Speaker 1: Right justin middle of the field forty five fifteen bring
Speaker 1: Russ in front of a leading.
Speaker 2: Lions in his way.
Speaker 3: I am Jeff jonihack Witz.
Speaker 4: Is not DONI go upcur What was like playing for Coche?
Speaker 5: Good done?
Speaker 3: I don't want to answer any questions like that.
Speaker 4: Sixty one yards?
Speaker 3: What's Sunday stroll for? Justin field?
Speaker 1: Yes. Bears et Cetera brought to you by Miller Lte
Speaker 1: with the voices of the Bears Jeff Joniac and Tom Thayer.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Bears et Cetera Podcast.
Speaker 5: We're episode fifty one, halfway through January already and gearing
Speaker 5: up for a memorable off season as the Bears are
Speaker 5: interviewing offensive fordner candidates and delving deep into their game
Speaker 5: plan for the quarterback position with Super Bowl winning Bears
Speaker 5: guard Tom Thayer.
Speaker 3: I'm Jeff Joniac.
Speaker 5: Good to have you along as we begin a now
Speaker 5: once a week's show through the off season, save for
Speaker 5: any breaking news, of course that may occur between now
Speaker 5: and the start of training camp. And we are sponsored
Speaker 5: by Miller Official Beer of the Chicago Bears.
Speaker 3: It's like Mither time Chicago.
Speaker 5: We have a special guest to kick off the program
Speaker 5: special guest down fifty one. It's our Dick, butkis episode
Speaker 5: for a guy who was born and bred like Dick
Speaker 5: on the South Side. One of the premier chefs in
Speaker 5: the world, right here in Chicago, our very own Joe Flamm,
Speaker 5: culinary director for Sincere Hospitality overseeing Rosemary and Blvd. Steakhouse
Speaker 5: in Fulton Market District. Winner of Top Chef Season fifteen.
Speaker 5: His career is amazing. We're going to get into that.
Speaker 5: His love of the Bears and the White Sox also
Speaker 5: deeply rooted in this man and his world is blending
Speaker 5: with the sports world as we speak right now.
Speaker 3: Joe, how you feeling, buddy.
Speaker 4: I'm feeling good, feeling good, Excited to be here.
Speaker 5: Guys, Thanks, thanks for joining us. I know you have
Speaker 5: a busy schedule running everything. But before we get into
Speaker 5: all that, we got to get your thoughts on your beloved.
Speaker 5: We got to talk about the Bears and you know, hey,
Speaker 5: it's gonna be an amazing offseason and I know every
Speaker 5: Bears fan feeling a little bit anxious about it all.
Speaker 3: How are you feeling about it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel anxious, I feel excited. I think these
Speaker 4: are normal feelings as a Bears fan, but I think,
Speaker 4: you know, I really like Kevin Warred, I really like
Speaker 4: Ryan Pole. So you know, I think at this point
Speaker 4: you got to say, we trust our guys, right, we
Speaker 4: trust the two guys who were there to spok to
Speaker 4: do the job. I think, you know, I felt better
Speaker 4: about it before that Packers game, and then I felt
Speaker 4: better about it before I watched the Packers go to
Speaker 4: Dallas and absolutely destroy the Cowboys. It's just kind of
Speaker 4: that was the scary thing to me there. But I
Speaker 4: think it kind of forces your hand one way, because
Speaker 4: you're now saying, you know, we thought the Packers weren't
Speaker 4: going to be this right a couple of years ago,
Speaker 4: we're like, Okay, you know, they're kind of going down.
Speaker 4: Everybody's treading down at our division. Detroit went through the
Speaker 4: roof Green Base making a run. Now it's say it, Okay,
Speaker 4: the table stakes are just as high as they've always been.
Speaker 4: So if we want to compete in this division, we
Speaker 4: got to be ready for it. We have to have,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, the weapons to do so.
Speaker 1: So the Bears lose to green Bay seventeen to nine.
Speaker 1: In green Bay, they beat Detroit at home, and they
Speaker 1: should have beat Detroit on the road. That kind of
Speaker 1: gives me some encouragement going into the offseason, thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're a reachable, you're an attainable improvement a way from
Speaker 1: going in and competing in your division.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about the way the Bears ended things.
Speaker 4: I think it's tough. I hated the way that last
Speaker 4: game went. I hated the way it was called. I
Speaker 4: thought Justin looked really uncomfortable that whole game. I thought,
Speaker 4: you know, I think a lot of us thought like
Speaker 4: he was going to come out and be wildly aggressive. Right,
Speaker 4: there's nothing to lose. We don't have a playoffs spout
Speaker 4: to lose, Like, just let them go out there, let
Speaker 4: them rip it, let's be super aggressive with the defense,
Speaker 4: and let's just go after Green Bay. And it felt
Speaker 4: like they played a game where they were trying not
Speaker 4: to lose. And then when you watch the contrast of
Speaker 4: Jordan Love to Justin Fields, I think that's where it
Speaker 4: felt really scary to me, because you're watching this guy
Speaker 4: who looks real comfortable in the pocket, is making decisions,
Speaker 4: making quick throws, not holding onto the ball too long,
Speaker 4: and you're watching Justin, you know, getting crushed over there.
Speaker 4: So it's just like, that's the part that scares me.
Speaker 4: It doesn't feel super far away, but I'm just worried
Speaker 4: the part where it is far away might be justin.
Speaker 1: Thanks Jeff, this is not just some chef. This guy
Speaker 1: knows football, so I love it. I'm not gonna I'm
Speaker 1: not going to ask your answer. Do you have a
Speaker 1: specific opinion about the quarterback position? And I don't, you know,
Speaker 1: I guess you can give me an explanation, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's one of the biggest topics in the NFL
Speaker 1: football world outside the head coaching consideration of the rest
Speaker 1: of the league.
Speaker 4: I think it's tough. You know, we're number one pick
Speaker 4: two years in a row. So you're either going to
Speaker 4: say we're going to trade the number one pick two
Speaker 4: years in a row and we're going to go all
Speaker 4: in on Justin again. Or are you going to say, hey,
Speaker 4: we see what the competition is, we know what we have,
Speaker 4: and we're going to take a gamble that maybe there's
Speaker 4: something better out there. And I think that's kind of
Speaker 4: the two roads right now, right because I think it's like,
Speaker 4: we have the cap space, we have the picks, where
Speaker 4: we're going to be whoever it is, you're going to
Speaker 4: be able to build a rend them, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, whether it's there's a heavy wide receiver draft
Speaker 4: in that first round, the wide receiver's going into free
Speaker 4: agency this year, nuts, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 4: I think it's like being able to pick somebody up.
Speaker 4: You know, It's like I think I have a sick
Speaker 4: fantasy where it's like Mike Evans and Dj Moore out
Speaker 4: there and it's like, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 4: you know, it's just like who cares who throws to
Speaker 4: him at that point, right? You know what I mean,
Speaker 4: Just get the ball up in the air. Somebody will
Speaker 4: break it down. But it's hard. You know. They keep
Speaker 4: saying consistency, but I just I have a hard time
Speaker 4: believing if you're the GM, you know, this season, you know,
Speaker 4: is a huge season for you where you look at
Speaker 4: that number one pick and you say you're going to
Speaker 4: trade it away and not say, hey, like maybe you
Speaker 4: know one of these kids out there is what they
Speaker 4: are supposed to be.
Speaker 3: When did it kind of crystallize for you that you
Speaker 3: were a Bear?
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, Litten, but I was born four
Speaker 4: months after the Bears won the super Bowl, though, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, I've never seen a Bear super
Speaker 4: Bowl in my lifetime. My dad's a Bears fan. I'm
Speaker 4: a Bears fan. I grew up in a house, you know.
Speaker 4: He had all the posters on the wall the weight
Speaker 4: room that were you know, the back the Black and
Speaker 4: Blues Brothers and the Junkyard Dogs. It was it was instant,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, there was no other option.
Speaker 4: My dad's a Cubs fan, I'm a Socks fan. We
Speaker 4: agree on almost nothing, but there was always the Bears.
Speaker 4: That was always a day, one day of just you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, like Sunday's watching the Bears, and
Speaker 4: it's just it's it's always, it's been forever. I always
Speaker 4: I always loved the big guys growing up, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. I was a you know, a big guy.
Speaker 4: I was alignment. So it's like I loved Olin Cruitz.
Speaker 4: He was he was always one of my favorites. I
Speaker 4: love the way he played. He was mean, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. He just seemed like a real son
Speaker 4: of a bitch out there and I love that. The guy,
Speaker 4: like the guy who if he was like God, anyone
Speaker 4: else's team you'd probably hate him. I love the Erlocker era,
Speaker 4: so like getting to watch like Aurlocker play you just
Speaker 4: you know, for me, I was like, oh yeah, we
Speaker 4: just had the greatest middle linebackers always forever, you know,
Speaker 4: and it was just unbelievable to watch. And I think
Speaker 4: he was Him and Devin Hess might have been two
Speaker 4: of the most excited guys I've ever seen wear a
Speaker 4: Bear's uniform in my lifetime at least.
Speaker 2: Did you go to any Bears games?
Speaker 1: Because I remember the first time I went to a
Speaker 1: Bears game then it was a Bears Packers preseason game
Speaker 1: and it was on my birthday back in probably the
Speaker 1: early seventies.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we didn't go to a lot of
Speaker 4: Bears games, you know, because Bears games were expensive, they
Speaker 4: were hard to get into, and so it was I
Speaker 4: remember the first time I went to Soldier Field was
Speaker 4: actually my dad took me. You know, this is like
Speaker 4: some real South Side So my Dan's brother, of course,
Speaker 4: is a priest. So my dance brother is a priest
Speaker 4: and he's a missionary priest. So he was in town
Speaker 4: for like a week, and so it was Notre Dame
Speaker 4: was playing at Soldier Field, so we went down to
Speaker 4: Soldier Field scalp tickets late to get in sat like
Speaker 4: twelfth roll behind Lou Holtz when Rick Meyer was the quarterback.
Speaker 4: And that was the first time I was ever inside
Speaker 4: Soldier Field.
Speaker 1: I was at that game on the sidelines, and I
Speaker 1: think that's the one that Rick Meyer had a really
Speaker 1: good day in the hit and the bean l Cook
Speaker 1: said Rick Meyer is going to be a four year
Speaker 1: All American and a Heisman Trophy winner.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day. They might have been
Speaker 2: playing Northwestern or something.
Speaker 4: I remember it was like Rick Meyern. I was like, Yeah,
Speaker 4: this guy is awesome. If the Beers could get this guy,
Speaker 4: this would be the guy. This would solve all our problems. Well,
Speaker 4: obviously I wasn't right on that.
Speaker 5: Who have you met in terms of sports personalities over
Speaker 5: the course of your career as a chef?
Speaker 4: You know, first real nice restaurant I worked at was
Speaker 4: Table fifty two in the Gold Coast and we used
Speaker 4: to do we used to do it was like a
Speaker 4: fine dining Southern restaurant. On Sundays we would do fried chicken.
Speaker 4: It was the only day of the week we did,
Speaker 4: like these fried chicken dinners with mashed potatoes and it
Speaker 4: was like forty two dollars fried chicken. It was ridiculous, right,
Speaker 4: But it was like Tommy Harris was on the Bears
Speaker 4: then and like that. So this was the seven eight era,
Speaker 4: and these guys would come in and everybody be really
Speaker 4: dressed up in this restaurant. These guys would roll in
Speaker 4: after a Sunday game and flip flops of Jim shorts,
Speaker 4: you know, being the size of the doorway and come
Speaker 4: just crush and I was like, this is the best,
Speaker 4: Like this is just just really really cool. At that
Speaker 4: same place, Eli Manning ate there one time and it
Speaker 4: was one of those crazy things and I think, like
Speaker 4: growing up, you know, you see these quarterbacks out there
Speaker 4: and you see all these huge guys around them, and
Speaker 4: then you see these quarterbacks in real life, and that's
Speaker 4: always the thing that shocked me. It's like, how just
Speaker 4: monster these guys are, you know what I mean? The
Speaker 4: first time I saw like Brett Farber, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 4: this dude's like huge, Like this dude's not like you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, You're like, oh, why can't they
Speaker 4: tackle this guy? It's like, well, because he's sixty three
Speaker 4: two twenty five, and you know, I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean for me being from Chicago, one of my
Speaker 4: biggest welles was Jordan. I got to cook for Jordan
Speaker 4: a couple of times Labroad. But one of my favorite
Speaker 4: people honestly. I worked at a place and Ozzie Gid
Speaker 4: used to come in all the time and he would
Speaker 4: sit at the chef's counter and I was just a
Speaker 4: cook at the time, and he was I mean, he'd
Speaker 4: have us go at all night, like he would just
Speaker 4: tell stories, Like he would tell stories about like him
Speaker 4: and Joey Korra and the minor leagues and like you know,
Speaker 4: Border Texas towns, like getting in fistfights at like Honky
Speaker 4: Tonks because like, you know, Joey Korra was like all
Speaker 4: the ladies at the bar were talking to Joey Korra
Speaker 4: and he would just like get in a fight with
Speaker 4: like six regnat dudes. He's like he's like Joey Corey
Speaker 4: would just beat the shit out of all of them.
Speaker 4: He's like he's the toughest guy you've ever met. So
Speaker 4: it was like that was one of my favorites. He
Speaker 4: would just tell stories forever before he became famous.
Speaker 1: In one Top Chef, did you ever have a favorite
Speaker 1: restaurant in your life before you know you had everything
Speaker 1: thrust upon you that you have had.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I had a couple. You know, there's
Speaker 4: one in the west Loop called a Vec was always
Speaker 4: one of my favorites. That was mine of my wife's
Speaker 4: first date. That one was always, you know, really special
Speaker 4: one to me. Lula Cafe up in Logan Square just
Speaker 4: you know, an absolute jab And I mean for me,
Speaker 4: like the real like you know, the og spot. For me,
Speaker 4: I grew up like eighty fourth in Saint Louis. I
Speaker 4: grew up in Ashburn, so it's like I grew up
Speaker 4: two blocks away from Vito and Knicks, So it's like.
Speaker 1: That for me is like you know, home preparation for football,
Speaker 1: whether you're a player or you're a broadcaster, you spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time watching tape and kind of you
Speaker 1: become familiar with your opponent and what they do well
Speaker 1: and what they don't do well. When you go into
Speaker 1: a restaurant before you you know, ran a business of
Speaker 1: your own, were you always taken mental notes about serving, preparation,
Speaker 1: taste or delivery and the kind of same things that
Speaker 1: I would be paying attention to watching football.
Speaker 4: For sure, especially when I traveled, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: especially if I went like if I went over to
Speaker 4: Italy or if I went to Croatia, I would bring, you know,
Speaker 4: a notebook with me and I wouldn't bring it to dinner,
Speaker 4: but at the end of the night, I'd go home
Speaker 4: and I just I'd write, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: I'd be like, Okay, you know, went to this cafe
Speaker 4: this morning. I like the way they served their espresso
Speaker 4: with a little spark clean water and they put it
Speaker 4: on a tray and that was really nice. And like
Speaker 4: I noticed this little thing, or like I had this
Speaker 4: dish and I like this about it. Didn't like this
Speaker 4: about it, but I think it's a good idea, Like
Speaker 4: you know, come back to it and just kind of
Speaker 4: just kind of like track what was happening so I
Speaker 4: could go back and look at it. And I still,
Speaker 4: you know, and even now with kind of the chefs
Speaker 4: I have under me, when they go out, you know,
Speaker 4: or if they go on a trip and they come back,
Speaker 4: I'm like, Okay, what did you eat? Where did you eat? Oh?
Speaker 4: You made it this place? What did you like about it?
Speaker 4: What did you see there that was really good? You know?
Speaker 4: What did you see there that was kind of a
Speaker 4: strange to you, you know what I mean, what service
Speaker 4: thing did you think was a nice touch? And just
Speaker 4: like so we're always kind of the same way for
Speaker 4: you guys. You know, you're always having football conversations, right,
Speaker 4: You're always thinking about, you know, how do we improve
Speaker 4: It's the same idea where it's like I want you know,
Speaker 4: I'm always thinking about it. And even if I'm in
Speaker 4: a restaurant, I can kind of turn it off and
Speaker 4: be like, Okay, these aren't my problems, But it doesn't
Speaker 4: mean I can't not see it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Like if I can hear your ticket printer, I can
Speaker 4: hear that take a printer going off, And I'm looking
Speaker 4: around the room and I'm like, okay, this is Shit's
Speaker 4: about to hit the fan in this room, Like you
Speaker 4: know what i mean, I'm counting the servers on the floor.
Speaker 4: I'm looking back at the kitchen. You have a your
Speaker 4: down a line cook, you have eleven tickets on the board.
Speaker 4: You get two guys cranking it out, you got two
Speaker 4: servers both working eleven table sections. Like this is about
Speaker 4: to be We're gonna be here for another hour and
Speaker 4: a half. Waiting for stuff.
Speaker 3: You're like a coach. You're like a coach.
Speaker 5: Did you ever have the occasion to go to Fair
Speaker 5: Brother's Restaurant in Joliet.
Speaker 4: No, no, I have. You know, it's funny. I worked
Speaker 4: at a bar out on the line of like where
Speaker 4: Juliette hits Mookina hits New Lennox. It was like Schoolhouse
Speaker 4: Road in twenty maybe those intersect out there. I think
Speaker 4: it is King in Highway twenty. My buddy's dad opened
Speaker 4: this bar and he just you know, yeah me. I
Speaker 4: was like nineteen, and he's like, yeah, you're just gonna
Speaker 4: do all the stuff. And I was like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 4: I love it. You know what I mean. I'm laid tile,
Speaker 4: I dug out beer garden, changed kegs, whatever you need it.
Speaker 4: And it is like, you know, people don't know about
Speaker 4: South suburbs. It's a whole other world out there. It
Speaker 4: is just like it blew my mind. It's wild. It's
Speaker 4: such a mix of people out there. It was fun
Speaker 4: as hell, but it was. It was a wild time
Speaker 4: my mom and my brother.
Speaker 1: It's it's every single day job, you know, there is
Speaker 1: I always tell people there's no year over the hump
Speaker 1: or everything's downhill from here because you're putting together. You're
Speaker 1: putting together a group and a team of people, just
Speaker 1: like a head coach would bring a coaching staff and
Speaker 1: a team together. So I just think that the effort
Speaker 1: and the work that goes into the everyday operation of
Speaker 1: a restaurant sometimes people don't realize it when they open the.
Speaker 2: Door and they get great fried chicken for whatever. The
Speaker 2: price is right.
Speaker 4: And it's you know, it's one of those things I
Speaker 4: always tell, you know, when people are like, oh, I'm
Speaker 4: you know, a friend, they're thinking about getting into it
Speaker 4: or whatever, you know, I always tell them, and I'm
Speaker 4: really straightforward about it, like I'm not trying to talk
Speaker 4: to anybody in this industry. I'm not trying to talk
Speaker 4: about but it's like I'm just trying to be honest
Speaker 4: about it. I'm like, it's not a great job. It's
Speaker 4: a really hard job. It can be a very thankfus job.
Speaker 4: I'm like, if you can wake up tomorrow and you
Speaker 4: can imagine doing anything else, go do that. It's a
Speaker 4: better job. I love this. I don't want to wake
Speaker 4: up tomorrow and do anything else. I cannot fathom it,
Speaker 4: you know. I go so it's a great career for
Speaker 4: me because I love it, but it's not a great job.
Speaker 4: So if it's just something where you're like, oh, I
Speaker 4: think I kind of want to do this, it's like, man,
Speaker 4: do anything else.
Speaker 1: Well, one thing just to analogize that is when the
Speaker 1: latest version of the Stars Born movie was made between
Speaker 1: Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper went to Eddie
Speaker 1: Vedder from Pearl Jam and asked him about how do
Speaker 1: you become a musician to play this role? And Eddie
Speaker 1: Vedder says, don't do it because you're not going to
Speaker 1: be good at it. It's too difficult of a role
Speaker 1: of playing the guitar and singing. You know, you run
Speaker 1: that fine line. You don't want to discourage people. But
Speaker 1: if someone has their mindset to go and take that
Speaker 1: task on, they just have to realize from a top
Speaker 1: sh how difficult of a day to day operation it is.
Speaker 4: And I think, you know, you guys do something at
Speaker 4: a super high level, you know what I mean, time
Speaker 4: you played at the highest level, and it's like the
Speaker 4: amount of you know, like sacrifice that goes into it.
Speaker 4: There's no real shortcuts for that, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: there's some people who are wildly natural talented in all things, right,
Speaker 4: but it's still it's like usually those people are also
Speaker 4: like some of the hardest working people in the road.
Speaker 4: And so I think it's just one of those things
Speaker 4: where it's like, yeah, you can do this. There's nothing
Speaker 4: wildly special about me, but it's just it's a hell
Speaker 4: of a lot of sacrifice and hard work.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, you guys put on some unbelievable displays of
Speaker 5: creativity and passion. And I'm sitting there at Rosemary, which
Speaker 5: is one of my favorite places ever to go, and
Speaker 5: I'm sitting there at the counter on a couple of
Speaker 5: occasions just watching, you know, for an offensive lineman, it's
Speaker 5: elephants on parade. Right, everything is like in synchronicity, and
Speaker 5: these big guys are just moving. That's the way the
Speaker 5: kitchen is, and that's not easy. Everything's happening at once.
Speaker 5: It's non stop. And that's the same way to call
Speaker 5: a game. It's you're dialed and it's non stop, right,
Speaker 5: And I think.
Speaker 4: People, you know, look at it and they see you know,
Speaker 4: they see where you are and not where you came from. Right,
Speaker 4: So it's easy to say, like, oh, yeah. You know,
Speaker 4: you guys just show up in call Bears game, right,
Speaker 4: that's just you know what I mean, you just decided
Speaker 4: it one day, Hey, Like you saw that ad on Craigslisted.
Speaker 4: He said, yeah, I'll throw my hat in the writ.
Speaker 4: You know, you know, just a couple of guys called place,
Speaker 4: and it's like, I think, you know, it's the same
Speaker 4: thing even, you know, it's like as much as like
Speaker 4: especially now, it's like they could google any of us
Speaker 4: and they can figure out, you know, our whole career
Speaker 4: charactory and what we've done where we've worked with all
Speaker 4: of it that goes into it. And people, you know,
Speaker 4: they still walk in the restaurant every day and they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: so did you cook before this?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Joe.
Speaker 4: It's like Joe, it's like, I haven't done anything else
Speaker 4: for the past twenty years, Joe, I don't have any
Speaker 4: other skills whatsoever.
Speaker 5: Hand to God, this happened more than we care to admit.
Speaker 5: Tom and Jeff, are you guys going to be at
Speaker 5: the game on Sunday? Oh, yeah, it happened.
Speaker 3: I mean I'm not joking.
Speaker 2: Yeah that I don't know.
Speaker 4: We might call it. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, let's just watch this one out in
Speaker 4: the garage at Thayer's house, and you do have a
Speaker 4: couple of pops.
Speaker 3: Unbelievable.
Speaker 5: This is the Bears et cetera podcast, episode fifty one.
Speaker 5: Game Day snacking calls for good foods. Chunky guacamodle made
Speaker 5: with has avocados, tomatoes, onion, cilantro, and a squeeze of
Speaker 5: lime juice. It's the perfect snack to watch while the
Speaker 5: Bears win. Score some today at your local grocery store.
Speaker 5: Game Day is guak Day and our special guest on
Speaker 5: episode fifty one Joe Flamm Joe, what got you started?
Speaker 4: I got started in this industry when I was fifteen,
Speaker 4: sixteen years old, and I just you know, I needed
Speaker 4: a job like anybody else high school kid and needed
Speaker 4: a job. I started. I was a bus boy at
Speaker 4: this place and my sister worked at and then my buddy,
Speaker 4: his dad ran a place out and pay the sites.
Speaker 4: He was like, hey, when you turn sixteen and you
Speaker 4: can drive, I can get you a job there. And
Speaker 4: it was a little better job, but I didn't have
Speaker 4: to work with my older sister, so that was appealing
Speaker 4: as well for me. It was instant I fell in
Speaker 4: love with restaurants. First. I was like, this is the best,
Speaker 4: Like it was the place where I just felt I
Speaker 4: felt like home, like I found my people, I had found,
Speaker 4: you know, a place where I felt really comfortable. I
Speaker 4: started really coming out of my shell. And you know,
Speaker 4: I just I loved everything about it. I loved the
Speaker 4: late nights, I loved the hard work. I loved you know,
Speaker 4: meeting people and talking to people and just the chaoss
Speaker 4: of it all. You know, it was completely insane. You know,
Speaker 4: I didn't know any chefs. This place was like a
Speaker 4: neighborhood bar grill that it was like you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. There were there were dudes who worked in
Speaker 4: the kitchen who were like we had guys who were
Speaker 4: there six months a year. They would go back to Mexico.
Speaker 4: The other crew would come through for six months a year,
Speaker 4: and like that's how that kitchen ran there. And they
Speaker 4: just rotated them in and out. Like it wasn't you know, chefs,
Speaker 4: it wasn't white hats, wasn't anything like that. But it
Speaker 4: made me, you know, fall in love with it. And
Speaker 4: so my plan at the time was, you know, the
Speaker 4: guy who owned the place was a lawyer. So I
Speaker 4: was like, all right, well, if you want to open
Speaker 4: a restaurant, you got to go be a lawyer and
Speaker 4: make a bunch of money and then you could, you know,
Speaker 4: buy a restaurant when you're fifty. So that was my plan.
Speaker 4: I was to you know, go to school for you know, accounting,
Speaker 4: get my degree, go to law school, become a lawyer,
Speaker 4: try to make a bunch of money, and try to
Speaker 4: buy a bar and grill when I was fifty.
Speaker 5: Your timeline was elevated significantly.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I was about two and a half years
Speaker 4: and to an accounting degree, and I decided, you know,
Speaker 4: I had spent about seven months cooking for this place,
Speaker 4: and I just like really then fell in love with
Speaker 4: the cooking aspect of it. I had grown up cooking.
Speaker 4: I always loved food, but I had never done it professionally.
Speaker 4: In this place, you know, it was kind of one
Speaker 4: of those where they were like, oh, hey, we need
Speaker 4: somebody to work at pizza station. You know how to
Speaker 4: do that? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I know
Speaker 4: how to do that, not knowing how to do that
Speaker 4: at all, and just kind of, you know, fake it
Speaker 4: till I made it. So I spent about seven months there,
Speaker 4: and you know, I'd left to work in an office
Speaker 4: and because I was like, yeah, I need to start
Speaker 4: to get you know, my real career going. And all
Speaker 4: I could think about was cooking. I was like, man,
Speaker 4: that was the best. So I literally one day I
Speaker 4: just googled. I was like, how did Emeralagassi become a chef?
Speaker 4: And so I was like, oh, we went to culinary school.
Speaker 4: I was like, what's culinary school? So then I found
Speaker 4: a culinary school. And then so about two months later,
Speaker 4: I was like, you know what, I'm gonna drop out
Speaker 4: of college and I'm gonna go to culinary school. So
Speaker 4: I dropped out of college and just went all in
Speaker 4: on it. I you know, moved back to my parents'
Speaker 4: house and on the South side, lived in the basement
Speaker 4: and just was like all I did for you know,
Speaker 4: culinary school is like fifteen months. It's that, you know,
Speaker 4: like real college. And I started there a week later.
Speaker 4: I started at table fifty two, and you know, five
Speaker 4: days a week, I went to school from eight to four.
Speaker 4: Six days a week, I went to the restaurant. You know,
Speaker 4: I go straight from school to the restaurant. I worked
Speaker 4: doubles on the weekends, and you know, that was my
Speaker 4: first year and a half as a cook. It was
Speaker 4: just like all I did was you know, cook like
Speaker 4: it just you know, I was terrible. I was you know,
Speaker 4: I just was burnt everywhere. I used to carry super
Speaker 4: glue in all my pockets so I could glue pieces
Speaker 4: of me back together when I cut myself so many
Speaker 4: times and just kept coming back, just kept coming back.
Speaker 4: And I was like, you know, I think I was
Speaker 4: so surprised they didn't fire me. And I think they
Speaker 4: were so surprised that I didn't quit that they just
Speaker 4: you know, let me stay for two years, you know,
Speaker 4: and until I finally figured out how to actually cook
Speaker 4: a little bit.
Speaker 1: You know, Joe, there's a little restaurant in Ola Walu,
Speaker 1: Maui and it's called Leota's and that's the name of
Speaker 1: the grandmother of the family that owns it, and they
Speaker 1: specialize in little pies and sandwiches. And when my mom
Speaker 1: taught me to cook, she would put all the ingredients
Speaker 1: in a bag and send me home with it, knowing
Speaker 1: that I would have to call her a couple of times,
Speaker 1: and it would increase the amount of times I talked
Speaker 1: to her in Rosemary.
Speaker 2: That's the name of your grandmother. Is that true?
Speaker 4: Yes, So it's Rose was my my dad's mom, Marrish grandmother,
Speaker 4: and then Mary is my mom's mom. Uh, Mary's Mary's
Speaker 4: you know. The idea was Rosemary because Rosemary, the herb
Speaker 4: grows all along the Adriatic coast right through Italy through Croatia,
Speaker 4: and in both Italian and Croatian cultures it's a sign of,
Speaker 4: you know, good luck and good fortune. So like when
Speaker 4: I got married, there was Rosemary in all the vases
Speaker 4: on the tables. Like it's kind of like an old
Speaker 4: school thing, but I thought it'd be cool. It's just
Speaker 4: kind of a nod to them to do this. The
Speaker 4: two work and says, you know, rose get married, and
Speaker 4: you know, my grandma Mary is ninety four now. But
Speaker 4: it's like we still you know what I mean, like
Speaker 4: for the holidays and stuff, we're still doing Feasts of
Speaker 4: the Seven Fishes. We still make reveolis for Thanksgiving, and
Speaker 4: you know, and she doesn't cook anymore. She's not like
Speaker 4: getting in the kitchen, but you know, she's still like
Speaker 4: she'll throw the apron on and then she'll kind of
Speaker 4: get her a little, you know, seat and just like
Speaker 4: overwatching everything and you know what I mean, And I
Speaker 4: got to tell her all the numbers and you know,
Speaker 4: and then it's like her asking me about how much
Speaker 4: money I spent on fish and thinking I'm lying to
Speaker 4: her and not telling her enough, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: And she's she's ninety four. But it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: this year, it's like the price of scalps went them.
Speaker 4: So she's like, well, how much would the scalp? So
Speaker 4: I was like, well, they were like two hundred and
Speaker 4: twenty five bucks for a gallon of She's like, well
Speaker 4: they were three twenty last year. Yeah they were, but
Speaker 4: like I didn't even remember that, but it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm like, yeah, they were, like you know that the
Speaker 4: that was last year, like you know, the market was tighter.
Speaker 4: And she's like all right, well, better not be lying
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 1: Were they the influences in your cooking life or is
Speaker 1: it something that you know, you kind of took a
Speaker 1: road by yourself and then you developed into the chef
Speaker 1: that you've become.
Speaker 4: I mean a little bit of both. I think they were.
Speaker 4: You know, my grandma made me fall in love with traditions.
Speaker 4: You know, they're coming from a big family, and I
Speaker 4: just saw, like, you know, it was such a cool
Speaker 4: thing of like having these cooking traditions, and I just assumed,
Speaker 4: you know, kind of everybody had these, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, everybody was doing their their Christmas Eve, the
Speaker 4: feasts of the Seven Fishes, making ready at least from
Speaker 4: scratch with Thanksgiving. And you know, the older I got,
Speaker 4: the more special I realized all these things were, you know,
Speaker 4: that time I got with her where we're you know,
Speaker 4: cleaning squid on newspapers in the mud room, you know,
Speaker 4: like getting them ready, Like how special and unique that was.
Speaker 4: And I loved, you know, even before I got into
Speaker 4: you know, cooking professionally, like me and my grandma would
Speaker 4: cook all the holidays together because I just loved the
Speaker 4: tradition of it. I loved everybody getting together and I
Speaker 4: just thought it was amazing. I never wanted those things
Speaker 4: to go away, and so that was kind of a big,
Speaker 4: you know, motivator for me. But as I got into
Speaker 4: the professional chef world, they were very much like, you know,
Speaker 4: like what in the hell are you doing? Like what
Speaker 4: why are you dropping out of college to like, you know, cook,
Speaker 4: Like why don't you get a degree, why don't you
Speaker 4: get a law degree and then if you still want to,
Speaker 4: you know, go play chef, you can, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, go play chef. So so there wasn't a
Speaker 4: lot of encouragement in the early years. It was a
Speaker 4: lot of you know, Christmases and Thanksgiving where people were
Speaker 4: very excited that I was cooking, but also you know,
Speaker 4: all my aunts and uncles being like, so, you know,
Speaker 4: when are we gonna when are we gonna go back
Speaker 4: and finish that degree? You know what I mean, Like
Speaker 4: what are you gonna really do? Like when are you
Speaker 4: gonna stop you know what I mean? Messing around? And
Speaker 4: you know, so it took about It was probably about,
Speaker 4: you know, I think seven or eight years into my
Speaker 4: cooking career, and I think I was at my first
Speaker 4: Sioux chef job and I was working at Girl and
Speaker 4: the Goat and they were getting a lot of press
Speaker 4: and it was really big. I remember I was driving
Speaker 4: somewhere with my dad and he's like, he's like, so
Speaker 4: you're you're pretty serious about this cooking thing. Huh, You're
Speaker 4: gonna this is like what you're going I was like,
Speaker 4: I've been doing this for seven years, dad, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, Like what do you what do you
Speaker 4: think I was gonna do? You know, Like I was like, yeah, man,
Speaker 4: He's like, okay, well I still think you should get
Speaker 4: a degree.
Speaker 5: So was there a chip ever put on your shoulder
Speaker 5: by a fellow chef or somebody that had been established
Speaker 5: in this business?
Speaker 3: Said young man, I don't know if you got it,
Speaker 3: you may.
Speaker 5: Want to think about something else, or are you just
Speaker 5: naturally gifted at it.
Speaker 4: I'm definitely not naturally gifted at it, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. I was definitely never the best cook in
Speaker 4: the kitchen, you know. And my best friend owed three
Speaker 4: restaurants in Detroit, and he was one of those guys
Speaker 4: where he is a phenomenal athlete. He's just one of
Speaker 4: those people if you teach him how to do anything,
Speaker 4: you know, he'll be better at better at it than
Speaker 4: you by the time you're done. And so it was
Speaker 4: just he was my station partner, and so he was
Speaker 4: the push, you know what I mean. This dude set
Speaker 4: a ridiculous standard of like this is how we work.
Speaker 4: So I was always always playing catch up with him,
Speaker 4: and you know, I worked around a ton of really
Speaker 4: talented people and just kind of coming through it like
Speaker 4: one I had the thing in the back of the
Speaker 4: mind of everyone in my family telling me to go
Speaker 4: back to school. So I was like, I can't fail.
Speaker 4: There's no back on this, Like I'm all in on this.
Speaker 4: This is the only road, like I am going. The
Speaker 4: one that really put a chip on my shoulder, though,
Speaker 4: was I remember. I went and I, you know, I've
Speaker 4: been cooking for a while and a sooux chef two
Speaker 4: great places, and I went, I applied to me a
Speaker 4: sooux chef at this Italian restaurant I really wanted to
Speaker 4: work at. I went through the process, did a taste,
Speaker 4: and go all the way down. Chef calls me in
Speaker 4: and I'm like, you know. I call my buddy on
Speaker 4: the way there. I'm like, hey, Joe, I'm like, I
Speaker 4: got you know, chef called me in. I got this job.
Speaker 4: I'm like, this is awesome. I can't wait to work
Speaker 4: at this restaurant. Blah blah blah. I go in there,
Speaker 4: I sit down and he goes, hey, man, I came
Speaker 4: down to you and another guy he worked for us before.
Speaker 4: You never worked for us, he goes, So we went
Speaker 4: the other direction. So I end up taking a soux
Speaker 4: chef job at another Italian restaurant down the street. And
Speaker 4: so the second I stepped the foot, my foot in
Speaker 4: the door there, I was just like, let's go, like
Speaker 4: we are so we are going to push hard. We
Speaker 4: are going to make sure. You know, I'm like, my
Speaker 4: time here is going to be you know, spent the
Speaker 4: best way I can. And I ended up being you know,
Speaker 4: taken over. You know that was at Spiage. I ended
Speaker 4: up taking over Spiage as a chef and you know,
Speaker 4: being the chef there for five years and keeping a
Speaker 4: Michelin Star for five years. We're the only Italian restaurant
Speaker 4: in Chicago ever to have a Michelin Star. So it
Speaker 4: was like one of those where it's just kind of like,
Speaker 4: you know, we really you know, it was like fine,
Speaker 4: like you know what I mean, you guys don't want me.
Speaker 4: I'm going here and I'm going to show everybody I
Speaker 4: belong to be here.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: It's just like an athlete you had to turn in
Speaker 5: your cookbook, time had to turn in his playbook.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but you know the thing also to analogize again,
Speaker 1: you know, you talk to your dad.
Speaker 2: You said, I've been in this for seven years.
Speaker 1: This is going to be my career path the average
Speaker 1: life expectancy of an NFL player's two point three years
Speaker 1: or maybe.
Speaker 3: Two point it's up to three point one.
Speaker 2: Now, okay, three point one.
Speaker 1: Is there a realization can you recognize it early in
Speaker 1: their career of who has it and who doesn't?
Speaker 4: Well, I think, you know what, I'm sure it's the
Speaker 4: same way you know you probably feel about looking at
Speaker 4: players where it's like, you know, when I was twenty two,
Speaker 4: when I was coming up and I was in a kitchen,
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, everyone around me is so talented,
Speaker 4: and this is you know, we're all so amazing, Like
Speaker 4: we're all going to be chefs in ten years, right,
Speaker 4: all of us are going to have restaurants, And you
Speaker 4: kind of have that mindset, right, like we're all still
Speaker 4: going to be doing this in ten years, twenty year,
Speaker 4: study years. And the further I got down that road,
Speaker 4: the older I got, the more you realize how great
Speaker 4: the falloff is, and you know, like how much of
Speaker 4: this is just about you know, perseverance and sticking around
Speaker 4: and keeping staying in the fight. And you know, now
Speaker 4: being you know, twenty years in being older, having opened
Speaker 4: my own restaurant, having been a part of a lot of
Speaker 4: restaurant opening. Now you have a lot more where it's
Speaker 4: like I can talk to a young cooker, a young
Speaker 4: Sioux chef. You see those ones where you're like, they're
Speaker 4: that person special, like they're gonna do things right, and
Speaker 4: you can see that dry even them, and that pushing them.
Speaker 4: And you know, sometimes people surprise you, you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: there's always that, but it's you know, I think it's
Speaker 4: like now it's a lot easier to have the realization
Speaker 4: of like, just because all these people are cooks doesn't
Speaker 4: mean they're all going to be chefs. And it doesn't
Speaker 4: mean they have to be either. You mean, my path
Speaker 4: is not the only path. There's a lot of paths
Speaker 4: in this in this world. And it's not saying it's
Speaker 4: the best path either, but it's just so what I
Speaker 4: try to do is just try to help them find
Speaker 4: their path right and be like, hey, you can go
Speaker 4: a lot of ways with this. I'm just trying to
Speaker 4: give you a set of skills that, you know, what
Speaker 4: I mean, is hopefully going to give you a living
Speaker 4: that you really enjoy.
Speaker 1: Hey, Joe, I never had a plan B. Either it
Speaker 1: was NFL or I don't know what else. If you
Speaker 1: had a Plan B. Is there any time throughout the
Speaker 1: course of growing the success of your career you've made
Speaker 1: have gone to Plan B?
Speaker 2: Or was it like me where there was no there
Speaker 2: was no other option?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean once I started cooking, I never had
Speaker 4: a Plan B. The only time I think I really
Speaker 4: going to start thinking about it was I was like
Speaker 4: a stay at home dad during COVID for a year
Speaker 4: and a half because all the restaurants, you know, were closed,
Speaker 4: and I was trying to open Rosemary and so it
Speaker 4: was all the stuff. And I remember, like, you know,
Speaker 4: I was running a lot and I was just like
Speaker 4: running through the woods one day and I was like, well,
Speaker 4: what if just like restaurants never come back. I think,
Speaker 4: what am I gonna do. My buddy had just got
Speaker 4: on as like an FBI special agent, and I was like,
Speaker 4: how much work would I have to do to convince
Speaker 4: these guys that I could be a part of the FBI.
Speaker 4: I was like, no one would suspect me at least,
Speaker 4: so maybe I could talk to a mid that you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, Like, like you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: I was like, I think the best thing I get
Speaker 4: going for me is that, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: I'm covered in tattoos, I look like an asshole, don't
Speaker 4: look like a cop. But like you know, I think
Speaker 4: I'd have to do a lot of work to get there.
Speaker 4: But that was kind of the plan. Base.
Speaker 5: When it's time to tackle some game day deals, then
Speaker 5: go with a grocery who's been part of Chicago since
Speaker 5: eighteen ninety nine, Jewelasco, the official grocery store of the
Speaker 5: Chicago bears here with Joe Flamm, the unbelievable chef at
Speaker 5: multiple restaurants in his career. But right now, rose Mary,
Speaker 5: do we call it boulevard? Do we call it by
Speaker 5: the initial?
Speaker 4: Well, if we call it, we call it boulevard, it's
Speaker 4: the initial. Is what we call it? Bull? All right?
Speaker 3: We called boulevard.
Speaker 5: We got to hear about your experience on Top Chef
Speaker 5: and what that did for you and your publicity as
Speaker 5: a top chef in this in this world?
Speaker 3: What's it like?
Speaker 5: What's it really like? What are you at liberty to
Speaker 5: say what it's really like? And how did you capture that?
Speaker 5: In Top Chef fifteen in Colorado.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, Top Chef is a wild one.
Speaker 4: It's I got on the show because they came to
Speaker 4: cast in Chicago. I didn't know they were casting in Chicago.
Speaker 4: I didn't go to the casting I didn't try out,
Speaker 4: and they they called. I was working for Tony mount
Speaker 4: Tojana at the time, so they called Tony. They knew
Speaker 4: him from other stuff, and they said, hey, you got
Speaker 4: a chef in Chicago. We're trying to cast season fifteen,
Speaker 4: the Top Chef. We met a bunch of people. We
Speaker 4: didn't like anybody. Do you know anybody we should meet?
Speaker 4: And he goes, yeah, I got this guy working for me.
Speaker 4: He goes, he got to you gotta meet. So I
Speaker 4: get a call a couple of minutes later from Tony
Speaker 4: and he's, you know, hey, Chef. He's like, hey, the
Speaker 4: Top Chef producers are in town. They want to meet you.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, for what, and he's like he's like listen,
Speaker 4: you know. He's like take a meeting.
Speaker 5: And I was like, all right, fine, Tom and Tony, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: This is you know, Tony's the OG, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, founder of s Piaga, So you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. It's like, he's my mentor, he's one of
Speaker 4: my best friends. So Tony says, take a meeting. I
Speaker 4: take a meeting. So I'm like, all right, cool, send
Speaker 4: them over, like coming over. I talked to these people
Speaker 4: for you know, forty minutes, and this lady's like and
Speaker 4: I'm like, they don't want me on the show, Like
Speaker 4: they don't like I'm like, I'm not interested. I'm like
Speaker 4: a regular just southside you know, Chicago ass person, like
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. I'm like every other dude
Speaker 4: I grew up with, like, And I was like, they're
Speaker 4: not going to be interested in this. So I talked
Speaker 4: to him for forty minutes and this lady's like, you
Speaker 4: gotta do it. He's like it's a long road, but
Speaker 4: you got to do it. And I was like, all right,
Speaker 4: I'll try. And so I was like, I'm not going
Speaker 4: to make it on the show. So we go down
Speaker 4: this path. We go down this path. We do all
Speaker 4: these things. You know, you have to do interviews and
Speaker 4: you send them menus and videos and all this. It
Speaker 4: takes months. I got to do a PSYCHICXAAL exam, I
Speaker 4: do a physical exam, all these things. So finally it's
Speaker 4: like April nineteenth, I get a call. They're like, hey,
Speaker 4: this is Stop Chef. You're on season fifteen. You need
Speaker 4: to be in Colorado. May fifth you yet two and
Speaker 4: a half weeks to prepare. You can't tell anyone where
Speaker 4: you're going, so I have to come up with a
Speaker 4: cover story. So I come up with the cover story
Speaker 4: that I'm going to work at Tony's other restaurant in
Speaker 4: Florida for two months because they need help down there.
Speaker 4: So I told like him, I tell my wife, I
Speaker 4: told my parents, but I can't tell my crew. I
Speaker 4: can't tell you know what, I mean, my friends. I
Speaker 4: you know, my brother was in high school at the time,
Speaker 4: so I was like, I didn't tell him. I didn't
Speaker 4: tell any of my siblings. I was just like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm going to work at this restaurant down in Florida. Whatever.
Speaker 4: And then when you get there day one, they throw
Speaker 4: in a hotel room. They lock in there and they
Speaker 4: come on the first night and then they go through
Speaker 4: all your stuff and they take all your stuff. So
Speaker 4: they take your phone, your keys, your wallet, everything, and
Speaker 4: you don't get any of that back till you're I'm
Speaker 4: filming two months later.
Speaker 3: Wait what why So they don't.
Speaker 4: Because they don't want because you aren't allowed to have
Speaker 4: any access to recipes. So whatever, you know, you know,
Speaker 4: you can't like google a recipe real quick and be like,
Speaker 4: how do I make this cake or whatever, So you have,
Speaker 4: you know, no internet access. They don't want you to
Speaker 4: have contact with the outside world because you have to
Speaker 4: sign a million dollar NDA before you go to They
Speaker 4: don't want you to be able to like text and
Speaker 4: be like, oh I lost. They don't want you taking
Speaker 4: pictures of what's going on while you're there. You basically
Speaker 4: how it works is then every like three to five days,
Speaker 4: you'd get a phone call and it'd be ten minutes
Speaker 4: on camera, on speakerphone, on a producer's phone, and you
Speaker 4: can't say.
Speaker 3: Anything, Wow, this is stunning, Tom.
Speaker 5: Did you have any idea this was the case? No,
Speaker 5: this is fascinating to keep going.
Speaker 4: Yes, you know, you'd get a phone call every once
Speaker 4: in a while, but they wanted you just dialed into
Speaker 4: the pressure. It was like there was no TV, there
Speaker 4: was no books, there was no magazines nothing. All you
Speaker 4: did was you film and cook, do interviews, and so
Speaker 4: you went every day for two months and if you
Speaker 4: went out the first day, you were there for two months.
Speaker 4: If you went to the final like I did, you're
Speaker 4: there for two months. So no matter what you signed
Speaker 4: a two month commit and your whole life outside of
Speaker 4: that just went on pause. So you just disappear for
Speaker 4: two months, even if you lost. Even if you lost.
Speaker 4: So then they send you like a hotel like way
Speaker 4: out in the burbs, away from where we're filming. And
Speaker 4: then you got a bunch of chefs because I got
Speaker 4: kicked off for a minute, right, So I got kicked
Speaker 4: off for a minute, So I get sent to the
Speaker 4: other hotel. And so now you got ten chefs in
Speaker 4: a hotel who can't work, have no phones, nothing whatever.
Speaker 4: We just have They're giving us cash every day. We
Speaker 4: have nothing to do alimited todd So it's just like
Speaker 4: it's like spring break, Like it's just like complete insanity,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. Camp. It's like you like
Speaker 4: walk in and you're just like I walked in the
Speaker 4: first day and I walk up and there's a somebody
Speaker 4: had taken a window off of the like one of
Speaker 4: the rooms so that you could walk into the room
Speaker 4: from the pool area, so that you didn't have to
Speaker 4: walk around to the door. So they just pop the
Speaker 4: window off of the off of the wall so that
Speaker 4: we could walk through there. And just you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, they were making drinks in there, and you
Speaker 4: go back outside and everybody's partying, and it was just
Speaker 4: like it was an absolute just insanity. So that's like
Speaker 4: where everybody else was. So then it was like I
Speaker 4: finally made it back on the show, and it was
Speaker 4: just it was insane, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 4: was like you woke up every day, you had no time,
Speaker 4: You had no idea what time you're gonna wake up,
Speaker 4: You had no idea what you were doing. So it's
Speaker 4: just like you woke up every day to cameras or
Speaker 4: it's just like somebody would knock at the door and
Speaker 4: you'd open the door and there'd be four cameras there,
Speaker 4: and you all right, I guess we're rolling.
Speaker 3: It's hard knocks, right, it's hard knock.
Speaker 4: And you get in the car and we'd be like
Speaker 4: where are we going today, and they're like, can't tell you.
Speaker 4: So you never knew what was going on, and you
Speaker 4: just you know, I mean, it was like literal you know,
Speaker 4: we used to call it emotional terrorism, like it was
Speaker 4: just you know, like any time something happened, you just
Speaker 4: became so suspicious because you're like you'd like wake up
Speaker 4: and like something we'd be moved in the kitchen. You'd
Speaker 4: be like, oh no, something weird's gonna happen, Like they're
Speaker 4: gonna make us cooking here, or you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: like something. You know, it's like if something was off,
Speaker 4: you're like, oh no, this is like part of something,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. Everything was part of something.
Speaker 4: It was all like a setup the some crazy challenge.
Speaker 4: So it was just like it was nuts, you know.
Speaker 4: And so you go, you do this thing two months, right,
Speaker 4: I go, I win. I'm like yes, But then it's
Speaker 4: like you get back and nobody knows you want nobody
Speaker 4: even knows you were there, and you know, it was
Speaker 4: kind of funny because it's like in real life. I
Speaker 4: won Top Chef on a Tuesday night at midnight on
Speaker 4: top of the mountain and the aspen, and then they
Speaker 4: took me off of there. They brought me to interview
Speaker 4: and then they take you back to the hotel and
Speaker 4: that's it, you know what I mean. And it's like
Speaker 4: you can't go party with anyone, you can't go out.
Speaker 4: You're still under lock and key. I still don't have
Speaker 4: a phone, you know what I mean. I called my
Speaker 4: wife at two am on a Tuesday to tell her
Speaker 4: I want one, and then I get back and it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, you can't tell anybody because you're under all
Speaker 4: these NDAs from the time I got back, like end
Speaker 4: of June in twenty seventeen, and the finale aired March
Speaker 4: eighth of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: After it was all said and done, are you glad
Speaker 1: you made the decision to go or if you knew
Speaker 1: all that stuff going in, what made it harder for
Speaker 1: you to commit to it?
Speaker 4: I think it was one of those things where it's
Speaker 4: like you're almost better not knowing. I think it would
Speaker 4: have been harder because they kind of lie to you,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. They're like, oh, yeah, you're
Speaker 4: going to make a phone call, You're gonna do some emails. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't worry about it, Like we gotcha, you know, Like,
Speaker 4: and then you get there, they're like, yeah, you're not
Speaker 4: making a phone call for five days. You're like, can
Speaker 4: somebody like text my wife and tell her I'm alive.
Speaker 4: It's like I got on a plane two days ago.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, Like you know what I mean. So
Speaker 4: it was kind of good not knowing all of it.
Speaker 4: And I mean for me, it's like you know, I
Speaker 4: was so happy I did it, obviously one so that's
Speaker 4: you know, like one of the people was on the
Speaker 4: show with me. It's like somebody asked me to go
Speaker 4: you happy you did it, like you won. Of course
Speaker 4: he's happy you did it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: But even if I didn't, I would have been happy
Speaker 4: I did it. It was such a unique experience. You know.
Speaker 4: We got to travel some really cool places, I made
Speaker 4: some amazing friends, and I mean, it's just, you know,
Speaker 4: it's one of those things, it's like it's beyond my
Speaker 4: wildest dreams.
Speaker 1: So every year of my bare career, I would go
Speaker 1: to training camp at University wisconsint Platteville, which kind of
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere. We didn't have cell phones
Speaker 1: at that time. He didn't have a lot of time
Speaker 1: to communicate the sense of accomplishment I had. When I
Speaker 1: was driving home after Plattville was over and I retained
Speaker 1: my position, I stayed healthy. I knew that I was
Speaker 1: driving back to my house in a starter's role. It
Speaker 1: was such a sense of relief that it kind of
Speaker 1: overtook you at times. It had to be similar to
Speaker 1: that in kind of the same sense, because you're isolated,
Speaker 1: you're not talking to anybody, and then a sense of
Speaker 1: accomplishment that you feel when it's all said and done,
Speaker 1: it's going to do incredible things for your career, just
Speaker 1: like it did for my career.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, I mean it was I remember, like, so
Speaker 4: the finale finishes right, and it was like we were
Speaker 4: literally on top of a mountain, so they had to
Speaker 4: get me to the bottom and they were going to
Speaker 4: stop running the gondola sing. So it's like if you
Speaker 4: if you watch the finale, you like see that laugh
Speaker 4: acondo me like toasting champagne and literally I am in
Speaker 4: that room for about four more seconds and then they
Speaker 4: run me into a gondola and the gondola at Aspen
Speaker 4: is about a half hour gondola rived down right, So
Speaker 4: it's just me and this woman Maria, who's my handler.
Speaker 4: Two of us are now sitting in a gondola in
Speaker 4: the pitch dark. Don't run a mountain. This is just nuts.
Speaker 4: This is nice and so and I'm like, I just
Speaker 4: on top chef and I'm just like sitting there and
Speaker 4: I'm like I'm like sitting there like this, and she
Speaker 4: just looks at me. She's like, like, uh, do you
Speaker 4: want to like yell or something. I'm like, yeah, she
Speaker 4: like opens all the windows on the gundoline and I'm like,
Speaker 4: you know, like screaming and like so it was like crazy.
Speaker 4: And then it was like, you know, like you said time,
Speaker 4: like coming home, it's like, you know, I'm sitting on
Speaker 4: the plane like like just like blinking, like did this happen?
Speaker 4: Like is this real? You know what I mean? Like
Speaker 4: it's just like and now I'm just like and it's
Speaker 4: like I get on the plane, I go back, and
Speaker 4: then it's like, you know, it's whatever. It's Sunday. So
Speaker 4: I get home and then it's like I go to
Speaker 4: work on Tuesday.
Speaker 3: And I got to act like nothing ever has just gone.
Speaker 4: I was just gone for me. I don't worry about it.
Speaker 4: You know. It was just it was such an insane ride.
Speaker 4: And then you know, when the season started air, it
Speaker 4: just blew up and it was so fodded just you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: Chicago's so cool. It's such a Homer city, right, we
Speaker 4: go so hard, we go so hard, and I just
Speaker 4: love it. And it just you felt that, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, so much when I was on the show,
Speaker 4: just like everybody, you know what I mean like the
Speaker 4: city was pulling for me. It was so cool, and
Speaker 4: it was you know, I think I told Jeff this
Speaker 4: story once, but I had, you know, like a like,
Speaker 4: you know, my Friday Night Lights moment. I was like,
Speaker 4: you know, we're down to the bottom three. And I
Speaker 4: was like, I had a Whole Foods and I was
Speaker 4: walking out of the Whole Foods and I was like
Speaker 4: paying and this guy you know, and I was like
Speaker 4: I just just got finished paying. This guy's like he's like, great, Joe,
Speaker 4: We're all rooting for you. And I was like, oh, thanks.
Speaker 4: Every start going outs and it was like so cool.
Speaker 4: I was like, this is just bonkers, man, this is
Speaker 4: just so wild. There's so fun.
Speaker 5: Busy Heart Seltzer the official Heart Seltzer or the Chicago
Speaker 5: Bears here on the Bears et cetera podcast. So you
Speaker 5: made a fish dish in your first quick fire on
Speaker 5: the show. Would you have made that again?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I think so that one worked out really well,
Speaker 4: so I would. I would run that one back. It
Speaker 4: was a rent snapper I cooked in the wood fired
Speaker 4: oven with fennel. I think car car orange segments and
Speaker 4: maybe olives. I can't remember if I did that too.
Speaker 4: Maybe a little bit of Fenel.
Speaker 5: Calling best dish you ever made on Top Chef and
Speaker 5: has it or is it on any of your menus
Speaker 5: at your restaurants?
Speaker 4: The best dish I ever made on Top Chef was
Speaker 4: probably I did this pasta in the finale that was
Speaker 4: like it was a grano arso flower, so a burnt
Speaker 4: wheat flower, and I made this farce for it that
Speaker 4: was like a truffle pighead barse, and then made a
Speaker 4: broto for it, so it was like a Tortelinian broto.
Speaker 4: But they came out like just stunny, like they were
Speaker 4: just like they had this like like like river rock
Speaker 4: looking like quality to it, and they were unbelievable. And
Speaker 4: that's probably you know what won made the finale, but
Speaker 4: it's not at a menu. It took two days to
Speaker 4: make twelve of them, really, you know, so it was like,
Speaker 4: you know, it doesn't really work as like a practical dish.
Speaker 4: It was like, okay, this is you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: one of those things where it's like this can't be
Speaker 4: a real play in the playbook, but like you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, like if we're down six and two
Speaker 4: seconds to go, we could we can we can huk this.
Speaker 3: One tell us about the bear Den.
Speaker 4: That was funny. So, you know, me, Tyler and Bruce,
Speaker 4: they just started calling us the bear Den because I
Speaker 4: think we're you know, they put you in these rooms,
Speaker 4: they don't tell you you're sharing rooms. And then all
Speaker 4: of a sudden, it's like I got three roommates and
Speaker 4: we're sleeping on a Kia bunk beds that were made
Speaker 4: for someone much not of my stature. And so that was,
Speaker 4: you know, just kind of a fun you know, we
Speaker 4: were all grouped up together and we just had a
Speaker 4: lot of fun with that.
Speaker 3: Do you like the national attention?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's fun, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like and I think it's also you know, I
Speaker 4: was telling somebody those like, oh it's weird, you know,
Speaker 4: I like people know you and it's like, well, I
Speaker 4: mean I grew up on the South Side, like everybody
Speaker 4: knows everybody, you know what I mean. It's just kind
Speaker 4: of the way it is, so it doesn't feel weird.
Speaker 4: It's just like, oh, okay, I just meet more people,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. It never feels to me like, oh, like, oh,
Speaker 4: you're like famous. It's like I don't think so I
Speaker 4: think a few more people know who I am, and like,
Speaker 4: you know, those shows are fun, but it's like for me,
Speaker 4: it's like the love is restaurants. That's my thing over everything.
Speaker 4: So to be able to use those to put our
Speaker 4: restaurants out there and meet people on network, like that's
Speaker 4: a blast. Like it's cool, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I've had people in the restaurant because of that, or
Speaker 4: you know, been able to do things that I just,
Speaker 4: you know, never even dreamed of.
Speaker 2: Who's your Super Bowl pick at this time?
Speaker 4: I think the Ravens look really scary. I think they
Speaker 4: look really really good, and I think it's I feel
Speaker 4: like it's going to be Ravens Niners, And I think
Speaker 4: the Ravens are just going to be too much. They
Speaker 4: just look really complete this year. And I love Rokwan,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. He used to come into
Speaker 4: the restaurant all the time, so I'd love to see
Speaker 4: it for him. He's a great guy. I don't know,
Speaker 4: I feel like they're gonna be hard to.
Speaker 1: Be like top Shelf, is there a home field advantage?
Speaker 1: Do you become so familiar with the kitchen and the
Speaker 1: pantry and everything that you can do everything as opposed
Speaker 1: to a neutral site that a Super Bowl will have.
Speaker 4: Well, it's it's like always cooking in a neutral site, right,
Speaker 4: but nobody has the home field advantage because it's like
Speaker 4: in the kitchen changes so much and so and it's
Speaker 4: like when we're in Colorado, so we're dealing with you know,
Speaker 4: elements like we're cooking that you know, altitude. We're flat
Speaker 4: laders over here, right, that's not what we do, and
Speaker 4: so it's completely different ballgame doing that. You know, we
Speaker 4: cooked at one restaurant that was fourteen thousand feet. When
Speaker 4: you're at fourteen thousand feet, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: Like you know, the difference of playing in Chicago versus
Speaker 4: playing in Denver. Right, So it's like that feeling of it.
Speaker 4: So and it's like multiply that by three and then
Speaker 4: cook and so you know, when you get to those altitudes,
Speaker 4: like you know, they talked about like water boils at
Speaker 4: a lower temperature, right, so you could you know, and
Speaker 4: before I was on the show, I didn't really get
Speaker 4: how that affected things. But realizing that like, yeah, water's
Speaker 4: going to boil at one to eighty seven at fourteen
Speaker 4: thousand feet or whatever, it is, the problem is it's
Speaker 4: like that water's not hot, you could sit in it.
Speaker 4: So it's like when you're cooking pasta, it's like this
Speaker 4: water isn't really boiling, it's just evaporating. So it's like
Speaker 4: to try to get water hot enough before it operated
Speaker 4: to like properly cook pasta or blanch vegetables or do
Speaker 4: anything was like a total nightmare. And it's like, there's
Speaker 4: no way to prepare for that unless you've ever cooked
Speaker 4: at altitude those like there was one chef there who
Speaker 4: she was from Colorado. You know, she had worked at
Speaker 4: some higher elevation places, so she had a little bit
Speaker 4: home field on that, but still it was like, you know,
Speaker 4: the place we were cooking that was such high elevation,
Speaker 4: like nobody, nobody had ever done it.
Speaker 5: Have you ever done any private cooking for celebrities or politicians,
Speaker 5: whatever the case may be.
Speaker 4: I've cooked. I've actually I've cooked for four presidents, which
Speaker 4: is pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: So I've cooked for HW Bush, I've cooked for w
Speaker 4: I've cooked for Obama, and I've cooked for Biden, No kidding,
Speaker 4: Biden Biden before he was president. He was I did
Speaker 4: the last one of the coolest ones we did was
Speaker 4: a luncheon at the State Department, and it was the
Speaker 4: last State Department luncheon for the Obama Biden administration for Renzi,
Speaker 4: who was the Prime Minister of Italy at the time.
Speaker 4: So they brought Tony Mountjano in because Biagio was Renzi's
Speaker 4: favorite Italian restaurant in Chicago was Brock's favorite Italian restaurant Chicago,
Speaker 4: so they brought us in to do the luncheon. You know,
Speaker 4: I mean, like plating your food on official State department
Speaker 4: in China is a pretty wild feeling.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: Like one of my favorite pictures ever is there's a
Speaker 4: picture of me and I'm standing in the hallway at
Speaker 4: the State Department. I'm plating like one hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: plates for lunch, and it's like me and then there
Speaker 4: is like probably ten people behind me, and it's like
Speaker 4: this police that police secret service, like FBI, like you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, just like there's nothing but like
Speaker 4: eleven people behind me with different badges and guns like
Speaker 4: watching me plate like this really delicate little you know,
Speaker 4: like roasted squash dish that I made, and it was
Speaker 4: just like it's hysterical.
Speaker 3: Eh, you probably could have talked shop your mom if
Speaker 3: I'm not mistaken. Is she still a lieutenant in the
Speaker 3: Chicago Police Department.
Speaker 4: No, my mom has been retired a few years now.
Speaker 4: But yeah, she was thirty years on the job. She
Speaker 4: was a lieutenant on the South Side.
Speaker 3: Sounds like she would have been pretty tough, pretty tough.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, she still got it.
Speaker 5: Well, Joe, we could continue talking forever, but I just
Speaker 5: want to thank you for all your time.
Speaker 3: I know your time is valuable. We love that you're
Speaker 3: a Bears fan.
Speaker 5: You love the fact that it's ingrained in your blood,
Speaker 5: and we love what you prepare at Rosemary.
Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of the Nyolchi Tommy with the
Speaker 3: beef cheek.
Speaker 5: Love, love the risotto, different kinds of risotto, and the croatia.
Speaker 3: Is it la pingja bread?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: That bread is insane.
Speaker 5: I don't know how that happens, but that's fantastic.
Speaker 3: It's insane. You can't get enough of it, that's for sure.
Speaker 4: Well. I've always been, you know, really big fans of
Speaker 4: you guys, and you know, like I've been listens to
Speaker 4: Bears games on the radio since I remember can remember,
Speaker 4: and you know from when the radio the TV used
Speaker 4: to time up a little bit better, and we'd have
Speaker 4: it going on the radio to the TV, or if
Speaker 4: my dad would get so mad at the Bears at halftime,
Speaker 4: he'd just, you know, like all right, we're going off
Speaker 4: to the garage. We put the game on the radio
Speaker 4: because for some reason, it's less frustrating but more frustrating
Speaker 4: listening to the game of the radio. And you know
Speaker 4: the amount of times where it's like working Sundays coming
Speaker 4: through where it's like we'd have the Bears game going
Speaker 4: on some prep kitchen basement, you know, I mean, I
Speaker 4: Randolph for the Gold Coast. Uh, you know, just screaming
Speaker 4: you know what I mean at the radio with you guys.
Speaker 4: So it's really cool to be on this and uh,
Speaker 4: you know the first time you came in, Jeff By,
Speaker 4: my old chef de cuisine, He's like, do you think
Speaker 4: we could just get him to say, you know, Devin Hester,
Speaker 4: he's unbelievable.
Speaker 3: No, no, it's Devin Hester. You are ridiculous.
Speaker 2: That's what you gotta do us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's what that was the callie want. He said,
Speaker 4: you think you just stand on the counter and yell
Speaker 4: at once for us? And I was like, maybe wait
Speaker 4: till the second time he comes in, we can get
Speaker 4: him to.
Speaker 2: Do it right.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'll do it. You get you get a couple
Speaker 3: of drinks in me, I'll do it for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, there we go.
Speaker 3: We gotta get Tommy out there as well.
Speaker 5: H Again, we're brought to you by Middle of Light,
Speaker 5: the official beer of the Chicago Bears. Taste like Mill
Speaker 5: Time Chicago Joe continued success. Best to you and your
Speaker 5: family and have a great year, buddy.
Speaker 4: Guys, absolute blessed. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2: Awesome thrill So thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 4: Oh no, this was this was really cool.
Speaker 3: Guys, Tommy, how much fun was that?
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, we can talk to that guy
Speaker 5: about all things. He knows his sports, but there's not
Speaker 5: enough time to talk about a career like that. He
Speaker 5: is literally a top chef, and not just because of
Speaker 5: the show.
Speaker 1: You think of the highest accomplished athlete that we've ever
Speaker 1: been able to talk to throughout our career.
Speaker 2: He is that in the food field. And it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Because I think we've only scratched the surface of what
Speaker 1: we could. How we could keep going talking about the Bears,
Speaker 1: talking about the draft, talking about other football teams, but
Speaker 1: there's a thousand questions in cooking that I would love
Speaker 1: to be able.
Speaker 2: To sit here and ask him.
Speaker 1: The versatility of his ability is which impressed me most
Speaker 1: because we asked him a football question and he went
Speaker 1: for ten minutes and every single thing he said about
Speaker 1: his football knowledge was right on. And so that's the
Speaker 1: first thing. Oh my god, that's impressive.
Speaker 5: Game day snacking calls for good foods. Chunky guacamodi made
Speaker 5: with has avocados, tomatoes on silatro on a squeeze of
Speaker 5: lime juice. It's the perfect snack to watch while the
Speaker 5: Bears win. Score something today at your local grocery store.
Speaker 5: Game day is guac day. All right, Let's wrap things
Speaker 5: up as we look at the Bears are are looking
Speaker 5: at some coordinators. Obviously they need to find one, and
Speaker 5: reportedly the interviews include San Francisco passing game coordinator Clint Kubiak,
Speaker 5: the son of Gary Kubiak. He was an offensive coordinator
Speaker 5: in Minnesota, Denver's quarterback coach at Russell Wilson, Greg Roman,
Speaker 5: the former Baltimore offensive coordinator developing Lamar Jackson who won
Speaker 5: an MVP with Roman. Kentucky offensive coordinator Liam Cohen, who
Speaker 5: has ties to the Rams where he was with that
Speaker 5: football team over there on that coach, and Shane Waldron,
Speaker 5: the Seattle offensive coordinator, Greg Olsen, our old pal, the
Speaker 5: former Bears quarterback coach at three who's had several stops Detroit,
Speaker 5: the Rams, Tampa, Oakland, Jacksonville, Vegas. So a lot of experience,
Speaker 5: some young is a nice blend of options here. I'm
Speaker 5: not aware of any others that they have talked to
Speaker 5: or win. I don't know what the timeline is, but
Speaker 5: again these are all reportedly. It's a lot from that
Speaker 5: Shanahan Tree.
Speaker 3: Tom. That Shanahan Tree is very much a part of this.
Speaker 1: You know, Jeff, we could talk to about one hundred
Speaker 1: different names and consideration for the offensive coordinator position. But
Speaker 1: to me, the decision on quarterback is equally as important
Speaker 1: is the quarter as the offensive coordinator, because you have
Speaker 1: to get the evaluation of the new offensive coordinator as
Speaker 1: he looks at and studies what the Bears have done
Speaker 1: in the past, how his philosophical thinking of quarterback offense
Speaker 1: development fits into how the quarterback position is developing. So
Speaker 1: this is not just a one and done decision. This
Speaker 1: is a big impact decision. How it affects the offensive line,
Speaker 1: it affects the offense, it affects the receiver position, and
Speaker 1: it affects the quarterback position the most. So I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of thinking that goes into every one
Speaker 1: of these candidates.
Speaker 5: Do you feel a sense of optimism versus a sense
Speaker 5: of dread, like, oh god, we got a big hill decline?
Speaker 1: I feel more optimism after watching the first round of
Speaker 1: the playoffs than I did before the playoff game started,
Speaker 1: because when I look at what Green Bay went into
Speaker 1: Dallas and did to them in how you know, touch
Speaker 1: and go it was for the last game of the
Speaker 1: year with the Green Bay Packers and the Bears, I
Speaker 1: think about what they did to Detroit at home and
Speaker 1: how they should have beat Detroit on the road.
Speaker 2: I think that the Bears are so close to a
Speaker 2: competitive division opportunity.
Speaker 1: That getting the decisions right going forward plays in a
Speaker 1: huge role in the future success of the Bears.
Speaker 4: I would do.
Speaker 1: Nothing but talk confident, confidently to my team in the
Speaker 1: process of the offseason through OTA's how close we are.
Speaker 2: We have to take that next step no matter who's
Speaker 2: here or who isn't here.
Speaker 1: And so I think the message going forward isn't you know,
Speaker 1: how are we going to come out of training camp. No,
Speaker 1: it's coming out of training camp with the intentions of
Speaker 1: winning the division. My only message from this point going
Speaker 1: forward is about winning the division next year, and I
Speaker 1: think that it can be honestly spoken because of what
Speaker 1: I saw out of the playoff games and going forward.
Speaker 5: We're sponsored by Miller Lite, official beer of the Chicago Bears.
Speaker 5: Tastes like Miller Time Chicago. Tom There, I'm Jeff Jonnieck,
Speaker 5: Thanks to Joe Flamb. Thanks for listening, and please subscribe
Speaker 5: now to the Chicago Bears official app, Apple, Spotify.
Speaker 3: YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. Bear Down, Everybody,