May 9, 2023 • 40 mins
Sometimes on the road, it’s all about the food! Listen as Matt and I talk you through some of the most amazing meals we had in Chicago on the road.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Hey, everybody, Welcome back to another new episode of Her
with Amina Brown and Matt is here in the living
room with me. Okay, because we have a few more
road stories that we can say publicly. Some of the
road stories we do have, they just will not make
this podcast. I will give y'all a little plug right
(00:51):
quick though, that we have been making bonus episodes from
these episodes on my Patreon, So shout out to my
Patreon supporters. We really appreciate you. All. Our Patreon supporters,
in addition to just helping support my creative work in general, specifically,
are supporting us helping make this podcast continue to be
(01:13):
accessible so that we can provide transcripts and things like
that from the podcast, which you can find in the
show notes. Second plug, so you can find the link
to the show notes in the description on whichever podcast
player you're using. If you don't remember any of that,
the show notes are also on Amina brown dot com
slash Her with Amina. So if you want not quite
(01:34):
the dinner party versions, cause there's three levels to road stories.
There's the road stories we tell y'all on the podcast,
then the if there's a little more scandal, we just
put it behind the paywall on Patreon if it's like
super scandalous and or involves naming names, Yeah, yeah, we
don't really put them things on recordings. So that way
(01:56):
y'all know, if y'all see us at a dinner party,
you know we have a few entertaining things.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
If it comes back out and like, did I say that? No,
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Also, this reminds me, this has nothing to do with
the podcast, but right quick, this reminds me of an
episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that we watch where Larry
David was talking about the importance of being able to
be a good middle at the dinner party. Right. I
don't know if you remember this silside it where like
you have especially if you have a dinner party where
(02:28):
everyone's actually sitting all at the same table and you've
got the people who are on the end, but the
people who are on the long side of the table
that are sitting in the middle, y'all have to go
back and like, actually watch this Larry David episode if
you like that kind of thing. But I always think
about us when I think about the concept of the middle,
because I feel like we're both people that you could
(02:50):
totally sit in the middle. You know of the row
of people that we may or may not know at
a dinner party. And first of all, we have lots
of stories that we can tell and lots of questions
we can ask to sort of get other people talking.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So and we don't have to tell stories. Is somebody
else is telling stories that I can, that's a that's
a whole another skill. Be like, wait, hold up, I'm
the one who'd be telling story. How are you gonna
tell a story? When I tell you got a story?
It's cool, tell your story.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
That's a really good point. You may be because I
think I think, especially when you are by nature like
a performing artist, I think people assume that means that
you have to be the ham. I really don't know
why ham is the term that did you grow up
hearing that would be like, oh so sos a ham?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I did, and I love ham, so I always took
it as a compliment. I'm like, ham it.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Up, You're like that firston must be delicious?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Hoa on? I take another slice? You want? You want
to slice it as ham? Let's go.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
But I, even though I became a performer, I did
not actually grow up being a ham. I was more
like withdrawn and subdued. But I think you made a
great point there. Very bad part of being a good
dinner party guest is having a good story on hand
to tell, but not having to tell it.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
See. I think that in my twenties I was totally
a hand Okay. I didn't know how not to be on.
I didn't know how not to perform. Oh there's anybody here,
if I know you or not, Oh, we're putting on
a show. Every picture I've seen in myself from like
nineteen till about twenty three, twenty four, I'm just doing
(04:27):
something crazy. I'm not smiling regular, I'm not just like
in the picture. I'm like a gum under a shoe
or a sign. I don't know, man, I'm just making
up some weird whatever, the weird thing. I just would
get around people and it would just explode. And then
I think as I got older, I started to understand, Hey, man,
you start to become more aware of yourself. I think
(04:47):
you know what I mean, and aware of those around
you right right, and for everybody who's around at that time,
I can understand I might have been a lot. I
might have been a lot. There's pluss that minus is
to be and aware of yourself and what's going on,
kind of like what we were talking about. Just a
second before we hit record. I had some headphones on,
(05:09):
and I said, let me take these headphones off real quick,
so I don't talk like I have podcasts. Because when
you put the headphones on, what'd you say? They said
to you?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
They told me, they told me. My first time in
the studio I put the headphones on, they were like,
can we get another take? Because they said I sounded
like a smooth jazz radio host.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Can you give us a taste?
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I think it probably sounded something like, well, you know,
in my life when I'm thinking about certain things, you know,
when I really contemplate the meaning of life, which is
really not what I would sound like conversational. Nah, you know,
you would never do that if you were like talking
with your friends or hanging out or whatever. So regular, Yeah,
it can be easy in podcast space to get to
(05:52):
that voice, so we try very hard here not to
give you that. Plus, in the living room, we don't
have use for those voices.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I also do think that, like with the advent of
camera phones, we are all are much more aware of
ourselves than maybe we were at one point in time,
and probably some for the better. Some things it probably
be good to be aware of, you know what I mean,
I know some things about yourself, some tendencies or whatever.
But now it's like, oh, I got to hold my
chest and took my chin in this weird way and
(06:22):
smilest weird way. See you. Well, see man, I'm forty
four years old. I'm being forty five of September. But
let's just keep this thing going. I'm just going to
be the age. I am exactly talk the way I talked. Anyways,
I did take the headphones off.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
That's right. No no headphones here, everyone, We're both we're
both headphones list.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
This is not a smooth jazz.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Something as gravel jazz. I don't know what what what
this was called that we're doing, but it is not
smooth jazz. So today, in our our road stories epithets
that we hope to give you all, we wanted to
center on the food, which, honestly, outside of the fact
that we were getting paid, were on the road, and I,
like anyone enjoy getting paid, I missed that part, that
(07:04):
part of the road. Although we are now getting paid
just to not be on the road as much. Right,
I missed that part, but I do miss the food
part more, Yes, because we got to travel to some
cities and eat really really good. I feel like it
took first of all, I feel like it took me
(07:25):
some time professionally to get to a point where I
felt that I could ask for a better travel schedule.
So I feel like my first few years on the
road like everything was chaos, but that felt kind of
rock star for a little while.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, because you had to get up and go. You
had that early morning flight, you get up, catch that flight,
you fly in just in time to do the sound check,
go out there, do your thing, got to catch a
quick nap before you catch that early flight back in and.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Out everything everything. So I think that felt rock star
for a little while, until it didn't, until it started
feeling like especially once your road schedule started filling in more,
and then for us, because we weren't artists, whether we
were solo artists when we did our solo things or
(08:15):
when we travel together performing like we both were both
and artists right, Like we have some artist friends that
they never do gigs in the morning, like ever, all
their gigs are at night, whether they're in a band
or they dj or whatever their art is. Like, their
things happen at night, so you don't see those people
before noon or one pm. They don't take gigs at
(08:37):
that time. But both of us have had the experience
in our artistic lives of having to be both and
artists where we had to do night gigs and sometimes
the next day had to be up in the morning.
For some like nine to five could be like a
corporate gig. We had to go. I mean, I know
that's happened when we were on the road. You had
to do a gig out of town. Then you had
(08:58):
to fly back in because you had a corporate client
in Atlanta. You had to be there for their setup.
We did conference world.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Conference work where you are djaying at like eight in
the morning, yes, and you're stepping up to your turntables,
and somebody's looking at you like, don't you dare? Don't
you dare me at eight in the morning, Please don't.
I am not here for your people.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Don't want to be unst First. First of all, First
of all, this is the truth of it. When you're
in a corporate environment or in a church environment, these
two groups of people is rare that these people want
toots at all, not to mention in the morning, right,
But like when Matt is djaying in night life, people
(09:44):
came to a venue, a bar, a place to have
a good time. They like ound me till the cows
come home. But we would go into some other spaces
where a indeed did not want to have a good
time specifically. So I think a part of the lesson
that I fin fel like I learned that I had
to start doing when I was traveling by myself, and
(10:05):
then that we had to incorporate when we were traveling together,
was realizing, like just because the gig is at ten
doesn't mean that we need to let them book us
the six am flight and be up at three am
so we can get to the airport by four o'clock
and slide right in. You know, I think we both
(10:28):
have had to learn how to give ourselves more margin
and time, right start flying in the night before, start
giving ourselves a little more time. So at first we
were doing that for our own sakes as an element
of self care, but then it also turned out to
be more fun in some of the cities we went to, right, Yeah,
(10:48):
because then you didn't just breeze through Chicago, for example,
and like miss out on all the food that's there.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
You're enjoying a city. You're getting to know a city
by its food and buy ITTs are and whatever the
scene is there in that city.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, I think I think one of the things that
I miss the most about not having not not being
on the road now like we were pre pandemic is
I missed the traveling. But I think what I figured
out now that we've had we've done a little bit
of traveling, you know, for gigs and otherwise. But I
think what I realize now is that I missed the traveling,
(11:26):
but maybe not all of the hustle and bustle of
the gigs as much. And so that did kind of
bring to my mind. And I think we've tried to
practice this a little bit more now when we travel,
like actually going places just because we want to go
to that city. We want to like even if we
go there and have some meetings or something like, but
we want to actually like enjoy the city and not
feel in a rush. So we wanted to run down
(11:46):
for y'all a few of our favorite food cities that
we've traveled to. I do want to start with Chicago.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Which that's my favorite.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
To be fair, you all have heard some tales about
Chicago already because we told y'all in a previous episode
about a not so great trip to Chicago. But I
think we alluded that we were going to come back
to you Chicago because that trip did not go great,
but we had a lot of other subsequent trips that
went amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, more than made up for itself for sure.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
First of all, Chicago pizza. I hear you New Yorkers.
I hear you, you know, grumbling in the background. I
hear you being like, is it pizza. I've literally heard
one of you New Yorkers say to me, oh you
had Chicago pizza? You mean lasagna? And I'm not fighting
(12:38):
with y'all. I'm not fighting with y'all about that. I'm
pretty much telling y'all that I am eating the pizza
in Chicago and New York. But we're gonna talk about
Chicago pizza first, New Yorkers. We're gonna get to y'all. Okay,
don't worry about it. We'll get to y'all because I'm
not giving no votes today. Who got the best pizza
Chicago pizza. It's delicious. It's delicious, Luma natis delicious, Giordano's.
(13:05):
We also had I feel like there's another one, oh
Gino's East.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, that was the first one we went. Ohay was
the first one, and then Luma Natis. That was the
one that I learned the hard way that's not Illuminats
pizza because I was walking out of the hotel and
I asked the guy at the door. I said, hey, man,
which way to Illuminati's pizza? And boy, they had a
(13:29):
good laugh at me.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
That was pretty funny, just like because you said it
to me one time, and like if if you're hearing
Illuminatis really fast, your brain replaces it with like what
you're assuming it is, which is Luma Natis. So I
think you said it to me, And I was like,
what did he just say? And then and then y'all.
The other thing y'all can't see because we're on audio
right now, is my husband has a very good straight face. Also,
(13:54):
I feel like over the years of our marriage, you know,
he's learned to alert me, let me know when he's
being funny. But I'm pretty sure through at least the
first two years of us being married, there was a
lot of times that he was being funny and I
did not know he was being funny because he was
straight facing me. So in the moment he said illuminatis
the first time, I looked at him, and he didn't
(14:15):
look back at me like he was saying anything funny
to me. So I was like, I think he meant
to say something funny, and he just like letting it
lie with me. So when we got outside the hotel
and he said it and they were like, what you say,
I was like, oh, my gosh. I thought he was playing.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
You know, I also being this other man that I am.
I do have a bit of an annunciation problem. It's
just one long word with no suitable none in there,
and so I might just landed it all together. My bag. Y'all,
Luma Natties is delicious.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
M h. Delicious. Love that love that. We also have
had some friends shout out to our friends who live
in Chicago. We had some friends actually send us Chicago
pizza because there's one of the pizza restaurants there that
you can ship it to two friends that don't live there,
and it came to us frozen, and it was like
(15:03):
a little personal one and all we had to do
was like put it in the oven. Y'all, yes, Yes
to Chicago.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Pizza technology at its finest.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I went to Chicago. I think we went to Chicago
a couple of times and only ate the pizza, never
had time to both eat the pizza and the hot dogs. Yeah,
so we finally were able to make time to go
to Portillo's. And y'all, y'all know that I went a
lot of years without eating hot dogs because of what
we discussed about food poisoning in they previous episode. So
(15:31):
y'all know, it took me some years to heal up
from that before I could even approach a hot dog.
So that's probably also why we went to Chicago but
didn't eat hot dogs right. One time we went and
we got there early enough before the gig that we
had time to eat two meals. Because once you get
in the building, especially if you're there for like a
(15:52):
conference or for a church thing, once you get in
the building, you're you're you're pretty much stuck with whatever
the food is that they.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Had the craft service.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, and Matt using craft services there is him being
very kind to some of these places that we were
this this food here this ain't. This ain't what you
want when you're in a you're in a food city,
you're typically not getting that at the event. So we
came in early, got.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
A Chicago pizza painted on brown live.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Listen, guys, No, y'all, y'all know what them green beans
look like. Y'all know when I said them green beans,
I'll know y'all know they is. So we went to
Portillo's and I have to say, even honestly, the Chicago
hot dog I had that gave me food poisoning was delicious.
It was like, it did not give me any indication
that it was gonna make me sick like that.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Now that one snuck up on the staff, it was.
It was great.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
So we went to Portillo's and I felt really had
the true experience. I mean, the little poppy seeds on the.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Hot dog bun amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I'm gonna let y'all know that Chicago hot dogs inspired
me to buy celery salt from my own house. Do
y'all understand Matt and I actually did a date night
one night where we tried to make Chicago hot dogs
at home. We tried it like we did a date
night in specific, it wasn't so bad. I mean, part
of it is like you ain't got It's the same
(17:16):
to me as Philly, which will get to in a minute.
But it's the same as trying to redo like a
HOGI it's like some of it is the bread that
is native to there in Philly, and I do think
the hot dogs in Chicago are the same. Yeah, but
we tried it. But that's cellar result. I'll put that
shit on everything. Is there any other food you can remember,
(17:48):
because I know we're gonna talk coffee in a second,
but any other food that you can remember from Chicago?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I don't know what? Yes, yes, okay, okay. First of all,
I don't know if you want to talk about the
Girl and the Goat.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Oh, we do need to talk about the Girl and
the Goat.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
The first time we couldn't get into the Girl and
the Goat. We didn't understand the level of what type
of reservations you needed to make, so we had to
go to the Little Goat Diner.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Come on, Yes.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I've still got a picture somewhere of this sandwich that
I got from there. It was like a burger that
had like lamb on top of meat on top of
pork like it was three or four stacks high. It
was still to this day that might have been the
(18:39):
best thing I've ever ate in my life.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
I am so glad that you brought this up because
that that is that That's one of the things I
love about Chicago as a food city is that you
have some like I don't know how to describe it,
but because to me, it's still like we're always joking
about the word gourmet. It's like I think in Chicago,
like all of the food could be considered gourmet, but
like you have like be considered like your street food
(19:04):
that you could eat in Chicago, your pizza, hot dogs, tacos,
things like that that are typically not like breaking the
bank for you, right, but they're amazing. But then in
Chicago you also have like some really you know, amazing
chefs who have restaurants there, and you're getting to like
experience that. Okay, I want to shout out Stephanie. Stephanie,
(19:25):
I think we're izard. I'm trying to confirm if that
is correct, but I know her first name is Stephanie,
and I know I found out about her from watching
Top Chef. Shout out to any of you who are
Top Chef fans listening, and so she was on my
list for that reason because I think, if I'm remembering right,
she was the first woman to ever win Top Chef.
(19:47):
So we were very determined. And when we were like, oh, no,
we can't get in the Girl on the Goat because
apparently at that time you had to have reservations like
way way way away in advance, and then we were like, oh, well,
I guess we can go to the Little Goat Diner.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
It was not disappointed.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Oh the Little Goat was delicious, but I think we
actually went back to Chicago and went to the Little
Goat Diner on purpose.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, that sandwich was that good. I'm still thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
The French fries worse. Either soaked in beef.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Fat maybe that's what it is, or or they were.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Cooked and whatever it was, y'all. Normally I would not
necessarily ask for anything that was soaked in beef fat
or whatever fat it was. But I'm gonna tell y'all
right now, that French fry threatened to change my life.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Let me tell you I'm really full right now. Because
Amina woke up this morning decided she wanted pancakes because
she's had to deprive herself of some good food. So
we went out and got pancakes as went and she
could only eat one, so you know, I ate the
other two. So I'm over here full. But I would
eat that sandwich and those fries right and full as
(20:53):
I am.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Okay, amazing. Oh it was so delicious. Like y'all, I'm
not gonna talk about this very long, but I'm tell you,
when you get in your forties, you start having to
go get your checkups and get all your blood work monitored,
and then your doctor come back and be like, blood
sugar's a little high. So now, y'all, y'all know how
much I love carbohydrates, and I'm basically having to monitor
right now in order to help my blood sugars get
(21:14):
to a healthy level. I'm having to monitor like the
carbs that I eat. Like y'all, I don't want to
monitor that. I just want to eat as much of
them as I want to. Hence why we were talking
about these food cities, so that I can live vicariously
through our past lives that we had.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Oh man, we used to go in and just whatever.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
It was, enjoyed all of it.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Please, all the Eminem's in the green room.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Okay, all the all the brownie bites, because there was
always a little brownie bite in the green.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Room somewhere, always Kroger somewhere, publics, Whole drink, Remember drinking
a whole can of coke.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
And a whole can of coke, y'all with a bag
of chips and a cookie, like man, That was the time. Also,
we ended up back in Chicago close to my birthday
for a gig, and we still weren't able to get reservations.
We tried to get reservations for The Girl and the
Goat and weren't able to get reservations. But I did
enough internet slew thing to discover that if you were
(22:06):
there when The Girl and the Goat opened, that they
had a certain number of seats that were like first come,
first serve. So imagine, y'all, that this restaurant opens at
five and I think we got there at four point
thirty and there were already people in line. Yeah, so
we were one of the last people to get the
first seats, like they had like bar seats, and then
(22:29):
the police and then they had like a long table
that was kind of like out like on the sidewalk,
but sort of there like sidewalk patio, and that was
my birthday dinner that year that we got to eat
at Girl and the Goat. So shout out to Stephanie, Yo,
you did that, honey, big shout out Chicago. That brings
me to Yes.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I do have another Chicago edition, Okay, Cuz, yes, this
might just be a Chicago episode. Okay, because we haven't
even gotten to the coffee yet, to the coffee yet,
but I just got to make an addition. Okay, that
steakhouse we went.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
To, yo, y'all, we do have to talk about this.
Maybe this is a Chicago episode. I have forgotten about
the good times.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
And we haven't even gotten to Chicago. Also has a
food truck scene. Yeah, remember the food trucks.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
But that steakhouse, Gibson's, that one Gibson's Steakhouse. I feel
like in a previous episode, y'all, I told y'all about
sometimes I met celebrities. I think I did at that
time I met a celebrity episode and I talked about
meeting Tasha Smith. So for further background on that, we
will put the links to that episode in the show notes,
(23:44):
So if you haven't listened to it, you can go
back into the archives and listen to this. But in short,
we got a gig in Chicago for this is another
Valentine's Day We've told y'all. We've told y'all a couple
of other road stories that were near val on Time's Sailor.
We had a Valentine's Day in Vegas. So we got
booked for like the suburbs of Chicago on the fifteenth,
(24:10):
I think of February. So we decided to fly in
on the fourteenth, and our plan was to go. I
still think we couldn't get reservations to The Girl and
the Goat, so I think we had made reservations for
like a special prefixed menu they were doing at the
Little Goat Diner. Okay, So I randomly ended up getting
(24:34):
upgraded to first class and only one of us could sit,
and so Matt was like, you go. So I ended
up sitting next to actress, director comedian Tasha Smith, who
is just a wonderful person as you meet her in person,
and obviously she is a hilarious and artful person in
all of the work that she has done over the years.
(24:55):
So I meet her on this flight. We have a
wonderful chat wonderful black girl about what her forties are like,
and you know, things that she's learning in her professional life.
And I'm just there like soaking in all the information.
So right as we're about to get on the plane,
she puts her number in my phone and she's like, what,
what's Valentine's Day? What are you and your husband doing?
And I was like, oh, we were going to go
(25:16):
eat at this restaurant. She was like, you need to
come eat with me. And she was like she was like,
you know, ask your husband, ask your husband. So as
soon as we're exiting the plane, she's like, ask your
husband and text me. So y'all just the weirdness of
like you've met a celebrity now, and she put her
number in my phone and was like just text me
like that whole thing like like had me like huh.
(25:37):
So by the time Matt and I meet up after
we get out of the plane and I'm like, hey,
so I was sitting next to Tasha Smith and I'm
like and she says she wants us to go to
dinner with her own Valentine's Day and Matt was like, oh, yes, absolutely, yes,
Like we're going to cancel them other reservations because she
was like, in what other lifetime are we going to
get to sit and have Valentine's Day dinner with Tasha
(25:58):
Smith and what other life? So, y'all, it was kind
of snowy and cold, and we were staying. I feel
like we must have been staying not far from where
that place was. I really can't remember now, y'all what
we were doing. Anyway, she gave us the address for
the restaurant, which, for those of you that aren't from Chicago, Gibson's.
(26:21):
It's like an old school, like classic, really really great
steakhouse and.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Pictures of all the celebrities covering the wall, Lots of
Michael Jordan pictures on the wall.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
And it was packed, obviously because it was literally Valentine's Day. Okay,
so we walk in there to hang out with Tasha
and two of her friends, and y'all, first of all,
the slight anxieties that you have when you're eating with
people who are not in your tax bracket.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
I don't know. I don't know. I can run. I
can jog a little bit, but I don't know I
can run like you.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
It's a lot of because like when you're with people
who are outside of your tax bracket. There's a lot
of ordering without money considerations. There's a lot of them
being like, oh, you have to try this. So when
the waiter comes, you didn't get a word in. They
were like, they were like, oh, we're gonna have this
at let's try this. Oh they have to taste that,
and they'll ask the waiter, don't you recommend such a
such as the waiter say oh yes, they'll say yes
(27:19):
and those so before you know it, like five or
six dishes and got ordered all of them to try it.
But you're like, oh, so, Matt and I just look
at each other and I can tell by the look
in her eyes, we've just decided. If this whole thing
gets split evenly among us, like this is what we're doing,
go for it. This is our this is our time
(27:40):
for a treat opportunity. Okay. So Tasha is mainly vegetarian,
she's pescatarian sometimes. So we had like a little bit
of seafood dishes. But you ordered a steak.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, because and I'm pretty sure because usually I like
to find out, you know, when you with vegetaria. But
she did invite us to a steakhouse. You know what
I'm saying. So there was some conversation about it's cool,
you know she's doing it for these reasons whatever. So yeah,
I was like, uh, the steaks, and you know, growing up,
you know, you grow up shout out to you know,
(28:14):
the Sizzler people growing up on a Sizzler. And then
you know, there was a certain time in my life
that you know, you upgrade the Longhorn. You're like Longhorn.
And then you know, I lived in Dallas for a
while and they had some nice steakhouses out there, you
know what I'm saying. So you end up ad some steakhouse,
eating some you know, pretty decent pieces of beef, you
know what I mean, and stuff, and you kind of
learn the difference between this cut and that cut, and
(28:36):
you're like, okay, I d kind of got an idea,
you know, and I got to the place where I
know that you know, you order it the steak medium
is that or if you're at a really nice restaurant,
you go ahead and go for that medium rare or
you know what I mean. If you're an adventuroust, I
am go for that wreckt you know. So I've kind
of crept down the line of learning how to order,
(28:56):
but I wasn't prepared for this place. They brought out
some pieces of meat and you got to go, oh, yeah,
I'll take that. Like you're looking at these very thick
cut very it looked like a little wood thing full
of just art pieces, and you're like, oh, that's beautiful.
(29:17):
Without all the way round. I asked a few questions
and you know, try to navigate my way through it.
But I was like, I'll take that one. And that
was my first experience or something like that. But you know,
you try to act like yeah, yeah, common, yeah cool.
Oh you brought it out to me. Yes, I will
have that one, thank you, normal things.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Definitely try to act like you've been places. It's very
hard to act like you've been places when you're someplace
where you ain't being.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
You know, I still keep a thing in the back
of my head is the voice of my mother in
the grocery store going, don't you embarrass me?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
That's it that.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Time when you're acting up as a little kid and
you're asking for all the toys in the grocery store, whatever,
the candy, whatever it is. She's like, stop, no, don't
you emburish me, And you're like, oh, so I just
keep that little voice in the back. Sometimes I don't
listen to it, to be honest, it's there anyway. So
ordered the steak turn out to be the most delicious
(30:18):
piece of It was a fantastic experience. But what was
funny even about that was that here it was what
at the time would have been the most expensive piece
of meat I'd ever purchased in my life, and it
was so big I couldn't eat all of it in
one setting, So I had to bring it back to
the hotel. Once we get back to the hotel. The
level of hotel, well, I mean most hotels. Most hotels
(30:40):
don't have like a full fridge. It just had the
little mini fridge.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, that is what's funny about the level of hotel,
because the nicer the hotel, the less they're gonna have
a fridge and a microwave. Right, a lower star hotel
would have the little fridge and the microwave. So we
got back and gotta fitch you bronosaurus steak you got
from Gibson's. And then Tasha's friend that was with us.
(31:06):
It was her birthday dinner, right, so we all she
wanted all of us to like order cake, and the
cake was like diner size, like if y'all have been
to those diner size.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Multi layer piece of cake, huge, yike.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
So imagine us going back to this room and I
don't remember what you did with that steak in the morning,
or if you just ate it cold, what did you do?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Remember? Because I remember, first of all, put it in
that mini fridge and being like this, even the amount
of piece of meat left is still more costly than
this fridge it's sitting in. And I know that I
put it on a little I think I put on
(31:50):
a napkin, That's what I might put it on, a
put in because I don't want to put the stock
because it was one of those styrofoam Yeah yeah, yeah,
so I put that. But then I remember I put
it back in the styrofoam and and used a plastic
utitsula because I didn't have a steak that But man,
it was good that next day too, the cake everything,
and we had to eat it because we're flying out
the next day. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I think that's right, because I think we were wherever
we were staying, we were going to go to the
gig because it was like a chapel at a college
or something, and then right after that we were flying out,
so we weren't coming back to the hotel. So I
just remember us like scarfing down cake for breakfast and
you eating your steak. I forgot you warmed it up
(32:32):
on a napkin. That's that's hilarious. Okay, Well this gives
us a good space to talk about coffee. So let's
talk about coffee in Chicago. What were your coffee discoveries
growing up?
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Coffee was always my dad's drink, so I was never
into it. I was more of a sweet tea and
kool aid man myself. And so you know, I remember something.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
About sweet tea and kol aid man myself is hilarious.
It sounds so it sounds so dignified. It sounds like
if someone's like, oh, no, not more low for me.
I'm a Cabernet. No, I'm more of a sweet tea
kool aid man myself.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
But if you say it confident, with a straight face
and don't let nobody know you joining like, oh that's slick,
then they run it back in their mind.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Like wait a minute, what do you say?
Speaker 2 (33:22):
What did you say? So anyways, you know, I remember
in my twenties, friends started getting jobs at Starbucks. You know,
so you're there, let me try it, okay, and then
you're going to the late night diners with your friends
cause you're old enough to stay out and all that stuff.
And so I was. I got to it. I was
like pouring the sugar, all the sugar in there, all
the milk, all of everything. And then the more we
(33:42):
were traveling, the more I started tasting really good coffee,
and Chicago was one of those cities. Intelligency is a
wonderful coffee roaster in Chicago that I started seeing it
more and more. When I would see that that logo somewhere,
I'd be like, let's go. And most of those coffee
(34:03):
shops start getting into the They are more of what
you would think of as like the snooty coffee shops,
which you know still to this day. There's a couple
of industries where you're typically not going to come across
someone who's excited to see you. One being audio tech
(34:27):
sound people, and you know they're running sound for live events,
and I get it, you got a lot of things
coming at you. Got you. So I've learned over the years.
I'm gonna be as nice to you as possible and
as warm to you, and I'm gonna have as much
conversation as you want to have because you've got a
lot going on and uly personality wise, you got you know,
keep it moving, bro and so cool. I will because
(34:49):
I'm an extrovert. I talk to everybody, and the other
people service industry. I've learned that about would be coffee burists.
I don't know. I don't understand that one as much.
Maybe it's you know, all day long, you're on your feet,
you're I'm sure there's a reason, but it seems to
(35:11):
be that it's especially the the better of a coffee spider.
It is the less of a conversation it is. Yeah,
don't you walk in here talking about no venti grande.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Oh, you will be shunned. Right now. I have been
shunned doing a coffee shop asking for a tall The
maurista literally just stared at me until I embarrassed myself.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
No, do not walk in there and order a machiato
and wonder why it's not big like the machiato is.
Start why is it so small because the machiato is
actually but you learn those things. Yeah, and I'm pretty
sure that like those Intelligencia coffee shops were the ones
where you walk in and you basically you have a
(35:58):
few things you can order and there's not really modifications. Yeah,
and so I think walking into those coffee shops and
ordering just coffee, I started learning, Oh, that's what coffee
from this region tastes, like, Ah, that's what coffee from
this region tastes, like, that's what you know. And then
flash forward to us going to the Dominican Republic that time,
(36:19):
and we're up in the mountains and planting coffee beans
and seeing how it's done and drinking how they made
it in that big part, and that's, you know, that
the whole journey of just getting to where now I
just really love coffee. It's part of my like daily
like the one thing in my day that's probably the same,
because everything in my day could be totally different from
(36:40):
one day to the next, but the one thing about
most of my days, I'm gonna start out with a
good cup of coffee and Intelligensia, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Shout out to that. Let's let's do a quick round
of coffee city shout outs, and then we gonna come
back in another episode and tell y'all more about some
other cities. But other cities, is that you can remember
cities or places because some of the places, I'm like,
I can't remember the exact cities we were in always.
But uh, some other places you would say deserve the
coffee shout out. We talked about Chicago, where Portland, Portland,
(37:12):
Oregon deserves the coffee shout out, Stump Town.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I will say, uh, DC, Yeah, I found some really
good coffee in DC along the way. Uh, and the
the d m V area. I would say of Texas.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Austin, Yeah, agreed, Austin agreed.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Atlanta has really become a great Yeah, that's true. I
mean portrait WHOA like, I really love their work. Perk
Perk Perk, Yeah, is like one of my coffee favorite spots.
If if you're gonna meet me and grab a cup
of coffee in the atl we probably going to Park.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yo Hodge Podge in Atlanta. It's definitely like urban grind, like.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Urban on the belt Line. Now, so many things I'm
saying you can't not say. Now, you can not say
atl Yeah, already said the Dominican Republican.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
But when we went to Costa Rica. Yoh's in the city.
But when we went to Costa Rica, that's where I
really fell in love with the poor over, yeah, which
is my you know, I use a Chemax now, yeah,
and the poor over has become my like go to
coffee now.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yeah. And for a while I was traveling back and
forth to Rwanda a lot with an organization I was
partnering with there, and so Matt never got to go
with me. But Rwanda is a huge location to be
getting amazing coffee, just amazing farmers out there, amazing coffee roasting.
So when we would be getting ready to go to
(38:45):
the airport, our friends that were with us from the
organization would like drive us up to where this particular
coffee roaster was and we would like get the bag
when it was still warm. I would like bring it
home like that to Matt, because I'm not I'm on
the other side of the coffee situation where I'm like, yes,
(39:05):
I would like a little bit of coffee with my
raspberry squirrels and whip and you know whatever Graham cracker stuff,
you know, like I want all the other stuff with
like a little bit of Coffee's that's my vibe. So
I would bring home those coffee beans for Matt. So
my hope is that as we continue on in our
(39:25):
life that we can go to most of the coffee
epicenters in the world and get a chance to like
travel around and taste coffee as far as where it's
grown there as well as being able to taste the
places that have like really innovated into how coffee is
brewed and how it gets made and the flavors and
all that. So that's on our travel bucket list. Love
(39:49):
to see it all Right, Well, we got some food
stuff to talk about with y'all, So come back next
week and listen to us regale you with other amazing
food things to do when you travel next time. See
y'all soon. Hear What Amina Brown is produced by Matt
(40:20):
Owen for Sober Feed Productions as a part of the
Seneca Women Podcast Network and partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening,
and don't forget to subscribe, ranked and review the podcast.
Hey, everybody, Welcome back to another new episode of Her
with Amina Brown and Matt is here in the living
room with me. Okay, because we have a few more
road stories that we can say publicly. Some of the
road stories we do have, they just will not make
this podcast. I will give y'all a little plug right
(00:51):
quick though, that we have been making bonus episodes from
these episodes on my Patreon, So shout out to my
Patreon supporters. We really appreciate you. All. Our Patreon supporters,
in addition to just helping support my creative work in general, specifically,
are supporting us helping make this podcast continue to be
(01:13):
accessible so that we can provide transcripts and things like
that from the podcast, which you can find in the
show notes. Second plug, so you can find the link
to the show notes in the description on whichever podcast
player you're using. If you don't remember any of that,
the show notes are also on Amina brown dot com
slash Her with Amina. So if you want not quite
(01:34):
the dinner party versions, cause there's three levels to road stories.
There's the road stories we tell y'all on the podcast,
then the if there's a little more scandal, we just
put it behind the paywall on Patreon if it's like
super scandalous and or involves naming names, Yeah, yeah, we
don't really put them things on recordings. So that way
(01:56):
y'all know, if y'all see us at a dinner party,
you know we have a few entertaining things.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
If it comes back out and like, did I say that? No,
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Also, this reminds me, this has nothing to do with
the podcast, but right quick, this reminds me of an
episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that we watch where Larry
David was talking about the importance of being able to
be a good middle at the dinner party. Right. I
don't know if you remember this silside it where like
you have especially if you have a dinner party where
(02:28):
everyone's actually sitting all at the same table and you've
got the people who are on the end, but the
people who are on the long side of the table
that are sitting in the middle, y'all have to go
back and like, actually watch this Larry David episode if
you like that kind of thing. But I always think
about us when I think about the concept of the middle,
because I feel like we're both people that you could
(02:50):
totally sit in the middle. You know of the row
of people that we may or may not know at
a dinner party. And first of all, we have lots
of stories that we can tell and lots of questions
we can ask to sort of get other people talking.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So and we don't have to tell stories. Is somebody
else is telling stories that I can, that's a that's
a whole another skill. Be like, wait, hold up, I'm
the one who'd be telling story. How are you gonna
tell a story? When I tell you got a story?
It's cool, tell your story.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
That's a really good point. You may be because I
think I think, especially when you are by nature like
a performing artist, I think people assume that means that
you have to be the ham. I really don't know
why ham is the term that did you grow up
hearing that would be like, oh so sos a ham?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I did, and I love ham, so I always took
it as a compliment. I'm like, ham it.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Up, You're like that firston must be delicious?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Hoa on? I take another slice? You want? You want
to slice it as ham? Let's go.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
But I, even though I became a performer, I did
not actually grow up being a ham. I was more
like withdrawn and subdued. But I think you made a
great point there. Very bad part of being a good
dinner party guest is having a good story on hand
to tell, but not having to tell it.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
See. I think that in my twenties I was totally
a hand Okay. I didn't know how not to be on.
I didn't know how not to perform. Oh there's anybody here,
if I know you or not, Oh, we're putting on
a show. Every picture I've seen in myself from like
nineteen till about twenty three, twenty four, I'm just doing
(04:27):
something crazy. I'm not smiling regular, I'm not just like
in the picture. I'm like a gum under a shoe
or a sign. I don't know, man, I'm just making
up some weird whatever, the weird thing. I just would
get around people and it would just explode. And then
I think as I got older, I started to understand, Hey, man,
you start to become more aware of yourself. I think
(04:47):
you know what I mean, and aware of those around
you right right, and for everybody who's around at that time,
I can understand I might have been a lot. I
might have been a lot. There's pluss that minus is
to be and aware of yourself and what's going on,
kind of like what we were talking about. Just a
second before we hit record. I had some headphones on,
(05:09):
and I said, let me take these headphones off real quick,
so I don't talk like I have podcasts. Because when
you put the headphones on, what'd you say? They said
to you?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
They told me, they told me. My first time in
the studio I put the headphones on, they were like,
can we get another take? Because they said I sounded
like a smooth jazz radio host.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Can you give us a taste?
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I think it probably sounded something like, well, you know,
in my life when I'm thinking about certain things, you know,
when I really contemplate the meaning of life, which is
really not what I would sound like conversational. Nah, you know,
you would never do that if you were like talking
with your friends or hanging out or whatever. So regular, Yeah,
it can be easy in podcast space to get to
(05:52):
that voice, so we try very hard here not to
give you that. Plus, in the living room, we don't
have use for those voices.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I also do think that, like with the advent of
camera phones, we are all are much more aware of
ourselves than maybe we were at one point in time,
and probably some for the better. Some things it probably
be good to be aware of, you know what I mean,
I know some things about yourself, some tendencies or whatever.
But now it's like, oh, I got to hold my
chest and took my chin in this weird way and
(06:22):
smilest weird way. See you. Well, see man, I'm forty
four years old. I'm being forty five of September. But
let's just keep this thing going. I'm just going to
be the age. I am exactly talk the way I talked. Anyways,
I did take the headphones off.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
That's right. No no headphones here, everyone, We're both we're
both headphones list.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
This is not a smooth jazz.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Something as gravel jazz. I don't know what what what
this was called that we're doing, but it is not
smooth jazz. So today, in our our road stories epithets
that we hope to give you all, we wanted to
center on the food, which, honestly, outside of the fact
that we were getting paid, were on the road, and I,
like anyone enjoy getting paid, I missed that part, that
(07:04):
part of the road. Although we are now getting paid
just to not be on the road as much. Right,
I missed that part, but I do miss the food
part more, Yes, because we got to travel to some
cities and eat really really good. I feel like it
took first of all, I feel like it took me
(07:25):
some time professionally to get to a point where I
felt that I could ask for a better travel schedule.
So I feel like my first few years on the
road like everything was chaos, but that felt kind of
rock star for a little while.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, because you had to get up and go. You
had that early morning flight, you get up, catch that flight,
you fly in just in time to do the sound check,
go out there, do your thing, got to catch a
quick nap before you catch that early flight back in and.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Out everything everything. So I think that felt rock star
for a little while, until it didn't, until it started
feeling like especially once your road schedule started filling in more,
and then for us, because we weren't artists, whether we
were solo artists when we did our solo things or
(08:15):
when we travel together performing like we both were both
and artists right, Like we have some artist friends that
they never do gigs in the morning, like ever, all
their gigs are at night, whether they're in a band
or they dj or whatever their art is. Like, their
things happen at night, so you don't see those people
before noon or one pm. They don't take gigs at
(08:37):
that time. But both of us have had the experience
in our artistic lives of having to be both and
artists where we had to do night gigs and sometimes
the next day had to be up in the morning.
For some like nine to five could be like a
corporate gig. We had to go. I mean, I know
that's happened when we were on the road. You had
to do a gig out of town. Then you had
(08:58):
to fly back in because you had a corporate client
in Atlanta. You had to be there for their setup.
We did conference world.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Conference work where you are djaying at like eight in
the morning, yes, and you're stepping up to your turntables,
and somebody's looking at you like, don't you dare? Don't
you dare me at eight in the morning, Please don't.
I am not here for your people.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Don't want to be unst First. First of all, First
of all, this is the truth of it. When you're
in a corporate environment or in a church environment, these
two groups of people is rare that these people want
toots at all, not to mention in the morning, right,
But like when Matt is djaying in night life, people
(09:44):
came to a venue, a bar, a place to have
a good time. They like ound me till the cows
come home. But we would go into some other spaces
where a indeed did not want to have a good
time specifically. So I think a part of the lesson
that I fin fel like I learned that I had
to start doing when I was traveling by myself, and
(10:05):
then that we had to incorporate when we were traveling together,
was realizing, like just because the gig is at ten
doesn't mean that we need to let them book us
the six am flight and be up at three am
so we can get to the airport by four o'clock
and slide right in. You know, I think we both
(10:28):
have had to learn how to give ourselves more margin
and time, right start flying in the night before, start
giving ourselves a little more time. So at first we
were doing that for our own sakes as an element
of self care, but then it also turned out to
be more fun in some of the cities we went to, right, Yeah,
(10:48):
because then you didn't just breeze through Chicago, for example,
and like miss out on all the food that's there.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
You're enjoying a city. You're getting to know a city
by its food and buy ITTs are and whatever the
scene is there in that city.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, I think I think one of the things that
I miss the most about not having not not being
on the road now like we were pre pandemic is
I missed the traveling. But I think what I figured
out now that we've had we've done a little bit
of traveling, you know, for gigs and otherwise. But I
think what I realize now is that I missed the traveling,
(11:26):
but maybe not all of the hustle and bustle of
the gigs as much. And so that did kind of
bring to my mind. And I think we've tried to
practice this a little bit more now when we travel,
like actually going places just because we want to go
to that city. We want to like even if we
go there and have some meetings or something like, but
we want to actually like enjoy the city and not
feel in a rush. So we wanted to run down
(11:46):
for y'all a few of our favorite food cities that
we've traveled to. I do want to start with Chicago.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Which that's my favorite.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
To be fair, you all have heard some tales about
Chicago already because we told y'all in a previous episode
about a not so great trip to Chicago. But I
think we alluded that we were going to come back
to you Chicago because that trip did not go great,
but we had a lot of other subsequent trips that
went amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, more than made up for itself for sure.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
First of all, Chicago pizza. I hear you New Yorkers.
I hear you, you know, grumbling in the background. I
hear you being like, is it pizza. I've literally heard
one of you New Yorkers say to me, oh you
had Chicago pizza? You mean lasagna? And I'm not fighting
(12:38):
with y'all. I'm not fighting with y'all about that. I'm
pretty much telling y'all that I am eating the pizza
in Chicago and New York. But we're gonna talk about
Chicago pizza first, New Yorkers. We're gonna get to y'all. Okay,
don't worry about it. We'll get to y'all because I'm
not giving no votes today. Who got the best pizza
Chicago pizza. It's delicious. It's delicious, Luma natis delicious, Giordano's.
(13:05):
We also had I feel like there's another one, oh
Gino's East.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, that was the first one we went. Ohay was
the first one, and then Luma Natis. That was the
one that I learned the hard way that's not Illuminats
pizza because I was walking out of the hotel and
I asked the guy at the door. I said, hey, man,
which way to Illuminati's pizza? And boy, they had a
(13:29):
good laugh at me.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
That was pretty funny, just like because you said it
to me one time, and like if if you're hearing
Illuminatis really fast, your brain replaces it with like what
you're assuming it is, which is Luma Natis. So I
think you said it to me, And I was like,
what did he just say? And then and then y'all.
The other thing y'all can't see because we're on audio
right now, is my husband has a very good straight face. Also,
(13:54):
I feel like over the years of our marriage, you know,
he's learned to alert me, let me know when he's
being funny. But I'm pretty sure through at least the
first two years of us being married, there was a
lot of times that he was being funny and I
did not know he was being funny because he was
straight facing me. So in the moment he said illuminatis
the first time, I looked at him, and he didn't
(14:15):
look back at me like he was saying anything funny
to me. So I was like, I think he meant
to say something funny, and he just like letting it
lie with me. So when we got outside the hotel
and he said it and they were like, what you say,
I was like, oh, my gosh. I thought he was playing.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
You know, I also being this other man that I am.
I do have a bit of an annunciation problem. It's
just one long word with no suitable none in there,
and so I might just landed it all together. My bag. Y'all,
Luma Natties is delicious.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
M h. Delicious. Love that love that. We also have
had some friends shout out to our friends who live
in Chicago. We had some friends actually send us Chicago
pizza because there's one of the pizza restaurants there that
you can ship it to two friends that don't live there,
and it came to us frozen, and it was like
(15:03):
a little personal one and all we had to do
was like put it in the oven. Y'all, yes, Yes
to Chicago.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Pizza technology at its finest.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I went to Chicago. I think we went to Chicago
a couple of times and only ate the pizza, never
had time to both eat the pizza and the hot dogs. Yeah,
so we finally were able to make time to go
to Portillo's. And y'all, y'all know that I went a
lot of years without eating hot dogs because of what
we discussed about food poisoning in they previous episode. So
(15:31):
y'all know, it took me some years to heal up
from that before I could even approach a hot dog.
So that's probably also why we went to Chicago but
didn't eat hot dogs right. One time we went and
we got there early enough before the gig that we
had time to eat two meals. Because once you get
in the building, especially if you're there for like a
(15:52):
conference or for a church thing, once you get in
the building, you're you're you're pretty much stuck with whatever
the food is that they.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Had the craft service.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, and Matt using craft services there is him being
very kind to some of these places that we were
this this food here this ain't. This ain't what you
want when you're in a you're in a food city,
you're typically not getting that at the event. So we
came in early, got.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
A Chicago pizza painted on brown live.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Listen, guys, No, y'all, y'all know what them green beans
look like. Y'all know when I said them green beans,
I'll know y'all know they is. So we went to
Portillo's and I have to say, even honestly, the Chicago
hot dog I had that gave me food poisoning was delicious.
It was like, it did not give me any indication
that it was gonna make me sick like that.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Now that one snuck up on the staff, it was.
It was great.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
So we went to Portillo's and I felt really had
the true experience. I mean, the little poppy seeds on the.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Hot dog bun amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I'm gonna let y'all know that Chicago hot dogs inspired
me to buy celery salt from my own house. Do
y'all understand Matt and I actually did a date night
one night where we tried to make Chicago hot dogs
at home. We tried it like we did a date
night in specific, it wasn't so bad. I mean, part
of it is like you ain't got It's the same
(17:16):
to me as Philly, which will get to in a minute.
But it's the same as trying to redo like a
HOGI it's like some of it is the bread that
is native to there in Philly, and I do think
the hot dogs in Chicago are the same. Yeah, but
we tried it. But that's cellar result. I'll put that
shit on everything. Is there any other food you can remember,
(17:48):
because I know we're gonna talk coffee in a second,
but any other food that you can remember from Chicago?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I don't know what? Yes, yes, okay, okay. First of all,
I don't know if you want to talk about the
Girl and the Goat.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Oh, we do need to talk about the Girl and
the Goat.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
The first time we couldn't get into the Girl and
the Goat. We didn't understand the level of what type
of reservations you needed to make, so we had to
go to the Little Goat Diner.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Come on, Yes.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I've still got a picture somewhere of this sandwich that
I got from there. It was like a burger that
had like lamb on top of meat on top of
pork like it was three or four stacks high. It
was still to this day that might have been the
(18:39):
best thing I've ever ate in my life.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
I am so glad that you brought this up because
that that is that That's one of the things I
love about Chicago as a food city is that you
have some like I don't know how to describe it,
but because to me, it's still like we're always joking
about the word gourmet. It's like I think in Chicago,
like all of the food could be considered gourmet, but
like you have like be considered like your street food
(19:04):
that you could eat in Chicago, your pizza, hot dogs, tacos,
things like that that are typically not like breaking the
bank for you, right, but they're amazing. But then in
Chicago you also have like some really you know, amazing
chefs who have restaurants there, and you're getting to like
experience that. Okay, I want to shout out Stephanie. Stephanie,
(19:25):
I think we're izard. I'm trying to confirm if that
is correct, but I know her first name is Stephanie,
and I know I found out about her from watching
Top Chef. Shout out to any of you who are
Top Chef fans listening, and so she was on my
list for that reason because I think, if I'm remembering right,
she was the first woman to ever win Top Chef.
(19:47):
So we were very determined. And when we were like, oh, no,
we can't get in the Girl on the Goat because
apparently at that time you had to have reservations like
way way way away in advance, and then we were like, oh, well,
I guess we can go to the Little Goat Diner.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
It was not disappointed.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Oh the Little Goat was delicious, but I think we
actually went back to Chicago and went to the Little
Goat Diner on purpose.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, that sandwich was that good. I'm still thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
The French fries worse. Either soaked in beef.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Fat maybe that's what it is, or or they were.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Cooked and whatever it was, y'all. Normally I would not
necessarily ask for anything that was soaked in beef fat
or whatever fat it was. But I'm gonna tell y'all
right now, that French fry threatened to change my life.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Let me tell you I'm really full right now. Because
Amina woke up this morning decided she wanted pancakes because
she's had to deprive herself of some good food. So
we went out and got pancakes as went and she
could only eat one, so you know, I ate the
other two. So I'm over here full. But I would
eat that sandwich and those fries right and full as
(20:53):
I am.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Okay, amazing. Oh it was so delicious. Like y'all, I'm
not gonna talk about this very long, but I'm tell you,
when you get in your forties, you start having to
go get your checkups and get all your blood work monitored,
and then your doctor come back and be like, blood
sugar's a little high. So now, y'all, y'all know how
much I love carbohydrates, and I'm basically having to monitor
right now in order to help my blood sugars get
(21:14):
to a healthy level. I'm having to monitor like the
carbs that I eat. Like y'all, I don't want to
monitor that. I just want to eat as much of
them as I want to. Hence why we were talking
about these food cities, so that I can live vicariously
through our past lives that we had.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Oh man, we used to go in and just whatever.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
It was, enjoyed all of it.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Please, all the Eminem's in the green room.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Okay, all the all the brownie bites, because there was
always a little brownie bite in the green.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Room somewhere, always Kroger somewhere, publics, Whole drink, Remember drinking
a whole can of coke.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
And a whole can of coke, y'all with a bag
of chips and a cookie, like man, That was the time. Also,
we ended up back in Chicago close to my birthday
for a gig, and we still weren't able to get reservations.
We tried to get reservations for The Girl and the
Goat and weren't able to get reservations. But I did
enough internet slew thing to discover that if you were
(22:06):
there when The Girl and the Goat opened, that they
had a certain number of seats that were like first come,
first serve. So imagine, y'all, that this restaurant opens at
five and I think we got there at four point
thirty and there were already people in line. Yeah, so
we were one of the last people to get the
first seats, like they had like bar seats, and then
(22:29):
the police and then they had like a long table
that was kind of like out like on the sidewalk,
but sort of there like sidewalk patio, and that was
my birthday dinner that year that we got to eat
at Girl and the Goat. So shout out to Stephanie, Yo,
you did that, honey, big shout out Chicago. That brings
me to Yes.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I do have another Chicago edition, Okay, Cuz, yes, this
might just be a Chicago episode. Okay, because we haven't
even gotten to the coffee yet, to the coffee yet,
but I just got to make an addition. Okay, that
steakhouse we went.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
To, yo, y'all, we do have to talk about this.
Maybe this is a Chicago episode. I have forgotten about
the good times.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
And we haven't even gotten to Chicago. Also has a
food truck scene. Yeah, remember the food trucks.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
But that steakhouse, Gibson's, that one Gibson's Steakhouse. I feel
like in a previous episode, y'all, I told y'all about
sometimes I met celebrities. I think I did at that
time I met a celebrity episode and I talked about
meeting Tasha Smith. So for further background on that, we
will put the links to that episode in the show notes,
(23:44):
So if you haven't listened to it, you can go
back into the archives and listen to this. But in short,
we got a gig in Chicago for this is another
Valentine's Day We've told y'all. We've told y'all a couple
of other road stories that were near val on Time's Sailor.
We had a Valentine's Day in Vegas. So we got
booked for like the suburbs of Chicago on the fifteenth,
(24:10):
I think of February. So we decided to fly in
on the fourteenth, and our plan was to go. I
still think we couldn't get reservations to The Girl and
the Goat, so I think we had made reservations for
like a special prefixed menu they were doing at the
Little Goat Diner. Okay, So I randomly ended up getting
(24:34):
upgraded to first class and only one of us could sit,
and so Matt was like, you go. So I ended
up sitting next to actress, director comedian Tasha Smith, who
is just a wonderful person as you meet her in person,
and obviously she is a hilarious and artful person in
all of the work that she has done over the years.
(24:55):
So I meet her on this flight. We have a
wonderful chat wonderful black girl about what her forties are like,
and you know, things that she's learning in her professional life.
And I'm just there like soaking in all the information.
So right as we're about to get on the plane,
she puts her number in my phone and she's like, what,
what's Valentine's Day? What are you and your husband doing?
And I was like, oh, we were going to go
(25:16):
eat at this restaurant. She was like, you need to
come eat with me. And she was like she was like,
you know, ask your husband, ask your husband. So as
soon as we're exiting the plane, she's like, ask your
husband and text me. So y'all just the weirdness of
like you've met a celebrity now, and she put her
number in my phone and was like just text me
like that whole thing like like had me like huh.
(25:37):
So by the time Matt and I meet up after
we get out of the plane and I'm like, hey,
so I was sitting next to Tasha Smith and I'm
like and she says she wants us to go to
dinner with her own Valentine's Day and Matt was like, oh, yes, absolutely, yes,
Like we're going to cancel them other reservations because she
was like, in what other lifetime are we going to
get to sit and have Valentine's Day dinner with Tasha
(25:58):
Smith and what other life? So, y'all, it was kind
of snowy and cold, and we were staying. I feel
like we must have been staying not far from where
that place was. I really can't remember now, y'all what
we were doing. Anyway, she gave us the address for
the restaurant, which, for those of you that aren't from Chicago, Gibson's.
(26:21):
It's like an old school, like classic, really really great
steakhouse and.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Pictures of all the celebrities covering the wall, Lots of
Michael Jordan pictures on the wall.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
And it was packed, obviously because it was literally Valentine's Day. Okay,
so we walk in there to hang out with Tasha
and two of her friends, and y'all, first of all,
the slight anxieties that you have when you're eating with
people who are not in your tax bracket.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
I don't know. I don't know. I can run. I
can jog a little bit, but I don't know I
can run like you.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
It's a lot of because like when you're with people
who are outside of your tax bracket. There's a lot
of ordering without money considerations. There's a lot of them
being like, oh, you have to try this. So when
the waiter comes, you didn't get a word in. They
were like, they were like, oh, we're gonna have this
at let's try this. Oh they have to taste that,
and they'll ask the waiter, don't you recommend such a
such as the waiter say oh yes, they'll say yes
(27:19):
and those so before you know it, like five or
six dishes and got ordered all of them to try it.
But you're like, oh, so, Matt and I just look
at each other and I can tell by the look
in her eyes, we've just decided. If this whole thing
gets split evenly among us, like this is what we're doing,
go for it. This is our this is our time
(27:40):
for a treat opportunity. Okay. So Tasha is mainly vegetarian,
she's pescatarian sometimes. So we had like a little bit
of seafood dishes. But you ordered a steak.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, because and I'm pretty sure because usually I like
to find out, you know, when you with vegetaria. But
she did invite us to a steakhouse. You know what
I'm saying. So there was some conversation about it's cool,
you know she's doing it for these reasons whatever. So yeah,
I was like, uh, the steaks, and you know, growing up,
you know, you grow up shout out to you know,
(28:14):
the Sizzler people growing up on a Sizzler. And then
you know, there was a certain time in my life
that you know, you upgrade the Longhorn. You're like Longhorn.
And then you know, I lived in Dallas for a
while and they had some nice steakhouses out there, you
know what I'm saying. So you end up ad some steakhouse,
eating some you know, pretty decent pieces of beef, you
know what I mean, and stuff, and you kind of
learn the difference between this cut and that cut, and
(28:36):
you're like, okay, I d kind of got an idea,
you know, and I got to the place where I
know that you know, you order it the steak medium
is that or if you're at a really nice restaurant,
you go ahead and go for that medium rare or
you know what I mean. If you're an adventuroust, I
am go for that wreckt you know. So I've kind
of crept down the line of learning how to order,
(28:56):
but I wasn't prepared for this place. They brought out
some pieces of meat and you got to go, oh, yeah,
I'll take that. Like you're looking at these very thick
cut very it looked like a little wood thing full
of just art pieces, and you're like, oh, that's beautiful.
(29:17):
Without all the way round. I asked a few questions
and you know, try to navigate my way through it.
But I was like, I'll take that one. And that
was my first experience or something like that. But you know,
you try to act like yeah, yeah, common, yeah cool.
Oh you brought it out to me. Yes, I will
have that one, thank you, normal things.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Definitely try to act like you've been places. It's very
hard to act like you've been places when you're someplace
where you ain't being.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
You know, I still keep a thing in the back
of my head is the voice of my mother in
the grocery store going, don't you embarrass me?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
That's it that.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Time when you're acting up as a little kid and
you're asking for all the toys in the grocery store, whatever,
the candy, whatever it is. She's like, stop, no, don't
you emburish me, And you're like, oh, so I just
keep that little voice in the back. Sometimes I don't
listen to it, to be honest, it's there anyway. So
ordered the steak turn out to be the most delicious
(30:18):
piece of It was a fantastic experience. But what was
funny even about that was that here it was what
at the time would have been the most expensive piece
of meat I'd ever purchased in my life, and it
was so big I couldn't eat all of it in
one setting, So I had to bring it back to
the hotel. Once we get back to the hotel. The
level of hotel, well, I mean most hotels. Most hotels
(30:40):
don't have like a full fridge. It just had the
little mini fridge.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, that is what's funny about the level of hotel,
because the nicer the hotel, the less they're gonna have
a fridge and a microwave. Right, a lower star hotel
would have the little fridge and the microwave. So we
got back and gotta fitch you bronosaurus steak you got
from Gibson's. And then Tasha's friend that was with us.
(31:06):
It was her birthday dinner, right, so we all she
wanted all of us to like order cake, and the
cake was like diner size, like if y'all have been
to those diner size.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Multi layer piece of cake, huge, yike.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
So imagine us going back to this room and I
don't remember what you did with that steak in the morning,
or if you just ate it cold, what did you do?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Remember? Because I remember, first of all, put it in
that mini fridge and being like this, even the amount
of piece of meat left is still more costly than
this fridge it's sitting in. And I know that I
put it on a little I think I put on
(31:50):
a napkin, That's what I might put it on, a
put in because I don't want to put the stock
because it was one of those styrofoam Yeah yeah, yeah,
so I put that. But then I remember I put
it back in the styrofoam and and used a plastic
utitsula because I didn't have a steak that But man,
it was good that next day too, the cake everything,
and we had to eat it because we're flying out
the next day. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I think that's right, because I think we were wherever
we were staying, we were going to go to the
gig because it was like a chapel at a college
or something, and then right after that we were flying out,
so we weren't coming back to the hotel. So I
just remember us like scarfing down cake for breakfast and
you eating your steak. I forgot you warmed it up
(32:32):
on a napkin. That's that's hilarious. Okay, Well this gives
us a good space to talk about coffee. So let's
talk about coffee in Chicago. What were your coffee discoveries
growing up?
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Coffee was always my dad's drink, so I was never
into it. I was more of a sweet tea and
kool aid man myself. And so you know, I remember something.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
About sweet tea and kol aid man myself is hilarious.
It sounds so it sounds so dignified. It sounds like
if someone's like, oh, no, not more low for me.
I'm a Cabernet. No, I'm more of a sweet tea
kool aid man myself.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
But if you say it confident, with a straight face
and don't let nobody know you joining like, oh that's slick,
then they run it back in their mind.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Like wait a minute, what do you say?
Speaker 2 (33:22):
What did you say? So anyways, you know, I remember
in my twenties, friends started getting jobs at Starbucks. You know,
so you're there, let me try it, okay, and then
you're going to the late night diners with your friends
cause you're old enough to stay out and all that stuff.
And so I was. I got to it. I was
like pouring the sugar, all the sugar in there, all
the milk, all of everything. And then the more we
(33:42):
were traveling, the more I started tasting really good coffee,
and Chicago was one of those cities. Intelligency is a
wonderful coffee roaster in Chicago that I started seeing it
more and more. When I would see that that logo somewhere,
I'd be like, let's go. And most of those coffee
(34:03):
shops start getting into the They are more of what
you would think of as like the snooty coffee shops,
which you know still to this day. There's a couple
of industries where you're typically not going to come across
someone who's excited to see you. One being audio tech
(34:27):
sound people, and you know they're running sound for live events,
and I get it, you got a lot of things
coming at you. Got you. So I've learned over the years.
I'm gonna be as nice to you as possible and
as warm to you, and I'm gonna have as much
conversation as you want to have because you've got a
lot going on and uly personality wise, you got you know,
keep it moving, bro and so cool. I will because
(34:49):
I'm an extrovert. I talk to everybody, and the other
people service industry. I've learned that about would be coffee burists.
I don't know. I don't understand that one as much.
Maybe it's you know, all day long, you're on your feet,
you're I'm sure there's a reason, but it seems to
(35:11):
be that it's especially the the better of a coffee spider.
It is the less of a conversation it is. Yeah,
don't you walk in here talking about no venti grande.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Oh, you will be shunned. Right now. I have been
shunned doing a coffee shop asking for a tall The
maurista literally just stared at me until I embarrassed myself.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
No, do not walk in there and order a machiato
and wonder why it's not big like the machiato is.
Start why is it so small because the machiato is
actually but you learn those things. Yeah, and I'm pretty
sure that like those Intelligencia coffee shops were the ones
where you walk in and you basically you have a
(35:58):
few things you can order and there's not really modifications. Yeah,
and so I think walking into those coffee shops and
ordering just coffee, I started learning, Oh, that's what coffee
from this region tastes, like, Ah, that's what coffee from
this region tastes, like, that's what you know. And then
flash forward to us going to the Dominican Republic that time,
(36:19):
and we're up in the mountains and planting coffee beans
and seeing how it's done and drinking how they made
it in that big part, and that's, you know, that
the whole journey of just getting to where now I
just really love coffee. It's part of my like daily
like the one thing in my day that's probably the same,
because everything in my day could be totally different from
(36:40):
one day to the next, but the one thing about
most of my days, I'm gonna start out with a
good cup of coffee and Intelligensia, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Shout out to that. Let's let's do a quick round
of coffee city shout outs, and then we gonna come
back in another episode and tell y'all more about some
other cities. But other cities, is that you can remember
cities or places because some of the places, I'm like,
I can't remember the exact cities we were in always.
But uh, some other places you would say deserve the
coffee shout out. We talked about Chicago, where Portland, Portland,
(37:12):
Oregon deserves the coffee shout out, Stump Town.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I will say, uh, DC, Yeah, I found some really
good coffee in DC along the way. Uh, and the
the d m V area. I would say of Texas.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Austin, Yeah, agreed, Austin agreed.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Atlanta has really become a great Yeah, that's true. I
mean portrait WHOA like, I really love their work. Perk
Perk Perk, Yeah, is like one of my coffee favorite spots.
If if you're gonna meet me and grab a cup
of coffee in the atl we probably going to Park.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yo Hodge Podge in Atlanta. It's definitely like urban grind, like.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Urban on the belt Line. Now, so many things I'm
saying you can't not say. Now, you can not say
atl Yeah, already said the Dominican Republican.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
But when we went to Costa Rica. Yoh's in the city.
But when we went to Costa Rica, that's where I
really fell in love with the poor over, yeah, which
is my you know, I use a Chemax now, yeah,
and the poor over has become my like go to
coffee now.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yeah. And for a while I was traveling back and
forth to Rwanda a lot with an organization I was
partnering with there, and so Matt never got to go
with me. But Rwanda is a huge location to be
getting amazing coffee, just amazing farmers out there, amazing coffee roasting.
So when we would be getting ready to go to
(38:45):
the airport, our friends that were with us from the
organization would like drive us up to where this particular
coffee roaster was and we would like get the bag
when it was still warm. I would like bring it
home like that to Matt, because I'm not I'm on
the other side of the coffee situation where I'm like, yes,
(39:05):
I would like a little bit of coffee with my
raspberry squirrels and whip and you know whatever Graham cracker stuff,
you know, like I want all the other stuff with
like a little bit of Coffee's that's my vibe. So
I would bring home those coffee beans for Matt. So
my hope is that as we continue on in our
(39:25):
life that we can go to most of the coffee
epicenters in the world and get a chance to like
travel around and taste coffee as far as where it's
grown there as well as being able to taste the
places that have like really innovated into how coffee is
brewed and how it gets made and the flavors and
all that. So that's on our travel bucket list. Love
(39:49):
to see it all Right, Well, we got some food
stuff to talk about with y'all, So come back next
week and listen to us regale you with other amazing
food things to do when you travel next time. See
y'all soon. Hear What Amina Brown is produced by Matt
(40:20):
Owen for Sober Feed Productions as a part of the
Seneca Women Podcast Network and partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening,
and don't forget to subscribe, ranked and review the podcast.
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