The Matt Chambers Show
Welcome to The Matt Chambers Show, where we explore the world of traveling, living and doing business internationally. Hosted by Matt Chambers, this podcast connects people, places, and ideas, offering inspiring stories and practical insights to help you design a life beyond borders. Whether you're seeking adventure, remote work tips, retirement ideas, or entrepreneurial guidance, each episode brings you closer to turning your global dreams into reality.
The Matt Chambers Show
Culinary Art in Alaska's Wilderness
What does living in the vast wilderness of Alaska teach you about love, life, and the relentless dance of seasons? Join us as we uncover a heartfelt story of a cross-continental romance between the United States and Scotland, which found its home amidst Alaska's majestic landscapes. Our guest shares the unique experience of adapting to Alaska's extreme seasonal shifts, finding companionship in pets, and exploring the concept of home when loved ones are spread across continents. Prepare to be captivated by discussions on the revival of the woolly mammoth through genetic science—a topic that sparks curiosity and wonder.
From the serene beauty of Alaska, we journey into the rugged world of culinary entrepreneurship against the backdrop of icy winters and challenging conditions. Discover the resilience and innovation of a chef who transitioned from personal cooking to thriving food truck ventures in Alaska's demanding climate. Stories of intense working periods followed by rewarding breaks offer a glimpse into the vibrant food culture that persists despite the elements. The episode shines a light on the creative solutions required to keep the wheels turning in an environment that is as unforgiving as it is inspiring.
Our exploration doesn't stop there. We venture into the realms of health, dining, and beyond. Reflect on the unique fusion of traditional and modern culinary artistry and the creative use of Himalayan salt in event dining. Personal anecdotes about dietary trends, such as intermittent fasting and the carnivore diet, provide a humorous yet insightful look at the quest for health and balance. . Tune in for a rich tapestry of stories that connect cultures, challenge norms, and reveal the limitless possibilities of life.
Hello and welcome to Matt Chambers Connects, a podcast hosted by Matt Chambers. This is the podcast that transcends boundaries, empowers cross-cultural connections and fosters a more connected world. I'm your host, matt Chambers, and I invite you to join us on this quest to expand our understanding and build bridges between my two favorite places on the planet Latin America and the United States. I've been traveling, living and doing business in Latin America for nearly two decades, so how about you? What's?
Speaker 2:going on out your way. I'm assuming it's cold there in Alaska, right? Yeah, you know, we got up this morning and I'm looking outside and I'm thinking, why does it seem so dark this morning? And it was because the last couple of weeks we actually got a little bit of an icefall fall to say that we actually didn't have some rain, and then last night it clouded over, and so I'm sitting on the couch at half past seven this morning going, this seems so, so dark.
Speaker 2:And and you know this is what happens this is that we're right at the. We're right at the fall equinox, so we're at the peak of our, our, our time, our daylight loss. I think we're at, you know, five and a half minutes a day. So at the end of a week, you know you've lost another 40 minutes of daylight. You know this is when we're really losing it. So, yeah, so we're starting to lighten up a little bit, but still we're already on the. I mean, we're on the downslope. So come on December 21st, because a winter solstice means something to us, is that?
Speaker 1:when you're does it start. What happens on December 21st?
Speaker 2:So that's when the light shifts and we start gaining the light. So if you think of the bell curve, so what is it? December, january, february, march. So by March 21st we're gaining that five and a half minutes of daylight. So by March 21st, you know, now you've, you've added on 40 minutes of daylight at the, you know, at that week. So it just as it goes up and then it comes back down and it's, you know, so it's the it's. Now we're dropping fast. We've hit our peak. 21st of September It'll start to slow down a little bit and then, so by December 21cember 21st, you know we're only losing seconds of daylight. And then it starts, you know, creeping back up. So you think you know five seconds, ten seconds, you know it slowly climbs up to a minute. So however long it takes between december 21st and march 21st to go from seconds and on, you know minutes, on up to five and a half minutes or so, and then it starts, you know, dropping again. So it's yeah.
Speaker 2:So what took you to?
Speaker 1:Alaska. Where are you originally from?
Speaker 2:So my mom, the love affair of the century. My father met my mom at a wedding in England back in the 60s and then it was one of these. You know, back then it was the old, you know the par avion airmail, you know the thin, thin sheets of paper and the envelopes. And so they corresponded for two years and there was a trunk, a trunk full of letters back and forth between them. I mean I think they wrote to each other twice a day, every day. I mean it was just crazy how much they wrote back and forth. I mean goodness knows what they spent on postage. Of course it was cheaper back then, but yeah, Wait, so she was in Alaska.
Speaker 2:No, so my mom was in Scotland. She went down to a wedding in England. My father was best man, it was one of her cousins that got married. My father met her at the wedding and then they corresponded. Because he was still, he had been in Germany, he was stationed with the Air Force in Germany, america, and corresponded with my mom for the next two years, then went back to Scotland, married her, brought her to the US and they were in Michigan for about a year and then he said we've got to go to Alaska for six months. It was just six months and then ended up being, you know, staying up in Alaska for, you know, gosh, until, my guess, 90, well, into the 90s, early 2000ss. So and they my mom and dad had decided that they were going to move back to Scotland and they were getting ready and they were making the plans and then my father passed away.
Speaker 2:So now, now my mom is back there because she she would have been here on her own. I mean, I do have a brother and there's myself. And now we're both kind of saying, oh gosh, I don't know if we want to stay here any longer, but um, yeah, so my mom's back in Scotland, she's with all of her family, cause there's nobody in the U? S except my brother and I at the moment. Yeah, he's got a, he's got a, you know he's got children, but, um, I don't. And so, yeah, I mean, I don't have human children, I've got dogs and horses. Dogs, it's the same thing, dogs and horses yeah, Same thing.
Speaker 1:they just can't quite carry on your lineage as easily.
Speaker 2:I know, but they don't as far as we know right now Right, I know there's some weird things going on out there, though we don't want to know what's going on in the gene deciphering world, do we?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hate to, I absolutely hate to question it, because as soon as I say, hey, you can't do that six months later you know, I was just seeing something yesterday Some guy has, he's all but confirmed that he's bringing back the woolly mammoth. You know, it's been completely extinct for you know, I don't know how many years, but um thousands of hundreds, if not thousands of years for sure. I can't remember exactly.
Speaker 2:But yeah, he's bringing it back Like it's.
Speaker 1:It's confirmed that this guy is he's. He's bringing it back. It's real.
Speaker 2:See, no, no, you know, is that a good idea?
Speaker 1:I don't know, I mean I haven't looked into it enough to know. I mean I think at the outset, when I first see that, I'm like wow, that's pretty cool that they can bring back.
Speaker 2:You know, because there's some of those animals that I'd like to see in real life, I think.
Speaker 1:But I'm not so sure it's good for the overall ecosystem. I'm not real sure. Well, and I suppose as long as they're well contained, but you know you let something like that lose inadvertently. And then what? Yeah, exactly, yeah. I mean I don't know what happens if they get out there and none of these other animals are accustomed to seeing them and they're not accustomed to seeing any of the other animals.
Speaker 2:I'm not real sure how that screws up the overall food chain, but uh, it's gonna be gonna be interesting to see. I I saw something similar. It wasn't the woolly mammoth, but they were talking about the fact that you know the cloning of, and I know they're doing it with dogs and sheep and and they've started that a while ago, but they're actually there's a place in lond London that was shipping tissues over to Texas and then sending them back and then you know, when they were branching out past, dogs and cats is what it sounded like and I thought I don't know, that's so weird, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not sure I mean, there's one part of me I'm kind of like you, and there's one part of me I'm kind of like you. There's one part of me that thinks it's really interesting and cool and I'd like to see a woolly mammoth. But um, there's another part of me that doesn't know how that's going to affect things. I don't know right, right.
Speaker 1:It's very curious so I guess you know alaska. Let's talk about your, your food truck business. I mean, I know you're doing a lot of catering and stuff. Now Did you start out in the food truck business and then that got you into catering. I guess kind of they're one in the same in a way, right One leads to the other.
Speaker 2:Well, so originally, what happened? I came back to Alaska. I was actually supposed to kind of tour the world. I was going to go Australia and EU and probably UK and then make my way back and of course, when my dad got ill, I decided to stay put. So I purchased a raw piece of property didn't even have a driveway on it, and now there's the house. I'm coming to you from the hospitality building, which is 6,000 square feet. My kitchen is right to my side and I've got two large bed and breakfast, but they're full size. I mean, they're like two flats, they're two-bedroom, full living kitchen. I guess you can call me a kitchen hoarder, because I've got the house kitchen, I've got two kitchens upstairs and I've got the commercial kitchen. What a terrible thing, huh.
Speaker 1:But no short of cooking around here, then yeah, I was going to say you can cook whatever you need there. For sure I might wait till summer and come pay you guys a visit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly right. So no, I built out the whole place and then it was probably five, six years ago the food truck thing started to get hot as well. But I started with the catering and grew that and grew that over the years Originally I was a personal chef and then the people who had said, gosh, can you do our Christmas party, can you do a birthday party? All of those little things, a birthday party, you know all of those little things. And very early on I had worked with a restaurant in Anchorage that was really really high end, probably the best restaurant, I would say, in Alaska, not to be, you know, completely biased, but they were in Wine Spectator's, you know, top 500. They had done very, very well, considering as far north and as challenged as we are up here and you know they just.
Speaker 2:It was just really a fun outlet. They had a catering contract with the Anchorage Museum and that's where I got my first taste of catering and I thought you know, isn't this lovely? You work really hard for a few days. You're not serving the public at that point, you're just creating and building and expanding in volume. And then you put on this lovely show and everybody eats and they're all happy, and then you get, you know, if you don't have anything the next week, you've got a week off, you know. And then you play it all over again. I was like this is all right, because you can really work and then you can get a break. So I decided that the catering was really the way to go and, as we all know, exponentially, it's one thing to go to a restaurant and if you're serving four here and two here and six there and repeat, well, okay, but you've got to do that every night. Why not just do 300 on Saturday night?
Speaker 1:You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:You've got to be done for a couple of weeks and take it to the next day 300 on Saturday night. You know what I mean Exactly. So, um, really, I think catering, uh, at least in the food business and if you have a restaurant or a cafe or bistro, it's great to you know, if you love that day to day, no problem, um. But if you want to just really just hit it hard and then, you know, get that break, I think catering is the way to go. So, but that eventually led to the food truck, and the food truck was lovely. I mean, we had fun with the food truck. But a food truck in Alaska is a little bit of a challenge because I mean this morning now it's the 9th of October We've had snow on the mountains already. We'll probably have snow in the next three to four weeks and then it gets super cold and there's snow on the roads until April at least.
Speaker 1:So you can't really work during that time.
Speaker 2:You better have. Not in a food truck, I don't feel. I mean there are some trucks that still, you still see them going around, but I mean you have to have that thing really well insulated, because otherwise I mean if you've got your stove or your fryer or whatever it is you've got, you're warm, you know, from the, from the chest up, or because I'm sure I'm only five feet, so the rest of you is cold. You know it's like if you don't have heaters on the floor it's really freezing, because then you've got that cold air underneath you and you're standing on diamond plate and I mean it's really chilly. So yeah. Or if you got the oven on, well then OK. So you open the oven and now you're cold from your knees down, so, and then water freezes. You can't keep the water from freezing. I mean it's really chilly.
Speaker 1:What a hard place to live. I mean, I never had thought about it that way. I guess Everyone knows that it's challenging to live there, but I never really had thought about it affecting all the businesses for that.
Speaker 2:well, and a food truck is entirely different, because you're traveling around and the roads are icy and it's dark and it's, you know, unless you're putting studs on the tires. Most people and we did it as well, most people were putting their trucks away from probably september to may, so that's a long time to let the truck sit and not make any. You know you're not making any revenue on the truck. Now. You're going gangbusters all summer and then, of course, summer comes and goes, and then you, you know you didn't really get much of a holiday or you didn't really get to enjoy it because you're working so much.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so you're just holding up your, your, your holidays during the time of the year where you can't do anything.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right. I mean, food trucks are great in Portland. I mean that was their hub, they started out, so really great there. But they can work year-round. So if you want to take two weeks off or take one week off a month or whatever it is, you're still working year-round, that's not a problem. But I think you know, much further north of, say, you know the 50th parallel, it starts to get really chilly. So I just don't know if it's a really great idea up in our neck of the woods, so to speak, but around the states, yeah, it's fantastic. They can work year round. Really really great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was doing some research on that. The good ones make some serious cash too. It's not just a side hustle, it kind of appears to be right, like with the naked eye. It appears like it's just some dude on the side of the street selling some tacos, right, he's just making a few bucks to pay the car payment or whatever, but when you really look into it, the successful guys make serious money.
Speaker 2:Well, see, that's the thing. And again, opportunities in the lower 48 are just fantastic because they can go to the Hilton having a conference for two or 300, and maybe one or two trucks show up and they feed that entire group for three or four days. Maybe they don't work for a week after that because they fed that many people, or maybe they they do the conference for two days. It's only them, um, and if they're doing it right, you know they're serving people quickly. You've got to learn how to shuffle out the door very, very quickly when you're hosting for that many. And then maybe they do the wedding on Saturday, then maybe they're off for a couple of weeks. It just really depends. But yeah, it's again, it's the exponential factor there on the catering side, if you can feed a lot in a small amount of time, that's then you can chill for a bit yeah exactly, exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's how much work is involved in a food truck, like if you had a food truck only business versus owning a physical restaurant. I would imagine the food trucks less right In terms of managing inventory and all that I mean. You don't have most people don't have this big, massive menu where they need to buy 500 different items right and keep those flowing Right.
Speaker 2:Right, it's less staff, it's less inventory. You know, you can kind of unless of course you're signed up with say, maybe you're doing a Saturday market or something like that. If you're there every week doing something or some weekly thing, then obviously you've got to account for that. You know, if you're there every week doing something, you know or some you know weekly thing, then obviously you've got to account for that. But you're not doing the day to day grind in a restaurant. So I, I love the food truck for that, just because personally I don't, I don't want to have a restaurant and be there and tied to it, you know, six, seven days a week. That's just.
Speaker 2:But that's me personally, I prefer that. I prefer to put it out quickly, you know, once a week or whatever, and then be you know, be finished. But yeah, the food truck is just, it's much easier. Now the only thing I would say is that you know we have a full commercial kitchen here, and so we've got Four of them right, full commercial kitchen here, and so we've got four of them right. Well, four of them.
Speaker 2:Well, one commercial three residential right Because the fire marshal gets funny about things like that yeah, so if you've got the commercial one, then you may need storage. I mean, you may need to have backup fridges and freezers, and for us that was easy because we've got the facilities. The other thing on a food truck is if you're having to create and cook and clean in one little food truck, you might really narrow down your menu because you don't have a lot of space. At least for us, we could come back to the kitchen, we pull all the dirty dishes out, we wash them all here and we've got lots of space and you know plenty of room, whereas in a food truck I mean, think about it you've got, um, usually the sink. It's just the tiny little.
Speaker 2:You know there's a three, well, you have to have in that food truck, but it may only be, you know, 18 by 16. It's, it's pretty, it's pretty small. And so you know, if you're washing up a lot of dishes, you know, and you're, you're, you're holding tanks aren't going to be very big either. I mean, maybe you've got 50, 60 gallons Um, so then you've got to get more water or you've got to be attached Um, I mean, not that it's not doable, but when you have a big commercial kitchen, like I did, and then went into the small food truck. It was like, oh, wait a minute, we want to be like having our space in our room, so we would prep at the big kitchen and then just put everything in the refrigerators out in the food truck. So it worked out really well for us that way.
Speaker 1:So you're doing now you're doing a lot of weddings. It looks like weddings and corporate events out there as well.
Speaker 2:And we have for years. So, because it's so seasonal, usually May to September is the wedding time frame. There are some winter weddings, but not many, because it's just so cold, and so then we'll have fundraisers in the fall. Social events happen year round regardless. Social events happen year-round regardless. And then the corporate, you know the holiday, christmas parties. Our holiday season starts pretty much mid-November and goes all the way through the end of January, because, again, there's only a couple of weeks in between Thanksgiving and Christmas and everybody wants to have a holiday party. So it's not unheard of for us finishing up the last Christmas or holiday party at the end of January just because it just keeps going and people are busy or they say, oh, we don't want to try and squeeze one more thing in before Christmas, so they do it after Christmas or over New Year's. New Year's weddings tend to be a thing, so we do get a few of those.
Speaker 1:That's a thing everywhere, isn't it? I think so, I think so yeah, I wonder, why that I mean, I guess.
Speaker 2:I don't know. That's definitely a couple thing that they've decided, that that's something they want to do.
Speaker 1:I wonder if, when you receive that invitation, though, that there's going to be a New Year's wedding, when you receive that invitation, though that there's going to be a new year's wedding, if you're like a little angry about it because you're going to have to give up your new year's eve family to go see some person's wedding, or are you like, yeah, there's gonna be 900 people at this same place. This is now. I don't have to plan my new year's, you know I think I'd be a little irritated.
Speaker 1:I don't want to go to this wedding on New Year's Eve.
Speaker 2:Come on. Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. It's interesting, I don't know. Maybe taxes play a role in that one. Are they trying to get a tax deduction before the end of the year? I don't know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there you go. Never thought of that, yeah, so how are you bringing fine dining into non-traditional settings? Now you know? Notice on your website.
Speaker 2:So you know, if you just get creative, there's a million different things you can do. But in saying that, one of our so I don't know if you remember here, probably 10 years ago, eight years ago, the Himalayan salt, the pink salt, just made a big splash, yes, yes. So when that came out and we saw these salt slabs and bowls and things like that, you look at that and you go, gosh, what can we do? That would be sort of unique with that presentation, be sort of unique with that presentation. And you know, I think that was one of those things. You know, you wake up in the middle of the night, you get an idea, you write it down, you, you know, you fall back to sleep and in the morning you're like, what did I put down there? And the thought that came to me was to take medallions of tenderloin, and originally it was just to sear them on the salt, but we've since added sous vide into the process.
Speaker 1:I love sous vide.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you said that it really. It makes life amazing, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:um, it's, it's incredible. You know, I've bought like 10 of those stupid innova ones that are like 140.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I bring them in my carry on suitcase with me or my backpack where I have my computer and all that in, and they just keep breaking traveling. I don't know why I can't keep one around, but you know I bought one back in my house in Atlanta years ago and it lasted four or five years, something like that, maybe even more, four or five years, something like that, maybe even more, before I took it traveling, and then, for some reason, I cannot keep those things intact while I'm traveling, but they're incredible.
Speaker 1:I'll let you talk about the sous vide, because I want people to people that don't know what a sous vide is, to hear about this, you know that Anova.
Speaker 2:we've had quite a few of them ourselves. The original one, if you remember it was kind of a bigger, bulkier, sort of a heavier duty one. That one lasted us for probably six years before it finally bit the dust, and now they've made them smaller. I think they outsourced to China. So they're a little more.
Speaker 1:That's why mine are breaking Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, jewel might be the way to go. Look at, jewel might be the way to go. Look at Jewel J-O-U-L-E. See if Jewel might be one to try Either that, or if you're traveling with them, do you mean on the airlines? Because if they're throwing the bags around, maybe they're just hitting them too hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, something's happening with the travel. Most of the time, if I have a sous vide with me, I put it in the bag that I carry on, which is a backpack typically.
Speaker 2:I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 1:It may be just going from place to place so often that eventually something happens and it hits. You know it bangs up against something a little harder than I thought, and the next time I find it it's broken.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a bugger, that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't man, that thing's incredible, you know it's um yeah, you know what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it makes your food just absolutely delicious. So what we've done, and now what we do is we will take. So you know, and this is this used to be one of our um. So you know, and this is this used to be one of our um, they COVID, thanks, thanks, covid, um, but prior to COVID, we, we would be at an engineering office and once they discovered this, they could never let it go. So we would go in. We would start at 1130 in the morning and we would go to about two o'clock in the afternoon, and in that short time between the sous vide and two salt blocks, we would sear tenderloin medallions with a, you know, a red wine, demi or something like that, and we would serve up 250 people in that short amount of time. It was just amazing.
Speaker 1:With that little, small sous vide are you using? I'm assuming you'd have to use multiples or the big, huge industrial one.
Speaker 2:No, you know what works. So we get again. Here's the ingenuity. We take a cooler, cut a hole in the top of it, you put your water in it and you close that lid and that Anova because that the ones we were using put, slide that down into the hole and then, once your water is hot and it's keeping that entire cooler of tenderloin all in the sous vide, you just if you you open it up, you make sure you don't lose your you know your anava into the water. Obviously, grab a bag of, say, nine tenderloins and at a time, and we just pull them out, pop them right on the salt and keep going. Just amazing.
Speaker 2:And you know, the only thing that really screws it up is when you get that person, and you know there's always that person who goes I want it, well done. You're like, oh Lord, like there's no grills's december and alaska. Like you do, you don't have anything else, and you're like well, could you maybe come back in 45 minutes, because you know we'll leave it sitting on the side. You know, short of us pulling a sterno out, you know doing a fork thing and like trying to. You know it's like okay, well, we'll just let it sit and kind of keep cooking and and you know, but otherwise everybody else is loving it, because you know it's like, okay, well, we'll just let it sit and kind of keep cooking, and you know. But otherwise everybody else is loving it because you know it's a nice medium, rare or even if you want a few mediums, you know you can, you know maybe start with those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just leave it in a couple minutes longer, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's perfect.
Speaker 1:So everything I've always heard is true the chefs do get pissed when you ask for medium or when you ask for whatever.
Speaker 2:It's not that, it's just you just think well, one, it is a little sacrilegious to the beef, okay, we'll acknowledge that, but it just takes forever, at least in that presentation, because you don't have any other way to do it Like okay, what are we going to do? Go shove it in the microwave.
Speaker 1:When you say it's a little sacrilegious to the beef, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:Well, I just think that if you're going to enjoy a lovely piece of tenderloin, why cook the?
Speaker 1:heck out of it. Yeah, exactly, we don't want it like a pocky puck, right, you know, but you know not, but you wouldn't.
Speaker 1:You wouldn't believe, um and I don't know if it's a misunderstanding of food or people that just maybe just don't have experiences with anything else. But I've met so many people along my travels and even like in a small town where I grew up, a lot of people won't even eat it if it's not well done, and I couldn't. There's no way. If you cook me a steak, well done, I'm not going to eat it, right?
Speaker 2:Right no way couldn't there's no way. If you cook me a steak.
Speaker 1:Well done, I'm not going to eat it. Right, right, no way Right. There are a lot of people out there that, just like you know, I lived in. I've lived in South America for quite a while and, depending on where you are, you know some people like.
Speaker 2:Brazil, uruguay.
Speaker 1:Argentina. They understand meat very, very well.
Speaker 2:Yes, they do.
Speaker 1:But then you go to other places like Colombia, venezuela, sometimes, like you know, places like that and and these people are like oh my God, it's bleeding.
Speaker 2:It's bloody. I'm not eating that you know so um.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it's lack of education or just lack of experience, or what?
Speaker 2:You know, I actually think it's a bit of a generational thing. Um, we have, I have family in the UK and I have some aunts and uncles that are, you know, obviously in their 80s at this point and that Sunday roast needs to be cooked, so that you know you're shredding it and it is, you know, it is dark gray because it's got to be cooked that much. But to eat it, not cooked to that point, is is not, it's not done. If it's still, um, medium, it's just, in their eyes it's uh, yeah, that's not finished, so we've got to make sure we cook the heck out of it. So I think it's definitely a. I do tend to see that with the older generation, not to say that that doesn't happen everywhere, but if, if it's not, you know, maybe then it's mom and dad. Well, mom and dad did it like this, so we've got to do it like this. You know there's, there is that, you know, that goes on.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, I have this fight with my mom all the time about chicken. Um, and everyone from where I'm from in like small town West Virginia is where I originally grew up Um, but I haven't lived there in roughly 20, 20 years now, um, so when I go back there, everyone thinks, oh, you got to cook chicken to you know 165 degrees and then take it off. Well then, when you take it off it it climbs another five to 10 degrees right and 170, 175 degrees and you can't even chew into it.
Speaker 1:But people love that People want the chicken completely, you know, completely, just dried out and I can't do it.
Speaker 2:What we have started to do is we will even sous vide chicken now. Yeah, I did too. I've done it a million times, absolutely.
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Speaker 2:So let you know say, we've got chicken going out the door for 100 people at the weekend, we will spice it, you know, put butter in with it or oil or whatever it is, onions, garlic, whatever it is, and you know we will sous vide all of those and we will pre-cook all that, kill it, toss it back in the fridge and then when you go to reheat and you're doing it in larger pans you can literally shingle it, reheat it and just enough to heat it. But you're not, you're heating but you're not cooking it, and it works out perfectly. Now, if you go too low, you know, like, let's say, you cook chicken at 140, it's going to be very bendy and kind of slippery and that's not what you want to eat, because that's not right, that's wrong for your mouth, right. But if you get closer to the 150 mark and then getting closer because you've still cooked it, you're still above the 140, then you're not having the problems, you don't have to worry about any.
Speaker 1:You know, know, weird salmonella and things like that um so 140 for chicken is the cut off on, even on the grill or whatever 140 no, see you go, you go up.
Speaker 2:I'm saying we, we go from, like we go to about 145 in sous vide, but remember, we're putting it back in the oven. So then once we get it up to about 150 ish, even maybe ones, even if it goes to 155, if it's in a sauce, you're not overdoing it, you're reheating. So it's already. The proteins have already congealed. So then you still have a lovely piece of chicken that you can cut with your fork without making it into rubber. And that's the thing you don't, that rubber chicken. I hate that.
Speaker 1:I just, you know, like you said, my mom makes incredible, incredible fried chicken, but I beg her for mine to just cook it. You know, seven to 10 degrees less.
Speaker 1:But I mean, she has lines at the door when she makes this stuff, like people just love it and they want more and more of it. And I beg for 10 degrees less and she's like, oh, you're going to get sick, more and more of it. And I begged for 10 degrees less and she's like, oh, you're going to get sick. So we always go back and forth and have this battle. You know, like every time I get sick, if I just got a little little stomachs bother me today or whatever, it's just getting on, irritate me, probably cause you ate some raw chicken. It's like this. You know this banter back and forth. But yeah, this, wow, the sous vide is incredible and you know, I noticed on your website, man, you guys do some really, just really creative menus and presentations that I don't think I've ever seen anywhere else, like the the birch tree slices that I saw.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. So I guess that's a good thing about sitting on your own wooded pile of acreage here. If a tree comes down, we just go out, cut it up and, you know, sand it down and put some mineral oil on it and then we've got birch boards for our presentations. The other thing you'll see and this wouldn't be very obvious to you, but if you see anything with glass underneath it I am also a glass worker and I do kiln-fused glass, not blown but kiln-fused, so I will cut sheets of glass, throw it in the kiln do is we've got some blues and some whites and some irid clears, different shapes and colors.
Speaker 2:But if we take little Christmas lights with, say, they're white, with some like this, it's not glitter but it's like a tinsel, like a stiff tinsel around them. They're already sort of a pre-done Christmas light, so they're very bright and shiny and they reflect. If you put those under the glass and especially like the irid or the blues or the whites, all of a sudden that pops the color presentation. And if you put like a blue swag down, and if you put like a blue swag down now, you look like you've got icy desserts that are being displayed at the Christmas presentation time.
Speaker 1:You use those birch tree slices for charcuterie boards, and all that too, right.
Speaker 2:We do that, we do veggies on those. We do fruits and cheeses and everything on those, and then on the glass it's yeah it's.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of fun we really try to do. You know, recently I, um, I was doing the carnivore diet for a long time. Uh well, for about three or four months until I loved it, it was the best diet I've ever been on. My body changed, um, everything changed. I look younger, feel younger, all the above. And then I started having problems with gout.
Speaker 1:But during that process of just, you know, it's just steaks, right, you're just eating steak after steak, steaks and butter and all that. And so during that, I started buying these cutting boards. You know, because it just made the most sense. I would cut the steaks up, grill them, put them right back on, you know, clean the cutting board, obviously, and put them right back on. It just felt so cool, I don't know why. I just felt it just felt like it made sense right to be doing everything on the cutting board and I thought that was the coolest thing I had seen until until I just saw your bird street boards. So, yeah, you just one-upped me. Now I want to order a bird street board. Yeah, you just one-upped me.
Speaker 2:Now I want to order a birch tree board. Well, I mean, I'm sure you must have some woods down there that you could literally go to somebody and ask them to chop them up for you.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:And some really hard woods Hard woods that are almost rainforest-proof woods. Yeah, there'd be some really lovely things down there, and they'll have beautiful. I mean, we don't have any maples that grow up here or oaks we're too far north for that but gosh, how lovely to be able to slice those up and just see some, because those are different beautiful colors. So, yeah, yeah, no, that's yeah. And all that protein you know our bodies are protein, so when you feed it protein, you know you do feel pretty good.
Speaker 1:It felt great. You know I don't really eat a lot of breads and rice. You know any kind of complex carbs, yeah, any starches anymore, really anyway, so it was pretty easy to drop that part. I think that that's what most people have a big issue with is is, uh, the addiction to sugar, basically, and insulin spikes.
Speaker 1:Um, I didn't really have that cause I had been dropping those for years, but I did eat quite a bit of vegetables and fruits. Um, and then most of my protein was chicken, fish, turkey. I didn't eat red meat hardly at all, and then I got on this carnivore and they were like oh, you can eat butter and you can eat steak and whatever. So in Brazil they sell. You can buy the steaks individually wrapped, like you do in the U? S, or you can buy like the whole big thing, Right.
Speaker 1:Right and it's probably 30 or 40% cheaper to buy the whole big thing. So I would start buying this whole big thing and then just start slicing up my own steaks. Oh my god, I was having a blast with that and my energy levels through the roof.
Speaker 1:My skin was so much clearer and then I've gotten gout three times in the last five months and when you wake up and can't walk, you're like, okay, I guess I'll never had it in my never had it in my life and then so I'm trying to figure that out because, um, I really want to be able to to do that diet, but it's uh, I'm not sure if it's gonna work out for me you know I'd have to, I have to have to look at a few things about that.
Speaker 2:But that's a build-up of oxalates for the, for the gout yeah there's a lady on youtube that talks about how to.
Speaker 1:it's a build-up of oxalates and then those oxalates don't have anywhere to escape, so it essentially sends these little like glass shards into your kidneys and into your body right that it can't excrete.
Speaker 2:Did you take any vitamins when you were doing that carnivore diet?
Speaker 1:I was probably taken. Pretty much always take magnesium C B complex. I almost I take D Other than. That was probably it.
Speaker 2:K2. No K2. No K2. You were taking K2?.
Speaker 1:I wasn't no, but I heard that helps you uptake the magnesium right.
Speaker 2:So I had a problem with this 10 years ago. In fact, one of the nicest weddings in June that we were supposed to cater for, which we did cater for but I was home because I had made a trip to the hospital with a kidney stone that morning. So everybody else had to go to the wedding and I had to lay on the couch for almost three days. They said it was huge that you know I shouldn't have passed it, but I eventually did. But what had happened was I was taking the vitamin D and my levels were in the toilet. And because of us being in Alaska and not getting the sunlight and the regular vitamin D exposure, naturally, you know you think, okay, well, I'll just take some more. But what they never said at the time and I've researched this all since because of that you build up those oxalates and that will cause the kidney stones. So kind of the same thing with the gout. But you need the K2 to help break that down so that you don't end up with the kidney stones.
Speaker 2:Now, ever since then, now I do 50,000 units once a week on a Sunday of vitamin D, but I take that K2 every single day so that I don't have to worry about and, funnily enough, when I go back to see my mom, there's been one or two times I've forgotten my K2 and I'm like, oh, I'll be fine. No, no, you know, I know I've had a tiny little stone or I haven't felt good and it's because of that build up, of having so much vitamin D in my system. But I feel amazing because I mean, your body really needs and you need a lot of vitamin D, but I never skip the K2. So if you try it again, I would say try taking that K2, you know, to see if that helps for sure, along with the D3 and all the other stuff, huh.
Speaker 2:Right, right. And of course you know, and you're right, I do magnesium as well. The soils are all depleted. There's no magnesium in our fruits and vegetables anymore, there's just. The levels are terrible.
Speaker 1:Especially in the US right. It's all so unnatural now.
Speaker 2:You know, the US food is just absolutely atrocious. It's trash. It's trash, you know, you. You, you read the ingredients on the and we don't eat cereal, obviously, but, um, you know, for people who do, they feed their children cereal, and, and, and the list it's. It's that long of words you can't even pronounce. You know, um, all of the and the food dies. Don't get me started on the food dies. The food is just so tainted. In the US you take that same box and look at you know, in the UK they don't allow that stuff. I mean, they just, you know, it's not permitted, along with all the preservatives and everything else that's going into the system. So it's, you know, uh, and then we look back at the food pyramid that they did with the what's the us? Oh, that was, that was a big scam, that was, that was such a joke. You know, and and and the whole, um, you know, must have a know, the healthy breakfast thing. That was a whole you know thing as well, I mean.
Speaker 1:Breakfast Wasn't breakfast Wasn't breakfast. It was designed just to sell more of that crap, more cereals.
Speaker 2:More cereals. It's not the most important meal of the day. I don't even think you need it. Yeah, it's certainly not. And you know like, you know what. No wonder they're falling asleep at school. It's a sugar crash for them, you know?
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know I started doing intermittent fasting not not so long ago um, maybe six months ago. I started getting into that. My buddy told me he was like man, you're just taking in too many calories. You don't need as many calories as you're taking in, and so I started this intermittent fasting. Obviously, you know what it is.
Speaker 1:It is, but it's an eight hour window right, essentially at 12, like I would start at 12 or one in the afternoon, eat until eight or nine at night and skip breakfast. My body immediately shrunk up and I didn't really change anything. I wasn't doing carnivore at that time, I was just eating my normal diet, which wasn't really filled with a lot of sugary carbs or anything. But at the same time, if I had been doing that three or four times a day, like I was previously, I would have gained weight or not lost any for sure, and as soon as I started doing that.
Speaker 1:It was two or three weeks in. I mean, I just started going leaner and leaner and leaner and I felt awesome.
Speaker 2:And it's amazing that if you can curb your appetite that long and even if you shorten it up so if you eat at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and you stop at 6 or 7, even you just have that short window and then go again, because our bodies weren't made to just graze and constantly eat you know three, four, five times a day, and then people, that's it. Just that's always a little strange to me, that that you know people have got to eat three meals and then they're snacking in between. You're not giving your, you're not giving your pancreas a break. I mean, it's constantly secreting the insulin and, um, yeah, I, it's good to give your body a break from food.
Speaker 1:I mean yeah, that's great. I've again. I've only been experimenting with that intermittent fasting for the last, say, six months and and I haven't been super consistent the last couple of months with it. Sometimes I go out and I'm a little hungry in the morning and I'm not focused on it, so I'll grab some breakfast, Whereas before I wasn't doing that, I was forcing myself to wait until 12 or one. Um, but when I was doing it consistently, I've never felt better than the intermittent fasting and the carnivore, and both of those are the opposite of what we've always been taught. I mean I, I had people comment they're like man, you look so much younger. I mean within a month of doing those you know isn't it amazing?
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:And then I got this gal and I follow Sean, Sean Baker. He's a doctor. Do you follow him on Instagram?
Speaker 2:Uh, I don't, but I'll make a note of that, okay, you should.
Speaker 1:He was on Rogan, um Rogan, a long time ago. I think he's a cardiologist, don't quote me on that, but he he's definitely a medical doctor and he's really spearheading this whole carnivore diet thing going around the world talking about it, studying it, um. And so I started following him and that's where I came up with I'm going to try this diet. It looks fun and I mean it was life-changing within just a couple of weeks. And then again six, eight weeks later I ended up with with gout, if I can figure out how to. I've actually DM'd him a couple of times or not DM, but commented on his stuff a couple of times, because he's mentioned that people have had gout but really nothing they've said so far has stopped it, because I got it. Once treated it, it went away about a month later.
Speaker 1:same thing month later same thing, and so I just spoke with a doctor about it and he said he thinks I probably need like a six-month treatment of allopurinol, which is a medicine that excretes all that uric acid. So if that's the case, I don't like taking medicines, especially pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 2:Oh, we don't want to go down that road, do we?
Speaker 1:That's the thing, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because you know, as soon as they hook you on these things, they want you on it for life. It's terrible. So you know, I, I, I sure you know. The thing is is food is medicine? There's got to be foods out there, natural foods that you can take. That would would eliminate that and help relieve that. It's just need to figure out what they are. So be curious. Now you've got me curious about whether or not the K2 would help and the different foods that could help expunge that.
Speaker 1:Whatever you find, let me know. I would like to know, and I'm going to go down the rabbit hole with this lady they gave me on YouTube as well and see what I can figure out. I did read that apple cider vinegar can help with that, but then you know, you have to be careful, I think, what apple cider vinegar you buy now, because you know I was just. I don't know if this is true, I didn't confirm it, but they said that Bill Gates had bought rags or something and if that's the case, they had taken out there's, there's something that he took out of it and put some kind of artificial ingredient in it now. So it's just to build, you know, increase profits. So if that's actually true, then that particular apple cider wouldn't be any better than the pharmaceutical probably.
Speaker 2:Are you in South America now or are you back in the S?
Speaker 1:I'm in Brazil but I'm about to head back to Miami for several months, so I'm probably gonna leave next week. But South America, you find healthy food right. I mean the food's mostly natural right.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, apple cider vinegar. It's not hard to make. I mean, it's literally. It's literally get yourself a couple of large jars of um, you know, like the large mason jars, and get the. There's some very easy recipes. In fact we were making it during covid quite a bit. I haven't made some for a while, but I'll tell you that um on the bottom when you make it there, the sludge and and I can't think of the, I can't think of the technical term for it Um, there's a name for that. It's like when you have a starter for a sourdough, but it's when you do it with vinegar. I cannot think of the name Um, but literally it's very, very easy to make. So the thing is, if you want to source an organic apple, I wouldn't put it past bill gates, because that guy is, you know, he is looking to taint the world every which way possible. You know, and you know his vaccine stuff going in in south africa, um yeah, you know he is uh in medellín colombia.
Speaker 1:He put a mosquito uh farm in a mosquito right in downtown medellín colombia.
Speaker 2:I had a house there for several years and yeah, he has a mosquito farm in uh medellín colombia and this is, this is um I I I thought that he was doing um, he was manipulating the mosquitoes accordingly so that they yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he has he. I think it was three or four years ago. He bought a big, huge building in central Medellin, colombia, where they don't do anything but breed mosquitoes pretty much, and study mosquitoes yeah, no.
Speaker 2:It's real.
Speaker 1:I've asked people in Medellin and they're like, yeah, he has a mosquito farm here yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, he is. He is not good for humanity at all. He's a bad guy.
Speaker 1:He's a bad guy in every way. I agree you know, have you seen those fights between him and Elon Musk on Twitter?
Speaker 1:no oh my god, oh my god. It's incredible, because I'm a huge Elon Musk fan, because I think he's the opposite. I think he's trying to save humanity whereas the other one's trying to trying to kill us off. But yeah, musk gets on there and like puts pictures of him up being pregnant. It's like billionaire, billionaire fighting, billionaire, right. So he just totally tools on Bill Gates all the time, puts this big, huge caricature of Bill Gates up with his big pregnant woman's belly, just making fun of him for having that little pooch.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I'm going to have to go look that up. Oh yeah, because I think I mean God bless Elon, go look that up. That's oh yeah, because I think I mean god bless elon, he just he just donated all the star links to the people in the carolinas after the, after helene, so they can get connected again. I mean he, he definitely is, yeah, he's, he's definitely he's a good guy.
Speaker 1:um, yeah, he was. Um, you know, this is a once in a generation, or maybe even less, type of guy. That, that I truly think the guy's a superhero to some. Yeah, he definitely is a superhero to some degree.
Speaker 2:You know he was not real. Yeah, he's the visionary. I mean he was like Steve Jobs was to to, you know, apple and Mac and the iPhone. I mean he's got a vision and yeah. But but you know he's got a vision and yeah.
Speaker 1:But? But you know he's not just building a product, right? I mean, there's Steve jobs I love, no question, I don't want to take anything away from him. He changed the world with that product, but right. You know, this stuff that Musk is doing is beyond just building a, building a computer or a phone. I mean, this guy's putting people on the moon, he's building cars that we just never had before.
Speaker 1:Um right right rockets bring themselves back, right, they go to the moon, they bring themselves back and park themselves. Right now he's. Now we have internet all over the world, um, with starlink. I mean, what else is this guy going to do now? He's now we have internet all over the world, um, with starlink. I mean, what else is this guy going to do? Now? He's getting involved in government, which I think would be incredible and you know it's.
Speaker 2:I think it's time to really crack down these um, like we talked about earlier, that that, that pyramid and the usda and all that other stuff. Do you know? Yesterday I came uncorked because someone had posted that they were staying in place for Milton because they couldn't get out of the state with their animals, because they couldn't get health certificates. And for the love of everything in the world, to me it's like it doesn't matter. Why are we going for health certificates when the continent is all the one piece of soil? We've got to do the same thing. I have a little dog rescue and we've got to go through this rigmarole of it's $125, $150 for those dogs to go get a health certificate, to say, yeah, they can travel, yes, they probably maybe need a rabies and that, whatnot. But in a situation like that, you've got donkeys and horses and some cows and some chickens and a few goats, load them up into the trailer, get them out of there, but you're not going to let them cross the line because there's not health certificates. I'm sorry but you know what.
Speaker 2:In situations like that, all bets should be off. That's just not appropriate.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we just have too many government agencies, right, and that's another thing that Elon was mentioning the other day. He said that since the inception of the United States, we've created, I believe, two to three new government agencies per year. That the United States has been a country. He said that he thinks, by by his studies, that we can get by on less than a hundred, and so that's one of the things he wants to do is is trim that fat down. We just have too many people that are just bored and they don't have anything else going on in their lives and they're like you know what? Let's create PETA, exactly, exactly. Some bored guy's basement Like I'm going to done nothing cool in my life ever. Um, I'm going to create PETA, and I really think that's what happens most of the time, and then it just becomes a thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that like that. You know and I haven't looked at the you know the IRS tax code, but enough of that, you know. I mean you know the volumes apparently are. Are you know it would take you years to get through them. This is enough already. Splash everything, start it over, simplify things and eliminate half of this, because it is, it's just rubbish, completely overspending.
Speaker 1:Well, if you listen to Elon's new stuff, his whole thing that he's helping Trump with is he wants to go in and curb the overspending and then create what's called a government oversight committee.
Speaker 1:So anyone who wants to spend money, no matter what side of the fence they're on, would have to get it approved through this government oversight committee. So we just can't be throwing $250 billion at an unnecessary war without it going through this oversight committee. So it could be a really big deal. I think that this could shape up to really really change things, because you have RFK too and I know just talking to you, you're probably an RFK fan.
Speaker 2:Yes, I am. Yeah, I'm a fan of all of them. That's fantastic. I didn't realize that that's what he was, that that's what he's proposing, but you know what? Good on him. That's fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you get a chance, go back and check out the. There's like an hour and a half interview that Elon did with Trump on Twitter. And he explains what he wants to do on that interview, and then they both agreed on it. And now that interview, and then they both agreed on it, and now they're running on it essentially. But basically, if trump gets in, elon's going to take this position, and then obviously, rfk is already in, clearly yeah, clear up this stuff with usda, the fda, this.
Speaker 2:This makes so much more sense. I saw a little clip the other day, um on tiktok and tucker carlson was having a quick chat with elon saying that you know, if he didn't, if he didn't get in, you know he just interviewed him.
Speaker 1:You can see that interview on on Tucker's website.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. I only caught a little clip and I'm like, but now it's making sense what they said on there. I'm like, okay, now it, now it all fits, okay, yeah, you can?
Speaker 1:I haven't heard the one with Tucker. I saw several of the clips that you did, but I think that's an hour hour and a half interview on Tucker's website and you probably could skip that Twitter interview and just listen to that and it'll probably give you what you need. Yeah, I think, if things go the right way next month, I think you're going to see these guys really change the US, and you know something.
Speaker 2:I think it's high time. I hope that most people are starting to see the light and see where we've been, and especially after this Helene thing, because I don't know if you've seen it, but the reports are coming back that you know that there's no money from FEMA. The $750 is actually a loan, it's not a grant. They have to pay it back and if they don't, they'll seize their property. It's just. The whole thing is disturbing.
Speaker 1:I'm cool spending money. That's what we pay our taxes for but spend it in the right places, right. Spend it where it makes sense and don't send my money to ukraine exactly you know what? For the reasons that you send it there for right exactly, exactly, yeah so let me ask you um, how do people get in touch with you if they want to read more about your business, if, if they want to check you out?
Speaker 2:Well, culinaryilluminarycom that's. Uh, that was our launch this year and we are helping people get started in their own food truck or cafe or catering business or whatever it is they'd like to do, so they can pop on there and, uh, I think it is still working on a few. They're finessing a few things still, so it may not be, I didn't actually see that part.
Speaker 1:I missed that you were actually helping other people get into the business. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, um so um, that was. That was our clever little title that we came up with this year the, uh, the culinary Illuminary.
Speaker 1:So we're taking people who, um, want to ditch that nine to five job, um, or you know they, they're tired of corporate.
Speaker 2:America, for all the reasons we just talked about. Yeah, you know, and and let's face it, I, you know, food is food, is its own language, I mean. And it's just like, um, you know music or mathematics. Um, it's a fantastic, you know you're, you're feeding people and people come together over food. You know, look at a wedding Two families come together for the first time and eat together as a unit, as one unit. It's amazing. So, food is necessary and everybody needs to eat.
Speaker 2:But some people, I think, feel, you know, we've talked to enough people who say, well, gosh, I don't have time to go to culinary school, or I've already got a family and I don't know the first thing about business. Well, you don't need that. And you know, had this been around 25 years ago, I may not have gone to culinary school, but you know, I had a very good background before I went, but it's still. I think, for some of these people, they think they've got to go through all these particular hoops to get started and they don't need to do that. They just need to have the right mentor and the right coach to help them along and say, okay, you need to. You know A, b, C, d and F. You know that's just go through it and this is how we get you started. So it's, it's really a great, a great start for them, if that's what they want to do.
Speaker 1:Can they do that, even if they're not in Alaska? Can you help them?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's all online. It's all online, yep, and we spend a week. You know, once a week we get on a phone call. We talk about different things, everybody's at different stages, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Don't be in Alaska, be in Miami. Or okay, maybe not Tampa, but B not the.
Speaker 2:Carolinas right now. But yeah, Wait until next week for those two. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:What about social media? I assume you're active on social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've got, you know, I mean Facebook's kind of the default. Right now we're just starting to slowly build out the YouTube side of things. So that'll all come these next six months for sure, but for the moment, if they want to have a look, they can. You know, they can hop on there and see what's happening for sure, and see what's coming up. But yeah, yeah it's, I think there's, I think there's a need out there, because people and even if you do go to culinary school, I mean Matt, come on, I mean they're not going to teach you like, okay, well, how do you cater for a hundred people and what are the different things that you should do at? You know timing and logistics and and what should you not forget? And you know I mean all these things. So, yeah, it's, or or the business side of it, you know, I mean, um, you know how do you source, how do you?
Speaker 1:connect with vendors. How do you, how do you get the right pricing? How do you, how do you cost your food? I mean all of those things? Yeah, that's that's what we help. We help with all of it. So, yeah, that's that's incredible. I would assume that just quickly thinking about it, but I bet you at least 70% of people that own a food truck have no idea what a sous vide is.
Speaker 2:It may be even higher than that.
Speaker 1:It might be higher.
Speaker 2:You know, it's funny because even most people in the world, like we go to events and they're like, what is that? Like then you explain it and they're like they just they hadn't even heard of it. So yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1:And they're like they just they hadn't even heard of it.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's amazing, I had a lady that lived, uh, lived beside me and I had a condo in Atlanta right on, uh, I don't know if you know Atlanta, but right on Peachtree, piedmont in Buckhead, atlanta, and lived there for 10 years and she was my neighbor and you know my girlfriend at the time and her and her husband were uh, we had a bar on the top of our building and we were talking one night and she was talking about he was talking about how good her food was, and so one day she was like, yeah, I'll have you guys over, and of course, I think they were probably in their 60s at the time. I was in my early 30s, girlfriend was mid to late 20s and yeah, so it was fun like having those two age groups together and they were cooking for us. This food that she made was just some of the best food probably top 10 best meals I've ever had in my life. And it was just at her house, right next door, and I was like, how'd you do this? And she was like, oh, I use a sous vide.
Speaker 1:I'm like what the hell is a sous vide? And so immediately while I was at her house, I got on Amazon. I'm like is this the one? And she's like that's the one. I ordered it. And it was there the next day, and so we spent a week or two of her coaching me on how to use the sous vide I have never turned back.
Speaker 1:In fact, when I don't have it right now because I broke another one, I'm pissed about it, especially traveling too. That's what a lot of people don't understand is when you're traveling, you know it's beautiful to go in on Sunday and cook up 10, 12 pieces of chicken and just leave it in the refrigerator and in the next day you put the sous vide on what? 110, 115 and heat up your, heat up your chicken and I know right. Yesterday so.
Speaker 2:I know it's fabulous, absolutely there. So I know it's fabulous, absolutely so. Interestingly enough, I uh, I I don't know atlanta, but I just had a lovely conversation with um focus on hospitality here a few weeks ago. They are. He explained it and when you said that, petrie, um, they're planning to put in something called Bottle Bank and it's going to be quite the wine, a subscription wine venue. So with two or three kitchens and you can have some private rooms and you can store your wine. You can maybe have some course menus if you want to sit at the back kitchen. This is quite the amazing little thing that they're trying to put together. So, bottle bankcom you might want to have a look at it, supposedly coming next summer. Um, and right there on on that, uh, on that Avenue.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I would recommend if you ever get a chance, I highly recommend, uh, going to Atlanta for food. I mean, the food in Atlanta is just incredible. Okay, you could eat a five-star meal, every single meal in that place.
Speaker 2:It's especially in.
Speaker 1:Buckhead, right it's. It's kind of the Hollywood of Atlanta.
Speaker 2:They sell.
Speaker 1:just every corner has incredible food, so if you ever get, a chance Sounds fantastic.
Speaker 2:Well, I might be invited to do a little guest chef down there for them once they open Bottle Bank. Yeah, that sounds good. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:Well, I live there for the majority of my adult life, so if I can recommend anything in Atlanta, reach out, let me know, and I've got some great friends there, great people.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic. Will you make a trip back anytime?
Speaker 1:soon? I don't know. I that's fantastic. Will you make a trip back anytime soon? I don't know. I don't know exactly when I'll go back.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be in Miami for the next. You know I don't know how long.
Speaker 1:I just got a yacht license in Miami so I am now brokering yachts in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area. So if you happen to run into anyone who is looking to buy or sell a boat, give me a call.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to be doing that in addition to the podcast. Okay, looking to buy or sell a yacht?
Speaker 1:It's funny because I just noticed this. But when you say yachts, they are yachts. But when you say that word, people are thinking Donald Trump style yacht that's 30, $40 million or whatever it is Um but a lot of these, you know our average sales about a million bucks. So a lot of these are anywhere from.
Speaker 1:I mean, some of them are even 200 grand, I mean obviously you want to sell the $10 million one Um, but yeah, it doesn't have to be um a $10 million one either. So I probably should use the word boats um and and not uh. Not push off people that uh, that get scared of that yacht word what about?
Speaker 2:what about? Um, you know, a million dollar catamarans. Does that fit as well?
Speaker 1:no, all of them. We sell catamarans. We um. Right now. The brands that we sell mostly is YOT, which is yacht catamarans.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Pirelli, speed boats, cigarette, what else? Uh, fountain, we sell Invictus, which is a really cool boat, um a couple million bucks.
Speaker 2:There's several other brands, dutch, american, I just had a phone call and I can't remember the name. Do you know JT Fox?
Speaker 1:I know the name.
Speaker 2:Okay, there was a Catermans and there was actually you know what. I'll find it for you. I don't want to misspeak, but I'll find it for you. I don't want to misspeak, but, um, I'll find it for you when we hop off this call. But yeah, I'll get the information for you because that just, we just had a phone call about this the other day and actually they were um expanding on the catamarans and um and they need dealers and investors. From what I can see, yeah, let me know.
Speaker 1:And it's pretty cool too because it's a worldwide thing. So if someone in Italy or Saudi Arabia called me wanting to sell their boat, I can do it right, you don't have to be. It doesn't have to be in Miami.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 1:Someone in LA wants to sell their yacht that they have, you know, off the coast of California Boom.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, as long as we can find a buyer, so it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm excited about that industry. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me, yeah, let me, let me figure out some more. I can look that up shortly. So yeah, sounds good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we'll be in touch. I appreciate you coming on. This was incredible. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Matt Chambers Connects. Stay tuned for upcoming episodes where we'll dive deeper into these two fascinating worlds. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe to our YouTube channel, matt Chambers Connects. You can also find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts, youtube Music and many other major podcast platforms. So you don't miss a show youtube music and many other major podcast platforms. So you don't miss a show. Also, please join us on our social media channels so you can connect with other listeners and ask your most pressing questions and also tell us what types of guests you'd like to see on the show. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time. Thank you.