Speaker 1: I suffered massively from alcoholism and drug abuse for fifteen years.
Speaker 1: You know, I drunk every day.
Speaker 2: How hectic did it get for you?
Speaker 1: I got real bad, yeah.
Speaker 2: Andy Herndon, Well and straight to it mate.
Speaker 1: I think I'm one of those strange individuals who knew
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do in my whole life. Oh
Speaker 1: really yeah, So so I out of school, went to
Speaker 1: Cheft School and then saved all my money and bought
Speaker 1: a one way ticket to London. I got to London
Speaker 1: and learned how to cook real quick.
Speaker 2: Just take me through. What's the intensity?
Speaker 1: Look like there's a mild to medium case of anxiety
Speaker 1: the whole day. Yeah, doing fourteen sixteen hour days, you know,
Speaker 1: five days a week.
Speaker 3: You are Aphononymo when it comes to what you do
Speaker 3: on YouTube and all the other social mediums.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: How you start something like this?
Speaker 1: It was through adversity, So COVID happened. I lost my
Speaker 1: job really quickly, and I sat around looking my wounds
Speaker 1: for six months, thinking this is the worst thing in
Speaker 1: the world. So I started looking at what I could do,
Speaker 1: what was the next step? And I watched a lot
Speaker 1: of content and I thought, I know how to cook now.
Speaker 1: These cameras can't be that hard to figure. So I
Speaker 1: started making tiktoks.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I'm so hungry. Now, let me really hungry,
Speaker 3: Andy Herndon, Well, and straight to.
Speaker 1: It, mate, Thanks Mark, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Otherwise known as Andy Cooks Cooks or cook Andy Cooks.
Speaker 2: Like that's your sort of let's call it your stage.
Speaker 1: Name, correct, Yeah, my performance name.
Speaker 2: The performance name.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Is there two people?
Speaker 1: No, I think you're the same person. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think Andy Hernan might be a little bit more relaxed
Speaker 1: than Andy Cooks. He's probably you know what it's like
Speaker 1: when you're in social media, you kind of have to
Speaker 1: turn on a little bit.
Speaker 3: It was entertainment, yeah, I mean in cooking is entertainment,
Speaker 3: Like actually cooking is made for social media. Color, smells,
Speaker 3: looks nice. You know, it's a motive. You know, we're
Speaker 3: all thinking about our guts guts up, like and you know,
Speaker 3: and the creativity part of it.
Speaker 2: Like it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone doesn't. Everyone eats, don't they.
Speaker 3: Well, let me just take you back then, because that's
Speaker 3: probably not how you started. You didn't think, Probably weren't
Speaker 3: thinking about that time when you first started cooking or mcgirl.
Speaker 2: Let's go right back.
Speaker 3: What makes someone go and do I presume a chef
Speaker 3: course or something like that. What makes someone think about that?
Speaker 2: At school?
Speaker 1: For example, I think on one of those strange individuals
Speaker 1: who knew what I wanted to do in my whole life.
Speaker 2: Oh really?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know from before I remember if you know,
Speaker 1: anyone ever said what do you want to do when
Speaker 1: your groan up? It was always chef chef.
Speaker 2: We what's that influence come from? Like someone at home?
Speaker 1: I think my grandfather was a poultry farmer in Foxton,
Speaker 1: New Zealand. I grew up in Wellington, Wendy Wellington, Wendy Wellington. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he has very wondy and my mom was a good cook,
Speaker 1: good home cook. We ate around the table like you
Speaker 1: kind of did in the eighties and in the.
Speaker 2: Nineties Sunday Sunday lamb roast. Was that a thing in
Speaker 2: New Zealand.
Speaker 1: Yeah? It was meat and potatoes, you know, meeting three bag.
Speaker 1: It was pretty standard cooking, but it was good, honest cooking.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I've always been passionate about food. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure where it really came from. Didn't come from them?
Speaker 1: Are you know? An Italian family or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It was standard food.
Speaker 3: But your surname Herndon, is that that's that sounds like
Speaker 3: rish background.
Speaker 1: In English England.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, like you know, it was a thing probably
Speaker 3: more mum's generation, not necessarily your generation, but more mum's generation.
Speaker 3: Like Sunday roast sitting around the table, roastly lamb whatever
Speaker 3: the case.
Speaker 2: New Zealand. Definitely lamb in New Zealand.
Speaker 3: And you know, three vegs, gravy and maybe dessert.
Speaker 1: Yeah, followed some sort of dessert after pudding.
Speaker 3: In a shitty cold cold weather, particularly Wellington and a
Speaker 3: cold winter's wind blow and blowing his ass off, like
Speaker 3: like I've been to that football stagum you got there
Speaker 3: in Wellington, like the Caketon.
Speaker 2: Oh my god it was. It was a miserable man
Speaker 2: like but it was full, yeah, full of people. It was.
Speaker 3: I went for a rugby went to watch a rugby
Speaker 3: match and it was full of people, like I thought, Well, like,
Speaker 3: I only went out because I can't come mates mine
Speaker 3: when I want to go and publicoll basically and watch
Speaker 3: foot at the same time. Use foot is an excuse,
Speaker 3: but people actually out there loving the joint and does
Speaker 3: living in a place like Wellington. Does that create more
Speaker 3: inside activities so to speak, because you're not going to
Speaker 3: go to the beach or whatever. If it's generally speaking
Speaker 3: not great weather. Does that have something to do with
Speaker 3: the fact that you you know, you want to be
Speaker 3: inside cooking warm food, like and you know that sort
Speaker 3: of feeling, that emotional feeling you get out of eating food.
Speaker 1: But potentially, I think Valentonian is a pretty hearty bunch,
Speaker 1: you know. I don't think that they let the cold
Speaker 1: weather stop them doing much. But I think they're also
Speaker 1: pretty foundly orientated, you know, the kiwis So I think
Speaker 1: that's where it comes from. It's that, you know, it's
Speaker 1: breaking breed together as a family and hanging out. But
Speaker 1: food wasn't cool back then, right Like food didn't get
Speaker 1: started getting cool until the late nineties in the mainstream.
Speaker 3: Realman, you you what emotions do you attach to? I mean,
Speaker 3: if you as an observer, not not your own emotions,
Speaker 3: but as an observe, what emotions do you attached to?
Speaker 2: Do you think it are attached to food? You know, like,
Speaker 2: what is it that I'm apart from family?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What is it that we feel? Really?
Speaker 3: You know, the dopamine and sort oftona starts flushing around
Speaker 3: our brain, same sort of outcomeing you get when you
Speaker 3: take okay. I mean it's the same sort of emotion
Speaker 3: like it's wow, how good is this?
Speaker 2: This is so nice? More emotions are we feeding effectively?
Speaker 1: I think it's a huge amount to do with history,
Speaker 1: you know, and having ownership or belonging to something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, especially with some of the ethnic you know,
Speaker 1: people that have come to Australia and New Zealand, you
Speaker 1: know that that was it was memories of home, so
Speaker 1: you know, the big Italian you know population, big Greek population,
Speaker 1: you know, Chinese. So it's history and having something to
Speaker 1: be proud of. I think that's a huge part of
Speaker 1: it that guys I noticed.
Speaker 3: And what did you get in your family then? Like
Speaker 3: you know you neither one of those three categories, but
Speaker 3: you're New Zealanders. I mean apart from family, what was
Speaker 3: it that you felt when you think back now, what
Speaker 3: was the feeling you got when you sat down and
Speaker 3: had the Sunday afternoon lunch. What it was with your family?
Speaker 2: What did you feel?
Speaker 1: Well? Haard to do with that? My my mother was Dutch,
Speaker 1: so sick in generation Dutch. My father was English, so
Speaker 1: I think there was unusual things that we ate that
Speaker 1: other people didn't. What a duchy, Well, they for very
Speaker 1: similar European food. But this stuff like olibolan, which is
Speaker 1: a Dutch donut. They like these sprinkles that they have
Speaker 1: on toast with aniseed flavor. Yeah. And the Dutch also
Speaker 1: have a lot of They equal a lot of spice,
Speaker 1: you know, I think because.
Speaker 2: They of course duchies Indies.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, they.
Speaker 2: Were importing of that was the big borders out of
Speaker 2: Sri Lanka.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 3: I remember, Well, I've actually been to the place called
Speaker 3: the Dutch House in Sri Lanka and a place called
Speaker 3: Gaul which was owned by the Dutchiest India company is
Speaker 3: now a little hotel. And they used to import the
Speaker 3: spices from Southeast Asia through s Linka back up to
Speaker 3: somethow like they got their back somehow they got to
Speaker 3: Holland as a result of Yeah, that's cool like that,
Speaker 3: thanks for saying that. So so to the Dutch are
Speaker 3: into the spice is not any do they you know,
Speaker 3: like trade in it, but they actually used it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and Indonesian food is big and you know,
Speaker 1: they did a lot of nazigoring and stuff like that
Speaker 1: there in Holland. Yeah, or certainly my family did it well, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And spicy, quite spicy, so.
Speaker 2: Like as in strong spicy, as in chili style thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Some curry yeah yeah, yeah, so some.
Speaker 2: So do those things.
Speaker 3: So maybe is there a nostalgic sort of sense for
Speaker 3: you in terms of you know, food, cooking food and
Speaker 3: remembering your family sitting around there.
Speaker 2: Did you help your mom? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always helped my mum and then tried to kick
Speaker 1: her out of the kitchen as soon as I could,
Speaker 1: and kind of wanted you know, I'm a pretty independent
Speaker 1: type of person, so I kind of wanted my own
Speaker 1: kind of time in there. But yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: it was kind of a bit of escapeism too, you know,
Speaker 1: like mum was also a single mother by the time
Speaker 1: I was able to stand and be in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: So it's that kind of distract yourself with doing something
Speaker 1: to you know, to kind of get away from whatever
Speaker 1: else is going on in life.
Speaker 3: So as a as a ten year old, twelve year old,
Speaker 3: you were out there doing cooking and peeling potatoes or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, certainly my young teenage years, Yeah, I was having
Speaker 1: a crack in the kitchen and you know, like I'm
Speaker 1: really dyslexic. I couldn't wait to get out of school.
Speaker 1: So I just just was layser focused on just getting
Speaker 1: out and getting into chess school.
Speaker 2: That's cool. So apart from being in an escape, was
Speaker 2: your mum being a single mum? Was she one of
Speaker 2: those mums who said, hey, you don't learn how to cook?
Speaker 2: You know, you have to be self sufficient.
Speaker 3: I'm not raising you know, like a kid and a
Speaker 3: boy who doesn't add a.
Speaker 1: Cook absolutely all those things cooking, how to sew a
Speaker 1: button on a shirt, you know, how to tie a tie? Really? Yeah,
Speaker 1: all those things.
Speaker 3: So would you say, therefore you have a a great
Speaker 3: debt of gratitude to your mum.
Speaker 1: She's still live today, Yeah she is. She is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's still alive. She's in Parmesan North in New Zealand.
Speaker 1: Yeah she's she's she's getting on now, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of you know, it's at that point the end of
Speaker 1: her life, I think, which is kind of sad to
Speaker 1: see you, but you know, I think that happens to everyone.
Speaker 2: Siblings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got I'm the youngest of four, so I've
Speaker 1: got two older brothers and an older sister.
Speaker 2: And were they doing the same deal.
Speaker 1: No, no one else, No one else is cooking cooking orientated.
Speaker 1: I think they all kind of enjoy it now.
Speaker 3: But no, as the youngest kid, it's funny like that
Speaker 3: you were the sort of lead in the family when
Speaker 3: to come to sort of being in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I certainly the only one that really kind of
Speaker 1: pursued it, and everyone else has gone on to be
Speaker 1: successful and do it their own stuffy.
Speaker 2: Looking by the way, looking at brief you're pretty successful, don't.
Speaker 3: In terms of in terms of what you do, in
Speaker 3: terms of your content and what you do in terms
Speaker 3: of your craft. You're extraordinarily, extra narrowly successful. We'll talk
Speaker 3: about that in the moment. Did you, as a younger
Speaker 3: person appreciate the quality of the resources that New Zealand
Speaker 3: had to offer relative perhaps perhaps other place of the world.
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. You know, you have no idea. I think
Speaker 1: when you're growing up how lucky you are growing up
Speaker 1: in a place like Australia, New Zealand. You know, with
Speaker 1: fresh air, great produce, it's extremely safe, you know, in
Speaker 1: the grand scheme of things, and like most Kiwis, and
Speaker 1: I think Aussie as well. I couldn't wait to get
Speaker 1: out of the place.
Speaker 2: Because it tell me, tell me that why did you
Speaker 2: come to Australia.
Speaker 1: So Australia it was the last stop. I left New
Speaker 1: Zealand went straight to London, so at twenty one years old,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't wait to get there.
Speaker 2: Had you done some sort of cooking course or a
Speaker 2: chef Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So I got a school, went to chef
Speaker 1: school yep, and then worked for a couple of years
Speaker 1: and then you know, saved all my money and bought
Speaker 1: a one way ticket to London. So one way ticket. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was no break mum's heart. Yeah, there was no
Speaker 1: intention of coming back.
Speaker 3: Oh really Yeah, what do you say to your mum
Speaker 3: at that stage? Like, you say, a mum, because you
Speaker 3: were the youngest, you were probably be the last to
Speaker 3: leave yep, yep, that was probably all skinned out all
Speaker 3: by that stage.
Speaker 2: And you say, sir later, mum, who got one way ticket?
Speaker 2: What was that? Like?
Speaker 1: I mean, I've got a you know, an interesting relationship
Speaker 1: with mum. I think she'd I was pretty a bit
Speaker 1: of a naughty kid, and I was certainly a naughty teenager.
Speaker 2: What does that mean? I was naughty too? Compare naughtiness now.
Speaker 1: You know, I got into drugs and alcohol really young.
Speaker 1: I got into just staying out. She didn't know what
Speaker 1: I was doing. I wasn't naughty at homeless. It would
Speaker 1: just go out and never come back. And I think
Speaker 1: by the time, you know, I was sixteen seventeen, maybe
Speaker 1: she'd had enough and she booted me out. I think, yeah.
Speaker 1: And at the time you kind of, you know, you
Speaker 1: think it's horrible, but it was probably the best thing
Speaker 1: that ever happened to me. And it's just learned to
Speaker 1: stand in your own feet and learned about the big
Speaker 1: bad world, and you know that that head itself pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: You know, a year or two, lady, you were back
Speaker 1: talking to mum, no problem.
Speaker 3: And then so off to London. Did you work in
Speaker 3: some sort of fancy chef joint?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I landed in London and where for a
Speaker 1: guy called Tom Akins for a couple of years, and
Speaker 1: he was a pretty notorious chefs, really good chef, still
Speaker 1: cooking now, but a hard kitchen, like really hard what
Speaker 1: does that mean, Very militant in the way they run
Speaker 1: those kitchens, and they're very strict and there's you know,
Speaker 1: they don't they don't mince their words, and yeah, you
Speaker 1: kind of see some stuff and you open your eyes.
Speaker 1: But you know, Tom, like a lot of chefs back then,
Speaker 1: they like Keis and Aussies because we know how to
Speaker 1: work hard. And I think, really, yeah, as songs as
Speaker 1: that's the thing. Yeah, yeah, it certainly was back then.
Speaker 1: It was you know, the the consensus was that Aussies
Speaker 1: and Keyies knew how to work hard, so they kind
Speaker 1: of liked us in kitchens then.
Speaker 3: And would you say this stage that you had started
Speaker 3: to craft your creativity or were you just more conformative.
Speaker 1: Yeah, more conformative. And I kind of say I learned
Speaker 1: how to cook in London, like I obviously went to
Speaker 1: chef school in New Zealand and stuff. But you know,
Speaker 1: food culture back then, and you know, the early two
Speaker 1: thousands is when I was kind of floating around in
Speaker 1: New Zealand. Still food culture wasn't great. Still restaurants seen,
Speaker 1: it wasn't really hadn't really kicked off yet, not like
Speaker 1: it is now. You know, whereas I think cities like
Speaker 1: Sydney in Melbourne, you know, some of the best food
Speaker 1: cities in the world now. Literally back then it wasn't
Speaker 1: the case, so I got to London and learned how
Speaker 1: to cook real quick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I've never I've never thought of it. By
Speaker 3: the way, I'm no foodie, but I've never thought of
Speaker 3: London as a food capital globally, but maybe relative to
Speaker 3: New Zealand it was at the time. Did you decide
Speaker 3: to go to London because it was a place where
Speaker 3: you felt like you could further your craft?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I think it's common misconception. I think London is
Speaker 1: definitely one of the food hubs of the world. Right now.
Speaker 1: English food doesn't have a great representation, it doesn't have
Speaker 1: a great reputation of reputation, but London restaurants scene has
Speaker 1: been incredible for a very long time, you know, since
Speaker 1: the sixties. You know there there was a lot of
Speaker 1: money in London, right It's a very very wealthy city
Speaker 1: with a lot of people that like to spend money,
Speaker 1: especially pre GFC when I was there, you know, some
Speaker 1: people were spending some crazy amounts of money on loved
Speaker 1: back in those days.
Speaker 3: The only place I can remember of London it was
Speaker 3: a place called Simpsons on the Strand. It was a
Speaker 3: famous institutional place in London. You go, then you get
Speaker 3: beef Wellington and all, you know, and they get that
Speaker 3: big cheese thing.
Speaker 2: I can remember what it was like a.
Speaker 3: Fonder no, like it was a really smelly cheese and
Speaker 3: and I said, think himself, this is like, you know,
Speaker 3: like I'm Greek background something and like it's not quite
Speaker 3: the food I'm used to. I'd have made it a
Speaker 3: pommes to go with him to London quite a bit.
Speaker 3: And he used alway write about the London food, and
Speaker 3: but I don't. Eventually I find myself eating something like that,
Speaker 3: that type of that top of meal.
Speaker 2: What were you serving?
Speaker 3: And like what was like as a food scene You're
Speaker 3: talking about intricacies like you know, like intricacies of flavors.
Speaker 2: And the look of a plate.
Speaker 1: No, my food's a bit more back then. Back then,
Speaker 1: back then, what.
Speaker 2: Were you what were you sort of moving into?
Speaker 1: Well, I was kind of still discovering myself for I
Speaker 1: as a cook, and I was working at Tom Kitchen,
Speaker 1: which was his brasserie of his restaurants. So it was
Speaker 1: elevated gastro pub food, you know, that's what we were
Speaker 1: serving in London.
Speaker 3: Elevated to gastro pub food. Yeah, so gastronomical, but elevated
Speaker 3: me to like a little.
Speaker 1: Bit upper class correct, Yeah, yeah, so you know, really
Speaker 1: good ingredients, still cooked pretty simply, but really good ingredients,
Speaker 1: you know, looked after well. But yeah, I never really
Speaker 1: went like really down the line of the really high
Speaker 1: and fine dining stuff. Kind of wasn't my warehouse.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so you've done, you've done. So, you've done London.
Speaker 3: You've happened after that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, seven years in London and I was seven years
Speaker 1: seven years yeah yeah, and then I decided that I
Speaker 1: needed to get back to this part of the world.
Speaker 1: But I couldn't quite bring myself to get to New Zealand.
Speaker 1: So I came to Sydney. And I was in Sydney
Speaker 1: for not even a year, and I kind of didn't
Speaker 1: like it. I was a very different city to London totally. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I moved to Melbourne and fell in love with Melbourne.
Speaker 1: So the food scene or fell in love with Melbourne
Speaker 1: the place, I think both. I think it reminded me
Speaker 1: a lot more of a European city, which I enjoyed,
Speaker 1: and the food scene and back then was was much
Speaker 1: better in Melbourne than it wasn't really Yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: Melbourne was the was the you know the gastronomic capital
Speaker 1: of this part of what for a long time period
Speaker 1: were talking about it two ten, Yeah, I moved to
Speaker 1: probably twenty twelve. I moved to Melbourne after Sydney. Early
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, I moved to Sydney and the end of
Speaker 1: twenty twelve I moved to Melbourne. And Melbourne was was
Speaker 1: was much was for the advance.
Speaker 2: Son, can you can you?
Speaker 3: Is it fair to say then that there was a
Speaker 3: period like it's let's call it teny period twelve to
Speaker 3: twenty two that Melbourne was considered to be superior at
Speaker 3: a certain level in terms of certain types of food,
Speaker 3: I guess, but as a as a destination for food,
Speaker 3: like proper food is yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And that is conventionally generally accepted.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah by all you guys. Yeah, chefs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Melbourne was the kind of the gastronomic city of what.
Speaker 2: Was it because of the individuals are down there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you think about the chefs that have
Speaker 1: come out of there, you know, the restaurant scene. I
Speaker 1: think the cold climate helps as well, you know, like
Speaker 1: you were kind of referring to earlier, you know, you
Speaker 1: eat out more, you know, whereas in Sydney, you might
Speaker 1: hang out at the beach until the sun goes down
Speaker 1: and then you you knowerg and go home, Whereas in Melbourne,
Speaker 1: if it's middle of winter, you're not doing anything right.
Speaker 1: So you know, all the city guys they leave their
Speaker 1: office and they go sit in a pub for a
Speaker 1: couple of beers, and they might go to a restaurant
Speaker 1: for dinner instead of going to the beach or anything
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: So where were you working?
Speaker 1: So when I first moved there around a restaurant called
Speaker 1: Gills Diner, which is right in the city on a
Speaker 1: little Collin Street. And then I moved around a bit
Speaker 1: worked for a restaurant called Entracott and Melbourne worked at
Speaker 1: a group of cafes called Saint Ali for quite a
Speaker 1: long time.
Speaker 2: And what do you what did you think you got
Speaker 2: out of that? Like, what did you I'm apart from
Speaker 2: skill craft, what did you get out of that experience?
Speaker 2: And like in terms of what you know about people? Oh,
Speaker 2: it comes to food.
Speaker 1: I mean the people piece is huge, right, and it's
Speaker 1: learning how to interact and connect with people from all
Speaker 1: walks of life. Kitchens are pretty usually rag tag bunch
Speaker 1: of people from all walks of life, you know, from
Speaker 1: immigrants who just need a job, through to you know,
Speaker 1: people from upper middle class families who just like the
Speaker 1: kind of pressure. You know, there's there's every walk of
Speaker 1: life in a kitchen, and you learn how to how
Speaker 1: to interact with them all, and you become friends with
Speaker 1: the whole bunch of people that you otherwise wouldn't have
Speaker 1: if you weren't you know, you wouldn't even cross paths
Speaker 1: with in your life.
Speaker 3: So and would you would you also become friends with
Speaker 3: people from other restaurants.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yes or no. But but you're working really
Speaker 1: back then, you're really intensely long hours with this group
Speaker 1: of people, and you become like this little kind of
Speaker 1: almost family, you know, like a a unit. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and you're there a lot. You know, you're
Speaker 1: doing fourteen sixteen hour days, you know, five days a week.
Speaker 2: Fourteen sixteen hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they say, I guess you're talking about lunch and dinner, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, if you're working a restaurant that does even like
Speaker 1: Tom's Kitchen and in London and those works, we were
Speaker 1: doing breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Speaker 3: So you know that's one shift. You do what two
Speaker 3: of those two of those. Yeah, so you start a lunchtime.
Speaker 3: They say, if you're going to have to do the lunch,
Speaker 3: and you're one of the chefs doing lunch, what's on.
Speaker 2: You if you're going to work, what time are you
Speaker 2: in the kitchen?
Speaker 1: You're eight And if you're doing a double, you're not
Speaker 1: out of that kitchen until midnight.
Speaker 2: So that's six hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and you have an hour an hour and
Speaker 1: a half off in the middle. But in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: it's a bloody long day though. It's a big day
Speaker 1: on your feet.
Speaker 2: And is the whole time is it hectic?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Is it intense the whole time?
Speaker 1: No, it comes and weeps and flows. You're prepping to
Speaker 1: get ready for lunch, and then you go through the
Speaker 1: pressure builds effectively throughout the day. So you're prepping and
Speaker 1: as the day goes on, the precious building pressures building.
Speaker 1: Right before lunch, it's everyone's at a real high level
Speaker 1: of anxiety and anticipation, you know, and then you do
Speaker 1: your service and then it kind of winds down and
Speaker 1: you have to build yourself back up for dinner. But
Speaker 1: it's worth saying that that that those days are a
Speaker 1: kind of over now and it's good that they're over
Speaker 1: because it was you know, it's not healthy and it's
Speaker 1: not how people should be.
Speaker 2: Oh really, no, what is it now? Well?
Speaker 1: I think largely restaurants are kind of in most cases
Speaker 1: are limiting people to working about forty five hours a week, right,
Speaker 1: which is good. It's a good thing that that's that
Speaker 1: that transition has changed. And so they do that in
Speaker 1: a couple of different ways. I either work less days.
Speaker 1: So a good friend of mine, Ben Sherry from mar
Speaker 1: he has a very famous restaurant in Mother and good Attica.
Speaker 1: You know, all his team they only work four days
Speaker 1: a week, you know, and they don't work an anywhere
Speaker 1: near those hours anymore because people kind of need a
Speaker 1: life outside of I think it's even if you're the
Speaker 1: business owner, right, Like you've owned business your whole life,
Speaker 1: and it's very different, right, and it's and it's twenty hours,
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, seven days, yeah, and it's and it's acceptable.
Speaker 1: It's your choice to make it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But if someone's just you know, working for a wage,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's fair that we're put in But
Speaker 1: why do.
Speaker 3: You think that was always the case of chefs. It's
Speaker 3: like it's like slave drivers, like chefs have. There's always
Speaker 3: been this expectation that you're the chef or your kitchen hand,
Speaker 3: whatever the case may be, and you're learning the learn
Speaker 3: of the rapes. Do you're going to work under our rules? Yeah,
Speaker 3: and we've seen those movies, those TV shows. Kitchen night
Speaker 3: means all sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: Cop it sweet or get out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure where it came from. I guess
Speaker 1: it's because restaurants is a really really hard game. It's
Speaker 1: really hard to make money in restaurants, right, so they're
Speaker 1: going to squeeze. You know, they had to squeeze people
Speaker 1: as much as they could to make it worthwhile. So
Speaker 1: if you all of a sudden, you know, chefs are
Speaker 1: working eighty hours a week and you're only just making
Speaker 1: yourself a salary as the owner, if you have to go, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm going to treat all these people like they should be,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to have to put double the amount
Speaker 1: of chefs on to cover of those hours. You have
Speaker 1: to start charging the customer a lot more. Right, they
Speaker 1: won't get they won't come in, they'll just go to
Speaker 1: the neighbor. So, you know, there's been an institutional change.
Speaker 1: I think in Australia especially structurally changed. I think, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, And it's people still winge about it, like
Speaker 1: it's expensive to eat out, and I think people were
Speaker 1: used to, you know, eating out for going on the
Speaker 1: days of fifteen dollars entrees and thirty dollar mains. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's forget about it. Forget about it, right, it's
Speaker 1: double that more and more.
Speaker 2: It's like you're not even gett an entre for thirty bucks. Now, no,
Speaker 2: in a good joint. And I'll come back to that
Speaker 2: in a second.
Speaker 3: But it just I just always interested from a person
Speaker 3: like your point of view.
Speaker 2: Just take me through what happens. Like you said you
Speaker 2: started eight.
Speaker 3: Let's say you're doing lunch at twelve one or whatever
Speaker 3: was in there there doing prepping at eight.
Speaker 2: Just take me through.
Speaker 3: The mindset of say, in your case, you I want
Speaker 3: to just go through one day. So yeah, you're in there,
Speaker 3: you're just doing your best and you know you maybe
Speaker 3: have a couple of coffee when you get there and
Speaker 3: you start doing your prepping. Just take me through what's
Speaker 3: the intensity look like? I mean, and how do you
Speaker 3: how do you feel like? How are you feeling?
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've got I'm not hopefully I'm not bringing
Speaker 2: any up any PTSD here, but take me through that
Speaker 2: process and then then what happens at the end of
Speaker 2: the night. So how do you feel.
Speaker 1: So there's there's a mild to medium case of anxiety
Speaker 1: the whole day, the whole day, Yeah, because you're chasing
Speaker 1: your tail. It always feels like not being ready.
Speaker 2: On time, not having the meals ready on time.
Speaker 1: Correct. So if you're not ready for the start of
Speaker 1: that service for lunch, you don't have what we call
Speaker 1: mes on plus, which a French word for everything in place.
Speaker 1: If you don't have your mees on plus ready by
Speaker 1: the time that lunch service stuffs starts, you're absolutely stuffed.
Speaker 3: So that the way it walks in and he puts
Speaker 3: up the order and whatever it is. However that works,
Speaker 3: like what's everyone doing if as soon as it happens,
Speaker 3: the starter's gun goes off?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, So the chef will call the
Speaker 1: ticket and if it's part of your section, so kitchens
Speaker 1: are broken down into sections, and if it's something that's
Speaker 1: come off your section, then you know, and then it
Speaker 1: has to be orchestrated in a really timely fashion. Right,
Speaker 1: So there might be a dish if your table is
Speaker 1: four dishes might come from two or three different sections,
Speaker 1: So someone with who's got the longest lead time will
Speaker 1: kind of dictate that pace. Or we're going to be
Speaker 1: up in twelve minutes, and you have to know, okay,
Speaker 1: that's up in twelve minutes. My dish is only going
Speaker 1: to take seven minutes to cook, so I have to
Speaker 1: mentally click that and then start my prep, you know,
Speaker 1: three or four minutes in so that we will meet
Speaker 1: on the pass at the same time.
Speaker 3: So you're thinking to yourself, I don't want to have
Speaker 3: my thing ready in seven minutes when it's going to
Speaker 3: take them two minutes, because my my meal is going
Speaker 3: to be cold or not not right, whatever's.
Speaker 2: Going to be. So and is there someone they're conducting
Speaker 2: the orchestra.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it depends on the structure of the kitchen.
Speaker 1: In a big London kitchen and kitchens here as well,
Speaker 1: there's someone running the past, a senior chef, so a
Speaker 1: head chief or a se chef who's running the pass
Speaker 1: and running the orchestra. Tickets coming and they're kind of
Speaker 1: running and they're also yelling out checks. So if you've
Speaker 1: got a crab dish shine, You'll be like, you know,
Speaker 1: and you've got fifteen crab dishes on order right now.
Speaker 1: You know I need three of them up in four
Speaker 1: minutes type of thing?
Speaker 2: What is you fuck it up? Whats are you? Like?
Speaker 3: You're making crab and you go shit, I put the
Speaker 3: wrong sporce on there, and then everyone else is ready
Speaker 3: because the other five.
Speaker 2: Dishes are ready. What the fuck happens?
Speaker 1: Well, back then you've got a bowlocking. I'm gonna be late,
Speaker 1: and you you stuff everyone else's order, so the whole
Speaker 1: tables everything get started again. So you copped the bollocking.
Speaker 2: So they have to start the meals again.
Speaker 1: Some think or where they're at. But if they're finished
Speaker 1: almost finished it, yeah they can. They might be able
Speaker 1: to save it, but they might not. They might, you know,
Speaker 1: because stuff just keeps cooking, right, residual heat keeps cooking things.
Speaker 1: So yeah so, and then fucks it up ruins and you.
Speaker 3: Let the whole team now yeah so so, and then
Speaker 3: what happens when the sioux chef Food of the Dude
Speaker 3: is conducting the orchestra's called comes in and it gives
Speaker 3: you a bowlocking. As you said, you like punch them
Speaker 3: there it's just funk off. Don't talk that way, I mean, because.
Speaker 2: You can't pick people's personalities. I mean as a.
Speaker 1: Blues I mean, there's definitely I've definitely seen punch on
Speaker 1: some kitchens.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, yeah that's cool.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, I mean you just cop it like
Speaker 1: you know, and I think that's the you build resilience
Speaker 1: and the people that build resilience quick back then you
Speaker 1: kind of went through the ranks cooker, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's about you know, it's different to how it is now.
Speaker 1: You kind of can't act like that and it's a
Speaker 1: good thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you get through that one, then you have
Speaker 3: a little of a break and your cortisol sort of
Speaker 3: starts to settle down a little bit, and all your
Speaker 3: adrenaline starts to move back into the wherever it goes
Speaker 3: to probably live, and it gets to get and then
Speaker 3: in recircle. Then it starts all over again for dinner.
Speaker 3: And then by this stage your nervous system is exhausted
Speaker 3: and it's like eleven or twelve o'clock at night. But
Speaker 3: I got made to ben cook with chefs and cooking
Speaker 3: and they all went out.
Speaker 2: It needs to go out, YEP. Is that normal?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know, let's go for a drink. There's a
Speaker 1: reason that drug and alcohol abuse is rife in our industry,
Speaker 1: and it's because of those levels of stress anxiety. And
Speaker 1: you come off a massive high, whether it's a good
Speaker 1: high or a bad high, and you're a drilling's pumping
Speaker 1: and you need something to calm you down.
Speaker 3: So you need and I mean as I understand it
Speaker 3: because you know, many many, many many years out, when
Speaker 3: I was much oger around this area here, there is
Speaker 3: to be verious famous bars. It didn't sort of stay
Speaker 3: kicking off to midnight, and I used to often frequent them,
Speaker 3: usually on a weekend, and you'd see I'd run into
Speaker 3: mates of mine, blakes I knew who were chefs and
Speaker 3: also musicians, yeah, from pubs and stuff, and they'd all
Speaker 3: be just going out. Like I'd already had a skin
Speaker 3: full by that stage, but they'd be just going out,
Speaker 3: but they were ready to go. Yeah yeah yeah, your
Speaker 3: little new little unit community, does everyone say let's all
Speaker 3: go together?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely, Yeah, you end up you end up socializing
Speaker 1: with other people from the bars, the musos, everyone that
Speaker 1: kind of works nights. Because you don't start You're right,
Speaker 1: you don't start till midnight and you'll run through until
Speaker 1: the sun comes up.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so now it's Kevin, go back to work.
Speaker 2: What do they do to you?
Speaker 1: I mean I suffered massively from alcoholism and drug abuse
Speaker 1: for a long time, for fifteen years. You know, I
Speaker 1: didn't I drunk every day?
Speaker 2: What was a drug and choice when we were talking about
Speaker 2: coc or someone.
Speaker 1: It, yeah, coke, but mainly alcohol because it's just easy
Speaker 1: to get. Yeah, you know, so you absolutely would have
Speaker 1: have a crack on the recreational stuff on the weekends,
Speaker 1: but it was the booze that got me in.
Speaker 3: The So were you were you conscious that I got
Speaker 3: to go and have a drink because in the beginning,
Speaker 3: that's talk at the beginning part. Were you consciously like
Speaker 3: I got to go and have a drink because you
Speaker 3: just need to wind down? Was that was that the theory?
Speaker 1: I don't. I think it was subconsciously there, but it
Speaker 1: was more so just to be part of the crew. Right,
Speaker 1: everyone's doing it, so you just follow it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I was young as sixteen seventeen when I started working
Speaker 1: in restaurants, so you just do what the older guys
Speaker 1: are doing, and then it just becomes habit really quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Then you become the older guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, and then you start sitting there and
Speaker 1: it's not even it's not even at the end as
Speaker 1: well even in the middle. So we do double shifts,
Speaker 1: and so you clean down after lunch and everyone would
Speaker 1: go to the pub, you know, three or four points
Speaker 1: and then go back to work.
Speaker 2: They don't drink while cooking, or do they?
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the end, you start doing it because if
Speaker 1: you go and have a bear after lunch service and
Speaker 1: then you start sobering up during dinner service A good yeah.
Speaker 1: So you go and find some cooking wine or whatever.
Speaker 1: You'll be mates with the bar, you know, the person
Speaker 1: running bar, and you're like, mate, I'll give you a
Speaker 1: bowl of chips if you vodka. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 1: give you a'd send you a coffee cup out, you know,
Speaker 1: just be full of vodkas. I have a shot.
Speaker 2: And our sort of intensity get and hectic. Did it
Speaker 2: get for you?
Speaker 1: I got real bad? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I don't know what does that mean?
Speaker 1: So I was an I called myself a high functioning alcoholic,
Speaker 1: but you know there was it was three or four
Speaker 1: bottles of wine a day, a day. Yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty pretty comfortably. But there was a per day per day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you're still going up to work every day, You're
Speaker 1: still showing up for everything. But then you, you know,
Speaker 1: you kind of once you get to a certain point
Speaker 1: in life, you go, I can't, like, there's no way
Speaker 1: my body can handle me doing this forever.
Speaker 2: How did you know? Like, what were the signs that.
Speaker 1: I just think you just kind of you know, you
Speaker 1: just know when you get out of bed, you get
Speaker 1: out of bed and you start drinking again. That's what
Speaker 1: happens in bed. No, but on as soon as you
Speaker 1: get up.
Speaker 2: Soon as you wake up. Yeah, oh it was so
Speaker 2: got that bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got that bad.
Speaker 3: But drink effectively, drinking all the time, all the time.
Speaker 3: So he turned to work drunk. I'm not drunk, but
Speaker 3: with in your guts correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And.
Speaker 2: I guess you become so good at your craft that
Speaker 2: it doesn't really affect anything.
Speaker 1: No, you know, and there's there's managing it, right, so
Speaker 1: you don't shut up drunk, but you have a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, just to kind of to get rid of
Speaker 1: the hangover effectively, and then you just kind of level it,
Speaker 1: level it all day and then you can now again
Speaker 1: you can stand it at night, but.
Speaker 3: As an event or something that made you decided that's it,
Speaker 3: I'm going to give it. You give it up at
Speaker 3: one in one shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think I'd known for a long time that
Speaker 1: at some point that you know, I'm an all or
Speaker 1: nothing type of person.
Speaker 2: So I was like, I'm not good.
Speaker 1: Actually yeah, I'm not one that could go. I can't
Speaker 1: like I can just have one or two drinks. I
Speaker 1: knew at some point I just have to stop drinking.
Speaker 1: But when I started kind of becoming a bit of
Speaker 1: a deck to my partner, that's what was that catalyst
Speaker 1: to me to get okay, now it's time to sort
Speaker 1: this out. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you at some stage you said, I'm just
Speaker 2: go cock turkey no.
Speaker 1: And so I did what most people do, well, a
Speaker 1: lot of people do. When I was in trouble and
Speaker 1: realized I was in trouble, and I called my mom,
Speaker 1: I said, Mom, I need some help here. And really
Speaker 1: lucky that I had a good support network around me.
Speaker 1: And so they put me in touch with the rehab
Speaker 1: center and they actually said, you know, we can't get
Speaker 1: you in for a couple of days for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: but don't stop drinking because of the amount that I
Speaker 1: was drinking until they can manage it, right, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they they just continue drinking what you're doing, will come
Speaker 1: and get you. They came to my door three or
Speaker 1: four days later and they picked me up and they
Speaker 1: took me in and they pump you full of some
Speaker 1: kind of drug to basically knock you out, and they
Speaker 1: win you off. That alcohol is really dangerous to go
Speaker 1: if you're drinking at a really high level, it's really
Speaker 1: dangerous to just stop. Your body can go into shops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's quite bad, similar to heroin in that respect.
Speaker 2: Wow, and you've been sober ever since?
Speaker 1: Yeah eight years?
Speaker 2: Congratulations? Think you've done. What differences made your life?
Speaker 1: I don't even it's night and day. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: and day. I don't even think about it anymore. I
Speaker 1: don't never really have, Like I just it doesn't bother me.
Speaker 1: People drinking around me, his booze around with the time.
Speaker 1: I have no interest in drinking. It was but also
Speaker 1: don't regret it, you know, like I had a lot
Speaker 1: of fun, but I have no interest. But it's my
Speaker 1: life has done nothing but exponentially get better since I
Speaker 1: stopped drinking.
Speaker 3: Have you we're going to talk about the moment, you know,
Speaker 3: your YouTube sort of sensation, but like.
Speaker 2: Have you these days look back.
Speaker 3: And look at all the you know, well known chefs
Speaker 3: who are still running restaurants, and we all know all
Speaker 3: their ups and downs. You know, they could even beyond television,
Speaker 3: well known on television, and we know some.
Speaker 2: Of those guys.
Speaker 3: And think to yourself, the restaurant games, it's fucked. It's
Speaker 3: one of the hardest games in the world. He got tenants, staff,
Speaker 3: he got a landlord, you've got staff, you've got inventory,
Speaker 3: high cost of goods and fit out costs, ship all
Speaker 3: this ship, you know, electricity, power, whatever, and then you
Speaker 3: might get fatted out. So you know, you might be
Speaker 3: a fad for a month and then someone else up
Speaker 3: down the corner, who's the new fad. Do you ever
Speaker 3: look back at that and say, my god, what a
Speaker 3: shitty industry.
Speaker 2: Like I mean, like, you know, hard.
Speaker 3: I don't mean bad because we used it, but but
Speaker 3: like a hard industry, A hard game.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, mate. And it's one of those things that you
Speaker 1: go grow older and I, you know, may talk about
Speaker 1: how I got into social media later, but it was
Speaker 1: that like part of it was like I didn't want
Speaker 1: to work for anyone else. I want to work for myself.
Speaker 1: And I still back and thought, well, what do I
Speaker 1: know how to do? I know how to run restaurants,
Speaker 1: So I'm not I'm not going to go like, start
Speaker 1: a restaurant and earn a salary for working one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty hours a week, like it just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: Right, and run all the risk as well, run all
Speaker 2: the risk.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm happy to work work and work, work hard,
Speaker 1: work my ass off, but if there's no reward to that,
Speaker 1: then what's the point of doing it. But I still
Speaker 1: love the industry and I fully understand why people do it.
Speaker 2: So if we pull that apart for a second.
Speaker 3: So at some stage in your life you've said, and
Speaker 3: I said, I love cooking. I love people enjoying my
Speaker 3: food two important things. I've been creative in the form
Speaker 3: of cooking. That's my that's my brush and canvas. Happy
Speaker 3: to work hard.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be run a restaurant.
Speaker 3: Is that what made you decide to get into the
Speaker 3: social media side of cooking. Let's call it that social
Speaker 3: media cooking. Yeah, I was Did you make that decision though?
Speaker 3: Was that a like a I'm going to do this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, it was. It was through through adversity.
Speaker 1: So COVID happened, and I was running a really large
Speaker 1: group of restaurants that was owned by Emirates to the airline,
Speaker 1: so we ran one hundred venues around Australia and New Zealand. Wow,
Speaker 1: and I lost my job really quickly in COVID. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we were living in Melbourne, so me and
Speaker 1: my partner decided we weren't going to get jobs anytime soon,
Speaker 1: so we drove to the Sunshine Coast where she's from.
Speaker 1: And I sat around looking my wounds for six months, thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, this is the worst thing in the world.
Speaker 1: And so I started looking at what I could do,
Speaker 1: what was the next step. And it was that conscious
Speaker 1: decision that I didn't want to work for anyone else
Speaker 1: anymore because I felt like there was actually that's important. Yeah,
Speaker 1: self employed. Self employed. And then I realized pretty quickly
Speaker 1: that I didn't want the risk of running restaurants.
Speaker 2: So that you excluded that, that's out. He worked out
Speaker 2: what you're good at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I didn't have huge amounts of capital, so
Speaker 1: I didn't have access to you know, you know, fifty
Speaker 1: million bucks or anything. Like that. So I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to do because the other option is that.
Speaker 2: And god I didn't because you might have put in
Speaker 2: a restaurant.
Speaker 1: Exactly, true, true, And I'm serious, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: But you know there was the other option. I really
Speaker 1: love kitchen ware and cook where, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I kind of like kitchen where cookwear, but I don't
Speaker 1: have heaps of capital. It's a really capital expensive business
Speaker 1: to get into. So I thought, and I watched a
Speaker 1: lot of content, and I watched these guys like Josh
Speaker 1: Wiseman and Babbish and Nick Giovanni and all these guys
Speaker 1: big YouTubers and stuff, and I thought, I know how
Speaker 1: to cook. Now, these cameras can't be that hard to
Speaker 1: figure out. I'll start doing that. So I started making.
Speaker 2: Tiktoks, like in the COVID period. Yeah, it was the
Speaker 2: sort of during COVID that.
Speaker 1: Was twenty twenty at the end of COVID twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one into twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: So just tell me how you start something like this,
Speaker 3: Like do you remember your first day?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I was living in my in law's house
Speaker 1: and I just thought, I just forget this TikTok thing.
Speaker 1: I need to have a hook pretty quickly. And I
Speaker 1: can't remember. I remember, I know what happened. It took
Speaker 1: us to the put us to the stratosphere. But the
Speaker 1: verse video I think I did was just like making
Speaker 1: fish tacos. And all I did was just make tacos
Speaker 1: and film it and posted it, and of course it
Speaker 1: got like three views. Now I watched it, and then
Speaker 1: you just kind of refine it. You go, how do
Speaker 1: I get better? How do I get it better? Then
Speaker 1: you start learning about hooks and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Then you start learning about the social medium. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: got to learn about the medium itself.
Speaker 1: Correctly, what works correctly?
Speaker 2: Or what have I got to do to make it
Speaker 2: work for me?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: What what did work?
Speaker 1: We did a series which we still do now, the
Speaker 1: Hey Babes series, which we're famous for. Or I walk
Speaker 1: up to the fridge, I open the fridge and I say, hey, babe,
Speaker 1: what do you want for dinner? And Babe Caitlin, she
Speaker 1: says a dish, And I make that dish.
Speaker 2: She says what the dish is?
Speaker 1: Yeah, She'll say tariaki chicken, And I'll make Tariaci chicken
Speaker 1: from scratch. And I think it hits people in so
Speaker 1: many different elements.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's that if you're the person in a relationship that
Speaker 1: does the cooking, it's a really nice thing to have
Speaker 1: someone that knows what they want. If you're the person
Speaker 1: the relationship that does there eating, it's amazing to have
Speaker 1: someone that can literally cook any dish in the world.
Speaker 1: And here we just take me.
Speaker 2: I actually I'm a bit intrigued by this.
Speaker 3: You obviously analyze it over and over again because you
Speaker 3: know this, this thing's making your money so and it's
Speaker 3: what you do. So just that that you were sort
Speaker 3: of being quite modest in how you analyze that those
Speaker 3: two things. Is just look at I'm a viewer, and
Speaker 3: so I might either be the person lace to prepare
Speaker 3: the food.
Speaker 2: I think I might be the persons to consume the food.
Speaker 3: So you're appealing to both of me, both those time
Speaker 3: of audiences and probably some hybrids in between. How did
Speaker 3: you know how to do that analysis? Like how did
Speaker 3: you did you sit down with Caitlin and work this
Speaker 3: out or did you just sort of fumble upon it?
Speaker 1: I think I think it's fumbled upon. It's probably a
Speaker 1: better way to describe it. And then it's just retrospective analysis.
Speaker 1: So oh, this is really working. Like we're talking about
Speaker 1: like millions and millions of views and you go, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is really working. It's like, why is this working?
Speaker 1: Because how how can we We can't just keep doing
Speaker 1: this forever. This has a shelf life, So why is
Speaker 1: this working? And how else can we make videos?
Speaker 2: My variations?
Speaker 1: Can variations? Can we pulled that that that you know
Speaker 1: that can replicate the kind of success we're having with us?
Speaker 2: Hey babe, that's just one of your catch calls.
Speaker 3: It just take me through. So is Katelyn's standing there
Speaker 3: like you just looking in the face like, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, it's a different shot. But yeah, yeah, she's in
Speaker 1: the same room. Effectively, she might be reading your book
Speaker 1: or something. I'll walk up to the fridge.
Speaker 2: So the story in it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, all of.
Speaker 2: A sudden, there's a story. She's the book. You're in
Speaker 2: the kitchen.
Speaker 3: You might all go over to her or walk up
Speaker 3: to her and say hey baby. You say, hey baby,
Speaker 3: what do you want for dinner?
Speaker 1: We for dinner? She says, Berrianni cook Berrianni. So do
Speaker 1: you remember your very first one? It was a tune
Speaker 1: in nice Wa tune and it did pretty well, but
Speaker 1: the first there's a couple of really viral ones. So
Speaker 1: like what with the Berrianni roast beef and pash and chips.
Speaker 1: You know, collectively between those three videos there'd be something
Speaker 1: in the reade of four hundred million views.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And so what does that tell you though about those
Speaker 3: particular dishes.
Speaker 1: It's it's comfort food. It's it's not fine dining, you know,
Speaker 1: you think about Berrianni as a dish, it's comfort food
Speaker 1: for a really large population of humans, not just Indian people, No,
Speaker 1: trill Ancons, English, English people.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, and probably Australian. So do you get
Speaker 3: any sort of data as to nationalities like, for example, Berrianni,
Speaker 3: like in terms of informing you as to what you
Speaker 3: might it up next.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean a large part of our audience is
Speaker 1: American now America, Yeah, yeah, followed closely by Australia and
Speaker 1: New Zealand or not New Zealand. It's a small population,
Speaker 1: but Australia, the UK and Germany are my kind of
Speaker 1: top tier performing national You could.
Speaker 3: Probably pretty much tell somebody what what meals perform best, yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: yeah for those for those nationalities yeah correct, Yeah, And
Speaker 3: it's it's it's comfort food that you're often too lazy
Speaker 3: to make yourself. So dishes like fish and ships is
Speaker 3: a great example. Right, everyone knows fast and ships. Most
Speaker 3: people love fashion ships. Not many people are going to
Speaker 3: bother making it at home.
Speaker 1: Correct, it's too you're going to deal with oil and
Speaker 1: all that stuff right, better better, But it's that, like
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's we say. Now, what we try
Speaker 1: and do is inspire people to cook bit of food
Speaker 1: at home. And it's to try and inspire people that
Speaker 1: it's actually not that hard to cook rist in ships
Speaker 1: at home, and you should give it a crack.
Speaker 3: So when you put the video up, so I presume
Speaker 3: using TikTok and YouTube and everything all the other usuals
Speaker 3: when you put the video up, is the video there
Speaker 3: you proposed to be or idealized as something that I
Speaker 3: watch and just get inspired by, or I watch to
Speaker 3: learn how to make that particular dish.
Speaker 1: Both. So it's to inspire you to try something different
Speaker 1: and try and cook something new. It's also there as
Speaker 1: an educational piece, and there's a full recipe attached on
Speaker 1: our website that will give you a written like a
Speaker 1: normal cookbook recipe. I'll give you all the details of
Speaker 1: how to execute that dish at home?
Speaker 3: How do you how do you keep I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't know how many dishes there are on the will,
Speaker 3: but I don't know how many shows you've done. Give
Speaker 3: me an example, how many posts you made, if you post.
Speaker 1: Them, that'd be well over one thousand recipes. I'd say, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so a thousand videos definitely.
Speaker 3: So you know, let's say a thousand videos. Let's say
Speaker 3: you do which a rhythm leak to a week?
Speaker 2: When a week.
Speaker 1: Four well five to seven videos a week a week?
Speaker 2: Right, So, so do you find yourself repeating dishes? My
Speaker 2: popular demand is to think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes not necessarily because we have to, and mostly
Speaker 1: because we want to want to update it or I
Speaker 1: want to rewrite the recipe because I wrote it at
Speaker 1: a time I wasn't very good at writing recipes. You know,
Speaker 1: you kind of get better at that stuff over time.
Speaker 1: So sometimes and sometimes you repeat recipes because you know
Speaker 1: it's going to do well. But there's there's people ask
Speaker 1: me all the time, how can you can't with so
Speaker 1: many I'm there's millions of recipes in them. Really, we're
Speaker 1: never going to run out. There's millions of recipes.
Speaker 3: You're comfortable, they see, yeah, because you say thousands, thinks
Speaker 3: of thousand, Like, I don't think I've eaten a thousand
Speaker 3: different meals, different style of meal. Maybe I'm not adventurous enough,
Speaker 3: you get me. I feel inspired now?
Speaker 2: So and how long? How long is how do long?
Speaker 3: How long did it take you to work out not
Speaker 3: just the cadence of how often you put it up,
Speaker 3: but how long you take to push the recipe out
Speaker 3: per show?
Speaker 2: How did you work out? All this sort of metrics
Speaker 2: around this stuff?
Speaker 1: Like who? Just like the logistics The logistics is just
Speaker 1: the seat of your pants stuff, you know. Effectively, it
Speaker 1: was a turn from a passion project stash kind of
Speaker 1: hobby to a business. And then you realize this is
Speaker 1: actually a business now and we employ people, and we
Speaker 1: have a studio and all this stuff, and you know,
Speaker 1: some people in my account and goes, I'll watch your
Speaker 1: r on and videos I don't know, mate, like and
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, like it's like how many eyeballs watch
Speaker 1: it and how many people we inspire? You know, as
Speaker 1: long as the money is coming out, Yeah, as long
Speaker 1: as the money coming in is less than the money
Speaker 1: going out, it's it's happy.
Speaker 3: He might just explain it to people, because not a
Speaker 3: lot of people understand that the commercials or the revenue
Speaker 3: of these the business model of these things, the financial
Speaker 3: model thes things. So you know, everybody understands you're up there,
Speaker 3: you've got a camera system, you all set up in
Speaker 3: the kitchen, you do the a babe, and there you
Speaker 3: go off and recklessly make very army whatever it is.
Speaker 3: But then the business side of these things you don't
Speaker 3: need to in the number, but based on the number
Speaker 3: of views, you get paid a certain amount.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, but it's not that we So our business
Speaker 1: has probably broken down sort of forty percent ads in
Speaker 1: so that that counts from what we make money from YouTube.
Speaker 1: That's the only platform that pays us. And the rest
Speaker 1: is well, maybe sixty percent or not even fifty percent
Speaker 1: is brand deals. So we work with brands talk you know,
Speaker 1: about their products sort of like sponsors. Yeah, effectively like
Speaker 1: a sports person would have a sponsor. So we have
Speaker 1: brands that we work with closely, and we're really particular
Speaker 1: about who we work with. You know, we only really
Speaker 1: play in our space for food, and we only talk
Speaker 1: about stuff that I like, you know, I genuinely think
Speaker 1: is good, and then there's ten percent kind of cookbooks
Speaker 1: and other stuff that we don't merge and stuff like
Speaker 1: that merge.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So who are some of the brand individuals that you've
Speaker 3: worked with over the time?
Speaker 1: People? Yeah, people have some really cool people.
Speaker 2: These are collabs.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, So Stormzy, how was that?
Speaker 2: What was experience?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Amazing?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And you know Storms? His team reached out to us
Speaker 1: and said, Storms is in Brisbane? Do you want to
Speaker 1: hang out with him and go for lunch? I said
Speaker 1: I'd love to. He was a fan and he's already
Speaker 1: a fan. Yeah yeah, And so I said can we
Speaker 1: make a video? And they said, yeah, sure if you
Speaker 1: want to. So we did a video with them talking
Speaker 1: about for lunch and met his old crew and it
Speaker 1: was incredible.
Speaker 2: But you'll cook? You cook for him or he cooked
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 1: I cooked for him and that instance, we didn't have
Speaker 1: very much time with him. He was kind of getting
Speaker 1: ready to do a show. So did you say hey, babeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: No, he kind of called me Storms. He is a
Speaker 1: is a huge human being. He's very strong. But what
Speaker 1: do you cook for him? A fish finger sandwich?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And I saw the video of it. Dummy, he
Speaker 2: sort of he handed.
Speaker 1: Up well was pretty yeah, yeah, yeah, he knew what
Speaker 1: was going on. Finger burger sandwich sandwich.
Speaker 2: What the hell is a fish finger sandwich?
Speaker 1: The very English thing. It's like really literally, I mean,
Speaker 1: I've made everything with scratch, but it's literally fish fingers,
Speaker 1: Tatar sauce I.
Speaker 3: Speak, you know, the old fish fingers used by the
Speaker 3: frozen ones wars whoever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's those, but I made made him from from
Speaker 1: from from real from scratch, yea from.
Speaker 3: Fish and and then and just like sitting in between
Speaker 3: two bits of bread. Yeah, I've never heard of fish
Speaker 3: finger fan sandwich English food, but he's.
Speaker 2: Probably And by the way, it's comfort food it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And like so you know, a friend of my, Morgan,
Speaker 1: owns a restaurant here in City Bessies. They do a
Speaker 1: version with Moreton Bay bugs now you know, so it's
Speaker 1: kind of an elevated version of that.
Speaker 3: And I've seen some stuff with Volks cooking either real food.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's right into it. And he's another really lovely
Speaker 1: human being.
Speaker 3: I challenged him to because he's mum's Greek and his
Speaker 3: dad's and and uh and I challenged you know, we're friendly,
Speaker 3: so like I said, mate, one, don't you and I
Speaker 3: do a Greek lamb cookoff and we're going to do it.
Speaker 3: I don't know whatever we were talked about late last year.
Speaker 2: We haven't done it. But he's like fully up for cooking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, loves it himself, loves it.
Speaker 2: I reckon, he'd rather cool for you than you cook
Speaker 2: for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he came around to my place.
Speaker 1: I said, mate, on the Sunshine coats, has he come around?
Speaker 1: We'll cook And he goes yeah, And he just flew
Speaker 1: up just for that, just to come and cook.
Speaker 3: For because he's like huge he'd be a huge fan
Speaker 3: of yours. But he's a huge fan of food. Like
Speaker 3: he's always posted stuff about cooking, like obviously it's a
Speaker 3: big passion of his.
Speaker 2: So what did you guys cook?
Speaker 1: We cooked steaks as you do. But he loves he
Speaker 1: loves the State steaks with Chimmy cheery, and we did
Speaker 1: one on the rotesserie and we did something in the
Speaker 1: smoker and he loved it. It was a It was
Speaker 1: a good fun.
Speaker 2: Did you have a wrestle with him?
Speaker 1: No, No, he had a punch. He had his coach
Speaker 1: there and he had a punch in the Backyard and yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Jay's a legend. But it's it's pretty scary, not scary,
Speaker 1: it's intimidating to see you, right because they you know,
Speaker 1: they don't they don't muck around.
Speaker 2: They had a role in Backyard. That's cool.
Speaker 3: So isn't it amazing that your platform allows you. It's
Speaker 3: a bit like me, I'm lucky to ear my show,
Speaker 3: but it allows us, the social media platform to be
Speaker 3: able to talk to all sorts of interesting people.
Speaker 1: It is man and some of the people that we've met,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that you feel the same. It's mind blowing
Speaker 1: and they're inspiring. You know, you're around these people that
Speaker 1: are that are really successful in their own field, and
Speaker 1: it's just inspiring to.
Speaker 3: You learn so much. I mean, I'm just talking to
Speaker 3: your learned so much. Like about you know, I'm always
Speaker 3: curious about what people what the emotion is about food,
Speaker 3: why it is like it's so fundamental and it's not
Speaker 3: just European families.
Speaker 2: I just think it's a way to connect.
Speaker 3: Like if you said to me, mate, let's go and
Speaker 3: cook something together, I'd feel feel quite honor visual chef,
Speaker 3: but the opportunity I'm honored about the opportunity to connect.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm just sitting here talking to you. Now,
Speaker 3: this is the way you're connecting to having a conversation. Ordinarily,
Speaker 3: why I used to connect with be a dream, But
Speaker 3: cooking is actually better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's more personal. I think doing.
Speaker 3: Something together like cut and something will showing you something
Speaker 3: and my dad showed me.
Speaker 2: You know it's it's.
Speaker 1: You're sharing craft, aren't you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so powerful when people watch it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3: It is people learn about you. Yeah, and your guest,
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean what.
Speaker 2: Do you what does someone like you do?
Speaker 3: Like you're a phenomenon in terms of like the amount
Speaker 3: of people have watched your all your very shows, let's
Speaker 3: call them shows because it is it is television on
Speaker 3: a different medium.
Speaker 2: What do you do from here?
Speaker 3: Do you just keep doing the same or do you
Speaker 3: start rolling out pots and pans or you know, I'm
Speaker 3: serious about that, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, so what we do? We do
Speaker 1: short form videos, the videos you watch on your phone.
Speaker 1: We do four to six of those a week, and
Speaker 1: then we do one long form videos.
Speaker 2: Is that a subscription subscription?
Speaker 1: No? No, no, I'm passionate about not putting any of
Speaker 1: that stuff behind payble. It's all free for right. And
Speaker 1: the long form videos, you know, twenty minutes on YouTube,
Speaker 1: you can watch it on your TV. It's more in depth,
Speaker 1: slow of pace, just talking about ingredients, stories, history of food,
Speaker 1: all that stuff. But to answer your question, it's yeah,
Speaker 1: we're doing products now. So a natural progression for a
Speaker 1: YouTube or a social media person is to do merch.
Speaker 1: And I was really anti kind of doing No one
Speaker 1: needs a T shirt with my name on it, you know.
Speaker 1: So if I'm going to do merch, I to do
Speaker 1: stuff that's meaningful and actually works and you know, and
Speaker 1: that someone can get used out of. So we've done
Speaker 1: a protein press. So that's to help you know, cooks
Speaker 1: doing smash burgers or hold steaks. So it's a piece
Speaker 1: of stain of steel with a handle on it whighs
Speaker 1: about one point five kilos and you use it to
Speaker 1: smash burgers. For smash burgers, so they are the really
Speaker 1: thin ones with like lots of crispy lace on the outside.
Speaker 1: But they're also great for you put on a steak
Speaker 1: and it gets you much bit of contact with the pan.
Speaker 3: Or so when you put your stegg on the grille,
Speaker 3: you put this thing on top top.
Speaker 1: It's a weight, yeah, and it holds it down there.
Speaker 1: And what's the point of that, Well, it just you
Speaker 1: just get a bit of contact with the heat source,
Speaker 1: so you get faster. My odd reaction, and my odd
Speaker 1: reaction is the is the kind of that, I guess
Speaker 1: the easiest way to describe as the caramelization of the
Speaker 1: crust the crust. Yeah, so you get better bitter contact,
Speaker 1: faster crust.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. So what's that thing called?
Speaker 1: We call it a protein press?
Speaker 2: A protein press? Is that a thing in kitchens? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: like high in restaurants, so they have one of these things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, lots of different shapes and sizes of them.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's basically just a weight though just I'm
Speaker 3: not ugrading it, but it's a weight.
Speaker 2: I've never heard of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's effectively our waste.
Speaker 3: And what about things like I mean, because it's a
Speaker 3: big move towards this at the moment, like outside of cooking,
Speaker 3: but you know, no teflon pans or stainless steel or
Speaker 3: titanium or another one porcelain style things like you know,
Speaker 3: because I've got grand kids and recently I bought my
Speaker 3: two sons who have the grandkids. The other two don't
Speaker 3: have your grand kits, just two boys that have the
Speaker 3: grand kids kids. I bought them some cooking where that
Speaker 3: nothing comes off, because I thought, I don't want my grandkids.
Speaker 2: They've got sons.
Speaker 3: I don't want grandsons from day wine eating any ship,
Speaker 3: you know, And I'm like, you're looking forward to do it.
Speaker 3: So I went bought it, and I thought it might
Speaker 3: be fucking fetish like I saw it on Instagram, believe
Speaker 3: it or not. But is that a thing that you
Speaker 3: because if someone like you said to me, Mark, the
Speaker 3: thing you should be buying, is this this brand? Yeah,
Speaker 3: I will write their brand down.
Speaker 2: I'm not joking.
Speaker 3: I We'll go straight out and buy it because I
Speaker 3: haven't got a fucking clue, you know. I'm literally would
Speaker 3: buy something of Instagram because it looks they say to me,
Speaker 3: this is better than buying something with a teflone where
Speaker 3: it is, And but is that the sort of thing
Speaker 3: I mean to me, I think there's a marketplace that
Speaker 3: they're screaming out for this sort of stuff from something
Speaker 3: like you.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent agree, you know, and where we're working
Speaker 1: on it effectively. So we're we've got a next another
Speaker 1: set of products and development at the moment, and we'll
Speaker 1: do a pan at some point. And your one hundred
Speaker 1: percent right. These forever chemicals are bad things, you know.
Speaker 1: It's you know, there's a whole bunch of really mixed
Speaker 1: messaging out there as good as a bad.
Speaker 2: And that's true. It's overwhelming for me.
Speaker 1: Overwhelming humor, right, And I think the easiest way I
Speaker 1: think to think about it was just go back to basics.
Speaker 1: So I cooked and stain and steel cast iron pans always.
Speaker 3: So in the studio here there's a we're got a
Speaker 3: cafe out there and as part of the building, and
Speaker 3: the three blokes in they used to work at oils
Speaker 3: down at the chefs proper chefs like you, but they
Speaker 3: got out of their industrics too hard. But they run
Speaker 3: this cafe and think.
Speaker 2: They kill it.
Speaker 3: But they were telling me that they use cast iron
Speaker 3: pans and they don't even put in a dishwasher when
Speaker 3: they finish the sort of wipe it out with something. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: they're no no detergent, just wipe it out and recook again.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 3: And I got them to buy them a couple of
Speaker 3: but they were sort of black looking and they didn't Look,
Speaker 3: it didn't.
Speaker 2: Look right for it, But is that how? How how
Speaker 2: people like you cooked?
Speaker 1: Yeah? If you're using what is that about?
Speaker 2: What's what's what's the deal?
Speaker 1: So if you using a cast iron pan, you're effectively
Speaker 1: breaking down the polymers or the fats, the carbonizes and
Speaker 1: that becomes your nonstick. Right, So if you wash that,
Speaker 1: you're washing that away. So you kind of want to
Speaker 1: keep that on then, and you want to build that
Speaker 1: up over time. You're not dirty? Well, no, you think
Speaker 1: about what temperature it's at. It's not. The bactery is
Speaker 1: long gone, so you wipe it. It's clean. But if
Speaker 1: you use the soap things A funny one, all right,
Speaker 1: it's quite old. I think soaps have changed a lot
Speaker 1: in the last twenty thirty years. Soap back when you
Speaker 1: were a twenty year old kid was a lot stronger
Speaker 1: and would have taken that off. Now it's debatable whether
Speaker 1: it will or not anywhere these days. But still, if
Speaker 1: you've got a cast iron pan that you're cooking steaks
Speaker 1: and there is no need to wash that out, ones,
Speaker 1: let it cool a little bit, wipe it out with
Speaker 1: a paper towel. Yeah, that's it. They wipe it a
Speaker 1: paper towel and it's fair.
Speaker 2: They're quite heavy. Yeah, they're actually quite heavy.
Speaker 3: You're you've got to be careful your wrisk but they're
Speaker 3: quite heavy.
Speaker 2: But because what I didn't like about.
Speaker 3: It because I'm used to I know, I got in
Speaker 3: my mind, as in a domestic kitchen sense, and I
Speaker 3: like to cook. I got in my mind that everything
Speaker 3: needs to be shiny in the kitchen. And they're all
Speaker 3: you know, like stainless steel and whatever. They're just shiny.
Speaker 3: I mean, it looks really clean. And the thing that
Speaker 3: got to me was I thought, you know, these guys
Speaker 3: really know what they're talking about, because this doesn't look
Speaker 3: clean to me. Why is why is cast iron, which
Speaker 3: is basically iron and it's quite thick, Why is that
Speaker 3: a better format to cook on or in or with?
Speaker 1: It holds heat well, which is good. Now, the funny
Speaker 1: thing is about cast iron is that it's actually it
Speaker 1: was cheap to make. That's why see cast iron.
Speaker 2: It looks cheap, always cheap to buy it too. There's
Speaker 2: nothing about it, no big deal.
Speaker 1: So that you know, there's there's lots of ways you
Speaker 1: can kind of take that, you know, But then you're
Speaker 1: trying to you're trying to service a really broad range
Speaker 1: of the budgets. Right, So if you're going to do something,
Speaker 1: you know you can do a cast iron pan for
Speaker 1: quite cheap. You know, you can do a cast iron
Speaker 1: pan retail for one hundred bucks pretty easily, right, But
Speaker 1: if you want to start using some other you know,
Speaker 1: much more fancier metals or in a harder process as
Speaker 1: the process, that that price pushes up, Right, So you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna be careful about what target you're who
Speaker 1: you're trying to hurt, who you're trying to get to
Speaker 1: buy this pan, and is it affordable for them?
Speaker 2: Because because obviously I bought.
Speaker 3: Some Instagram and Instagram now knows that, and it's feeding
Speaker 3: it serves me stuff all the time. And the latest
Speaker 3: one that I've been getting is I think it's traitanium,
Speaker 3: like as the toughest metal or the hardest metal. And
Speaker 3: it's sort of because last thing I wanted something I
Speaker 3: don't want to be. I don't cook fans, but if
Speaker 3: I'm cooking on I don't want all this ship to
Speaker 3: stick everywhere. And the way that looks like nothing looks
Speaker 3: like nothing sticks to it, I mean.
Speaker 2: And should I be cooking with oil? Yes, and what
Speaker 2: sort of oil.
Speaker 1: Well, it depends up to you. I mean there's a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, negative toun seed oils in the
Speaker 1: world now, and I have no position on it. I
Speaker 1: use seed oils like I'm not granola. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I don't really canola much because I just think that
Speaker 1: there's bitter quality seed oils out there. I use peanut
Speaker 1: oil if I'm frying, but I use a lot of
Speaker 1: olive oil because I like it. It tastes good. I
Speaker 1: think it's I'm not It's the thing I always say
Speaker 1: is I'm not a I'm not a food scientist. I'm
Speaker 1: not a nutritionist, so I just do what I think works.
Speaker 2: But it's about taste food taste.
Speaker 1: So I use a lot olive oil. So I use
Speaker 1: a really good quality olive oil if I'm not cooking
Speaker 1: with it, so you know, if I'm just putting on
Speaker 1: a salad or something like that.
Speaker 2: I a virgin whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just a straight olive oil. If I'm want
Speaker 1: to fry a piece of fish, if I'm using a
Speaker 1: deep fryer, if I'm frying chips or making fish and chips,
Speaker 1: I'll use peanut oil as a kind of the three
Speaker 1: main oils at all.
Speaker 2: And but why do you use spend it all instead
Speaker 2: of olive oil.
Speaker 1: Because if you use friest me at olive oil, it
Speaker 1: does tend to take on a bit of a taste
Speaker 1: like taste like olive oil a little bit. If you
Speaker 1: frying peanut oil, it's very neutral flavored oil. So you're
Speaker 1: not gonna you're not gonna taste any olive oil flavor. Yes,
Speaker 1: and it's a lot cheaper.
Speaker 3: So in terms of your progression of your business emerge,
Speaker 3: we're not going to do T shirts. But you've put
Speaker 3: out this press thing what you call it in protein
Speaker 3: press protein press. When you said that, I was imagining
Speaker 3: some sort of machine that produces protein. But it's a
Speaker 3: thing that you basically put in it to make sure
Speaker 3: that there's more of the surface of both both the
Speaker 3: pan and the or whatever you're cooking on and the meat,
Speaker 3: for example, which will make fish meat, chicken or all.
Speaker 1: Proteins all above, or even if you're doing a toasty
Speaker 1: cheese toasting in a pan, put that on top, you're
Speaker 1: going to get like a more even toast on your bread.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, so that's one product, So the next we
Speaker 3: might be talking about things like knives and forks, you know,
Speaker 3: like chef's knives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, chef's knives are an interesting one. That's there's an
Speaker 1: art to creating a knife, you know, and I think
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that's probably best left to
Speaker 1: the artisans and other Japanese knife makers and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: All the Germans make great knives too, so it probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't touch knives or what.
Speaker 2: Do something like you do? And where do you get
Speaker 2: your nice one? Because like I watch.
Speaker 3: You guys and like, you guys something your slice it
Speaker 3: looks like and I thought, like you slice some money,
Speaker 3: Like I think he.
Speaker 2: Must be sharpening his knife every bloody day, like.
Speaker 1: You sharpen them a lot more than most people think.
Speaker 1: And the thing that's the issue with most domestic cooks
Speaker 1: is that they don't realize how much you have to
Speaker 1: sharpen your knife. And they'll buy a knife and they'll
Speaker 1: use it for three months straight and they've got it
Speaker 1: doesn't work and it's like we haven't sharpened it. Like
Speaker 1: it's the same with a like a really good top
Speaker 1: in builder, you know, and their chisels they keep those
Speaker 1: things raising sharp so that you know, woodworkers, you know,
Speaker 1: so you've got to keep them sharp.
Speaker 3: Have you ever done an episode where you talk about sharpening,
Speaker 3: sharpening everything and getting all your tools right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah you have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they would have gone off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they do all right, those ones.
Speaker 3: Because ao, do you want to know what sort of
Speaker 3: what you're using, what you watching, what sort of knife
Speaker 3: you got or set of knives, and and what you're
Speaker 3: using spanw you go see these guys sharpened him on
Speaker 3: the on thees. Yeah yeah, oh my god, I think
Speaker 3: it looks like he's gonna take forever. And every now
Speaker 3: and then I get sort of inspired and I'll go
Speaker 3: and shut my eyes.
Speaker 2: I've got a like electric I'll go and sharpen them.
Speaker 3: But like he said, probably once three three months, and
Speaker 3: then I wonder why I can't cut through the bloody
Speaker 3: tomato or its or you know, like I'm bruising at.
Speaker 2: It as well? Is that the whole objective?
Speaker 3: I'm sorry to ask you these questions, but is the
Speaker 3: whole objective around having sharp knives?
Speaker 2: Is it about making.
Speaker 3: Sure you you sort of preserve the thing you're cutting?
Speaker 3: Is it about not fucking it up?
Speaker 2: Basically?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, mate, But it's also like it's a whole ethos
Speaker 1: around like, you know, like having good care about everything
Speaker 1: that you do and doing things with intention. You know.
Speaker 1: So if you're going to use a knife, make sure
Speaker 1: the knife is supposed to be sharp, make sure it's sharp.
Speaker 1: Have intension with what you're doing, you know. And I
Speaker 1: love the Japanese for that. You go, you go to Japan,
Speaker 1: you see any store owner. The first thing a store
Speaker 1: owner will do in Japan is I'll go and clean
Speaker 1: out the front of the store, you know. And it's
Speaker 1: something that we don't do work very well here in
Speaker 1: the Western world, you know, especially in streets like this. Right,
Speaker 1: you can come here on a Sunday morning after everyone's
Speaker 1: been partying trash and it's trash, right, and they just
Speaker 1: expect the council to do it, or as in Japan,
Speaker 1: they'll just they'll just do it right, and they'll plan
Speaker 1: it them themselves, because it's about, you know, doing things
Speaker 1: with intent, making sure things are properly looking after, making
Speaker 1: sure that you're ready to start your day in a
Speaker 1: good frame of mind and with everything clean.
Speaker 3: And when you it's just a little question, you said,
Speaker 3: a little question, but but it's important to me when
Speaker 3: you wash your at home, not when you're on YouTube,
Speaker 3: but not when you're performing. You're just at home when
Speaker 3: you wash your knives, your forks, your plates, and you
Speaker 3: just wipe out your pants.
Speaker 2: What do you what is your process? Do you ever
Speaker 2: put stuff in the dish washer or are you so.
Speaker 3: Fussy about the outcome that you actually, you know, just
Speaker 3: wash your stuff yourself.
Speaker 1: So I'll hand wash a cast iron pan with the
Speaker 1: paper towel and hand washed knives. Knives never be on
Speaker 1: the dishcushure. Other than that, everything goes, yeah, so everything
Speaker 1: else can go the dish are there for a reason?
Speaker 3: And do you take a view that you know when
Speaker 3: you're storing food, so like you know what would be great?
Speaker 2: Like I'm mad on.
Speaker 3: Pre prepared meals because not many people at the time.
Speaker 3: You've got time to do because that's that's what you do.
Speaker 3: It's your show. So you know there's prep and there's
Speaker 3: someone goes and buys them material the food, and you
Speaker 3: know you probably got your favorite butcher favorite see if
Speaker 3: you're joint, et cetera, like that you're living in Sydney now, correct,
Speaker 3: so you know you go to your favorite joints.
Speaker 2: You know we're going to get the best produce, so
Speaker 2: you should, but.
Speaker 3: People like me, I'd like to have stuff prepared like
Speaker 3: so because I don't want to think about like today,
Speaker 3: for example, I've done a whole series of podcasts, Got
Speaker 3: one after you.
Speaker 2: I don't have time to go and get.
Speaker 3: A proper lunch, blah blah blah. I would like to
Speaker 3: have a prepared meal. Are you doing something like that?
Speaker 3: Like do you say to people this is how you
Speaker 3: do your prep for the week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you done a series yet on that.
Speaker 1: We've done videos on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we did a really popularity or not long ago
Speaker 1: about meals for one as well, so you know, you know,
Speaker 1: we did five different recipes for people who are just
Speaker 1: eating well themselves Friday. Yeah, it's an understand utilize or
Speaker 1: service piece in the market where people just want you
Speaker 1: don't want to cook's lots of recipes for ten to
Speaker 1: twelve people.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't just want to cook one meal and
Speaker 1: you don't want left others. So but yeah, and then
Speaker 1: also a meal prep it's like, well, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're going to if you're going to make a big
Speaker 1: batch of you know, Bolonnai's, and then you can turn
Speaker 1: that into a shepherd's pie and a pass the dish
Speaker 1: and et cetera.
Speaker 2: For efficiency.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially say someone's got a family, like they say,
Speaker 3: you've got three or four kids, so Sunday afternoon they
Speaker 3: want to be able to get on to watch your show.
Speaker 2: I'm able to work out how am I go because
Speaker 2: it's going to be it's got to be efficient, but
Speaker 2: it's going to not cost you too much. See, it's
Speaker 2: got to be tasty and it's got to satisfy all
Speaker 2: the family's taste, because you know, it's not usual weakness
Speaker 2: the rest of the family, isn't it. Yeah, Because when
Speaker 2: I was a kid, I knew what I was going
Speaker 2: to eat every the other week because my mum used
Speaker 2: to give me the because in those days you went
Speaker 2: to the butcher. It was just down the corner. She's
Speaker 2: to give me the order.
Speaker 3: I went down and order the butchers for every week,
Speaker 3: same food, and every night we knew it exactly what
Speaker 3: we're going to have.
Speaker 2: Monday night we had the same. For Judy, we had
Speaker 2: the same.
Speaker 3: Food every week every week at Thursday Friday in our house.
Speaker 3: Because Catholic, we'd always have fish. And I hated fish.
Speaker 3: I hate it. I don't know I love fish now
Speaker 3: I hate it. Front and then Sunday it was a
Speaker 3: roast every week. Same but now to serve that up
Speaker 3: to your kids made that be So do you go
Speaker 3: through those processes and help people out this with some
Speaker 3: sort of creating ideas for them to help them work
Speaker 3: out what the hell to do?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I think. I mean, because we post many videos,
Speaker 1: that's half of it, right, So I think what we
Speaker 1: see with the data is that you see people it's
Speaker 1: spikes in the afternoon, right, So someone might be on
Speaker 1: their way home from work and they'll be on and
Speaker 1: they'll see a reci I'll make that, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'll stop and get the ingredients to make it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the reality is that our stuff's kind of
Speaker 1: it's focused at the passionate home cook. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not it's it's not the home cook at home that
Speaker 1: kind of just isn't that super interesting food. They're just
Speaker 1: trying to nourish themselves. And nothing against that person, but
Speaker 1: we're kind of targeting people that are pretty keen on
Speaker 1: food and the food.
Speaker 2: Is like lay like taste. If I said to you.
Speaker 3: That, because one of my big frustrations is that more
Speaker 3: going back to years ago, but not so much these days,
Speaker 3: but I would like to have it sold these days.
Speaker 3: Is that if I's a good example and.
Speaker 2: I know where he gets his.
Speaker 3: Food from it in terms of his packaging food which
Speaker 3: he has to do through programs, and like Jordan Solomon
Speaker 3: is a good made of mine, So who's his dietitian,
Speaker 3: And like he might have to have in the morning
Speaker 3: between sessions, he might have to have based on how
Speaker 3: much way he's going to lose. He might have to
Speaker 3: have one hundred fifty grams of proteine the fish, beef
Speaker 3: or chicken he might have.
Speaker 2: He might need so much one hundred grams of carbs.
Speaker 3: Could your mashed potatoes, rice wood pasta, brown rice pasta,
Speaker 3: And he might have to have of edge just fraguentcy
Speaker 3: for greens and to get these other multi items and a
Speaker 3: lot sort of stuff. Have you ever gone through a
Speaker 3: process where you've tried to make that tasty? Because that
Speaker 3: is very hard to do it and make it tasty.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've gone through process of eating like that for
Speaker 1: a long time to try and pull off weight because
Speaker 1: my whole lot have Yeah, because I you know, I
Speaker 1: eat for a living, right, so it's hard for me.
Speaker 1: My weight fluctuates so yeah, I think naturally I've done it.
Speaker 1: I don't think i've ever documented it, though, But it's
Speaker 1: just about it's about using dry spices and herbs a
Speaker 1: lot because there's no calories in it, and then being
Speaker 1: really selective about what condiments you use with it. So
Speaker 1: if you use like vinegar, if you like hot sauces,
Speaker 1: making sure you're using like a vinegar based hot sauce
Speaker 1: as opposed to one that's full of sugar, and just
Speaker 1: thinking about stuff like that. But I haven't actually documented it.
Speaker 1: Maybe I should, maybe we.
Speaker 2: Should do something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't see why because I remember. I remember
Speaker 3: one time, one time I got really bad it. One
Speaker 3: time I had to put on five killers to fight
Speaker 3: someone like that. He was like ninety one killers.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 3: I'm normally aout eighty five eighty six killers as much
Speaker 3: of it, so I thought I actually had to for once.
Speaker 3: Only once it happened, I had to put weight on
Speaker 3: be crazy. So I had six months to would get
Speaker 3: ready so and I would do a lot of gym
Speaker 3: work and stuff of that, but I was in like
Speaker 3: the blow helped me out. I got six seven times
Speaker 3: a day, right, but I was buying ready made meals.
Speaker 2: First two three days it was fine, was great, But
Speaker 2: after that I felt like it was this. I didn't
Speaker 2: feel like it was food.
Speaker 3: It was it was like, yeah, it was a Jaws
Speaker 3: like getting cardboard, and I was just basically just trying
Speaker 3: to get it down my throat and it had no
Speaker 3: taste to it. I felt like this, this particular I
Speaker 3: might say, the brand with this particular brand of food,
Speaker 3: had no taste to it. And I felt as though
Speaker 3: they were just preparing based on calories and protein levels
Speaker 3: and no one was actually looking at it as from
Speaker 3: a chef's point of view. So I think that that
Speaker 3: would be an extremely interesting thing to do for some
Speaker 3: life volg for example, and particularly someone like him in Doorsta.
Speaker 2: Do you know Jordan Sullivan the Fight Digestion, Volks Dietition.
Speaker 1: I've never met him, No, I know of them, but
Speaker 1: he's a pretty cool guy. But he's always frustrated too.
Speaker 3: I know who's using them, and and by the way,
Speaker 3: I'm using the people, I've used the people that is
Speaker 3: currently using to buy the meals, and I'm not going
Speaker 3: to say it their names.
Speaker 2: But that's pretty good. But I'm just wondering when someone.
Speaker 3: Like you actually got on top of this and said,
Speaker 3: you know, this is the best.
Speaker 2: Meal that is.
Speaker 3: You can buy this by some of these meals, by
Speaker 3: the way, you can buy water. So they're everywhere, but
Speaker 3: they're very salty.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I think I think they up the salt
Speaker 1: is because they stay around for so long because we've
Speaker 1: got to see water shehells for thirty days, which crazy, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: And you eat it and you don't feel great.
Speaker 1: No, no, because the salt makes you hide you.
Speaker 2: And then then when you drink the water, you hold yeah,
Speaker 2: you hold the water along.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So like put someone like you do you know,
Speaker 3: let's say you're just trying to make it last a
Speaker 3: week with someone.
Speaker 2: Is that something that you would be able to do?
Speaker 3: Would you be able to work these things that make
Speaker 3: this meal particularly tasty whatever they might be tasty?
Speaker 1: Absolutely food science behind making stuff shelves. They well, that's
Speaker 1: not my way. Help, let's it was a week? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you just use it like controlling acid. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I have a meal prep video now where it's all about.
Speaker 1: So instead of making five boxes that have the same
Speaker 1: meals and cook a whole bunch of different ingredients, right,
Speaker 1: and then then you go home and night and you go, right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna grab some some rice. I'm gonna grab some
Speaker 1: chicken tonight. I feel like avocado and pickled onions. And
Speaker 1: then the next day you can have one and have
Speaker 1: some prawns, and so cook a bunch of different food,
Speaker 1: don't mix it, and then you can kind of create
Speaker 1: your own effective rice bowls. You know, like every day
Speaker 1: and they're different ingredients every day.
Speaker 2: So have you done a series on that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a YouTube video on that.
Speaker 2: Is there a name for that?
Speaker 3: Because I might not look at that, I'll send you
Speaker 3: an because that's something I would look at. Because because
Speaker 3: you're right, you could just go you get your prawns, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you get blah blah blah blah. Yeah, you don't
Speaker 3: have more pre made because you're generally speaking, if you
Speaker 3: had a pre made I'm making one dish. No, you
Speaker 3: have the same dish, five tight career and that drives mental.
Speaker 1: So you just have containers of their great cooked ingredients.
Speaker 1: You might have a whole hundred corn you know, four
Speaker 1: cooked corn cobs cooked or you know, cut off and cooked.
Speaker 1: You know, some cherry tomatoes slice in half, some baby
Speaker 1: spinach washed, and ready to go some cooked rice, some
Speaker 1: cooked chicken, and you go, I'm and have some rice chicken.
Speaker 3: Tonight and tomorrow night might have and corn and that's cool.
Speaker 3: And then then I guess it's the sauce. You need
Speaker 3: some sauce sauces, the differentiator or the condiment.
Speaker 1: What do you call it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, is a differentiator.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So what's your I mean, you probably don't
Speaker 3: know it's this, but what what do you like in
Speaker 3: terms of like goats.
Speaker 1: Simple cooking, mate, Like, if I'm eating at home, it's
Speaker 1: it's grilled meat, usually on the barbecue, So I might
Speaker 1: grilled a piece of steak, a grilled piece of chicken.
Speaker 1: I like rice, you know, I eat a lot of rice,
Speaker 1: and then like simple vegies. It's nothing crazy. Then I
Speaker 1: do like I like hot sauces, and I think hot
Speaker 1: sauces are a great cheat for like making instant flavor,
Speaker 1: as in the spicy Yes, you know, I'm not like
Speaker 1: one of these people that just eats, you know, crazy
Speaker 1: hot chili for the fun of it. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: like a bit of hot sauce and vinegar based hot.
Speaker 2: Sauces vinegar based.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's opposed to like the sweet ones. I like them.
Speaker 2: When they it's not like sweet chili sauce. It'll be
Speaker 2: like tabasco or chicula or they got vinegar in them,
Speaker 2: are they?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's the that's the stabilizer. That's why they're
Speaker 1: self stable because of the acid levels so high.
Speaker 2: It's stabilized as in preserved, correct, Yeah, as opposed to
Speaker 2: lots of salt. Yes, Yeah, that's interesting. I never knew that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I never really thought about it, but
Speaker 3: I didn't know that it's vinegar that preserves it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And they're also very low colorI because there's no
Speaker 1: sugar in them.
Speaker 2: So as opposed to say the sweet chili sauce that's
Speaker 2: called it that that's got probably a lot of sugar
Speaker 2: in it. Correct, what's the what preserves are they're also
Speaker 2: probably put a lot of salt in it. Yeah, sugar
Speaker 2: sugar as well. Sugars are preserved. Like sugars preserved.
Speaker 1: You think about like jam, you know when you're growing
Speaker 1: up still now like that's you know, it's from the sugar.
Speaker 2: Sugars preserved. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, I guess
Speaker 2: it makes sense. But I remember thinking about.
Speaker 3: Preserves deserves actually something is they call that because they
Speaker 3: take the peaches off of them, think they can't eat them.
Speaker 2: Are for the summer and presum for the winter.
Speaker 1: We sugar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's mad. I didn't know that. I don't thought
Speaker 2: about that, thinks. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: That's that's pretty good, it's pretty logical, but I never
Speaker 3: really thought it through. And food is such a fundamental
Speaker 3: thing to us, like we tell you for granted.
Speaker 1: We do. We do, especially in this part of the world,
Speaker 1: you know, all the time. It's like, you know, we're
Speaker 1: all extremely lucky to live here, you know, extremely lucky.
Speaker 3: As you rate our produce in Australia relative to the
Speaker 3: rest of the world and where we sort of ranking
Speaker 3: up there, for.
Speaker 1: The average product that we have is very high. It's
Speaker 1: much higher than the average producce you get in the
Speaker 1: States or the average produce that you you know, you
Speaker 1: think about countries like France and Spain and probably are
Speaker 1: a little bit better a lot of cases like but
Speaker 1: they're very like gastronomic focused countries. So but yeah, and
Speaker 1: our top end stuff, you know, we produce, we literally
Speaker 1: produce one of the best beef in the world here
Speaker 1: and there's no there's no one can argue that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not we just got we have a climate that's
Speaker 1: you know, really conducive to producing really good beef, whether
Speaker 1: it's grass fed beef from places down like Tazzy and
Speaker 1: Victoria or grain fed beef, which are you know, similar products,
Speaker 1: different but similar products up up in Queensland. You know,
Speaker 1: we produce some of the best beef.
Speaker 2: In the world.
Speaker 3: And I'm getting wrapped up here, but the producers wrapping me.
Speaker 2: But like, I just want one more question. Why is it?
Speaker 3: I just you just spark my memory. I remember when
Speaker 3: I was in I haven't been in London for a
Speaker 3: couple of years, but when I go to London, I
Speaker 3: have been more recently, but like I used to go.
Speaker 2: To Lend a lot.
Speaker 3: One of the things that always struck me about London
Speaker 3: in their summer spring summer was the difference between strawberry
Speaker 3: in London and France compared to strawberry here.
Speaker 1: What is the deal with that climate? You need the cold,
Speaker 1: the cold nights and the warm days. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: the same. They're so sweet, Yeah, they're so sweet, but
Speaker 1: also fragrant. But even beef, beef is very different in Europe,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's because the grass is different, so
Speaker 1: the fat ten of the animals is different, you know.
Speaker 1: It's and we're so used to growing up eating a
Speaker 1: strawberry was it was was a treat. Now you see
Speaker 1: my nieces and nephews and they're just like punets of
Speaker 1: the thing.
Speaker 2: Them and blueberries days a year.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but they taste below average, all yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Whereas if you eat it seasonally and we actually ate
Speaker 1: to the seasons, you're going to get those peaks of
Speaker 1: like really delicious strawberries and then you won't. But you won't.
Speaker 1: You only see them for two months of the year.
Speaker 3: When I was growing, like my mum was a she
Speaker 3: just half on by this eat to the season because
Speaker 3: in those days you didn't get blueberries a straw only
Speaker 3: get it once a year and you get you know,
Speaker 3: we used to get nuts at a certain time of year,
Speaker 3: like walnuts and things around times and then and the
Speaker 3: rest it was. It was very everything like Mumm used
Speaker 3: to I say, pears and apples, pears, apples and oranges
Speaker 3: in the winter and stone fruits in the summer. And
Speaker 3: now you get all this ship all year round. But
Speaker 3: do you cook, do you, are you believing that each
Speaker 3: of the seasons. In other words, if it's if it's summer,
Speaker 3: you should really only eat what's available in summer.
Speaker 2: Naturally.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a bit of a hypocrite here
Speaker 1: and say that I often don't because a lot of
Speaker 1: my audience lives in the other atmosphere. Yeah, So it's
Speaker 1: really tricky to be like, who do I service the most?
Speaker 1: You know? So we have to do a mix of both.
Speaker 1: So in wintertime here I have to do some winter recipes,
Speaker 1: but I also have to do some summery recipes. Otherwise
Speaker 1: a whole most of the world's going to be like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to eat a pumpkin soup right now.
Speaker 1: It's I live in New York and it's one hundred degrees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: And are you a sorry to keep I amnnoying my producer,
Speaker 3: but I have one more question for you.
Speaker 2: Are you when you go to a place like France
Speaker 2: or Paris?
Speaker 3: When you're in France, but let's call it Paris, are
Speaker 3: you a mad mad And I know you're trying to
Speaker 3: watch away, but are you mad for their pastries?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I mean I love food. Mark like I
Speaker 1: love it. Like so I've got anywhere in the world,
Speaker 1: I'm going to hunt out the best of whatever that
Speaker 1: country does. And I love the French know how to
Speaker 1: do pastries. They do greate butter in France too, That's
Speaker 1: why the pastries are good.
Speaker 2: And there's been an emergency emergence and emergency, but an
Speaker 2: emergence of Greek food all of a sudden, because Greece
Speaker 2: has become the place to go to our holiday, both
Speaker 2: popular European destination right at the moment from people from
Speaker 2: all around the world, and all of a sudden'm seeing
Speaker 2: lots of Greek restaurants. Yeah, arise.
Speaker 3: We've never generally speak with very few Greek restaurants, particularly
Speaker 3: in city, a lot of Melbourne more and much more
Speaker 3: in city at the moment. What is it a Greek's food?
Speaker 3: What is it about Greek food that has become so popular?
Speaker 3: Do you think there's a simplicity?
Speaker 2: What is it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think it's simplicity, and you know, it's that Mediterranean diet,
Speaker 1: right Like I think it's you can go to a
Speaker 1: Greek restaurant and you don't come away feeling like you've
Speaker 1: had a cheap meal. You just come away because you've
Speaker 1: eaten like a really lovely fresh salad. It's some grilled meat,
Speaker 1: you know, like and it's you know, you don't feel
Speaker 1: like you've kind of indulged, as opposed to if you
Speaker 1: go to a French restaurant you kind of usually come
Speaker 1: away and you go, oh.
Speaker 3: My god, especially if you had a bit of wine
Speaker 3: with it, and then dessert, you know they're bringing out
Speaker 3: a soup fla or something like that.
Speaker 1: And because it's rich, it's rich, yeah, heavy, dairy heavy,
Speaker 1: whereas you had a Greek and it's olive oil, you know,
Speaker 1: and lots of lemon and lots of acid to cut
Speaker 1: through all that fatty.
Speaker 3: God, I'm so hungry now. It made me really hungry, mate.
Speaker 3: It's been fantastic. I really appreciate. By the way, Congratulations
Speaker 3: on being a phenonmamon.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: You are somewhat of phenomenon when it comes to what
Speaker 3: you do on YouTube and all the other social mediums.
Speaker 2: Well done. Congratulations And sort of like.
Speaker 3: Your personality and your nearly laconic like, you're pretty laid
Speaker 3: back about it.
Speaker 2: I'd say there's a fair bit.
Speaker 3: Of intensity gets involved in it, but you're very laid
Speaker 3: back about your success and well done on that's that's
Speaker 3: a hard thing to do.
Speaker 1: Thanks Mane, I appreciate it and thanks for having us.
Speaker 2: You're welcome