July 2, 2025 • 57 mins
When I told my wife I was interviewing Chef Ara Zada...she was like..."I follow him!""He is great!" She never says that about me. I guess I need to learn how to make "fusion"cuisine with Mediterranean food!. Chef Ara Zada has a storied career and now turned food influencer. We had a blast together.
Ara Zada is the kind of guest who makes you wish your phone had a “smell-o-vision” app—and by the end of this episode, you’ll know why. Step into the kitchen-turned-studio where Ara, chef, content creator, and avid bow hunter, cooks up much more than what’s on the plate. You’ll discover what happens when the authenticity of Armenian-Egyptian family recipes gets filtered through French culinary training and the relentless demands of social media stardom. Ara dissects with candor the creative (and literal) balancing act behind daily content creation, sharing how his brand blossomed from a commitment to consistency, pressure, and staying “on message” while still keeping things decidedly fun. Beyond that, you’ll hear firsthand how the nostalgia of food can collapse decades in a single bite—how a dish, made with the right memory and technique, can bring both chef and eater “back home.” There are surprising lessons too—from the truth about hacking legacy dishes (hint: your grandma may have had more time on her hands than you do) to honoring every part of an animal in sustainable, hands-on cuisine. Paul and Ara delve into why culinary traditions resist—or embrace—modernization, how taste buds evolve, and why memory and flavor are inseparable companions. You’ll walk away with an intimate look at crafting a culinary career in the digital age, the importance of staying curious and genuine, and why giving someone a hot plate of food is still one of the best ways to connect. Whether you’re here for the food nostalgia, the mindset behind a thousand viral videos, or inspiration for tomorrow’s dinner, this episode promises to feed your curiosity—and maybe remind you of your own family table.
✅ What does it take to turn food memories into culinary fame?
✅ Chef, content creator, and bow hunter Ara Zada spills his secrets on building a mouthwatering brand, going from home-cooked classics to viral foodie stardom.
✅ Host Paul Kalemkiarian takes you behind the scenes on Wine Talks as they dive into food, culture, content creation, and why authentic storytelling wins in the kitchen (and online).
✅ Get ready to learn, laugh, and feel hungry—this episode is pure flavor and heart. Tune in to hear how nostalgia and innovation can launch your next delicious adventure! #WineTalksPodcast #AraZada #PaulKalemkiarian
#winepodcast #winetalks #winelover #winetasting #foodandwine #armataste #arazada #culinaryinspiration #armeniancuisine #fusionfood #foodmemories #cookbook #contentcreator #socialmediaforchefs #chefslife #wineculture #pasowine #bowhunting #foodstylist #familytraditions
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
For me, cooking is like, I love eating, of course, but the
reaction that people give is more
validating than anything. I'm looking for
somebody to eat the food more than the finished product.
And in that excitement, when someone says it brings you back home.
When I make a video and people say, I haven't seen this
(00:21):
dish since my grandma made it. Thank you for bringing this back to me.
That warms my heart. Sit back and grab a glass.
It's Wine Talks with Paul K.
Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay. And we are in studio today,
but to have a conversation with Ara Zada. Zada or Zeta Zeta
Ada Zeta introductions in just a second. You gotta listen
(00:45):
to Zaya Unan. It's
up now. This gentleman came from Iran at 13
years old. The story is, I'm gonna say, freaking
incredible. So have a listen to that, but not while we're here. We're here to
have a conversation with Ar Zada. He's the chef, an entrepreneur, a
snowboarder, a bow hunter and a content creator. And I think the list
(01:07):
goes on. It goes on and on. Welcome to the show. There's a lot. Thanks
for having me. Thanks for having me. I was like fascinated because I was reading
about your history and when I told my wife that you were
coming on the show, she goes, how do you know him? I said, I don't.
I just saw him at the, I mean, I just saw him across the room
at the Armenian basketball thing. And he says, she says, well, I follow
him. Yeah, you know, it's.
(01:30):
A lot of people follow me now. It's kind of crazy. It's, it's. Social media
has kind of blown up my space the past three years, I. Would
say, you know, it's interesting because we were talking about some of our background and
history and I mean, let's think about it for a second. You
are, you grew up in an Armenian family, an Egyptian Armenian family, as I did.
And we were just sharing notes on the foods that we ate, which is pretty
(01:52):
unique cuz my wife is Bar. Oh, okay. Amazing. So I had to eat that
stuff. That's great. I love, I don't necess. I wouldn't call it, I don't, I.
Like, I like this Stewie hearty, like Persian Armenian dishes.
Amazing. But then, you know, now we fast forward all of
sort of that culture into social networking. Exactly. And
it's, it's blown up. You have great stuff, people
(02:14):
follow you and it becomes, it's so interesting to me because of. It
becomes the Persona who you are. Really. Exactly. It's.
Social media is a, is a wild space. It's crazy, it's fun, it's
exciting. You get to do a lot of things
and you know, some people create a character that they kind of
play, right? I'm just myself, right? So I'm the same person.
(02:37):
I get this a lot. People see me on the streets, like, wait, you're exactly
the same as you are in your videos. Like, yeah, just, I'm just
filming myself having fun. I think that's an important part of it.
But you've, you've, your whole career has
now because of that. Do you feel pressure? Like I feel pressure when
I'm got to create content. I was just writing something when you walked in and
(02:58):
I'm like, ah, you know, I'm going to get in front of the camera. And
I think you're, I think your position is the right one. Just be yourself. You
know, it. There is a lot of pressure. This is the parts that nobody really
knows. There's, there's a demand. And I, I
committed three years ago, it was 2022,
December 16th. There was a reason for all this, but I
(03:18):
committed to making a new video every single day. And when I did, everything
blew up. And now, I mean, fast forward, we're up
in the thousands of videos that have created new content.
And there's a pressure of like, what am I doing? What am I doing this
week? What am I scheduling? What am I putting out? Is it going to be
good content? You know, know, is it new? Is it creative? Is it exciting?
(03:41):
And so there is that pressure and there's
a demand for it. I mean, people want it. People. So you think, but do
you think it's accurate? Like I, you read about how to do this
and, and I've done a long time. I have 1500 videos on YouTube. I
was filming tasting notes long time ago. But wine's a very
narrow subject. But I always feel like I might.
(04:04):
Are they going to be interested in this? Is it trendy?
Should I follow the trends? Shouldn't, shouldn't I follow trends? Should I just, you know,
those things weigh into it. But most of the pundits just say, just
do it. Yeah. So with social media, I tell people a lot of the
times, like a lot of people get wrapped up in like,
is it going to be good? I need to make it perfect. I need
(04:26):
to make it a certain way. You know, just doing
it is half the battle. Right. But following trends
is key. Staying on brand is another
key. Like for me, for example,
I eat a lot of sushi. But if I do
on it, you know, that's the thing. If I do like fish dishes,
(04:49):
they, they don't do as well in the video. So I do raw fish. It
doesn't do as well. So, like, you kind of have to stay on brand and
in your space, so. Interesting. But I'm French trained. Right. I did
recipe and product development for a very long time, so I can literally cook
anything. And I don't. I'm not like in a space,
but through my social media platform, I am in a certain space.
(05:10):
I like to open up a little bit and then you kind of come back
to where you need to be. But my favorite thing to do is fusion food.
So I like to mix cultures and ingredients and I
think that's how you evolve in anything. It's evolving
food in its, in its finest form. If you mixed different
colors of paint to create new colors, you can have
(05:34):
magical artwork. Right. If you just stuck with red, yellow and
blue forever, art would be stagnant. So this is kind of like the same
space for me. And you went to Cordon Bleu, the one in Pasadena? I
did. I did like Cordon Blue.
Well, I mean, my, my daughter's French trained Bleu anger. She went to
Paris. Amazing looked there. And she's. She. But she ended up at the ICA in
(05:57):
New York for savory and
great career. It's a very challenging career and a very competitive career.
Did you go into Cordon Bleu thinking you're going to be a TV chef or
your dream was to be a TV chef? My dream has always been to be
in front of the camera. That's just, even when I was a little kid, I've
always liked it. Oh, you have three cameras here. Hey, that's what I like. That's
(06:17):
why I'm here. So I've always liked it. I've always enjoyed it.
I've thrived in that space. Yeah. When I originally went to
culinary school, I left the family business, which was printing,
and I was like, I'm going to culinary
school. My grandpa's like, no, you'll never make a career. Cooks don't make
money on all this stuff. But I, I realized I was
(06:40):
going home every day from the family business to cook, to
kind of decompress. And that was like my outlet. And I was like,
if I'm doing this to, to, you know, for fun, why not make money?
I went to culinary school. I had a dream of opening up a restaurant.
It was a bar and grill. I love it and that
I still do. That dream quickly changed because
(07:03):
I realized that all the work it would take to
open a restaurant and maintain a restaurant and be in the restaurant,
it wouldn't allow me to have family life. And for me that was super
important. And I wanted to. I wanted to be able to
hang out with my kids as they grew up. And that was already in
the back of my head. So I found different avenues. I did a bunch of
(07:26):
restaurant stuff coming out. Then I got into food TV
and I got into food styling. Wow. So kind of back of the
house stuff. And I remember I worked my way
through that space pretty well. And then I became a lead
food stylist on some big talk shows in la. Is that a. Do you think
that was. I mean is. You have to have a break in this industry
(07:48):
like you would the movies or any. Anything else has been like you get that
break that you get a chance to do that or is just hard work and
you know, persevere. It was a lot of that kind of
came from the people you know. Right. And you kind of. I made some connections
pretty early on at a culinary school. I
interned with Jamie Oliver. Oh, well there, that's pretty good name.
(08:11):
I did really well in culinary school. I got straight A's. Not like that
matters at all. When you come out, nobody goes, what were your grades in culinary
school? Nobody cares. Yeah. But I got straight A's
and I was always in school. I was always like a
B student. Yeah, I was always good at remembering things,
but I wasn't good at applying homework. So I'd get A's on all the tests,
(08:32):
but I'd never do classwork or homework. Sorry. And so I was always a
B student. Yeah, I went to culinary school. I was an A
student cuz I was doing everything and I was really into it,
so. Applying it, applying it. And I was. I was good at what I
did. And I got an internship with Jamie Oliver
after that. He asked me to teach on his. He had a
(08:54):
mobile cooking truck and he asked me to teach
on that truck. Pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. So like. And then from that
space I met a bunch of his food stylists. We worked on a TV show.
It's just. It just worked. There was a lot of things happening.
You know, essentially you said decompress. Let's go back to for a second. Yeah,
my mom was incredible cook. We were talking about that since we both grew up
(09:17):
in a similar household making, you know like Bamia and. Yeah. And the
fool we love Fool. Like my friends In Palace
Verdes, you know, Surf's town. Yeah. We're like, what the hell is that smell?
Yes. Yes. And I go, but you gotta taste this palace. So,
so much. We had similar backgrounds, and my daughter, who
loved my mother and loved being in the kitchen with her, but
(09:40):
she had the exact same response you did, which was when I got home from
work and she was cooking or baking. I knew she had a tough day at
school. Amazing. Either at softball or whatever she was doing, because that
was the way she shed everything. It's.
There's. And I love it too. Some people just do that. Yeah. You know,
it's. It's. And some people hate it. Yes.
(10:03):
We like our. My daughter lives. Our older daughter. Her house did not
burn in the fire, but she's living with us. And I will
refuse to let them call doordash and all that stuff. And
we cook every night. That's the way to do it. So I'm very happy to
have these rubs. There we go. Because I get this. And I just smelled a
few of them. They are, like, smelling my home. It's. It's
(10:24):
pretty crazy. It brings you back. Yeah. You know, you open some of these things
and it brings you back. So we were up. We
went to. When my daughter was trying to figure out what to do with Savory,
we went to Napa, and I go there all the time. We're going there tomorrow.
Amazing. And. And we went to Greystone, we went to Ica, and we got
this lecture. And I want to get your opinion on this. The guy, first of
all, he made some stupid dish for the potential students of
(10:46):
this thing. I don't know what. It was like a tomato wrap, cheese thing. I
was really dumb. But the. The
pitch he was giving was more like, skip
college, go to go to school. And.
And it wasn't saying you're going to become a TV star,
but certainly it was in the background of everybody's mind that this potentially could
(11:08):
be what we're doing. And, you know, that's the furthest from the truth. It could
be because once you go into the workforce, you're on the line. Yeah. You
know, for eight hours. It's different. It's different. It's different.
There's a lot of advantages, you know, to going to college, to
going to culinary school, to doing all of these things. You know, being
on the line for eight hours teaches you a lot of stuff.
(11:30):
Yes. Grit. But it's.
It's different than trying to be in front of the camera and being a,
you know, a TV star. Yeah, right. No, it's two different things.
Completely, completely different things. And it's a different. It's a different animal, different beast.
Both have their perks, you know, but it just takes,
(11:50):
I think it takes a certain kind of person
to do both of them. Right. You know, it's really hard to do. I mean,
she, my daughter had her
ambition to be a cook and a baker primarily.
Yeah, a baker. That's the thing. I don't. I can bake, but it's.
It's not my favorite thing to do. She sought out, went to Isanjo
(12:12):
outside of Leon. Then she cooked in Paris for Alain de Cast, came
to, came to la, fixed a bunch of bed bread programs for people, worked
at Superba and then went to New York and worked at Lincoln.
Amazing. And then started with Jonathan Beno. That's amazing. Yeah.
And then he were. They earned a star. And then co
hit three, six years later and it was, that was the end of it. And
(12:33):
somebody stole the star off the building. No way.
But all that to say this
is a hard, tough road and you chose that road to do
and you're successful at it and you have to continue to manage the
success. Yeah. You have to work it. Yeah. So
like with anything, and I tell my kids this
(12:57):
all the time, it takes work. None of this stuff will fall
on your lap. None of this stuff is easy. No matter what it is you
want to do, you have to put in the time, you have to put in
the hours. With social media now, I
basically wake up at 6am and I don't finish doing
what I'm doing usually till around 10. Wow. I do everything myself
(13:19):
and yeah, I. Know what that feels like.
So start to finish editing everything I do. We're at a point
now some of my longer format stuff which we're working on is my YouTube stuff.
I now have an awesome cameraman and he helps me with
that because my short format stuff is so time
consuming. So it is, it is work and
(13:42):
you gotta make it also seem like it's not that much work. That's
what makes it fun. Yes. So I enjoy it. I love doing
this. It's fun and it just takes time. I was just writing a script.
I plan on making some content today. I'm not as prolific as you are,
but I did find some help in Serbia. Serbia? Yes. Oh,
some editing. Yes. I love that. It's unbelievable. I'll happy to
(14:05):
share the name with you because he does a really good job. Yeah, it's very
reasonable. Okay. I love it very Quick. I love that. So what happened was
I was in Italy doing a podcast. They put me in a glass room. Okay.
Like the worst acoustics in the world, right? Yeah. And then. And they gave
and then they turned the air conditioner on. Okay. So it's. Now it's loud and
the voice is bouncing all over the place. I wasn't using these mice because they're
(14:26):
too big to carry to Italy. So I have my little road
band mics, which pick up everything as they're supposed to. So I.
I gave it to five audio engineers in
through upwork, and this guy's came back like. Like we were in
studio. No way. Yeah. Because he's done about 200 episodes for me. No way.
Yeah. It's pretty amazing. That's awesome. So. So what is that
(14:48):
daily routine now? Exactly. Like, so creating content,
doing recipes still. Yeah. So
6:00am, I kind of wake up and I start my posting.
So I post on IG, Facebook,
TikTok, and YouTube. Wow. You fill
in captions on all of them. You have to.
(15:11):
I fill in the auto captions from each platform.
So it takes time because the platforms like using their own captions for sure.
Yeah. So there's that portion. Then we kind of kick
into what are we cooking today? Shopping almost
daily and coming shooting. I try to
shoot, if I can, two to three,
(15:34):
so that I can leave the other days to
editing. But usually it doesn't work out that way.
Best plans? Yeah, I like to get a little bit
ahead. And then the biggest thing is I try to create enough content. So at
the very least the weekends when my kids are home,
I'm not scrambling to create or edit. So I like
(15:55):
to try and take Saturday and Sunday off from the
filming and editing portion.
So you've got to schedule it in your head anyway, at least what you. Want
to get done, mapped out. And then now
there's, you know, and as I keep growing, there's various things that pop
up, like today. So podcasts,
(16:17):
things like that, appearances, events,
live cooking demos that I do. So those. All those things
plug in, kind of take away from a whole day of work in
production. So you have to do like yesterday I shot three videos.
Today I'm not going to be able to shoot, but I have things in the
pipeline. Wednesday, I'm out all day shooting a YouTube video.
(16:39):
Right. So I have to look forward or kind of think ahead. Thursday,
I'll have some time after the morning to edit and
shoot so that I have things for the weekend. And it just goes
again. That's the you know, going to Napa like we
are tomorrow, I have to worry about what I'm going to publish
and then, But I do get four or five episodes in the can.
(17:03):
That's it. And then you. But you. Then you want to keep that. Yes, you
want that. But it's not that easy. Yeah, yeah. So if you can keep the
can full, like right now I have three in the can and one edited.
So I'm ready to go. And then I need to edit those three
and then I can move forward. But I like to it in an
ideal situation, I would literally have three fully edited ready to
(17:25):
go. Wow. And those are already scheduled in my head when
I'm posting. But it, it always gets mixed up. And then,
you know, towards the end of the night, you still have to engage in each
platform a little bit. Right? Sure. Yeah. That's part of the deal. Yeah. So
I moved. I. And I try to tell my kids this now to stop
consuming, to start creating. But you have to
(17:47):
engage in a certain way when you are creating. So like you can't just
leave the platform dead. You can't post and post and ghost is what they call
it. You can't just put. You have to post now. You have to engage a
certain amount in each content. So I have colleagues
or associates, if you will, friends that I've collabed with and
people that are all content creators and they pop up on my feed
(18:09):
and then we like and comment and share on each other's stuff so that
everyone kind of grows together. The algorithm likes that. It's all.
You're slave to this magical algorithm which is super fun. Which
nobody knows, but. Yeah, but it's mass. It's awesome. My niece
started a salad dressing line. Amazing. Armenian infused, Armenian
influenced. Okay. And she's, she
(18:33):
used to work here. Okay. And she's very prolific socially
and she's now relaunching and she's changed some of the recipes.
But one of her, I'm not gonna say disappointments, but one of her understandings because
she, she thought you could become an influencer, you know, with relatively little
work. And, and now she's like. She did 25
salads in 25 days kind of thing. Yeah. And it's, you know, that's a lot.
(18:56):
What's the salad dressing called? Love. I know I have that dressing. She sent them
to me. So she's, she's. I was like, I don't want to say it if
it's not the right formulated. She's got new. She had sent some
to Me? Yeah. Let me ask you about this. I'm a huge
devotee of the 80s when Joachim Splichat was here and Ken
Frank and Jonathan Waxman and Michael
(19:17):
McCarty, all these guys were creating what is today's food culture. And of
course, it's evolving. Is that part of A, inspiration or
B, sort of understanding the history of how this stuff came about and
what might bring. Or not. It's not part of it. Not really. Not for
me. I know a bit about it, but
that wasn't. That didn't lead me into this path.
(19:40):
I would say my.
The love for food, my grandparents, my grandma, my mom kind of
inspired that portion of it. Sure. The. The. The food.
Celebrity chef. Sorry, Celebrity chef action.
That kind of space was probably most
inspired, I would say, by Emeril's show. Oh,
(20:04):
really? Yeah. When I was a. When I was a kid is. I guess my
mom would watch it all the time. She loved it. It was always on. So
I was like, this is kind of awesome. This dude is just cooking. He's got
a full audience, and he's just cooking, having a great time. Yeah.
I was fortunate enough to actually work a TNT show with
Emerald on camera. You
(20:26):
sell convection oven form. I work with
him. So we did three. Was it eight. Sorry, eight episodes on TNT
on this show called on the Menu. And
I hung out with him. He's a super nice guy. We were
cooking backstage together, doing family meal, and it was super cool.
That's really cool. Very nice guy. That's really cool.
(20:48):
You were talking about something that just gave me a thought that I thought
was so interesting. But the. His. The history part of this food part,
which I think is really interesting. I think it's really important that that
happened in America because now it set the platform
or the stage for creativity in the food. Yeah. It wasn't really around
before that. You know, it's. It's interesting to see the
(21:11):
evolution of food, how
it's gotten bigger, how celebrity chefs
are now the rock stars. Like, if you go to Vegas and you're
driving down, there's billboards of celebrity chefs. Wow.
All over the hotels, you know, where. You know, in the
80s and 90s, it was all rock stars. Right. Like music.
(21:33):
Right? That's right. And Right. It's. It's crazy now. If you.
If you look around, it's never the wine guy. Why is that? It's not. Why
don't I go? Because you guys are just chilling on a couch, having some
cheese. You know, Nancy Silverton's coming on the show.
Soon. Amazing. And her boyfriend is Armenian. Really? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know
that. Yeah. Their mates, they've been forever. His name is Michael Krikorian.
(21:55):
That's awesome. He was the LA Times writer for the Gang
Beat writer, actually. Oh, really? Interesting guy. No way. Yeah. So I was
bugging him to get her on. Get her on the show, but there's another guy,
he was on the show recently, too. Crazy story.
He's. He's a critic. A food critic, basically. Okay. He's from
Lebanon. Okay. Ryan. Ryan. I have to look up his name,
(22:18):
but he was a dentist. Yeah, yeah, I know. You're talking about. No.
No onions, no garlic. Yeah, that's fine. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this
guy was a dentist and he was watching TV with his patients
as he's, you know, pulling their teeth. And it was the Bourdain
show. Yeah, yeah. And he thought, I could do that.
He's killing it right now. He's killing it on YouTube. It's unbelievable. And he dumps
(22:40):
his whole career as a dentist and kills. And he's just going around reviewing
food. And you were talking about equipment when he walked in. He sat where you're
sitting and he certainly appreciated the microphones, but
took his road. New road.
Wireless Pro, they're called. Yeah, I have those. Phenomenal. He just clipped
it here and he. Just recorded the whole thing. Two iPhones. Amazing. That was the
(23:01):
whole show. And here I am lugging all this equipment across the world, trying to,
you. Know, shoot something that, you know, it's. When it comes to equipment,
I have some really nice cameras, but
95% of the time just iPhone. And they're going to get better.
It just. I. That's another thing. But I always buy the newest and latest and
greatest, so I'm always working over money. But that's the livelihood. I mean, the
(23:23):
camera quality is so high that you don't necessarily.
For what I do. Yeah, you don't necessarily need much. Oh, great. I
don't need my 6k black magic. I'll tell you what, when I.
When I shoot lighting, the lighting is important. So I have full
lights. Oh, yeah, there is full light set up. There's. There is different tripods everywhere.
The camera moves constantly. Mic setup. So audio
(23:46):
and lighting is very important, but it's
critical. So you're talking about shopping.
And this is another part of America changing. You know, one of the things
I envy about European culture, particularly the French,
that they protect their regional stuff like they protect their butter, they protect their
cheese. Regional. And it's a very important part of their culture and we don't have
(24:09):
that here. Really. No, but we have moved into, you know,
what you eat eats mentality. Not just you are what you
eat. Yes. But you are what you eat eats. Yes. Whatever the
animal is eating. Right. Is organic and
biodynamic, something that, that you gravitate towards.
So beef culture. Because he talks about your. Yes. That's
(24:31):
interesting. I am an avid bow hunter.
Yeah, right. Bow. I am. Like, I didn't. For me,
harvesting my own food is really
what I like to feed my family. So and, and doing it
in the way that I do it. I mean, I talk to a lot of
anti hunters. Right? Yeah. And many anti
(24:53):
hunters. Oh, you're killing animals and this and this. And like if you eat
meat and you're, you have a problem with killing an animal
to eat the meat, it doesn't make sense. No. But every
anti hunter I've talked to, by the end of the conversation, it's always, it
always ends with, well, we like, we can appreciate what you do. I just
don't like the other guys. It happens all the
(25:15):
time. But I train. I'm an avid bow hunter. Archery
is part of my life. Yeah, Right here. Yes. Always have an
arrow in. And I shoot my bow every day
to make sure that when I'm killing an animal, it's
in the most humane way possible. One arrow, you're out there. It's very primitive.
You versus them. You have to get close. You can't pluck them off from
(25:37):
2, 300 yards. And then I do every step of the
way. So. Wow. I, I feel dress it,
I bring it, I skin it, I butcher it, I pack it,
freeze it, cook it, I feed my family with it.
Wow. So people say from field to plate. I like to say from field to
toilet. That's the whole cycle.
(26:00):
I do the whole thing. It's like this, like literally
this is, it's a passion for me and
I honor the animals as best as possible. I constantly talk about
them. I do mount my animals and people always like, oh, when
you're mounting them, it's a thing. I said, no, it's a way to honor the
animal. Because when I feed my kids the food
(26:22):
and like I point to the deer or the elk
or whatever it is, I go, it took seven days
to get that animal. It was, it wasn't like we walked up side of the
road and just shot it. Seven days of hiking 10 to 15
miles, we finally got an animal. Now we used every
single part of it. I mean, I use the bones for stock.
(26:44):
I mean, one of the deer, I've took the femur bone and had it turned
into a knife. I. I literally use every part of it. Wow.
And. And I know what that animal has been eating. I
know what my kids are eating now. And I also like to pair,
you know, the food that they are eating with
the meat. So like, let's say we go to sage country and the deer are
(27:06):
all eating sage. I like to cook some sage in
with the meat. And it's not like it comes out of the meat, but there,
there's different highlights. Like if you do a white tail deer that doesn't really
eat sage, you know, they're feeding on berries and stuff. You put
sage in it. It doesn't hit like a mule deer that eats. That would be.
I. That would make sense because it's just like the Iberian pigs when they eat,
(27:29):
you know. Exactly. Acorns. Exactly. Get that character. Fatty. You get the
character from it. We can't eat acorns. But yeah, you get
that. That. The nuts, you know, and that, that. That actually
your description just then is. Makes it so much more. I don't say romantic is
not the right word because when I. My first career was selling copiers,
I used to sell in Vernon. No way. And so you would, you'd go
(27:51):
to these lunch places and you'd watch the cows coming off the truck.
Yeah. And by the time they got the end of the shoot, you know, they
been. They'd been killed by the over the hoffy plant. But how could you,
you know? Yeah, exact. Yeah. Right. Calan dog food was there all the
way there. Right, Farmer John? Yeah. Yeah. But the point being, you're right
if, if you're doing it that way, how can somebody who eats meat or
(28:14):
fish or anything object to that? You can't. Compared to what the
alternative is. And that's, that's the conversation I have. Like, I am not
a trophy hunter. I am after the meat. And I
honestly don't really care if they have huge antlers or they
don't. I mean it's. It obviously it's cooler if you. They do have big
antlers, but it doesn't really matter to me. I'm literally after the meat. And I
(28:35):
have four freezers. I fill them up. When it comes to beef, I like
to buy. I split a cow with a friend of mine. Right. I don't
want to do. I do a half cow. My buddy does a half cow.
It's grass fed grass finished. And we. It's
about 400 pounds of meat or so. We have a freezer dedicated to that
and that's where the majority of our protein comes from.
(28:58):
So I know exactly what the animal is eating. Now.
Does that mean I don't go to the grocery store? Sure, of course. You know,
I go to the grocery store and I make a bunch of videos from things
I buy at the grocery store a lot because I just want people to
get out there and cook. Right. And if I make it accessible, like I go,
oh, now you grab this elk loin. Somebody's be like, I don't have an elk
(29:19):
loin. I'm not going to cook with this guy you made. So this is
fascinating. You touched on a lot of things. Because
I want, I've been looking to, to split a cow with some friends and
I don't know which farm to go to. And then the grass fed meats
I've purchased from like Restaurant Depot, which is really, really gamey. Yeah. And I don't
think it has to be that way. So it's, it's grass
(29:41):
fed. Grass finished. Definitely has more of
an earthiness. Yes. Now, so I have a
big problem with the word gaming. All of my friends know this. Everybody
uses the word gaming. I think the word gamy
describes something that's not common. Not your
standard beef, chicken, pork. That's grain fed, grain finished.
(30:03):
Right. You can't describe the taste of a quail
the same way you can describe the taste of lamb
or the same way you can describe deer. Yeah, that's a good point. Right. They
all, somebody eats it, they go, oh, it's gamey. And I
go, what is it that you're tasting? You're actually tasting
the earth. You're actually tasting what that animal ate. And
(30:26):
the typical chicken, beef and pork, those
flavors are super bland. Right. So it's not. Or they're just more
common to your palette where you go, this is gamey. Like wild boar.
That would be Right. Wild boar does not taste like elk. No. But some,
oh, I'll give you a wild boar chop and somebody be like, that's kind of
gamey. Yeah. And then I'll give you a lamb chop. I get that. So it's,
(30:48):
I don't. I think it's hard to describe all of the game
meat with one word. Most people are trying to, they're talking
about that irony type of taste. But it's
not that. I mean some game has. Well, it's the same problem with wine. I
mean, let's face it. Yeah. You know, if you're not. I don't
say educated, but if you haven't, your palette hasn't been refined enough to describe those
(31:10):
characters. You just pick one word. You're going to pick the word. Yeah. And I,
and I often will demonstrate that
by showing some of this. Say two wines, let's say
two cabernets from the same vineyard. Same winemaker, same
vintage. Yes. But different parts of the vineyard are different vineyard
plots. And I'll say, are they different? Yeah, and they'll say
(31:31):
yes. I said extract. Tell me the difference. They don't. They
can't. They can't. It's one word. Or stronger. Light or sharp?
Yeah. So I think it's right. But the game meets an interesting problem. When I
was, when I was eight, we went on a camporee at Cub Scouts
and my scout master brought his shot.
He shot an elk. Amazing. We ate elk in Mission Bay.
(31:54):
Camping, you know, the best meat and. But then through the. When I started
this company in 1988 with my father, I started with him in 1988.
So the 90s was a huge part of. And
now I'm thinking of putting in. In time reference.
It's just right after the evolution of food in America.
So. So we were. Did a lot of
(32:17):
wine events where they served game meats. I love it. I'm not saying
gamey meats. Game. Yeah, game meat. And so we did a lot of elk, we
did a lot of deer, we did a lot of bear.
And awesome. It's interesting. And even Parkway Grill used
to have a game meet of the week. They don't do it anymore. Is that,
is that sort of left our cultural food
(32:39):
plate that makes any sense? You know, people,
I think now, when I say now in the last
four or five years are getting back into
wild game. And I think there's like a movement now of, you
know, high protein carnivore diet. You know, eat,
eat wild, eat predators, eat. Like people will say a lot of
(33:01):
different things. Sure. And, and I think people
are more inclined to eating it now. But every wild game
that you eat from a restaurant or
grocery store is farmed. So. Yeah, I'm
sure in, in the United States it's illegal to sell
wild game. It needs to be certified by the
(33:23):
usda. And the only way something can be certified by the USDA
is essentially by farming. There's a couple
animals that you can access. Deer is
one. So access deer from Hawaii is the. Is
hunted meat, but it's hunted by a certain
company and there is a USDA official
(33:45):
on site. While they're hunting it. Yeah, yeah,
it's kind of. It's wild. Well, it's like there's a USDA official at the
plants. And then after. Yeah, so it's, it's, it's the exact.
So the, the killing of it has to be in a certain way and needs
to be processed in a certain way. So other than that, it, it's all
farm. So, like, it's farmed elk that is harvested,
(34:08):
which honestly is still, to me better meat than. Is there
a difference then? This is
older information. I think it's still accurate. Where if a
prime cow comes in, they've got to butcher the prime cow. They got to get
all the prime out. And then the USDA guy says, okay, you bring in the
choice, then they butcher the choice and they separate all that and then they can
(34:29):
bring the select, etc. And same with Angus. So
it's, it's my understanding that
when the cow is opened up, then it's graded. Graded. But I mean,
they can't mix grades, though. They won't know until the cows opened
up. You know what I mean? So you won't know what a cow is.
So they open up. So maybe the idea is if they open up a prime
(34:51):
cow, that, that, that cow is completely butchered and removed
before they bring in the next one. This. And this is from the book of
the famed restaurant Lutes, New York. Andre
Saltner just passed away. But that's where I learned this from. But
I also learned in that same book that Angus has its own
category. Category. Yeah. Yeah. So Angus is itself. That's just
(35:13):
it. It's Angus beef. It's not graded with prime choice select. So
what about game meats then? Are they. Game meats are not graded either, period.
They're not graded at all, period. They're just. Just what they are. Yeah, they're just.
They have a USDA stamp. It's almost like
fish. But fish is. Like, fish isn't usda,
it's fda. Yeah. What cracks me up because we, we. We
(35:35):
spent a lot of time in Hermosa beach and you walk on up here and
there's this whole list of fish that my brother used to catch when we were
kids that you can't eat because they're contaminated.
It's. Honestly, I was just in Hawaii last summer
with the kids, and we had this kind of cool space where
there was like a barbecue area and stuff. We were like this resort, but we're
(35:56):
like, let's just do a barbecue one of the days. Yeah. So me
and my Buddy went. We went to, like, this fish market. Went to, like. We
try to find a bunch of different ones. We went to this one and we
got like, you know, it was a pound of this and a pound of this
they already filleted. And we're like, let's take a pound of this one. And the
guy's like, okay, just remember, don't eat more than
(36:16):
4 ounces and. And don't feed it to women or children.
And I was like, what? I don't want. I was like, I don't want that
fish. It's like, take. Take that fish back.
Yeah, he's. I was like, why? And I was like. He said, it's very high
levels of mercury. Yeah, it was. The fish was wahoo. And
that's terrible. I was like, I don't want to eat anything that
(36:39):
my kids can't eat or. Right. No, that's ridiculous. Don't feed it to
women or children. That's ridiculous. I got
a couple questions about Armenian food. I want to. Let's do it through.
In watching my parents watch my mother, and
as Sandra, my wife, and I work on foods, we try to shorten the
cycle for immune food. Because it seems to me that clearly
(37:02):
a. Armenians are good about using all the parts of the animal
and processing them. Reminds me of Bukuza's. You know that
fish, that bladder with the chicken. Yeah, but
they had. They're very long cycles to cook these foods.
Yes. You'd think these old Armenian women are in Armenia and they got
all day to do this stuff. Exactly. And they're working it.
(37:26):
How do you do that? How do you make it authentic without doing it? So
my theory, and it's the theory, but it's kind of been
proven, is that our grandmas and grandpas
and not grandpas, grandmas, had all the time in the world to cook these dishes,
and that's why it took that long. And using
kind of my French techniques and the understanding of food and
(37:50):
cuisine on how to cook certain things. Certain things are just
passed on, and they're not
folklore, but it's not something that
has to be done. I mean, there's certain soups where they're like, you have to
stir it only with a wooden spoon. Oh, yeah, it's gonna break. That's right. You
know what I mean? There's stuff like that. None of that stuff actually
(38:12):
is true. And not to kind of. I don't want to on
anybody, but like, it. If you're told something
by your grandma and then she's like, yeah, that's it. It's. It's fact to you.
And then now you tell it to your son and it's. Or your daughter and
it's fact to them, and then they pass that on. Its fact. And then somebody
comes along and is like, actually, this isn't true. You're, like
(38:32):
hurting somebody's soul. It's like their cultural heritage that you're kind of.
It's like talking about their religion. You know what I mean? Right. That's true. But
knowing French techniques, I mean, there's dishes like
harissa, which people go, you gotta cook it
for hours. I know. Hours. Well, I can
do the whole dish, start to finish, in about 45 minutes. You're kidding. Yeah. And
(38:55):
I mean, no, that's impossible. You nuts? If you lost your mind. Yeah, yeah. And
people are like, no way. It's not. It's impossible.
Araxia from Good Day LA came and we did
a couple years back and. And we did it on
camera. Good Day la. And she's like, this is impossible. My grandma would sit and
say, you have to mix and mix and mix. She goes, it tastes just like
(39:16):
the way my grandma used to make it. And I go, yeah, because
understanding the technique and what it's actually doing,
sure, you can cook it for hours. But it's not absolutely
necessary. It's not required. It's not required. So certain things are more tedious
to do. And that's something with Armenian cuisine, like, let's say, rolling grape leaves. You
know what I mean? It. That's tedious. It'll take you some time, you know.
(39:39):
But the cooking part of it, it doesn't take that long. That's a funny story.
My wife's uncle Art, I kind of passed away a few years ago, but he
invented the spoon straw and the flexi straw. No way. Yeah.
Those are his patents. And he's a mechanical genius.
Okay. But a simple guy. He's a great guy. And he
went to MIT because he came out of the war and they, you know, he
(40:01):
went on the GI Bill and he got, you know, went to mit. But he
invented a sarma rolling machine. No. Maybe it's
the one I've seen that's like. Got a lever. I don't remember.
But he had to sit down. His son had. Had
Ike's Chicken, which was a Zanku sort of type of thing up in San
Francisco. Yeah. And he was. Had designed a
(40:23):
machine that would take a variety of grape leaf sizes. That was
the problem. They're not all consistent. That's the biggest Right. That's the biggest issue. And
roll them. And I thought that was hilarious. That's awesome. I know. Because the ones
I've seen, it has to be almost the same exact grape leaf size. It's almost
takes more time to set up the machine and pull it than
to just do it with your hands. You know, it's funny, you were talking about
(40:44):
the process of food, and I mean food. And my wife, you know,
Fasui was a huge part of my. My life growing up. My mom made it,
but they used to cook the crap out of it. Right. And the beans got
like, you know, army green. Yeah. So she's made this version that's
just bright flavors and fresh fruit and crisp beans. Love it.
Yeah. It's kind of interesting. It's. It's. With that, there are different techniques
(41:06):
that people use. Like, my grandma used to do this a lot. Like, take
the meat and then just boil the meat for a long time. And once the
meat was done boiled, then she'd put everything kind of together.
I mean, proper cooking, not proper. I don't want to say proper. So that's the
wrong word. A cooking method. French. French cooking techniques tells us.
They tell us that adding the mirepoix or
(41:29):
the, you know, the sofrito, whatever language you want to say to the onions and
garlic and all the good stuff into the cooking liquid will
enhance the liquid, and it'll implement flavor into
the beef. So we're using those techniques and. And
then, you know, cooking the beef with all that other stuff, and at the end,
throwing in your green beans, or at the end, throwing in your okra,
(41:51):
then you're going to yield this delicious, crispy,
bright. Like you said, it's adding those
techniques. Yeah. More farm to table. Exactly.
So that leads me to the next point, which is I
have not had, though I'm going to Middle Eastern
fusion food. It's the. That's. That. That seems to be a very
(42:13):
difficult culture of food to
contemporarize and either add a French character to it or an
Italian character to it or whatever. Whatever fusion you're trying to do. It
seems to be very difficult. Or have. Like, if you go down to Glendale
Boulevard, you go down to Brand Boulevard, you go to the carousel, you're going to
go all those places. And it's all the same stuff. Yeah. You go to Rafi's.
The same stuff. Everything's the same. Yeah, yeah. Just like going to Armenia, like 2007,
(42:36):
when everybody was kebab and vegetables. Everything you get. Yeah, yeah.
Is it A difficult cuisine to modernize.
No, it's not the what
with. The trouble is nobody wants to accept
it. Nobody wants to accept it. Being modern,
interesting people are like, no, stick to the
(42:59):
classic. And I get this a lot on my profile. I'm sure you do. This
is awful. My grandma's rolling in her grave.
Stick to the. No, thank you. I'll stick. Stick to the classic way.
That's fun. Traditional method is the best way to do it. But
there is a handful of people that are really looking
to modernize it, and they're excited about
(43:22):
hacks and techniques, the implementation
of different cultures. And I think
for me, that makes things exciting. I mean,
making Lula kebab. But instead of beef,
I've done it with al pastor, so pork. Wow.
All right. Yeah. One of my favorite. The best, right? Yeah.
(43:45):
Now, something like that. Traditionally, serve it on some
lavash with some other stuff. You know, put some jalapenos on there. I
love Mexican food. I love Japanese food. I love
mixing in different seasoning, spices, and flavors from these
cultures into ours and. And creating something new, something fun.
That's really cool. Yeah. Well, because wine's the same way,
(44:09):
and wine's in a very tough spot right now, because there is.
The Gen Z's aren't really drinking that much. Millennials. They never figured them out,
though. My daughters are very well versed in wine, obviously,
because we did it every day in our house, but still, they still appreciate it.
And now it sounds like palates are changing,
as they always have. And to contemporarize
(44:32):
takes thought, it takes interest. And now you happen to be part of the Armenian
culture, the Egyptian culture that you're focused on that.
Is there wine in your. So
I drink a lot of wine. Wine
is. It's crazy because my wife used
to hate wine, and. We
(44:55):
wouldn't get along then. Yeah. But now she loves wine. And I used
to do wine in the winter and whiskey in the summer.
And then I used to do tequila in the summer,
whiskey in the winter with wine occasionally. And now
lately, in the past five years, we are just drinking wine all the time.
(45:16):
So at home, regular occurrence.
We're a couple people. One bottle, two bottles. Depends on
what. How we're feeling. We're regular. Regular wine drinkers. And
what's. Which one? What's our go to? Well, because
it evolves like food. Yes. Right. You. My palate's changed incredibly
over the last 40 years. But what is the current Goat.
(45:39):
So we drink cabs from Paso.
Really big, giant wine. That's like
our go to daily drink
Kiami. Like the Armenian guy. A lot of Armenians in Paso
make wine. A lot of Armenians out there. A lot of Armenians. I mean,
honestly, we have this thing where anything from Paso that's a
(46:01):
cab is going to be good. Wow. And now there are ones that aren't good.
Right. But we have our. Our go tos. And
it's. My wife doesn't like white wines. She doesn't like
roses. She really. My wife's gonna get
along with your wife. She'll.
She likes cabs. She likes merlot. She's not
(46:24):
a big fan of pinos. Yeah, I like pinos.
I honestly, I like everything pretty much. Well, they say
all unophiles. Yes. End up in Burgundy. That's
right. Exactly. At like 500 a bottle.
Not to tell you if I started there was. We. This office was down
the road at the train station, and we sold the property to an Armenian
(46:46):
developer. And he didn't really want the
project, but it was Covid. He needed the work. He had his own crew, blah,
blah, blah. And I promised him that if he closed. When we got
close to that date, I said, I'm going to give you two bottles of DRC
Domain Roman Conti Latash. Nice. Which I was only
offered to buy a bottle, like, four times in my
(47:08):
whole career. Wow. Because we were not in that category of wine sales.
Yeah. We sold 21. Yeah. But the three times they offered me to
pay $3,000 for the bottle, I took it. And
they sat in my cellar. Wow. And we
closed on the deal. This is a big deal. He built 250 apartments.
Wow. And he was there the next day. He came here.
(47:31):
He goes, where's my wine? No way. And I said.
I looked at him. He goes, what, you think I did this for the money?
And we had lunch the other day. This is four or five years ago. He
goes, yeah. I only did that deal because you were going to give me those
two bottles. I'm like, how powerful is that? Wow. But
(47:53):
there's two things that came up in this that you just said. One was
Arakchi tasting her Herissa and going, this is like my
grandmother's. And there's something about food and wine that are very synergistic in
that memory bank. Yes. Of what you tasted. Who knows?
It could be 50 years ago. And you tasted again. Yes. And you
can go, oh, my gosh. It brings you back. Yeah. It brings you. There's. There's
(48:15):
a smell. Yeah. You know what I mean? And this happened to me in Paris,
not that long ago, somebody brought me a quiche, and it was my mom's
quiche. That's incredible. And it was probably. I hadn't probably had it 30
years at least from that. That moment. And my wife's like, what's wrong with you?
Because my face changed. Yeah, the smell is. It brings you back. Yeah, it brings
me back. But the other day, I was tasting in. In
(48:37):
la, a Bordeaux tasting nice. And I'm not a. I'm not a dessert
wine guy necessarily. I love them, appreciate them, I get them. Chateau came all. Yes.
So this is a bar sack, which is. You can, like. Okay. You know,
Saturn, like. It was the most emotional
smell, really, of a wine I've had in 50
years. Wow. I didn't even want to taste it. I put my
(49:01):
nose in that glass, and the complexity of the nose and the character that was
coming through and the terroir and all the things that go into a glass of
wine. And I looked at the presenter, I said, this is the most
emotional glass of wine I've ever tasted. He goes, right.
He goes, I feel this, too. Last year wasn't like this, but this
year it's like this. Is that happening in food?
(49:22):
You know, there, I think that
comes through with a person's, like, core memories
and like, that. It's not it. If I give you a dish that
you've never tried before, it's. I. I don't know if you're gonna smell it and
be like, you go, wow, this is the most incredible thing ever. Yeah. I mean,
there. There is that. The smell of onions will kind of do that to anybody.
(49:44):
That's why when you drive by in and out, everyone's like, I'm hungry. Yeah,
that's true. But I don't know. I mean,
the. The stomach is. Is. Is different, I think, when it comes to that.
Yeah. But when it comes to, like, a core memory is something that brings you
back to home, brings you back to grandma, brings you back. People at
that point will kind of lose it. My mother wrote a
(50:06):
cookbook. Yeah. At least 200 recipes. No
way. We didn't publish it. We just have it loose. That's awesome. And my
daughter in Glendora, she was to make my mom's
hummus and bring it to whatever we were doing. And I had.
You know, we have hummus all the time. You know, you buy it from the
store, you make it yourself, whatever. And the second I put that pita chip
(50:27):
in there and ate it, I go, I looked at my daughter's name. Is Lena.
I said, lena, this tastes like my mom. That's incredible.
Whatever the unique recipe was, it was her recipe. Same with her guacamole. No way.
Because they used to own an avocado ranch. Her guacamole just like, it just
tasted like my mom. That's incredible. That has to feel good as
a chef, to know that those kinds of things, you know, earmark you. It does.
(50:50):
It's very exciting. And for me, cooking is. Is it like. I love eating?
Of course. But the reaction that people give
is more validating than anything.
It's like this. Oh, I did to me, I'm.
I'm looking for somebody to eat the food
more than the finished product. Y. And that
(51:11):
excitement when someone says it brings you back home. When I make a
video and people say, I haven't seen this dish since my
grandma made it. Thank you for bringing this back to me. That
warms my heart. Wow. Well, I think that's the only way you can get through
being a restaurateur. And my daughter's
telling me, my daughter, the boulanger, she made sarma for her
(51:34):
psychology teacher. Wow. At high school. Wow.
Right in Arcadia. And he was a brilliant man, a PhD kind of guy.
And I saw him at a softball game that she was playing in. He was
standing the stands. We started talking. He goes, you know, I have a lot of
kids. Bring me cookies, whatever. Yeah. He
goes, first of all, no one's ever brought me sarma. And I go
(51:55):
second, no one's ever presented to me with such glee to do it.
That's great. And that's really what it takes to do what you do. That's great.
You know, it's giving
somebody's giving somebody food in any
shape, you know, in any way form.
You're at the end of the day, we're animals. Yeah, right. That's right,
(52:17):
everybody. All you're kind of doing, if you actually think about it as you're walking
through life trying to figure out where you're going to eat next. And when you
feed somebody, there's this
soul warming sensation. It is. And when the food is good,
it's even better. Does it drive you nuts when you don't get to serve it
hot? Because it makes me mad. I. I'm so. I
(52:39):
have four kids and like when the food
comes off the stove or whatever, I'm like on
a time crunch. I still think I'm back in a restaurant. Like, order up. Should
be. Let's go. Like the food. Let's eat it. Come on, get to the Table,
let's go, table six. I hate, like, not that I hate
cold food. I'll eat cold food anytime, but I hate putting food down
(53:00):
on the dinner table and then just watching it wither away. Cuz to me,
it's like it's. I'm a timing. Like, my timing is on completely.
Like, I know when this is going to be done and this is going to
be done. And it's like, I work at a restaurant. That's what it's for. So
it comes out and I'm staring at it and I'm watching it start to dry
out and like, pieces of it start to whip. Like the mushroom
is starting to sag a little bit. Like, come on. And it's cooking. It's still
(53:24):
cooking. It's still cooking. This steak was medium rare. Now
we're pushing to medium, where I'm losing it. We're gonna even go
even further. I wonder if that's a control thing, because when I worked, I worked
at a beachhead back in the day, and I was in charge of the kitchen.
So I made all the food and I was
fastidious about making sure that burger got out there hot of the barbecue sandwich.
(53:45):
And I was making meatloaf and all that stuff at the time. And if they
came in my kitchen and messed with me, I was so mad. Yeah. Like, they'd
say, hurry up, you gotta get. I'm like, hey, it's. That one's mustard only. That
one's grilled onions and chicken. Yes. It's, you know, it takes
a certain kind of person to do that and to know it. And I think
that will define you as a cook and a chef. Some people don't
care. Yeah. They're like, the food's done. It's already done. It'll sit there, like,
(54:08):
let it sit under a heat lamp. And then like, nobody cares. Do you think
that's rubbing off on your kids? Yes.
But they don't know it yet. Yeah. So no, that'll happen later in
life. They're gonna realize. And I tell them this all the time. You guys have.
I go, you have no idea. Okay. You guys are going to go out into
the world when you guys are like 17, 18, 19, you're gonna be shocked.
(54:28):
Like, the way you guys are eating, the way you guys have been treated. Like
you're gonna go out with your friends and be like, I don't. Like, can we
just go here? Like, I want a tomahawk. Yeah.
Your friends are like, what? Yeah, wagyu tomahawks
for me. Because I didn't. You know, we cooked a lot in our house. My
mom was. Whenever my mom babysat. So all
three of my daughters now are great cooks and very
(54:52):
conscientious about what they're cooking. Very conscious about where the food comes from. And I'm
very proud of that because they all just really appreciate the
gastronomy of it all and the history of it all and the ancestry of it
all. Yeah. And the fact that, you know, my mother would be happy
that they were doing it. So we're already past our way past our time,
but I do want to know what's. What's next on the media side. We're going
(55:15):
to continue with our social. But is there any shows coming up, things like that
that you're working on? So I'm working on a new
book. Oh, yeah. Lavash was the first book. Lavash was the first book.
We're in the, we're in the market of pitching the new book.
The cookbook market is kind of like crazy right now. A lot of it
has to do with your numbers. They, they. Some publishers are like, hard.
(55:38):
No. And I don't want to self publish. So getting the publishing deal is super
important for us. But that's in the scope.
Other than that, There are no TV
projects in the space at this exact moment. But
YouTube is pretty much my main focus at this moment.
So I haven't been pushing YouTube for a long time and now
(56:01):
creating full length, kind of longer episodes of
things. I just did this five food spots in
Glendale video and it did really well. I saw that one.
Yeah. So it's doing really well. I just did 46,000
views. Yeah. Yeah. And then I just did five burger spots in L. A
and I'm shooting another one on Wednesday. But my number is. Since
(56:23):
I started, like, everything, you just got to work at it. My numbers, as
soon as I started focusing on it, have like rocketed. So I've
gained. I have, I think, like 15,000 subs right now. Oh,
that's great. But like 8,000 of them came in the last 30 days.
Wow. So it's really just kind of moving. I've started just
putting a lot of energy into it and I. My dream would
(56:45):
to be to have a, you know, my own show. And I think using.
Utilizing YouTube, that is the methodology. Exactly. And.
And it can get picked up from there. Yeah. You. You can't. You don't go
to a production company anymore and say, I want to have this idea and then
show me the paid. It doesn't work. Yeah. I've, I had, I've had multiple interviews
with Food Network. They've reached out and they've told me, like, you know,
(57:06):
it's all about a competition show. Oh, I did a competition show that should be
airing out, airing on in July. So that's
coming out. I don't. There's so much I can't. I literally, there's so many things
that happen at once. I look forward to watching your
career. I look forward to trying these rubs tonight. Yes.
Because they're just fascinating. Yes. And just thanks for coming out and saying hi and
(57:28):
having a chance to talk about it. Hope we can do it again. Yeah. Thanks
for having me. This is awesome.
Little egotistical. I like it. I like it. Cheers.
Cheers.
For me, cooking is like, I love eating, of course, but the
reaction that people give is more
validating than anything. I'm looking for
somebody to eat the food more than the finished product.
And in that excitement, when someone says it brings you back home.
When I make a video and people say, I haven't seen this
(00:21):
dish since my grandma made it. Thank you for bringing this back to me.
That warms my heart. Sit back and grab a glass.
It's Wine Talks with Paul K.
Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kay. And we are in studio today,
but to have a conversation with Ara Zada. Zada or Zeta Zeta
Ada Zeta introductions in just a second. You gotta listen
(00:45):
to Zaya Unan. It's
up now. This gentleman came from Iran at 13
years old. The story is, I'm gonna say, freaking
incredible. So have a listen to that, but not while we're here. We're here to
have a conversation with Ar Zada. He's the chef, an entrepreneur, a
snowboarder, a bow hunter and a content creator. And I think the list
(01:07):
goes on. It goes on and on. Welcome to the show. There's a lot. Thanks
for having me. Thanks for having me. I was like fascinated because I was reading
about your history and when I told my wife that you were
coming on the show, she goes, how do you know him? I said, I don't.
I just saw him at the, I mean, I just saw him across the room
at the Armenian basketball thing. And he says, she says, well, I follow
him. Yeah, you know, it's.
(01:30):
A lot of people follow me now. It's kind of crazy. It's, it's. Social media
has kind of blown up my space the past three years, I. Would
say, you know, it's interesting because we were talking about some of our background and
history and I mean, let's think about it for a second. You
are, you grew up in an Armenian family, an Egyptian Armenian family, as I did.
And we were just sharing notes on the foods that we ate, which is pretty
(01:52):
unique cuz my wife is Bar. Oh, okay. Amazing. So I had to eat that
stuff. That's great. I love, I don't necess. I wouldn't call it, I don't, I.
Like, I like this Stewie hearty, like Persian Armenian dishes.
Amazing. But then, you know, now we fast forward all of
sort of that culture into social networking. Exactly. And
it's, it's blown up. You have great stuff, people
(02:14):
follow you and it becomes, it's so interesting to me because of. It
becomes the Persona who you are. Really. Exactly. It's.
Social media is a, is a wild space. It's crazy, it's fun, it's
exciting. You get to do a lot of things
and you know, some people create a character that they kind of
play, right? I'm just myself, right? So I'm the same person.
(02:37):
I get this a lot. People see me on the streets, like, wait, you're exactly
the same as you are in your videos. Like, yeah, just, I'm just
filming myself having fun. I think that's an important part of it.
But you've, you've, your whole career has
now because of that. Do you feel pressure? Like I feel pressure when
I'm got to create content. I was just writing something when you walked in and
(02:58):
I'm like, ah, you know, I'm going to get in front of the camera. And
I think you're, I think your position is the right one. Just be yourself. You
know, it. There is a lot of pressure. This is the parts that nobody really
knows. There's, there's a demand. And I, I
committed three years ago, it was 2022,
December 16th. There was a reason for all this, but I
(03:18):
committed to making a new video every single day. And when I did, everything
blew up. And now, I mean, fast forward, we're up
in the thousands of videos that have created new content.
And there's a pressure of like, what am I doing? What am I doing this
week? What am I scheduling? What am I putting out? Is it going to be
good content? You know, know, is it new? Is it creative? Is it exciting?
(03:41):
And so there is that pressure and there's
a demand for it. I mean, people want it. People. So you think, but do
you think it's accurate? Like I, you read about how to do this
and, and I've done a long time. I have 1500 videos on YouTube. I
was filming tasting notes long time ago. But wine's a very
narrow subject. But I always feel like I might.
(04:04):
Are they going to be interested in this? Is it trendy?
Should I follow the trends? Shouldn't, shouldn't I follow trends? Should I just, you know,
those things weigh into it. But most of the pundits just say, just
do it. Yeah. So with social media, I tell people a lot of the
times, like a lot of people get wrapped up in like,
is it going to be good? I need to make it perfect. I need
(04:26):
to make it a certain way. You know, just doing
it is half the battle. Right. But following trends
is key. Staying on brand is another
key. Like for me, for example,
I eat a lot of sushi. But if I do
on it, you know, that's the thing. If I do like fish dishes,
(04:49):
they, they don't do as well in the video. So I do raw fish. It
doesn't do as well. So, like, you kind of have to stay on brand and
in your space, so. Interesting. But I'm French trained. Right. I did
recipe and product development for a very long time, so I can literally cook
anything. And I don't. I'm not like in a space,
but through my social media platform, I am in a certain space.
(05:10):
I like to open up a little bit and then you kind of come back
to where you need to be. But my favorite thing to do is fusion food.
So I like to mix cultures and ingredients and I
think that's how you evolve in anything. It's evolving
food in its, in its finest form. If you mixed different
colors of paint to create new colors, you can have
(05:34):
magical artwork. Right. If you just stuck with red, yellow and
blue forever, art would be stagnant. So this is kind of like the same
space for me. And you went to Cordon Bleu, the one in Pasadena? I
did. I did like Cordon Blue.
Well, I mean, my, my daughter's French trained Bleu anger. She went to
Paris. Amazing looked there. And she's. She. But she ended up at the ICA in
(05:57):
New York for savory and
great career. It's a very challenging career and a very competitive career.
Did you go into Cordon Bleu thinking you're going to be a TV chef or
your dream was to be a TV chef? My dream has always been to be
in front of the camera. That's just, even when I was a little kid, I've
always liked it. Oh, you have three cameras here. Hey, that's what I like. That's
(06:17):
why I'm here. So I've always liked it. I've always enjoyed it.
I've thrived in that space. Yeah. When I originally went to
culinary school, I left the family business, which was printing,
and I was like, I'm going to culinary
school. My grandpa's like, no, you'll never make a career. Cooks don't make
money on all this stuff. But I, I realized I was
(06:40):
going home every day from the family business to cook, to
kind of decompress. And that was like my outlet. And I was like,
if I'm doing this to, to, you know, for fun, why not make money?
I went to culinary school. I had a dream of opening up a restaurant.
It was a bar and grill. I love it and that
I still do. That dream quickly changed because
(07:03):
I realized that all the work it would take to
open a restaurant and maintain a restaurant and be in the restaurant,
it wouldn't allow me to have family life. And for me that was super
important. And I wanted to. I wanted to be able to
hang out with my kids as they grew up. And that was already in
the back of my head. So I found different avenues. I did a bunch of
(07:26):
restaurant stuff coming out. Then I got into food TV
and I got into food styling. Wow. So kind of back of the
house stuff. And I remember I worked my way
through that space pretty well. And then I became a lead
food stylist on some big talk shows in la. Is that a. Do you think
that was. I mean is. You have to have a break in this industry
(07:48):
like you would the movies or any. Anything else has been like you get that
break that you get a chance to do that or is just hard work and
you know, persevere. It was a lot of that kind of
came from the people you know. Right. And you kind of. I made some connections
pretty early on at a culinary school. I
interned with Jamie Oliver. Oh, well there, that's pretty good name.
(08:11):
I did really well in culinary school. I got straight A's. Not like that
matters at all. When you come out, nobody goes, what were your grades in culinary
school? Nobody cares. Yeah. But I got straight A's
and I was always in school. I was always like a
B student. Yeah, I was always good at remembering things,
but I wasn't good at applying homework. So I'd get A's on all the tests,
(08:32):
but I'd never do classwork or homework. Sorry. And so I was always a
B student. Yeah, I went to culinary school. I was an A
student cuz I was doing everything and I was really into it,
so. Applying it, applying it. And I was. I was good at what I
did. And I got an internship with Jamie Oliver
after that. He asked me to teach on his. He had a
(08:54):
mobile cooking truck and he asked me to teach
on that truck. Pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. So like. And then from that
space I met a bunch of his food stylists. We worked on a TV show.
It's just. It just worked. There was a lot of things happening.
You know, essentially you said decompress. Let's go back to for a second. Yeah,
my mom was incredible cook. We were talking about that since we both grew up
(09:17):
in a similar household making, you know like Bamia and. Yeah. And the
fool we love Fool. Like my friends In Palace
Verdes, you know, Surf's town. Yeah. We're like, what the hell is that smell?
Yes. Yes. And I go, but you gotta taste this palace. So,
so much. We had similar backgrounds, and my daughter, who
loved my mother and loved being in the kitchen with her, but
(09:40):
she had the exact same response you did, which was when I got home from
work and she was cooking or baking. I knew she had a tough day at
school. Amazing. Either at softball or whatever she was doing, because that
was the way she shed everything. It's.
There's. And I love it too. Some people just do that. Yeah. You know,
it's. It's. And some people hate it. Yes.
(10:03):
We like our. My daughter lives. Our older daughter. Her house did not
burn in the fire, but she's living with us. And I will
refuse to let them call doordash and all that stuff. And
we cook every night. That's the way to do it. So I'm very happy to
have these rubs. There we go. Because I get this. And I just smelled a
few of them. They are, like, smelling my home. It's. It's
(10:24):
pretty crazy. It brings you back. Yeah. You know, you open some of these things
and it brings you back. So we were up. We
went to. When my daughter was trying to figure out what to do with Savory,
we went to Napa, and I go there all the time. We're going there tomorrow.
Amazing. And. And we went to Greystone, we went to Ica, and we got
this lecture. And I want to get your opinion on this. The guy, first of
all, he made some stupid dish for the potential students of
(10:46):
this thing. I don't know what. It was like a tomato wrap, cheese thing. I
was really dumb. But the. The
pitch he was giving was more like, skip
college, go to go to school. And.
And it wasn't saying you're going to become a TV star,
but certainly it was in the background of everybody's mind that this potentially could
(11:08):
be what we're doing. And, you know, that's the furthest from the truth. It could
be because once you go into the workforce, you're on the line. Yeah. You
know, for eight hours. It's different. It's different. It's different.
There's a lot of advantages, you know, to going to college, to
going to culinary school, to doing all of these things. You know, being
on the line for eight hours teaches you a lot of stuff.
(11:30):
Yes. Grit. But it's.
It's different than trying to be in front of the camera and being a,
you know, a TV star. Yeah, right. No, it's two different things.
Completely, completely different things. And it's a different. It's a different animal, different beast.
Both have their perks, you know, but it just takes,
(11:50):
I think it takes a certain kind of person
to do both of them. Right. You know, it's really hard to do. I mean,
she, my daughter had her
ambition to be a cook and a baker primarily.
Yeah, a baker. That's the thing. I don't. I can bake, but it's.
It's not my favorite thing to do. She sought out, went to Isanjo
(12:12):
outside of Leon. Then she cooked in Paris for Alain de Cast, came
to, came to la, fixed a bunch of bed bread programs for people, worked
at Superba and then went to New York and worked at Lincoln.
Amazing. And then started with Jonathan Beno. That's amazing. Yeah.
And then he were. They earned a star. And then co
hit three, six years later and it was, that was the end of it. And
(12:33):
somebody stole the star off the building. No way.
But all that to say this
is a hard, tough road and you chose that road to do
and you're successful at it and you have to continue to manage the
success. Yeah. You have to work it. Yeah. So
like with anything, and I tell my kids this
(12:57):
all the time, it takes work. None of this stuff will fall
on your lap. None of this stuff is easy. No matter what it is you
want to do, you have to put in the time, you have to put in
the hours. With social media now, I
basically wake up at 6am and I don't finish doing
what I'm doing usually till around 10. Wow. I do everything myself
(13:19):
and yeah, I. Know what that feels like.
So start to finish editing everything I do. We're at a point
now some of my longer format stuff which we're working on is my YouTube stuff.
I now have an awesome cameraman and he helps me with
that because my short format stuff is so time
consuming. So it is, it is work and
(13:42):
you gotta make it also seem like it's not that much work. That's
what makes it fun. Yes. So I enjoy it. I love doing
this. It's fun and it just takes time. I was just writing a script.
I plan on making some content today. I'm not as prolific as you are,
but I did find some help in Serbia. Serbia? Yes. Oh,
some editing. Yes. I love that. It's unbelievable. I'll happy to
(14:05):
share the name with you because he does a really good job. Yeah, it's very
reasonable. Okay. I love it very Quick. I love that. So what happened was
I was in Italy doing a podcast. They put me in a glass room. Okay.
Like the worst acoustics in the world, right? Yeah. And then. And they gave
and then they turned the air conditioner on. Okay. So it's. Now it's loud and
the voice is bouncing all over the place. I wasn't using these mice because they're
(14:26):
too big to carry to Italy. So I have my little road
band mics, which pick up everything as they're supposed to. So I.
I gave it to five audio engineers in
through upwork, and this guy's came back like. Like we were in
studio. No way. Yeah. Because he's done about 200 episodes for me. No way.
Yeah. It's pretty amazing. That's awesome. So. So what is that
(14:48):
daily routine now? Exactly. Like, so creating content,
doing recipes still. Yeah. So
6:00am, I kind of wake up and I start my posting.
So I post on IG, Facebook,
TikTok, and YouTube. Wow. You fill
in captions on all of them. You have to.
(15:11):
I fill in the auto captions from each platform.
So it takes time because the platforms like using their own captions for sure.
Yeah. So there's that portion. Then we kind of kick
into what are we cooking today? Shopping almost
daily and coming shooting. I try to
shoot, if I can, two to three,
(15:34):
so that I can leave the other days to
editing. But usually it doesn't work out that way.
Best plans? Yeah, I like to get a little bit
ahead. And then the biggest thing is I try to create enough content. So at
the very least the weekends when my kids are home,
I'm not scrambling to create or edit. So I like
(15:55):
to try and take Saturday and Sunday off from the
filming and editing portion.
So you've got to schedule it in your head anyway, at least what you. Want
to get done, mapped out. And then now
there's, you know, and as I keep growing, there's various things that pop
up, like today. So podcasts,
(16:17):
things like that, appearances, events,
live cooking demos that I do. So those. All those things
plug in, kind of take away from a whole day of work in
production. So you have to do like yesterday I shot three videos.
Today I'm not going to be able to shoot, but I have things in the
pipeline. Wednesday, I'm out all day shooting a YouTube video.
(16:39):
Right. So I have to look forward or kind of think ahead. Thursday,
I'll have some time after the morning to edit and
shoot so that I have things for the weekend. And it just goes
again. That's the you know, going to Napa like we
are tomorrow, I have to worry about what I'm going to publish
and then, But I do get four or five episodes in the can.
(17:03):
That's it. And then you. But you. Then you want to keep that. Yes, you
want that. But it's not that easy. Yeah, yeah. So if you can keep the
can full, like right now I have three in the can and one edited.
So I'm ready to go. And then I need to edit those three
and then I can move forward. But I like to it in an
ideal situation, I would literally have three fully edited ready to
(17:25):
go. Wow. And those are already scheduled in my head when
I'm posting. But it, it always gets mixed up. And then,
you know, towards the end of the night, you still have to engage in each
platform a little bit. Right? Sure. Yeah. That's part of the deal. Yeah. So
I moved. I. And I try to tell my kids this now to stop
consuming, to start creating. But you have to
(17:47):
engage in a certain way when you are creating. So like you can't just
leave the platform dead. You can't post and post and ghost is what they call
it. You can't just put. You have to post now. You have to engage a
certain amount in each content. So I have colleagues
or associates, if you will, friends that I've collabed with and
people that are all content creators and they pop up on my feed
(18:09):
and then we like and comment and share on each other's stuff so that
everyone kind of grows together. The algorithm likes that. It's all.
You're slave to this magical algorithm which is super fun. Which
nobody knows, but. Yeah, but it's mass. It's awesome. My niece
started a salad dressing line. Amazing. Armenian infused, Armenian
influenced. Okay. And she's, she
(18:33):
used to work here. Okay. And she's very prolific socially
and she's now relaunching and she's changed some of the recipes.
But one of her, I'm not gonna say disappointments, but one of her understandings because
she, she thought you could become an influencer, you know, with relatively little
work. And, and now she's like. She did 25
salads in 25 days kind of thing. Yeah. And it's, you know, that's a lot.
(18:56):
What's the salad dressing called? Love. I know I have that dressing. She sent them
to me. So she's, she's. I was like, I don't want to say it if
it's not the right formulated. She's got new. She had sent some
to Me? Yeah. Let me ask you about this. I'm a huge
devotee of the 80s when Joachim Splichat was here and Ken
Frank and Jonathan Waxman and Michael
(19:17):
McCarty, all these guys were creating what is today's food culture. And of
course, it's evolving. Is that part of A, inspiration or
B, sort of understanding the history of how this stuff came about and
what might bring. Or not. It's not part of it. Not really. Not for
me. I know a bit about it, but
that wasn't. That didn't lead me into this path.
(19:40):
I would say my.
The love for food, my grandparents, my grandma, my mom kind of
inspired that portion of it. Sure. The. The. The food.
Celebrity chef. Sorry, Celebrity chef action.
That kind of space was probably most
inspired, I would say, by Emeril's show. Oh,
(20:04):
really? Yeah. When I was a. When I was a kid is. I guess my
mom would watch it all the time. She loved it. It was always on. So
I was like, this is kind of awesome. This dude is just cooking. He's got
a full audience, and he's just cooking, having a great time. Yeah.
I was fortunate enough to actually work a TNT show with
Emerald on camera. You
(20:26):
sell convection oven form. I work with
him. So we did three. Was it eight. Sorry, eight episodes on TNT
on this show called on the Menu. And
I hung out with him. He's a super nice guy. We were
cooking backstage together, doing family meal, and it was super cool.
That's really cool. Very nice guy. That's really cool.
(20:48):
You were talking about something that just gave me a thought that I thought
was so interesting. But the. His. The history part of this food part,
which I think is really interesting. I think it's really important that that
happened in America because now it set the platform
or the stage for creativity in the food. Yeah. It wasn't really around
before that. You know, it's. It's interesting to see the
(21:11):
evolution of food, how
it's gotten bigger, how celebrity chefs
are now the rock stars. Like, if you go to Vegas and you're
driving down, there's billboards of celebrity chefs. Wow.
All over the hotels, you know, where. You know, in the
80s and 90s, it was all rock stars. Right. Like music.
(21:33):
Right? That's right. And Right. It's. It's crazy now. If you.
If you look around, it's never the wine guy. Why is that? It's not. Why
don't I go? Because you guys are just chilling on a couch, having some
cheese. You know, Nancy Silverton's coming on the show.
Soon. Amazing. And her boyfriend is Armenian. Really? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know
that. Yeah. Their mates, they've been forever. His name is Michael Krikorian.
(21:55):
That's awesome. He was the LA Times writer for the Gang
Beat writer, actually. Oh, really? Interesting guy. No way. Yeah. So I was
bugging him to get her on. Get her on the show, but there's another guy,
he was on the show recently, too. Crazy story.
He's. He's a critic. A food critic, basically. Okay. He's from
Lebanon. Okay. Ryan. Ryan. I have to look up his name,
(22:18):
but he was a dentist. Yeah, yeah, I know. You're talking about. No.
No onions, no garlic. Yeah, that's fine. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this
guy was a dentist and he was watching TV with his patients
as he's, you know, pulling their teeth. And it was the Bourdain
show. Yeah, yeah. And he thought, I could do that.
He's killing it right now. He's killing it on YouTube. It's unbelievable. And he dumps
(22:40):
his whole career as a dentist and kills. And he's just going around reviewing
food. And you were talking about equipment when he walked in. He sat where you're
sitting and he certainly appreciated the microphones, but
took his road. New road.
Wireless Pro, they're called. Yeah, I have those. Phenomenal. He just clipped
it here and he. Just recorded the whole thing. Two iPhones. Amazing. That was the
(23:01):
whole show. And here I am lugging all this equipment across the world, trying to,
you. Know, shoot something that, you know, it's. When it comes to equipment,
I have some really nice cameras, but
95% of the time just iPhone. And they're going to get better.
It just. I. That's another thing. But I always buy the newest and latest and
greatest, so I'm always working over money. But that's the livelihood. I mean, the
(23:23):
camera quality is so high that you don't necessarily.
For what I do. Yeah, you don't necessarily need much. Oh, great. I
don't need my 6k black magic. I'll tell you what, when I.
When I shoot lighting, the lighting is important. So I have full
lights. Oh, yeah, there is full light set up. There's. There is different tripods everywhere.
The camera moves constantly. Mic setup. So audio
(23:46):
and lighting is very important, but it's
critical. So you're talking about shopping.
And this is another part of America changing. You know, one of the things
I envy about European culture, particularly the French,
that they protect their regional stuff like they protect their butter, they protect their
cheese. Regional. And it's a very important part of their culture and we don't have
(24:09):
that here. Really. No, but we have moved into, you know,
what you eat eats mentality. Not just you are what you
eat. Yes. But you are what you eat eats. Yes. Whatever the
animal is eating. Right. Is organic and
biodynamic, something that, that you gravitate towards.
So beef culture. Because he talks about your. Yes. That's
(24:31):
interesting. I am an avid bow hunter.
Yeah, right. Bow. I am. Like, I didn't. For me,
harvesting my own food is really
what I like to feed my family. So and, and doing it
in the way that I do it. I mean, I talk to a lot of
anti hunters. Right? Yeah. And many anti
(24:53):
hunters. Oh, you're killing animals and this and this. And like if you eat
meat and you're, you have a problem with killing an animal
to eat the meat, it doesn't make sense. No. But every
anti hunter I've talked to, by the end of the conversation, it's always, it
always ends with, well, we like, we can appreciate what you do. I just
don't like the other guys. It happens all the
(25:15):
time. But I train. I'm an avid bow hunter. Archery
is part of my life. Yeah, Right here. Yes. Always have an
arrow in. And I shoot my bow every day
to make sure that when I'm killing an animal, it's
in the most humane way possible. One arrow, you're out there. It's very primitive.
You versus them. You have to get close. You can't pluck them off from
(25:37):
2, 300 yards. And then I do every step of the
way. So. Wow. I, I feel dress it,
I bring it, I skin it, I butcher it, I pack it,
freeze it, cook it, I feed my family with it.
Wow. So people say from field to plate. I like to say from field to
toilet. That's the whole cycle.
(26:00):
I do the whole thing. It's like this, like literally
this is, it's a passion for me and
I honor the animals as best as possible. I constantly talk about
them. I do mount my animals and people always like, oh, when
you're mounting them, it's a thing. I said, no, it's a way to honor the
animal. Because when I feed my kids the food
(26:22):
and like I point to the deer or the elk
or whatever it is, I go, it took seven days
to get that animal. It was, it wasn't like we walked up side of the
road and just shot it. Seven days of hiking 10 to 15
miles, we finally got an animal. Now we used every
single part of it. I mean, I use the bones for stock.
(26:44):
I mean, one of the deer, I've took the femur bone and had it turned
into a knife. I. I literally use every part of it. Wow.
And. And I know what that animal has been eating. I
know what my kids are eating now. And I also like to pair,
you know, the food that they are eating with
the meat. So like, let's say we go to sage country and the deer are
(27:06):
all eating sage. I like to cook some sage in
with the meat. And it's not like it comes out of the meat, but there,
there's different highlights. Like if you do a white tail deer that doesn't really
eat sage, you know, they're feeding on berries and stuff. You put
sage in it. It doesn't hit like a mule deer that eats. That would be.
I. That would make sense because it's just like the Iberian pigs when they eat,
(27:29):
you know. Exactly. Acorns. Exactly. Get that character. Fatty. You get the
character from it. We can't eat acorns. But yeah, you get
that. That. The nuts, you know, and that, that. That actually
your description just then is. Makes it so much more. I don't say romantic is
not the right word because when I. My first career was selling copiers,
I used to sell in Vernon. No way. And so you would, you'd go
(27:51):
to these lunch places and you'd watch the cows coming off the truck.
Yeah. And by the time they got the end of the shoot, you know, they
been. They'd been killed by the over the hoffy plant. But how could you,
you know? Yeah, exact. Yeah. Right. Calan dog food was there all the
way there. Right, Farmer John? Yeah. Yeah. But the point being, you're right
if, if you're doing it that way, how can somebody who eats meat or
(28:14):
fish or anything object to that? You can't. Compared to what the
alternative is. And that's, that's the conversation I have. Like, I am not
a trophy hunter. I am after the meat. And I
honestly don't really care if they have huge antlers or they
don't. I mean it's. It obviously it's cooler if you. They do have big
antlers, but it doesn't really matter to me. I'm literally after the meat. And I
(28:35):
have four freezers. I fill them up. When it comes to beef, I like
to buy. I split a cow with a friend of mine. Right. I don't
want to do. I do a half cow. My buddy does a half cow.
It's grass fed grass finished. And we. It's
about 400 pounds of meat or so. We have a freezer dedicated to that
and that's where the majority of our protein comes from.
(28:58):
So I know exactly what the animal is eating. Now.
Does that mean I don't go to the grocery store? Sure, of course. You know,
I go to the grocery store and I make a bunch of videos from things
I buy at the grocery store a lot because I just want people to
get out there and cook. Right. And if I make it accessible, like I go,
oh, now you grab this elk loin. Somebody's be like, I don't have an elk
(29:19):
loin. I'm not going to cook with this guy you made. So this is
fascinating. You touched on a lot of things. Because
I want, I've been looking to, to split a cow with some friends and
I don't know which farm to go to. And then the grass fed meats
I've purchased from like Restaurant Depot, which is really, really gamey. Yeah. And I don't
think it has to be that way. So it's, it's grass
(29:41):
fed. Grass finished. Definitely has more of
an earthiness. Yes. Now, so I have a
big problem with the word gaming. All of my friends know this. Everybody
uses the word gaming. I think the word gamy
describes something that's not common. Not your
standard beef, chicken, pork. That's grain fed, grain finished.
(30:03):
Right. You can't describe the taste of a quail
the same way you can describe the taste of lamb
or the same way you can describe deer. Yeah, that's a good point. Right. They
all, somebody eats it, they go, oh, it's gamey. And I
go, what is it that you're tasting? You're actually tasting
the earth. You're actually tasting what that animal ate. And
(30:26):
the typical chicken, beef and pork, those
flavors are super bland. Right. So it's not. Or they're just more
common to your palette where you go, this is gamey. Like wild boar.
That would be Right. Wild boar does not taste like elk. No. But some,
oh, I'll give you a wild boar chop and somebody be like, that's kind of
gamey. Yeah. And then I'll give you a lamb chop. I get that. So it's,
(30:48):
I don't. I think it's hard to describe all of the game
meat with one word. Most people are trying to, they're talking
about that irony type of taste. But it's
not that. I mean some game has. Well, it's the same problem with wine. I
mean, let's face it. Yeah. You know, if you're not. I don't
say educated, but if you haven't, your palette hasn't been refined enough to describe those
(31:10):
characters. You just pick one word. You're going to pick the word. Yeah. And I,
and I often will demonstrate that
by showing some of this. Say two wines, let's say
two cabernets from the same vineyard. Same winemaker, same
vintage. Yes. But different parts of the vineyard are different vineyard
plots. And I'll say, are they different? Yeah, and they'll say
(31:31):
yes. I said extract. Tell me the difference. They don't. They
can't. They can't. It's one word. Or stronger. Light or sharp?
Yeah. So I think it's right. But the game meets an interesting problem. When I
was, when I was eight, we went on a camporee at Cub Scouts
and my scout master brought his shot.
He shot an elk. Amazing. We ate elk in Mission Bay.
(31:54):
Camping, you know, the best meat and. But then through the. When I started
this company in 1988 with my father, I started with him in 1988.
So the 90s was a huge part of. And
now I'm thinking of putting in. In time reference.
It's just right after the evolution of food in America.
So. So we were. Did a lot of
(32:17):
wine events where they served game meats. I love it. I'm not saying
gamey meats. Game. Yeah, game meat. And so we did a lot of elk, we
did a lot of deer, we did a lot of bear.
And awesome. It's interesting. And even Parkway Grill used
to have a game meet of the week. They don't do it anymore. Is that,
is that sort of left our cultural food
(32:39):
plate that makes any sense? You know, people,
I think now, when I say now in the last
four or five years are getting back into
wild game. And I think there's like a movement now of, you
know, high protein carnivore diet. You know, eat,
eat wild, eat predators, eat. Like people will say a lot of
(33:01):
different things. Sure. And, and I think people
are more inclined to eating it now. But every wild game
that you eat from a restaurant or
grocery store is farmed. So. Yeah, I'm
sure in, in the United States it's illegal to sell
wild game. It needs to be certified by the
(33:23):
usda. And the only way something can be certified by the USDA
is essentially by farming. There's a couple
animals that you can access. Deer is
one. So access deer from Hawaii is the. Is
hunted meat, but it's hunted by a certain
company and there is a USDA official
(33:45):
on site. While they're hunting it. Yeah, yeah,
it's kind of. It's wild. Well, it's like there's a USDA official at the
plants. And then after. Yeah, so it's, it's, it's the exact.
So the, the killing of it has to be in a certain way and needs
to be processed in a certain way. So other than that, it, it's all
farm. So, like, it's farmed elk that is harvested,
(34:08):
which honestly is still, to me better meat than. Is there
a difference then? This is
older information. I think it's still accurate. Where if a
prime cow comes in, they've got to butcher the prime cow. They got to get
all the prime out. And then the USDA guy says, okay, you bring in the
choice, then they butcher the choice and they separate all that and then they can
(34:29):
bring the select, etc. And same with Angus. So
it's, it's my understanding that
when the cow is opened up, then it's graded. Graded. But I mean,
they can't mix grades, though. They won't know until the cows opened
up. You know what I mean? So you won't know what a cow is.
So they open up. So maybe the idea is if they open up a prime
(34:51):
cow, that, that, that cow is completely butchered and removed
before they bring in the next one. This. And this is from the book of
the famed restaurant Lutes, New York. Andre
Saltner just passed away. But that's where I learned this from. But
I also learned in that same book that Angus has its own
category. Category. Yeah. Yeah. So Angus is itself. That's just
(35:13):
it. It's Angus beef. It's not graded with prime choice select. So
what about game meats then? Are they. Game meats are not graded either, period.
They're not graded at all, period. They're just. Just what they are. Yeah, they're just.
They have a USDA stamp. It's almost like
fish. But fish is. Like, fish isn't usda,
it's fda. Yeah. What cracks me up because we, we. We
(35:35):
spent a lot of time in Hermosa beach and you walk on up here and
there's this whole list of fish that my brother used to catch when we were
kids that you can't eat because they're contaminated.
It's. Honestly, I was just in Hawaii last summer
with the kids, and we had this kind of cool space where
there was like a barbecue area and stuff. We were like this resort, but we're
(35:56):
like, let's just do a barbecue one of the days. Yeah. So me
and my Buddy went. We went to, like, this fish market. Went to, like. We
try to find a bunch of different ones. We went to this one and we
got like, you know, it was a pound of this and a pound of this
they already filleted. And we're like, let's take a pound of this one. And the
guy's like, okay, just remember, don't eat more than
(36:16):
4 ounces and. And don't feed it to women or children.
And I was like, what? I don't want. I was like, I don't want that
fish. It's like, take. Take that fish back.
Yeah, he's. I was like, why? And I was like. He said, it's very high
levels of mercury. Yeah, it was. The fish was wahoo. And
that's terrible. I was like, I don't want to eat anything that
(36:39):
my kids can't eat or. Right. No, that's ridiculous. Don't feed it to
women or children. That's ridiculous. I got
a couple questions about Armenian food. I want to. Let's do it through.
In watching my parents watch my mother, and
as Sandra, my wife, and I work on foods, we try to shorten the
cycle for immune food. Because it seems to me that clearly
(37:02):
a. Armenians are good about using all the parts of the animal
and processing them. Reminds me of Bukuza's. You know that
fish, that bladder with the chicken. Yeah, but
they had. They're very long cycles to cook these foods.
Yes. You'd think these old Armenian women are in Armenia and they got
all day to do this stuff. Exactly. And they're working it.
(37:26):
How do you do that? How do you make it authentic without doing it? So
my theory, and it's the theory, but it's kind of been
proven, is that our grandmas and grandpas
and not grandpas, grandmas, had all the time in the world to cook these dishes,
and that's why it took that long. And using
kind of my French techniques and the understanding of food and
(37:50):
cuisine on how to cook certain things. Certain things are just
passed on, and they're not
folklore, but it's not something that
has to be done. I mean, there's certain soups where they're like, you have to
stir it only with a wooden spoon. Oh, yeah, it's gonna break. That's right. You
know what I mean? There's stuff like that. None of that stuff actually
(38:12):
is true. And not to kind of. I don't want to on
anybody, but like, it. If you're told something
by your grandma and then she's like, yeah, that's it. It's. It's fact to you.
And then now you tell it to your son and it's. Or your daughter and
it's fact to them, and then they pass that on. Its fact. And then somebody
comes along and is like, actually, this isn't true. You're, like
(38:32):
hurting somebody's soul. It's like their cultural heritage that you're kind of.
It's like talking about their religion. You know what I mean? Right. That's true. But
knowing French techniques, I mean, there's dishes like
harissa, which people go, you gotta cook it
for hours. I know. Hours. Well, I can
do the whole dish, start to finish, in about 45 minutes. You're kidding. Yeah. And
(38:55):
I mean, no, that's impossible. You nuts? If you lost your mind. Yeah, yeah. And
people are like, no way. It's not. It's impossible.
Araxia from Good Day LA came and we did
a couple years back and. And we did it on
camera. Good Day la. And she's like, this is impossible. My grandma would sit and
say, you have to mix and mix and mix. She goes, it tastes just like
(39:16):
the way my grandma used to make it. And I go, yeah, because
understanding the technique and what it's actually doing,
sure, you can cook it for hours. But it's not absolutely
necessary. It's not required. It's not required. So certain things are more tedious
to do. And that's something with Armenian cuisine, like, let's say, rolling grape leaves. You
know what I mean? It. That's tedious. It'll take you some time, you know.
(39:39):
But the cooking part of it, it doesn't take that long. That's a funny story.
My wife's uncle Art, I kind of passed away a few years ago, but he
invented the spoon straw and the flexi straw. No way. Yeah.
Those are his patents. And he's a mechanical genius.
Okay. But a simple guy. He's a great guy. And he
went to MIT because he came out of the war and they, you know, he
(40:01):
went on the GI Bill and he got, you know, went to mit. But he
invented a sarma rolling machine. No. Maybe it's
the one I've seen that's like. Got a lever. I don't remember.
But he had to sit down. His son had. Had
Ike's Chicken, which was a Zanku sort of type of thing up in San
Francisco. Yeah. And he was. Had designed a
(40:23):
machine that would take a variety of grape leaf sizes. That was
the problem. They're not all consistent. That's the biggest Right. That's the biggest issue. And
roll them. And I thought that was hilarious. That's awesome. I know. Because the ones
I've seen, it has to be almost the same exact grape leaf size. It's almost
takes more time to set up the machine and pull it than
to just do it with your hands. You know, it's funny, you were talking about
(40:44):
the process of food, and I mean food. And my wife, you know,
Fasui was a huge part of my. My life growing up. My mom made it,
but they used to cook the crap out of it. Right. And the beans got
like, you know, army green. Yeah. So she's made this version that's
just bright flavors and fresh fruit and crisp beans. Love it.
Yeah. It's kind of interesting. It's. It's. With that, there are different techniques
(41:06):
that people use. Like, my grandma used to do this a lot. Like, take
the meat and then just boil the meat for a long time. And once the
meat was done boiled, then she'd put everything kind of together.
I mean, proper cooking, not proper. I don't want to say proper. So that's the
wrong word. A cooking method. French. French cooking techniques tells us.
They tell us that adding the mirepoix or
(41:29):
the, you know, the sofrito, whatever language you want to say to the onions and
garlic and all the good stuff into the cooking liquid will
enhance the liquid, and it'll implement flavor into
the beef. So we're using those techniques and. And
then, you know, cooking the beef with all that other stuff, and at the end,
throwing in your green beans, or at the end, throwing in your okra,
(41:51):
then you're going to yield this delicious, crispy,
bright. Like you said, it's adding those
techniques. Yeah. More farm to table. Exactly.
So that leads me to the next point, which is I
have not had, though I'm going to Middle Eastern
fusion food. It's the. That's. That. That seems to be a very
(42:13):
difficult culture of food to
contemporarize and either add a French character to it or an
Italian character to it or whatever. Whatever fusion you're trying to do. It
seems to be very difficult. Or have. Like, if you go down to Glendale
Boulevard, you go down to Brand Boulevard, you go to the carousel, you're going to
go all those places. And it's all the same stuff. Yeah. You go to Rafi's.
The same stuff. Everything's the same. Yeah, yeah. Just like going to Armenia, like 2007,
(42:36):
when everybody was kebab and vegetables. Everything you get. Yeah, yeah.
Is it A difficult cuisine to modernize.
No, it's not the what
with. The trouble is nobody wants to accept
it. Nobody wants to accept it. Being modern,
interesting people are like, no, stick to the
(42:59):
classic. And I get this a lot on my profile. I'm sure you do. This
is awful. My grandma's rolling in her grave.
Stick to the. No, thank you. I'll stick. Stick to the classic way.
That's fun. Traditional method is the best way to do it. But
there is a handful of people that are really looking
to modernize it, and they're excited about
(43:22):
hacks and techniques, the implementation
of different cultures. And I think
for me, that makes things exciting. I mean,
making Lula kebab. But instead of beef,
I've done it with al pastor, so pork. Wow.
All right. Yeah. One of my favorite. The best, right? Yeah.
(43:45):
Now, something like that. Traditionally, serve it on some
lavash with some other stuff. You know, put some jalapenos on there. I
love Mexican food. I love Japanese food. I love
mixing in different seasoning, spices, and flavors from these
cultures into ours and. And creating something new, something fun.
That's really cool. Yeah. Well, because wine's the same way,
(44:09):
and wine's in a very tough spot right now, because there is.
The Gen Z's aren't really drinking that much. Millennials. They never figured them out,
though. My daughters are very well versed in wine, obviously,
because we did it every day in our house, but still, they still appreciate it.
And now it sounds like palates are changing,
as they always have. And to contemporarize
(44:32):
takes thought, it takes interest. And now you happen to be part of the Armenian
culture, the Egyptian culture that you're focused on that.
Is there wine in your. So
I drink a lot of wine. Wine
is. It's crazy because my wife used
to hate wine, and. We
(44:55):
wouldn't get along then. Yeah. But now she loves wine. And I used
to do wine in the winter and whiskey in the summer.
And then I used to do tequila in the summer,
whiskey in the winter with wine occasionally. And now
lately, in the past five years, we are just drinking wine all the time.
(45:16):
So at home, regular occurrence.
We're a couple people. One bottle, two bottles. Depends on
what. How we're feeling. We're regular. Regular wine drinkers. And
what's. Which one? What's our go to? Well, because
it evolves like food. Yes. Right. You. My palate's changed incredibly
over the last 40 years. But what is the current Goat.
(45:39):
So we drink cabs from Paso.
Really big, giant wine. That's like
our go to daily drink
Kiami. Like the Armenian guy. A lot of Armenians in Paso
make wine. A lot of Armenians out there. A lot of Armenians. I mean,
honestly, we have this thing where anything from Paso that's a
(46:01):
cab is going to be good. Wow. And now there are ones that aren't good.
Right. But we have our. Our go tos. And
it's. My wife doesn't like white wines. She doesn't like
roses. She really. My wife's gonna get
along with your wife. She'll.
She likes cabs. She likes merlot. She's not
(46:24):
a big fan of pinos. Yeah, I like pinos.
I honestly, I like everything pretty much. Well, they say
all unophiles. Yes. End up in Burgundy. That's
right. Exactly. At like 500 a bottle.
Not to tell you if I started there was. We. This office was down
the road at the train station, and we sold the property to an Armenian
(46:46):
developer. And he didn't really want the
project, but it was Covid. He needed the work. He had his own crew, blah,
blah, blah. And I promised him that if he closed. When we got
close to that date, I said, I'm going to give you two bottles of DRC
Domain Roman Conti Latash. Nice. Which I was only
offered to buy a bottle, like, four times in my
(47:08):
whole career. Wow. Because we were not in that category of wine sales.
Yeah. We sold 21. Yeah. But the three times they offered me to
pay $3,000 for the bottle, I took it. And
they sat in my cellar. Wow. And we
closed on the deal. This is a big deal. He built 250 apartments.
Wow. And he was there the next day. He came here.
(47:31):
He goes, where's my wine? No way. And I said.
I looked at him. He goes, what, you think I did this for the money?
And we had lunch the other day. This is four or five years ago. He
goes, yeah. I only did that deal because you were going to give me those
two bottles. I'm like, how powerful is that? Wow. But
(47:53):
there's two things that came up in this that you just said. One was
Arakchi tasting her Herissa and going, this is like my
grandmother's. And there's something about food and wine that are very synergistic in
that memory bank. Yes. Of what you tasted. Who knows?
It could be 50 years ago. And you tasted again. Yes. And you
can go, oh, my gosh. It brings you back. Yeah. It brings you. There's. There's
(48:15):
a smell. Yeah. You know what I mean? And this happened to me in Paris,
not that long ago, somebody brought me a quiche, and it was my mom's
quiche. That's incredible. And it was probably. I hadn't probably had it 30
years at least from that. That moment. And my wife's like, what's wrong with you?
Because my face changed. Yeah, the smell is. It brings you back. Yeah, it brings
me back. But the other day, I was tasting in. In
(48:37):
la, a Bordeaux tasting nice. And I'm not a. I'm not a dessert
wine guy necessarily. I love them, appreciate them, I get them. Chateau came all. Yes.
So this is a bar sack, which is. You can, like. Okay. You know,
Saturn, like. It was the most emotional
smell, really, of a wine I've had in 50
years. Wow. I didn't even want to taste it. I put my
(49:01):
nose in that glass, and the complexity of the nose and the character that was
coming through and the terroir and all the things that go into a glass of
wine. And I looked at the presenter, I said, this is the most
emotional glass of wine I've ever tasted. He goes, right.
He goes, I feel this, too. Last year wasn't like this, but this
year it's like this. Is that happening in food?
(49:22):
You know, there, I think that
comes through with a person's, like, core memories
and like, that. It's not it. If I give you a dish that
you've never tried before, it's. I. I don't know if you're gonna smell it and
be like, you go, wow, this is the most incredible thing ever. Yeah. I mean,
there. There is that. The smell of onions will kind of do that to anybody.
(49:44):
That's why when you drive by in and out, everyone's like, I'm hungry. Yeah,
that's true. But I don't know. I mean,
the. The stomach is. Is. Is different, I think, when it comes to that.
Yeah. But when it comes to, like, a core memory is something that brings you
back to home, brings you back to grandma, brings you back. People at
that point will kind of lose it. My mother wrote a
(50:06):
cookbook. Yeah. At least 200 recipes. No
way. We didn't publish it. We just have it loose. That's awesome. And my
daughter in Glendora, she was to make my mom's
hummus and bring it to whatever we were doing. And I had.
You know, we have hummus all the time. You know, you buy it from the
store, you make it yourself, whatever. And the second I put that pita chip
(50:27):
in there and ate it, I go, I looked at my daughter's name. Is Lena.
I said, lena, this tastes like my mom. That's incredible.
Whatever the unique recipe was, it was her recipe. Same with her guacamole. No way.
Because they used to own an avocado ranch. Her guacamole just like, it just
tasted like my mom. That's incredible. That has to feel good as
a chef, to know that those kinds of things, you know, earmark you. It does.
(50:50):
It's very exciting. And for me, cooking is. Is it like. I love eating?
Of course. But the reaction that people give
is more validating than anything.
It's like this. Oh, I did to me, I'm.
I'm looking for somebody to eat the food
more than the finished product. Y. And that
(51:11):
excitement when someone says it brings you back home. When I make a
video and people say, I haven't seen this dish since my
grandma made it. Thank you for bringing this back to me. That
warms my heart. Wow. Well, I think that's the only way you can get through
being a restaurateur. And my daughter's
telling me, my daughter, the boulanger, she made sarma for her
(51:34):
psychology teacher. Wow. At high school. Wow.
Right in Arcadia. And he was a brilliant man, a PhD kind of guy.
And I saw him at a softball game that she was playing in. He was
standing the stands. We started talking. He goes, you know, I have a lot of
kids. Bring me cookies, whatever. Yeah. He
goes, first of all, no one's ever brought me sarma. And I go
(51:55):
second, no one's ever presented to me with such glee to do it.
That's great. And that's really what it takes to do what you do. That's great.
You know, it's giving
somebody's giving somebody food in any
shape, you know, in any way form.
You're at the end of the day, we're animals. Yeah, right. That's right,
(52:17):
everybody. All you're kind of doing, if you actually think about it as you're walking
through life trying to figure out where you're going to eat next. And when you
feed somebody, there's this
soul warming sensation. It is. And when the food is good,
it's even better. Does it drive you nuts when you don't get to serve it
hot? Because it makes me mad. I. I'm so. I
(52:39):
have four kids and like when the food
comes off the stove or whatever, I'm like on
a time crunch. I still think I'm back in a restaurant. Like, order up. Should
be. Let's go. Like the food. Let's eat it. Come on, get to the Table,
let's go, table six. I hate, like, not that I hate
cold food. I'll eat cold food anytime, but I hate putting food down
(53:00):
on the dinner table and then just watching it wither away. Cuz to me,
it's like it's. I'm a timing. Like, my timing is on completely.
Like, I know when this is going to be done and this is going to
be done. And it's like, I work at a restaurant. That's what it's for. So
it comes out and I'm staring at it and I'm watching it start to dry
out and like, pieces of it start to whip. Like the mushroom
is starting to sag a little bit. Like, come on. And it's cooking. It's still
(53:24):
cooking. It's still cooking. This steak was medium rare. Now
we're pushing to medium, where I'm losing it. We're gonna even go
even further. I wonder if that's a control thing, because when I worked, I worked
at a beachhead back in the day, and I was in charge of the kitchen.
So I made all the food and I was
fastidious about making sure that burger got out there hot of the barbecue sandwich.
(53:45):
And I was making meatloaf and all that stuff at the time. And if they
came in my kitchen and messed with me, I was so mad. Yeah. Like, they'd
say, hurry up, you gotta get. I'm like, hey, it's. That one's mustard only. That
one's grilled onions and chicken. Yes. It's, you know, it takes
a certain kind of person to do that and to know it. And I think
that will define you as a cook and a chef. Some people don't
care. Yeah. They're like, the food's done. It's already done. It'll sit there, like,
(54:08):
let it sit under a heat lamp. And then like, nobody cares. Do you think
that's rubbing off on your kids? Yes.
But they don't know it yet. Yeah. So no, that'll happen later in
life. They're gonna realize. And I tell them this all the time. You guys have.
I go, you have no idea. Okay. You guys are going to go out into
the world when you guys are like 17, 18, 19, you're gonna be shocked.
(54:28):
Like, the way you guys are eating, the way you guys have been treated. Like
you're gonna go out with your friends and be like, I don't. Like, can we
just go here? Like, I want a tomahawk. Yeah.
Your friends are like, what? Yeah, wagyu tomahawks
for me. Because I didn't. You know, we cooked a lot in our house. My
mom was. Whenever my mom babysat. So all
three of my daughters now are great cooks and very
(54:52):
conscientious about what they're cooking. Very conscious about where the food comes from. And I'm
very proud of that because they all just really appreciate the
gastronomy of it all and the history of it all and the ancestry of it
all. Yeah. And the fact that, you know, my mother would be happy
that they were doing it. So we're already past our way past our time,
but I do want to know what's. What's next on the media side. We're going
(55:15):
to continue with our social. But is there any shows coming up, things like that
that you're working on? So I'm working on a new
book. Oh, yeah. Lavash was the first book. Lavash was the first book.
We're in the, we're in the market of pitching the new book.
The cookbook market is kind of like crazy right now. A lot of it
has to do with your numbers. They, they. Some publishers are like, hard.
(55:38):
No. And I don't want to self publish. So getting the publishing deal is super
important for us. But that's in the scope.
Other than that, There are no TV
projects in the space at this exact moment. But
YouTube is pretty much my main focus at this moment.
So I haven't been pushing YouTube for a long time and now
(56:01):
creating full length, kind of longer episodes of
things. I just did this five food spots in
Glendale video and it did really well. I saw that one.
Yeah. So it's doing really well. I just did 46,000
views. Yeah. Yeah. And then I just did five burger spots in L. A
and I'm shooting another one on Wednesday. But my number is. Since
(56:23):
I started, like, everything, you just got to work at it. My numbers, as
soon as I started focusing on it, have like rocketed. So I've
gained. I have, I think, like 15,000 subs right now. Oh,
that's great. But like 8,000 of them came in the last 30 days.
Wow. So it's really just kind of moving. I've started just
putting a lot of energy into it and I. My dream would
(56:45):
to be to have a, you know, my own show. And I think using.
Utilizing YouTube, that is the methodology. Exactly. And.
And it can get picked up from there. Yeah. You. You can't. You don't go
to a production company anymore and say, I want to have this idea and then
show me the paid. It doesn't work. Yeah. I've, I had, I've had multiple interviews
with Food Network. They've reached out and they've told me, like, you know,
(57:06):
it's all about a competition show. Oh, I did a competition show that should be
airing out, airing on in July. So that's
coming out. I don't. There's so much I can't. I literally, there's so many things
that happen at once. I look forward to watching your
career. I look forward to trying these rubs tonight. Yes.
Because they're just fascinating. Yes. And just thanks for coming out and saying hi and
(57:28):
having a chance to talk about it. Hope we can do it again. Yeah. Thanks
for having me. This is awesome.
Little egotistical. I like it. I like it. Cheers.
Cheers.
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