BONUS: The Guy Who Got Mashed Potatoes at a Buffet

I guess we should get the thing rolling and say, Dominic, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. It's fun to have you here for the listeners out there. We all know each other.

So there's going to be some, probably some bad blood. And yes, I did just drop a Taylor Swift reference in there for you, Adam. So there's going to be some extra bad blood in this one, because like all guests that come on the show, we've got to ask if they like Taylor Swift. And while we know the answer to this question, don't we, Adam, Dominic, do you want to share your thoughts on Taylor Swift?

Well, sure. But you actually ask every guest that? Yeah, every guest gets asked if what their thoughts are on Taylor Swift. Wow.

I hate Taylor Swift. Yeah, I'll die on that island. And you used to love Katy Perry, right? So the bad blood reference kind of goes there.

But that's true. If your listeners are familiar with, I don't know, I guess 2013, it was definitely a competition between Katy and Taylor. And it seemed like a fight worth having, and it kind of feels like it's a fight they both lost. I'll be honest with you guys.

Well, one person's looking at it on top. No, I think ultimately we've all lost. I'm a loser in this thing, Adam's a loser. I don't know, man.

I went to a Taylor Swift concert. And like I said, I'm still a fan. I don't have anything. I don't have anything to say about that.

I took my daughter. So I mean, come on now. It wasn't all for me. Sure.

Sure. But I will say that, you know, it was a good time. I mean, 1989 was a really good Taylor Swift album. I mean, just a very good pop album in general reputation.

It has its ups and downs. Yeah. But you can't, I mean, I don't know, you can't deny 1989 World Tour Taylor Swift, just a League of her own. I will stand and open defiance of 1989 Taylor Swift and 2003 Taylor Swift.

Well, that's all Taylor Swift. What's hard is I can't back my girl Katy anymore. It's a bad look for her. She does the hair and what about the American Idol stuff?

I think she's not American Idol. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't watch it. I don't know. Yeah. She's not American Idol.

Hamming it up. So it's it's it's her and Steven Tyler and like, is it JLo? Like Richie. Lionel Richie.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. And Luke Bryan.

Luke Bryan. Okay. Was that the guy's name? They have some country guy.

I never know his name though. Yeah. It's Luke Bryan. So yeah, I mean, I kind of have to say, I wasn't camp Katie pretty hard and the short hairs and the like over excessive drama is it's painful.

It's definitely painful to watch on American Idol. So I miss the old Katie. I have some nostalgia for it. What was the last good Katy Perry song?

Whoa. That's a really good question. It has to be one of the one with the album called Prism. Is it the one with the rapper?

Someone help me out. They all had rappers. No. Are you talking about the the whatever she's dressed as Cleopatra?

That one? Yes. What's that song called? Oh, come on, man.

This is going to kill me. We're all singing it in our heads too. Everyone is and someone is like yelling it there. Someone's totally yelling into the mic right now.

I mean, it's it's been a few years. It's definitely been 2013, 2014 was the last like a solid Katy Perry, I feel like. I mean, really what comes to mind for me is like a dark horse and it's called Dark Horse. That's what the song is.

Good work. Come on, Luke. Yeah, Dark Horse. Do you remember the ET when she did and then Kanye Wendy?

It's a great song. The Kanye version is better. Yeah. The Kanye version is better.

It is better. It's true. It is. Um, oh, but yeah, like the new ones, the Bon Appetit thing.

Um, I don't know, man. Not for me. But I agree with you, Dark Horse was a good song. Except when it went on the kids playlist and it was the first song in the kids playlist.

So that means we heard it way too much and it got played out. Yeah, I'm here. I'm here in general though for Teenage Dream, Katie, and I'm here for I Kissed a Girl, Katy Perry, and I'm here for Waking Up in Vegas, Katy Perry, I'm here for Hot and Cold, Katy Perry. There's a lot of really good Katy Perry songs.

What do I say with any good songs? Nah, not a single one. Still full of it. That truth comes out.

Uh, that's that's too good. I'm really happy to say that the Katy Perry tale, so if I still lives on Taylor, maybe making music still, and Katie is still just a drama queen, I guess. Just trying to rake in some extra money, you know, from TV appearances. So Dominic, tell us a little about yourself or for the listeners who don't know you, because I definitely do know you, but some people might not.

Yeah, I would venture to say most of them. I'm a guy who loves to grill and loves to cook and loves to eat. What else do you want to know? Yeah, that's it.

That's it. Those are the only things that I do. Those are the things. Wait, grill a cook and eat?

Yeah. No drinking? You know what? I enjoy my way around a fermented beverage or seven.

Yeah, I like to, uh, you know, in maybe cook with it or drink it with my food or drink it while I'm cooking or whatever, maybe I've actually recently gotten into red wine. This will probably come up later, but red wine is kind of my new jam. Well, cooking with red wine, you can get really experimental and you can bring out a lot of stuff. So I love that you brought up that it's your new jam, because red wine is usually referred to as jammy sometimes.

So I caught that undertone there. I like it. Yeah. Oh, undertone, like how you describe wine tasting notes?

Uh-huh, uh-huh. Very good. We're going to move into why we brought Dominic onto the show, which is, uh, we want to talk a little bit about cooking barbecue and technology in general. So, uh, they sort of, I guess we should pause for a second here and just bring the why behind this episode and say that, you know, for the listeners that aren't in America, there's a holiday coming up called the Fourth of July, which, uh, is, you know, a kind of a special day in America.

Uh, and it usually- Well, they have the Fourth of July in other countries. It's just not a holiday. Yeah. It's just, they don't, they don't just, you know, eat all day like Americans do.

Yeah, they don't eat and consume large amounts of alcohol. And usually the food they're eating is probably not the, you know, massive amounts of meat that we eat, but that's generally the trend for Americans. So with that being said, um, you know, barbecue is a big piece of that. So, uh, I guess the first thing out of the gate is, um, Dominic, what are your Fourth of July grilling plans or do you have any?

At the moment, I don't have anything concrete, but I do have a go-to grilling recipe, if you're interested in that, or we could, we could say that. But if I'm grilling for me and my wife only, I'm going to go with a, like, a nice trident maybe. If I'm grilling for a lot of people, I'm probably doing burgers or, uh, maybe some elevated hotdogs. So if you can just give me like a teaser, right?

Like just to get my stomach rumbling, get my mouth watering a little bit, like, sell me on the tritip, right? You want me to sell you on Omni Focus? And I told you to listen to an episode. Sell me on the tritip.

Okay. So to understand why I need to sell you on tritip, what do you prefer to tritip? What do I prefer to tritip? Yeah.

If, if I'm saying, Hey, Adam, I'm going to barbecue, I'm going to grill for you, uh, which we should talk about the difference between barbecue and grilling. But if I'm saying I'm going to cook for you, I'm going to cook with fire. I'm going to cook meat. You choose the meat.

What are you choosing? Oh, you know, my go to is tritip. So I mean, okay, I, I, I need you, I guess if I'm not doing tritip, I'm going to do, um, man, I, I don't really do steaks on the grill though. That's a problem.

Nobody should say. Yeah. And when you're saying grill, I'm like, all right, well, I'm pretty simple when it comes to grilling, because I have a grill for, you know, tons of people, it's not just me and, uh, my wife. So my go tos are like, uh, brought worst and I don't like a good broad would be good.

So if you can use that, go with that. Fair enough. So the reason we should all be eating more tritip is how versatile it is. You're going to get a wonderful, wonderful fat content.

If you go to any halfway decent grocery store and you're going to be able to get a pretty big cut of meat or multiple cuts of meat and you're not going to pay brisket prices for it or, or filet mignon prices for it. You're going to pay, it's a little more expensive than, uh, I don't know, shaved steak or even like something like a craniasada, but you're going to get a lot of meat for your dollar and it's so versatile at the same time. Okay. So sell me on your recipe, like make, make my mouth water, like, give me some.

Sure. Sure. So my, my go to recipe is actually pretty simple and to the uninitiated, I call them, I get an eyebrow raise, but go with me. So you're going to take your tritip and it's a, you actually want to keep it cold.

You don't want to bring it to room temperature before you do anything with it. That's actually kind of a common misnomer, except under one condition, which we can talk about. The rub starts with salt and pepper and then you're going to go with a cayenne pepper or a chipotle powder, whatever, whatever you prefer. Then you're going to pick up a bag and you get at any grocery store of dried chipotle peppers.

You can sub them for maybe California peppers or dried piscillas even and you're going to chop them up roughly, but you want kind of small pieces and you want the seeds. Then you're going to grind some coffee, pretty coarse and you're going to mix all that into the bowl and you're going to rub your tritip down with that. Then you're going to smoke it over pecan wood if I have my way at 225 for, it depends on how big the tritip is an hour and a half, two and a half hours max. Let it rest, slice it and you've made a bunch of new friends.

Yeah, the coffee, you really have me sold on the coffee. Coffee rub and the pepper, yes, all the yes. It's a flavor combination that really, it's probably gained a little more traction recently, but a few years ago, I remember trying to serve it to people and kind of getting some like, you're putting coffee on beef. This is a morning thing and a night thing that you're mixing together and I don't like that, but I'm here to tell you it's okay.

Coffee is a great flavor and you can use it with a lot of things that people don't take into consideration, right? I'm curious, what kind of coffee are you going for? It's funny you should ask, I actually will specifically buy Sumatra, something darker really is all you need. Yeah, cool, so dark coffee.

A little less of the acidic flavors you get out of. Well, you're not going to get any acidic flavors because you're not brewing it, you're going to get that richness though from the coffee and the coarse grind is important, you don't want a very fine grind. Even some what look like maybe a coffee bean that's been cut in half with a knife or something, that's okay to go on there. You're still going to get that flavor.

All right, mouth is watering, so I have one question. We breeze past just briefly, you said, you should never grill a steak. Why should I never grill a steak? Oh man, how much time do we have on this podcast?

How long do you guys normally run? So here's the deal with grilling steak. Unless you have 100% guaranteed repeatable control of the temperature of your grill, and here's the thing, you don't, unless you're at a parry laying and you're not, you don't know exactly how hot your grill is. You might have a rough idea.

Now, this goes doubly if you're using a charcoal grill, but let's say you're using a traditional propane grill or even a wood pellet grill. Your thermometer is going to give you the temperature that's in the dome, but you don't know exactly how hot those grill grates are, most likely they're hotter, and so you're going to overcook your steak. You're also, if you're using a propane grill, you're going to give it some of that gas flavor that you don't want, and if you're using, well, actually the wood flavor or the charcoal flavor can be a desired effect, but with charcoal, it's really easy to overdo it. With a charcoal grill, you're using a lot of charcoal to cook a piece of meat that is really not that big, so you're not getting really the best usage of your bag of charcoal, and if you're buying a nice charcoal, you know that it's not cheap.

But where you can control your temperature is with a cast iron skillet. Interesting. Okay. So with a cast iron skillet, you have the more control of the entire surface.

Is that what I'm getting? So the way that cast iron works, because it's so porous, it's going to evenly distribute the temperature. So it doesn't really matter if you're stove top. If my stove top set on high is different than either of your guys' stove top set on high, whatever that high temperature is, I'm getting it evenly distributed across the surface where that meat's going to be cooking, and I have a lot more control over my cook, whether I want to go rare, mid-rare medium, or I guess well or well done, but let's not talk about that.

Wow. Well, that's crazy talk right there. The scale stops at medium. Some of the best chef's say people either say it's too rare, and I think I probably agree with them, but that doesn't mean you should overcook it.

I'm all about medium. I mean, medium to medium rare. Some chefs consider medium rare like still super bloody, and I'm like, mmm, not quite. I mean, medium is kind of where I lie, but I don't know.

I like a nice light peat center. I don't like any. It depends on the steak, though. It depends on the cut.

It does. I'm not going to say that if you get into the well-done medium, well-done range, then you're just chewing and chewing and not enjoying. Well, and whatever hope of sort of salvaging some flavor from what is probably a bad cut of meat is gone at that point. You cooked it all out.

You cooked literally everything out of it, and that's even more important if you purposely source your meat. If you're spending good money on your steak, you don't want it. That's like pouring something like Happy Van Winkle into a Coke. You just wouldn't do it.

Happy Van Winkle is a very expensive rare whiskey for the people who don't know, but can we talk a little bit about cuts of steak, you guys? Is that cool? Yeah, I mean, let's go for that. Well, I want to ask you, what is your favorite kind of steak?

If money's no object, and I'm at a decent steakhouse, I'm probably going to go with either of the ribeye or the porterhouse. Always bone in, if it's available. Yeah, and I'm very much a filet guy. Okay.

Me, a good filet, and I'm in heaven. He said the words. I knew you were going to say the words. Yeah, yeah.

I know it's not a big cut of meat, and that's not what I'm looking for, when I'm looking for a good steak. And I mean, if a filet is done right, it is just butter in your mouth, and it's the best thing. So I can never pass up a good filet whenever I go to a decent steakhouse. Okay, Lou, do you want to tell them, or should I?

That filet is not the best, the best kind of steak. Yeah, I'm just going to tell you, you should say back, because you're about to get berated, because there is absolutely no fucking flavor in a filet. It may cut like butter, but there's no fucking flavor in that thing. That's not what I wanted.

I wanted a buttery steak, and I got my buttery steak. No, no, no, no, no. You cook your steak with butter properly, and then you don't have to worry about the steak itself being flavorless, overpriced, I don't know, stick up your ass. I don't even really know how to describe it.

Listen, the type of people who order, yeah, hot taking coming. The type of people who order a filet mignon at a restaurant are also the people who get mashed potatoes at a buffet, and I'm going to say this, if you're that guy, I don't want to be your friend. And Adam, I'm not sure I want to be your friend. Yeah, you and I have gone through this so many times.

And let's just say I know exactly what will push your buttons. Yeah. So you're not actually a filet mignon guy. You know, I will still go for a filet at most restaurants, because I know that no matter how shitty the steak is, the filet will at least be like the shitty cut that I get.

See, I actually believe it's only in the cut. I do not subscribe to the grass fed over grain fed or corn fed. I don't subscribe to their actually existing, to their being a world where I'm not going to say exist. I actually think if treated properly, just about any state can be pretty awesome.

Adam, do you want to take a moment and tell Dominic how you get good barbecue? I think you mentioned this a week or so ago. Oh, is this going to upset me? Oh, definitely.

Okay, spoiler alert. So I don't know. Do I want to get into that now? Yeah.

So Dominic, you know, Lewis talking to me and, you know, kind of prepping for this episode and he was saying, you know, I was like, well, you know, how to make really good barbecue and you know, Dominic will know how to make really good barbecue. I'm like, oh, I know how to get really good barbecue too. Like, I know a way that's 100% consistent and is great every time and is like zero effort. And yeah, and it's this app called Grub Hub.

Oh, okay. Okay. So he was going on and on about how, you know, you're going to berate me about how to do my barbecue and everything and how to be consistent. And I was like, you know what, I already know how it's, it takes a couple clicks and a little quick swipe of the credit card.

And boom, I've got a meal for six. So I have two issues here. I have two issues and I'm going to tackle the shorter one first if that's okay with you. You said I know how to get a good barbecue and it's called Grub Hub.

And I have no issue with a delivery food service. That's actually delivery food and, and I guess service are, are sort of pillars of my life. Having said that, you didn't give anyone a recommendation. Where are you ordering your barbecue from?

Oh, so it depends on the day and what everyone's kind of feeling. There's a place in Santa Cruz called Mission Street Barbecue and that one's just pretty much your typical like a mainstream American barbecue. Nothing special there. But then the other one is Aptos Barbecue.

And it's a little bit further down, but it's a little more, I guess they just they do a better job with with their barbecue. They have a limited menu. It's not as fancy as the other one, but it's it just feels more authentic. It tastes better.

Like the cuts, you know, or the meat itself is more flavorful. It's never dry, which is a big thing for me when we come to barbecue. Sure. But the one thing I will say is that Mission Street there's spicy barbecue sauce is much better than Aptos Barbecue.

I'm not a fan of Aptos Barbecue's spicy sauce. And that could go into an argument like, hey, store sure on sauce. You know, don't trust the restaurants. I have a decent sauce.

But I mean, those are the go tos that I have here. And that's mainly because in Santa Cruz, those are the two places that exist. Fair enough. If I go over into, you know, South Bay, then the choice is, you know, I have a much wider variety, but it's very rather by myself in the South Bay on a weekend and craving barbecue these days.

Okay. So you, you mentioned two places that's raised at us to them. Are you familiar with how they actually prepare their barbecue at all? Not intimately.

I know that there are smokers in the back and I see racks of meat every once in a while, but other than that, I couldn't tell you. Okay. So Lou and I had discussed this. I actually really, I want to help some people about how to order barbecue at a restaurant.

If that's okay, this seems like a kind of a natural way to bring that up. Yeah. Yeah. And the way to do it is to not do it.

You should not ever order barbecue at a restaurant unless you're under very sort of specific circumstances. Simply put, if you order say the brisket or the ribs or whatever, the pulled pork chances are it's been sitting there for somewhere between eight and dare I say 16 hours and you're not going to have the best experience. Now that can be masked with pulled pork by sauce. You can cover that thing in sauce and throw side french fries and maybe some coleslaw and three or four beers and you don't really realize that it's been sitting maybe in like a baroth for so long.

But with something like a brisket, that brisket is going to dry up as soon as you take it off the smoker. So brisket is something where you've got to pull it and slice it right away. Lou and I were actually with a couple of friends at a restaurant in Las Vegas not too long ago and one of them ordered the brisket and was very, very disappointed for this reason. And that's because it was about midnight and that brisket had probably been cooked 36 hours before he ordered it.

So you know, I made the whole prep up thing and I mentioned you know that I go out to barbecue because let me tell you man, some days it's way less effort to do this. And that's definitely what I stand by is the least amount of effort I can get to have some wildly tasty barbecue in my mouth. That's what I'm going to take because man like I don't have a space, I don't have the equipment. Like I need all these supplies and I do not have them.

So the best, or I'm sorry not the best, the other part of what you mentioned as far as me having a gripe with you saying you order in barbecue, which is fine, is the other thing you said now you said it twice, which is minimal effort. There is no world where barbecue and minimal effort are things that go together. I hate to break it to you. But if you're going to barbecue something, if you're going to truly smoke it low and slow, you're looking at, I mean for me my pulled pork recipe, which I'd be happy to share, you're looking at 24 to 36 hours of preparation and 18 hours of cooking.

And you definitely reap the rewards of that. But it definitely is a lot of work and a lot of preparation. And you're essentially planning dinner two or three days in advance. So you've got to make sure you really want it.

Yeah, nobody got time for that. We definitely have time for it out in the people have time for it. The people have time for it. The people have spoken.

So Dominic, yeah, we kind of glossed over this fact. So we got sidetracked with my fillet talk. But yeah, what is your favorite cut of steak? So my favorite cut of steak is the best steak that exists in it's the porterhouse.

Do you know why? Tell us. The porterhouse is two steaks in one steak, like Lu mentioned, and I mean, you kind of feel like a Viking when they put it in front of you because it is literally a giant slab of meat with a bone in the middle. And it's wonderful.

So two steaks in one, two steaks in one, you've got a tender one on one side and a New York strip on the other. And big slab of meat right in front of you makes you feel like, I don't want to say this stereotypical man. I said Viking, so I kind of feel like more like moo afterwards, not really like a Viking, but you know, I'm good either way. That's where you're just like a guaranteed meat sweat.

Not if you do it, right? You got to pace yourself. You have worked, right? It's actually a speed game.

Believe it or not, it's okay. What temperature did I cook this to? Can I polish this thing off in the next seven to 10 minutes? But then you're not enjoying it, man.

Are you enjoying it, then? Yes. I'm going to put all these arguments in there. I'm going to just push your buttons forward.

Of course, you're enjoying it. There is there is no world where a giant two-sided slab of meat is in front of me where I'm not having a great time. Dominic, what sort of tech gadgets are you using? And I guess I should say, when I say tech gadgets, like what is all the gear you have, not only, you know, just tech related, but I mean, what are you cooking with when you're actually smoking the stuff?

Sure. So I use two grills mainly. The first one is sort of for me, the more controversial one. I use a Traeger.

Traeger's the brand. It's a wood pellet grill. Essentially, the way it works is there's a hopper which you fill with the wood pellets and wood pellets are just wood that's been condensed into pellets. And then there's a little mechanized spiral that feeds the wood onto a burner that lights a flame.

And you can run that from anywhere from maybe 225 degrees to cook something over smoke all the way up to about 425. You're probably not going to actually get at that hopper pretty close if you wanted to see or some steak or some chicken breast or something like that. So the Traeger is one. And then my pride and joy is my Kamado grill.

The brand is Kamado Joe. Shout out to those guys, kamadojo.com visit them. Not a sponsor, but I am a big fan of their product. Most of your listeners are probably familiar with the Big Green Egg.

That's the other brand and very, very similar style ceramic grills that also can be used as smokers, ovens, pizza ovens. You can do all kinds of things with it. And that is completely charcoal. No electricity whatsoever, all managed via air flow.

Alrighty. And is there any other tools, utensils, tech related things that are going into your process in terms of prep or I know there's often types of thermometers and all sorts of things involved, you know, kind of in that process. Are you cooking with those primarily or how are you cooking? So at this point, if I'm using my Traeger, it's because I'm doing something quick, a couple pieces of fish, maybe some chicken breasts or some vegetables, even something like that.

If I'm cooking with my Kamado, if I'm doing a true low and slow, low and slow, excuse me smoke, if it's something like pork, I have that pretty dialed in. I don't need to worry about temperature too much. If it's something that I'm not as familiar with or something that's a little more volatile like turkey or duck, you're definitely going to want to use some sort of thermometer, probably the best one. There was a very, very popular one called iGrill floating around for a while, you guys familiar with that one?

I think I've heard of that one before. Yeah, I remember seeing that one. Yeah, it's made by Weber. The Weber makes obviously a huge line of barbecues.

And it's a little probe that you run into your, into the meat. And you want to make sure, of course, if it's if it's got a bone, you're not too close to the bone because that's going to carry a higher temperature than the meat around it, or at least throw it off. But there's a bunch of different versions of it. And you can Bluetooth it to your phone.

There's a companion app and make sure you're not overcooking your meat. And of course, you want to make sure you get a safe temperature when you're cooking meat over at a low temperature. So you haven't thought about doing something like a Raspberry Pi hooked up, you know, to its own sensor and then preloading like your recipes and having like the Raspberry Pi run unique timers to say like, Hey, you know, we want to make sure it's at this temperature for the first, you know, 30 minutes. And then after that, I want to move it to this temperature.

So, you know, shine an alarm if it's not to this temperature or, you know, find a way to either send me more information or what I was going to do. It's funny you bring that up is set up a Raspberry Pi in like a traditional arcade cabinet in my backyard. You're going to do a retro pie? Yeah, retro pie.

And then I was going to link it to my grill, but the grill will only turn on if I break my speedrun record of Super Mario 3. And so my whole family's probably never going to eat because I'm not ever going to break that record. Wow. What's your record?

That would be nine months. Yeah. Super Mario 3. You're a cruel mistress.

That's called a callback to the beginning of the show. To the E3? That's right. I did the same thing with the last week.

That's a full circle. That's what we call a full circle in the business. We just got derailed. And I'm a little confused.

Where do we just land? I'm not even sure at this point. On Raspberry Pi's and and thermometers and Super Mario 3. What's to be confused?

That's right. All of those things fit together perfectly and seamlessly. You know, though, guys, what I love about barbecue, if I can be honest, is that it's really not a technological endeavor. There's certainly technology involved in the Kamado grill with the dome and the way you control airflow and how accurate that can be.

There's definitely technology going on, but not technology in the traditional sense of I said it from my app from work. And then by the time I'm home, it's done. There are methods of cooking like that. And I think we might be talking about one later, but that's definitely something I really like about it.

You're going to rub that meat down with your hands. You're going to set up the charcoal with your hands. You're going to get dirty. You're going to light a real fire.

You're actually waiting 18 hours to cook this meat. A lot of times from my pork, I'll set it and then I'll go to bed and I'll wake up in the morning and then there's another step in that process. So it's a manual process. It's a labor of love for sure.

And then you can use technology like Instagram to share it when you're done. Wait, so this doesn't like set it and for dead it? I can't do this George Foreman's bow? No, that's a rotisserie chicken.

The rotisserie chicken. I said I didn't forget it. So you know what? The guys over at Kamado Joe do make a rotisserie.

They have dubbed it the Joe Tisserie. And it's an electric rotisserie that sits on top of the opening of your grill. And you can you skewer your meat and it slowly rotates it over the open fire. It is very, very cool.

So I know you mentioned it's a manual process and there's not a lot of tech involved. If there was one million dollar app idea or million dollar tech idea that you're going to go to Kickstarter and ask for funding on to alleviate or make easier or improve one step of your barbecue process, what would that be? Man, that's a really good question. I would need some sort of way to, it's kind of a dual pronged thing.

I would need a way to perfectly manage the temperature inside of the grill or the smoker. And I would need a way to accurately take the temperature without having to probe the meat. Because when you probe the meat, you're cutting a hole in it. So you're sort of fundamentally altering whatever flavor is going on.

Even if you don't notice it all the time, anyone poking the wrong spot could lead to just the right amount of juice running out or something that changes the flavor or dries it up or makes it worse, or I guess makes it better, but you don't know that. So some sort of way to maybe use my iPhone camera to to judge the heat coming or judge the temperature, I'm sorry, of the meat, and then judge the heat coming from the grill. So I know exactly what temperature I'm cooking in. So you want a heat map, but you need an internal heat reading of the meat itself?

Right. Now that would be so I host Thanksgiving for my entire family and my wife's family about 30 to 35 people. I cooked multiple turkeys a couple years ago. I did a turduckin and every single year, now this might be because I've started in on the red wine early, I overcook one of the two turkeys.

This past Thanksgiving, one of my turkeys caught on fire, true story. So I need a way to take that turkey's temperature without having to poke and prod at it. So if either one of you guys wants to develop that app, I will be your spokesperson. Nanomachines, so it's going to be nano machines, is that what you said?

Yeah, it's going to have to be that man. If you want internal readings of temperature, you're not having beds of nano machines in your turkey. Screw nano machines, why don't we just make smart turkeys? Uh, Lou, that silence is never a good thing after you tell the joke.

Not to make a left turn to rapidly here, but having hunted turkey, they are anything but dumb. I'll tell you that much. Oh, so the rain thing is just a myth is what you're telling me, right? The rain thing?

Oh, you know, that's uh, Turkey's like it's way to keep it out of the rain because if it rains, they'll look up and drown. That is a myth, yes. That's an old wife's tail. Yeah.

Or a myth, I guess we should use in today's terms. It's an old person's tail. All right. So, uh, I guess one other thing that, uh, not to take that detour really too far from, from actually like barbecuing, but, uh, another way that you sometimes prepare your meat, uh, Dominic that I've heard before is, uh, you do, uh, Suvi.

So, uh, can you just briefly dive into the benefits of Suvi over maybe barbecue and why you might cook something this way instead of, you know, traditional either barbecue or smoking or grilling even? Definitely. And this is where the technology aspect comes into play big time. So, Suvi is a classic French technique where you heat, uh, a body of water, usually in some sort of stock pot or I've seen it done in big plastic containers.

There's a number of ways you can do it and you heat that water to a very specific temperature that it never exceeds. Usually somewhere between a hundred and forty five and a hundred and sixty degrees and then you cook whatever it is you're cooking and it doesn't have to be meat. You can cook eggs or vegetables or there are some crazy dessert recipes. Whatever it is you're cooking, you put in a vacuum sealed bag and, uh, let it to sort of slow cook in the water, not touching the water, but in the water, um, for any, any varying number of amount of time, depending on the meat that you're cooking.

And a lot of the new Suvi makers, I know, Anova culinary makes one where you control the entire thing from your phone. So I think the idea there is set up your Suvi before you go to work and you've got your, your protein or your vegetable in a vacuum sealed bag where you don't have to worry so much about anything contaminating it. And it's probably in cold to room temperature water, so no problem there. And then you can start that cook and you're going to bring that water up if it's a steak to maybe a hundred and forty or hundred and forty five degrees for probably about an hour, depending for steak, anyway, depending on how thick it is.

And it's going to cook that steak for you. And of course throw in your, your time, your oregano, butter, garlic, salt, pepper, whatever spices or seasonings you want to add to that bag with the steak. And then, uh, yeah, about an hour for most steaks, I would say, if it's bone in, maybe a little bit longer. And then sort of where barbecue does come into play is you'll pull that meat out of the bag, make sure you're grill.

And in this case it is okay to grill your steak, your grill is as hot as you can get it. You're going to want to sear it on both sides for about a minute. And let it rest and slice and serve it. And it's a crowd pleaser for sure.

You'll also hear this referred to as reverse searing. I'm not sure if you guys have heard that term, but that's another way you're going to hear Suvi described. And Suvi certainly is something that you would have seen in a nice restaurant in Paris. Man, probably 30 or 40 years ago, I didn't fact check that number, so feel free to call me out on it.

But it's something that more recently has become very common in households. And I mean, you can get a Suvi machine, uh, on an end cap at target nowadays. So yeah, with a Suvi, right? I mean, if you don't sear it, it's essentially it's a pretty unappetizing looking piece of meat, right?

Because from what I've heard, and maybe this is just, you know, me being an experienced and not knowing much, is it kind of just looks great and bland because you are not kind of introducing any element to char any of this this meat at all. It's purely just cooking it, you know, via just the hot temperature, but there's nothing to kind of give it a surface burn or like a crisp or any form of searing on the outside. That's right. So that char is called the my yard, I believe that's spelled M-Y-I-A-R-D reaction.

That's the sugars that are in the, the sort of natural proteins of the meat charring up and crystallizing. And you can get that from cast iron or even your sort of standard kitchen pan or a grill. And that's the my yard reaction is that char that, that nice sear, if you get those grill lines that you see, that's what that is. And that's certainly a much more appetizing way to eat.

And I have never pulled a steak out of a, out of a Suvi bath and then opened the bag and plopped on my plate and eaten it. So I don't know what that's like. I would imagine it's not that great. Yeah, I think I've seen a few cuts come out of a Suvi bag and I have to agree.

They don't look very appetizing. So I would definitely say it'd be wise to throw it on a grill for a minute. But so, Dominic, you mentioned earlier in the show, drinks, and that you've come on to red wine, I know. I have.

But before your days of wine, or more specifically, maybe red wine, beer was probably more a part of your life. So can you take us through your journey of, let's just say alcohol in general, and then more specifically, maybe have you got into pairing? So this could be a podcast all on its own. But I actually really didn't drink until I was probably 23, believe it or not.

And I had a stone IPA, a stone brewing in Escalito, California. And I was like, my mom gave it to me. And I was like, wow, that I didn't realize beer could taste like that. I was getting all kinds of tropical fruit and sort of really pleasant bitterness and just flavors that I had really never experienced before.

And that sent me on what became, that was probably 2011, 2012. Maybe even before that, maybe 2010. It was something that I just picked up and ran with. I got into home brewing really heavily and honestly like drinking way too much.

At one point, I was involved in the beer trading scene where I was literally shipping local beer from my area all over the country and getting beer from all over the country and really had some very, very cool experiences and some very cool people. One, a home brew competition or at least had a hand in winning a home brew competition. And yeah, other than, I mean, I think craft beer and I know wine is like this and whiskey can be like this too. It's really easy to make alcoholism seem like a cool hobby when it's wrapped up in something that's small and local.

But you know, enjoy responsibly as all the commercial say because it's really easy to, oh, I'm going to try a new IPA every night this week and before you know it, you've sort of filed through two cases of 22 ounce. Pretty high alcohol, unhealthy product as delicious as it is. So I sort of started with beer and got into whiskey, which is kind of beer's older cousin as far as the way that it's made from there. And that's something I'm still sort of selectively enjoying.

I definitely don't drink as much whiskey as I did beer at all, but it's a special occasion thing for me and I enjoy that. And there's a number of great whisies you compare with steak. I mean, my man, Ron Swanson and his log of oolin and a rare steak is log of oolin 16 is just one of the best scotch whisies you're going to find anywhere from my money. That's about an $80 bottle.

You can go much much higher than that, of course, but red wine is something that really for the last year I've gotten into and it's a little bit healthier than beer and there's some interesting ways you compare it with food and it's pretty enjoyable. From a pairing standpoint, though, beer with meat and grilled meat like we're talking about. I mean, it sounds cliche to anyone who's familiar with how this works, but you're going to want to go with a porter or a stout, something that's dark and roasty to sort of match that flavor, those charred flavors that I'm almost talking about in the meat. You're not going to want to necessarily go with like an IPA or a wheat beer or something.

An IPA is going to completely confuse your palate as far as what you're giving it. One bite you're getting steak the next minute is getting, which is kind of a darker, heavier flavor. The next bite is getting really bright, citrusy, potentially multi, but mostly not influences and then it doesn't really know what to do. And you can play with contrast.

For example, a sour beer with a standard New York cheesecake is one of life's great pleasures, believe me, if you've never tried it, do so and fast. But red wine is going to play with that char on the meat so, so perfectly. Something like a mauvec from Argentina. Normally, but you can get them from really any winery that makes red wine is going to go so, so well with a nice grilled, for me, ribeye, not filet mignon.

But you know, it's funny because I think we all started kind of like with the beer train, right? Like you start drinking beer and then you realize that beer doesn't taste that great. And then you find up here that you do like and you're like, wow, beer can taste great. And then you kind of go through the beer experiment stage where you drink a lot of beer and then realize, hey, beer's not that good for me.

And then you go to something else, like, well, I'll just drink whiskey instead. So then you drink whiskey and you're like, hey, this is good, you know, but doesn't go with as many things as I'd like it to. And then you start getting into wine and you're like, okay, now wine goes with a ton of stuff and it's not as bad for me. And I can drink it every night and not feel like a monster.

Yeah, it's just a progression. So I hate to break your heart at them. This is where I come out again and say that I'm like, you know, 40 or 50, but I feel like I kind of miss the beer train and I never got into the whiskey train. I, you know, I drink light beer primarily if I'm going to drink anything.

So yeah, I'm more in the weeds and so on and so forth. But I have a little collection of wine and I definitely went right past white wine and straight to red. So what can I say it so that you guys don't have to? Yeah, please.

Men don't drink white wine because it's disgusting. Oh, that's what you were going to say? Yeah. I was going to say that.

You know, I've never actually tried that many white wines. So I couldn't really say it because I think I missed that whole boat, right? Like, I don't think there was ever a timer. I was like, yeah, like a white, you know, to go with my whatever.

But I was always, you know, hey, red wine go steak. Yeah, whenever we go out, that's what it would be. So I don't think I've ever, to be honest, even really tasted white wine that I remember when I'm going to go with something that white wine might typically be paired with, you know, a fish or, or, you know, some sort of, I don't know, seafood pasta or something really light, definitely. I am going to still probably pick a red, but a really, really light red.

You know, I'm going to go to like a Sancho vase or something like that, that it just isn't going to sit as heavy as, you know, a cab sob or some sort of move-edra or something like that. So, you know, I think you can still find a light red that pairs well. If you're a red drinker, it just is going to take you some time to find your place. So, you know, a white, isn't it?

If you're looking, though, if you're looking for a white wine to pair with a red meat, you could go with a really oaky chardonnay, maybe you get that old flavor that's going to sort of match maybe some of what the red meat is doing flavor-wise. But in general, you're definitely right. Fish, a light, pasta, maybe with a white sauce or something is going to be a much better option. Or if you really want to get sort of almost a white twist on something to go with meat, if you've ever tried a red sparkling wine, that's actually really refreshing for like a backyard summer barbecue.

So, you know, you're going to chill it just like you would chill like a champagne would be. And it has that more sparkling taste to it. But it's being served so cold like that, but having that typical red, you know, flavor, sometimes jammy or something like that, is really, really good. So, it pairs well for a backyard summer barbecue when it's hot anyway.

So, I guess with that being said, I usually like to take this moment in the podcast and just say, is there anything else you would like to add, Dominic, before we move on, especially as our guests? Well, we talked about how to order barbecue at a restaurant. I think maybe the last thing I wanted to touch on with that is if you're in a city like in Austin, Texas, or it doesn't have to be one of the traditional barbecue cities, if you're anywhere and there's a barbecue restaurant and there's a line, I know this is like really foody, cliche, but just stand in a line. Just get in the line and you're going to be, you're probably going to be okay as far as the quality of the barbecue that's coming at you.

And then if you're really looking to learn about food and I don't mean like, oh, I want to watch someone try to beat Bobby Flay, I think that's kind of a joke. Bobby Flay is a joke. Something like Netflix right now, there's a chef, his name's David Chang, he's known for the Momofuku restaurant empire, New York City, Washington DC, I think Australia, Toronto, Vegas, now LA. There's a show on Netflix called Ugly Delicious and he spends the entire show with a different style of food, Mexican, Asian, Italian, you name it.

Talking about where that food came from, the people that make it in a really organic and dare I say beautiful way, he really sort of seeks to get to the bottom of where food came from. And he calls it ugly delicious because it's the food your mom served you. It's the vermicelli noodles that your mom gave you if you grew up in a household that serves vermicelli noodles. And it didn't look the best, it wasn't played like a five star restaurant would be, but there was something so delicious about it.

And he really seeks to find that kind of all over the country and it's really, really great. I think there's eight episodes in the first season on Netflix and it's one of those things where you watch it and you're like, this is the best show about food right now. So I highly, highly recommend that. And I can tell you that having eaten at David Chang's restaurants, he puts his money where his mouth is, it is absolutely amazing.

And he really, really knows his stuff and really tries to do lots of styles of quizzing and justice. And there's a barbecue episode that I think is the very first episode and it's wonderful. All right, fair enough, Adam, do you have anything else to add? You know, I've never really been a good cook or I've never really branched out enough to to really, I guess, test my limits, right, or try to perfect this craft.

And I know, you know, knowing Dominic and being around Dominic and talking to Dominic, I know he's been doing this for a while. So I still always pick up like tips and tricks just whenever we have these conversations. So maybe someday, Dominic, I'll, you know, pick your brain a little bit more. Have you given me like a clips notes version or like maybe make your own podcasts that I can, you know, listen to and get tips and tricks on how to do this stuff?

Because I would love to spend 18 hours, you know, making barbecue, but the sad fact is that I won't do that. But maybe, just maybe you can convince me to do it, but it's gonna take a lot. Well, I definitely could convince you to do it. I think if you took, you know, I have this fantasy in my head where I have a restaurant.

And to be honest, when I was trying to like teach myself to cook, it was, it was something where I would pick a protein pork or try tip is one that I, those are kind of the two that I'm very, very comfortable with at this point. But pick a dish, pick a protein, pick something and sort of iterate on it and multiple revisions and take notes and be honest with yourself and really get honest opinions from people about what they think of it. And then just make it over and over and over again and try to think like what I put this on a menu and charge 25 bucks for it or whatever it is. And I can tell you my pulled pork is a recipe where I think if I was to serve you some, you would be like, you know what, maybe I will spend 18 hours doing this because it really, it really is just incredible.

All righty. So I guess the last question we have our party question that we're going to end with here is, do you have a favorite cooking show Dominic? Well, my favorite food show is ugly, delicious, like I was talking about my favorite cooking show. Honestly, it's probably chef's table on Netflix.

They take world-renowned chefs or maybe chefs you've never heard of or maybe have heard of and you sort of follow them for a day or two and they talk about their vision and how they put dishes together and sort of how it works. And it's like everything else where anyone truly cares about what they're doing. There's so much that goes into it. If you, if you walk into a barbecue spot because we've been talking so much about barbecue and there's a line down the block and you're able to talk to the pitmaster there, that's someone who really, truly loves what he's doing and obsesses over it almost and really, really puts a lot of time and effort and thought into perfecting something that someone is going to start shoveling into their mouths at some point and they don't necessarily see the work that he put in, but they can feel it and they can taste it.

And for me, barbecue is one of those things where it's as much a communal thing as it is like a culinary thing. It really is. So Chef's Table is probably my favorite barbecue show or my favorite cooking show. I'm sorry.

And then Ugly Delicious is my favorite food show for sure. They got really emotional. Yeah, no, I like it. I appreciate the emotion.

So with that being said, we should wrap this thing up a little bit. And I guess we should tell the listeners where can they find you online, Dominic, if you'd like to share or if you'd like not to share, that's okay. You know, I don't know that there's anywhere to find me online yet, but maybe stay tuned. All right.

If that ever comes around, we'll, I guess we'll drop in a link in the show notes. Cool. That'll be like our bragging moment where it's like, we knew this was cool before it happens. Oh, yeah, sure.

I'm sure that's exactly where this is going from here. We knew Dominic was somebody when he was nobody. I have Ruth that that got talked to me on a podcast a long time ago. So wow.

Suck it. Dominic, I just need you to become the next Adam Perry link now. I'm actively working on it and actively not anywhere close. Well, you know, he's a good trait man.

Let me just say that. So can we, can we ask you about your trip to APL stake? Sure. Sure.

How was it? Tell us, did you have the ribs? Tell us all about it. So for, I guess for those of you who don't know, if I may, Adam Perry laying a very famous chef, right?

And known for the way he treats ribs, uh, proprietor of, he's a French train barbecue expert, but Daisy May's barbecue is what he's known for. That's, that's probably where you've seen him. I think he has a couple of TV shows as well, but, but Lou, you had a pretty cool experience. Yeah.

So I went to his new LA restaurant called APL that he's been working on for, I think the last couple of years at this point. Um, so, um, we waited about a month to get reservations and went for kind of a special occasion. And, um, um, I'll be honest, while short ribs was totally on the menu, um, I didn't know that I was ready to drop $200 for short ribs. So, uh, I, I settled for the, uh, ribeye, which was like a pound, uh, for a, a cool like $80.

But, um, man, it was, it was really fantastic. The, um, the service was really good. You can definitely tell they're getting started still. So the, um, they're definitely controlling how many tables they're doing at night.

And they, um, they have dry aged all the beef right now about 110 days. Um, and, um, Adam was in the restaurant. So, um, he was coming around to tables in the middle of the meal and just checking in on people and asking how things were going. So that was, uh, very cool to meet him.

And I did specifically call out that I would love to see the kitchen and I would love to see the, uh, essentially the freezer or everything's being dry aged. And so we did get to take a trip down a couple levels below the restaurant itself and actually walk into the freezer and see what 20,000 pounds of steak looks like. And, um, man, it's a lot of steak. I'll tell you that much.

I'm getting warm just thinking about it. Uh, yeah, it was, it was definitely a very special experience to really die in his restaurant and to see, you know, sort of the, the labor of love he puts into all his cuts of meat and just, um, you know, what someone can do with a piece of meat when it's done right. Um, there's a couple of unique things about the restaurant. Um, they're, um, I guess one of the biggest things you'll, you'll point out right away is that, um, a couple of years ago he went back to school to kind of be a, I think it's a metallurgist.

That's, you know, one of the people that works with metals in general. And so all the knives he, in the restaurant, he has actually made himself. And so, um, they're, they're called felony knives. And that's because they're, they're placed at $950 and one cent is the price of a knife if you take one.

And, um, or if you take one and you don't pay for it, that's considered a felony in California. So, um, the, the knives are, are very, very cool. They're a Swiss, um, grade of a stainless steel. And you can really tell that the knife is kind of crafted to be like a tool and not sort of getting the way of the steak itself, but to really allow you to use it as the utensil or utility that it is, um, designed with and to, to really just cut through steak without any problem and also, and of course the steak cuts like butter.

So can't help but notice that too. Um, as far as, can I jump in right there? I'm so sorry. That's, those are the little things that set restaurants like what you're talking about.

And I'm sure like the Zagit guide people and the mission star people would be like, no, that's not what we look at at at all. But from a foodie perspective, from someone who's, who's like there to eat, like I normally am, that amount of detail that goes into the knife is incredible because you know that detail is being translated to everything else in the restaurant, no matter what it is. And, uh, Adam was talking about, if you overcook your steak, you're chewing away, chewing away, chewing away. Well, if you, if you go to your neighborhood steakhouse, which again, I do believe can be awesome.

Uh, and you have to saw at your stick to cut it, like maybe the steak is overcooked or maybe you have a bad knife and you're damaging that meat when you're trying to cut it. So having, having good cutlery is so important. It's awesome to hear you're talking about it. Yeah, it was, um, you know, really, it kind of validates that, you know, cutlery is so important.

And so, um, as far as the, the sides and the rest of it, um, we did go for the thick cut bacon, which, um, was probably the thickest cut bacon I've ever seen. Um, you can basically mop it up to be taken a normal slice of bacon, multiply it by like five or six, because this was probably about half inch to maybe two thirds of an inch thick. Um, so it was basically more like a slab of bacon is the best way to describe it. Um, so we had that as an appetizer.

That was amazing. And we then moved on to, um, I think it did, we just have a salad, um, which would probably be just in Dominic's view. And then, uh, nope, not at all. And then finally, uh, finished with, uh, I did some asparagus and, uh, mashed potatoes with asides with the, uh, the beef, but I, uh, I can happily say the one pound of beef.

It was, uh, all but gone when I left. So, uh, I think that pretty well summarizes my experience. I, I felt like I needed a wheelchair to my car, but that, that's about it. That's awesome.

I think, uh, man, if you've never been to a, a restaurant like Lou's talking about, if you, if you've never been to, I mean, I mean, for lack of a better term, a celebrity chef restaurant. And I'm not talking about like guy's big bite in the middle of time square. Although I did eat there once and it was kind of a disaster. Uh, if you've never been to one of these restaurants, like spend the money, spend the time, make reservations and go.

If you're into food at all, it's gonna be worth it. I promise. Like these chefs are famous for a reason, especially the legit ones who really know their craft and really know the work and time and love and effort that gets put into these dishes. I couldn't agree more with you if you, um, really want to sort of experience all that we're talking about.

You really do have to kind of take it upon yourself to go seek out a place doing this at just the next level and, um, and enjoy it. Enjoy every moment of it. Ask to speak with the McMaster. Ask to go into the kitchen.

That is where you will really sort of go beyond the, um, just the everyday steakhouse experience to really see the extra care that they're putting into it at the restaurant you're at. Exactly. These are people who really, really care about the product and really care about what's getting put on the table. And there, there really is no substitute for that for sure.

Question. Can I wear sandals in this restaurant? You cannot. Oh, you definitely can.

Um, I, uh, I've been to a steakhouse in sandals shorts and a non-colored shirt and said, you know what, if you want to take my money, um, you'll have at least serve me whenever the hell I'm in. But, um, I, I'd be honest if I would say, I think I'd be wrong to say if you don't show up with something a little nicer on, they might judge you a little bit. Don't judge me. I'm just a human being who wants some nice meat.

Hey, dressing nice is part of the experience, man. Uh, I, I will stand against that. No, no, it is not. Getting dressed up and going out is maybe part of the experience, but you don't have to dress nice to enjoy food.

All right, duly noted. All right. Well, on that awkward note, uh, I think we should end this thing. Dominic, thank you.