Chef Renee Ragin

Episode 4 - Chef Renee Ragin is a trained chef that now describes herself as a Tubular Artist. Renee shares stories from her life about playing basketball at 5 foot 3… and a half… how the COVID shutdown has led to some exciting new ventures and she also tells a story about her step mom meeting a particularly handsome podcasting police officer…

www.whatcanyoutellme.com
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Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/kite_string_cantina
#KiteFoodClub

Grew up in Round Lake IL
Played basketball in high school
Attended Northwestern University then went to Kendall College for culinary school.
Got an internship with Frontera and Rick Bayless which led to a 7 year job at Frontera.
Spent two years with Local Foods, a wholesale distributor of locally grown foods produced in the Midwest.
Did culinary marketing with Olson Communications.
In March 2018 she and husband Andrew opened Kite String Cantina at Addison and Wolcott in Chicago serving taquitos and tequila.
If you are interested in a weekly box of foods
Kite Food Club - email Renee - info@kitestringcantina.com
$60/week via Venmo pickups on Friday
Banhez Mezcal - Oaxaca Mexico
Mary Mac Karaoke https://www.marymackaraoke.com/
The F#&*ett Show - Celebrity Rehab
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOPnID5_rvE
Favorite band: Failure - Fantastic planet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2wHNQsJRvE&list=PLD011FC12921C5A41
Jellyfish - Spilt Milk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knCZBVxMtyg&list=PLEvr99j7ruPz33UJBK0jj2B6wQZcVkHbI

Transcript

spk_0:   0:02
Welcome, everybody. What did you tell me? The podcast today. I talked to remain Reagan trained chef that now describes herself as a tubular artist. Rene shares stories from real life about playing basketball at five foot three and 1/2. How the Kobe shutdown has led to some exciting new ventures. And she also tells the story about her step Mom needing a particularly handsome podcasting. Police officer. Ladies and gentlemen, Renee Reagan. Renee, what can you tell me about being you?

spk_1:   0:30
Oh, my gosh, It's exhausting.

spk_0:   0:32
I'm glad to hear that.

spk_1:   0:36
You want me to start at the beginning?

spk_0:   0:38
You start where you want to, but beginnings are great.

spk_1:   0:40
Okay, Where'd you begin? So I began in Ah, Round Lake Beach, which is Ah, suburb of Chicago. Um, almost a sw far north is Wisconsin, but not quite over the border.

spk_0:   0:51
Actually, on a beach.

spk_1:   0:52
It there is a beach there somewhere. But it was pretty gross. We never you know, we never once swimming

spk_0:   0:59
catch up. You're not like a person who absolutely feels you're a beach lover because of round Lake Beach. No. Okay, not

spk_1:   1:08
for other reasons.

spk_0:   1:09
Okay. Fantastic.

spk_1:   1:10
Yeah. So started there. Ah, very close to Great America and Gurney Mills, where I spent a lot of my childhood

spk_0:   1:18
as we all did. We had the season pass when we were kids to the Great America in California.

spk_1:   1:23
Oh, yeah.

spk_0:   1:23
Pretty exciting.

spk_1:   1:24
Yeah, that's a fun one. I was there once.

spk_0:   1:26
I think my mom kind of just used it as, like, a It's like it was $30 for a year season pass or whatever if you brought in a coupon from a Pepsi can or something. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure it was an easy baby sitting for her. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So close to Gurney.

spk_1:   1:44
Yes. Yes. So we spent a lot of time. Ah, you know, being Mallrats, his kids. So,

spk_0:   1:50
yes. What was your style? My style. Yeah. Like when you were a morrow. I mean,

spk_1:   1:55
you know, I was sort of like skater stoner looking kid. You don't know. As a kid, I really wanted to smoke pot, but didn't it Didn't agree with me, so Yeah, I kind of had that kind of vibe.

spk_0:   2:09
Cool.

spk_1:   2:10
Yeah, I was really into bands. I have an older brother who's super into music and plays and bands, and, uh

spk_0:   2:18
what kind of

spk_1:   2:18
guy he was in stabbing westward, which was like an industrial band in the nineties who recently got back together. So it's fun. I got to see him on stage again.

spk_0:   2:28
Industrial kind of nine inch nails for those who don't. Okay,

spk_1:   2:31
exactly. Yeah, very similar toe, nine inch nails. So I did you as a kid. I spent He was sort of my musical inspiration. So I knew all these like, really cool bands. You know, like Joe Box and failure and stuff. When I was a teenager, I was I

spk_0:   2:49
don't know what those are. Actually the first time somebody asked me if I knew who the red Hot Chili Peppers were, They said, quote, Do you like red hot chili Peppers? And I answered, Yes, on my pizza on. I was, like, 12. So that's still probably my level and cool. That's what it comes to music.

spk_1:   3:05
I think that's very super cool that you didn't know who they

spk_0:   3:08
were. I don't know if this would

spk_1:   3:09
have more respect for you.

spk_0:   3:10
Thank you. Well, and this was legitimately when they were starting out. So I guess it wasn't a little a little older than you. I believe just slightly. Just slightly. They're calling you old. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. How old are you, by the way?

spk_1:   3:22
I am 37.

spk_0:   3:25
Oh, not that much younger than me. 5.5 years, maybe six. I'm turning 43 in a few weeks, so I'm gonna have a covert birthday.

spk_1:   3:35
Oh, that's exciting. A super

spk_0:   3:38
cool. Okay, so, uh, so round Lake Beach, Great America. And then did you do any theater play? Any sports? What was high school like?

spk_1:   3:46
Oh, I was very into basketball, Okay? And I was very bad at it.

spk_0:   3:51
Well, you're what? All of 5556 Generous.

spk_1:   3:57
I am 54 and Andrew mixed my husband. Andrew makes fun of me because I'm technically 5 3.5 but amazing. Say that I'm five for sure, because yeah, I feel a lot taller, but yeah, it was super into basketball. Started playing, and I think seventh grade and got really into it. All my friends played. So I was on a traveling team during the summers, and I just I played a lot. I couldn't I couldn't shoot. I was not very skilled, but I always got the awards for most heart speared. Yeah, yeah, spirit and heart because I would, you know, throw myself all over the place to try and, like, steal the ball, get things done. But, uh, my dad always laughs because he, you know, my parents were always at the games and he would always, like, cringe when I was shooting a free throw it. If someone filed, may he be like, Oh, no. Here we go.

spk_0:   4:54
Uh, I I wasn't very good at sports myself. Not a big surprise. Or maybe it is, I don't know, pretty athletic. I mean, I'm athletic movement wise, but organized sports weren't my thing. I definitely was the kid picking flowers in the outfield when I was in baseball. Oh, yeah? Yeah. And then I ultimately realized it was a lot easier to be like the goalie or the catcher. So, yeah, baseball ended up being the catcher. Soccer. I played goalie for awhile. This wasn't like junior high. We're not talking any high level sports. Um, then I played water polo in high school for one year, and I was also the goalie cause I said to the coach on day one, maybe after tryouts Hey, I don't actually like swimming that much. And she first asked me, Why on earth did you join a water polo team? Then I said, Well, I guess we're supposed to play a sport, but, um, I actually really enjoyed being a goalie. It was fun. Except for the whole having a really hard ball thrown in your face from, like, six feet away. That was not fun.

spk_1:   5:56
Yeah, that doesn't sound like fun.

spk_0:   5:58
Yeah,

spk_1:   5:58
I feel like the position of goalie is a very emotional one. I mean, you just have people you know, in any sport, whipping something at you in the entire game. And it's just so much focus is on you and whether or not you can stop that thing.

spk_0:   6:12
Yeah. And you have those brief moments of excitement, and then the rest of it is you're watching the game happened, praying it doesn't come your way. Yeah. Okay. So basketball cool and clearly you didn't get a college scholarship for basketball.

spk_1:   6:27
Um, you know, No, I got a lot of offers a

spk_0:   6:31
couple of junior colleges to lose. Okay. All right. So high school and then what'd you do after high school

spk_1:   6:39
after high school. Well, I did travel to Australia, which was a very fun thing that I did for about three weeks.

spk_0:   6:46
That's exciting

spk_1:   6:47
with other students. That was

spk_0:   6:48
organized trip or just

spk_1:   6:50
a friend. It was an organized trip. It was called like a student. Ambassadorship was a program, but it was amazing. It was a lot of kids from surrounding high schools that I didn't even know. Ah, one from my high school. And, uh, it was a blessed.

spk_0:   7:05
That's awesome. Yeah, I love travelling so much.

spk_1:   7:08
Yeah, me too.

spk_0:   7:09
Big fan. Yeah, a little hard right now, but

spk_1:   7:11
a little bit. Yeah, well, we'll get back to it at some point.

spk_0:   7:14
I'm looking forward to it.

spk_1:   7:16
I'm hoping there's a lot more train and boat travel in the future because who knows what's gonna happen to the airline and is

spk_0:   7:22
this is the one I don't even want to call it. Good thing about what's going on right now, but I feel like people are getting back in touch with life. Ah, 100 years ago, except for the whole having dinner and drinks with your friends via Zoom just did with my family last night in California. Other than that though you're reading a lot of books, you're spending time at home. I'm currently working on a cross stitch needle point project. Very excited about using, yes, going

spk_1:   7:49
to see it,

spk_0:   7:49
taking care of me animals. And then after your time in Australia what? Where

spk_1:   7:55
I I went to college, I went to Northwestern University

spk_0:   8:01
in Evanston,

spk_1:   8:02
been Evanston. Had no idea what I wanted to dio. But I started out in psychology and ended up doing sociology and legal studies.

spk_0:   8:11
And what was your goal with that?

spk_1:   8:14
Well, I was going to go to law school. Uh, on that didn't happen, obviously. So I I was sitting down to write my essays to law schools. Start the application process, and I kind of just was sitting there. I'm thinking about what am I passionate about? Why do I want to go to law school and then sent me into a spiral of Do I really want to go to law school? Do I want to do something else? And I had gotten into cooking a lot recently. Just standard home cooks stuff, you know, But I had really taken to it, and I just kind of started exploring what culinary school would be like and decided to go for it. And my rationale was worse. Case scenario, we at least get a good cook in our household for our lives, which I think is a great thing to have todo cook for yourselves and your family. So Ah, that was my worst case scenario on DA. It was only a 15 month program for me because I already had my bachelor's degree, so I didn't know

spk_0:   9:16
that was a thing.

spk_1:   9:18
Yeah, they have. Ah, an accelerated program at Kendall's. So you can kind of

spk_0:   9:22
college in Chicago?

spk_1:   9:23
Yeah. Yeah, Or they did. I don't That school has changed a lot, and I think it's under new ownership now. But they had an accelerated program s so I didn't have to take basic classes or anything like that.

spk_0:   9:33
And what years were you there?

spk_1:   9:34
2000 five or six.

spk_0:   9:37
Okay, so I got a degree in human nutrition from you. I see. I actually am a was not, am, but I am a registered dietitian, which is what I was. But part of that we took food science classes, and it was one of the most fun things we did there, and it was legitimately what you probably had to do. A lot of which is, here's how you're gonna make an egg in five different ways and you're going to see how it changes the effect. Ah, on the egg of what happens with higher heat, less heat acids, et cetera, et cetera. I'm certainly not gonna explain to you, but this is for the people out there listening. And it was by far one of the most fun classes I had and very seriously made me go. You know, maybe I should just go toe cooking school next. So definitely something I've thought about as well.

spk_1:   10:20
Yeah, it is. I mean, I I learned a lot in a very short amount of time. I want one of my favorite stories from culinary school was Ah, we had this Austrian chef who was known for being really, really tough, but he was also it was kind of a fake tough. He was very funny and sarcastic. You always talk about the Austrian Navy, how he had been part of it, which was funny because their landlocked So he he was known for being really tough, and so I didn't really know him very well yet. And so we had sort of a preliminary test so he could gauge where we were. This was an advanced class and so he wanted to see sort of where we were at before we got started. So I one of the tasks we had to do was make fresh noodles and we hadn't been taught to this or anything yet. It was just kind of Here's a recipe, make noodles. And so I have, Ah, German grandmother or she's passed on. But at the time, she was still around who made noodles all the time. Homemade noodles that we're really super thick. That was how she always made him. And they were my favorite thing in the whole world. So when I had to make fresh noodles, I was like, Oh, yeah, I'll just make him like, you know, So that's what I did. And I served them to him, and he literally spit them out. It was like, What are you trying to do, kill me? I was so horrified. I think I might have cried when I went home that day. But then, yeah, how different

spk_0:   11:45
where his noodles substantially

spk_1:   11:47
you know the classic, the thin ones. Yeah, that's what he was looking for. Not my, uh, not my granny's German noodles. Unfortunately,

spk_0:   11:55
so beyond the noodle tragedy of 2007 tracks five. What? What else was what else was culinary school like? Like, what was a typical day in culinary school? I mean, a lot of stuff going on there. I imagine

spk_1:   12:08
it was a lot of hard work. Classes would generally be really long. You know, you'd have, like, a three or four hour session essentially, and some classes would focus specifically on sauce, Some on your knife. Work some. We had a specific fish class, which was one of my favorite classes. Um, e class, weeded charcuterie, all sorts of fun stuff We had to do a an aspic decorating project. Guard Monge a class aspect.

spk_0:   12:37
You just said a bunch of words don't mean anything to me. What is

spk_1:   12:41
asked aspic is like gelatin, okay. And something like 150 years ago, this in traditional French cuisine, they would do these big, elaborate displays with aspic of different colors and shapes. And it was something it was so crazy to me because you didn't eat any of it. It was just like this giant display that you have pickled food. Yeah, it was just It

spk_0:   13:08
was It shapes into animal Lee type. Like what they shape it.

spk_1:   13:12
Designs and stuff. Okay? Yeah, of shapes and patterns. And I don't remember what mine looked like at all. That was one of my least favorite projects.

spk_0:   13:23
That's Ah,

spk_1:   13:25
I was like, I I'm never going to use this.

spk_0:   13:28
Yeah, that's something that doesn't sound like a lot of fun. No, I did read the devil in the White City recently. Yes, and one of the things that book does is brings up the menu, served at a lot of these really fancy state like dinners. Yeah, and it was insane. They said these people and it made me hope that not everybody ate like that back Then, I suppose would be like, if you look at what a president or a head of state would eat on a daily basis, not a daily basis. I think when they're having a fancy dinner is gonna be a little different than dinner at the White House on a random day. Right. That's at least I would assume But who knows? I've never been to the White House, so I don't know. Same. Yeah, well, maybe you'll be cooking there someday. Who knows?

spk_1:   14:10
Maybe I don't know that I would want to

spk_0:   14:12
know. Although what if somebody's like I want Chef Rene, you're my chef. Like, if I become president someday and say, Look, Renee, Andrew, you're gonna be

spk_1:   14:22
I'll do it for you.

spk_0:   14:22
Perfect. Okay, that's it. Matt. Robin, 2030. Is that even a time? 2020? Yeah. Matt Robin. 2030. That's definitely gonna be perfect. So many things. Okay, so aspic not so fun.

spk_1:   14:38
Yes. Yes. But you know

spk_0:   14:40
what was your favorite thing then?

spk_1:   14:42
I really liked making consummate because you make a raft of, like vegetables that's all held together with egg, and you have to simmer it really gently and slowly. If you If you try to rush it and simmer too hard, it breaks apart and you have a cloudy consummate. So it's very rewarding to me when you did all this work and you, you know, did the recipe, right. And you paid attention, and we're taking it nice and slow. It was just this beautiful, like clear broth at the end. So simple, but so satisfying.

spk_0:   15:17
Was this pretty? The whole bone broth friends like you're one of the Ogi is when it comes to broth. That's right. Yes. All right. I see. I see a future here. Some consummate, uh, we could like health. Consummate covert. Consummate. Oh, my God. What a man. I don't know. I just want that whole thing to go away. Uh, okay, So consummates and then school 15 months. Was it a lot of lecture, or was it mostly hands on in class or in legit kitchens?

spk_1:   15:48
Yeah, mostly hands on. We would have a few lecture classes, but yeah, it's mostly hands on work, which I am a big fan of. It was great for me.

spk_0:   15:58
Yeah, You finished Kendall College, And then what happened from there?

spk_1:   16:01
Well, when I was at Kendall, we're required to do an internship, and I was the only weirdo who was interested in doing something outside of working in a restaurant kitchen. So this opportunity popped up. That was also based around Mexican food, which is also the area that I was very interested in, and that was working in the test kitchen at front era

spk_0:   16:26
for Rick Bayless,

spk_1:   16:27
Mister the man himself. Bayliss,

spk_0:   16:30
so amazing. Also a person fun fact in this world who really loves circus.

spk_1:   16:35
He does. I got to see that performance. Basketball?

spk_0:   16:39
Yes. So cast a bell A couple of my friends were in and helped create. And then Rick was actually going to do a fundraiser for my circus festival a couple of years ago on, unfortunately, that died a terrible, tragic death, but yeah, but he was super on board, which was amazing, because, like Rick Bayliss, Mr Topolobampo from Terra Shoko. Probably nine other restaurants. PBS's most famous Mexican restaurant also. Ah, not Mexican in the slightest, but an amazing, amazing Mexican chef. So Yeah. So you work for Rick For how long?

spk_1:   17:12
I did for almost about seven years.

spk_0:   17:14
Oh, my gosh. So you did. So your internship lasted? Yeah. How long

spk_1:   17:18
will the internship, I think was three months, maybe? No. Yeah, it was three months. And so I did half of it in the test kitchen with the food company that makes all the charred salsas and

spk_0:   17:31
Oh, here it is. A

spk_1:   17:32
supermarket. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. Exactly. So I did half there and then I was required to do at least half of it or log a certain number of hours in a restaurant kitchen, too. And so I just did that at Frontier Grill with the prep team. That was It was amazing. I learned so much, I got to make giant vets of Moola. It would. They always laughed at me because I was one of the shortest people in the kitchen and they had a stack, like two or three milk crates for me to be able to reach in with a whisk to get this giant pot of Malays starring. Yes, I thought it was

spk_0:   18:07
gonna tell you, Mike. Terrifying. So against Health code Gross story from my teenage years when I worked in a restaurant, it was a pizza place not to be mentioned by name because I'm sure. Well, I'm at this point. It's very well past the statute of limitations. It's got to be almost 30 years ago that I worked there, but I did a lot of the prep work to make pizza sauces and stuff like that and then chopping vegetables and £50 bags of onions. That was the worst thing I've ever experienced in my life. I still don't really love me some onions because, I mean, I love onions, but shopping? No, thanks. So we had these giant Probably, I don't know, 25 gallon plastic food grade garbage can sort of a thing that we would store the pizza sauce in. And you would, you know, put in 10 gallon jars or whatever of tomato sauce and all the other stuff, and then dump in all of these herbs and spices and stuff. Well, there was kind of a lip at the bottom of this garbage can that's stuck down like two inches, like there's a ring in the middle and then the edges, like a 2 to 3 inch wide like curve that goes all the way around it. And you couldn't really stir down there with anything. So I would just reach my arm in and just, like, stir with my arm. And I don't know if I made that up myself to do that or if they just said, Yeah, you just stick your arm. And so I just Yeah, it's It frightens me to think of what? That's not okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

spk_1:   19:35
Some extra stuff. Probably in an oven. That's us.

spk_0:   19:37
Definitely extra protein. Mostly character in, right? Yes. Anyways, I should know that I'm the nutrition guy. So it was okay. So you had to stand on top of of

spk_1:   19:47
of some milk crates, crates and stir, uh, like I felt like a which stirring a cauldron. Fantastic. I loved it. I loved making sauce. That's one of my favorite things to do on. I got to do a lot of that of

spk_0:   20:00
the loving recipient of much of that sauce. When I come into your fine establishment, we'll talk about it, OK? So you're you're stirring your mole A You're working in the kitchen, and now three months has gone by. And you just what? You keep showing up and you're gonna get me a paycheck now?

spk_1:   20:17
Yeah, pretty much. Okay. Ah, so I really took to the test kitchen work. I really liked it a lot. It was actually it's kind of counterintuitive, but I felt like I could be more creative in that setting because, you know, when you work in a restaurant, you're doing the chef's dishes in and out every single day. Kind of redoing the same stuff until you get to be the chef and then you get to make the dishes yourself, Obviously. So I was just really drawn to the scientific nature and the creativity allowed in a test kitchen environment. And so I just sort of refused to leave, and eventually they hired me full time. So I had a few more months of school. I think one more quarter or something like that after the internship. So I was part time on then he eventually they brought me on full time, and it was an amazing job. I loved it so much. I managed their private label program. So I got to make sauces and things for companies like Williams Sonoma and Crayton Barrel. We would do private label work for them, so you know, they would come to me and say, Hey, we wanna feature this new pressure cooker and we want to do risotto. So can you come up with a sauce that weaken cell door customers that they put in with the rice that makes it delicious?

spk_0:   21:29
Makes me feel like I'm a chef.

spk_1:   21:31
Yeah, exactly. So I got to work on a lot of projects like that and It was really, really fun. I loved it

spk_0:   21:37
now relative to cooking for the instant moment of making a meal that's being served immediately. How different is the kind of work that has to be done into putting together a dish that ends up staying shelf stable in a jar? Or and also kind of How did you learn that? I mean, is that something Rick was able to teach you? Or was that another course on its own? Or just reading or research? Or

spk_1:   22:00
Well, I had a wonderful woman that I worked with their named Jean Marie Brownson. Um, she kind of taught me everything. We We worked with one major manufacturer who made all of the jarred salsa LS and stuff for From Terra. We used them for almost everything. All of our sauce work, for sure. And just between working with her and working with the facility itself that was making them in Texas, I just I learned all the the ins and outs of where the pH level needed to be to bottle something, and we learned as we progressed in the company, we explored all sorts of other option that I got to learn about two going and visiting. Ah, food manufacturing facilities is very awesome. I love it so much. We got to go to ah, huge meat processing facility That does all Sue Veed meets, Okay? And so eventually I at from Terra started working in their restaurants there. Outlets that were in, like, Macy's in the airport. Tortuous run terra front fresco.

spk_0:   23:06
Can I be honest with you? Yeah. Front Air Express at O'Hare is quite possibly one of the greatest things that exists on the planet.

spk_1:   23:14
I agree. I agree.

spk_0:   23:15
The what? I'm gonna massacre the name. But it was the jam and cheese open face bread yet. Oh, my goodness. I don't think it's on the menu anymore. It makes me real sad. But it was so good.

spk_1:   23:30
Yeah, we had a sorta too that was on a polio bread, like the crusty French style bread that was jam and case al fresco and butter. Oh, yes. It was the lowest selling item, but I think

spk_0:   23:44
I think that may have been It was It was It

spk_1:   23:46
might have been. It wasn't open face. There was an open.

spk_0:   23:49
Maybe I'm confusing. I know. But it was so good. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Still, the other thing is a pork and habanero salsa dish. That's

spk_1:   23:58
Oh, yeah, the coach need to reveal.

spk_0:   23:59
Yes, that is I I wish I could just goto O'Hare to get that. I'm sure I could probably find it from Terra, but it's so good. Oh, yeah. Thank you. If that was any part of your your creation, Thank you.

spk_1:   24:15
Well, I didn't create it, but I did get to manage those culinary programs at all of those locations into that because I was talking about the meat processing facility to So, um, those places do so much volume that they can't possibly make it Make everything in house. I mean, most of the stuff is but like proteins and stuff like that is hard to d'oh. So we visited a facility in Monday line that, uh, that's all they do is like soup feed meat

spk_0:   24:44
for the for the listener who doesn't know what Soviet is explained,

spk_1:   24:48
DVD is basically like cooking in the protein goes in a bag, and then you cook it in like a water bath. Essentially. So it's like this really even and moist cooking environment. It's it's great. And that was one of the coolest facilities I've ever been to.

spk_0:   25:05
That's awesome. I did get to go to a meatpacking place and not totally different, obviously. But it was amazing to see a guy who his entire job is sitting there with a band saw and some insane cut of meat that he precisely, you know, makes these cuts through 10,000 times a day. Whatever the number actually is, I'm not sure. And then it goes on to a scale that optically, I believe, or somehow ways each piece. And so this guy's able to cut it within kind of 9 10 11 12 ounces, roughly speaking, just by eye. But then the scale or the conveyor belt knows how much each of these pieces ways and then spits it down a chute. So all the nine ounce cuts going one all the time that it was so incredible also, how nobody lost a finger there beyond me.

spk_1:   25:50
I know, I know,

spk_0:   25:51
I know reading the jungle back in the day probably have in the past, but hopefully we don't hear about that.

spk_1:   25:57
Yeah. No, no. I think it's gotten a lot safer. Thankfully, yes. So we're I was at Frontera. Still, I changed jobs, sort of within the company to work on the the restaurant side of things. And then eventually I just became super interested in, you know, all of the work that Rick and all the chefs they were doing with local farms and was very inspired by that and wanted to dive in deeper into that world. So I went to work for local foods, which is a wholesale distributor of food, But they specifically work with local producers. So most wholesale food distributors air their, you know, buying asparagus from wherever it's cheapest all year round. It doesn't matter.

spk_0:   26:44
Come from Peru on a shipping exactly container boat. And here you go.

spk_1:   26:49
Yeah, exactly. And so they specifically work with people in the Midwest.

spk_0:   26:56
Okay, so they're like a Chicago. Where? A Midwest based company?

spk_1:   26:58
Exactly. Yeah, they they're pretty young there at this point. Probably 8 to 10 years old, maybe, Um, probably closer to, like, eight.

spk_0:   27:10
Do they do much? And I know Rick has the whole hydroponics setup at O'Hare. Is that something they also get into? Or is that just ancillary toe like that has nothing to do with necessarily. And I know you're talking about two separate things now, Ric versus local foods. But do they deal with that a lot, or is there a lot of

spk_1:   27:26
Yeah, they work with a lot of, ah, hydroponic farms. It's funny, actually. One of the major ones they work with and also shares Sort of like a similar ownership structure. So they work. Hand in hand is mighty vine tomatoes. Okay, which are absolutely amazing.

spk_0:   27:42
State. One less

spk_1:   27:45
Did you find? Whoa. Maybe tell us about that later. Okay, Um, so it's a It's a massive greenhouse in Rochelle, Illinois, that grows, um, tomatoes year round. And they do a lot of sustainable practices. It uses something like 90% less water than field tomatoes, which is pretty incredible

spk_0:   28:09
because you're dealing with so much evaporation. You control the humidity, temperature, everything. Yeah,

spk_1:   28:15
Yeah. Like everything. Just the nutrients. The water just gets sort of injected, like, straight to the plant where it needs to go. Yeah, you're not like waiting for rain to collect, and they only

spk_0:   28:27
Well, especially with if you don't grow tomatoes. Tomatoes? I've been doing now for 67 years. It is so hard to get beautiful consistent tomatoes because if it's too dry or too much water, for example, too much water, it'll absorb all this water. And when it dries out, it gets that weird brown line toe where it kind of split, sir. And it's just man. I've done a little bit of hydroponic growing all vegetables. For the record, I don't want anybody to think it's something funky. The devil's lettuce has not grown in my house. And, uh, yeah, but I had, I don't know, eight foot 10 foot tall tomato plants that were growing up. Ah, rope sort of a thing. Wow. And this was one of my first batches and hadn't kind of read the entire manual on hydroponic tomato planting. If you don't have a breeze going or you don't shake those vines or self pollinate, this is the whole point I'm getting to is, they don't pollinate. You need bugs to pollinate. That's why bees air wonderful, right? But if you do it hydroponically, you have to make sure they can self pollinate or pollinate. So one of the things I didn't do was exactly that, So you can either take a toothbrush or a paintbrush and kind of literally paint into each flower, which China does with their apple orchards. Now, in a lot of their fruit orchards, literally thousands and thousands of acres are hand pollinated. And there's a person on a ladder. It looks like a little jar of bubble like a bubble one, sort of a tiny kids ones, and they just sit there and they're given this thing of pollen, and they climb on the ladder and pollinate every single flower. And they get a 100% pollination rates where these might not do anywhere near that. So, yeah, it's it's, ah, definite thing where there's an art to hydroponic growing. It's not just throw seated and good luck,

spk_1:   30:09
right? Exactly. Yeah, it's It's very impressive. Especially when you see a facility like There's that is I mean, it's like I think two or three football fields and size

spk_0:   30:19
I just drove past. Have you been passed or seen Gotham? Yeah, I just drove past it the other day.

spk_1:   30:24
Yeah, that place is great.

spk_0:   30:25
I'm super. I want to go in there. I'm gonna teach you. Maybe I should do a podcast on Gotham Green. Yeah. Okay. So those and those tomatoes for the record as you. The reason you probably chosen there. So the color is beautiful. They are so juicy. I mean, I don't know what people think of when they think of hydroponic, but it may not be the most exciting thing in the world of it. You can, like you said, perfectly control. What's going into that?

spk_1:   30:58
Absolutely. Yeah, into kind of time. I, uh my two working worlds together there. I actually sold these tomatoes to Rick Bayliss. Ah, when they started harvesting them, I I knew he would appreciate a tomato year round. That was also absolutely delicious. And when I first brought him to, um, use like Renee, you know how I feel about hydroponic vegetables and fruits. I'm not really into them, so usually are less flavorful. They just don't You know, there's something about the earth. Obviously, that that gives a lot of character toe. Freedom is something you just lose. Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, he loved him great and bought them from me. So that was a really fun win for me. Like

spk_0:   31:43
you just got Rick Bayless company. Can't hear you go. Yeah, exactly. Ever heard of that guy? Cool. Okay, And so you were there for how many years With with local food.

spk_1:   31:51
I was with local foods for about two years. Okay, I was in a sales role, which was weird for me. I was a little too emotional emotional to be in that role because I I felt for all my chefs, and so I would never give any, like, border caught off times. And if they needed me to drive something toe like Evanston or any of the south side of Chicago, I would I would do anything they needed because I knew what position they were in. And so I just spent a lot of time just driving around the city and the near suburbs and, um decided, Yeah, just thio wasn't what I wanted to spend my time doing. So I'm still very close. Everyone at that company, I love it. I use them at our current restaurant, which I know we'll get to later, but yeah, they're they're doing really great. Like,

spk_0:   32:38
what sort of places are they

spk_1:   32:40
People use them for. There's people who use them just for some higher end local products. Because what's great about them is, you know, a lot of places that work with small local farms. They buy from them directly, which is also great. But it is also very difficult to manage all those invoices and relationships and all that fun stuff. So this is an opportunity where you can sort of get everything from one place on Dhe. There's a lot of people who take advantage of that, and we'll buy all the things that they need from one place and be able to tell their customers out there supporting local farms at the same time.

spk_0:   33:17
That's great. Yeah, we really try and go to his many places. We can do that.

spk_1:   33:21
Yeah, absolutely. And there's there's a good chance that if if you're going to a restaurant that is working with local farms, some of their stuff probably comes from local foods. Yeah, Then after that, I had kind of started doing some side work with, like a culinary marketing company called Olsen Marketing. Our I'm sorry, Olsen Communications and ah, they are fantastic, and I was getting a lot of work through them, and I had some other random projects on the side, too. It's kind of decided to focus on that work for a little while and then all of a sudden, this crazy opportunity for my husband and I to open our own bar slash restaurant came up and we knew it was in an insane thing to do. We both come from a sort of costing background of flight, just being behind the scenes and really understanding the business itself. So we kind of knew it was crazy going in, but we just didn't see this kind of opportunity to ever present itself again. So we kind of just jumped in and

spk_0:   34:27
and that led us to where we are right now, exactly, physically and literally right now. So tell us about where we're at at the present moment.

spk_1:   34:36
So we're a kite string cantina, which is our very fun little spot. So we're at Addison and Wolcott, and we do in a nutshell. Taquitos and tequila. And also a lot of mescal. Big fans of mescal.

spk_0:   34:52
Okay. And so kite string, for those who aren't aware, is Chicago. Illinois is where red. We're in the north center slash Roscoe Village neighborhood. If you are in Chicago, it's right next to the brown line. Addison, probably about 100 yards west of there on the south side of the street, and it's, Ah, tiny little brick with a beautiful bar surface building. Ah, funny kind of set up and I started coming here. I think almost instantly when you guys opened up, I've been coming to the previous restaurants that had been here, and ah was super excited to see something new coming in because we loved everything that had been here. They just couldn't really make it work, I think because it's a small neighborhood space that had seven employees in a maybe 30 to 50 person restaurant and yeah, it just I don't it never really worked. And I think what's brilliant about what you guys have done is you've taken a place that can essentially be run by one person. You'll come here on a Friday night, and there may be a guy at the door, but there could be one single bartender who is simultaneously pouring drinks, holding shop with all the customers and dropping taquitos into the fryer so that everybody can enjoy their taquitos. So why don't you maybe tell everyone? What can you tell me about this experience and how it kind of became

spk_1:   36:11
Yes. So we knew we were in the same group with bangers and lace, which was three restaurant that was here immediately before us. And so we kind of had the benefit of hindsight and sort of got to look at their numbers and talk to them about the experience. And it kind of seemed like this spot with how small it is. The capacities 46. It needed to either be a sort of very low overhead sort of very neighborhood e casual place. And obviously that's when we have to go for or it needed to be some very, very high end restaurant with, ah, you know, really expensive tasting menus and stuff like that. I feel that would probably work here, too. But that's just not the kind of the chef that I am. I definitely focus on the casual and easy to execute. So we opted for that route and kind of are. Our inspiration was sort of a neighborhood pub where you would go get a beer and a shot and order a frozen pizza. And we're like, How do we make that us and something that's, you know, obviously different than that? And so with my background in Mexican food and Andrews just innate love for tequila. We started putting ideas together and this is this is where we ended up. So we make homemade taquitos. I make every single tortilla

spk_0:   37:36
I was gonna say When you say we you mean you

spk_1:   37:38
Yeah, course I make every single tortilla from scratch. I have one prep cook that works two days a week for or did you currently is not sure And we can just the bartender's air trained thio fry them tow order and were able to keep our overhead really super low. And at the same time, people seem to really like the taquitos too. It's a fun thing and we get to be really creative and yeah, we've We've also dubbed it tube food. I'm gonna put tubular artists on my business card when I need to get them reprinted. I'm very excited about that.

spk_0:   38:17
Typically, guy just do taquitos and things like that on the menu. You have, like a very small menu, but two nights and two days a week, you do what?

spk_1:   38:23
Yes. Ah, Wednesday nights we have a rib dinner

spk_0:   38:27
so delicious

spk_1:   38:28
half a slab of dealers farm ribs, pork spareribs and the sauce. Currently is ah cassia ga ve sauce. And then we do chips in guacamole or seek a park for you. And

spk_0:   38:46
you know what? You believe me. It's true

spk_1:   38:47
on let me dio some sort of side dish. Often it's coleslaw because it just goes perfectly. Yes, you get a little cookie.

spk_0:   38:56
What about Sundays?

spk_1:   38:57
Sundays We just started eyes. Chilukki lays Molly Amedeo, which is one of the seven Oaxacan Mol is and it's delicious.

spk_0:   39:08
It's so good,

spk_1:   39:09
it's That's so fun. I loved doing that, and we pour the sauce table side, which is my favorite part about it, because it keeps the integrity of the chip, which is important to me. In Chile, Key lays out the times. It's just super soggy, You chip mess. So, yeah, we're really excited about that and can't wait to get back to that.

spk_0:   39:26
You guys got to try it. It's so good. It's unreal. So

spk_1:   39:29
thank you. Yeah, yeah, it's been really great. The neighborhood is fantastic. We've got gun to meet and become good friends with people like yourself. And it's all those people who, you know are keeping us afloat insane, right now, which is amazing. So, yeah, What

spk_0:   39:48
do you What do you guys having to do? I mean, you had to shut down. I was actually in here the day we knew that things were gonna get cut. It went from being cut your capacity in half, which for you guys would've meant 23 people. So weeknights, That's not a terrible thing. Weekend probably hurts a little. And in five hours later, all restaurants and bars are shutting down for two weeks. And that's now becoming three or going on two. No. Three, right?

spk_1:   40:11
Yeah. We don't even have an end in sight. Technically, I mean, they they said the 30th for no dining in and all bar. No bars could be doing anything besides selling packaged who's essentially. But they've now extended school closings, I think, until April 21st

spk_0:   40:35
shelter in place, whatever they're calling it, stay at home is through April 7. And I would have to imagine it's good. It's also gonna get extended. They're saying we're gonna be this the next city that kind of gets hit hard. Chicago is expected to peak in April, so I can't imagine they're going to relax their standards now for? Yeah, go home.

spk_1:   40:55
Stay home. I I don't think that we're going to be seeing the end of this anytime soon.

spk_0:   41:00
No, and especially based on how the ST Patrick's Day, the day before, Actually, that whole announcement happened was, uh I was working in Wrigleyville, taking care of s so exciting. So working in Wrigleyville being the police officer form of Matt Robin. And there had to be 5 to 7000 people in Yeah, 10 14 bars. And they were trying to explain that, you know, this is a big, important day for money, and I fully respect and appreciate that. But when you're talking about 5000 people who could potentially be yeah, passing back and forth germs just didn't seem like a great thing. And that was actually one of the things the governor specifically pointed to. You said he was just disgusted by it, and it kind of made it to where it didn't just stop with a We're cutting your capacity in half. It turned into were just shutting you down for 2 to 3 weeks. Yeah,

spk_1:   41:54
which, you know, for us, that was the best thing they could have done because we're in such a weird limbo sort of at that time because they were telling people not to go out. But that's our business. That's what we do. We want people to go out, but at the same time, we we didn't want any. We didn't want people to come in because we wanted everyone to be safe and healthy. So it was a very weird timeto navigate for like, a week or so before they could just kind of shut everything down. So it was very surreal toe have to do all that. But we, you know, rallied around our team and we had them all here. I cooked ribs for everybody, let them take a bunch of food home. And, um, I kind of got to see everybody for probably the last time in a while, or so we thought we'd been coaching the team on unemployment and all that kind of fun stuff. And what's amazing is that we've been able to bring two people back in to work this last week to do our new project, which is Thea Kite Food Club.

spk_0:   43:03
Yes, it is.

spk_1:   43:05
You are a fantastic member of

spk_0:   43:08
Ah, it is delightful. It also has the most epic artwork on their instagram page.

spk_1:   43:15
That'll be thanks to our good friend Kyle Bak.

spk_0:   43:18
Okay, Kyle's a genius because it's Andrew Renee. In the Fight Club poster, Andrew perfectly walked by in the background and waved as I said that, uh, it you'll see that on Instagram will include links to all the all the yes, the appropriate artwork and whatnot. But yes, So tell us about Kite Food Club because I could butcher my way way you beautifully describe

spk_1:   43:40
it. I will do my best. Eso We were trying to be a little more creative. Besides doing something a little more meaningful and substantial than just sort of slinging are normal food Essentially not that people don't love fried taquitos at this time, but just something a little bit bigger. And ah, so we came up with the idea of it's sort of a combination of A C s, a box and a meal kit box. Um, where you get just sort of ah hodgepodge of ingredients to use. Some might be fresh, some might be processed by me, For example, we did pickled red onions in this last one was my favorite thing to keep in the fridge. Put it on and in everything. And, you know, we did some sauces, and we've got a protein that's already in a sauce for you that you just need to throw in the oven. And we're encouraging everyone to sort of treat. It is like an Iron Chef sort of situation. So everyone should be posting pictures about all the creative things that they're making with all of these ingredients and also want to throw in there, too, that the produce that we're getting for this were specifically working with my friends at local foods to source from local farms because I think they're really gonna be the next group of people that we hear about that air are having a really hard time because obviously farmers markets aren't going to be o d o ah. I have a friend who works for the Green City market, and they're trying to put together a program Thio drive the CSC boxes around two people, and it's just ah, it's gonna be tough. I think on them toe to sell the product that they've already obviously planted. Yeah, so

spk_0:   45:23
that they were anticipating because you don't just glanced up in two weeks later, it's ready. The months of

spk_1:   45:28
working for on it for months Exactly. So we're we're trying to do our part to toe help keep moving product within, like the the local ecosystem here. So we feel that this is hopefully gonna help A little bit at least.

spk_0:   45:44
Well, if this is one of the interesting things about what's currently happening is the people whose jobs have been affected have been getting really inventive. You guys with ways to make money. The friends I have, We're all artists. I've seen a ton of Facebook live as everyone else has been doing concerts and things like that. A friend of mine who's in Porta Vallarta did an amazing concert last night for an hour, and she just throws out her Venmo payment. Can you please tip my way? And I absolutely did. And you guys even did a go fund me in the beginning, which I looked at, like, How much am I going to spend on a week when I go into kite string? Yeah. Or anywhere. Really. And then I just said, You know what this is going on for two weeks I'm going to send them this much money. And to me it was just so worth it, because I'm fortunate enough to have a job that isn't going away anytime soon. And if anything, it's just going to get busier on as as well as my wife. I mean, we very much are both battling firsthand. I don't want to use battle, but you know, really what? We're dealing with it. And every time I walk into a grocery store, if I'm in uniform, somebody says, Oh, thank you so much for your service. I try and tell them as quickly as I can look, folks, as long as you guys were doing your job and as long as you're here selling groceries and Home Depot's open and people can get gas and banks are staying open, I don't really have a tough job to d'oh. It's when all of that stops that the world freaks out and understandably, and I mean, I don't even know what I do when that happens, because, hey, I'm still just a human and I'm still just a person who has a lot of friends in a lot of family who are in these exact same situations and scared and confused and don't know what's gonna happen from one minute to the next to the next. It's s O. I'm glad to see you guys have figured out something that's hopefully going to at least pay some of the bills and keep things running.

spk_1:   47:25
Yeah, where? Ah, that's what we're hoping for. Two. And the first week was a huge success. We were hoping to sell maybe five or six boxes. Without that. That would be a really great number two hit.

spk_0:   47:38
Yeah, I walked in and there had to be 25 30 32 boxes sitting on the counter.

spk_1:   47:43
Yeah, I I was working nonstop for, like, three days, too, to fulfill everything that we needed to put in the boxes. So it was Ah, overwhelming. But in the most positive way it was It was so incredible. All the every, like everyone. That's, ah, great customer virus that we know. Well, um, and also just some people. We maybe don't even know that. Well,

spk_0:   48:08
yeah, somebody wants to get it. Yeah, if somebody wants to get it now, I mean, where this is, this podcast is gonna drop the probably four days after your first delivery came out. So somebody wants to do it. When would they be ableto How did they get that?

spk_1:   48:21
Um, they literally just email me at info at kite string cantina dot com. Um, it's $60 a week. Um, and you just Venmo the money. I'll send all that info once you reach out via email. Okay, Um, it's it's pretty easy. And we have pickups on Friday. We're talking about adding delivery, Mom, which would allow us to bring in another one of our bartenders, possibly toe to deliver. We're working that out right now. I'm not sure if it'll happen next week, but we're we're hoping to add that to so we're offering pick up on Fridays for the boxes and also firing up the fryer and, uh, cooking up taquitos owes you guys

spk_0:   49:02
seriously, If you haven't tried one of kite strings taquitos or Renee is I'm not gonna say kite strings. All Renee is Andrew. That pretty husband of yours has nothing to do actually making taquitos, maybe the occasional dropping one in a fryer. But the's taquitos are incredible. And they are like I had a venison. Tell me about the venison taquito a the

spk_1:   49:21
venison venison taquito. Yeah. What is this? Don't think

spk_0:   49:24
for the folks who are thinking 7 11 right now, this'll isn't a 7 11 taquito. This is high art in culinary form, into form. Yeah, And it's yours for anywhere from $2.5 to what $4 is the most expensive

spk_1:   49:38
top show phones or five.

spk_0:   49:40
Okay, that was like venison and duck.

spk_1:   49:42
Yeah, we've done you spicy duck, which was amazing.

spk_0:   49:46
Like a hoisin sauce or what? Not even if

spk_1:   49:49
it was short rib and Kim gi. That was

spk_0:   49:53
a thief. Reuben, you did corn beef and cabbage. Chicago. I mean, these are not just like roller food. I mean, they are just roller food, but they are roller food on an epic level. Yeah, it's unreal. So you have to try these taquitos. And the best thing is, there's no now right now. Obviously we're talking, and it's kind of confusing on how to order things because it's like, all right, you can do this for the Friday pickup, but in general, you walk into the bar and it's not like most bars where you walk in here like I just want something like a light snack to tide me over for one beer. And now I'm stuck ordering $12 nachos, which is great, but I didn't need $12 nachos. You could legitimately order one taquito. That's it. The whole menu is that still a thing

spk_1:   50:37
for $20 for one of everything. And it's

spk_0:   50:40
like four taquitos, three dipping sauces, handmade tortilla chips, a dessert thing. And like all the food is so good, I stop in like there are days where I'm here 23 days a week. And if I don't come by that often, ever it's like, what's

spk_1:   50:51
going on? Why didn't you stop by? Okay,

spk_0:   50:55
it's just it's so good. And then the bubbler drinks. I could have an drone another time, but the housemaid bubbler drinks like the cocktails are equally as incredible as all your food. So amazing. Are you guys gonna do any to go bumblers? Or is that well, what a spicy margarita mix. And that was

spk_1:   51:12
Yeah, that's one of my favorite.

spk_0:   51:13
Oh, wait, you can't do like

spk_1:   51:15
we're not allowed thio mix stuff. And so, um, I think if we had temper tamper evidence um, yeah, sure. You know what I'm talking

spk_0:   51:29
Tamper seals are.

spk_1:   51:30
Yeah, well, you know, like

spk_0:   51:31
with growlers, they do heat shrink around it. So show that's closed and hasn't been drunk as it's there.

spk_1:   51:37
Yeah, um, I think still, the word on alcohol is no mixed drinks. But I have signed a petition or to, um, to

spk_0:   51:47
totally Simon

spk_1:   51:48
legalize that right? If

spk_0:   51:50
we find that we're gonna include that in show notes and people need to sign that Totally worth it. Yeah, because you have these bubbler cocktails are amazing. And we ended up with our our kite Food club box ordered the spicy red margarita mix Awesome. Which is, uh, you can order a bottle of liquor from them, or you can use your own, and then you get 32 ounces of this, uh, you saying delicious flavored margarita mix? And I was just drinking that with club soda yesterday. Actually, I had a cocktail or two, so it's so good.

spk_1:   52:22
Yeah, that was actually the first collaboration of Andrew and I, um Alana on a beverage. How did

spk_0:   52:30
you kids meet, by the way?

spk_1:   52:32
Oh, we met teaching basketball to little kids. What s Oh, I didn't know he was

spk_0:   52:39
an athlete.

spk_1:   52:39
Ah, he's not.

spk_0:   52:40
I was gonna

spk_1:   52:41
t my Andrew. I don't want that strike

spk_0:   52:45
me as, like, the basketball dude, but that's

spk_1:   52:47
cool. He grew up in Wilmette, and so this was when I was at Northwestern. He really loves to tell the story about how he was a senior in high school and I was a sophomore in college when we started dating older. Yeah, even though we are only a year and 1/2 apart.

spk_0:   53:04
May December romance yeses to you, Mrs Robinson.

spk_1:   53:09
So yeah, uh, as part of my work study at Northwestern. And I worked at the park district in Evanston, and Andrew had worked there since. I mean, even before he was legally old enough to work, I think, Ah, he had been there since he was like, 12 s o. We were teaching basketball classes toe like 327 year olds a couple times a week with

spk_0:   53:33
the boots that I can dunk on that or eight feet high.

spk_1:   53:36
Oh, there was one that we used to attach to the wall. For the three year olds. That was, like,

spk_0:   53:41
five feet.

spk_1:   53:42
Yeah. Yeah, it was the cutest

spk_0:   53:44
thing. I have at six. To I have zero ability to jump. I think I can, like, maybe hit the bottom of the backboard. Just Yeah. No. Yeah. No,

spk_1:   53:53
I tried really hard for a long time to touch the bottom of the net. That was, like my goal three

spk_0:   53:58
feet above your head. You

spk_1:   54:00
never even came close. Even if it was, like, ripped and some of it was hanging.

spk_0:   54:04
I mean about you guys, one of those Nerf ones and just hanging on the back of the door. And then we'll go through the kitchen. The swinging doors, which they do have the fun country western swinging doors to go to the kitchen. So there you go. It's got a term of yours, and, uh, yeah. Wait. Okay, so So you and Andrew. So you met that way and then Ah, and then the restaurant became a thing two years ago.

spk_1:   54:25
Yeah. Yeah. So we've been together for, uh, Well, this October will be our 10 year anniversary, but we were together for almost eight years before we go. Wow, That's

spk_0:   54:35
very similar to Emily and I. We just celebrated our 11 year anniversary, and we were together for seven before that. So thanks. Oh, my goodness. 10 years. So what you guys gonna do for the 10 year restaurant?

spk_1:   54:49
Yeah, Yeah, we were hoping to go somewhere, suckers. Yeah, Yeah. Ah, shame on us for thinking that, Um Well, at least we got to get in a trip to Mexico. Uh, early this year,

spk_0:   55:02
tell me about Mexico. Tell them about Mexico, because I know a little bit. But this was an amazing trip.

spk_1:   55:07
We went to Oaxaca for about a week, and it was one of the most incredible places I've ever been to. Um, specifically, we got to go visit one of the Mescalero Sze Ah, for bonus, and we got to go see him chopped down. Um, someone gave a and we got to see, um, the whole process. They still use wth e um, horse polled Toho, Ona or Tony. I'm probably butchering all of these words, but that's how they, um, mash the ga ve hearts after they've

spk_0:   55:43
Oh, this is the eye I saw one of these years ago when I was in Honduras. If it's the same thing, I'm thinking of

spk_1:   55:48
the big wheel.

spk_0:   55:48
Yes, and they attach it to like the axle or one of the spokes, and it just drives around like a grinder thing. Exactly. Yes, they were doing that with sugar cane when I was in Honduras is a teenager, and it was going on for, like, three days straight.

spk_1:   56:02
Yeah, yeah, it's Ah, pretty incredible.

spk_0:   56:05
What is for the unaware? What is the difference in mescal? Tequila?

spk_1:   56:10
Technically, tequila is a Moscow, but kind, just sort of the general gist. Is that mess callous? Smokier than tequila? You

spk_0:   56:21
know, it's like the difference. Really? Really. Oversimplifying it between scotch and whiskey, like scotch is a ppd. Smoky flavor and mescal is a smoky flavor, not PT per se, but

spk_1:   56:32
and also tequila is very specific. It's from Jalisco, and it is specifically made with Blue Weber, a ga ve That's the requirements to be tequila. Um, what makes mescal it's so fascinating to me is that it can be any a gobby that goes through this process and be grown and produced anywhere. I think they are changing the some of the rules regarding labeling of mescal. There's like there's some a ga ve distillates you'll still see out there that can't legally claim it as um mescal, But I think the umbrella is widening for that.

spk_0:   57:11
Someday we're gonna be growing to Gabi and in Chicago, and we're gonna make

spk_1:   57:14
you think that's possible. But three. Come on. Right.

spk_0:   57:20
Let's totally do that. Uh, okay. Wow, that that's exciting. So then you you spent the week in Mexico and you went to the mess. Cow? Yeah. Fields. I want to say factory because it's like legit fields where they grow it.

spk_1:   57:33
Yeah, the fields where they grow it in their production quote unquote facility was just in this outdoor production operation. Essentially where? I mean, this family kind of just runs it, and Ah, it's very, very rustic. And we got to taste the mescal right from the still, uh, what? They they were working on a statie. No, it wasn't Tempus data. I can't remember what kind they were working on at the time. The Gabi varietal. But it was incredible. It was amazing. And he has a technique of determining how much alcohol isn't it? Just by watching the bubbles and how big they are tasting? Well, I'm sure he can tell by just tasting it, but no, it was you. You look at the bubbles like the bigger the bubbles and the faster they dissipated, the more alcohol content is in was very fascinating. Love. Andrew can tell you a lot more about ah, the details of Moscow. I'm mostly just, like drinking in a lot

spk_0:   58:36
for II due to pick them. Yeah, big fan. And that's also I have tried it before you guys, but I really You guys have such good varieties of it that I just come here now and ask youto guide my guide. My pilot? Yeah, while we watch, like, 19 seventies shows, run by on the thing that's so exciting. Okay, you have a fun relational story to me relative to

spk_1:   59:07
your police work.

spk_0:   59:08
My police, he work. Can you tell that cause it was the funniest thing to realize what happened and when it happened?

spk_1:   59:15
Yes, absolutely. So my dad and stepmom Marcie, live probably a mile, mile and 1/2 east of here in Wrigleyville, right? By Wrigley Fields, which is your zone. Obviously. And I had gotten a call from Marcie that their garage was broken into, and so I was talking to round the phone about the whole situation, and I think something was stolen, right? Like an iPad or something. Yeah.

spk_0:   59:47
Yeah, I'll tell my half of it, which was really funny.

spk_1:   59:50
So she But what I fixated on was she was telling me about her experience at the police station where she went to report this, and she was like, Renee, you know, there was just the most handsome, sweetest cop that helped us. He was so on. Guy. I was telling Andrew about this, and I was like, Hey, I can't think of another cop that could be described in that manner other than Mr Matt. Robin. Ah. And so we we had no idea if it was him, but we were just laughing about it. Like it like it If it was possible for it to be you. It was funny. And then you came in that night shortly after we had had this conversation and started talking about how you had met Marcy and helped her when Ah, their garage got broken into. And it was hilarious that that whole crazy happened.

spk_0:   1:0:48
No. We get a call that there's some kids who've just tried to break into some girl's apartment like her call to 911. Says help. Somebody broke my front window. There's three people on my porch and we go flying over there on our bicycles because my school police we arrive and, ah, foot pursuit ensues. And two of the kids get caught. One of them gets away, unfortunately, but there's all this fun stuff in their possession. That doesn't seem like the stuff necessarily that it 13 year old child should have in their possession one of them being a triple A card and the trip lake hard comes back to a gentleman who? Ah, you know, we could mention his name. Gary. Last name. Very particular spelling on, um and so I'm like, Okay, well, probably not this kid's triple A card. And then there's a couple of other things an iPad, which is dead. And we're like, Hey, who's iPad? Oh, it's mine. Whose cards? Oh, mind I found him on the street. That becomes that. Okay, what about the iPod? Yeah, it's mine. So it's not getting any battery power. So we managed to plug this iPad in, and ah, the photo comes on of this tiny little girl who looks absolutely nothing like this kid on now. He's like Oh, no, I found that, too, So Okay, clearly not your iPad. So we Ah, we take this stuff. Well, I look at the Triple A card and I start doing some Googling and I find a guy. And there's a picture of this guy with a little girl who looks exactly like the kid on the iPad on, like on his Facebook page. Like, Perfect, Gary. Same last name on DE. So I'm, like, problem solved. And then I do a little more googling and find out he lives a block away from the police station like, Oh, this makes perfect sense. So we ride over there, and sure enough, find a garage and the door has been kicked in. Oh, my gosh, I'm a detective. This is so it's now three o'clock in the morning and I believe it's Halloween night, actually. So we're like, ringing doorbells, and they're probably, like, Who's messing with us? We're not answering the store. Well, then we leave a note saying, Hey, police, this is what happened. You know, come pick up your property and this nice lady Marcie shows up the next day with her daughter. And as I'm chatting with her, she says. Oh, you know, Thank you so much. I said, You know, here's your iPad And she said, iPad, that's not all right. So it turns out the iPad isn't this person's. And it turns out the guy whose name it was wasn't the same Gary. It was a totally other random. Gary had the same last name who happened to be a professor, and when I e mailed him and said, Hey, I've got your iPad He said, I don't have an iPad. It's missing. I was like, What? And I said, What about this picture of this little girl that you're holding with a rabbit? He says, I teach agriculture or whatever. This was that like a state fair. That's just a random kid. So totally wrong on that one. But the right name because of the Triple A card, anyhow. And she says, Oh yeah, my daughter and I are just about to go get lunch at my daughter's restaurant on ISO. That's fun. Have a nice day, and then I come in later that night and start recounting since you and that's where we realize Oh my gosh, same person. Good times, Theo, Marcie anyway.

spk_1:   1:3:50
Oh, man.

spk_0:   1:3:51
That's that.

spk_1:   1:3:52
Well, thank you for helping my stepmother.

spk_0:   1:3:54
Oh, Happy to. Thanks, Renee.

spk_1:   1:3:57
Thank you.

spk_0:   1:3:58
I had so much fun talking to,

spk_1:   1:4:00
as did I.

spk_0:   1:4:01
And I look forward to many more delicious taquitos and many more kite food club boxes. So? Well, actually, I look forward to that going away so I could just be eating in your restaurant regularly. Absolutely. Who knows? Maybe that's the thing. You guys continue. We

spk_1:   1:4:15
mine. Actually,

spk_0:   1:4:16
I would like those two eating that deliciousness. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. What was your favorite food is a child.

spk_1:   1:4:24
Ah. The funny thing about me is that I was an extremely picky eater, which played a role in me becoming a chef. Because when Andrew and I got together, it drove him insane. That I was like a grilled cheese person. That's like all I wanted to eat, so definitely would've been grilled cheese

spk_0:   1:4:41
school. And what What? What what's having cheese? Are we talking like slices of white bread? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. To this day, still probably one of the greatest grilled cheese is

spk_1:   1:4:49
it really is one of my fondest memories of childhood was Ah, my dad would always, uh, make grilled cheese, but he couldn't do it without burning it. And I just remember, like, so much. Yeah, just scrape it on

spk_0:   1:5:04
the black. It's fine, all right. And I think I know, uh, maybe your answer to this based on what we've been talking about, what would your favorite beverage be?

spk_1:   1:5:14
It would be mescal.

spk_0:   1:5:15
I was guessing that all right, and straight or mixed. I mean, what's

spk_1:   1:5:20
I really like? I just like drinking it neat. The culture around that in Oaxaca was was so great. Just the experience. You just you get the little cup. The name is escaping me now, but it's it's like a votive candle holder, and they just give it to you meet, probably like close to three ounces in a glass and a glass of water for sipping a shot. Right, Right. You're meant it's meant to be sipped

spk_0:   1:5:48
excellence and ice, No ice. I mean, what would make sense? But not a whole lot of I sit around over there, but

spk_1:   1:5:54
yeah, here we add and Oren, a little pretty orange slice on the glass, which we learned in Oaxaca was a very American thing. Our tourist thing toe to do the orange and the song. Let's fun on, but it's pretty

spk_0:   1:6:09
cool. Yeah, okay. One of my favorites unrelated to food. Uh, something I I know you guys have considered for the bar karaoke. Oh, yeah.

spk_1:   1:6:19
And we also know. Ah, the premier curio

spk_0:   1:6:23
resume. Miss Mary, I knew from like, 15 years ago at the Blue Frog when she used to work there,

spk_1:   1:6:31
Didn't we All.

spk_0:   1:6:32
And then when she was at Holiday Club, I was doing a dirty puppet show called Bucket Show on. It was Oh, I'm gonna find you some videos for that. Yeah, it was like dirty Muppets, actually, with my friend who is imported Vallarta performing right now in this Amy Armstrong. But Amy Armstrong Lloyd Young myself. Let's see Steven Fairy. Somebody dies. Joey's Stone. We had a blast, and it was just ridiculous sketches with puppets, but so I I saw her again there, and then I walked in here. When I'm, like, shut the front door, it's very back. So what would your favorite karaoke a tuned B two D'oh! Oh, yeah, That's where this goes cause I got mine. But I want to know what yours is.

spk_1:   1:7:14
Well, I don't do karaoke. A Because I cannot sing

spk_0:   1:7:17
Very painful. Can I say I appreciate you knowing that relative to the world who doesn't

spk_1:   1:7:22
I am saving the world thing by not singing. All right? Absolutely. Okay, but it would definitely be. Ah, Def Leppard song. I'm thinking maybe I mean, pour some sugar on me is just way too obvious,

spk_0:   1:7:37
but I was hoping you'd go a little older than that.

spk_1:   1:7:39
Maybe animal. Okay, that's one of my favorites.

spk_0:   1:7:44
One of my first cassette tapes ever that I basically just jink like jacked from my brother's collection. I grabbed three cassettes. It was Beastie Boys license to ill, um, in excess kick and Def Leppard pyromania. The three of those cassettes got played so many times that they finally started warping. Yeah, Yeah. You know, to those you Chileans who, just knowing people just don't know the difference. That day was great. So

spk_1:   1:8:11
that is a solid collection.

spk_0:   1:8:13
Love it. Yeah, it was awesome. What is in rennais personal playlist.

spk_1:   1:8:19
Oh, well, my favorite band is a band called Failure. Okay. From the nineties.

spk_0:   1:8:26
What kind of music?

spk_1:   1:8:27
It's hard to describe its its rock just sort of feel like straight up. Brock Spacey. Um, sort of like lots of, ah Cynthy sounds and what? Not jumping

spk_0:   1:8:40
on them.

spk_1:   1:8:41
You should listen to Fantastic Planet all the ways

spk_0:   1:8:45
that other albums or so,

spk_1:   1:8:46
yes, it's one of their albums is my favorite record of all time.

spk_0:   1:8:49
All right, Yeah. So can I share with you mind, which I least been totally obsessed with lately, And a friend of mine whose brother actually introduced me to disband reached out was like, I've been listening to this band recently. And then when I interviewed my buddy, the deejay Elroy, who was my first episode and also making my music, I said, Dude, you gotta hear this man. There is so much fun. Yeah, I said their name and his eyes lit

spk_1:   1:9:14
up. It's one of my favorite bands to

spk_0:   1:9:16
the band called The Jellyfish. They're around the nineties. I've

spk_1:   1:9:20
a familiar

spk_0:   1:9:21
Ah, lot of people aren't like they really didn't have many pop. It's but yet jelly spilt milk is like, to be honest, one of the most delightful year Candies you will ever have in your entire life. Absolutely, it's it's brilliant. So yeah, all right, that would be my contribution to this. Okay. And then the bikes, public transportation or cars to get to and from our is a combination of all three.

spk_1:   1:9:44
It's a combination, mostly the car. And we like to bike, But we're not. Ah, right. Inclement weather. Bikers per se. So you don't like it? Just we can. Yeah, Yeah, we don't. Blake. In the winter, we're wimps dumb, but yeah, we love biking. And that is our preferred mode of transportation, for sure. And we have matching bikes, which was really way

spk_0:   1:10:07
actually have to tandems. Not that one person or one couple needs to 10 but we have a nice, like a fancy legit road bike. Tandem. But then we have our fun Beach cruiser tandem. So someday, if you guys want to hop on that bad boy, you can you can borrow the beach cruiser and take on all those days. You're not working at the bar restaurant. That'll be your anniversary. Oh, what can you tell me? The podcast. There are billions of people doing millions of things on this planet. I want to learn about all of it. For more info, got a www dot What can you tell me dot com Hey, if you're enjoying the podcast, please do me a huge favor. That'll only take a moment of your time and won't cost you anything. Share with your friends. A quick message on social media or just mentioning in a conversation would be great. Also, leave me a review on iTunes. Thanks. And follow me on social media. You can find all the links in the show description below.