 So, let us begin. I want to welcome you all tonight to Bethany Center for Spirituality through the Arts for this program called Food for the Soul, Relationship Between Food and Spirituality. And I'm particularly pleased to welcome Chef Michael Glutti, close enough, close enough. He says his kids can't say it either, so. And his wife Laura, who is a co-owner of the restaurant, Michael's on the hill in Waterbury. Waterbury Center, I should probably say. Waterbury Center. So thank you, Michael and Laura, for accepting our invitation. It's a delight to have you here. That's what I would be doing. So, before we begin, just a couple of housekeeping details. If you need to use a restroom, and you can go out into the hallway, there's one straight out this door across the hall. And then there is one right around the corner. So if you need a restroom, that's where they are. In the unlikely event that the fire alarm goes off, the closest exit is right here, the front of the door right here with a staircase that goes out to the back parking lot. So if you hear it head that direction, rather than back into the building, it would be safer to go out here. This room is equipped with a state-of-the-art exchange system that meets COVID protocol requirements. So the air in here is exchanging at a rate that is deemed to be healthy. However, if you feel more comfortable wearing a mask, please do. We live in these times. And I was going to say, if you moved your chair so that you're not six feet from someone you don't know, but nobody has, you've all behaved yourselves admirably. Thank you very much. So I wanted to tell you a little bit about Chef Michael. He was born and raised and trained in Switzerland. He wanted to study other cultures, along with his Swiss culture, and shortly after meeting his wife, Laura, working in the same Swiss kitchen, they relocated to New York City. And Michael has worked in a number of different settings, ranging from New York City's four-star Les Pinas. Les Pinas. I knew I was going to get that wrong, too. To up-country comfort food at the award-winning lodge at Coale in Lenni. I choose those restaurants places, just to rest with my name as well. Just to cheer me up. Just to go right in with my name. And then he went on to the St. Regis Hotel in Manhattan. And had a wonderful career there, but decided that the wilds of New York City were too wild, and he needed to come to Vermont. It's a different kind of wild. So it's a racist animal. And that led him to purchase Michael's On the Hill. Let's see. I'm going to let you talk about a lot of your own stuff, but you do have the honor of being Vermont's first chef of the year. And you've been recognized by, as one of the country's top culinary talents in the inaugural edition of Best Chefs of America, the first peer-review guide of U.S. chefs. He's been featured on television shows and in international publications. He's been invited as a guest chef to location spanning from a five-year stint with Disney World's International Food and Wine Festival to Holland America's culinary cruise line and to locations such as the Caribbean, Australia, and Indonesia. So Michael and Laura have been awarded Vermont Restaurant Tours of the year, and the restaurant has received the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence. Sante's Magazine is recognized as environmental leaders as the first green restaurant in the Green Mountain State by the Vermont Department of Agriculture. Yes, so Laura is going to pass out, if you have not gotten it already, an appetizer that Michael is one of Michael's favorites, I think, and I'm going to let him tell you a little bit about what you're about to have this year. Right, so that didn't sound anything but simple right there, but the philosophy was just simplicity, and so this is the wild mushroom tartine that we have on the menu. Right now it's just roasted mushroom because COVID has changed a whole lot of things and wild crafters as well. So there's not that many mushrooms around. We've got some chanterelles coming in, and then hopefully the samples are going to come out. But yes, Vermont was over a whole thing. As I said, New York, Hawaii, back to New York, and then really looked for somewhere that I would like to raise my children. And also to a business where Vermont is very much, it reminds me of Switzerland, and not just the way it looks, it's also the way people, or maybe people don't really know that, but Switzerland is very anti-government, so they want to be left alone, although very organized and very, you know, supported by government, but pretty much just one way to do it. Vermont is kind of the same thing where we have so much space that we can do what we want. So I find my space where I want to be, and I believe somebody in their space where they want to be. So I really fell in love with Vermont. I've been here now for 22 years, I think I got a first in South of Vermont, in South London, there, and now up in Stoke. And so the food you're eating, actually, the mushroom tartine is, again, as much local as possible, of course, so it's red hen, brioche, and then the mushrooms, literally, my strongest belief is that nature made it perfect. It's already perfect. So if you take a carrot or whatever it is, you have a mushroom, just try not to mess it up. As a chef, that's your responsibility, because if you heard food, it's really one of the worst crimes you can do as a chef. So this one is really just mushrooms, a little shallots and garlic, heavy cream reduced down, and then the end of it is to castrique over. It was a French word for a sweet and sour sauce. It's basically just vinegar. When we use sherry vinegar, we reduce that down. We just let the water evaporate. Then we add honey, of course, local honey, and then black truffle and truffle oil and it'll be great. Truffles are not grown here in Vermont. They're not the ones you can eat. They actually do grow here, but you can't eat them. So the difference between truffle and mushroom is it both comes from the same plant. It's a mycelin on the ground. What grows above ground is a mushroom, and what grows below ground is a truffle. There's 1,500 different truffles out there and only three of them you can actually eat, or they're basically actually pleasant. I know that. Wherever I go. My wild-trapped friends took me out to the woods and they explained me the exact thing. It was fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating. That explains why truffles are so precious. Yes, very expensive. Well, great. So the purpose for tonight is to explore the connection between food and spirituality. And that's what I have told Michael that we're going to converse about. And one of the ways that I understand spirituality is to determine or sense your own passion for things. Your sense of your spirit, what you're passionate about, is a way of expressing your spirituality. So the first question I want to ask Michael tonight is how did you discover that cooking was your passion? Like most things it comes out in necessity. So when I was 12 years old, my mom went back to work as an overnight nurse. That way she could only work three nights a week instead of having to work five days in the same amount of money. And in Switzerland, you go to school, you go home for lunch. And so when my mom would come home at 8 o'clock in the morning, she would be sleeping until about 1.30 to 2 o'clock. I would have to cook for myself lunch. And after a while, having to make hot dogs and eating whatever I knew how to heat up and do whatever, I really got interested in how to, well, nourish myself. You know what I mean? I wanted to learn from her. She was actually a really good chef, but she was a really good cook. So I really got interested in that. And then it just became the restaurant. I decided to find a place. Where do I fit in? And I tried a couple of different things. It's what you're allowed to do. It's almost like little stages. You can go find out different jobs. And I realized that for me, an office situation may not be what I really look for. So I was already doing dishes when I was very young. In restaurants I realized that maybe that is where I belong and that was a great thing. And then, you know, somebody did ask me that one time. They said, do you love to cook? And I was like, well, I actually do. But the bigger thing behind it is to feed people, to make their experience to just, I am a serve. Right? So you serve. There's only two places you are in the world because you're either being served or you're served. When the time for you to serve is, do it with the best of your ability. Because if I'm not using, if I'm not using, well, Panasonic, so Panasonic is serving me right now. This microphone wouldn't work. They didn't do a good job. And if you come to Michael's on the Hill and the food is not good, then I didn't do my job. And the service that was like, I didn't do my job properly. That's why I take it very seriously. I also, yeah, there is social media out there. I mean, you do have to read through what people have experienced. You think that was a great assault because some people get mad. And they just, you know, they can see what goes on. But you get this information. That's where my passion is. I really, I would like to make 100% of everyone that walks through the door perfectly happy. What is a challenge? And most of the time, we are able to. Sometimes it's more about what do you do when you're not. And there's a passion too. When you do mess up, what do you do? What are you willing to, to make it, to help, to figure these things out? Because if you could walk out of a restaurant with a smile, even though something went wrong, you did something right. Absolutely, absolutely. So, well, so, one of the questions I have about spirituality is that around food, it is in the eating of it. Not necessarily, I mean, it's in the preparation too, but it's creating that experience at the table for folks to relax and enjoy themselves. And is that, that's what you're referring to? Right. Well, the wonders of, and there is wonders everywhere if you look. And so, just as simple as that, as a carrot, if you pull a carrot out of the dirt and you have food, I mean, how amazing is that? We're not even talking about raising animals, we're just talking about the simplest things. And even for a child, I mean, you know, when you have, we did that with the Stowe Elementary School kids, and just bring them out into the farms and just, you pull the carrot out of the dirt, you wipe it off, you wash it, you eat it. And they were very disturbed about that, that it, what would you mean? You just eat it right like this, like this is, you know, and it's, it's, it's, the spirituality really comes in where it just follows all the way through. If I'm throwing it, eating it. I do believe that eating is probably one of the most personal things you could possibly do. And I think that very serious too, especially in a restaurant where I make your food, you're trusting me that I'm doing the right thing, you're trusting me that I'm buying the right thing. And so, for me, it was always trying to really find the best quality material, product, anything. And when it comes in, and we used to get this whole lamb cut, you know, and it's just, it's beautiful, it's like you see it and this animal is absolutely gorgeous and now I'm gonna make sausages out of it. I'm gonna braise the, you know, the shoulder and the shanks. And I'm gonna do all these different things you can make with it. And I'm gonna nurture someone else. That, you know, it's, it's, that's what I feel like most of my beliefs is to me, it's just, you can give me something, I made something out of it and now we're having a great meal. And the same thing goes for home or my friends or for anything else. So it's just, as a, as a, the name hospitality industry actually means like you need to be hospitable. And you understand that you're only one little wheel in this, you know, Swiss clock that then has to all work together. And if it all works together, it's a beautiful thing. And for me too, with the farms too, it's not, I think that the biggest lesson I learned was when I came to Vermont especially was I'm not the one that delegates or goes on the menu. I'm not gonna put certain things on the menu because it's totally out of season. But I can't get it locally at all. It's so far out of reach that I can't. So yes, we have main lobster on the menu. Right? That comes pretty far. It goes over all the miles. But whatever I can serve with it, if this is the local leeks and the local corn when it's in season, that to me is really, really important. So tell me how you plan your ending then. Well, there's two ways. Either you can tell a farmer what he's gonna try to grow and you might have a chance that he does. It already tells you what his land is good for. So I'm actually working with Ryan and Genica from Naked Acre Farms. And he was crazy enough to break virgin ground for a farmer. I mean, usually a farmer is passed on generation to generation to generation and they can tell you exactly this dirt over here, this shade, this is this, you can grow this. And he started from scratch. Had to figure all this out. And so we worked with him. You know what I mean? If your arugula wasn't absolutely perfect, you can make it an arugula purée. You can do all different kinds of things. So for me, it's what can you grow? And we use cherry-cozella farms across the mountain there. And so they give you lists every week. They come out with a list and say, hey, look, this is what we got. What would you want? And it's like supermarket, but you get it farm fresh and they pick it in the morning to bring it over in the afternoon. That's awesome. Yeah. And then again, does the guest know about it? Maybe not. Maybe he doesn't even care about it. But I feel that there is, the French has a word for that. It's called terroir, right? Basically, it literally means earth. And it's from where you are. So if it is from where you are, somehow it feels right. You know what I mean? Yeah. It feels good. And as I mean it, I'm not 100% local. I'm not because the root salad can only go so long and you're so sick and tired of root vegetables. And you get really creative about it too. Soups, preserving, pickling, everything that we get. And that's a beautiful thing too what we do at Microsoft. And we got these five gallon drums. And some of them have tomatoes in it that we just couldn't with the little currant tomatoes that we get. We get what's called rams, right? So we just do all these things that we can possibly preserve that in the winter we have served, at least we can pull out. But believe me, when in the winter you open up one of those preserves, whatever it is, if it's sweet or if it's pickled or whatever, it's really like, the sun comes out again. I bet. Yeah. Yeah. I mean you can only fix but or not squash so many ways without. Right. And you can be really creative. Yeah. And there are some finales that have spices. You know, it's just absolutely incredible that we have spices and then you have the dried herbs and you just got to create all these things. But just going back to necessities too where, you know, if you all have these potatoes, you're going to get really creative about what you can do with potatoes. Right. And that's what we learned from too. You know, my grandmother made this dish where basically, well during the war they had to, when, you know, food was spares, everybody, every house was told what to grow. So you had to grow potatoes or carrots or whatever it was. And so she made this dish with this beautiful sausage because Switzerland's very famous for meat byproduct because everything meat is very, very expensive. So again, out of necessity. So I always feel like that out of poverty came some of the most incredible foods. And then also like all the, from the tail to the snout, everything was eaten, everything was, you know, and we should enjoy that as well. Yeah. So, you talked about spices and you talked about, in your bio, you talked about wanting to experience other cultures. So what, how do those two things go hand in hand for you? What spices do you use? What culture do you like from other cultures? I think that I'm a very smart man by knowing what I don't know. And so when, on the food cultures, I was raised with a very French cuisine base. But when you then look out and you especially come to New York City, and then all of a sudden there is Koreatown, Chinatown, and there's all these, and all of a sudden it just opens up. And how can you use those ingredients, even in the knowledge that you have? You know, how do you, there's a funny story. I'm, I'm roti sir in Lesbians, and that is, you make the meats, you know, on the meat station in a four-star New York restaurant. So as a chef, especially aspiring chef, that's, you're doing fine, you're doing great, and you're something hot. And all of a sudden the dishwasher comes over and just says, you know one day I'll show you how to cook a duck. He made a joke about it, and I was like, sure, why not? Well, it comes out, the only reason he was working at the St. Leages Hotel as a dishwasher was health insurance that he couldn't afford in his own restaurant downtown in Chinatown. And he had his own job. And so in Lesbians, when you were done, when you were, you worked there for two, whatever, three years, and you leave, you go out, you go to a restaurant. This is going to be in a four-star temple. This can be whatever it is. And I want to go to his. And it literally was just a storefront. It was plastic furniture, but I never had a better black bean crab in my life until that moment. It was just, it just awakes you. Just like, oh, I did not know, but this is fantastic. And now I'm going through life. Every time I go somewhere, every time I talk to someone, I'm eager to learn, I want to learn more about what you have to, what you have to offer me. If you have already know what you're telling me, that's fine too. But then it's always, there's always these things where you can, just for five minutes, even entertain me with a story, tell me something new that I didn't know about. So when we were doing these guest Jeff appearances, we went to Singapore. I mean, we went, Singapore was a start-up. We went to Micronesia, Indonesia, and then all the way to Australia. And we just explored. We went off the ship. Every time he was talking, every time he was, we just wanted to go and eat the food. And it's amazing. And again, it's not, it's not a rich culture. It's not a, you know, but it's all about fresh spices and seasonings. And then just, what do you make out of it? You have such a little, you know, but what they make out of it is absolutely incredible. And then that to me is spirituality too, where you can taste where you are. Again, it was this whole terroir thing. So yes, if I'm in France, I'm going to have, you know, foie gras and croissants and whatever. But if I'm in Indonesia or anywhere around the world, I want to taste what, what do you eat? And I'm lucky and I'm glad that I literally like pretty much everything. I'm not an Andrew Simmer that's going to try all this crazy stuff. I don't want to eat life bugs, but I eat dead bugs. But, you know, exploring what other people have lived on and explored. And if it is a delicacy in some country, it should be okay for me to try it, at least try it and just figure out is this something I can wrap my head around. So what would you say the strangest thing you've ever eaten was? It would probably still grasshoppers, just because it's not on the menus here. But if you go anywhere else around the world, I mean, insects become the new protein. Again, necessity. And so, I actually did it on, was it on public television? I think it was. It was something we did and then we tried it out. But there's so many different things. It's not really what itself is. It's what you do with it that makes it so incredible. Yeah. So how was the grasshopper? Crunchy. It was a lime-chili. So it was actually quite tasty. So I could see myself actually, you know, eating it as long as you get behind this whole thing what it actually is. Right. That's usually what people have a problem with. Right. Because when it comes to innards like brain or kidney, sweetbreads, tripe, oh my goodness, tripe is delicious. It is. It's prepared properly and everything is done right. Yes. Well, I have never had a tripe, but my husband has. So, he says it's good. He says it's good. I need to try it. Yes. If it's all prepared, it's almost... Most of them, it serves for something that is not related to it, because it's a stomach lining. So it is either like an ocean cream sauce or a tomato sauce or whatever it is. And if prepared right, it's very... Yeah. It does not bite to it. It's very soft. It's a really nice texture. Very clean, I'd say. Okay. Yes. Fascinating. So, what's your favorite thing to cook? What do you say? I mean, what do you really like to cook? I don't know. I don't know. I do love steak. I do. I'm sorry, but, you know, with all vegetarian and the thing, but I do. But then again, I do build... I build a dish with the vegetable, first, then the starch if it needs one and then the protein that it goes with it. But I'm also a big fan for fish and just a simple salad with it. Maybe some shaved fennel, just easy things, easy, nice things. When I go out, I'm really looking mostly for cuisines that I don't cook. That's even Thai. When we're in New York, we're definitely going for sushi. That is an art form in itself where really just a combination of rice with whatever sushi does stand for rice, not the seafood that goes with it. It's just rice. And just to do that right. Just to do it right. And then that's where, for me, it's when you say you love something, I feel like there's a lot. Love can be very confusing because to everybody means something different. But I think respect and honor and whatever. To honor the carrot, to honor the maple syrup, to honor the person that actually made the maple syrup and the maple that gave the sap to make the maple syrup. So it goes all the way down the line that I can actually get messed up. If I burn it, if I reduce it too much, if I don't use the right ingredients, if it doesn't fit properly. And that is something that is very dear to me. So I don't want to serve you something that I haven't tasted myself, that I do not approve of it. And then hopefully that my chefs all execute exactly like I want to. But it just takes to happen. Yes. Well, perfection is hard to achieve. Perfection is a journey, not a destiny. Right. That's right. That's probably a spiritual concept as well. It is. It is. And then you know, and it's in the last, the COVID switched me back on to hiking. And it's fascinating because if you put one foot in front of another, do that a lot behind each other, you're on top of mountain. You, whatever you set up your mind to be, but all you did is put one foot in front of the other. And the same thing with food too, because every time I saw some new potato recipe, because I'm from Switzerland, potato is huge. So we have roasted in Switzerland. It's just a potato cake, right? It's a potato, it's like a hash brown. But then what can you make from potato? Potato souffle, potato soup, potato, whatever. And every time I learn something from any ingredient, I want to learn about it. And that's why when you switch it from different cultures to different things, and then have also different ingredients. I mean, I was introduced to Arambutan in Hawaii. And this thing looks alien-like. It has these red hair around it. It tastes exactly like an itchy. Okay. But when you're introduced to it, you taste and taste these fruits. I also got introduced to durian in Singapore. Oh. I did eat it. Okay. And it's actually legal to bring it onto a subway. That's why everything is... In Singapore, everything is punished by $5,000. So if you spit a chewing gum out, $5,000. If you bring a durian on a subway, it's $5,000. It stinks. Oh, wow. It actually smells. And you can smell it way far away when you get there. But when you're actually eating it, it's not that bad. You're just going to get over that smell. But that's the experience in it. And that's what we do. We laugh, get in this durian, and we now try it. And it was... When you taste it, it really tastes like French cheese with a different texture. Oh, okay. Right. Okay. It's interesting. As I said, you just got to be... Just explore it. The whole world is out there to explore. Well, and the people who are eating durian or who are eating grasshoppers are probably thinking the things that we... Some of the things we might be on. I don't know what those are. Yes. Because they're not odd to me. Right. But... That's right. I mean, everybody trying to do something is, you know... We went to eat something with my kids, and we went actually got the cheese that has maggots in it. Right. If the maggots are still alive, the cheese is good. And the cheese is absolutely delicious. If you can go beyond that, it adds this earthiness to it. Yeah. It takes time. It takes time. I know. Everybody says thank you. What? Right. But it is... It's an absolute delicacy. And as I said, for generation and generation and generation, someone has been doing this. And I'm like, there must be something to it. If I can get beyond the idea of what I'm actually eating, that's always something. We used to be a brain. But there was a difference between a steak. Right. You know what I mean? If you have a saddle of a horse, if you have a look at it, it's being something edible or from a cow or whatever you're going to... So at the end, you're not doing really anything else. It's just further processed down the line. And so you're only getting it packaged up and whatever. But as a kid, I mean, in my town, there was a slaughterhouse. And some of my pastime, I said, Chacha, I will go and see how animals are broken down. Wow. And that went from chickens to pigs, to the whole cows, to everything else. The restaurant that I worked in, I didn't hunt. But we got... We ate the food for the hunters. It's called the Potoferde. They just basically put all the vegetables and the meats and the braised meats into a pot. They take it out and put it over a fire. While they go hunting, they bring the deer back and I'll take care of the meat. And there's a picture of me until we raised rabbits. I grew up on a very old farmhouse, but my father wasn't a farmer. But the farmers were all around us. So I spent a lot of time taking care of other people's animals. And then we would raise rabbits. Also, to me. And so, definitely different upbringing where you do learn that... Respect the process. Just understand it's not just coming all out of the supermarket. So one of the things you said was that you worked with the kids at Stowe Elementary School to go to farms and things like that. And I find it kind of amazing, although not maybe not, that even Vermont kids don't know where their food comes from. I don't think a lot of grownups don't know where their food comes from. You just go to the grocery store and you buy all the stuff. That's definitely something that's different here in the U.S. So my mom, she's 87 years old. Every day she goes to the baker. Every day she goes to the butcher. Every day she just goes down the line. And then once you ask her, why don't you buy more and then you're going to have to go all the way back? I don't know what I want to eat today. Maybe I want to eat a fish. Maybe I want to eat a pork chop. I don't know. Maybe I want to eat. So it's definitely a little bit of a different way here because we travel further distances. Distances are so much larger. You know what I mean? For me, I was a kid. I had to go pick up the eggs at the farm. There's always this thing where I get maybe like five cents for every egg that wasn't broken when he came back. It's a dirt road and going with a bicycle and bringing eggs. So you find exactly the right path to go through. Right. Any eggs. You get at least 25 cents at the end, whatever. Right. Not to mention yolks and... That's right. All over you. Yes. And as I said before, my mom too was the one that told me when bread comes fresh out of the oven, if you eat it, it gives you a stomach ache. Right? Don't be laughing. I thought like that until I was 19 years old. And then I realized that she was just saying it so if she took the bread out of the oven, I wouldn't break it off and eat it and try it out. Yeah. I was 19. I was stupid when I felt that. I told her, my wife said, no, no, no. If you eat bread, it comes out of the oven. You have a stomach ache. Oh, mothers. So, spirituality is related to our experience in the natural world. So, you said hiking. How are there... How do you spend time in the natural world? How long? I mean, mostly I'm alone. But if you're on a trail, you never really are alone. I mean, but it's I get my social being out, that my social needs out. Well, I'm at the restaurant or with my family. Yeah. But then when I'm out there, I'm really trying to find peace. Also, I'm realizing that every time I go up and out, I usually have some really, sometimes even angry thoughts that on the way down, it's just all so weird. It's all just like, no, it's not even a speck. Yeah. You know? So, it's a spirituality there. It's just, if you're out in nature and it's really just you, it gets to the point now where you actually survived what you did. If you go mountain climbing, you actually made it back and you actually did it all by yourself. So you look at a big mountain, and again, it's that one step. Right. That first step, the next step and make sure that you're safe, make sure that you're whatever. And then, you know, accidents do happen. So I just last December broke my ankle and my shoulder. Oh, no. And I was just being well, that's what happened. But life, you know, enjoy life because accidents do happen. You need to deal with it. You just stay at your home. That's the same thing with, by the way, with your kids, with anyone. Go to the farms. First, go to the farmer's markets. Yes. If you want to know what's in season, you'll know pretty quickly what's in season. Strawberries. Ooh, they come and go. Yeah, that's it. And so for us too, like, we buy a lot, a lot of strawberries. The second they come in and then we freeze some, we make some jam out of it. We just do all these different things that we can use later. But again, if I can make strawberry ice cream in the middle of winter, people are like, wow, does it still taste that summer? Yes. You know how it is when, I do like to wait for it too, but when that first strawberry comes out, when that first, you know, anything that comes in the springtime, in case it's mint, when finally mint comes up or anything that comes up and you're just so happy that winter now is over. But again, now I'm at the point again when I'm looking forward to winter because I just want to, I want to, again, just enjoy, I do enjoy the seasons. So, Switzerland has seasons, Vermont has seasons. Yes. Hawaii didn't have seasons. That's why I'm not in Hawaii. Hawaii is paradise. And paradise gets, you just get used to it, you know? Yeah. Be careful what you get used to it. You also get used to things that you probably shouldn't get used to because that's what your normal is now. Correct. And so, but Hawaii was absolutely incredible. Also, this used to be the pineapple island. It's called Lanai. Everybody, anyone who tells you what you're living in Lanai, they're just like, three resorts on there. Two of them, like these luxury resorts, one is owned locally. And the pineapples are still growing. These things are still going. They're not, you know, because I had to learn about pineapple as well. The first pineapple that you get is 18 months in. And there's the one you can't even use, really. And then you get another one that's called the sugar one. And then, but they keep growing. Another thing you need to know about pineapples is it is actually a cacti. And I did not know that when I picked it. And then we went to the beach and I went into the water and I had all these little tiny cuffs. So when you pick a pineapple, be careful. So when you watch people pick pineapples, they're fully covered. They're like, they have a full-on cover when they go through the fields and everything else. But now, there's no one pineapples there. They moved it off. They moved it out to the United States. But if you have a chance to get to Lanai, it has some of the most beautiful beaches on there. What is it close to? It's right next to Maui. It's right next to Maui. It's right next to Maui and in between Molokai and Maui. So the Molokai has a channel going through and it's a beautiful island. It's on my bucket list. My first son was born in Hawaii. But you weren't able to give birth on that island. So you had to go to Honolulu to actually give birth. So that's another wow. Yeah. It's an adventure. If you have adventures, you know. Exactly. But again, the food too, to the locals and Lanai was a little special because Lanai was 85% Filipino because they were generations past the pineapple fields that they were brought in to pick the pineapples. They're now mostly employed by the hotels or the gardens for the hotel. And again, you'll learn new dishes. You'll learn new customs. You'll learn new ways of doing things and especially on that island, family was enormously important. And so there was always, there was this market. Swamp meat, I think they call it. And it was, it was just, you got these, these lumpy lumpias. They're just the lumpias. Oh, delicious. Just like spring rolls. You know. And they filled with anything and everything. And just again, homemade, fresh. With natural to that place in some way. In some ways, right. Exactly. Right. And then you have to get used to poi. Or something else. That is to an outside, they call us Hali over there. But if you, poi is made out of terrarium. And it's this paste. And it's hard to get by the texture. But then they make, they make a delicacy out of it and that's fermented poi. Oh yes. Yes. But again, try it. Always try it, you know. And that to me too is for, just for bringing the rest of the inner chef. Just because one chef, at one point, maybe, or maybe your mother, maybe someone that cooked for you, whoever it was, maybe you can do it exactly the right way. So you got away from it. Right. Because somebody said, I never tasted asparagus like this. Because what he grew up with was canned asparagus. Yeah. Right. And so, you know, and then they have, so trying to make sure that keep trying it again, different places, different things. Mushrooms too. My father-in-law, who did not like salmon and did not like mushroom, liked what I made it for. Just because mushrooms in itself can be done in so many different ways, that number one, it's almost texture all we need. Yes. You can do it with spices. You can just do it as simple as just grilling them, you know. Well, and different mushrooms have different flavors too. Absolutely. Yes. I saw a meme on Facebook last week or so and it said, wouldn't you like to be the first person that figured out which mushrooms you could eat and which ones would give you hallucinations and which ones would give you? I'm not the first one. Not the first one. Right. Yes. No, that too. It's like over generations and generations, this knowledge has been passed down and passed down and passed down and I really, that's what Wildcrafters do. Like, who still wants to do something like that? Right. You know, we're losing our relationship with nature that has nurtured us for so long and now we're just, as I said, we just go to the supermarket and can get strawberries in the middle of winter, we can get tomatoes in the middle of winter, we can get anything we want, but when you see of what actually has to happen to get that there, it just makes your hair stand up. It's just not right. It's just not right. It's just not right. And right now too, like right now I have, we call it tomato in my freezer. So what my farmer does, Ryan brings me second tomatoes. They're not, they're not as pretty. They're sometimes exploded a little bit, but they taste absolutely amazing. All we do is we just take the coat out and we crush it and we put it in the buckets and freeze them. So we have buckets and buckets of frozen tomatoes right now. And also helps the freezer to keep the costs down. By the way, just a full freezer costs less than an empty freezer. Side effect. But then in the winter we pull it out. And then we can make the lobster in the winter served with a tomato stew that's made with fennel and potatoes and you know. So it's just, help the farmers out. Just really buy whatever you can. I always be happy when I buy out the farm. When I buy out whatever they have at the end of the, you know, they're growing season because that's how they calculate theirs. By the way, I'm running always ran my business when I finally got to the point where I have my own business like a farm. Because Vermont has its seasons. Season goes on and then it goes off. It goes to off season. Your business is going to slow down. So every out of town or that is going to be a very big surprise when November comes around. So put it away. Put it aside. You have a barn where you put the hay. You put it away so you have food for the animals. So same thing for me. I just, you know, my barn is the Union Bank. And so I'm like, you know, put it away when you can or use it when. And for me too, like holding on to your staff especially in these times right now probably one of the most important things. It always has been to me for 20 years. That's why we're actually cruising right by November. That we can pick from 20 years of experience and 20 years of employment and people still want to come back. So treat them right. And also for a chef when they see what we're cooking with it's a totally different experience for them as well. Right. There's a big difference between opening a can and actually making your tomato sauce. Yes. You know, from fresh tomatoes. Right, right. So when you're in keeping your staff, that's a spiritual concept as well to treat others the way you yourself want to be treated to, you know. And so that's an important thing. How did you cope with that during COVID? I don't treat my staff any different than I treat my family. I want them to be okay. Yeah. I want them to be okay but then you're being raised to believe in a certain thing in a certain way and it's really hard halfway through to change that. So when I realize that one of my employees is not going to be good for my family, he needs to go. Yeah. And that's a hard thing to do. Sure. Because I truly believe that everyone can do what someone else can do as well which you have to be willing to do so. Yeah. And for us, it's the schedule is made this way, family meal is made this way, everything is made with the thought of others. Yeah. You know, if we have someone that is a vegetarian, we're not just going to serve chicken fingers for dinner, you know, we're not going to serve that night. Right. We're going to have something else so to care. And that's really what you want. You want someone to care. Right. You know, and if I'm the one that owns the business, doesn't care, then I'm just going to go right down the line over if I'm figuring it out. And to me, because I was a dishwasher and that was an awakening in itself. So I was very young, I was 12 years old and instead of really taking me aside and showing me how the job was done, this is a team effort. Oh, it was not a team effort. You just walk in and there's piles and piles of pots and pans that have been piled up because they won't have you start until a certain time a day. So you walk in and it's filled up and I, ever since, it came within this, do it, now do it faster, do it better and always learn how to, you know what I mean, watch another dish brush. How does he do it? How does he get it done? Why am I not this fast? Why am I? And so that goes for everything that I've done later. You know, it just ended up cooking in one of those culinary temples that comes with its own, you know, craziness. And that's why we said, we moved to Vermont, was I didn't like that family environment because daddy was constantly screaming. Screaming and screaming and screaming. So if you're kitchen chef keeps screaming at you, just like if you're a parent, you can't get used to it. That's just the way we communicate. Yeah. And so for that, I didn't find my place there. I really wanted to run my own policies, my own ways, my own, make good food, but have fun doing it. Yeah. You know, and we used to come here actually to Montpelier to pick rams every spring and then we would go for brunch at Kismet. And it was, it was like it became a ritual. Yeah. And you do these things and you bring your family with you and you bring your own family with you too. And you really create what people want to be there. Right. You know. Right. That's what also we spend a lot of time you know you spend 10, 11 hours every day five days a week and have some fun with it. And as I said respect comes with it. Yes. And if I want to be respected then that goes both ways. Yes. And respect is never given, it's earned. Yes. That's right. So let me open the floor on two questions from you. What has a reason for you that you'd like to ask Michael about? Yes. Michael how do you go about trying out different dishes? What? How do you create them? Yeah. How do you create a word is your I mean I sort of get where your inspiration comes from because of your experience. But how do you know what food you're going to put on your menu? Right. So when you when you how would you say that then your taste buds learn right, but you eat the whole dish you might not learn fast enough you might just have so many different ingredients so really find out by testing test your taste buds go and eat some changes small amount because it's really spicy but eat it and then eat a little honey eat a little chili and all of a sudden you realize could that work together right and so after a while of just constantly tasting eating different foods you get a I would call it an echo so I put green beans in my head and I can actually taste green beans just memory of what it you know what a strawberry tastes like every spring when it comes when it comes around you're like aww so when you can actually imprint that then you can start playing around you know and then in the restaurant it's not for me Microsoft on the Hill food is really a simple way of comparing food you know what I mean I want you to taste the lamb when you taste the lamb the pork when you eat the pork so try never to out shine really what you're trying to do and I'm telling you like the stronger flavors as in especially the spices can immediately totally outpower what can be a really good thing because where the French uses a little bit of cinnamon to flavor things in Indian cuisine cinnamon is a binder like it actually you cook it in spicy and it gets you a totally different thing but just taste the individual ingredient and see what it does even with the herbs too you know what I mean then all of a sudden you realize like oh yeah I was married and you have time a little bit less and then tarragon what does it do and then imagine eating a piece of fish now what goes well with that and so you come up with these dishes and then later on you do understand how certain things work together like there's like the trinities of like potato potato mushrooms and leeks so you have the onions you have the mushroom and you have the potato so you know which ones are going together but then with the way you put it together how you're going to make this work so for us to come up with dishes too it's also we have menu meetings where we all sit down and there is no there's no stupid idea that someone has it's just maybe put your mind into a different you know somebody says you know I want to do this and this and this but they were like yeah but it doesn't really fit with the restaurant theme or whatever it is maybe we can do it as a special or take ideas and morph it into something that it becomes but I'm telling you it's just and I don't want to say it's such a great art you know because so didn't paint the way he did it until it's the end he'd paint beautiful just landscapes and stills and whatever because he learned also from the old masters and so when you learn over time from someone else how you do something you might be able to just change it but not for the change sake of it but just maybe you can improve it and think maybe you add a dish and you're like wow ginger would work really well with this or it's a little chilly or a little something sweet or something sour most of the time it's actually sour that dish is screened for because especially in French cuisine that is quite heavy with butter and you know butter and cream and all these things you need something that just goes fresh can eat fresh fruit or fresh vegetables itself are all vegetables bring a nice crunch with freshness so when you're kind of pohort I'm always going with you have about an attention span of three seconds if I sit up here and I'll talk for three seconds you start being like what's going on your taste buds have the same thing so if you taste the most perfect food if it's the most perfect puree ever made you're going to eat a few times and you're like okay well I need a little something else and that's called texture or acid or something that just like keeps your mouth entertained so play around there's nothing going wrong I mean yes my mom would take us as a family as guinea pigs before she would give it to other guests so have a guinea pig ready for someone else to taste it but if you really are truthful to yourself you can taste it and be like wow this feels really nice you know this feels good in my mouth I want to have more and then you know that you did something right how did you fall back in love with cooking after being a dishwasher I always love to eat so I just really wanted to find out when I was a dishwasher but then I would always get lunch or dinner and the guys in the kitchen made it so these guys were all wearing it's whites you know what I mean I'm wearing this plastic apron and I'm in there and at the end of the night I just so I wanted to become like them I wanted to see that well they're doing this I want to become like that then I see the kitchen chef who's just basically expediting and he's like just putting on little garnishes telling everyone to do and I'm like oh that sounds good but I was so young so I had to learn and literally in Switzerland I was seriously I became more like a culinary mechanic right I'm not I'm not creating I wasn't creating any dishes I didn't create any dishes until pretty much I was sous chef in Hawaii you know that you just do what you've been told this is how we do it this is how you cook it this is how you serve it and if you didn't yeah that was to be paid so for me it was you know I make this food because someone the kitchen chef who knows and then the sous chefs who delegate that to me make them happy that's all it was was just trying to keep the chef off my back just like make them happy make them happy and that is repetition repetition repetition repetition just like martial arts just like anything out there you do it for 10,000 hours you're not good at it you probably should stop but if you do it for 10,000 hours whatever you're doing you're probably going to become really good at it you always want to become better at it and for me was you know you go up this ladder and I was I was realizing that the more I went up the ladder of the career the less I was doing what I like doing and that was actually cooking food and getting food in and touching the food you know preparing the food doing all this you always had staff to do this you just you know that got me to trouble with the union one time because I said I'm basically babysitting for 10 hours out of my 12 I'm babysitting and that did not go over very well but that's actually what I was doing trying to keep people from not fighting with each other you know this guy took this guy's peeler and this guy it was like kindergarten I mean it's just some people don't you just guide them in the right direction and that's what I was doing all day long and then all of a sudden I was like you know I really like to cook I really do love to cook and then also show other people how do you make a better chocolate moves how do you make a better chocolate torch how do you make a you know how can you improve on what you're doing so I always I always love to eat so if I want to eat if I want to eat I need to learn how to cook self-sustained that I can cook for myself but yes yeah I know that well I know that obviously COVID disrupted the whole restaurant business fall just a bit just a bit are you starting to see some of it come back or do you think you might have some return to normal see them next year and a half and so actually we closed for three months when COVID hit and it was one of the worst days of my life I had to lay off everyone because I was afraid that my entire business is gonna go upside down that that I'm not gonna get my staff back I didn't know what to expect that wish I knew then what I know now it totally changed what also changed is that 300 plus families moved to stone because they moved out of the Boston area New York area New Jersey they moved into stone every second home around me was all of a sudden full every Airbnb was full and this was new clientele and so all of a sudden we reduced the seating in the restaurant to keep people apart so we filled up every night and then we added a few more tables basically a little more relaxed and we kept on filling up the tables and so we just kept going with it so at the end COVID did very very well for business that the issue was immediately was supply I couldn't because it was amazing how far this how would you call that the lack of employment went I couldn't get calamari because they wouldn't clean it at the dock say it's not enough staff on the dock it's the crab I couldn't get crab because they wouldn't clean the crab so it was always like trying to cope with that so the crab cake became a smoked child cake for a while so we just had to switch things around trying to and I was on the phone a lot with the probayers and the farmers because when COVID hit the farms weren't open yet they had nothing like that couldn't get more than what already had and so for me what really was a blessing was that my staff stick around they all came back off the COVID and some more people were hired because all of a sudden we did this business and it was just yeah but just not knowing that unknowing was just you know and also I was in business already for 18 years you know it was if you were a brand new business this was brutal you know if you were new into this business I mean you know and now already we had and then we got some government support to keep the PPP loads all of the staff hire even more staff and half you know all these things ready to go but for me it was more like trying to get the food into the house than we can actually then prepare it and sometimes we had to adjust the menu that was just it like sorry we couldn't get any tenderloins we couldn't get any but then again if you had local probayers and the other thing was northeast family farms was a co-op their meat were cheaper than getting the stuff from the local picking cheaper than anything else yeah and so the moment the farms came back with vegetables I was just so happy to we reopened on June 12 so we're just so happy to just see the whole thing going to somewhat of a normality but even now still it's trying to find a cook trying to find someone that still wants to work in this business is tough it's tough and I realized we adjusted a lot like I hired more staff my crew does not burn out there's a prep cook you know we started one o'clock now instead of eleven o'clock so it's just all these things that we've done to make sure that the environment stays the way it is this goes back into that creative process you were talking about a little earlier you mentioned earlier that you start with vegetables before you add the meat I'm trying to understand that as a creative process like how does that work what does your imagination do so what it is is that you start with with the vegetables but I have a piece of meat or piece of protein that I want to lift up off the plate really make it better so right now we're going to actually buy dinner this week we're going to go on with a spice roast at Lone of Venice right so it's all this red deer beautiful spice roasted isn't that but how do I bring this from the vegetable point of view off so my mother used to make this red wine braised cabbage and I love red wine braised cabbage especially in this season it's just like I love this season when it becomes more of the spices more of the warm spices that's what red cabbage is braised with and then the chestnuts and then so forth so what I'm saying is when you want a piece of fish you know not saying that it all tastes the same but they're very similar so think about what you want to serve it with that and also the venison can be served in so many different ways but the vegetable was their first so it's like the red wine braised cabbage the venison that would work well together and so we start doing that and then that one is very traumatic anyway because it has that slionic they call it Knutflin Switzerland so you finish a dish wouldn't you know if I say first it's more like it has to all come together add whatever you you know what I mean just go with well I want to really lift this up with you know fish can be braised fennel it can be all these different beautiful things you can do and spend probably more time on making the vegetable part of it than you actually get later on with the meat but for me grilling a piece of meat they just grill the piece of meat right but what you're serving with it the potato gratins or the meat is more time and maybe that's just for me but that part's actually harder than cooking a nice rare loin of venison because it just takes more attention and it takes more detail for that so I'm saying like put the passion as you have for your meats the same as you do for your vegetable does that help cool any other questions there's one in the back yeah do you have a go-to red wine or does it matter if it's really a fine wine or can it be a cheap wine hey don't do it don't go don't go expensive you know if you can afford it great so if the wine you're going to serve with the venison well use that to cook with it but if you drink a nice glass of wine and don't think that that wine is going to shine through in red wine braised cabbage that has onions if you make a red wine a reduction even then so it means like if you're ever going to try this then you really should this is a good one take red wine and bring it down to a glaze it's actually now syrup that's it if you're tasting it's so tart but now you cook a piece of salmon okay now you take that sauce just that red wine you didn't season that wine at all you season the piece of fish put some of that red wine over that now eat that salmon and you tell me again what happened is with that salmon it just immediately just stopped from this that I do like is this fatty fish and became this light fish just because of the acid that cuts into it so what I'm saying is don't cook with bad wine but don't cook with expensive wine do not and would it matter like merlot or pino or what would you use no as I said I would if you can follow through with it if you have you know if you're going to drink merlot with you with your dish then cook with that merlot if you can or get a cheaper one um but are you going to taste it no literally there is no way like even in my poached pears that I do and there's just basically a lot of red wine that you poach these pears in and when it's finally done you've got the chestnut puree and you've got the gingerbread cookie there's no way you're going to tell me what's that wine when you taste the wine as it is there is people out there where it comes from the ear this and that but it has to be in that state the second I touch this and reduce it or add flavors to it there's no way so I would not spend too much money on wine I was thinking about risotto but even there you should just use a little bit of wine but even there like especially now probably we'll go with the wine you're going to or the same one as you probably serve later on there's also like especially if you cook for two people or just even for yourself how much of that wine you're going to want to drink later on so you can use a little bit to cook with it's like you're a child here please decide when something should be removed from the menu well first if the farmer runs out that's number one then it's got to go what we do have numbers we've got a POS system so we'll see what sells and what doesn't but just because it doesn't sell doesn't mean it's not good it just means that like if I put sweetbreads on the menu it doesn't sell very well but the people that do order it love it you know so it's not just because you want to have a collective how'd you say that and a collective menu like the menu needs to be balanced out right so you're going to have the steak and potato kind of guy you're going to make that guy happy too why are you going to make the vegetarian happy as well so you're trying this is your goal as a restaurateur you're really trying to make everyone happy as we know that's impossible but we try we really try from the moment you walk into the moment you walk out that you're actually really happy that's our goal and if we mess up then we made a mistake and hopefully we'll be able to fix it maybe not so what goes off the menu season's definitely change everything it's just if we run out by the end of the season also like as I said with the strawberries like you want to have that you want to change it into the strawberry you know we have a strawberry shortcake that goes on the menu or things like this that we deal with when we were talking about before like when you're a chef and you just want to create and then you're going to start choosing things that do not really belong at this time in this place so the farmer should tell you well this is what I got now go make something out of it right so the talent becomes as a chef it's always what you make out of what you get I was also cooking in the military in Switzerland you have to go to the military and so I was also cooking in the military because that's what the military does they're going to ask you what are you a car mechanic you're a mechanic you're a chef so I was cooking and even there it was you have a whole what do you guys call that you have a platoon and a troop and a group whatever it was together and you cook for them well guess what you better be good because these guys been out there in the field getting doing whatever they've been doing they didn't come home and they want to have some food and I remember one time I tired the overseas in the mac and cheese put way too much white pepper into it and it was so spicy but it so happened that it was a really cold night and that was exactly what they wanted but usually you really have to be you know and even there like when you get substandard which we call it substandard stuff like we would get the pork shanks that was just like the pork shanks gets cut and then you have the leftovers whatever but even those are fantastic to cook with and what we would do is and you should learn in the military you actually cook the shanks right off the breakfast you bake you put them in these huge insulated boxes and then they get transported for wherever you're going to go and when you open up the box perfectly cooked it's a hit maybe because also like when you're in the kitchen this may be just too much information but whatever the furnace that we had was gasoline and you put the gasoline on the pressure and then you light it and the flames go I mean at least 16 high before they get hot and then it comes down and I was always thinking like well that was if we were on the attack I'm going to cook a six foot flame up in the air but again you learn from everything you do and how to cook like that and that was also by the way a pot de ferre was exactly like that cook in the pot nice and slow probably one of my favorite foods but it's all in one pot all in one pot I like braised meats I like lamb shanks I like pork shanks I like shoulder I like any of these things that are just fall off the bone and then just the vegetables and the broth and everything else that comes right with it so the question I have is do you think I think I heard you on one of your radio ads one time talk about being healthier to eat in season because that's when the food is at its best and it's best for us is that something you're still advocating I know I'm a very much advocate that whatever you eat you are and the story point drop the mic you are what you eat if you eat if your diet exists of something in that diet because you got so used to it because you pretty much when I say you are what you eat it's pretty much whatever you put in your grocery cart that's where it starts now I'm not supposed to have cookies and I always you know like I shouldn't have cookies I want cookies but too many of them balance it out balance everything that comes right back to that and the local food yes you eat as much local as you can it makes sense it keeps a dollar here too you know like my dollar that I make at the restaurant that it goes right down the street when you have a farmer you know like a long time ago binding root farm the roof cased in it was years ago and the roof cased in and within two months the money was back together that we can put the right back up so you're supporting the local guy why not as I know today it's very easy to get caught up you go on Amazon you buy everything it's delivered to you it's 20 foot up I don't know how to do it but I can do it maybe so so look at the local stuff and maybe you have to go a little further maybe you gotta go a little go on a journey whatever but yes for yourself for your body for whatever you do you are what you eat so you can only excuse so much the way you feel and the strength and how awake you are and how tired you are or whatever it is has a lot to do with your food and when you're actually eating it and there's nobody out there that can really tell you there can be some guidance that to go you should do this you need to try it should you eat like that you should eat like a king for breakfast the peasants for lunch and like a poor person for dinner it works for some people it doesn't work for others what works for you and for me literally what I started doing it was a cool thing when you actually listen to your mind when you're hungry what's it telling you to eat and I'm not saying like you gotta go right away to you know fast food or whatever but what does it tell you do you want fish does fish sound good to you like go with the healthy stuff try to go with the healthy stuff fish do you want a salad do you want a steak what is it do you mind will tell you what you need because after a huge hike and I'm exhausted my mind goes just one screaming calories just give me calories just give me something and give it to me fast then maybe have a pizza you know if you go up on Washington come back down who cares have a pizza it's alright but if you have not done much during the day maybe that not be the best meal for you right now so how much salad how much vegetables do you eat how much protein do you eat how much of that protein do you actually going to burn up off so treat treat yourself right it was literally treat your body like it is a temple and it will take care of you but the better you take care of your body the better you will take care of you in the long run my uncle had to say and he said getting old is not for sissies and I could see it I mean you know I saw it's just it's almost like a preparing preparation as much as you prepare life is going to throw a curveball so minus will take care of that body that when a curveball does come it's easier like when I broke my ankle and my shoulder and all those different things those things happen yeah well and it's I think that's getting in touch with your body too you know because your body does you know when you stop and listen it does tell you yes it does and it wants to move yeah it wants to move that's the biggest thing go for walks ride a bicycle do something if you especially you know look at what we used to do we had to use gather pump do all these different things we didn't have a lot of time to sit down right there was no me time sitting there doing nothing always I'm always like I get antsy I need to do I need to walk every dog I love my dog we go hiking a lot we always go for walks we always do things keep moving a body motion stays in motion if you stop it's just you know and I broke my ankle so I broke my ankle on my shoulder took they fixed this really quickly because it was sideways now they fixed this but they couldn't do the shoulder until my foot was high because I couldn't even hop around so it's out for six months wow and I couldn't walk I couldn't do anything I was rolling in a wheelchair in the kitchen it was just horrible but what saved me was that I was eating healthy and what it does when we move is you take in one of the most beautiful things it's oxygen it's amazing so good food have and especially here in Vermont the most amazing thing is we have all these these woods these trails I fell in love with it totally fell in love with it I just wanted to reflect back on something you said earlier that you are grateful to the food and to those that have put it to get that have made it that and it reminded me of a book that we had studied here at Bethany Breeding Sweetgrass where the author is an indigenous person and she talks a lot about being very respectful of the earth and the food that you gather and thanking thanking the earth for food and I just really was I was very impressed with your saying that I just think that's I think one of the most for me one of the biggest disrespect is if it goes in the garbage food that could have been eaten and even if it is mobsters I know it's a huge food cost but before I do anything else with it I mean make something out of whatever there is so that's why it's a when I say to you like oh it's nice to create things sometimes it's nice but also to create for some of the vegetables that in the bottom of your refrigerator that been in there for a little bit too long but make something out of it you know what I mean make a soup out of it make soup and then freeze the soup then you have soup for whatever but just when it goes in the garbage it really is the last thing or the compost wherever it goes right so try not to do that you know what I mean we don't we don't peel our carrots why would you peel a carrot what's that for you want a little bit bitterness bitter is good bitter is totally fine people don't they think they don't like bitter but actually you do you just it needs to be subtle you know it doesn't have to taste medicinal but there has to be a subtleness with bitterness in it as well so explore at home such as when you say with creation okay so your refrigerator is your you know what it is so go through your refrigerator grab out everything that is starting to to go that's how we have a family meal we sit down at 4 o'clock every day we have a family meal at the restaurant that's when we get rid of things we already going into the day at the zone where I don't even want to question if it is you know send it out to not if you want to ask if you want to send it out to not don't send it so we eat it we eat really well so you know that's another thing too for the family itself hi yes the mushroom piece you have served to us earlier yep in the theme of the spirituality of food it was one of those things that when you run across it you have to spend time with just a little bit in your mouth to feel it and really experience it is there a way of learning how to do that without spending ten thousand hours because mushroom 13 well I'm you know how you decide on the various is there a way of learning a little bit about how what those combinations of food oh yeah yeah so there is as I said before there's things called balances that you have in your mouth you might not know it about it but when you have a well balanced dish it feels exciting it feels creamy it feels rich it feels just seasoned enough it feels crunchy like all these things come together it's just literally it's like building a house you know exactly what's needed you just figure it out this is the ground this is the reason you need to keep trying new things a cookbook a cooking show you know what I mean do it for yourself and just take your time to do it the mushroom 13 month you won't take it really that long you know what I mean it literally is mushrooms so what I do is I roast the garlic I roast the shallots I hit them with the mushrooms right roast those off then I hit it with white wine a shutty but you know something like that and then I reduce that down and then I add cream a good amount of cream and I reduce that down again reducing this means you're evaporating water that's in it here comes a balance you're reducing down liquid and the fat content will rise the fat content gets too high you break that is a greasy spaghetti spaghetti should not be greasy spaghetti should be coated with a nice butter fondue whatever you want so you reduce it down you don't want to reduce it down too far because else it breaks on you and what that means is now you have all this grease running out of that reduce it down so it's just coated then I add a little bit of chopped herbs if you have parsley I have a little bit of rosemary a little bit of the herbs that don't overpower the mushrooms salt and pepper that's it so you have five ingredients in there I thought you said there was plenty of ginger oh well that comes later now comes so right now what you have is you have a piece of brioche I also made with butter piece of brioche you have that creamy mushroom that is also mushrooms you know it's kind of more on the creamier side you need something to cut into it here we cut it and so you cut it with vinegar the vinegar that has to be sweetened with honey and mushrooms and brioche go together really well too so you sweeten up that vinegar and again as I said before I take that vinegar reduce it down it's a lot of reductions in the kitchen reduce it down until it's almost thick then you add the honey and the truffle if you like truffle and that's then we puree it up and that's what you drizzle over that so again you're adding a little bit more sweetness but you're adding acidity that's what you're really looking for that's what captures like nice and I think we have the recipe do we have the recipe online yeah we did a whole lot because people always ask questions like especially guests and they're like how do you do it how do you make it and so we did some recipes not all of it on your website can you get it on our website yeah we did write down one out what do you think Michael is most common mistake that the typical household chef thinks fear you're afraid you're so afraid to undercook the chicken that it just totally dries out and so there's nothing wrong with a thermometer try a thermometer so 165 is not 175 it's not 185 it is 165 and with that said that's what chicken needs to be cooked at so you just don't you're afraid of salmonella now that said in Hawaii my best friend know I like this chicken medium rare I'm not suggesting you're doing that what I'm suggesting to you to do is go buy three chicken breasts and cook each one a little different one you think it's going to be totally undercooked on the other one that's what the issue is same thing with fish you know what I mean when is it done most famous chef's response is when is it done well when it's done but if the way you like it like salmon I love salmon but I cannot I can't stand overcooked salmon there's a change just the entire dynamic of salmon it has this rich creaminess to it but if you cook it long enough it becomes more like cooked tuna you know tuna too so basically anything you can eat raw you're probably only going to overcook right for in my thing but for that is really learn how to cook either become a technician use a thermometer go internal temperature find out how that works and then realize that pretty much every book is wrong about those temperatures you got to go lower than that if you want a rare right so for me a rare is like steak not whatever they say or whatever so test it really go test on it just figure out where are your hangups where are your you know for being on a and I was wrong to serve so eventually temperature became second nature you know what I mean you knew even like just the way you cooked and you put it in the oven for a certain time this is going to be proper you touch it but when they tell you like to touch here and here and whatever get a thermometer a good one just so much better off because especially I think one of the hardest things to cook is a hamburger okay out of any anyone can tell you that a hamburger is the hardest thing to cook so somebody tells you like I want a rare medium rare whatever medium well whatever it is with burgers because the texture does not really change right and while I'm telling you this I will never have a restaurant again that serves a hamburger because everybody's so very specific about how they eat it I think it's probably one of the most perfect sandwiches made if it's some property but again thermometer will really help you out I'm sure they'll get really crispy chicken any tips or techniques do you start with a high temperature and then reduce it down below like say at a 425 and then go down okay I got in trouble for that one it's Disney World because what I said is don't flip the bird okay so don't flip the bird what I'm saying to you is this so in cooking the skin of a chicken is like call it it's a religion right because you don't want to damage the skin of a chicken you want it crispy so what we did is we opened up the chicken we opened up the entire chicken take it off the bone yeah exactly but we're opening up take all the bones out so it lays flat in the pan and you sear it off but just on low heat get it nice a little bit of brown on the oven and so I call that the violence of an oven you have it at 450-400 degrees that violent gets circulated or you have a bottom heat and you want that chicken the skin to just stay there and render out all the fat that's still in there same goes with a duck a duck breast is only as good as if you render it out it gets really nice and crispy with the chicken the same thing and never flip it over to the other side because the moment you have a chicken breast that is brown on the outside it's pretty chewy it's pretty tough so if you have the chance to open the chicken and you can also put seasoning on there you can put some herbs on there but leave it with the skin side down until you take it out of the pan and serve it and that skin is going to be absolutely crispy and just what you do is you're just basically cracklings that bottom part is a little bit in fat but not that much but you're rendering it out so you basically you don't ever turn it over you cook the chicken all the way the thigh the breast everything is cooked with that skin side down interesting so if you like to see I love crispy skin I can understand I also love crispy skin on salmon salmon that skin is just it goes down in the pan and just gets crispy crispy crispy and it's like it's layer of seasoned tasty salty crispy so tonight I want to thank you all for coming and for asking great questions I want to thank Michael especially and Laura for bringing your mushroom tartine and your wisdom to us and thank you again thank you so much thanks for having me yeah