November 4, 2025 • 31 mins
What happens when $10 billion in food stamps goes to DoorDash and Uber Eats? Chef Andrew and Lauren unpack the wild truth about the SNAP program, delivery app scams, and why America’s nutrition system is broken. Plus, LA’s front-yard farms, Thanksgiving prep, and pro cooking hacks.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome back to another episode of American Gravy, the only
show where we mix food, family, and freedom in the
same pot and somehow don't burn it.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, you burned it a little bit last week. I'm
not gonna lie burn me. I got burned. We're talking food, family, freedom. Well,
you know what, though, nothing says liberty like a full
plate and a clean conscience. Right, Oh, there we go.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm chef Andrew Girl, I'm Lauren Grul.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Today we're going to be talking about gosh, a lot
of different stuff, and thank you all for tuning in again.
This is an absolute honor to even have you out
there listening. Let's dive in quickly right off the bat here,
because we got a lot to cover today, you know,
and the most probably pressing issue I think that's been
in the food news or generally in the news, has
been the expiration or the SNAP benefit issue, because Americans
(00:51):
are facing cuts to this SNAP stands for this supplemental
nutrition assistance program sometimes it's known as food stamps, but
beginning November first, unless funding is restored, which, minds you.
The reason why funding hasn't been restored is because there
is a federal government shutdown. The Democrats and the Republicans
are unable to come to a consensus as to how
(01:15):
they're going to restart the government. I didn't even know
the government was shut down.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I didn't know. I mean, if you if we didn't,
if we didn't know, we wouldn't know, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I know that's probably a bigger conversation. But more specifically,
you've got these uh snap benefits that are going to
expire on November first, because people get them on the
first of the month. So this has created a lot
of debate, if you will, as to not just the
efficacy of the program, but the details for the first
time ever. And I've noticed that when these issues pop
(01:47):
up in the news, people instantaneously learn about them. I
always make the joke that on like X or social media, right, Like,
let's say that there was a debate about you know,
a levy in in you know, a coastal city, Suddenly
everybody's a levy expert. Right, if it's taxes or tax codes,
suddenly everybody's a CPA. Well this week, everyone is now
an expert on food nutritional assistance programs. But I always
(02:12):
think it's a good thing when these issues come about
because people do learn more detail in regards to the program,
and naturally it's going to be very bureaucratic, but I
think that there's some high level details that we can
cover in this conversation to make it more relevant to
those of you listening. The most important one is the
sheer quantity.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Well, I didn't realize and like you said, I mean,
people really don't do their research until it becomes a headline, right,
So I didn't realize that it's this cost one hundred
billion dollars a year.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, one hundred billion. One hundred billion in food assistance
goes out every single year in the form of food
snamps and vouchers.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Right, But can you touch on where part of that
money goes to?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, and this is an area in which I've been
kind of leaning into. Is is the fact that Snap
benefits ten percent of the one hundred billion, Right, So
ten billion dollars are spent on third party delivery apps.
I don't think people realize that. I didn't realize that.
So you actually can go and buy any meal, not
any meal, right, Like there's certain limitations, but the majority
(03:19):
of restaurants and food service outlets food delivery. They'll offer
the opportunity to use your snap benefits, which is really
just a debit card that you put in there onto
the app. Whether it's door Dash, Uber Eats, it's primarily DoorDash,
Uber Eats, and Amazon.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And we already have an issue with the third party delivery.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Well, yes, so I do. Yeah, I'm biased here. I'm
tainted because I don't like the third party delivery apps
because of the amount of money that they take, because
of the way in which the system with the third
party delivery apps are manipulated by the users. You know,
there's like an entire thread on Reddit that you can
use to learn how you can basically work the restaurants
(03:59):
and work this system, everything from utilizing photoshop to make
it look like the food was undercooked to pretending like
the food was never delivered. And what people don't realize
is that we know this from the restaurant side, is
that the restaurants pay for that. Yeah, the DoorDash delivery
or the Uber eats doesn't pay for that. So that's
number one. Number two, So I look this up basically
what you do? I thought, Oh my gosh, So then
(04:20):
those excessive delivery fees, is that the tips too? How
does that money get allocated so you can use your
food stamps, or you can use the EBT to buy
a monthly pass on the delivery dash apps, and in
that monthly pass waives the delivery fees, so you're not
you're technically paying for the delivery fees, but you're not
(04:41):
paying it per order. And then after that, any tip
that you give, you do have to you cannot use
the EBT benefits, so you would have to use your
own debit card. Now I find that interesting because there
has been a huge kind of sector of social media
of DoorDash and third probably delivery drivers who complain about
not getting tipped. And now I realized because I used
(05:01):
to think to myself, why doesn't anybody get tipped? Well,
that's why is because if you're buying and you're utilizing
the benefits, you can't tip. So they're not tipping because
they're not going to right, they're using it because they
don't have the money. So it doesn't surprise me that
they're not tipping. But once again, door dash or the
third party apps are getting ten billion dollars in federal subsidies.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And what is DoorDash, what are they making like annually
what did you.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Say, DoorDash makes ten billion dollars annually, right, So I'm
not so if ten billion goes towards the third party
delivery apps, that it's going to be spread across Amazon,
Uber Eats, Door Dash and what would it Postmates? Oh No,
I don't think does it Postmates even exist anymore? By
US postal service. So let's just assume that it's like
Amazon Fresh and also Amazon generally because you could buy
(05:47):
like canned goods, et cetera. So let's just say it's
twenty five percent to DoorDash alone, then that would be
two point five billion dollars that goes to DoorDash. Ten
billion dollars is their annual sales. So twenty five percent
of their annual sales comes from federal subsidies.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Which I don't think anybody realizes. I didn't realize it
until you brought it up to me. Yeah, I didn't
even think that was the thing. That you're allowed to
use these snap EBT benefits on food delivery.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
And we're speculating on these numbers, but it's definitely in
the billion dollar range, Like it might go a little
more to one and a little bit more to the other. One.
But if you think about that, that's actually we think
about it as, oh, well, the people who are struggling,
you know, should they be on these benefits, and they're
taking advantage of the system. But now flip all the
way up to the top side, and you've got corporate welfare.
So it's actually it's hitting the very very top and
(06:35):
it's hitting the very very bottom. And who's paying for
it the middle class, the lower middle class. I mean,
that's coming out of our tax dollars. So I think
that that's an interesting spin to this conversation that otherwise
nobody would have known about. And I imagine, actually, well
I know, and I can speculate with certainty that during
the pandemic, which was a time in which they were
(06:55):
significantly increasing the amount of benefits that people were getting,
that third par delivery blew up, and by way of
their sales blowing up, their valuations blow up. And when
their valuations blow up, it creates a bubble in the market.
So let's just assume that there's a gridlocker and kind
of a standstill on a go forward basis, and we
go two, three, four, even five weeks longer where they're
(07:17):
not getting these benefits. That's two point five billion dollars.
Let's break that down divided by twelve, that's effectively what
two hundred million dollars a month in sales that each
one of them are going to lose.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yeah, so what do you like? What are your thoughts
on you know, these snap ebt benefits, like, what are
your thoughts on them being able to use them for
like a third party.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
I think that this this scenario in which they should
be able to use it for third party delivery, is
they is if they're disabled, if they can't get out,
they can't get to the stores. I firmly believe that
there should be a separate delivery system for this, and
they should get a set amount of goods in like
a box, you know, like a butcher box or you know,
canned goods and beans and rice, et cetera, and those
(08:00):
should be delivered. I don't think that people should be
ordering from restaurants because and I shouldn't say that because
as restaurant owners, both of us, that would help us
be great to get an extra five hundred thousand dollars
a year. But I don't fundamentally think that that's right,
and we do this right so we're giving away. I mean,
we give away probably fifty thousand dollars retail value of
food a year to those who need it, those who
(08:21):
are struggling, even seniors, especially in the Huntington Beach, Orange
County area, who are trying to break that cycle of homelessness,
or just people who are struggling day to day. We
did it with the fires last year. We're doing our
Shared a Table program, which is every single Monday. If
the government came to me and said we're going to
write you a check for that, I wouldn't accept it
because we have private donations as well as we do
it as a business. We contribute as a business towards
(08:43):
helping that. I don't need the taxpayer dollars because I
think that then you have a conflict of interest, right.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And you know it's crazy too, Okay. So I mean
the rumors are on TikTok that come November first, if
they don't have their benefits, that they will start looting
grocery stores.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I know that's been all over TikTok. There's been this
TikTok trend where they're going to loose the grocery stores
and they're going to turn it the places upside down.
I mean, that's absolutely absurd.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
It doesn't make this is I never will understand you're
angry and yet you want to destroy something that's not.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yours or something that's there too. But also then.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Other people, right exactly, but other people who would go
to the grocery store and just shop like they're like
what you know what I mean, Yeah, it just doesn't
sit right with me.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Ever, Well, and let's just break this down to its
basic bare bones. I don't think that anyone out there
wants to see somebody hungry and not be able to
survive and not be able to you know, we've talked
about the limitations on these programs and being really just
a catalyst to get somebody to the next level, and
we've seen the ability to bridge struggle gaps with all
these various public programs. I do think that churches and
(09:46):
faith based organizations and independent nonprofits that are people contribute
money to get tax incentives to do so. I think
that's a good program. Look at the food banks nowadays, right, so,
the food banks are gearing up for this November first date.
I think that's a great I think there's going to
be a ton of options. I will tell you if
the food banks go dry after this, right, let's say that,
(10:07):
and the food banks go absolutely dry, I will be
the first person to say, we need to figure out
a way to backfill those food banks so that we
can help people. But I guarantee the food banks are
not going to go dry because the problem is that
the way these subsidies needs incentives are set up is
to help the big soda companies, you know, to help
the big food manufacturers because a lot of what these
people are getting is junk. Yeah, and that's part of
(10:29):
the irony here. There was a lady who was testifying
yesterday about how she was going to go hungry, and
she was, you know, her family was going to go
hungry because they weren't going to be able to extend
the emergency program for the SNAP benefits. And the lady,
I hate to say it, she was morbidly obese. And
the comments were pretty rude in the comments section because
it was like, she's not going to go hungry, she's
so obese. But what people don't realize is that you
(10:50):
can actually be obese, but you can still be like
nutritionally deficient.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Well, especially if they're eating you know food that are
that aren't nutrient dense.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Exactly, and none of these foods are nutrient dense. And
that's the problem is is that a lot of these programs,
these these snap benefits into foodstamp programs, have perpetuated obesity
because when you look at who's funding and lobbying to
continue the foodstamp programs and the subsidy programs are the
soda companies themselves. They are the massive food manufacturers. So
(11:18):
when there was talk about removing soda from food stamps,
generally on a state level, the soda lobbyist came in
and was throwing out five, ten, fifteen thousand dollars to
influencers to start pushing the messaging that it's a freedom
of choice and that we should be able to buy
soda if we want, and why are we punishing people
because they make their money.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
It's also it's like a dedicated scam.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah. So if I could take this entire program and
turn it upside down right now, give me like twenty
mayors across the country to pilot this in cities. I
would set up a program where everybody got a pressure cooker,
they got beans, they got rice, they got you know,
underutilized cuts of meat from local farmers, local ranchers, and
then there was a program or a council of chefs
that actually helped the tea each these people how to
(12:02):
cook it themselves. Really give them the fishing pole, and
we make sure that we get them the right foods.
We can help the ranchers and we can help the
local food producers themselves, and I think that that's a
much better closed.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Loop setince I feel like to I mean, to these
people's credit. I guess a lot of people don't know
how to cook anymore.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
They don't. That's another problem.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
They don't know how to cook. So you know, the
easiest thing is to get the door dash.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah you know what I mean. So, well, yeah, we're
I don't know we are. We have gotten pretty lazy
just generally speaking in society. But I think that's a
good segue into our second story because here in Los Angeles,
the nonprofit Crop Swap La is actually reclaiming underutilized front
yards and I think this is also in urban areas.
So I think it's going to be for like underutilized
development areas, and they're going to encourage people to grow
(12:48):
fresh produce for local distribution.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
I love this so much.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I'm shocked at LA because one of the reasons why
I'm shocked is that the regulatory framework with city council
and with ordinances through Loss Angels and the surrounding suburbs
is that you can't grow produce in your yards, right, Like,
there's so many restrictions on that. So if they're using
this nonprofit as a vehicle through which they can actually
deregulate and allow people to grow produce and then establish
(13:14):
a secondary market whereby they can sell this produce to
vendors and to neighbors or even give it to food banks.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I love this. And he also said so the founder
of the organization said that he hopes to improve diets
and people's health. Like that's great, you know what I mean.
I just I think all around this is a great.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Thing, especially coming out of Los Angeles, and it should.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Be you know, kind of implemented across the country.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Well that's the whole point. I mean, it's truly nonpartisans
so taking this hyper hyper local. One of the first
things that I did when I was on city council
in Huntington Beach was we got a plot of land
up by the old Navy rail yard and it's empty
right now, and we're establishing a community garden there. We're
going to be utilizing aquaculture and aquaponics programs. We're going
to have community plots for people to grow their own vegetables.
(14:00):
We're gonna have larger plots where we can hopefully produce enough,
not necessarily on a commercial side, but enough to bring
back over to our Navigation Center, which is our homeless shelter.
And we're going to do it all locally. And the
idea is if we can take that program and we
can scale it out into other areas in Orange County,
people see how easy it is. We set up the
framework and say it's going to cost X amount of dollars.
Here's the manpower you're gonna need, here's the number of
(14:21):
volunteers you're gonna need, here's the supplies you're gonna need.
I mean, it's almost a franchise. Then we can get
other cities to do that. But the disconnect, and you
brought this up a second ago, is Okay, we grow
the produce, we get the fresh vegetables, proteins, et cetera.
What it is, who's cooking it?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, and we have to start to I mean, that's
what we did with the Army. Remember, we taught young
soldiers how to cook. They didn't know how to cook.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Laurna and I went around with the US Army as
part of their program in twenty nineteen that they had
started was with BOSS, which was better opportunities for single soldiers,
and the Army realized that and ultimately the Department of
Defense is that they invest I want to say, the
number is like three hundred thousand dollar a soldier.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
It's a lot.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
And by the time they were combat ready, they're not
combat ready because they're obese, or they have diabetes, or
they have one of these many chronic disease and then
they're they're basically it's a I don't want to trivialize
it and say it's a wasted investment, but it is
because now they can work, you know, sitting behind the desk,
but they're not able to go out airborne division, et cetera.
So what they wanted us to do was to teach
(15:21):
soldiers how to cook, utilizing a hot plate in the
barracks and buying from the exchange and teaching them actually
how to shop. And what was fascinating about that is
most of the soldiers eighteen nineteen twenty years old had
zero idea. They couldn't even turn, they couldn't even hold
a pan. They had absolutely no idea how to eat.
(15:42):
And they were telling us that their dorms or in
the barracks are just littered with Burger King, Taco Bell,
you name it. And when we would go into the
exchange or the like the food halls that were associated
with it, it was all the soldiers. None of them were
going into the grocery area. They were all just going
to the Burger Kings, the Taco L's, the McDonald's, the World.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Camera, and the grocery store had great stores were undelie products,
like really high quality, and I was shocked that nobody
was in their shopping.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, we were at Schoenberg out in Hawaii, and remember
they had like the mussabi and they had a whole
bunch of Japanese products. It was actually it was like
a better grocery store than you would find in Barne
County or southern California. It was an amped up pavilions.
So that was kind of eye opening. Unfortunately, the pandemic
hit and of course they didn't really put any funding
into that program. Perhaps we can push all the way
(16:31):
up through the system, I.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Will say, just talking about COVID, I will say, remember
everyone went through like a gardening phase, like we even did,
and the kids were so proud. We had like zucchini
and radishes and strawberries and squash. We had all sorts
of things at our house because we were all of
us were bored. We were just like, let's plan a card.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, well we were also we were still working at restaurants.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Well we were working the restaurant, but our kids were home,
so we did you know, they needed them to care
for something.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Oh shoot, I left them out on the roof. Yeah
all right, what else you got for me here? Today?
We're getting into Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Season, we are. I love Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I do. I you know, this is weird and I
don't want to sound like a communist, but not. I
love Thanksgiving. I absolutely love it. But being in a
restaurant industry, it's like go go, go, go go all
the way up until the day before Thanksgiving. Wednesday's actually
the Wednesday in the restaurant industry. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving
is always a really busy day.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Is it because people are celebrating Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
That day, or like people coming to people come into town,
catch up with old friends. Yeah, get wasted, go to restaurants.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
You know that was always like the biggest year in bars.
I remember in the town in which I grew up,
because it was like everyone was coming back and having
this quasi reunion over at Frank's Chicken House.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So Andrew doesn't like turkey, I don't.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
It's not that I don't like turkey.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
You don't like turkey.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I mean I like the dark meat. I just don't
like the way in which we traditionally treat turkey. It's
the centerpiece of the table, but nobody puts the time
into cooking it properly, so you get you get overcooked
breasts and sometimes undercooked legs. Story in my life. Hey,
I don't even know what that means. But and it's
(18:11):
it's like, I don't know. I just think that some
of the items sometimes turkey dinners can be the turkey's dry,
so use a ton of gravy. The gravy's gloppy because
a lot of people don't know how to cook gravy,
and then you get all these sides. But they're like
overly sweet. I don't know what this move in, this
motivation has been over the past twenty or thirty years
to make it.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
You hate my sweet.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
I don't like marshmallows on sweet teles. I think they're
too sweet. It's like, we need to maple sugar, and
we need to seyrup, and we need to sugar again,
and we need to marshmallows, and let's put some chocolate
chips in there, like I want. If we're gonna have
this savory, rich food like I want, I want bright acids,
I want bright flavors.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Do a good job with that. You make a killer
cranberry sauce.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
I do, But people are like, I remember I posted
our recipe for our cranberry sauce, which is fresh cranberries
and a lot of vinegars, red wine vinegar. We use
a little bit of honey to sweetening it off, but
a ton of fresh herbs and there and spices and cinnamons,
et cetera. So you get this incredibly warm, herbaceous, vibrant
cranberry sauce and everyone's like, what the heck is that?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
But is that? I like it from the can?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, it just just just slopping out of the can.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
And do you call stuffing dressing or do you call
it stuffing?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I call it stuffing dressing. That's like perverted bed staste.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
You said something was it last year on X And
I said, Oh, Stuffing's my favorite And they're like, what
do you mean stuffing? It's called dressing.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
And I'm like, what, well do you call Do you
called tomato sauce, gravy or sauce?
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Tomato sauce?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, like red sauce. You call it gravy or sauce.
It's Sunday gravy on the East Coast, that's the Italian
Sunday gravy.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
It's just a tomato sauce.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Oh my gosh, it's gravy. Lauren, speaking of gravy, So,
turkey gravy is one of my favorite things because it's
so gamey and it's so rich. But you gotta make
your own turkey grat fresh.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
And it's easy. Do you have a video on that?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, we did a video on it last year, The
Perfect Turkey Gravy.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
All right, we got to show that again.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
We will show it again. Well, remember you use chicken feet?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Oh yeah, that was disgusting. He was like throwing them
in my face.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
The key to a good turkey gravy is you want
a ton of gelatin in there. The gelatin is what
gives it in collagen, right, It gives it that silky
not the collagen you put on your face.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
I don't put collage out on my face, the.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Little collagen cream, what have you. It's what gives it
that rich and silky mouthfeel and flavor that's just unctuous
and new mommy like and addictive. The way in which
you get extra gelatin, you know, you're using the backs
and using the bones and the leg bones. There's a
lot of gelatin in there in the joints, but you
get it from the chicken feet. So you go to
an agent market and you buy a bunch of chicken feet.
That's what you gotta do.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Okay, that's a good tip, But also it's kind of scary.
Just be forewarned if you haven't seen chicken feet, it's
a little scary.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
We were putting chicken feet like under the kid's pillows
and they were waking.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Up in the middle of the night's screaming, well, they're
so creepy, Like after.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
I blanch them, don't worry. It wasn't like raw chicken.
The kids weren't sleeping on salt, sleeping on salmonella.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
All right, Andrew, what the fork?
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Oh my gosh, McDonald's is debuting a tie green curry
chicken and fish burger in Malaysia, which, by the way,
what the fork? Wtf?
Speaker 1 (21:12):
What the fork? Okay, I'm not well you you're not
a big fan of curry. I don't necessarily hate it
as much as you do, but like this just doesn't
scream anything exciting for me, Like I wouldn't want to
go out and want to try that.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I don't have a motivation to eat fish. At McDonald's.
People love the fish fileg they do absolutely love it, yes,
and to me, and it comes with cheese on, Like
cheese and fish to me is disgusting. I'll eat cheese
and shellfish because shellfish is said, shesh, change that chawfish? Yeah, well,
what's one of our number one sellers, the lobsterales?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Okay, yeah, I'm sorry. I was thinking of like shrimp.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
You wouldn't put okay, you wouldn't have a case of
dea with black and shrimp and a little bit of
cheese on.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
There Okay, yes see, you're right, turning her.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Upside down inside out. You going to show you guys
what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
So the thing is is that I get it, and
this is a one off, and this is in Malaysia
and they have totally different palettes. But what I see
here in my problem, it's not the McDonald's sandwich. Okay.
McDonald's is the conduit through which they try and enter
food trends into the mainstream. And you know what I
don't like about this? What the curry.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
You don't like curry.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I don't like curry, not because I don't like good curry.
I think people don't understand that curry is complicated. It's
a multifaceted flavor. There's green curry, there's red curry, there's
mattress curry, there's dry curry. There's curry and coconut soups.
There's so many different ways to use curry. But people
just see curry and they dump it on everything. It's
an overwhelming flavor.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
It is. It's very overpowering.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
It is. So if you don't cook it properly, you
don't just add curry to something.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
You have to be very careful.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
It's like you learn if you learn to drive, you
know how to drive basic right with an automatic. If
you then step into a stick shift Ferrari or sports car,
like that's a specialty car. You got be specific in
how the way in which you drive that Curry is
the Ferrari sports car of spices and seasonings. You have
to know what you're doing. So I think there's something
(23:09):
nefarious behind this. I think McDonald's is going to try
and roll curry out all over the place, let's hope.
Not speaking of something to Farius. Do you know that
I saw a news headline just this morning. We didn't
talk about this one. You're gonna be surprising everybody. Lauren's
gonna cut me behind the scenes afterwards, she said, we
didn't go over that one. So in San Diego, they
are teaching in elementary schools this there's this program that
(23:31):
bugs are good to eat if not better, meat is
bad for you, and that it's healthy to eat bugs
and bugs are the protein of the future.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
And who San Diego like element.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah, in the school systems, And we've talked about this
at length in the past. I have a major problem
with like consuming bugs because well it's pretty obvious, right,
it's intuitive. I shouldn't even have to explain this one.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
No part of me like instinctually wants to like eat
a bug.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Yeah. The other day I swalled an antid we have
eaten ants. There's a grasshoppers. I like, Okay, I don't
like it. That was more novelty, Like I don't like
grasshoppers or crickets or any of that. But we did.
We went to a bar in New York City. It
was a bar based out of like Mexico City, and
they do this thing where they do like roasted salt
and ants around the rim.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Of like yeah, like your drinks or your shots or whatever.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah, and we we did it.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I couldn't do it. I mean I would like I
had maybe a lick.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
And they weren't like carpenter ants. They didn't have like,
you know, big old tails on them. These were just
like little farm raised ants. I'm hoping they were farm raised.
I hope they didn't just get them from back behind
the restaurant.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
You never know.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, I did feel weird the next day, but that
could have been the roofie.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
He slipped himself.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I have roofed myself before. I did roofy myself once
because I was curious what it was. Like I was
in college. I'm like, what is it? You know everybody
talks about roofies. I'm like, what's it? Like? What's scariest
is that I actually got hold.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
On You really roofed yourself somebody.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
We have never somebody gave me to. Somebody was like,
this is a roofie, and I didn't want somebody to
give it to like a girl or take it. And
jokingly I took it and.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I just throw it in the tweet.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I took it. But all I know is I woke
up at like four thirty in the morning behind a
Denny's with my pants were around my ankles, and I
would but I was I was eating the moon's over
my hammy.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Andrew, Okay, that's not true, but just want to make
everybody lighting up here. It's not that light. That's not funny.
But the second area in which we've eaten bugs is
uh Lupitas, which is a great restaurant in San Jose
and Cabo in Mexico, and they have like a little apatarz.
You get like a wooden bowl of roasted grasshoppers. And
then they've got some Chilian lime seasoning on there. Oh yeah,
(25:37):
we got it for the kids because we thought it'd
be funny.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Right they tried it.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, they ate it.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Our kids they.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Will our kids will eat absolutely. If I was like, hey,
here's a you know, a stick that I found in
the street and we bread it, try it and tried it,
They're like, our kids are animals, all right, what are we?
Eighty sixteen today? Eighty six it get rid of it.
No more no moss.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
For me. It is e bikes for kids. I cannot
stand the e bikes. I'm turning into one of those people.
Because the other day I was driving it was pitch black,
it was dark. It was like seven o'clock, you know,
in the sunsetting early. This group of like maybe six
or I was gonna say six seven, six seven. These
(26:20):
kids just come out onto the street and like a
main street, they're not in the bike lane. They're in
the street doing wheelies and all this crazy stuff. In
my head, I'm like, what if what are these kids?
Flips backwards and like what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
The wheelies are too much like the wheelies.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And they have they don't pay attention to traffic. They're
on their phones the whole time, Like there needs to
be some sort of driver's license test for these things
because they don't know what they're doing and I don't
think they understand how dangerous they can be.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
First of all, you sound like a nine year old lady,
and I love it.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I'm concerned.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I love it. No, No, because I agree with you. You're
like a personification of the next door app, because if
you go on next door, it's like e bike, e bike,
e bike, Everyone's like, Okay, Ronda, I agree with you,
And I have to take put on my policy hat
here because we address this on city Council on multiple occasions.
On the one hand, you know, you don't want to
take it away from the kids because ultimately they're going
(27:13):
to get their hands on them, and it's like if
they don't learn and they don't know the rules of
the road, right, I personally think that it should be
they should go along with the driver's license at a
certain speed limit, Like if you're selling selling an e
bike that goes ten miles per hour below, that's fine,
but anything above that, you've got to get a permit.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Goes you have to They don't pay attention.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I don't pay they don't know the rules of the road.
They're driving in the road.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Going like on a red light, and it's just like.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
And too many kids, a lot of kids kep getting
especially in Huntington Beach, and we're hearing these horrific stories.
So e bike safety is huge. We're actually I have
an h item coming out on the next week's council
agenda where we are going to be addressing bike safety,
E bike safety, et cetera. I agree with you on this.
I wouldn't say eighty six at all together, but I
will say this on the business side, I asked one
of the city council members, you know, what's kind of
(28:01):
the background history on the regulation in a policy, and
they said, if you and I go, I'm going to
ban e bikes right like Andrew coming in like scortch
or legend ht band e bikes. These kids are When
I was a kid, I walked up Hill seven hundred
miles a day and the they were like, we have
so much business that comes in from these e bike
shops and e bike rentals. The business owners would would have.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
A fit, and I don't think we should get rid
of them. They're just they need to like know the
rules of the road. That's it.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Well, I think you should start a course. My eighty
six it is Yelp.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
We've never liked yelp.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
This is my eighty six hit every single week. Here's
the thing with Yelp. I'm not saying get rid of
yelp altogether, because I also use Yelp. I'll go on
Yelp to look at the photos. I don't like the
star rating and the way it's used as a bludgeon
that people can actually use it to abuse a restaurant.
I think it should we should get rid of the
star rating on Yelp, and it should just be pictures
and reviews. It forces Americans to actually read again, Like
(28:56):
nobody you think anyone.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Reading reading great again?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Oh gosh, you know what, you should become a teacher.
So that's it. That's my eighty six Yelp. I'm probably
gonna make that in eighty six it like every five
or six episodes altogether. I want to sharpen your skills,
all right.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I have a sharpen your skills tip, all right, give
it to me, all right, So you should salt your
vegetables before cooking dry brine, not after. So if you
salt raw vegetables, especially mushrooms, zucchini, eggplant, of you know,
onions of the like, ten to fifteen minutes before cooking,
the salt draws out surface moisture and it does two
(29:34):
major things. Andrew, do you know what those are?
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Well, it makes the vegetables taste richer and deeper, and
it also helps them brown because you're removing the moisture.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
So and I feel like, I mean even for me,
like sometimes I like forget to do that and I'll
just start, you know, sataging the vegetables and I'm like,
oh shoot, and then they just it just tastes like
a vegetable with like salt on it, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
And you's vegetables all over the floor too. Hey, she's
a good flipper.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Hands he gets are very heavy.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I get heavy pants. I have heavy pants. Lauren's entirely
correct on this, and it's obviously this is similar to
kind of the dry Brian on the meat. The only
difference with the vegetables is that when the salt does
draw the moisture out, it's not necessarily going to go
back into the vegetable the way it does with the meat,
so you just kind of pat them dry and you
do get a much quicker, beautiful browning on the vegetables
without overcooking or burning them. So fifteen minutes before you
(30:24):
cook the vegetables is when you want to salt it,
so a pre salt kind of dry Brian on the vegetables.
We're there. That's a good one. I think that's the
best sharpen your skills you've had yet.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
I've only had two.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, well you're shooting one out of two. Oh right,
So wow, we covered a lot there, Snap benefits, E
bike salting, vegetables, so many things. Eighty sixteen yelp. I mean,
you're all over the place, but we got some really
good content coming up in our next episode as well.
So make sure that you subscribe to us on whatever
wherever you listen to and get your podcasts Apple, iHeartRadio, iHeartMedia, Spotify,
(30:59):
You've got wherever you're getting your podcast on American Gravy.
You can follow me at Chef Gruel on X I'm
at Andrew Gruhl on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
And you can follow me at Lauren Gruel on X
or at Lauren Underscore Gruel on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
And message us on any of those platform apps, you know,
regarding what you want to hear as topics, what you
want to see eighty six. If you've got your own,
sharpen your skills, because we really want to make this
an open dialogue. You know, we're family here, So American
Gravy coming at you live.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
See you next time.
Welcome back to another episode of American Gravy, the only
show where we mix food, family, and freedom in the
same pot and somehow don't burn it.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, you burned it a little bit last week. I'm
not gonna lie burn me. I got burned. We're talking food, family, freedom. Well,
you know what, though, nothing says liberty like a full
plate and a clean conscience. Right, Oh, there we go.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm chef Andrew Girl, I'm Lauren Grul.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Today we're going to be talking about gosh, a lot
of different stuff, and thank you all for tuning in again.
This is an absolute honor to even have you out
there listening. Let's dive in quickly right off the bat here,
because we got a lot to cover today, you know,
and the most probably pressing issue I think that's been
in the food news or generally in the news, has
been the expiration or the SNAP benefit issue, because Americans
(00:51):
are facing cuts to this SNAP stands for this supplemental
nutrition assistance program sometimes it's known as food stamps, but
beginning November first, unless funding is restored, which, minds you.
The reason why funding hasn't been restored is because there
is a federal government shutdown. The Democrats and the Republicans
are unable to come to a consensus as to how
(01:15):
they're going to restart the government. I didn't even know
the government was shut down.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I didn't know. I mean, if you if we didn't,
if we didn't know, we wouldn't know, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I know that's probably a bigger conversation. But more specifically,
you've got these uh snap benefits that are going to
expire on November first, because people get them on the
first of the month. So this has created a lot
of debate, if you will, as to not just the
efficacy of the program, but the details for the first
time ever. And I've noticed that when these issues pop
(01:47):
up in the news, people instantaneously learn about them. I
always make the joke that on like X or social media, right, Like,
let's say that there was a debate about you know,
a levy in in you know, a coastal city, Suddenly
everybody's a levy expert. Right, if it's taxes or tax codes,
suddenly everybody's a CPA. Well this week, everyone is now
an expert on food nutritional assistance programs. But I always
(02:12):
think it's a good thing when these issues come about
because people do learn more detail in regards to the program,
and naturally it's going to be very bureaucratic, but I
think that there's some high level details that we can
cover in this conversation to make it more relevant to
those of you listening. The most important one is the
sheer quantity.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Well, I didn't realize and like you said, I mean,
people really don't do their research until it becomes a headline, right,
So I didn't realize that it's this cost one hundred
billion dollars a year.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, one hundred billion. One hundred billion in food assistance
goes out every single year in the form of food
snamps and vouchers.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Right, But can you touch on where part of that
money goes to?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, and this is an area in which I've been
kind of leaning into. Is is the fact that Snap
benefits ten percent of the one hundred billion, Right, So
ten billion dollars are spent on third party delivery apps.
I don't think people realize that. I didn't realize that.
So you actually can go and buy any meal, not
any meal, right, Like there's certain limitations, but the majority
(03:19):
of restaurants and food service outlets food delivery. They'll offer
the opportunity to use your snap benefits, which is really
just a debit card that you put in there onto
the app. Whether it's door Dash, Uber Eats, it's primarily DoorDash,
Uber Eats, and Amazon.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And we already have an issue with the third party delivery.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Well, yes, so I do. Yeah, I'm biased here. I'm
tainted because I don't like the third party delivery apps
because of the amount of money that they take, because
of the way in which the system with the third
party delivery apps are manipulated by the users. You know,
there's like an entire thread on Reddit that you can
use to learn how you can basically work the restaurants
(03:59):
and work this system, everything from utilizing photoshop to make
it look like the food was undercooked to pretending like
the food was never delivered. And what people don't realize
is that we know this from the restaurant side, is
that the restaurants pay for that. Yeah, the DoorDash delivery
or the Uber eats doesn't pay for that. So that's
number one. Number two, So I look this up basically
what you do? I thought, Oh my gosh, So then
(04:20):
those excessive delivery fees, is that the tips too? How
does that money get allocated so you can use your
food stamps, or you can use the EBT to buy
a monthly pass on the delivery dash apps, and in
that monthly pass waives the delivery fees, so you're not
you're technically paying for the delivery fees, but you're not
(04:41):
paying it per order. And then after that, any tip
that you give, you do have to you cannot use
the EBT benefits, so you would have to use your
own debit card. Now I find that interesting because there
has been a huge kind of sector of social media
of DoorDash and third probably delivery drivers who complain about
not getting tipped. And now I realized because I used
(05:01):
to think to myself, why doesn't anybody get tipped? Well,
that's why is because if you're buying and you're utilizing
the benefits, you can't tip. So they're not tipping because
they're not going to right, they're using it because they
don't have the money. So it doesn't surprise me that
they're not tipping. But once again, door dash or the
third party apps are getting ten billion dollars in federal subsidies.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And what is DoorDash, what are they making like annually
what did you.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Say, DoorDash makes ten billion dollars annually, right, So I'm
not so if ten billion goes towards the third party
delivery apps, that it's going to be spread across Amazon,
Uber Eats, Door Dash and what would it Postmates? Oh No,
I don't think does it Postmates even exist anymore? By
US postal service. So let's just assume that it's like
Amazon Fresh and also Amazon generally because you could buy
(05:47):
like canned goods, et cetera. So let's just say it's
twenty five percent to DoorDash alone, then that would be
two point five billion dollars that goes to DoorDash. Ten
billion dollars is their annual sales. So twenty five percent
of their annual sales comes from federal subsidies.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Which I don't think anybody realizes. I didn't realize it
until you brought it up to me. Yeah, I didn't
even think that was the thing. That you're allowed to
use these snap EBT benefits on food delivery.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
And we're speculating on these numbers, but it's definitely in
the billion dollar range, Like it might go a little
more to one and a little bit more to the other. One.
But if you think about that, that's actually we think
about it as, oh, well, the people who are struggling,
you know, should they be on these benefits, and they're
taking advantage of the system. But now flip all the
way up to the top side, and you've got corporate welfare.
So it's actually it's hitting the very very top and
(06:35):
it's hitting the very very bottom. And who's paying for
it the middle class, the lower middle class. I mean,
that's coming out of our tax dollars. So I think
that that's an interesting spin to this conversation that otherwise
nobody would have known about. And I imagine, actually, well
I know, and I can speculate with certainty that during
the pandemic, which was a time in which they were
(06:55):
significantly increasing the amount of benefits that people were getting,
that third par delivery blew up, and by way of
their sales blowing up, their valuations blow up. And when
their valuations blow up, it creates a bubble in the market.
So let's just assume that there's a gridlocker and kind
of a standstill on a go forward basis, and we
go two, three, four, even five weeks longer where they're
(07:17):
not getting these benefits. That's two point five billion dollars.
Let's break that down divided by twelve, that's effectively what
two hundred million dollars a month in sales that each
one of them are going to lose.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yeah, so what do you like? What are your thoughts
on you know, these snap ebt benefits, like, what are
your thoughts on them being able to use them for
like a third party.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
I think that this this scenario in which they should
be able to use it for third party delivery, is
they is if they're disabled, if they can't get out,
they can't get to the stores. I firmly believe that
there should be a separate delivery system for this, and
they should get a set amount of goods in like
a box, you know, like a butcher box or you know,
canned goods and beans and rice, et cetera, and those
(08:00):
should be delivered. I don't think that people should be
ordering from restaurants because and I shouldn't say that because
as restaurant owners, both of us, that would help us
be great to get an extra five hundred thousand dollars
a year. But I don't fundamentally think that that's right,
and we do this right so we're giving away. I mean,
we give away probably fifty thousand dollars retail value of
food a year to those who need it, those who
(08:21):
are struggling, even seniors, especially in the Huntington Beach, Orange
County area, who are trying to break that cycle of homelessness,
or just people who are struggling day to day. We
did it with the fires last year. We're doing our
Shared a Table program, which is every single Monday. If
the government came to me and said we're going to
write you a check for that, I wouldn't accept it
because we have private donations as well as we do
it as a business. We contribute as a business towards
(08:43):
helping that. I don't need the taxpayer dollars because I
think that then you have a conflict of interest, right.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And you know it's crazy too, Okay. So I mean
the rumors are on TikTok that come November first, if
they don't have their benefits, that they will start looting
grocery stores.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I know that's been all over TikTok. There's been this
TikTok trend where they're going to loose the grocery stores
and they're going to turn it the places upside down.
I mean, that's absolutely absurd.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
It doesn't make this is I never will understand you're
angry and yet you want to destroy something that's not.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yours or something that's there too. But also then.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Other people, right exactly, but other people who would go
to the grocery store and just shop like they're like
what you know what I mean, Yeah, it just doesn't
sit right with me.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Ever, Well, and let's just break this down to its
basic bare bones. I don't think that anyone out there
wants to see somebody hungry and not be able to
survive and not be able to you know, we've talked
about the limitations on these programs and being really just
a catalyst to get somebody to the next level, and
we've seen the ability to bridge struggle gaps with all
these various public programs. I do think that churches and
(09:46):
faith based organizations and independent nonprofits that are people contribute
money to get tax incentives to do so. I think
that's a good program. Look at the food banks nowadays, right, so,
the food banks are gearing up for this November first date.
I think that's a great I think there's going to
be a ton of options. I will tell you if
the food banks go dry after this, right, let's say that,
(10:07):
and the food banks go absolutely dry, I will be
the first person to say, we need to figure out
a way to backfill those food banks so that we
can help people. But I guarantee the food banks are
not going to go dry because the problem is that
the way these subsidies needs incentives are set up is
to help the big soda companies, you know, to help
the big food manufacturers because a lot of what these
people are getting is junk. Yeah, and that's part of
(10:29):
the irony here. There was a lady who was testifying
yesterday about how she was going to go hungry, and
she was, you know, her family was going to go
hungry because they weren't going to be able to extend
the emergency program for the SNAP benefits. And the lady,
I hate to say it, she was morbidly obese. And
the comments were pretty rude in the comments section because
it was like, she's not going to go hungry, she's
so obese. But what people don't realize is that you
(10:50):
can actually be obese, but you can still be like
nutritionally deficient.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Well, especially if they're eating you know food that are
that aren't nutrient dense.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Exactly, and none of these foods are nutrient dense. And
that's the problem is is that a lot of these programs,
these these snap benefits into foodstamp programs, have perpetuated obesity
because when you look at who's funding and lobbying to
continue the foodstamp programs and the subsidy programs are the
soda companies themselves. They are the massive food manufacturers. So
(11:18):
when there was talk about removing soda from food stamps,
generally on a state level, the soda lobbyist came in
and was throwing out five, ten, fifteen thousand dollars to
influencers to start pushing the messaging that it's a freedom
of choice and that we should be able to buy
soda if we want, and why are we punishing people
because they make their money.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
It's also it's like a dedicated scam.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah. So if I could take this entire program and
turn it upside down right now, give me like twenty
mayors across the country to pilot this in cities. I
would set up a program where everybody got a pressure cooker,
they got beans, they got rice, they got you know,
underutilized cuts of meat from local farmers, local ranchers, and
then there was a program or a council of chefs
that actually helped the tea each these people how to
(12:02):
cook it themselves. Really give them the fishing pole, and
we make sure that we get them the right foods.
We can help the ranchers and we can help the
local food producers themselves, and I think that that's a
much better closed.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Loop setince I feel like to I mean, to these
people's credit. I guess a lot of people don't know
how to cook anymore.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
They don't. That's another problem.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
They don't know how to cook. So you know, the
easiest thing is to get the door dash.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah you know what I mean. So, well, yeah, we're
I don't know we are. We have gotten pretty lazy
just generally speaking in society. But I think that's a
good segue into our second story because here in Los Angeles,
the nonprofit Crop Swap La is actually reclaiming underutilized front
yards and I think this is also in urban areas.
So I think it's going to be for like underutilized
development areas, and they're going to encourage people to grow
(12:48):
fresh produce for local distribution.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
I love this so much.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I'm shocked at LA because one of the reasons why
I'm shocked is that the regulatory framework with city council
and with ordinances through Loss Angels and the surrounding suburbs
is that you can't grow produce in your yards, right, Like,
there's so many restrictions on that. So if they're using
this nonprofit as a vehicle through which they can actually
deregulate and allow people to grow produce and then establish
(13:14):
a secondary market whereby they can sell this produce to
vendors and to neighbors or even give it to food banks.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I love this. And he also said so the founder
of the organization said that he hopes to improve diets
and people's health. Like that's great, you know what I mean.
I just I think all around this is a great.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Thing, especially coming out of Los Angeles, and it should.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Be you know, kind of implemented across the country.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Well that's the whole point. I mean, it's truly nonpartisans
so taking this hyper hyper local. One of the first
things that I did when I was on city council
in Huntington Beach was we got a plot of land
up by the old Navy rail yard and it's empty
right now, and we're establishing a community garden there. We're
going to be utilizing aquaculture and aquaponics programs. We're going
to have community plots for people to grow their own vegetables.
(14:00):
We're gonna have larger plots where we can hopefully produce enough,
not necessarily on a commercial side, but enough to bring
back over to our Navigation Center, which is our homeless shelter.
And we're going to do it all locally. And the
idea is if we can take that program and we
can scale it out into other areas in Orange County,
people see how easy it is. We set up the
framework and say it's going to cost X amount of dollars.
Here's the manpower you're gonna need, here's the number of
(14:21):
volunteers you're gonna need, here's the supplies you're gonna need.
I mean, it's almost a franchise. Then we can get
other cities to do that. But the disconnect, and you
brought this up a second ago, is Okay, we grow
the produce, we get the fresh vegetables, proteins, et cetera.
What it is, who's cooking it?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, and we have to start to I mean, that's
what we did with the Army. Remember, we taught young
soldiers how to cook. They didn't know how to cook.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Laurna and I went around with the US Army as
part of their program in twenty nineteen that they had
started was with BOSS, which was better opportunities for single soldiers,
and the Army realized that and ultimately the Department of
Defense is that they invest I want to say, the
number is like three hundred thousand dollar a soldier.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
It's a lot.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
And by the time they were combat ready, they're not
combat ready because they're obese, or they have diabetes, or
they have one of these many chronic disease and then
they're they're basically it's a I don't want to trivialize
it and say it's a wasted investment, but it is
because now they can work, you know, sitting behind the desk,
but they're not able to go out airborne division, et cetera.
So what they wanted us to do was to teach
(15:21):
soldiers how to cook, utilizing a hot plate in the
barracks and buying from the exchange and teaching them actually
how to shop. And what was fascinating about that is
most of the soldiers eighteen nineteen twenty years old had
zero idea. They couldn't even turn, they couldn't even hold
a pan. They had absolutely no idea how to eat.
(15:42):
And they were telling us that their dorms or in
the barracks are just littered with Burger King, Taco Bell,
you name it. And when we would go into the
exchange or the like the food halls that were associated
with it, it was all the soldiers. None of them were
going into the grocery area. They were all just going
to the Burger Kings, the Taco L's, the McDonald's, the World.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Camera, and the grocery store had great stores were undelie products,
like really high quality, and I was shocked that nobody
was in their shopping.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, we were at Schoenberg out in Hawaii, and remember
they had like the mussabi and they had a whole
bunch of Japanese products. It was actually it was like
a better grocery store than you would find in Barne
County or southern California. It was an amped up pavilions.
So that was kind of eye opening. Unfortunately, the pandemic
hit and of course they didn't really put any funding
into that program. Perhaps we can push all the way
(16:31):
up through the system, I.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Will say, just talking about COVID, I will say, remember
everyone went through like a gardening phase, like we even did,
and the kids were so proud. We had like zucchini
and radishes and strawberries and squash. We had all sorts
of things at our house because we were all of
us were bored. We were just like, let's plan a card.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, well we were also we were still working at restaurants.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Well we were working the restaurant, but our kids were home,
so we did you know, they needed them to care
for something.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Oh shoot, I left them out on the roof. Yeah
all right, what else you got for me here? Today?
We're getting into Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Season, we are. I love Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I do. I you know, this is weird and I
don't want to sound like a communist, but not. I
love Thanksgiving. I absolutely love it. But being in a
restaurant industry, it's like go go, go, go go all
the way up until the day before Thanksgiving. Wednesday's actually
the Wednesday in the restaurant industry. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving
is always a really busy day.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Is it because people are celebrating Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
That day, or like people coming to people come into town,
catch up with old friends. Yeah, get wasted, go to restaurants.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
You know that was always like the biggest year in bars.
I remember in the town in which I grew up,
because it was like everyone was coming back and having
this quasi reunion over at Frank's Chicken House.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So Andrew doesn't like turkey, I don't.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
It's not that I don't like turkey.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
You don't like turkey.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I mean I like the dark meat. I just don't
like the way in which we traditionally treat turkey. It's
the centerpiece of the table, but nobody puts the time
into cooking it properly, so you get you get overcooked
breasts and sometimes undercooked legs. Story in my life. Hey,
I don't even know what that means. But and it's
(18:11):
it's like, I don't know. I just think that some
of the items sometimes turkey dinners can be the turkey's dry,
so use a ton of gravy. The gravy's gloppy because
a lot of people don't know how to cook gravy,
and then you get all these sides. But they're like
overly sweet. I don't know what this move in, this
motivation has been over the past twenty or thirty years
to make it.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
You hate my sweet.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
I don't like marshmallows on sweet teles. I think they're
too sweet. It's like, we need to maple sugar, and
we need to seyrup, and we need to sugar again,
and we need to marshmallows, and let's put some chocolate
chips in there, like I want. If we're gonna have
this savory, rich food like I want, I want bright acids,
I want bright flavors.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Do a good job with that. You make a killer
cranberry sauce.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
I do, But people are like, I remember I posted
our recipe for our cranberry sauce, which is fresh cranberries
and a lot of vinegars, red wine vinegar. We use
a little bit of honey to sweetening it off, but
a ton of fresh herbs and there and spices and cinnamons,
et cetera. So you get this incredibly warm, herbaceous, vibrant
cranberry sauce and everyone's like, what the heck is that?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
But is that? I like it from the can?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, it just just just slopping out of the can.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
And do you call stuffing dressing or do you call
it stuffing?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I call it stuffing dressing. That's like perverted bed staste.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
You said something was it last year on X And
I said, Oh, Stuffing's my favorite And they're like, what
do you mean stuffing? It's called dressing.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
And I'm like, what, well do you call Do you
called tomato sauce, gravy or sauce?
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Tomato sauce?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, like red sauce. You call it gravy or sauce.
It's Sunday gravy on the East Coast, that's the Italian
Sunday gravy.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
It's just a tomato sauce.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Oh my gosh, it's gravy. Lauren, speaking of gravy, So,
turkey gravy is one of my favorite things because it's
so gamey and it's so rich. But you gotta make
your own turkey grat fresh.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
And it's easy. Do you have a video on that?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, we did a video on it last year, The
Perfect Turkey Gravy.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
All right, we got to show that again.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
We will show it again. Well, remember you use chicken feet?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Oh yeah, that was disgusting. He was like throwing them
in my face.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
The key to a good turkey gravy is you want
a ton of gelatin in there. The gelatin is what
gives it in collagen, right, It gives it that silky
not the collagen you put on your face.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
I don't put collage out on my face, the.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Little collagen cream, what have you. It's what gives it
that rich and silky mouthfeel and flavor that's just unctuous
and new mommy like and addictive. The way in which
you get extra gelatin, you know, you're using the backs
and using the bones and the leg bones. There's a
lot of gelatin in there in the joints, but you
get it from the chicken feet. So you go to
an agent market and you buy a bunch of chicken feet.
That's what you gotta do.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Okay, that's a good tip, But also it's kind of scary.
Just be forewarned if you haven't seen chicken feet, it's
a little scary.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
We were putting chicken feet like under the kid's pillows
and they were waking.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Up in the middle of the night's screaming, well, they're
so creepy, Like after.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
I blanch them, don't worry. It wasn't like raw chicken.
The kids weren't sleeping on salt, sleeping on salmonella.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
All right, Andrew, what the fork?
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Oh my gosh, McDonald's is debuting a tie green curry
chicken and fish burger in Malaysia, which, by the way,
what the fork? Wtf?
Speaker 1 (21:12):
What the fork? Okay, I'm not well you you're not
a big fan of curry. I don't necessarily hate it
as much as you do, but like this just doesn't
scream anything exciting for me, Like I wouldn't want to
go out and want to try that.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I don't have a motivation to eat fish. At McDonald's.
People love the fish fileg they do absolutely love it, yes,
and to me, and it comes with cheese on, Like
cheese and fish to me is disgusting. I'll eat cheese
and shellfish because shellfish is said, shesh, change that chawfish? Yeah, well,
what's one of our number one sellers, the lobsterales?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Okay, yeah, I'm sorry. I was thinking of like shrimp.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
You wouldn't put okay, you wouldn't have a case of
dea with black and shrimp and a little bit of
cheese on.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
There Okay, yes see, you're right, turning her.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Upside down inside out. You going to show you guys
what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
So the thing is is that I get it, and
this is a one off, and this is in Malaysia
and they have totally different palettes. But what I see
here in my problem, it's not the McDonald's sandwich. Okay.
McDonald's is the conduit through which they try and enter
food trends into the mainstream. And you know what I
don't like about this? What the curry.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
You don't like curry.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I don't like curry, not because I don't like good curry.
I think people don't understand that curry is complicated. It's
a multifaceted flavor. There's green curry, there's red curry, there's
mattress curry, there's dry curry. There's curry and coconut soups.
There's so many different ways to use curry. But people
just see curry and they dump it on everything. It's
an overwhelming flavor.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
It is. It's very overpowering.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
It is. So if you don't cook it properly, you
don't just add curry to something.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
You have to be very careful.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
It's like you learn if you learn to drive, you
know how to drive basic right with an automatic. If
you then step into a stick shift Ferrari or sports car,
like that's a specialty car. You got be specific in
how the way in which you drive that Curry is
the Ferrari sports car of spices and seasonings. You have
to know what you're doing. So I think there's something
(23:09):
nefarious behind this. I think McDonald's is going to try
and roll curry out all over the place, let's hope.
Not speaking of something to Farius. Do you know that
I saw a news headline just this morning. We didn't
talk about this one. You're gonna be surprising everybody. Lauren's
gonna cut me behind the scenes afterwards, she said, we
didn't go over that one. So in San Diego, they
are teaching in elementary schools this there's this program that
(23:31):
bugs are good to eat if not better, meat is
bad for you, and that it's healthy to eat bugs
and bugs are the protein of the future.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
And who San Diego like element.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah, in the school systems, And we've talked about this
at length in the past. I have a major problem
with like consuming bugs because well it's pretty obvious, right,
it's intuitive. I shouldn't even have to explain this one.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
No part of me like instinctually wants to like eat
a bug.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Yeah. The other day I swalled an antid we have
eaten ants. There's a grasshoppers. I like, Okay, I don't
like it. That was more novelty, Like I don't like
grasshoppers or crickets or any of that. But we did.
We went to a bar in New York City. It
was a bar based out of like Mexico City, and
they do this thing where they do like roasted salt
and ants around the rim.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Of like yeah, like your drinks or your shots or whatever.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah, and we we did it.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I couldn't do it. I mean I would like I
had maybe a lick.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
And they weren't like carpenter ants. They didn't have like,
you know, big old tails on them. These were just
like little farm raised ants. I'm hoping they were farm raised.
I hope they didn't just get them from back behind
the restaurant.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
You never know.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, I did feel weird the next day, but that
could have been the roofie.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
He slipped himself.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I have roofed myself before. I did roofy myself once
because I was curious what it was. Like I was
in college. I'm like, what is it? You know everybody
talks about roofies. I'm like, what's it? Like? What's scariest
is that I actually got hold.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
On You really roofed yourself somebody.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
We have never somebody gave me to. Somebody was like,
this is a roofie, and I didn't want somebody to
give it to like a girl or take it. And
jokingly I took it and.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I just throw it in the tweet.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I took it. But all I know is I woke
up at like four thirty in the morning behind a
Denny's with my pants were around my ankles, and I
would but I was I was eating the moon's over
my hammy.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Andrew, Okay, that's not true, but just want to make
everybody lighting up here. It's not that light. That's not funny.
But the second area in which we've eaten bugs is
uh Lupitas, which is a great restaurant in San Jose
and Cabo in Mexico, and they have like a little apatarz.
You get like a wooden bowl of roasted grasshoppers. And
then they've got some Chilian lime seasoning on there. Oh yeah,
(25:37):
we got it for the kids because we thought it'd
be funny.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Right they tried it.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, they ate it.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Our kids they.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Will our kids will eat absolutely. If I was like, hey,
here's a you know, a stick that I found in
the street and we bread it, try it and tried it,
They're like, our kids are animals, all right, what are we?
Eighty sixteen today? Eighty six it get rid of it.
No more no moss.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
For me. It is e bikes for kids. I cannot
stand the e bikes. I'm turning into one of those people.
Because the other day I was driving it was pitch black,
it was dark. It was like seven o'clock, you know,
in the sunsetting early. This group of like maybe six
or I was gonna say six seven, six seven. These
(26:20):
kids just come out onto the street and like a
main street, they're not in the bike lane. They're in
the street doing wheelies and all this crazy stuff. In
my head, I'm like, what if what are these kids?
Flips backwards and like what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
The wheelies are too much like the wheelies.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And they have they don't pay attention to traffic. They're
on their phones the whole time, Like there needs to
be some sort of driver's license test for these things
because they don't know what they're doing and I don't
think they understand how dangerous they can be.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
First of all, you sound like a nine year old lady,
and I love it.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I'm concerned.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I love it. No, No, because I agree with you. You're
like a personification of the next door app, because if
you go on next door, it's like e bike, e bike,
e bike, Everyone's like, Okay, Ronda, I agree with you,
And I have to take put on my policy hat
here because we address this on city Council on multiple occasions.
On the one hand, you know, you don't want to
take it away from the kids because ultimately they're going
(27:13):
to get their hands on them, and it's like if
they don't learn and they don't know the rules of
the road, right, I personally think that it should be
they should go along with the driver's license at a
certain speed limit, Like if you're selling selling an e
bike that goes ten miles per hour below, that's fine,
but anything above that, you've got to get a permit.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Goes you have to They don't pay attention.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I don't pay they don't know the rules of the road.
They're driving in the road.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Going like on a red light, and it's just like.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
And too many kids, a lot of kids kep getting
especially in Huntington Beach, and we're hearing these horrific stories.
So e bike safety is huge. We're actually I have
an h item coming out on the next week's council
agenda where we are going to be addressing bike safety,
E bike safety, et cetera. I agree with you on this.
I wouldn't say eighty six at all together, but I
will say this on the business side, I asked one
of the city council members, you know, what's kind of
(28:01):
the background history on the regulation in a policy, and
they said, if you and I go, I'm going to
ban e bikes right like Andrew coming in like scortch
or legend ht band e bikes. These kids are When
I was a kid, I walked up Hill seven hundred
miles a day and the they were like, we have
so much business that comes in from these e bike
shops and e bike rentals. The business owners would would have.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
A fit, and I don't think we should get rid
of them. They're just they need to like know the
rules of the road. That's it.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Well, I think you should start a course. My eighty
six it is Yelp.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
We've never liked yelp.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
This is my eighty six hit every single week. Here's
the thing with Yelp. I'm not saying get rid of
yelp altogether, because I also use Yelp. I'll go on
Yelp to look at the photos. I don't like the
star rating and the way it's used as a bludgeon
that people can actually use it to abuse a restaurant.
I think it should we should get rid of the
star rating on Yelp, and it should just be pictures
and reviews. It forces Americans to actually read again, Like
(28:56):
nobody you think anyone.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Reading reading great again?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Oh gosh, you know what, you should become a teacher.
So that's it. That's my eighty six Yelp. I'm probably
gonna make that in eighty six it like every five
or six episodes altogether. I want to sharpen your skills,
all right.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I have a sharpen your skills tip, all right, give
it to me, all right, So you should salt your
vegetables before cooking dry brine, not after. So if you
salt raw vegetables, especially mushrooms, zucchini, eggplant, of you know,
onions of the like, ten to fifteen minutes before cooking,
the salt draws out surface moisture and it does two
(29:34):
major things. Andrew, do you know what those are?
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Well, it makes the vegetables taste richer and deeper, and
it also helps them brown because you're removing the moisture.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
So and I feel like, I mean even for me,
like sometimes I like forget to do that and I'll
just start, you know, sataging the vegetables and I'm like,
oh shoot, and then they just it just tastes like
a vegetable with like salt on it, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
And you's vegetables all over the floor too. Hey, she's
a good flipper.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Hands he gets are very heavy.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I get heavy pants. I have heavy pants. Lauren's entirely
correct on this, and it's obviously this is similar to
kind of the dry Brian on the meat. The only
difference with the vegetables is that when the salt does
draw the moisture out, it's not necessarily going to go
back into the vegetable the way it does with the meat,
so you just kind of pat them dry and you
do get a much quicker, beautiful browning on the vegetables
without overcooking or burning them. So fifteen minutes before you
(30:24):
cook the vegetables is when you want to salt it,
so a pre salt kind of dry Brian on the vegetables.
We're there. That's a good one. I think that's the
best sharpen your skills you've had yet.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
I've only had two.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, well you're shooting one out of two. Oh right,
So wow, we covered a lot there, Snap benefits, E
bike salting, vegetables, so many things. Eighty sixteen yelp. I mean,
you're all over the place, but we got some really
good content coming up in our next episode as well.
So make sure that you subscribe to us on whatever
wherever you listen to and get your podcasts Apple, iHeartRadio, iHeartMedia, Spotify,
(30:59):
You've got wherever you're getting your podcast on American Gravy.
You can follow me at Chef Gruel on X I'm
at Andrew Gruhl on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
And you can follow me at Lauren Gruel on X
or at Lauren Underscore Gruel on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
And message us on any of those platform apps, you know,
regarding what you want to hear as topics, what you
want to see eighty six. If you've got your own,
sharpen your skills, because we really want to make this
an open dialogue. You know, we're family here, So American
Gravy coming at you live.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
See you next time.
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