Food Competition: Chefs Lance Cook and Jason F. Lynn Turn Up the Heat

Send us a text

Step into our kitchen-counter studio, where the heat is always on high and the plates are as sustainable as they are scrumptious. Chefs Lance Cook and Jason F. Lynn join us with their sleeves rolled up, ready to dish out stories from the culinary competition frontlines. It's a melting pot of adrenaline, artistry, and green ingenuity, where every sizzle and chop is a step toward a more environmentally friendly future. Brace yourself for a buffet of wisdom on preparing for a culinary contest that's as much about protecting our planet as it is about palate-pleasing.

Our conversation takes a turn towards the chopping block of professional growth, where feedback is the secret sauce to a chef's evolution. I peel back the layers of my own stint in culinary showdowns, revealing how critiques can be a dish best served constructively, to hone one's craft. Meanwhile, Chef Lance spills the beans on his new rol

Elevate your dining experience with RAK Porcelain USA! As the exclusive tableware brand for the Walk-In Talk Podcast, RAK combines exceptional craftsmanship with innovative design. Whether you’re a chef, a restaurant owner, or a food enthusiast, RAK’s high-quality porcelain products will enhance every meal. Discover the artistry of food presentation and make every dining occasion special. Visit rakporcelain.com today and see how RAK can transform your table

Get ready to innovate and organize your work space with Metro ! As the industry leader in storage & productivity solutions, Metro is here to transform and organize your kitchen 

 With their premium solutions, you'll experience the Metro difference. Metro's sturdy and versatile shelving units, workstations, holding cabinets, and utility carts are designed to streamline operations and maximize your productivity.

 Don't settle for imitators! Metro products last lon

Walk-In Talk Podcast now sweetened by Noble Citrus! Bite into a Juicy Crunch tangerine, 40 years perfected; seedless and oh-so-tasty. Or savor a Starburst Pummelo, the giant citrus with a unique zing. Don't miss Autumn Honey tangerines, big and easy to peel. Noble - generations of citrus expertise, delivering exceptional flavor year-round. Taste the difference with Noble Citrus!

Here is a word about our partners:

Citrus America revolutionizes the retail and hospitality sectors with profitable solutions:
- Our juicing machines excel in taste, hygiene, and efficiency.
- Experience fresh, natural, and exciting juices as an affordable luxury.
- We promote a healthier lifestyle by making it effortless to enjoy fresh, natural ingredients.
- Join us in transforming the way people enjoy juices.

Elevate your beverage game to new heights! 

Support the show

Thank you for listening to the Walk-In Talk Podcast, hosted by Carl Fiadini and Company. Our show not only explores the exciting and chaotic world of the restaurant business and amazing eateries but also advocates for mental health awareness in the food industry.

Our podcast offers a behind-the-scenes look at the industry. Don't miss out on upcoming episodes where we'll continue to cook up thought-provoking discussions on important topics, including mental health awareness.

Be sure to visit our website for more food industry-related content, including our very own TV show called Restaurant Recipes where we feature Chefs cooking up their dishes and also The Dirty Dash Cocktail Hour; the focus is mixology and amazing drinks!


Thank you for tuning in, and we'll catch you next time on the Walk-In Talk Podcast.
https://www.TheWalkInTalk.com


Also rate and review us on IMDb:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27766644/reference/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello Food Femmes.
This is the Walk Talk podcastwhere you'll find the perfect
blend of food fun and cookingknowledge.
I'm your host, carl Fiodini.
Welcome to the number one foodpodcast in the country.
We are podcasting on site atIbis Images Studios, where food
photography comes alive and Iget to eat it.
First things first.

(00:28):
Last week well, I ate very well.
We had three chefs in studio.
Thank you, chefs Josh Bernstein, stephen Hicks and, of course,
the Jefferson Starship, the chef, jeffrey Schlissel Y'all
brought the goodies and manspeaking of goodies, the Porch
Meadery and Market.
So glad we linked up on thatdinner collab.

(00:49):
Y'all got to go back.
Listen, watch, keep an eye out.
Thank you, peninsula FoodService for supplying the
proteins for today's productionChefs in the Central Florida
area.
Peninsula is the largestdistributor of Creekstone Farms
beef in the Southeast USA,complete with a fully staffed
butcher shop to solve help solveyour kitchen.
Inconsist, yeah, consistencies,yeah, that's right, baby.

(01:12):
Check out their dry-agedprogram too.
Okay, so our guests pluralguests, man, you know it's two
weeks in a row, bunch of chefsin this place.
Tell you what our guests thisweek?
Chefs Lance Cook and Jason FLynn.
There was an ACF-sanctionedcooking competition this past
weekend.
These guys are culinary studs.

(01:34):
Stay tuned.
Chef Lance and Jason are ondeck.
Jeff, my man, the man, aw yeah,it's free shift time.
You know what that means?
Pop the clutch, my brother, andmake it happen, oh yeah man,
there's a special treat.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
So we had a meeting in Miami, met this wonderful
company called Rack Porcelainand they do dishes, and they
sent this beautiful dish andJohn was like hey, what are you
going to do with this?
Can you do dessert?
And I was like no, I was goingto do a taco.
So there was an extra addedfeature today.
It was coffee cake.
We're going to do a tiramisuriff on that one with some

(02:14):
coffee toffee brittle, and thenwe're going to have a tiramisu
mousse in the middle of that aswell.
And then we're going to payhomage to school lunch.
We're going to be doing a shortrib, kimchi, mozzarella, corn
dog.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
I never had that in school, neither did I.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
So I'm just kicking it up a notch.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
As.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
I've been told chef-ivising it, yes, and then
we're going to do some stuff forMay 5th it's Cinco de Mayo.
We have a little lingua, so alittle smoked tongue in the
house, and then we have somemole chicken that we're going to
do some stuff to as well.
And I can't wait to get tothese pictures too, because
these are going to be reallynice pictures.
Smoked tongue, smoked tongue.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
I felt the collective audience just shut the episode
off.
But you know what?
I'm going to try it, John.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
I think is going gonna give it a shot too.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Uh, no, no, jason's going to, of course.
Yeah, listen, I'm, you know,I'm down for whatever.
So we're gonna, we're gonnamake that happen.
Um, what else you got?

Speaker 3 (03:14):
um, we just have.
So the the chicken is going tobe different, two different ones
.
We're going to do a hoagie oneand then we're going to do a uh
entree with the molle chickenand the the corn dog mix.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
That's from flossies.
Yep, what's up, alex?
Yeah, from flossies finally,yep, yep.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
So I wanted to do something.
And what was waiting for?
That prime time?
This was definitely the onewhere it was like, where the
national day it's the nationalschool hero day.
So I was like, oh, let me justdo something like would be
school-ish, yeah, uh.
So I wanted to, like I said,chef-fize it so the short rib is
split in half, and then I didit that way and froze it well, I
am.
I'm gonna grade you just as insame school all right, we'll see

(03:54):
if you get oh okay, I thoughtyou're gonna grade me, like I
just happened in the pastweekend on sunday you're gonna
get another c today, okay I'mokay with that.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
All right so all right, that works out really
good.
Yeah, I want to get into.
I do want to touch on how thescoring system kind of works a
little bit for thesecompetitions.
And so today there's threechefs all three of these fellas
were in this competition inHastings, florida, and you know,

(04:23):
I've never I'm not a chef,right but I've never been in a
sort of a competition like thatand I'm sure there's like a lot
of nerves you have to you're,you're being critiqued by peers
and there's a whole, there's awhole lot that goes into it.
And that is the focus where Iwant to go today.
You know, it's the more the pregetting into it and we can
touch, obviously, on the eventitself.

(04:44):
But I want to get into that,like what's in your head?
How are you feeling?
Is it pre-fight?
You know like you get nerves,you know, whatever.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Anyway, Lance is the professional.
Well, okay, Jason and I this isthe first time we went into an-
ACF sanction, so you guys are acouple of newbies.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, we popped something on Sunday.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
I'm surprised Lance even came on the show.
Well, he's going to school us.
That's why you know kind of aLance.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
Why don't you chime in and give us some of your
background?
I looked at.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
So it's funny because I was going to bring this up.
I have Chef Lance's bio.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
And.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
I'm, like you know, halfway through.
45 minutes later I'm like oh,my God.
I can't even do this anymore.
Is it Superman or is it Lance?
Accolade after accolade afteraccolade after accolade.
Oh, my goodness, all right, sowithout further ado.
Chef, jason, chef, lance.
Welcome to the show, welcome tothe program.
How are you?

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Good, I'm good.
Thanks for having me.
I wish I was there in thestudio, you guys are making me
hungry.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
Oh dude, there's a lot of great stuff here.
He saw pictures too yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
I sent porn pic, food porn pictures to both of them.
Lance goes, were you trying tomake me go five hour drive?

Speaker 1 (05:56):
yes, yeah, we're doing, man, that coffee cake is
right.
Yeah, good coffee cake, goodjob.
Yeah, thank you.
And the brittle too, man,that's gonna go on the plate.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, yeah, wait till you try the ganache all right,
um, all right.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
So, listen, I had nothing to do with, uh, with the
participation in this, in thislast event.
Why don't you, jeff, go ahead,kick it off baby oh so hastings,
is this really small town?

Speaker 3 (06:20):
there's only about 1300 people.
Um, I heard on Saturday theyhad over 2000 people there, so
they had the lawnmower race.
This town is, like it had onelight in it, like a traffic
light, I'm not kidding you, andit was they.
What they did was, uh, it wasthe potato cabbage bacon

(06:40):
festival and not many peopleknow this, but at one point in
time in the United States, thiswas the potato capital of the
world in Hastings Florida.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
Yeah, I did not know that.
That's fascinating.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yeah, In fact the building we were in was the Ford
motor company building wherethey actually built Ford motor
cars.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
No kidding.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
Yeah, and they're trying to revitalize that whole
area and it's beautiful.
It's got a lot of bones to it.
They're really nice.
You know you're in Florida, butyou're not in Florida, it's
South Georgia.
Let's put it that way.
But, it was just a lot of fun tobe up there the night before.
They had an event, so they hadone of the girls who actually is

(07:19):
going to come on.
By the way, she won the DrSeuss.
She was one of the finalists inthe dr zeus bake-off.
She's been on chopped choppedsweets, uh, and another show, so
she was talking to her, butthey had some really good
culinary talent that was aroundbesides art smith, which, uh,
which is just great to see artsmith and have the conversation
with art.
Definitely, we started likesharp.

(07:40):
We did like a five minute delayeach one of us when, when we
did the actual contest or thecompetition.
What was really strange wasthis is this group is um, a
category, kg, which is a reallyvery difficult one because
you're no electric At one point.
We didn't have fire, so wedidn't know how we're going to

(08:02):
cook.
We didn't know if we're goingto have ovens.
Didn't have fire, so we didn'tknow how we're going to cook.
We didn't know if we're goingto have ovens.
So the day of we found out wehad an oven, we had fire, so we
were able to do that.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
We couldn't have battery operated on, that's
right yeah, technically it wasno battery no electricity, yeah
no, no fans, no air conditioningso no running water, all right,
but so how many people are inthe competition?

Speaker 4 (08:25):
Well, the garden hose had running water out back.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
He's not kidding this is like my upbringing and just
drinking off the hose outside.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
I think Chef Lance wore the same pair of gloves the
whole competition.
That's why he got a bare metalhose.
I didn't even see him changehis gloves once Wow.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
I used the water hose .

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
The Chef Lance actually did it with one arm
Tied behind his back, the KGcategory.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
That would have been great to do that.
A competition like that.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
It was the three chefs all day.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, three of us.
There was a lot of peopleactually watching.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Talk about the event, guys See if I was there I would
have had notes.
We were told there was going tobe like 15 people.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
See, if I was there I would have had notes, I would
have had all this stuff.
No, we were told there wasgoing to be like 15 people there
and there was more than that.
I mean, half the nationaloffice was there, yeah.
One of the new membershipdirectors was there.
Kivi from the office was there,yeah.
So it was really cool to seeall was the actual people that
were there for the.
They had a market like a.
I think the whole block wasblocked off and, uh, chef

(09:26):
amadeus, one of our friends, wasthere too did you secretly hate
each other, like right?

Speaker 1 (09:30):
yeah, I know, y'all know each other.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
No, I mean I went in with, I'm okay with losing the
lance.
I'm just being real here.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
But because you were sending me text.
If I said if I lose the jeffrey, I might be a little mad.
Yeah, he sent the same textchef jason was sending me like
hey, hey, I'm going to beat yourboy, I'm going to kick his ass?

Speaker 4 (09:43):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
Oh yeah, it was, it was, it was a good thrashing,
let's put it that way.
But it's the fun because youknow, listen, if you know, I'm
53 years old and I've competedin different events, but no one
can tell.
Tell me now, you've nevercompeted with the ACF.
Yeah, I did it.
It's nerve-wracking because youhave people that are your peers
, that have been in the culinaryindustry, that are different.

(10:07):
So you, you're gradeddifferently.
You know you walk in with 100.
Everything you do, from thetime you walk in, from the 100
to the time you get your medal,is what happens.
You know, and it's just thatthat category is difficult
because you don't have a heatlamp.
You don't like he used are yougonna go there?
hold on, they might take mymetal away no, you used an

(10:29):
electric walk to use the bainmarie to keep his mashed
potatoes hot.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
You said you weren't going to bring up the electric.
Walk, jeffrey lance all rightlance.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Okay, so clearly we're losing I'm losing control
of the show right here, righthere in the uh, right here in
the living room, all right.
So, lance, when you show up,you look at these two guys and
you say I'm going to kick theirass.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
Like in your head, that's what you're thinking.
Right he was already thinkingthat when they made the
announcement, Well, Lancealready won before he got there,
I mean.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Okay, Lance, walk me through it.
How are you preparing for this?
Because for me, I think it'svery emotional, mental.
You're getting prepared for afight almost.
Walk us through it.
What's the feeling?

Speaker 2 (11:19):
I want to start off by saying that you know the two
guys there like, uh, you knowJason and Jeffrey.
You know, hats off to you guysfor putting yourself out there.
You know that's a huge stepjust to be able to say, hey, I
want to go into this competition.
And I want to do it.
Because a lot of people stop atthat point and they say, hey,
I'm not going to do it becauseI'm scared of the outcome.
You know, I don't want to hearthe critique and and so hats off

(11:41):
to you guys.
Like that, I truly enjoyed, youknow, competing with you too.
And uh, it was, it was awesome.
And so the more competitionsyou do, the more relaxed you are
.
But it's all about preparation.
You gotta be prepared, and sopractice your routine, no matter
what the category is.
And, like Jeffrey said, youknow it's KG, so you can't use
batteries, you can't useelectric, you can't, you know.

(12:02):
So you have to kind of look atyour routine and say, hey, how
can I change it up andaccomplish a great product that
the judges are going to taste?
So?

Speaker 3 (12:09):
what is KG.
You know that's a category thatthey use, whatever the category
.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, so it means sustainable, green and local.
Okay, Right, and you know, withsustainability comes you know,
hey, you can't use the batteryoperating, you know all that
kind of stuff.
And you know it definitely ismore difficult than a normal
competition.
So even for these two gentlemento go into a competition and

(12:33):
then have these restrictions,that's not typical, you know.
Typically it'll say you'regiven two whole ducks and you
have to make four plates have atit, and you know, one pork loin
with the chine bone removed,rib bones are still in it and
you have four portions.
So it's very specific on a lotof the competitions.
Uh, this one just kind of tooka different direction as far as

(12:53):
the being specific so kg umsustainable.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
They brought it back to like 18.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
You know 70 right like there was a fire campfire
literally butane fire okay, uh,and how did?

Speaker 1 (13:12):
this is something where you're all are competing
um, like individually, or all atonce, simultaneously, I should
say there was a five minute.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
uh, they didn't want everybody to come up, so there's
.
Here's the thing.
One of the judges had to leaveby a certain time, so they
wanted us to start with a 20minute interval, so one laid
down, obviously five minutespast each one.
Then they critiqued us and thenthey gave the awards out.

(13:50):
I have to tell you that Hari,who was the guest chef, he put
this together.
He wrote this because originally, it was in the land Because he
wants to showcase the AmericanCulinary Federation and the
farmers.
So he was trying to do that.
Kudos for them to doing it.
I think it was like 2012.
It was the last one 2014 was thelast one, so this has not been

(14:14):
done in that long.
It's been about 10 years, ohwow.
So when they revamped it andkind of brought it from wherever
it was, they reached out toJason and Lance.
And then they reached out tojason and lance and then they
reached out to me and I'm like,yeah, no problem, I gotta be
like what lance said.
He's you gotta practice.
It was my fifth time doing that, sixth time doing that dish.
I did it friday night lance.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
How many times did you do your dish?

Speaker 2 (14:38):
zero.
No, I'm just kidding, smack him.
No, that was probably my fourthtime making it okay competition
.

Speaker 4 (14:46):
All right, jason, um this first.
Yeah, yeah, first time, yeahyeah, I kind of I thought that I
kind of, and so I just talkabout me for a quick second.
I was a little, uh, unpreparedso I came in not quite prepared.
Lance is like where's this,where's that?
I'm looking at I'm like, yeah,I don't have any of that.
I got my press and seal wrap.
I look over at lance.
He's got three brand new thirdpans lined up.

(15:08):
You know standard breadingprocedure.
You know your flour, your egg,your bread crumb.
I'm taking a piece of press andseal my wife gave me trying to
save a buck, and I'm dragging itout on the table and putting
like a pile of flour.
You know, I got.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
You know I looked over, I'm using styrofoam bowls.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
In the, the green category I got plastic spoons,
you know, so I definitely gotsome education in that category
especially all right.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
So what?
I think what?
All right.
So, just so the audienceunderstands, um you, it wasn't
that it was necessarily acompetition between the three of
you like a first second placeyou're, you're competing against
yourself from, like you know,gold, silver, bronze or not even
, uh, placing and getting like azero goose egg.
So the reality is all three ofyou uh, you know, of course,

(15:50):
lance you know, yes, he got tohire.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
One lance lanced you guys pretty good, he got us he
silvered us.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
He did, he totally silvered you all over so uh what
ended up?
Happening here.
Is you all place, though, like,which is really great.
Yeah, I told um, I gave jeff avery specific instruction don't
come home without gold.
You know you're, you're outthere, you're.
You know you walk and talk,you're right, you're doing your
thing.
And he was mick and you dare,he was mickey from rocky.

(16:16):
You're a bum, I he's like.
You know you came home with,like this, this bronzy colored
looking thing.
Like what the hell is this?

Speaker 4 (16:23):
it really looks like a copper metal jason's wearing
his but I'm actually yeah

Speaker 1 (16:30):
I am wearing mine.
You know, I got john, you gotta, you gotta take pictures to him
with this.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
I literally walked into the studio today and then
he's like where's your, where'syour metal?
I'm like I'm not bringing mymetal.
He's like what?
Why?

Speaker 4 (16:39):
not so speaking of metals though, lance, when you
shared your photo proudlydisplaying, you know, the
placard they made for you at thecook-off.
And then in the background Isee like 10 000 metals hanging.
I see the copper looking, Imean bronze, the bronze looking
one.
And then I see many of theshiny ones that we all want are
you throwing the uh?

Speaker 1 (16:56):
are you throwing, like the uh, the bronze ones
away now yeah?

Speaker 3 (16:59):
you just throw them in the trash.
That's what I said.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Coming in the house, no, he's melting them down,
getting the money for him but Iwill tell you this, you know, so
I I have I've competed probably20 plus times, and I will say
where I've learned the most fromis my three bronze medals, and
one of them was a waxcompetition.
It was cold food preparation,where you actually have to um,
it's hot food, uh, prepared hotand presented cold, so you have

(17:24):
to glaze it with aspic and allthat.
And so I hadn't done that since, you know, when I graduated in
CIA in 96.
And so I said I want to jumpback into it, I want to do this.
And so again, it's taking thefear out of it and saying, hey,
whatever happens, happens.
And um, you know, I learned alot through that process.
And I had general toward masterchef, you know, come over to my
table and critique it, and hesaid I'm gonna be brutally

(17:44):
honest.
And I was like that's what Iwant you to be.
I want you to be brutallyhonest because that's the only
way I'm gonna learn.
And then, you know, anotherbronze medal was when I did chef
of the year a couple years agoand I had a comey.
We practiced probably for twomonths every single monday.
So good us.
And you know, when it came downto it, she froze and she got
stage fright and she says, chef,I got to go and I was like

(18:07):
right now she's like yep, I gotto go.
And so I learned some thingsthrough that process.
I still got a bronze, you knowwhich is which is good.
And, um, you know, uh, Ilearned some things and said,
hey, what would I have donedifferently and approached it in
a different way.
So you know the three bronze,they actually mean more to me
than than all the goals, sorry.

Speaker 4 (18:28):
Thanks, lance.
That makes me and Jeffrey feelbetter All the goals.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
It's true, though I want to go on record.
I just I was happy enough,walking out of there with a
medal.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, me too.

Speaker 3 (18:37):
You know, you, you, you definitely, when you put
yourself out there and you're,you're doing what you do every
day.
And it's funny because thejudges asked me like, what was
your theme?
I'm like I wanted to cook thefood I wanted to eat, bottom
line, and whether I got a medalor not, I knew, walking away,
that that's my food.
You know.
Hats off to, by the way.
Happy tales, vicki Webster.
She reached out immediatelywhen Chris put out there that he

(19:00):
was looking for something andwe had a Cooney Cooney pig.
Ironically enough, it was theone I actually fabricated, so
that was cool.
Then, when she got the baconfor us, and then the secret
ingredient you guys are going tolove this one Sour oranges.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
It was perfect for mine because I had bourbon in
mind with smoked maple syrup,and I just kind of oh man for
mine because I had bourbon inmine with smoked maple syrup and
I just kind of, oh man, it wasso perfect for that bronze man
you know it was.

Speaker 4 (19:26):
He squeezed it over the tart it didn't tarnish the
bronze metal.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
You didn't tarnish it , it's nice.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, here's the other reason why I'm happy I
placed these two gentlemen aregoing to go for their master
chef and to be in that.
You know, competition, justcompeting, but competing with
people that are going that rightway, that's huge well, that's
what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
This whole, this whole critique being critiqued,
uh, aspect right.
And then, if you're competingand you know, like you've got,
you know, lance cook, and andand chef jason over here, you,
you know, I said it before,they're culinary studs and the
reality is every, each one ofyou and Lance included, I'm

(20:09):
assuming, but each one of youget the butterflies going into
this.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Because no, for sure, Right, I mean it's you're there
was no sanitation, you're goingto have your peers, it's not
just because you have the judgesright.
The judges are chefs, and thenthe three of you are judging
each other in some aspect aswell.
Oh, they were judging me waybefore the competition.
We judge you every week.
You know what I?

Speaker 4 (20:30):
mean, I was texting Lance a couple weeks out.
We're both ACF guys.
This guy's got to fail.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
We're going to trip him unplug his brand new butane
burners and I pulled them out ofthe box and one didn't turn on.
I was like are you kidding meright now?
Right out the gates, right outthe gate I just took the torch,
put the thing on and they'relike, oh, you got the big torch.
I'm like, yeah, and it lit.
So you, you got to be ready foranything when you're doing
these competitions.
There was no, no art.
There was no hand sanitizer.

Speaker 4 (21:02):
Well, hey, let's be.
Let's talk about one topic too.
And it shows, like I said, howlittle I know.
Is that Lance?
You know he has all hisbeautiful little pint containers
with his perfect brunettewashout as he approaches and and
Jeffrey's got like half theproduct in his cooler.
You know you guys got the primepiece.
Anyway, I'm a little upsetabout that.
Anyway.
But going on, I'm over hereprepping all my me's, I'm

(21:23):
peeling potatoes, I'm choppy,choppy, cutty, cutty.
I'm actually cooking.
These guys are just dumpingcontainers into pots and pans.
Wow, Wait, wait, wait wait, wait, no, I get it, I get it.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
Who was making the most noise when Chris was trying
to explain what the ACF was,you were pounding no you two
were pounding your meat.
I was pounding cabbage,everybody was pounding.
Yeah, I was doing cabbage, so Iwas literally facing the judges
, because I thought we had toface the judges when you were
doing it.
So I had my braising pan in theback to braise the cabbage,

(21:55):
because once that was on, Ididn't need to be in front of it
.
So I'm sitting there making abrinoise potatoes.
I'm mashing my potatoes for theextra.
I'm going the extra milebecause I didn't want to have
food waste and I went first andI was afraid to throw anything
away.

Speaker 4 (22:09):
Right, because it was also the category Exactly
Sustainable, like when I saidwhen Lance said you shouldn't
have styrofoam bowls, I'm like,oh my bad, I'm throwing them in
the trash.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
The best part of mine was I had we called Pactive
after our first farmer's dinnerand they gave me a whole bunch
of samples for compostable stuffand that's exactly what I
bought and I even showed Kari.
I'm like, look, it'scompostable.
I didn't want to get dinged forthat.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
I'm pretty sure I'm going to call Chef Chris Tanner.

Speaker 4 (22:37):
You're going to see him this week.
Hopefully he doesn't listen tothis.
Well, I'm going to.
He listens.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
I'm going to get with him.
I'm going to make sure you guysnever hurt anyone again.

Speaker 4 (22:47):
No, but let's be real , this is who they want.
They want some new blood.
Right, we might be like in our40s and 50s, but we're still new
blood.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, here's the thing youhave.
You have to be judged whetherit be a guest in your restaurant
, a fellow chef.
You have to figure out whereyou are and that's the only way
that's going to push you anddrive you to be better.

Speaker 4 (23:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
You know, and that's the, that's why I wanted to
compete against especially thesetwo guys, because these, these
guys are operational and thenwhen you're, when you're
thinking about going, eitheryou're out of your mind because
you're going for a master chefor you're.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
Do you want to do it?
There's what?
70 master chefs?
Uh, yes, a high 70s lance.
You know the exact number onthat, like it's 78.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah, it's between 71 and 74.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Last I heard it was 71 and then how many master
plumbers are there?
Like a quarter of a million soI mean, do you get to think
about hey, that's my line, Iknow, that's why I yelled that
out at this show.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
I said, let's be real .

Speaker 4 (23:41):
There's a quarter of a million master plumbers but
there's less than 100 CMCcertified master chefs.
It's a big deal.
And it's not about ego.
It really is about the humilityaspect that I always bring up.
A guy like Lance has gottenwhere he's at because he can
admit that he's gotten thebronzes.
He's had those.
It was rocky, you know.
You can only get beat up somany times.
You got to get back up.
But some people, I think, stop.

(24:02):
I think some people aren't okaywith that critique.
They stop and they move awayfrom it.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah, sometimes you just got to stop.
Sometimes you just got to stop.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (24:09):
No, yeah, but so.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
But you got to stick with getting the punches and you
got to be humble in it.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
What you have.
Yeah, well, and that's.
I think that's his tagline,that's my cheesy signature.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
It is it's another bro, it's not cheesy at all.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
It's another truth, but this is in marriage, and in
work and in life.
It's everything.
Forever the student.
That's why we're here, right?

Speaker 1 (24:29):
yeah, keep learning it was just another thing that
we stole from him and used onthe show right right for from
jason yeah, we're just takingall your material buddy sorry,
not yeah okay uh.
So how about?
How do we um hmm, because Iwant to do some some walk and
talk uh, you know uh culinarycompetitions, you know,

(24:51):
sponsored uh culinarycompetitions sure, as long as
I'm not competing I'm just don'tinvite lance.

Speaker 4 (24:57):
Lance can't come to the first competition well,
maybe Lance can judge yes.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
What do you think about that?
I'm in to compete or judgeEither one.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
You don't get a medal for judging, you get to eat,
though you get the pampered foodthere.

Speaker 4 (25:15):
But, Lance is moving away.
We should bring that up too.
Congratulations to Lance withhis newly appointed position.
That's a big deal, yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
Absolutely.
Congratulations, you bring thatup too.
Congratulations to lance withhis newly appointed position.
That's a big deal, you know.
Yeah, and you got absolutelycongratulations.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
And you got some ambassadorships, some new uh,
some new stuff going on too, man, yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess chef
works that's.
Uh reached out to me to be anambassador.
Hexclad, um, I'm gonna be onthe food network on may 15th, um
for one of the game showsupermarkets, stakeout.
It was a cool experience and Ionly did it, you know to, to see
what it was all about and tosee how it's produced and it was
.
It was intense, it was reallyintense.
But yeah, I appreciate thecongrats on the position.

(25:51):
So I'm moving to North Carolinaand I'm going to be the
director of culinary operationsat Forsyth country club in
Winston Salem.

Speaker 4 (25:58):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
Salem, nice.
That's awesome.
That's so cool.
Yeah, absolutely so.
Lance.
Now that you've competed withthe ACF and you went on to a
food network competition, canyou and I know there's
non-disclosure agreements andstuff like that what can you
tell us the differences betweenthe prep for those two different
competitions?

Speaker 2 (26:16):
Oh yeah, completely different.
So for ACF competitions, youget to know what the parameters
are and you get to practice itas much as you want.
You can practice it zero timesor you can practice it 100 times
.
When you're doing a foodnetwork challenge, there's so
many variables, so the one thatI did is the one where you're
actually cooking in the parkinglot.
You got to walk up to thegrocery store and buy somebody's

(26:37):
cart and their groceries.

Speaker 4 (26:39):
I don't know how many people are coming out of that
store.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, I mean you could get dog food.

Speaker 4 (26:43):
You could get the vegan cart right.
You're like, oh, I got thevegan or the gluten-free.
Sorry, these are all for theshow.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
We're just kidding.
This is all from ourcompetition I don't think you
guys should be cutting off ChefLance here.
Okay, Shame on you sorry.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
well, he got silver well which is a step up over.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Bra, I'm just just put it out there.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
Remember you have to.
You have to still eat.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
I do it's true, I do, but now.
But I'm getting bronzed kind offood man like I, john, I
realized I'm looking over atjohn the producer.
I'm realizing that you knowwe're getting c-level stuff here
on the show.
We need to be getting at leastB and up.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Lance can you tell us what was in the cart Lance.

Speaker 4 (27:30):
Can you tell us that?

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Actually, I can't talk about any of it.
You can't tell us any right.
No, just that I did it.
I can start advertising thatit's occurring, but that's about
it.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
Didn't you compete against somebody we might know?

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yes, yes, rocio Rodriguez, he's in Tampa, I
believe.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Jonathan Rodriguez.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Our boy Great guy.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
He's actually going to be on next week.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
Oh, is he Alright?
Well, we have to discuss.
It was last minute.
No, someone's going to come.
Oh, that's awesome, all right.
Well, we have to discuss.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yes, yeah, well, it was last minute, it was actually
.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
No, someone's going to New Hampshire next week, on
the 9th, so we might want to doit the day earlier.
New Hampshire, yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Wicked Well, tell that guy you know he should be
making plans like that.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Oh, he's actually going to be coming down, and the
one that you don't think exists, he doesn't.
My imaginary friend.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
It is your imaginary friend, keith Saracen.
Keith Saracen, yeah, I meanlisten, the fact that he liked a
and it was, you know, it's notlike it was a post where it's
there forever.
No, it was a, it was a storiesright On Instagram and then it
just disappears Like it neverhappened.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
That's why I took a screenshot.
Yeah, but you know why he didthat, though.
Who was the story about?
I don't remember.
Robert gonzalez, oh yeah, right, right, right, yep, yes, oh, by
the way, a big shout out torobert gonzalez he actually made
it to the semi-final.
Actually, he's going to thefinals for the spring
championship, so congrats to him, a hundred percent congrats to
him nicky and steven.
So congrats to the three ofthem.
Can't believe Alex got bumped,but that's the way things go, it

(29:06):
does.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
It's the way the cake crumbles, the brittle, the
brittle.
That was pretty sharp.

Speaker 4 (29:15):
The brittle breaks.
Oh, that could be the newBrittle Break Cafe.
You could open a new restaurant.
There we go.
He's got a new restaurant goingRight there.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Just like that.
Wow, can we do it out of thehouse here?

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Yeah, okay, 17 different flavors of Brittle.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Listen, I feel like that would work.
I would go there.
I would totally go there.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
Especially the honeycomb.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
I would eat it.
You understand, you get it,yeah, yeah so, lance on your new
role.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
Uh, what's the difference between what you're
doing now the current club, bythe way, which is a gorgeous
club to the one that you'removing to?

Speaker 2 (29:48):
yeah, I think the big difference is just the uh, the
membership's a little bit bigger, so 975 members instead of 775
here.
And then just the longevity theclub has been around since 1913
, has a ton of history and um,but about the same as far as
volume and staff and stuff likethat.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
Are you still going to be on the line cooking
because you took a differentrole, correct?
Or is it still cooking?

Speaker 2 (30:12):
It's still cooking.
So, yes, the role is directorof culinary operations, but it's
still going to be very hands-on.
I'll be doing demos, just likeI normally do, and doing
expediting and stuff like that.
So very similar.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
When you meet the team over there, you know your
kitchen staff do you bring likea wall display of all the metals
and whatnot.
So they know who they'retalking to.
Like they know you.
Like they know what they'redealing with.
Not at all.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
They already know they're the house.

Speaker 4 (30:41):
Lance has two LinkedIn profiles just for all
of his certifications.
After his name he's got thefirst one and the second one
just continues.
I got friends that think I'vedone some stuff with my career
and then I look at lance I'mlike I haven't done anything,
you know did you see how manylike the, the little
three-letter words, afterwardthe three letters I was gonna
get to put on two letters.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
I was going to say he has to put on two Shep codes.
I was going to like usually Ido, I read off all that stuff,
but I was like man, there's no,you have to Google them, there's
so many, there's no stop point.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
It's the whole alphabet.
It's A through Z.
On Lance's code.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
There's only nine certifications.
It's the certification.
The entire opening monologuewould just be me rattling off
what your certs are.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
Come on, man, god forbid, you get one of them
wrong.
Oh my God he's a CEC.
A8.
No, I'm not A8.
No, I'm not that one.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
You're going to have to delete this one.
Delete the episode.

Speaker 4 (31:35):
We love you, Lance.
We've got to make fun of you.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
You did mention wax.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Can you go over for some of the listeners that don't
know what wax is, because Idon't think carl knows yeah,
when you are a member of the acf, the american culinary
federation, you are actuallyautomatically a member of wax,
which is world association ofchef society or cook society,
however you want to look at it,and it's a internationally known

(32:01):
organization.
And so when you're getting acertification with ACF, like
it's recognized nationally, youknow within the States and all
that kind of stuff, but whenyou're getting a certification
with Wax, it's actuallyinternational.
So I am a world certifiedmaster chef and at the time when
I did it there was probablyabout 200 in the world.
There's more now, but that'srecognized.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
If I go over to and that's who I competed against
with Jason.
Yeah, what do you mean withJason?

Speaker 1 (32:32):
He's like Batman with .

Speaker 4 (32:33):
Jason, yeah Well.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
The reality Jeff, world, master Chef, jefferson, I
got a.

Speaker 4 (32:39):
CDM, that's Certified Dietary Manager.
I got that cert.
I don't put that on my codeanymore.
You should.
That's a big thing, it is.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
But you know, jeff, you compete against yourself,
man.
All the time, you know, andthat's really, and that's your
bar, you know.
Damn right, it is it isn'tthese other guys with all these
different?
You know certifications andgold medals and you know any of
that stuff.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
No, my certification is.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
M-I-C-K-E-Y.
That's right, that's right.
My goodness, oh my God, mygoodness oh my god.

Speaker 4 (33:10):
Oh, all right.
So well, let's get.
Jeffrey is a member of a cartel.
I didn't know I'm not a memberof a cartel.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
That's true too.
But here's what stings.
Um, I mean, it's all great news, lance, what you got going on
like everything is fantastic, um, but I'll tell you what really
stings.
You're moving away and you'renot going to get a vacation for
a while and I'm, you know I wasthinking like, oh man, let's get
, let's get lance in here.
You know I was thinking like,oh man, let's get, let's get
Lance in here.
You know.
So, ultimately, when chefs cometo the studio you know it's
tradition now that they theycook a dish.

(33:36):
You know John, you know he doeshis amazing food photography
and we do the whole, you know,roll out the whole red carpet
here, and we're going to have tofigure out how to get you here,
man.
I don't know how it's going tohappen.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
Yeah, and we're going to have to figure out how to
get you here.
Man, I don't know how it'sgoing to happen.
Yeah, I'm completely down withthat, so we'll have to work it
in for sure.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yeah, well, look, I mean, I don't want to put you on
the spot, but why don't youpick a date now, while we're on
air?

Speaker 2 (34:04):
January 12th Perfect.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
It's in, you're locked.
Replicate the dish.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Their season in north carolina is a little bit
different here.
So, um, you know, they slowdown in the winter because their
grass goes dormant, obviously,and uh, their plate, you know,
drops down a little bit.
So, yeah, my season for slowtime is probably going to be
january, february, march well,that's actually perfect.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
Uh, and I'm not kidding either if, um, you know,
if we, if uh, later we should,we should try to at least
ballpark a date and let's makethat happen.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Hopefully we'll have a studio by then.
Yeah, that sounds great.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah, we're looking at doing a.
So, yes, an actual completeproduction studio where we're
going to have like a chef'skitchen.
You know, john is going to havea giant, uh, photography
playroom, Um, you know, thepodcast room, uh, plus it'll be
like an Airbnb sort of for chefs.
You know, it's just obviouslyyou don't pay anything, you just

(34:58):
you just come and uh, we do, wegot to do, and then you're off.
It's like, yeah, hell yeah, andCarl eats and Carl eats I'm
building.
You gotta understand, likeunderstand this whole food media
thing, that it's just so I caneat.
I think so yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
Don't think it's exactly what it is.
It's it.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
I found a way to get the goods.
I found a way.

Speaker 3 (35:27):
We're laughing at John Oops.
He didn't have canned ravioli.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
He's like screw you, guys, guys, I'm out of here
jason, do you want to go overthe?

Speaker 4 (35:38):
canned ravioli.
Uh, yeah, so just initially,when we were discussing this
competition and we were talkingabout what products could be
used in the competition and theyall had to be it was florida,
correct, yeah?

Speaker 3 (35:48):
florida.
Well, yeah, so initially therewas talk.
It can only be a hundred milesfrom where we were 100 miles.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
Yeah, so I was being sarcastic and saying so.
If I want to bring cannedravioli, that's okay, and they
said well don't you dare bringcanned ravioli.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
No, it can only be from pig wheelie, wiggly or
something he said win dixieactually, yeah, that's what it
was.
I think he meant that so yeah,but what really happened was it
was only the five major or sixingredients yeah yeah, then we
can have other ancillary itemswherever.

Speaker 4 (36:20):
Yeah, I mean that happy tails pork was beautiful,
so we had the pork.
The bacon we had, the greencabbage was beautiful and uh,
and what was the one I'm missing?
The chinese broccoli.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
Yeah, that was the only thing that they didn't have
extras of, and thank god Ibrought extras, because he
wouldn't have had any yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:34):
So I'm like looking for this product and jeffrey had
it in his cooler once again andI was like how is it that he's
in the competition and he'sholding the product?
I'm like this is a scam.
If he beats me, it's allcrooked no, and I didn't.

Speaker 3 (36:49):
What's funny is like we had this beautiful 10 bone
french rack, um, that I denudedfor the loin chops and I'm like,
here this is only 10, and thenI've got four extra that she had
given me so we can have atleast, uh, four portions out the
door.
I'm like, oh, that was greatguys.

Speaker 4 (37:09):
Yeah, but yours look prime.
And they were vacuum sealed.
They were like sous videalready, like he already has all
this stuff ready to go yeah, hewas.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
He had prepared everything I had to know I'm
peeling potatoes and you know Ipeeled my potatoes by the way,
everybody, um, you know the cheflance cook, um, when you're at
his status, he doesn't even haveto say goodbye, he just, he
just goes he just cuts out.
No, he, there was a.
We had a technical thing and heactually has to.

(37:36):
Uh, he had to jump anyhow, sowe appreciate that he was on the
show.

Speaker 4 (37:40):
He's a busy man.
Did he tell you that?

Speaker 1 (37:47):
Explain that explain that.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
So we had a.
We already knew setting this up.
That lance had to go during acertain point in time, so we
asked him to do the secret codeword and we had a whole bunch of
safe word.
Safe word so it was press andseal.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
It was this and that, so we decided on canned ravioli
so he was like he was randomly,randomly, when he had to
actually leave, he was gonna sayhey guys, canned ravioli and
then he, you know, we know thatit was time while lance is off,
which is.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
Let me just talk about him real quick.
So when we went to the cmc examI be honest, I'm just saying
this, I'm very real I wasn'texactly intimidated by anybody
else at the exam and I'm notknocking anybody there, because
I really didn't know anybodythere other than the great lance
cook.
So here here I am, coming intoCMC, I'm looking at him, you
know, and and anyway, throughoutthe experience I got to know
him a really great guy, I mean,like he's very humble, no, ego

(38:39):
very great guy, and so it wasjust it was good to get to know
him, and and now I think that'shalf of it and sometimes it's
not even about the environmentor what are we doing, or what
are we cooking, or what's thecompetition.
It's literally the peer aspect,like you were mentioning.
How do we look at individuals,how do people look at us?
And I think we spend too muchtime on this in our life,

(38:59):
sometimes worrying about whatpeople think about us or what we
think about other people, andit really is a competition
within ourself, and that isreally the best way to look at
it.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah, Right after we got done he was making some
comments and I saw this thingwith Gordon Ramsay and it was
three things that when you're achef, you should do.
One of them was take itprofessionally.

Speaker 4 (39:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
What he meant by that is get judged by your peers and
whatever they say to you, don'ttake it personally.
Take it professionally.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
The second thing you do have thick skin.
Yeah, the second thing you dohave thick skin?
Yeah, and it's not necessarilyyou have to have thick skin.
Like I said at the beginning ofthis, when you compete, you're
putting yourself out there toget whatever is being said to
you.
And I have a friend of mine,cleveland Brown, who is a
manager for Kool and the Gang,taught me at a very young age he
said when people ask yousomething or when you get advice

(39:47):
from someone where you're notasking for it, you have the
right to say whatever you want.
But if you say, hey, how isthis?
Whatever is said to you, youhave to accept, and that's key
to it.
You have to accept whatever issaid to you and you have to grow
from it.
So that's why this food todayis going to be killer.

Speaker 4 (40:05):
This is a redemption food, yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
I'm going to be the judge of that.
It's gold medal.
That beef tongue is gold.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
Is it gold medal?

Speaker 1 (40:11):
We should have got a gold medal.
Speaking of gold medal, today,this very day, we're receiving a
delivery Big time packagesMetro baby.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
Well, there's one in my car.
Yeah, you got that, but where's?

Speaker 1 (40:31):
the other stuff.

Speaker 4 (40:31):
He's got it again just like the competition he
already had it, he always does?

Speaker 3 (40:35):
I don't understand I gotta literally get a phone call
yesterday.
Uh, were you expecting apalette?
I'm like, I was expecting aphone call yeah, they called.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
They called me and I thought it was a scam call.
It looked like.
So I, I just kept like, justkept putting it to voicemail and
they kept calling and I'm like,oh, my goodness, I'm like hello
, and it was the—.

Speaker 4 (40:58):
Southeast Freight.
Yeah, metro's great, everythingthey make's great.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
They're fit.
Honestly, what an awesome bunchof people.
Yeah, yeah, and so we have—whatdid you get, jeff?

Speaker 3 (41:08):
I got the Chef Cart mobile cart it is.
I call it the mobile chef toybecause this thing has
everything.
It's a prep station on wheels.
Then on top of that, you knowremember how I brought those
extenders for the legs of thetable.
This thing actually adjusts upand down.
It has a cutting board built inand then you can put third pans
and ninth pans and sixth panson the actual.

Speaker 4 (41:29):
You're bringing that out now.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
I'm getting excited.
Yeah, where's it at?
It's in this show over.
It's in the trunk of the car.
All right, it's on wheels, andyou can.
We saw this at um the worldfood competition and I got giddy
.
I mean, as soon as I saw it Iwas like what is that?
And they're like oh, this is.
And I'm like.
Then they had a competitionwhere I think was john mcfadden
and they and the Food Ninja dude.
They were doing like a cuttingcompetition who can cut faster?
And they were just like whoopright, I'm like I want one.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
I mean they got to be like a grand right.
They're not cheap.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
So, again, metro, yeah, amazing shelving.
We're doing some work together,you know, between Metro and
Walk Talk, and we're ecstaticand and are so.
You know, john and I we chose,um, shelving, actual, actual
racks speak.

(42:18):
You know, john has all histablewares and all the things
that he uses for photography.
I have all this equipment andwhatever for the, you know,
video and podcasts and all theaudio.
So, um, we're going to be usingmetro for that.
But now, you know, I, I look atit, you know, and, along with
with jeff, uh, you know whatjeff is going to bring in here

(42:39):
shortly.
This is all wonderful in theworld of content creation you
know it's more tools to createawesome content yeah especially
for amazing companies like metro, and I just wanted to throw
that out there because you knowI I'm excited.
I can't wait to do this thing,to to get here I mean for me,
what?

Speaker 3 (42:57):
what I was amazed about?
Metro, it's what I alwaysthought.
Metro shelving, yeah you know,storage, that's it, that's what
I want.
But they go one step above.
They do productivity so muchmore and they do that
competition that they go in andthat you can people compete to
get them to come in to do theentire productivity so they can
actually make you faster.

(43:17):
That's why, when I was like,does that thing go up and down,
like adjust for people's height?
And they're like, yeah, I'mlike whoever thought of that.
Thank you so they're reallygoing the extra mile for the,
the chefs of the world to makeit easier for our backs, for our
backs.
Yeah, so just so everyone knows, we had an eight-foot table,
two of them one behind us, onein front of us.
Poor Lance, he's six feet.

Speaker 4 (43:38):
He's 10 foot tall.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
He has to be to hold all those medals, right, yeah?

Speaker 4 (43:42):
that's why he's that tall.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
So I'm probably a little bit shorter than you,
maybe the same size as you asfar as height.
And we're like I'm like goingwith my legs spread out so I can
go and I had these PVC pipeextenders.
I didn't use them because Ididn't want an unfair advantage.
I only had eight.

Speaker 4 (44:02):
You already had all the food ahead of time.
What more advantage did youneed?
I didn't touch the food.
I mean, if part of the categoryshould be, does he have table
extenders?
You know when they're judging.
You probably would have gottena silver if they saw those PVC
pipe painted Like hepainstakingly made these things
because he does so much of this.
You know table extenders.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
Honest to God when I was doing the, when I'd go out
I'd have my tables, flip them up, and then I would put these
things on instead of being andyou had two sets.

Speaker 4 (44:26):
I was even more impressed that he brought two
and you're like you want to givesome to lance and I was like,
no, no, don't help him, he'salready the favorite.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
Yeah, well, listen, this, this category.
Where we were, we didn't evenhave the running water, so
that's a huge problem.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Lance reminds me lance reminds me hold on a
second.
I mean I, I did, I totally didwhat I said not to do um lance,
reminds you.
He reminds me of john mcfden.
They're very similar.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
Machine, yeah, a machine.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
As far as like chef attributes man.
Like they're just focused andthey just run through it.
Yeah, get it done.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
It's funny.
We actually had a talk likewhat we were doing, how our dish
was to the audience, and thenwe had a talk once we served.
We had a talk once we served.
We had a talk to the judges,obviously, and the banter that
was going on like I would lookover, and as soon as I got done
I kind of went out of the wayand then went over and looked at
Jason.
I'm like you know what, I'm notgoing to tease him yet, I'll
wait until he's done One part.

(45:23):
Hari moved Jason and I out ofthe way because Lance was using
the only oven.

Speaker 4 (45:26):
We had, yeah, and I was oven.
We had, yeah, when I was inlance's way and I was, I was
trying to clean up, like get outof there and lance is still
plating.
I was being a little rude.
Then I realized so I shouldstep away.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
So not in his way completely, but he had to come
down the alley to get to the.
He was thinking about trippinghim yeah, I was.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
You were like, that's why I was cleaning up, you were
the 80s teen villain that wouldpop their collar on their polo
shirt real, yeah, that was.

Speaker 4 (45:50):
Yeah, I get it by the way, lance also had the
shortest drive home no, we gotto bring up the glass bricks
though, because that was a topicremember.
Lance brought the classic like1980s bathroom square glass
brick things that all of our.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
Yeah, remember miami vice.

Speaker 4 (46:04):
Yeah, he had a whole set I don't know, I don't know
so, but so anyway, he had hisplates built up on it, so so
when you look in photos, it washis display and that's how he
kept them he had a stern underthere right.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
That was an old school trick he was doing
keeping them warm, not fornothing, but there's a reason
why the guy's you?
Know Silver yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:24):
Well, you know, the funniest thing is when you kept
on asking me did you tell Carl?
Did you tell Carl?
Did you tell Carl?

Speaker 4 (46:30):
Oh, that you got bronze.
Yeah, no, I'm like no, no,because I was like let's pretend
that you got gold, or lie tohim or something.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
I mean, I kept asking .
Yeah, he did and there wasnothing.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
How's it going out there?

Speaker 4 (46:48):
And I'm like I'm right If you don't get like I
literally thought I was going toget silver.
It shows how much I know youget the bronze.
And I'm standing next to Lance.
I'm like, yeah, I got silverand Lance's gold.
Right, it really shows how muchI know about how it's, the
rubrics and everything Anyway.
And I they say Jason Lintonbronze.
And I'm like, ah, I thought Ihad the silver.
So, literally leaving, I'm alittle depressed and I hit the

(47:08):
burger king drive-thru inhastings, and hastings is
beautiful, but the bk was alittle rough.
You know, some are nicer thanothers you know that makes you
feel better.
Right, I've been there so anyway, I got the whopper.
You know, they got that weirdmayo cream.
That's supposed to be mayo butit's like watery and the
tomatoes are like white.
And anyway, I'm wearing mymedal in the drive-thru.
I'm not making this up, thesame medal I'm wearing now.
I'm pulling through thedrive-thru and a woman's like
what's up with that metal and Iwas like oh, I just I got bronze

(47:31):
at this cook-off, blah, blah,blah.
And I just felt really patheticin that moment.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Because I'm at the bk drive-thru, I'm getting the
whopper, add cheese versus rightnow, because you haven't taken
the metal off since the event.

Speaker 4 (47:44):
So anyway, like I said, bk drive-thru wearing my
metal, feeling crappy, eatingthe whopper, feeling even worse,
like when I was done I was justlike, oh, now I'm taking the
medal off.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
I don't know what to say, because I would have been
happy at the BK.
I would have eaten the BK andbe like you know what, man, I
feel pretty good.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
We didn't eat.
By the time we left it was 3.30, 3.45 almost.

Speaker 4 (48:05):
Yeah, I got there at like 9.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
What you should have did is with the Whopper, you
always get the order of chickenfries.
Yeah, my wife gets those.
They're good.

Speaker 4 (48:13):
Yeah, it's just all that blended process.
You never know what it is.
Aren't they putting bugs inthat stuff?
Now, probably Isn't that whatTyson's doing.
They're grinding up cockroacheslike a Soylent Green.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
No, I just saw a thing like that with Ramsey.
I don't know if that's true ornot.
That's the thing.

Speaker 4 (48:27):
Yeah, that's the thing you don't know.
I saw that same plug whereRamsey's backing out no more
Tyson love because they'reputting insects in.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
You don't know if that's real or not.
I wasn't actually going tobring that up on the podcast.
I was going to, but I couldn'tfind any actual, you know.
So I wasn't going to bring itup, but you did.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
It makes you wonder.
Listen last year at I forgothis name now the chef that was
doing it.
He was presenting bugs.

Speaker 4 (48:53):
So I made and we know we can eat these things
chocolate-covered grasshoppers.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
This stuff's been around for a long time I had to
grind the kick.

Speaker 4 (48:58):
But if companies are maybe milling and grinding and
sneaking this in products, it'sa whole different thing.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
How about the FDA and USDA allow a certain amount of
bugs inside the food?

Speaker 1 (49:09):
Legally, yeah, that's always been like that cockroach
falls.
Most people don't right.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
Most people don't know that.

Speaker 4 (49:15):
No, that's like it was snow piercer.
Here's my sci-fi nerd thatmovie snow piercer.
They're all eating cockroaches.
They just keep grinding them upand they make those black
bricks.
They look like my android cellphone and they're all just
eating these black jello bricks.
So that could be an option tothe black jello brick at bk
right the veggie brick, veggiebrick.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
So next week, is that what we're doing?

Speaker 1 (49:34):
no, no black veggie brick.
I'm gonna make that I don'tsubscribe to uh to any of this
and um, yes, I want what I wantand I want what I want it's
funny.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
At one point we had got done, we're cleaning up.
We all had turned in our stuff.
Lance looks at me, he goes.
How do you feel I go, bronzy?
That's, that's right.
He did say that.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
My intestines are a little bronzy right now.
He goes.
How do you know I go?

Speaker 3 (49:55):
I just know it was just one of those things.
It is what it is.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
Jeff, I'm proud of you, man.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
You've got to put yourself out there.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
I'm saying you weren't wearing any walk and
talk gear when you only got thebronze right.
Yes, I did.

Speaker 4 (50:11):
While we're talking about that, kind of just that
general topic real quick.
You said, jeff, I'm proud ofyou.
There's one thing too you haveto think about what Jeff does
every week.
What you guys do every week isyou legitimately put it out
there, you produce this product.
I'm watching, you know, I'mlooking into the kitchen right
now.
I'm seeing the me's, I'm seeingto get ready to put together.
There are so many chefs thatact like they have this clout or

(50:31):
they think they're the greatestthing and they can't throw down
, or they can't do it, or theycan't produce it, or week after
week they can't go out there andthat's what you guys do, that's
what chef Jeffrey does.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Let me, let me, let me just say something week after
week after week.
So here's what.
Uh, jeff impresses me um somuch when it comes to the
creativity.
You know, his execution sucks.
No, I'm kidding the, the, the,the creativity.
Like he comes up with theseideas real fast and then he
executes and then you're likewow, I don't even know how you,

(51:03):
you know well, he probably getsa little bit out there too.

Speaker 4 (51:06):
Now there's a certain big agency he's definitely out
there, there's a.
There's a chef's group that'sin america.
I'm not gonna say their name.
That's kind of against'sdefinitely out there.
There's a chef's group that'sin America.
I'm not going to say their name.
That's kind of against,sometimes too out there, you
know, if you get too mash up ora little too crazy.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
It's true, a little fusion confusion.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
Yeah, he's speaking the truth.
I've been told fusion confusionmany times and there are times
that I'm totally just I'm anidiot.
Why did I pair those things?

Speaker 1 (51:36):
This is horrible, but I think we have to keep pushing
those boundaries.
I think it's right, right,right right.
So I'm just saying um, I thinkwe're we're real blessed to have
you know jeff on the show andin capacity and what we're doing
, because he just comes throughwith amazing, amazing, amazing
stuff I mean?

Speaker 4 (51:43):
I mean, no wonder he's got bags under his eyes and
he's always talking aboutmental health and stress,
because every week he's got tomake you happy and come up with
a new dish.
You got to feed me.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
This is worse than any ACF lab co-critiquing chef.
How about the guy on my rightof me last night or the night
before two nights ago?
Let's talk about John.
Can we do a dessert?

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Sure, we can do a dessert.
Yeah, whenever I called, if Icalled Jeff during the day, I'm
like hey man, what's?
Going on.
Hey man, I'm like, uh, okay,what's up, he's just doing prep.
I'm doing prep at the storebecause I'm gonna do prep and
I'm like okay, okay.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
Jeffrey's really the only one that works out of you
three it's just like we're at aprivate club setting.
You're the general manager,carl, you're, uh, the activities
director, john, and uh you'rethe executive chef, jeffrey,
doing all the work no, I'm notkidding, but really jason can
come back anytime oh, you know,I'm just kidding of course, well

(52:50):
listen, well listen.
No, there's really no truth.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
It makes sense, but there's no truth.

Speaker 4 (52:56):
Carl opens his opening line right.
He writes that what did he?
Say Opens the laptop.
What else?

Speaker 1 (53:02):
What Daddy does?
It puts it all together.
And then, obviously Did youjust call yourself Daddy.
I did.
We just lost everyone.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
No everybody loves that listen so hold on.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
I was just gonna be complimentary.
No, daddy, I was.
I was gonna be complimentarybecause the reality is none of
this works, yeah, you know,unless unless these guys,
because I, I can't do what theydo no, you can't do.

Speaker 4 (53:27):
Well, you can kind of do.
He can do something.
Yeah, yeah, he can definitely.
I can't cook any jewish food,though you can't, it's just it's
, you can kind of do it.
He can do it, he can definitelydo it.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
I can't cook any Jewish food, though you can.
It's like Menachem.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
That's what I love when he brings in his heritage
and nationality, which is cool,because you don't really see a
lot of Jewish restaurants, right, like hey, did you see that new
Jewish place that opened?
You don't really real delis.
No, people in florida thinkpublics is a deli and I love
publics, they're great and all.
But I am from up north and thisis a hot topic for me because I

(53:56):
own a frank's deli and cafe inport st lucie and I wanted to
give them mortadella, you know,liverwurst, like all this stuff,
and their brains were going toexplode because south florida
wants ham, turkey roast, beef,you know their public's trained.
Oh, maybe I'll get the italiantoday.
Let's go the buffalo chickendeal.
Wow, we're really gonna spiceit up.
You know I like the bus.
So florida doesn't even knowwhat a deli is.

(54:18):
No, it's true, did publicchurch?
You huh said probably.
Yeah, I don't like me, I'mpublic's cake stink too, I'm
holding publicscom public holdon people are listening.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
I'm holding up this doll.
Just point where public wherepublic'six heard you.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
It's the Northern Yankee in me.
I move down here and people arelike Publix, it's the greatest
place.
They got cakes and hoagies andboo, boo boo.
I'm like no, that's not.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
You remember that place back when then it's called
Josie's on 46th Avenue andHollywood Boulevard.
Yeah, that was a deli.
You walk in and there wasJohnny and Joey right there with
his son and they were slicingthe meats and they want chicken
parm.
You got veal parm.
You want the brain.

Speaker 4 (54:55):
There's not piles of cutlets breaded in some sort.
It's not really a deli, no.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
Man.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Oh well, Whatever?

Speaker 1 (55:03):
Okay, kiss the public .
Oh yeah, kiss the public.
I don't think it would haveever happened, john.

Speaker 4 (55:15):
John says, hey, kiss the Publix sponsorship goodbye.
Well, I'm not a part of WalkTalk.
I'm speaking on behalf of ChefJason Lin, CDC, CDM.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Jason effing Lin over here.

Speaker 4 (55:23):
No, publix, you have your points too, though, my
goodness.
I just want to say that we lovePublix.
No, publix is so.
I secretly hate Publix becausethey are so.
Their shelves are so fronted.
That's the biggest thing Iwould say to young organizing
people Make it look like Publix.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Make it look like Publix.
Yeah, I mean you're more of aDollar General shop.

Speaker 4 (55:45):
You know some Bravo when you're looking at your
storeroom as a chef.

Speaker 3 (55:47):
when, when you're looking at your storeroom as a
chef, when you're looking atyour inventory, wherever it is,
you always want to have it whereeverything's front and center.
The labels are front and center.
When you go home, you wanteverything front and center and
your family's like why are youso anal about this?
And it's like well, I knowexactly where it is.
And they're like it's just asridiculous.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
This is too military.
It's hard to turn off.
Sometimes you can't, and that'swhat's tricky.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
I can tell that you were a Publix stock boy when you
were growing up.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
I worked at Publix when I was 14.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
Yeah, the difference.
I worked at Winn-Dixie so youcan see the differences here.
We don't care.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
I actually worked at 164, which is the old Bennigan's
Sheridan Street, the originalone.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, in the poleFunny story, I actually lifted
up with another Publix worker.
We had to lift up a car becausethe jack didn't go.
It was a Datsun 210.
And there was a flat tire.
We had to change it.
We had to lift up the car whilesomebody else put the tire on.
Oh yeah, that was my old.
I never got tipped because youcouldn't tip.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
I like to the car people, like during the holidays
.
But you can test them becauseonce in a while they'll take it.
So at Winn-Dixie it was liketake it whatever.
Yeah, you would be like, hey,like you put your hand out, you
know.

Speaker 4 (56:59):
Like, hey, I used to love Winn.
It was the beef people back inthe day, winn-dixie was the bomb
, and now what?

Speaker 3 (57:05):
Aldi right bought Winn-Dixie, all AP grocers.

Speaker 4 (57:08):
Yeah, but no, it was Southeast Groceries, but then
Aldi I thought bought them.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
I don't know if they bought them all, but they bought
a bunch, load of them Somethey're going to convert to
Aldi's and some they're going tokeep Winn-Dixie.
Oh.

Speaker 4 (57:17):
I didn't realize that I always feel rich when I'm in
Winn-Dixie, though, Like when Iwalk.
Look at that Natty Ice on sale$1.99.
Wow.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
And you got all your All right, so, john, Don't
forget, you got to have yourWinn-Dixie card.

Speaker 4 (57:37):
That's how you get the deals.
If you don't have the card,they charge you the normal price
.
I know?

Speaker 1 (57:42):
Well, it's the same at CVS or whatever.

Speaker 4 (57:45):
Yeah, they're working us.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
Yeah, oh, look at a good price.
Wow, do you have your number?
Now I've got to put my wife'snumber in there.
She gets all the points.

Speaker 3 (57:51):
What was the one that just Bed Bath Beyond was like
that?
Remember, if you had the couponand then they'd put the
expiration date on it.

Speaker 4 (57:56):
I used to pick them up like on the sidewalk, walking
in those bastards All right,All right.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Jeff, Jason, John, you guys are awesome, Lance, if
you listen to this at all.
Thanks for being on the show.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
Canned ravioli Canned ravioli Canned ravioli.

Speaker 4 (58:11):
Lance had to dip out.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
AJ Brianna over at Metro.
You all are awesome.
Tina Davis, tina Davis andChefs, chefs, chefs, chefs,
chefs Peninsula Food ServiceDon't forget about it.
Central Florida.

Speaker 3 (58:24):
Also huge shout out to Tina Atkins, larry and Amy
for coming out to support Jasonand I from Sweetwater.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
They went up there.
Yeah, I love them.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
They actually changed their dates to watch Jason and
I compete.

Speaker 4 (58:36):
No, kidding, I was looking for Jeffrey's entourage.
That was some of it, but allright.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
All right, listen, we got to roll, we are out.
We'll see you next time.