Latest / What Do You Call It? Podcast! / CASEY WEBB & MARK CONWAY talk Man V. Food, FoodSport Pro League, Boardwalk Empire, DDP & more

Transcript

CASEY WEBB & MARK CONWAY talk Man V. Food, FoodSport Pro League, Boardwalk Empire, DDP & more · What Do You Call It? Podcast!

• 0:06
  Hello and welcome to a very special episode of what do you
• 0:09
  call it podcast. I'm your host GB.
• 0:15
  Let me introduce my guest today. Both our food enthusiasts. 1 is
• 0:20
  an actor, former host of hit TV series Man versus Food, Casey
• 0:23
  Webb. Casey, say hello.
• 0:25
  Hey, what's going on? Awesome.
• 0:29
  And we're joined by his partner, Mark.
• 0:31
  Mark Conroy, how you doing today, mate?
• 0:32
  You're good. Doing great.
• 0:34
  How are you guys? All good mate, all good.
• 0:36
  Cannot complain at time of accordance in the evening.
• 0:39
  So I'll get to chill, talk to you guys for the next 20-30
• 0:42
  minutes and we're actually going to begin by discussing the Food
• 0:46
  Sport Pro League. So last month you had your
• 0:49
  inaugural event. Could you guys tell the
• 0:51
  listeners about this event and essentially how FPL was created?
• 0:57
  Sure, Food sport Pro League is it's essentially a league like
• 1:01
  you would expect out of something like the NFL or, you
• 1:05
  know, Major League Baseball, professional football.
• 1:08
  And mix that with a lot of your WWE action, excitement, fire,
• 1:13
  flair, pizzazz to kind of take cooking competitions out of the
• 1:19
  proverbial kitchen and straight into live fire.
• 1:23
  Where it came from is I've spent the last 10-15 years in and
• 1:27
  around food sport, which is competition cooking from BBQ to
• 1:32
  pizza to tacos to international cuisine, and really just saw
• 1:38
  over that time span there was a need for something more,
• 1:41
  something that kind of connected everything together and honestly
• 1:45
  brought the fun back into it. You know, brought trash talking,
• 1:49
  brought the personalities involved.
• 1:50
  And so here, right at the end of last year, we decided to launch
• 1:55
  the Food Sport Pro League in the Ultimate Eating Championships.
• 1:57
  And it's it's been a wild ride already.
• 2:01
  Nice, nice, Casey, tell me more. Tell me about the first event
• 2:04
  that you had last month. So you know, the beauty about
• 2:09
  competition, or at least the United States, there's a lot of
• 2:11
  competitions and the, the real first one of the new year was at
• 2:15
  the Shed, which is the Shed showdown.
• 2:17
  And based on our relationships, lots of Mark really putting his
• 2:23
  nose to the groundstone, making the calls, sending out the
• 2:26
  emails to the pros who compete on the on the regular basis at
• 2:31
  events like like the shed showdown.
• 2:34
  And we had people show up to our event, which was the first
• 2:38
  inaugural food sport pro league competition.
• 2:41
  And then we piggybacked it with the ultimate eating
• 2:45
  championship. And that's, that's kind of where
• 2:46
  that's where Mark and I came together.
• 2:48
  We met at World Food Championship this past year and
• 2:53
  kind of forged this partnership along with Robert Gilbert, and
• 2:59
  we decided to take the league, the leagues on the road.
• 3:02
  And we did that first at the Shed with the Showdown.
• 3:06
  So folks that compete, that competed with us showed up early
• 3:10
  to compete, which is incredible. Like, you know, people are
• 3:13
  coming from Wisconsin, people driving 18 hours from California
• 3:17
  to come compete early and then spend the whole weekend and
• 3:20
  compete in this annual shed showdown, which is basically the
• 3:23
  kickoff for of the year. You know, what's one of the
• 3:28
  first, the biggest of the year to kick off all these
• 3:30
  competitions that we have here in the States, if you're not
• 3:33
  familiar. So, I mean, I don't know, Mark,
• 3:35
  we, we, we've been talking about this since it happened.
• 3:38
  We're still buzzing from it because as a result we've been
• 3:40
  invited to several other events around the country to to bring
• 3:47
  our Food Sport Pro League and the Ultimate Championship to
• 3:49
  their show. And that's the beauty about the
• 3:51
  business model or the model of it is that we're not creating
• 3:54
  our own event or just piggybacking and joining events
• 3:59
  that already exist and bringing the fun, as Mark said.
• 4:01
  And, and you know, they're quick, they're fast cooks.
• 4:04
  They're not four day cooks, They're not, they're not 2 day
• 4:06
  cooks. They're, you know, it's a, it's
• 4:08
  a, it's a 45 minute competition with the food sports pro league.
• 4:11
  And then ultimate eating is literally 10 to 5020 minutes,
• 4:15
  you know, less than 1/2 an hour. We have, you know, in less than
• 4:18
  an hour, we have really 2 fun programs that we could double
• 4:21
  up. You know, if it's a longer
• 4:22
  weekend event, we could do multiple of these, you know.
• 4:26
  So yeah, the Needless to say, it was a really good kick off.
• 4:29
  We had a lot of great turn out and it kind of set the tone for
• 4:34
  the rest of the year for us because now we're going to 5 as
• 4:37
  a result, 5 different events in the next few months to show what
• 4:41
  we can do So. Nice.
• 4:44
  That's good to hear. Do you have any plans to expand
• 4:46
  sort of overseas, maybe the UK? Yeah.
• 4:51
  I mean, we're going everywhere. You know, the cool thing is it's
• 4:54
  opened up and up opportunities for us, right, Mark, just to,
• 4:57
  you know, internationally, not just the UK but all around
• 5:02
  United States, you know, over to Middle East, potentially Japan
• 5:08
  and, you know, just for starters.
• 5:10
  So yeah, it's exciting because we want to, this is not just a
• 5:14
  regional thing for us, you know, this is global.
• 5:18
  You think about, I always compare it to like UFC meets
• 5:22
  WWF, you know, and it's got, it's it's own sport, you know,
• 5:27
  for doing that versus food since 2017 doing, you know,
• 5:30
  technically I, I guess I'm still the host.
• 5:32
  There's no new host. We just haven't filmed in a bit.
• 5:36
  And so essentially took the show of the road.
• 5:39
  But I'm not competing. I'm, I'm hosting, which is fun.
• 5:42
  It's been very freeing to not have to eat, you know, something
• 5:47
  huge or hot, you know what I mean?
• 5:49
  So it's been, it's been, it's been a lot of fun to be on the
• 5:51
  other side of it and people, you know, the response is, like I
• 5:55
  said, it's been really good. We're excited.
• 5:59
  I'm glad that you're getting your response and I can see the
• 6:01
  passion already and I can hear it and.
• 6:04
  Caffeine. Actually, it's caffeine making.
• 6:07
  Yeah, so have. You had sort.
• 6:11
  Would you say your bigger challenges have been so far
• 6:13
  going into the FBL? So if you talk about the
• 6:16
  positive stuff, but going into it and making.
• 6:18
  The biggest challenges yeah. Are you familiar with money No
• 6:25
  money. No, I'm just kidding.
• 6:27
  Mark, what do what do you think? What are what are their biggest
• 6:29
  challenges? I mean, people want to do it,
• 6:32
  you know, that's the thing. People want to participate.
• 6:34
  So it's, it's, it's logistics planning.
• 6:37
  It's a lot of that, you know, and we hit the ground running
• 6:41
  and now it's like we're playing catch up because once we kicked
• 6:44
  it off, now there's desire for it and, and people want to see
• 6:48
  it again and again. So it's figuring it out, you
• 6:51
  know, so maybe a little cart before the horse.
• 6:54
  Well, I think it's, it's, it's kind of like if you open a
• 6:56
  restaurant, you know, you have a lot of prep work and getting
• 6:59
  that restaurant open, you open into big rave reviews and it's
• 7:02
  great. Then the object is how do you
• 7:04
  sustain it and how do you handle your food costs and your
• 7:06
  operational budget and your staff?
• 7:08
  And you know, with us, we're going to be, we're not in a
• 7:12
  fixed location. So we're going to be all over
• 7:14
  the, the world. As Casey said, we're, we're
• 7:16
  talking to groups in every corner of the world right now
• 7:19
  that want to have a division in the league.
• 7:23
  And so it's you're balancing, you know, US based growth with
• 7:28
  international growth. But at the same time, they all,
• 7:31
  they all play together. We're not separating it.
• 7:33
  If if you're a division in the US and you're a division in
• 7:36
  Japan, the same league and you're all going to the same.
• 7:42
  So, and, and realistically, this is brand new.
• 7:46
  This is food sports been around for hundreds of years like it's
• 7:49
  you're either, you know, they the first competition cooking
• 7:53
  were things like at the county fairs and you know, work chili
• 7:59
  cook offs and things like that. And now you're up to television
• 8:02
  and and that kind of nowhere. But now we're taking it to
• 8:04
  another level where everybody that cooks everywhere on
• 8:08
  different television shows, in different restaurants, at
• 8:10
  different BBQ events, they're all competing on the same
• 8:13
  playing field. So we're kind of redeveloping
• 8:15
  what the landscape looks like, looks like.
• 8:18
  Pretty cool, mate, pretty cool. I wish you both seek success.
• 8:21
  And I can tell it's going to take off and you know, there's a
• 8:25
  lot of passion to it. It's awesome.
• 8:27
  Mark, when did you develop a love for food and sort of more
• 8:30
  than something you'd consume, but just make it into sort of a
• 8:33
  business and, you know, eventually becoming a partner
• 8:35
  with Casey? Oh man, I I started off in
• 8:39
  restaurants. You know, like my first job was
• 8:41
  washing dishes in my aunt and uncle's restaurant.
• 8:44
  And you know, from there, I, I didn't go straight into food.
• 8:48
  I went into marketing business and came back around the food
• 8:52
  and became a chef, an executive chef, ran restaurants, food
• 8:55
  trucks. And when my daughters were born,
• 8:58
  it was OK, I don't have 85 hours to spend in a restaurant
• 9:02
  anymore. What am I going to do?
• 9:04
  And so I started going food media and it's it's been a
• 9:08
  pretty wild ride with cooking competitions ever since.
• 9:10
  And then of course, meeting Casey, we're going to another
• 9:13
  level with cooking competitions and eating competitions.
• 9:17
  That cool mate Casey. Adjusting my lights here I got.
• 9:22
  Some raw. California light here.
• 9:26
  I'm. Yeah, I mean, here we go.
• 9:28
  That's better. Yeah.
• 9:30
  Much like Mark, you know, I think in most, I think most
• 9:33
  people, you know, some countries they, they force, they force
• 9:37
  maybe a strong choice of words, but they, they require that you
• 9:43
  join the military. So I, I feel like I never was
• 9:45
  never in the military myself, but I feel like everyone should
• 9:49
  be in the restaurant business very much like, you know, just
• 9:52
  so you know, you cut your teeth on it.
• 9:54
  So, yeah, for me it was washing dishes at 14 in a pizza place.
• 9:57
  And then I was back at the house for a really long time learning
• 10:01
  how to cook there. It's a bunch of vocational
• 10:03
  culinary, never had to. And you know, from there, you
• 10:09
  know, it was there. You know, in life you're lucky
• 10:12
  if you're lucky enough if you find your people.
• 10:14
  You know, I found my people several times that in restaurant
• 10:17
  business production and then sports and then with acting.
• 10:23
  So, you know, I'm pretty fortunate to have these
• 10:26
  communities of people, like minded people, and a lot of them
• 10:28
  are similar. You know, if you think about
• 10:30
  production or you think about restaurant work or you think
• 10:32
  about the acting community and sports, it's all kind of a team
• 10:36
  effort, you know? So there we go.
• 10:40
  So yeah, for me it was pretty easy.
• 10:42
  You know, when I got the show Man versus Food, my whole my
• 10:45
  world's collided. And from there it just took me
• 10:49
  to the stratosphere. You know, I had no intention on
• 10:51
  being on a travel food show, but that was, you know, that was the
• 10:55
  audition. And, you know, 1 audition led to
• 10:58
  that audition, which led to several years of my life, 90
• 11:02
  episodes and six seasons later. And, but it also threw me into a
• 11:07
  much bigger pool for, you know, with the business because I've
• 11:11
  stayed in it, you know, and some and, and largely, you know, now
• 11:16
  Mark and I hosting food sports pro league and Ultimate league
• 11:19
  championship on the road, you know, because TV is, you know,
• 11:22
  it's a lot of television, which is it was very good to me.
• 11:26
  It's been very good to me. It's changing, you know, and
• 11:30
  they a lot of the spoils go to the top tier people.
• 11:33
  And, and in our opinion, the people that you know, that are
• 11:37
  doing the real work are on the ground like, like at the shed,
• 11:41
  you know, there are people that travel all over the country to
• 11:43
  be there because it's like a family.
• 11:45
  People went there to compete. People showed up for Mark and,
• 11:48
  and what Mark has established in the business and, and hopefully
• 11:52
  they they showed up a little bit for me.
• 11:54
  And then obviously for the shed, the people at the shed, Brad
• 11:58
  and, and, and Brooke who, who run the show over there.
• 12:01
  And yeah, I mean, it's, it's different.
• 12:04
  You know, like people say like it will show like, oh, speak to
• 12:08
  man versus food again, is like I'm the host, of course, but
• 12:10
  there's 30 people that make that show go round.
• 12:12
  You know, it's very much like production.
• 12:14
  There's, you know, or, or restaurant.
• 12:15
  It's not just a chef, you know, it's like it's everybody else
• 12:18
  that works there. So sports, not just the
• 12:21
  quarterback or the receiver, it's everybody, you know.
• 12:23
  So those rules apply across the board for me and and I I
• 12:27
  wouldn't wanna do this alone. You know, I'm not a solo artist
• 12:30
  in the least. And so teaming up with Mark's
• 12:32
  been incredible and just we have a really good skeleton crew team
• 12:37
  and we're just building off of that.
• 12:39
  And again, like we tapped into a world that's that's already been
• 12:43
  there, you know, and we're not ATV show coming in and and
• 12:47
  broadcasting what we're doing. We're really showing the work of
• 12:49
  people on the ground doing a real competitors, people that do
• 12:52
  this for for the love of it. And then maybe if they're good
• 12:55
  enough, you know, they win and and they continue to win.
• 12:59
  But you know, the support itself is incredible.
• 13:01
  You really see it. It's not like TV.
• 13:05
  You don't know, you know, you only get responses on your
• 13:07
  social media. But like when you're at an event
• 13:09
  and you see, you hear the crowd and you're, you're part of the
• 13:12
  experience, it's a lot more palatable and it's a lot more
• 13:16
  fun, you know, and we're having a blast.
• 13:19
  So, and we only did one, you know, so we got another couple
• 13:23
  at the end of the month, so. That's it.
• 13:25
  Yeah. Just going to take a quick break
• 13:27
  from the food talk, Mark, just because I've talked to Katie
• 13:31
  before recording, told me you're a big wrestling fan.
• 13:33
  Predominantly. It's a bit of a wrestling
• 13:34
  podcast. I'm going to quickly ask you,
• 13:36
  Yep, growing up, who were your favorite wrestlers?
• 13:39
  I'm not a big keeper in concert wrestling, so I'm going to ask
• 13:41
  you, Mark, I've got to do it. Yeah, no, good question, Sting.
• 13:46
  Sting was one of my, I mean, that was my guy all the way
• 13:50
  through. You know, guys like him, those
• 13:55
  core wrestlers at the very beginning.
• 13:57
  DDP, love DDP. When I was a kid, one of my
• 14:01
  first wrestling matches I ever went, DDP would always crowd.
• 14:03
  He literally jumped over the the railings and landed right on my
• 14:06
  foot. It wasn't quite a high 5, but I
• 14:09
  didn't wash my shoe forever after that.
• 14:12
  High foot, you got a high foot. Yeah, I got a high foot.
• 14:15
  It's kind of low foot. You still got that shoe then?
• 14:18
  That that shoe is is probably long since destroyed at the way
• 14:22
  I ran as a kid, but I wish I did still have it.
• 14:25
  But you know, those were got you know so but I always sting was
• 14:29
  the. Nice.
• 14:32
  It's a bit of Aww guy then. So I was actually speaking to
• 14:36
  Casey before. He's mentioned about like Bama
• 14:37
  big lives or being wrestling for himself.
• 14:39
  But WWF, an old school fan like me as well.
• 14:43
  Casey, I'm going to ask you about one of your acting gigs
• 14:45
  before we do resume the food. Sure, because fellow Brit.
• 14:48
  So I'm going to ask you about Stephen Graham.
• 14:50
  What was it like to be killed by Stephen?
• 14:53
  Graham So I will. Hardly be not familiar.
• 14:56
  If you haven't seen my highlight reel or you know, my acting
• 15:00
  reel, I was lucky enough to be in Boruk Empire.
• 15:04
  And Stephen Graham, who plays Al Capone in the previous scene,
• 15:09
  his brother gets killed by Chicago cops.
• 15:12
  And so the role that I got was a Chicago cop.
• 15:16
  He filmed it in Brooklyn underneath the Williamsburg
• 15:18
  Bridge. But they made it look like
• 15:20
  Chicago. There was 25 vintage cars,
• 15:23
  probably 75 people. It's HBO.
• 15:26
  You know, there's a crane. It started raining.
• 15:29
  So Stephen Graham Oh, I tell you this story.
• 15:31
  Stephen Graham. So I go into the the trailer to
• 15:33
  get makeup done. They shave my face.
• 15:35
  I look like a baby. I got pink baby, you know?
• 15:38
  And then no sideburns slip back every much like this.
• 15:42
  And I walk and I sit down and I hear this guy talking and I'm
• 15:45
  like, he was very cockney, right?
• 15:49
  It was like, I didn't understand what he was saying, you know?
• 15:51
  He's like. And I was like, is that him?
• 15:53
  And they're like, yeah, that's Steven.
• 15:54
  I'm like, OK. And so in the scene, he gets out
• 15:59
  of a limousine on the street, walks directly to me.
• 16:02
  I'm reading a newspaper on the front of a Model T police car,
• 16:05
  and he shoots me directly in the face.
• 16:07
  I roll off the front of the car onto the ground.
• 16:10
  Crane shop, crane shot starts raining.
• 16:13
  I'm dead. All of blood spills out the side
• 16:15
  of my head. Yeah, my agent wanted more for
• 16:19
  me is like I wanted. I was like.
• 16:20
  But I got killed by Al Capone. And I was in the trailer too, so
• 16:23
  you know, it wasn't so bad. Honestly, I would, if that's my
• 16:28
  only acting credit, I'd be a very, very happy actor.
• 16:31
  Not a bad one. It was a good death.
• 16:33
  It was a good death. You know, I got to be on an HBO
• 16:36
  show. It's filmed down the street from
• 16:38
  where I lived, you know, and Stephen Graham, just a
• 16:40
  tremendous actor. And I'm, yeah, lucky I got shot
• 16:44
  in the face by by Stephen Graham.
• 16:48
  Not jealous at all. I'm a little bit obviously like
• 16:51
  over here like he's just, we, we adore him loads.
• 16:53
  He's sure he's awesome. Isn't he from where you are?
• 16:58
  No, he's because he changes accent all the time.
• 17:01
  I think he's actually from Liverpool.
• 17:03
  But he can. Do a yeah.
• 17:06
  But because he's been doing accents so much, he's like, I
• 17:09
  think he's caught in the accent. No, sorry, his scout's accent
• 17:11
  isn't as strong as he used to be.
• 17:13
  And because he goes to America quite a lot now, I think he's
• 17:15
  lost a lot of it. But he does a caught in the
• 17:17
  accent really, really good. He had it that day, I tell you.
• 17:20
  Hello there, I've got special announcement for my next guest.
• 17:24
  Hola, I'm Shelley Martinez and this is Minnie.
• 17:27
  And I'm going to be the next guest on the, what do you call
• 17:31
  it, Project TuneIn. Yeah, I had.
• 17:40
  We just took a quick break then, but I was actually just going to
• 17:42
  ask Mark about some of his food challenges that he's
• 17:45
  participated or if he has. Yeah, no, normally I don't get
• 17:51
  the pleasure of actually competing.
• 17:53
  I'm usually running them or I write them and produce them.
• 17:57
  But one of these days I'm going to get behind the the cutting
• 18:00
  board and throw down with some people.
• 18:03
  You. Heard it here.
• 18:04
  You heard it here. Is there anything that you would
• 18:09
  refuse to participate? So if it's got a lot of
• 18:11
  mushrooms or onions or anything like, Nah, I'm not having that.
• 18:14
  Oh man, if it's a broccoli challenge you can count me right
• 18:18
  out. Cooking or eating?
• 18:22
  I don't even want to be around it that broccoli is is shrubbery
• 18:27
  for in front of the house and that's where it should stay.
• 18:29
  I have AI may have a strong opinion on that.
• 18:33
  No broccoli for this guy. No.
• 18:36
  Casey, I know you've participated in many, many food
• 18:39
  challenges and even if you have lost them, you've gone down
• 18:42
  swinging. Tell me about your scariest
• 18:45
  challenges that you've participated in.
• 18:48
  Dating and in my dating in New York City was always difficult.
• 18:56
  But you know, honestly, the first few and then everyone
• 19:00
  after that, they all had their own level of difficulty, you
• 19:03
  know, or cause in the beginning I was like, oh, I could do this.
• 19:07
  How hard could it be? And I, and I and I, honestly, I
• 19:10
  phoned it in and I got crushed. So I had to figure out how the
• 19:15
  pros do it. That's why it's been so
• 19:18
  bittersweet to, to host. You know, this is literally like
• 19:22
  my, it was my first hosting of a food challenge.
• 19:28
  So it was I, I talked about this just with a great deal of
• 19:33
  compassion because it was very freeing.
• 19:36
  And I, I joke about it, but I feel like I got a bit of myself
• 19:39
  back from the first one that I had to take on and, or lost.
• 19:43
  So, you know, they're, they all have their level of difficulty.
• 19:46
  I'm not the greatest at it. Never was, never will be.
• 19:50
  People often say, you know, they, they, they provoke or
• 19:54
  challenge me to a challenge and I just tell them to make sure
• 19:56
  they have their checkbook ready because I'm not doing it for
• 19:59
  nothing, you know, So, you know, honestly, like it was probably
• 20:04
  before I, because I did try the milk.
• 20:07
  I even tried the milk challenge. You try to eat a drink, a gallon
• 20:09
  of milk. I don't recommend it.
• 20:12
  And there's this, oh, it's rough because your body, you, you, you
• 20:15
  know, we're not cows. We're not supposed to drink that
• 20:17
  much milk. And then the cinnamon challenge,
• 20:20
  boy, that's fun. That's you could.
• 20:23
  I don't recommend this to anybody.
• 20:25
  Zero challenges. Life is challenging enough.
• 20:27
  You don't need to, you know, consume hot or huge amounts of
• 20:30
  food. Yeah, I think, yeah.
• 20:36
  You know, I've done some, you know, I've done some cooking
• 20:38
  challenges and those are fun, you know, 'cause you learn real
• 20:44
  fast on your toes how good and good, how not good you are when
• 20:48
  you're given a limited amount of time.
• 20:50
  So I do, I do like it though, because it really forces you to
• 20:53
  create and make in the moment, you know, in the cooking sphere.
• 20:58
  So yeah, I think with Mark, I might, it might come down to me
• 21:02
  and Mark doing one of our own at some point.
• 21:04
  I don't know. We have to compete against each
• 21:07
  other. Yeah, I think that would be kind
• 21:09
  of fun. Yeah, I did. 01 of the hardest
• 21:13
  ones was Harry Connick Junior. I don't think you know who that
• 21:16
  is. He him and I had to make
• 21:18
  gingerbread houses on his old TV show and and he beat he kicked
• 21:21
  my butt making the gingerbread house.
• 21:25
  In fact, you can do it on the camera as well.
• 21:27
  Like for me personally, don't go wrong.
• 21:28
  I'll have to pick out and I'll, you know, I'll challenge and
• 21:30
  stuff. But for you to have the
• 21:33
  personality do as well, even if you know when you do, don't
• 21:36
  finish it, but for the fans to cheat while you're behind you.
• 21:40
  Personally, I'd be running to the toilet or I'd be swearing
• 21:42
  away. And you do keep some kind of
• 21:44
  composure when you're doing it. I'd be crying.
• 21:47
  Thank you yourself. That's that's acting.
• 21:50
  They call that acting. I find this work.
• 21:53
  I mean, Shakespeare spoke about it.
• 21:55
  But you know who that is? Shakespeare, you were here.
• 21:58
  I know Shakespeare. That's a deal from five years at
• 22:00
  school, unfortunately, yeah. Yeah, same.
• 22:04
  Kind of very much hard a little bit.
• 22:06
  What has the impact of man versus food had in your life as
• 22:10
  we come into the end of this interview?
• 22:13
  You know, I, for me, it took me out of the city that any food
• 22:20
  regionally that ever tried was from New York City.
• 22:23
  So the show brought me out of the city, out of New York City
• 22:27
  and into, you know, like coastal the Carolina and for low country
• 22:35
  food and to all the BBQ spots around the country to Northern
• 22:39
  California and seafood. And, you know, I, I got to, to
• 22:44
  really taste the foods of the United States around the
• 22:47
  country, which was really, that was amazing.
• 22:50
  And it's also, you know, what I found was the what I fell in
• 22:53
  love of it was not only the travel and the food, but the
• 22:56
  people, because every episode there's three different cooking
• 22:59
  segments. And you know, I mean, the facto
• 23:04
  culinary school, you know, after 240 some odd restaurants
• 23:09
  learning how to cook, how they make their thing, you know, and
• 23:12
  a lot of these items weren't, they weren't just huge or hot.
• 23:14
  That was like one of them in the third segment of the the show,
• 23:18
  but the people I met along the way and the knowledge that I was
• 23:22
  able to take from them and, and how they do things.
• 23:24
  I mean, you know, family recipes, because all these
• 23:26
  places were mom and pop places. So there's a tremendous amount
• 23:29
  of value from that experience and just having conversations.
• 23:33
  I mean, a lot of one of my job was is sounding was was mining
• 23:37
  for sound bites so we could put piece of show together, you
• 23:41
  know, So I had a lot of conversations with a lot of
• 23:43
  people on and off camera. And often times the producer be
• 23:46
  like, hey, we got to go. I'm like, all right, I'll be
• 23:49
  right there. You know, I'm the last person
• 23:51
  getting into the car, go back to the hotel or yeah.
• 23:54
  So it's been that. You know, I always said that,
• 23:56
  you know, people have time for me, I have time for them.
• 23:59
  And that's true to today and see people in the airport that might
• 24:03
  have watched a show or seen a show, like I'm often the one
• 24:06
  who's talking and they're like, we got to catch the flight, so
• 24:09
  we'll see you later. So.
• 24:12
  Yeah. And people.
• 24:14
  Oh, Mark. Unfortunately, Mark's having
• 24:16
  some technical difficulties, but.
• 24:17
  Mark's having some technical difficulties.
• 24:19
  That's OK. I think I'm speaking enough for
• 24:21
  both of us. But yeah, so I mean, we
• 24:24
  appreciate you having us on. You know, it's, it's been a
• 24:28
  really cool experience so far. It's like, you know, all the
• 24:31
  things that him and I worked on solely in our careers and
• 24:34
  brought us to the precipice of what food sports pro league and
• 24:37
  ultimate League championship is. It's bigger than us.
• 24:40
  It's about the people, it's about the places, it's about
• 24:43
  travel, it's about, you know, you know, it's a lot.
• 24:47
  It's about people come together. So, you know, there's it's we,
• 24:52
  we have our work cut offers for sure.
• 24:54
  But I think we're we're we're we're uniquely qualified to take
• 24:58
  this on, you know, and yeah, we're just happy we're getting
• 25:03
  things that, you know, take this show on the bro.
• 25:07
  Awesome, last question for you both.
• 25:09
  It's a fun one and it's food related but it doesn't have to
• 25:12
  be food guests. So Mark give me 3 dream dinner
• 25:16
  guests for your dream party. Dead or alive fiction, non
• 25:19
  fiction could be anyone. 3 guests and a quick reason as to
• 25:22
  why you want them there. Go give me #1. #1 Harrison Ford
• 25:29
  100 percent, 100%. He's just he, he is just the
• 25:35
  last great male icon in cinema. Really is legend next to that.
• 25:45
  And and this is going to be very telling about what a nerd and
• 25:48
  dork I am. Mark Hamill.
• 25:51
  He took what launched a very promising career in movies and
• 25:56
  became one of the most prolific voice actors anyway.
• 26:00
  Skywalker. Skywalker, Yeah.
• 26:02
  Also the Joker and so many other great characters.
• 26:06
  And then, I mean, if I'm going to go that route, I'm going to
• 26:08
  round out the trio. And you can't have any kind of a
• 26:11
  party without Carrie Fisher. I mean.
• 26:15
  You you never know what you never know what Harrison's going
• 26:18
  to do, you never know which voice and personality Hamill's
• 26:22
  going to be, and you never know what Carrie Fisher's going to
• 26:25
  say. I think that'd make a damn good
• 26:27
  dinner party. That's a good one.
• 26:29
  I like that one. Is it just or are we, Are we, is
• 26:33
  it, is it a food sport? Pro league?
• 26:35
  Do we see dinner? I think that's going to have to
• 26:37
  be. It's going to be a complete
• 26:39
  throw down. I mean, with AI we could
• 26:41
  probably make that happen. It might be the same, but.
• 26:45
  Yep, Yep, that's. Love it Hans, I like Luke
• 26:48
  Skywalker and Princess Lau, good choices.
• 26:51
  And Casey, give me your guess before we wrap this up.
• 26:54
  What if they start making out at the dinner table?
• 26:56
  Would that be weird? Oh.
• 26:59
  Yeah, forget their provinces. Yeah, you.
• 27:02
  Didn't know that first. You know what I'm, I would say
• 27:10
  corny, but always been a big fan because he was very telling of
• 27:16
  the story of what it was like to work in restaurant business and
• 27:18
  it was Anthony Bourdain. So definitely that dude, because
• 27:23
  you know, he's, he's, he's definitely going to be either
• 27:27
  entertaining or bringing to the places that no one else has been
• 27:30
  to, you know, So that's one of them.
• 27:35
  You know, I had a nice lunch on the show with Madeleine,
• 27:41
  Madeleine Albright, who was, she was part of American government
• 27:46
  for a while and she's since passed away.
• 27:47
  And we talked about goulash for like an hour and a half and she
• 27:51
  was very sweet. And this is what just coming to
• 27:55
  mind. I mean, there's a lot of people
• 27:56
  I'd probably have a meal with. And then Leah Chase is she was,
• 28:02
  she taught me how to make gumbo from scratch.
• 28:04
  She was 92 years old. And she taught me how to make
• 28:07
  gumbo from scratch in New Orleans.
• 28:09
  And after that, we sat and talked for like 2 1/2 three
• 28:13
  hours about food and people in New Orleans.
• 28:16
  And so, yeah, I think, I mean, the list goes on.
• 28:19
  Man, this is a tough one. Mark really summed it up.
• 28:21
  I'm not that good. Mark summed it up.
• 28:25
  I can keep going but. It was the top of your head,
• 28:27
  though, that's the thing. And they still have meaning as
• 28:30
  to why. Yeah.
• 28:31
  It was very impactful, like I want to continue the
• 28:33
  conversation or have another conversation or have a
• 28:36
  conversation for the first time, you know, so.
• 28:39
  That's cool. That's cool guys.
• 28:41
  Thank you very much for your time.
• 28:42
  I do appreciate it. I wish you good luck for the FPL
• 28:44
  and hopefully there's bands for it to come to the UK, because
• 28:46
  I'll be there. As I said, there's a reason why
• 28:48
  I sit down. I love my food, so I if there's
• 28:51
  a way I can participate as well and as chefs to mainly, but the
• 28:53
  belt looks good. So, you know, come on.
• 28:55
  As long as you wear that shirt, you got to wear that.
• 28:57
  Shirt Yeah. So before recording I did say I
• 29:00
  actually was inspired by shirts that Case would wear on man
• 29:03
  versus food. So I'm glad you ignored it lads.
• 29:06
  Where can the listeners find you both on social media?
• 29:08
  Mark Pug away. You can find me under Chef Mark
• 29:12
  Conway on all the Insta, you know, Instagram, Facebook,
• 29:15
  TikTok, everywhere and then of course the Food Sport Pro League
• 29:19
  on both. Yeah, Jim, Follow and Casey,
• 29:22
  where can they find you? Some of it's Casey's call and
• 29:26
  then some of it's I am Husky for life.
• 29:29
  And then, you know, obviously food, sport, pro League and
• 29:31
  Ultimate League Championship, throw it in there too.
• 29:34
  He gets hard. You'll find Mark and I it's
• 29:37
  pretty easy. Give them a follow, find them,
• 29:41
  please do. Brilliant episodes, absolutely
• 29:43
  flown by. Honestly, we have some
• 29:44
  technical, technical difficulties.
• 29:46
  God, now I'm starting right now, but I absolutely didn't ruin the
• 29:48
  interview at all. I thought it was a blast.
• 29:50
  It's flown by really enjoyed it. Give this video a like subscribe
• 29:54
  to the channel. Give me a follow my social media
• 29:56
  handles. They'll be in the description
• 29:57
  below. But for now, everyone have a
• 29:59
  great weekend. I'm definitely going to pick out
• 30:01
  now after this interview. Take care.