March 18, 2025 • 32 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's that time. Time, time, time, luck and load. The
Michael darry Show is on the air. M yes, all right,
(01:01):
we have three folks prepared to discuss the alleged ingredients
of Kentucky fried chicken. We'll start with Russell. Russell, you're
on the Michael Berry Show. Welcome to the program sir, Yes, Michael, Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Okay, mine is not about the Kentucky Fried chicken. It's
about the use of pepper.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Proceeding okay, a shift in your armors. By the name
of Paul Fruttome. He advocates in cookie you use the
three peppers, red, white, and black, the reasoning being different flavors,
different times, different parts of the palate.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well, he puts time in there.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Now it's just red, white, and black pepper what I'm
talking about.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, I think you're right. There's a fellow named Tommy Setanovich.
It's a Yugo Yugoslavian family, and he owns a restaurant
to restaurants in New Orleans called Dragos. Some people say Drago's,
but his Drago's Drago means Bubba, I think in his
(02:23):
Slavic language, and it's famous restaurant. The first, the first
one was in Metarie, and then he opened a second
one off Canal in the convention center there, which is
which everybody knows about, but is not as famous as
the original, which is in Metai. He was slated to
open one in Houston. First time I met him fifteen
(02:46):
years ago, he was on the verge of opening one
in Houston, and it got crossways I think with investors
or with the real estate, and I don't remember, and
then you know, tough times for the restaurant industry. He
hasn't made it happen, but it will be. If he does,
he'll have a built in audience to start with. Although interestingly,
some of these New Orleans concepts have not done well.
(03:07):
What's the one that's down there on Lower Westheimer in
the old Hollywood video oyster House. I don't think that's
killing it? Is it? It closed? Okay? Well, then there
you go institution and I think people get excited here
but they don't end up follow him. But anyway, Russell,
what he told me was he I asked him as
(03:29):
I often do. He has a dessert that is a
like a pecan pie, pico something like that, and when
you first start to eat it, it's a caramel rich
preline or problen, however you want to say it flavoring,
(03:50):
But as it rolls towards the back of your mouth,
the aftertaste is a very spicy taste, and so it's
a complex flavor. You experience multiple layers to this, to
each bite, and I found myself eating smaller than usual
(04:11):
bites because you want to experience the whole feel of it.
You know, the wine snobs will will tell you. You know,
I've got some friends who are wine snobs and can
tell you what's in a drink. And that's one of
the things they enjoy and why they make those awful
noises with their mouth is so they can taste it
at the front and taste it at the back. So Russell,
(04:33):
thank you for the call.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Sir, Well, you have a good one.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Russell. Let me ask you a question, YEP, if I
were to ask you, it may not turn out to
be your favorite player of all time. But if I
were to ask you your favorite baseball player of all time,
you know, because we're nine days from baseball season, who
would that be.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I'm gonna go old time Mickey Mantle.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Mickey Madtle, first man to hit a home run in
the astronom. So I read a statistic yesterday. Are you
ready for the statistic? Russell? Okay? In nineteen and I
needed you to get ready. In nineteen eighty, Nolan Ryan
recorded his three thousandth strikeout. Now that's a career right there.
(05:20):
In nineteen eighty, he was thirty three years old, he
recorded his three thousandth strikeout. From that point until he retired,
he would go on to strikeout more batters than Warren
Spahn did in his entire career, more batters than Bob
Feller did in his entire career, more batters than Jan
(05:44):
Mareshal did in his entire career, more batters than Tom
Glavin did in his intire career, and oh, by the way,
more batters than Don Drysdale did in their entire careers.
That is how many strikeouts he had after thirty three,
So starting over at thirty three, he still had more
strikeouts than those guys had in their entire careers. That's amazing. Yes,
(06:06):
thank you for the call, Russell Ray. I'm told you're
a chef, Yes, sir, are you a chef at a restaurant?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I was? I am retired.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Where were you a chef.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Oh, my goodness, everywhere I started.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
I started in Minnesota, came to Houston, went to the
Los Angeles area, and retired here.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
That's their place that matters is Houston. Where did you
work in Houston?
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I was actually the corporate chef for a very large
distribution company that spans in the US and Canada.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Cisco.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, that's the one.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
How come you didn't want to say Cisco?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Don't know if I'm ken?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Oh, of course, I don't know where that is.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
I make it?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
You know, it's funny. Uh Ray, I don't know why
people think that they can't. I don't know where that
got out somewhere along the way. People say this all
the time. They'll hang up talking to me and they
will have called in talking about, you know, a New
Orleans cocktail, and they'll say I worked at a famous
(07:15):
restaurant from New Orleans and they don't tell which one,
and I don't think to ask them, and we hang
up and they'll send me an email and say, hey,
I knew I couldn't say it on the air. It
was Brennan's. And I'll say, where did you?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
That is a widely held misconception that you cannot say
a brand name. I'll tell you. When I ran for mayor,
there was a fellow named John Ball who was the
founder of yes, absolutely Cisco, and his story famously was,
I think it was nineteen thirty two that he walked
from Waco to Houston and without you know, more than
(07:53):
a dollar in his pocket, he literally walked to Houston.
He founded Cisco, which became, I think for the category,
the largest food distribution company in the world for what
they do. Obviously Archer Daniels, Midland and some others. And
what's the other one that make a claim to that?
(08:14):
Hold on just a second, I want to ask you
about these eleven herbs and spices? What's the other companies?
One word I've Gilaelae the Michael Arry Show. You merely
adopted the doc.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I was voted.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
President Trump set to talk to Vladimir Putin today with
me the seed of it. He has also let me
pull this up again. He is also committed to releasing
today the JFK files of eighty thousand pages. Now, the
(08:51):
American people have become so dispirited that I will get
thirty emails at least going, how go we nu in it? Okay?
Not ding it, Michael, I heard you. They didn't took
it all out. Okay, don't even talk about it. You
would be perfect, perfect in occupied Vshi because you wouldn't
(09:13):
need no reason, ain't reason to push back into Germans.
They didn't already took Poland, Czechoslovakia. Hell e, they got
the Allies pinned down in Norway and no reason to
fight back, and no reason to fight back. Germany got everything.
Hiller got everything. They already took everything. They got Belgium
they got it all. They got Netherlands and no reason
to fight back and no reason to do it. I
am not an idiot, Okay, despite how I might appear,
(09:38):
I'm as cynical as you are. But if your answer
before they release any of the files is to say,
don't matter, ay, wait, nothing in it. If that's your answer,
then there's no reason. There's no upside to even trying
to get anything. It is far nobler to continue to
fight instead of being the guy who says, ain't no reason.
(10:00):
He oh, no, no good, no good, And that person
has such a smug arrogance to the yeah, I don't care,
that doesn't know how that's gonna happen. And then when
something does happen, Oh well, well then I canna do this.
I realize it's not healthy. But in twenty sixteen I
(10:20):
had people who would email me, you stop telling my election.
Obama's not gonna step down, you know, step down, my
you know, I step down here say there. And for
some reason, you get older and wiser and you realize
there's no reason to battle a grump because they'll always win.
They'll just grump onto the next category. And I would
(10:41):
keep those emails, and after the election, I would shoot
him emails, Hey, they just inaugurated Trump? Is is Obama
still president? Because here's your email from six months ago?
And then I realized, you're not even using it on
the air. At least use it on the air to
spend all that time. What joy did you get saved
to the grump? You just yeah, and their answers. Yeah,
(11:01):
I know. I was just you know, I was aggravated.
You know I was aggravated. Let's go to Ray the chef. Ray, Yes, sir,
tell me which one of these? Tell me which one
of these surprises you most? In the eleven Herbs and spices. Salt, thime, basil, oregano, celery, salt,
black pepper, dried mustard, peppery, could garlic, salt, ground ginger,
(11:23):
and white pepper.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
The only thing that is really kind of silly is
both black and white pepper.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Oh, I'm gonna get you and wrestle the same room.
Will see what he says about that.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Well, that's all will and good. That for those that actually.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Have been through the process, been in the spice plants,
understand that that black pepper has been tumbled and the
paper thin coating comes off and it's white pepper underneath.
So when you look at when you look at the
pepper in your pepper mill or pepper shaker, you'll see
that most of the flecks are white or light gray.
(12:01):
If you took the paper shell off, there's hardly any
black in it. As when you see white pepper sprinkled
on stuff. It's the saying it's the same specie of pepper.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Interesting, they might he may not have known that.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Well, and that's that is absolute truth. There's not that's
just a you know, that's a technical part of you.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Know, do they taste different to the tongue, you know what.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
So slightly that it's hard to it's hard to put
a you know, one is the husk if you will,
on the black peppers is a little bit of elkaliny.
You know, you kind of get that little almost chemical
taste when you're talking about something that you're putting into
a batter. I guarantee you there is no way anybody
(12:49):
tells the difference.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Interesting and the ground ginger. Why would you put ground
ginger in there?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (12:59):
If you think about ginger in its natural state, tastes
it's I would describe that that flavor as being bright.
I know that's kind of a weird definition, but it
kind of thinks.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Up the palette. Yeah, but it brightens up the palate
and it so it's what it does.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
It's just kind of an unexpected thing that but it's
there for a reason why, I know, no reason. There's
there's You can buy just ground celery seed and then
salt on its own.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
In fact, that's a smarter way to do it because
when you.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Salt and celery seed together, don't stay mixed in you know, uh,
don't stay mixed completely where there. If you if you
dump out a tablespoon, it's got the same amount of
celery seed and the same amount of salt at all times.
They're there are different weights, so salt has a tendency
(14:00):
when it's shooken up to sink down a little bit.
So the more you move the container around, the more
you you separate the two ingredients. Garlic salt is the
same way because one's a powder, one salt, and one's
much heavier than the other.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
So what is not the most ingredient list that you
would have expected to be in the KFC recipe?
Speaker 4 (14:25):
You know what, I don't think there's anything that comes
right to mind, because once you've once you've got to
a oregano, for example, the essential oils in time, it's
very similar, you know, in rosemary is very similar. I
mean sometimes you're just replicating stuff. There's no it's just
(14:46):
because this stuff was on the shelf and they said, here,
let's try this. Oh that tastes good. That's how all
recipes are made. So it's it's no giant thing. And paprika,
as you know, is really just for all intents and
purposes in that batter a coloring agent.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
You say, as you know, as if I know anything
that makes me feel good, because because I tend to
believe I know that, but I didn't. Why dried mustard.
Why the word dried in front of mustard.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Because if you put if you if you have mustard
flour essentially you know, you grind mustard and it becomes flour,
and so the mustard flower won't sift into or stay stay.
It stays into the dry ingredients. So when you add
the moisture to make the batter, it's it's completely If
(15:47):
it's mixed, well, it's completely mixed into the stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Hold on, Ray, Matthew seventeen twenty, Jesus says, truly, I
tell you, if you have the faith as small as
a mustards, you can say to this mountain, move from
here to there, and it will move, just to say
the word, and I'll throw a plug.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Down to.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
She once was Ray the chef. Yes, sir, I think
you missed something. My friend the Aggie plumber Michael Robinson
and another frequent contributor, Bobby Crumpley, both suggested, and I
(16:35):
think there's something to this that the reason for the
white pepper is because you don't notice the white pepper,
so the black pepper is seen right, So they may
be the same thing. But you can put more pepper
without people noticing how much pepper there is if there's
a white pepper, that's their theory, but that seems to
(16:58):
be of course. I don't know why plumbers need to
be getting in the chef's business. But everybody likes to
offer their opinion on food. Do you notice that?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (17:06):
And you know what, I'm no different than anybody else,
So I would I would agree with that if we
were making holiday sauce, but I don't agree with it
in this because we're making batter, so you're not going
to see most of it anyway. You're just going to
see multi colored specs all the way through it.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
So yeah, you know, I no, I don't.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
I don't think there's any any any real reason to
put it in batter, But I mean that's one man's opinion.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Do you have any thoughts for people frying chicken at
home for things they should consider trying in their chicken
that they may not have tried before?
Speaker 4 (17:48):
You mean, just in a in just a straight skillet
fried chicken type thing.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, yeah, what else are we doing?
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
I come from a little more varied background that, so
I just wanted to clarify before I made any comment.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Are you trying to one up me?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Ray?
Speaker 4 (18:05):
I don't think so, so I would think I could
find this.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
My grandmother lived in a rattle trap, old trailer out
in the country at the end of a road next
to the train station, and I go back and see
it every time I go through Orange. And now those
trailers that that era did not age well. And now
I drive up in there and it's just my my nephews,
(18:33):
see my nephews, my second cousins, once removed. I think
it's kind of that would go still live there and
it should be torn down. It's such bad shape. But
never the mind, never the mind. As we would pull
up and I would get out of the car, the
sensory perception, even if it was just beans, because she
kept the windows open, the beans with fat back in there.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
And and her food was just amazing. And you'd walk
walk into this little rattle trap of a place, just
a shanty shack, you walk in and like if she
would fried chicken, it was just this old factory overwhelmed.
It was incredible. And so that was kind of so
for me, that's the fried chicken that you know, I
(19:19):
always think about, you know, putting that with the red
and white apron to Betty Crocker cookbook apron and putting
that and taking it. My wife would my wife got
her recipe and she and I would go on what
we called a chicnick and we'd go to one of
the city parks. And this was up until we had kids.
Even after we had kids, but they got activities and
you can't do it anymore. And we'd take fried chicken
(19:39):
out and sit in the park, you know, open that
out of the little picnic basket and eat our fried chicken.
Oh man, that's that's good living right there.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Yep. I'm one of the things that we have done
in America is not put a lot of seasoning on
the on the food itself before goes into a batter.
If you'll think about your favorite whatever it might be
fast food chicken places, almost all of them, the batter
(20:10):
is very salty because they skip the step of seasoning
the meat before they before they put this very salty
breading on. And I for the most part leave that
stuff alone because I don't enjoy being salt bombarding. But
that again, it's just that's my palate. But that would
be the thing that I'd recommend is that, Yeah, you
(20:31):
see people dry rub pork chops, dry rub steaks. You
certainly can dry rubbed chicken. You know, it's take a
drumstick for example. You can push the skin down on
the raw one salt, you know, season it up, put
the skin back up, let it sit for an hour,
and you will definitely have a much more flavorful product.
And that doesn't matter if you fry, bake, roast, whatever.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Put it out on the grill. It's all.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Anytime you introduce the seasoning right to the meat, you
always get a great response, even if it's unless you
overdo it.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
YEA, all right, Ray, I've got three minutes left in
this segment, so I want you to give me very
quick answers. They don't have to be perfect, just whatever
comes to mind.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Okay, I want to finish an answer on the mustard first.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Oh yeahsides, when.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
You put dry mustard in something, you only get mustard.
If you put prepared mustard in it. That the biggest
flavors and prepared mustard are turmeric and vinegar, and you
get very little mustard flavor. So think about it about
what yellow mustard tastes like. That's why you don't use
that in recipes. Okay, I got it, all right, so
I want you give me quick punch of answers. Don't
(21:45):
overthink it. Okay, give me one tip for every man
or woman that's going to make dinner at home tonight
that people don't know that will in some small way
improve the quality of the dinner they prepare. Oh my,
I'm to go back to just seasoning the meat, season
(22:06):
the meat without and not worry about what's on the
outside of it.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
All right, tell me one tip about making a better
scrambled egg that anybody can do.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
You know what, sca, don't use the fork when you
scramble your egg.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Actually use a whip.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
You'll get better fluff out of it than that than
any other technique.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Putting milk or.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Anything in it doesn't doesn't really help.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
It just takes it longer to cook.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Give me one tip for baking that anybody can use
that every mother or father, grandmother, grandfather could use today
in baking a cake or anything else.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I'm different.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
I'm going to go in a slightly different thing, but
I would.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
I would when you.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Go to the grocery store, go ahead and buy like
a whole loaf of French bread.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Put that whole thing in the oven.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
And wrote, you know, give it fifteen minutes at three
point fifty and take out and slice that bread. It'll
be not nearly as good as homemade, but it's a
lot better than the stuff we normally eat.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
How do you know when something's seasoned enough or taste?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Well?
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Mine, yeah, mine's to all of ours is to taste.
But what I've always done is if I taste something,
go If I put more salt than that, will.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
It be too salty? Yes?
Speaker 1 (23:37):
I won't put any in.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
It's hard for me to over pepper stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
If you're making pasta and you want it all dente,
as everyone says, what is the trick to knowing the
moment it has achieved that status without putting it to
your teeth?
Speaker 3 (24:00):
You know what? I would tell you that my best
success is.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Again it's it's experienced base. But it's when you when
you put a utensil in the to stir it up.
You you know from the way it bangs against the
fork or the ladle or river using to know if
it's right.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
All right?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Last question, You get one pan, one pan to use?
Which one is it going to be?
Speaker 3 (24:28):
It's gonna be a twelve inch skillet.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Lifeless eyes, black eyes like a doll. The thing about
it is, I think I was in my thirties before
I realized that's a horse. I'm not joking, and somehow
that made it less interesting. I'm a Yellow Mountains Now.
(24:55):
You know the guy that's playing drums on this song
is a listener on a dark Harry Wilkinson from Nashville
guarantees you listen name Wild five, he's gonna call when
he's gonna call Essie on a come. Jim made a
(25:17):
list of five widely held misconceptions. I can't remember what
the misconception was that caused him to write it. I'm
gonna give the five misconceptions, and I'm gonna ask you
to give me a misconception that you think people have.
But not right now because there's some other news I
want to get to. So I just want you to
(25:38):
be I want it to percolate in your head, Okay,
So I'll tell you when, probably in the beginning in
the next hour. Here's Jim's five widely held misconceptions. Number one,
you can't put food in the fridge till it cools off.
That was once true of old ice boxes. What oh,
it hasn't been the case for decades. So the old
(26:01):
adage that you can't put food in the fridge, you
think that's an adage. Nobody really knows what an adage is.
It doesn't matter. Number two, people think the saying is
it's cold as hell h e l L. It's not.
It was actually it's cold as hal h ai l. No,
(26:23):
it's not a witch's tip ramon plea. You see this
is you've been back two days and you already Number three,
you have to wait thirty minutes after eating to swim.
I think how much of my life was lost sitting
looking out. We would stay at these cheap uh you know,
Holiday Inn was high end for us, but we set
these cheap little motels and they all had that little
(26:44):
what we now call a cocktail pool. It was just
enough pool to call it a pool, and they put
it right in front of the front. You'd have the
little port Kochhier and to be right outside of that,
and it was fenced in, and my dad would go
in to check us in and we were already in
the pool. We get a hool, we're gonna hoop because
nobody we knew how to pool. Nobody I didn't know
anybody had a pool. I remember Kyle and Kelly Free
(27:04):
got a pool. They lived in Orange and it was
the biggest deal ever. And then I think Craig Hobbs
got a pool and that was it. I did not
know a person with the pool, and everybody craved a pool,
and then all of a sudden, overnight everybody had a pool.
And some people had a pool that they filled in
and some people, I mean it was crazy. And there
(27:26):
was a period there of just putting in a pool
and it was just a hole in the ground. And
my parents always wanted to have a pool when we
were little because all these boys running around him getting
a pool, we might drown at least you want me
in here and getting on my nerves, you're underfoot. And
so they got a pool after all of us were
gone with grandkids by them, and my dad was so
(27:48):
obsessive about putting chemicals in it that if he couldn't
put the chemicals every two minutes like he liked to,
then there was no point of having a pool. So
they couldn't go anywhere. They couldn't, you know, the pool
became an up safe. So they filled in the pool. Yes,
they filled in the pool. This little pool that they
had one of their entire lives that they didn't get
till they were in their sixties. And now they filled
(28:09):
in the pool because nobody's using the pool, and the
pool costs chemical money, and you know. Anyway, so now
we have a pool company that is a show sponsor,
and they do these elaborate pools, and he will send
me pictures of the pools they do, and it's lifestyles
of the rich and famous kind of stuff. It's you know,
I like to hear water trickling, and I like to
(28:30):
see fire. I like to water and fire elements. And
they'll have these things that have a un a losion.
What do you call that? Perglo? What's the word that
when you've got a rock formation that you can go
under it and it trickles down. There's a term for that. Anyway.
Number four, George Washington did not, in fact have wooden teeth.
(28:52):
I don't know where Gym's getting old. Number five, hair
and fingernails do not continue to grow after a person dies.
What's actually happening is the skin drives and shrinks away
from the base of the hair and nails, which gives
the appearance that the hair and nails have grown? What
grotto Greg who somebody call tell you that you got it? Okay,
(29:14):
all right, we'll good. So anyway we'll get to widely
held misconceptions that you would like to dispel. Our next
story from Fox twenty six, Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey
says there are Harris County employees living in Austin and
Dallas as they quote work from home. He says, quote
(29:36):
you try to get a hold of somebody and you
end up finding out they're working in Austin or they're
working in Dallas. But guess what, folks, they're drawing a
paycheck from.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
You really don't understand how some departments have ninety eight
percent of their stat working from home makes no sense
to me.
Speaker 6 (29:57):
It's taken six long, hard months for pre Sinc three
mission of Tom Ramsey to dislodge the requested numbers from
Harris County's bureaucracy. And after you hear them, you'll understand why,
three full years after the pandemic ended, more than two
thousand Harris County employees are still allowed to work from home.
That's roughly thirty five percent of the entire administrative staff.
(30:19):
Ramsey said, it became clear that many full time Harris
County employees don't live anywhere close to the community they're
supposed to be serving.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
You try to get hold of somebody and you end
up finding out they work in Austin or they work
in Dallas. I said, well, I thought they worked for
Harris County. No, they're really teleworkers, which means they never
come in. In these cases, they don't even live in
the county.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
Panel three entire departments had less than ten percent of
their employees in the workplace full time, and the critical
Office of Management and Budget had zero workers leaving home
for their government nine to five until orders went out
to return on March four.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
See COVID was a reordering of multiple layers of American society.
One of the reasons, and I said this at the time,
and I think people are starting to see it to
be true. One of the reasons there were certain people
who loved the lockdowns is they enjoyed staying home from work.
(31:25):
There was that it became a movement to prevent America
from reopening. It became a movement to keep us from
getting back to normal. And that happened for so long
that a new normal emerged. There are industries and lifestyles
that changed as a result of that nonsense that have
(31:49):
not gone back. I don't know that the restaurant industry
will ever recover, for instance. I think there are a
number of things that were affected that I don't know
that we'll ever recover. It's a changing of society all
for the next well most for the negative. The idea
of the work from home, because you know, we don't
(32:11):
all want to get the virus. And then that's just
anxiety that's just over the top, hypochondriacal fear of you know,
getting something. There's something everywhere, germaphobe, weirdos. The reason to
work from home is they're lazy, absolutely fat assed, lazy
(32:31):
people that don't want to show up to work and
don't want to do any work. And those people end
up in the government. Not every government person is lazy,
but every lazy person works for the government because that's
where they can hide and be lazy. Fat I can't
say that word
It's that time. Time, time, time, luck and load. The
Michael darry Show is on the air. M yes, all right,
(01:01):
we have three folks prepared to discuss the alleged ingredients
of Kentucky fried chicken. We'll start with Russell. Russell, you're
on the Michael Berry Show. Welcome to the program sir, Yes, Michael, Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Okay, mine is not about the Kentucky Fried chicken. It's
about the use of pepper.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Proceeding okay, a shift in your armors. By the name
of Paul Fruttome. He advocates in cookie you use the
three peppers, red, white, and black, the reasoning being different flavors,
different times, different parts of the palate.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well, he puts time in there.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Now it's just red, white, and black pepper what I'm
talking about.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, I think you're right. There's a fellow named Tommy Setanovich.
It's a Yugo Yugoslavian family, and he owns a restaurant
to restaurants in New Orleans called Dragos. Some people say Drago's,
but his Drago's Drago means Bubba, I think in his
(02:23):
Slavic language, and it's famous restaurant. The first, the first
one was in Metarie, and then he opened a second
one off Canal in the convention center there, which is
which everybody knows about, but is not as famous as
the original, which is in Metai. He was slated to
open one in Houston. First time I met him fifteen
(02:46):
years ago, he was on the verge of opening one
in Houston, and it got crossways I think with investors
or with the real estate, and I don't remember, and
then you know, tough times for the restaurant industry. He
hasn't made it happen, but it will be. If he does,
he'll have a built in audience to start with. Although interestingly,
some of these New Orleans concepts have not done well.
(03:07):
What's the one that's down there on Lower Westheimer in
the old Hollywood video oyster House. I don't think that's
killing it? Is it? It closed? Okay? Well, then there
you go institution and I think people get excited here
but they don't end up follow him. But anyway, Russell,
what he told me was he I asked him as
(03:29):
I often do. He has a dessert that is a
like a pecan pie, pico something like that, and when
you first start to eat it, it's a caramel rich
preline or problen, however you want to say it flavoring,
(03:50):
But as it rolls towards the back of your mouth,
the aftertaste is a very spicy taste, and so it's
a complex flavor. You experience multiple layers to this, to
each bite, and I found myself eating smaller than usual
(04:11):
bites because you want to experience the whole feel of it.
You know, the wine snobs will will tell you. You know,
I've got some friends who are wine snobs and can
tell you what's in a drink. And that's one of
the things they enjoy and why they make those awful
noises with their mouth is so they can taste it
at the front and taste it at the back. So Russell,
(04:33):
thank you for the call.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Sir, Well, you have a good one.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Russell. Let me ask you a question, YEP, if I
were to ask you, it may not turn out to
be your favorite player of all time. But if I
were to ask you your favorite baseball player of all time,
you know, because we're nine days from baseball season, who
would that be.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I'm gonna go old time Mickey Mantle.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Mickey Madtle, first man to hit a home run in
the astronom. So I read a statistic yesterday. Are you
ready for the statistic? Russell? Okay? In nineteen and I
needed you to get ready. In nineteen eighty, Nolan Ryan
recorded his three thousandth strikeout. Now that's a career right there.
(05:20):
In nineteen eighty, he was thirty three years old, he
recorded his three thousandth strikeout. From that point until he retired,
he would go on to strikeout more batters than Warren
Spahn did in his entire career, more batters than Bob
Feller did in his entire career, more batters than Jan
(05:44):
Mareshal did in his entire career, more batters than Tom
Glavin did in his intire career, and oh, by the way,
more batters than Don Drysdale did in their entire careers.
That is how many strikeouts he had after thirty three,
So starting over at thirty three, he still had more
strikeouts than those guys had in their entire careers. That's amazing. Yes,
(06:06):
thank you for the call, Russell Ray. I'm told you're
a chef, Yes, sir, are you a chef at a restaurant?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I was? I am retired.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Where were you a chef.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Oh, my goodness, everywhere I started.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
I started in Minnesota, came to Houston, went to the
Los Angeles area, and retired here.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
That's their place that matters is Houston. Where did you
work in Houston?
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I was actually the corporate chef for a very large
distribution company that spans in the US and Canada.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Cisco.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, that's the one.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
How come you didn't want to say Cisco?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Don't know if I'm ken?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Oh, of course, I don't know where that is.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
I make it?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
You know, it's funny. Uh Ray, I don't know why
people think that they can't. I don't know where that
got out somewhere along the way. People say this all
the time. They'll hang up talking to me and they
will have called in talking about, you know, a New
Orleans cocktail, and they'll say I worked at a famous
(07:15):
restaurant from New Orleans and they don't tell which one,
and I don't think to ask them, and we hang
up and they'll send me an email and say, hey,
I knew I couldn't say it on the air. It
was Brennan's. And I'll say, where did you?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
That is a widely held misconception that you cannot say
a brand name. I'll tell you. When I ran for mayor,
there was a fellow named John Ball who was the
founder of yes, absolutely Cisco, and his story famously was,
I think it was nineteen thirty two that he walked
from Waco to Houston and without you know, more than
(07:53):
a dollar in his pocket, he literally walked to Houston.
He founded Cisco, which became, I think for the category,
the largest food distribution company in the world for what
they do. Obviously Archer Daniels, Midland and some others. And
what's the other one that make a claim to that?
(08:14):
Hold on just a second, I want to ask you
about these eleven herbs and spices? What's the other companies?
One word I've Gilaelae the Michael Arry Show. You merely
adopted the doc.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I was voted.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
President Trump set to talk to Vladimir Putin today with
me the seed of it. He has also let me
pull this up again. He is also committed to releasing
today the JFK files of eighty thousand pages. Now, the
(08:51):
American people have become so dispirited that I will get
thirty emails at least going, how go we nu in it? Okay?
Not ding it, Michael, I heard you. They didn't took
it all out. Okay, don't even talk about it. You
would be perfect, perfect in occupied Vshi because you wouldn't
(09:13):
need no reason, ain't reason to push back into Germans.
They didn't already took Poland, Czechoslovakia. Hell e, they got
the Allies pinned down in Norway and no reason to
fight back, and no reason to fight back. Germany got everything.
Hiller got everything. They already took everything. They got Belgium
they got it all. They got Netherlands and no reason
to fight back and no reason to do it. I
am not an idiot, Okay, despite how I might appear,
(09:38):
I'm as cynical as you are. But if your answer
before they release any of the files is to say,
don't matter, ay, wait, nothing in it. If that's your answer,
then there's no reason. There's no upside to even trying
to get anything. It is far nobler to continue to
fight instead of being the guy who says, ain't no reason.
(10:00):
He oh, no, no good, no good, And that person
has such a smug arrogance to the yeah, I don't care,
that doesn't know how that's gonna happen. And then when
something does happen, Oh well, well then I canna do this.
I realize it's not healthy. But in twenty sixteen I
(10:20):
had people who would email me, you stop telling my election.
Obama's not gonna step down, you know, step down, my
you know, I step down here say there. And for
some reason, you get older and wiser and you realize
there's no reason to battle a grump because they'll always win.
They'll just grump onto the next category. And I would
(10:41):
keep those emails, and after the election, I would shoot
him emails, Hey, they just inaugurated Trump? Is is Obama
still president? Because here's your email from six months ago?
And then I realized, you're not even using it on
the air. At least use it on the air to
spend all that time. What joy did you get saved
to the grump? You just yeah, and their answers. Yeah,
(11:01):
I know. I was just you know, I was aggravated.
You know I was aggravated. Let's go to Ray the chef. Ray, Yes, sir,
tell me which one of these? Tell me which one
of these surprises you most? In the eleven Herbs and spices. Salt, thime, basil, oregano, celery, salt,
black pepper, dried mustard, peppery, could garlic, salt, ground ginger,
(11:23):
and white pepper.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
The only thing that is really kind of silly is
both black and white pepper.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Oh, I'm gonna get you and wrestle the same room.
Will see what he says about that.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Well, that's all will and good. That for those that actually.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Have been through the process, been in the spice plants,
understand that that black pepper has been tumbled and the
paper thin coating comes off and it's white pepper underneath.
So when you look at when you look at the
pepper in your pepper mill or pepper shaker, you'll see
that most of the flecks are white or light gray.
(12:01):
If you took the paper shell off, there's hardly any
black in it. As when you see white pepper sprinkled
on stuff. It's the saying it's the same specie of pepper.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Interesting, they might he may not have known that.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Well, and that's that is absolute truth. There's not that's
just a you know, that's a technical part of you.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Know, do they taste different to the tongue, you know what.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
So slightly that it's hard to it's hard to put
a you know, one is the husk if you will,
on the black peppers is a little bit of elkaliny.
You know, you kind of get that little almost chemical
taste when you're talking about something that you're putting into
a batter. I guarantee you there is no way anybody
(12:49):
tells the difference.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Interesting and the ground ginger. Why would you put ground
ginger in there?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (12:59):
If you think about ginger in its natural state, tastes
it's I would describe that that flavor as being bright.
I know that's kind of a weird definition, but it
kind of thinks.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Up the palette. Yeah, but it brightens up the palate
and it so it's what it does.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
It's just kind of an unexpected thing that but it's
there for a reason why, I know, no reason. There's
there's You can buy just ground celery seed and then
salt on its own.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
In fact, that's a smarter way to do it because
when you.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Salt and celery seed together, don't stay mixed in you know, uh,
don't stay mixed completely where there. If you if you
dump out a tablespoon, it's got the same amount of
celery seed and the same amount of salt at all times.
They're there are different weights, so salt has a tendency
(14:00):
when it's shooken up to sink down a little bit.
So the more you move the container around, the more
you you separate the two ingredients. Garlic salt is the
same way because one's a powder, one salt, and one's
much heavier than the other.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
So what is not the most ingredient list that you
would have expected to be in the KFC recipe?
Speaker 4 (14:25):
You know what, I don't think there's anything that comes
right to mind, because once you've once you've got to
a oregano, for example, the essential oils in time, it's
very similar, you know, in rosemary is very similar. I
mean sometimes you're just replicating stuff. There's no it's just
(14:46):
because this stuff was on the shelf and they said, here,
let's try this. Oh that tastes good. That's how all
recipes are made. So it's it's no giant thing. And paprika,
as you know, is really just for all intents and
purposes in that batter a coloring agent.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
You say, as you know, as if I know anything
that makes me feel good, because because I tend to
believe I know that, but I didn't. Why dried mustard.
Why the word dried in front of mustard.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Because if you put if you if you have mustard
flour essentially you know, you grind mustard and it becomes flour,
and so the mustard flower won't sift into or stay stay.
It stays into the dry ingredients. So when you add
the moisture to make the batter, it's it's completely If
(15:47):
it's mixed, well, it's completely mixed into the stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Hold on, Ray, Matthew seventeen twenty, Jesus says, truly, I
tell you, if you have the faith as small as
a mustards, you can say to this mountain, move from
here to there, and it will move, just to say
the word, and I'll throw a plug.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Down to.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
She once was Ray the chef. Yes, sir, I think
you missed something. My friend the Aggie plumber Michael Robinson
and another frequent contributor, Bobby Crumpley, both suggested, and I
(16:35):
think there's something to this that the reason for the
white pepper is because you don't notice the white pepper,
so the black pepper is seen right, So they may
be the same thing. But you can put more pepper
without people noticing how much pepper there is if there's
a white pepper, that's their theory, but that seems to
(16:58):
be of course. I don't know why plumbers need to
be getting in the chef's business. But everybody likes to
offer their opinion on food. Do you notice that?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (17:06):
And you know what, I'm no different than anybody else,
So I would I would agree with that if we
were making holiday sauce, but I don't agree with it
in this because we're making batter, so you're not going
to see most of it anyway. You're just going to
see multi colored specs all the way through it.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
So yeah, you know, I no, I don't.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
I don't think there's any any any real reason to
put it in batter, But I mean that's one man's opinion.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Do you have any thoughts for people frying chicken at
home for things they should consider trying in their chicken
that they may not have tried before?
Speaker 4 (17:48):
You mean, just in a in just a straight skillet
fried chicken type thing.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, yeah, what else are we doing?
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
I come from a little more varied background that, so
I just wanted to clarify before I made any comment.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Are you trying to one up me?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Ray?
Speaker 4 (18:05):
I don't think so, so I would think I could
find this.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
My grandmother lived in a rattle trap, old trailer out
in the country at the end of a road next
to the train station, and I go back and see
it every time I go through Orange. And now those
trailers that that era did not age well. And now
I drive up in there and it's just my my nephews,
(18:33):
see my nephews, my second cousins, once removed. I think
it's kind of that would go still live there and
it should be torn down. It's such bad shape. But
never the mind, never the mind. As we would pull
up and I would get out of the car, the
sensory perception, even if it was just beans, because she
kept the windows open, the beans with fat back in there.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
And and her food was just amazing. And you'd walk
walk into this little rattle trap of a place, just
a shanty shack, you walk in and like if she
would fried chicken, it was just this old factory overwhelmed.
It was incredible. And so that was kind of so
for me, that's the fried chicken that you know, I
(19:19):
always think about, you know, putting that with the red
and white apron to Betty Crocker cookbook apron and putting
that and taking it. My wife would my wife got
her recipe and she and I would go on what
we called a chicnick and we'd go to one of
the city parks. And this was up until we had kids.
Even after we had kids, but they got activities and
you can't do it anymore. And we'd take fried chicken
(19:39):
out and sit in the park, you know, open that
out of the little picnic basket and eat our fried chicken.
Oh man, that's that's good living right there.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Yep. I'm one of the things that we have done
in America is not put a lot of seasoning on
the on the food itself before goes into a batter.
If you'll think about your favorite whatever it might be
fast food chicken places, almost all of them, the batter
(20:10):
is very salty because they skip the step of seasoning
the meat before they before they put this very salty
breading on. And I for the most part leave that
stuff alone because I don't enjoy being salt bombarding. But
that again, it's just that's my palate. But that would
be the thing that I'd recommend is that, Yeah, you
(20:31):
see people dry rub pork chops, dry rub steaks. You
certainly can dry rubbed chicken. You know, it's take a
drumstick for example. You can push the skin down on
the raw one salt, you know, season it up, put
the skin back up, let it sit for an hour,
and you will definitely have a much more flavorful product.
And that doesn't matter if you fry, bake, roast, whatever.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Put it out on the grill. It's all.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Anytime you introduce the seasoning right to the meat, you
always get a great response, even if it's unless you
overdo it.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
YEA, all right, Ray, I've got three minutes left in
this segment, so I want you to give me very
quick answers. They don't have to be perfect, just whatever
comes to mind.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Okay, I want to finish an answer on the mustard first.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Oh yeahsides, when.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
You put dry mustard in something, you only get mustard.
If you put prepared mustard in it. That the biggest
flavors and prepared mustard are turmeric and vinegar, and you
get very little mustard flavor. So think about it about
what yellow mustard tastes like. That's why you don't use
that in recipes. Okay, I got it, all right, so
I want you give me quick punch of answers. Don't
(21:45):
overthink it. Okay, give me one tip for every man
or woman that's going to make dinner at home tonight
that people don't know that will in some small way
improve the quality of the dinner they prepare. Oh my,
I'm to go back to just seasoning the meat, season
(22:06):
the meat without and not worry about what's on the
outside of it.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
All right, tell me one tip about making a better
scrambled egg that anybody can do.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
You know what, sca, don't use the fork when you
scramble your egg.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Actually use a whip.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
You'll get better fluff out of it than that than
any other technique.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Putting milk or.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Anything in it doesn't doesn't really help.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
It just takes it longer to cook.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Give me one tip for baking that anybody can use
that every mother or father, grandmother, grandfather could use today
in baking a cake or anything else.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I'm different.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
I'm going to go in a slightly different thing, but
I would.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
I would when you.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Go to the grocery store, go ahead and buy like
a whole loaf of French bread.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Put that whole thing in the oven.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
And wrote, you know, give it fifteen minutes at three
point fifty and take out and slice that bread. It'll
be not nearly as good as homemade, but it's a
lot better than the stuff we normally eat.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
How do you know when something's seasoned enough or taste?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Well?
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Mine, yeah, mine's to all of ours is to taste.
But what I've always done is if I taste something,
go If I put more salt than that, will.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
It be too salty? Yes?
Speaker 1 (23:37):
I won't put any in.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
It's hard for me to over pepper stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
If you're making pasta and you want it all dente,
as everyone says, what is the trick to knowing the
moment it has achieved that status without putting it to
your teeth?
Speaker 3 (24:00):
You know what? I would tell you that my best
success is.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Again it's it's experienced base. But it's when you when
you put a utensil in the to stir it up.
You you know from the way it bangs against the
fork or the ladle or river using to know if
it's right.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
All right?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Last question, You get one pan, one pan to use?
Which one is it going to be?
Speaker 3 (24:28):
It's gonna be a twelve inch skillet.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Lifeless eyes, black eyes like a doll. The thing about
it is, I think I was in my thirties before
I realized that's a horse. I'm not joking, and somehow
that made it less interesting. I'm a Yellow Mountains Now.
(24:55):
You know the guy that's playing drums on this song
is a listener on a dark Harry Wilkinson from Nashville
guarantees you listen name Wild five, he's gonna call when
he's gonna call Essie on a come. Jim made a
(25:17):
list of five widely held misconceptions. I can't remember what
the misconception was that caused him to write it. I'm
gonna give the five misconceptions, and I'm gonna ask you
to give me a misconception that you think people have.
But not right now because there's some other news I
want to get to. So I just want you to
(25:38):
be I want it to percolate in your head, Okay,
So I'll tell you when, probably in the beginning in
the next hour. Here's Jim's five widely held misconceptions. Number one,
you can't put food in the fridge till it cools off.
That was once true of old ice boxes. What oh,
it hasn't been the case for decades. So the old
(26:01):
adage that you can't put food in the fridge, you
think that's an adage. Nobody really knows what an adage is.
It doesn't matter. Number two, people think the saying is
it's cold as hell h e l L. It's not.
It was actually it's cold as hal h ai l. No,
(26:23):
it's not a witch's tip ramon plea. You see this
is you've been back two days and you already Number three,
you have to wait thirty minutes after eating to swim.
I think how much of my life was lost sitting
looking out. We would stay at these cheap uh you know,
Holiday Inn was high end for us, but we set
these cheap little motels and they all had that little
(26:44):
what we now call a cocktail pool. It was just
enough pool to call it a pool, and they put
it right in front of the front. You'd have the
little port Kochhier and to be right outside of that,
and it was fenced in, and my dad would go
in to check us in and we were already in
the pool. We get a hool, we're gonna hoop because
nobody we knew how to pool. Nobody I didn't know
anybody had a pool. I remember Kyle and Kelly Free
(27:04):
got a pool. They lived in Orange and it was
the biggest deal ever. And then I think Craig Hobbs
got a pool and that was it. I did not
know a person with the pool, and everybody craved a pool,
and then all of a sudden, overnight everybody had a pool.
And some people had a pool that they filled in
and some people, I mean it was crazy. And there
(27:26):
was a period there of just putting in a pool
and it was just a hole in the ground. And
my parents always wanted to have a pool when we
were little because all these boys running around him getting
a pool, we might drown at least you want me
in here and getting on my nerves, you're underfoot. And
so they got a pool after all of us were
gone with grandkids by them, and my dad was so
(27:48):
obsessive about putting chemicals in it that if he couldn't
put the chemicals every two minutes like he liked to,
then there was no point of having a pool. So
they couldn't go anywhere. They couldn't, you know, the pool
became an up safe. So they filled in the pool. Yes,
they filled in the pool. This little pool that they
had one of their entire lives that they didn't get
till they were in their sixties. And now they filled
(28:09):
in the pool because nobody's using the pool, and the
pool costs chemical money, and you know. Anyway, so now
we have a pool company that is a show sponsor,
and they do these elaborate pools, and he will send
me pictures of the pools they do, and it's lifestyles
of the rich and famous kind of stuff. It's you know,
I like to hear water trickling, and I like to
(28:30):
see fire. I like to water and fire elements. And
they'll have these things that have a un a losion.
What do you call that? Perglo? What's the word that
when you've got a rock formation that you can go
under it and it trickles down. There's a term for that. Anyway.
Number four, George Washington did not, in fact have wooden teeth.
(28:52):
I don't know where Gym's getting old. Number five, hair
and fingernails do not continue to grow after a person dies.
What's actually happening is the skin drives and shrinks away
from the base of the hair and nails, which gives
the appearance that the hair and nails have grown? What
grotto Greg who somebody call tell you that you got it? Okay,
(29:14):
all right, we'll good. So anyway we'll get to widely
held misconceptions that you would like to dispel. Our next
story from Fox twenty six, Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey
says there are Harris County employees living in Austin and
Dallas as they quote work from home. He says, quote
(29:36):
you try to get a hold of somebody and you
end up finding out they're working in Austin or they're
working in Dallas. But guess what, folks, they're drawing a
paycheck from.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
You really don't understand how some departments have ninety eight
percent of their stat working from home makes no sense
to me.
Speaker 6 (29:57):
It's taken six long, hard months for pre Sinc three
mission of Tom Ramsey to dislodge the requested numbers from
Harris County's bureaucracy. And after you hear them, you'll understand why,
three full years after the pandemic ended, more than two
thousand Harris County employees are still allowed to work from home.
That's roughly thirty five percent of the entire administrative staff.
(30:19):
Ramsey said, it became clear that many full time Harris
County employees don't live anywhere close to the community they're
supposed to be serving.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
You try to get hold of somebody and you end
up finding out they work in Austin or they work
in Dallas. I said, well, I thought they worked for
Harris County. No, they're really teleworkers, which means they never
come in. In these cases, they don't even live in
the county.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
Panel three entire departments had less than ten percent of
their employees in the workplace full time, and the critical
Office of Management and Budget had zero workers leaving home
for their government nine to five until orders went out
to return on March four.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
See COVID was a reordering of multiple layers of American society.
One of the reasons, and I said this at the time,
and I think people are starting to see it to
be true. One of the reasons there were certain people
who loved the lockdowns is they enjoyed staying home from work.
(31:25):
There was that it became a movement to prevent America
from reopening. It became a movement to keep us from
getting back to normal. And that happened for so long
that a new normal emerged. There are industries and lifestyles
that changed as a result of that nonsense that have
(31:49):
not gone back. I don't know that the restaurant industry
will ever recover, for instance. I think there are a
number of things that were affected that I don't know
that we'll ever recover. It's a changing of society all
for the next well most for the negative. The idea
of the work from home, because you know, we don't
(32:11):
all want to get the virus. And then that's just
anxiety that's just over the top, hypochondriacal fear of you know,
getting something. There's something everywhere, germaphobe, weirdos. The reason to
work from home is they're lazy, absolutely fat assed, lazy
(32:31):
people that don't want to show up to work and
don't want to do any work. And those people end
up in the government. Not every government person is lazy,
but every lazy person works for the government because that's
where they can hide and be lazy. Fat I can't
say that word
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