Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / Ray Chmielecki | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #99 |

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Ray Chmielecki | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #99 | · The Christian Reeve Podcast

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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Christian re
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podcast. Today's guest is a podcaster and
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food and beverage critic all the way from Columbus Ohio.
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His name is Ray. She me lucky closely, yeah, we
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see similar key, that's pretty close.
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That's pretty close, though. It's way better than probably
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95% of people that would come up with, she me lucky.
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Okay. All right, I don't always get
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the names right? But you know, I tried, I tried.
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I did my basic. It's a tough one and then also,
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I mean, we're not even sure we say it, right?
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It's a Polish last name, but I mean, we probably say it like
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the Americanized way. So there's probably like I've
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yet to meet anybody who's, you know, from Poland.
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So when I do, I will ask them. How do you say this?
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And I'm sure it's going to be completely different than the
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way we've been doing it for years.
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But what is interesting? So you've got polish descent and
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what was that in your mother, your parents saw a door or?
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Yeah, my dad's side. I think.
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Probably goes back to, it's either his grandfather, his
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great-grandfather whenever they emigrated over to the US.
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But yeah, mostly polish. And then there's like some
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German and Slavic and check and all that kind of stuff mixed
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into as well. But majority of it is Polish up,
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my dad's side sounds like your family moved.
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So in the early 20th century to the u.s. is maybe that right?
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Or maybe I'll even so So it's somewhere around there.
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Hey yeah, I think it was probably dirty when all the
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immigration was happening. Even with like, you know, you
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have the Irish immigration and all that stuff.
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So I think it's kind of in that timeframe.
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I don't I don't really know for certain I think.
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I mean I'm trying to remember if any family members have had to
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do like a family tree project on that side and I just can't think
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of any think so enough, man. So it's cool to know know your
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heritage is and I think my Mom's done some, some tracing of ours.
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It's kind of boring to be honest.
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On my dad's side is a bit of French bit of Irish, but on my
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mom's side it's like our family. Just never went anywhere or did
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anything? It's like, I don't know.
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I mean, it might in my family so far.
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The only people that have traveled myself and believe my
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great grandparents as well. They were cool.
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They look an old couple that would like going to places like
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Japan that they went to Japan in that their 70s, man.
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I was like, that's awesome, but beyond the rest of my Family
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just never really goes anywhere. You know, they do the standard
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package holidays to France and Spain and okay.
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Yeah, I know that makes me sound a bit judgmental but like it, I
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don't know. I just, there's a whole world
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out there, you know what I mean? And sometimes I get a bit
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puzzled about a holiday, which is literally just two weeks on a
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beach resort with a bunch of people from your own country
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that that will always blow my mind a little bit because for
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me, I don't know, I liked it when I go to another country I
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like to As much as possible. Immersed myself in the local
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culture, you speak the language, do whatever, try and get the
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most out of it. You know.
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Get a different experience from from what we have back home I
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suppose. But yeah, I've never been an
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all-inclusive kind of person like cruises.
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I don't understand people that do cruises.
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I get I get people like them and and that's great for me that I
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have zero interest. I think the only way you get me
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on a cruise, it have to be like, you know, Alaska or like an
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article or something like that, you know.
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Something like super, super unique or like I'm not going to
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go on a cruise in the Bahamas like I have no interest in ever
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doing that. So you know I've never been on a
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cruise either and I was interested in going on one
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potentially. But then I watched this video
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the other day by that. There's this guy I find I found
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him recently. I've highly recommend you check
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them out and everyone listening, go check this guy out on YouTube
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as a guy called ordinary things. He's a British guy that
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basically does very kind of like sarcastic Charlie Brooker, heh,
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Kind of videos where he just talks about anything, anything
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from like the popularity, rise and fall of fedora hats or the
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the death of Ronald McDonald. Or you know what else is it
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soda? Like, you know, the Coca Cola
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and soda and he did he did one on cruise ships and it just put
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the fear of God in Me. I never realized that even pre
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covid. Cruise ships like is one of the
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hot spots for catching diseases and stuff and working with
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diseases but like illnesses and they actually have like these
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massive banners and advertisements when you're on
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the ships that sail I go wash your hands, wash your hands all
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the time, you know? I mean and like because people
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just often get you know and I suppose it makes sense you're
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out at Sea you know you're stuck with a bunch of people and you
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know you're probably prone to getting things like flu and as
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you be sisters Then I decided that people don't wash their
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hands, or take care of their personal hygiene and stuff.
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And you're essentially, like, in a small container where you're
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literally contained with these people in Episode III dish
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essentially? Yeah, right.
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Yeah. It's like, oh my God.
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Yeah. And then and then, also, sort of
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some, some small videos showing like, you know, the difference
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between what's sold to. You may be in a travel Oh sure.
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And then the reality. So I was in the travel
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brochures, you see, oh, look these lovely deckings.
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And, you know, you're you're in the Sun and you're on a stretch
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of, by the, by the water and it's all lovely, and there's
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barely anyone around. But the reality is, there's like
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200 people in the same area and it's packed and you could barely
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move like, I don't know if that's my idea.
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Fucking nightmare right there. Just yeah I want to get as far
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away from people as possible if I'm on holiday now.
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Yeah, when you travel I mean Yeah, I mean you want to do
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something unique and something that you enjoy?
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And I understand the people that enjoy cruises and I get it
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because it's just, you know, I pay you money and I don't have
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to think about the rest of it, but for me personally, that's
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just not the way I want to travel.
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I mean, I would never recommend it to everybody, but to each
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their own, I guess kind of on that front will show favorite
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type of holiday, man. I mean, I wish that we had here
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in America, just better better vacation time I mean, we don't
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get like, you guys get the, you know, over in Europe and stuff,
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they get the month of August off and stuff like that.
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We don't get that here. But are you for us?
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It's always just, you know, we build, we build around just kind
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of restaurants that we go to is kind of how we build our trip.
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So it's like, where do we want to go?
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You can find 45 places that we want to go eat.
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I'm just kind of build everything, you know, around
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that you mentioned getting off the month of.
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Look, I'm a bit confused by what you mean that because I mean I
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don't know. I can't speak for other
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countries. Speak for the UK.
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We have a system here, which is basically 28 days paid holiday,
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but what that actually looks like is probably about twenty
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one days of actual holiday time, and the remaining seven days
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they basically cheat. You, the remaining seven days
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are what we call bank holidays here.
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So like, you know, traditionally the actual Banks would be shut
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and they are, but most shops tend to be shot and businesses
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on those days. And that's the same every Sunday
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after a certain time here in the UK as well.
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But it's a bit of a cheek because bank holidays or not.
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The kind they are holidays in the sense that they're always
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full on like a Monday or very rarely on a Friday or whatever
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but everything shut. So it's like okay it's all about
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you can't do anything really gonna be.
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Yeah. So that when they're selling
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that to you and then the job interview, like Yay, 28 days
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paid holiday. And it's like we know you don't
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do you get 20 days, paid holiday and these extra days that you
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include to make it look like, you know, maybe make yourselves
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look good, but it's It's not the same thing.
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So just wanted to probe you on that, what you mean by that?
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Well usually it's I think it's mainly like Spain, right?
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Like Spain, France, those countries that they're pretty
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much off. I know Spain specifically is
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pretty much off. Like a lot of people take
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vacation, pretty much in August and kind of like the whole
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country, not shuts down. Okay.
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But like a lot of people thats kind of, when they take vacation
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and it just you know, with Spain, I mean you have like the
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the siesta in the middle of day and everything like that.
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America is probably one of the worst in terms of work-life
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balance and time off and everything like that.
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I remember there's a couple years ago Cadillac ran like a
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commercial. I don't know if it was like the
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Super Bowl or whatever, but the whole concept of the commercial
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was just like we work way more than everybody else.
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So like you could have a Cadillac kind of thing, it was
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really strange and you could find a probably a, like on
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YouTube, the actor who was in it, he's like a character actor.
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I think his name's like Neil do something.
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He's in a bunch of stuff. Like, Band of Brothers, he was
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in there. Usually, like, kind of a
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character actor, kind of villain guy.
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A really good actor, though, but it was just there was a backlash
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when that came out. That was a couple of years ago.
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And I think with covid and everything is just gotten way
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worse with. Now, we're having people, you
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know, there's this whole kind of people trying to figure out our
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people, not willing to go back to work because the jobs that
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they were working sucked with the in terms of, you know,
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benefits and pay and work life balance.
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Once or, you know, they're not incentivized to return or is it
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those industries that a lot of people were already in?
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They decided I don't want to go back to that industry because
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this happened once it can happen again, there's no stability all
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that kind of stuff to it as well.
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So this is an interesting conversation.
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I've seen the same sort of conversations occurring in the
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u.k. right now, and there's a YouTuber that I follow called
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Joshua fluke. Who talks a lot about this?
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I think he's based in you. Tar or something like that.
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But he's constantly commenting on basically a combination of
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employers on LinkedIn that have a very skewed, kind of
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perception of how things should be.
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And then what the media in the u.s. is saying, it seems to be
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the prevailing thought is this big argument between as you said
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like remote working and what actual benefits are workers
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offered and stuff and we have the same arguments here and all
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I can see from a lot of the major companies and Businesses
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is that they're trying to put forward this Narrative of who
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well remote working is not efficient.
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It's not efficient, it's bad for business and it's like well,
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actually the statistics prove otherwise, and maybe, maybe you
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need to give this to people, maybe they should just leave
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because, you know what? And then.
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And then this is that a lot of these companies have the
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audacity. A lot of them are run by
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Boomers. Sorry to be derogatory here, but
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like, they'll be run by other guy and he's like, 67.
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He's who tries to To tell his Workforce like yeah, you know,
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actually it's very important that you do that.
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You come to the office and you compose yourself in this manner
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and they try and tell you, oh, you know, you need to commit
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yourself to work and you can't be having a life outside of work
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is your life lab upline. It's like, no go fuck yourself.
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I'll find myself a job where they'll give me what I want and
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and you know what and more to the point.
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It's not really an unreasonable thing to ask for Remote working.
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I mean, the word that I keep hearing is the hybrid option,
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which I think is sensible, Janome, give people say, like, I
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used to do this, when I, when I lived in Estonia in Europe, I'd
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work like three days of the week in the office and typically, I'd
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have two days at home or one day at least at home.
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And you could work your life around that and agree on it and
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stuff. And yeah, I think it's very good
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for especially for people with families that get like
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unexpected kind of situations where they got a like I don't
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know. Pick up their kids randomly or
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something happens. During I mean you couldn't take
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advantage of that that option, it's an extra incentive which
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doesn't affect businesses like the I haven't seen anything out
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there that suggested the remote work in has been anything other
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than productive, but what were your thoughts on that?
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So yeah, yeah, I mean there's been some new developments to
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with like apple, you know. Apple, I think originally their
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campus out and Palo Alto here in California.
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They Said that most people are going to be able to work remote
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and they're walking that back and people were threatening to
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quit. But in there was also something
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they came out. I think from Iceland that they
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did a kind of a pilot program and had everybody work like four
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days instead of five and it was like 36 hours kind of a week and
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you know production efficiency didn't fall off or anything like
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that. So it is kind of this big debate
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and here at least I think that's a lot of big corporations.
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Were just as corporations. Do we're just trying to say the
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right things during the pandemic, so people, you know,
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didn't have any backlash against or companies.
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And now that we're kind of coming out of the pandemic, or
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at least there's less restrictions and everything.
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I mean, the virus is still around.
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But now all those companies are kind of walking back, all their
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promises and I think they realized they a lot of these
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companies own their own building or, you know, our leasing these
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spaces and office hours the landlord's, not going to let
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them Out of the lease because they're not gonna have anybody
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else to put in that lease. So the landlord is going to lose
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money. So they don't want to do that.
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And the companies that own their own building.
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If they let everybody work remote out of that building,
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then they just have an empty, empty office building that
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they're paying for and I think that's the core issue that does
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not get covered. Is just the companies don't want
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to lose money and so they're like yep everybody needs to be
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in the office because it's more efficient and it really isn't
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but they're just not willing to eat that sunk cost of having
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this office. They just sit there.
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Yeah. I mean bacon or try and sell the
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office building for, you know, they would make as much profit
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loss. Yeah, 100% agree with you,
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especially about the sunk costs. And I mean, I like I remember
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when I was in Estonia, there was this business.
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I work for right and they already had like this flashy
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office, but it wasn't like the best office ever.
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But it was functional, it did. It was fit for purpose and they
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chose to move us to that the most expensive building and you
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know it the whole thing was a giant Flex.
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It was like Get us with all our money look at all this stuff
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that we can show off and pulling out and make us look like we're
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a million bucks and it's I'm just saying, I'm sitting there
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thinking like this is a waste of money.
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Like you're a business, you're trying to make money and it's
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like, I don't know if I was a business owner like I would
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spend money where I need to make where I need to spend, I
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wouldn't be cheap but I wouldn't spend extravagantly and try and
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you know, show off or or even care like because a lot of time
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with these Businesses are closed off.
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They're not always open to the public purse age.
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And I mean, unless you have like occasional sales meetings or
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whatever, generally speaking, the only physical spaces you
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need for people are like people that are in sales it you know /
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programming and then after that I mean I mean geez even
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programmers can work from home to be honest.
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Most mothers. Are it set up?
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Yeah and actually no I take it back even even salespeople.
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That's been proven there's Entire company sales companies
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that have managed to still operate from home.
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Like we're sort of Shifting towards Internet only based
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Solutions what we're like VoIP services and corporate level and
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such. So I mean there really aren't
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any excuses anymore I think that's making those big
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companies Panic like you say that they're panicking about
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those sunk costs are panicking about what do we do?
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How do we get out of this situation and they're trying to
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propose something that is illogical and irrational?
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And I think that's where the problem is.
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They're trying to find ways to justify keeping the office, but
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I really do feel like this is the death of the office, to be
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honest. But yeah, I mean it all kind of
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you can trace a lot of it back to like is like the mid 2000's
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when Google kind of came on the scene right here, when they open
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like their campus, it was like we have a dry cleaner.
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Here we have that, you know, we have all this stuff here.
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Their whole concept was to basically keep the worker there
16:30
as long as they could without leaving the campus.
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If we have All these utilities here for them.
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Go be here longer and the work more and be more productive.
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And that is you're just trying to kind of break that mentality
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in that cycle and this is just what we're seeing is just people
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butting heads with corporations now and I don't know where it
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goes. It'll be interesting to see if
16:53
you know the Apple workers actually decide to quit and
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force apples hand, or that'll be interesting to see kind of what
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happens. It's like a giant cult that I've
17:04
never understood that. Like, I don't get me wrong.
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I understand if you're young, you're going to
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responsibilities. You're really invested in your
17:12
career and you're excited about it.
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I get you do it for a couple of years.
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Whatever right. But like most people have a life
17:18
outside of work, you know, work is work, you know, I mean there
17:22
are people obviously that love their jobs and props to them.
17:25
You know, I understand I'm a bit of a workaholic myself but you
17:29
got to have time to do other stuff.
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Like it's not just about Out having like a healthy balance
17:37
between work and play but it's also just I think it's good for
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your mind and your body and everything to get out of that
17:44
space and do something different.
17:46
My I don't think it's ever helped you to do anything too
17:49
much. You know, for instance spend too
17:51
much time around a particular person spends too much time at
17:53
work. Spend too much time not doing
17:55
work you know. Like yeah, everything in
17:58
moderation centers. Fix those places just seemed
18:01
like hell holes to me. I don't know.
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Yeah, there's a weird thing with here, especially here in
18:07
America. I'm not sure how much it is like
18:09
over there, but people identify with their job.
18:12
So like we first meet somebody, right?
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Usually, one of the first two or three questions you're going to
18:16
get is what do you do? And so it's not and so people
18:20
kind of identify with I'm in, I'm a salesperson or I'm a
18:24
pharmaceutical rep or whatever, where it should be, you know,
18:29
and this goes to the kind of like minimalism and stuff.
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Like it's you should be Asking somebody like, what are you
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passionate about? Yes, it's really tough to like
18:37
break that like kind of Q&A. Like when you first meet
18:42
somebody because you always kind of default back to like, well
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I've always been trained to ask like what do you do, but I don't
18:47
care what you do. You don't care what I do like,
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it doesn't matter. You know what I mean?
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Like, unless you act like a business like networking event.
18:53
Like, I don't care that you're, you know, a rep for, you know,
18:58
whatever machinery company. Like, okay, I don't really Care
19:03
about that, like wood. But what do you like actually
19:06
like to do in your off time? Like that is where do you like
19:09
to travel and stuff like that? I agree with you but I do think
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it's contextual because like in that scenario that you just laid
19:16
out when you were one of those networking where events like
19:19
you're probably you probably don't want to go there in the
19:21
first place you just have to do, you know, you know, the U sales
19:25
manager was like yeah you know this great opportunity to find
19:27
new clients. Blah blah blah.
19:28
See you there and you're bumping around.
19:30
You like yeah nice to meet you. Yeah go fuck.
19:33
Yourself. I don't care.
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So yeah, and then yeah, I get that.
19:37
You're just in another place with a bunch of other people
19:39
that don't give a shit about and you just flexing on each other
19:42
essentially, like, yo, you know what sells this company?
19:45
And this is how much we projected to make and blah,
19:46
blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, okay, I think
19:50
like in other contexts, like, if you're out with your buddies.
19:53
Yeah, I mean drinks and and you're asking and that question
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comes up, it's not as bad, although I do agree with what
19:59
you're saying. I think it's and I've changed
20:02
this recently. I First question, tends to be
20:05
what you're passionate about because I think that is, as you
20:07
said, more engaging, like there's more interesting but I
20:11
do think it's contextual sometimes asking people about
20:13
their jobs is interesting, but I think only if you really mean
20:17
it, like if you really are a yeah.
20:19
Oh yeah. Because a lot of the time as you
20:21
said, it's that typical. Oh, how much are you earning and
20:25
what kind of car do you drive? And it's like, all right, it was
20:28
this fucking capitalism Q&A like Yeah, for sure.
20:35
Well we live in but still. Alright.
20:39
So we've had, we've had a little bit of a chat we've got with
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we're comfortable. Now, let's just talk about you.
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So you run a podcast and a website under the name, spoon
20:49
mob, which reviews chefs, some of the airs.
20:54
Like I said that correctly and wines from around the world.
20:58
Tell us how this all started and what are some of the greatest
21:01
successes that you've had with this brand.
21:04
So it all I mean you can trace it back.
21:07
It's basically I was working in a living in kind of a suburb of
21:12
the city working a job and just I mean just you know you kind of
21:17
reach this point where you just like what am I really doing?
21:19
Like I'm working this job and you just kind of are you know
21:24
looking towards the next thing that you're going to purchase or
21:26
whatever and I don't know. I mean it was probably like a
21:29
mix of you know depression and that and just kind of analyzing.
21:33
Life and everything and just you know wasn't stuff that I wanted
21:37
to do. Like this is what I'm going to
21:38
do. Like I don't want to be you know
21:40
when you when you die and they're talking about your
21:42
funeral and a little more of it to think this way but like I
21:45
don't want that, you don't want people to be like, oh he was he
21:47
was the best salesperson at company XYZ.
21:51
I know you don't want that to be kind of like your legacy.
21:54
You know what I mean? Or whatever.
21:56
So, you know, again very morbid but so just kind of going along
22:01
that train of thought and just My wife, who's my girlfriend at
22:05
the time, she was gonna go on a trip to Seattle to visit a
22:09
friend from high school and she was gonna go with other friends
22:11
from high school. They all kind of wound up.
22:14
Dropping out for one reason or another.
22:16
I wasn't originally planning on going just because I do really
22:19
want to go on like a high school, friends trip.
22:22
So when they all dropped out, I was like, you know, I always
22:24
wanted to go to Seattle, see, if it was some place that I wanted
22:27
to live. And at that point to my life,
22:29
like, I had been working for a company where I was traveling a
22:32
lot, but it was Wasn't to destinations you'd want to go
22:35
to. It was to like middle of the
22:36
nowhere locations because there were manufacturing plants there
22:39
for the company that I was working with.
22:41
No. I was just kind of like burnout
22:44
on travel just because all I had been traveling to is like little
22:48
Podunk towns and stuff like that.
22:50
And and so went to Seattle had a great time.
22:54
And then we started traveling a little bit more and kind of got
22:57
in a traveling and started eating at different restaurants
23:00
and got into you know, eating and In on that, and we went to
23:06
my wife, she had to go to Singapore for her job.
23:09
She'd been there a couple times and she had to go there for like
23:11
two weeks. So I flew over for a week and
23:16
she would be working during the day and I would just go around
23:19
the city and sightsee and do a bunch of stuff.
23:21
And one thing she had never done when she was there.
23:24
The few times, was the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.
23:29
If you're not familiar with it, you can Google it, but looks
23:32
like a surfboard on Stilts. And it's in the Marina Bay Area
23:36
of Singapore and they have at the one end, they have this
23:39
famous infinity pool. So you're, you know, 30 stories
23:42
high and there's like, an infinity pool, but you have to
23:44
stay at the hotel to have access to it, but on the one end, they
23:48
have this observation deck and I had gotten into kind of like
23:51
photography photography and stuff like that.
23:54
So I always look when we're traveling, the different places
23:57
that you could get different Vantage points, if like skylines
23:59
and stuff like that. So we went up there and it was
24:04
You know, you couldn't really get a picture of skyline like
24:07
safety glass. They had had a bunch of
24:09
fingerprints and scratches in it and all this stuff and you
24:11
couldn't get a high enough point to where you could get a clear
24:13
shot over the safety glass, if you're far enough back.
24:16
So, you know, we kind of had that experience in.
24:18
I was like, man, I wish somebody would have, you know, like
24:20
actually have like a travel guide or something that said,
24:23
you know, hey you should not do this, even though this comes up
24:26
on all kind of the travel websites or whatever.
24:28
Like this is something you should do somebody that had one.
24:30
That was like, no, don't do this.
24:32
Go over here. So, you know, this bar that's in
24:35
this skyscraper because you're going to have a better vantage
24:37
point or whatever. It's that kind of sparked, the
24:39
idea of, you know, maybe I could do that.
24:42
Like, maybe I could write a travel guide.
24:43
So I started writing like a travel guide and when as I do
24:49
with most things just super far into it, so it was like getting
24:53
like census data and like weather data.
24:56
Best time to go there, stuff like that, history of like, you
24:59
know, the city or whatever. And I wrote it out and I had
25:01
basically one For each City and was going to do like twelve
25:06
chapters in a book like, if you were traveling and you can
25:08
travel somewhere once a month, that was kind of how I had it
25:11
formatted I was getting to the point where I'm going to start
25:13
looking for independent like public heaters or, you know, how
25:16
to get it published and stuff. And I couldn't quite wrap my
25:20
head around, like, if it takes a year to get this published when
25:23
it's done, like, how much of this information set a date, you
25:26
know, and stuff like that? How do you keep it updated?
25:28
How is it worthwhile for somebody to read this and so
25:31
that I had the idea of like what if I just put it?
25:33
On online on a website. So I built a website built all
25:38
these Pages out and as you do is stuff that you create you kind
25:41
of self audit and stand back every once in a while and look
25:44
at it, I was like, man, this is each page pretty long.
25:47
Like, I don't know if anybody's going to want to read like for
25:50
30 to 45 minutes like through, you know, each City or whatever.
25:54
So like how do I, you know, make this more user-friendly and pare
25:57
it down and started whittling down different parts and stuff
26:01
like that. And then kind of evolved into
26:03
Focusing on the restaurants because that's how we're
26:05
building. All our trips was whatever
26:08
restaurants we would go to do those kind of reservations
26:11
first. And then we would fill in the
26:13
site seen stuff for, you know, whatever you want to do kind of
26:16
in a city because you could kind of do that.
26:18
Whenever, you know, the hours of them being open is usually 8 to
26:21
10 hours a day versus a restaurant where maybe it's
26:23
only, you know, 45 hour or something like that.
26:25
So you have a narrow window so started focusing on on that and
26:30
it just kind of evolved from there to just, you know, once we
26:32
realize That's the stuff that we really enjoy.
26:35
It was just kind of focusing on the food.
26:37
And so originally, it was just kind of pared down into favorite
26:41
restaurants and I had all this information about like the
26:44
restaurant opening a different chefs that had run the
26:46
restaurant and stuff like that and then that kind of morphed
26:50
into after talking with the chef, basically like focusing on
26:55
the chef themselves because they're what makes it your
26:57
favorite restaurant was the experience that you had when
27:00
they were there working and cooking, you might still like
27:03
Restaurant if they leave but it's not going to be the same
27:06
experience. And if you think back to how
27:08
many times where, you know, maybe go to a restaurant here,
27:10
like that restaurant was really good and then you go back, like,
27:12
six months later, like it's just different, it's not the same,
27:15
you know, a lot of times it's because somebody left, you know,
27:18
they have, you know, different purveyor for ingredients and
27:20
stuff like that. So started focusing on that and
27:23
then started you know, so had these Pages written up and I was
27:25
like, well what do you do for people that don't want to read?
27:28
You know, they want to know if I wanna yeah that because that's a
27:30
big thing. Like people don't read as much
27:32
as they used to. She was like, what if I just do
27:34
a podcast and just basically audio record, everything and
27:38
audio formats are people could listen to it, you know, on the
27:40
go or whatever. And so it became this kind of
27:43
three prong thing where there's a podcast, you know, for people
27:46
that could listen to it if they don't want to read, there's a
27:48
portion that people can read if they don't want to listen and
27:50
then there's Instagram so they can see visual aids and stuff
27:53
like that. And it all just kind of became
27:57
like proof-of-concept almost like doing the podcast, you
28:00
know. Okay.
28:01
People are actually listening to this and it People that I don't
28:04
know. So what's, like, the next step
28:06
with that and we tried a few different concepts and then it
28:09
kind of morphed into, you know, all the research I was doing on
28:13
different chefs. You'd always find contradictory
28:15
things. You know, they went to this
28:17
school during this time period, but maybe another article would
28:20
say it was later. Separate article would say, they
28:23
worked at this restaurant, you know, before they went to school
28:25
and the other two said something different.
28:28
It was like, well, what if I could get a chef to come on the
28:30
podcast and actually kind of explain their career?
28:33
We're in their own words, you know, so wouldn't be taken out
28:35
of context on them. But it would kind of set the
28:38
record straight and reached out to some people and and people
28:41
were like, yeah. I'll do it and and just kind of
28:43
been going ever since with that and interviewing chefs and it's
28:47
been a lot of fun. And and yeah here we are.
28:51
Paul cost has a similar format to mind in that.
28:55
You know, you do your research on these chefs and essentially
29:00
your detailing their career and you You kind of giving people
29:04
listening like the opportunity to go.
29:05
Hey, this is how this person's mind works.
29:08
This is that their background their approach to these things
29:12
and then by listening to all of that and here in the story
29:15
shared and Etc, it kind of reenact, I mean acts as an
29:19
advertisement for that Chef in a restaurant and everything like
29:21
that and it's obviously useful to you because it's you know
29:24
adding to that kind of ongoing kind of database.
29:28
So to speak and constantly providing more info.
29:31
Yeah. And I think for the you know I'm
29:34
always thankful for anybody that agrees to do the podcast just
29:37
because I mean you know with chefs they usually get one or
29:41
two days off a week and it's like they're going to spend an
29:43
hour or two hours out of there one day off a week to do a
29:47
podcast that they've never heard of some guy who randomly ask
29:50
them, you know. So I'm always so amazed by
29:52
people that say yes and want to do it but yeah it does help.
29:57
I think build kind of a connection between maybe
30:00
somebody was thinking about going to that restaurant.
30:02
On and wasn't sure what the experience would be like or why
30:05
they should go. And then they would hear that
30:07
interview with the chef of like, okay, now I get kind of why the
30:11
food is like that, like I'm going to go try it.
30:13
I'd be more interested in trying it and I think it helps build a
30:15
connection with people that either had eaten there before,
30:18
or maybe don't understand kind of why things are the way they
30:21
are at the restaurant or the food that they create and stuff
30:24
like that. And I think it really helps, you
30:27
know, especially with everything being closed and covid-19.
30:31
And everything and all restaurants.
30:33
Basically have to rebuild kind of their core customer base.
30:38
Even if you didn't close, you still lost people who are scared
30:42
to eat out or scared to do takeout or haven't been to
30:45
restaurants and over a year, whatever.
30:47
So you have to kind of get those people back again and I think
30:49
this, there's no perfect way to Market a restaurant.
30:53
You know, there's no perfect way to Market anything.
30:54
I don't think anymore, you have to do all these different things
30:57
and they kind of cool into one and I think it's just another
30:59
Avenue for people to come on and talk about their experiences.
31:02
And restaurants and it seems to work.
31:04
I mean, seems to help the restaurants that, you know,
31:06
we've been able to have on and chefs and stuff like that.
31:08
And so it's been going good from at least that perspective you
31:13
mentioned obviously it's quite difficult in terms of You know,
31:19
the schedules of the chefs in terms of like arranging to find
31:23
time and stuff, but that you said they've been very
31:25
accommodating. But is it just is it difficult
31:27
to actually get them on the show?
31:29
I mean, I've seen you've got a lot of episodes, nothing.
31:31
You've got at least two 200, is that right?
31:34
Shows that you have a, not all. Not all of those.
31:36
Are I mean we're in like the 150s but there's oh, not also
31:40
our Chef interviews, we're probably at about 18 to 20 Chef
31:45
/ interviews, he started doing those at the Getting a this
31:49
year, but the podcast itself deepak's to January June 2020.
31:54
When I first started it was just basically I would do just solo
31:57
episodes just kind of recapping all the researcher, there's that
32:01
I did. And then we started a concept
32:05
because me and my friend were pretty bored.
32:08
There wasn't a whole lot of new content or anything.
32:09
So we started re watching, Anthony Bourdain episodes, and
32:13
iPod cat food news, kind of one and and that eventually stop.
32:18
Doing just it was a lot of work to continuously kind of keep up
32:21
with new things that we're going on and kind of the industry
32:24
covid and everything. And what it, there's still value
32:27
in it for me because it gave me more reps and recording, and
32:31
being comfortable, kind of microphone and and learning how
32:33
you speak and different ways that you need you to kind of
32:36
change, you know, when you look back through your recording and
32:39
you're doing editing and you're like, oh, I need to stop doing
32:41
this. I need to stop doing this.
32:42
I need to change how I say this, and I'm so it's all been
32:47
beneficial. You know, maybe it doesn't
32:50
behind the scenes probably. It's been more beneficial for
32:52
some of that stuff, but in terms of actual Chef interviews we've
32:55
done, I think about like, 18 or so.
32:57
So far that have been released and that's kind of started.
33:00
Like I said about like January, like the first one we did was
33:03
like the last day of December or something.
33:06
The very first one. So whilst the suppose, the
33:10
overall goal with this podcast, obviously we know that like you
33:13
said trying to build state-based, you trying to
33:15
inform people and kind of solve a problem that you yourself had
33:20
faced and you know, many others sort of face.
33:24
But moving forward with this, you know, you've got your
33:26
concept, you've got the format, you know, it's very clear what
33:29
we're going with here. But like the saying, the next
33:32
couple of years that well, what do you want to do with this
33:34
podcast? What's the overall goal?
33:37
I definitely think it's continuing to focus on the chef
33:40
interviews. I think that's the episodes that
33:42
people enjoy the most. I guess the goal would be just
33:46
to grow it to the point where, you know, it sure would be like
33:49
to eventually have some sort of appetizer or something like
33:53
that. Sure.
33:54
But it's kind of weird because I wouldn't want to advertise
33:57
anything that I don't believe in, who's that gets kind of
34:01
weird in a gray area. But yeah, would be love to get
34:03
to a point where it's like, maybe some Ooh, that we somehow
34:07
generate like pays for a dinner or we can donate some of that
34:11
Revenue to a food bank or something like that.
34:12
Like, that be great. But you know, it's still at the
34:16
stage for me, I think we're if you're not having fun, don't do
34:20
it and it's still a lot of fun for me.
34:22
But I think really it's just growing it reaching more people
34:26
help, you know, and I think with the more people that we kind of
34:29
reach and more listeners and stuff that we get will be able
34:31
to get bigger and bigger names, you know, chefs people that
34:33
probably recognize, you know, there'd be more incentive for
34:35
those people. To come on a podcast.
34:38
You probably aren't interested in doing it right now because
34:40
it's so small and they don't see the benefit, you know, and you
34:45
be able to get more people and talk to different people and get
34:48
different perspectives and everything.
34:50
And I think that's kind of the way forward.
34:53
It's just kind of growing it. And the concept will be, you
34:57
know, mainly the chef interview is in everything and we'll still
35:00
to Anchor with other Concepts that we find interesting and
35:03
everything. But You know, I enjoy doing it.
35:06
It's definitely you could say it's a passion project but I
35:09
definitely want to see if I can make it you know my quote
35:13
unquote career I guess. But if it never gets there,
35:17
that's okay. As long as I had fun doing it
35:18
but definitely want to make sure I give 110% to see if see if it
35:22
pans out, you know. Same here.
35:25
Same here, man. And just when you were talking.
35:29
So, mentioned, something that annoys me too often get a lot of
35:32
people say, oh, cool. Yeah, you got podcast or It on
35:35
anyone, I would know. And that alone is not an
35:38
unreasonable question, but I always do find that a lot of
35:41
people just seem disinterested as soon as you say that you
35:44
haven't had any celebrities or whatever.
35:46
And I just think that's a really dumb way to think, you know what
35:51
I mean? Because, Number one.
35:56
You can have a celebrity in your podcast, that doesn't mean it
35:58
will be a good episode. Very true.
36:01
It's all about Being able to be a good conversationalist.
36:05
I've been extremely lucky, this is episode 99 of my podcast now,
36:11
and I've always kind of adapted to my guests.
36:15
So sometimes if they talk more, I talk less.
36:18
I just guide the conversation. If they talk less, I try and
36:21
probe and push and stuff. And I feel like, you know, a lot
36:24
of celebrities that I've seen. Tend to be quite quiet.
36:31
You know, you really have to push them to get something out
36:33
of them and sometimes that kind of puts me off the idea of
36:36
having a celebrity is on my show to be honest.
36:38
I mean I would love to obviously it would help and everything but
36:40
I don't actually think that it would necessarily do anything
36:44
for the show. I feel like, the best thing you
36:48
can always focus on is having good conversations producing,
36:51
good content, you know. I mean like I that's always my
36:54
focus and when I look back over, you know, I stood 100 episodes.
37:00
The thing that I always think about is this was a good
37:02
conversation this. There's something beneficial in
37:05
this, there's something good in this so bring it back to your
37:07
podcast. I feel it's even more important
37:10
because you know you're providing a sort of a service so
37:14
to speak and I feel like it's much more useful for you to have
37:20
like this. You know reviews of chefs that
37:22
are lesser known but maybe restaurants that are more well
37:25
known or you know up-and-coming that's more you Useful to your
37:28
everyday kind of person that shopping around and thinking
37:31
where to go, you know, like what what's the point of
37:33
interviewing? Like a Gordon Ramsay or
37:36
something like that. Like everyone knows this person,
37:39
they kind of know what to expect and I don't know.
37:44
There's not really much else that can really be said.
37:46
I mean I suppose you'd have to approach it differently.
37:48
You know, I thought that's that's the thing.
37:51
It's the Dilemma of if you had somebody that you know and I
37:54
think about it every once in a while to give you had somebody
37:56
that everybody knows the name or, you know, somebody who's
37:59
famous how would you approach that?
38:01
Because their story's been told numerous times.
38:04
Yeah. So you'd have to find something
38:07
that maybe they'll talk about too much or you know and it's
38:11
easier for some chefs. It's than others.
38:14
Like somebody like Gordon Ramsay, like, I don't like, what
38:16
would you even? You know, he had his
38:18
restaurants, he does a bunch of TV shows now.
38:21
Like, what would you even talk to and what would you, you have
38:24
to find that subject to the? He would not only be interested
38:28
in talking because as, you know, from doing podcast sometimes
38:31
when you touch on something, especially with chefs, like I've
38:34
had one where he's super big into, he does paintings, are you
38:37
can nobody ever really asked him about that and like the
38:39
interviews I did and he's just like lit up when we got to that
38:42
point. I was like oh this guy knows
38:44
that I do paintings and like it's something that I'm like
38:46
super into and you can see kind of the person just light up and
38:49
spark up and they're like, oh yeah and so like what would that
38:53
be for? Like a Gordon Ramsay that think
38:56
for him feel like it's just another press interview that I'm
38:58
doing for whatever TV show that's coming.
39:00
Yeah, yeah but what would also make it interesting to The
39:03
Listener that they would get value out of it?
39:05
Whether it's entertaining or they would learn something new
39:08
about Gordon Ramsay if they're big Gordon Ramsay fan or like to
39:12
sew. You're always kind of balancing
39:13
these things about like, yeah. Is it interesting for me?
39:19
Would it be interesting for that person?
39:20
And in the people that are listening, would it be
39:22
interesting for them and you're kind of always trying to figure
39:24
out like what's the best kind of way to piece all that together?
39:29
Yeah that's exactly the way I thought about actually when I
39:32
think about having a celebrity on my show You have to ask them
39:37
some questions. They've already been asked, or
39:39
something around that because you know, of the nature of who
39:43
they are, what they do and stuff and people will want to hear
39:45
that but you're absolutely 100%, right?
39:47
Yeah. That's the way to get them is to
39:49
get them talking about what they're passionate about their
39:51
interested in like I was going after Gordon Ramsay.
39:54
I think I would probably focus on trying to do a sort of career
39:59
retrospective Get his kind of overall thoughts on things in
40:05
general like where he was where he is.
40:08
And then as you say yeah get into the meat and bones like try
40:11
and try and explore. And I think like sometimes, you
40:15
know, for instance at the beginning of this podcast we
40:17
have a little chat with you know it you see where it goes
40:19
sometimes. Sometimes I've Had It episodes
40:21
where that's literally all it's been.
40:22
Yeah, I didn't even barely use the questions I had because the
40:25
conversation just naturally happened and I think in an
40:28
instance like that potentially You know, if you can, if you can
40:31
get that, that person that's kind of perfect, really?
40:37
Yeah, and I think, you know, going back to your point to like
40:40
there is it is more beneficial? I think it'll wait to have
40:44
people that you haven't heard of that aren't these big names
40:47
because these big, the big names, like you said that,
40:50
you've heard their story. You can find a lot of
40:52
information about them too, but, you know, there is like, I think
40:56
people forget with somebody like actors, right?
40:59
Like They get paid to convince you that there's somebody else,
41:04
it's for two hours or whatever. So you're not going to get that
41:08
person. Like I think, people think, oh,
41:10
I'm going to get, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio from The Wolf
41:14
of Wall Street. That's the episode that I'm
41:16
listening to. It's like, no, you're getting,
41:19
you're getting the guy who like, morphs himself into all these
41:23
different people over the course of his 15-year 20-year career.
41:27
So it's not going to be what you think it is.
41:29
And I think that sometimes At least two people being like a
41:31
little disappointed like oh, it wasn't as interesting as what I
41:34
thought it was going to be as like, yeah, the guy gets paid to
41:36
like, make you believe, he's somebody else like you touched
41:40
on something as well. Like, I've seen so many
41:42
interviews out there. That infuriated me.
41:44
Like for instance I found some interviews online of like, David
41:49
Bowie, getting interviewed back in the day and the interviewers
41:52
would just ask him like really stupid questions.
41:55
And I'd be like you've got this man he's a Megastar, you could
41:59
ask him anything you want. And you ask him like really just
42:03
stupid stuff and you can see he's visibly annoyed and
42:06
sometimes he just laughed off and other times.
42:08
You get annoyed as I don't blame the guy like this is so trash
42:12
and it's like if you're going to do an interview, Yeah, I mean,
42:17
don't get me wrong. It's impossible to know what
42:21
other people have asked that person.
42:22
You can do a bit research beforehand but celebrities, get
42:26
interviewed, like thousands of times.
42:28
So it's impossible to not ask them something they've already
42:32
been asked. But as you say, like, if you go
42:35
into it, with the right mindset of, yeah, I'm going to
42:37
interview, Leonardo DiCaprio, the actor, and focus on his
42:41
mindset, and his approach. And and, and yet his Passions
42:45
And driving forces in life, that's going to be interesting
42:47
and that's going to work and he's going to be motivated and
42:49
we're probably going to get more out of it.
42:52
You know? Like I know, for instance, Joe
42:54
Rogan's podcast is very polarizing, it gets different,
42:57
you know, good positive and negative Vibes.
42:59
I get that. But his approach is fantastic.
43:03
I've always really been inspired by that because I think that
43:07
that's the ideal. You make your guests, feel
43:10
comfortable, you get a conversation going, you see
43:13
where it goes. And In between that here and
43:16
there you can you can ask them some of those questions.
43:19
You can even ask them something that they've asked been asked a
43:22
thousand times and they'll give you that answer but they'll be
43:25
happy to do so. And you could probably expand
43:29
upon that, you know? I mean so like you take?
43:32
Yeah. Leonardo DiCaprio.
43:34
Let's say yeah. You're talking and and then you
43:37
know, the Wolf of Wall Street comes up and then you just like
43:41
laugh about a particular thing that happened what was that like
43:44
and then He talks talking about it and then you ad-lib.
43:47
That's something I've learned to do in the past.
43:50
I guess, 50 episodes is ad-libbing and and just paying
43:53
attention to the conversation rather than a roux need to go
43:56
from question one to question five and then see what happens,
44:01
you know. So, you know something you can
44:04
you flow with and it's easier to listen to and there are
44:07
comfortable that you get as an interviewer and stuff like that.
44:10
Yeah. But for yeah like I have
44:12
questions you know that I do research before.
44:15
Forehand. But yeah I mean there if you saw
44:19
the amount of questions that I have like they're not even
44:21
probably like maybe just over like a whole space like it's not
44:25
that many these are topics. You can kind of touch on using
44:27
as a guideline but if the person goes this direction on you know
44:32
talking about culinary school, well yeah you just kind of run
44:36
out that topic until you get to a point where like okay we
44:40
covered it then you can kind of move on.
44:41
So it's it's definitely this kind of give-and-take kind of
44:44
push. Pull that.
44:45
Your every interview like you said, is different, you know,
44:47
everybody's got different personalities, so it's not
44:48
always the same thing. You have to kind of figure out,
44:51
like you said, you do you have to ask for questions, you have
44:53
to probe more. Can you just let them run for
44:55
like 10 minutes on a topic and like, not even have to do
44:57
anything and like just but still be visually engaged, you know?
45:02
Because the like a lot of times it's like, head nods and stuff
45:04
like that or stuff. That's easy to head out on my
45:07
side at the audio. That way.
45:08
It's less work, but it's still, you still have the same kind of
45:11
interview from their perspective to because you're engaged
45:14
visually with Like that. So yeah, it's definitely a
45:16
delicate balance for each thing. Each person.
45:20
So talk us through your, your research process.
45:23
Like how do you actually prepare yourself for these interviews
45:27
and what kind of research did you do?
45:30
So you so far, thankfully it's been everybody I've had on the
45:33
podcast as a place. That I've actually eaten at
45:35
myself, and I'd like to keep that going as long as possible.
45:39
I'm fully aware that eventually I'm going to run out people that
45:42
I've actually eaten at the restaurant that are Well, that I
45:45
want to actually talk to know and and I already know how I can
45:49
do it. Where if I haven't eaten at that
45:51
restaurant, it won't be too different.
45:55
But it's a lot of just reading different interviews that
45:59
they've done if they've done any, you know, for any kind of
46:02
the major Publications, it's a lot easier.
46:04
If it's somebody who's in New York or San Francisco with a
46:06
bigger newspaper like here in Columbus, a lot of the local
46:10
chefs. We only have a few different
46:12
kinds of Publications, but they don't do anything too in-depth.
46:14
And even There is an article that did go in depth.
46:16
It's probably from three years ago or something like that.
46:19
Like it's not like they're every year, they're doing like an
46:21
in-depth piece on, you know, the chef or anything like that.
46:24
So you definitely have to do a little bit more research and
46:27
digging going through see if they have a LinkedIn profile and
46:31
kind of line it up, different places that they worked and then
46:33
you can kind of cross-reference and do some Googling on, you
46:37
know, if they've worked their how long they were there doing a
46:42
bunch of research through the internet and just different
46:44
Google services. Searches and and stuff like that
46:47
and you know Instagram going through, you know, if they're
46:49
active on Instagram that usually helps to as well.
46:51
But like a lot of a lot of chefs aren't the restaurant accounts
46:56
are but the chefs themselves aren't Super Active or if they
46:59
are it's so you won't offer unlike their work history in
47:02
that regard, but you just have to explore every single Avenue
47:06
that you can to get as much information.
47:08
And then you just kind of have to sort through it and figure
47:10
out what's interesting. Well, it's kind of boring, you
47:13
know, where can does this Addition into the next thing and
47:16
stuff like that kind of construct it that way but it's a
47:18
lot of a lot of Internet digging for sure.
47:21
So what do you think makes a good Chef then?
47:23
Like how do you judge that took us for your sort of rating scale
47:27
and all that stuff? I mean everybody everybody's
47:30
different, right? It's all subjective.
47:32
The type of food that I like to eat is not going to be the same
47:35
as somebody else but in general, you know, the podcast kind of
47:40
structure and if you like eating similar stuff as to I do and you
47:44
can Look at all the photos and stuff like that.
47:46
Well then you'd probably like these experiences.
47:50
But if you're somebody who just likes, you know, bar food, like
47:54
you're probably not going to get too much out of kind of the
47:56
podcast because you know, chefs that generally do bar food or
48:00
just probably more Cooks. So these are more people that
48:04
I'm kind of talking to. I can gravitate towards some
48:06
more kind of the the chef owner type.
48:08
So they own the restaurant kind of run the restaurant to as well
48:12
and it's really just people that are packed.
48:15
Janet about it and, you know, are super creative to as well.
48:18
I kind of view it food. As kind of this disappearing art
48:23
almost where, you know, your restaurant will have this dish
48:27
and maybe it'll be super, you know, plated real well and super
48:30
beautiful and everything, but that dish will probably only be
48:32
on the menu for three months, you know, because it's probably
48:36
related to seasonality. So if it's on the summer months
48:39
because it has summer ingredients or stuff like that.
48:41
So there is this kind of limited Addition weirdness with it, kind
48:48
of like it's art expires, but it also kind of once it's on your
48:52
plate and you consume it like it's gone.
48:55
So it kind of makes the whole food photography thing a little
48:58
bit more interesting because it's like, you're capturing a
49:00
moment in time. That, that moment I never really
49:04
come back again because they might never make that dish
49:06
again, or if they do make it it could be structured differently
49:09
or played a differently or something like that.
49:11
So it's kind of like all these different factors that come into
49:14
play. When you're when you screw it
49:16
was a cooked properly, how's the service?
49:18
And these are all things that you kind of take into
49:19
consideration and if it was a great experience and experience
49:23
that you would recommend to somebody who ask you like, hey,
49:25
where should I go eat? That's kind of the general rule
49:28
of thumb for like yeah, this is somebody.
49:29
I would want to talk to and then you reach out to them and see if
49:32
they want to do it. And usually, probably one or two
49:36
out of ten times you get a response and somebody says like,
49:39
yeah, I'd love to do it and you just kind of go from there and
49:44
what are your kind of Thoughts on the influence of reviews of
49:48
restaurants and so eating establishments in General on
49:52
websites such as glass door and trustpilot stuff.
49:55
Like what do you think about that?
49:56
So yeah, that's actually pretty interesting because I think a
50:01
lot of people are all kind of ties into almost like the
50:05
newspaper industry in a way because food critics were almost
50:08
celebrities themselves for a while especially like the New
50:10
York Times and now that people don't read the newspapers.
50:14
Much Subscribe to it because social media kind of replace the
50:17
new series, definitely a less effect that a food critic.
50:20
In a major publication can have on a restaurant.
50:23
They're still big. Give me wrong, like, you talk to
50:26
different chefs and I like, yeah, if we didn't get into this
50:28
publication like that, you know, we might not have survived for
50:31
another six months. Like if you do, there are some
50:33
things like for a while. It was bone Appétit magazine.
50:35
Like, if you got into Buon apetito, had a feature there,
50:38
like, you saw your business quadruple like overnight and you
50:41
were golden. So I think it's It's less of
50:45
that now. So I don't think, you know, food
50:49
criticism, it's all subjective to it's like with music or
50:53
comedy or anything else. It's, you know, does that
50:55
person? You have to think of it as this
50:58
person may or may not like that restaurant.
51:00
That's reviewing it. But do I find myself eating at
51:05
similar establishments along those lines that they do?
51:09
So if you don't and like that food critic has no value really
51:13
to you and what you're looking for.
51:15
So, you know, that's why you can have different food critics
51:18
because some might gravitate more towards you know, ethnic
51:21
food, you know, maybe they're super big into Asian Cuisine,
51:25
you know, Chinese Japanese all that stuff, but maybe there's
51:28
somebody else who's just really about super fine.
51:32
Dining elegant, French cuisine. So you kind of have to as with
51:36
most things in life, you just kind of have to try and expose
51:39
Yourself to as much of it and then figure out what you really
51:41
like and and what you get value from and then go with that.
51:45
So, I mean the days of kind of, I think, you know, the New York
51:49
Times it's still important but it's just doesn't have the same
51:55
kind of power that it used to and in the 90s or the 2000s and
51:59
social media kind of took over for a lot of that stuff.
52:02
So you kind of almost have to gravitate towards like the
52:06
person more so than Maybe. Be you know the criticism I
52:11
guess or to find Value in the criticism you have to have
52:13
something in common with kind of the person.
52:18
He's Jason gets. Quiet as impactful as the media
52:23
makes. It sound sound?
52:25
Do you know what I mean? So like if a restaurant is
52:27
getting a bunch of negative reviews online, is it really
52:31
that bad? Or, you know, is it just hearsay
52:34
and the, you know, they can, they can sort of take that
52:37
criticism if you get where I'm going with this.
52:41
Yeah, it's tough. Because, you know, everybody has
52:43
bad days, you know, you could have a day where the restaurant
52:46
is, just not in sync and people are just messing stuff up left
52:50
and right and The day that you went there and that sucks.
52:53
And for you, that's always going to be a negative experience, but
52:56
maybe that was the one time out of the year that they just
53:00
everything, just didn't work that night in the kitchen.
53:03
You know what I mean? But on the kind of the flip side
53:06
of it too. It's like with you know, media
53:09
criticism, like Yelp like Yelp is always, I found Yelp weird
53:14
because it's this platform where everybody can go and say whether
53:17
or not they like the restaurant so that part I understand.
53:19
But why would you You from a new user perspective, why would you
53:23
believe any of those people? You don't know anything about
53:27
them. There's a username and they
53:28
published. They said I didn't like this
53:30
blah blah blah. Okay.
53:31
But why didn't you like it? Yeah.
53:34
Was it because the food was overcooked was it because the
53:36
service was too slow? Was it because Somalia never
53:39
came back as if you want another glass of wine and was it you
53:43
showed up for your reservation 8, and they didn't see you till
53:45
a 20, like, what was the context of that situation?
53:48
And I think that's where when you can provide More context for
53:52
people, they can get an understanding of.
53:54
Okay. There are all these different
53:55
factors of played. That's why this person didn't
53:57
like that restaurant. Well, I probably wouldn't like
54:00
that either. But would that happen to me?
54:03
I don't know. I'm still kind of interested in
54:04
going there, so I'm gonna give it a shot or maybe they're just
54:07
like oh that person said, you know, they had all this stuff
54:09
happening, that's way more than I would ever want to deal with.
54:11
I wouldn t. Want to deal with half of that
54:13
so I don't want to go there. So I think context is really
54:16
important, I think that's something that's been lost and a
54:18
lot of it is just people. Or I like this.
54:22
I hate this. This is good.
54:23
This is bad. But nobody wants to say why?
54:26
What are the reasons that you came to that conclusion?
54:30
And that's kind of where I feel like you know we kind of
54:32
differentiate ourselves we're providing as much context as we
54:35
can from our experience. So you can have kind of an
54:39
informed opinion of this is likely, the experience that you
54:42
would have if you went there on your own.
54:46
What's the biggest life lesson that you've learned so far?
54:51
Biggest life lesson. Who just didn't you talking in
54:55
general? Whatever comes to mind, you
54:58
know, I got like I guess I guess so yeah, but never comes to
55:02
mind, you know, I would say just try, there's so many people that
55:08
I think don't want to try or try once and give up effort is the
55:14
only thing that you can control. There's so many other factors
55:16
and everything that you want to do, whether it's a passion
55:18
project or work, your job, your career family, whatever.
55:21
But the only thing that you can really control, is the amount of
55:25
effort that you put in on a daily, Asus.
55:27
So you know as long as you feel like you did everything you
55:31
could at the end of the day you know then that that's where I
55:35
think everybody should be at but for me it's definitely like I
55:39
you know the me or can get better access to bigger name
55:42
chefs for the podcast or whatever.
55:44
But but I could also you know, I can try harder, I can reach out
55:48
to more people than they do. I can wind up having more
55:50
episodes. I could wind up having, you
55:52
know, different people on the podcast than they've had and
55:56
it's To me, it's always been about, you know, just giving
55:59
100% effort because it's the only thing that you can really
56:03
control when it comes down to it.
56:04
There's just so many other factors that can do, I owe you?
56:07
So as long as you do that, you should be at least in the top
56:11
half of whatever it is that you're doing.
56:13
And as we draw things to a close for today, do you have any
56:16
upcoming projects or maybe some final thoughts that you'd like
56:19
to share with our listeners upcoming projects?
56:24
We're definitely going to be doing a podcast review.
56:27
The air if you Bourdain documentary, we're gonna go see
56:30
that this weekend. So, skeptical on that based on
56:34
stuff that I've read and stuff that's come out.
56:36
I don't know how how well that's going to go.
56:39
I'm hoping I like it but I'm a little worried that I'm not
56:43
gonna, so we'll see. But, you know, still just
56:47
interviewing chefs. We've been fortunate enough to
56:51
kind of the goal that I started out with was to have one Chef
56:54
interview every other week. And we We've done every week and
56:58
release episodes pretty much every week since the beginning
57:00
of June. So we're going to keep that
57:02
going as long as we can and other projects in the works.
57:05
We might be doing some different concepts and in partnership with
57:09
the platform kind of exploring that like a patreon for food
57:14
platform that's in the works. But so hopefully that will come
57:17
to fruition and that'd be a cool Avenue to meet new people and
57:21
different creators and stuff like that.
57:24
But yeah, otherwise it's just trying to make the podcasts.
57:28
As best as we can and provide as much valuable information and
57:32
value to people who are listening whether it's
57:34
education, they learn something or entertainment, helps them,
57:38
get them through their day, or give them a new restaurant that
57:40
they want to try or or something like that, you know, as long as
57:44
one person, you know, I've always kind of said, as long as
57:46
one person who's listening takes away, something from that
57:50
episode, then that episodes of success, regardless of how many
57:53
total downloads it gets, or total listens over 30 days or
57:56
anything like that. It's a great at the end of the
57:58
day, if you don't don't like what you're, you know, don't
58:00
enjoy doing the podcast, then there's no point because there's
58:04
a lot of people that I think start podcasting.
58:06
It's like the average episode length for a podcast is like
58:09
that you to like 7 and the wind up quitting or something.
58:11
Yeah. So if you do, you know and it's
58:14
always a see it on Reddit all the time like how do I grow it
58:17
out? People aren't down on it.
58:18
It's like you're on episode 3. Yeah it's a grind and if you
58:22
don't like doing it, if you thought this was like oh I do a
58:25
pod to money off of it like now for most Of us.
58:27
This is a hobby that we love doing and we're passionate about
58:31
and we sure we would love to make a career out of it.
58:33
But I think for a lot of us were okay, if if it doesn't get
58:36
there, at least I had a cool hobby that I really enjoyed for
58:41
however, long it ran. Yeah, I completely completely
58:45
agree. I think that.
58:49
I mean, I've had to work very hard just to get a very, very
58:51
small listener base listening to this and to be honest, I'm blown
58:56
away, I don't know if I Never said this to my listeners by the
58:58
way. But yeah, thank you for
59:00
listening. It's a blows my mind that there
59:04
are people out there that take the time to sit and listen to
59:08
these. Whether it's having them on in
59:10
the background or sometimes, even just sitting and listening
59:12
and really engaging with it. Like, that's amazing.
59:16
And that will always be much more important than having
59:20
thousands of people listening and downloading like, I feel
59:23
like, as well. That stuff comes a lot later.
59:25
I mean, I've used this example, 400 million times but mean Joe
59:29
Rogan especially did like, three four hundred episodes before you
59:32
even start the gained any traction and he's a celebrity.
59:36
So, what does that say? Yeah, in a mean.
59:38
It's like it takes time and yeah, I don't think you should
59:42
do anything in life. If if you're doing it just to
59:46
get numbers and we have like this obsession, with numbers
59:49
these days. How many followers do you have?
59:52
How many views do you get? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
59:55
It's like that. Stuff comes But it takes time
59:58
and everyone has a different trajectory and things click
1:00:01
sometimes quicker for some people and later for other
1:00:05
people, you know, I feel like even with me, like, with this
1:00:08
podcast, I still feel like it's learning progress.
1:00:12
You know, I feel a lot more confident than I did in the
1:00:15
first 20 episodes but I learn something new every single time
1:00:20
I take something away from every single time.
1:00:22
And I think that that's just a good approach to have to content
1:00:25
Creation in general. Is to always just try to have
1:00:30
the right mindset. Try to focus on producing the
1:00:32
best quality thing that you can produce and make that your goal.
1:00:37
And you know, people will listen.
1:00:38
People will hear the message that you're trying to put our or
1:00:42
the vibe that you're trying to put our or whatever.
1:00:45
Yeah, I've had people comment on my podcast recently saying that
1:00:50
they feel like my interview Styles gotten better.
1:00:52
It's easier to listen to blah blah blah.
1:00:54
You know? I mean like that that that stuff
1:00:56
does come. It's just takes time and I think
1:01:00
I'm not a loft, not all people, as patient as they should be
1:01:03
these days. You know, it's that instant
1:01:04
gratification culture, you know, it's like calm down.
1:01:08
Enjoy the ride. The numbers will come just enjoy
1:01:12
the process anyway. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
1:01:17
I mean, I love being able to come on other people's podcasts.
1:01:22
I know, I don't my kind of background in podcast with food
1:01:26
and everything doesn't fit For a lot of people like there's a lot
1:01:30
of people that are into kind of seems like film reviews and
1:01:34
horror movies and stuff. I've seen that are always
1:01:35
looking for guests but that's not really my scene.
1:01:38
But whenever I'm able to kind of go on someone else's podcasts
1:01:41
and just have a conversation and not have to worry about any of
1:01:44
the editing or anything like that.
1:01:46
It's it's always fun for me. So I was love doing it whenever
1:01:49
I get a chance, only a couple people.
1:01:52
Absolutely. Yeah.
1:01:53
And I mean it's a it's a pleasure to have how do you and
1:01:56
swiss a mess. We thank you for being on the
1:01:58
show. And yeah, I wish you all the
1:02:01
best with the podcast and the brand spoon mob.
1:02:05
Make sure everyone goes and checks this out and drops it
1:02:09
follow and has a little listen sounds like a fantastic project
1:02:12
and for everyone listening to the show I just want to say
1:02:16
thank you for listening and let me know your thoughts.
1:02:20
Let me know who you want to see on the show.
1:02:22
Next time we were here on the show.
1:02:23
Next time, drop your thoughts in the comments below if you're on.
1:02:27
YouTube. You safe well and I'll see you
1:02:30
in the next one.