Tijuana Flavors: From Food Awards to Crisis Cooking with Food Writer, Amy Drew Thompson

Discover the secrets behind the Orlando Sentinel Foodie Awards and get a true taste of Tijuana with the insights of food writer and Walk-In Talk Podcast Contributor  Amy Drew Thompson. Our culinary exploration doesn't stop at accolades and tacos; we unwrap the complexities of restaurant pricing debates, tipping controversies, and the art of balance between cost, quality, and ambiance. As you join me, Carl Fiadini, in my gastronomic realm, be prepared to navigate the challenging seas that restaurants sail to provide us with unforgettable dining experiences.

Venture into the vivid world of authentic Mexican cuisine as we discuss the transformative power of heirloom corn and the traditional cooking methods that bring dishes to life. You'll get a front-row seat to my tantalizing taste test of dishes designed for 'crisis cooking' – each with its own story, created under the magic of ten minutes. We also applaud the cultural craftsmansh

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:05

Hello Food Fam. This is the Walk and Talk podcast where you will find the perfect blend of food fun and cooking knowledge. I'm your host, carl Fiedini. Welcome to the number one food podcast in the country. We're recording onsite at Ibis Images Studios, where food photography comes alive and I get to eat it First things first. Last week we had author Matt Haynes on the podcast. If you missed it and you're intrigued by all things Mardi Gras and King Cakes, go back and check it out. And also be sure to check out our Instagram, linkedin or Facebook. You gotta get your eyeballs on the fabulous photography. You'll find those handles in the description.

Speaker 1: 1:47

We've got four amazing dishes to highlight today. It's gonna be a veely good time. Oh yeah, I just did that. But really, the ground veal stuff, shells are top notch. Thank you Peninsula Food Service for supplying the proteins for this production today, chefs in the central Florida area, peninsula is the largest distributor of Creekstone Farms beef in the southeast United States, complete with a fully staffed butcher shop to help you solve your kitchen inconsistencies. Check out their dry aged program too. Okay, so our guest this week is journalist, food writer and walk and talk podcast contributor, amy Drew Thompson. She'll be getting into the Orlando Sentinels Foodie Awards and something about some Tijuana tacos. Stay tuned, jeff. Baby, you know what to do. Pop the clutch and get into that. Free that pre shift. Let's get to the explanations, brother, not a problem.

Speaker 2: 2:53

So the reason why we came up with the theme today, which was basically simple.

Speaker 1: 2:56

No theme.

Speaker 2: 2:58

Yeah, for me it was. It was called simple and elegant, right More it was. My theme was crisis cooking 10 minutes or less because I was in out of town this past week until yesterday. That's why I sound this way, trying to still recover from it. But we did four different ones. We did a breakfast. So we took some breakfast sausages and ground them up a little bit and hit it with some sherry wine, made a nice thick would give you a nice big hug type of sausage gravy. Then we took some biscuit dough and had a mini waffle maker, put them in the waffle and then some fried chicken tenders and layered that through. And then what? This was the kicker. I think it was like two weeks ago is at the Lakeland farmers market and there was somebody from Vermont and they had a whiskey infused maple syrup I'm like sold, so I put that around. That had some sage, as the garnish had some fried sage actually inside the sauce, so it had some layers to it.

Speaker 2: 3:53

The next dish was, you know, the old classic urine and urine, one chicken Florentine, which is just basically spinach and cheese thrown on a piece of chicken and bake it off. But kind of raised that level, the raise the roof a little bit with some like bacon, so I'd make maple, maple bacon inside it. We had Gran Pannado. It was a soft cheese. I use provolone and then mozzarella, so I mixed that up together. I had some lemon zest and then I topped it off with some pesto. Zoodles was on the side, so the dish was completely carb free. So it was really friendly for the keto, or somebody was looking to have so many carbs into it.

Speaker 2: 4:31

And then I downshifted into being a chicken Wellington instead of being it normal wrapped in the puff pastry, because that would take me more time. I actually cut out little rounds and utilized the puff pastries that way, kept them flat and then did roasted chicken with crispy potato chips, sauteed vegetables, which was carrots. Then we did a broccoli puree but I added a little more spinach to it, give that vibrant color. And then I did a nice beef consomme reduction to it, but I added Marmite so it gave it a little more bite to it. And then to give it some sweetness and some richness, like almost chocolate velvety, I added black garlic to it and then puree that down. And then, lastly, we did the veal bolognese, that one, that lemon zest, and this I got from going to a place called Bouffalina and it's in Austin, texas.

Speaker 2: 5:26

It was a James Beard finalist and they did a scratch a toast and I hit the tomato jam with the fresh stretched mozzarella and there was such a pronounced lemon flavor that I, just like anything fatty is going to get this much lemon because you need that acid there. So it breaks everything down. It kind of brightens up your taste buds and I did exactly that with this one. I have what I call it in there ground panado. Oh, picarino romano was the other cheese I had, and then we did some fresh motts on top of that and then a little bit of the tomato sauce on the bottom and just roasted baby off. It was fantastic and you're lucky you're getting that because she's hungry.

Speaker 3: 6:05

I'm so hungry. I'm 10 times hungry than I was when I sat down. I missed all of that. I got to eat today.

Speaker 1: 6:11

Well, you know what? We know somebody. You should show up earlier, wow.

Speaker 2: 6:16

That's what I'm saying Shots fired.

Speaker 1: 6:18

No, I'm kidding, all right. So I just want to give a little bit of. First of all, everything was really on point today.

Speaker 3: 6:25

Thank you, jefferson you did it, okay, you did it.

Speaker 1: 6:28

You've arrived. I don't know that you ever need to go to a professional kitchen ever again. You just show up here at the studio and cook here. Yeah, Okay, Well, that's just for your belly Money be, yeah, I mean profitability and money. Be damned right.

Speaker 2: 6:42

Right.

Speaker 3: 6:42

Success goes in the garbage.

Speaker 1: 6:45

No, you did great. That puree is really good and I'm taking it with me. By the way, I know I told you to.

Speaker 2: 6:58

Yeah the bag I'm taking and there's like three and four ingredients. There's actually chives, spinach, broccoli that's been pureed almost to like almost baby, just before it gets really too soft, and then the spinach to brighten it up. Most of the time people use parsley, but the problem with too much chlorophyll that will overtake. As far as the flavor profile, spinach is very neutral, has a lot of chlorophyll in it but it doesn't have that tendency to be that flavor profile. Parsley and parsley also.

Speaker 2: 7:28

I'm back in the day when I was going back on my day when we were going out. That was the garnish. It was like a little lemon peel and then half of it was dipped in the parsley and then you had to wash the parsley out, like until it was clear and you had to look for a towel. You couldn't use a napkin and then you would rip the towel. Thank God we don't do those anymore. But you go to like Marvin's farm and get microgreens and it's so much better. But yeah, so I didn't want to do that. So I use the spinach and that's and then salt and pepper and then a little garlic and I blanched the garlic too.

Speaker 1: 7:57

Well, you did good today, Thanks, and you know. You know who else did good today. Your view Me. Well, I'm happy, and I'm talking about John. Oh, he always does, I know. Well, he needs more like more kudos out there. Yeah 100%.

Speaker 1: 8:13

If you're listening and if you can hear the sound of my voice in the description, you're going to find John's Instagram. Give him instant, follow this man. Give him instant love. Yeah, give him instant love. Okay, I don't know that that's a thing, but it is. Now, we just started it right to give him some insula of yeah give this guy insta love.

Speaker 2: 8:32

He's too talented not to be like number one out there true story.

Speaker 1: 8:37

Let's talk about Amy for a second. So, before I bring Amy actually on to the program, what she's going to be doing with the walk-and-talk podcast obviously she's a writer, orlando Sentinel, and you know her. Her articles come out and if she's gonna do something, and it's, you know, either coming up or just put out, you know we're gonna have her on the show and we're gonna talk about it and and you know she does a lot of, she does a lot of restaurants that you need to go to in the central Florida area or Lando area, and I think I just think that you got to pay attention out there. Pay attention, listen, follow along, all right.

Speaker 1: 9:18

Join me, join me. Speaking of joining me, amy, welcome to the program back baby. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:27

Put him up. Put him up put him up.

Speaker 1: 9:29

I love it. I wish everyone can see you right now with the.

Speaker 3: 9:36

Yeah, I lost. I was out of town too. I was in New Orleans, lost my glasses.

Speaker 2: 9:40

Yeah, I saw I was. I was talking you on your page. I noticed that you were. You posted from the French quarter.

Speaker 3: 9:46

Yeah, I was well, this time I was in the French quarter more than usual because of Mardi Gras. I've been in New Orleans many times. This was my first Mardi Gras.

Speaker 2: 9:55

Oh wow, so I've never been to Mardi Gras. It's a, it was oh it's.

Speaker 3: 9:59

It's Helatious and trashy. It's what you would imagine it's what it's battery.

Speaker 1: 10:06

It's where you need to be, jeff.

Speaker 2: 10:07

No, I don't need to be there. I've been there. When it's not, it's still debauchery when you're not yeah, you can.

Speaker 3: 10:12

You can kind of live above it and, you know, be a little bit in it and Then just sort of do your own thing, which is a little bit. But we, you know, we hung out on a balcony. I threw people beads, it was, you know, it was a scene. It was a scene for sure.

Speaker 1: 10:27

Yeah, we brought that up on the last podcast. I'm in that space where I I can you know.

Speaker 2: 10:34

Receive beads. Yeah, you, definitely. You and I are definitely. Please don't lift your shirt.

Speaker 3: 10:38

Take the food.

Speaker 1: 10:41

I'm working out well. Did you just hear what?

Speaker 2: 10:44

she said, yes, okay, you just kind of passed over I want to bring you to make sure, I just ignored that.

Speaker 3: 10:50

It looks really good, everything looks really good.

Speaker 1: 10:52

It looks like, if you listen.

Speaker 3: 10:53

seriously though, I'm gonna stuff, I'm gonna stuff a stuff shell in my mouth.

Speaker 1: 10:59

When you get on your socials later you're gonna see that's what I did. I did it for. I do it for the for the video. All right, let's talk about the foodie awards, right yeah?

Speaker 3: 11:10

that's happening like as we speak as we speak, as we're recording, people are voting right now. Talk about it the Orlando Sentinel Foodie Awards is way precedes me. This is, I think, the 27th year that they've done something like this. It's my fourth, but they're switching it up. It's a 50 category, um field, and it's a lot. It's a lot to digest, forgive the pun, and so this year they've decided, like I, should be asking for forgiveness. It's all I do is puns.

Speaker 2: 11:42

Have you heard his puns? So you don't have to forgive because it is, yes, like feel what pun that you did at the opening monologue.

Speaker 3: 11:50

Yeah, that was great, it was really good, yeah, really good yeah.

Speaker 3: 11:54

So this year they're breaking it up into four quarters, so it's fewer categories for people to nominate and the readers nominate, and then the top three in each category go on to a voting round and one of them Comes out on top, and that's what's going on right now. So the nominating category, the nominating time is over, and now we have our contenders and the reader's choice, and then I get to do my own choices. Those are the critics picks, so I don't have anything to do there. That's all readers, all.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Critics picks I am, so I voted already Once I have to do a little bit more myself. Good.

Speaker 3: 12:29

Well, yeah, you have to go see who's and have you voted like? Voted? You didn't nominate, you voted. I voted.

Speaker 1: 12:35

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 12:35

Yeah so that's no. She started out with the nominations and now they're in the voting Right now, I did this like two days ago, so whatever that, whatever it started, I want to say yesterday was voting.

Speaker 1: 12:48

Then maybe I did a nomination.

Speaker 3: 12:49

Okay, did you write a name of a restaurant in?

Speaker 1: 12:52

Yeah that you know, that's called. That's called nomination, Right yeah so you did that. Okay, Well, hey look, and I just jumped in there.

Speaker 3: 12:58

Well, I'm glad you're in. Welcome, I saw your post.

Speaker 1: 13:02

Yes, and I jumped in. Yes, jump in. And you know what?

Speaker 3: 13:06

We'll be doing it again in another quarter, so you can Go for another whole round and this time you can nominate if you want every single day and help your favorite places rack up the nominations and hopefully make it to the top three, because that's uh.

Speaker 1: 13:18

Yeah, and because I have a lot of friends out there in the business, there you go. Yeah, I shall never tell you can build an army. I'll never yeah, but I'll never tell who I'm voting for. I keep it.

Speaker 3: 13:29

Yeah, well, that's your right. Yeah, the sacred right do your voting for in the food awards? Don't do your right.

Speaker 1: 13:35

Stop it.

Speaker 2: 13:35

Stop Listen, you do it, I can do it too.

Speaker 1: 13:37

No, you can, I can, I do it. Good, okay, that was still good.

Speaker 3: 13:41

It's a really it's a fun contest I think that people will talk about. You know, what I love to see is restaurants getting the love from the people who love them. Um, and then I get to give love too, and we get a whole bunch of recommendations every quarter for people to try.

Speaker 2: 13:55

I think that's one of the things in the industry we need right now is that we need to show each other to love more. So then, trying to break things down? Yeah, for sure, this is perfect.

Speaker 3: 14:02

I think everything you know, you go to a restaurant row and the better the stuff that's out there. It's like you can't look at it as competition because Nobody on that row is going to come to your restaurant every night. They're going to mix it up. So everybody, you know, all boats lifted. Rising tide lifts all boats. So I think that it's more like yeah, there's a little bit of competition, I guess, but really overall Everybody makes the scene better, everybody does better.

Speaker 1: 14:29

Yep, I went out to dinner last night and you know it's a, it was a, it's a decent place, but Right next door they're opening another nice decent place, right, and the servers you know we're talking about it with the server and um, and we asked this, thoughts like what do you think about it? He says well, I just hope that we don't lose business over it. Now, this was an Italian restaurant and across, literally across the walk path, was a is a high-end Mexican concept, and I and I said it's not. You know, these are completely two different food concepts. And it's it's a busy place, busy area. It's not going to affect you in any kind of way. If anything, it's going to bring more people in and it's going to spill over.

Speaker 3: 15:59

People come for tacos and they go. Oh hey, we should try that place you know, or they came for the tacos. I didn't know that place was there, yeah exactly.

Speaker 1: 16:06

But I mean, you know, at the end of the day you don't know exactly what's going to happen, who's going to stay open. You know what's the what's the percentage of keeping a restaurant.

Speaker 2: 16:15

One and three fault failed in the first three years. Yeah it's about 98 failure rate in the first three years. It's tough.

Speaker 3: 16:22

It's tough. So yeah, so I think everybody. One of the nice things that I hear a lot about Orlando from other chefs who come from other places is that the camaraderie in our city in the food scene, you know, between restaurant owners, between chefs, like everybody's sporting each other, they come and they, they come to each other's pop-ups, they go to each other's businesses, they post about each other's food and it's nice.

Speaker 2: 16:48

Yeah, and it's in Tampa too. I mean now for me, going from West Palm Beach, when we had a lot of camaraderie down there, and we move, like when we moved over last year, I'm starting to see that. You know, you're seeing different chefs that we've interviewed and I, you know, talk to them and I see what they're, who they're posting, if they go out to eat because, let's face it, everybody's working six days a week and you want that one day in downtime to kind of recuperate. But they're showing a lot of love and I think that's what we need to focus in on as the as the industry as a whole.

Speaker 3: 17:14

Yeah, especially since most of them are eating fizzoli breadsticks on the way home from a shift.

Speaker 2: 17:20

Or burger king.

Speaker 3: 17:21

Yeah, whatever, whatever your thing is, yeah, yeah it's funny, bring up fizzoli's.

Speaker 1: 17:25

But it you know, for me it's a drive-through, because I don't want to be bothered, I don't want to see anybody, I have to eat too much.

Speaker 3: 17:31

I barely hit any I. I generally only hit any kind of place like that when it's for a story, because I'm just eating all the time. For me it's like I can get food fatigue.

Speaker 1: 17:42

Oh, that's an interesting. There's a little thing. Yeah, we're gonna have to come back to that.

Speaker 2: 17:48

That's like tipping and tipflation that we talked about food fatigue.

Speaker 3: 17:52

Yeah, people like what do you want to eat? I don't know. Can I just have some tea?

Speaker 1: 17:57

And on the other side of that it's like hey, what do you want to eat? I don't know. I don't want to tip anymore. You know it's oh tip fatigue tip fatigue.

Speaker 3: 18:04

Yeah, yeah we should have. Um, I want, I've been wanting to do a story about you know all of the weird everybody's doing things different. Now the 20 percent. You know auto Gratuity, and do you want to add more? Look, wait a minute, hold on, I'm not gonna offer anything yet because I haven't done my research. No, no, no, no. But.

Speaker 1: 18:21

I just want to put this out there into the universe, right, um, if, if I, if you're a verse, if you're a server and you get me as a guest and you hand me an electronic device to pay for the meal, walk away from me. They just they linger and they wait and for while you're doing the it's like your vote.

Speaker 3: 18:42

You want to keep you feel. Yeah, I mean, I'm always gonna feel pressure.

Speaker 1: 18:46

I am the least cheap person ever. Just get the hell away from me Like you're not allowed to stand on because you know I mean, listen, I was a server for a long time now. You know, growing up I did. You know I was in the business, right?

Speaker 3: 18:57

Well before that, we used to just leave it on the table. You know table and you walk away. You would never go back.

Speaker 1: 19:01

I have the iPads no iPads, but you would leave that like if somebody did leave a you know, you know they, they, they've paid the card, whatever it's there, they take their card back. You don't go back and pick up the Check and take like walk away with, or the cash and everything you don't. You leave it there until they walk away. Then you go back and you collect your stuff and you see what you know, what they left you. You don't do before, you don't do beforehand, like when they're still having Finishing up their cocktail, their drink, and walk by and you pick up the. That's so rude, oh, my goodness. Sorry, tangent.

Speaker 3: 19:34

It's okay, non-sacquiters happen. I can't wait to do the story now.

Speaker 2: 19:38

Okay, so I'll be honest with you. Where the tipping issue came into a problem is when I was working in Miami and there was a restaurant that actually got caught tipping or putting a tip on a different to top and Another to top, and it became this huge thing.

Speaker 3: 19:55

It wasn't, it was like on purpose, it wasn't.

Speaker 2: 19:57

yeah, it wasn't an accident and the guy actually came out and said why which was not really you don't do that as an owner. And it got out and it Went to the city council and the city council said if you're gonna put a tip on, it has to be for everyone or no one. So you had to make decision right then and there. So if you put a tipping policy in in Miami, became law in the city of Miami that you have to leave it in and everyone gets Tipped, automatically graded. So and I can see where it comes from because of this story instance, we're talking about 2001.

Speaker 3: 20:30

I have a nice piece of research to go look up now.

Speaker 2: 20:32

Yeah, I will talk off air and a little bit more about it, because it's probably not the right platform to talk about it, but it's definitely something worth through your article. But that's where it started from in.

Speaker 3: 20:41

Miami interesting, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:44

I will tell you that when we were at Buffalo, bufalina, something that we caught that was very interesting, that's becoming really popular, is a 3% health charge for their employees.

Speaker 1: 20:56

What is it?

Speaker 2: 20:57

on the bottom of the menu it says we are going to automatically put a 3% charge for the health of our, of our staff, and that money went to the house, meaning to the actual kitchen. We, because we are specifically and that's something that's new, that I've actually seen, that's been trending- so that's like that's 3% separate of whatever your bill was there's an extra 3%. That 3% goes to the back of the house to pay their employees.

Speaker 1: 21:23

I mean, I don't know that, I'm upset with that, you know, because the truth is, you know mode the average person is going to tip. You know 15 to 25%, right?

Speaker 2: 21:33

so well, this is like in the fees, so it's like taxes and then a 3% my point is you, you have a pretty, pretty nice spread in there.

Speaker 1: 21:42

Anyway, on tip percentile. Mm-hmm. So the three points. Even if somebody gets aggravated and it says, well, I was gonna leave 20, now You're just gonna get 18. It doesn't matter that the server's still gonna, you know, walk away with 15, it's fine, I don't see a big deal there. What about the 3% surcharge on credit cards you want? That's another story.

Speaker 3: 22:00

Well, what about this? Let me let me throw, since you guys are debating. What about the idea of just raising the prices and and covering all of those expenses and Letting me pay? You know, if I came in for a 12 dollars, just say not me. If somebody comes in for a $12 burger and we make that burger $15. Isn't that just easier than adding on all these percents?

Speaker 2: 22:23

because you would normally think that way. But there's a lot of people out there that are comparing other restaurants. Be like, well, I can get that, but listen, I just was that isn't at the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 2: 22:31

Once people start doing, it won't catch on, and then everybody can just Actually cover their costs and the price of their goods you would think that, but here, like I went to the hotel and I was reading their menu is $23 for a normal burger and I said something to some people that were at the event that I was at like you can go right down the streets 12 bucks. So I mean, there you see, the one hand, that that the hotel is overcharging.

Speaker 1: 22:54

It's a gouge, it's, it's not gonna work. It would I mean.

Speaker 3: 22:56

I got it.

Speaker 1: 22:57

I mean my gout savvy right, a lot of the Some of the corporate establishments right there. You know they'll kind of just like, all right, let's just throw it in there, we're gonna charge it and there's a business model, though.

Speaker 3: 23:10

You can walk into a little mom-and-pop place that's the size of a place that we're sitting in right now and you can see that the burgers is not gonna need to cost 2350. But if you walk into a place where you look around and you're like God, the rent here has got to be 10 grand a month. And that's before I pay any insurance, it's before I pay the mortgage on my bar, it's before I pay you know any of my employees. Then all of a sudden you're like okay, a burger here could cost 2350.

Speaker 1: 23:36

Yeah, yeah, and you know, obviously you're paying for ambiance, you know you're walking into a place like that. Clearly there's dollars spent, right so right you know, and again you, you know, I don't mind if it's, if it's worthy, it's good. The problem is is, if you're getting, if you're getting this, this burger, and that the burgers just not, you have to make it extra.

Speaker 3: 23:56

And nobody's gonna come. You know, I mean, I think that it's it. That's the way I would see it is that if you charge me, you may get me that one time, but you're never gonna get anybody again, you're correct.

Speaker 1: 24:07

All I'm saying is elevate the product, whatever it was a sandwich, a burger, whatever Elevate it. How long you've been in sales? Too long right.

Speaker 2: 24:15

So I mean, think about that for a second. If you come out and you've done a tasting on burgers and we're because we're, since we're talking about that and you're known for that burger, you're not gonna change that burger. But if that burger price goes up that you have to pay for and you go for, and it goes up substantially Because obviously you know that swings a lot, especially if it has short rib and breast get in Chuck. That's a huge variance. It starts to swing. You can't Fit or or maximize the potential for the ROI on that product, especially via the 3%, and then it goes up and then you're gonna put on this percentage. Then you're like, all the sudden this burger goes from for $15. You're known for to 18 to $19.

Speaker 3: 24:51

Once you, but once you tack on that 20% surcharge. That was the $23 that I was gonna pay for the burger anyway.

Speaker 2: 24:58

So, just stop making me do math right, I know that, but that's the problem is, once you get open and you're established, when you go to Raise up your your fees, right, that's where a lot of people tend to get pissed off. When you're opening up, you still have to like. When we're talking about chicken wings, it's a prime example. I thought I was doing a great job of having my chicken wings at $15. For 10 wings they were $98 a case. I never expected During COVID chicken wings to go to $200.

Speaker 3: 25:26

Yeah, and people compensated a lot of. There were places in town I did a story that you know compensated by basically just raising everything on the menu a tiny bit. Yeah, but $15, I couldn't at that point yeah but these were places where wings were the and everybody understood it was all over the news and people. Maybe people didn't come as much and maybe people just understood this is. This is what it costs now.

Speaker 1: 25:49

I'm not opposed to. I'm not opposed to that because for me it's all still in your same math, right? If I was going to?

Speaker 3: 25:56

pay $14 for the cocktail. Charging $15 or $16 is not going to make me not buy the cocktail. I'm not going from zero to 100, you know.

Speaker 2: 26:05

But there's a lot of people out there in the population. Here we're talking about people that are in the business, that know the business like us Right. We will, you know we go. Yeah, no problem, I see it. It's the individuals that don't see it don't understand it because it understand economics, and especially in the restaurant industry.

Speaker 3: 26:20

Maybe this helps them learn.

Speaker 2: 26:21

That's what we're trying to do, right? I mean, like, as a shoemaker, you can make 175% markup. You can't do 175% markup on a chicken breast. Who's going to spend like I saw chicken breast on menus that were $50.

Speaker 3: 26:34

What are the bar markups?

Speaker 2: 26:36

Deadlet.

Speaker 3: 26:38

Right, so One drink was $19.

Speaker 2: 26:40

and all it was was an old fashioned, and it was and it wasn't a good bar.

Speaker 3: 26:44

A bottle of wine in a restaurant is double or triple what? But it's always been like that yeah, quadruple. You know what I mean. And I'm just thinking about you'll see it and you're, and you know you're out, so maybe you're willing to pay it. But you look at it and you're like that bottle of wine costs $17 in public.

Speaker 2: 27:00

Santa Margarita is not worth it. You know fence but I see $25 on the shelf and it's like $80 in a restaurant, like nope.

Speaker 3: 27:07

But you know, but that's the whole thing For somebody like me, I have a.

Speaker 1: 27:10

I have a fairly high tolerance right Without alcohol. So you know, if there's a $20 cocktail, you know I'm not spending $150.

Speaker 3: 27:21

You just want booze in a glass, right?

Speaker 1: 27:24

Well, I mean, I have standards but at the end of the day, like I, you know I need, I need, I'm not going to spend. So you pre-game, I always.

Speaker 3: 27:32

Yeah, you pre-game before you go out Road soda, road soda, yeah, I mean I don't drive.

Speaker 1: 27:36

There's road soda but I don't drive. So just to be clear on anybody who's listening but yeah, these are the strategies.

Speaker 3: 27:43

right, you want to go out? You pre-game a little All right.

Speaker 1: 27:46

Speaking of going out, I don't want to get too far away from Tijuana Tacos.

Speaker 3: 27:49

Oh my God, tijuana Tacos. I just learned what those are. They have a lot of guacamole, which I like.

Speaker 1: 27:55

I'm going to talk about it. This is, this was your article.

Speaker 3: 27:57

Yes, I went to a pop-up that I had heard a lot about but it was hard. I'd been meaning to go for months but they only pop up three, four times a month because Samuel, the guy who runs the pop-up, he has another job. This is like his side hustle that he's growing and hopefully by the end of the year I know that he hopes to have a truck or something more regular and have it, you know, be his full-time gig. But he pops up all over town apartment. He's actually at Onyx Winter Park Apartments tonight. I'll give a shout out Six PM until sell out. And they do sell out because what he's making is a very regional taco that they have in Southern California. It's a Tijuana style taco. He's from San Diego. He said that in San Diego you can walk there like three minutes apart to get tacos like this, but in Orlando he says nobody's really doing them this style and the Southern Californians and transplants and friends and they're lining up.

Speaker 3: 29:03

I got there early. When I went I finally matched up with a date and was to open. I got there at 5.30. I was like I'll just hang out in my car for a few minutes. So I got out in 15 minutes. There was already 20 people online waiting before he started selling the tacos.

Speaker 1: 29:18

What's the name of the place? It?

Speaker 3: 29:19

is over the border Takariya.

Speaker 1: 29:21

Okay.

Speaker 3: 29:22

And you can find them. That is their handle on Instagram. If you follow me on Instagram you can catch all of this stuff, but my post right. This second is a big takeout box of chorizo and asada and pastor tacos from. John's order Takariya. And yeah, he's. My photography is not as good as yours, John.

Speaker 2: 29:47

You're not getting great for that, but it's good enough.

Speaker 3: 29:50

This is the judgment for you. So he pointed the two of you.

Speaker 1: 29:55

just by the way, I'm a writer.

Speaker 3: 29:57

I'm a writer. I'm not a photographer. I've been getting better.

Speaker 2: 30:00

He just got you a thumbs up.

Speaker 3: 30:02

Yeah, it's good stuff, and what I learned about Tijuana tacos is the fire. Cooking is everything. You know. The smoke, the fire, the Trump, the Trump. Oh, excuse me.

Speaker 1: 30:13

Is this what the difference is between this style and a traditional like street taco Like? What are the differences?

Speaker 3: 30:20

They have. It's like a nice corn tortilla. He gets them fresh from a local place and you throw that on the griddle with a little oil, gets a little chewy, it has that nice and it doesn't fall apart Right Once you throw it on the griddle it becomes more stable and it's meat, it's onions and cilantro and then guac and sauce, so you won't get cheese in there, it's just the meat is the star. The guac really just is so delicious and it's obviously California. Mexico avocados it's a big thing and he told me he's from San Diego, his father's from Tijuana. Northern Mexican tacos it's different. Mexico's huge. You go all over from the different states. You get different regions, different spices, different flavors, more seafood, more you know vegetables. I just knocked into something, so everybody's shaking their head at me.

Speaker 2: 31:16

I'm just like, actually I didn't shake my head at all, I'm just saying it wasn't me.

Speaker 3: 31:21

In the north there's a lot of guacamole and they really show it up. If you see the post you'll see it's beautiful and green. And the sauce that he makes the sauce himself. He marinates the meat for the pastor himself and he sets it up and he sells out every time.

Speaker 2: 31:39

Yeah, but you need to say how he cooks that pastore, pastore, because he's actually doing it the right way.

Speaker 3: 31:43

Yes, he's got the Trumpo set up. I'm so bad my accent and it's fire cooked. It rotates on the vertical spit. This is something that was brought to Mexico by immigrants many, many moons ago. You see them in Mexico City all the time from the Middle East and it's something that was picked up and now it's very Mexican. This is sort of like the Colache conversation that we had in the previous video we had earlier, which is Czech immigrants in Texas brought this pastry and now it's Texan, you know. So now this is a very Mexican taco, but it didn't start that way. It started with immigrants.

Speaker 2: 32:23

Yeah, so if you remember, we had that conversation where the Yiddoh Donner started. It's actually from the Bedouins. Everything was cooked as they were moving. They would, you know, slaughter the animal. They would put it on a spit and they would marinate it and they would use different forms of it. So the pineapple when it got into Mexico, pineapple was used as a tenderizer, because that is one of the things that pineapple does, and so does papaya, and they would layer fat and beef and lamb and that's how they became Donner or Yiddoh.

Speaker 2: 32:51

When I saw the picture instantly, it's kind of the same thing. They're using ground meat and then you add the fat in. So he's controlling how much of that is and then you can actually spice the meat the way you want it. So you're getting this beautiful thing. So, as the meat is going around in a circle, the heat is coming and it's stacked height wise. As far as the heat is going, so as it's cooking, it's spinning at the same time and the fat is rendering down. As it's cooking, it's causing the caramelization almost instantly to kind of have a crust on the meat. So the molard reaction happens really quick and it's really juicy because the amount of fat they have in there and it's delicious. And it's not only just for Mexican, like the al pastor, it's actually every single, pretty much every single society around the world has done something that started from the Bedouins, because it's been with different cultures mixing together. From you know, wars or whatever.

Speaker 2: 33:48

They kind of take what they want and they look at that and go, hey, that's great, let's do it over here.

Speaker 1: 33:52

I want to bet and win too. So here's what I'm thinking we haven't done. We have not done tacos. I don't remember doing tacos right.

Speaker 3: 34:02

The nice thing about tacos, though, is you can revisit them and make them anything. Oh no, I want to revisit them next week, that's what I'm saying Like for next week.

Speaker 2: 34:11

Did you not see that we had a thing? Come through the text messages, they want to do minis.

Speaker 1: 34:16

Yeah, we can do minis. They're very cute. That's what I said. That's what I did as a joke.

Speaker 2: 34:21

We did actually do tacos. We did it for the October event for the chefs and the PR stuff. We did it at Salemar. One of the dishes I did was a pulled chicken taco. I don't remember that, of course you don't, because you've eaten other things since then. We have not done a full spread, he's like a dory of eating like it's just the last thing he ate.

Speaker 1: 34:45

That's it. He's like a goldfish.

Speaker 2: 34:47

Oh look a castle. I didn't see that. Oh look, I don't think we've done full blown like soaps and stuff like that. Well, yeah, I mean, like, how deep do you want to go down the rabbit hole? Pretty deep, I want to go far.

Speaker 1: 35:04

Like what's up, doc. You know what I'm saying? That far, that deep.

Speaker 2: 35:07

Okay.

Speaker 1: 35:08

Yeah, the hell are we talking about here in tacos? You want a lingua?

Speaker 3: 35:11

I don't know. Oh, I do. Can you call me Cabeza lingua? Let's do all that.

Speaker 1: 35:17

Yeah, claro, carito All right?

Speaker 2: 35:20

Yeah, because I can go real deep. That's why I'm like how deep you want to go. I can also do tripa if you want, but I know you don't like that.

Speaker 3: 35:26

No no, no, no. Do the lingua then. I love that.

Speaker 2: 35:30

Let's do it All right. So we need beef tongue.

Speaker 3: 35:36

So I'm here next week doing the show.

Speaker 2: 35:38

I want to smoke the beef tongue. There's nothing like if you've never had smoked beef tongue, you've not eaten properly. I have memories of being a kid. I used to love the tongue sandwiches from the deli, but that was cured right.

Speaker 3: 35:52

Yeah, but it was like corned beef you know Right exactly. And it's sliced so it just looks like deli meat and it was called a tongue sandwich. I was little but I just figured, oh, that's just what they call it. And then one day I was just kind of idling by the deli case and I spotted it and I was like, oh, it's like it's really tongue Still ate it. But it was my learning experience.

Speaker 2: 36:54

So yeah, the real tongue. We actually did one at my restaurant where we actually made blue flower masa corn-style tortillas and we smoked chocolate like mole, made mole from scratch and smoked the beef tongue in.

Speaker 1: 37:09

That I'm willing to do that Language tacos are so good. Yeah, of course you're willing If they're good.

Speaker 3: 37:16

If they're good. Well, the thing with language is it can get chewy. You have to cook it right. It's a different kind of a muscle.

Speaker 1: 37:21

So maybe Jeff shouldn't be the one to do this.

Speaker 3: 37:24

Well, my point is that you can have a bad experience with it if you don't get it well. Well, just like any food right, Any food, you can have a bad experience. Like three, pie is the same way, three pie.

Speaker 2: 37:33

you can look at it and be like, oh, there's no way, I'm going to have that.

Speaker 3: 37:35

It's like calamari they're looking at it shaking its head. It's something that just if you you know you can, it'll go chewy very easily if you don't do it right.

Speaker 2: 37:43

I do like the honeycomb better than the other one. There's two types of trip or a tripe, but the one that I don't like is the thicker one. I'll slice that down and actually marinate that a little bit more, so it's a little bit softer, but the one that you and I've done it, so you should make that, because he won't eat it, and then I'll get there.

Speaker 1: 37:58

There you go. That's a way for you guys to get some food.

Speaker 3: 38:00

Look at his face. Did you see that one? Trichygery, yeah, that's what you're thinking Trichygery, yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:06

Yeah, I'm not into tripe. My family, you know, growing up, you know they made it. I just not for me.

Speaker 2: 38:12

Okay so, but you don't want to do all talkers. You want to do like Mexican food though. Yeah, yeah, we got to, yeah. I should say Ryan wants to come on for that one, like cooker for Ryan Manning.

Speaker 3: 38:22

Oh, my God.

Speaker 2: 38:23

Okay, bring him. You know, yeah, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know where he's working now, right, yes, I do Okay.

Speaker 3: 38:28

Yeah, he's a great guy. Yes, I do, yeah, I do yeah. Oh, my God yeah, this is great, I can socialize work eat all right, here I'll have to reach out to Ryan Amy.

Speaker 1: 38:41

do you not see what?

Speaker 2: 38:42

we're building. I'm here. Has it Ryan's study?

Speaker 1: 38:44

It's click right, like you're gonna well get one. Let's do this.

Speaker 2: 38:49

Yeah, Ryan studied in Mexico for a long time.

Speaker 1: 38:51

Better than one chef.

Speaker 2: 38:53

Yeah too, so we can spoil the stock Right yeah, let's make it. We might as well have Alejandra come in from Mexico City, because she can make tamales and there the shime tamales. And she's right with me, I can never eat tamales again.

Speaker 3: 39:03

Welcome to the table. I'm for all of this, I'm for you. Everybody's cooking. I'm eating the food.

Speaker 2: 39:09

Oh, you're like Carl.

Speaker 3: 39:11

I don't have food fatigue today, I only have breakfast.

Speaker 2: 39:15

I don't get food fatigue. Carl never gets food, by the way, that was.

Speaker 1: 39:18

John yeah, that was John making some reference there that you never stop eating, Right? Yeah, Listen, I enjoy. I was like so. Before everybody arrived here today, John and I were having a conversation and I made it clear to him that I really enjoy these days, Not just for the food I'm getting fed, but it's just like it's the whole camaraderie. We're having a great time. It's the cooking, the picture, the whole thing. Man, it's just a fun day.

Speaker 3: 39:47

It is.

Speaker 1: 39:50

The colder you get. It just seems like that window of fun days really shrinks right. So you want to really grab on to what you got when you can get it, and that's you know, wait, amy and the rest of the listeners, I'm going to call something out.

Speaker 2: 40:04

He texted me on my way and I had pulled up and he goes. I texted you because I was really starving.

Speaker 3: 40:10

No, seriously, I'm really hungry. I was wondering when you were going to get here. He just lied Are you bringing food? Are you picking? Something up on the way that I can eat while you're cooking me other things to eat. Wow.

Speaker 1: 40:23

OK guys.

Speaker 2: 40:24

I slept two hours and it's 40-something hours period and I walk up and I'm exhausted.

Speaker 3: 40:29

I think it's cute, it's cute, you're needed. You're needed and loved and appreciated. I appreciate it From a mensch.

Speaker 1: 40:36

I appreciate you. You complete me.

Speaker 3: 40:41

Now get in the kitchen. Exactly, but I ate it. Get in the kitchen and complete me.

Speaker 1: 40:48

So how do we find our friend over at the taco place?

Speaker 3: 40:51

Oh, over the border.

Speaker 1: 40:52

Over the border, you can follow them.

Speaker 3: 40:54

The best place is probably Instagram. Follow them on social over the border, tacarilla with the Q, and you can follow me, amy Drew amydr00, on Instagram and you'll be connected to all of the things that I'm writing about, including Samuel from Over the Border. And, like I said, tonight is their last pop-up of the month. So if you're in Winter Park and if you have nothing going on and you want some good tacos, get there for 6 PM to sell out. Get there early I would say at least 15 minutes early. If you can get there at 5 30, linger, hang out it's a good time they're cooking and get some tacos.

Speaker 2: 41:34

Does he do a lote as well?

Speaker 3: 41:35

He does mulitas and he does quesadillas.

Speaker 2: 41:39

And that's it. And then tacos, that's pretty much it. And what are the types of meats?

Speaker 3: 41:43

When I went, it's asada which is steak, chorizo which is sausage, and the pastore which is pork, and everything has a lot of the marinades are a little different but everything has that nice beautiful achiote red. The asada has that real grilled flavor.

Speaker 1: 42:03

The char. Right yeah, the char.

Speaker 3: 42:05

You can't replicate that, yeah it's wood or charcoal, sometimes a combo.

Speaker 2: 42:09

Yeah, we were talking when we were in Austin. Somebody was asking a question about tandoor. Can you cook tandoor even char, what you're talking about in a combo of it and we're like, absolutely not. First of all, you can't get a combo of it in a past 500. Second of all, if you're just not going to have that char, that wood flavor that you want on it, you're only going to get that with a grill or some other type of, even charcoal.

Speaker 3: 42:32

And that's what he said. He said when people tell me that this was one of the things he's like, people say, oh, this place, it's the best asada I ever had. And I go there and they're cooking it on the flat top and he's like that's, that's frying food. By the way, he's like that's not really asada.

Speaker 2: 42:47

So it's funny how we think we're doing something authentic and we're not paying really good props to the food, the cuisine itself. We're not showing respect to the cuisine.

Speaker 1: 42:57

That was not authentic.

Speaker 2: 42:59

No, I knew. See, that's. That wasn't authentic.

Speaker 3: 43:02

Oh, either, I know I've been chased away from the word authentic, but I can tell you that he said that's not the right way to do it. It has to have. Well, just for the record, Smoking, just for the record.

Speaker 1: 43:13

So my wife is Hispanic, cuban and growing up in Miami. I used to have conversational skills and I can pronounce just fine, but since being married and children and everyone, I just kind of like tune out when I get home now and I go out of my way.

Speaker 3: 43:33

This is what he meant about how he has less fun days. Yeah, this is totally it right here.

Speaker 1: 43:38

This is pointing to it. But no, I go out of my way. Does she still listen? No, nobody listens. It's a house of nobody listening. The kids know nobody listens. But I got my way to over pronounce in the most whitey, white boy way of every Spanish word. I do it on purpose, it's for kicks, I'm just saying it's like Grand Marsella or Marsella.

Speaker 3: 44:03

Right.

Speaker 2: 44:04

Or Cardamon.

Speaker 3: 44:05

Sometimes I hit it right and sometimes I don't.

Speaker 2: 44:07

It's all right. We're still learning my dad was fluent.

Speaker 3: 44:10

He lived in Cuba for a few years. But he was in the restaurant business and so he was never home, so I had nobody speaking Spanish to me.

Speaker 1: 44:18

I think the word tortilla I think people need to really accentuate that because it's probably the most it's tortilla, it's like such a sexy word for food. So when people are talking about tortillas, they should be like hey, tortilla, boom. It's like oh, my god, I want to have whatever that is, I want to have it.

Speaker 2: 44:38

But there's so many different aspects that we're dealing with, because we're talking about taquitos or tacos, but sopas. That's life changing, if you actually, because it's the small little ring and it has a divot in it.

Speaker 3: 44:49

If you get it with the masa, like fresh yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:54

If I didn't have to go home, we would be going to go check your buddy out in Orlando. Yeah, yeah for sure, but you can get that.

Speaker 3: 45:01

We'll talk about masa again and who's doing it right in Orlando, because it's like there's heirloom masa being made If people are wondering.

Speaker 1: 45:11

By the way, amy, I just want to be clear. Amy Jutomson is going to be bringing you, the audience, the hottest, baddest places in the Central Florida Orlando area. Ok, so you need to tune in. I'm going to tortilla Everyone has to have a tortilla. But going forward, we're going to get forward on the schedule, right, and I want to be able to publish the schedule. This way people can come in and tune in when they know you're on. It's fear of missing out FOMO.

Speaker 3: 45:50

As the kids say. By the way, I know a guy that's actually growing Jimmy Redcorn.

Speaker 1: 45:55

I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 45:56

Jimmy Redcorn. I know a guy that's growing it.

Speaker 1: 45:59

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:01

Of course it's you. It's an heirloom. That could that? Somebody had a picture. Was it you that had a picture of the Redcorn, or somebody else on my Facebook? I?

Speaker 3: 46:07

had pictures recent, not that recently, of like beautiful white, yellow, blue, red. I mean they look like gemstones. It really looked like jewelry.

Speaker 2: 46:16

So you want to go with an heirloom corn masa meat? What is that? These?

Speaker 3: 46:20

are varieties of corn that grew in Mexico in the way way back, that are being cultivated by family farms and brought back in ways some of them never left. Some of them are being brought back and there are companies this is not straight out of my current wheelhouse so I don't have it right there at my fingertips but there are a couple of companies that are importing these heirloom corn through through a single distributor thank you that supports these particular family farms in Mexico, Keeps them growing.

Speaker 2: 46:57

These things supports the families, so these are not been altered genetically modified. They're not genetically modified.

Speaker 3: 47:04

Enrique Oliva they're used from Central right in Mexico.

Speaker 2: 47:08

He's the one that kind of reinvigorated the actual heirloom corn because it was being killed off because of the GMO corn that's being brought into Mexico. So he's actually got with farmers that in different level of ations of mountains that have different types of corn growing, that could be once the same blue species or Jimmy red corn that could be in one part of Mexico but as it goes up into elevation or soil it could be different. So you can actually have that same heirloom corn but tasting different because of where the region it's coming from, just like San Monzano tomatoes and the regular tomatoes Coffee, anything, yeah.

Speaker 1: 47:45

That's wine.

Speaker 2: 47:48

Yeah, but it's not all natural when you're talking that's an organic. What she's talking about is one that's organic, so it can't be generally genetically modified, so on and so forth. So it's better for you, and there's so many varieties shades of red, shades of blue.

Speaker 3: 48:00

It's different. You can put like three or four different colors. It's the same color and then you see that they're different. Large colonel, smaller colonel, like that.

Speaker 2: 48:09

Yeah, it's really cool. I mean, just that really amps me up because it gives that flavors, and not only flavor, but gives you color on the plate. So you're doing something that's totally different. And John just got amped up because I said color, because he loves different colors on the plates.

Speaker 3: 48:23

Oh my gosh, those make for great photography. I'll show you guys the story that I did a while back.

Speaker 1: 48:28

I wanna hear back from the audience If I think what I really wanna do is to have a photography focused, food focused podcast one day episode, to where that's what we're doing.

Speaker 2: 48:45

No, no, no, to talk about it. Oh, you mean, you're gonna have someone like him talk?

Speaker 1: 48:48

Yeah, I would like to have some topic on food photography. Yeah, him, not me. I'm not a photographer, he is. I mean, I'm an iPhone photographer.

Speaker 3: 48:58

I did a story on that a few couple years back. The camera eats.

Speaker 2: 49:02

First we were just saying it the entire week, every time oh camera eats first Yep Every time. That's brilliant. Yeah, I've never heard that before. Brilliant. Think about it when you go out to do it next time. I just gave you the props on it, you two. But no think about when you go out Now you're gonna see it all the time that existed before me, I never heard of it.

Speaker 1: 49:22

Anyway, you guys, this is a tough room, I tell ya.

Speaker 2: 49:25

What I'm saying is now you're gonna think about it all the time when you see people doing that.

Speaker 1: 49:29

Yeah, camera eats first.

Speaker 3: 49:30

Actually, I eat first, I still feel like a tool taking pictures of my food in a restaurant, Even though everybody does it. I feel like I've said that everybody who's listening to this, who knows me, she always says that I do. I still feel like an idiot taking pictures in a restaurant. I feel like I should just be appreciating the food, but that's what I do.

Speaker 2: 49:49

You are really appreciating the food because you're taking a picture of the art.

Speaker 3: 49:53

I know that's a nice way. I still feel dorky taking my camera out and taking pictures getting up moving the plates around, got us to by the window, the lights, go.

Speaker 2: 50:01

I don't go that far, but yeah, yeah, that's funny.

Speaker 3: 50:04

Yeah, no, john's not gonna get me Because and this is one of the things that I learned when I did that story with people who are really really good at taking food pictures Because I needed to up my game.

Speaker 1: 50:15

Well, I'm here for this whole thing. He just wants to eat the food I do. Well, you know what? I wanna take pictures. Well, I want John to take pictures of the food. I want you to cook it, I wanna eat it and I get to talk about it.

Speaker 3: 50:28

Well, I wanna do a better job when I'm doing Instagram or any of these posts, because that's what people see, right, they see the tacos and they go. Oh God.

Speaker 1: 50:35

I want that right. Honestly, I'm on 12 different social media platforms and I see whether it's the guest or the chef. I see these horrendous, these pictures. They're horrible, but when you take a picture, you have to know what it looks like.

Speaker 3: 50:58

Oh, I do. I know when it's bad.

Speaker 1: 51:01

But they post them anyway and I don't get it. And sometimes I want to have a cocktail and I reach out to that person and be like look, Can you drunk dial them?

Speaker 3: 51:11

Yeah. I want to drug text. Give them photo critiques yeah.

Speaker 2: 51:13

But here's the thing and this happened to me Keith and I were talking about but you're saying you have to have the support group around you that will say, hey, you know what you can do better.

Speaker 2: 51:24

Friends, don't let friends post that, right you know how, that when you're walking out of the house, you're like, maybe do the last mirror check before I leave and do I look like poop or not? That's the same thing with the plate. Is that too busy? Is it this, when you're doing things and you don't have people around you that are going to question you in the right, proper way I have to point that out that can say to you hey, you're better than that, I know you are. This is what about this texture, what about that texture? You can learn from one another.

Speaker 1: 51:50

You're saying that I shouldn't reach out to someone to be like hey, Schmendrick, what?

Speaker 2: 51:54

are you doing? Well, you can, but here's the thing why You've got to give them. Let me show you what we do. Here are things that we can do, and this is what level you should be at, and how do we get you from where you are now to here.

Speaker 1: 52:06

So what you're saying is, we would go and say, hey, let me show you what we do, so you can go jump off a bridge.

Speaker 3: 52:12

No, man, come on.

Speaker 1: 52:13

No, we're never going to match what we do, dude, kind of like a big deal, I know, but you're still trying to help people. Yes.

Speaker 2: 52:20

And you're still trying to call out. And if they don't know they're doing wrong, then how do they ever know?

Speaker 1: 52:24

I'm taking a newspaper and wrapping against their nose. You know what I mean. Well, you should you know like stop it.

Speaker 2: 52:31

You still have to do it in the right way at the bottom line. You still have to have a support group that you can count on and say hey, does this like poop?

Speaker 1: 52:38

It works, I just think that I feel like there's got to be more to it than that, because you, like I said earlier, you know when you have a crappy picture how can you still post it.

Speaker 2: 52:50

Some people don't think it's a crappy picture, though. That's the problem, and here and I'm going to throw this out and I know he's going to nod the head no one should be taking a crappy picture with the quality of cameras that are in phones right now. There's no excuse. Yeah, absolutely not. Well, I have to buy this. No, you don't. You have a $1,200 phone that has a pixel camera. Whatever it is, you just learn how to. You need to learn how to use it.

Speaker 3: 53:12

Bottom line. That is true I have. I have an old credit phone and I could learn how to use it better. I could. It does not. It may not be like the current camera, but for what it was then I could absolutely do a better job with what I have.

Speaker 2: 53:25

You know, the first question would be like this there's just so much to do, right? Is that an iPhone 8? No, you need to upgrade to an iPhone 14. I can that? I'd say yes.

Speaker 1: 53:31

My phone 6.

Speaker 3: 53:32

Right, well, you have to get rid of it. I have Android equivalent on iPhone 8. Ok, you need to upgrade, yeah.

Speaker 1: 53:37

Switch companies all together.

Speaker 3: 53:40

I'm like a real journalist, not a TV journalist. People listen, I don't have the money for that.

Speaker 1: 53:43

Because John doesn't talk right. Composition is really important, Lighting is really important.

Speaker 2: 53:50

Oversaturation Not so important.

Speaker 1: 53:53

Stay away from the saturation, carl, I do that for him. I don't Shout out.

Speaker 3: 53:58

You could just eat all your meals at Doshi in Orlando, where you cannot take a bad picture. I swear to God, whoever designed the lighting in there was like make it perfect for everybody's Instagram. Every single picture I took in there with this crummy camera was like I mean, I shudder to think what you could have done in there, because every single picture that I took was absolutely gorgeous.

Speaker 1: 54:21

Yeah, but when John goes to dinner he brings like his whole studio Lighting stuff he brings like big lights and the ring and the this. Yeah, he brings everything when he goes out to eat.

Speaker 3: 54:32

I need to remember to do that.

Speaker 1: 54:33

That's what real photographers do they bring all of their studio equipment to the table.

Speaker 3: 54:38

Usually I'm just like hey, I took you out to dinner. Can you shine your camera light on my plate?

Speaker 2: 54:42

You know it's funny, that's why I was going with that. Do you remember Tampa Food Mom was there at our event and she actually had a mini camera or mini light that she said John, hold the camera, not that John, John, her husband, Hold that up. And she put the light over it. So he or he did so she can take the proper picture. So when you're into it, they're going to do the right thing.

Speaker 3: 55:02

I have one of those now. I just forget to bring it with me. It's a whole way. It was a Christmas gift, so I'm going to bring it. It's not even it's this little.

Speaker 2: 55:09

It looks like a beeper. Yeah, to be to be honest with you. And it's just a light, and they hold it up and then boom.

Speaker 1: 55:14

John's got. Of course John's got one. Yeah, of course he does.

Speaker 3: 55:17

Explain what a beeper is for the people who are younger than us, please. It was.

Speaker 2: 55:23

Do you want anybody younger than?

Speaker 3: 55:25

50?. I just feel like we should just bypass.

Speaker 1: 55:28

Just drop it. Do you move on?

Speaker 3: 55:29

Yeah, I just realized what I said, goodness gracious, all right, you didn't call it a pager, pager, pager.

Speaker 1: 55:36

Wow, paging Dr Love. Well, that's what they would have thought it, oh what are they talking about Pagers beeper?

Speaker 2: 55:43

They probably thought them up it.

Speaker 1: 55:46

Beaker. By the way, Everybody. Just I can. I can see collectively everybody's switching off the podcast right now?

Speaker 2: 55:52

No, they're probably wondering like he's really tired.

Speaker 3: 55:54

Everybody. They're Googling beeper.

Speaker 1: 55:55

Beeper is trending.

Speaker 3: 56:00

That's OK, wow, all right.

Speaker 1: 56:03

I think we've hit the. We hit the wall. Ok, so, amy do, thompson, when we get off air, we're going to talk about when you're going to come back and I thought we were having tacos next week.

Speaker 3: 56:16

Oh my god, yeah.

Speaker 1: 56:17

OK.

Speaker 2: 56:17

That's what she wants to come back next week. I want to come back for tacos, I'll be here.

Speaker 1: 56:21

I'll be here, I'm here. Oh yeah, they're playing you out. They're playing me out. Go ahead and give your your Instagram again.

Speaker 3: 56:30

Follow me on Instagram. Yes, amy Drew, it is AMYDR00 because my name was taken and double O's are cute.

Speaker 1: 56:39

Indeed, and the name of our taco friend.

Speaker 3: 56:43

Over the border. Takaria Also on Instagram, and you can find him elsewhere too.

Speaker 2: 56:48

Don't forget to vote Right. It's voting going on, that's right.

Speaker 3: 56:51

Orlando Sentinel Foodie Awards. Make your vote count.

Speaker 1: 56:55

Eat the vote. Baby Eat the vote. Right Eat the vote. I mean like rock to vote, but no.

Speaker 2: 57:01

Oh, wow See, that was stick with the fuel bro.

Speaker 3: 57:04

Next round we'll get here for the nominations phase and then maybe we can shake some things up.

Speaker 1: 57:09

Oh yeah, everybody. Thank you, kindly Check out chefs, check out Peninsula Food Service in central Florida. You must do it, we are out.