6 Ranch Podcast
The Chef Ross Episode
Ross moved to rural Oregon a few years back from the big city of Portland and he happens to be a very successful chef! We'll dispel myths about celebrity chefs and delve into the science behind perfect pizza dough, including flour selection and the surprising truth about water. We'll also discuss the importance of meat in our diets, the challenges restaurants face, and the power of chefs promoting healthy eating. Join us for a journey through American food, packed with stories, tips, and a celebration of food's ability to nourish us all.
Check out the new DECKED system and get free shipping.
Ross moved to rural Oregon a few years back from the big city of Portland and he happens to be a very successful chef! We'll dispel myths about celebrity chefs and delve into the science behind perfect pizza dough, including flour selection and the surprising truth about water. We'll also discuss the importance of meat in our diets, the challenges restaurants face, and the power of chefs promoting healthy eating. Join us for a journey through American food, packed with stories, tips, and a celebration of food's ability to nourish us all.
Check out the new DECKED system and get free shipping.
I think you can kind of find a lot more really delicious flavors there, but it's a lot more work, yeah. So anyone who made sourdough bread during COVID knows that like, yeah, you got to care and tend and do your stretch and folds, and that's why I had, like people driving around with loaves of bread in their car going to pick up their kids from soccer so they could hit their timers. Yeah, and then, but yeah, so either sourdough or some sort of commercial leavening Lots of different options there too, but but these are stories of outdoor adventure and expert advice from folks with calloused hands.
Speaker 2:I'm james nash and this is the six ranch podcast. This episode of the Six Ranch Podcast is brought to you by DECT that's D-E-C-K-E-D. If you don't know what that is. Dect is a drawer system that goes in the bed of a pickup truck or a van and it'll fit just about any American-made pickup truck or van. It's a flat surface on top and then underneath there are two drawers that slide out that you can put your gear in, and it's going to be completely weatherproof, so I've never had snow or rain or anything get in there. There's also a bunch of organizational features, like the deco line, and there's boxes that you can put rifles or bows or tools all different sizes. There's some bags and tool kits. There's a bunch of different stuff that you can put in there. But the biggest thing is you can take the stuff that's in your back seat out of your back seat and store it in the drawer system and it's secure.
Speaker 2:You can put a huge payload of a couple thousand pounds on top of this deck drawer system. There's tie downs on us. You could strap down all your coolers and your four-wheeler and whatever else you've got up there. It's good stuff. This is made out of all recycled material that's a hundred percent manufactured in America, and if you go to deckedcom slash six ranch, you'll get free shipping on anything that you order. This show is possible because companies like Decked sponsor it, and I would highly encourage you to support this American-made business and get yourself some good gear. How has having a child affected the way you cook at home?
Speaker 1:I don't know. There's kind of like two parts. I think part of it has made it really functional sometimes, yeah yeah, it's either like a treat, so like, oh, I'm going to go all out out, make breakfast and pancakes and hash browns and do all, the, all the stuff, or it's just like for the love of god, just get, get this kid some mac and cheese, whatever's fast yeah uh, yeah, just cut the strawberry or just like make it happen. It is tricky, you find, like you, you have to like make time for yourself.
Speaker 1:Then yeah so, and like treating yourself to like a nice, nutritious meal, because oftentimes it seems just like you're just trying to get the kid fed right, um, so, yeah, it's, it's kind of like a new skill of learning to be intentional about. All right, I'm gonna make the time make a nice thing for myself, included. Um, but also just been really cool to watch her eat and grow and like try new stuff and uh, like try to wipe the spicy off her tongue and yeah, she's just like no, um, yeah, it's a really fun thing to watch, or super into something one day and then just like throws it against the wall the next and you're like, well, we'll, we'll keep trying because how cool would it be to experience you know your favorite foods and flavors today for the first time yeah, wild.
Speaker 1:Um yeah, and we're watching her do a lot of that. Um yeah, she's a good eater. It's like, yeah, it, yeah, it's been pretty fun. Um, yeah, but what a wild thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:The girl could like literally live on cheese. I mean, I could too but sometimes I'm like we need to get you some variety.
Speaker 2:Get a couple different colors up in here. Okay, what's the difference between a chef and a cook?
Speaker 1:Cooks make food, chefs make cooks. Okay, I think, yeah, leadership and knowledge and a training and so is it more of like a student-teacher relationship.
Speaker 2:I think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also I think just what our country has done to chefs and media has done to chefs and things is not great, why?
Speaker 2:First of all, what Like what, in your opinion, has media and society done to chefs?
Speaker 1:It's just a celebrity thing, right? I don't look at cooking or as being a chef as like a form of artistry, like other people do. I really view it as a craft and like problem solving. Like a mechanic, I made a dish of fried thing that I wanted to be crispy with this dipper and I pulled it out of the fryer and it wasn't crispy. So how do I change my batter to make things crispier? That's how I sort of look at food and there's like creative moments in that of like these things go well together or this and that. But to me it's always like troubleshooting, problem solving. That doesn't taste good enough. How do I make this taste better?
Speaker 1:but I don't find it like I'm a painter with a canvas and and it's like a me, me, me thing, uh, but I think a lot of the celebrity chef stuff looks like look how great he is or look how great they are, she is, whatever it is. Um, they just put them on in this like pedestal. There's like so much stuff happens. There's like huge teams and right, it's such a team thing. Yeah, so when there's chefs make cooks, but then we're also like really doing the American glamorized celebrity put them on a pedestal thing. It just thinks it does a lot of disservices to like I don't know chefs in general and like the rest of the rest of cooks. Yeah, I think also it uh kind of creates this like perfection mindset that I don't think is attainable for a lot of home cooks or people. You look on the internet for a recipe and it's the best.
Speaker 2:Xyz Dude internet recipes can go pound sand right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're terrible. I am so upset.
Speaker 2:I've talked with Adele about making a cookbook called Time and Temperature.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's what I'm looking for, like how long and how hot do I have to cook this thing and then leave me alone for the rest of it? And I understand the business model, because they're selling ad space. So the longer they can write this recipe and the more you know tertiary information that they can add to it that has nothing to do with the cook, the more blocks there are between paragraphs and the more ads they can sell that you'll scroll through and accidentally click on. That'll take you to another page right when all you want to know is how hot do I need to have my grill or my oven or my fryer and how long does this thing have to be in there? And, like, I'll spice it however, I want to spice it yep, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just really created this one for money obviously adds things, uh. But to just like so much about cooking is the process and screwing it up and taste it and try again and practice and like, well, that was all right, but next time I would do this, well, then I think a lot of people don't give that a try the next time. You know, like I'm a r&d, like maniac, I'll, I'll make something 15 times before and it drives everyone nuts around me before before.
Speaker 1:It's right, and that could be a pizza, a burger, a pancake or whatever. I'll just dive down the rabbit hole and screw it up, screw it up, screw it up, screw it up, screw it up, and then I had a good one. Great, let's share it with the world. No one sees all that other stuff of like. Yeah, the 15th smash burger you ate this week because you're like well, how do I get it to stick to the flat top in the right way? So you get the lacy thing? Is that too much salt or too blah blah? I don't want seasoning that stuff, right so? But that's what I want home cooks, I think, to do and that's the fun part is like really diving into stuff. But there's just now this like perfectionist mindset of if I make this brownie better be the greatest freaking brownie of all time, and it's like what? No, it's like screw it up.
Speaker 2:Try a couple different recipes yeah, death by comparison yeah, learn eat and then when you're talking about that, that perfection side of the house, we're talking about matters of taste, totally right. So what somebody might think is perfect, somebody else is going to think is trash yeah and that that's why it is definitely an area where perfection cannot be attained.
Speaker 2:Uh, plating has gotten so wild yeah and I see people all the time that that look at a plate and they're like oh, that's, that's plated perfectly, that's plated beautifully. It's like looks like you spilled sauce all over the place. This is kind of chaotic, yeah. Or it's so precise and you know you can tell somebody was in there with tweezers and wiping, yep, and it's like I don't want to touch this.
Speaker 1:I'm going to break it as soon as I take a bite.
Speaker 2:You know that I'm going to break it as soon as I take a bite. That's a little bit weird and it's important. I should also say that I do think it's important because the first sense of food that people get unless they're ordering fajitas in a Mexican restaurant is looking at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, and that is important. And if it looks beautiful, then you're coming into it with a little bit better attitude and the chances of it tasting good are better. If you think that it's pretty on the plate, yeah. So when you're taking something as humble as a smash burger, yeah. Are you thinking very much about plating and you know if that burger is at the six o'clock position when it hits the table in front of somebody, are you just throwing it out there?
Speaker 1:No, not necessarily the six o'clock position. It's gotta look good, yeah, you know people do. When it lands in front of you, yeah, it's gotta look good, uh, and there's no doubt that people do eat with their eyes first. That's just like a truth about food. I mean, all that other stuff I think has just gone way too far for me personally. It's done a lot of important things for food. There's like a level of precision that I admire in those restaurants and I worked in them for a long time to help gain my skills and that sort of fine dining world cares so much. There's just so much care, attention, detail, push, uh, all of these things just to try to make it the best you possibly can.
Speaker 1:But I don't want to eat there yeah and like I don't I don't care if you played it with your tweezers or, if you like, threw it from a slingshot like 60 yards away.
Speaker 1:It's like uh I want it to make me feel good and I think I'm just sort of at a phase of cooking in my life and I'm sure kids did this too of just wanting to make people feel good and wanting me to feel good, and I want you to go man, that was delicious, thanks With a pat on the back and then walk out. I don't want it to be like my senses are blown away and this was like a revolutionary artistic experience for me. I don't think that's for food.
Speaker 2:I think that chefs and cooks are kind of a rung on the ladder and they have to care about the whole ladder.
Speaker 2:so yeah you know, above them is the customer who's eating, eating that food, who's going to pay them money so that they can keep going? But they also have to think about the business aspect of everything that they're doing and all the costs that are associated with creating that food. But furthermore, and increasingly, I see chefs caring about the ingredients and the sourcing of those ingredients and the people that are making all of the components of that food available and possible to you. Yeah, it's wildly complicated to take something that arguably is artistry and add in the business element to it. Do you feel like you care the most about? About the business side of it? About the producers who are creating that food? About the consumers? Um, where? How do you wait all of that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel pretty almost well rounded at this point in my life with those things, um, and what am I missing? Oddly, like self gratification, like the uh, yeah, the the you component of do I feel pride in this? Am I, um, supporting the people I want to support, doing the good things I want to do? I started, yeah, really kind of cultivating relationships and creating relationships with farmers and that, uh, and people growing and making food, and that definitely sparked like a new kind of wave of cooking for me and probably the reason why I'm still here.
Speaker 1:Uh, I had a conversation with your mom about it. Actually, she put it the best. She was like you're the flashlight. So there's all these people behind the scenes that are doing making food, making things, making products and chefs are just like a great flashlight to the public.
Speaker 1:Of all of these other places, um, I in portland, where there was cooking in portland, when there was like so much more like really, of these relationships, more small farms, cheese purveyors, all these things um, I felt like a, like a drug dealer who was like I got all the goods and I know what all the good stuff is and now I'm just trying to get that to the people in a way that's fun and approachable and makes people feel good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's definitely that part and I would say that part's the driving force for sure. Teaching people I mean a lot of teaching people how to eat, teaching people how to cook, teaching people how to eat with seasons and a lot of people haven't had like something that tastes good and asparagus that tastes good. You eat the stuff out of a can your whole life and, and I think there's ways to make those things really delicious. So, uh, I really like the aha moments where I would never put asparagus on a pizza, I would never add this to that or beets with this. Those sort of like new introductory things are pretty important to me.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I'm concerned about within agriculture, especially in, like, human food production that side of the ag house, is people expect to be able to, in North America, eat a fresh tomato anytime they want. Right, and in order to do that, we are lifting some heavy weights Huge, huge and the the end result is they're eating the idea of a fresh tomato, whereas that thing was picked green, um, potentially in another country. Yeah, and the reason that it was picked like that is so that it could survive the trip gets gassed with ethanol in order to turn it red. By the time it gets to you, is is close to flavorless, unless you add something to it. Yep, um. So there's a good chance that you're just buying red Mexican water so that you can have the idea of a tomato in January in Northeast Oregon.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's bonkers, it's bonkers and the tomato is one of like the thousands of examples where that happens. Yeah, could go, could go on, could create a whole podcast about why america's food systems are wonky, but I think I've just sort of found my place in. Uh, I used to be kind of like activist-y about it and preachy. It drove my sister nuts. It was like are you buying organic? And blah, blah, blah. Um, yeah, you get a little older, have a kid and now it's do the best you can, you know, and support.
Speaker 2:Idealism dies with age. It doesn't't.
Speaker 1:It doesn't pass the endurance test, it doesn't, yeah, and yeah, do do the best you can and um, every now and then try something new and make a new recipe, and every now and then stop by the farmer's market and buy a thing from somebody who's growing something and just try to put that in your in your rotation, and I think the the rewards are pretty great yeah, yeah, I wonder in in colder climates, when the first vegetarians started to occur yeah, sure it had something to do with global supply chains and it had to have been fairly recently Access.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, if we think about history, because you know, we do have the ability to preserve fruits and vegetables, but it's not great and it hasn't always been great. Yeah, and our preservation methods are dependent upon materials that, for the most part, are relatively modern, if we're talking about jars and cans and things along those lines. Beyond that, you're probably, you know, drying herbs, maybe drying some roots, some things that you could put in like a hole in the ground and would survive for a few months. Yep, but you know fat and meat, those have to be the wintertime foods of colder clim months. Yep, but you know fat and and meat, those have to be the the wintertime foods of colder climates.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that and uh, and the work he did in the summer Right, Um yeah. Like better put it up, or or you don't got much, Right Um yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I'm or you don't got much, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then I'm I'm sure, once we suddenly had access to growing seasons year round, then of course we'll take the convenience Sure, because that's how. That's how it goes. It's interesting.
Speaker 2:What is the most successful recipe in the world?
Speaker 1:I don't know, but I'm sure it's got mayonnaise in it. Great question, I don't know, grandma's. What comes to mind for me is like hamburger, macaroni and cheese pizza. Yeah in America, for sure.
Speaker 2:The hamburgers. Crushed it Like you can go most places and get a hamburger.
Speaker 1:Gosh, the hamburger crushed it. Yeah, I mean tacos also.
Speaker 2:There's a million pizza restaurants.
Speaker 1:A million pizza restaurants yep.
Speaker 2:Is that the most common restaurant theme in America? I?
Speaker 1:don't actually know, but it feels like it Burgers, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, can't go to any. Most menus just in general, have a burger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, pizza I'm sure is up there.
Speaker 2:Hamburger is a really efficient use of the protein.
Speaker 1:Definitely.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it works on all levels. It's like pretty minimal prep. Yeah, it also has like even with fast food, has like decent price perception from the public. So there's just like a wide range. People will pay 25 bucks for a burger and 395 for a burger and feel, okay, that part gets really tricky, especially with things being so expensive right now. It's like there's so much stuck price perception on these, like certain things. You know, if you start pushing 15, 16 bucks for a sandwich, people scoff Right, there's so much stuck price perception on these, like certain things. You know, If you start pushing 15, 16 bucks for a sandwich, people scoff Right, it should probably cost 26 bucks sometimes, you know, but it doesn't. And pizzas too. You start pushing these price points and, yeah, it's just not really palatable anymore. But for whatever reason, burgers is like right, right, there's a sweet spot, of course, but big range, yeah.
Speaker 2:You can still get an $8 burger in Ohio County. Yeah, that is not fast food and I think that that's amazing. There can't be a lot of that left.
Speaker 1:No, there's not a lot of that left. And also maybe, yeah, even just in the last few years, working in restaurants. It's like, man, things are expensive and it's made a tricky business, real tricky, yeah, and I think often have to ask a lot of hard questions. I mean, something's got to give.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are some of those hard questions For me? Who cares about sourcing? It might just not be using the nicest things all the time, uh, so you can pay your staff well, uh, but you can't have everything. Now you can't pay your staff extremely well and buy all of these nice things and pay your rent on this place and bills and blah, blah blah, and to be in a price perception that makes sense to people. I feel like you used to be able to either do that or get close, but now I feel like it's pretty unattainable and some one of those things has to like have some wiggle room, hope you got cheap rent. Or, yeah, maybe it's highlighting highlighting a product and then using some of these secondary things that are a little more affordable. Or simplifying how many things are actually on the plate. Or charging a few bucks extra and hoping people are into it. Yeah yeah, it's pretty tricky right now to find that balance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's a notoriously tough business model. Like restaurants fail all the time. Yeah, you started from scratch a successful restaurant in a place that has seasonal customers, for the most part during COVID.
Speaker 1:Yeah, such a bad idea. I mean it was a great idea but in hindsight, a lot of the things we were up against, in hindsight, a lot of the things we were up against, naiveness really was a powerful tool, no-transcript, and felt very lucky. We were very supported by the community Sometimes not, but mostly supported by the community and the people who showed up showed up like they wanted us to be there, right, yeah, never forget that. That was pretty cool, even deep times during COVID. It's like I got pizza in the freezer, I got pizza in the fridge, I gave my friends two pizzas, but we want you to make it yeah so bought two more pizzas and took it home.
Speaker 1:They're like I actually am sick of your pizza I don't, we don't even want anymore, but uh, just showing up to, because that's what you do are you? Still passionate about pizza. Yeah, I don't know why it got me. Uh, let's talk about pizza. Cool, where does it start? Uh, it's all the dough, the dough, it's, it's only the dough, it's only the dough. The other stuff is also important, it, but we'll call it 90 the dough.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, let's talk about pizza dough. Let's talk about pizza dough. Let's talk about pizza dough.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, it kind of like straddles. I'm never a good baker. I'm like too fidgety or like not precise enough. So pizza sort of straddles this line between like baking and something that's alive, but also you get to like enter into the savory world. Yeah yeah, pizza dough, I don't know, it's just like infinite and you never win. So it's got kind of always this like thing you come back to and try to make it better and better and tweak and and fix what kind of?
Speaker 1:flour do you use lots and I've tried lots of different things. I think pizza that people visualize in their head and still is pizza is often mostly like an AP white flour or bread flour mix. Definitely experimented with whole grains in there and I think there's a range in which that's really fun. And then you start to get into this range of where, like you put a bunch of whole grains in my pizza, range of where, like you, put a bunch of whole grains in my pizza. So, finding that line's been fun and I'm always an advocate for whole grains and trying to incorporate that into people's rotation.
Speaker 1:Why number one? I think it's delicious and also got a bad rap. Uh, there's a lot of really gross whole grain breads, um, and I think that was people's introduction oftentimes to whole grains and things. But yeah, there's a lot of things. It grows really well in our climate. You can eat. Really. There's really amazing producers of grains in Oregon. A lot of that actually matches climates in Japan. So you get some of the world's best buckwheat in Oregon, which is pretty cool for that someone would make soba with. So there's that you can eat really regionally and locally and Pacific Northwest-y. They're also just, yeah, very delicious, very fun, very diverse. White flour is going to taste like white flour 100% of the time. Spelt, rye and a lot of these other whole grains are just really unique and have, I don't know, yeah, more fun to me I think about domestication quite a bit, because I live in this world that straddles what's left of wild and wilderness and and ranching and agriculture.
Speaker 2:Right, those are the. Those are the two continents that I stand on most of the time and I watch. I watch these species as they become domesticated, and I've talked about this with bears recently because I think that bears, in a lot of ways, are on the verge of domestication. We've got bears that are dependent upon people for food, and that's a great start. I think that's probably how it started with wolves, and you had wolves that were probably following hunters and getting the leftovers, and then they may have lost the skill to hunt on their own and started hanging around the camps more and then got comfortable enough that they got put to work. And then, you know, we took that and then started selecting for specific traits and pretty soon you have all the species and breeds of dogs in the world today. Really remarkable thing, crazy um mustelids being the weasel family.
Speaker 2:So like river otters, wolverines, badgers, weasels, they're one that has my eye right now they're, they're incredibly, incredibly intelligent and uh, I've got a river otter skull up here on the far right and his brain, compared to the size of the rest of his skull and body is is much larger than any other skull in this room or actually any other skull that I've ever encountered, um, so that that brain size is absolutely massive.
Speaker 2:And then we got to start looking at what these animals are doing. So we've got honey badgers that are using tools that are solving complex problems. Yeah, we have sea otters that are taking a rock, diving down to the bottom picking up a mollusk and then using that rock to open it. And we look at that and we go, oh, cute, isn't that interesting? Yeah, I look at that and say that animal is in its stone age right now, and that was us not very long ago. Yeah, right, they're using tools, they're creating tools, they're problem solving like. This is an animal that's progressing really rapidly. Yeah, I come back to wheat. Yeah, I think that wheat could make an argument if it could talk. That wheat has domesticated humans more so than humans domesticated wheat. It is one of the most successful plant species in the world because humans became dependent upon wheat. So now, now, everywhere that we are, so is wheat. Yep.
Speaker 1:Fascinating, fascinating. But instead of us being open to all of the breeds of dogs, we've really narrowed it down to just a few sort of workhorse varieties of wheat, sure varieties of wheat. I would encourage people to branch out every now and then. It's also hard. You go to the supermarket and you don't have this vast array of things anymore. You have two or three.
Speaker 2:Why is flour packaged in the least convenient way?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:I feel like we need to do better than an ultra-thin paper bag that's definitely going to fail before you're done with that flour.
Speaker 1:Yeah, open it outside, I don't know. Yeah, you'll make a mess.
Speaker 2:That's part of the fun. Okay, so pizza dough, pizza dough, we've got flour. You like to mix and match a little bit. How important is the quality of the water?
Speaker 1:I think, a myth. Not nerdy enough to know all of the ins and outs. I'm sure there's some properties in certain waters that do certain things in breads, but I would say for the most part, uh, it doesn't matter. Yeah, and that includes the like new york water, bagel pizza thing. Um, yeah, there's been a, a few, a few studies and a few articles that are like, actually I don.
Speaker 1:I don't think any of that's true, maybe a little bit, but not going to affect too much. Yeast, yeast, yeah, and endless rabbit hole there. So, big fan of sourdough and naturally leavened things. Kind of feels like you're just making magic in your kitchen from the air, which is pretty cool, easily digestible. I think you can kind of find a lot more really delicious flavors there, but it's a lot more work, yeah, um so, uh, anyone who made sourdough bread during COVID knows that like, yeah, it's a you gotta, you gotta care and tend and do your stretch and folds. And that's why I had, like people driving around with loaves of bread in their car going to pick up their kids from soccer so they could hit their timers. Yeah, and then, but yeah, so either sourdough or some sort of commercial leavening. Lots of different options there too, but honestly I usually lean towards the sourdough and naturally leavened thing. But there's really great pizza makers using kind of the whole spectrum of things.
Speaker 2:Sourdough is something that occurs all over the world, but the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, uh, that's something that we can kind of hang our hat on. Like sourdough is, is is one of our foods that I think that we can claim and there there aren't a ton of them that we can, but I think sourdough is definitely one of them does some interesting things. Uh, tends to lower the glycemic index of your entire meal, which acts differently from other bread. Lactobacillus, which is one of the things that makes sourdough naturally leaven, occurs in breast milk.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, right. This is something that this is a bacillus that is so important that if babies don't have it, they die. Yeah Right, it's wild. So it's an interesting part of being a human and then to be able to use that in in bread later on in life.
Speaker 1:Pretty interesting, pretty cool, very interesting, yeah, later on in life. Pretty interesting, pretty cool, very interesting, yeah, and I think it, uh, from like a cook's perspective, yeah, it can be one of those like lifelong things of where, like you never win so sure, you're always trying to, uh, yeah, tweak, improve, or you do everything right and it just goes wrong. We had several days like that at our shop where it was like, well, that just sucks today and I don't know why. Or it's perfect today and I don't know why either.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a lot of fuss that gets made about old sourdough starters that have been around for a long time. Yeah, and I have a little for a long time. Yeah, and I have a little bit of a problem with that, even though there are generational sourdoughs in my family that are very old. Yeah, but a sourdough is constantly evolving because it's always getting whatever yeast and bacteria are in the air and it's changing. It's changing with the current conditions that you're in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and whatever you just fed it.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Um. Yeah. I'm not sure how much similar to the water. I'm not sure how much validity there is to this has been in my family for 200 years, other than the fact that, wow, that's really cool, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:You were able to span generations of like, consistently loving and caring for this organism that fed you back. That's a really amazing thing. That said, I don't know if I put as high of a food value on old sourdough starters as some people do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, neither do I, but I'm very happy for them because I kill them all the time.
Speaker 2:Well, you can just make a new one.
Speaker 1:You can just make a new one I usually borrow them from a buddy and uh, yeah, but uh, yeah, good on you yeah, yeah. So we got. Uh, what else goes in there? A little bit of salt, maybe a lot of bit of salt, probably more than Um, usually in like the two and a half to 3% range, which is like sausage salt, um. So, yeah, salt, and then oil or some sort of fat typically. Are you nerdy about salt?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, Um cause we're not talking about table salt.
Speaker 1:No, I uh kosher. Yeah, diamond crystal kosher.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm a huge fan of kosher salt yeah, definitely kosher. I usually stay away from, like iodized table salts or the fine stuff yeah, um, morton's kosher salt is what I use the most for for meat and dry aging and all that goofy stuff that I do yeah, morton's is good.
Speaker 1:It's got huge flakes huge, yeah, they're monsters. So for for steaks and grilling and smoking and pretty fun, because you get just these like big crunchy salty bites uh oil, salt water we can't just gloss over oil um yeah, so that can kind of span into like also uh butter, um so just sort of fats in general do you use butter in pizza dough Pizza Hut yeah, one of like the OG pan pizzas from Pizza Hut is a butter crust. Really yeah, they're very good, nobody out pizzas the Hut.
Speaker 2:Nobody out pizzas the.
Speaker 1:Hut Butter crusts are kind of catching on a little bit and like the the pizza trendy worlds um, but yeah, typically olive oil um, a lot of times it's like cheap canola olive oil blends that you'll find in pizzerias, just because they're more affordable and you use a lot, uh, but yeah, same also a lot, so can kind of range from like the two to six percent range of like your total flour weight. So sometimes it's a lot of oil, a lot of oil a lot of salt, a lot of oil, a lot of salt.
Speaker 1:What else goes in pizza dough? For me, that's. That's what I stick to flour, yeast, salt, oil, water now your.
Speaker 2:Your restaurant was wood fired, yep, and you were using local wood, which, uh, it probably isn't that traditional to use conifers for, um, for wood fired pizza, I wouldn't think um, I, where am I wrong?
Speaker 1:yeah, definitely not, and we went away from that real quick because it didn't work. Just Just too much creosote. Too much creosote, also spitting, you'll get a crackle and it'll just fire an ember onto somebody's pizza and just temps. Hardwoods just burn, so hot. Coal retention Hardwoods are just the tool. There's more BTUs in there, more calories, more calories, use less, burns hotter. All the wins. Hardwoods are just the tool. So there's more btus in there, more calories, more calories, use less um burns hotter. Yeah, all the all the winds. So we ended up, um getting oak from somewhere in a supplier in seattle that, uh, people shipped to the county for us. Nice, yeah, it was not this, uh, not ideal. It was like, well, where do you get your wood? It's like, well, uh, we're trying. Uh, yeah, I know anyone who's got some hardwoods like, well, there's a guy with an apple tree in him.
Speaker 1:now, if you want to work all day for a couple branches, right uh, so that ended up being pretty tricky actually, but, um, yeah, found something that ended up working how hot did you like to get that? Yeah, we baked in like the 730 750 range so what's a home cook to do?
Speaker 2:because we can't get our ovens that hot, we can't get a grill that hot yeah, pizza stones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a couple of them.
Speaker 2:Uh, usually helps with heat and heat retention okay, so you've just got a little bit more thermal inertia going through that ceramic.
Speaker 1:Yep and as hot as it can go.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you can still make some pretty good pizza. But yeah, restaurants have the tools Right. That's why it's better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you're 700 degrees plus, how long does it take once you throw that pizza in there?
Speaker 1:Those took about two minutes. Yeah yeah, when I'm at now we're at like the 575 range, which is honestly pretty close to a home oven. And they take about six minutes.
Speaker 2:Really that's a pretty significant difference. For, yeah, that's interesting. Do you wish it could get hotter? Yeah, yeah, working on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. Do you wish it could get hotter? Yeah, yeah, working on it.
Speaker 2:Trying Add some more fuego.
Speaker 1:Trying. Yeah, need a different tool, but this one's working out great. I think you're making great pizza. Thanks, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Trying. Yeah. Okay, I think sauce is important.
Speaker 1:It is, but it's only in the 10%. 10%. It's only in that 10% 90's the dough. See, it's a deal breaker for me. Yeah, I mean, it's all important.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I could have good sauce on a saltine cracker rather than crappy sauce on a beautiful Ross Eppinger wood-fired pizza crust.
Speaker 1:Sure, what's crappy sauce to you? Oh gosh, I don't know.
Speaker 2:That's complicated. Yeah, it's just icky, like ketchup, I guess. Yeah, maybe too sweet. Then, yeah, maybe too sweet or just lacking complexity. Yeah, I think sauce does something interesting there. Yeah, and then is it like soaking down into that dough or gets soggy. Yeah, that's not great.
Speaker 1:That's not great. Nobody likes that. Cheese is important. Cheese is important. I mean it is all important. But if you have all of these other good things on top of shitty pizza dough, can I cuss on?
Speaker 2:you? Yeah, you just got to know that Grandma Jeannie is listening, okay.
Speaker 1:Sorry, grandma. Yeah, if you have all these other things on top of bad pizza dough, it doesn't matter. But yeah, it's all important and that's why it's fun. All the little details add up and there's like all the nuance adds up. You could do everything correctly and underbake it, but if it's just a little underbaked then it's not crispy or like it's all floppy, or the crust doesn't taste very good or this or that. So, yeah, it's all of the nuances, all the work, all the little little little things, and they all culminate to to just a little simple pizza. But for whatever reason, yeah, it got me and I dove deep Cupped or flat pepperoni oh, I like both, but truly nothing makes me happier than a bunch of tiny little cupped pepperoni. It just sparks joy. It's like, how do you not like it? They're awesome, uh, but I still like the og flat ones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, then are they do? I don't understand because I haven't deep dove this how to make cupped pepperoni.
Speaker 1:I imagine it's the sausage casing a lot of it has to do in the casing. Um, yeah, I'm honestly not quite sure. I'm sure moisture contents in there is probably one, just like how it reacts with the heat and what it does. Uh, the size of it, I'm sure too. But yeah, they've really engineered the sorry grandma. They've really engineered the shit out of pepperoni you can buy, like this one is this size, lays flat. This one is this size and Reacts this way in an oven at these temperatures. This, yeah, full, full food engineering there. Yeah, yeah, options, lots of options fascinating stuff really is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what, what we've done with food and Created is like pretty, I Pretty wild. There's very, very smart people putting a lot of time and energy into making things just the way you want them.
Speaker 2:What's the frontier of food right now, or cooking?
Speaker 1:Yeah, frontier meaning what?
Speaker 2:What's the leading edge? What's the wild place that we're just starting to explore?
Speaker 1:I don't know, but I hope, I mean, you get all these like farm to table taglines and you get all of these God fresh, fresh, like, just all these like buzzwords, right. Um, I just really hope it comes. I hope all of that trickles down to just, uh, people, yeah, trying something new, caring, putting like a little more oh what if I try this? Into their cooking I mean chefs in creative restaurants and that will sort of always be pushing this into like new territories, right, the molecular gastronomy phase like changed everything. That was really interesting, super interesting. Uh, changed food forever, um and all. And we see that trickle down in, like from like corner bistros to fast food, which is pretty wild.
Speaker 2:Um, and let's let's talk about what that is for a little bit. My understanding is that it was a study of of how the chemistry of that food is actually making people feel. Is that a fair assessment?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think more so like introducing chemistry into what we can do with food, which which industrial food makers who had already been doing. But uh, we were sort of blind to it in a sense and then took it to like, um, I don't know, just a more general level, um, but yeah, now you see, like foams and IS those like CO2 canisters and uh, in every restaurant. You know, um, yeah, encapsulating something in a gel or sphere of uh. To me, that I was, I'm very rooted in like what's real for food. So that's why I like working with ranchers, farmers Like I. It's very tangible for me.
Speaker 1:I saw this come out of the ground from people who worked hard. Now I get to cook it and serve it to restaurants or serve it to customers. But that to me is like, yeah, doesn't follow any of those like linear processes, but yeah, the effect that it has on just sort of like the food and food culture in general is pretty, pretty vast. I would love to see it go in some, I don't know. Just I hope I hope those chefs and I hope chefs in general realize that they do have that sort of power, like that influence, um, and I don't know, try to use that in good ways. Influence to do what Uh? Influence to influence people's behavior and eating and, um, I don don't know. I hope that after somebody was like man I never had asparagus on a pizza before they go buy a bunch of asparagus and cook it at home that's that sort of influence yeah, um, yeah, just sort of uh kind of continuing the education about food.
Speaker 1:Um, but chefs do really play a, I think, a pretty pivotal role in that of sort of continuing the education about food. But chefs do really play, I think, a pretty pivotal role in that of sort of like changing that landscape, which is a good amount of power, so use it for good. What's the best food city in America? Oh, great question, probably New York. I mean definitely New York. I mean definitely New York. But you, I just kind of love being surprised anywhere you go. I lived on the East coast for a little while. Uh, new Haven, connecticut's, just got this like bonkers little super specialized pizza scene. I just think stuff like that is so fun. Like I don't know, rip through the south and have some barbecue and be like where am I supposed to go, and you open a back door and there's a guy and a smoker and paper plates and the place is a mess and that just like blows your lights off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those, those are the things that I like the most. But if I had 72 hours to romp around anywhere and just eat till I threw up New York's the way.
Speaker 2:I'm going New Orleans. Yeah, I can't get enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Cajun bug really bit you Dude.
Speaker 2:It did I know Because it was the first time that I'd ever been able to enjoy spicy food. I know I still don't understand. I don't either, I don't either.
Speaker 1:Because it's typically just like cayennes and like powdered peppers in Cajun foods, yeah, which I'm sure you've had a million times in your life and said I don't like that Right. But for whatever reason, like with everything else or I don't know, maybe it was circumstantial, could be.
Speaker 2:I think, looking back on it, it's probably the amount of fat that's in those dishes. Yeah, and using fat to carry that heat instead of an acid, yep, you know, that might be it, but I don't know. What I do know is it was just a tremendous eating experience. That's cool and it was so fun. Man, it's so fun and that's definitely a place that has has DNA in their food, like, yeah, without mayonnaise or with less mayonnaise.
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah, so much DNA. Um, yeah, like real, real culture and like real real, real culture and like real, yeah, real dna.
Speaker 2:Yeah, besides sourdough, what do you feel like are some foods that you know, our, our region, can claim as their own uh fruit do great with yeah like the, the fruit loop on mount hood and apples and yeah, we're great at cherries, great cherries, pears
Speaker 1:yeah, um, that's definitely a fun one in the pacific northwest. Uh, fish and salmon, the Oregon coast. Sadly, lots of it flies to Japan because they know better than us, I think. But yeah, really, really cool things to eat out of the ocean in Oregon. Yeah, it's definitely an annual trip for for us. Dungeness crab yeah, I guess there was, yeah, a meal forever the rest of my life. Uh, dungies, uh, yeah, steamed dungeness crab and a cold beer. That's up there for sure.
Speaker 2:Steamed, yeah, steamed see I, I'm team boiled in seawater.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see that for sure. Yeah, yeah, I think steaming can be in salty water or with salty water.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Can be a little gentle yeah.
Speaker 2:A little more gentle, sure, a little more precise probably.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but same end result similar end result.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just better.
Speaker 1:Have you ever been to Kelly's Brighton Marina?
Speaker 2:Uh-uh, where's that On the?
Speaker 1:Oregon coast. I'll have to forget.
Speaker 2:I just know how to get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, near Tillamook, okay, but within like a I don't know 25.
Speaker 2:Minute drive, or so yeah, northern coast somewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but they, from what I can tell, they have pumps that pump seawater into a big kettle. Um, you show up and you pick a live crab, dunk it into the kettle for too long, but still fine. Um, and then, yeah, they've got like a little shop where you can go get a lemon and microwave your butter and and then just sit outside and crack open a crab and is, uh, it's a joy. Yeah, that's a real good one.
Speaker 2:That sounds amazing yeah.
Speaker 1:It's pretty honky tonk uh and a really wily place. One of those, yeah, backdoor situations would be like are you sure I was supposed to come here?
Speaker 2:um, yeah, but it's a fun one dungies are kind of a cool, cool crab. There's a lot of meat in them. Yep, uh, they're. They're pretty slow. Uh, they're relatively easy to handle, yeah, from the fishing standpoint, you know, up until it's getting in hot water. When I lived in north carolina I was right on the right on the salt so I could throw crab pots out and literally have them tied up to cleats in my yard. And whenever I had buddies come out from Oregon, it was a fun game for me to catch some crabs and then have them, help me grab them and stuff, because those blue crabs are ninjas. They are so fast, they are so fast, they're so strong and they're like a leopard. They'll just get you 17 times before you know what's happening. Right, and inevitably, the Oregon guys are used to grabbing big, slow dungies and reach out to them and grab a ninja blue crab like ta-ta-ta yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're a delicious crab. I was actually just talking with hannah mabbitt about this the other day, about ranking the, you know, the crabs of north america, I think stone claw, stone crab claw, you know as far as a bite is pretty special. King crab, of course, incredible. Uh. Blue crabs are phenomenal, dungies are great. Snow crab good yeah. Snow bear dies good.
Speaker 1:Um, but it's probably not going to be at the top of anybody's list yeah, there's some other, like lesser known ones in oregon that are pretty cool rock crabs, uh, that like really sort of they look like little bulldozers. Yeah, um, yeah, yeah, pretty, uh, pretty special to I don't know live near the ocean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Even though we're far, it's like, still accessible.
Speaker 2:Right, we can get there in a day.
Speaker 1:We can get there in a day. It's a bad day, but you can still get there. It can be done, can be done, and then we get to drive back home, and that's the best part. And then we get to drive back home, and that's the best part man, you grew up in Alaska playing hockey. Yeah, it doesn't seem like a natural progression to becoming a reluctantly celebrated chef in Oregon. Reluctant, yeah, reluctantly, because you are celebrated.
Speaker 2:People love you. They love the food that you produce. You're in're in high demand thanks you can go wherever you want, and I think that that that says this speaks volume to like who you are as a person and in your methods and all that r&d and caring about every aspect of the game. Right, you care about your business and your employees and your customer and the sourcing of your food. Like you're, you're exactly the type of chef that that should be celebrated, in my opinion, whether you like that or not.
Speaker 1:I don't but thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so how did that happen?
Speaker 1:Yeah, born and raised at the end of a valley, at the end of a road, in a place that looked pretty similar to here, my dad came out to visit when we first moved here. He was like what in the world you moved home?
Speaker 2:Just somewhere different.
Speaker 1:To the.
Speaker 2:Alaska of Oregon, yeah, home just somewhere different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Alaska, yeah, and yeah, yeah, just grew up in a really rugged place, like bears ripped apart our chicken coop and moose eating your crab apples out of your yard and throwing rocks at him and really, really long, very cold winters and very dark um, yeah, skating on frozen ponds and just like being outside.
Speaker 1:So I think that definitely sparked like a love of outside and I don't know things that grow yeah um, yeah, definitely, uh, a love of hockey for sure, definitely dove deep into that for a long time and then I think the the punishment that comes with hockey is maybe good training for restaurants sometimes. Uh, yeah, they're very similar sports and cooking professionally, I think. Uh, so a lot of people I've met through the years was like oh yeah, well, I used to race bikes or, um, yeah, almost went pro with volleyball, or you just sort of attract this group of people who thinks really quickly, works really hard.
Speaker 2:I was willing to accept and identify a failure and try again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the love of practice. I think I would just, yeah, stand outside and shoot, and shoot, and shoot, and shoot, and shoot until it felt easier, yeah, yeah. So I think that definitely instilled a well, that burger wasn't right, so make another one Right, do it again until it is right, do it again until it is right.
Speaker 2:And within that mentality, people who are successful, they go, and not until they can hit, but they go until they don't miss, yeah, and once they're at that stage, it's like all right, now we'll take this skill and we'll put it into use, yep, but not until then.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, it's a bit obsessive, for sure, but I think, yeah, hockey, I think, was pretty paramount and kind of creating that in my brain anyway. Yeah, but I think Alaska sort of just sparked like the awe of the big outdoors, you know, sparked like the the awe of the big outdoors, you know. Um, and then my dad, he was like a backcountry skier, hippie, climber, race sailboats, um, so it was always about like being outside and appreciating it. He wasn't a hunter, like taught myself how to fish. We weren't fishing a few times, but that was never like his focus up there. I think it was kind of surprising to some people like well, he moved to county and like like I don't know how to hunt actually, uh, from alaska, are you kidding me? Um, but yeah, that was just never the focus. It was just about going outside and going on a ski and, um, yeah, just being outdoors and appreciating that.
Speaker 1:So, uh, yeah that definitely carried into my 20s and just was like your backcountry rock climber guy for a little while. And then, yeah, found kitchens and kind of was like oh man, there's other people who like this psycho, fast-paced, really hot, sharp knife thing Great, I want to be their friend.
Speaker 2:How do you, as a gentle person, deal with some of the abuses that occur in kitchens as you're coming up through it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, a friend of mine used the phrase shut up in color recently, which is really not great, but I think I'm good at that, yeah, when I need to be, and then when I got old enough to manage own teams and got put in a position of leadership, that's just like a vow to try to change the culture of all of those things. Like you can say the words and not be a dick, yeah, and you can treat people with respect and be firm about your expectations. Um, yeah, and mostly like the first thing I say to new hires often is hey, just want you to know. We'll have a lot of conversations about that, feel like a critique, or this needs to improve or that's not correct, or we do that this way here, but just want you to know that that's never personal, it's just. It's not about you actually at all.
Speaker 1:It's, uh, it's always about the food, always about the end result, always about the product going out. Um, and I wish there was more of that in kitchens and kitchen culture, yeah, not to say that a couple, uh a couple a-holes ruined it, but like a lot of a-holes ruined it but like a lot of a-holes ruined it, it just became this sort of like machismo, like ego war, and I think, yeah, definitely a vow of mine to try to shift that culture a little bit back into something a little more respectful I studied literature and writing in college, and a huge part of that is getting critiques from your peers and, uh, something that I that I really clearly remember from a dear friend of mine, uh, dr alan welting, a professor.
Speaker 2:Uh, he said that critiques always feel personal and that they're never personal. Yeah, and that both of those things, while at odds with each other, will continue to be true, and as soon as you can believe that in your heart, then you start to love those criticisms.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:Because it is a great compliment for somebody to give you a criticism, because it's an opportunity to improve at something that you clearly could not see yourself. Yep, right, and what a tremendous gift that is if you can accept it. But you have to get over. That feeling of this feels personal. This feels like an attack against me. I put everything I had into this. This was my very best effort, right, and, and it still was wrong.
Speaker 2:It's like that's okay, because now this person who loves you enough that they're willing to take the risk of hurting your feelings, even though that's not how you should be receiving it, they're saying you can make it even better if you do this like that is awesome. To this day, if I show somebody anything and ask for criticism and they come back and they go it's good, I liked it. Um, I feel insulted by that, yeah, um, and I I shouldn't and it's not like feeling insulted in a way that deeply upsets me or anything, but I would much rather that they find something wrong with it, because I can find something wrong with everything, right, I can, I can always look at something and find a way to improve it. And if, if somebody isn't showing me that same, that same level of analysis, then I feel like they didn't look closely and they don't care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hear that, but also maybe it was good and you just need to cool it.
Speaker 2:There is such a thing as good enough. Yeah, there really is such a thing as good enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I I actually kind of struggle with it because I find myself always being in that mindset of like, improve, improve, improve, improve, tweak, tweak, tweak, improve, improve, because that's been the job for a long time. But I do think it's also, like with everything you need a balance. Like it was really hard for me to just I sure for a lot of chefs to just go out and eat, because you just always have that brain on. So it's always like well, that or that, or that, or that or that, or like home-cooked meals or something.
Speaker 1:it's like not enough salt or this or that, just like shut up and go sit down and enjoy your friend's company, you know it's like you can pick it apart if you want to, but, uh, knowing when to turn that off, I think is, like, equally as valuable as like when the switch is on, because then now we're just stuck with, like this review culture too and this like criticism culture.
Speaker 2:Which can be really unhealthy as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because it can blind you to everything that's good.
Speaker 1:Totally. When you're in the mode and you're in that moment and the goal of that moment is to improve, critique like, yeah, flip that, switch on and dive deep, um, but also sometimes just shut up and eat the under seasoned potatoes and be really happy Somebody cooked for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, be grateful that you can have potatoes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, be grateful that you can have potatoes yeah, be grateful, you can have potatoes. So finding that balance, I think, is important for anyone working in restaurants. Otherwise you're just a snob.
Speaker 2:Two more questions. Yes, sir, what's the best cocktail to order? With a pepperoni pizza.
Speaker 1:Great question, pizza, great question. I would go old-fashioned, probably um, for no other reason than that sounds nice. To me it's a great cocktail, great cocktail, yeah um yeah, purely personal preferences, like I would eat a pepperoni pizza in an old fashioned right now.
Speaker 2:Okay, last question when can people enjoy your food today?
Speaker 1:Uh, Emcro Lost Dean, Oregon, Okay, or uh, come over to my house and I'll make you dinner.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we're going to have, you know know, around, or over a million tourists that will drive past mcrow this summer, yep, and I hope that, uh, the correct number of them.
Speaker 1:Stop in and get a pizza, just enough just enough, smash burger yeah or smash burger, we, we, yeah, I think about it a lot, yeah, so, yeah, hope you like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I'm confident that they will, if they don't.
Speaker 1:Portland's the other way. Keep driving, just keep on driving.
Speaker 2:All right, Thanks brother.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you. Thanks for having me, man.
Speaker 2:I just want to take a second and thank everyone who's written a review, who has sent mail, who's sent emails, who's sent messages. Your support is incredible and I also love running into you at trade shows and events and just out on the hillside when we're hunting. I think that that's fantastic. I hope you guys keep adventuring as hard and as often as you can. Art for the Six Ranch Podcast was created by John Chatelain and was digitized by Celia Harlander. Original music was written and performed by Justin Hay, and the Six Ranch Podcast is now produced by Six Ranch Media. Thank you all so much for your continued support of the show and I look forward to next week when we can bring you a brand new episode.