Deborah Keane, No-Kill Caviar Queen

The Banter

The Guys talk about the joys and heartbreak of urban and suburban gardening. 

The Conversation

The Restaurant Guys get expert advice about the goings on in the world of caviar from Deborah Keane. She is a pioneer in sustainable caviar farming and is changing the game again with her no-kill caviar. Hear how tradition, politics and technology have all played a role in the caviar we have today and the extracted version we can have very soon.

The Inside Track

The Guys get to ask Deborah about an age old tradition of keeping metal away from caviar.

Francis: There's an old kitchen rule that you never touch caviar with a metal utensil. So we have these mother-of-pearl spoons with which we serve caviar. Is that true? And if it's true, why?

Deborah:  So I will start with the king of the culinary world, Jacques Pépin. He says to me, “Deborah, the caviar is never long enough on the spoon to make it make a difference.”  And he's right! So use whatever you want. 

-Deborah Keane on The Restaurant Guys Podcast 2025

Bio

Deborah Keane, dubbed the “Caviar Queen”,  built a complete, vertically integrated spawning-to-serving enterprise and is a leading pioneer in sustainable fish farming. She is the first female-owned and operated caviar company in the world and the first female fish farm owner in the state of California, California Caviar Company. 

She is on the cutting edge again harvesting caviar using a no-kill method.

Info

California Caviar 

https://californiacaviar.com/

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Transcript

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_145054: 0:50

Hello everybody and welcome. You are listening to the Restaurant Guys. I'm Mark Pascal and I'm here with Francis Shot. Together we own stage left in Catherine Lombardi, restaurants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. We're here to bring you the inside track on food, wine, and the finer things in life. Hello, mark. Hey Francis. How are you? I'm well. I'm back in the restaurant, guys. How, how bad could I be? Sorry, I ran through that a little quickly'cause I'm so excited to talk about Caviar. Okay. Oh yeah. Deborah Keen is gonna be joining us later. She is known as the Caviar Queen, been dubbed the Caviar Queen by the media. We had her on the show. 20 years ago. She's tremendous. And, uh, we can't wait to talk to her in a moment, absolutely. Let's, uh, let's chat a little first before we, before we invite her to join us. Sure. Uh, well, one of the things I wanna talk to you about is, is this time of year, I love the time of year when I. The things I've planted are starting to come up. Right. Okay. I I, I just, there's something about it. It's, it's exhilarating. Uh, well, and for Mark, as I recall, I just wanna interrupt. This is the time when, between when the things start to come up and before the squirrels harvest them beneath them. So that's a perfect, really sweet time for you, as I recall. Well, it's funny because as I get older, you know, and I know a lot of people love to plant flowers and plants and trees, I. I discovered I only like to plant things that I eat. That's interesting. I don't, I I have no desire to plant flowers or shrubs or, and watch them grow. I, I, I just want to plant shives and zucchini blossoms and it is not surprising, but it's interesting. Well, I know you plant a lot of, lot of, lot of pretty things as but you also plant Yeah. Sage and, and all sorts of things and come Well, so I plant on a roof, come up. Uh, urban, suburban. Mm-hmm. I plant on a roof. You plant in a backyard. Yeah. I have less problem with squirrels because they can't get outta the elevator. Yeah. It's really, honestly, it's the rabbit and the deer that more than the squirrels these days. The, the deer almost never get up on my fourth story roof in Jersey City. The reindeer, you only get reindeer. That's, that's you get up at Christmas time and they're only at Christmas time. Yeah, no. So, uh, yeah, no, I have in, so I have a, I'm blessed. I have a fairly large roof. deck and all around it is. Mm-hmm. I have planters and, um, I have honeysuckle and some, I have some stuff for shade up there. Mm-hmm. Uh, but you know, there's nothing that grows in the ground that comes up. Well, you need shade more than I do too. Yeah. Well, the, the thing is growing, everything is purposeful if you're growing on a roof mm-hmm. In, in boxes. So I have one section that's all kitchen garden and what I plant there mostly just because being in the restaurant business, I'm not home to eat the tomatoes when the tomatoes become mm-hmm. Ripe. But I plant. Herbs and I mean all different herbs. And frankly, if they come, if the chives come in, I get a ton of chives. I just bring'em into the restaurant. Yep. I mean, most of my produce comes to the restaurant, but when I have a party, it is sweet to make the mojitos and the, and the mint. Juli, I, you know what? I don't plant, I used to plant a lot more stuff. Mm-hmm. And I used to plant. A lot bigger of each of the things mm-hmm. That I planted and now I plant the things I'm gonna use. Right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. A couple of tomato plants is plenty if, unless again, the squirrels, the deer, the rabbits get to them before I do. Yeah. a little bit of basil, you know, enough basil for when I harvest it, I can make a pot of, of gravy with it. That's, that's all I need. I don't need to plant a lot of stuff. See, for me, the other thing about the herbs is I. Whenever I cook, the herbs are there. Mm-hmm. Like the tomatoes are like, exactly. Okay. Almost ready. Oh, I took off, it's gone. This. Whereas if I have cilantro and parsley and mint and thyme and rosemary and chives, I never have cilantro. Yeah. I know you don't like it, but it's really cool to be cooking and say, I don't wanna confuse it with the parsley first thing, but that's true. Yeah. You don't wanna be surprised, but it's really cool to be cooking and I, I suggest that you plant herbs in your garden. Mm-hmm. Because if you're cooking, you'd be like, oh, let's go get some thyme. And you go, you go out and you snip a little bit of time and you snip a little marum and you snip a little parsley that really adds to your cooking. Again, what I, what's happened to me is I'm now just planting in, in planters on my deck. Mm. I, I stopped trying to plant in the yard.'cause Yeah.'cause the animals took, took. Wiped it away. Yeah. Yeah. and I You don't have to plant a lot of stuff No. To get a lot of flavor into your food. Yeah, a hundred percent. Anyway, uh, we're gonna be back in just a moment with Deborah Keane I'm talking about farm raised caviar and humane methods of raising caviar that are pretty interesting and pretty unique. And no, nobody knows more about it than she does, So stick with us. We'll be back in just a moment with, Deborah Keen and you can always find out more about all this stuff@restaurantguyspodcast.com. Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 5:10

Everybody. Welcome back. Our guest today is Debra Keen, making a return appearance on the show. Debra is one of the guests who was on our show when we were still on terrestrial radio and W-C-T-C-M, and that was when Farmed American Caviar was making its debut and she was at the cutting edge. Then she is called the Caviar Queen by the media because she. Still, still on the cutting edge today. She has some patents that are very important and make some wonderful caviar in California, and we're super happy to have her on the show today. Deborah Keene, welcome to the show.

Deborah: 5:39

you. Thanks for having me. Good to see you again or hear you again. And see you.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 5:43

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Been a long time.

Deborah: 5:45

Has, has,

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 5:46

Yeah.

Deborah: 5:46

we're still here.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 5:47

Well, we're,

Deborah: 5:48

I love it.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 5:48

we're, we are all still here. Uh, let's start this show out really simple basics. What is caviar? What can we call caviar?

Deborah: 5:57

Hmm. Great question and thank you.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 5:59

The Knowall caviar person. Let's go.

Deborah: 6:01

kind of back to caviar 1 0 1, which I love. Um, caviar could only be called caviar if it's from a sturgeon, and there are 27 species of sturgeon around the world, but there's only about a handful, about a six or seven of them right now that are, um, actually packaged and sold on the market.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 6:21

So there's six or seven caviar. From the United States or the six or seven Caviar's worldwide.

Deborah: 6:27

Worldwide that people are eating. You've got your Kaga hybrid now, which is a Huso Darkes shaky breed is golden Stai, which is Russian, et cetera. You have your Asay Pena Berry, which is your Siberian. You have your Asay Pena trans white sturgeon. If you hack back your paddle fish, sometimes you see a little starlet out there. You don't see it that much, and that's about it. there are, there aren't that many. We, I love the beautiful Assie Pence of Perus, which was the Iranian, I know that you guys remember that not a lot of people do, but that hasn't been in the country for many, many years. The who, so, who's so, which is the beluga is completely, on the, critically endangered species. There's 2 million of them left. They are farming it now. Um, you know, my friends got the fingerlings in from, Russia, in two th 2004, and in 2005 it became banned. So he couldn't kill them, sell them. Process them, milk them. He couldn't do anything with them. He just had to keep'em alive. And uh, so now he is able to spawn a few of'em, but I think it's$800 an ounce. And he's lucky he gets a, you know, few kilos a year. Um, it.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 7:40

wanna point out. I just wanna point out something that's very interesting in that often when we manage the environment, like when you are dealing with the environment, you, you have an ecosystem that is gonna respond in a way, five generations, hence from the choice you make in a way that you don't understand often. I. When we try to preserve something, wind up making it more likely to go extinct if we do it poorly. And sometimes when we, if we can create a commercial market for eating something can work to preserve it on the planet. And what you just said was, Y Yes. We should have w harvesting wild, uh, beluga caviar and Iranian caviar because it was going extinct. But when your friend got in the f, the fingerlings if he could then farm them and create a demand for eating that caviar and a sustainable way of supplying them, that's a way to make sure there are more of those species on. Same thing happened with the American bison. Let's save the American bison from extinction was they allowed controlled,

Deborah: 8:40

Farming.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 8:41

of American bison. Mm-hmm. And farming of American and American bison. No longer endangered'cause there's a market for the meat. And that's just so sad to me that they couldn't make the distinction between taking it outta the wild bad farming good.

Deborah: 8:55

They did in the United States. So in 2000, I mean 1906. White sturgeon was banned for commercial fishing. That's quite some time ago. So as a result, the white sturgeon is still on the threatened species list, but not the critically endangered species. It is not under investigation. Every other one of those species that I have named other than hack back and paddle fish, which was still the only two wild caves that are legal on the planet, every other one of those species is on the critical endangered list for investigation.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 9:28

But can still be farmed.

Deborah: 9:30

Can be farmed to this so far? Yes.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 9:33

So explain something to me. Okay. I see sturgeon on menus. People are still eating sturgeon. What sturgeon are they eating and should

Deborah: 9:42

Hmm. Should they be when it comes to sturgeon meat or are you saying caviar?

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 9:47

sturgeon meat? I'm talking about

Deborah: 9:49

Yeah, surgery meat is all farmed, so there's no commercial fishing or no commercial market for, um, any wild caviar. So one of the things that's really interesting for me as I fell into the caviar world, I came in in 2004 when all wild caviar was still legal on the planet, including beluga. Beluga became illegal in 2005. Then in 2007, I started my. Company because I got this phone call from a gentleman by the name of Jacque. When we started and, and, and that kind of catapulted me into doing my own thing. But at that time, the only thing I really knew was farm Sturgeon. There were only six farms on the planet raising sturgeon and only two producing caviar, both of which were in California. Both of which people don't realize is we are the birthplace. California's the birthplace for farm caviar on the planet. And so when we started back then, um. You know, the farming, you, you, you go through until four years and, and I'm, I'm sorry to say this, but we only need a few good men. In the sturgeon world, it's all about the women. And so all the males go to the market and so all the sturgeon meat you see in your restaurants is farm caviar on the market. It is not wild caviar and even back in the day when I was there, we did not have any uh, wild sturgeon on the market as far as meat is concerned.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 11:24

so what happened? What went wrong? Why did the the Sturgeon population collapse? Yeah. Why did it get so threatened in the sea? Why did it get so threatened in the first place?

Deborah: 11:32

Overfishing pollution, um, greed and, and and sturgeon to get caviar the size of a three millimeter egg. And because this is my breakfast today, egg that

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 11:44

you have nice

Deborah: 11:45

size, um, to get an egg this size, it is 10 years. They are six feet long, a hundred pounds, and you're, so when you realize before they can start spawning in, in the wild, if the water is colder, it's 15 years, it's much longer. So if you

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 12:02

Wow.

Deborah: 12:03

imagine. It's taking them 15 years to grow and, because they're brackish, they live in the ocean and they go upstream to drop their eggs. Well, it was really easy in the Caspian and the more river and the Black Sea and, and different parts of the world to just to cast their GNAs, catch the sturgeon as they go up.'cause they know they had eggs. And then the babies. So it was easily depleted. Uh, we controlled ours back in the early 19 hundreds. That did not happen until ces, which is a convention on international trade for threatened and endangered species. they are the ones that created in 2011, the all wild C would was illegal. Um, and that was around the world. Russia and different countries were not regulating their species. Um, and, and the, the threatened and endangered species for that matter. So the, uh, un on, um, animals stepped in, which is ascites organization, and they stepped in, they said that.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 13:07

So what's happening now in, in the CASP unit? Is there, is population returning? Is pollution still too big a problem? What? What's happening?

Deborah: 13:15

Great question. Well, it depends on the country, right? You've got five Tristan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Russia, all around the Caspian. Um, and some countries are doing better than others. I understand Iran has done much better than, uh, some of the other countries. However, Russia, on the other hand, what it did is the minute you make something, uh, legal, it has so much more value. So the poaching got really, really, really excessive. And um, I mean, I think you probably remember when, when we first met, when they started the ban and really started to clamp down on the sturgeon. There were so many. Poachers being arrested, making caviar outta their garage in, out in the, in Richmond. You know, there was a ton of that happening and it was always in the newspaper. You don't see it as much, you don't hear it as much because there's a lot more caviar on the market. There's different types of Cary on the market and it's, it doesn't have its street value as much, but it, it. It's gotten so bad. As you know, I've been all over the world making caviar from, uh, Abu Dhabi to Germany and China made carry all over the world. I was in Italy, I won't say where, and there were, uh, a handful of Eastern European gentlemen making farmed legal caviar and putting it into mason jars to sell on the black market.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 14:44

Oh, to pretend like it was, was, uh, illegal.

Deborah: 14:47

Exactly, exactly. So basically there was, you know, when something's really hard to get and it is a staple and a sign of, you know, it's a staple in, in, in Russia for, for their diet. Um, but at the same time as a sign of prestige that can go for quite a bit of money on the market. So.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 15:10

Wow. amazing. That is amazing. The counterfeits worth more than the real

Deborah: 15:13

Isn't that incredible

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 15:15

a re there's a related story that Mark, I need you to tell. We've told that on the air before, but it's super germane about the, the chef. You went talking about Chilean sea bass and you're like, why is this still on your menu? Was it swordfish or was it? Oh yeah, it was Chilean sea bass. Yeah.

Deborah: 15:26

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 15:26

And I went to a restaurant, this is 20 years ago when they had just started issuing the warning when people, sea, sea, when we fi first started, realized that Chilean sea bass was being overfished

Deborah: 15:35

Mm-hmm.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 15:36

and it was time to, to shut that down. And I was in a restaurant. And I said, I, I see Chilean sea bass here on your menu to the chef, to the chef. You know, aren't you, aren't you worried about, know, serving Chilean sea bass? He goes, yeah, the world is gonna be fished outta this stuff in five years. So I figure I gotta buy as much of I can right now. now, I'm never gonna be able to have it again.

Deborah: 16:00

How much I.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 16:02

Yeah. amazing. Alright, so, alright. So I just wanna go back a little further in history'cause we are totally geeks on this stuff and you know, you read about caviar being part of, in Russian literature, it's been part of Russian cuisine for so long and one of those rare things throughout Europe, around the so I remember w watching the, the Jackie O movie where Aristotle Onassis is on this yacht, and, and he has like a, a monstrous bowl that probably has four pounds of caviar in it, and he offers it to his guests. Um, so it's been, it's been a staple in, in literature and culture for a long time. Russia not known for managing its resources for a hundred years. How did they ke, how did they keep it from becoming a crisis, like the world with caviar through the eighties and nineties? I mean, it really only became a crisis in the nineties and aughts.

Deborah: 16:51

you know, they have quite a large population of different species in Russia from the, uh, Siberian as well as the um, ASI Pensa golden study, which is the Russian, et cetera. So I think. They substituted. the depletions were much lower than, um, they led on and they were putting what wasn't caviar in a lot of jars and selling caviar. made boin, which is a fish, and it, you know, it's pennies on the dollar. Confederate, Russian.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 17:24

Mm-hmm.

Deborah: 17:25

I, I once received a dyed white fish. Dyed, like with this squid ink. Whitefish is from the Great Lakes and it's just, you know, kind of like bleak road, just white, it's yellow. And I had to say, thanks for the dyed whitefish. They'll send me some hackleback thinking that they would be able to get it past me not knowing. And the average consumer doesn't, sometimes, you know, they don't, they buy what they buy and they, they don't know.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 17:51

I also think that there probably, there was less of a, a, an appreciation. Um, it was very, a very narrow group of people in the United States. Anyway, it like Carrie are, and you know what, maybe, and I think if our listeners know, we'd love to hear from you the emails that the guys@restaurantguyspodcast.com, the, maybe when the Soviet Union was still together, they were able to regulate it and you know, so much kind of. Flew apart at the end of the Soviet Union. Maybe that's what happened, when we first started in the business, when in the eighties when I was still bartending, the, there was great caviar. We used to get caviar petrosian in New York. There was also a little restaurant called Calco, which served all sorts of great fish rows and the farmed alternatives. We're terrible. And then you came along when we first met you, because it was the first farmed caviar where we said, oh, hey, this is actually delicious. That, that was really a, a thing you couldn't buy farmed caviar. It, it just wasn't, it wasn't worth eaten. It it, you know, I'd, I'd rather have smoked trout MOUs. Yeah. Yeah. Spread that on my bread. And that's, that'd be

Deborah: 18:46

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 18:47

So what, so what happened, what, what happened to start, why did Farm Caviar become acceptable and what's happened over the last 20 years that since we've

Deborah: 18:55

Yeah, that's that's great. And, and, and let me tell you, that was fun because I was going around with the very first farm caviar. I never forget, it was a big deal. I'm in, I think Rick Moonen in Las Vegas, and he pulled in all these other restaurants and all these chefs from all over, and it must have been 12 people in this restaurant. And there was a chef there that tried it first. And I always taste everything now. My background is varied and it's, I was a nurse then I was in publishing and now I'm a caviar master, right? But there, there I am and I just, I grew up in Maine. I have a really strong palate. Uh, my summers in Maine, in, in Boston, and I have a very strong palate for seafood and I have a very sensitive palate. So I tasted all the caviar before I brought it anywhere, but this time I didn't. The caviar got shipped to my distributor. They picked me up at the airport. They drove me right to the restaurant. He tasted it before I did, and he said, this caviar tastes like the inside of my fish tank. And it did.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 20:01

no. Oh, boy.

Deborah: 20:02

It did. I have 12 chefs, like literally seven different restaurants. All these chefs. It's like, and I tasted it and it was, it, it was, it was the worst caviar when I first started in the industry was the worst or a hundred percent right. It was flabby. It was mushy. It tasted like catfish. It was just a bottom feeder. They didn't know. And from that day on, I started working with, uh, a, the farmer and the PhDs on the farm saying, listen, if I have to sell this. I want to eat it. And if I won't serve it to my family and my 2-year-old daughter, I will not serve it or present it to any chefs. And that's when I started learning how to perfect the art of sustainable caviot production,

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 20:44

did they, what did they do differently that started to make it taste the.

Deborah: 20:47

It goes back to I lived in Paris for five for four years and it goes back to that French mentality. If it doesn't start well, it's not going to end well no matter what you do to it. No matter what kind of salt I use, no matter how much I rinse it, no matter how much you know, how I play with it in the dishes, if it doesn't start, if you don't have the best water quality. And feed. So it really came down to the environment of the sturgeon a hundred percent. And we started perfecting the art of sustainable, farming.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 21:18

take, how many years does it take to keep years of feed, years of cleaning, years of maintaining a sturgeon before you can harvest caviar from a sturgeon.

Deborah: 21:26

you.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 21:26

I just had a vision of somebody scrubbing a

Deborah: 21:28

Thank you, thank you so much for, for asking this question because it is an absolute labor of love. It is eight to 10 years minimum to get a fish, six feet long, over a hundred pounds in less than 10% of that is row. So at the end of those 10 years, I might get. Seven pounds of caviar and every single egg is taken off by hand.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 21:58

So I just wanna, you know, people think why is caviar so expensive? It's not just rarity. Right? Even if you could, so we, if we can farm all the caviar we want in the world, it's. It's, you imagine like, okay, hey listen, think of a grape farmer had to wait 10 years. Yeah. Okay. Which they, which a lot of them do, except they only got one pound of, grapes or 10 pounds of grapes each year. And you have to feed fish. You don't have to feed vines to the same. Mm-hmm. I mean, they need to eat every day all the time. And so when you talk about the investment that goes in and if anything goes wrong in that 10 year period,

Deborah: 22:29

All that.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 22:30

Yeah.

Deborah: 22:30

If the oxygen goes, there's a disease. You lost him all.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 22:35

Well, and with, with a farmer, we say the amazing thing is it's an annual experiment, right? If you make a mistake this year, you've lost the whole harvest. make one mistake, you've lost one year's worth of production. You can make one mistake in year nine lost nine years worth of investment into a fish know, you throw the barbecue throw or into a school of fish, not throw a school of

Deborah: 22:55

Well, Francis, if we had this conversation 20 years ago. But Yeah. And then once you get in, you can't get out, but yes. Yeah. Now that you put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. And people think, oh yeah, let's get into the caviar business, and then they realize they're home. No. Yeah. It's a lot.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 23:13

so I, I like being in the caviar business, by the way. Call my side of it. I call you. The caviar comes. I sell it to somebody. It's the best.

Deborah: 23:21

that's exactly where to be, mark.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 23:23

It's the same thing of like, people have asked Mark and I, Hey, do you want to come to Burgundy and work the harvest? I'm like, no freaking way. Get in the, I wanna sit on the porch and then have lunch afterwards and celebrate the

Deborah: 23:34

Right.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 23:34

But I do not wanna work the harvest, and I do not wanna get in your damn fish tank. I'll be honest with you. I just like having the fish on this side.

Deborah: 23:40

Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 23:40

What? Actually, it's funny that you bring that up, Francis. And, and I think on the other side we should talk about chefs getting in the tank with the fish and picking their fish. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing we're gonna talk about on the other side is we're gonna, we're gonna tell everybody how to judge good caviar from bad and, and from mediocre. what what makes it special and, uh, different from the lump fish row you get in the non-refrigerated aisle of the supermarket. We'll be back in just a moment. You can always find out more about us@restaurantguyspodcast.com. All right, Deborah, so you've started this, this Mad Men creation that you've done where, where chefs get in the tank and choose their own sturgeon from which they're gonna harvest

Deborah: 24:18

Yes.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 24:20

You gotta tell us

Deborah: 24:20

That's so much fun. So it really started with, my, you know, of, have a handful of my chefs that I've worked with so, so many years and they're all my Michelin restaurants. And, um, I was working with, Dominique Kran in her team, it was Kevin Finch and when they got their third star and. They would call me and they'd say, oh, Deb, this caviar is a little darker. This one's lighter, this one's green, this one's that. And different chefs would do the same. I go, you know what guys? You need to come with me. Let's get in the tanks. Do you have any time? Can you get to the farm? And you know, do you have a tent? Let's just pop a tent. Let's stay here and let's just hang out. Let's get in my ponds. Get in the tanks. And, and I need you to get closer to the source. So it really came out of understanding and educating the chefs to understand, you know, I'm a blonde, you're a brunette, there's a redhead, you know, it's mother nature and I'll try to get your profile, your flavor profile, the species that you prefer, your, your color you prefer, but it's mother nature. You can't control and just breed only the blondes or the lighter eggs and just the dark eggs. And there's some chefs that only want jet black eggs. So we tried to separate them, but when I found that I got them closer to the fish, got'em in the tanks, taught them how to biopsy the fish, taste the caviar right outta the eggs. Now listen, we are going 10 years, gentlemen. Um, before I can harvest, I'm going to taste every single egg to make sure it, the texture is perfect. It hasn't gotten a trigger. She hasn't started to reabsorb her eggs. that the size is minimum of three millimeters, which is. Expected on the market and the flavor is perfect that she's purged enough. We've taken her off a feed, we put her in, you know, 10,000 gallons a minute, you know, water flow to clean and to purge any off flavors that might come from either a pond or a tank. If it's not perfect, I don't take it. So I make a very artisanal caviar. That's why my products are very, very consistent. A lot of Sturgeon farms are just that. They are only a sturgeon farm. They do bulk and they sell it. They have so many fish they're gonna harvest that year. They harvest'em no matter what they taste like, no matter how big they are at what stage they are in their cycle. That is not me. So I got them in the tanks and it just, it became a thing because the minute they got in could pick the caviar, they could taste it, they can see what caviar's like. It's like tasting the grape before you make the wine. Like, oh, this, what's this going to turn out to be like? Because caviar doesn't taste like anything out of. A sturgeon, it doesn't have any flavor. It's not until the salt is added and it's cured and it starts its curing process. It starts to have, there's a little nuance like kinda raw potato and different, um, umami flavors that it'll have, but every farm is different. And so we got the chefs in the tanks and they were able to pick their fish, taste it out of the live fish, tag that fish with a color or a number. And, and when it became. Time that they could process and the fish were ready to go and I knew that the caviar was perfect, I would let them know we'd harvest the eggs and then they would process it. So every single egg that was served in the restaurant and plumed course is a perfect example in Saratoga. every single one of their tins with caviar has been processed by their team and is already delegated and labeled for their restaurant in my caviar vault.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 27:55

That's pretty amazing. but that brings me to a, there's an increased awareness now, I think in American dining. It's not just a French thing, it's not just a special occasion thing. The, the advent of the caviar bump, is, has brought a lot of people view that as a, a, a luxury thing that they'll do once in a while, where I think it was a, a smaller segment of the population that would indulge in caviar. 15 years ago. Yeah. Everybody's eating caviar now. No question about it. Everybody's eating caviar now. Congratulations to you. But I think one thing, well, and that's, and it's great, but, and I also think people are a little more discerning now. A lot of people are like, oh, caviar. Like, oh, champagne. It's just the category is fine and they don't discern

Deborah: 28:31

Good.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 28:31

which is, which is fine as long as they drink champagne. Good. As long as they eat caviar good. But there are people now who wanna know, well, Francis and Mark, what in a good caviar Caviar. Is it texture? Is it flavor? What flavor? You know, Francis is touching the little bump on his hand while he's, while he's talking about caviar. He's, he's doing, he's doing this. I'm remembering right here. This is where the caviar goes. So talk to us about if you're a really sophisticated diner or you wanna become a really sophisticated diner. people don't eat caviar every day. They don't do caviar side byside, but what, describe what people should be looking for in a good caviar or may be different kinds of really good caviar. What's a mark of quality? What's just different? Talk to just about the, the listeners who are gonna have some caviar sometime year, what they should be looking for.

Deborah: 29:14

thank you for that, and I'm excited to be able to share. I always said with availability. Would come. Accessibility and affordability. So you're seeing right now it's trending. Um, it used to be just for holidays, but it, it's very, very similar to the wine world in, in, in Napa Valley with. the availability, you're going to see it everywhere. And wine and champagne was only celebratory. Now people are drinking it every single day. At least I am as I'm in my dry bar. Um, but carrots the same way. And it started to go hand in hand because of the availability. Now remember, I started, there were only six. Farms on the planet raising sturgeon to making caviar. And that's in California. So California's the birth place for farm caviar in, in the world. Now. There are two thousands farms around the world. There's still only a handful of us under 10 here in the United States, so so you're seeing more. white label, there's a ton of branding. Oh, caviar companies, Cary companies. They're not caviar companies. What they are, or they're middleman distributors, they're Cary distributors. They're not farmers, they're not producers. So for the consumer, getting a reliable source is absolutely critical. Um, buying it from a reliable source in a gourmet market that actually. Is labeling it with proper labels on the bottom that says it's um, best Buy date. Every single label should have a country of origin. It is absolutely legal. You have to have it. You'll notice 90% of the caveat companies out there will not. Have country of origin in that, and that's really important, um, for compliance and so on. On our label, we'll have, um, the species, which I think is really important, and if it is local and who is disturbing it and whether or not it's coming directly from the farm. When you have it from the farm to you. Or to your store, to you or the restaurant to you. There's only one person between you and the source. When you're getting it from a middleman or a white label, that usually is going from a bulk buyer to a distributor, to that white label than to you. You're got, you have at least two to three more steps. To get to you. And carriers still extremely perishable with the exception of the no kill. Um, that's coming out soon and you still, at best if it's not pasteurized or has borax or any kind of preservative, which is completely illegal in the United States right now. The Borax is, you only have five weeks to six weeks max. And so when it's sitting in a plastic bubble on a shelf, you really need to pay attention to, the, shelf life and the date it was packed, and where it's packed and where it's coming from. If it's coming from out of the country, then it's spending months. Getting to you. Um, so for me it's looking for a domestic distributor, which is critical, or a, producer, uh, which is the aspens, the transfer times white sturgeon, your hack back, and your paddlefish, which are the only two wild caves that are legal on the planet, that are coming from the. Pacific, Tennessee Rivers, and if you're looking at a beautiful Russian oak sector that people are looking for, you want it to be fresh and not be sitting on a shelf. And, and, and for us, for example, we don't pre-pack anything. If you order online, the day it goes out is the day. It is packed for you. So you have the longest shelf life, and that's the hard part to, with the middleman for all of those white label companies out there. You just don't know who's packing it before it's getting shipped to you, and most white label companies do not pack it themselves.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 33:00

And we should point out that, that to find, uh, Deborah's caviar here, you can go to California caviar.com and

Deborah: 33:05

right.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 33:05

from her. So you've talked to us about how to buy caviar, but I wanna talk more specifically about like, okay, I'm in a restaurant, brings me over one or two different kinds of caviar. When I put that caviar in my mouth, what am I looking to experience? And what makes you go? Wow. And what makes you go, oh, almost,

Deborah: 33:23

great.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 33:24

what?

Deborah: 33:25

Thank you, Francis, for bringing me back. Okay. It's no different than buying diamonds. Color cut, clarity and carrot weight. I was in the jewelry business for a minute. So if you're going to do those five, those four categories for diamonds, you do the same thing for our black diamonds, which is caviar. So you're looking for the color. It depends if you're Russian, black is the best. If you, if you see the gold, they think it's flawed. So generally speaking, they don't care for that. It is really rare to have a light caviar, so that tends to go for more money. I find it to be a little bit more delicate, a little bit more elegant. I find that the darker the. Egg. The thicker the skin, the heavier the protein, the bigger the flavor profile in general is kind of my baseline just for making caviar for so many years. Um, so you're looking for a little bit fuller caviar on that. You're looking for your size. You want three millimeters and up. and that's hard to figure out, um, you know, a, three millimeters. But, um, you want it, you know, bigger than this, the, the tip of a pen. Um, and the bigger the better in the caviar world for sure. So that is definitely, you know, for your, your, your carrot weight, if you will. And then you're looking for clarity. You want a really clean flavor. Now I can blindly tell you what farm each caviar is from almost like a master. So, yeah, because if, when I go to every farm. I'm sourcing from any place around the world from my golden Studies that you can't raise in California'cause it's not indigenous. I will drink the water, including China that the fish are swimming in. I don't always swallow, I often spit it out, but it's like the wine maker eating the dirt and tasting how much lime is in the, in the soil. Exactly. So I'll do the same. And when you start honing your palate with the farm, it's. Self, whether it's a pond, whether it's a tank, whether the raceways flow through, you know, or recer. You can taste recer, you can taste tank, you can taste mud. You can taste that algae because it's always a bloom and there's highest or whatever they're using. So you can hone that. So there's a clarity. You want it to be clean and you want what Drew Barrymore said, calls. Sea butter. You want a little, you wanna taste that little salt up front. Then you're gonna taste that creaminess, that butter this, and then you're going to end with a little bit of that fresh sea salt finish. If you can't put white sturgeon on chocolate like a sea salt, that is not the right white sturgeon. That's my level, but I have a very clean. I have artisanal water quality. I don't have flow through, I don't have any research. So I have super, super clean caviar and that's really important to me and my clients and that's what we're looking for. Um, and then the other color cut, clarity. I. The carrot, wait. you are looking for equal shape. So you know the diamonds have all different shapes. You want to look at it when you put a bump on your hand and they said, okay, you're doing the bump and the bumps a trend and blah, blah, blah. It's not trending. It is trending for their purposes'cause it's cool. But we do it. This is how we buy caviar. We would put it on our hand and we'd move it around and you'd look, are these eggs broken? No. Are they all the same size? Yes. Are they all the same color? Yes, because legally I have to put every single egg from one fish in a jar that's labeled for that fish, so I can trace it back to that fish. Back to that tank. So I, if I have lots of different colors in here, that means I have multiple different fish. And legally you're not supposed to do that because it's an endangered species. And if I have a recall or I have to prove, I will tell you every single egg that you get in your jar, when I send it to you, I will be able to trace back to when I harvested it yeah, you add more of those white labels in between, you are losing all of that.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 37:30

Hold on. A, I was waiting for you to eat it. I was, you know, you put the bump on your hand. I was waiting

Deborah: 37:36

I thought of that afterwards. I'm like, oh, I'll take a break.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 37:40

I, I have to say, I was thinking the whole time of the analogy between wine tasting and spirits tasting, which Mark, mark and I are a little more expert in that area. And then when you put it on your hand and you're pushing it around on your, with the thing there, I was thinking of Walter White and crystal meth and that the whole time while you're, it looked like you had it on your thumb there and your hand there and it, it's what I was thinking.

Deborah: 37:59

I bumps.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 38:04

You're doing good. You're a good cook. Um, anyway, so, so, um, no. So, mark, what do you, as an, as an amateur, as the restaurant guy, when you are buying caviar, when you are eating caviar, what is it that you look for that you say, oh, that, that is what I'm looking for. Well, I like it to have a little snap, a little pop to it. Right. When it doesn't, when it has no snap or no pop, it's mushy. I, I don't, I don't. enjoyment from caviar that's like that. Yeah. I need a little bit of that, but but it still has to have that brininess that flavor of the ocean. That, I guess now I'll call it sea butter. that's part of the experience for me. What about you? when Deborah had it on her, hand and was kind of pushing it around with a spoon, I look for when I see a mediocre caviar or a caviar that's too old, you'll see it's a little sticky between the eggs. The eggs aren't like floating around in a, in a liquid and are individually articulated, so it'll be broken eggs or it's a little sticky and they stick together a little bit. I know, I know it's gonna be mushy when I put it in my mouth. And I think it's the same as with wines. What to what you said. When the flavors are articulated, like I see the sea and I I get the fish of it and it's, it's clean and bright. To me, that is what makes a, a great caviar. A great, but now you're serving pressed caviar. You gotta tell us what pressed caviar is. Oh, yeah.

Deborah: 39:19

That's fun. so this is a great transition and you're right when you start, when the caviar starts to break down, you might get more brine and more flavor, pro profile, but it'll start to break down the eggs. You'll release its oils, it'll get wet and flabby, we call it. And then that's not you. Everybody wants that pop that mouth feel. So back in the day when you had. Fresh caviar. That was wild. It had that huge pop.'cause it was, ovulated was at the perfect state and now you're taking it farmed different stages early to late. It's kind of like premature and sometimes too past it's prime, and you're harvesting over a period of time, and so you're getting different textures and it's lot more inconsistent. So you're a hundred percent right. So when you go through caviar production and some caviar is flabby and falls apart or breaks down, we then turn that into pressed caviar. And back in the day you would take beluga rug, et cetera, those three species, put it in a cheese cloth and uh, bri it and just get rid of all the water and dehydrate it. And then it would be. Sliced, and it would look a lot like, um, uh, shoe polish, black shoe polish, just very shiny and, and just kind of solid. And you would, they would slice it and put it on, take it on the boats while they were fishing and put it on bread, and that's what they would eat. So when I worked with Jacque Pen, he wanted to, he said, because Beluga and, and Saru, et cetera, were all. Starting to be regulated and banned from coming into the country. They didn't have any more PIO Sinia and he wanted to create the first, uh, domestic PIO sinia. The press caviar and it's ens press caviar. We do for him. We did it back in 2007, 2008. It was hard for us to produce because we had never had it,'cause it had been illegal, hadn't been imported since the seventies. But he knew what it was like and we just kept making it and failing and making him failing and sent it to him. And he finally said, that's it, you did it. And we sent him and he would play with it. And so we finally perfected it. And um, it was a great story that, you know, I've been making his caviar. Since 2008, I believe, and I've finished it three times. Three times in what, what's that? 17 years and every time I finish it, he gets on the phone and calls California. Kevin, hello this. Do you know who I. Amanda, you know, and everyone freaking out. And then, so they hit me the phone and he is like, de that C's a little sticky. It's a little dry, it's a little sticky. I'm like, ah, Shaq, I did it. I, you know, I, I, you right, I finished it. Martha wasn't there. Martha always does it perfectly. And hi, I think I, you know, I thought I did it right. He's like, yeah, it's just sticky. He's like, Deborah, you do not do this. Well, you should not be doing this. I stop doing it every time I did it. He goes, this is not for you. You should not be doing this. Just let, like, okay. And so, um, you know, it is, it is a very, very, very fine line. But you're starting with the broken eggs. We're blending the hackleback paddlefish and the, and, and the, um, white sturgeon and turning it into a press caviar.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 42:42

let's talk about eating caviar champagne or vodka.

Deborah: 42:49

Okay, love. But it's changed. So we were talking a little bit about caviar and flavor profiles. When you're dealing with the paddle fish, which is a wild saru type, very fish forward, very anchovy, stronger, uh, flavor. You can do the vodkas and they in, in some of the spirits and it works well. All the really, really fine. Caviar's that are farmed right now, that are a little bit more delicate, like the white sturgeon, the, um, some of the Russian et cetera, is very anxious, very lipid fatty, but it can be very creamy. the vodka can overpower some of the lighter eggs that don't have that viscosity that you're looking for. So the rule is. Wild caviar. Great. With vodka and spirits stronger, big profile. Caviar's like kaluka hybrid can hold up to some of the spirits. The rest are perfect with champagne, but if you're eating caviar, you eat the caviar first, then take the wine in champagne. After. If you're doing spirits, you start with the spirit and you chase the caviar, you reverse it. And if you're at home doing it, play with it. It's a night and day experience. Even if you're doing it with tequila. And I've got tequila partners, At Alida and they have caviar that pairs perfectly with all of their, uh, different, uh, lines of tequila. But if you try it caviar than tequila versus tequila than caviar, it's a very different experience.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 44:20

So let me ask, besides vodka, what spirits do you have with caviar?

Deborah: 44:24

Everything. There isn't anything I haven't done with ca caviar, to be honest with you. Um, you know, bourbons, whiskeys, rice, um, tequila gin. Gin is shockingly good and yet, but it's the, it's some that. The flowers and the floral notes. It's really, really interesting.'cause it's so hard to pair caviar with, you know, certain floral wines in white wine. You would think it's great. No caviar's great with cabernet, white sturgeon, cabernet all day long. The earthier the better. I don't know why. It's just this, there's just an earth tone and it is at all. I work with Chat to Monte. We have partners, partnerships with them, and Opus one. It is the best and it's almost a no-brainer. You can't go wrong doing a white sturgeon royal, like a, like a, you know, a dark white sturgeon with a cab. You can't go wrong.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 45:18

Well, we have a cabernet dinner dinner coming up, so there's gonna be

Deborah: 45:21

Will you, lemme know. I'll send you some caviar. It'll be really fun. And other Cs don't work with the Cabernets, but, and people are like, really? And, and I've been in every, everybody's winery and everybody around the country They, they sit there and the winemaker's like, what do you know, lady? I'm like, all right. I know caviar. I know nothing about wine. But she might try. And then they go back and they come back and they go back, get some more, and they go back. And then it keeps getting a little darker. A little darker. And you know, the cabs. And the champagnes are great. You know, the whites are a little bit trickier. Pinots are tough, but don't, it is just this earthy minerality that kind of works with those earth tones in the white sturgeon. It's just really in, in kaga. It's really fun sake. Beautiful beers, a pilsner sakes are beautiful with caviar. Um, little bit more forgiving is kind of that cross between wine and spirit. It's almost a safer bet. It's like having that perfect red wine and cheese, and when it happens, it all comes together. Is just so good.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 46:20

I thought that Mark knew me better than he did and the very fact that he thinks that we're gonna wait until the next wine dinner to try Caviar and Cabernet. I mean, in 15 minutes we are gonna try caviar and Cabernet. Who do you think your, we have partners have. You gotta have the right caviar. So we have the, we have her caviar in the kitchen. We're restaurant. I don't, we have the white sturgeon though, do we? Oh, no we don't. I don't. We do next time. Alright. Right. We're gonna get some white

Deborah: 46:43

No, I hope you do. I think that's, I hope you do. If not, lemme fix that right away for you.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 46:49

You got it to FedEx right now. That's, that's send it, send it. So, you know, one, one final question on the serving of caviar, and then we're gonna talk about No kill caviar, which is a very cool thing that you have some patents on, I believe. you've pioneered in any event, there's a, an old kitchen rule that you never touch caviar with a metal utensil. So we have with these mother of pearl spoons with which we touch caviar. Is that true? And if it's true, why?

Deborah: 47:12

So I will start with the king of. The culinary world, Jacque Pap pen. He says to me, Deborah, the Cary's never gone enough on the spoon to make it make a difference. And he's right. So if you use it, use whatever it's, you want. It is kind of the rule because C's never sitting on a spoon. And this is a hundred percent true as he pulls out a stainless steel spoon and just, you know, we just like a big tablespoon and off you go. and he's a hundred percent right, but the rule of. Thumb is this, when it's coming to serving utensils, it caviar will absolutely absorb. The flavor, uh, uh, the metal alloys from any stainless or a tin, we have that happen to us too. In the caviar industry, all the Cary used to be in tins, and now they're coming in, in, in, in more plastics. And, and it's changing a little bit, uh, for us, how we make caviar. But, um, it is preserving the caviar a little bit longer because you're not, it's not absorbing those flavors. So caviar will take on the flavor. Of the vessel if it's sitting there too long. This is true, especially with the salt it kind of conducts. So we do recommend Pearl that is completely neutral. Gold glass bamboo will work to a Polish bamboo, um, in bone as well. but you know, the silvers and the stainlesses we still shy away from,

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 48:44

noticed it the most with silver. Honestly. Yeah. Even more than stainless. I noticed. Yeah, I

Deborah: 48:48

Absolutely.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 48:49

the

Deborah: 48:49

will. It will, it will make a difference.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 48:51

Alright, good to know. So you gotta tell us about no kill caviar.'cause this is, this is a thing. There are people out there who, who want their no kill caviar. Tell us. I love that. Tell us what you're doing.

Deborah: 49:02

Yeah. And so we'll have to, you'll have to work with me on the whole No. Kill. I, I, when I, I, I had the, um. Exclusive North American distribution in 2014. And I talked to everybody and it was a living caviar and so on and so forth. And then NPR one of, I can't remember, it was the Huffington Post, NPR, one of'em called it No Kill. And then every single press has called it that ever since. So we're working, we're working on that. But let me tell you a little bit about it. So there's this beautiful woman by the name of, professor Dr. Angela Kohler. She's out of Germany. She's perfected the art of sustainable caviar production where you massage a fish to get the eggs. Now there's some controversy'cause back in the day there were many other, uh, countries doing it, but they were doing it by c-section. They would kind open the fish, pull out the eggs, put it back, and they had about a 30%, um, survival rate, Back in the day it was 70% fatality rate. I. It was terrible. And so there was a lot of controversy around it. So when they think of this, this is what they think of.'cause that's what they were trying to do to preserve the species. Um, and she discovered the art of releasing the eggs and massaging the fish to get the eggs as if it was in Mother Nature. if she would feel the rocks on her belly, say, okay, it's safe to drop my eggs. It's inducing that same type of, um, reaction. So it's a natural, process So it's that type of process that she mastered. And, um, as a result, it's a game changer. And what we didn't realize, not only are you. After 10 years not having to sacrifice the fish. Now we would sell the no accords. We would sell those skins. We would sell the meat, we'd sell, we would process the eggs, the sacks. We would sell every part of the fish'cause it's been 10 years. But now think of it, you can save the fish, she can go back, she can continue to um, live. And then two years later for the white sturgeon, she'll produce. More eggs. What she, what we didn't realize is that she has a higher yield in, larger eggs. So each year they're getting a little bit bigger and a little bit better. And I have fish, in, other farms that are 25 years old and the eggs are, you know, four millimeters. They look like beluga eggs. it's a.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 51:20

amazing.

Deborah: 51:21

Game changer. mark, you were mentioning, when they go upstream in that pop and you're looking for that pop, it's because those fish are ovulating, they're ready to drop the eggs. It's in its perfect state. So when I do it, and it's a totally different process. It's a ton of work, but. When I do it, I'm taking the fish in their perfect state. So you are going to get all that Caspian pop. So everyone's gotten used to flabby caviar. Now they're gonna go, whoa, look at this pop. So we're gonna go back to the way it was where your Bobby would be eating caviar. Yeah.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 51:53

That's great. And how do consumers find the, the caviar produced with this

Deborah: 51:57

So the only place, so we have the master patent for no kill caviar in the United States. We will be launching it this fall, and we're in the process of, uh, processing it now. We mastered it last year. It took me. Four and a half years to get it through the FDA and uh, we earned that one. And so last year was our beta test and working in mastering it, and we figured it out. And when I make my caviar, now I touch the eggs every step of the way. Now I never touch the eggs. It's a chemistry. Temperature. It's just completely temperature, timing, rinsing, you know, with, you know, without chemicals obviously, and it's, again, salt only and the shelf life is doubled. You, you can,

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 52:42

Wow.

Deborah: 52:42

take it from your refrigerator. You can take it from the store, throw it in your car, throw it in your bag, leave it in your car for two hours, put it on your shelf, on your counter. Then put it in the fridge, open and close it for over a month, two months, and it'll never lose. Its pop. It's in its perfect state. Salt only ga. You can freeze it. You can take it out. Salt only. Game changer. Game changer for chefs for the loss. Game changer for consumers for safety. Game changer for, retailers because they don't have the shelf life that is going to be gone in five weeks and.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 53:21

So know where your New Jersey launch party's

Deborah: 53:24

No game changer.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 53:26

with

Deborah: 53:27

Hundred percent.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 53:27

with

Deborah: 53:28

Hundred percent.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 53:29

Alright, so pay attention to the restaurant guys. Sign up. Go to go to stage left.com and sign up for the mailing list if you wanna be sure to hear about this. And if you're a restaurant, guys regular, if you become a premium subscriber, now you will get a special discount code to have a little VIP hour with De and the launch in America of this game changer of caviar. I cannot wait. Yeah, it's pretty exciting. It's, I gotta tell you, I had, I had read about it. I'm a little more excited

Deborah: 53:53

Yeah. Yeah. It's a game. It's a game changer, and it's an investment, right? And you want to feel like you're getting what you want, and it just feels really, really good to me. Yeah. It's, it's a long time coming and she's worked really hard, but, um, very excited about it.

Francis: 54:08

Deborah, we had you on the show 20 years ago a little to talk about the beginning of Farm Caviar. It is appropriate to have you on again now. It's cool, new stuff again, we're only through the life of one and a half sturgeons in all that 15 years, but it's uh, it's, uh, it's been a sturgeon's lifetime and it's super great to have you on the

Deborah: 54:27

Yeah. Thank you for having me. It was such a pleasure and I really love that full circle. Nice to know. we're still, you know, making it through all these crazy times we've been having since Covid.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_133907: 54:37

Thanks Deborah. You can find out more about Deborah Kean in California, caviar company@californiacaviar.com, or you can go to restaurant guys podcast.com, get on her mailing list, become a regular member and come meet her in the fall. We'll be back in just a moment. You can find out more about us and everything else@restaurantguyspodcast.com.

the-restaurant-guys_2_04-24-2025_144437: 55:10

I love shows where I learn stuff. Oh my God, I love, I love shows where I learn stuff. Uh, it's one of the reasons I enjoy this show so much because. She taught me stuff today. Well, and we did the research. Okay. We paid somebody to do the research, We have people for that. Uh, no, we have people who help us do the research and then we actually read the books and read the articles. And I knew about the No Kill caviar. I didn't know about the extended shelf life. Yeah. The larger egg size, the return of pop of wild, caviar. I'm thrilled. Yep. We booked a dinner while on a call, but that's, that's what we do though. That's the, the excuse that we have. Even if it gives us the excuse to call the primary person. it's part of what makes it fun for us, right? Yeah. Is that, I'm expanding my horizons. I'm. I'm calling people who I think are interesting. Yeah. And I, and I'm asking, but I, the caviar thing is, is, is bumping. Yeah. Ah, I get it. I get it. so I, I don't know if you've seen it yet. So our director of operations, Julie, has gotten a. Mother of Pearl Spoon tattooed on her hand right where the bump goes so that people would put caviar on her hand, right on, the mother of Pearl, spoon It's the right person for the job. The right person to work for us, I'll tell you that much. Um, no, that she really fantastic. Super interesting. And she's a big caviar fan. Oh yeah. More so than I am. More so than we are. Absolutely. It's, it's a. It's weird that we found somebody who, who's more into caviar than we are. When she was talking about like, well, you could use bamboo, you could use feather pearl. I'm like, use your finger. You put your finger in there. Why not? That's, that's awesome. I once saw somebody use a piece of K Basa and I thought that was not the No, that was not the right disagree vessel. I disagree. I gave that entire, I'm also not a big fan. There's a big, uh, caviar and fried chicken craze going around. Uhhuh not a fan. Yeah. Don't, I don't say, it's not my thing. Not my thing. It's not my thing. for, but I'm excited to try caviar and, and Cabernet that's happening. Yeah. And in a few minutes, by the way, I don't know if you know that. Well, we gotta get the white specific. Yes, you gotta get the white, white search white. Alright, well, we'll, we'll wait for that one. So, I wanna end today's podcast with a quote it may be misattributed, but uh, in my mind, James Beard said, I can hear him now, but I think it was James Beard, or it might have been Calvin Trillin. I don't know. But one of those guys said, um, the caviar. Is the essence of the sea. Mm-hmm. And truffles are the essence of the land. Yes. I've heard that before. And those are the two perfect foods. And so we'll leave you there. Hope you've enjoyed the time with the restaurant guys. We all learned a little bit today, and I hope you're all coming to the launch party of the No Kill Caviar this September. For sure. I'm Francis Shot. And I'm Mark Pascal. We are the restaurant guys, and as always, you can find out more@restaurantguyspodcast.com.