September 24, 2025 • 54 mins
In this flavorful episode of TMHF, we sit down with Tom Dokman and Ross Rehschuh — the dynamic duo behind Minnesota’s very own Here’s The Deal Spice Co. — to unpack how a simple wedding favor turned into one of the Midwest’s most talked-about spice brands.
From Tom’s punk rock roots and fine-dining background to Ross’ love for layered flavor and community connection, the two dive deep into how they built a brand that blends heart, heat, and heritage. They talk music in the kitchen, the anatomy of a perfect spice blend, the cultural weight of flavor, and why showing up at the Minnesota State Fair was both a dream and a pressure cooker.
With segments like “One Gotta Go” and a rapid-fire Lightning Round, this convo is as spicy, soulful, and unexpectedly hilarious as their signature 127 Blend.
If you’ve ever wanted to hear what it sounds like when flavor meets friendship — this episode brings the heat.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You know we. Don't you know what takes a
special track to do this? My Mama BS and QS ship the
sauce. It's just the flu with this
chef. I need to remind y'all I'm sick
with it. My name is Suck.
That's hot. It's you sick with this meaning
it's one of the same. Simple and plain.
I'm all about my paper. The bacon, cheddar and pain.
I got these lanes running for the border.
(00:20):
The talents and Mr. Porter keeping flowing like here we go.
Here we go creeping to a low speed.
Is it him and his friend sittingin the nose?
Please play it cool. He is special just because he's
on TV. Everybody's hands up acting like
they know We welcome, welcome, welcome.
Welcome to another episode of the Taste Music Here food
(00:40):
podcast show. I am your host, Ed Porter.
This is the place for food, music and culture and how they
all connect. Today we have some very special
guests with a S in the building tonight.
This is it's a very I like when things come together like super
(01:01):
duper organically and natural and how this all happened.
The connection between myself and these two gentlemen was
exactly that. So before we get started, I'm
going to attempt to pay these gentlemen the proper flowers
they deserve by this intro. So here we go, where the streets
(01:22):
meet the skillet and culture gets cooked low and slow.
Today's guests are stirring the pot in all the right ways.
What started as a wedding favorite became a bold brand
that's now rewinding the rules of spice.
A chef with punk rock roots and a fine dining backbone linked up
with longtime friend and fellow flavor fanatic to bring us
Here's the Deal Spice Company, where they are blending
(01:45):
heritage, heat and hustle straight out of Minnesota.
From their crowd favorite 127 Blend to a Midwest remix of
Japanese togurashi, they're creating flavors that speak
volumes, and community is alwaysthe main ingredient.
Let's turn up the heat with the duo behind one of the most
exciting spice movements in the game, Mr. Tom Docman and Ross
(02:06):
Ratio. Yes, Sir.
OK, so you guys are a super duper cool spice company.
And I know that's kind of weird saying from Minnesota and spice
the 2 are like oxymorons becauseeverybody knows that it's
usually ketchup is spicy. Unfortunately, unfortunately it
(02:29):
is. But, and here's the thing.
So I, I was a fan of you guys before I met you guys.
So I have have we had ongoing jokes about how much you got
spices I have in my in my pantry.
That being said, this whole thing exists to speak to to
people like yourselves and and, you know, kind of draw the lines
(02:51):
between all the things that makeus us.
So let's talk about, you know, 127 and, and how it all came
about to get to the point to where you could diss the
day-to-day chef duds to to the spice company.
Sure, sure. So we specialize in premium
organic spices and we try to take our culinary background for
(03:14):
20 plus years and create a a specific plan that can be used
on just about anything, everything breakfast, lunch or
dinner. And that one came about I got a
what I got married with Nicole and we made a spice blend and we
made all the food with it. We also gave a little favors
away for everybody and, you know, they all came there to
(03:35):
support us and we, you know, gave them a little something to
take home and enjoy more of our celebration together and people
wanted more and more. And more.
And I was I was 1. Of those, yeah, yeah.
I was like, hey, what is this honey anymore?
And we realized that, you know, there was something special
about it. There's something more in depth
(03:57):
in a higher education than just cooking.
You know, Like in my clinic background, I've never been
taught about spices and the different flavor profiles or how
good it can actually be. And working throughout my career
doing different things with BBQ,doing different things with
hotline or meat department, certain kinds of pressed meats
(04:19):
and the whole development of that.
I just started writing down a bunch of recipes, things that
were I learned things that I didn't know about, and then
things that actually came to theplate to serve people and people
loved it and how they're how much they just enjoyed their
moment or their celebration thatthey were at the restaurant
with. And then we kept building 127 in
(04:41):
the background and I realized there was a plateau in the
career and jump ship and open the spice company.
There you go, just off of 1 Blunt.
You only listen, you only have to be right once.
That's what the lucky 1. You have to be just one time,
just one time. And then so tell me about you
guys, how far you guys go back and, and, and what made this a
(05:03):
journey that you had to to get your guy with?
Sure. Yeah.
I mean, we were working at Travail together.
I started there in 2012, I thinkright around there.
And I think Tom started probablyright 2014.
End of 2014, 2015, yeah. You know, kind of like grew a
relationship there. It was kind of a cutthroat type
(05:23):
of pitching. So you didn't really get to like
really build too many friendships.
It was just more of work straight up.
And yeah, just kind of throughout the years just kind
of kept in touch. And then he started the company
up and he's like, hey, if you ever want to help out or
anything, and here we are today so.
(05:43):
There you go. Yeah, just keep on, keep on
rolling, making good stuff, so. So when?
When the idea hatch, so you knewyou had something with 127 that
was and that's that's the day that you got married.
That's the that's the day you got married, which is super
cool. When you when you knew you had
something, but then you you had to, it had to come into play.
OK, like, is this going to play in Minnesota?
(06:05):
Right. So not that you, you know this
home base. So we got to kick it off here.
So how do we make these things approachable?
Because I, I can tell you as a, as, as a chef that that opened
up a restaurant here from, I'm from New York.
Those conversations were had when we developed menus like,
OK, there's certain things we can do, certain things we can,
(06:26):
can't do and certain things we have to do.
And in order to make things as approachable as possible, you
know, you know, we tone down on some things and, and you know,
bounce is key. But did that come into play at
all? Yes and no.
So I think with the 127, it was like a pretty big base of key
(06:47):
flavors and also things that really been blended into like my
childhood and growing up and youknow, I got grandparents were
100% Irish, 100% Italian, and then like Polish and Croatian.
So there's always these flavors that were always in our kitchens
at all times. And it has like a little
interesting kind of like a Italian blend backer to it.
(07:09):
So the herbs and herbs that are in there are Rosemary, basil,
thyme, and then those help kind of comfort out the the like the
savory Ness. Gotcha.
Yeah, so it's a really nice comfort blend.
It's. Yeah, and I that was that's the
first one that I tried and that that was the gateway for me.
So like like I tried that. I'm like, OK, let's get well,
the no blenders are all the straight the straight spices.
(07:30):
Like OK, you know, get the the cinnamon and OK, this is a
really good cinnamon. But the blends I think are super
cool because they are again, straightforward, but they're the
best of what you can get and they're understandable.
I think that's the the coolest thing about them.
So like even then, the novice could could could use that as
(07:53):
exactly period or as a base and then build upon that too.
So that's all we like to kind ofsell to absolutely.
Like as far as, you know, how amI going to use this when I get
home? You know, everybody that comes
up and buys a spice, like, what am I going to do with this?
And it's, it's that that's our job is to make it easy for you
and like, really like give you something that you can just
(08:14):
catapult off. Of yeah, if it's.
Just that, then it's great. But if you want to, you know,
add more and more, absolutely, yeah.
It just keeps on getting better.So, OK, cool.
So we're going to play a little game.
Oh great. All right, so we're going to
play a little game that we call here.
One's got to go very simple. We're going to I'm going to ask
(08:34):
you a couple of give you a couple of options and you have
to eliminate one forever. One's going to go bye bye.
I can do that. You ready?
You guys ready for that? Yeah, let's go.
All right, cool. All right, So here is 1's got to
go. All right, very simply, as a
chef, this is what we got. We got really.
(08:57):
There we go. Salt, heat, acid, fat.
One's got to go. Fat.
Fat, yeah. Is that what you're talking?
Spices? You're.
Talking I'm just talking period.If you got if one had you had to
cannibalize one of these things from cooking for from here to
eternity. You're going to use the you're
going to get killed the vehicle for flavor.
(09:17):
OK, All right. So I wasn't I wasn't OK, one's
got to go. Which one?
And you both get a you both get an option so.
I'll take salt. I'll take salt.
For sure. OK.
That's what I was looking towards as well.
OK, you can get that. I would go heat.
And the reason being everybody'shad some, some food that at
(09:44):
least was salted well, but but you got to have the fat.
The acid is a must. It's a must.
It's a guaranteed must. If I had to cannibalize one of
those things, it would be heat. So why did you choose salt?
I'm curious. This is the background of
learning about our spices and just other cultures and how to
make food. There's so much salt and other
(10:04):
ingredients and you can almost like interpret and change the
flavor profile of certain thingswith just spices alone.
So yeah, you can. You can almost mimic the
reactions of salt, sure. Especially with the addition of
acid of something for sure, you know for sure for sure.
Very sneaky. Yeah.
OK. It's these things that we
learned. Through the spices.
(10:27):
Why to me? But why to you guys?
Why is acid a must? Why?
Why do you think, again, you just stated it because of the
lack of stuff. If you had the omit salt, acid
is one of those things that you can kind of manipulate.
Yeah, exactly. With other things to make you
know. So feel like it can be added in
such a way that you don't noticethat it's even there, but it
(10:49):
adds something that you just it's something that just pops
and gives such a like wide rangeof flavor profiles that just
kind of helps out everything. That's actually a good point
too, because the one thing that's not heavily in your
spices is a ton of salt anyway, so.
Yeah, we fall into the low salt.Yeah, low sodium for sure,
(11:10):
because yeah, normally it's it'sa good 7585% salt.
Understand. Yeah, in most blends.
Yeah, Yeah. We can add more spice and have a
more concentrated spice blend orany kind of sort of that.
But everybody has salt at home. They have sea salt, they have
kosher salt. They have, you can do lime
juice, you can do soy sauce, youcan do worse.
(11:30):
You can do hot sauce. There's so many things that are
cheese. They all add a salt content to
it. We're, you know, let that, let
that be up to the provider who'smaking their food for their
family. Absolutely.
So like we talked about, I think, you know, food and music
are usually paired together likeseamlessly all the time.
(11:50):
There's always you go to any restaurant from here to Timbuktu
and there's something playing because it gets weird when
people have to hear their own thoughts.
That's just what it is, right? It can make it or.
Break yeah, yeah, that's for sure.
Damn sure it can. So speak to me about in in your
guy's life, what, what is the playlist that is going on to,
(12:14):
you know, do your daily things like, so when you're creating,
when you're in the in the kitchen, you're creating spices.
Is there a specific playlist? Does it go with the flavors of
the the blends you're making? Are we, are we, you know, like,
are we, are we going, are we raging when we doing something
spicy? I'm just saying, like for me,
you know, music is the ultimate mood shifter for whatever you
(12:35):
want to feel like. There's a song to go with it and
A food usually too. So.
I know sometimes we'll do if we're like you doing a catering
or if they're doing the one twice 7 we'll do like Italian
podcast music or Italian food cooking.
I think it's called the Hey Mambo.
Yeah, that sounds pretty good inthe background, but I don't
(12:56):
specialize in a lot of music. Ross is my.
Right. He does all the music.
Does the speaker puts in the right place make?
The thing is, you got it, OK, It's.
A vibe so. Yeah, so I mean usually like
day-to-day in the kitchen. So it just kind of depends, you
know, you feel different, different vibes, different days.
So you know, whether it's like acool coffee us play playlist 1
(13:21):
day or raging out to 90s like club hits.
Like literally 3 days ago, we like let's just blast it and we
were the only two in the kitchen.
Just just really like getting a good kind of groove and vibe of
of just the whole thing. OK, Ross, if you could pair one
(13:41):
of the blends with a song or an album, what would it be?
First off, what's your favorite blend currently?
And those like picking a child, I get it.
We all have our favorite stuff. I would probably go with either
(14:03):
the Taco. No, no, either.
It's one. All right.
So, all right, all right, all right.
Right. It's like, yeah, it's like
picking. A yeah, yeah, I get it.
I get it. We won't tell anybody.
Just the rest of these. People yeah, I got to go with
Taco It's so we created that onereally with like basic roots
kind of tied with it. Like, what would they do where
(14:24):
tacos were originated? Like, you know, mortar and
pestle type of that that type oflike getting down to the roots
of it. And so we, you know, sourced a
special grinder that took a yearand a half to get here from
Denmark and, you know, create our own chili powder versus like
buying 1. So we tasted 38 chilies one day
(14:46):
and Lily couldn't feel my mouth for the next week.
It's always good. I mean, but it like it really
gives you that kind of educationfor yourself.
So then you can really give it to everybody else, you know,
where like you come up to us at a fair or whatever and ask us
about something, we're going to give you all the information
that we possibly know about the sourcing of those products and
that. So that one's really special to
(15:07):
me. It's very versatile.
So playlist, I'm sorry, album orsong to go with the tub?
So song would probably be, man, that's really like tie it down.
I'll probably do the Chef Chef movie soundtrack along with that
(15:28):
one. OK, so Jon Favreau.
It's a great movie, by the way. It's a great.
Movie. Yeah, I mean, it's it's one of
those things that actually got me back into cooking They.
Listen that they got that one right.
So we, we've all like we've all seen the movies, the, the, the,
the restaurant movies and like, we don't do that.
Yeah, like, like that's not right.
That's not how it's done. Like nobody does that like but
this, this one got it right. Yeah, they they really like kind
(15:49):
of took it to the. Roots.
Oh, they had. Boy Choi was the the, you know.
Exactly. Yeah.
He's like, yeah, he kept it. He made me show that it was it
was done right. So that's one of my favorite
ones for sure. That's one of my favorite movies
for sure. OK, that's a great answer.
Great answer. All right, so let's let's let's
talk about culture. So the unique thing about spice.
So spice has a history globally as far as being like the
(16:13):
representative of regions, people and spaces based on, you
know, spices. At one point in time it was
currency, right? Right.
So if this was only the rich andwealthy had access to spices.
Right. Right.
And so. Yeah, overseas to trains,
planes. Absolutely.
Planes, absolutely. So talk to me about the
(16:33):
Togarashi specifically, because that is that's a Japanese, but
this is a has a Midwest twister.For sure.
Yeah. So working at Travail, I met a
couple really good people. Dong was one of them.
He's from Vietnam. Josh Discher, really good guy.
Also from the island. That's also the name of the
(16:55):
money in Vietnam. Dong.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like it really is. Like he's.
The true. He's the true.
Person and True. We would used to make FA
constantly and he would teach methe way his mom would teach him
and just never knew never educated myself on that cuisine
(17:15):
or really fully diving in. Never worked at a place that
would actually showcase like thethe the premium that they can do
and how simple ingredients, but how it develops over time and
cooking. So I picked up Togarashi
education from Travail and just kind of seeing how they use it,
what they use it on. And then, you know, I was like,
(17:37):
it's super unique. I, I don't know much.
So I'm going to educate myself and then I'm going to pass that
education on to the Midwest. And we were like, you know, Thai
bird chili. That's not.
That's not. The Midwest.
Not an over. Not at all.
So we changed it up. We added more citrus peel.
So we actually hand peel, dehydrate all the oranges
ourselves. Each jar gets about four oranges
(18:00):
per jar, which is heavier on thethe citrus side, but very fresh,
very fragrant. And then we lowered it down to a
red pepper flake. Still pretty hot for Minnesota,
but it's good. Good introduction of what it
could be and how it how it develops.
Yeah, and it's a nice round flavor, too.
Like it's right. I put it on potato chips.
(18:20):
Nice. Fry some fresh potato chips.
That's that's a hit. Oh, yeah, that's a hit right
there. Yeah.
So tell me how you balance tradition, authenticity, and
being able to introduce those types of new flavor profiles to
a local audience. And then, you know, let's be
(18:41):
frank, like we're not just selling to Minnesotans now.
We, you know, we're. Or across the state, Yeah, Coast
to coast. We ship all over.
Well. Actually.
And Brazil I sold, I sold a couple 1 twice episode Gentlemen
in Brazil, which is just last night, which is pretty fun, just
open. Going international Listen,
(19:01):
look, you gotta do it. You know what's coming next,
right? You gotta so just think about
all the Brazilian steakhouses that that's going to be.
For sure. You know I'm just saying all
they need is 1 drug, that's it. It's the gateway drug.
All you need is 1 drug. It's the gateway drug.
So the first one's on me, actually I was so.
Thank you. Yeah.
Exactly. So let's let's talk.
(19:23):
How do you, you know, when again, you're I?
I think when you set out to do do things the way you're doing
it, you were kind of Taylor making it for, for a certain
palette, right? But what you ended up doing,
though, to be honest, is you created your own version of
certain things to fit, not to fit actually to it's its own
(19:45):
class now, honestly. So there's a there's a certain
lane that you carved out for yourself by doing what you did,
whether you know it or not. This, this is that flavor
profile. I've had tons of Tokurashi.
That's its own thing. Well, thank you for saying that.
It's good. It's good to hear.
It's, you know, we're we're always developing.
We're trying stuff out. I think it's pretty much
(20:08):
honoring the culinary backgroundof the culinary training and the
different jobs and different menu items to really kind of
like celebrate that and put all that education into one jar or
one flavor or one region of the world.
So Taco we try to figure out. Everything that Mexico exports
to the world and how do we make a blend out of that?
(20:29):
And then like Ross was saying, like mortar and pestle, that's
how they normally grind stuff down to use it in their
day-to-day. And that grinder that we bought
is the closest thing that we cando it very traditional A.
Donkey in the back with a with abig stone.
More like my. Shoulders burning.
We hanged around the 1st 100 lbsand that's crazy.
(20:52):
That was the last time. Free gym.
Free gym. Yeah, truly.
All right, so we earned our straight.
Absolutely. So in essence, you you put not
only the knowledge base of irreverence for the spices and
the cultures, but also your onlyexperience is in each bottle
pretty pretty much 100%. And I like to say that.
(21:13):
It's a good melding of. Oh, absolutely, absolutely my in
my humble opinion, I believe that so food and and and music,
First off are the two easiest ways of emotion yourself in any
culture. But I believe that they're going
to be the catalyst or the vehicles to end all of the
biases that we have in the world.
(21:34):
Because in my personal belief, if you have a reverence for the,
the art and then you have a reverence for the people, it's
hard for biases to live in that realm.
And so you, you, you're doing all the studying you did for,
you know, for like the Taco spice that you, you have to have
(21:54):
a reverence for the people and what they did.
And so you biases can't cannot exist in that realm.
They just can't. The problem is even the biggest,
you know, the biggest fascist inthe world two times of the day
that they're not thinking about segregation is usually with the
stomach and what they're with their, with their ears, right?
(22:16):
So they'll they eat food from all over the world, but they
just don't have a reverence or have tie it to an actual person
when they're eating these things.
And so this is actually a good, it's a good education to enter a
culture. And you know, it's the, it's the
gateway drug again, I think you,you go down the rabbit hole when
like, you know what, let me lookat, you know, Taco rashes and
(22:38):
what they, what they, they're typically used and how, what
they are and all the different things.
And I think it's a, it's a cool thing that you can, you can give
all of that info and knowledge and just a small bottle and
that's, that's so cool. You guys are chefs.
So let's, let's talk about, let's just give the pink
elephant a name in the room. OK, Give me you guys's absolute
(23:04):
worst shift day. Well, that when did that like,
OK, you know what? This is something and we all
have them. I, I, I can fill this room.
I can fill this building up. Yeah.
Give me what? What is what is the absolute
worst day that you've had on theline?
What does, what does that look like?
(23:25):
You can leave names out if you want to.
I personally don't give a damn. Well, I think I'll take this one
because I almost went to the hospital.
So working at travail work in meat department and also hotline
at the same time. So at the beginning of the shift
throughout the proper downstairsthat we come upstairs to then
(23:46):
work a station and kind of entertain everybody.
And I didn't know this at the time, but I was allergic to
shellfish. I've had shellfish, I've had
shellfish in the past. I've had all the soft shell
crab, you know, sandwiches. I've had the lobster, I've had
the like oysters, mussels, my favorite.
(24:07):
And something changed somewhere in my lifestyle and or whatever
and I opened a freezer door to grab out the lobster bowl and
instantly lost all my motor skills. 3rd sweating, couldn't
talk, couldn't explain what's going on getting like just
pouring out sweat. And I had to leave the hotline
(24:29):
abandoned and tap the owner and said got to go.
And I was in, I was in the I wasin the dish pit, like on the
ground, like wondering what's going to happen next.
And I got some Benadryl and wentback to work about two hours
later. Yeah, because you're a
masochist. That sounds.
That's what we do. Oh, why not?
(24:52):
Yeah. Yeah.
I I listen. I get it.
That's so OK. I'll because I'm done.
I've done this before, too. When's the next time?
You tried to eat Selfish. You tried to do it again.
You did. You lying.
You did not that time. Not that.
Time before I ate a crave and I had Sam with row on top.
OK. And I believe that night I had a
seizure and passed out in the bathroom.
(25:14):
Oh, So yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then I went back to
Crave the next day and ate it without the fish eggs and I was
fine. So I gave it about 24 hours.
Really roll the dice though. Yeah, yeah.
I'm looking happy. The only thing that happened if
it wasn't the row then. All right, so it's not just
shellfish like. I think there's, yeah, it's also
fin fish and swimming fish, I guess.
(25:36):
Yeah, yeah. So I, I narrow my down through
trial and error because I'm a small guy down to crustaceans.
Yeah. Like, so I can, I can eat
mussels, clams, oysters. I can do those all day.
But shrimp, lobster, scallops, crab, an undercooked eggplant
(26:00):
has the same effect. What?
Actually, how I know that one has the same effect.
And yeah, I'm talking like Will Smith and Hitch.
That's bad. Yeah.
This is is. Yes, there's death on the other
side of that. How about yourself, Ross?
What's the I? Mean obviously nothing is
traumatized. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, you should have. You should have went, almost
died. Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, no, no, no.
But he just chucked some Benadryl and went back to work.
(26:22):
Yeah, I was still. Probably that's fine.
No big deal. I mean, yeah, it's kind of hard
to like narrow down one specific, but.
You can there. Was a night where it was kind of
a ticket centric type of situation in the ticket printer.
It's a nice way to say it's a nice way to say ticket centric.
And I think, yeah, I think at one point it was like 60
(26:44):
untouched tickets that were justthere.
And it was just kind of a nightmare situation, just
drowning in prep, having the prep in the basement, you know,
when everything was running out.So yeah, I mean that's.
Is there a great listen? Is there a greater feeling than
the last ticket? Like especially in a night like
that? I don't, I don't care how long
(27:06):
it took to get there. There's no greater feeling.
Well, yeah, that's the whole thing, like persevering and like
literally like pushing through. Like I am not going to stop.
Similar to Tom taking his Benadryl, you know, like that's,
it's the mentality that we have of we're not going to finish
until the job's done or, you know, at least completed to what
we think it is. But yeah, that those nights
(27:27):
where it's like you're pouring that first beer for yourself
after your shift and just can reflect, it's like.
Yeah, it's insane. So that that is the one part of
the business that no cooking show has grasped.
Like there's the grind. Yeah, just the grind.
That, that that grind. But here's the other thing.
(27:49):
The mustard. The gall to come back tomorrow
and do that same shit all over. You it's.
It's almost addicting. It's very.
It is. Like true I can do this.
Yeah, I'm gonna. Approve to you I can do.
This and I'm gonna. Yeah, yeah.
And I don't need sleep. Yeah, I don't need sleep.
Yeah, and I don't yeah, I don't need sleep.
I'm going to live off of of of now iced coffee because just
cold coffee and like and yeah, deli, deli, deli, cup after deli
(28:12):
cup of coffee and then, you know, whatever I can get close
to the. Walgreens across the street.
Absolutely. That's the IT.
It takes a special, which will always say it takes a special
type of person to do what it is that we we do and to keep doing
it. And it's, it's a, it's a game of
golf. I I, I said to myself like I
always looked after it though, like when it was happening I
(28:33):
never thought about this shit. But the fact of I was just
trying to to one up myself everyday.
Like especially after the hard day.
Like I I, I want to turn this hard day into a good day.
Yeah, you have the worst prep day of your life.
You're like. Absolutely.
That's not going to happen today.
I'll I'll take this this check this out.
So this must have happened. I want to say 997.
(28:57):
So in Aquarine, New York is is it's built in a historical
building. So he couldn't do much to the
retrofitting of the building. Wouldn't you know it's a
landmark and one it was a heat wave that summer.
And the answer went off like at 4:00 right before service.
Pre pre theater. This is prime summer, right?
(29:19):
All the scenes are happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, and, and I don't know ifanybody's ever been any in the
kitchen when the dust, the Anseldust goes off, when that shit's
it's like sand. You never go to the beach.
There's no cleaning that. Yeah, there's no cleaning.
This shit's everywhere. And there's you, you haven't
seen this go home, bust open a acontainer of baby powder in in
(29:40):
your house. And then that's, that's as close
as you can get to it, except there's like 90 nozzles.
Yeah. So so that shit went off.
Do you know that we open the kitchen in three hours?
That's that was insane. You know, with I don't know what
food because everything got covered.
So it was like, it was that was an insane moment.
(30:02):
That was that was the by far like, OK, I don't think I want
to do this anymore. And that's, that's expectation
that yeah, yeah, yeah, that's installed and you like, yeah,
I'll clean it up, clean it up like I'll get a bucket.
Let's. Go, that was the one day I'm
like, yeah, I think I, I think I'm gonna go to school with
something else. That's one of those days, man.
(30:22):
But the the, the reason why I stated that because those same,
that same mindset you, you pour into what you do every day.
So like we were talking before off camera about the amount of
hours and and the the the state stick to itiveness that you have
to have to take anything from a thought to fruition and carry
(30:43):
that into what you're doing today.
So had you not going through those types of that type of war,
you know, you would you you're better equipped than the average
person is what I'm saying. So so that you know, kudos to
that. So thank God for the stripes and
burns and the and and the slicesand the near death experiences
with with the ingestion of lobster Jew.
(31:05):
Let's let's talk about again, inwhich ways do you or are you
thinking about how with the spice company that you are
actually forging a bridge between cultures, not only in,
in, in, you know, in the states that you're dealing in, but in
(31:27):
everybody's home. So like you are basically you
have the opportunity to when you're doing it, whether you
know it or not, you are now creating relationships with,
with people in food and people with, with other people in their
family through the use of certain spices and things that
(31:47):
are outside of their comfort zone.
So even if they've never so OK, like the geek in me, I want to
look at and see every spice in the 127.
That's just how I'm built. Because I think most chefs are
that way. They like, I want to know the
novice is going to pick out the two or three things that stand
out to them and then they're gonna think that OK, now I love
(32:10):
these three things and now that's their go to.
So in a sense, they have a relationship with that spice
because of that connection. Is was that a purposeful thing
or is that just one of those happy little accidents?
I think, you know, kind of reflected on all the past five
years that we've been open and what we've done in our
(32:32):
backgrounds and our family life,like love it, like our love
languages, food, as you mentioned, like food, art and
music. You know, there's no, you can
break down any barrier, any language education, anything
like that. It's always every every can talk
to somebody else through food and showcase it and like the
(32:52):
different ingredients. That was just kind of a one off.
But it's just that complicated detail of scratch cooking and
what's the best and if it's worth doing it, do it right.
And if it was easy, everybody would do it.
So why not make it, you know, use our techniques that we've
learned along the way and also make sure that people are
(33:13):
sitting down and having dinner with their friends and family,
you know, entertain them, you know, after work.
How was your day at work? How was long?
We'll eat this great food that we made.
And then we're just kind of thatdusting on top or that flavor
profile that kind of gets the conversation going and the.
Gives you that nostalgia too. I mean, it gives you that kind
of core memory of eating with your family.
(33:34):
That's the main ingredient though, that, that, that is the
ultimate main ingredient. It really is.
It's like you're, you're there'sa, there's a love ingredient is
a you bottled love, right? So there's a love for everything
that you do and you put that in every bottle and then it
translates because of the care that was take.
So I don't have to think about it.
(33:55):
The novices have to think about,you know, they can just use it
at their will. And then it it permeates to
everybody that they serve. And I just think it's a it's a
nice, it's a nice little rejuvenation wheel of thing that
it's one of those things that, you know, instant gratification.
This is one of those, one of those things, especially when
you guys do the trade shows and when you do, you know, you did
(34:17):
the State Fair and you that's like, it's an instant thing.
Like you can, yeah, in real time, see people's reactions.
And that has to be invigorating as well.
Yeah. And then every conversation we
have with anybody who comes to our booth or interested or looks
at it, we were talking earlier today.
It's almost like an intimate conversation, like what do you
like to eat? What are your allergies or
(34:38):
restrictions? What what do you have in your
fridge tonight? What are you going to make?
What are you buying? And then educate them like, Hey,
this is what I would recommend. Or maybe give this a smell.
So we use aromatic jar so peoplecan smell it and nostalgic, like
it'll bring it back to grandma'shouse.
It'll bring it back to summers in Florida.
Like there's something about thearomatic and all the different
(34:59):
sensories of spices that can bring you to a place of joy And
then than to eat it like it's. I always say that first of all,
that's how that's why when you go to open the house, they're
baking cookies. Sure.
Exactly this this is all. So it's not a collage, you know,
it's, it's warfare. You just you didn't know you was
in this war. And and I would say in in our
(35:21):
line of work and even in music, we're just trying to recall a
favorable memory or create a newone.
And if you've done that, you wonbecause when it's very true,
because you know, we've all had meals where you can't remember
anything about nothing bad, nothing good, but nothing right,
(35:43):
nothing memorable, which is not really a good meal.
When you hit on something where it either hits a chord to where
it's something that is emotionalor it created a new one.
Like, you know what you got to go have, you know, you got to go
have this pasta. Like it's this is, this is I
don't know what it is. And so you get to a point to
(36:03):
where you have to a person has to convince themself why not to
like it. They don't even know why they
have to give. And that's a whole different
thing. That's that's a raving fan.
When you when you tap into something emotional, that's when
you that's the win because like,I don't even know why you know,
that's and that's so ironically,that's what you hit with 127.
(36:24):
So when people would just like, I don't even know what this is.
This says, it says it's a wedding favor.
I just put this on everything inmy house to sip cereal.
I'm out of it. I need more.
And that's that's that emotionalties.
What, Like that's what did it. And so, yeah, that's that's the
win. I think that's the ultimate win.
All right, this entire venture for you, where you are versus
(36:55):
where you started and then what where you're trying to go.
What do you think? What does the future look like
for for? Here's the deal.
Well, I can start and you can jump in.
Started with just trying to figure out our own company,
still involved in food, still beable to make food at home and
educate like we're now out of the back of the kitchen.
(37:15):
I can be in front of people. I'm now like the server.
I'm now the presenter of what what you can do and how to do it
and kind of teach people different preparations
techniques. And then what was I going to say
with that? Just kind of like we built, we
started with four spices, started at this large trade show
(37:40):
that we're going to make it big.No one's ever heard of us
started moving along that way doing some farmers markets.
COVID hit shut us down, but we got picked up by a couple key
factors along the way that actually helped us build into
more of a so you know what an item that's now featured never
been done before, never really been showcased in this direction
(38:01):
and really believed in what we're doing then hanging out
with Ross during COVID and we wouldn't be here today without
Ross. Like he's he knows food, he
knows flavor, he knows education, he knows how to read
people, he knows everything and he really keeps me in track and
in the right lane at the right time.
So I went the company wouldn't be where it was without Ross,
(38:24):
that's for sure. Definitely helps me 0 in on
different flavor profiles. Does that make sense?
How much we're going to put in there?
Well, does it need to be in there or do you just need to put
it in there? Right, self editing.
Yeah, I learned that self. Editing listen, that is the most
important thing. It's it's incredible that that
(38:45):
is a great factor when I was making this album behind me that
we had a meeting and the meetingwas about unnecessary
ingredients like so no unnecessary ingredients.
And that includes people, placesand things.
If it doesn't belong, don't put it in.
And then and because, and that'sthe that self editing is, is
probably the most important thing.
(39:06):
It's as you know, not. Difficult, yes, even for myself
I mean, but I've at least becomeaware and like trying to like,
especially with the spices I mean.
It's hard not. To put it's hard not to put 35
ingredients in a space. Because you can, because it's
that your fingers. It's like it's all here.
I'm looking. At some of this, throw some of
that, throw some of this and it's like, well.
Restraint, restraint. So the skill set is in the
(39:27):
restraint knowledge is knowing that a tomato's a fruit.
Wisdom's know not to put it in afruit salad.
But the at the end of the day, not I I think the best things
we've ever had in life. Think about the best, the single
best things you've ever had in lace five ingredients or less
like literally the the best things are are super simple.
It's just the best of those fiveingredients.
(39:49):
And then of course, knowledge ofpreparation.
So if that if that if that's could be another ingredient, I I
get it, I'll let it fly. But and then when there is.
And ingredients, if you have something that's in there that's
more than that, there's reasons for them.
So there's like everything's everybody's playing a
supporting, supporting role. And sometimes the star is not
the star. We've all had dishes or made
(40:11):
dishes where, like typically people think that the protein is
the star. We made this.
It's not even about the protein at all.
Like that's just a carrier, period.
It's really about that sauce. And if you take that sauce out,
the dish is a dud. And that's, and that's try the
sauce. Try the sauce.
Yeah, like I drink this every day.
You have no idea. Yeah, this is this is like a a
(40:32):
16 hour Demi in it. You have no idea.
This is this is what it's about.So that's the yeah, restraint is
that's a that's a great thing. So how about you?
What do you, what do you, what do you see the future of the
company going? Future, So I mean just growth, I
mean from where we've come to where we're at right now, I mean
(40:52):
we're starting to kind of enter the education realm a little bit
more. We did a few Zoom kind of
cooking classes during COVID, just kind of keep it afloat.
And that kind of sparked something in us that was like,
we can kind of keep this on the back burner.
You know, now we're just trying to get as much as we possibly
can out there. But now that we're kind of
(41:13):
growing into that five years, it's kind of morphing into an
education while providing just kind of like you said, like a
culture, Like it really kind of gives like we're trying to just
get the best possible products out to people just to give it a
whirl. Try it out for yourself, then
(41:34):
you can decide. Absolutely.
We believe it's I mean kind of has the Sky's the limit for us.
So yeah, I mean kind of taking over that education type of
realm and hopefully someday at brick and mortar and then we can
do our. Absolutely.
So I'm going to put this and youguys haven't said it, but I'm
(41:56):
going to say it for you. So if you were to go out and to
single handedly buy all the spices that are in the 127
blend, you'd go broke. So that's fact.
So if you buy the quality of spices that are in that jar.
When you say you can make it at home, you can't you.
Can't you really can't you? Could you, you, you would go
broke doing it and that'll be the only thing you're you have
(42:17):
in. Your house 1 spice bottle.
No fridge, no stove, no sofa, just spices.
That's what you would have. Yeah.
So it's the that also needs to be said, I think more often
because again, they're they're the best of what you can get for
each category and then blended to fit a certain flavor profile.
(42:41):
But in order for you to get that, to make that on your own,
which you cannot, it would take an astronomical amount of raw
ingredient to do it. Like nobody's smashing or
dehydrating 4 orange peels. You know, that's not happening.
Nobody's doing it. It's just, you know, the, the,
the level, the barrier to entry is high is what I really want to
(43:03):
say. So kudos to that.
All right, before I let you guysgo, you're going to do play
another little game just because.
Feel like we're a little bit more ready for it on this.
Time I I think so. I think this one you can't you
can't. This one this Yeah, this one you
can't. You can't lose.
So this is a lightning round. OK, so in this one, it's just a
quick fire round. I'm going to ask you a phrase or
(43:26):
question and you got to give me the first thing that pops into
your mind and we're going to go back and forth with this.
OK All right, so lightning round.
OK, I'm going to start with you,Ross.
All right. Favorite comfort food?
Pasta. Any pasta?
Spaghetti meatballs. I mean, that's what wins me
(43:47):
over. A good Spaghetti meatballs all
day long. That's a great one.
Yep. All right, Tom.
Saltines. Just.
Straight up dry salt. Straight dry choke on life
Saltines. Hey, if I if I need a hug and no
one's around that sleeve of saltines.
Is going to be my you know what OK, I, I, I can admit to this so
(44:10):
and this I've never said this out loud to anyone before
anybody else close your ears. All right, so something about
saltines and tea. So I, I, I love tea like, and I
do my tea like like ice cream though, so it's like sugar and
cream, right? But, and this is going to sound
disgusting, but I soak the the saltines in the tea.
(44:30):
It's delicious. I don't know try that out.
It's really good. It's really good.
It's really it's really good anyway, anyway, that's sounds
horrible. Most underrated spice, Tom.
I'd say clove. We got some gnarly cloves in our
kitchen and when we grind them it smells like chocolate.
(44:50):
Like it's. There's a difference between
the. Clove and some are regular
cloves though. This is.
There's a difference between theclove that you grew up with that
made you have heartburn and madeyou dizzy and made you
disgusted. We have some really high end
cloves and they're very underrated.
I wish I could do some more. Cloves.
(45:12):
I'm going to go with garlic. So fresh garlic obviously is
like #1 like that's can't use that can't, can't replace
anything. But really trying the high kind
of level of quality for the our roasted garlic especially, but
our minced garlic is a great substitute.
(45:36):
I would say OK if you're in a pinch, OK.
Dream dinner guest that are alive.
OK. Does that be famous or anybody?
No. Anybody your dream bro?
(45:59):
I'll come back. You go first.
Anthony Bourden, It's a good one.
Tom is a good guy. You.
Did that already. Yeah, OK.
I'd. Probably sit down with Marcus
Marcus Samuelson. OK, you can make that happen,
(46:19):
yeah. I have a difference in his book
and 1st in the culinary. My chef at the time was like
patient threw it showed me all the different stuff that could
happen and at that time I was just washing dishes.
I was like, wait a minute, that's that's what we're going
to do here. Yeah, OK, well, I better pretty
cool, you know, get some books. And pretty cool.
(46:40):
OK, Ross, one kitchen gadget youcannot live without.
Does this count? Nice.
Well, obviously a knife. Your gadget bro.
But. Mandolin after that.
Either that or a microplane. Mine's Microplane for sure.
(47:00):
Yeah, Microplane will be, yeah, I'd say.
It's interchangeable. It definitely depends on the
day, but. Yeah, I've done all kinds of
shit with a microplane. You can do it.
Why? You don't need to cut anything.
You just, yeah, run it on down. Yeah.
Facts. OK, first concert you ever
(47:21):
attended? Metallica.
What year was it? 9798.
Where'd you see him at? Target Center.
It's a good. Concert My Chemical Romance
before they got popular again so.
Again. Like 25 years ago.
Wow, what'd you see them? At it's Envy nightclub.
(47:43):
Oh, intimate. OK, I.
Think it was envy? No, sorry.
What's the one on Maplewood? I remember the name.
Of it. OK, OK.
All right. That has been the lightning
round. So I have a bonus question
though. My bonus question would be if
(48:04):
you could bottle up spice of whoyou are as an individual, as a
person in your life, each individual, what would the
carrier ingredient be? And then what would your name?
I think mine would be very technical and very kind of like
rule driven. I think that's how I would
(48:26):
represent my culinary backgroundand kind of how I've evolved
into a adult. More discipline, more commitment
into what I'm supposed to be doing and how to do it.
Carrier like like a base liver. Kind of like like the chili
(48:48):
powder that we're making right now.
There's, you know, 9 different chilies in it.
So it's complex, but they all work together.
But there's different, they do different things at different
times. The name of it?
Tom's Blend, you know. Tom's blend works.
Big Papa, Big Papa's Blend Big Papa's Blend.
(49:09):
That was my. That's my.
Apparently. So, yeah, I mean, I'm kind of
the polar opposite of what time is.
So I'm more of that kind of creative, like kind of shoot
from the hip. What are we going to figure out
how we're going to kind of tackle this problem on the fly.
So I kind of have more of that, I guess versatility sometimes,
(49:33):
but just kind of a more of a creative approach of things.
My base ingredients probably I'dprobably go with like a chili
powder as well because kind of because of the same thing is
(49:55):
like just the way that it works with things.
You can really kind of let it kind of spread free and just do
different things. OK.
And what are you calling it? You can't.
You just can't do people. I'm sorry.
Names taken. Row Rose Blend.
Row Rose blend. OK, I like it.
I like it. I like it.
(50:16):
OK. Please please please tell all
the people watching and listening where they can find
and follow you guys for all the things.
Sure. So heresthedeal.co.
We're also on Instagram at Here's the Deal Spice, and then
we're hit up the Minnesota localart fairs, festivals, farmers
markets and the Minnesota State Fair.
(50:37):
Awesome, awesome. Everywhere we try to be, yeah,
try to be everywhere. OK.
And just for the knowledge beingfor for local people as well,
how many stores you guys in currently?
We're in nine stores currently. We got about 3 or 4 in the works
behind the scenes but landed 9. We had a few before, but they
(50:59):
kind of move different directions.
Got you. And what's the weather today?
Oh boy, we got the Argon Moose up in Hugo.
We got macaroons. Macaroons.
Groceries table. You ought to take this.
No, you mean you got you deliverto them at.
West side wines in Saint Louis park.
We got a Spring Lake farm in Prior Lake.
(51:22):
We have a Vivrant knife shop in Edina, definitely a good place
to go. Yeah, you want to see the?
Most check out those dudes videos.
That dudes videos. Yeah, they've brought us great,
fantastic. What else we got probably this
Rosen loon in Rosedale, big supporters of all Minnesota made
companies really, really likes us and we really like them on
(51:43):
how they're doing their stuff. Dayton's in Minneapolis in the
winter time, Pimento at down in Minneapolis and then I think
that might run him up. I didn't count Kathy Mackintoons
and St. Bonnie.
So we're kind of hitting the kind of outskirts and then we
(52:04):
focus on more the family owned mom and pop shops.
You know, they are doing the same thing we are.
They have a little bit larger platform, but they're also
bringing in the smaller companies actually promote them
and really know our our story toactually have the conversations
with people. Absolutely, absolutely.
Well, first and foremost to congratulate.
So five years is a big deal. So I don't know if you've, you
(52:26):
know, as you know, I'm sure you do know, a lot of companies
don't make it to Year 5, especially going through the
pandemic. So that's a, it's a huge, it's a
huge feat. So only the Sky's the limit for
you guys. I'm a fan.
I believe in what you guys are doing.
You're doing the right things for the right reasons.
(52:46):
And I, I'm all about, you know, doing cool shit with cool people
that do all the right things forthe sake of just doing the right
thing. So kudos to you for that.
Follow these guys. Follow these guys and get to
them and talk to them now, because it's going to come a
tense or a time when like, I don't know when the last time
you guys talked to the head of McCormick, but you can't.
(53:09):
And so that's pretty soon that'sgoing to be, that's going to be
the, the, the case. So if you when you go in to see
these guys out at any of the farmers markets or, or the trade
shows, talk to them, get some knowledge, definitely get some,
some tips and tricks and they'llhave it all and check in with
these guys, follow them. Here's the deal, Spice.
(53:29):
And again, that's because of your dad, right?
The name of Yeah, yeah. How to get his point across?
Here's the deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a very finally thing to say.
It's a very finally thing to say.
I get it. I totally get it.
OK. Again, this has been the Taste
Music Here Food podcast show. I'm your host, Ed Porter.
So next time, take care. Thanks guys.
(53:53):
I remember that's something that's definitely a following.
NBC Our relation to NBC.
You know we. Don't you know what takes a
special track to do this? My Mama BS and QS ship the
sauce. It's just the flu with this
chef. I need to remind y'all I'm sick
with it. My name is Suck.
That's hot. It's you sick with this meaning
it's one of the same. Simple and plain.
I'm all about my paper. The bacon, cheddar and pain.
I got these lanes running for the border.
(00:20):
The talents and Mr. Porter keeping flowing like here we go.
Here we go creeping to a low speed.
Is it him and his friend sittingin the nose?
Please play it cool. He is special just because he's
on TV. Everybody's hands up acting like
they know We welcome, welcome, welcome.
Welcome to another episode of the Taste Music Here food
(00:40):
podcast show. I am your host, Ed Porter.
This is the place for food, music and culture and how they
all connect. Today we have some very special
guests with a S in the building tonight.
This is it's a very I like when things come together like super
(01:01):
duper organically and natural and how this all happened.
The connection between myself and these two gentlemen was
exactly that. So before we get started, I'm
going to attempt to pay these gentlemen the proper flowers
they deserve by this intro. So here we go, where the streets
(01:22):
meet the skillet and culture gets cooked low and slow.
Today's guests are stirring the pot in all the right ways.
What started as a wedding favorite became a bold brand
that's now rewinding the rules of spice.
A chef with punk rock roots and a fine dining backbone linked up
with longtime friend and fellow flavor fanatic to bring us
Here's the Deal Spice Company, where they are blending
(01:45):
heritage, heat and hustle straight out of Minnesota.
From their crowd favorite 127 Blend to a Midwest remix of
Japanese togurashi, they're creating flavors that speak
volumes, and community is alwaysthe main ingredient.
Let's turn up the heat with the duo behind one of the most
exciting spice movements in the game, Mr. Tom Docman and Ross
(02:06):
Ratio. Yes, Sir.
OK, so you guys are a super duper cool spice company.
And I know that's kind of weird saying from Minnesota and spice
the 2 are like oxymorons becauseeverybody knows that it's
usually ketchup is spicy. Unfortunately, unfortunately it
(02:29):
is. But, and here's the thing.
So I, I was a fan of you guys before I met you guys.
So I have have we had ongoing jokes about how much you got
spices I have in my in my pantry.
That being said, this whole thing exists to speak to to
people like yourselves and and, you know, kind of draw the lines
(02:51):
between all the things that makeus us.
So let's talk about, you know, 127 and, and how it all came
about to get to the point to where you could diss the
day-to-day chef duds to to the spice company.
Sure, sure. So we specialize in premium
organic spices and we try to take our culinary background for
(03:14):
20 plus years and create a a specific plan that can be used
on just about anything, everything breakfast, lunch or
dinner. And that one came about I got a
what I got married with Nicole and we made a spice blend and we
made all the food with it. We also gave a little favors
away for everybody and, you know, they all came there to
(03:35):
support us and we, you know, gave them a little something to
take home and enjoy more of our celebration together and people
wanted more and more. And more.
And I was I was 1. Of those, yeah, yeah.
I was like, hey, what is this honey anymore?
And we realized that, you know, there was something special
about it. There's something more in depth
(03:57):
in a higher education than just cooking.
You know, Like in my clinic background, I've never been
taught about spices and the different flavor profiles or how
good it can actually be. And working throughout my career
doing different things with BBQ,doing different things with
hotline or meat department, certain kinds of pressed meats
(04:19):
and the whole development of that.
I just started writing down a bunch of recipes, things that
were I learned things that I didn't know about, and then
things that actually came to theplate to serve people and people
loved it and how they're how much they just enjoyed their
moment or their celebration thatthey were at the restaurant
with. And then we kept building 127 in
(04:41):
the background and I realized there was a plateau in the
career and jump ship and open the spice company.
There you go, just off of 1 Blunt.
You only listen, you only have to be right once.
That's what the lucky 1. You have to be just one time,
just one time. And then so tell me about you
guys, how far you guys go back and, and, and what made this a
(05:03):
journey that you had to to get your guy with?
Sure. Yeah.
I mean, we were working at Travail together.
I started there in 2012, I thinkright around there.
And I think Tom started probablyright 2014.
End of 2014, 2015, yeah. You know, kind of like grew a
relationship there. It was kind of a cutthroat type
(05:23):
of pitching. So you didn't really get to like
really build too many friendships.
It was just more of work straight up.
And yeah, just kind of throughout the years just kind
of kept in touch. And then he started the company
up and he's like, hey, if you ever want to help out or
anything, and here we are today so.
(05:43):
There you go. Yeah, just keep on, keep on
rolling, making good stuff, so. So when?
When the idea hatch, so you knewyou had something with 127 that
was and that's that's the day that you got married.
That's the that's the day you got married, which is super
cool. When you when you knew you had
something, but then you you had to, it had to come into play.
OK, like, is this going to play in Minnesota?
(06:05):
Right. So not that you, you know this
home base. So we got to kick it off here.
So how do we make these things approachable?
Because I, I can tell you as a, as, as a chef that that opened
up a restaurant here from, I'm from New York.
Those conversations were had when we developed menus like,
OK, there's certain things we can do, certain things we can,
(06:26):
can't do and certain things we have to do.
And in order to make things as approachable as possible, you
know, you know, we tone down on some things and, and you know,
bounce is key. But did that come into play at
all? Yes and no.
So I think with the 127, it was like a pretty big base of key
(06:47):
flavors and also things that really been blended into like my
childhood and growing up and youknow, I got grandparents were
100% Irish, 100% Italian, and then like Polish and Croatian.
So there's always these flavors that were always in our kitchens
at all times. And it has like a little
interesting kind of like a Italian blend backer to it.
(07:09):
So the herbs and herbs that are in there are Rosemary, basil,
thyme, and then those help kind of comfort out the the like the
savory Ness. Gotcha.
Yeah, so it's a really nice comfort blend.
It's. Yeah, and I that was that's the
first one that I tried and that that was the gateway for me.
So like like I tried that. I'm like, OK, let's get well,
the no blenders are all the straight the straight spices.
(07:30):
Like OK, you know, get the the cinnamon and OK, this is a
really good cinnamon. But the blends I think are super
cool because they are again, straightforward, but they're the
best of what you can get and they're understandable.
I think that's the the coolest thing about them.
So like even then, the novice could could could use that as
(07:53):
exactly period or as a base and then build upon that too.
So that's all we like to kind ofsell to absolutely.
Like as far as, you know, how amI going to use this when I get
home? You know, everybody that comes
up and buys a spice, like, what am I going to do with this?
And it's, it's that that's our job is to make it easy for you
and like, really like give you something that you can just
(08:14):
catapult off. Of yeah, if it's.
Just that, then it's great. But if you want to, you know,
add more and more, absolutely, yeah.
It just keeps on getting better.So, OK, cool.
So we're going to play a little game.
Oh great. All right, so we're going to
play a little game that we call here.
One's got to go very simple. We're going to I'm going to ask
(08:34):
you a couple of give you a couple of options and you have
to eliminate one forever. One's going to go bye bye.
I can do that. You ready?
You guys ready for that? Yeah, let's go.
All right, cool. All right, So here is 1's got to
go. All right, very simply, as a
chef, this is what we got. We got really.
(08:57):
There we go. Salt, heat, acid, fat.
One's got to go. Fat.
Fat, yeah. Is that what you're talking?
Spices? You're.
Talking I'm just talking period.If you got if one had you had to
cannibalize one of these things from cooking for from here to
eternity. You're going to use the you're
going to get killed the vehicle for flavor.
(09:17):
OK, All right. So I wasn't I wasn't OK, one's
got to go. Which one?
And you both get a you both get an option so.
I'll take salt. I'll take salt.
For sure. OK.
That's what I was looking towards as well.
OK, you can get that. I would go heat.
And the reason being everybody'shad some, some food that at
(09:44):
least was salted well, but but you got to have the fat.
The acid is a must. It's a must.
It's a guaranteed must. If I had to cannibalize one of
those things, it would be heat. So why did you choose salt?
I'm curious. This is the background of
learning about our spices and just other cultures and how to
make food. There's so much salt and other
(10:04):
ingredients and you can almost like interpret and change the
flavor profile of certain thingswith just spices alone.
So yeah, you can. You can almost mimic the
reactions of salt, sure. Especially with the addition of
acid of something for sure, you know for sure for sure.
Very sneaky. Yeah.
OK. It's these things that we
learned. Through the spices.
(10:27):
Why to me? But why to you guys?
Why is acid a must? Why?
Why do you think, again, you just stated it because of the
lack of stuff. If you had the omit salt, acid
is one of those things that you can kind of manipulate.
Yeah, exactly. With other things to make you
know. So feel like it can be added in
such a way that you don't noticethat it's even there, but it
(10:49):
adds something that you just it's something that just pops
and gives such a like wide rangeof flavor profiles that just
kind of helps out everything. That's actually a good point
too, because the one thing that's not heavily in your
spices is a ton of salt anyway, so.
Yeah, we fall into the low salt.Yeah, low sodium for sure,
(11:10):
because yeah, normally it's it'sa good 7585% salt.
Understand. Yeah, in most blends.
Yeah, Yeah. We can add more spice and have a
more concentrated spice blend orany kind of sort of that.
But everybody has salt at home. They have sea salt, they have
kosher salt. They have, you can do lime
juice, you can do soy sauce, youcan do worse.
(11:30):
You can do hot sauce. There's so many things that are
cheese. They all add a salt content to
it. We're, you know, let that, let
that be up to the provider who'smaking their food for their
family. Absolutely.
So like we talked about, I think, you know, food and music
are usually paired together likeseamlessly all the time.
(11:50):
There's always you go to any restaurant from here to Timbuktu
and there's something playing because it gets weird when
people have to hear their own thoughts.
That's just what it is, right? It can make it or.
Break yeah, yeah, that's for sure.
Damn sure it can. So speak to me about in in your
guy's life, what, what is the playlist that is going on to,
(12:14):
you know, do your daily things like, so when you're creating,
when you're in the in the kitchen, you're creating spices.
Is there a specific playlist? Does it go with the flavors of
the the blends you're making? Are we, are we, you know, like,
are we, are we going, are we raging when we doing something
spicy? I'm just saying, like for me,
you know, music is the ultimate mood shifter for whatever you
(12:35):
want to feel like. There's a song to go with it and
A food usually too. So.
I know sometimes we'll do if we're like you doing a catering
or if they're doing the one twice 7 we'll do like Italian
podcast music or Italian food cooking.
I think it's called the Hey Mambo.
Yeah, that sounds pretty good inthe background, but I don't
(12:56):
specialize in a lot of music. Ross is my.
Right. He does all the music.
Does the speaker puts in the right place make?
The thing is, you got it, OK, It's.
A vibe so. Yeah, so I mean usually like
day-to-day in the kitchen. So it just kind of depends, you
know, you feel different, different vibes, different days.
So you know, whether it's like acool coffee us play playlist 1
(13:21):
day or raging out to 90s like club hits.
Like literally 3 days ago, we like let's just blast it and we
were the only two in the kitchen.
Just just really like getting a good kind of groove and vibe of
of just the whole thing. OK, Ross, if you could pair one
(13:41):
of the blends with a song or an album, what would it be?
First off, what's your favorite blend currently?
And those like picking a child, I get it.
We all have our favorite stuff. I would probably go with either
(14:03):
the Taco. No, no, either.
It's one. All right.
So, all right, all right, all right.
Right. It's like, yeah, it's like
picking. A yeah, yeah, I get it.
I get it. We won't tell anybody.
Just the rest of these. People yeah, I got to go with
Taco It's so we created that onereally with like basic roots
kind of tied with it. Like, what would they do where
(14:24):
tacos were originated? Like, you know, mortar and
pestle type of that that type oflike getting down to the roots
of it. And so we, you know, sourced a
special grinder that took a yearand a half to get here from
Denmark and, you know, create our own chili powder versus like
buying 1. So we tasted 38 chilies one day
(14:46):
and Lily couldn't feel my mouth for the next week.
It's always good. I mean, but it like it really
gives you that kind of educationfor yourself.
So then you can really give it to everybody else, you know,
where like you come up to us at a fair or whatever and ask us
about something, we're going to give you all the information
that we possibly know about the sourcing of those products and
that. So that one's really special to
(15:07):
me. It's very versatile.
So playlist, I'm sorry, album orsong to go with the tub?
So song would probably be, man, that's really like tie it down.
I'll probably do the Chef Chef movie soundtrack along with that
(15:28):
one. OK, so Jon Favreau.
It's a great movie, by the way. It's a great.
Movie. Yeah, I mean, it's it's one of
those things that actually got me back into cooking They.
Listen that they got that one right.
So we, we've all like we've all seen the movies, the, the, the,
the restaurant movies and like, we don't do that.
Yeah, like, like that's not right.
That's not how it's done. Like nobody does that like but
this, this one got it right. Yeah, they they really like kind
(15:49):
of took it to the. Roots.
Oh, they had. Boy Choi was the the, you know.
Exactly. Yeah.
He's like, yeah, he kept it. He made me show that it was it
was done right. So that's one of my favorite
ones for sure. That's one of my favorite movies
for sure. OK, that's a great answer.
Great answer. All right, so let's let's let's
talk about culture. So the unique thing about spice.
So spice has a history globally as far as being like the
(16:13):
representative of regions, people and spaces based on, you
know, spices. At one point in time it was
currency, right? Right.
So if this was only the rich andwealthy had access to spices.
Right. Right.
And so. Yeah, overseas to trains,
planes. Absolutely.
Planes, absolutely. So talk to me about the
(16:33):
Togarashi specifically, because that is that's a Japanese, but
this is a has a Midwest twister.For sure.
Yeah. So working at Travail, I met a
couple really good people. Dong was one of them.
He's from Vietnam. Josh Discher, really good guy.
Also from the island. That's also the name of the
(16:55):
money in Vietnam. Dong.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like it really is. Like he's.
The true. He's the true.
Person and True. We would used to make FA
constantly and he would teach methe way his mom would teach him
and just never knew never educated myself on that cuisine
(17:15):
or really fully diving in. Never worked at a place that
would actually showcase like thethe the premium that they can do
and how simple ingredients, but how it develops over time and
cooking. So I picked up Togarashi
education from Travail and just kind of seeing how they use it,
what they use it on. And then, you know, I was like,
(17:37):
it's super unique. I, I don't know much.
So I'm going to educate myself and then I'm going to pass that
education on to the Midwest. And we were like, you know, Thai
bird chili. That's not.
That's not. The Midwest.
Not an over. Not at all.
So we changed it up. We added more citrus peel.
So we actually hand peel, dehydrate all the oranges
ourselves. Each jar gets about four oranges
(18:00):
per jar, which is heavier on thethe citrus side, but very fresh,
very fragrant. And then we lowered it down to a
red pepper flake. Still pretty hot for Minnesota,
but it's good. Good introduction of what it
could be and how it how it develops.
Yeah, and it's a nice round flavor, too.
Like it's right. I put it on potato chips.
(18:20):
Nice. Fry some fresh potato chips.
That's that's a hit. Oh, yeah, that's a hit right
there. Yeah.
So tell me how you balance tradition, authenticity, and
being able to introduce those types of new flavor profiles to
a local audience. And then, you know, let's be
(18:41):
frank, like we're not just selling to Minnesotans now.
We, you know, we're. Or across the state, Yeah, Coast
to coast. We ship all over.
Well. Actually.
And Brazil I sold, I sold a couple 1 twice episode Gentlemen
in Brazil, which is just last night, which is pretty fun, just
open. Going international Listen,
(19:01):
look, you gotta do it. You know what's coming next,
right? You gotta so just think about
all the Brazilian steakhouses that that's going to be.
For sure. You know I'm just saying all
they need is 1 drug, that's it. It's the gateway drug.
All you need is 1 drug. It's the gateway drug.
So the first one's on me, actually I was so.
Thank you. Yeah.
Exactly. So let's let's talk.
(19:23):
How do you, you know, when again, you're I?
I think when you set out to do do things the way you're doing
it, you were kind of Taylor making it for, for a certain
palette, right? But what you ended up doing,
though, to be honest, is you created your own version of
certain things to fit, not to fit actually to it's its own
(19:45):
class now, honestly. So there's a there's a certain
lane that you carved out for yourself by doing what you did,
whether you know it or not. This, this is that flavor
profile. I've had tons of Tokurashi.
That's its own thing. Well, thank you for saying that.
It's good. It's good to hear.
It's, you know, we're we're always developing.
We're trying stuff out. I think it's pretty much
(20:08):
honoring the culinary backgroundof the culinary training and the
different jobs and different menu items to really kind of
like celebrate that and put all that education into one jar or
one flavor or one region of the world.
So Taco we try to figure out. Everything that Mexico exports
to the world and how do we make a blend out of that?
(20:29):
And then like Ross was saying, like mortar and pestle, that's
how they normally grind stuff down to use it in their
day-to-day. And that grinder that we bought
is the closest thing that we cando it very traditional A.
Donkey in the back with a with abig stone.
More like my. Shoulders burning.
We hanged around the 1st 100 lbsand that's crazy.
(20:52):
That was the last time. Free gym.
Free gym. Yeah, truly.
All right, so we earned our straight.
Absolutely. So in essence, you you put not
only the knowledge base of irreverence for the spices and
the cultures, but also your onlyexperience is in each bottle
pretty pretty much 100%. And I like to say that.
(21:13):
It's a good melding of. Oh, absolutely, absolutely my in
my humble opinion, I believe that so food and and and music,
First off are the two easiest ways of emotion yourself in any
culture. But I believe that they're going
to be the catalyst or the vehicles to end all of the
biases that we have in the world.
(21:34):
Because in my personal belief, if you have a reverence for the,
the art and then you have a reverence for the people, it's
hard for biases to live in that realm.
And so you, you, you're doing all the studying you did for,
you know, for like the Taco spice that you, you have to have
(21:54):
a reverence for the people and what they did.
And so you biases can't cannot exist in that realm.
They just can't. The problem is even the biggest,
you know, the biggest fascist inthe world two times of the day
that they're not thinking about segregation is usually with the
stomach and what they're with their, with their ears, right?
(22:16):
So they'll they eat food from all over the world, but they
just don't have a reverence or have tie it to an actual person
when they're eating these things.
And so this is actually a good, it's a good education to enter a
culture. And you know, it's the, it's the
gateway drug again, I think you,you go down the rabbit hole when
like, you know what, let me lookat, you know, Taco rashes and
(22:38):
what they, what they, they're typically used and how, what
they are and all the different things.
And I think it's a, it's a cool thing that you can, you can give
all of that info and knowledge and just a small bottle and
that's, that's so cool. You guys are chefs.
So let's, let's talk about, let's just give the pink
elephant a name in the room. OK, Give me you guys's absolute
(23:04):
worst shift day. Well, that when did that like,
OK, you know what? This is something and we all
have them. I, I, I can fill this room.
I can fill this building up. Yeah.
Give me what? What is what is the absolute
worst day that you've had on theline?
What does, what does that look like?
(23:25):
You can leave names out if you want to.
I personally don't give a damn. Well, I think I'll take this one
because I almost went to the hospital.
So working at travail work in meat department and also hotline
at the same time. So at the beginning of the shift
throughout the proper downstairsthat we come upstairs to then
(23:46):
work a station and kind of entertain everybody.
And I didn't know this at the time, but I was allergic to
shellfish. I've had shellfish, I've had
shellfish in the past. I've had all the soft shell
crab, you know, sandwiches. I've had the lobster, I've had
the like oysters, mussels, my favorite.
(24:07):
And something changed somewhere in my lifestyle and or whatever
and I opened a freezer door to grab out the lobster bowl and
instantly lost all my motor skills. 3rd sweating, couldn't
talk, couldn't explain what's going on getting like just
pouring out sweat. And I had to leave the hotline
(24:29):
abandoned and tap the owner and said got to go.
And I was in, I was in the I wasin the dish pit, like on the
ground, like wondering what's going to happen next.
And I got some Benadryl and wentback to work about two hours
later. Yeah, because you're a
masochist. That sounds.
That's what we do. Oh, why not?
(24:52):
Yeah. Yeah.
I I listen. I get it.
That's so OK. I'll because I'm done.
I've done this before, too. When's the next time?
You tried to eat Selfish. You tried to do it again.
You did. You lying.
You did not that time. Not that.
Time before I ate a crave and I had Sam with row on top.
OK. And I believe that night I had a
seizure and passed out in the bathroom.
(25:14):
Oh, So yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then I went back to
Crave the next day and ate it without the fish eggs and I was
fine. So I gave it about 24 hours.
Really roll the dice though. Yeah, yeah.
I'm looking happy. The only thing that happened if
it wasn't the row then. All right, so it's not just
shellfish like. I think there's, yeah, it's also
fin fish and swimming fish, I guess.
(25:36):
Yeah, yeah. So I, I narrow my down through
trial and error because I'm a small guy down to crustaceans.
Yeah. Like, so I can, I can eat
mussels, clams, oysters. I can do those all day.
But shrimp, lobster, scallops, crab, an undercooked eggplant
(26:00):
has the same effect. What?
Actually, how I know that one has the same effect.
And yeah, I'm talking like Will Smith and Hitch.
That's bad. Yeah.
This is is. Yes, there's death on the other
side of that. How about yourself, Ross?
What's the I? Mean obviously nothing is
traumatized. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, you should have. You should have went, almost
died. Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, no, no, no.
But he just chucked some Benadryl and went back to work.
(26:22):
Yeah, I was still. Probably that's fine.
No big deal. I mean, yeah, it's kind of hard
to like narrow down one specific, but.
You can there. Was a night where it was kind of
a ticket centric type of situation in the ticket printer.
It's a nice way to say it's a nice way to say ticket centric.
And I think, yeah, I think at one point it was like 60
(26:44):
untouched tickets that were justthere.
And it was just kind of a nightmare situation, just
drowning in prep, having the prep in the basement, you know,
when everything was running out.So yeah, I mean that's.
Is there a great listen? Is there a greater feeling than
the last ticket? Like especially in a night like
that? I don't, I don't care how long
(27:06):
it took to get there. There's no greater feeling.
Well, yeah, that's the whole thing, like persevering and like
literally like pushing through. Like I am not going to stop.
Similar to Tom taking his Benadryl, you know, like that's,
it's the mentality that we have of we're not going to finish
until the job's done or, you know, at least completed to what
we think it is. But yeah, that those nights
(27:27):
where it's like you're pouring that first beer for yourself
after your shift and just can reflect, it's like.
Yeah, it's insane. So that that is the one part of
the business that no cooking show has grasped.
Like there's the grind. Yeah, just the grind.
That, that that grind. But here's the other thing.
(27:49):
The mustard. The gall to come back tomorrow
and do that same shit all over. You it's.
It's almost addicting. It's very.
It is. Like true I can do this.
Yeah, I'm gonna. Approve to you I can do.
This and I'm gonna. Yeah, yeah.
And I don't need sleep. Yeah, I don't need sleep.
Yeah, and I don't yeah, I don't need sleep.
I'm going to live off of of of now iced coffee because just
cold coffee and like and yeah, deli, deli, deli, cup after deli
(28:12):
cup of coffee and then, you know, whatever I can get close
to the. Walgreens across the street.
Absolutely. That's the IT.
It takes a special, which will always say it takes a special
type of person to do what it is that we we do and to keep doing
it. And it's, it's a, it's a game of
golf. I I, I said to myself like I
always looked after it though, like when it was happening I
(28:33):
never thought about this shit. But the fact of I was just
trying to to one up myself everyday.
Like especially after the hard day.
Like I I, I want to turn this hard day into a good day.
Yeah, you have the worst prep day of your life.
You're like. Absolutely.
That's not going to happen today.
I'll I'll take this this check this out.
So this must have happened. I want to say 997.
(28:57):
So in Aquarine, New York is is it's built in a historical
building. So he couldn't do much to the
retrofitting of the building. Wouldn't you know it's a
landmark and one it was a heat wave that summer.
And the answer went off like at 4:00 right before service.
Pre pre theater. This is prime summer, right?
(29:19):
All the scenes are happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, and, and I don't know ifanybody's ever been any in the
kitchen when the dust, the Anseldust goes off, when that shit's
it's like sand. You never go to the beach.
There's no cleaning that. Yeah, there's no cleaning.
This shit's everywhere. And there's you, you haven't
seen this go home, bust open a acontainer of baby powder in in
(29:40):
your house. And then that's, that's as close
as you can get to it, except there's like 90 nozzles.
Yeah. So so that shit went off.
Do you know that we open the kitchen in three hours?
That's that was insane. You know, with I don't know what
food because everything got covered.
So it was like, it was that was an insane moment.
(30:02):
That was that was the by far like, OK, I don't think I want
to do this anymore. And that's, that's expectation
that yeah, yeah, yeah, that's installed and you like, yeah,
I'll clean it up, clean it up like I'll get a bucket.
Let's. Go, that was the one day I'm
like, yeah, I think I, I think I'm gonna go to school with
something else. That's one of those days, man.
(30:22):
But the the, the reason why I stated that because those same,
that same mindset you, you pour into what you do every day.
So like we were talking before off camera about the amount of
hours and and the the the state stick to itiveness that you have
to have to take anything from a thought to fruition and carry
(30:43):
that into what you're doing today.
So had you not going through those types of that type of war,
you know, you would you you're better equipped than the average
person is what I'm saying. So so that you know, kudos to
that. So thank God for the stripes and
burns and the and and the slicesand the near death experiences
with with the ingestion of lobster Jew.
(31:05):
Let's let's talk about again, inwhich ways do you or are you
thinking about how with the spice company that you are
actually forging a bridge between cultures, not only in,
in, in, you know, in the states that you're dealing in, but in
(31:27):
everybody's home. So like you are basically you
have the opportunity to when you're doing it, whether you
know it or not, you are now creating relationships with,
with people in food and people with, with other people in their
family through the use of certain spices and things that
(31:47):
are outside of their comfort zone.
So even if they've never so OK, like the geek in me, I want to
look at and see every spice in the 127.
That's just how I'm built. Because I think most chefs are
that way. They like, I want to know the
novice is going to pick out the two or three things that stand
out to them and then they're gonna think that OK, now I love
(32:10):
these three things and now that's their go to.
So in a sense, they have a relationship with that spice
because of that connection. Is was that a purposeful thing
or is that just one of those happy little accidents?
I think, you know, kind of reflected on all the past five
years that we've been open and what we've done in our
(32:32):
backgrounds and our family life,like love it, like our love
languages, food, as you mentioned, like food, art and
music. You know, there's no, you can
break down any barrier, any language education, anything
like that. It's always every every can talk
to somebody else through food and showcase it and like the
(32:52):
different ingredients. That was just kind of a one off.
But it's just that complicated detail of scratch cooking and
what's the best and if it's worth doing it, do it right.
And if it was easy, everybody would do it.
So why not make it, you know, use our techniques that we've
learned along the way and also make sure that people are
(33:13):
sitting down and having dinner with their friends and family,
you know, entertain them, you know, after work.
How was your day at work? How was long?
We'll eat this great food that we made.
And then we're just kind of thatdusting on top or that flavor
profile that kind of gets the conversation going and the.
Gives you that nostalgia too. I mean, it gives you that kind
of core memory of eating with your family.
(33:34):
That's the main ingredient though, that, that, that is the
ultimate main ingredient. It really is.
It's like you're, you're there'sa, there's a love ingredient is
a you bottled love, right? So there's a love for everything
that you do and you put that in every bottle and then it
translates because of the care that was take.
So I don't have to think about it.
(33:55):
The novices have to think about,you know, they can just use it
at their will. And then it it permeates to
everybody that they serve. And I just think it's a it's a
nice, it's a nice little rejuvenation wheel of thing that
it's one of those things that, you know, instant gratification.
This is one of those, one of those things, especially when
you guys do the trade shows and when you do, you know, you did
(34:17):
the State Fair and you that's like, it's an instant thing.
Like you can, yeah, in real time, see people's reactions.
And that has to be invigorating as well.
Yeah. And then every conversation we
have with anybody who comes to our booth or interested or looks
at it, we were talking earlier today.
It's almost like an intimate conversation, like what do you
like to eat? What are your allergies or
(34:38):
restrictions? What what do you have in your
fridge tonight? What are you going to make?
What are you buying? And then educate them like, Hey,
this is what I would recommend. Or maybe give this a smell.
So we use aromatic jar so peoplecan smell it and nostalgic, like
it'll bring it back to grandma'shouse.
It'll bring it back to summers in Florida.
Like there's something about thearomatic and all the different
(34:59):
sensories of spices that can bring you to a place of joy And
then than to eat it like it's. I always say that first of all,
that's how that's why when you go to open the house, they're
baking cookies. Sure.
Exactly this this is all. So it's not a collage, you know,
it's, it's warfare. You just you didn't know you was
in this war. And and I would say in in our
(35:21):
line of work and even in music, we're just trying to recall a
favorable memory or create a newone.
And if you've done that, you wonbecause when it's very true,
because you know, we've all had meals where you can't remember
anything about nothing bad, nothing good, but nothing right,
(35:43):
nothing memorable, which is not really a good meal.
When you hit on something where it either hits a chord to where
it's something that is emotionalor it created a new one.
Like, you know what you got to go have, you know, you got to go
have this pasta. Like it's this is, this is I
don't know what it is. And so you get to a point to
(36:03):
where you have to a person has to convince themself why not to
like it. They don't even know why they
have to give. And that's a whole different
thing. That's that's a raving fan.
When you when you tap into something emotional, that's when
you that's the win because like,I don't even know why you know,
that's and that's so ironically,that's what you hit with 127.
(36:24):
So when people would just like, I don't even know what this is.
This says, it says it's a wedding favor.
I just put this on everything inmy house to sip cereal.
I'm out of it. I need more.
And that's that's that emotionalties.
What, Like that's what did it. And so, yeah, that's that's the
win. I think that's the ultimate win.
All right, this entire venture for you, where you are versus
(36:55):
where you started and then what where you're trying to go.
What do you think? What does the future look like
for for? Here's the deal.
Well, I can start and you can jump in.
Started with just trying to figure out our own company,
still involved in food, still beable to make food at home and
educate like we're now out of the back of the kitchen.
(37:15):
I can be in front of people. I'm now like the server.
I'm now the presenter of what what you can do and how to do it
and kind of teach people different preparations
techniques. And then what was I going to say
with that? Just kind of like we built, we
started with four spices, started at this large trade show
(37:40):
that we're going to make it big.No one's ever heard of us
started moving along that way doing some farmers markets.
COVID hit shut us down, but we got picked up by a couple key
factors along the way that actually helped us build into
more of a so you know what an item that's now featured never
been done before, never really been showcased in this direction
(38:01):
and really believed in what we're doing then hanging out
with Ross during COVID and we wouldn't be here today without
Ross. Like he's he knows food, he
knows flavor, he knows education, he knows how to read
people, he knows everything and he really keeps me in track and
in the right lane at the right time.
So I went the company wouldn't be where it was without Ross,
(38:24):
that's for sure. Definitely helps me 0 in on
different flavor profiles. Does that make sense?
How much we're going to put in there?
Well, does it need to be in there or do you just need to put
it in there? Right, self editing.
Yeah, I learned that self. Editing listen, that is the most
important thing. It's it's incredible that that
(38:45):
is a great factor when I was making this album behind me that
we had a meeting and the meetingwas about unnecessary
ingredients like so no unnecessary ingredients.
And that includes people, placesand things.
If it doesn't belong, don't put it in.
And then and because, and that'sthe that self editing is, is
probably the most important thing.
(39:06):
It's as you know, not. Difficult, yes, even for myself
I mean, but I've at least becomeaware and like trying to like,
especially with the spices I mean.
It's hard not. To put it's hard not to put 35
ingredients in a space. Because you can, because it's
that your fingers. It's like it's all here.
I'm looking. At some of this, throw some of
that, throw some of this and it's like, well.
Restraint, restraint. So the skill set is in the
(39:27):
restraint knowledge is knowing that a tomato's a fruit.
Wisdom's know not to put it in afruit salad.
But the at the end of the day, not I I think the best things
we've ever had in life. Think about the best, the single
best things you've ever had in lace five ingredients or less
like literally the the best things are are super simple.
It's just the best of those fiveingredients.
(39:49):
And then of course, knowledge ofpreparation.
So if that if that if that's could be another ingredient, I I
get it, I'll let it fly. But and then when there is.
And ingredients, if you have something that's in there that's
more than that, there's reasons for them.
So there's like everything's everybody's playing a
supporting, supporting role. And sometimes the star is not
the star. We've all had dishes or made
(40:11):
dishes where, like typically people think that the protein is
the star. We made this.
It's not even about the protein at all.
Like that's just a carrier, period.
It's really about that sauce. And if you take that sauce out,
the dish is a dud. And that's, and that's try the
sauce. Try the sauce.
Yeah, like I drink this every day.
You have no idea. Yeah, this is this is like a a
(40:32):
16 hour Demi in it. You have no idea.
This is this is what it's about.So that's the yeah, restraint is
that's a that's a great thing. So how about you?
What do you, what do you, what do you see the future of the
company going? Future, So I mean just growth, I
mean from where we've come to where we're at right now, I mean
(40:52):
we're starting to kind of enter the education realm a little bit
more. We did a few Zoom kind of
cooking classes during COVID, just kind of keep it afloat.
And that kind of sparked something in us that was like,
we can kind of keep this on the back burner.
You know, now we're just trying to get as much as we possibly
can out there. But now that we're kind of
(41:13):
growing into that five years, it's kind of morphing into an
education while providing just kind of like you said, like a
culture, Like it really kind of gives like we're trying to just
get the best possible products out to people just to give it a
whirl. Try it out for yourself, then
(41:34):
you can decide. Absolutely.
We believe it's I mean kind of has the Sky's the limit for us.
So yeah, I mean kind of taking over that education type of
realm and hopefully someday at brick and mortar and then we can
do our. Absolutely.
So I'm going to put this and youguys haven't said it, but I'm
(41:56):
going to say it for you. So if you were to go out and to
single handedly buy all the spices that are in the 127
blend, you'd go broke. So that's fact.
So if you buy the quality of spices that are in that jar.
When you say you can make it at home, you can't you.
Can't you really can't you? Could you, you, you would go
broke doing it and that'll be the only thing you're you have
(42:17):
in. Your house 1 spice bottle.
No fridge, no stove, no sofa, just spices.
That's what you would have. Yeah.
So it's the that also needs to be said, I think more often
because again, they're they're the best of what you can get for
each category and then blended to fit a certain flavor profile.
(42:41):
But in order for you to get that, to make that on your own,
which you cannot, it would take an astronomical amount of raw
ingredient to do it. Like nobody's smashing or
dehydrating 4 orange peels. You know, that's not happening.
Nobody's doing it. It's just, you know, the, the,
the level, the barrier to entry is high is what I really want to
(43:03):
say. So kudos to that.
All right, before I let you guysgo, you're going to do play
another little game just because.
Feel like we're a little bit more ready for it on this.
Time I I think so. I think this one you can't you
can't. This one this Yeah, this one you
can't. You can't lose.
So this is a lightning round. OK, so in this one, it's just a
quick fire round. I'm going to ask you a phrase or
(43:26):
question and you got to give me the first thing that pops into
your mind and we're going to go back and forth with this.
OK All right, so lightning round.
OK, I'm going to start with you,Ross.
All right. Favorite comfort food?
Pasta. Any pasta?
Spaghetti meatballs. I mean, that's what wins me
(43:47):
over. A good Spaghetti meatballs all
day long. That's a great one.
Yep. All right, Tom.
Saltines. Just.
Straight up dry salt. Straight dry choke on life
Saltines. Hey, if I if I need a hug and no
one's around that sleeve of saltines.
Is going to be my you know what OK, I, I, I can admit to this so
(44:10):
and this I've never said this out loud to anyone before
anybody else close your ears. All right, so something about
saltines and tea. So I, I, I love tea like, and I
do my tea like like ice cream though, so it's like sugar and
cream, right? But, and this is going to sound
disgusting, but I soak the the saltines in the tea.
(44:30):
It's delicious. I don't know try that out.
It's really good. It's really good.
It's really it's really good anyway, anyway, that's sounds
horrible. Most underrated spice, Tom.
I'd say clove. We got some gnarly cloves in our
kitchen and when we grind them it smells like chocolate.
(44:50):
Like it's. There's a difference between
the. Clove and some are regular
cloves though. This is.
There's a difference between theclove that you grew up with that
made you have heartburn and madeyou dizzy and made you
disgusted. We have some really high end
cloves and they're very underrated.
I wish I could do some more. Cloves.
(45:12):
I'm going to go with garlic. So fresh garlic obviously is
like #1 like that's can't use that can't, can't replace
anything. But really trying the high kind
of level of quality for the our roasted garlic especially, but
our minced garlic is a great substitute.
(45:36):
I would say OK if you're in a pinch, OK.
Dream dinner guest that are alive.
OK. Does that be famous or anybody?
No. Anybody your dream bro?
(45:59):
I'll come back. You go first.
Anthony Bourden, It's a good one.
Tom is a good guy. You.
Did that already. Yeah, OK.
I'd. Probably sit down with Marcus
Marcus Samuelson. OK, you can make that happen,
(46:19):
yeah. I have a difference in his book
and 1st in the culinary. My chef at the time was like
patient threw it showed me all the different stuff that could
happen and at that time I was just washing dishes.
I was like, wait a minute, that's that's what we're going
to do here. Yeah, OK, well, I better pretty
cool, you know, get some books. And pretty cool.
(46:40):
OK, Ross, one kitchen gadget youcannot live without.
Does this count? Nice.
Well, obviously a knife. Your gadget bro.
But. Mandolin after that.
Either that or a microplane. Mine's Microplane for sure.
(47:00):
Yeah, Microplane will be, yeah, I'd say.
It's interchangeable. It definitely depends on the
day, but. Yeah, I've done all kinds of
shit with a microplane. You can do it.
Why? You don't need to cut anything.
You just, yeah, run it on down. Yeah.
Facts. OK, first concert you ever
(47:21):
attended? Metallica.
What year was it? 9798.
Where'd you see him at? Target Center.
It's a good. Concert My Chemical Romance
before they got popular again so.
Again. Like 25 years ago.
Wow, what'd you see them? At it's Envy nightclub.
(47:43):
Oh, intimate. OK, I.
Think it was envy? No, sorry.
What's the one on Maplewood? I remember the name.
Of it. OK, OK.
All right. That has been the lightning
round. So I have a bonus question
though. My bonus question would be if
(48:04):
you could bottle up spice of whoyou are as an individual, as a
person in your life, each individual, what would the
carrier ingredient be? And then what would your name?
I think mine would be very technical and very kind of like
rule driven. I think that's how I would
(48:26):
represent my culinary backgroundand kind of how I've evolved
into a adult. More discipline, more commitment
into what I'm supposed to be doing and how to do it.
Carrier like like a base liver. Kind of like like the chili
(48:48):
powder that we're making right now.
There's, you know, 9 different chilies in it.
So it's complex, but they all work together.
But there's different, they do different things at different
times. The name of it?
Tom's Blend, you know. Tom's blend works.
Big Papa, Big Papa's Blend Big Papa's Blend.
(49:09):
That was my. That's my.
Apparently. So, yeah, I mean, I'm kind of
the polar opposite of what time is.
So I'm more of that kind of creative, like kind of shoot
from the hip. What are we going to figure out
how we're going to kind of tackle this problem on the fly.
So I kind of have more of that, I guess versatility sometimes,
(49:33):
but just kind of a more of a creative approach of things.
My base ingredients probably I'dprobably go with like a chili
powder as well because kind of because of the same thing is
(49:55):
like just the way that it works with things.
You can really kind of let it kind of spread free and just do
different things. OK.
And what are you calling it? You can't.
You just can't do people. I'm sorry.
Names taken. Row Rose Blend.
Row Rose blend. OK, I like it.
I like it. I like it.
(50:16):
OK. Please please please tell all
the people watching and listening where they can find
and follow you guys for all the things.
Sure. So heresthedeal.co.
We're also on Instagram at Here's the Deal Spice, and then
we're hit up the Minnesota localart fairs, festivals, farmers
markets and the Minnesota State Fair.
(50:37):
Awesome, awesome. Everywhere we try to be, yeah,
try to be everywhere. OK.
And just for the knowledge beingfor for local people as well,
how many stores you guys in currently?
We're in nine stores currently. We got about 3 or 4 in the works
behind the scenes but landed 9. We had a few before, but they
(50:59):
kind of move different directions.
Got you. And what's the weather today?
Oh boy, we got the Argon Moose up in Hugo.
We got macaroons. Macaroons.
Groceries table. You ought to take this.
No, you mean you got you deliverto them at.
West side wines in Saint Louis park.
We got a Spring Lake farm in Prior Lake.
(51:22):
We have a Vivrant knife shop in Edina, definitely a good place
to go. Yeah, you want to see the?
Most check out those dudes videos.
That dudes videos. Yeah, they've brought us great,
fantastic. What else we got probably this
Rosen loon in Rosedale, big supporters of all Minnesota made
companies really, really likes us and we really like them on
(51:43):
how they're doing their stuff. Dayton's in Minneapolis in the
winter time, Pimento at down in Minneapolis and then I think
that might run him up. I didn't count Kathy Mackintoons
and St. Bonnie.
So we're kind of hitting the kind of outskirts and then we
(52:04):
focus on more the family owned mom and pop shops.
You know, they are doing the same thing we are.
They have a little bit larger platform, but they're also
bringing in the smaller companies actually promote them
and really know our our story toactually have the conversations
with people. Absolutely, absolutely.
Well, first and foremost to congratulate.
So five years is a big deal. So I don't know if you've, you
(52:26):
know, as you know, I'm sure you do know, a lot of companies
don't make it to Year 5, especially going through the
pandemic. So that's a, it's a huge, it's a
huge feat. So only the Sky's the limit for
you guys. I'm a fan.
I believe in what you guys are doing.
You're doing the right things for the right reasons.
(52:46):
And I, I'm all about, you know, doing cool shit with cool people
that do all the right things forthe sake of just doing the right
thing. So kudos to you for that.
Follow these guys. Follow these guys and get to
them and talk to them now, because it's going to come a
tense or a time when like, I don't know when the last time
you guys talked to the head of McCormick, but you can't.
(53:09):
And so that's pretty soon that'sgoing to be, that's going to be
the, the, the case. So if you when you go in to see
these guys out at any of the farmers markets or, or the trade
shows, talk to them, get some knowledge, definitely get some,
some tips and tricks and they'llhave it all and check in with
these guys, follow them. Here's the deal, Spice.
(53:29):
And again, that's because of your dad, right?
The name of Yeah, yeah. How to get his point across?
Here's the deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a very finally thing to say.
It's a very finally thing to say.
I get it. I totally get it.
OK. Again, this has been the Taste
Music Here Food podcast show. I'm your host, Ed Porter.
So next time, take care. Thanks guys.
(53:53):
I remember that's something that's definitely a following.
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