The Funeral: Losing a parent - you're never ready.

In today’s episode, I discuss the loss of a parent and how that reframed my perspective on my career choices and how they can impact more than just myself. 

For the Sponsor I Wish I Had, I pump up Prepared Hero and their offering of safety products to help you at home and out and about. 

I also discuss my ego and how that drove me to make career choices I might not have made if I wasn't so caught up in the romanticism of being a 'chef'. 

For the Just the Tip segment, I offer some help on using foods that are inherently salty and/or peppery as an enhancement to salt and pepper. 

I Whisper In a fruit you need to get prepared to get your hands on: Cara Cara oranges - the most vibrant, flavorful oranges, just in time for the colder months. 

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Saturday is Dadurday on YouTube

Saturdayisdadurday@gmail.com

Music by Purple-planet.com
Music by Wondershare Filmora 12

Transcript

I remember exactly where I was standing in my old house when my mom called. And I got the news that my father had passed away, total bummer.
For anybody that's dealt with the loss of a parent, this is something that maybe will resonate with you.
The day before my dad died, I was at work, and I was cooking at the time. So I was working in a restaurant. And I had worked at this restaurant at that time, I had left where I was a couple of for a couple of years a really good job at a country club. And I went to this place that was called table and tavern. And I was hoping that it would be a better situation, it would help me grow, take the next step, I was going to be learning how to order food, and how to break down large cuts of meat and fish and do all this cool stuff that I didn't have a chance to do at the country club. So it was a good scenario. And I was excited. And I got there. And after about five minutes, I realized holy shit that I make the wrong mistake. The chef that I was working for she was drunk or hungover every single day skipped half the days, the GM was heavy, into the nose nachos. If you know what I'm saying. Cocaine he was he was doing a lot of cocaine. That's what that's what I'm saying. And the restaurant was dirty. It was just a mess. Like everybody there was, it was just a disaster, there was one or two people that were good. But it was totally not the same place that I came from. And I didn't realize how great that I had it. So the day before my dad died, I was there at work and just, you know, getting kicked in the nuts the whole day, as usual. And I stepped outside to either call my dad or he called me or something. And I was just bitching, just unloading to him venting about how much I hated this place and how mad I was and, and I remember talking to my dad, and he sounded off like he sounded like, you know, you call someone on a phone and you get that robotic kind of noise. And then you have to hang up and call the person back. That's what it sounded like. But it wasn't that it was just my dad sounded off. And looking back on that, you know, like, I have no idea if it was because he was it was just random or whatever. But I was so so far up my own ass with how upset I was about this job, that the last time I had a chance to talk to him was him doing what he did best, which was listen to me, and try to help me through his situation. And he was trying to help me understand that I was there for a reason. And just to be patient and let the dust settle. And the reason that I'm there will reveal itself soon enough, and I'll learn what I can and I'll move on to the next place. I didn't want to hear I was outside by the dumpster. And it was August. So you know, it's 110 in Texas, and I'm just dog cousin. Not not good. So the next morning, I'm at our house, my wife night, I'm making breakfast, and I get a phone call. And the second the phone rings. And I look over and I see it's my mom, I knew what it was. And I had no inclination like there wasn't a conversation before. You know, earlier that that morning or later that night or something I just knew, picked up the phone. And my mom, I said hi mom. And she said, Hi, Justin, how are you? And as soon as she said that, I could just hear and I said Mom, did Dad pass away? And she paused and said yes. And
you know, we kind of talked for a minute or whatever. And then my wife jumped into superhero mode and helped this book plane tickets and did everything canceled appointments and whatever, whatever.
And I ended up calling work and had to tell them the news. And as I was making that phone call, it was pretty obvious that one of the reasons if not the reason that I was at this shithole of a restaurant was because of what I said to them, which was my dad passed away, I need to go back up north. And I don't know how long I'm going to be until I come back. And that was basically it. And had I been at my previous place the Country Club, which I really liked and had a lot of fun working there. I think I would have been able to say, you know, Hey, can I get a week kind of thing.
But I was able to go up there for a month. And I remember once I was up in back home in Michigan, where I'm from, I called that restaurant and said like, Look, I need a full month and they were like a month and I was like yeah, if you need to fire me Go ahead, but like I need to be here with my family. And I don't think I would have had that same freedom in my own mind to say that at the country club because they had given me a really good opportunity and worked hard to really you know, to develop me as a cook and everything. So, there was some sense of, of, you know, obligation
respect to that I wanted to, to not be a total jerk. But for this, I was like, you guys can piss off, I need to be home with my parents, or with my mom. So.
So that's what happened. And I went up there. But
the lesson for that for me, and the lesson that I would convey to my daughter, or to anybody listening, all three of you, so thank you, would be a lesson of patience. And I think that sometimes so many of us are focused, so narrowly focused on our little world, that we don't realize that there's other things at play in the universe. And I'm not trying to be too, you know, weird podcast guy. But there's other things going on. And there's other people in our orbit. And I should have just stepped back and let things play out without the resentment. And without the frustration and without maybe the ego sense of like, I'm better than this place. And I think that's an important lesson to learn that wherever situation, and you can either just
wallow in it, or you can make the best of it. So to me, the advice that I would give would be, make the best of the situation. And I would tell that to my daughter, you're in a shitty situation, doesn't mean you have to stay there. But for the moment, while you're in this situation, make the best of it, learn what you can from it.
And, and then get the hell out as soon as you can, which is exactly what I did. And to cap this off, when I finally did get back, I went back to work there for like a week. And it was just worse than ever. And I was already checked out. And the only time in my life I had done this, I just walked in and I was like, this place is a disaster, like I quit, and I left and I got in my car, and I went around to the parking lot. And I forgot that I left my knife roll in the kitchen to drive all the way back around, walk back into my kitchen, awkward. And with my head down, get my knife, roll, turn around and walk back out. So that moment that you hope for where you get to tell your boss off and you stormed out of the place because you quit. That happened to me. And then I had to come back in and get my belongings and then walk back out. So that was F, it was just wonderful. Love it. Oh.
Now it's time for today's sponsor I wish I had and today's sponsor I wish I had is a company called prepared heroes. And I stumbled across them a couple of years ago, I think on Instagram. And what makes them unique is they have developed and sell a whole variety of products that are for residential use to help keep your family prepared and safe in the event of something bad like a fire or a flood or you're stranded with your car or something like that. I thought that was really ingenious. And it kind of related back to me. Back when I was cooking in kitchens, sometimes you'd have like a small little fire and I say fire like you know a couple of little flames that would pop up from a pan because of too much oil or something like that. And when you're there in your kitchen mode and work mode, you've got lids that you can throw on the pan, you've got boxes assault, you can just dump on it to kill the flames. And you're just kind of in that mode where you just know how to respond and react to something. But if something like that were to happen at home, you probably aren't in that kind of a mode necessarily. Maybe you're just laying on the couch watching TV and your candle, you know, light something on fire or whatever. So their whole line of products that are even warming products like blankets and bags, and stuff that is dry, like a dry foam that can spray, you can spray on fires, walkie talkies, long range, all that kind of stuff I think is really great. So I would highly encourage you to checkout prepared hero.com That's their website. I think it's something especially if you have kids that family should at least consider it might not be in the budget for everybody to have additional products like that. But one or two products that I think is an absolute must just to be prepared in case something happens. So prepared hero today's sponsor, I wish I had Oh.
Talking about my dad passing one story that comes to mind when I was a kid, I was probably like 10 My parents and I went on vacation somewhere. I think it was like Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. If anybody's from the Midwest, they probably know what that place is. And we went there for a vacation and my dad and I went horseback riding. And if anybody knows me, I'm an avid horseback men's writer person, as you can tell by the vernacular. I don't I don't do horse riding but I did when I was 10 and my dad and I went and we did one of these, you know little go through a trail kind of thing with a tour guide with a whole bunch of people. So there was probably like a dozen people there. And we went
Got our horses and everybody got a normal horse my dad included. And I get brought the short stumpy little horse called fat Elbert. So already I know exactly how this is going to play out. And we go along and I'm, you know, bumping around and just flopping around, I have no idea what I'm doing.
And all of a sudden, this motherfucker, this fat Elbert horse, this short, stumpy dwarf donkey of a horse that I'm riding on, just takes a left turn, and Full Tilt right into the bushes. And I'm 10. And I just go flying right into these bushes, like, just spread eagle, and over N, and I'm like, upside down in the bushes just covered in scrapes and bruises and cuts. And the horse is freaking out as much as a tiny little dwarf donkey horse can, it looks like a little piglet. I'm not kidding, this is awesome. This horse was
it was pretty big enough to write a full horse. So I don't know what was going on there. But that was the first and last time that I ever went horseback riding. So thank you, dad for doing that and scoring me for life, for any for any horse riding. But that was a funny story. And the reason that I bring that up as because it's stories like that times like that. That was a major influence in why I decided to step back from cooking. And I bring this up because I want to know if anybody else has experienced anything, whoever's listening to this, you're driving around, you're on a walk, doing a workout, whatever, if you have gone through something similar, where you let your ego kind of drive major decisions or a major decision for you that altered the course of your life and not necessarily in a bad way. So for me this story is if 2008 2009, I was working in transportation logistics, and I had been doing that since I was out of college. Like most people that graduate from college, you just find the first job that will place that will hire you that pays you something and hopefully you can work your way up and then figure it out from there. So that's kind of what I was doing. And I had moved from Green Bay, Wisconsin to Chicago, and then from Chicago to Dallas. And for whatever reason, I always say Green Bay, Wisconsin, but I never say Chicago, Illinois, or Dallas, Texas. So I don't people know where that is. And people know where Green Bay is. So Green Bay to Chicago to Dallas. And I was living in Dallas, I was single and I was kind of loving life and doing the thing. And after a couple of years there, the company that I had worked for, it was still really good, really good company, lots of great people industry leader, but the particular office that I was in, started to kind of devolve and degrade over time into, you know, more of what you might call a toxic work environment, right, something like that. And my experience was not great. So after a while it got to that point. And I started looking around to myself thinking, if this is the best there is I'm going to be just miserable every day at work and really disliked going into work. And the economy was also bad. I might as well do something that I actually enjoy. And you know, I had no affinity to transportation, right. Like I said, I got out of college and first company that hired me, that's what I did. So I said, You know what I've always loved cooking. And I think this is where I made a mistake is I said, I'm going to go cook. And I went to culinary school at night continue to work there during the day for about a year and a half and near the very end of me being done with school and going to switch careers anyway, I was totally checked out at work and ended up getting fired. And probably justifiably so at least in part. Although the last two or three months, I did have like six different bosses with six different kind of methods of how I was supposed to do to my job. So that's a little window into what the environment was like. But, you know, my fault, I probably should have been more focused and should have written it out better. But I made the switch went to work. And the first week that I was on the job at where I was working in the Dallas Country Club. The first week, my parents called me and said, dad is sick, he has cancer, and it's going to be an uphill battle. And I had just started right the journey there. I had just graduated I had debt. I had all this stuff. So I couldn't stop. I had to I had to go. So I kept going forward and I kept working. And during those couple of years, you know I went home whenever I could, which was rare. My parents came down a few times so we could be together as a family. But that window of a couple of years. I had completely missed out on a lot of opportunity to spend with my dad because I was working. And I don't regret that I was working. And then I was living in Dallas and then I was doing my own thing because I was an adult and that's what you're supposed to do. What I do regret is the idea that I think I let my ego drive
A good portion of the reasoning of why I went into culinary in the first place, yes, I absolutely love food, I love to cook, I still do. And the idea of working in food service is still appealing to some degree. But I think I liked the idea of being a chef for the idea of being able to be a chef one day, or tell people that I am a chef, or where the white coat or all of that stuff, right, I think I sort of romanticize that. And that was the part that drove me more than maybe understanding what the day to day grind was going to be of the job. And I knew that and my wife and I had talked, you know, as we were getting married, and after we were married about kind of where I was, and what that trade off was going to be. And we kind of had an idea of what that was going to look like, short term and then long term, but we were prepared to deal with an imbalance in life for a while, you know, some nights, weekends, holidays, that kind of thing. But
for me, I think the idea of wanting to be a chef, and that kind of ego driven of like, look at me, I'm you know, cool guy, and everybody likes to talk about food, and I can be the center of the conversation and all that. That was a driving factor, subconsciously, consciously, in me making that decision. And I missed out on a lot of time with my dad. And when he passed, that sort of reframed, and it took me a little while because I was stuck in the grieving process. But it took me a little while and realizing that do I want to pursue this and miss out on all this time with my wife and our eventual family, whatever that was gonna look like to say that I'm a chef guy, and blah, blah, blah. So that was something that that I had to kind of come to terms with. But at the same time, right when my dad passed, I mean, this timing is just so weird. Two days a week on the job, right? I get a phone call my dad's sick, just my first week cooking. And then, right when my dad died, I got a call from the restaurant that I had always wanted to work at the best restaurant in the whole city of Dallas, and wanted me to come work there I interviewed, you know, they said, Hey, you're hired, we want you to come work here. And that happened at the same time. So for me, that was like the right job the wrong time in my life. But I went and I did it. And I did that for about a year. And it was wonderful. Everybody there was exceptional, and very patient and in collaborative and helpful. But I was totally checked out. Because I was grieving. And I remember multiple times during the day, for a year straight, I would go to the bathroom, sometimes during service like in the middle of dinner. And I would just break down and cry for like a couple of minutes. And then I would come back to my workstation and get back to work. And I would call my mom or my friends on the way to work, or Beth, my wife, or on the way home from work. And I would just cry the whole time and talk to them. And that went on for about almost a year. And after about six or seven months, eight months of that I realized like, yeah, I just I can't do this anymore. Because all the emotions I had about losing my father and what that could mean for me in the future with our family and everything. But it was a wake up call that I let my ego drive a large decision of mine that impacted not just me, it impacted my wife, it impacted my mom and impacted my friends. And having the ego drive that as opposed to taking a step back and maybe thinking about, Hey, I like cooking, what are the things I like about it? And maybe could I find something? If I wanted to switch jobs or careers? Could I find something that incorporated those things, but it was maybe a little less
imbalanced as far as schedule goes? Oh,
I do think everything happens for a reason. 100%. But I also think you can make really stupid choices that are not the result of fate. And I think I made a bad choice. And I regret that and can you say that? Can you say that you regret a major decision that has had negative and also positive results in your life? The company I'm at now, I found specifically because of where I went to culinary school and would not have found them in a million years. If I had if I had not cooked I wouldn't have even known this part of the world that I work in even exists. So that's a wonderful thing. I've been at this company almost a decade and great people and great experiences and much better work life balance. So how do you say that you regret something when it's also produced, you know, adjacently really good things. But the way I went about the decision is what I regret and I think that is the lesson and the advice that I would give the lesson
would be looking at how you're making that decision, what's driving those things.
And that's very, very important because for me, it sidetracked me for several years, and put my wife in a very difficult spot, even though she was incredibly supportive the whole way through, but that that could not have been easy for her. And sometimes, I don't, I don't, I didn't think about that as often as I should have in the moment, just how much my wife was sacrificing. So if you're listening, thank you. Oh.
Now it's time for today's just the tip segment. And for today's just the tip, it's going to be food related, because we were just talking about food stuff, and culinary and blah, blah, blah. So this tip is going to be for moments where you would like to maybe add more of a salty or punch to your food are more of a peppery punch to your food, instead of just adding salt or pepper. Think about foods that have similar flavor profiles. So perhaps if you're making a salad, let's take this as an example, if you would like it to have a little bit more of a salty flavor to it, instead of just adding more salt, which you should add salt to a salad. What about adding something like capers or olives, that's going to give you a little bit of saltiness, but it's also going to give you some Tang, some texture, some chew some different color. So that is an example of how you can add something salty to a food instead of just adding more salt. And on the flip side, if you're looking for something a little more peppery, if we're keeping with the salad theme, one of the best little peppery kind of foods out there is arugula. So if you're having a salad, and you were going to have just romaine lettuce and a couple cherry tomatoes and drizzle some vinegar bread on top of it. Well what if you had some arugula and maybe some spinach or some watercress and you threw in some olives or capers, and then you added in some citrus, which we'll talk about later. And then you maybe threw in some crunchy elements like a granola, or like some almonds or pistachios, something like that. And then you add in some cheese, maybe like a Fetta, which is also salty, something like that. Now you've completely elevated what you were eating, and you didn't have to do anything too crazy or do anything to Sheffy you're just incorporating other ingredients that can add more depth to your dish, as opposed to just adding more salt or just adding more pepper. So that's today's just the tip. Oh.
Okay, so for today's whispering
we're going to talk about something that is absolutely amazing. And it's not a place or it's not a person, but it's a food. And it is called a cara cara orange. It is one of the best things that you can ever taste in your entire universe. It is a navel orange, it is super bright, and wonderful and color. And also, it is super bright and sweet. And it is not too acidic. It is a fruit that is found most frequently in its best state in the wintertime, sometime between November, December, all the way through March and April.
It is an absolute delight. And the first time that I experienced this was when I was cooking at a restaurant. And we used cara cara oranges to make a salad, and then also use the juice to make a vinegar rat, I would highly recommend that you move your butt. And then I would also highly recommend that you move your butt over to a grocery store in the wintertime and get some cara cara oranges. They are today's whisperer. Oh
as we wrap up, one of the things I think that's important to think about is your own mortality. And for me having the the passing of my father completely reframed the, my my own mortality in my head and made me realize, hey, I'm not going to be around forever, and decisions that you make impact more than just yourself, especially when you have a family and that you need to be aware that making a decision isn't going to be necessarily the one you want to make. But it's probably going to be the best one for you and your family. And having that awareness and willingness goes a long way. We also talked about the funny story with me and Fat Albert that son of a bitch of a horse. But those fun stories are what I didn't want to miss out on and allowing my ego to take a backseat to decisions and allowing
Need to make smart dispassionate ones that are logical and best for the family is something that has now served me very well as I've been able to have so much more time with my wife and my daughter, and now even my mom, who's living with us at the moment. That's for another episode because that's just a whole nother thing.
Your ego careful on how you let that involve itself with decision making.
For the just the tip, we talked about adding salty foods and peppery foods as examples instead of just salt and pepper, when you're making something to really elevate your dish, the whispering in this time not in a whisper cara cara oranges, amazing navel oranges, found best in the wintertime, November December through March, April. Excellent on salads, excellent just to eat by themselves. The juice is great for salad dressings vinaigrette can't go wrong. One of the best things ever. And the sponsor I wish I had today was prepared hero. They make wonderful safety products for your families in case of emergencies like fires or floods. I highly recommend checking them out prepared here all the sponsor I wish I had. That wraps it up for us today. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week and remember Saturday is Saturday.