybody who's helping right thebroad.
I thank God for all these,anybody who's who's helping
right now.
Whether you know we're friends,the company friends or not, I
don't get people are helping andthat's amazing.
And if you can mobilize quickly, you're you're light years
ahead of the of the game.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
So I'll give you a situation a couple of years ago,
when I did work for us foods,we were activated and we were
coming, you know, even under therestraints.
I was going during going towork during a curfew and I got
stopped by the police.
But I also had a letter thatsaid I was a first responder.
All I was doing, guys, wascooking for my warehouse people
(23:24):
and every restaurant tour thatwas opening their restaurant who
had never had food in the weekor two days or whatever it was.
I opened up the door to my will, call and fed people, and
having the ability to have thatand see the faces of what people
are going through, andlistening to the stories and
just having the ability just totake a second and say, hey,
breathe, come on in and havesomething to eat, that's huge.
(23:46):
But for the broad liners and Iknow US Foods quite well, I know
both the Charlotte warehouseand I also know the South
Carolina warehouse very well.
So, todd Hanson, who happens tobe the president of that single
warehouse over there in SouthCarolina, you guys, I know you
have shrink, I know you candonate stuff.
(24:06):
So I'm asking you, I'm pleadingwith you, please get in touch
with the Walk and Talk.
I know somebody that lives 18.3miles away.
I know that he will be back upthere in Friday from being down
here in Tampa.
I hope to God that he canmobilize and get more people out
to help pooch and the team outthere and get them food more
(24:31):
people out to help pooch and theteam out there and get them
food.
But the realistic, the realrealization is that things
happen and when, for humanity tocome together as quickly as it
does.
That's what's the mostimportant thing.
It's not about politics, it'snot about anything else.
It's about getting people fedand getting people what they
need and having the commoncourage to do things.
That's going above and beyondand that's what we do.
I mean, you know, and and goahead, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I was going to say that I am the things.
Like I was saying before,things are moving forward and
they're moving forward in agreat way Now with, like you
know, things are verystreamlined and logistics of how
things are working.
Here Now we are basically thisthing of becoming a full-fledged
, like actual, engine.
(25:15):
It's just amazing to watch andsee how the logistics works and
all this from propane togasoline, to ice, to water to
you know, we've done this allover the world, you know.
So it's happening now.
It's sad that it is late.
It's very Katrina-esque.
It's like where is everybody?
It's starting to happen.
(25:38):
Things are working positive now.
But my biggest thing is is thisis what what drives me but also
breaks me down sometimes, but itdrives me as well is that we
have to be here for the chefs ofasheville, for the chefs of any
town of of devastation.
But for this industry, for usto be an industry podcast and
everyone who listens to us, wehave to be here for those chefs.
We have to be here.
There was a brutal uphill battlein New Orleans and of course,
(26:01):
you had your big, big, hugenames that had the money to come
back.
But how many of?
We all know that man, a lot ofpeople, and especially with this
economy, everybody was robbingPeter to pay Paul and just
streamlining just to stay aliveand survive.
And now all those people havenothing and it's sad to say that
a lot of them might not even bethere, guys.
(26:24):
So we're hearing that peoplewent to sleep thinking it was
going to be a.
You know it's going to be aheavy rain, you know whatever
it's not, and landslides happen.
So you, basically, you knowthat you can't really survive
that.
So I'll be honest, it took along time for that industry to
come back.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I'll be honest, my buddy came down on Sunday
morning and didn't haveself-service, obviously, until
he got down here and his sonfinally got a hold of him.
He hadn't heard from his sonsince Friday.
So imagine being a parent goingthrough this storm and he's in
Vail, his son's in Canton, whichwas decimated, and his son's
(27:07):
first reaction was Dad, Ithought you were going to come
for me, and he said I had.
I thought you were going tocome for me and he said I had no
idea where you were.
So these stories you're goingto start hearing a lot more.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Oh yeah, I mean, you know it's.
It's crazy to see when I'vetalked to some people and
they're just like, well, I mean,we don't even know like, is
this a lie, is it false?
You know, because you're notreally hearing a lot about it on
the media.
You are kind of now, but notnot that we have a lot of time
to look at the media, but youdon't really, you know, you
(27:37):
weren't here really hearingabout it, and I think a lot of
that had to do with the factthat this is something that's a,
you know, a civil engineeringconundrum that no one would ever
expect to ever happen.
And it's proving now that maybewe aren't up to par with our
civil engineering.
Because, you know, we've heardthe term over the last 10 years
100 year storm, 100 years storm.
(27:59):
Well, how many 100 year stormsthat we had in the last 10 years
?
It seems like it's every twoyear storm or three years.
So actually it's five yearsputting this, five, putting this
kind of rain on the UnitedStates.
And I'm not trying to get intoall the political global warming
stuff like that, it's just afact that it is happening and
it's ruining people's lives.
And as we get into the new ageof.
(28:21):
You know, there was no AI,there was none of these things
back when we were in Katrina andall these different things.
And what I worry about theindustry now is that these
people have lost everything andwhen you're in a 21st century
now, where we're not going torebuild, they're going to
(28:43):
rebuild bigger, bigger, better.
You know, obviously it was agreat, aesthetically pleasing
and a great place for people tovisit.
It was a very much a touristtown.
It was a funky kind of hip town, had New Orleans vibes to it in
the mountains.
You know it was really cool andit was a fun place to be.
And now to think about it, it'sjust like well, when people are
going to come in there, there'sgoing to be a lot of federal
dollars, but there's going to bea lot of big money.
(29:05):
People trying to we're Peopleare trying to.
We're talking about starting anew canvas like from the ground
up.
So I mean, it's not just like,oh, we can take over that
building and renovate it, andthat are modern.
Everything is going to bemodern, from the fiber optics in
the ground to the plumbing, tothe first brick or first piece
(29:25):
of concrete, every single thingthat's going to be built from
this point on is going to bestate of the art, new and new
beyond our wildest dreams.
But where's the chef?
In that?
Everything is computerized,everything.
Where is the chef where?
Where, you know, it's great tothink of all these major cities
in the world that have all thesetrain rails and all these
(29:47):
different things like that, andthis famous stuff, robots and
all this.
But you know, I know I'mtalking to some delirious guys,
but I mean, that's what we talkabout at night, just like,
where's the chef and all thisthing, when they're going to
build from the ground up, thatnobody's ever going to think
about the chef or the arts.
Like the, ashville was known forits art, it was known for that,
and so that's what I want tomobilize people to, to be
(30:10):
passionate about in before,before going to be a part of
something that's going to be amoney-making thing, because
obviously this is going to bethe.
This is the new gold rush.
Now everybody's going to comehere and try to get contracts to
rebuild, do all these differentthings, but keep in mind that
there were people there whobuilt that town to what it was
(30:31):
and what it made it was.
It's a town that my childrenloved.
It's a town that I remembergoing to.
I have fond memories of goingto when I was a kid We'd go up
into the Smokies.
And now it's not going to bethe same and it never will.
And just like New Orleans is notthe same and it never will be
the same, but New Orleans wasstill there, it wasn't built
(30:52):
back from the ground up becauseit was just water staying there,
stagnant, this is mud,landslides and houses on top of
houses on top of houses on topof of buildings, on top of 18
wheelers.
I mean, if you see some of thestuff that I've seen, these
pictures from people's phoneshere, it's just like how did
that happen?
(31:13):
Like it was almost like aMarvel movie where one
superpower where they can throwan 18 wheeler truck, throw
18-wheeler just with the flashof their hands.
I mean it just looks likesomebody did that, but it was
active nature that did that andit's just.
(31:34):
It's something to process.
But just the call to action thatI have for everybody is keep
the arts, keep what made thatcity alive, alive.
And it's what I hate about neworleans now of my town.
Love being from there.
But it's not what it was,because nobody gives a crap
about what it was.
Everybody's trying to make.
Well, here's the new way, thebetter way.
Well, that new orleans wasnever about the new way, the
(31:56):
better way.
It was lazy, fair.
It was about being passionateabout jazz, arts, foods, foods,
flavors all of the above.
The Big Easy and Asheville wasvery much that, and I have fear
that that's what's going tohappen.
So, all our listeners out there, everywhere you know, find a
chef that's from Asheville,write them a card, write them a
letter, do whatever it is andpray for the ones who probably
(32:18):
aren't there, the ones who'velost family, the ones who've
lost everything.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Because as a kid who wanted to be a chef, I feel for
these people well, but justbeing from the restaurant
industry and going throughkatrina yourself, I mean I, I
went through hurricane andrew Iknow these guys sitting across
from me definitely did too and Idrove down to help my family
who obviously lost everythingbecause they moved from coral
gables down to kenn Kennel whenAndrew hit and, knowing what you
know, it took 10 years forHomestead to come back and what.
(32:51):
I don't know what that's goingto look like for Asheville,
because that was mostly, I mean,it was a small hurricane but he
was damn well powerfulhurricane, but nothing compared
to this.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Well, let me, let me just say this the message is
simple you know as we, you knowas we kind of go forward
together, we're stronger.
In times of crisis, it's thelittle acts of kindness that
create the ripple effect in thecommunity, and the truth is, we
shouldn't be waiting for thenext disaster to hit.
We need to build that spirit ofsupport and connection every
(33:26):
day, because the reality is wedon't know when it's going to be
needed and when?
Speaker 3 (33:32):
You know the biggest thing, I had a member from Palm
Beach Art Ritt.
He's one of the oldest members,the longest member, 52 years,
53 years with the AmericanCulinary Federation.
He wanted to do something wherehe got reefer trucks that were
retrofitted as a disaster relieftruck and I know he's probably
going.
Why are we not doing this?
This is the perfect opportunityand it you know logistically,
(33:53):
think about it.
Like chef pooch has been saying, it's seasonal, it's.
You're waiting for thatnational unfortunately.
You're waiting for that naturaldisaster to happen so that you
can be mobilized to get there.
What you need to do Mercy Chefsand all those other companies
that are doing stuff like this.
Think about the logistics theyhave to go through and the
manpower that they have to gearup for when something like this
(34:15):
happens.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Hey Pooch, I know-.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Think about the fact that I'm going to say this
because it was what I was tryingto say before, but I'm gonna
tie right into that.
But think about the fact thatall these resources are where
they think things are going tohappen the gulf coast.
Nobody expected this to happenhere, because it was just some
rain, right?
Speaker 3 (34:36):
well.
So their homes are not builtlike miami or florida homes, are
not built like louisiana homes,because they don't go through
that stuff like we do, you know.
So there's a different, likemost of those homes, like I know
, john just posted or looked atthe picture of chimney rock and
how that one street was like.
It had some houses on the leftand the next thing you know
(34:57):
they're gone.
They weren't.
You know cbs block houses.
I can tell you that much.
Most of that destruction wasmostly wood, but that's what
nobody thought.
Well, we don't have to worryabout that because there's not
going to be a hurricane hittingin the wood.
You know asheville, which ishow many miles from the coast I
mean, we're 83 miles from farfrom from where you are right
(35:18):
now to asheville is somethinglike 83 miles, I think I saw so
it's got to be over 100 andsomething miles.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
I, I don't know.
Look, we've been through inFlorida.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
You know we're older, older gentlemen we've been
through a lot of hurricanessince 1979 Hurricane David yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
So you know I'm, I'm maybe 20 miles or so from water
and I look at that and go, youknow what 20 mile, I'm good, you
know what I mean.
I'm not really worried about adirect hit.
You know, per se, and this is,you know, 15, 20 hurricanes that
you know we've been through, sowe have a good bearing on what
(35:56):
this is supposed to feel like orbe.
This was so different becausepeople were getting.
People were, as Jeff saidearlier, how wide the span of
this storm it's stretched.
This thing was offshore,offshore, yeah, while it was
still yeah, and the Floridacoast got just murdered.
(36:20):
Naples got flooded, everybodygot flooded.
The whole West Coastulf coastgot got smashed and then, you
know, obviously, go straight upthe straight up the gut into, uh
, passes tallahassee, gostraight into, you know.
But I'll tell you it didn'tfeel normal.
This was the most abnormalthing I've ever seen in terms of
a hurricane I unfortunatelythink this is going to become
(36:42):
the new norm.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Well like I said earlier.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
This reminds me of what happened in Dubai several
months ago, and I feel like weall forgot about that already
too.
But it was just like really outof nowhere, doesn't really?
Speaker 3 (36:59):
make any sense.
Well, Las Vegas too.
Remember, Las Vegas got floodedagain.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
And I was there for that, and these are all places
that you know are modern civilengineering, you know,
especially Dubai.
You know, and they're factoringin all these things when
they're building these hugebuildings and all this other
stuff, but they don't factor in,you know, global warming or
flooding or any of these thingsthat are called, whatever it is
(37:25):
that's causing the water to getso hot to create these huge
storms that are never in historyrecorded stuff.
You know.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
40 trillion gallons of water.
That's what it was done with.
Yeah, that's what they said inNorth Carolina, was it?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
for or for.
True, and that's just NorthCarolina, yeah, the western part
of North Carolina, so it's noteven the whole of North Carolina
(37:58):
.
Yeah, yep, for insurance,because it's what status quo is
what we know.
Living there, these people hadnothing insurance, wise, they
weren't living in a flood zone,they weren't living in any
things that.
Now, how do you pick up thepieces?
And it's to be a conundrum,like it was in new orleans, with
(38:18):
you know dollars in the federalgovernment giving money there,
but it also could be you knowdollars in the federal
government giving money there,but it also could be, you know,
a positive thing, because we dohave a presidential election in
a couple of days and I'm surethese people are going to have
to be addressed with this taskand this could be their legacy,
whoever it may be, whatever sideyou want it to be, this is
probably going to be theirlegacy and, like you know, this
(38:43):
could be the thing that bringsback the economy.
This could be in such a bad wayand it's so, process it like
this, but if we can make itpositive, and we could make this
not about building it to be amoney maker some money, some.
You know a town in the mountains.
That's all where rich people goflock now and it's a playground
(39:04):
like if we can bring it back toearly what it was with all
those tax dollars it would.
It could really spark somethingto the the the normal person,
not the rich people and and uh,and and bring back what ashville
was to.
You know it was our, this wasour swiss house of the south.
You know you go to swiss houseand you go be these high peaks
(39:24):
and go do all these different.
You know beautiful scenery andjust watching the leaves change
and all this other stuff.
That's what Asheville was to usin New Orleans or to people in
the South.
It was the place that you couldgo not too far away and get
that feel of being in there.
And I don't have to go to theRockies, you know, right there,
nestled in the South, and what abeautiful place it was and and
(39:45):
it's just.
You know.
You know, pray about it, beabout it, make sure that it is
what it was the arts.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
You had the biltmore there.
That's why it was like that,though and I you know it's funny
I've not heard one thing aboutthe biltmore I haven't as well.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
I don't even think about that.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
I think I mean like that's you have, oh silent john.
No, I haven't as well, I didn'tthink about that.
I mean, like that's you have,oh Silent John.
No, I haven't.
No, no, Silent John was shakinghis head yet, so you know he's
not going to talk, so I'll findout later.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Listen, bush.
Yeah, I know that you told mebefore you only have a few
minutes.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
I'm hearing my text bing, bing, bings.
I'm assuming that's hopefullyit's people reaching out saying
they can send us some moraleboosters.
But it's probably them sayinglet's go of people that came
(40:44):
through with morale boosterseven if they couldn't really
help in some sort of a wayphysically.
And we're not in for anyfinancial, we're not in for any
money from anybody.
You know people send us.
Metro is sending us stuff to beable to complete our task.
But I want to thank Clark andHopkins.
They're sending hot sauces forall the troops.
They're sending peanuts andsnacks, all their new stuff,
popcorns, just to boost morale,just to make sure that
(41:05):
everybody's having thoseendorphins and dopamine that
when we eat sweet stuff, saltystuff, all the reasons that we
love food, that's what themorale boosters are right now
for us.
Flossy Foods, love y'all,Appreciate y'all so much Sending
out some peanut, brittle andcorn dogs.
Appreciate y'all so muchsending out some, you know,
brittle and corn dogs.
(41:25):
I want to give a shout out toJen Booker, Chef Jen, very close
colleague, and she and CamelliaBeans.
Shout out to Camellia Beansbecause they're sending beans
right now and then they're goingto send a caravan of some
things from New Orleans up here.
Shout out to Jen Booker forcoordinating all that.
Everybody at Camellia Beans,Allison Frank, all of you over
there who are really making thishappen and showing that the
(41:49):
solidarity and knowing what ittakes to build the industry back
.
They had to do it.
They gritted their teeth andmade it happen.
I want to shout out to Chefworksthey're sending us a care
package of aprons, shirts,things that we need, things that
we just you know, you thinkabout what you need in the
industry.
(42:10):
You need a knife, you need allthese other things.
You really don't think aboutthe fact that a chef's jacket in
these type of situations istruly the jacket made for this
type of cooking Aprons, thingsof that nature.
So they, Chef Works is reallycoming through through, sending
us a big, huge care package.
Shout out to Chiwis, Shout outto everybody else.
(42:30):
I can't remember who has got asthings on the way.
All I get is texts withtracking numbers and I really
appreciate it, guys.
I really, really, reallyappreciate it.
So if everybody wants has anyway to assist us, and we're not
asking for anything financial,we're really just asking for
anything where it may be amorale booster or you know, or
something, a utensil or toolthat we can utilize to feed more
(42:53):
people efficiently?
We would.
We would love to hear from you,so please contact our walk and
talk, guys.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
I think jay jay gardner is going to be heading
up there that way to, oh yes,and thank you for reminding me,
sir.
So think Jay Gardner is goingto be heading up there that way
to, oh yes, and thank you forreminding me, sir.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
So Jay Gardner is going to come out here at Citrus
America.
He's going to be serving freshsqueezed orange juice to however
many people are here.
However many oranges we got,we're going to squeeze them and
shout out to Citrus America formaking that happen.
It's really cool.
What's kind of fun about thiswhole thing as well not and I
don't mean fun and the fact thatyou know catastrophic things
happen.
(43:27):
What I'm fun about it but walkand talk podcast is kind of
being the catalyst, to be kindof that uso for the troops, for
the people that are aiding inthis kind of thing, and that's
really that.
It's fun and it's it draws, itdrives my passion and it gives
me energy and it helps me keepgoing, you know.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
So I appreciate you saying I appreciate y'all I
appreciate you saying that andyou know, when I think uso, I
think singing, I think bob hopeI think comedian, I think
comedians and john is giving methe heads up.
John said he's willing to goout there and perform stand-up.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Oh, for some comic relief.
Cue cards, only Cue cards, onlyCue cards only.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Cue cards only.
All right, booch man, just staythe course.
Godspeed to you, brother, andappreciate everybody who's
helping out with this wholething.
And if there's anything that wecould do to help, kind of
middle or catalyst of any sort,just hit us on Instagram at
walkandtalkshow and we'll seewhat we can do if there's
(44:34):
anything possible at all.
And you know love everybodyAppreciate it.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Oh, real quick.
Troy Schiller is the gentlemanthat I told you about Pooch.
He's got the food truck.
I'm going to follow back upwith him.
He's got Alter Sham bringingthe food truck next week and he
has a three-compartment sink, soI'm trying to get you as much
as I can.
So if you need more, just letme know and I'll hit my network
up.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
All right, not a problem, guys, I appreciate you
all so very much.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
All right, Pooch baby , Be good man, We'll catch up on
Side B, brother okay.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Gotcha Everyone who hasn't gotten my emails returned
or text returned.
I apologize, but I love y'alland we will make it happen
sooner than later.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Excellent, all right Everyone.
John Jefferson, we are out.
Thank you on-site at Ibis Images Studios, where food
photography comes alive and Iget to eat it.
Here's a humble request to giveus a follow on Instagram at
walkandtalkshow, please andthank you.
All right.
Hurricane Helene has hitAppalachia hard, especially in
western North Carolina, wheresevere flooding has caused
(00:41):
devastation and claimed at least180 lives, including over 50 in
Buncombe County alone.
North Carolina State ClimateOffice has called it a
worst-case scenario for theregion, with some areas
expecting over 31 inches of rain.
We know that happened Headinginto rivers, overflowing those
rivers, landslides and peoplebeing trapped in their homes.
(01:03):
We've been seeing the videos.
Emergency officials havedescribed the destruction as
biblical, interesting Drawingcomparisons to Hurricane Katrina
.
Jeff has some interesting dataon that.
Rescue efforts continue,concerns are growing that the
death toll could rise furtherand unfortunately, I believe
that's what's going to happen,and the sheer scale of the
(01:24):
damage suggests that's what'sgoing to happen.
And the sheer scale of thedamage suggests that the
recovery is going to take years,leaving many communities
grappling with the aftermath fora long time to come.
I mean, this is all a shockingthing to me.
You know we're in florida andthe reality is we deal with
hurricanes always and this was adifferent one.
This was just different.
Florida coastline smashed,tennessee, north Carolina.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Georgia.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, in the midst of this crisis, walk and talk
media personality and chef PoochRivera is in North Carolina
aiding in the relief effort bycooking for those on the front
lines first responders.
He and the culinary team areworking 18-hour days serving
these first responders andmilitary personnel who are
tirelessly working to help theaffected areas.
(02:12):
You know I've been on the phonewith Pooch every day for the
past week and you know I hearhis decline.
Pooch is with us on the showtoday to share some insights as
to what disaster relief cookinglooks like.
And you know, in spite of allthe tragedy, you know the
incredible work being done inthese communities.
(02:35):
There's a lot that goes intothis and it's, yeah, take your.
You know like I'm sitting hereand I wrote a bunch of stuff
down here that I'm reading, butthe truth is, you know, is it
doesn't worth to read.
It's so difficult to even talkabout these things because we
all have friends, family,colleagues spread across the
country.
This is something.
(02:55):
Big Pooch, how are you doingbud?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yes, sir, I can't lie and say that I'm not tired and
feel my immune system kind ofabout to give out on me, but I'm
good man.
There's a lot of passion,there's a lot of pride in what
we're doing here.
And you know and I happen to bea part of something that
knowing that people are reallytrying to make sure that these
(03:21):
people are OK and sadly we don'teven know if that's a status
anymore Okay, maybe out thewindow, because I'm here on day
six, day seven, actually seven,and it's just been a crazy wild
ride, man, it's a lot of.
You know, we've already beengiven a medal, some sort of
medal.
I don't even know where it is,it's lost in some bag but they
(03:42):
presented us a medal because ofwhat we've, we've done here in
what we do.
But there's no, really no timeto lax in any way.
It's just constantly trying tomake sure that everyone's fed
and just to let everybody knowthat we're not feeding.
You know, refugees or I hate touse that term refugee, but we're
not feeding any of thesurvivors or anyone who's needy
of anything like it, such thatwe're in a FEMA camp, cannot
(04:05):
disclose where we are, but weare the primary FEMA camp for
this endeavor.
We are the first.
So this was actually a slowsummer, thank goodness.
It was a slow summer forhurricanes and, as you can see,
a lot of major hurricanes, andeven in the Gulf right now.
That's one thing that goes inthe back of everyone's head is
(04:27):
like where is this hurricanecoming?
You know the new tropical stuffin the gulf right now and um.
But so when you get intodisaster relief, people were
kind of picking up their stuff.
You know it's a seasonalbusiness and you know you have
some fires in California and welearned some fires in Virginia
(04:49):
and certain things.
So people, a lot of people thatare handling those kind of
things and feeding the people,the firefighters that are
fighting the fires and all thosedifferent things out there.
They're out there, they're faraway.
They can't make it to thesoutheast.
Even if they did, you know,know a splinter crew off, it
would take so long to get there.
So, and I know I'm probablychoppy guys, but I haven't slept
in, I can't even tell you howlong so what was your describe,
(05:12):
your initial reaction when youactually got up to north
carolina?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
obviously the hurricane had just hit and you'd
you know.
You basically got there withinwhat?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
48 hours, right, 24 hours, something like that we
well the first call, so I'llstart from the beginning.
So, in the how I can do that, Ineed to give a shout out to
maddie mcshay, amin tinkler andmaddie's wife, georgia mcshay.
Like you know, I got a phonecall from from maddie mcshay,
who's an old chef friend of mine, who, ironically, we worked on
(05:41):
disaster, disaster relief andsnowmageddon for Atlanta and he
said look man, there's no pay,there's no, nothing.
But we're hearing rumors thatthings are really really bad and
we can't even get in touch withhalf the people that we know up
there Because a lot of theAsheville people work in the
(06:05):
Atlanta food scene with TV showsand whatnot.
So it's a very tight-knit.
You know TV set, catering andthings like that and you know
the Vast Relief kind of fallsinto those same things, because
if you have a food truck and youhave trucks and this, that, the
other tents, all that, you kindof fall into that.
But we knew that we had a lot ofallies there and it was like
look, dude, you want to come outhere because we can't get
anybody to come.
And we really think that we'rehearing that it's something
(06:26):
really really bad and it touchedall of us because of the fact
that we're from New Orleans andNew Orleans had Katrina, you
know, not 20 years ago, almostto the date, you know.
So we really wanted to make ithappen.
As far as like getting here, Idon't even remember that as of
now, but we we wrote, cause wewrote at night and we we came
(06:49):
overnight.
We just loaded up a convoy.
I was in a big old reefer semitruck.
That was.
Once you got to North Carolina,the roads were really horrible,
especially into where we werecoming in, having to drive, you
know, 35, 45 miles an hourbecause of debris things in the
interstates, all of the above.
(07:09):
Ironically, we took a long timeto get where we were going
because of roads being down andwhatnot.
I'm sorry, guys.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
What sort of specific challenges have you faced while
you're you know, while you'redoing this, this, yeah, I mean
while you're trying to execute?
Well, listen, we we.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
We can actually talk to all that too.
We can help him out as soon ashe doesn't remember.
So I mean we, we, we, we, we we.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
We were trying to figure out where I am Forever.
I wasn't trying to even John,silent John, but thank you for
speaking this one time.
Johnny, you mentioned that it'sbecause of wherever the tower
is pinging.
The only tower available ispinging 83 miles away from where
I am, but we're not wherethey're.
So it's Katrina-esque when theysay biblical and all these
(08:00):
different things.
It's Katrina-esque To thereason.
Reason we get here and there wasnothing.
We get to the space camp andthere's nothing.
Here there's maybe a, you know,there's one trailer there is
for, like, the people on thecoordinate, this thing.
There was no tents put up yetthere was a bathroom-type
scenario, kind of scenario goingon.
It's because all of the effortshave been already put.
(08:23):
Number one, people were off andcouldn't mobilize that quickly
because off the season.
And then, number two, and I'mgoing to put many factors, but
number two of these factors isthe fact that everyone was in
Florida, the Tampa area, thatarea, Then they went up into the
Alabama and the Georgia areawhere it got hit, and then they
went into Tennessee andTennessee and all these
(08:44):
different things.
And then, last but not least,is the worst one, in Asheville,
the worst occurrence, and it'snot even because of the
hurricane wind forces oranything like that.
There were a few tornadoes, butit's just because of the
massive amount of rain thatdumped on them within a
four-hour period.
You couldn't do anything.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
This happened a few months ago over in dubai.
You remember that yeah, oh yeah, and it was like out of nowhere
just massive rainstorm yeah,and again they I think they used
biblical in in their uh, youknow definition of that as well,
their description of that yeah,and I saw a stat and I don't
know how they come up with this.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
They said something like 40 trillion gallons of
water went through northcarolina and I was seeing
statistics that by the time thehurricane actually hit, it was
moving at 30 miles per hour andit dumped a 14 inch inches of
rain in that matter of timeperiod.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
What did you say?
That's crazy.
What did you say?
The the very size.
Yeah, so, Katrina, it's it's.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
it's eyeopening.
I saw this on social media andI just kind of was like this is
ridiculous.
So everyone realizes how badKatrina was for New Orleans.
Katrina was a Cat 3.
It was 125-mile-an-hour maxsustained winds.
Diameter of the storm was 400miles.
The wind field was about 230miles.
That's wind field is from thecenter of the storm out to where
(10:03):
the bands are.
So Helene is a cat 4.
Maximum sustained winds are 20more miles per hour, about 145.
Diameter ready for this one 822miles in diameter.
Wow, wind field is double thesize, almost of whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
When you think about that being over the water and if
it's 800, you know 20 miles,whatever the term how much
momentum is picking up from thatheat of the water over that
wide?
You know it's just, it'sbananas.
How to do that?
Just think of that even.
But it happened.
We got here.
But all the reason what thestory was trying to say is that
all the resources were beingutilized in all these other
(10:47):
states that were hit first andno one expected it to be as
catastrophic as it would be.
Here in the Asheville area, teamof people, including FEMA, the
state of North Carolina andother people who were Virginia
(11:10):
shout out to Virginia who I sawthem pull in last night with
some big old military vehicles.
I couldn't tell you what theyare, but there's every kind of
vehicle here from all over manydifferent states I probably
haven't seen yet and that we'repulling up and the momentum is
starting here now on day sixthat things are kind of gelling
so we still don't have a placeto sleep.
(11:31):
You know, a lot of times we'resleeping on a floor or we're
sleeping in our car or the truck, things like that.
We are piece of milling thingstogether to try to be able to
adapt to how many people we areactually feeding and we're going
to have to feed, and it's justan ongoing's just a.
It's an ongoing thing.
It's exciting and it's it'samazing yet just to be a part of
(11:54):
it, to see how it happens.
But to be four chefs, you know.
And shout out to Maddie Morgan,as well as another chef that's
up here with us, and a shout outto Victor Duran, his son, brian
Duran, and they came down fromChicago, some friends of us in
the industry.
They came down and they showedup last night.
They got in town and they'rehere right now really relieving
us.
Them being here is allowing meto come get on the phone with
(12:18):
you guys for a few minutes, butit's ongoing.
It's meals breakfast, lunch,dinner and then basically a
midnight meal which is alreadyplated.
So we plate those, so we havetime to like, get somewhat rust.
But in the middle of thosethings it's never stopping
because you're prepping for thenext thing.
One thing that we're trying todo is we're refusing to use
(12:40):
canned goods, we're refusing touse anything.
Those type of things we wouldprefer to go are donating.
Donate those things to thepeople we take pride in
providing for the firstresponders, the police, military
, fresh food, as fresh as we cando it, and just making people
realize that their morale isgood.
(13:00):
Well, you know.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I wanted to ask you that.
So you know, and I'm glad thatyou got fresh legs on the ground
I came in last night with you,with your pals.
I mean I'm thrilled that you'regetting some, just some help.
But have you seen, you know?
So all this, with all thistragedy and everything that's,
it's still you know, we're stillin the midst of it.
How's everybody, in terms ofdealing with each other?
(13:27):
I mean, everyone must be onedge is it?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
random acts of kindness, or is it?
You know, are there people,people just having to work with
each other, like this?
Yeah, as far as our team, likeI'm the team I'm on personally
or within each where you are.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I mean you've got you've got different
municipality workers and federaldifferent, obviously egos that
are involved in it.
There's got to be something andattention has got to be high,
because you're trying to savepeople, you're trying to feed
people, so how is everyone?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
getting along.
We're getting along.
At the end of the day, we knowthat resources are going to get
pulled from us.
Everything is extremely fluid.
No one has been rude to us inany way.
Fluid, no one has been rude tous in any way, as we in the
industry know that seeingsomeone's face every day and
being hot and sweaty and havingbathed in three days, and you
know just all these variableswill make, you know, us ticking
(14:17):
time bombs with our own brethrenin this industry.
So yeah, of course sometimes itgets testy in between what
we're trying to get done toaccomplish things, because these
are tall tasks, these are tallfeeds.
You know they'll come at us andsay this is a certain number
that we think we're going toneed you to feed, and then,
minutes before it happens,they're adding two to three
hundred people or more.
(14:37):
You know so, or more.
Yeah, you know who's counting.
You know I'm not sitting therecounting how many people.
It's just a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
This may seem like a silly question, but what are you
feeding these people?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
What is being served.
We're trying to provide aprotein.
Lots of pasta has been donated,so we're doing pasta.
The crazy thing is proteinssuch as meatballs and chicken
your typical chickens, we dopork.
We roasted some pork butts.
A lot of people donated somebriskets your typical chickens,
we do.
Let's see pork.
We roasted some pork butts.
We had some.
A lot of people donated somebriskets, things like that.
You know, things that kind of.
We wanted things to boost moraleas well when we were getting
(15:12):
people to send us some stuff.
And then now some good, somebroadliners have decided that
they might come drop some reefertruck off for us.
Those things I'd like to.
You know, call it a call toaction.
Anyone listening, anyone in theindustry, I can't tell you that
you can come out here and comedonate your time.
Please donate your time toanyone else, but please donate.
If there's anything wherethere'd be an apron, anything
(15:34):
like that, we could use thosethings, send an email to walk
and talk and and we cancoordinate how to get that to us
.
But it's going back to yourquestion, jeff.
It's a morale thing and it's amental health thing, but I can
tell you, when we come together,everyone's going to bicker,
whether it be whoever it may be,especially in these stressful
situations.
(15:54):
But we all come back to therealization that we're here and,
number one, we're alive andthank God we're alive, and I
feel so bad for how many numberswe don't even I don't want to
fathom they didn't stop thinkabout or talk about how many
numbers that are up there butalso that we are here, able to
still do our passion, and wetalk about it every night before
(16:16):
we like wrap up, we sit, we sitthere and we hold hands and and
we just meditate and pray andjust concentrate our energy to
have a good day the next day andum you know they're gonna get a
little choked up guys sothere's there's there's some
resources that we can work onand I have already reached out
to aaron boyle over at chow,which is culinary hospitality,
outsource wellness there it's afree service that they talk to
(16:40):
restaurant people.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I'm trying to coordinate to maybe getting some
people there.
I can be counselors to you knowthe workers and I'm not just
talking about you guys, I'mtalking about the chefs and the
service industry, people thathave been affected by Asheville
or by the hurricane in Asheville.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Well, jeff, it's really crazy to think, brother,
I don't know if there is anAsheville anymore.
Well, that's why.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
I kind of changed my whole comment.
It's the people that were inthe service industry that have
been decimated because of whathappened, of this natural
disaster.
There's got to be, you know, alot of mental health issues
moving forward and forget aboutjust losing the income or their
job or their restaurant if theywere the owner of it.
(17:22):
Think about the family membersthat have been unfortunately
passed away because of this.
So there's multiple.
There's multiple trauma, thatlevels of trauma that we're
talking about with PTSD.
You know, you know this is along term effect, mentally.
That's going on.
But the short term, which isamazing, is that hot food, when,
when you don't have the abilityto make anything, that hot food
(17:46):
, that hot meal that you'regiving those first responders,
that changes morale instantly.
You know just what they'regoing through and how they're
dealing with it.
Coming back and having that hotmeal that you're doing, that's
what's worth it.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
You know, I just want to say something too.
Yeah, dude, I've been, you know, in the conversations that I've
had with folks in describingwhat you're doing right now.
Pooch, you know and listen, andpeople like you it's not just
you, but I mean, obviouslyyou're our friend, so I have you
to talk to.
(18:19):
I don't know any of these otherfolks that are out there, so I
just appreciate what it is thatyou're doing.
It took a lot of balls to do it.
Like that's a lot of, that'sjust a lot of guts, because yeah
, I mean, yeah, it's cooking,it's.
You know, you've been choppingvegetables your whole life, but
the truth is you're doing it nowfor a huge cause.
You're doing it with, you know,with passion, with purpose,
it's, it's, it's an amazingthing, man.
(18:40):
So I just, you know you, yourespect tons of respect to, uh,
to what you're doing.
Thank you, man.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Thank you, you know, and I want to give a big shout
out because I know a lot ofpeople I found out today via
social media.
Two high school friends thatlive in Asheville made the
announcement that the New YorkFire Department is actually now
in Asheville helping out.
So that was one that just camethrough the Allstate over in
South Carolina.
The rental LEAP please give acall to Pooch.
(19:08):
I of the rental leap, pleasegive a call to Pooch.
I told you, can I give you ashout out?
They need some help and what weneed is to get a dishwasher out
there not a person, but anactual physical dish machine, so
that you can get that done.
We're looking for commodityfoods.
I talked to Chef Greg over atMercy Chef God, I love that
group.
He admitted to me that he'sactually stretched thin.
I know that one of our goodfriends, gaston, is leaving with
(19:30):
his catering company from tampa, driving up to north carolina
as well.
So there's a lot more that'sgoing to be coming through,
because you got to realize, 820miles, it affected a lot of
different and you got to realizelike it's, it's, you know
there's, there's a budget forthis.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Fema has a budget.
We're not going to pay us andwe wouldn't want the money
anyway, but FEMA has a budget tobuy stuff.
Stuff is just spread thin, man.
It's all over in all thesesites of every places, and so
it's just hard.
You know we're like I'll goahead and say it.
You know, cisco, drop us off awhole reefer truck sitting there
with all kinds of.
Can you drop us off A wholereefer truck sitting there with
(20:09):
all kinds of?
We have to give you one bydaily trucks, and it's minimal
things on the trucks.
We're barely scraping byrationing one onion for four
different things, because it'sjust what we got to do.
But I want to just elaborate alittle bit more on that.
This reminds me so much ofKatrina, and what really drove
(20:34):
me to come here was that Ididn't want the industry to have
to go through what it didbefore.
Hold on, you're next.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, look.
I wanted to say I wanted to.
So take a second there, pooch.
I wanted to say something aboutthe turnaround time.
You know, we know chef gastonreal well and you know shout out
to him, I love that guy andwhat he's doing.
It takes a long time, you know.
It takes time to put theresponse effort into place
(21:07):
because everyone you know in inflorida we got hit too.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
So the fact, anna maria, anna maria decimated.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, the the gulf coast is a mess, you know we
have, I have friends that theirrestaurants filled to the
ceiling with water.
It's bad, but I want to.
I do want to mention aboutresponse times, metro shelving,
you know pooch and I run.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Wow, yeah, but well, pooch and I were on the phone.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, but we'll put.
You and I were on the phone theother day and it's like carl
man, you know I'm like what doyou need, what?
I don't.
There's nothing that I canphysically help you with.
But what do you need?
Yeah, you only eat, or call, Ionly eat.
But he's, you know he's.
He says, well, I'm in a tentand there's nothing in the tent
we're getting.
You know, we have supplies, buteverything's on the floor and,
and you know we came up with,hey, let's give AJ a call over
(21:51):
at Metro.
Do you know, like there'salready that they have, I don't
know, 16 racks?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
We have a caravan of people coming in to put up stuff
for us.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
They mobilized, aj and Brianna and their team
mobilized and I'm staring at thethread there's 15 people in X
amount of States that put thistogether to where they're
actually getting that product.
The product is on the roadalready, like the material is on
the road and they're going toinstall it and do everything.
And they and they did that fast.
(22:22):
You know we had theconversation and you know AJ is
like well, you know, look, thisis this is going to take a
minute.
Like this is not something wecan do today.
We have to figure this out thenext day.
The plan was in place andeverything was in motion and
it's amazing.
I just wanted to say, becauseit's important, that you have to
(22:42):
compare, you have to look atwhat things are.
Thank God for Cisco, thank Godfor the broad, thank God for
anybody who's helping right thebroad.
I thank God for all these,anybody who's who's helping
right now.
Whether you know we're friends,the company friends or not, I
don't get people are helping andthat's amazing.
And if you can mobilize quickly, you're you're light years
ahead of the of the game.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
So I'll give you a situation a couple of years ago,
when I did work for us foods,we were activated and we were
coming, you know, even under therestraints.
I was going during going towork during a curfew and I got
stopped by the police.
But I also had a letter thatsaid I was a first responder.
All I was doing, guys, wascooking for my warehouse people
(23:24):
and every restaurant tour thatwas opening their restaurant who
had never had food in the weekor two days or whatever it was.
I opened up the door to my will, call and fed people, and
having the ability to have thatand see the faces of what people
are going through, andlistening to the stories and
just having the ability just totake a second and say, hey,
breathe, come on in and havesomething to eat, that's huge.
(23:46):
But for the broad liners and Iknow US Foods quite well, I know
both the Charlotte warehouseand I also know the South
Carolina warehouse very well.
So, todd Hanson, who happens tobe the president of that single
warehouse over there in SouthCarolina, you guys, I know you
have shrink, I know you candonate stuff.
(24:06):
So I'm asking you, I'm pleadingwith you, please get in touch
with the Walk and Talk.
I know somebody that lives 18.3miles away.
I know that he will be back upthere in Friday from being down
here in Tampa.
I hope to God that he canmobilize and get more people out
to help pooch and the team outthere and get them food more
(24:31):
people out to help pooch and theteam out there and get them
food.
But the realistic, the realrealization is that things
happen and when, for humanity tocome together as quickly as it
does.
That's what's the mostimportant thing.
It's not about politics, it'snot about anything else.
It's about getting people fedand getting people what they
need and having the commoncourage to do things.
That's going above and beyondand that's what we do.
I mean, you know, and and goahead, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I was going to say that I am the things.
Like I was saying before,things are moving forward and
they're moving forward in agreat way Now with, like you
know, things are verystreamlined and logistics of how
things are working.
Here Now we are basically thisthing of becoming a full-fledged
, like actual, engine.
(25:15):
It's just amazing to watch andsee how the logistics works and
all this from propane togasoline, to ice, to water to
you know, we've done this allover the world, you know.
So it's happening now.
It's sad that it is late.
It's very Katrina-esque.
It's like where is everybody?
It's starting to happen.
(25:38):
Things are working positive now.
But my biggest thing is is thisis what what drives me but also
breaks me down sometimes, but itdrives me as well is that we
have to be here for the chefs ofasheville, for the chefs of any
town of of devastation.
But for this industry, for usto be an industry podcast and
everyone who listens to us, wehave to be here for those chefs.
We have to be here.
There was a brutal uphill battlein New Orleans and of course,
(26:01):
you had your big, big, hugenames that had the money to come
back.
But how many of?
We all know that man, a lot ofpeople, and especially with this
economy, everybody was robbingPeter to pay Paul and just
streamlining just to stay aliveand survive.
And now all those people havenothing and it's sad to say that
a lot of them might not even bethere, guys.
(26:24):
So we're hearing that peoplewent to sleep thinking it was
going to be a.
You know it's going to be aheavy rain, you know whatever
it's not, and landslides happen.
So you, basically, you knowthat you can't really survive
that.
So I'll be honest, it took along time for that industry to
come back.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I'll be honest, my buddy came down on Sunday
morning and didn't haveself-service, obviously, until
he got down here and his sonfinally got a hold of him.
He hadn't heard from his sonsince Friday.
So imagine being a parent goingthrough this storm and he's in
Vail, his son's in Canton, whichwas decimated, and his son's
(27:07):
first reaction was Dad, Ithought you were going to come
for me, and he said I had.
I thought you were going tocome for me and he said I had no
idea where you were.
So these stories you're goingto start hearing a lot more.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Oh yeah, I mean, you know it's.
It's crazy to see when I'vetalked to some people and
they're just like, well, I mean,we don't even know like, is
this a lie, is it false?
You know, because you're notreally hearing a lot about it on
the media.
You are kind of now, but notnot that we have a lot of time
to look at the media, but youdon't really, you know, you
(27:37):
weren't here really hearingabout it, and I think a lot of
that had to do with the factthat this is something that's a,
you know, a civil engineeringconundrum that no one would ever
expect to ever happen.
And it's proving now that maybewe aren't up to par with our
civil engineering.
Because, you know, we've heardthe term over the last 10 years
100 year storm, 100 years storm.
(27:59):
Well, how many 100 year stormsthat we had in the last 10 years
?
It seems like it's every twoyear storm or three years.
So actually it's five yearsputting this, five, putting this
kind of rain on the UnitedStates.
And I'm not trying to get intoall the political global warming
stuff like that, it's just afact that it is happening and
it's ruining people's lives.
And as we get into the new ageof.
(28:21):
You know, there was no AI,there was none of these things
back when we were in Katrina andall these different things.
And what I worry about theindustry now is that these
people have lost everything andwhen you're in a 21st century
now, where we're not going torebuild, they're going to
(28:43):
rebuild bigger, bigger, better.
You know, obviously it was agreat, aesthetically pleasing
and a great place for people tovisit.
It was a very much a touristtown.
It was a funky kind of hip town, had New Orleans vibes to it in
the mountains.
You know it was really cool andit was a fun place to be.
And now to think about it, it'sjust like well, when people are
going to come in there, there'sgoing to be a lot of federal
dollars, but there's going to bea lot of big money.
(29:05):
People trying to we're Peopleare trying to.
We're talking about starting anew canvas like from the ground
up.
So I mean, it's not just like,oh, we can take over that
building and renovate it, andthat are modern.
Everything is going to bemodern, from the fiber optics in
the ground to the plumbing, tothe first brick or first piece
(29:25):
of concrete, every single thingthat's going to be built from
this point on is going to bestate of the art, new and new
beyond our wildest dreams.
But where's the chef?
In that?
Everything is computerized,everything.
Where is the chef where?
Where, you know, it's great tothink of all these major cities
in the world that have all thesetrain rails and all these
(29:47):
different things like that, andthis famous stuff, robots and
all this.
But you know, I know I'mtalking to some delirious guys,
but I mean, that's what we talkabout at night, just like,
where's the chef and all thisthing, when they're going to
build from the ground up, thatnobody's ever going to think
about the chef or the arts.
Like the, ashville was known forits art, it was known for that,
and so that's what I want tomobilize people to, to be
(30:10):
passionate about in before,before going to be a part of
something that's going to be amoney-making thing, because
obviously this is going to bethe.
This is the new gold rush.
Now everybody's going to comehere and try to get contracts to
rebuild, do all these differentthings, but keep in mind that
there were people there whobuilt that town to what it was
(30:31):
and what it made it was.
It's a town that my childrenloved.
It's a town that I remembergoing to.
I have fond memories of goingto when I was a kid We'd go up
into the Smokies.
And now it's not going to bethe same and it never will.
And just like New Orleans is notthe same and it never will be
the same, but New Orleans wasstill there, it wasn't built
(30:52):
back from the ground up becauseit was just water staying there,
stagnant, this is mud,landslides and houses on top of
houses on top of houses on topof of buildings, on top of 18
wheelers.
I mean, if you see some of thestuff that I've seen, these
pictures from people's phoneshere, it's just like how did
that happen?
(31:13):
Like it was almost like aMarvel movie where one
superpower where they can throwan 18 wheeler truck, throw
18-wheeler just with the flashof their hands.
I mean it just looks likesomebody did that, but it was
active nature that did that andit's just.
(31:34):
It's something to process.
But just the call to action thatI have for everybody is keep
the arts, keep what made thatcity alive, alive.
And it's what I hate about neworleans now of my town.
Love being from there.
But it's not what it was,because nobody gives a crap
about what it was.
Everybody's trying to make.
Well, here's the new way, thebetter way.
Well, that new orleans wasnever about the new way, the
(31:56):
better way.
It was lazy, fair.
It was about being passionateabout jazz, arts, foods, foods,
flavors all of the above.
The Big Easy and Asheville wasvery much that, and I have fear
that that's what's going tohappen.
So, all our listeners out there, everywhere you know, find a
chef that's from Asheville,write them a card, write them a
letter, do whatever it is andpray for the ones who probably
(32:18):
aren't there, the ones who'velost family, the ones who've
lost everything.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Because as a kid who wanted to be a chef, I feel for
these people well, but justbeing from the restaurant
industry and going throughkatrina yourself, I mean I, I
went through hurricane andrew Iknow these guys sitting across
from me definitely did too and Idrove down to help my family
who obviously lost everythingbecause they moved from coral
gables down to kenn Kennel whenAndrew hit and, knowing what you
know, it took 10 years forHomestead to come back and what.
(32:51):
I don't know what that's goingto look like for Asheville,
because that was mostly, I mean,it was a small hurricane but he
was damn well powerfulhurricane, but nothing compared
to this.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Well, let me, let me just say this the message is
simple you know as we, you knowas we kind of go forward
together, we're stronger.
In times of crisis, it's thelittle acts of kindness that
create the ripple effect in thecommunity, and the truth is, we
shouldn't be waiting for thenext disaster to hit.
We need to build that spirit ofsupport and connection every
(33:26):
day, because the reality is wedon't know when it's going to be
needed and when?
Speaker 3 (33:32):
You know the biggest thing, I had a member from Palm
Beach Art Ritt.
He's one of the oldest members,the longest member, 52 years,
53 years with the AmericanCulinary Federation.
He wanted to do something wherehe got reefer trucks that were
retrofitted as a disaster relieftruck and I know he's probably
going.
Why are we not doing this?
This is the perfect opportunityand it you know logistically,
(33:53):
think about it.
Like chef pooch has been saying, it's seasonal, it's.
You're waiting for thatnational unfortunately.
You're waiting for that naturaldisaster to happen so that you
can be mobilized to get there.
What you need to do Mercy Chefsand all those other companies
that are doing stuff like this.
Think about the logistics theyhave to go through and the
manpower that they have to gearup for when something like this
(34:15):
happens.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Hey Pooch, I know-.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Think about the fact that I'm going to say this
because it was what I was tryingto say before, but I'm gonna
tie right into that.
But think about the fact thatall these resources are where
they think things are going tohappen the gulf coast.
Nobody expected this to happenhere, because it was just some
rain, right?
Speaker 3 (34:36):
well.
So their homes are not builtlike miami or florida homes, are
not built like louisiana homes,because they don't go through
that stuff like we do, you know.
So there's a different, likemost of those homes, like I know
, john just posted or looked atthe picture of chimney rock and
how that one street was like.
It had some houses on the leftand the next thing you know
(34:57):
they're gone.
They weren't.
You know cbs block houses.
I can tell you that much.
Most of that destruction wasmostly wood, but that's what
nobody thought.
Well, we don't have to worryabout that because there's not
going to be a hurricane hittingin the wood.
You know asheville, which ishow many miles from the coast I
mean, we're 83 miles from farfrom from where you are right
(35:18):
now to asheville is somethinglike 83 miles, I think I saw so
it's got to be over 100 andsomething miles.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
I, I don't know.
Look, we've been through inFlorida.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
You know we're older, older gentlemen we've been
through a lot of hurricanessince 1979 Hurricane David yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
So you know I'm, I'm maybe 20 miles or so from water
and I look at that and go, youknow what 20 mile, I'm good, you
know what I mean.
I'm not really worried about adirect hit.
You know, per se, and this is,you know, 15, 20 hurricanes that
you know we've been through, sowe have a good bearing on what
(35:56):
this is supposed to feel like orbe.
This was so different becausepeople were getting.
People were, as Jeff saidearlier, how wide the span of
this storm it's stretched.
This thing was offshore,offshore, yeah, while it was
still yeah, and the Floridacoast got just murdered.
(36:20):
Naples got flooded, everybodygot flooded.
The whole West Coastulf coastgot got smashed and then, you
know, obviously, go straight upthe straight up the gut into, uh
, passes tallahassee, gostraight into, you know.
But I'll tell you it didn'tfeel normal.
This was the most abnormalthing I've ever seen in terms of
a hurricane I unfortunatelythink this is going to become
(36:42):
the new norm.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Well like I said earlier.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
This reminds me of what happened in Dubai several
months ago, and I feel like weall forgot about that already
too.
But it was just like really outof nowhere, doesn't really?
Speaker 3 (36:59):
make any sense.
Well, Las Vegas too.
Remember, Las Vegas got floodedagain.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
And I was there for that, and these are all places
that you know are modern civilengineering, you know,
especially Dubai.
You know, and they're factoringin all these things when
they're building these hugebuildings and all this other
stuff, but they don't factor in,you know, global warming or
flooding or any of these thingsthat are called, whatever it is
(37:25):
that's causing the water to getso hot to create these huge
storms that are never in historyrecorded stuff.
You know.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
40 trillion gallons of water.
That's what it was done with.
Yeah, that's what they said inNorth Carolina, was it?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
for or for.
True, and that's just NorthCarolina, yeah, the western part
of North Carolina, so it's noteven the whole of North Carolina
(37:58):
.
Yeah, yep, for insurance,because it's what status quo is
what we know.
Living there, these people hadnothing insurance, wise, they
weren't living in a flood zone,they weren't living in any
things that.
Now, how do you pick up thepieces?
And it's to be a conundrum,like it was in new orleans, with
(38:18):
you know dollars in the federalgovernment giving money there,
but it also could be you knowdollars in the federal
government giving money there,but it also could be, you know,
a positive thing, because we dohave a presidential election in
a couple of days and I'm surethese people are going to have
to be addressed with this taskand this could be their legacy,
whoever it may be, whatever sideyou want it to be, this is
probably going to be theirlegacy and, like you know, this
(38:43):
could be the thing that bringsback the economy.
This could be in such a bad wayand it's so, process it like
this, but if we can make itpositive, and we could make this
not about building it to be amoney maker some money, some.
You know a town in the mountains.
That's all where rich people goflock now and it's a playground
(39:04):
like if we can bring it back toearly what it was with all
those tax dollars it would.
It could really spark somethingto the the the normal person,
not the rich people and and uh,and and bring back what ashville
was to.
You know it was our, this wasour swiss house of the south.
You know you go to swiss houseand you go be these high peaks
(39:24):
and go do all these different.
You know beautiful scenery andjust watching the leaves change
and all this other stuff.
That's what Asheville was to usin New Orleans or to people in
the South.
It was the place that you couldgo not too far away and get
that feel of being in there.
And I don't have to go to theRockies, you know, right there,
nestled in the South, and what abeautiful place it was and and
(39:45):
it's just.
You know.
You know, pray about it, beabout it, make sure that it is
what it was the arts.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
You had the biltmore there.
That's why it was like that,though and I you know it's funny
I've not heard one thing aboutthe biltmore I haven't as well.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
I don't even think about that.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
I think I mean like that's you have, oh silent john.
No, I haven't as well, I didn'tthink about that.
I mean, like that's you have,oh Silent John.
No, I haven't.
No, no, Silent John was shakinghis head yet, so you know he's
not going to talk, so I'll findout later.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Listen, bush.
Yeah, I know that you told mebefore you only have a few
minutes.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
I'm hearing my text bing, bing, bings.
I'm assuming that's hopefullyit's people reaching out saying
they can send us some moraleboosters.
But it's probably them sayinglet's go of people that came
(40:44):
through with morale boosterseven if they couldn't really
help in some sort of a wayphysically.
And we're not in for anyfinancial, we're not in for any
money from anybody.
You know people send us.
Metro is sending us stuff to beable to complete our task.
But I want to thank Clark andHopkins.
They're sending hot sauces forall the troops.
They're sending peanuts andsnacks, all their new stuff,
popcorns, just to boost morale,just to make sure that
(41:05):
everybody's having thoseendorphins and dopamine that
when we eat sweet stuff, saltystuff, all the reasons that we
love food, that's what themorale boosters are right now
for us.
Flossy Foods, love y'all,Appreciate y'all so much Sending
out some peanut, brittle andcorn dogs.
Appreciate y'all so muchsending out some, you know,
brittle and corn dogs.
(41:25):
I want to give a shout out toJen Booker, Chef Jen, very close
colleague, and she and CamelliaBeans.
Shout out to Camellia Beansbecause they're sending beans
right now and then they're goingto send a caravan of some
things from New Orleans up here.
Shout out to Jen Booker forcoordinating all that.
Everybody at Camellia Beans,Allison Frank, all of you over
there who are really making thishappen and showing that the
(41:49):
solidarity and knowing what ittakes to build the industry back
.
They had to do it.
They gritted their teeth andmade it happen.
I want to shout out to Chefworksthey're sending us a care
package of aprons, shirts,things that we need, things that
we just you know, you thinkabout what you need in the
industry.
(42:10):
You need a knife, you need allthese other things.
You really don't think aboutthe fact that a chef's jacket in
these type of situations istruly the jacket made for this
type of cooking Aprons, thingsof that nature.
So they, Chef Works is reallycoming through through, sending
us a big, huge care package.
Shout out to Chiwis, Shout outto everybody else.
(42:30):
I can't remember who has got asthings on the way.
All I get is texts withtracking numbers and I really
appreciate it, guys.
I really, really, reallyappreciate it.
So if everybody wants has anyway to assist us, and we're not
asking for anything financial,we're really just asking for
anything where it may be amorale booster or you know, or
something, a utensil or toolthat we can utilize to feed more
(42:53):
people efficiently?
We would.
We would love to hear from you,so please contact our walk and
talk, guys.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
I think jay jay gardner is going to be heading
up there that way to, oh yes,and thank you for reminding me,
sir.
So think Jay Gardner is goingto be heading up there that way
to, oh yes, and thank you forreminding me, sir.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
So Jay Gardner is going to come out here at Citrus
America.
He's going to be serving freshsqueezed orange juice to however
many people are here.
However many oranges we got,we're going to squeeze them and
shout out to Citrus America formaking that happen.
It's really cool.
What's kind of fun about thiswhole thing as well not and I
don't mean fun and the fact thatyou know catastrophic things
happen.
(43:27):
What I'm fun about it but walkand talk podcast is kind of
being the catalyst, to be kindof that uso for the troops, for
the people that are aiding inthis kind of thing, and that's
really that.
It's fun and it's it draws, itdrives my passion and it gives
me energy and it helps me keepgoing, you know.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
So I appreciate you saying I appreciate y'all I
appreciate you saying that andyou know, when I think uso, I
think singing, I think bob hopeI think comedian, I think
comedians and john is giving methe heads up.
John said he's willing to goout there and perform stand-up.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Oh, for some comic relief.
Cue cards, only Cue cards, onlyCue cards only.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Cue cards only.
All right, booch man, just staythe course.
Godspeed to you, brother, andappreciate everybody who's
helping out with this wholething.
And if there's anything that wecould do to help, kind of
middle or catalyst of any sort,just hit us on Instagram at
walkandtalkshow and we'll seewhat we can do if there's
(44:34):
anything possible at all.
And you know love everybodyAppreciate it.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Oh, real quick.
Troy Schiller is the gentlemanthat I told you about Pooch.
He's got the food truck.
I'm going to follow back upwith him.
He's got Alter Sham bringingthe food truck next week and he
has a three-compartment sink, soI'm trying to get you as much
as I can.
So if you need more, just letme know and I'll hit my network
up.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
All right, not a problem, guys, I appreciate you
all so very much.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
All right, Pooch baby , Be good man, We'll catch up on
Side B, brother okay.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Gotcha Everyone who hasn't gotten my emails returned
or text returned.
I apologize, but I love y'alland we will make it happen
sooner than later.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Excellent, all right Everyone.
John Jefferson, we are out.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.