Plumluvfoods on WICC ep 47 tv cheffing with Tyler Anderson

We chat with one of te best chefs in the stater Chef Tyker Anderson about Tv work and being a chef! Catch Tyler every Sunday 9pm on Food Network's BBQ Brawl!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Come in and a stallming a world.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Sound Jeff pull on the mic, making hearts pound Jeff
Jeff worn.

Speaker 3 (00:08):
Shot guns, my son, chef dead and the background making
new beets, found.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
The talk girls and.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Paced the stand any night and the conversation so the
tails and ball made dishes, street footsto ties these she
spring made more.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Two guys so sound a podcast, n chefs Jeff bag
Ry sucking off the dead Marry conversation so the fast
say sound on the knee, Chef and the West.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
And the rest.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
Oh yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Happy Saturday to you. I
hope you're doing fantastic out there. Welcome to Plumblove Foods
right here on WYCC, the Voice of Connecticut. We're having
a great Saturday as we prepare for the summertime and
talking all about great food. And we always talk about
great recipes and have amazing guests on. I don't know, Jeffy,
I shouldn't say that we have amazing guests on. I
really hate people telling me how good their show is,

(01:19):
Like when they intro their show, I feel like I
was about to go that route. I don't want to
do that.

Speaker 5 (01:23):
Well, maybe this show turn your don't don't listen to this.
We have great, great people join us regularly.

Speaker 4 (01:29):
Well do we say they're great? I mean, what if
they don't think they're great? We think they're great. What
if their mom is the only person I thinks they're great,
Well that's cool, Well their mom and us. That's true.
I mean we are. We are your sister's favorite radio show.
There's no question about that.

Speaker 5 (01:40):
It's true.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
Welcome to Plumblove Foods. Is Cheff plub Chef Jeff hanging
out with you here on a Saturday. Happy summertime to you.
It feels nice outside finally, Jeffy. But you know what
I'm upset about. My driveway still has not been paved.
We we've done the who the halfway works, like all
the stuff got you know that they put new gravel down,
they smash it down, all the things. And because of
our rainy weather here, my driveway still has yet to

(02:03):
be paved.

Speaker 5 (02:04):
Yeah, that's that Connecticut weather man.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
It's with you.

Speaker 4 (02:08):
Why do you keep insulting? This is why people don't
like you. The things you're saying right now.

Speaker 5 (02:12):
What I'm just saying, it's that Connecticut weather. You know
what It's like.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
We had an online poll and we said, who's your
least favorite personal this program? And you got thirty one
percent out of the two of us. Yep, yep, yep.
It was an online poll, online pool. I think that
when people meet me though they liked me better.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Maybe that's what it is.

Speaker 4 (02:31):
But you're you're a very large, intimidating human, So I
think that has more to do with it that could be.
So on this program, we talk about recipes, we talk
about food, talk some fun food people from all across
the state. But I thought it would be fun Jeffrey,
because one of our favorite humans in the state, one
of the best chefs in the entire country who lives
in our state, is on a brand new show on
Food Network, and I thought it'd be fun to reach
out to him, have him come on I talk a

(02:51):
little bit just doing food TV and what does it
mean to do food TV. Yeah, I've got thirty Food
Network apperances myself, I have six Emmys nominations. You know,
we've done a lot of and you you as well.
So I thought it'd be a fun episode to come
on here and just talk about like all the background stuff,
all the things that maybe don't know happen. Kind of
some of the I don't know the minutia that we
don't talk about very much. Like you see a product,

(03:11):
one that's done and it looks great, and look how amazing,
Look how great that food looks. It doesn't always work
like that.

Speaker 5 (03:15):
It's true, it doesn't always work like that. There's a
lot of stuff that happens behind the scenes that people
don't even realize that happens. It's like, it's kind of crazy.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
Think you know, well, we can talk about some of
this stuff too, because you as a producer at the
deal with some of that on Restaurant road Trip, which
is kind of fun.

Speaker 5 (03:28):
Yeah, Restaurant road Trip and all the way.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Back to.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
Elite Chef.

Speaker 5 (03:34):
I was just gonna say that was like, that was
my first glimpse into how much production actually goes into
you know, television.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
It's a lot, especially when you just trying to make
it work and make it look pretty and all those things.
So joining us right now is a good brother who
we have nothing but mad respect for. Is about a
brand new spot just opened, Taku. We're gonna talk all
about that as well. He's a legendary chef here in
this day. He's also one of the nicest humans you're
ever going to meet. Ladies and gentlemen joining us on
the program right now now, Chef Tyler and.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Some chef guys. Ma, I'm good.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
You were the best. We love having you on. Thanks
taking the time. You're a very very busy gentleman. And uh,
this is the thing that kind of always draws me
nuts about you if you can just jump right into it,
like you're such a talented chef, but you're also so nice.
Why are you so nice?

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Good parenting? I guess I don't know.

Speaker 5 (04:22):
They love that they beat My dad beat.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
The mean out of me when I was a kid,
and wow, this is what you'd get.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
I love it, man, you really are the nicest guy.
We appreciate it by text you. You always text me
back and I don't know, it's just you're such a
sweetheart of a human being man, So of.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Course, well I love you guys. So yeah, it's always
a pleasure to do things.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
With you, dude. We just try to champion our great
restaurant business here in the States. So you know, I
got a chance to work with one of your really
good friends recently, did I did one of the Chef
dinners with Chef Proisade, who is now like one of
my favorite humans to ever walk the planet. What a
great guy he is?

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Huh he is, truly, Yes, he's He's amazing and a.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
G of a chef. I watched him make rice for
twenty minutes.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
I was in and all as good at cooking as
he is as a human, for sure, and he's great
at both.

Speaker 4 (05:04):
Ah. Man, he's such a great guy. And we talked
a lot about you and I was like, yeah, he's awesome.
I said, Tyler Comedies. No, he can't come, and I
was really hoping. I was like, one of the days
I might get to cook for this Guy's like I
show him. I cannot just I actually cook, not just talk.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
I'm sure you can't, dude.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
So I thought it'd be fun to come on here
and talk a little bit about doing TV and stuff.
But you got a lot of stuff going on too,
talk about Taku. What's going on? What's the story here?
I feel like you're always opening something different.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, so tak you this is It started in COVID
as a truck and it's still a truck, but each
year it's gotten a little bit different. So this is
year six. We just reopened two days ago. We're open
Monday through Thursday. It's in Millwright's parking lot. But we
have a beautiful little seated patio area down by our
little river here. Then people can go and and you know,

(05:51):
they get their talkings from the truck and then they
head down there and it's just nice spot.

Speaker 4 (05:55):
That's awesome. What kind of tako was we doing.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
It's tacos and barbecue. That's theree and for the name, right,
so tak q. So we have everything. We have barbecue platters,
we have ribs, we have smoked sirloin, we have smoked castrami, beets,
we have pork belly, we have all smoked chicken, all
the things. And then we do like little taco kits,
so it's sort of like you're putting together it's like
taco night at home, so you're putting them together on

(06:18):
your own. And then we do these vampirero tacos that
are like crispy tacos. I grew up in southern California
and spent too many weekends in Tijuana, probably more than
my mom would like to know about. And this was
a taco that I loved. It was just like a
crispy shell it's similar to a biria, but the shell's
a little crispy here and there's no consumme. But I
love them and it's just fun to be outside doing

(06:40):
these kind of things.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
Dude, that's amazing. I love how much of a barbecue
guy you are too, which is you know, I listen,
I always think of you. I know you, so I
think barbecue, but a lot of people may think of
like fine dining chef Tyler. That's fine dining, you know,
But you know, it can be a little bit of both, right,
it can, you know.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
And I think the older you get, the more you
chane and the more you sort of want to simplify
what it is you're doing. I'm not saying it's easier,
but you're simplifying things and sort of breaking things down
to what really matters. And to me, I've always liked
to use smoke as an ingredient, and I think that's
just happening more and more and more. And my obsession
with barbecue is pretty much really bloomed over the last

(07:20):
two or three years.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
So let me ask you a question as a barbecue guy,
and I'm going to see if you're going to crucify me.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Here.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
I'm a massive fan of my pellet grill. Does that
make me a terrible person?

Speaker 1 (07:32):
That makes you a pellet grull guy? Oh jeez, no,
seez Okay, there's a time and a place for a
pellet grill, and that time and place is probably home.
You know. I think that. I think that the convenience
of a brisket when you can just set it and
forget it and let it go. And you know, some
of these girls turn out amazing products. I use all wood,
but you know, there's definitely some good products out there

(07:56):
for pellet smoking.

Speaker 4 (07:57):
I like my I just like the temperature control. It's
really easy to control the temperature on it, which I
think is one of the I mean, when your barbecue
and when you're smoking, it's one of the hardest things.
It's just keeping that temperature where you want it, right.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, And that's why I like would because I like
the temperature control because you know, like it's yeah, it's
just that challenge, you know, It's just like it's it's alive.
You got to keep it where you want to keep it. Yeah,
But it makes it a you know, it makes it tough,
but I like it.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
I'll tell you, I got a pit boss sent me
the coolest thing, and it's a it's a pellet grilled.
It's about the size of a small cooler.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
You know.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
But it's battery operated and the battery will run for
like twenty hours. It's crazy and it's like my preferred
way to cook now. It's such an easy thing to use.
I love it. That's all battery operated. It holds it.
The hopper holds like seven or eight pounds. It's pretty sweet. Brother.
I want to talk le let's just I can talk
barbecue with you, of course all day long, but I'm
leaning into the barbecue because you recently are on Barbecue

(08:55):
Brawl on Food Network. Shout out to you. Taking a half,
by the way, and if you have it's in here,
you're holding your own.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, I have. My team had a rough first week,
but then the last two weeks we've been on top.
So feeling good about it. We're hitting our stride, working together.
It's fun. The show is fun because you're on a team, right,
so to me it it it's a little more like
real kitchen work because you guys know, in a kitchen

(09:23):
you're working as a team, and if if one person's weak,
the whole kitchen goes down, sure, but if the rest
are strong, they can build them up. So it's it's
cool to be working as a team. And I like
my team a lot.

Speaker 4 (09:33):
So did they ever give you, like any you know,
any any flak? I'll being, Oh, wait, you're a Connecticut guy,
what do you know about barbecue?

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah? I mean there's there's there's subtle things. I mean
the number one thing is what does the fine dining
guy know about barbecue? Right? You know? And then and
then who's this northerner?

Speaker 4 (09:49):
Right? And who's it?

Speaker 1 (09:52):
And now it's like, who's the guy making all the
vegetable dishes? Because I've made an avocado south, a stuffed tomato,
and a paiea, none of which really scream barbecue. But
it's all part of the game. So the contestants were
giving me a little ribbing, like when you get a
cook some meat here, chef, you know, yeah, yeah, you know.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
I tell people all the time when they're going to
go on these shows. I mean, having done thirty of them,
I think now or something. My point, Jeffy, the biggest
piece of advice I give people, and I'd love to
hear what you say too, Ty is that you have
to play the game. You have to play the game
right if if if the game is to make fried chicken,
make sure whatever you do is some facsimile of fried chicken,

(10:32):
you know, so, which is almost more important than even
the flavors or things like that. Just play the game.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah. I think some people have a tendency to either
think too far outside the box or just go to
an item that's in their repertoire that they're trying to
fit in to that situation. And that doesn't work. That
doesn't work. It might sneak you through, but it doesn't.
It doesn't get you the dub, you know.

Speaker 4 (10:56):
One hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
You know.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
One of the things I did grocery games years and
years go, Season one, episode two, I had to do
a five ingredient stir fry, and for some odd reason,
I made a stirfry and I put it in a
wantons and then fried the wantons and started it with
the sauce. And it was the one. I mean, technically
it was a stirfry in a wantaan made it crispy,
But the story I told is what won them over.

(11:18):
I said, listen, I have young kids. If I want
them to eat something. If I put it a little
pouch and make it crispy, I can haven't eat anything.
So that's kind of why I leaned into the story,
and that's the only reason why I won that round.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
I think that's smart. And they love a story too.
You know, if something has a story behind it and
it tastes good, you're gonna do pretty well.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
So yeah, smart idea.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
There, well, because I immediately I saw people make a
sturfries like ugh uh for my kids. I mean, that's
all nonsense. But you tell some story and they buy
into it, and that's all it takes. Jeffrey, go ahead, So.

Speaker 5 (11:47):
I have a question for both of you. Then, it's
not always the best food that wins the challenge when
you're on these shows.

Speaker 4 (11:54):
Is it a chef you can go first? Few one.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
I think that the food has to be good, right,
But I think that their ties all the time. I
think that definitely, Like if you say flavor to flavor,
Like you guys have had things plenty of things where
you're like, oh, I don't know which was better, to
be honest with you, So then it comes down to creativity,
the story, the background, the use of product, those sort

(12:18):
of things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. I think
I think Flavor is number one in most of them,
but like I said, they have a lot of opportunity
to go other places with the judging.

Speaker 4 (12:26):
Yeah, I think it depends on what show you're talking
about as well. But I think the biggest thing I've
learned is playing the game. You gotta you gotta play
the game what they say, you know, which I can.
I can leave a few question marks sometimes, but you know,
if you go into it and saying, well, I want
the judges to see how I'm really pushing myself to do,
nobody cares. Nobody cares. Like if you don't make risotto
every day, don't go into Chopped thinking I'm gonna make

(12:48):
risotto today, Like don't they just don't do that, you know. Yeah,
how many shows have you been on now time? Because
you got a.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Bunch uh Top Chef, be Bobby Flay, Chopped and Out
Barbecue Brawl. So that's been over the course of fourteen years.
So I'm not doing one every year, not even close.
But you know, it's fun to do every once in
a while. And if something I swore after Top Chef,
I wouldn't do any competition shows again, but the idea

(13:15):
of this one was intriguing, fun and I'm trying to
do I want to do a brick and mortar barbecue restaurant,
so I'm just working my way towards that. And I
felt like, you know, being around all these barbecue people,
pushing myself in barbecue, learning a lot and seeing what
I can do, could get me there faster. Well.

Speaker 4 (13:34):
I think the key thing too is you're doing so
smart about it when you do a show like this,
because you're doing you know, you're trying to do a
barbecue place like you it kind of helps build your
name up a little bit and using it to your
advantage in that way is the perfect way to do it. Yeah,
just as a marketing tool, just to kind of get
your you know, just to kind of use it to
promote yourself and you know, make they make things happen.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, for sure, it's it's very good for that. It's
a lot of time commitment, but at the end of
the day, if you can be on multiple episodes of
national TV with millions of people watching, it doesn't hurt
for in the marketing.

Speaker 4 (14:08):
Program, definitely not. I mean, if you can do it
and you get chosen and you get it's definitely worth
doing for sure. But what do you think? I mean,
you think being a judge is better or being a
competitor is better. I think as a competitor you probably
get more screen time, but as a judge, that kind
of puts you in this expert category.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
You know, Well, I think being a judge is better
because you get paid and you get to stay at
the Ritz. Carlton.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
Well, our friend Michelle will tell you that you do
only get paid as much as you think. She gets
paid one hundred and fifty bucks every time she judges
be Bobby Flay.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Oh wow, Yeah, I mean that's not a very lucrative one.
But something tells me that the judges on Barbecue Brall
were well taken care of.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
Yeah, I'll bet you're probably right about that. You're probably
right about that. Yeah, I just I know that sometimes
the judges it just it's just not worth it. But
I think as interesting though, is that people don't understand
or know is that you really don't get to spend
a lot of time with these judges before judging your food.
They're just you know, you're hanging out and you're making
food and then you give it to them and then
you see what they say. You know, you don't spend
out and talk to them about it and learn more
about it and find out why they thought stuff to you.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
No, there's no background. You just hear what you hear.
Obviously you hear more than what it is you see
on TV, right, but they cut that down. But you know,
the two shows I've been on that have had seriout,
Top Chef and Barbecue Brawl, the judging was very fair.
I felt like, and you know, that's a tough job,
and to be honest with you, I like the intensity
of being a competitor. I think it's more fun probably

(15:33):
to be a competitor. But if somebody wants me to judge,
you know, stay at the Ritz Carlton and get paid.
I'm happy to do that. Sure, happy to do it.

Speaker 4 (15:41):
That's like count me in talk about really quick being
on Top Chef because it's a much different situation than
some of these other Food network shows. I feel like's
probably more I've never done Top Chef, but I feel
like it's probably more intense.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, Top Chef was insanely intense. You know, you're filming
your for twelve to sixteen hours a day, you're miked
up for eighteen hours a day. You're miked up at home.
You know, the good thing about Barbecue Brawl is we
did have long days, but we weren't miked up at home, right,
So once once we got upset, that was it and
there was nothing to worry about. But Top Chef. It

(16:15):
was like, I think half part of the reason I
don't I don't like sleep well. You know, I'm not
like a great sleeper, and I was having like so
much trouble sleeping on Top Chef because I don't sleep well,
I don't sleep well on a bunk bed, you know,
all these things in the intensity of the show. So
I think, like I was so exhausted that that's one
of the reasons I went out. You know, excuses are
easy to make after the fact, but you know that's

(16:39):
that's all part of it. The intensity gets to you. Yeah,
no no doubt about it.

Speaker 4 (16:43):
I was on The Taste on ABC and it was
the first season of the show, and it was a
you know, sixty competitors and it was the beginning of
all these shows starting. So I don't think they quite
figured it all out yet. And we flew into La.
We stayed at the La Radison where you couldn't It
was like the worst hotel ever to wrangle everybody. I
end up renting a car and just leaving. I was like,

(17:03):
I'm not staying in this hotel. When I'm leaving, and
they got so upset at me, and I'm like, well,
I'm not staying here, man, what are you talking about?
But they try to keep you keep everybody together because
everything's so secretive. I feel like that's a little bit,
a little bit more laxed.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Now, what do you think on Top Chef? It was insane.
Like in Top Chef, you have each contestant has what
I call them handlers, So you have like somebody who
holds your prescriptions, holds whatever it is you need, holds
your phone, blah blah blah blah blah. And you literally
have to ask them to go to the bathroom. So
if you have to go number one, you say, can

(17:36):
I tend one? If you have to go number two,
tend two, And then they stand outside the door waiting
for you to get done. I'm trying. I can't cuss
on this show. I didn't like that. And Barbecue bra
Barbarcue brall was a little looser, but it was still
like they didn't you know, there was not a lot
of communication between contestants and things like that outside of

(18:00):
the outside of the filming.

Speaker 4 (18:02):
Wow, it's interesting, Jeffy, some of those shows, like they
didn't they lock you away because they don't want.

Speaker 5 (18:07):
You to go. I was gonna say, like, so, I mean,
can we talk about the lodging for just a second,
Like you're staying far away from home, you're on this show.
It's really intense. Like you said, bunk bed on Top Chef,
Like you didn't even have your own bedroom.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
No, when you're in the house. So I was in
the house for the first like a few weeks of filming.
When you're in the house, you don't have your own room.
It's it's bunk beds and all that. And like I
was in a room with three big guys, two three
of us were big, and there were two bunk beds.
So I wasn't gonna stay on the top bunk. So
I actually drunk my mattress down to the pool table

(18:41):
in the living room and slept on the pool table
every night, so that helped. I got a Seatpap, but
I got a seatpap machine. So I had to like
run an electric like an extension cord to the pool table,
and then I am laying on the pool table. Everybody
would wake up every morning and I'd be crashed out
on the pool table with my seatpap in like looking
like a Darth Vader machine.

Speaker 4 (19:02):
Yeah, that's hilarious. I didn't know that. I didn't know that.
And they're like, get off the pool table, man, We're
trying to play a pool.

Speaker 5 (19:08):
Yeah, dude, that's that's intense. So that adds to so
much of the intensity of the competition. I bet, like
you were saying before, like not not sleeping or sleeping
on a pool table, and also not having your own
space for your own headspace to like, you know, reflect
on the day and just be like, Okay, you know,
how do I get this or get better or whatever?
You know what I mean. It's like a constant shared experience.

(19:29):
It's like, that's intense.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
It is, and it grinds on you, you know, and
and and every hour, every minute of every day you're
thinking about the show. What was better about Barbecue Brawl
is that at the end of the day, we were
done and we go back to our hotel rooms and
then we can just kind of do whatever, you know.
But you definitely had time to decompress. You had time
to be alone, you had time to gather your thoughts.

(19:51):
You had time to sort of critique your day and
how you cooked and work on things for possibly tomorrow.
Top Chef was just a constant bra of madness.

Speaker 4 (20:01):
Did they let you leave on barbecue brawl? Like when
you're done for the day and you go home or
get back to the hotel room. Can you leave the
hotel if you want?

Speaker 1 (20:07):
You could? Yeah, you could. We're we're staying outside of
Austin near the set, so there wasn't a lot to do, right,
but at least I could like walk to Dick's Sporting
Goods and get a hat or something like that. You know. Yeah,
so we we could leave. We could leave. They just
didn't want us like all hanging out at the bar
getting drunk every night together. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:28):
Well, I mean there's no bar in the in the
in the hotel. This is upsetting the.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, where there's a will there's a way, that's right.

Speaker 4 (20:37):
Yeah, first time I look for it a book, a
hotel rooms have a bar. Because I want to keep
it simple, just keep it simple. I need to always
need a.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
Hotel. Bars are fun, you know, they can be fun.

Speaker 4 (20:48):
Of course they can be. I mean, because everybody's hanging out,
it kind of it becomes like a congregation area. I love.
Its fantastic. It's fantastic. We're hanging out with chef Tyler
Andison talking all about doing t V in the world
of TV food, having a lot of fun. When we
come back, we're gonna talk a little b about some
of these one off shows and we're gonna see if
Tyler will give us any heads up on what happens
on Barbecue Brawl, because listen, he's got all the tips.

(21:11):
He knows what's going on, he knows who wins the show,
he knows how it goes. I gotta do this. Is
not gonna tell us anything, Jeffie, but we're gonna dig,
and we're gonna dig. We're gonna see we can find
plus our house band. Of course there wrote a song
for chefs, so we got to save food tune for
that hang out. Friends were right back. You check out
plumbtve Foods rightret w CC the Voice of Connecticut stay
right there.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
And already help.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Super talented chef television.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
That was more.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
They nighty.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (22:40):
Wow some of the foods Right here on w I
c C A Chef Tyler's song you feel about That?
That was a little bit crazy to me. Uh had
a punk rock vibe and just a lot of yelling
and chanting. I don't know.

Speaker 5 (22:55):
I loved it.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
A lot of our guests like to like to have
these songs be there in songs from now and I
don't know if that's gonna actually fly. Jeff hooking for it,
so he's gonna love it.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Well I didn't. I didn't hear it. Oh see, this
is the closure.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
Okay, Well, we're gonna get it to you so you
can hear it and then you can you can give
us feedback on it, or you can just send us
the WTF and uh, I'll forward that right to Jeff.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
Listen, if it's a punk rock vibe, I'm probably gonna
be into it. I take you to I'm.

Speaker 5 (23:26):
Telling you, dude, it's got a very old school feel.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
I like it all right, sounds like a plan. Then
we're hanging out. Chef Tyler Ranison here on Plumb Love Foods.
Happy Saturday to you. I hope you're having a great
summer Saturday, we're talking all about TV and working by
chefs in the TV world, doing TV shows and that
sort of thing, whether it's Food Network or anything else.
I think between Tyler and one hundred and fifty different appearances,

(23:49):
one hundred fifty thousand, it feels like, I mean, honestly, hey,
you know what's funny, man. I think it's that people
don't know this. So I do Channel three once a week,
sometimes twice of week. I'm doing a lot of work
with them right now with people don't know.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
You've done a lot of local TV stuff too, as
well as national stuff. You don't get paid for that.
That's not a paid gig, Nope, you don't. The game
it's promotional. I mean, listen, it does help. I have
people all the time saying, oh my god, I love
watching you on great Day Connecticut. I love watching you
on this And sometimes I get more attention for that
than doing you know, some of the other things we're

(24:20):
talking about, like winning you know, Chopped or whatever. It's
It's it's interesting. I think the local TV thing is
uh is booming a little bit more. I think local
TV is getting I don't know more attention than such,
cause so many people don't have cable, you know.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, I mean I watch, I think I watch. I
watch more of the local news now than I watch
any other news because it doesn't seem to have the
same bias, right like so and and it kind of
gets to the things that I care most about, you know,
So I find myself watching more and more of it,
for sure.

Speaker 4 (24:50):
Yeah, I do too. I think it's kind of the
way the world's going because people have cable, you know,
that sort of thing. But you know, it definitely helps.
So when you see the chefs doing these local TV spots,
they're not getting paid to do them. Even regulars like
you know, Chef Tyler get paid to do it. We
do it just for promotional stuff, to put our things
out there, and you know, it is fun to go
do them sometimes and just you know, like for me,
I just make make a fool out of myself to

(25:11):
make her of my laugh. It's kind of been my
my whole gimmick the entire time. I've learned a long
time ago. Time when I'm doing TV and Jeff Not,
I just want to pop the crew. I just want
to It's my wrestling terminology. I just want to make
a crew laugh, people behind the cameras because they've seen everything.
If you can make them laugh, you're doing something real.
You're right, You're right, You're It makes it like that.
Uh So I want to lean into some of the

(25:33):
one off type shows. And what a one off type
show is is chopped. You know, you kind of go
in for a day, you do it there, you know,
or they Beat Bobby Flays talk about Beat Bobby Flay
and how that works and like going in for one
day and or is it two days or how does
that work?

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, tops are good because it's one day usually, you know,
and a lot of them are in New York, so
it's literally drive in, drive out. But you know, they
also don't build a story like the multiple episodes stuff does,
so they're good for something. The multiple episode ones are
good for other things. But Beat Bobby Flay was cool.
We had to film at five am because Bobby had

(26:09):
just opened a restaurant and he wanted to be at
his restaurant for service that night, which I felt was
pretty rad. You got to commend that, and then you
go up against another competitor and you get a mystery
ingredient and you have to beat that competitor. I think
I had like twenty minutes in broccoli, and you had
to beat that competitor in order to get to Bobby Flay.

(26:30):
And then you have have your signature dish, which you know,
I don't really have a signature dish, but you have
a dish that you like to cook, and then Bobby
books the same thing as you in his version.

Speaker 4 (26:43):
And then it's judged, Yeah the ciuature dish thing. Will
that in a second. But so on that show, you
get to Bobby, you finally get the chance to cook
against Bobby or whatever, and you know, and then they
pick a winner basically. But what I love about that show,
which is interesting is there's no cash prize.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
Right there's there's there's no prize beating Bobby Flay. Yet
they seem to have no problem getting chefs on the show.

Speaker 4 (27:06):
So which is funny because that show I first came out,
I was like, but there's no prize and and and
they're like, yeah, well you can just say you beat
Bobby Flay, and I was like, sos so, Like, I
just I don't know, there's no prize whatsoever. And I
can imagine how that pitch we meeting went, here's what
we want to do. Cooks come in. They're gonna cook
against Bobby Flay. If they win, we've shaked their hand,

(27:26):
tell them good job, and move on to the next one.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
I don't think Bobby cash prizes for any of his
shows because Barbecue Barbecue Brawl, the prize is a trophy.

Speaker 4 (27:36):
Is it really?

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (27:37):
I thought there was a cash prize on that.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Nope, no cash prize.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Just for the love of the game, baby Wow.

Speaker 4 (27:45):
Two shows now with no cash prize. Yep, that's hilarious.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, I'm not saying I'm not saying there's not cash
to be one on the show. No, I'm not giving
any spoilers. But there's no prize for the winner, and
there's a place.

Speaker 4 (28:00):
In the winner, gotcha, gotcha? You know, I think when
I did Grocery Games, it was a two day event.
My my my first stent on Grocery Games, and we
did out in California, and it was like the show
obviously was new I basically really creepy hotel, and you know,
it was hilarious. But because I won, it was two days,

(28:21):
and now they shoot two in one day that day,
two days to shoot one and what usually happens at
least on that show, what we did the actual show filming.
Once the show filming was done, we called a night
and then I come back in the morning at like
six am. And that's when you see them. Whenever you
watch those shows, you see them talking about what happened.
We filmed that. After it all happened, I kind of

(28:43):
interviews yeah, and recapped the entire thing, you know, which,
which is pretty fun. I guess it was a fun
way to do it because I know what happened at
that point, so I didn't feel bad about talking about trash,
you know, right, But how about some of the shows
you've done? Man? When I was on Cutthroat Kitchen, they
and they said, Chef, these people are boring. We know

(29:04):
that you're not. Could you live in it up a
little bit? And I was like, you want me to
be the heel? You want me to be the bad guy?
And I was like, absolutely, I will. And my wife
always tells me not to do it because she's like,
I'm you. But have any of the shows you've ever
been on, if they have kind of pulled you aside
and asked you to do something, you know, similar just
more of a creative way to make it more entertaining.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yeah, I mean they're a little hints dropped here and there.
But my whole thing is this, Man, if I'm not
getting paid, then I'm not an Like if you want
me to act, sign me up for SAG, get me
a card and put me on union wage. You know,
Like I like that, I'm not I'm not just gonna
like be a wind up doll for free, you know
what I mean. Like, so, I'm myself. I'm sometimes an

(29:48):
exaggerated version of myself, but I you know, especially in
Barbecue Brawl, like, I don't think I took Top Chef
seriously enough. To be honest with you, I was having
a good time. I was not sleeping well, I was
drinking every night. I was fun with the rest of
the cast. And then at the end of the day,
I didn't do nearly as well as I'd hoped. So
Barbecue Bral I kept it a lot more professional, and

(30:09):
I just I was not a jackass on the show,
and so I actually held back.

Speaker 5 (30:15):
Did you really?

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, but I think but I think there are they
have so many hours of you on camera. Was my
thing because you're filming where we filmed two days in
a row, about like twelve to sixteen hours a day,
and then the third day five hours of interviews. So
they have so much camera time on you that if
they want to pull that jackass saliness out of you,

(30:37):
they're going to do it right.

Speaker 4 (30:39):
So no doubt, and that's what they can do too.
Editing can really change the entire show. When I was
on Cutthroat Kitchen, you know, I got eliminate in the
first round. It happens. Whatever, It's fine, especially in particular
that show, because it was such a weird show, I
mean wild show. I mean they took away my eggs
and I had to make scotch a. It was ridiculous

(31:01):
and gave me hag its. I'm like, uh okay. So
it made me play golf with an egg which is
hilarious too, and I ended up just hitting the eggs
towards the other competitors with the golf club because I
knew at that point I was done. Then they were
the course that popped the crew. They were dying laughing
at me. But uh, you just kind of know. And so,

(31:22):
like I said, I went out in the first round
in that show. But what they did was I mean,
if you watched that episode, it's forty five minutes of
me running my mouth and then they crammed contest in
like fifteen minutes, and that's it. It's literally me just
running my mouth, talking trash the entire time. It's so funny.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
You got that screen times?

Speaker 4 (31:39):
Yeah, yeah, And I like, of course they did that
because they want somebody who's entertaining and they want something
fun on TV. And it was and I was like, oh,
you know what, actually that comes across pretty good. I'll
take that. That's fine, that's fine.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
So, yeah, that's good. And that's always something like you're
a little worried about when a show comes out, is
like how are they gonna spin you or whatever? So
that's like why I try to stay really close to
who I am. Yeah, because number one, that's easier, and
number two, like, you know, they can't completely fabricate a
character if you're just being authentically in yourself right right.

Speaker 4 (32:10):
The tough part for me with this is and Jeff
can vouch for this for me, like there's different, there's
always me in person, but it's just what level am
I on? Is it seven? Is it eleven? Is it twelve?
It's just how fired up do you want me to get?
So even on these shows where you don't win money
or there's no prize money or anything like that, you
do get a daily stipend and it's they don't talk

(32:33):
about it a lot, but that daily stipend is basically
supposed to feed you and that sort of thing. What
was your stipend on Barbecue Brawl per day? I think
it was two fifty a day. Oh wow, that's a
good one right there.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
They also did and they also did feed you. You know,
we got catering breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. We
were put up in a We were put up in
the nicest hotel in the area, which you know, Becave, Texas.
There's not a lot of four or five stars, but
we were put up in a nice well. They take
care of us.

Speaker 4 (33:01):
See. I like to hear that because I feel like
that's kind of I think that's one of the things
that's changed, you know. When I first started doing this,
Like I said the Taste on ABC, we stay at
the Ratison Hotel. They had a lock box on the
on the AC you could even turn it down pass
like seventy eight. I just tell room. It was it's
just crazy. And you know, I was excited to be
there guys twenty eleven or I'm like, oh, this sounds great,
and then you know now I'm like absolutely not, No,

(33:24):
we're not doing that.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
But yeah, I think I think if you treat chefs
like that, then you have a hard time getting chefs
in the future. But chefs, well, you know, like my
friends tell me how good the chefs are treated on TOC.
They get their own trailers, they get all this other stuff.
Chefs talk. And if you're saying you got to share
a room or whatever, that's going to get around.

Speaker 4 (33:44):
Yeah, and no one wants to do so. Yeah no,
because listen, we're growing. People were adults and look I
see Jeff right and not going I'm not sharing a
hotel room with anybody. Yeah, I the whole, the.

Speaker 5 (33:54):
Whole idea of a competition like that, I have a
hard time with. I just am like I checked that
out already. I'm like, no, no way, there's no way
I would like I think I would be. I just
wouldn't want to. I would just be like, wow, I
don't know what I signed up for. I'm so sorry. Yeah, yeah,
like I'm not sharing a room with someone I'm fifty.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (34:18):
Did they have hair and makeup on barbecue ball or not? Really?

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Not for us?

Speaker 4 (34:22):
No, that's so interesting.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
I do. I do my own hair, you know, like,
so I don't job they had like wardrobe, but they
you were you chose. They chose from your clothes essentially,
and they told you what to wear from your clothes,
which is cool because I don't want to. I'm not
a ken doll, you know, I don't want to be
dressed up and you know, but there was no hair

(34:44):
and makeup. They made have boogers and stuff like that.
But aside from that.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
Yeah, it's anyplace that can save money, I think is
what they do. You know, I really, I really believe that.
I think they have makeup for everybody else. But like competitors,
that means it's probably have to make up people of
their union, like out for certain people have been more
more than one.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
There's there's unions for everything. With the stuff now, especially
in the entertainment world.

Speaker 5 (35:08):
That's probably there's no cash prize, so they probably have
a little bit more money and production to throw towards,
you know, putting people up and things like that.

Speaker 4 (35:15):
Right, right, the last I would.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
I would say that, you know, the production of Barbecue
braw was very, very high, like the amount of camera people,
the amount like everything was huge. I don't I'm not
they don't do a cash prize because it seems like
a cash prize would be able to drop in the
bucket compared to what they spent on the show. Yeah,

(35:38):
And I just think it's something he likes to do,
Like Bobby just likes to have competitors come and compete
for the love of the game. I'm not. I don't
think he's trying to send.

Speaker 4 (35:47):
Yeah, that's probably that's probably safe.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
Bet.

Speaker 4 (35:49):
I think you're right about that.

Speaker 5 (35:50):
I mean he's been doing it since he jumped on
his cutting board. I mean, you know, like I remember,
I mean that's a long time ago. Guys, that's like
thirty plus years probably.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
You know, there's no one in the world who's done
more competition cooking than that guy.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
Yeah, you know, we were talking off air about that too.
And I'm not the biggest Bobby Flay fan. I don't
have a ton of experience with them. Might have some,
And I know our good friend Michelle Ugustus is like
one of his best She loves him very much, but
going way back to Food Network Star, but you know,
you're right, the guy like that. I mean he just
the amount of competitions, I mean, it's you get used

(36:27):
to it, you know, It's it's almost like muscle memory,
you know. I joke about food competitions as being one
of those things. When you first start doing it, everything's
so fast, and then kind of like NFL football, when
you become a seasoned veteran, the game slows down and
slows down and you kind of can like take a
breath and look around and understand what's happening. Where at
first you're like, go, go, go, go to make to
make this happen, and you know, it definitely slows down.

(36:47):
They just slowed down for you.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
Yet, yes, it slows down. And when you do a
multi episode thing, the first the first challenge, you're like, God,
I don't want going to be the first person to
go home on Fravish. And also, like having a kitchen
that's entirely wood fired is a whole new experience. So

(37:08):
I knew that I was going to go into it
spending this first couple two to three episodes really learning moronment,
learning what I could get away with because I have
a tendency to just go for it, go too big.
And so learning the kitchen and learning my environment was something.
And then it started to really slow down for me.

Speaker 4 (37:27):
Yeah, it's I think that's a key thing. It really does.
It's slow down and then you're good to go. I
mean when I was on chopped, I remember just I
mean the time, the time. I kept worrying about the time,
the time, the time, the time. And you know, now
I don't look at it. I don't look at the
time quite as much, you know. I know that. You know,
if I've got thirty minutes, makes something in thirty minutes,
like I can make that happen, you know.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
And I always I always have this idea for the
base of a dish, and if I get to a
time where I have the base of the dish prepped,
then I have start thinking about things, other things that
I can do for it. Do you end up with
that time and adding to the dish or making it
a little more smooth, or making it a little more
pretty or whatever. But I always give myself five minutes

(38:10):
to plate up, take a deep breath, make sure everything's perfect,
make sure your meat's rested plate up so that five
minutes is crucial soul.

Speaker 5 (38:19):
Do you go into these competitions with like a repertoire
of dishes that you think will work for almost any ingredient?
Like do you have stuff in your mind pregaming to
like prepare going to go do stuff like this?

Speaker 1 (38:33):
I try to, but I always I almost always go
off script. It's like all the competition shows I've ever done,
I think that I've done maybe five of this previously.
So when we talk about maybe I've done maybe I've
done forty right, multi episodes, single episode, think maybe I've

(38:56):
done thirty. So of the thirty things I've cooked on
TV thirty to four, what I've done before?

Speaker 5 (39:02):
Wow, that's crazy.

Speaker 4 (39:04):
Yeah, it's it's interesting. That is interesting. When I when
I went Chopped, I won with grilled tofu, and I
think I only grilled tofu twice in my life before then.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Yeah. Yeah, chop chop and chop just puts you in
a space where you're not comfortable. There's no way you
can go into Chopped with an idea in your head. No,
you know, you just have to look at the basket,
figure it out and go. And it's just about balance.
It's like, you know, I want fat, acid, sweet, saltah
blah blah blah bh How am I gaining this?

Speaker 4 (39:29):
Your CHOP's an interest you talk about too, because I
think it's you know, it definitely moves quickly. But when
you watch the show versus when you're on the show
and see the production part of it. You know, when
you open that basket up and look at it, you know,
you see what's there for the first time. That's all legit.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
You see that.

Speaker 4 (39:43):
But then they cut everybody opened the basket, so you
have a few minutes to think about, Okay, what can
I do here? How can I make with this? It's
not just I mean, you have some time. At least
that's what it was when I did it a long
time ago. Was that same for you?

Speaker 1 (39:54):
Yeah, that's how it was now I heard. So now
you have to like give a ri and say I
understand the competition blah blah blah blah blah, because I
think a lot of these shows got in trouble because
some of the competitors said that that the competition wasn't
explained to them right. So now there's just like a
little delay where you have to like stay in front
of the camera. I understand the competition and then Sam

(40:15):
and go. But that gives you even more time, right.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
Mm hmm, to definitely get to grocery games. The show
was brand new. I didn't even know what we were doing.
I thought it was like supermarket sweep. I was trying
to run around and find giant boxes of tied and
throw it in the cart.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
I had no idea.

Speaker 4 (40:31):
And I recently got a chance to tell Guy that,
I was like, yeah, back in my season, man, we
we didn't know what the game was.

Speaker 5 (40:36):
Like.

Speaker 4 (40:36):
I had no idea, like when I won, and I'm
gonna go run around and get, you know, collect money.
I didn't. I didn't know. I was like, sweet, I won,
what do I get? What do I do? And he
was like, I was like, for what?

Speaker 1 (40:49):
And if fire, it fires at you? And and and
you have to change how you're thinking so much because
you went from cooking to playing a game show just
like that. And we know that it's hard to go
cooking intensely to being a normal person. Oh yeah, oh yeah,
your head's still in the kitchen and you have this
kitchen haze. So yeah, that's probably tough. I would be

(41:12):
lost on that show. Because I can't find anything in
the grocery store. The grocery store workers four times, Like
every time I walk into a grocery store where something
is I would be a mess.

Speaker 4 (41:21):
I see, I think it's a private chef. I grocery
shop a lot, so I'm I fem confident with it.
We got to head to break here in a second.
We got a couple of minutes. But I want to
ask you too about this tipic. An interesting thing for
me when I left the Taste and that Taste was
a multi epithotic show and everything after being there and
being in La and doing the show and like you know,
there was definitely a transition period for me mentally when

(41:41):
I came home, Like it wasn't like okay, back to
the regular world. It was a little bit of a transition.
Did you feel that Top Chef?

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yes, definitely, there was like a hangover and it was
just like, well, Top Chef was a little different too,
because when you get kicked off Top Chef, you still
have to stay. So I was picked up halfway through,
so I didn't I stayed in a hotel for a
long time, so I kind of had a transition out
of it. But then getting back to home and getting
into the real world was weird, and it was weird

(42:10):
after barbecue Brawl too.

Speaker 4 (42:12):
Yeah, it's it's a it's a weird I don't know, man,
the transition is death thing, just coming back into the
real world and like you're back to my house where
I had little kids at the time, and like my
wife does, he doesn't understand what just happened and what
went through and like, it's a weird I don't know.
A hangar was a great explanation for it.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:27):
Yeah, A lot less of that, A lot less of
that with this one of us.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
For sure. I mean, that's that's easy pasy. What I
Chopped was the first one I did, and I won Chopped,
and I was like, wow, I want to do this
every day. I just went ten thousand dollars in twelve hours,
you know, But and then you're done. And I didn't
really realize. I didn't really think about being on TV.
I didn't like, I didn't. It didn't bother me as
much because I hadn't seen the show, so in my mind,

(42:52):
I kind of like just played like I wasn't on TV,
like I was just cooking. And then it came out
and I'm like number one, geez, I'm fat, God sweat
damn that.

Speaker 6 (43:01):
Food looks like And so I I tried, and so
I tried to, you know, change that, and you know, tried.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
To come across. And then and then the next shows
I did, I felt like I was on TV and
it was a little more pressure.

Speaker 4 (43:16):
Yeah, it makes it. We're talking all about food on
TV and being on these food shows with one of
the best here in our state, one of the nicest guys,
one of the best chefs we have, Chef Tyler Ranison.
We're lucky that he is part of our state and
here with us and sharing some of his knowledge. When
we come back, we're gonna break down a little bit more.
I got about, Hey, did they make things happen on purpose?
Because they definitely did with me. You're checking out Plumb

(43:36):
Love Foods right here on the Voice of Connecticut, WYCC.

Speaker 5 (43:38):
Stay right there.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
We'll be right back to Gravel Water guys.

Speaker 4 (44:00):
Plumb the Foods right here on WIC see the Voice
of Connecticut. One thing, Jeffy, that we haven't said enough
about on this particular episode of the program is that
if you miss something on this show, guess what it's
still a podcast, Jeffy. You can go get the podcast
anywhere you get your podcast. For instance, do you go
to iHeart, We're on there, yep. Do you go to Spotify,
We're on there, yep. Do you go to Apple, We're

(44:22):
on there. How about how about Deezer that used to
be a thing? What it's something called deezer? You know
the podcast platform. No, we're not frozen, but we're joined
by Tyler Anderson here hanging out with us, having some issue,
having a little technical difficulties, but working through it. Jeffy,
that's where our plan is. That's what it is, that's
what we do. But yeah, so anywhere get your podcast,
come check us out. It's gonna be a lot of

(44:43):
fun out.

Speaker 5 (44:43):
Speaking of Tyler Anderson, you can also check him out anywhere.
If you go to Chef Tyler Anderson on Instagram. He's
there at Millwrights at tak Q which just reopened. You
want to go, definitely go check that out at the
Mill Rights parking lot. It's definitely happening.

Speaker 4 (45:00):
Tacos and talk with me about Tyler. I'm promising you're
they're good. Yeah, smoked meats and tacos, Jeffy, count me
in I gotta go check out talking no doubt about
it exactly, Uh, Chef, I want to bring up some
interesting things about these shows that I don't think people
talk about enough. And it's happened to me. I'm curious
if it's ever happened to you. Has you Have you
ever had like a piece of equipment not work randomly,

(45:20):
or I guess have production do something to make it
more entertaining, like whether it's take away a piece of
your equipment or unplugged something or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
I don't think I ever have. I mean, I think
things have gone wrong, and I've seen things go wrong
for other competitors, but I don't think I've been sabotaged.
To be honest with you, No, yeah, I don't know.
That's a boring answer, but it's you know, it's I
think it's the truth. I sabotage myself, you know.

Speaker 4 (45:47):
Yeah, I feel like I don't know if I got things,
if things went wrong on purpose, or because I think
when it does happen, you're not thinking, oh they did
this to me. I'm you just why has the blender unplugged?
You know, I don't know what that's happened to me?
My blender was unplugged. I didn't plug it. I don't know. Right,
it worked when we did the walkthrough. Now it's not working.
What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (46:04):
Could have been another competitor, too, right, It could have been.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
It could have been. We were on the Taste on
ABC and I actually stole someone's shopping cart and Whole
Foods one of the competitors. I took their cart and
moved it to a completely different aisle and they had
their back turned.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Nice guy, Nice guy.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
And it even showed on TV. I was like, come on,
I'm the only guy. I was the only person that
miked up for the Whole Foods trip because I was
just talking talking, imagine that. But yeah, I moved someone's cart.
I thought it was hilarious. But you know, I think
sometimes competitors do that to each other, though, don't you.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
Yeah, there's some of that. I mean, most of the
time it's pretty respectful, but I've seen some of it.
I've seen some tomfoolery before.

Speaker 4 (46:43):
Yeah, I mean, what about this when everyone's all lovey
dovey and wants to hug and be friends. I was
never that guy. I'm like, we're competing. I'm in a
competition against you. I'm not your friend.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Yeah, I'm always if it's one off, I don't care, right,
I'm like, Hi, nice to meet you, Like, let's do this.
But in the series shows, I've become friends with everybody,
to be honest with you, like I'm not I like
hanging out with chefs, and yeah, I'm pretty pretty cordial.

Speaker 4 (47:12):
I feel like a chef should be the president. That's
what I think. I feel like we were great leaders,
but terrible examples.

Speaker 5 (47:21):
I think you already got well as well.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
But well, you know, listen, I'll make you think I'm
great at it. You know, it's all right. So what's
been your favorite show so far? You've done Barbecue Bral
sounds like kind of really like that one.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
Yeah, you know, it was probably Barbecue Brall because I
do like I do like the multi series shows because
you get a chance to like have your character develop
or whatever, you know, show who you are. And it
was a little less intense than the last one of
those I was on, So yeah, it was probably my
favorite overall.

Speaker 4 (47:55):
Did you have to apply for Barbecue Brall or did
they reach out to you?

Speaker 1 (47:59):
They reached out to me and then there and then
I went through the whole process. So they reached out
to me and said, hey, we'd like you to apply,
and then I applied and then went through all of it,
and then I was supposed to I was. I went
far for the last season. I was like in the
finals for being on for the last season, and they
went a different direction. And then they called me back
this year, like a few weeks before they were filming

(48:20):
and they're like, hey, you interested in you know, coming
to Austin for a while. Yea, like sure, So I
worked out with my schedule. I have an awesome team
here at Millwright, so I have an awesome team at
oor Hill and Swift, So they were able to hold
it down while I was gone and I felt good
about leaving during that time. So it just worked out.

Speaker 4 (48:35):
How's your wife feel about it? Is she like supportive?

Speaker 1 (48:38):
She's yeah, she's very supportive. I mean, nobody loves having
their person away, you know, for for that long, but
you know, you try to make it worth it, right, like,
so ultimately, you know, we're a combined household and I'm
I'm doing this for both of us, and you know, success,
success in the restaurants makes both of us happy, and

(49:00):
it's for both of us, so and she understands that
still sucks while it's happy, but yeah, she's school.

Speaker 4 (49:07):
I'm lucky to And then I have a very supportive
wife when I do these things, She's very supportive of it.
And you know, she understands that what you just said, like,
it's it's for both of us, it's for everything, you know.
But sometimes she is definitely like, oh, how long. So yeah,
I got recently was in Sonoma and that happens. They
called me. It was so last minute.

Speaker 5 (49:27):
I went.

Speaker 4 (49:27):
I can't talk a whole lot about that yet, but
I went, and you know, but I was only gone
to like twenty seven hours because I ended up moving
my flight and coming home early because we just had
so much going on. And you know which, by the way,
they would never let you do ten years ago in
this in this food game that you could never just change.
They did, but they were like, yeah, sure, go ahead,
and I was like, oh great, cool, And they paid

(49:47):
for the flight change and all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
So yeah, they're a lot better with all that stuff
because they're making so much money off these competition shows,
and in order for the competition shows to work, they
have to have the competition and there are only so
many chefs out there. There are only so many chefs
out there who would be okay for TV. There are
only so many chefs out there who have the talent
to be able to compete and like want to be
able to compete. So it's not a huge pool. So

(50:11):
you got to treat us.

Speaker 4 (50:12):
Right, you know, Yeah, especially because I think they revisit
that same pool so often these days. I feel like
we see the same people so many times on these shows, now,
don't you.

Speaker 5 (50:20):
We do.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
And that's that's why I've said no to a lot
of them, just because like I don't want to always
be the guy who's just like always on you know,
the one offs and like continuing to do them. But
like every once in a while it's fun.

Speaker 4 (50:33):
What's one you said no to?

Speaker 1 (50:36):
Cut through a kitchen?

Speaker 4 (50:37):
Yeah, smart move.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Yeah. I just I think there's too much weirdness. Like
I like to be on shows that where the goal
is that they want the food to be really good.
And I can tell you for a fact, Bobby wants
the food on Barbecue Brawl to be really really good,
Like that is the that's his first priority. And that
was cool and now obviously tops wants that too.

Speaker 4 (51:01):
Yeah. Are they done with Top Chef? Are they still
making that show?

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Yeah, they're still making it. I think it's in season
eighty nine. Yeah, season twenty one or something.

Speaker 5 (51:11):
You know.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
I don't watch the shows.

Speaker 4 (51:13):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
Yeah, I don't know, but I know it's still.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
Going interesting because I feel like I haven't seen much
about it doesn't have a lot. It's not like, oh,
this guy's from Top Chef for this, you know. I
feel like it's just kind of faded out a little bit.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
I think it's stars fading a little bit, but you know,
it's still Top Chef. I'm not sure how long. How
much longer Tom wants to do it. They lost Padma
two years ago.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
Yeah. So, by the way, she's supposed to a new
show called America's Culinary Cup. They called before is she Yeah,
it's called America's Culinary Cup. I'm surprised they don't reach
out to you, and you're James Beard, you know stuff.
That's the people they want, they want, like, yeah, but
I think they're finding that a lot of these chefs
who are you know, not everybody, but this is just
this particular program. They reach out to me. I talked
to them. They were like, it'd be fun to have

(51:53):
an Emmy nominee, like as a chef, you're doing this.
I was like, yeah, sure, cause that's the kind of
people that they want, people who have like I don't
know what the like awards or something like that. And
I think they're finding out a lot of these people,
you know, chefs have won James Beard Awards or stuff
like that. They don't. You know, David Standrids is gonna
go do TV? Is my point, Like he doesn't give it.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
He doesn't care, you know, well he I think he
has done TV. David has Yeah, I think he did
beat Bobby Slay.

Speaker 4 (52:18):
Yeah, I'd love to see that, actually, I think.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
And it's like, I mean, a lot of it is
there's just some chefs, many chefs who just don't want
to do it, regardless of awards. Yeah, no, no, thank you,
Like I know so many there might only be a
quarter of chefs who would want to do.

Speaker 4 (52:34):
It, you know, but who ken who are talkers and
aren't you know, like I don't know, I feel like that.
I feel like this particular show that's coming out, it's
a CBS show. I think it comes out next year.
Like the caliber of chefs they want aren't the kind
of chefs who are willing and not I'm saying in
a bad way. What's the word I'm looking for? They focus,
These chefs focus more on like like I'm gonna win
James Beard Awards. I'm gonna do this. I don't really
care about your TV show. You know, I don't even

(52:55):
have a TV I don't watch TV. I don't know
anything about TV. I make fagras or whatever.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
You know.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
That's yeah, that could be the case. But also it's
you find when it's a first season of a show,
I think it's harder for them to recruit talent unless
it's like a proven entity. Yeah, and you know, like
like I said before Chef's Talk, and if the show
is good, then they're going to keep getting chefs wanting
to be on it, right, And if the show puts
you in a ratison we have to share a room

(53:23):
and the AC is on lock, then nobody else is
going to do it. So I think unproven shows, regardless
of who's involved, are a little tougher to cast.

Speaker 4 (53:32):
I said no to Hell's Kitchen years ago.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
Ugh, yeah, I would never do Hell's Kitchen.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
I mean and they couldn't believe that. I was like, nah,
I'm not interested. Just there's too many I don't know, man,
the show is it's faith drama, right, it's not about
the food, and like, you know, some of the people
on the show, I don't know. My answer to them
was I can cook. I can actually cook, right, And
they were like, what do you mean you know? I
was like, I don't know, man, Like you definitely can
be portrayed very poorly on that show, you know you can.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
And there's I mean, the cooking on that show is
not good.

Speaker 5 (54:01):
You know.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
I'm not saying there's some very good cooks on that show. Sure,
not very many, not very many.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
Yeah, I mean it's just I don't know. Yeah, it's
just not my thing.

Speaker 5 (54:09):
And well, I think they cast it to have people
that just clearly are winners and clearly not winners, just
for the drama and the and the and the chatter.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
Well, they definitely used to gaslight people on that show mad,
like they would get somebody who is just horrendous and
tell them you could win this show, you know that, right,
Like you're you're doing really well. Production really likes watching you.
And I don't think they can do that kind of
stuff as much anymore, but that's what they used to do.
Our friend Frank Bollotti was on Hell's Kitchen and All
Stars I think too or something like that. He's great,
Frank's a great guy. He's a great cook. But I

(54:40):
mean he's a character's Statna bolks like this. He's character. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And we love Frank Frank. He's a friend of ours.
He's fantastic. But you know, he was like they definitely
you know, they tell you that, oh, you're doing great,
You're doing so well, you know, just to get you
fired up going.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
Yeah, So I said no to that show, which is
I don't know, it just doesn't make any sense to me.
They did do it in Connecticut recently, didn't they.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Yeah. I think they filmed it at Foxwoods.

Speaker 4 (55:06):
Right, yeah, yeah, because I think he has health Kitchen
in Foxwoods now, which yeah, don't know. I don't know, man,
But you'd never do it, would you.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
I very much respect respect Gordon Ramsey and as a
chef and as a TV personality, but you could not
pay me to be on that shop. Yeah, Like if
you said, we'll give you one hundred thousand dollars to
be on L's Kitchen, I.

Speaker 4 (55:26):
Would say no, Yeah, I think what's interesting about that
show too. I don't know if people realize that, like
you don't have to take you don't get the restaurant job,
like that can be the you get a contract to
go be the chef that you know, Health's kitchen at
fox Wood like that that could be the prize. Or
you could take this cash prize of one hundred thousand
dollars that ends up being about forty when it's all
said and done, right right.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
And like I don't want to. I don't want to
like go to be in a competition and then just
get yelled at by a chef you know, like, uh,
it's not it's not what I'm looking for and that's
what they're looking for. So yeah, I'm not into that.
Even if it is Gordon Ramsey, I'm not into it.

Speaker 4 (56:04):
Yeah, it's just not my thing.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
Jeff.

Speaker 4 (56:06):
As a person who you know, you've you've been a
part of some of these things and seen some of
these shows. Are there any of these shows that you
you watch and they're like, oh, that's really interesting. Oh
I like to try that.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (56:17):
I mean for me, I've been watching cooking shows since
Iron Chef and Iron Chef to me is the old
the og like it's always about the food. It's like
the you know, you get the you know, you know,
we competition beef, you know whatever, you know, and then
like the whole thing. That to me, I've always like
dream I've always wanted to be on Iron Chef, you

(56:38):
know what I mean, like bring a team of like
two or three guys and go in there and just
see how you do, you know with that kind of
a that level of competition. To me, that's always been
my dream dream.

Speaker 4 (56:49):
I think Iron Chef is a great show.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
Chef.

Speaker 4 (56:51):
Did you ever do that one or watch that one
or pay attention to it?

Speaker 1 (56:55):
I never did it, but I definitely watched religiously like
you Like You. That was the first. That was the
first competition shows we saw, and I used to watch
the Yeah, the one from Japan. Oh, that was my favorite.
And before the internet, we didn't have access to see
what other people were doing in a kitchen. Yeah, so
it was awesome to be able to see what different
chefs were doing from around the world and around the country.

Speaker 4 (57:16):
I love that show. I think that show is awesome,
and you know, We recently pitched a show actually, which
was funny Tyler that it was basically going to be
a restaurant versus another restaurant, like the Cuisines Italian and
you bring your you know, whatever your brigade is in
your kitchen that you think your top brigade, and this
restaurant is going to bring their top brigade and we're

(57:37):
going to make a menu. And it was a whole
thing with like fifty people sitting like in like a
like a pyramid situation, the stadium situation, and it was
going to be really really fun And yeah, that sounds awesome.
Still could be, still could be that it's true, It's true.

Speaker 5 (57:50):
It did get.

Speaker 4 (57:51):
It did get. We signed a deal for it. That
means nothing, but uh but it would be like your team.
It's not just about the chef, it's about the team,
even their servers. Like you bring your entire crew and
food and there's to make this menu. I don't know.
I was like, that's no one, no show does the
entire team you know.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
No, that's an awesome idea.

Speaker 5 (58:10):
Dishwashers too, Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, everybody, everybody, everybody, You
bring your eighteen whoever you're eighteen.

Speaker 4 (58:16):
And if your eight team is you and three people,
and that's what it is. But if your eight team
is you and fifteen people, and that's what it is,
you bring.

Speaker 5 (58:22):
It's a wild thing to think about, though. I didn't
think bringing the dishwasher, because then you they only have
to have so many pans, right, The pants have to
be clean and back on the line so they can
pump out as many dish.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 5 (58:33):
See listen, producers, if you're out there, we get we're
really smart people. We're ready top ten percent. We're ready
to throw down and help you make great food television.

Speaker 4 (58:44):
That's right, that's right. Hey, what's something that's happened to
you on one of these shows, Tyler where you were like,
oh man, I really wish I didn't make that. Oh man,
that's awful.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
White, I do that well. The show I went out
on on Top Chef or the Yeah, the diem I
went out on on Top Chef was trash, So I
went out. It was a heritage challenge, right, and my
heritage is Southern California. White guy in Southern California. There
is no We're not like Italian, we're not French, we're

(59:12):
not Irish, just white boys. I didn't grow up cooking
next to my No. No, I didn't like none of that.
So I knew this challenge was probably coming, and so
I was going to try to pull from my heritage,
which is Swedish. And so I combined my Southern California
with Swedish and made try tip grilled try tip with

(59:33):
pico deguio, which is what I should have just done.
But then I also made meatballs from the try tip
with like a beat sauce and pico de guyo, and
it was too much on a plate. My meatballs were trash.
I went home. I deserved to go home, but I
just overthought it. You know, I should have just done
Southern California try tip, tortilla, pico de guyo, salsace on

(59:56):
some cilantro and bam. I would probably still be on top. Yeah,
but no, I overthought it and had to go Swedish
when I've never cooked a Swedish thing in my life.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
See that's what It's one of the things we said
in the first break here. You know, if you don't
cook something on a regular basis, if you don't if
you're not Swedish, a'll makes me Thish food. Don't go
into a show thing and I'm gonna make Swedish food
because it's not your thing. Don't do it, you know,
don't make risotto. Don't make risotto.

Speaker 5 (01:00:18):
You know. Hold on, I'm getting mixed thing those here.
You're saying that. But then just a minute ago or
like just back the last break, Tyler said he's only
made five things that he's made before.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Yeah, like, like truly, you know, like that, I've known
the techniques. I've put different techniques together that I've done before.
I've never I don't like. I don't like the dishes
aren't replica dishes of things I've done before. Yeah, you
know what I mean. Like yeah, and maybe even the

(01:00:50):
technique differs a little bit. But when you start to
play in like with different cultural cuisines that you're not
familiar with, that's when you go down and flame. So
I tried to stick with the ones I'm familiar with
and then go from there, but not pulling something completely
new out of that.

Speaker 4 (01:01:09):
Yeah, like I said, He's right, I think it's techniques.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:01:12):
On a grocery games, we had to do a game
where we had to use Eggo waffles. I guess they
sponsored a segment. I don't know what it was. We
had used Eggo waffles and I knew everybody was gonna
make chicken and waffles. They're gonna fry, and the idea
was to make a very family friendly meal. Right, So
I took a bunch of waffles, I made him into
a bowl, and I made chili, and I put chili

(01:01:34):
in a waffle bowl, and that was what one like.
They were like, hey, that's a pretty good idea. You
used the waffles as a bowl and you could eat
it and I was like, yeah, it's great, just don't
eat it from the bottom first, just you know, a
little spill everywhere. And they thought it was a great idea.
But you know, like I said, I've made chili a
thousand times, so it was not hard. Wasn't a big deal,
you know, keeping it easy. Jeffy.

Speaker 5 (01:01:52):
Yeah, that's the best I think is to do something
that you're comfortable making with the ingredients that you can transfer,
like take in a technique that you know well, like
the back of your hand, and then taking whatever ingredients
and apply it to that technique.

Speaker 4 (01:02:07):
Right, Tyler, any any thoughts of ever trying to make
your own program, your own situation, local or or not local,
but doing your own thing with it being like, you
know what, I'm gonna make my own show. I'm gonna
come up with a great cooking show.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
I mean, I would love that, but it's certainly I'm
not going to put a lot of effort into it.
Like I'm not gonna put a lot of effort. I
got a lot of stuff going on, so I'm not gonna,
you know, if something were to happen, I've been asked
to like try out for the to be a host
of a couple of things that I've done, like whatever
screen test for you know, but if if if something

(01:02:42):
were to come my way, of course I would. But
I'm it's you know, that's that's a dream more than anything.

Speaker 5 (01:02:47):
And you know.

Speaker 4 (01:02:50):
You're not actively seeking it, No, not at all. It's
a lot of work, speaking of experience, it's a lot
of work, I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
Sure it is. And I have restaurants, you know, I
just don't have the time for.

Speaker 4 (01:03:01):
It, of course. Of course, of course great restaurants, by
the way, which are very exciting.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
Jeffy.

Speaker 4 (01:03:06):
Let's get those plugs up there for Tyler before we
had to break here in a minute.

Speaker 5 (01:03:09):
Absolutely at chef Tyler Anderson on Instagram. Follow him there.
He's got mill rights. He has tak Hugh or Hill
and Swift. Swift is so Swift and or Hill. They're
in the same building, right. Swift is the tavern at
oor Hill. Is that how that works? Right?

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
Same building? Yeah. Swift is our wood fired, all natural pizza,
no yeast, all sourdough, starter burgers from our farm, from
our beef on our farm, and and sort of like
an everyday kind of place. Yeah. And then or Hill
is a tasting menu and prefix only using many of
the things from our farm as well. Or Hill only

(01:03:47):
seats twenty people all night and is only open Thursday
through Saturday. Swift seats a fair amount more, but it's
it's small and we're open Wednesday through Sunday.

Speaker 4 (01:03:57):
There are you cooking at or Hill? Who cooks?

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
I have a great chef, great team there. Ryan Carbone
is the chef there. He's from He came from New
York and he's doing a great job. He's been with
us I think about eight months now, but I cooked
there a lot at first. Now Ryan, Now, Ryan's doing
an awesome job and my job is to support him.

Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
That's fantastic. That's great. I got to come out there
and have dinner.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
That's I'm actually doing. We're actually doing a barbecue, an
outdoor barbecue cookout there on July first, which is going
to be awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:04:32):
That's fantastic. All these fun things happen in our state
in the summertime when I can't do anything but work.
It's just you know, it's just a way. I'm out
in the Hampton's all summer. Yeah, work working my butt
off out there.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
But you know, how many months are you there? Lee?

Speaker 4 (01:04:46):
Actually I leave about almost three. I head out next
Wednesday actually for the summer, so you know, and listen,
I'm not crying a river. I get a beautiful house.
My clients take great care of me. But it's work,
there's no questions. It's a lot of it. It's a
lot of doubles. When we come back here on Plumb
Love Foods for our last break with our good friend
chef Tyler Andilson. He's awesome for joining us. We'll talk

(01:05:09):
a little bit more about local stuff, talk about some
of the things that we've done, talk about creating your
own stuff and what's different in working in a place
like you know, public television like NPR or PBS versus others.
Stay right there, you're checking out Plumblave foods, Plumb Love

(01:05:57):
Foods right here on the Voice of Connecticut WYC. The
chef plump Chef Jeff hanging out with you with our
guest chef Tyler Anderson, legendary chef, amazing human being. So
lucky he's here in our state. You know, Tyler, I
talk about all the time Jeff and I both do
on this program. The amount of talent that we have
in our little state now is pretty unbelievable. We got
some great chefs, man.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
Yeah, it keeps getting better and better. You just have
to drive a little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
Yeah, it's not that bad. It's not that bad it
getting out there and check him out. I mean, David Standridge,
we've talked about a little while ago in our last
break one of my favorite chefs in the country, one
of the most talented guys I've ever eaten from. I mean,
the guy is just awesome and just a sweetheart of
a human being. Just so lucky to have a guy
like that around.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
Yeah, he's great.

Speaker 4 (01:06:40):
And of course you yourself, man, you kind of set
the tone. You know. I feel like you've been doing
this a long time in this game here in Connecticut,
and you've you know, you set the bar high for everybody.
So we appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:50):
Well, thank you. And it's you know, the more good
chefs that are in the state, the more good chefs
will be in the state, because people go on from
us and they open restaurants, and then people going from
I'm in the open restaurants, and it's just it's a
culture that keeps feeding itself. So it's good to see that.

Speaker 4 (01:07:05):
Yeah, no doubt about it, man, no doubt about it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
I was inspired by a couple o gs like Prisad
and Billy Grant, you know, those are those are two chefs.
The first step. The first step was having chefs who
owned their own restaurants, and those two, you know, and Storch,
those guys at it early and they set the tone
for guys like me, and I hope that I've been
able to set the tone for other chefs to open

(01:07:30):
their restaurants.

Speaker 4 (01:07:31):
You know, I always say, I never realized how old
Storch is. I had no idea he's like eighty six
years old. I had no idea how old.

Speaker 5 (01:07:36):
He looks good.

Speaker 4 (01:07:38):
He does he does, especially when it has both the
leg prosthetics on it, he can actually move. No, we
love storching. He is the absolute best, one of the
best humans too. He's great talented guy. But yeah, I
could go off for everyone talented chefs in our state.
But I do feel like we're kind of I've turned
a corner here and have so many great chefs that
are around here. And you know, a lot of the
chefs here in our state have done TV and do

(01:07:59):
it on a regular basis and have used it as
a marketing tool for their restaurants, their businesses and whatnot,
much like you have chef definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
And I feel like in a small state like Connecticut,
they take a little a lot of pride in seeing
their chefs go on TV and do well. And so
if you go on TV and you do well, you
know you're rewarded by business in your restaurant. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:08:22):
I think that's a great way to look at it,
because you're right, you go in there and do well,
and you don't have to always win. I just go
having this showing you know, do well.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
Don't be a jackass. And uh, that was a bad word.

Speaker 4 (01:08:33):
No, jackass is fine. You're talking about about would have
been saying that all the tool. It's a donkey. Don't
be a donkey.

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
Represent yourself well, represent your state well, and you know,
see what happens.

Speaker 4 (01:08:44):
Yeah, like I told, like I said before in a
previous break, you know, my wife always says to me,
just remember I have to own you, so just remember that.
And I'm like, that's a good point. It's valid, it's valid,
it makes sense. Hey, uh, you have a daughter. You
have a daughter, right, I have two daughters. You have
two daughters, that's right. How do they feel about dad
on TV? They care?

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
Yeah, they love they love it. My one daughter is
eighteen and she is okay with it. You know, she's
like in college now. She's like whatever, Dad, But she's
working with me for the summer and that's awesome. But
my nine year old is like, Dad, I can't wait
to watch you had said it. What happens, what happens,
what happens fun, And she watched. She's watched every episode
of Barbie Cue Brawl like three times.

Speaker 4 (01:09:24):
So it's amazing. I love that. Yeah, I have I
have teenage daughters as well. I have twins who are
graduating high school and congrafts to them actually for just graduating,
actually because they happened Thursday. But rats, Yeah, yeah, it's
but they don't really care anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
Yeah, and they've seen you on TV so many times
at this point it's like, yeah, whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:09:43):
Yeah, they're like, that's great, dad, and that's fantastic.

Speaker 3 (01:09:45):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:09:46):
And my wife is your wife the same way. She
doesn't really care either.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
Lindsay, she cares, she watches it, she's into.

Speaker 4 (01:09:53):
It, but she like nicely excited, like she like because
it's polite to be excited for you, Like I think the.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
Big ones like this one he's excited about, Like, you know,
I love going on the news with Matt Scott. Matt
Scott's a great guy. She doesn't get excited about those segments.
I think I get more excited about those segments in there.
But I think my mom, Lindsey, my girl, and then
my daughter Avery, I remember my daughter Violet are the
three most people, three people most excited about the shows.

Speaker 4 (01:10:18):
Se at least you still a family who care. Like, yeah,
Jeffy used to get excited for me. He doesn't get
excited anymore. He's like, oh, you're doing more, Okay, great.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
Old hate.

Speaker 4 (01:10:28):
Yeah, great, it's it's a thing. So we talked a
little bit before about doing our own stuff, and I've
kind of been trying hard to do that here in
our state with shows like Restaurant road Trip and Seasoned
on NPR and uh, just just trying to change the
game and using what little bit of success I've had
to give a platform to other people to showcase some
of the best that we have, because I just believe
it all is one big circle that comes back around.

(01:10:50):
You know. One of the things with the Restaurant road
Trip that was so great was no one told us
what to do. It was our way of doing it.
To a point, PBS started kind of want to chime
in a little bit more with stuff, which is part
of the reason we had not a very nice breakup.
But when you do a show like that and you
have I don't know if if you have someone telling

(01:11:12):
you which direction to go in with your program and
you're a chef number one, I'm guessing Tyler probably you'd
be the same about this, and Jeff, I know you would.
We don't take very well to that, Like you know,
we don't believe it or not a chef's we don't
like to be told to do.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
Yeah. No, I would not like that at all. No, no,
And you know, to a certain to a certain point, right,
like they've obviously done more TV than me, so if
they have some advice whatever, But like at the end
of the day, like there's a reason you hired me
to do this show, and if you don't want to
roll with it, then what are we doing here? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:11:43):
One hundred percent. You know, one of the one of
the issues that I had was, you know, this is
this is our shows, is how we've always done our show.
Don't try to come in here and make it political.
I'm trying to be piecy about this. Don't come in
here and ask me that to have certain places on
or things on because of certain reasons. You know, like
it's all about has to be about the food. It
can't be about anything else other than that. You have

(01:12:04):
twenty three other hours a day to be about that.
It just has to be about the food, you know.
I remember, in particular on seasons on NPR, they want
us to have a restaurant on and I said, great,
love to have Mother's talk to them, sounds like it's
a barbecue place. And I said, how's the food. Well,
we don't know, We've ever no mus tried it. I'm like,
so what are we doing here? And they're like, yeah,

(01:12:24):
we would, We just want to have some some different
voices on the show. And I lost my mind. I
was like, why don't you call them and tell them
that's why they're on the show. See how they they
react to that, like, yeah, it's crazy, Like you're just
you're perpetuating more of a problem, Like what can we
just be about food? Like, I don't know. It drove
me crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
Also, there are different voices that produce great quality, right,
so like make the quality and the diversity walk hand
in hands.

Speaker 4 (01:12:48):
Yeah, and it just you know, I don't know, it
was never about that. It was always about the food,
you know, and that's what has to be about. And
I would try to explain to them, I said, listen,
if we come on here and talk about this and
people listen and then go try it and it's terrible,
and it probably isn't, But what if it is, that's
now my name that said that, that's great for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
That can't be.

Speaker 4 (01:13:06):
That can never be the case.

Speaker 3 (01:13:07):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:13:07):
I have to always be honest and with road Trip,
the same thing. We did road trip with you with
one of your spots years ago, and it was me
and and we had a lot of fun with that. Yeah,
that was a great spot, man. But you know how
we do it, it was kind of we called it
all in the ring. We didn't do it much different
than you know, when the show was the hour show
on PBS. It wasn't much different than what we did

(01:13:28):
with you. So we kind of called it all in
the ring when we got there because we don't really
know what we're doing until we get there. Because they're
going into a working restaurant. It's you know, we didn't say, hey,
you got to close down because we're no, no, we
want the busyness, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:13:39):
Yeah, it was a cool chef.

Speaker 4 (01:13:42):
I think it did pretty well for.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
That, so it was. It was great.

Speaker 4 (01:13:44):
So, but I know some shows, like you know, some
of the Dinners, drive ins and dives and stuff. I've
never worked on a show, but I have heard how
they are kind of demanding about things. They want you
to close, they want you to you know, make this dish,
this dish, and this dish very specific. Have you ever
heard of that stuff?

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:14:00):
I have.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
You know the end result of diners, drives, and drive
ins and dives. Though, is that every single one of
those restaurants gets jam packed after airs. So I think
it's definitely worth it for them to close down and
work around guys requirements. But you know, I guess it
makes it tough, but it's well worth it. Like if
you wanted to come in here, I'd be like, yeah,

(01:14:23):
on a Saturday night, guy wants to go. I don't
think mill Wrights quite qualifies for dinings, diners, drives and dives,
but if he wanted to, I would close on Saturday night.
I would close a Friday and Saturday night because I
know what the end results is going to. Yeah, but
I did like about your show is that you could
see that it was a busy restaurant. You did spend
more time out front, you went everywhere, and that was

(01:14:44):
that was cool to see.

Speaker 4 (01:14:45):
Yeah, And what I loved about that too is a
lot of restaurants kind of felt something from that once
once it aired, like they would get busy from it,
which was really great. You know, uh, good Old DA's
Pizza here in Newtown where I live. Like, we did
the show and then it just kind of got crazy
after that, and which was great, and we a couple
of those happen, and it's always great to hear those
stories because that's the goal. That's what we want to
have happened, right. I want to be busy. I want
to be successful, and these people, you know, to feel

(01:15:07):
a bump from that, even on a local show like that.
So yeah, to me, that's you know, we did something
good there, which is what I want. So that's what
it's definitely definitely, you know, I think the same thing
happens when you do local TV. You can start to
feel a little something from that as you do more
and more you do it, so you know, I encourage
anyone who has done any kind of competition show stuff
like that. Don't sit around and wait for the phone

(01:15:28):
to bring, you know, start making phone calls. You want
to start doing more TV and using it to promote
yourself more and more. Start making those phone calls. Be
proactive with it, you know, very important.

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
Yeah, and once you do your first right, you have
a sample of yourself on TV so people can see
if it's what they want, and also critique yourself if
you want to keep doing it, say like I want
to represent myself like this better and then learn to
understand the difference between TV and the real world.

Speaker 4 (01:15:54):
Yeah, it's definitely very different. Hey, before we get out
of here, man, we've got a few minutes left. I
was curious thinking about you and Jeff when it comes
to this. Jeff and I have talked about this in
the past. I feel like there's no more real just
cooking shows on TV. It's all competitions. It's all just
I don't know, like just an actual Hey, here's a
half hour show of someone making biscuits.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
You know, Yeah, I think, I mean, I think that's
all on YouTube.

Speaker 4 (01:16:17):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
So it's like you can find anything. You can find
anyone making anything on YouTube, and some of them are
really good, right, Like, I think I think that that's
gone that way. You can't really do a competition show
on YouTube as much. It's a shame. I miss, I miss.
I mean, I grew up on Emerald. Yeah, loved that stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:16:37):
Emerald Live back in the day, seven o'clock Food Network,
Monday Friday. That was a great show. I feel like
it was way before it's time, don't you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:45):
Definitely. I mean, he's the one who started that whole
like variety show cooking thing before and obviously I was.
I was into I was watching Julia Child when I
was like eight years old. So I've always loved cooking shows.
But I get my fix watching YouTube with that stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:17:01):
Are the guys you like to watch on YouTube? Are
people on YouTube? Like in particular, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:17:04):
All the barbecue stuff for me right now, I'm like
all into the barbecue stuff, and then I like all
the bonappetite stuff, the Michelin Star restaurant. I like, my
range is so wide right now. I'm either watching three
Michelin Star stuff or barbecue pit. Yeah, and there's not
much in between, which is weird, but those are those

(01:17:28):
are the things, the things I'm into.

Speaker 4 (01:17:30):
I feel like that should be said, like if you're
at like a psychologists office or something like, that's when
it explain some things. Finally, yeah, I like America's Test Kitchen.
I still enjoy watching that on YouTube. I think there's
a lot to be gained from and listen, I don't
think a lot of it's functional in a professional kitchen,
but there's a lot of science there. There's a lot
of you know, this happens because of this, because of this.
I really like that part of it, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
Yeah, Everything they've put out has always been awesome. It's
it's so tested, you know, they put so much labor
into testing these things that they're doing that you there,
I haven't watched the YouTube, to be honest with you.
I just like used to get the magazine. Yeah, but
but I gotta watch the YouTube now.

Speaker 4 (01:18:08):
The YouTube channel is fantastic. Literally like Google, look not Google,
but look up anything from there.

Speaker 5 (01:18:12):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:18:12):
One of my other favorites to watch too, who I
get a kick out of now is a friend of ours,
Sam the cooking guy. I think Sam is great and
he's he's a chef now, but he definitely wasn't a chef,
but he owns like a bunch of restaurants now. He's
doing a great job. He's great to watch, and but
like he'll cut his finger and leave it in.

Speaker 3 (01:18:29):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:18:29):
It's just I kind of like that, not not even
in the food, but like not not right, you know,
right right right. I also like the guys on how
to Barbecue Rite. You watch those guys, Yeah, yeah, they're
big boys, and they just yeah, I kind of I
kind of like those guys. You know, it's a simple stuff,
but you know, yeah, I'm a pellet girl guy, so
I don't have to counts.

Speaker 1 (01:18:48):
Yeah, you're my friend, so I'm not gonna comment.

Speaker 4 (01:18:52):
You can comment. Listen, you can listen. It's not gonna
hurt my feelings. It works great for me, that's all
I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
Hold On, yeah, hold yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 5 (01:18:59):
Just because we have pell girls does not make us
pellet grill guys. Just means we have one at the house.
We're cooking on spits this Saturday, gigs, its charcoal and
live wood. We're doing a little action for you, baby.

Speaker 4 (01:19:12):
And I don't I don't claim to be a barbecue guy,
by the way. I claim to enjoy barbecue. I like
to dabble, like to put my hand in it and
mess with it, and I like to try things. Sure,
but you know, I'm definitely not going on barbecue brawl
because I would not go over well, or maybe it would.

Speaker 5 (01:19:26):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:19:27):
I don't know. They got pellet girls there. Let's see
how we do.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
I didn't see any pellets on set. No, I don't
think they allow pellets in Texas. I don't think they're
allowed in the They're not allowed through the border. Got it,
got it? You have to turn them over to security
and you can take them on your way out.

Speaker 4 (01:19:49):
Jeffy, what about you is a thing? What do you
like to watch? When it comes to you know, food
entertainment type situations?

Speaker 5 (01:19:54):
Food entertainment I do. I dabble into tiktoks. I like,
I'll go a TikTok and then a TikTok will lead
me into a YouTube channel and then like sometimes I
go down that rabbit hole that way if something's really cool,
like if I see somebody do a dish and I'm like, whoa,
what was that? You know? Uh, you know, I mean
I was raised on the Food Network. You know, I

(01:20:14):
didn't go to culinary school, So the Food Network and
like cooking shows, like all the classic ones, I learned
so much. I mean, Alton Brown, I feel like was
a professor in culinary school for me. Like I feel
like I learned more from that guy coming up than anybody.
So I mean, I still to this day immediately go
to YouTube if I want to learn how to cook something,
and I'll just put it in any subject, like Tyler

(01:20:35):
was saying, like, you know, I you know, you know,
I bought a Tandory oven. I don't know how to
cook at a tandory oven.

Speaker 1 (01:20:43):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:20:44):
I bought one and then I just started watching YouTube
videos and I lied to everyone that I work for
and was just like, yeah, let me show you how
I've been doing this my whole life. It's my new thing.
I cooked on bread. Yeah, watch me. It's all good.

Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
YouTube university as so let's go.

Speaker 5 (01:21:00):
I like that.

Speaker 4 (01:21:01):
That's good.

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):
I like that.

Speaker 5 (01:21:03):
But it's the truth.

Speaker 4 (01:21:04):
It's almost like we live in the matrix now, Like
you literally can look up anything and fit and get
a basis on how to make it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:08):
You know, yep, you can't.

Speaker 4 (01:21:10):
It makes life so much easier, and especially with these,
you know, having those little computer phones in our pocket
all the time, you can even do it on the run,
which is great.

Speaker 1 (01:21:17):
So and it's like when you forget something right, like
so there, I mean there's so many things I forget
how to do. It's like, Okay, a pancake recipe. Of course,
I can like pull up a pancake recipe from your mind.
I've made sixty thousand pancakes, but like I still google
it just to make sure my ratio is right, you know,
just like the simple things like that, like the backups.

Speaker 4 (01:21:38):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (01:21:38):
It's just good for that, Like, I can't keep everything
I've ever cooked in my mind like it, there's no way.
So it's just good to reference things and be like, oh, yeah,
that's the right, that's the ratio whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:21:48):
I've even started like taking recipes I find on YouTube,
but I like, and now I'm trying to be smart,
and I like, I save them to a folder of
recipes so I can.

Speaker 1 (01:21:56):
Like reference back right now, which that is smart.

Speaker 4 (01:21:59):
I felt smart about that top ten percent.

Speaker 5 (01:22:02):
I just don't. I just use the search engine. I
just remember what I put in, and like, I have
six hundred cookbooks and boxes in my basement that I
don't even look in at anymore. I even if I
remember the recipe from the cookbook, I just go to
Google and put that in and it comes up the
recipe from the book that someone's done in nineteen comments
from people who've tried it on their home, and you

(01:22:24):
know the whole like that, it's so great. The comments
are like the best part you ever learned in the comments,
like how a recipe really works.

Speaker 4 (01:22:31):
You can get lost in the comments there for sure,
no doubt about it.

Speaker 5 (01:22:35):
Tyler.

Speaker 4 (01:22:36):
Before we get you out of here, man, we're talking
barbecue obviously because Barbecue Brawl, and that's on Sunday nights,
So you got to check out chef Tyler Anderson. He
is on Barbecue Brawl Sunday nights on the Food Network.
I'll start with you, Jeffy, what's your favorite barbecue food? Like,
what do you like?

Speaker 5 (01:22:55):
Geez, that's tough, man. I like everything smoked. I mean
literally anything off the grill. It makes me happy. But oh,
I'm probably gonna say pork ribs, country style, pork ribs smoked.
I love a thick rib.

Speaker 4 (01:23:12):
Yeah, those kind of yeah. I know, the country style
onines are really delicious too. Those some of my favorites.
I've had those a bunch. Those are fantastic, no doubt
about it. You know, I think mine's always got to
be pork. But I think pork but's just my favorite
thing to go on a smoker and I love smoke pork.
But it's great. Tyler, what about you? What's your favorite
barbecue dish? Your favorite barbecue food? Simple Sunday afternoon watching football?

(01:23:37):
Try tip?

Speaker 1 (01:23:37):
Okay, I like peck tip. You know, being born and
raised in southern California, it's huge there. It's very underappreciated
here in the Northeast. But I love it and I
love to smoke it and then finish it on my grill.
It's delicious. So that's what I grew up grilling with
my dad, so it has like memories of that, and
I just love the cut. If it's cooked right, it's delicious.
If it's cooked wrong, it's the worst.

Speaker 4 (01:23:59):
Yeah, and you got to cut it right. If you
don't cut it right, it's super tox Yeah, in the
muscle like has thro of in directions. You got a
watch when you're doing it right.

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):
It's tricky. Yeah, you got to turn it. But you know,
it's like a brisket in that way. It's like but
but yeah, it's tricky.

Speaker 5 (01:24:12):
So you basically it's like a reverse seer situation. Is
what you like to do, what temperature you like to
bring it to on the smoker.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
On the smoker, I'm bringing it to like one thirty,
and then I'm holding like one twenty five one thirty
and then I'm holding and then I'm just searing it.
Super hard to get a crust on it. So we
have a we have a two hundred and fifty gallon
offset and then as Santa Maria. So they're always started
on the offset here and then finished on the Santa Maria,

(01:24:40):
just like blazing hot.

Speaker 4 (01:24:41):
There you go, there you go, And so you still
get that beautiful kind of medium rare thing going on
in there.

Speaker 1 (01:24:45):
Yeah, you get medium, you get medium. Medium is kind
of what I'm shooting for, like upper medium rare. But
what you get because you've smoked it for a couple hours,
is you get the breakdown internally of some of that
some of what makes it tough, right, So it'll help
break that down. Most people traditionally cook try tip pretty fast,

(01:25:08):
but I just like the slow and low and then
followed by the fast.

Speaker 4 (01:25:12):
How long do you go on the smoker with it?

Speaker 1 (01:25:14):
I'm on the smoker for like two hours, okay, yeah,
at like two hours and about two twenty five to
twenty five, and I'm just holding it far from the
I'm holding it far from the from the wood, right,
So it's it's it's as far down the smoker from
the fire as I can get, gotcha. And on a
two fifty that's pretty far. So I'm just sort of

(01:25:36):
catching loose smoke.

Speaker 4 (01:25:38):
Gotcha. That sounds great.

Speaker 5 (01:25:39):
I'm gonna actually try that man and yeah, I've never
actually done that with a try tip. I think sounds amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:25:43):
One percent. We got about two minutes left here, but
I want to just get a couple of get a tip. So, Tyler,
question for you, if if someone's getting into barbecue, they're
interested in trying out and doing their first thing and
seeing how it goes, what do you think is the
best I don't know, highest level success rate for them
to try first, because that's the I think with cooking.
The first time you mess it up, you don't want
to do it anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:26:03):
Yeah. I think it depends like you're talking about a cut, yeah, or.

Speaker 4 (01:26:06):
That a style of cooking, like for me, I would
say pork butt, like doing a smoking a pork butt?
Is it it's kind of hard to mess it up.

Speaker 1 (01:26:12):
It's got Yeah, I agree with pork. But I also
think ribs are pretty easy too. You know, they're kind
of bulletproof. If you're doing baby backs, it doesn't take long.
There's not a major commitment. The thing about a butt
is it's just it's a long cook Yeah. I think
I think ribs. Ribs are definitely more fickle than a butt,
but you can get them done quicker. It's not as
much a commitment. And I think ribs are fantastically delicious.

(01:26:35):
And also I would like I would recommend getting a
small offset smoker for your house, like an Oklahoma Joe.
That it doesn't have to be a million dollar thing,
but just like an Oklahoma Joe offset. And just because
I think that part of the barbecue thing even at
home is and you guys don't think so as much,
but is maintaining the fire and keeping the tamp and

(01:26:55):
Olkahoma Joe'll let you do that.

Speaker 4 (01:26:58):
That hurt a little bit. I've felt. That's been joined
by chef Chef Tyler Ranison here. Make sure you catch
him Sundays at nine on Food Network on Barbecue Brawl.
He is making us proud here and say, chef, we
appreciate your time, man, thanks for hanging out with us.
We appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
Thanks guys. Awesome to have a great k YouTube bro.

Speaker 4 (01:27:15):
For Chef Jeffy, I'm chef Plump. Thanks for checking out
Plumbtvele Foods right here on the Voice of Connecticut w
i c C. We appreciate you, guys. Thank you very much.
Go barbecue, go try some things. We'll see you guys.
Next week right here on plumblat Foods, take Care, Friends,
make

Speaker 3 (01:27:29):
You sozious, Street thous