Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to dial it in a podcast where we talk to fascinating people about marketing, sales, process improvements and tricks that they use to grow their businesses. Join me, Dave Meyer and Trigby Olson of busy web as we bring you interviews on how the best in their fields are dialing it in for their organizations.
Speaker: Let's ring up another episode.
Speaker: I think one of the things Dave that I've come to understand in my life is pain. Especially as I get older, I remember when I turned 40, you and I had lunch together and you said, so here's, what's going to happen is one day you're going to wake up and it could be next week. It you good could be six months from now and you're going to hurt.
Speaker: yeah You're not going to know why. Then you're officially going to become 40. I've actually filed and then you're 40. So I've gotten used to that. And my son even makes fun of me and says, If I start getting upset, he'll go, where's the Tylenol?
Speaker: Right. won that's I i've discovered something worse than pain And it's when you make a mistake that your wife told you not to make and you make anyway.
Speaker: hear So let me tell you what happened. I was per prep prepping Thanksgiving dinner. As you talked about this in previous episodes, i made a glorious turducken and it was great. I thought well I'm going to do some more things. So I did the worst thing ever as I watched some TikTok videos.
Speaker: Oh my, yeah. And I learned how to make potato roses. So you slice them really thin and then you stack them on their side and you put them in a muffin tin and they look gorgeous.
Speaker: Very sharp implements that go into making. And I thought this would be great. And so then I used a potato peeler and I did it and it really wasn't, it really wasn't thin enough to be cool. So I i told my wife, we need to go to the store.
Speaker: and get a mandolin, which if you don't know what a ne mandolin is, it's basically, rent it's a flat guillotine. And then here's the first, so first of all, I lipped off and she's let's go to Target. I'm like, I'm not going to Target. We're going to Williams-Sonoma.
Speaker: oh And in the little amount of free time we had, I made her go to Williams-Sonoma so I could buy a very expensive mandolin. And she says, we have gloves at home for this. i don't need gloves.
Speaker: I'm a man. i don't need gloves. She's, are you sure? Cause I cut myself when I did it. I, and I don't need that. Our guest is cringing. Yeah. So I get home and I set everything up and I'm about ready to do my sweet potato mandolin action. And she pulls out these tiny little pink gloves. She's are you sure you don't want these?
Speaker: And I was like, no, I don't. know I'm a man. I don't need those. And I got three slices in before I carved a hole in my thumb. o And then I used the gloves to actually compress the wound really before I ran to the sink.
Speaker: ever and And then started running it under and I shouted in the other room, hey, i've I'm finally using the gloves. And she was not, she was not amused. I know you like to be helpful the holiday season, Dave. I do too.
Speaker: so I figured out how we can do it. I brought in a w ringer to help us be cool in the kitchen this holiday season and hopefully not have any bloodlining because also I'm told thanks to my wife that bleeding into your food is not added flavor, but in some cultures it might be anyway. Do we have a sponsor for today?
Speaker: We do. And I'm sure you'll give this one and a half thumbs up, Trigvi. So we're good. Today's episode is sponsored by WeFixHubSpot.com. Is your HubSpot portal cluttered and inefficient?
Speaker: WeFix HubSpot, powered by BusyWeb, specializes in customizing and optimizing your HubSpot experience. Our team of certified experts offers tailored solutions including training, re-onboarding, architecture reviews, data restructuring, and more, ensuring your portal aligns perfectly with your business needs.
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Speaker: Thanks, Dave. Great news. Get your pen ready. Take some notes. I'm so excited. Because our guest today is my friend Janice. She's the founder and executive chef of Tiny Spoon Chef, a boutique personal chef service known for creating unforgettable home dining experiences.
Speaker: With years of culinary expertise and an eye for beautifully balanced dishes, Janice has built Tiny Spoon Chef into a thriving in-demand business, serving clients who crave elevated personalized meals.
Speaker: Her approach blends fine dining technique with an inviting, approachable style that empowers anyone to feel confident in the kitchen, which we you and I are both in sore need of. So beyond cooking, she is a mentor, problem solver, and creative force who loves helping people discover dishes that impress...
Speaker: without stress whether she's crafting multi-course dinners exploring new flavor pairings or teaching home cooks how to elevate their meals janice brings warmth humor and genuine joy to everything she creates welcome to the show janice Thank you so much. Is that not the most gracious introduction that I've ever heard?
Speaker: ah love it. Thank you. i want to follow up on my story too, because one of the interesting things that I learned over the summer is that with respect to AI is you can take pictures and then ask AI to interpret it. So before I actually let my wife in, I took a picture of my thumb and the, to see if I needed to go in And here's the, really the worst part. And then Janice, this isn't for you. This is for Dave. It's not so much that I embarrassed myself in front of my wife. It's that i also embarrassed myself in front of my chat GPT because I took a looker and then for the next week, anytime I asked it a question, it would make a sly joke about how Bruce Hornsby couldn't be in a fight or
Speaker: Are you sure you want to do that? Because with only one half of a thumb, it was whole thing. I love that. Janice, tell us your story. How did you become a chef? Incidentally. unintentionally because I was a great eater.
Speaker: it worked in restaurants since I was 15 and I just really loved the energy. It was always a fun kind of side job and the best people work in restaurants. I think also the most interesting, funny, maybe the most toxic people. It's like ah it's a melting pot of greatness and debauchery at the same time, but it's definitely addictive and worked in the industry for years and years, especially when I went to college. And so when I pursued other things, this was always a thing that I kept to keep me happy.
Speaker: And after a while, I just realized I was working all the time trying to keep a restaurant part of my life and a marketing part of my life. And the two just were making a zany overall picture. And so at one point I just said, okay, you need to make a choice and it'd be okay if you just did the food thing. took a little while, but I got there.
Speaker: I also come from restaurants and i am of the opinion that like, if you're an Israeli citizen, when you turn 18, you have to serve in the army for a year. I think there needs to be a law that when you turn 18, you start working restaurant for a year.
Speaker: Oh, it'll give you a sense of humility, won't it? And for the work it takes. And how to treat people and how to live on cash and a whole mess of things. I want to skip to the end because you have a thriving business then it that's in, i think, what, a dozen cities?
Speaker: We are across 15 states. It's 14 regions for us because D.C. is like D.C., Maryland, Virginia. So that one's the one that kind of throws us off. But... Yeah, we're in several locations all up and down the East Coast, the Midwest. We opened in Phoenix, which is the furthest West that we go. We opened in Phoenix this year. and Wow.
Speaker: That's crazy. always say it. It just feels a little nuts. That is crazy. So the upshot is if you really want to look cool, you can hire, you can call, go to tinyspoonchef.com and hire a personal chef to come to your house and make you um an amazing meal.
Speaker: You sure can. And then you don't have to worry about keeping up with the pace of your life and working on the other goals that you have. You can know that you can fully delegate your health goals, your allergies, your commitments to other things, and someone is not going to let you down. They're going to keep up with you and make sure it's all held together.
Speaker: if you're tricked v holson you don't have to worry about simultaneously giving blood at the same time either so i just i deleted tick tock everything's fine tick tock is the new answer i think for younger people i heard one of my associates said the other day that her dog was having a like a wheezing a health issue whatever and she immediately went to tick tock to self-diagnose i said people aren't even web md-ing anything anymore they're tick tocking right Yeah. cool it's going to be then It's going to be the new Bible. That's what I'm thinking.
Speaker: It moves really fast for me. And obviously injured myself. And I very much love my wife. We've been married to her for 17 years. And we have this one unfortunate rule that if the threat of death is more than mild, I have to hire out. And unfortunately, that's now in the crosshairs. Not a lot in the kitchen anymore.
Speaker: I have a similar thing, Trigney, where I'm not allowed to wear anything remotely dangerous in the month of November. So now that we're in December, I'm good. But I used to famously terribly injure myself. Like I was walking down a sidewalk and picking something up late at night. May have been after a bar visit, but I was walking down the sidewalk along the side of this house and all of a sudden I just disappeared.
Speaker: because the people that I was visiting forgot to tell me that they had excavated their sidewalk to get access to their basement. So I fell six feet down a hole, hit my face on the other side of the hole on my way down.
Speaker: And then at three in the morning when I got home, I just tucked my myself into bed. And then I woke up my wife the next morning and say, hey, check this out. And my entire face was swollen. It's warm.
Speaker: For family. or warm Something. That would have been the ultimate crinkle. Yeah. Oh, it was terrible. We're not giving you a lot of quality ingredients to work with today. Yes. We have you here. We are good men with big hearts and want to be helpful and make everything merry and bright this holiday season. So.
Speaker: Yeah. What are some recipes that we can pull out that are easy enough for us to pull off that are going to really help us shine this holiday season? Yeah. well Not dangerous, right?
Speaker: Also not dangerous because I'm not allowed to use the mandolin without adult supervision. Can I share with you a quick story about the mandolin though? yes yeah The first time I used a mandolin at home, it was many years ago, I had a practice marriage and my former father-in-law was ah the head of obstetrics at a hospital here for many years. He a surgeon. And I also cut my thumb and I had to like tip a little thing back into my thumb. and i mom them and i had Yeah. It was a little hole that I tipped back in. And I called him and i said, oh my God. I said, just cut myself. And he said, would you like to come over and I'll dress the wound? I said, yes, I would love to come over and have you dress the wound. So wrapped it all up and my husband and I went across to her. Oh God. I said, will you look at the, oh, I was cringing, whatever. And he looks at it and he goes, this is concerning.
Speaker: And he said, I'll be right back. Let me just go get some supplies. And I thought, is he going to suture this? Are we going to get Steri-Strips on it, whatever? And he put a Walgreens generic Band-Aid on it. And he said, be careful out there. Get up.
Speaker: Sounds like father-in-law. Right? And he said, I don't know what you want me to do. Like, this is it. This is as good as it gets. And I was so disappointed. I thought I was going to get some big medical intervention. So I don't know. Everybody's done it once, Trigby. maybe Maybe the first time was scary, but that was just it. Now you have proper fear of the tool.
Speaker: Yes. And we're going to take a quick break. And today's episode is sponsored by me. if you're interested in a slightly used mandolin, please reach out to me at triggityatrisyweb.com. Anyway, back to the show.
Speaker: That's a whole DNA of it. if its It has added flavor. I swear to God. I know everybody likes to to be helpful and ah everybody likes to impress this holiday season. yes So yeah what are a couple of things that are a couple of flavors that we can pull out that there are some of your favorites? Because you were the only person in my life that I've ever gotten up to watch on TV that day you were on the Today Show.
Speaker: Oh, Lord. And you did your mother's apple pie. yeah That was just such a fun experience to cook live and and what a whirlwind of a year. There's been a lot of fun TV stuff since then.
Speaker: I think with any, with anything, I mean, we think about like our zone of genius and where we operate really well. And I think play to your strengths. So if you're not a super confident person in the kitchen, start with the basics of building flavor like a chef and think about assembling.
Speaker: Because the goal of having people together is having people together and the community of food. It's less about how much you're Did this take? How many ingredients? What's the technique? It's less about that fussiness.
Speaker: And it's more about, is this really good? Is this something that we can be around and enjoy? So for me, one of the things about great cooking is thinking about having lots of different balance. So having something salty and sweet, having a slow flavor, having a really fresh flavor with it, having something that's crunchy and maybe something that's gooey, right? Having all these different dynamics.
Speaker: and getting people around something that's really interesting. So if you're gonna have a snack and it's just salty, That's fine. Like maybe that's what you're into, but there's a reason why when you go to a bar and you have bar snacks, there's a salty thing, a sweet thing, ah right? There's all these, there may be a spicy thing in there.
Speaker: That's why it's fun and you want to have a great drink with it because it all really balances together and it gets you to snack more and it gets you to drink more. So I think about that too. When you think about the holidays or post-holidays and having great people together, how do you start with that and keep it really simple? The less ingredients you have, like you don't have to overcomplicate things.
Speaker: Does that give you a good starting point? I think so, yeah. Because I think I'm going to have to put the mandolin down and... okay maybe maybe I think you're already just, let's just leave it. Maybe less top chef and maybe more just like actual chef.
Speaker: I know that one of the things, you mentioned your practice marriage, and I know a lot of times family comes into play during the holiday season and everybody has family dynamics. You're an accomplished chef who has many chefs working for them. Can you give us some, what are some small dishes that can elevate, but some small touches that would elevate anything?
Speaker: Yeah. So let's think about something that's really classic for the holidays, like baked brie, right? Baked brie is great. Yeah. Right. And it's really simple. Like you might have it in puff pastry. You might not.
Speaker: You might have it with jam. You might have it with caramelized onions, right? It's that salty flavor. It's a savory with something sweet. And then you've got maybe like a salty cracker or crostini to go with it.
Speaker: But then take that idea and how can you apply it other ways? Right. So maybe it's like cream cheese and pepper jelly. delicious, not hard to do, but like a really interesting engagement. Think about flipping that on its head and saying halloumi cheese, which is salty, so delicious, like really salty or feta and having something really sweet with it and spicy, like hot honey.
Speaker: Start playing with those kinds of balances and saying, oh, what about halloumi, hot honey, salted pistachios? right? Now you're getting something that is spicy, sweet, crunchy, nutty.
Speaker: That's where I go with it. So you can take a very basic classic idea like what about the idea of pigs in a blanket? Like a classic sort of party food you might see at Christmas time, New Year's Eve.
Speaker: How do you take something like that and make it a little bit more interesting? How about it's really salty, savory, you've got like puff pastry. What about adding something nutty to it? What about having something sweet with it? What about having...
Speaker: a fresh herbiness to it, right? And thinking about engaging a little bit more of those things. And I think you don't have to overcomplicate it. If you're not somebody who is feeling super amazing in the kitchen, think about what's herby at the store that you can get. Like there are great...
Speaker: Herbie hummuses, or you can get some great pesto, or maybe pesto is a really basic thing to make. You don't have to, you can use any nut. You could use basil. You could use arugula in the wintertime, right?
Speaker: So just thinking outside the box on how to take some really simple ingredients, three or four things, and combining it to say, what are people going to enjoy? And then how can we just sit and linger and have some great drinks with it? That for me is like the best place to start.
Speaker: What would you say? I love baked brie. And literally I texted my wife when you said that. I was like, we have some baked brie? Cause that's for two reasons. Number one, I love baked brie. Also number two is in 17 years, she's done four things wrong. And I won't let her forget what they are. You're not keeping count though, right? It's only four and she's amazing. So it's only the four. And that when we first got together,
Speaker: She, I was like, Hey, can we get some Brie? And she's sure. And then but she peeled the white stuff off. was like, what are you doing? She's oh, that's poisonous. No, it's not. So that's still originalals but the question that I was going to ask is I think that with the TikTok and everything that everybody sees,
Speaker: is that there's this explosion of look at this thing and then how easy it is and let me show you in 15 seconds how i made it oh yeah and which involves 112 ingredients and you can't actually do unless you're a really talented chef and keep it at 96.8 degrees and for yeah Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. So as a professional chef, do you recommend people do it do those kinds of things or undertake to take that? Isn't there a separation though, too, of like what's fun to watch and what's fun to participate in. I feel like in general, when you go to restaurants these days, what is more charming that people want to go to?
Speaker: Bar food that's executed really well. Small plates of like exotic flavors where you get like one or two bites and you get to try 15 different things. It's actually not about that complexity and technique. So I get that people like to watch it, but my feeling is it's maybe a little bit of the novelty of watching something you're not going to do.
Speaker: I don't know. I mean, we just recently did a series that was so funny. I'm self-proclaiming it was so funny. So that's also, that's me right now. But we did a series with puff pastries where, remember when the trend was to have cheese and sliced onions and put puff pastry on top and then bake it and flip it over in these like little onion tarts, right? This was a trend. Yeah.
Speaker: And so I had a dream one night and I said, what if we did puff pastry tarts, but with things that just you would never make into a puff pastry tart. And so had a social media intern and she said, what do you mean? I said, potato salad.
Speaker: She's like, how would you do potato salad? And I said, oh, but I said, or like banana bread. Like, how would you do like banana bread? So it was so. You can take something that's basic and try to figure out how to re-engineer it. And so what was something like that? So the potato salad one was slices of potatoes layered with slices of dill pickles because I love dill with with potato salad. I'm not a like sweet relish luller.
Speaker: No. So we shingled those together, layered them together, put puff pastry on top, baked it, flipped it over, and then had a dill aioli that we drizzled on top. That's what? A handful of ingredients, right?
Speaker: But just starting to say, i love referencing things that are familiar and I think it's comforting. And that was the best one we made. We did a strawberry shortcake one, a banana bread one, Caesar salad, and potato salad. And I think the potato salad one was the winner.
Speaker: But it doesn't have to be 15 steps. It doesn't have to be like, you can start with five ingredients and just see how you can combine them so many different ways. I can see producer Nicole pretending that she's not actually watching, but I know she's diligently taking notes.
Speaker: We also called it puffer pass because we like a good reference point. And then we asked people what to do. But then when you start with a concept and an idea, then we said, hey, tell us what you would puffer pass next. And people said beef stew people. And so you go, oh, beef stew. How would you do those flavors? Or people suggest to all kinds of crazy things. And then you just start to approach and say, how would you simplify those flavors? What are the most important ones?
Speaker: And again, what's the slow flavor? What's the bright acid? What's the crunch? What's the creaminess? Yeah. having all of those engaged is important to make the overall dish interesting. When you say bright acid, are you talking about like being lemony or citrusy?
Speaker: Yeah. Lemon, citrus, vinegar is really important, even in really savory things. So if you're going to make a roast, if you're going to do like a creamy soup, something like that, which you think is a very savory, low, slow flavor, if you finish it with just a little touch of champagne vinegar, a little touch of balsamic. The red wine in a breeze like that gives a bright acidity, but even adding just a little bit more at the end, even if you're doing something like like rice, if you add just like a teaspoon of champagne vinegar at the end, you'll be surprised. It will not read as acidic, but it will give it a whole layer of brightness at the end that's just, it makes it pop.
Speaker: Champagne. then We're going to need to include in our show notes the the things to add. this And an add to cart feature too. home mining yeah yes I am a non-chef.
Speaker: Apply fire to foods on with some regularity. I'm a griller and and maybe even a pan person. yeah what my My worst thing that I've ever done I think was I tried to make a cake for my wife for her birthday one time. One of those confetti cakes and I had it in my head that I needed to take it out of the pan and to present it. And so I wound up gluing it back together with oh no the So for that's my frame of reference. So for someone like like me who is comfortable with proteins and fire, ah but I want to maybe shock and surprise my family with something that...
Speaker: could be easily not not even mastered but easily winging winging something easily where should schmo like me start to wing it sweet or savory yeah i think both because i'm i probably have savory right so i need to come up with something complimentary and sweet to round out the meal yeah yeah That's a great question. I am a big fan of desserts that don't read too dessert-y.
Speaker: Like, I like sweets, but I like it when they have a nice intensity, whether it's a little bit of espresso, some earthiness from that, that is more bittersweet chocolate that gives it like a nice groundedness or fair amount of salt at the end. I like it when they have that little bit of a balance. So that's where I err.
Speaker: um There are so many ways that you can apply an idea that's really simple, right? So even if you take something like a chocolate ganache, which is equal parts chocolate and cream, you can do a ton of interesting things with it.
Speaker: So if you take... chocolate ganache, let's say you have a, you want to make a pie for your wife. Then you go and you buy pre-made pie crust and you roll it out because a ton of people do that. I'm not hating on that as a solution. Or you buy a graham cracker pie crust or something like that.
Speaker: Right. And you make chocolate ganache equal parts, chocolate and cream. And you first pour the chocolate ganache that you have. You let it cool a little bit so it's not screaming hot and you pour some in the bottom. So it's three quarters of an inch and you let it cool.
Speaker: And then you make some more. and you let it cool and you whip it with a hand mixer. And now that's fluffy on top. Totally different texture. It's almost like chocolate mousse.
Speaker: You don't even need to add anything to this, by the way. I'm just talking equal parts chocolate and cream, like a semi-sup. And then you make whipped cream and you put it on top. That's what? That's four ingredients. Beautiful.
Speaker: is Simple. Three layers of, two layers of chocolate flavor, different textures, the fudginess, the whipped, right? Would she not be impressed? Absolutely. Wow. okay Like version of a chocolate kind of cream pie.
Speaker: and no less enjoyment, no less appreciation. But like, why would, I just don't understand why somebody would take on the time to and the stress of saying, oh my gosh, I downloaded this recipe from the James Beard award-winning cookbook and I'm just gonna sweat it out.
Speaker: Also, would she enjoy it anymore if she knew that you were... I don't know, like in the kitchen all day, like sweating over this and then you had to go back out and get this other thing because this got messed up. No, like also your piece is worth something in your relationship.
Speaker: It's enjoyable and it's great and it's six ingredients. Like you did the job and you did it better and that's great. So that's the kind of stuff that I love. When I first started cooking for other chef friends of mine and I, it was more about assembling and having fun. So have you ever done raclette before?
Speaker: Do you know about raclette? No. So raclette is a Swiss Alps, is a cheese from the Swiss Alps. So most people know about fondue, which is easy to make, but a little bit more involved, right? You melt the wine and everything and garlic and you got the cheese melted. in Raclette is simply, it's a griddle. it's There's a raclette griddle or there's a ah a grill that holds a piece of raclette, right? And it's a type of cheese as raclette.
Speaker: But then it's served with, traditionally with pickles, boiled potatoes, cured meats, mushrooms, very simple. I like to serve it also with bell peppers, like a ton of different vegetables, asparagus.
Speaker: And you sit a ton of people around it. And I have one of the griddles and you put things on the griddle. It's warming things up. It's toasting the bread. You're melting the cheese underneath. Again, like the community of food, it's buying a bunch of stuff and putting it on platters, pass around some great wine.
Speaker: It's like the non-cooking. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the most popular thing I do with my friends. They're all like, when are we doing this again? I'm like, we just sat down and started to do this and you're already asking when we're doing this again.
Speaker: So it doesn't have to be hard. It just is thoughtful assembly. but um And what a fun thing for a holiday gathering. Everybody's together. We're all interacting. We're all sitting around the community table.
Speaker: ah Fantastic. Yeah. It's not going to burn. It's very easy. How do you spell reclatt? Yeah. yeah might ba Yeah. Yeah. R-A-C-L-E-T-T-E.
Speaker: It's so delicious. It's really fun. You can eat the rind on that one, too. Excellent. Since Dave told told the story about the worst thing that he ever made, do want you want to hear the worst story i ever made? I definitely do.
Speaker: My wife was pregnant and she loves fettuccine Alfredo. So before I get into the story, Dave, as a purveyor of all things, fire and brown liquor, you probably know what happens if you include alcohol in a, in a flambe.
Speaker: Might curdle a little bit, wouldn't he? No, it'll actually keep the flavoring, but the alcohol will turn off. Oh, sure. You really i need need p blue flame. So it's important that you know that ahead of time because that was knowledge that I was armed with.
Speaker: She was sleeping because she pretty much slept through her entire first trimester. which is not unusual, but I was gonna make her a really nice dinner. So I boiled the pasta and then saw the little packet and I was like, nah, I'm gonna do something really nice and romantic. So I got a recipe and I started making it.
Speaker: And one of the ingredients that it called for was heavy cream.
Speaker: And then, okay, I went into the, I went into the, fridge. We didn't have any heavy cream. What we did have was a big giant bottle of Italian sweet cream.
Speaker: And i thought, i looked at that for a long while and I thought, number one, I'm making Italian food. So that probably matches up. And number two, sugar, if it gets hot enough, will tend to burn off.
Speaker: so
Speaker: I'm probably fine. And so I put in a half a cup of Italian sweet cream into my sauce and I made the first, and I was recognizing this because Janice said non-desserty desserts, because I made the world's first dessert Alfredo that was vanilla flavored.
Speaker: How did that go over? i have a very polite and empathetic wife. And then we went out we went out for pizza. Wow. I'm all for it. And I learned from that. I learned experimentation is good. Experimentation in the kitchen is good.
Speaker: Vanilla flavored pasta, not so good. No. that Although that sounds very 80s. That sounds like something people would have tried in like 82. Yeah. yeah Vanilla scented something.
Speaker: Yeah, we got the barbecue chicken pizza out of the eighty s We can put the rest to bed. You heard it here. Exactly. I love the idea of community and just making things as simple as possible because I think in the holiday season, everybody tries to make things harder and wanting to respect traditions. I think being together really should be the most important thing that he experienced during the holiday season. And if you can do it front of food, then all the better. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah What are you going to be making? that you're excited about for the holidays i've been obsessed with making french onion everything and french onions for life that's this has been a year of the french onion for me so caramelizing onions with a little bit of butter olive oil and then deglazing with a lot of sherry um dry sherry and reducing it like The more dry sherry you can reduce in there, the more French oniony it is. So you just go with your bad self.
Speaker: And thyme leaves and bay leaves. And then lately I've been doing French onion mac and cheese. We've done French onion lentils. I think French onion baked brie would be disgustingly good.
Speaker: i think ah the sear of the French onion. French onion brie. You think that would be good? I just came out of my mind right now. well What about French onion brie with crispy bacon on top?
Speaker: What? I wouldn't kick that out of bed. You're a witch.
Speaker: I think that would be delicious. Yeah. Salt onion-y. Melty cheese. That's for me. let's let Let's maybe shift gears a little because since you're here to help us and really all the guys listening, yeah what are some cool kitchen gadgets from 2025 that people should be looking at to give this holiday season?
Speaker: Yeah. One of my favorite things, I don't know what it's technically called, so I'm going to describe it. Have you seen the little, they're shaped like a plus sign on the bottom and they're used to crumble up, to smash up crumbled meat or sausages or whatever. Do you know this? talking about It's a stinking great tool.
Speaker: And I've only ever seen them in black plastic, which is not good for you. There's a guy on Etsy I ordered one from that makes these beautiful, it's made out of wood and it's so beautiful.
Speaker: And they're like 35 bucks and he's great. There's one guy on all of Etsy that maybe there's somebody else now, but I think that is a top gift, superior. And I don't care that it's a one trick pony.
Speaker: i use it all the time. So that is a hot pick for me. I think that's great. Well, intrigue me something of a craftsman. He might even be able to make something like that. Yeah, surprisingly, I have a lot of tools in the garage that I've yet to cut myself with.
Speaker: It's ripe with opportunity, isn't it? yeah The year holds nothing but promise, Chet. That's what I'm hearing from that statement. Okay. All right. So cool. So everybody should find the guy on Etsy. What else should we be getting? For kitchen tools. I'm also into Japanese cast iron pants.
Speaker: They're a lot lighter, wooden handles. They have vermicular ones. Beautiful. I think Japanese cast iron, the way to go if you're looking for something that's a little bit nerdy. Okay. Beautiful.
Speaker: Yeah. Lighter, flexible. Aren't cast iron but pots a little fussy to take care of? no No, I don't think so. The key to them, and people say, oh, you can't use soap, whatever. Would I use like a ton of soap? No, but you don't really need to. The key with them is to keep them dry.
Speaker: So you can use a a little bit of, I would use soap judiciously if you're going to use a little soap. But I think the two key things with it are when you're done washing it, rinse it, shake it off, put it on a stove and turn on the heat until it's totally dry.
Speaker: Right? Totally don't put it away if it's damp at all. Don't towel dry it and then put it away. It's not dry until you warm it up. And the other thing is when you are inclined to scrub it, what you want is you want that oil buildup. You want that, right? You want that patina on it.
Speaker: The oil buildup from olive oil is sticky. It's a low heat oil, right? So you want to use a higher heat oil and you don't want to take that off.
Speaker: So if something is getting stuck on it, you want to use the proper thing to remove it. You don't want to scrub the hell out of it. You don't want to get out your stainless steel. That's the wrong move. So there are two things you can use. There's chain mail that you can get.
Speaker: to clean it or the easy chefy thing to do, kosher salt. You're gonna, when it's warm on the stove, pour in a pile of kosher salt, i don't know, two or three tablespoons, something like that and have a kitchen rag, circular motion.
Speaker: You can pull it all up that way, rinse it out. Salt is antibacterial, right? Don't need to use soap and water, but that, the salt, the granules of salt are gentle enough to scrub up anything that is stuck without breaking that great patina that you're working on.
Speaker: Other than that, it's not that hard. Re-oil after you scrub it? Yeah. A little bit of a higher heat oil, vegetable oil, avocado oil is great. Just a very thin layer.
Speaker: Totally easy and way better for our bodies than nonstick. This is becoming a bad idea because I'm now, this is the first guest we've ever had where I have a shopping list afterwards. I'm have to Amazon.
Speaker: Trigby, I can spend some money. That's a problem that I have. I just bought a big glass olive. for myself. like I can justify all sorts of things. like i was like I said to Pete, Pete is my fiance, I said to Pete, I was shopping and I said, I need this. And he said, what do we need this for? I said, when we live together and we have a bar, this is going to be the pièce de résistance, an objet d'art. And he said, yeah because he thinks I'm ridiculous.
Speaker: And said, could we wait until we have the bar? And I said, no, absolutely not. We need this gigantic glass olive with the skewer. So I do my best Christmas shopping for myself. Uh-huh.
Speaker: that ah That is the exact argument cadence that both Dave and I used independently to own a Lego Millennium Falcon. To co-own. No, we don't co-own. We have our own.
Speaker: It sounded like you were co-owning. later throw on yeah yeah then who's goingnna Then who's going to take it home? And and then it's awkward. You have to meet in diner at a McDonald's.
Speaker: But the custody situation... of this millennium. dollar strike and a rue What is it called dad? And I don't know. so this is better that one of us is dad. One of us is Papa.
Speaker: It's a whole thing. So we have a little time left. I want to get back to tiny spoon. Let's pull up the website. Cause I want to talk about every place that you're in, but what's a tiny spoon experience like if somebody hires a chef from you?
Speaker: Yeah. I like to tell people it's like having a chef BFF. if you ever had a Have you ever had a meal where you go to someone's house and they put something in front of you and they you say, oh my God, this is exactly what I did not know I wanted.
Speaker: When somebody just knows you that well. I had an ex-boyfriend once and he was a hardworking guy, worked in carpentry, and he came over and I said, we're having shrimp and lettuce cups. And he said, that is so disappointing.
Speaker: And then we had, yeah, because he's like a big like working dude. And then we had shrimp and lettuce cups. You go, this is so delicious. Like, when are we having this again? I said, see, every now and then you just have a read on somebody. Right.
Speaker: And that's what we do is we get to know you and your family and all the people who are there that you care about. And we do that predictive thing. That's, oh, no, Dave really loves cumin and all of this. But then, you know, his kids and the whole that. And then we go, this is the thing.
Speaker: Is there actually really going to love this? I go, oh, dude, trust me, trust me. Like, we actually know what we're talking about. We're going to make sure that you never run out of the right kind of coffee. We're going to make sure that you're meeting your health goals and you're not even thinking about it.
Speaker: We're going to make sure that your doctor is going to be like, what are you doing, bud? Your cholesterol is great. And you're going to go, i don't know. I hired a chef. And they're managing it for me.
Speaker: So that's what we do. And let's see, i I pulled up the website. You're in Arizona, like we talked about, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York City, which is where the company is based, right?
Speaker: No, actually, i live in the Boston area, but we've been in we've been in New York for quite a while. Oh, okay. I'm from New York, originally upstate. Gotcha, gotcha. North Carolina, Pennsylvania. This list got longer since the last time I looked at it.
Speaker: here road Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin. And then where are you going to be opening in 2026?
Speaker: TBD. We're building robustness in the cities where we are right now. i think next for us is four cities in Texas and Atlanta, Georgia. But we're taking our cues from what's going on right now and what we're enjoying. And we have a great team and lots of opportunities. We've been working more with Major League Baseball and the NFL. So we're working on that program.
Speaker: We have a peak service, which is a nutritionist developed offering, which is all pre-portioned. It comes with ah like the macros for everything. And that's been really fun to develop with Mandy, who's one of our holistic nutritionists. We also have two chefs on the team who do sports ah nutrition. So we're growing kind of different aspects and looking in on internal systems. And so the footprint will grow. I'm not sure exactly when. I'm trying to be patient, which is not my finest.
Speaker: ah I get I want to put a flag in the ground to to get to Minnesota because we need you. Yeah. You need to be fed a little bit better. No, no, because our wives listen to the podcast. No, we do not need to be said better. Maybe your wives need your wives need a break. Maybe they make want to treat them like royalty. Maybe that's the better way to say it.
Speaker: Yes, in in both of our cases. And yes, we and they need but more importantly, they need the help because the longer I've been married, and longer David has been married, we realize that the women our lives have so much that are on them during the holiday season. The least thing the least you can do is clean a plate. The least you can do is make sure your kids putting on deodorant. The least you can do is make sure that the lock is shoveled to, because women have it harder during the holiday season more than any time. So thank you, Janice, for spending some time together. Dave, I know we're typically talking about what we, what we learned today, but I mostly have list of stuff that I have to go buy. How about you? I agree. And I want to try a few things and just as especially ah the ganache. I think I can totally sling that. So that'd be awesome. And ah the big thing that I'm taking away is
Speaker: It's all about being adventurous and trying. so i And I love how you make it seem approachable and easy for someone like me who is just intimidated by the whole idea of doing anything other than lighting up the grill.
Speaker: I love that you said lighting up the grill is heat to food because a lot of men are like, I cook, I grill. And I'm always joking, like that's a method of applying heat to food. But David, you could totally do it. Think about classic combinations of like peanut butter and jelly, like nuts and f fruit. Okay. Seeds are also like a nut. So think about seeds and fruit, right? Like just build off of classics and go with it. There's a reason why those things are charming to our palates and you can go from there. Keep it simple.
Speaker: Start exploring. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Janice. We'd like to end by giving people pure, unadulterated, naked self-promotion. So where can people find you? of it You can find us at tinyspoonchef.com. You can find us on Instagram and TikTok at tinyspoonchef. We are super stalkable.
Speaker: LinkedIn, all the places, Facebook. I'm so joyful to be head cheerleader of the food nerds at Tinyspoon Chef. They're all amazing, joyful individuals who I get to share this wild and wacky life with. And they are the greatest collaborators I've ever met. So come find us.
Speaker: One last question. Dave, do you think you want to share custody of a bottle of champagne vinegar with me? Sure. yeah um balls or This has been another episode of Dial It In. I'm Trigvy. He's Dave. We are produced, as always, by Andy Botowski and Nicole Fairclough.
Speaker: With apologies to Tony Kornheiser, we will also try to do better the next time.
