Austin All Day
Austin All Day
Dai Due - Chef Heather and Musket (Ep.35)
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Recorded at Austin All Day Studio follow @austinalldaypodcast
Welcome to the Austin All Day Podcast. I'm Jason Powers, and joining us here is Chef Heather Payne and Musket of Didewey. Didewe has two locations, one in the fairgrounds on Stecken in Congress and the other off Maynor. Please follow the podcast on Instagram, share it with your friends and family, support the podcast on Patreon. Sit back, grab a drink, and check it out. So we're here with Heather and Musket from Dai Duay. Am I saying that right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, you know, I had to ask people today. I was like, how do you how do you exactly pronounce it?
SPEAKER_03We get that question a lot. I'm sure you do.
SPEAKER_01I'm sure you do. And the meaning behind it?
SPEAKER_00Of the two kingdoms of nature, choose your food with care. There we go.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I think the the idea is land and sea. So we get everything from Texas, we get the produce from Texas, we get fish from the Gulf, we get um meat. I mean, it's Texas. It's not it's not hard to get meat here.
SPEAKER_01It's all focused. And you're born and raised in Austin. Yeah. So this is uh a perfect fit for you, right? Yeah, it works out really well. Yeah. I'm sure. I'm sure. And Heather, you've been with the company for you're so to to get this started, you're actually departing and you're actually moving into her role. Right.
SPEAKER_03Correct. Yeah. So I've been there almost exactly two years now, and I actually got hired on um as like a prep and counter person, but I knew that I wanted, I mean, I was just interested in going to Dai Due so that I could do some more like butchering stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I was like, I'm gonna get my foot in the door however I can.
SPEAKER_01I felt about it too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that's your your jam, right? But three, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I really enjoy it. It's not the only thing I've ever done, but it's it's something that I really enjoy. It's like meditation.
SPEAKER_00It's just like really zen out on it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's good stuff.
SPEAKER_03Try not to stab yourself.
SPEAKER_01It happens. Born and raised in Austin, and you were Des Moines, Iowa. Des Moines, Iowa.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then what when did you get over here?
SPEAKER_03Um, I came here in 2007. So I moved around a lot, but I I moved here from California. So I was working at a restaurant in California.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03And I found out about a management position at a restaurant that we briefly worked at together that we didn't realize until he got hired on at Daidoui.
SPEAKER_01Oh, you didn't even realize it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And he came in, he did a stage when I wasn't working. And then his first day I was there, and he came in. I was like, I know this guy.
SPEAKER_00He kept asking me, like, where do I know you from?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I was like, I know you.
SPEAKER_00Where'd you do the stage?
SPEAKER_01Where was that?
SPEAKER_03Well, the stage was at Didewe, but where we worked together was Houston's or Bartlett's.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Was it Bartlett's or was Bartlett? Yeah, yeah. So I started there when it was Houston's, but he came in and he was there just like kind of right as I was leaving.
SPEAKER_01Right, all right. It's a theme.
SPEAKER_03It's a theme.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you've seen a lot happen in Austin. I mean, yeah. I mean, you've been cooking for how long?
SPEAKER_00Uh, 16, 17 years, something like that.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Where did you start at?
SPEAKER_00Uh my first job was at the Oasis, actually. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like my first cooking job anyway. Yeah. And that was that was what it is. And then I uh I was going to culinary school and I ended up getting a job at Mars restaurant that closed down a few years ago, quite a few years ago now. Uh, but that was like my first delving into really good food, everything from scratch kind of a place. Not as much as we do at Daidui. That's nowhere does as scratch as we do in Daidua. Oh, I know.
SPEAKER_01It's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's very fitting for both of you.
SPEAKER_01I mean, obviously. Yeah. But the so when you were at Oasis, was that just a job or were you like into culinary arts?
SPEAKER_00No, I had already uh gotten into it and started school. Okay and uh went around trying to find jobs and it got turned down from Olive Gardens and Johnny Carinos and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01And at that time, was did we have like was the scene really different? I mean that was 16 years ago-ish, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh almost exactly 16, 17, something like that. But yeah, I mean the scene was pretty good, but there weren't a whole lot of major restaurants that everybody knew about. Right. There's a lot of chains and little like Austin institutions, you know, like uh threadgills and stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you go eat there and you're like, where's the flavor? Right. Right. Uh and Mars had been there for quite a while before I got there too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um, I had not heard of it, but we had Michael Barnes on here recently, and he was he was talking about that a bit. So and he's seen a lot change around here too. He was he worked a lot at that uh the backyard. Oh, okay. A catering over there, which is cool stories, check that out. But so you and you where did you originally start cooking?
SPEAKER_03I was cooking in high school. I actually started with cake decorating classes, like when I was in middle school.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03And it was something that my mom signed up for in the local like craft store. I think it was a Michael's. Um and I was bored and I tagged along with her one day and I started cake decorating, and she ended up hating it, and I loved it. So she would have to like drop me off for the classes because it was like a multi-day class thing. So like skills-based, and you like go home and you practice and you whatever. And then I would cook at home, and at some point I was like, Oh, I could do this for a living. This is like a real job. And so my school was I mean, once I got into high school, they had uh a program called Food Technology and Management, yeah, which was a really I don't know, I think that's pretty progressive for for the time that I was in school. I mean, it was the late 90s, but it was This was high school? Yeah. So when I got into high school, there was like you take a home at class, like a prereq course.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_03Um, and then they had a school run restaurant. And the first year of the program, you actually learn like the basic skills, and the second year you run the restaurant, and the third year you just go out and work. So my senior year of high school, I I had like one class a day, and I would just go work full-time.
SPEAKER_01So I've been that would have been the incentive for me to sign up for that. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I was like, I gotta go take English, that's fine. Yeah, yeah, just go work the rest of the day.
SPEAKER_01Cool. So you guys both got into like culinary arts pretty young.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Forever ago.
SPEAKER_00Lady doesn't talk about how long ago they were.
SPEAKER_01So Heather leaving, I mean, that's gotta be a little bittersweet. Um that's it seems like a really, really cool spot there.
SPEAKER_03Over at Daidui?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I love the job. I really, really do love the job. And you get to do things there that you can't do at most restaurants inside Austin. And I mean, I think more people are getting involved with more like starting out farm to table, where you end up doing like the whole process instead of just buying and everything. Um, and it really just boils down to my commute 35 is killing me. Okay, I can't do it anymore. It's so stressful, and it adds so many hours to your day, just the commute. I'm like, I live up north in the tundra, so I need to like I need to work closer to home.
SPEAKER_01Sure, sure. No notes. Yeah, that's understandable. Yeah, bittersweet, I'm sure. Um, you guys started as like what and how long have they been open? About five years. Five years. And so you were were you there since no, you guys so you started two? My work started like a couple months after she even been there. So when they first opened, did you guys ever have them on the radar? I mean, you guys are both into you know the the butchery aspect of it.
SPEAKER_03I did, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I knew of them, I hadn't really checked them out or anything. How did you guys and I didn't know how awesome like exactly what they were about?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Did you guys get in touch with the chef there or know the chef or I answered a poach dad, actually? Okay. That's how I got into it. Nice.
SPEAKER_03Well, I so about the time that they were building their brick and mortar, yeah. I don't know if they building it, but they were like kind of putting it together because I think it was like a political campaign office before it became a restaurant, something like that.
SPEAKER_01Interesting.
SPEAKER_00Like Barack Obama's headquarters or something like that. That that little spot on Maynard? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there was a Bernie Sanders headquarters for a while. Now it's special K. Plan a K. Plan of K. Whatever. I obviously don't patron over there. Um I don't know what they sell.
SPEAKER_00Um it's like a special Kmart.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03Um, I don't remember how I'd heard of Jesse Griffiths. I think that about the time that I was ready to leave Bartlett, um, I went to Texas AM and did their beef 101 course, which is like a three-day seminar. And they, I mean, you see everything from the live cattle evaluation to the slaughter. If you want to, you can like step out of the room if you're not interested. And they do it right after lunch, too. So that's kind of interesting. Um but you go in and and then you see the entire process. You watch the the inspector there kind of doing their thing, and then the next day you end up breaking it down with like a group of people. And that got me really interested into the book in the butchery. And it was just something I was curious about.
SPEAKER_01But after that, I was like, oh, well, I'm curious what was it that um drew you into it?
SPEAKER_03Was it just utilizing the whole animal or um I think this the the skill required to do it was really interesting, and it was I don't know how to do this, I want to learn how to do this. Yeah, so it was just I mean, it's it's a very specific thing that not a lot of people know how to do. And I was like, this is crazy.
SPEAKER_00And the animal viewed as like magic, you know, you start with the whole animal and then break it down to how'd you do that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right, with a knife, and that's kind of how I felt too like this is amazing, I want to know how to do this, and so it was more like a curiosity of like, man, I don't know anything about this. And I like learning from like the beginning of a process, I want to know how everything is done.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_03Um, and I I think I'd started looking into people that do whole animal butchery, stuff like that. And I think Jesse Griffiths' name popped up somewhere in that search. So I actually went and just met with him briefly prior to them having the brick and mortar store. Just like a quick little meeting, and he was like, Yeah, we're looking for people, but we're not opening for probably like another three months. And I was like, Well, I gave notice already at my job, I gotta find something. And that's how I ended up at Whole Foods, actually. Oh, okay. Um, but he was always on my or that restaurant, Dai Doy, was always on my radar because I'm like, oh, I really like what they're doing. And from what I could tell, they had a really strong uh like female base of people that worked for him, and I think some of the hunting schools that they did, I think for a while, I don't know that they do it anymore, but for a while they had all female um hunting schools. Yeah, and I was like, that's awesome because you know it's a it's a pretty male-dominated field, and so I I I was interested in the fact that they were doing that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's and that's cool. That um I mean, so I'm guessing just go out on a limb here that you've being a female in the kitchen or in this industry that you've just dealt with some kind of BS along the way.
SPEAKER_03Well, sure. I mean, I think that every every person, male or female, in this industry deals with BS.
SPEAKER_00Sure. I mean, it's it's probably a little bit different now for people starting out, but yeah, you know 18 years ago, there was uh still like the uh air of getting yelled at and demeaned and everything.
SPEAKER_01Right. I'm I'm assuming because he's no nothing like that. No, he's he's awesome to work with.
SPEAKER_03He's gotta be the most soft spoken chef that I've ever worked with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. But he still gets his point across and he gets the quality he wants out of everything. Pretty great. Is the hunting those so there was classes going on?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they still we still do that.
SPEAKER_01Farmers market okay back then.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so they did the the supper club where they'd go to farms and they would cook and you can buy tickets, whatever. So they would like set up in the field, kind of like outstanding in the field.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03Um so they would do that, and then I think that the their popularity grew during that, and they kind of had a following, and so eventually they got their brick and mortar. Um, but yeah, I just I kind of like, oh man, I really want to go to Daidu. I really want to try that place. And it was a while before I got over there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and when you when you walk there's a restaurant, and then the other half is more like uh a market, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's probably like two-thirds restaurant, one-third butcher shop. So it it we're a small butcher shop. We don't do a lot with beef. It's mostly pork, wild boar venison. Okay. It's kind of our specialty. Wild boar is Jesse's jam for sure. Um so we try to utilize wild boar as much as humanly possible.
SPEAKER_01Um save the world. And do both of you hunt actively?
SPEAKER_00I'm I'm actually not a hunter. No. I'd like to get into it, but uh that's never and you never have with like the class or take partaking in that or anything? No, because when you work in the in the shop, you don't really have time off to go do that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, like to fill that position. Sure. And when you work them, you don't you know you're just cooking and cleaning and not just, it's fun, but yeah, uh, you're not actually doing the hunting part of it.
SPEAKER_01The so the two-thirds of the market, the market's like two-thirds. What do what do you guys think?
SPEAKER_03No, the restaurant's like two-thirds.
SPEAKER_01Restaurants, okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the butcher shop's a little bit smaller.
SPEAKER_01So tell me, what do you guys have in there? It's not just straight cuts of meat.
SPEAKER_00Uh no, we got a lot of charcuterie. We do a bunch of uh, you know, like cold cuts, roast beef, ham, some uh beef jerky, bacon. Um, and then we also have pork, chicken, and we do uh fresh sausages, smoked sausages, all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01And are you guys is that kitchen o operating overnight? Or is there always somebody there? You guys close up?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we close on Monday. Um the bakers come in a little bit earlier. They're the first ones in. Um so they come in, do all the fresh baked bread, because we do everything in-house. Um so they they do all the bread and then usually musket opens. He's there, he sets the case, gets the prep started, and I do the later half of the day. So it's really just the two of us that are running the retail side of things. So anything that is jarred or canned, or the majority of the things that are are jarred or pickled or preserved or whatever that we're selling in the butcher shop is just stuff that we put together. Um but yeah, we do charcuterie also. We have some we do like venison salami koto, and we have some wild boar summer sausage, and we'll do like beerwurst or shinkenwurst, which is like a ham sausage. It's like a large format sausage, so stuff, like you said, for cold cuts.
SPEAKER_01Nice. Pretty cool. Yeah, and it's a great spot. I mean, anybody who hasn't been over there should definitely go. Or do you guys like consider it like in competition with like salt and thyme or the well uh I refer people over there quite often because they do a lot more with beef.
SPEAKER_00Right. Um and we also get refer referred from them if they don't have something. So I I feel like we're close proximity, but I think we're two people with or two ideas with the same goal. And everybody we're using almost the same meat a lot of the times. We're just a little bit more local than they are. Sure. All right, you know what I mean. Like that's our absolute drive is only local. Yeah. Um, but like we use the same peaceful pork, and I'm not sure if they use peeler or not, but um they have they're much more of like a full service butcher shop, right? With a smaller restaurant side.
SPEAKER_01But I like that that you send people over there, they do the same for you.
SPEAKER_03And I like that's very um I think it's more of a symbiotic relationship than a competition. So we're similar, but we have enough differences that I think people shop at both places for different reasons.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I I think uh this is a common theme in Austin, like Valentina's and Aaron Franklin. You know, they they both are friends and they love each other's food.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, I think you appreciate what people are doing when they're doing it well. Right.
SPEAKER_01So it's not some customer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, not at all. Right. Not at all. They've been around, you know, in Austin for over 10 years.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So yeah, and I mean what's happening the east side there is very, very saturated with and and I guess in a in a good way, it's just very difficult to go kind of pick what you want to eat that day. If you're gonna if you're gonna do it on the east side, there seems like there's something new popping up all the time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, all the time.
SPEAKER_01But Mick Mickle Micklewaith?
SPEAKER_03Mickleweathe?
SPEAKER_01Is that the name of that? It's uh trailer over there. They're also doing some meat uh butchery stuff over. Now you've not heard of it? I haven't.
SPEAKER_03I've heard of them. I've never been there.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. You should definitely check that out. But I'm assuming after you are at Whole Foods, you're not gonna be coming down.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna try not to come downtown.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I'm probably the least foodie restaurant worker that you've ever met because I don't go out to eat very often. So you you get done, you go home, and then that's yeah, I'm a homebody, and I've got I've got like my go-to places, usually up north by where I live. Um I'm gonna ask you about those. Okay. Don't threaten me with a good time. Um, yeah, so I've got my go-to places that I mean uh my husband Austin and I will be like, hey, you want to go over to wherever? Because there will be like a dish or something that we're craving or like a specific cuisine. But other than that, not not so much.
SPEAKER_01You mentioned your husband. This is new for you.
SPEAKER_03It is new. I how I've been married, like three weeks. I don't know, something like that.
SPEAKER_01Very recently. I've never met your now husband. Uh-huh. But from what I see on you know social media or maybe what I've heard from you, he seems like the coolest guy in the world. Am I on on in the that's why I'm married? He's uh into all kinds of he's like a connoisseur of all things.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's right. He made the knife that you were super interested in. Yeah. Yeah, well, we were dating, he totally surprised me. He'd been working on it for months. He made me a cleaver.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. He'd never made a knife before, but maybe that's why I was like, coolest guy ever.
SPEAKER_03Of course. Like, oh, you're appealing to the something there. Yeah, he uh he bought the metal, he cut it out, he ground it down for days, he ended up sending it to someplace in um Pennsylvania to have it heat treated so it could do high impact. And he made this amazing cleaver for me. Some serious heavy.
SPEAKER_00I appreciate all that.
SPEAKER_03Two and a half pound cleaver.
SPEAKER_00Go right through the butcher black.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a couple like, oh, moments went like I chipped the table.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You guys got married in Alaska.
SPEAKER_03We did. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Cool.
SPEAKER_03We were trying to get out of Texas in the summertime, so we already had a vacation plan.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it was like 89 degrees while we were there.
SPEAKER_00Wasn't it really?
SPEAKER_03When we first got there, they were having record high temperatures. So everyone there was like, we're not used to this much sunshine. They're like, it's so hot, and we're like, oh, it's kind of nice. Yeah. But then because we were there for 10 days. Yeah, nobody's got AC. Some people have AC, but it's not a common thing because you know, when you spend that much time in Was that your first time out there? Yeah, we'd never been there before. Uh we've got a couple friends who uh the guy's parents live up there in the summertime.
SPEAKER_01Nice.
SPEAKER_03So they'd been trying to get them to come for years, and they were like, bring some friends. And so the four of us went up there and stayed. They have like an RV park or whatever. So we went and stayed there and then just kind of did day trips while we're there.
SPEAKER_01So sure. What does he do for a living?
SPEAKER_03Austin?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh he's a firefighter.
SPEAKER_01Firefighter? Okay. Connoisseur of all things firefighters.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01Cool. Just in case. Gotta save your life real fast. Sure. And do you you're not married, no? No. No. Do you do you when he goes home, do you have to cook or anything? Or are you guys well?
SPEAKER_03I work nights. He actually does a decent amount of cooking for himself. Nice. Um, but most of the time uh it's like little snacky meals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We actually really like going to Whole Foods and we'll get like a bunch of different little pizzas of cheese, and we'll go get like all the accoutrements and like just have a picnic in our living room. That's kind of how we eat.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a good good way to do it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And what about you, Muscat? You do you do any cooking at home or oh yeah, we do lots of cooking at home.
SPEAKER_00I I live with uh quite a few people and um we've lived together for a really long time, and most of us are cooks, so we'll just throw down. That's always good. Yeah. Like um, we also do the meat and cheese board thing, like for uh when Anthony Bourdain passed, we uh went to Daidu and spent I don't know, 80 bucks on nothing but charcuterie and everything, and just had this huge meat board for us to remember them uh very cool, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. This uh this was gonna be called the Austin Kitchen Confidential. I figured I'd be dealing with some uh problems there.
SPEAKER_03Some copyright infringement issues, yeah, trademark.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But um, yeah, that's that's that's definitely cool. Do you guys have to organize it? Because you're all are they all cooking in like restaurant chefs and stuff?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, or used to, you know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and I know the schedules can be like all over the place when it's like that.
SPEAKER_00Right. And for the longest time, I when I because uh like you said, I open the shop more often. And uh I have one buddy, Dylan, who uh works nights usually. But when we get together, it's just we cook, you know, like crazy. Right. Uh we do lots of different projects. We make cheeses and uh baked bread sometimes, and we'd uh do some ferments and all that kind of stuff. And just, you know, bounce e ideas off each other and do weird things.
SPEAKER_01Are you responsible for that bread at uh Daidue at all?
SPEAKER_00No, no, that's the that's the pastry set.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay, because I I picked up some of that hatch uh the sourdough. The sourdough? Yeah, that was that was not good for me because I ate it all in like two days. It's a little spicy too. It was very good. Yeah, yeah, it's really good. Alice is really great at what she does. Oh yeah, amazing. I I should uh I should have twisted your arm to bring some of that because I'm the same way. I don't want to go to the east side. It's not nearly the same kind of community.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I thought about that on the way here. Like, man, I wish I'd gotten some like little charcuterie bits that we could have laid out, but well, it would have been de better if it it were on video.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03We'll have to settle for muffins.
SPEAKER_01Shh. For the win.
SPEAKER_03Don't say that.
SPEAKER_01So I saw just recently, and I don't know like who how long it's been on the menu, this Wagyu burger that like won best. Uh it's been on the menu since it opened pretty much. But where's the meat sourced from? Is it from that farm that you mentioned? Uh yeah, Peely Ranch. Okay. Well, that's cool. Yeah. Right? It's really cool. I mean, to have the best burger. I mean, burgers, what is that the best food in the world is a burger. So to have the best in Austin, yeah, it's a good accomplishment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh they did it for a long time every Tuesday night, and then Jesse decided to put it on day and night. Every day. We changed the format of it a little bit instead of one big patties, two smaller patties, but yeah, because you cheese that way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So Peeler, the ranch is it's Texas. Yeah. Well, obviously, you guys, everything you guys do is Texas. So tell me a little bit about the burger. I mean, I don't know. What is on it? What is it? Just wagyu?
SPEAKER_00No, it's dry age wagyu uh chuck roll that we get. And we we also use the trim off of our uh sirloins and ribeye.
SPEAKER_03And uh yeah, just mix in a little. Ribye.
SPEAKER_00So it's wagyu and already fatty, but then we put 20% of our molasses cured bacon in. Then we season salt and pepper and a little house-made Worcester sauce. And uh house house-baked uh some Camita bun. Oh, okay. I was gonna ask about special, diced onion and pickles. What's uh what's it go for? The price tag, do you know? $20.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03$20 comes with uh sounds like a good burger. Fried potatoes, yeah. But again, everything's made from scratch. So bread is from scratch.
SPEAKER_01We make the pickles or we you know, we So this burger, you know, you can make it real quick, but the whole process to actually get that burger there is what? Like we how long is I mean, how long if you're counting the dry age, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_03It it's a process, so it seems really simple, but I mean ultimately it is a simple burger, but it's also really tasty with all the the time and the love that goes into making them.
SPEAKER_00It's one of the things I love about that menu is that it's real traditional and and simplistic, yeah. Everything, you know, everybody's love has been poured into every single aspect of it.
SPEAKER_01Sure. I like that it's like real back to like the roots and not all kind of like fancy fusion. Right. Like the whole idea of just having like a market there too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And we have a an area when you walk into the butcher shop side, which is the street side of the restaurant, um, we have a bunch of shelves and we have the retail products on the shelves, but up on the kind of the higher shelves is our own stash of stuff that we've dried or pickled or salted or fermented or whatever. It's all stuff that we put away for when in the dark times. Yeah. For the dark times when the tomatoes go away, we have tomatoes. Exactly. We have jars and jars and jars of tomatoes. So it's if we don't preserve it somehow, we're not gonna have it when it's out of season. Right. Because we're relying on the state of Texas to provide. So we gotta do our part. So yeah, everything that we do. I was thinking about this the other day. It becomes so normal for us.
SPEAKER_00I think you just don't even realize remember going back into another kitchen and just throwing everything away. What are you doing?
SPEAKER_03Well, there was one day because we get right now, we've got elephant garlic. The garlic, I think, is the biggest thing that people notice seasonally inside the restaurant. Yeah. Because we've got the elephant garlic right now, and it's amazing because you'll get an entire bulb and it weighs like an ounce.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And you're like, oh, it's so nice.
SPEAKER_00Picture on my Instagram of one that's the biggest my palm is 40 grams.
unknownOh.
SPEAKER_03But that's not all the time. And so when you don't have garlic, if you haven't done something with it, when you don't have garlic, I remember going to HEB one day and I was like, Oh, there's garlic, because I'd almost forgotten that you can get garlic all the time. It was just we were so used to it, like, well, we don't have any.
SPEAKER_01Like locally sourcing. Yeah, exactly. It's a different world. Yeah. So this menu, you guys source everything. Does the menu change like seasonally or often? Or every day.
SPEAKER_03The night men.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the night menu changes every single day. Every day. Yeah. The lunch menu changes quite often, definitely seasonally, but a little more often than that. Right. And uh it's just what what we have and what we have, you know. Is there anything yeah that's available like year-round that's always there that people pastrami sandwich seems to be on there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's uh a staple.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00I'm again, I'm probably a little biased about it, but I think it's the best pastrami sandwich in town. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But that's we've got the sprouted rye bread that we do. We make our own Thousand Island, we make ketchup out of beets.
SPEAKER_01Um I I'm uh a fan of pastrami sandwiches. Have you been on?
SPEAKER_03Killer, we make our own sauerkraut. It's I don't know if you've had it, but you should come there. I haven't. It's really good.
SPEAKER_01I'm kicking myself because talking about it is just half will fill you up.
SPEAKER_03Well, me at least. I I might take a couple bites of the other half, but I have to save it for later because it's so much food.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if you finish it, you're you know, comatose for a minute. Yeah. That's I like that's a good meal.
SPEAKER_01So have you gotten out um with this pastrami sandwich to Easy Tiger at all and tried any of their pastrami? I haven't made it over there. No, you should. You should definitely.
SPEAKER_03I've been to Easy Tiger, I haven't had their pastrami.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, please do. Um, because I'm curious because it's the best entire I'm gonna try it. Yeah, yeah. I yeah, I wish it wasn't on the east side right now. So that's cool though. So what's the process? How long's the pastrami take to make? Well, we brine it for four days. So there's there's another one. You're gonna whip it together and people don't realize that you're already like. Yeah, when you're out, you're out.
SPEAKER_00The sour crowd takes a week to bring it. A week, okay, you know, and the uh pastrami, we brine it four days, smoke it for like six hours, and then steam it for about three. Yeah. Then it's a long process on that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And then even with the bread, because it's a sprouted rye, yeah. You gotta soak the berries one day. You drain the berries, you let them sprout for one day, and then you eventually get around to actually making the bread. So it's it's a multi-day process for that too.
SPEAKER_01So you've heard of the Ezekiel bread that you have the sprouted bread. Yeah, is so what would be the difference like buying that and like how what you guys are doing there? Or is there a big difference? I'm sure there is.
SPEAKER_03Well, d I feel like Ezekiel's in the freezer section. It is. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, so there's the sprout. There's that. Okay. There's fresh bread aspect. Freezer, it's gonna be what, moldy or you know, sure. We what a week?
SPEAKER_00I mean, we don't use any preservatives on any baked products or anything. We use a little bit of uh insecure on some of the sausages, but that's about it.
SPEAKER_03I've had the Ezekiel bread before. It's a little harder. So like the rye is still like a nice soft bread that you can toast and it'll be crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I think Ezekiel's a little firmer.
SPEAKER_01Sure. That and it's I mean, who knows why? Because probably because it's sitting in a freezer until you thaw it out. I mean, I don't know. There's probably other reasons, but that sourdough was like a pillow. It was amazing. Yeah, it's really great. I I think I had like four grilled cheeses and within like 48 hours, and that was it. Yeah, that's all you need. Yeah, it was very good.
SPEAKER_03It's hardy bread.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you mentioned that you were at Whole Foods in the Mar, right? Yes. And you were you were in the you were a butcher there.
SPEAKER_03I was a butcher in the prepared foods department.
SPEAKER_01And so you've been a butcher or in the, you know, I don't know, restaurant industry for quite some time, and now you're gonna go back to Whole Foods where you're not gonna be I guess you're gonna be in prepared foods.
SPEAKER_03Correct. So I took uh an assistant team lead position for the prepared foods department, but gateway, so a lot smaller store. It's not it's not the beast that Lamar is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Um and Lamar's great, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But the um so how do you feel about that? Forget the commute. Like, how do you feel about getting out of like the kitchen kind of? I know it's prepared food still has a kitchen.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I I think uh what I'm gonna be kind of point over is the kitchen area.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, and I'm fine with that.
SPEAKER_02That's good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I'm I'm fine with that because I like I know a lot of people don't like corporate places and they try to avoid it, but I thrive in that kind of setting. Like I like organization and systems and checklists and lists in general. Like I really get like kind of nerdy about that stuff. Yeah. I mean, you know. Yeah, exactly. We have a dry erase board that we use right now, and so it's something that I like writing production and I like um kind of being a couple steps ahead of what's going on where I'm I can see like a couple days down the line, okay, we're gonna need to do this. And I don't know, like a like a little game of Tetris. Like I really enjoy that kind of thing, doing schematics or something. Like I think that's something that I'm gonna be involved in in like the hot bar schematics of you know what we're gonna be doing in the coming months. Um, so it will still satisfy a thing that I really enjoy, even if I don't have the hands-on butchery stuff going on there.
SPEAKER_01Right. And the um and there's something to be said for like the corporate setting where a lot of times you're getting health insurance and you're getting time off and paid vacations, and a lot of times then I don't know what it's like there, but you know, when you're cooking, vacations are are rare. I mean, they can happen during the summer and then days off back to back. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You guys slowed down in the summer a little bit. Uh we have and like, you know, as a general rule, yes, but we really haven't slowed down that much. Yeah, we this summer.
SPEAKER_03We still get surprise busy days. I mean, we'll have days where we're like, man, this is really slow, but then the next day we're slammed. Like there's not there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Yeah, it's slower than winter time, but we're still keeping busy for sure.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Keep thinking, oh, it's gonna slow down. We gotta slow down. Never has.
SPEAKER_03Back off of production a little bit, like, oh, okay, we're getting a little tight on baking this week.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So are you ready to kind of step into her shoes there and oh we work together so well that we've been doing like shared responsibility a lot over the last year. Sure. And uh she's about to, you know, start showing me the things behind the scenes. But I I think I'm ready for it.
SPEAKER_03He's ready.
unknownYeah, okay.
SPEAKER_03He's I don't know what I would do this last uh it's been almost two years that I I mean I work there almost two years, but I've been managing for almost that whole time also in the butcher shop.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And he's my right-hand man for sure. Like I don't know what I would have done without him. I probably would have pulled my hair out. I look more like him. And yeah, and I don't have any hair to pull out.
SPEAKER_02So it works.
SPEAKER_03Uh so he's ready. I mean, there are days that maybe I don't write production because I know that he's coming in in the morning and I don't have to worry about it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's good.
SPEAKER_03Ugh, it's so nice. It's nice to know that you can rely on your coworker.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, no. And so you're I'm sure you're comfortable leaving leaving it in his hands and everything. Yeah. That's cool. That's nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You're gonna do such a good job.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You'll have to come back. So by the time this goes up, if you guys want to go over and visit, you're gonna be talking with Musket. Yeah, not Heather. You're gonna have to go to Whole Foods and go uh order, I don't know, whatever. Go to the hot bar.
SPEAKER_03I'll be hiding in the back.
SPEAKER_01I'll be hiding in the back. Oh, that's cool though. So let me get to, you know, you said when you get home, you like you have a few places that maybe you go to. And where are those?
SPEAKER_03Uh so I really like Thai and Indian food, although I don't like spicy food, so it that's a little weird. Um interesting. Um, but there's a place that's close to me. It's uh like 620 in Parmer called Superbot. It's actually a vegetarian Indian restaurant.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Um that I really like to go to. I know. Like, oh, I love this vegetarian restaurant. Superbot.
SPEAKER_01Interesting name.
SPEAKER_03I'm rarely when Austin and I go, we're rarely or we're most of the time the only white people there. That's for sure. Like is it in like a stream's gear? Uh there are a couple other businesses there. I think there's an Indian market right next to it, um, and maybe like a coffee shop. Um, but it's just a tiny little little section, and it's just really, really yummy Indian food. I went in one day by myself and I was like, I'm just gonna order a bunch of stuff that I don't know what it is. So I just like went in by myself and ordered a bunch of different things, and I was like, everything here is good.
SPEAKER_01That's good. Yeah, that's a good spot. So super bot.
SPEAKER_03And then uh one of our other favorites is the rotten bunch, which of course I worked at, so I know the menu, but they do a fresh pulled mozzarella there, so it's still like warm and melty when it shows up at the table, and they serve it with some of their pesto, and that's killer. So we'll go just like let's just go get some mozzarella. It's so good.
SPEAKER_01How did uh you like the rotten bunch?
SPEAKER_03I liked it a lot, so it's actually my brother's restaurant. Um and that's the reason why I left Whole Foods because he was about to open this place and he said, Please come work for me. Maybe he didn't sound like he was begging so much.
SPEAKER_01I would imagine your brother's owner or chef?
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01Chef.
SPEAKER_03Yes, all of the above.
SPEAKER_01Oh, and I've definitely I've met it. Eric Williams, yeah. Yeah, I've run into him over there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, cool.
SPEAKER_03So he's he's like, I'm I'm opening this restaurant. I really want someone to run the kitchen that I don't need to worry about it, basically, because he was gonna be managing the whole thing. So he wasn't gonna be in the kitchen as much, and he wanted to be able to kind of step out of it and not worry about it. So I helped him open that. So we were doing training there while they were like doing construction still in in the front part of the restaurant.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, but I was there for about two years and I was like, okay, you're you've hit your stride. Well, maybe not hit your stride, but you you've got this figured out. I'm gonna go back to butchering now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, now now I have to ask, have your did you and your brother like ever do anything growing up, like cooking wise or uh well, we're nine years apart.
SPEAKER_03He left when I he moved to New Orleans when I was like nine years old.
SPEAKER_01So then he I'm assuming he cooked there.
SPEAKER_03He actually started working uh um on an oil rig offshore. Oh and I think he started out cleaning toilets, and I think he was just kind of like doing a the steward? He was just there to work. I mean, I don't think he had any kind of specific interests. It was a job and sure. Um he found his way to the kitchen there. And if you have him on the podcast, he can answer these questions for you. But um he started cooking there, and uh I remember him telling me a story about making cookies and putting pink frosting on them just to just so he could put them like in the break room because like all the guys that are working on the oil rig are like really tough, and they're like, I'm not gonna eat these cookies because they have pink frosting. But he's like, as soon as they were left in the break room and nobody was looking, those cookies were gone so fast. So he used to do stuff like that just to mess with them. But he he and I were actually going to culinary school, I think around the same time, but he was doing it here at um Texas Culinary Academy.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03And I was up in New York at CIA.
SPEAKER_01So the real one.
SPEAKER_03Well, the original.
SPEAKER_01Are you guys close to were you guys like talking on the like about your experiences and in school and everything?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he actually worked at Houston's slash Bartlett's. Um, and that was how I found out about the management position here, and that's why I moved here from California. Um, so I worked with him for about six and a half years there at that restaurant.
SPEAKER_01Did you guys get along? I mean, working together and everything, that was all good.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think six and a half years was maybe too long working with my brother.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, but no, for the most part, and I think that we we handled it pretty well for for siblings to be able to work side by side. Right. And I mean, I went back to work with them again.
SPEAKER_01So didn't gadget I've seen well, kudos to him over the rotten bunch. I only hear good stuff about it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they're doing really well.
SPEAKER_01They just Cedar Park?
SPEAKER_03Is it yeah? Okay, um it's almost Cedar Park. So it's like right along the border, but it's uh Parmer Lane and Avery Ranch Boulevard.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03Um it used to be a Waterloo Ice House.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So when he got when he got a hold of it, there were like canoes in the ceiling and stuff. So they totally overhauled the inside and now it's a wine bar.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Alligator wearing sunglasses. And they're dinner, right? Dinner and lunch and dinner.
SPEAKER_03Primarily dinner, they do brunch on Saturday and Sunday.
unknownCool.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so the rotten bunch, especially family, go support them. Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_03And it's good, but I mean, if it wasn't good and it was family, I probably wouldn't go. Like I'm not gonna support you, it's not my good. But no, it's really good.
SPEAKER_00You want to know my true opinion?
SPEAKER_01Any other spots out there that you go to?
SPEAKER_03Uh it's really simple, but I go to Cafe Java a lot.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Because if I want just like diner food, yeah, it's hot and it's fast.
SPEAKER_01That's right by that, right?
SPEAKER_03It's like metric around you don't even know it. Um it's in the metric area, like lamplight village kind of area. But it's just real old reliable, that kind of thing. Like I just want to go get like hash browns and eggs or biscuits and gravy.
SPEAKER_01Reliable, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. They probably don't even I don't I think they probably get like some stuff from Cisco or something, but but I go in and like I said, I think in in this industry too, if you work in it in any kind of length of time, if food comes out like lukewarm, you're like for me at least, I am obsessed with like food needs to be hot when it shows up at my on my table. If it's supposed to be hot, it should be hot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you're kind of touching on something that we talked like about way. I mean, this podcast has only been going for about four months, but like during those first episodes, we were asking, you know, when your food comes out, are you like real hypercritical of it? And most people were just like, of course. So yeah, we got it. I was like, All right, forget that that question because everybody is. But if it comes out, do you temperature is a big thing for me?
SPEAKER_03So if I know I can consistently go to a place and the food comes out hot.
SPEAKER_00So you get that at Cafe Java. But also, I mean, you know where you're going. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like if you sit down at Uchi and something comes out wrong, you're gonna be like, Oh, that's not right.
SPEAKER_01So, do you ever send stuff back or complain? Um I guess complain might be the wrong choice of words. Maybe just be like, hey, this is not hot. Take it back. I don't. Yeah, I'm I'm real past it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you?
SPEAKER_03No, I just may not ever go there again.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. I'm like, like I don't even put salt on unsalted food at the table because I don't like iodized salt, like raw flavor iodide salt. Right, right. But also, I know that people back there either don't care or trying their best. Sure. There's that's not really a middle ground.
SPEAKER_01That's that's my approach, unless it's really like I had poached a I went out for what was it, uh, just brunch. And that a the po you know, I got uh a Benedict's and the they were like totally overcooked, and that was like and I felt bad saying something, but I was like, I don't ever get brunch, just please. Yeah, yeah, and then they came back not even they were still overcooked, and I was like, it's fine, it's fine.
SPEAKER_03I have a hard time getting poached eggs anywhere. I'm like, okay, they're probably gonna screw it up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for the most part, I don't order steaks anywhere because I I know how to cook them. Yeah, I'll buy a steak and cook it at home exactly the way I want.
SPEAKER_01There's that's the problem because the poached steak things, you're like, well, I can do this, I'll do it right, it'll be nice and hot.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I won't be angry that I spent the money. Right.
SPEAKER_01Why would you have somebody else prepare a steak if you know how to do it the way you like it?
SPEAKER_03I mean, we do score pretty good meat from from the restaurant. So I'll I will take I'll take pork chops home or something like that. Okay.
SPEAKER_00And to that end, I mean if you get it at Daidui, they cook it perfectly every time. Nice. I haven't had any issue with that. Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_03Plus you've got everything cooked over fire there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so it's hard to duplicate that flavor.
SPEAKER_01So cool, yeah. So I'm assuming that you don't live anywhere. You live somewhere on the east side? No, I live around like uh 44th and Burnett.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So pretty central.
SPEAKER_03Why don't you just tell us your address?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's pretty much it. We'll f we'll find you. And what about you? Any any spots you go? Little Um, I don't do a whole lot of eating up, but when I because like I said, we do a lot of cooking at the house, but um El Caribe is my favorite text mix place in the city. Cool. It's a tiny little not exactly hole in the wall, but uh it's just over there by uh like Koenig and Lamar.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh the there's one lady who runs the front tables and it's just her and the entire restaurant. And she can just turn tables and run, and she's she can be curt and she's kicked people out that I haven't heard of before in the past, but she loves us. We come in there and just you know, shower with adoration, and uh she you she can tell we're all in the industry, we stagger plates, everything is ready to go. That's why she loves you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm just like, I'm the only one working that way, I can take all the help I can get.
SPEAKER_00We order drinks at the same time, like even if somebody has half a margarita left, if everybody else needs one, you order that person another expedite her her situation. But yeah, uh the food's great every time, except if you don't like spicy, don't get the uh spinach and mushroom and gelatis. Okay. Like uh oh, you think you want a gringo dinner? Here's the spiciest thing on our menu.
SPEAKER_03I'm a fan of spicy, so hard passed.
SPEAKER_00And they also have a salsa bar that has you know Carolina Reaper salsas and ghost salses. Oh Jesus. Yeah. That's some serious talk.
unknownOh man.
SPEAKER_00I'm not that into spicy, but a little bit is awesome.
SPEAKER_01Anywhere else though, have you ever been to the peach tortillon and burn it there?
SPEAKER_00I have not actually made it there because of the parking. It's so tiny. It's weird. I tried to go there one day and we couldn't find any parking. Well, yeah, it's well it's in the back the back lot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's pretty tiny.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I ended up almost parking at like I guess they closed down, but it was a cupcake shop right there.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00But everything said we will tow you. So I believed them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think uh you should check that out though if you get an opportunity to.
SPEAKER_03They come up a lot on this podcast.
SPEAKER_01They do. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03They do, but for good reasons. I feel I feel I've heard that name kicked around a lot. I've never been over there.
SPEAKER_00Uh you know, we go to Pinehouse Pizza a lot, that's right there. Yeah. Uh we go to Pacha Cafe for brunch and and coffee and stuff.
SPEAKER_01Pinehouse, they got a good beer selection, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Nice. I like to get the stuff that they make though.
SPEAKER_01The like in-house brewed stuff. Okay, cool. Yeah. Do you guys do what do you guys do at Daidu? Any any like local beers or anything? Yeah. All so totally legal. So everything's local. Austin or just Texas general? Texas in general. We do beer and wine. Any uh any good favorites, go-to's?
SPEAKER_03Well, we're not usually drinking while we're there.
SPEAKER_01Well, why not?
SPEAKER_03They get a uh we do get the shift drink. Uh they've got um oh man, for beer, I feel like it's a rotating selection all the time. And the places that I notice more than anything, I'm not really much of a beer drinker, but I know the places that are up near me up north where it's like Redhorn that brews their own stuff and Whitestone Brewery. Right. Um but again, not much of a beer drinker, so I'm not terribly helpful.
SPEAKER_01We've had the that electric jellyfish jellyfish on for three times. Do you guys do any kind of like collaborations with uh other restaurants or uh I mean even with beers or anything?
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah. Um they we're doing I mean I'm not on the bar side, so this is a kind of hearsay for me. We definitely have had a few beers that our former bar manager like collaborated with local breweries to just have something for Daiduy. Nice. Um I don't remember exactly what it was. Um I think Austin Beerworks did something like that. Yeah, Austin Beerworks was awesome, right? Yeah, I like their beer a lot.
SPEAKER_03We've paired up with um, and this might be a little bit before my time, but we've paired up with at least one brewery where we made sausages that were supposed to complement the beer.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. Uh we made some sausages that was supposed to be for uh like gonna make some bourbon with it.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I forget where and there was, I think we worked with Blue Owl for our wing, our wing dinner.
SPEAKER_00Wing ding ding.
SPEAKER_03Which we actually I think they're about to release the email if they haven't already, we're about to do the wing dinner again where it's like what is it, a festival of propelling appendages or something like that. But we uh we pair up with uh some local beer and then do like duck wings, chicken wings, frog legs and turkey wings.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, cool, cool. Yeah, that's cool. And next door to there to kind of shift topics a little bit, is is it announced that Chef Nick Patrizes Patrizes?
SPEAKER_03Is it I mean it's posted on the door that Patrizes is taking over.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it is nice. I don't know. Yeah, because Unit D closed down. Unit unit unit declosed down.
SPEAKER_03Unit D closed down, and then they put a sign up that said that Patrizes was gonna be taking over. And I haven't seen a ton of movement over there, although when I close at the end of the night, a lot of times I go by and the lights will be on, and I can see that they're moving some stuff around in there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I went and talked to him real quick. Yeah, he's cool guy, right?
SPEAKER_03He's a super cool guy, he comes in all the time, he's a really nice guy, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and there but I thought I thought I read something, so it must have been announced somewhere, but like it's not exactly what Patrice's is doing already. It's gonna be a different concept, is that I overheard something like that too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's maybe more bar scenario-ish. Okay, which would be a good fit, right? Because it is more like a bar setup there. And there's the haymaker there, but they close down by midnight usually. So I think he's trying to get like a late night license or something.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Do you guys uh is there plans to like expand this? The are I I know you guys are in the fairgrounds, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we've got the tucker over there.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So that's a little different, or is as yeah, that's uh the whole scenario over there is different. Uh it's like a quick order lunch place, pretty much.
SPEAKER_01Do you guys work out of like is there like a commissary area?
SPEAKER_00There's there's a shared commissary kitchen and a shared walk-in, and then there's a like a smaller kitchen area for hot pickups. Okay.
SPEAKER_03But they I mean they're they're working under the same kind of um I ideals that we do where it's you know, scratch everything and they nixtamalize their own corn for their corn tortillas, like they are the best corn tortillas I've ever had. We actually will we'll buy them from them. We kind of like flip-flop. We send them bacon and they send us tortillas.
SPEAKER_01That's cool.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so um the oh man, tortillas are so good. But so they do everything from scratch.
SPEAKER_00And so they do only feral pig, too. There's no domestic hog anywhere on their menu. Okay. And chicken and venison too.
SPEAKER_01So everything at the at both locations right now is 100% from scratch. Everything's source sourced locally, and that's like the niche, right? Yeah. It's like what you guys focus on.
SPEAKER_00We open we'll we open one can in that entire restaurant, and it's steen's pure cane syrup. And I know that comes from Louisiana, but what is it within a hundred miles? Yeah, something like that. Oh, so it's it's acceptable. But uh you know I mean we use black pepper. Yeah, really. Let's be honest.
SPEAKER_03We use black pepper. I don't know anywhere that's growing that locally.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But we, you know, we do everything humanly possible to be as close as possible. But one of the things I love telling people is that we have one kind of janky handheld can opener, and it's been there since before I started there, and it still works.
SPEAKER_03It's probably nicer, or it's probably not as nice as what you would have at your house. Yeah. It's because we don't need it to open cams, not really.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I worked at places that have the giant table mounted, dam it down, and we can't even keep that working as well. And this has been there for over two years at least.
SPEAKER_01So this kind of like uh scratch cooking, I mean you guys are both in the industry anyway, but when you go home, is that something that you've started to like implement in your own pantry or kit, you know, kitchens? Yeah, I've started doing like a little bit of sauerkraut. Where you weren't before, it's just kind of like, let me start doing this at home and you too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we've done uh sauerkraut. We make our own mustard sometimes at home. I just made um my father-in-law has a fig tree. And I think the very first time I ever went over there, I was like, Oh, you have figs. And so ever since then, he always like offloads a bunch of figs for me because he doesn't really eat them, which I think is crazy because they're really tiny, but they're so sweet. Yeah, I was like handing them out at work the other day because he dropped them off at the restaurant for me to have. I made a giant batch of uh fig mustarda. Right. So I actually took some of the bavarian mustard from work and added it to the fig jam that I made out of it. So I like kind of jarred it up and I'm I'm gonna give some back because I want him to try. I'm like, your figs are delicious. You should really like eat this.
SPEAKER_01Who is that that has the tree?
SPEAKER_03Uh my father-in-law.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. He's here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, in South Austin. He he's like around the B Caves area.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. Yeah. See if he'll eat it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we'll see. He might be like, it's fine. I'm gonna try.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, we've been we played around yogurts and cheeses and stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I think we're at home, we're a little more adventurous at least.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I um actually did some research and then found out how to make cream cheese and brought that to the restaurant.
SPEAKER_01Now we have cream cheese available for and how do you make cream cheese in a nutshell?
SPEAKER_00Uh we take our housemade yogurt and then uh you salt it and you press it for a few days, and it is it extracts all the uh whey that's stuck in the yogurt, and then the aging just gives it that tang. Interesting.
SPEAKER_03And then Alice made cheesecake out of it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it's another thing where it's it seems like a simple thing where you have cheesecake with like a little bit of like some macerated fruit or of some kind, whatever. But it's okay. Well, the yogurt took three days, three days to make, and then to press it, salt and press it to make cream j cream cheese. Yeah. So it's like a lot of work goes into these really, really simple dishes, but they're so tasty.
SPEAKER_01Cheesecake is delicious. I mean that sounds amazing. Yeah, is that always there? No. So it's like uh season. It's the rotating, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's the rotating menu.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm gonna have to try that. There's a couple things the pastrami, the wagyu burger, the juicecake. I I'm sure I won't be able to do that in one sitting.
SPEAKER_03But people try, believe me, they try. Yeah. We've got a couple cool things on the menu. We've got a like a three-pound beef rib.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Usually ends up being a little bit more than that, but three-pound beef rib, um, that people most of the time will share it. Yeah. But it's this massive plate with a beef rib and all kinds of goodies on top, cortito and kimchi and stuff again that we make in the restaurant.
SPEAKER_02Nice.
SPEAKER_03But people all the time when food gets delivered, I mean, it's a really open kitchen. So if you've never been there, like you can see everything that's going on except for dishwashing. I mean, it's all happening in the front. And so you hear people like, whoa! I've heard uh there's like a one kind of kitchen, like a like a kitchen table, kind of. It's one little private table that's off to the side, but it's closest to the butcher shop, like right when you walk in. And you can hear them talking the whole time that you're there working.
SPEAKER_00And I've actually when you're cutting an animal.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, if you bring a an animal out on the meat rail, then everyone kind of stops what they're doing, gets up and takes photos. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna say it's almost like uh an attraction, it's so simple what you guys are doing, and it's so something that's kind of like um it's been done before.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's how people yeah, that's how everything started to be done. That's how it was. Yeah, we're just going back to that. I love that so much. It speaks to me.
SPEAKER_01But it literally is an attraction where people stop and take photos.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And uh, that's that little booth right when you're you're doing when you first come in.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I'll hear people when the food show up shows up, they'll say, like, I don't usually take pictures of food, but don't eat this because I need to take a photo of it first. Because it's like the food, it's it's big, it's like Texas big. A lot of people share.
SPEAKER_00The the menu prices seem a little uh expensive for some people, but when you get the portions, like that's worth every penny, plus everything that went into it. Right. And we pay top dollar for everything we get.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And the um there is a I guess is there a front or a back? Because when you come in off the street, it's to me that's the front. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, to us it's the front door too, because we walk in the front of the restaurant, the butcher shop, the street side.
SPEAKER_01Are cool enough. Like if you walk in the other side, it's still uh you'll get seated if you do that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you don't have to talk to us, but that then you don't get to talk to us.
SPEAKER_01Well, right. That's so people come in and they might park in the back and they might sit there and eat. Just I mean, people should know to go check out the back.
SPEAKER_00We also get people picking up stuff for their breakfast on the way out the door.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Like, oh, we need bacon, we need some venison breakfast sausage, just all the goodies for the next day.
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. It's all so good, looks so good that sourdough was still thinking about it.
SPEAKER_03Obviously.
SPEAKER_01I bet. And you don't like the spicy, it wasn't too bad. I like that bread though. It's very good.
SPEAKER_02Very good.
SPEAKER_01So cool. So it does the uh restaurant associate with any kind of like charities or anything like that?
SPEAKER_00You know, we feel like we do a lot of that, but I don't I'm not the person to talk to about that.
SPEAKER_03Jesse does a lot of stuff off-site.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he works in collaboration with a lot of different like groups or events, uh, intero that they're doing something.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So he does a lot of that stuff where he's kind of you know out there and kind of um more of the public figure of the restaurant because he's overseeing both places, so he's kind of bouncing around back and forth. But he also does the hunting school and he's a busy guy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's always got something. I was gonna ask how's he do with all that? Is he is he good with, you know, being everywhere? Is he, you know, or does he like being there?
SPEAKER_00I feel like by the time uh that he opened the Takeria, you know, he kind of had to back away from the Daiduy thing. And he was he put it in great hands with Janie. You know, he gave her the executive chef or promoted her to the executive chef, and she's been doing great. Uh I think he's doing great with it. Good. He's always busy, he's always got stuff to do, and he'll uh answer any questions you got, even though he's out somewhere. He if he has uh service, he'll get your text and he'll answer you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01He if he has service, because he's hunting already. Yeah. Cool.
SPEAKER_03I mean, he usually has his phone on him, so if you need to shoot him a text to ask him a question, he's he's really good and responsive, and he's a wealth of knowledge. I mean, he knows what he's doing, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I give him a lot of shit because he tells a lot of dad jokes, but he knows what he's doing.
SPEAKER_01Not a fan of dad jokes.
SPEAKER_03Well, I like dad jokes.
SPEAKER_01But I'm still gonna give him shit for it. Yeah. I gotcha.
SPEAKER_03Janie, like he said, is the executive chef, and that woman works so hard to keep that place running and changing the menu every night. And she just puts out such good food and all the crew that there that's there, like everybody's really passionate about what they're doing.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Um you you said when um the Takerea opened, he promoted her to executive chef. When was that? What a year, two years? At least no, it's probably two years.
SPEAKER_03Maybe about a year ago. Maybe about a year, I think. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03She was kind of the acting executive chef for a while because he was gone.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Well, same thing, right? Pretty much.
SPEAKER_00Pretty much, yeah. I mean, she was definitely doing the job before she got promoted to it.
SPEAKER_01But she's definitely sailing the ship and she's got the the good vibe going on there. I'm I mean, like you said, it's a good, you know, female friendly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, actually, this I mean, the tides are kind of changing and we're getting a lot more male people coming in now that we've kind of turned over a few positions. But when I started working there, and for the bulk of the time that I've been there, it was the most female dense kitchen population of any restaurant I've ever worked in. And that was really interesting, where there were maybe like one or two guys, you know, like, what? This is such a weird dynamic. And I would say it's probably the most collaborative kitchen I've ever worked in, too, where it's really the best idea wins out. Okay. Not like nobody gets their feelings hurt if you're like, you know what we could do? Yeah. Like, oh, that's a great idea. And so I feel like the food just gets elevated all the time because people have ideas and they bring them to the table.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, that's very cool.
SPEAKER_03It's really cool.
SPEAKER_01It is cool, especially knowing that how it's all open and you guys are all just kind of working together. And that's anybody on the line there and just everybody, right? Right.
SPEAKER_03We're like elbow to elbow some days. You get like the morning crews kind of finishing their stuff and then the night crews coming in. And again, what you see is the space that we have, and so everyone's like really working next to each other. Nice. You gotta be you gotta be nice. Yeah, like hold on, I got a big 190-pound deer, I need to wheel down the line.
SPEAKER_01How long does something like that take?
SPEAKER_03Oh we don't usually do it all at once.
SPEAKER_00Well for the deer.
SPEAKER_03For the deer, yeah. Um we'll kind of cut off some of that as we need it. Um it's a pretty decent undertaking, but like we we break the pigs down on Wednesday morning. Well, primarily musket breaks the pigs down on Wednesday morning.
SPEAKER_01Well before you guys are open or while you're open.
SPEAKER_00I would do it while we were open just to kind of add to the appeal, right? Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_03You don't want to knock that out while while people don't see it.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03Most of the time, people are interested in seeing that.
SPEAKER_00Well, sure, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh breaking down anything, people always come by and like, what you cutting up? Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01It's a big, big old big. So the you got he's going out and hunting, he's bringing that back. You guys are no, we're not allowed to touch hunted stuff ever.
SPEAKER_03No, because that you'd have to get a different license for that. Everything has to be processed in a USDA facility.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03So if someone's like pulling a deer out of the back of their pickup chocolate, take this, like we can't do that.
SPEAKER_01So can that work like for like something at you know, at home or something with uh well home is fine.
SPEAKER_00Uh it their idea is not to get let it get into the food stream.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00So you can poison yourself all day long. Right. Yeah. You know, like they don't care about that. And uh also it's not necessarily a USDA inspection, it's a Texas inspection. Because it doesn't cross state lines.
SPEAKER_01So how's that work with uh does Jenny go hunting?
SPEAKER_03No, she is way too busy to leave that restaurant.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm just curious when he does like the hunting and then but they you guys butcher that and eat that, right? I mean, well he does. He does, so we'll do that on site. Okay, all right.
SPEAKER_03So the classes that they do, they're like two, three-day classes. Um and they have a group of people that go, they have like out camping, or is it like there's usually there's like a some kind of facility. So uh there's different ranches that we collaborate with that will go onto the property. I say we like I'm out there doing it too. Yeah. So they'll they'll go out, they'll they'll do the hunting. Jesse will show them how to process, how to break down, and then they do they feed them. So they'll make them lunch, they'll make them dinner, they'll make them breakfast um over the course of that time.
SPEAKER_00And then they'll make sausages out of their kill and everything.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and so then the stuff that people shoot, because you gotta bring a gun, the the stuff that people shoot, they take home with them. So we'll do stuff inside the restaurant where we'll make sausages or like spice kits or something for them to take with them.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03Um, so that they're kind of making that stuff on site, but people get to take their their hunted stuff home with them.
SPEAKER_01So these people on the these these are not necessarily like culinary students, these are just you know, anybody can sign up for that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So we if you sign up for the email, you can go to the website, sign up for the email, and we um send out a schedule of hunting schools. They also do fishing schools, um, and also hog butchery classes. So you can go into the restaurant on a Monday when we're closed and watch Jesse break down three hogs of varying sizes, he'll make sausage out of them. Um and kind of talk about it.
SPEAKER_00And it's really based more for hunters that want to know what to do with feral pig. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Like they they need they don't have the chops or the skills to actually break it down. Right.
SPEAKER_00A lot of hunters will, you know, especially with the pigs, they'll just shoot them and then pull the loin out and then leave them there, you know. Which you're not supposed to do.
SPEAKER_03But uh, I mean, you can take your your deer to a processing facility and you just get, you know, some sausage, some Does Hudson Hudson meets that where most people would just go to do that? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So um do you get those guys that go on those classes and then they are always like they become uh you know patrons of the restaurant? Yeah, we do.
SPEAKER_03We get people that are like, Oh, I went to the hunting school, and I'm like, that's amazing. I would love to go do that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then I'm sure they're pick do you make more spice kits for people like that who like enjoyed that? No, but I haven't really done much of that.
SPEAKER_03Sometimes we'll sell them fat back. Yeah. If they come in and they're like, I'm gonna start making sausage out of my stuff, then pod casings and everything. Yeah. So we'll sell we'll sell like the the parts so that they can do it at home.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, that's uh I mean it's crazy to I mean, there's so much that goes into it. Like you were saying, you you you when you see it for the first time and you don't know, and then you've got somebody out there hunting who I mean you end up wasting if you don't know what you're doing. But it's a right. I don't know how long does it take you to learn how to do something like break down a hog or something?
SPEAKER_03Well, that's a case by case. Some people don't pick it up quite as quickly.
SPEAKER_01I mean, but it is there is absolutely no way that you can say without anybody teaching you that, oh, I'll get this. Like there's so many like little intricate things that need to be done in a certain way in a certain order. I mean, you could start tearing things apart, right?
SPEAKER_00You can you'll end up with different muscles, it's just the way you cut them. Like there's a proper way to do it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And there's, you know, there's a hundred different ways to cut break down a pig. Right. You can do all different sites, uh, sorts of things with it. And uh, we you know, we do it a specific way. Other people like we do uh long bone chops for the restaurant. A lot of people cut those bones off to have spare ribs, and you know, it's just that's a tiny difference, but yeah, it depends on what your end goal is.
SPEAKER_03Right. Like what are you trying to make? And that depends, you know, that'll that'll determine what you're gonna end up doing with the animal. So there's a bunch of different ways to process.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, but it just depends on what you want out of it.
SPEAKER_00And if you don't know what you're doing and you want T bones, but you pulled the tenderloin out, you're never gonna get a T bone.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you're gonna get a strip cake or a a pork loin.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03And a tetra.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's valuable. It's valuable for people to be able to go do that. Yeah. I'm sure it's pretty popular, right?
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. We know they sell out all the time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Is it your
SPEAKER_00I think we're trying to do one about like once a month lately.
SPEAKER_03It's definitely seasonal though. I mean, during hunting season, obviously it picks up a little bit because you can take people out and they'll get whitetail.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03And they can do that outside of the restaurant because it's for personal justice.
SPEAKER_00He also does a venison butchery class uh like the first weekend of November or last weekend in October, right before deer season starts. And that that always fills up real fast.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Nice. Does he have family? Uh like children and stuff?
SPEAKER_03He's got a daughter. Yeah. Paloma. She comes into the restaurant. She likes to help out the pastry people.
SPEAKER_01Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_03Like, what can I do? We have some pineapple guava that grows out back, so she'll go and like pick the pineapple guava.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and they go on bike rides and she'll bring in uh foraged fruits and stuff like that. Oh, that's cool. How old is she? Like seven or eight now. I don't know exactly. Nine maybe. Really?
SPEAKER_03We neither one of us have kids.
SPEAKER_00So we're like, uh I remember hearing seven once. That was I don't know when that was.
SPEAKER_03But he posts pictures on Instagram of her, like she got her own wild boar recently, and you can see her like dragging a wild boar around.
SPEAKER_00Like she goes out and hunts and uh gigged her first flounder the other month. Oh yeah?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um that little girl's gonna have some stories when she grows up.
SPEAKER_01She's gonna have some stories. Who knows what she'll be doing when she'll have some some serious skills. Yeah. Or or go down a totally different path. Yeah, exactly. She's gonna be a surgeon. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I've been butchering all my life.
SPEAKER_01That's right. You trust that one, right? I don't know. I don't I don't think I ever want to get cut open for anything serious. Well, nobody ever wants to. No, but I guess if if it's gonna be anybody, have it be the girl who's been, you know, killing hogs since she was seven. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Emphasis on more the butchering part than the killing part.
SPEAKER_01True, true. I I guess you don't use killing when you're going into surgery. Sure.
SPEAKER_03I think I'd have a hard time about that. Yeah, see, Austin hunts. And he didn't hunt really before we met. I think he hunted with his grandfather.
SPEAKER_01I had uh a feeling.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he I just I don't Well he honestly when we started dating and I asked him, Do you ever do it? He said, Well, I did it with my grandfather, but I never really liked all the gross stuff that you had to do after. Yeah. So I was like, you know, if you go hunt it, I'll do all the work. So he's like, uh, okay.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's I guess it's important to point out when you go hunting, like you have to like track an animal or whatever you're gonna do. You kill it. There's that word again. But that's not the end. No, it's like almost where it begins.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the work has just begun.
SPEAKER_01Unless you're a trophy hunter and I'm not into that. No, no, yeah. And that's that's not even well, yeah, would we even call that hunting? I don't know. It's just inhumane.
SPEAKER_03But it's great because he'll get up early and I'll stay in bed and he'll just call me, like, I'm coming back to the house, and he'll have a deer, and he he does the hunting, and then he'll help me like hang it up in a tree or something.
SPEAKER_01And then so do you guys like freeze it?
SPEAKER_03You and yeah, so I'll break it all down. I'll make sausage out of it, cool, make jerky out of it, give it to away to people, I'm sure. No, really, no, not really. Yeah, I'll cube some for stew. I have a very organized system, of course, for where everything is. Right. I've got breakfast sausage and just ground venison or wild boar, depending on what we get.
SPEAKER_01Makes the grocery bill a little bit cheaper. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, definitely. So he's picked up the hunting.
SPEAKER_03He's picked up the hunting and uh and I gladly take the rest of it.
SPEAKER_01And you'd need to go uh get him for his birthday or something and get him on one of those three-day courses.
SPEAKER_03I think he'd like it.
SPEAKER_01I'm sure, right? I mean, I who wouldn't? I I mean I would probably both you guys should.
SPEAKER_03I probably would like it more than he would like it. He'd be like, whatever, this is fine. I'd rather stay in bed.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it it it um I don't know. I mean, I'm not telling anybody how to run the place, but I think everybody who works there should be able to go do that, right? Yeah, I don't know. But you know, staffing issues all the time. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Common theme in restaurants.
SPEAKER_01You guys, yeah, common theme. Do you guys run into that? I mean, like you guys are smaller, uh, I don't mean small, I I think smaller is the wrong word. You're a regular sized restaurant, but it seems like you got um a tight group of people. I mean we do, yeah. We're running pretty skeleton crew for a while now. Are people rotating like we see this everywhere?
SPEAKER_03Is it constant reporting? I think I think it's everywhere you go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's revolving door, but there's uh it's like it's not that revolving, but there's specific positions that turn over a lot faster.
SPEAKER_01And those are more like line cooker rep or something, and then they see the next line cook for a dollar more or whatever it is, right?
SPEAKER_00And it usually takes a bit more than that, but because we still have a a core group of people that have been there for you know as long as I have at least. Yeah. And uh like Janie's been there almost the whole time.
SPEAKER_03Almost five years, yeah. She started out as a prep cook.
SPEAKER_01And it worked her way up, and now she's running the show. That's cool, yeah. That's cool, that's a bummer. I mean, it's like the perfect fit for for you and your your what you like.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I told her if you guys open a location up nor no no talk for like expansion. I think they've got enough on their plate right now. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00They're growing the the brand for sure. Yeah. Uh but I don't know if they're talking about that. Jesse is working on another cookbook. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So he That should be coming out not too long, actually. Uh he's got a field, which is a James Beard nominated cookbook that he did. It's really nice we sell it in the butcher shop.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Um really great photos, really great recipes. Um, but I know he's he's compiling recipes and taking photos and stuff and putting it in the phone.
SPEAKER_00The second book's gonna be uh 100% feral pig. All right.
SPEAKER_01Is it a title yet or no? No, I don't I haven't heard of title.
SPEAKER_03I don't know. It might be a working title right now.
SPEAKER_01But the uh the other one is called A Field.
SPEAKER_03A field, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that's in the you could buy that in the restaurant now.
SPEAKER_03Yep, you can get it on on Amazon. I know it was out of print for a while, so it was like an $80 book because uh nobody could get a hold of it.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. A hardback, nice, nice, yeah, real nice book. That's pretty cool. Uh people should check that out for sure. Yeah, but Amazon too is yes, no? Yeah, you can pay. Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you can get anything on Amazon.
SPEAKER_01Anything. Oh, Amazon Whole Foods. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Now yeah, I have I mean I left before Amazon took over.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. It's a different beast, I think, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm really curious to see firsthand what the what the changes have been.
SPEAKER_01You're you're gonna be like creating your little schematic, and you're gonna be like, Alexa, add this to my list.
SPEAKER_03And like we should all be so lucky to have an Alexa at work doing some of the work for us.
SPEAKER_01I didn't even know we had an Alexa here. And I said that once, and she's here.
SPEAKER_03In your house? Yeah, you didn't know you had an Alexa.
SPEAKER_01I did not. Well, my daughter has a fire, an Amazon fire. The fire stick, or no, no, it's a tapping. See, I'm not familiar with a tap. Okay, it's like a kid, you know, it's it's for certain ages, it's like a I think you can get the fire for like adults. Okay. Hers is strictly for children. And one time I said, Hey Alexa, I'm just joking around and the fire started, and I have never been able to do it again. So it's like it was a glitch in the system. She's like, I gotta keep it, keep it quiet. You're not supposed to know I'm listening. They're always listening. Yeah, they are oh they're listening. They're listening.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, I've got to Google home. She knows what's up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I mean, it comes in handy sometimes, right?
SPEAKER_03It does. I like to adjust the thermostat from upstairs.
SPEAKER_00I'm not that advanced. I have a cell phone that's about as much of a spying as I'm okay with.
SPEAKER_03Well, I can adjust the thermostat from my cell phone too.
SPEAKER_01From right here, right? Yeah. Just turn it off right now.
SPEAKER_03Well, see, Austin does 24s or 48s at work, and so I have the temperature of the house set to a certain temperature when nobody's there. And so like I get in my car when it's super hot and I'm like adjusting the thermostat so that it's already cooling by the time I go home. It's awesome. Nice. We're so spoiled.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, right. I mean, especially I mean, uh go with it. That's fine. Adjust the temp, it's it's nasty right now, especially. We're in the crux of it. I mean, we're we're about to start cooling off, but it's nasty. Knock on wind. Yeah, here's hoping.
SPEAKER_00Well, this is the hottest time of year, right? Yeah, but like sometimes it doesn't start cooling off till late November.
SPEAKER_01Well, especially after our our our our climate change, yeah, which is not real.
SPEAKER_03I don't think facts. I remember wearing, I mean, you grew up in the north, you're from Chicago. Yes, and in Iowa, I remember having a a winter coat on over my Halloween costume. Yeah. Because it'd be snowing like every Halloween. You're like, well, I guess we're gonna go trick or treat in the snow.
SPEAKER_01Snow, Halloween. And I actually remember the winters when I was a child, you know, being cold the whole time. Like there would be snow. Once the snow came, it would really be there and may maybe here and there it'd melt and then it would come back. But the last few years that I was there, I remember like rain during the winters, and it was the up and down and weird. Because in a short, I mean, I haven't been alive that long in the in the grand scheme of things, so yeah. I mean, it's definitely changed a bit. So I don't know what it's been like here, but it's it's hot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I am hot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You've been here. I mean has it changed a bit?
SPEAKER_00I mean, yeah. Um hotter or it seems hotter and longer. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh and we're also not tolerating it, tolerating it as well as we used to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's true too.
SPEAKER_03I'm too old for this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Like uh that 2011 was the worst year here that I can remember and stuff. Yeah. Like the longest triple-digit days and no rain. Everything was just a tender box everywhere. It was depressing to live here, actually.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know. Go try the north. I mean, when the sun goes away for just months, yeah, it gets really weird.
SPEAKER_03Well, up in Alaska when we were there, it's summertime, so the sun doesn't go down until 11:30 at night. And even then, it's like twilight outside. Like, you don't need a flashlight to walk around when they're you're out in the middle of nowhere where there's no streetlights or anything, and you can see.
SPEAKER_01I need the night. I mean, like, I need to my body would not know what to do.
SPEAKER_03When we got back, because we got blackout curtains in our bedroom right before we went. I need to do that there, yeah. Well, when we got back, because we just had eye masks when we were up there, there weren't really curtains or anything in the bedroom where we were staying. And when I got back, I was like sleeping 12 hours. I was like, oh, it's so dark in here and so nice.
SPEAKER_01Right, yeah, yeah. It's uh blackout curtains are great for sleep.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think up there, actually, we went in.
SPEAKER_00I'll just keep sleeping. Yeah, just good thing.
SPEAKER_03We went to a grocery store up there, and when you have just like a little cluster of small towns, they'll have like one giant grocery store where it's like a super target on crack. Yeah, like they just have everything you could possibly need, and they have a huge curtain section. I walked by at one point, I was like, Oh yeah, they're investing in blackout curtains. Yeah. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00That makes sense. It's like a Sears and a like a Fred Meyer on the West Coast.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Those things are huge.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It actually was a Fred Meyer. You did the one that we went to, it was a Fred Meyer. But it's just massive.
SPEAKER_00It's like buy a pair of car hearts over there and get your car fixed over there.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_01It's like sort of like Costco in a way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So married now. That's crazy. Alaska. No hunting there.
SPEAKER_03No, the hunt I mean, to get the hunting license would have been ridiculous. Plus, I don't know if we were there during any particular season for hunting, but we did fish. Yeah. So we got soccer salmon while we were there. So we shipped about 50 pounds of fish back from well, didn't ship, you just check it with your luggage.
SPEAKER_01Wait a minute. What do you on ice? Like, how do you do that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they actually I think in the airport they'll freeze it for you.
SPEAKER_01So you don't like ship it to your address. Bring it with you.
SPEAKER_03Check it with your luggage. Where we were staying, they had a deep freeze. So we like vacuum sealed and processed everything while we were there and froze it. And then at that same grocery store, they have sections and like aisles of the grocery store with uh styrofoam containers for shipping or for sending back on your plane because people just like descend on the area during salmon runs.
SPEAKER_01Do you have that at home now?
SPEAKER_03Some of it, yeah. So we shared it with the other couple that we went with.
SPEAKER_01How how is it?
SPEAKER_03It's really good. Actually, I'm not a big fan of salmon, and so I was like, okay, I can't wait to try this fresh. And I was like, okay, yeah, this is good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I'm uh I'm the other way. I like salmon, but uh I mean you can do a lot with it. It's a good, good, good meal. It's good for you. It's good. I've always like I'm a fan of sleep. Like salmon before sleep, apparently, or or like you know, for dinner is good, like a healthy dose of omegas is really good for you. Right before bed? Yeah, well, I don't know if it's right before bed, but I mean like in the evening, right? Yeah, helps you sleep. So that's been my excuse, at least.
SPEAKER_00Why not? I feel like that's the only way I'd want to eat salmon anymore. I've been it's been on every menu of every restaurant I've ever worked in. Yeah, it's very everywhere.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's all unless you're getting it in Alaska. Fresh out of a river. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, it was good. I was like, okay, yeah, I'll I'll allow it.
SPEAKER_01When you go to like H E B, it's like a pale white almost, yeah. Pretty nasty looking stuff.
SPEAKER_00I worked at this one restaurant in town. Uh I'm not gonna say what it is, what it's name was, but uh lady asked, like, where we got our salmon and our tilapia to go check the frozen box in the freezer. And they both said yeah, they both said uh farm raise in China. Oh pretty much the worst answer. Yeah. It's pretty uh gnarly answer. It's so amazing where work in the day doing now. It's like people ask that question, we know exactly where it's from. That is cool, and it's a great answer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I've done that. Um, I think I found some frozen uh hell uh halibut or something from New Zealand or something. But it's always weird. Like, oh, that's where it came from.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we brought some halibut back with us, too. We didn't go halibut fishing, but uh the guy's dad had some in his freezer that he had gotten. And so he's like, I'll let you guys have some. I'm like, score. Because I really like halibut.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. And banana nut muffin.
SPEAKER_03They're fine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you guys, thank you for coming in here.
SPEAKER_03Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So go visit Musket. Go visit Heather at Whole Foods. Musket will be at Dietwe.
SPEAKER_03Running the show.
SPEAKER_01Definitely. On the market side. Yes. Cool. Thank you guys for coming in. Thank you.