October 9, 2025 • 28 mins
Today on American Gravy, Chef Andrew and Lauren Gruel are back with another serving of unfiltered talk at the intersection of food, culture, and common sense. This week, they break down why meat prices keep climbing while junk food gets cheaper, how government subsidies created America’s monocrop diet, and what it all means for your health.
They also react to Chelsea Clinton’s new “anti-MAHA” podcast, laugh through viral airplane food videos (yes, someone really baked sourdough at 30,000 feet), and share their weekly “What the Fork” and “86 It” segments, including why Andrew’s over matcha and Lauren’s done with fitness-food fads.
Smart, funny, and real... American Gravy blends food insight with cultural sanity in a way only the Gruels can dish out. Subscribe now for your twice weekly drop of truth, taste, and a side of humor.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
And we're back with another episode of American Gravy. I'm
chef Andrew Gruhl.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
And I'm Lauren Girl.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
And if you listen to the first episode, you know
what the format of this show is. But just so
you know, we're going to be covering food topics, politics, family, freedom,
everything in between. This is really just good old husband
and wife couple. We're both chefs, we like talking about food,
we got kids, we've got restaurants, and here we are.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
That's who we are. We are back.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I guess you could also say I'm a politician. I
am a Huntington Beach City councilman.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
He is, and I'm so proud of him.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
That she said that through gritted teeth. That is not
even funny. The one thing that you learn when you're
on like city council is is that so in the
public comments section of city council meetings, you have to
sit there and take it for three minutes. You are
not allowed to respond to anybody. They could walk up
to the mic and say absolutely anything. Actually, there was
a story that went viral from California last week where
(00:52):
the lady walked up to the mic and just started
taking her clothes off did you see that. Yeah, it
was in response to like it was a I mean,
it was a trans issue. She was like trying to
make a.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Point about where clothes coming off.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I don't know, She's like if you can see naked
people and rest bathrooms or something. I don't understand the
full point. She was even a little loopy, But.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I thought it was prett you didn't even understand.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I think it was emblematic of how crazy these city
council meetings have gotten. We didn't plan on talking about this,
but city council meetings have become, especially in the open
comment section, have become like the old poetry slams, the
open mic nights of the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Oh, for sure.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
You should see some of the people that come to
these HB city council meetings and what they say. So
half of it doesn't even it's not even Huntington Beach related.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
No, it makes absolutely no sense. And actually, I mean
this is a bipartisan thing. I think it's people realize
that they've got three minutes that they can get a
clip and they can go viral, and so they're using
this and you're having like actors and people come in
and do funny things. Alex Stein.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Really it's hilarious.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
He is hilarious. But Alex Stein, you know, he'd been working.
He's a comedian and he'd been working on shows and
all this stuff, and then suddenly COVID hits and he
makes city council meetings his platform and it works. It
is absolutely hilarious. So in any case, if you want
to watch some of our content, you can tune into
Huntington Beach City Council meetings every the first and third
Tuesday of every single month. Just watch the public comments section.
(02:13):
It's hilarious, so funny, and like I said, I learned
things about myself I didn't even know. I love when
I sit up there and they're like, you're bought and
paid for. I'm just waiting for the where.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
To get So, where's the paycheck, Andrew.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Where is the you know? The other day there was
after the city council meeting. The next morning, there was
a knock on the door and I opened the door
and there was a white envelope on the mat, and
I'm like, this is it. I'm finally getting my envelope
full of money. We're laid on the utility bill. That's
what it was, all right, Well, back to food, back
to politics, back to all the good stuff. Well we
were already in politics, I guess. So the story this
(02:46):
week that caught my eye. One of them was this
global food commodity price shift. So the UN's Food and
Agriculture Organization, which is known as the FAO, they reported
that global food prices fell in September. We've been hearing
about us how food prices have gone up and up
and up, but global food prices fell. Well, guess what
they're using to gauge the decrease in those prices? What
(03:10):
can you take a guess? Sugar, wheat, flour, some dairy products.
But guess what did not fall.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Meat and actually had the highest recorded so far is meat.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
So one of the points that I've been making over
the past decade is how there is a this is
not a conspiracy. There is a motivation to decrease our
meat consumption. Now, typically that's under the guise of environmentalism,
because of the theoretical carbon output of cattle farting methane,
the way in which they interact with local environments. I
(03:48):
have always been a huge advocate of regenerative farming. I've
said that farmers and ranches are stewards of the environment,
and that when you're properly cattle farming and you're moving
your herds around and you know, you follow some land,
which is where you let it lay dormant. But by
eating and grazing and walking, they're actually improving the soil
health as opposed to stripping it all away and growing
(04:10):
like one of our monocrops in place of it where
it's treated with a high amount of chemicals and fertilizers
and pesticides primarily glyphosate, etc. Which ruins the soil health.
The soil health is ultimately the health of our environment.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Right, And I don't think people realize that.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So when I saw this report about how all these
other prices are coming down on the junk products which
create the byproducts that are making us sick and leading
to the chronic disease, things like seed oils that come
from the soy and that come from all of the
corn high fructose corn syrup. I mean, we only grow
like four major crops here in the United States, wheat, soybean, corn,
(04:46):
and cheetos and hot cheetos. That's the fourth crop, right,
and that's known as monocropping. So in the nineteen twenties
and the nineteen thirties, coming out of the dust Bowl
and the Great Depression, the US government and the USDA
at the time said, you know what, we need to
give farmers a lot of money. We need to subsidize
them growing some of these staple crops. And they realize
that in order to get the money from the government
and to aggregate our food system, they needed to remove
(05:09):
the biodiversity of crops that they were growing, right, the
hundreds of different varieties of certain types of fruits and vegetables,
and ultimately also raising meat, sheep, cattle, you name it.
And instead, if they wanted to really suck on that
government teat, then we needed to grow one of these
four crops. And you saw this mass consolidation of our
farm system in the United States. And all of those
products are ultimately the by products that end up in
(05:31):
our food system. And that's why we have so much
inflammation in our bodies is because of the omega six
to omega three imbalance, because we eat so many of
these omega six six is because they're byproducts of these
these ingredients. Sorry, Lauren fell asleep there for a second,
I went off on a little bit of a tangent,
but there there is a global initiative in order to
(05:55):
continue to globalize our food supply and the protein that
they want us to eat, they want us to develop
in labs. This is a fact. This is not conspiracy,
and I think that there's some credence to innovation in food.
But when I see reports like this and I hear
about how expensive beef is and we need to eat
(06:16):
less meat because it's not just expensive to our wallets,
but it's expensive to the environment. People, what you need
to realize is the reason why meat is expensive is
because it's not being subsidized. The reason these other products
are cheap is because they're being subsidized, and that's not
taken into consideration in these reports, right.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
I mean there is some sort of like supply and
demand issue though, because I feel like a lot of
people are consuming more beef than they have before.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Bingo, So I see the silver lining in this report.
That's a great point you make, Lauren, she's my little
macroeconomist over here, is that there is less of a
demand for a lot of these bad products, and therefore
you're going to have higher supply because lower supply right
supply demand basic one oh one, macro economics one on
one one. Yes, yes, we maximize our profits at the
(07:03):
cost at which marginal cost equals marginal utility.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
I don't know what this is. What he does to
me trips me up. Just let me say supply and demand.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Okay, Yeah, I like that. It was better. So that
was an interesting food headline, and I think that that's
really it's something that we need to follow closely. Is
this supply and demand curve? The second thing that I
saw this week, which you know, let's just say it
chapped my elbows. I don't want to say it chapped
anything else. We don't want to be grossier. Shoot, Lauren,
(07:33):
give it to me.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Oh yes, Chelsea Clinton's podcast.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Chelsea Clinton has come up with an anti Maha podcast.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
It's literally everything against Maha. Yep, anything that Maha has
been talking about she's against.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
She's against it, and she's actually suggesting this is where
everyone always goes. I love this, like high hyperbole that
when there's a movement, and perhaps it is somewhat related
to bringing back individual liberties like making food choices for
yourself and breaking from the aggregated supply chain of food
that's making us sick. And suddenly it's get this.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Dangerous, so dangerous.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
It's a threat. It's dangerous. You know, it's fascist food.
And that's what she went into. She suggested that RFK
and President Trump want to harm children by pushing these
Maha points.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Oh, and also she suggested that it's dangerous to suggest
that it's better for mothers to raise their kids instead
of a daycare.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yes, that is a big debate recently, is that is
it healthy to be staying at home for women and
raising their kids. And I can't touch on that.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
I can speak on that because I work, but I
also have, you know, the privilege to stay home with
the kids. And I will say when I was working
a lot during I think it was Jack, he's seven now,
I felt so sad that I couldn't be with him
because I'm like, I'm his mom. I should be with him.
So I don't know where she's coming from to suggest that.
(09:04):
And I think, you know, they want to say that
it's you know, it's I don't know, bad for the
woman to stay home because it makes her oppressed. Is
that the word that I have no IDEA fancy word
they're using.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
I'm not using any of those words. Don't cancel me, No.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
I'm just saying I just I feel like you can't
say that because then women start questioning their self and
their worth and are they doing enough for the family unit?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
And I think staying home with your.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Kids is the hardest job you can have because sometimes,
you know, if Andrew's on the road or something and
I'm home alone, I'm like, holy crap, this is so
tough to be help with them, like twenty four secday.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
It's funny, how like, and I've even heard men, you know,
talk about it and they're like, oh, well, you get
to stay home, you know, during the day and just
watch TV whatever. Okay. Sometimes Laura and I will trade
off because Lauren's a trained chef. She runs the restaurants
with me. People don't realize that is that the two
of us, We've opened over forty restaurants over the past
ten years together, arm in arm, hand in hand, hand
(10:02):
in hand. I was about to go into a song.
She usually puts her hand in my back pocket in
the kitchen. It's very unsanitary. But the h R Department like,
sometimes I will be at home with the kids and
they are running me ragged, and I'll just text them.
I'll be like, can I please come to work? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:17):
He's like, can we please swish? Can I go to
the restaurant? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And she's bouncing around, you know, she's running a ten
thousand dollars lunch hour, expoeing and dealing with angry customers
and coordinating everything, flipping bottles, making drinks. It's like an
episode of Cocktail. She's my little female Tom Cruise and
she's like, no, I'm good.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, it is hard. I will say that being a
stay at home mom is the hardest job in the world,
but it really is.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
But who is Chelsea Clinton to tell us that whatever
women want to do, the decisions that we make, do
what you feel is feel feels right for you.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Exactly because I know some moms, like I talk about
this with my girlfriends. Sometimes you're a better mom when
you're able to step away from your kids. And that
might sound weird, but not stepping away from them, meaning
like you have you know, a couple hours to yourself.
You come back, you know, refreshed and recharged and you know,
ready to tackle on the rest of the day.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah. Well, usually what I do is is that I
will lock the kids in the closet for a little while.
That's totally fine, say that. I don't do that. I
do not do that. First of all, we have huge closets.
Actually we don't. We have small closets. We don't have closets.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
We actually don't have closets.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, we don't have closets. We have closets and we
don't have cabinets. Everything is wide open. We have we're
real open family.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
We have one closet.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, I know, and I do sleep in that closet sometimes.
I also I sleep in a drawer. Did you know
that Costco dropped a new cow Zone?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
I did not.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, Costco dropped a new Calzone. I think in what
is it about Costco's food?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I don't know. It's so good, the pizza, everything.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
And we know, once again back to our original point,
we know it's not good for you, Like we're all
going to indulge some times in this food. I don't
think that the junk foods that we become addicted to
are actually taste good. After eating well for years and
understanding what real food tastes like, a lot of that fake,
highly processed food leaves me an acrid and bitter taste
in my palate. But there is something about the ouey, gooey,
(12:06):
meltingly tender bite of a Costco chicken bake that, like,
I can take one or two bites. It really is memorable.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
It really is. It really is. Also, can I just
touch on this. I saw something the other day that
was absolutely crazy.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
This lady I bought a fountain drink, but she was
refilling it over and over again, and then like filling
up a gatorade jug, like you know those big ones
like sports games.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
The like five or ten gas ones.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
So she was refilling her cup over and over and
throwing it into the gatorade. She was probably on her
way to her kids like baseball game or something, And
I'm like, I don't know if that's genius or like.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Well, first of all, why is she bringing soda to
a kid's sports I think she was.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Actually filling up mountain dew.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I'm pretty sure mountain dew. That's good. Oh, I haven't
heard mountain dew for a while. You know, the only
people that drink mountain dew nowadays are crackheads and kitchen cooks.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Why is it?
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I actually heard something about mountain dew the other day.
I think it was like meant or a chaser for whiskey.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Oh see, I thought that mountain dew originally was anti freeze.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I like mountain dew.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
We got we gotta study mountain Yeah, I actually.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Like mountain dew. We'll talk about that on the next episode.
We'll get into the scientific formula of mountain dew and
why crackheads love it. So go check out Costco's new
calzone and give us a little bit of your feedback.
The point about the soda is really interesting because I
think a lot of people think in food service operations
or retail operations that people make their money on soda.
How many times have you heard that, like, well, you
make your money on the soda. That is not true.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
People don't realize sell our what our SODA's like two
point fifty and they're refilling like three times a lot
of the lawd how expensive the bibs are there?
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Bibs now, which just so you guys know what a
bib is, even though I am wearing one right now
because I drool he has nothing on but yeah, I'm
wearing nothing but a bib. We could have probably broke
FCC's coming after us. But the bibs are bagging a box.
So they're those bags that come in the boxes that
then connect to your soda lines and then they mix
in carbonated water. Thus you are fountain. So but one bib,
(14:01):
which is five two point five doallons five gallons five
gallons one bib now costs about one hundred and thirty dollars.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
It's it's up there now. Yeah, it's about I want
to say, like one hundred ten to one thirty, depending
on which one it is.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
So that makes like your basic fountain soda sixteen ounce
fountain soda maybe fifty cents. So if you want to
make money on that, you've got to charge at least
two dollars. We charge two fifty I think for our sodas.
So if you're getting even a half a refill, we're
losing money on it. It's crazy how it's actually not
how you make your money. They're making their money like
Coca Cola's making their money.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Oh, they're definitely making their money.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
The trick. Just so everyone knows this, I'm going to
go off on another tangent line. So taking nap so
the way in which it works in the food service industry.
And why like these sodas and these single you know,
single source food manufacturers are so prevalent and pervasive in
every single restaurant and school system is because of rebates. Right.
(14:55):
So what they do is that they tell you, okay,
how many bocks do you think you're going to buy
a year? Well, probably buy one hundred. They say, okay,
we're going to charge. We're going to give you a
price of a dollar twenty a bib. Their real cost
is a dollar ten, And they say, we're going to
give you a rebate of ten dollars a bib for
everyone you buy, and they project that out over a year,
and then to get you on board, they say, you
(15:16):
sign our contract for two or three years. We're going
to give you a check right now upfront for the rebate.
So they actually pay you to use their products. So
that check would be twenty thousand dollars thirty forty fifty
thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I didn't see that check.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Well, you know, we'll talk about that later. But you
get that check up front, and then you're in. You're
stitched in. They basically they own you. Well, this happened
in the early two thousands in school systems. It was
called pouring rites. And before that they had water and milk,
and that was it, right, chocolate, milk, milk and water,
that's what you got at school. And then suddenly you
started seeing soda being served in all the public school
(15:50):
cafeterias and then ultimately all the potato chips and the
vending machines, and it was just everywhere. And that correlated
with this increase in childhood of obesity and an ultimately
ar chronic disease epidemic. So what they were doing is
they were going into school system and saying, oh, you
need a half a million dollars for that new football field. Well,
if you become an exclusive Coca Cola distributor through the
school systems, we're going to give you that rebate in
(16:14):
form of a check up front for a half a
million dollars. Now you can grow, you can build that
new library, you can build that football field. So they
were touching on people's heart springs and they're like, well,
we know that we might be getting the kids sick,
but we got the football field, we got the library. Yeah,
And that's how they broke into our school systems in
the early two thousands, which led to a chronic element
(16:35):
of diabetes across our entire youth.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
You have these kids who have this easy access to
all these foods that maybe their parents wouldn't otherwise buy them,
you know, and they're eating how many bags?
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You don't know. You don't know what they're doing at school.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
No, she's I. When I was a kid, I actually
got caught inside of a vending machine.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Did somebody put you in there?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
They did. I got beat up a lot as a kid,
but that's how I learned karate. No one messes with
me anymore. So I actually, I will tell you this
is totally off topic, but we created a magic dollar
when I was a kid. So you put a dollar
into the vending machine, and of course the food comes out.
So we put a fishing line on the dollar or
duct tape and you put it in. It reads the
dollar and you rip it out and it still gives
(17:13):
you the food plus the change. I was. I'm also
a Catholic altar boy, so I was lying. I actually
had to. Every week I would make confession with the priest.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
About what did the priest say?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
He was like, you need to give that money back somehow,
so I did community service, but then the next week
I got my big I don't do that anymore. But
that's just a little story about my past and my history. Lauren,
what the fork?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
What the fork? Andrew?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
What the fork? So this week's what the fork? Food story? WTF?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
This is interesting?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
So have you seen those viral videos of people doing
weird things with food on airplanes?
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Like have you seen that in the bathroom or no?
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Like at third Trade table, this one lady was making
sour dough bread.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I did see this, Okay, like what I saw somebody
making pasta salads. They'll bring in green made me.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Brought their own pour over coffee, little set up and
did pour over coffee thirty thousand feet in the air.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
First of all, just go get on the plane and
get to your destination. Okay, nobody needs to be involved
in your culinary experiment on an airplane.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
But like, I don't get it, Like I would never think,
Like everyone who follows me knows how much I love sourdough,
I would never think to bring all of my ingredients
and start making a loaf on the airplane on a
dirty tray with who people coffin behind me, farting behind me.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
No thanks people.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
First of all, it makes me angry enough when somebody
gets some redolent food on the plane to begin with,
you know, like a burrito or like Mexican tacos, which
I absolutely love. But you got the onions, you got
the sauces, and it's wafting through the air with that
pungent garlic smell. It just makes me nauseous.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Like I My biggest pet peeve on planes is when
people buy food before and it's still like steaming hot,
and then you sit next to them or behind them
and it smells so bad.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
There's no The other.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Day when I was flying back from New York, I
didn't tell you this. Somebody got Indian food. And I
hate curry like you know that. I hate curry, curry anywhere,
like curry on my food, curry in a diaper, you
name it, don't work, Curry in my hair, curry up.
And they the whole plane stunk so bad that later
(19:25):
in the flight, I think it was either the lady
sitting next to me, or was the kid in front
of me just starts to ripping them left and right,
Just those hot rank farts that go on the airplane
and just start moving around like Casper, the friendly ghost
that was actually a welcome smell against the curry.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I believe it. I believe it.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
You know. They also say that eating on a plane
is so bad for your stomach because the pressure.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Who told you this, he goes, They say.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Well, you're a they, You're a they. You're that important
that I consider you more than one person. I'm not
touching on your boxy status.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Don't let me in with that.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
So I'm gonna move on quickly. Laura, can you sharpen
our skills?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I don't know. I don't have any sharpen I don't
have any skills right now. You're better at this.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I'm better at this, holl You just are all right.
You know what I've talked about this before. This is
gonna be how we're gonna sharpen your cooking skills. So
everybody asks me about when do I salt my meat?
But I'm bumped che So there's this thing called the
dry brine, and it's a little play on words. It's
really more osmosis. It is where you salt meat, Okay,
(20:30):
any meat, so anything over like an inch thick. You
saw your meat ahead of time and you let it
sit for at least two hours. The salt actually breaks
the meat down, It goes into the meat, it comes
back out of the meat, it goes back into the meat.
As it's doing so, it's denaturing the proteins, it's tenderizing it,
and it's also bringing moisture back into the meat. That's
what's fascinating about this. So just like a wet brine
(20:52):
where you put a turkey in a gallon of water, salt, sugar,
et cetera, you are actually allowing the meat to bring
more moisture, to retain more moisture, and it's called the
dry brine. Now, if you're doing it for roasts we're
getting into holiday cooking season in the next couple months,
you can do it for up to forty eight hours.
But you've got to do this with roast. So you
(21:13):
do a nice a liberal salt all over the outside
of a roast, put it in your refrigerator uncovered. And
that's why this is important because when it's uncovered in
a refrigerator, the X tier of your meat actually dries
out a little bit, which creates a pellicle. So when
you do roast it, you get a better browning on
the meat itself, and the salt just keeps going in
and out of the meat, and once again, like I said,
(21:33):
it's breaking down the proteins as it's going in and
out of the meat. So that's my tip this week
to sharpen your skills is to pre salt your meat
steaks up to one plus inch thick. You only need
to do it for a couple hours, and the roast
you can do it for twenty four to forty eight hours.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I love your tip.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Thank I'm not even going there. I'm not even going there, Lauren,
let's eighty six.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
That joke, Hey, I like that joke. Okay, what is your.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Eighty six, which is our segment every week where we
talk about things that need to end, food trends that
need to go. My eighty six at this week is
I'm gonna pass you the mic.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Oh, you're gonna pass me the mic?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Okay, just everything everything, Like no, okay, this is my
biggest I gripe.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
There are so many contradicting food trends, especially in the
fitness industry or like lifestyle diet whatever, like eat like
eat all this protein, noe. You don't need all this protein. Okay,
do this type of diet. No, that's actually bad for you.
Like there's so all of these things are driving me
absolutely up a wall because as women, you like, I mean,
I'm a woman, I know, I go on Instagram and
(22:37):
I try to see like, Okay, I really like that
girl's body, like what is she doing?
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Whoa whoa whoa whoa wah wait what that not?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Like that like an inspiration type, right, and then you
like look and you try to, you know, follow her diet,
but it's like too ridiculous. So then you find somebody
who has like a you know, you like how they look,
and then they're totally opposite.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
And all these trends are driving me up there.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
So fitness trends, So social media trends is what social.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Media fitness food trends drive me insane.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
All Right, you want to know what my eighty six
it is? Macha Why it's just everywhere like Macha lattes,
Macha smoothies, Macha baked goods, ice cream, savory recipes. You
can't even taste it. It's tea, Like you can't taste it.
How much is a macha? What are they called that
you get at Starbucks from time to time.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I don't ever get those.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I did that one time, horrible Lauren returned something else.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I'd never return anything, especially being in the restaurant industry.
I'll just like suck it up and deal with it.
I returned it.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
So it was one of the most disgusting things I've
ever tasted. She had me tasted and it tasted like
it was.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Like clumps of powder. They didn't even mix it. And
then he said, that's how they do it.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
And I was like, what, our son was playing in
a dirt outside the other day and he took like
a cup from the kitchen and then he put dirt
and air and then he poured water in there, and
he was like, Dad, taste my chocolate milk. You know,
he was just playing being a kid. But of course
I'm an idiot. So I tasted it, and it was
dirt that tasted better than the macha.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Yeah. I don't know. I'm not a big macha person.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I think it's the colery. I like it because of
the color.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
And it does create pretty layers.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
It does create pretty layers. You are right, I have emotionally,
I have a layer of macha inside my body. It's
soft and sweet and somewhat green. That was incredibly weird.
So eighty six macha. That's my that's my point for
this week. And keep an eye out for those food trends,
as Lauren mentioned, and make sure that they don't influence
(24:25):
and inform your life and every single thing that you do.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Do what feels good for you at the end of
the day.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Do what you do in living color. Wow, I just
dated myself. Wow, Yeah, Lauren want do you know that
Lauren wanted to start a career, wants to be a singer.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Okay, we don't need to go there.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
So we went to karaoke one night. This is absolutely hilarious.
This is a funny story. We go to karaoke and
let's just say maybe that night we were overserved and
I'm sitting there in the karaoke bar and it's Lauren's
turn to sing, and I think you were doing. What's
that song?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It's from the mische Star Was Born?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yes, Star was Born is Born. I don't name again
on it. Lady Goga, Lady Goga, Lady Goga. And so
Lauren starts singing and I don't know whether it was
loud and narrow, what was going on. So I'm sitting
there watching, I'm like, oh my god, I've been married
to her for over ten years and I didn't know
that she had an award winning voice, something like I
don't know whether there was something broken in my brain.
And I remember I was like, you did such an
(25:22):
amazing job. And I had recorded it and I go home.
She falls asleep, and I'm still sitting up. I'm like,
we're gonna be millionaires. We're gonna get some This is
gonna be a great story. The recording studio is gonna
find out my wife is just this amazing singer. Will
go on whatever the voice or one of those shows.
So I wake her up the next morning. This is
a true story. I wake her up the next morning.
I'm like, why didn't you tell me? She's like, what
(25:42):
are you talking about? And I pull up the video
and I'm like, listen to your voice and I press
play and it's like show show Okay.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
First of all, it wasn't that bad, but you definitely
were overserved.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
And I don't know what you heard, but it was
it wasn't me.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Some people have it, some people don't.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And I don't. I wish I did too.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Our son's got a great voice. I think we need to.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
All of our kids have relatively good voices. But I
don't know. I really wanted to be a singer, but
that's just not going to be for me.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
So I want to be a professional skateboarder.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
And there's a guy he's starting to follow, this guy
who's like learning to professional skateboarder.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
How old, forty five years old or whatever? In any case,
I tried the other day my shoulder ripped out of
the socket, So I'm still moving on that one. All right. Well,
on that note, what are we going to have for lunch?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
I love sandwiches. Lauren loves sandwiches, but we still yet
to find the perfect.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
If you can, if you know of any good sandwich
spots in the Orange County, I'll even drive to la
for a good sandwich.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Well, the Vietnamese owned the sandwich scene here in the
southern California region. I just want a good sandwich on
the East coast. I'm from Jersey. It was it was
really it was the Italians right like.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
The Delly's Holy Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Those like perfect delies. If anybody knows about the Jersey
Joe the Jersey sloppy Joe. But you know, and I'm
not talking about like a Vietnamese bond me, which for
those of you who don't know, it's just like a
soft and warm, crusty bag at pack full of braised
beef and Vietnamese meats that have been braised and stewed
and then topped with carrots and cilantro die Conradish, a
(27:16):
little bit of vinegar on there, and just some raw
slices of jalapeno peppers and then maybe a slash of
mayo or garlic aoli on the bun. And if the
bread is hot and you bite into it and the
meltingly tender short ribs drip into your mouth and drip
down your arms, out is a deep, perfect bond me.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
This is how he flirts with me.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
By the way, I'm staring into her eyes right now,
and all she's doing is rolling them back at me.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Why do you act like I'm such a jerk.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I don't think you're a jerk. I think that you're
sick of my jokes.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I'm not. I love him, she is.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
She's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Okay, Well, on that note, On that note, make sure
to follow us, guys, you can follow me on X
at Lauren Gruel and Instagram at Lauren Underscore Gruel.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
And you can follow me at Chef Gruel on X
me on Instagram at Andrew Gruhle, and give us all
of your suggestions for what you want to see eighty
six and some WTF stories.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
And a good sandwich spot.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, we need a good sandwich spot. Let's go have
a sandwich.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Let's go. Bye, guys,
And we're back with another episode of American Gravy. I'm
chef Andrew Gruhl.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
And I'm Lauren Girl.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
And if you listen to the first episode, you know
what the format of this show is. But just so
you know, we're going to be covering food topics, politics, family, freedom,
everything in between. This is really just good old husband
and wife couple. We're both chefs, we like talking about food,
we got kids, we've got restaurants, and here we are.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
That's who we are. We are back.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I guess you could also say I'm a politician. I
am a Huntington Beach City councilman.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
He is, and I'm so proud of him.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
That she said that through gritted teeth. That is not
even funny. The one thing that you learn when you're
on like city council is is that so in the
public comments section of city council meetings, you have to
sit there and take it for three minutes. You are
not allowed to respond to anybody. They could walk up
to the mic and say absolutely anything. Actually, there was
a story that went viral from California last week where
(00:52):
the lady walked up to the mic and just started
taking her clothes off did you see that. Yeah, it
was in response to like it was a I mean,
it was a trans issue. She was like trying to
make a.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Point about where clothes coming off.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I don't know, She's like if you can see naked
people and rest bathrooms or something. I don't understand the
full point. She was even a little loopy, But.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I thought it was prett you didn't even understand.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I think it was emblematic of how crazy these city
council meetings have gotten. We didn't plan on talking about this,
but city council meetings have become, especially in the open
comment section, have become like the old poetry slams, the
open mic nights of the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Oh, for sure.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
You should see some of the people that come to
these HB city council meetings and what they say. So
half of it doesn't even it's not even Huntington Beach related.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
No, it makes absolutely no sense. And actually, I mean
this is a bipartisan thing. I think it's people realize
that they've got three minutes that they can get a
clip and they can go viral, and so they're using
this and you're having like actors and people come in
and do funny things. Alex Stein.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Really it's hilarious.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
He is hilarious. But Alex Stein, you know, he'd been working.
He's a comedian and he'd been working on shows and
all this stuff, and then suddenly COVID hits and he
makes city council meetings his platform and it works. It
is absolutely hilarious. So in any case, if you want
to watch some of our content, you can tune into
Huntington Beach City Council meetings every the first and third
Tuesday of every single month. Just watch the public comments section.
(02:13):
It's hilarious, so funny, and like I said, I learned
things about myself I didn't even know. I love when
I sit up there and they're like, you're bought and
paid for. I'm just waiting for the where.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
To get So, where's the paycheck, Andrew.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Where is the you know? The other day there was
after the city council meeting. The next morning, there was
a knock on the door and I opened the door
and there was a white envelope on the mat, and
I'm like, this is it. I'm finally getting my envelope
full of money. We're laid on the utility bill. That's
what it was, all right, Well, back to food, back
to politics, back to all the good stuff. Well we
were already in politics, I guess. So the story this
(02:46):
week that caught my eye. One of them was this
global food commodity price shift. So the UN's Food and
Agriculture Organization, which is known as the FAO, they reported
that global food prices fell in September. We've been hearing
about us how food prices have gone up and up
and up, but global food prices fell. Well, guess what
they're using to gauge the decrease in those prices? What
(03:10):
can you take a guess? Sugar, wheat, flour, some dairy products.
But guess what did not fall.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Meat and actually had the highest recorded so far is meat.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
So one of the points that I've been making over
the past decade is how there is a this is
not a conspiracy. There is a motivation to decrease our
meat consumption. Now, typically that's under the guise of environmentalism,
because of the theoretical carbon output of cattle farting methane,
the way in which they interact with local environments. I
(03:48):
have always been a huge advocate of regenerative farming. I've
said that farmers and ranches are stewards of the environment,
and that when you're properly cattle farming and you're moving
your herds around and you know, you follow some land,
which is where you let it lay dormant. But by
eating and grazing and walking, they're actually improving the soil
health as opposed to stripping it all away and growing
(04:10):
like one of our monocrops in place of it where
it's treated with a high amount of chemicals and fertilizers
and pesticides primarily glyphosate, etc. Which ruins the soil health.
The soil health is ultimately the health of our environment.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Right, And I don't think people realize that.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So when I saw this report about how all these
other prices are coming down on the junk products which
create the byproducts that are making us sick and leading
to the chronic disease, things like seed oils that come
from the soy and that come from all of the
corn high fructose corn syrup. I mean, we only grow
like four major crops here in the United States, wheat, soybean, corn,
(04:46):
and cheetos and hot cheetos. That's the fourth crop, right,
and that's known as monocropping. So in the nineteen twenties
and the nineteen thirties, coming out of the dust Bowl
and the Great Depression, the US government and the USDA
at the time said, you know what, we need to
give farmers a lot of money. We need to subsidize
them growing some of these staple crops. And they realize
that in order to get the money from the government
and to aggregate our food system, they needed to remove
(05:09):
the biodiversity of crops that they were growing, right, the
hundreds of different varieties of certain types of fruits and vegetables,
and ultimately also raising meat, sheep, cattle, you name it.
And instead, if they wanted to really suck on that
government teat, then we needed to grow one of these
four crops. And you saw this mass consolidation of our
farm system in the United States. And all of those
products are ultimately the by products that end up in
(05:31):
our food system. And that's why we have so much
inflammation in our bodies is because of the omega six
to omega three imbalance, because we eat so many of
these omega six six is because they're byproducts of these
these ingredients. Sorry, Lauren fell asleep there for a second,
I went off on a little bit of a tangent,
but there there is a global initiative in order to
(05:55):
continue to globalize our food supply and the protein that
they want us to eat, they want us to develop
in labs. This is a fact. This is not conspiracy,
and I think that there's some credence to innovation in food.
But when I see reports like this and I hear
about how expensive beef is and we need to eat
(06:16):
less meat because it's not just expensive to our wallets,
but it's expensive to the environment. People, what you need
to realize is the reason why meat is expensive is
because it's not being subsidized. The reason these other products
are cheap is because they're being subsidized, and that's not
taken into consideration in these reports, right.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
I mean there is some sort of like supply and
demand issue though, because I feel like a lot of
people are consuming more beef than they have before.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Bingo, So I see the silver lining in this report.
That's a great point you make, Lauren, she's my little
macroeconomist over here, is that there is less of a
demand for a lot of these bad products, and therefore
you're going to have higher supply because lower supply right
supply demand basic one oh one, macro economics one on
one one. Yes, yes, we maximize our profits at the
(07:03):
cost at which marginal cost equals marginal utility.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
I don't know what this is. What he does to
me trips me up. Just let me say supply and demand.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Okay, Yeah, I like that. It was better. So that
was an interesting food headline, and I think that that's
really it's something that we need to follow closely. Is
this supply and demand curve? The second thing that I
saw this week, which you know, let's just say it
chapped my elbows. I don't want to say it chapped
anything else. We don't want to be grossier. Shoot, Lauren,
(07:33):
give it to me.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Oh yes, Chelsea Clinton's podcast.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Chelsea Clinton has come up with an anti Maha podcast.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
It's literally everything against Maha. Yep, anything that Maha has
been talking about she's against.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
She's against it, and she's actually suggesting this is where
everyone always goes. I love this, like high hyperbole that
when there's a movement, and perhaps it is somewhat related
to bringing back individual liberties like making food choices for
yourself and breaking from the aggregated supply chain of food
that's making us sick. And suddenly it's get this.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Dangerous, so dangerous.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
It's a threat. It's dangerous. You know, it's fascist food.
And that's what she went into. She suggested that RFK
and President Trump want to harm children by pushing these
Maha points.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Oh, and also she suggested that it's dangerous to suggest
that it's better for mothers to raise their kids instead
of a daycare.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yes, that is a big debate recently, is that is
it healthy to be staying at home for women and
raising their kids. And I can't touch on that.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
I can speak on that because I work, but I
also have, you know, the privilege to stay home with
the kids. And I will say when I was working
a lot during I think it was Jack, he's seven now,
I felt so sad that I couldn't be with him
because I'm like, I'm his mom. I should be with him.
So I don't know where she's coming from to suggest that.
(09:04):
And I think, you know, they want to say that
it's you know, it's I don't know, bad for the
woman to stay home because it makes her oppressed. Is
that the word that I have no IDEA fancy word
they're using.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
I'm not using any of those words. Don't cancel me, No.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
I'm just saying I just I feel like you can't
say that because then women start questioning their self and
their worth and are they doing enough for the family unit?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
And I think staying home with your.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Kids is the hardest job you can have because sometimes,
you know, if Andrew's on the road or something and
I'm home alone, I'm like, holy crap, this is so
tough to be help with them, like twenty four secday.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
It's funny, how like, and I've even heard men, you know,
talk about it and they're like, oh, well, you get
to stay home, you know, during the day and just
watch TV whatever. Okay. Sometimes Laura and I will trade
off because Lauren's a trained chef. She runs the restaurants
with me. People don't realize that is that the two
of us, We've opened over forty restaurants over the past
ten years together, arm in arm, hand in hand, hand
(10:02):
in hand. I was about to go into a song.
She usually puts her hand in my back pocket in
the kitchen. It's very unsanitary. But the h R Department like,
sometimes I will be at home with the kids and
they are running me ragged, and I'll just text them.
I'll be like, can I please come to work? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:17):
He's like, can we please swish? Can I go to
the restaurant? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And she's bouncing around, you know, she's running a ten
thousand dollars lunch hour, expoeing and dealing with angry customers
and coordinating everything, flipping bottles, making drinks. It's like an
episode of Cocktail. She's my little female Tom Cruise and
she's like, no, I'm good.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, it is hard. I will say that being a
stay at home mom is the hardest job in the world,
but it really is.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
But who is Chelsea Clinton to tell us that whatever
women want to do, the decisions that we make, do
what you feel is feel feels right for you.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Exactly because I know some moms, like I talk about
this with my girlfriends. Sometimes you're a better mom when
you're able to step away from your kids. And that
might sound weird, but not stepping away from them, meaning
like you have you know, a couple hours to yourself.
You come back, you know, refreshed and recharged and you know,
ready to tackle on the rest of the day.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah. Well, usually what I do is is that I
will lock the kids in the closet for a little while.
That's totally fine, say that. I don't do that. I
do not do that. First of all, we have huge closets.
Actually we don't. We have small closets. We don't have closets.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
We actually don't have closets.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, we don't have closets. We have closets and we
don't have cabinets. Everything is wide open. We have we're
real open family.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
We have one closet.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, I know, and I do sleep in that closet sometimes.
I also I sleep in a drawer. Did you know
that Costco dropped a new cow Zone?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
I did not.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, Costco dropped a new Calzone. I think in what
is it about Costco's food?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I don't know. It's so good, the pizza, everything.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
And we know, once again back to our original point,
we know it's not good for you, Like we're all
going to indulge some times in this food. I don't
think that the junk foods that we become addicted to
are actually taste good. After eating well for years and
understanding what real food tastes like, a lot of that fake,
highly processed food leaves me an acrid and bitter taste
in my palate. But there is something about the ouey, gooey,
(12:06):
meltingly tender bite of a Costco chicken bake that, like,
I can take one or two bites. It really is memorable.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
It really is. It really is. Also, can I just
touch on this. I saw something the other day that
was absolutely crazy.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
This lady I bought a fountain drink, but she was
refilling it over and over again, and then like filling
up a gatorade jug, like you know those big ones
like sports games.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
The like five or ten gas ones.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
So she was refilling her cup over and over and
throwing it into the gatorade. She was probably on her
way to her kids like baseball game or something, And
I'm like, I don't know if that's genius or like.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Well, first of all, why is she bringing soda to
a kid's sports I think she was.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Actually filling up mountain dew.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I'm pretty sure mountain dew. That's good. Oh, I haven't
heard mountain dew for a while. You know, the only
people that drink mountain dew nowadays are crackheads and kitchen cooks.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Why is it?
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I actually heard something about mountain dew the other day.
I think it was like meant or a chaser for whiskey.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Oh see, I thought that mountain dew originally was anti freeze.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I like mountain dew.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
We got we gotta study mountain Yeah, I actually.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Like mountain dew. We'll talk about that on the next episode.
We'll get into the scientific formula of mountain dew and
why crackheads love it. So go check out Costco's new
calzone and give us a little bit of your feedback.
The point about the soda is really interesting because I
think a lot of people think in food service operations
or retail operations that people make their money on soda.
How many times have you heard that, like, well, you
make your money on the soda. That is not true.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
People don't realize sell our what our SODA's like two
point fifty and they're refilling like three times a lot
of the lawd how expensive the bibs are there?
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Bibs now, which just so you guys know what a
bib is, even though I am wearing one right now
because I drool he has nothing on but yeah, I'm
wearing nothing but a bib. We could have probably broke
FCC's coming after us. But the bibs are bagging a box.
So they're those bags that come in the boxes that
then connect to your soda lines and then they mix
in carbonated water. Thus you are fountain. So but one bib,
(14:01):
which is five two point five doallons five gallons five
gallons one bib now costs about one hundred and thirty dollars.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
It's it's up there now. Yeah, it's about I want
to say, like one hundred ten to one thirty, depending
on which one it is.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
So that makes like your basic fountain soda sixteen ounce
fountain soda maybe fifty cents. So if you want to
make money on that, you've got to charge at least
two dollars. We charge two fifty I think for our sodas.
So if you're getting even a half a refill, we're
losing money on it. It's crazy how it's actually not
how you make your money. They're making their money like
Coca Cola's making their money.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Oh, they're definitely making their money.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
The trick. Just so everyone knows this, I'm going to
go off on another tangent line. So taking nap so
the way in which it works in the food service industry.
And why like these sodas and these single you know,
single source food manufacturers are so prevalent and pervasive in
every single restaurant and school system is because of rebates. Right.
(14:55):
So what they do is that they tell you, okay,
how many bocks do you think you're going to buy
a year? Well, probably buy one hundred. They say, okay,
we're going to charge. We're going to give you a
price of a dollar twenty a bib. Their real cost
is a dollar ten, And they say, we're going to
give you a rebate of ten dollars a bib for
everyone you buy, and they project that out over a year,
and then to get you on board, they say, you
(15:16):
sign our contract for two or three years. We're going
to give you a check right now upfront for the rebate.
So they actually pay you to use their products. So
that check would be twenty thousand dollars thirty forty fifty
thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I didn't see that check.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Well, you know, we'll talk about that later. But you
get that check up front, and then you're in. You're
stitched in. They basically they own you. Well, this happened
in the early two thousands in school systems. It was
called pouring rites. And before that they had water and milk,
and that was it, right, chocolate, milk, milk and water,
that's what you got at school. And then suddenly you
started seeing soda being served in all the public school
(15:50):
cafeterias and then ultimately all the potato chips and the
vending machines, and it was just everywhere. And that correlated
with this increase in childhood of obesity and an ultimately
ar chronic disease epidemic. So what they were doing is
they were going into school system and saying, oh, you
need a half a million dollars for that new football field. Well,
if you become an exclusive Coca Cola distributor through the
school systems, we're going to give you that rebate in
(16:14):
form of a check up front for a half a
million dollars. Now you can grow, you can build that
new library, you can build that football field. So they
were touching on people's heart springs and they're like, well,
we know that we might be getting the kids sick,
but we got the football field, we got the library. Yeah,
And that's how they broke into our school systems in
the early two thousands, which led to a chronic element
(16:35):
of diabetes across our entire youth.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
You have these kids who have this easy access to
all these foods that maybe their parents wouldn't otherwise buy them,
you know, and they're eating how many bags?
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You don't know. You don't know what they're doing at school.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
No, she's I. When I was a kid, I actually
got caught inside of a vending machine.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Did somebody put you in there?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
They did. I got beat up a lot as a kid,
but that's how I learned karate. No one messes with
me anymore. So I actually, I will tell you this
is totally off topic, but we created a magic dollar
when I was a kid. So you put a dollar
into the vending machine, and of course the food comes out.
So we put a fishing line on the dollar or
duct tape and you put it in. It reads the
dollar and you rip it out and it still gives
(17:13):
you the food plus the change. I was. I'm also
a Catholic altar boy, so I was lying. I actually
had to. Every week I would make confession with the priest.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
About what did the priest say?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
He was like, you need to give that money back somehow,
so I did community service, but then the next week
I got my big I don't do that anymore. But
that's just a little story about my past and my history. Lauren,
what the fork?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
What the fork? Andrew?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
What the fork? So this week's what the fork? Food story? WTF?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
This is interesting?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
So have you seen those viral videos of people doing
weird things with food on airplanes?
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Like have you seen that in the bathroom or no?
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Like at third Trade table, this one lady was making
sour dough bread.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I did see this, Okay, like what I saw somebody
making pasta salads. They'll bring in green made me.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Brought their own pour over coffee, little set up and
did pour over coffee thirty thousand feet in the air.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
First of all, just go get on the plane and
get to your destination. Okay, nobody needs to be involved
in your culinary experiment on an airplane.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
But like, I don't get it, Like I would never think,
Like everyone who follows me knows how much I love sourdough,
I would never think to bring all of my ingredients
and start making a loaf on the airplane on a
dirty tray with who people coffin behind me, farting behind me.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
No thanks people.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
First of all, it makes me angry enough when somebody
gets some redolent food on the plane to begin with,
you know, like a burrito or like Mexican tacos, which
I absolutely love. But you got the onions, you got
the sauces, and it's wafting through the air with that
pungent garlic smell. It just makes me nauseous.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Like I My biggest pet peeve on planes is when
people buy food before and it's still like steaming hot,
and then you sit next to them or behind them
and it smells so bad.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
There's no The other.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Day when I was flying back from New York, I
didn't tell you this. Somebody got Indian food. And I
hate curry like you know that. I hate curry, curry anywhere,
like curry on my food, curry in a diaper, you
name it, don't work, Curry in my hair, curry up.
And they the whole plane stunk so bad that later
(19:25):
in the flight, I think it was either the lady
sitting next to me, or was the kid in front
of me just starts to ripping them left and right,
Just those hot rank farts that go on the airplane
and just start moving around like Casper, the friendly ghost
that was actually a welcome smell against the curry.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I believe it. I believe it.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
You know. They also say that eating on a plane
is so bad for your stomach because the pressure.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Who told you this, he goes, They say.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Well, you're a they, You're a they. You're that important
that I consider you more than one person. I'm not
touching on your boxy status.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Don't let me in with that.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
So I'm gonna move on quickly. Laura, can you sharpen
our skills?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I don't know. I don't have any sharpen I don't
have any skills right now. You're better at this.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I'm better at this, holl You just are all right.
You know what I've talked about this before. This is
gonna be how we're gonna sharpen your cooking skills. So
everybody asks me about when do I salt my meat?
But I'm bumped che So there's this thing called the
dry brine, and it's a little play on words. It's
really more osmosis. It is where you salt meat, Okay,
(20:30):
any meat, so anything over like an inch thick. You
saw your meat ahead of time and you let it
sit for at least two hours. The salt actually breaks
the meat down, It goes into the meat, it comes
back out of the meat, it goes back into the meat.
As it's doing so, it's denaturing the proteins, it's tenderizing it,
and it's also bringing moisture back into the meat. That's
what's fascinating about this. So just like a wet brine
(20:52):
where you put a turkey in a gallon of water, salt, sugar,
et cetera, you are actually allowing the meat to bring
more moisture, to retain more moisture, and it's called the
dry brine. Now, if you're doing it for roasts we're
getting into holiday cooking season in the next couple months,
you can do it for up to forty eight hours.
But you've got to do this with roast. So you
(21:13):
do a nice a liberal salt all over the outside
of a roast, put it in your refrigerator uncovered. And
that's why this is important because when it's uncovered in
a refrigerator, the X tier of your meat actually dries
out a little bit, which creates a pellicle. So when
you do roast it, you get a better browning on
the meat itself, and the salt just keeps going in
and out of the meat, and once again, like I said,
(21:33):
it's breaking down the proteins as it's going in and
out of the meat. So that's my tip this week
to sharpen your skills is to pre salt your meat
steaks up to one plus inch thick. You only need
to do it for a couple hours, and the roast
you can do it for twenty four to forty eight hours.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I love your tip.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Thank I'm not even going there. I'm not even going there, Lauren,
let's eighty six.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
That joke, Hey, I like that joke. Okay, what is your.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Eighty six, which is our segment every week where we
talk about things that need to end, food trends that
need to go. My eighty six at this week is
I'm gonna pass you the mic.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Oh, you're gonna pass me the mic?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Okay, just everything everything, Like no, okay, this is my
biggest I gripe.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
There are so many contradicting food trends, especially in the
fitness industry or like lifestyle diet whatever, like eat like
eat all this protein, noe. You don't need all this protein. Okay,
do this type of diet. No, that's actually bad for you.
Like there's so all of these things are driving me
absolutely up a wall because as women, you like, I mean,
I'm a woman, I know, I go on Instagram and
(22:37):
I try to see like, Okay, I really like that
girl's body, like what is she doing?
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Whoa whoa whoa whoa wah wait what that not?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Like that like an inspiration type, right, and then you
like look and you try to, you know, follow her diet,
but it's like too ridiculous. So then you find somebody
who has like a you know, you like how they look,
and then they're totally opposite.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
And all these trends are driving me up there.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
So fitness trends, So social media trends is what social.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Media fitness food trends drive me insane.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
All Right, you want to know what my eighty six
it is? Macha Why it's just everywhere like Macha lattes,
Macha smoothies, Macha baked goods, ice cream, savory recipes. You
can't even taste it. It's tea, Like you can't taste it.
How much is a macha? What are they called that
you get at Starbucks from time to time.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I don't ever get those.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I did that one time, horrible Lauren returned something else.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I'd never return anything, especially being in the restaurant industry.
I'll just like suck it up and deal with it.
I returned it.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
So it was one of the most disgusting things I've
ever tasted. She had me tasted and it tasted like
it was.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Like clumps of powder. They didn't even mix it. And
then he said, that's how they do it.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
And I was like, what, our son was playing in
a dirt outside the other day and he took like
a cup from the kitchen and then he put dirt
and air and then he poured water in there, and
he was like, Dad, taste my chocolate milk. You know,
he was just playing being a kid. But of course
I'm an idiot. So I tasted it, and it was
dirt that tasted better than the macha.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Yeah. I don't know. I'm not a big macha person.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I think it's the colery. I like it because of
the color.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
And it does create pretty layers.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
It does create pretty layers. You are right, I have emotionally,
I have a layer of macha inside my body. It's
soft and sweet and somewhat green. That was incredibly weird.
So eighty six macha. That's my that's my point for
this week. And keep an eye out for those food trends,
as Lauren mentioned, and make sure that they don't influence
(24:25):
and inform your life and every single thing that you do.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Do what feels good for you at the end of
the day.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Do what you do in living color. Wow, I just
dated myself. Wow, Yeah, Lauren want do you know that
Lauren wanted to start a career, wants to be a singer.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Okay, we don't need to go there.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
So we went to karaoke one night. This is absolutely hilarious.
This is a funny story. We go to karaoke and
let's just say maybe that night we were overserved and
I'm sitting there in the karaoke bar and it's Lauren's
turn to sing, and I think you were doing. What's
that song?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It's from the mische Star Was Born?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yes, Star was Born is Born. I don't name again
on it. Lady Goga, Lady Goga, Lady Goga. And so
Lauren starts singing and I don't know whether it was
loud and narrow, what was going on. So I'm sitting
there watching, I'm like, oh my god, I've been married
to her for over ten years and I didn't know
that she had an award winning voice, something like I
don't know whether there was something broken in my brain.
And I remember I was like, you did such an
(25:22):
amazing job. And I had recorded it and I go home.
She falls asleep, and I'm still sitting up. I'm like,
we're gonna be millionaires. We're gonna get some This is
gonna be a great story. The recording studio is gonna
find out my wife is just this amazing singer. Will
go on whatever the voice or one of those shows.
So I wake her up the next morning. This is
a true story. I wake her up the next morning.
I'm like, why didn't you tell me? She's like, what
(25:42):
are you talking about? And I pull up the video
and I'm like, listen to your voice and I press
play and it's like show show Okay.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
First of all, it wasn't that bad, but you definitely
were overserved.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
And I don't know what you heard, but it was
it wasn't me.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Some people have it, some people don't.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And I don't. I wish I did too.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Our son's got a great voice. I think we need to.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
All of our kids have relatively good voices. But I
don't know. I really wanted to be a singer, but
that's just not going to be for me.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
So I want to be a professional skateboarder.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
And there's a guy he's starting to follow, this guy
who's like learning to professional skateboarder.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
How old, forty five years old or whatever? In any case,
I tried the other day my shoulder ripped out of
the socket, So I'm still moving on that one. All right. Well,
on that note, what are we going to have for lunch?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
I love sandwiches. Lauren loves sandwiches, but we still yet
to find the perfect.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
If you can, if you know of any good sandwich
spots in the Orange County, I'll even drive to la
for a good sandwich.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Well, the Vietnamese owned the sandwich scene here in the
southern California region. I just want a good sandwich on
the East coast. I'm from Jersey. It was it was
really it was the Italians right like.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
The Delly's Holy Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Those like perfect delies. If anybody knows about the Jersey
Joe the Jersey sloppy Joe. But you know, and I'm
not talking about like a Vietnamese bond me, which for
those of you who don't know, it's just like a
soft and warm, crusty bag at pack full of braised
beef and Vietnamese meats that have been braised and stewed
and then topped with carrots and cilantro die Conradish, a
(27:16):
little bit of vinegar on there, and just some raw
slices of jalapeno peppers and then maybe a slash of
mayo or garlic aoli on the bun. And if the
bread is hot and you bite into it and the
meltingly tender short ribs drip into your mouth and drip
down your arms, out is a deep, perfect bond me.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
This is how he flirts with me.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
By the way, I'm staring into her eyes right now,
and all she's doing is rolling them back at me.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Why do you act like I'm such a jerk.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I don't think you're a jerk. I think that you're
sick of my jokes.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I'm not. I love him, she is.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
She's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Okay, Well, on that note, On that note, make sure
to follow us, guys, you can follow me on X
at Lauren Gruel and Instagram at Lauren Underscore Gruel.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
And you can follow me at Chef Gruel on X
me on Instagram at Andrew Gruhle, and give us all
of your suggestions for what you want to see eighty
six and some WTF stories.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
And a good sandwich spot.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, we need a good sandwich spot. Let's go have
a sandwich.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Let's go. Bye, guys,
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!