Talking Sous Vide with Jason Logsdon and Mike LaCharite from The International Sous Vide Association

This is Chris with the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. And today I have two guests. I have Jason and Mike from the International Sous Vide Association. Hey guys, how are you doing?

Doing really good.

Yeah, doing awesome. Thanks for having us, Chris.

Oh, thanks for coming on. Yeah, so I guess I met Jason probably about three, four years ago, maybe at Star chefs for their chefs Congress, which Jason and I ended up in almost every single workshop together. I think every year like we didn't plan it that way. We just somehow ended up in the same ones. And interestingly, I think I told him, maybe last year, my old sous chef actually had bought one of his cookbooks like I didn't know anything about you. But he had just got into sushi and was looking for some books and found one of your books on Amazon and bought it and then like, five years later, I ended up meeting you in person, which I thought was pretty cool.

There is definitely fun that we kept at ended up in not only the same workshops, but the same tables have to time. I was like "I remember you".

Yeah, definitely. So that's how this started. Last year was your first year of the conference, right?

Yeah.

So I got to go to that up in Delaware. And that was a really good time. So, why don't we kind of start at the beginning? How did this whole sous vide ssociation start? Who started it? Did you guys know each other? What's your relationship to each other?

So apparently, Jason, meets all the best people in his life because they bought his books first, because that's what happened here. I got into sous vide cooking in 2014. My mother in law bought me a Sansaire, which to my wife's chagrin, I still tell her is the best physical gift, outside of children, that anybody's ever given me. But, of course, you know, got one of Jason's books just random off Amazon and and i think i bought about 15 of that book for like friends and family now because it helped me so much. Got into his Facebook group, and then I'm an event planner. That's my background. I'm doing conferences and seminars, and after being a part of his group, you know, I just have this thing about building connections with people. I started, you know, realizing like, there's, I think at the time there were like, 27,000 people or something in the group. And I'm like, you know, wouldn't it be fun if we could all get together and, and cook like, this would just be great to explore this. And I was kind of in between things at the time. So I reached out to Jason randomly on Facebook and was like, Hey, I have this idea. Ever seen this? Has anybody done this? I haven't seen a sous vide conference. I haven't seen a Sous Vide Association. Is this a thing? And then, you know, it just turned into magic. I'll let you tell the the next part of that.

Yeah, I was just like, is this guy like scamming me or something like is this just one of those random emails you get out of the blue and as we get, you know, kept getting further and further in the plans and it's really started coming together. We got some really big names to come on board the first time, you know Crea and Cuisine Solutions were our title sponsors. Dave Pietranczyk from Polyscience... I met him at StarChefs as well. He's always there. So we got some big support and the whole conference just kind of came together. And I was like, apparently this is a real thing that is now actually happening. And you know, had it last year, the first one and it was an amazing time with lots of good food, lots of good speakers and a lot of a lot of good fun.

Well, Jason, how did you get into sous vide, and how long have you been doing that?

So about 10 years ago now for Christmas, I got a copy of Thomas Keller's Under Pressure cookbook and a the old sous vide crock pot temperature controller that you'd plug the crock pot in and it basically turned it on or off to maintain temperature. And I read through under pressure from cover to cover and I was like, I still have no idea what he's really saying here. And part of that because, you know, he was still learning. I think Sue beat a lot Especially the underlying principles of it himself, but it's also Thomas Keller. You know, his recipe for roasting a chicken is like eight pages. It's, you know, it's three star Michelin quality things he's explaining to you. And I'm a home cook, and just an adventurous home cook, so I didn't really understand what he was getting at a lot of it. So I said, You know what, I'm going to do the research and figure out what, how do you actually use suvi? And what is it all about? And at the time, there is no information really, it was all on E-Gullet with Nathan Myhrvold and Douglas Baldwin, before they were household names for a lot of people. Before modernist cuisine, you know, box set came out. And they were just on E-gullet, posting in the forums. And as I dove into it, I realized that for the most part, it was a lot of science, like sciency people doing science to figure out what was happening and then communicating to other sciency people. And that's completely fine. And that's a good way to learn about something. When there's discovering a technique but that's not what a lot of cooks need. You know, when you roast a chicken, you don't need to understand the temperature diffusion and thermal death curves even though they happen in roasting a chicken just like they do a soup bead, you just need to know what temperature you want the meat to be. And you know that cooking it at 500 will give you a different result at cooking at 350. And kind of understanding a little bit of that you don't need to know the hard science behind it. So once I stripped away all the hard kind of science behind the SU bead, I was left with some principles that are very easy to understand and make suvi super easy and super convenient. So I start sharing those on my blog and that turned into cookbooks. And the rest is history. 10 years later, you know, Facebook group of 40,000 people and sold 10s of thousands of books and still just interventionists home cook but I get to share my love for sushi with a lot of people now.

I don't know how you get a Facebook group that big. That seems crazy. I don't think I'm in any Facebook groups that big Except, you know, like one or two. How do you control that? Are you how many moderators? do you have? Do you have multiple moderators? Does the I'm assuming at that number like people just pretty much self police and answer questions like one person comes on ask a question, and everyone else does the work.

Yeah, that's pretty much how it is the we really don't have moderators, like I, I will ban people if they act out. My mom is another moderator on there, you know, but that's about it. Mike does, you know alerts me whenever people are misbehaving. But it's really if someone crosses the line in our lines, pretty much like you don't treat people like garbage. Then if you cross that line, you're out of the group and blocked there's no engagement. For me. There's no kind of dealing with these people. It's just you're banned from the group and people know that so they generally behave the majority of the time.

Yeah, it's hard as you know, I have the Chefs Without Restaurants Facebook group, and we're approaching like 1000 people and that gets To be a lot, because I have no one else moderating, doing anything and people post things. And you just kind of hope that, like, members within the group can answer each other's questions. And it's, you know, a little hands off for me. And I don't have to do that, because there's a lot going on elsewhere. But I'm just always impressed at these huge groups. And that still an incredibly large number for me to wrap my head around. When did the group start?

It started about three or four years ago, and and honestly, I've just been really lucky that the people in the group are a great community. And there's a lot of people that are very visible within the group that help kind of steer it and answer a lot of questions. And it's, it's really less about me, the group and about, it's more about all the great community members that we have there.

Well, that's what I was hoping with my chef's group is that like, you can kind of crowdsource all this stuff, right? Like if you have a lot of great members and great engagement, that it's a community that can kind of help each other out, uplift each other. And you just need a very little amount of kind of direction for it.

Yep, I think It's all about kind of setting the tone that you want the group to have. And in my case, I was helpful and friendly. And then as long as you enforce that, the people that like that tone will be more involved, and they'll continue to propagate that tone.

So do you have any idea what the makeup of your general crowd is? Whether it be people in the group or people who come to the convention, like home cooks, serious enthusiasts versus like professional chefs?

I think it's about 60 to 70% home cooks, and I think about the same for that conference. Is that right, Mike?

Yeah, it's it's right around, I think 60% home cooks 40%. Professionals for the conference.

That's something we've been looking to, you know, expand on, especially going into this year's conference was Mike and I are both home cooks. So we didn't want to come out and say like, we're going to teach you how to use sous vide in your restaurant, because we don't know that we focus on what we know. But now we do have a lot of great partners like Cray and Polly science and packmaster and best, a lot of these brands that do work with people in professional kitchens. So we're looking at expanding that to really provide some of these services to chefs that either one who, you know, that are chefs that want to learn how to use it in their own kitchen, or that are cooks that are trying to move their way up through other people's kitchens. And, you know, just add one more tool to their toolbox.

I was really impressed with the makeup of home cooks are there who seems super knowledgeable. I mean, I think sometimes you hear like home cook. And there's this idea of like, who a home cook is. There's home cooks killing it and all levels of food. I mean, one of my guests on the podcast is my buddy, Anthony, who does pass it home. And he's making pasta better than almost any restaurant I've ever been to, you know, and he doesn't work in the food field at all. But he's, like gone all in and I saw that just with a lot of the interactions with the people at the conference and the questions they were asking.

You know, it's interesting when I was talking with with one of our commercial company sponsors recently and we were talking about this And home cooks have, I think, a little bit more of a license to be creative, almost like they, they are more they have more flexibility to push themselves to try new techniques, because they're not preparing it for service every night for 300 people, you know, and I think that's something that I've seen in the groups. I mean, it's interesting what direction that goes. Because the other thing is, I mean, you see some people doing some really cool things outside of meat, but then there's a whole portion that's like sous vide is forsaken, you know, chicken and that's it. But but in general, I think there's there's on the home cook side, what they have going for them is there's just this opportunity to just try things and if you fail, hey, you know, tick off your wife and she's like, Oh, I still love you. But you know, it wasn't the best thing I've ever done. At least that's what makes us

Do you think it kind of is because it Idiot proofs things to some extent, like you know, roasting a chicken or cooking a steak is very, you know, you got to watch it and get it out at the right time or CV, this kind of like set it, forget it because you're not going to go over that number. Do you think that that weighs into it a little bit that it can kind of help you if you're not a professional cook and aren't really in tune with that kind of stuff?

Definitely. I mean, for for me, and Jason probably has a lot more on this. But for me personally when I got into it, and it opened up the opportunities for me to try things like an AIDS Benedict to me Hollandaise sauce, because now I'm not worried about my eggs, you know, over cooking because they're gonna cook for 45 minutes or whatever. I can focus and Jason's probably seen from where, where I started posting to kind of what I post now. I'm a lot more I've always loved cooking, but I'm a lot more willing to take risks and try new techniques, half of which I learned from him because it takes sort of the the, you know, hey, I'm going to screw this up. If I Don't watch it super closely out of it.

In my opinion, sous vide has two purposes. One is to turn out these types of dishes that you can really only do with sushi, like a 72 hour short rib, or some of these things that are, you can use traditional methods to do it, but you're really just using traditional methods to, you know, emulate suvi, these low, long, slow cooks. And the other purpose of sushi is just make things super convenient. And that's where a lot of home cooks, like you're saying really benefit from it, that cooking a chicken breast is Yeah, I can do that almost perfectly every time that I want to do it, but I have to be at the stove and be paying attention and not be answering my email or you know, on slack or you know, all these other distractions going on. And so knowing was suvi those can be perfectly cooked at the end. It just removes any concern for me. And I think a lot of home cooks have found that and that kind of gives them the license to you know, now I'm going to do a sauce because I know the protein is going to be cooked perfectly so they can kind of explore in a few different directions that they might be worried about the protein if they were just going to grill it or pan fry it.

My favorite thing to do is ice cream because I love making ice cream and that's one of those things like from it's not thick to scrambled eggs is like a 15 second window, right? Like if you're ever making a custard ice cream over a bain marie, it goes so quickly, much like a Hollandaise. So that's one of the things I love doing my ice cream bass. I mean, there's obviously so many great uses for sushi. But for me, that's one of my very favorites is just put the mix in there, throw it in and let it go.

Yeah, I think that convenience is a huge factor. And I think especially I think it's becoming more accepted now just as a general technique, but I think initially a lot of chefs were like, this isn't real cooking, or, you know, I can already do this using another method. And some of the real strong subida supporters would be like, well, it's better if you do this or it's like when you get an argument. For me, there's always just it's another tool in your toolbox. And sometimes you might want to just make it the traditional way because of the sights and the sounds and the smells because you're really enjoying it in that moment. And sometimes you might just want to put together a really quick ice cream bass and not worry about it. And when that's the case, you sue the kid and, you know, it's just one more tool out of all the tools we have as chefs and I don't think it's better or worse than any other, you know, technique that you can use

I was just going to say I also think it as a home cook. I think it brings, you know, as a chef, like you're used to cooking for massive groups of people, you know, all the time and I love entertaining. That's one of the things that's been hardest for me about quarantine with all of this going on is I can't have you know, my friends over and and and cook for people. My wife's a resident at Johns Hopkins and every summer which this is probably the first year we're not going to do it. We've done a welcome barbecue or welcome you know, thing in our house for 20 to 40 new residents and we invite everybody and it makes it so nice to be able to like batch cook everything, have it prepped in advance, you know, using to eat and pasteurized and it makes it like I can actually go hang out with my wife and hang out with the guests and there's just a lot to the community building aspect of it that I think has resonated really strongly with me.

I'm always wondering why people love crock pot cooking, like to me crock pot cooking is like the same idea but in like a less controlled environment and a lot more unsafe. Like I always think about my in laws, I went to their house one time for a party, and then just taking this bag of like meatballs out of the freezer from Costco and just jammed them all in this crock pot. And it probably sat in the temperature danger zone for hours when you think of like something that was like zero degrees and like four hours later, it's probably like 72 degrees. It's like, I wish more people would do sushi because I feel like you'd get a much better world Because that's what you're doing right like all these people want to do it like set it forget it slow and low and then make entertaining easy and I'd rather see people get a su need setup then using that crock pot for that well it's great because you don't come out with you know 180 degree breaded chicken at the end of it. You know, I mean crock pot I used to use it a lot before I got into sushi because it was convenient but I'm with you right there like why why would I even go that route when the end result is always going to be a well done braised meat I can, you know, do the same thing and get something that is a little more palatable for sure. I mean, obviously cost is a barrier to entry and something I'm sure people are looking at, you know, a $30 crock pot as opposed to like a multi hundred dollar piece of equipment and then getting into the hole. What are we doing about Vacuum Sealing and all that so it is an investment and you know, what are you guys seen on pricing with that is, is it coming down? I mean, I know some of the things I've been looking at have come down And over time, but where are we at with like price ranges on those

Prices have dropped a whole lot. It's, there's two real classes of circulators. To do su v one is the professional ones. And the other is for home units. And if a chef out there is interested in exploring suit feed, like get yourself a home unit, do some things in your off time and experiment with it. So you can get even sticking with the good brands like a nova. And jewel, you can get something now for under $100. So you can you know, it's not that much of investment. It's the cost of you know, not even a good knife really, and you can explore this cooking method. And then when you're ready to bring it into professional kitchen, you can look at some of the more commercial circulators and those are 600 to 1000. So it is more but it's, you know, I still use a poly science unit that I got 10 years ago and you know, they're built to run for years without with literally not ever being turned off. So you kind of get that heavy duty industrial quality that you need for for a working restaurant kitchen.

Is that what the heavy duty upgrade does? Really, it's like motor life and things like that. I mean, do the home units have a limitation on how much water they can heat or something like volume size is that?

Yeah, the The main thing is that the commercial ones give you is, you know, heating power that you can do a lot larger amount. So he might do a bath to cook you know, 100 steaks where most home cooks don't need that. And then just the durability, a lot of the home units are good for people that are, you know, using them a few times a week and they're last for a few years, like most things you use at home, but if you're using them 24 hours a day, seven days a week in a professional kitchen where they're getting bumped and spilled on and you know, abused then you really the commercial upgrade is really kind of what they need. So otherwise the other ones will break sooner rather than later. And then some of the ones have probes and more some of the better functionality that some Some chefs do need in their kitchens. So that's one of the other things that most home units don't have.

Yeah, I always recommend if you can afford to buy something and you think you're gonna love it, go with the upgrade at the front end because it always sucks when you spend like 100 $200 on that home model. And then like in a year, you really love it and then you're dropping like another six $800 is like you should just put that money towards that. But we've all been there. I've done that with like the recording stuff for my podcast, you buy a cheap microphone for $30. And then you're buying the hundred dollar microphone in two months when you realize the audio quality was terrible, right? Yep. So let's talk about the conference a little bit. So you had a big conference scheduled to be a normal conference in person in San Francisco this summer. COVID happens. So that's not happening. But you're going to take your conference virtual so what's that look like for you guys? What's changed and what do you how do you think that's gonna go

One of the the awesome things is, all of our speakers pretty much have confirmed that they're still doing they're still going to present virtually. So in terms of the content not much is changing in terms of you know, what we're presenting the the format will change slightly certainly one of the great things last year was we had some awesome meat sponsors that donated you know, for the receptions and cuisine solutions put on one of them and so the food was incredible. So, a lot of our thought processes Okay, how do we still capture that you know, capture the the food portion? And how do we make an engaging because certainly, a lot of why I wanted to even do this in the first place was to network with people to get to know people to make new friends in the industry, or, you know, other home cooks that we can kind of share with. So, talking about doing a lot of like, certainly some hands on demos, one example we talked about for Both of the lunches, having a couple different or a few different rooms each day where we would give the recipes in advance, tell people you know, hey, if you want to cook this chicken dish, have a chicken breast cooked 140 for three hours and ready. And then here's all the other ingredients. And you know, Jason's going to be cooking this dish and he'll demonstrate it live, you can cook along. So some cooker long stuff like that, that I think will be really fun. Still doing virtual cocktail hours to you know, demonstrate some cocktails, but also just hanging out. That was another really fun thing I think for us to see last year was the bar every night was packed with attendees and speakers together like just hanging out and networking. I'm sure you caught a little bit of that when you were there. And so a lot of our speakers are still very engaged and being a part of those networking opportunities and, you know, getting connected with the attendees who are coming. So that's looking at things a little bit different, but really trying to hit on the same goals and the same things that made last year so special.

I think we're gonna see this for a little while. But you know, it's I don't think a online conference can ever replace the feel of being in person. But like we had said before this started this year, I was not going to be able to make the trip to San Francisco. This is so much more convenient for me. So it'll be interesting to see the swing and attendees and people who maybe couldn't spend the money to hop on a plane and fly out to one of the most expensive cities in the country and put up the lodging and pay for that, that they will come online. So I'll be interested in following up with you guys afterwards to see how that went. You know, attendees liked

There's definitely some some opportunities like that, that I think for growing the audience, that's great that we can we can put this in the hands of more people. We had talked about live streaming last year, but being the first year we didn't want too many moving parts. So really, this is kind of a kickstart for us to, you know, test out the Technology and hopefully going forward, we'll be able to still offer a live stream package as well, for the people that can't, you know, make it out for various reasons. So all in all, I'm excited about the possibilities that this offers us. And, you know, I think it's just going to be an awesome weekend. I'm really looking forward to it.

Are you going to make them available after the fact kind of like on demand and being able to download or stream whenever?

Yes. Anyone that comes to the, you know, that comes to the conference virtually will have access for for all the recordings for I think it was 72 hours or a week, something like that. Yeah. Mike's in charge of the details, you know, I'm just a pretty face that though I have access to it for a long time that they can go through it at their own leisure, and then we will make them available for purchase to the general public. At some point in the future wants to kind of clean them up and patch them together. Yeah.

So have a new online community called Champions of Sous Vide, named after our cookbook, that's kind of sort of our new little moniker that we started. And it's, there's a free membership level, and then there's sort of a VIP level that gives you a little more access and the recordings will be available automatically for the VIPs but then available for purchase outside of that, as well. And, you know, really trying to just continue to build that community aspect of cooking and be able to share recipes in one place. In a way, Facebook's kind of hard to catalogue some of that stuff and and, you know, we're, there's just a lot of things that we're trying to bring into this, this new community to sort of pull together everything that we're we're working on in one place.

So who are some of your speakers for this event?

So our two keynotes we're super excited James Briscione, who is planning to be there last year. Hear him then. so horribly sad for him and for us that his flights got canceled. He's, of course, a Food Network personality, and he opened a new restaurant in Pensacola that I've been to and is fantastic, called Angelina's. Rich Rosendale, certified master chef, is going to be our other keynote. Super excited to have him. Meathead will be back doing a session. Gerard and AJ from Crea and Cuisine Solutions. We have a new title sponsor for the virtual. It's prep-rite by Everige. And so Michael Kelly will be there. He does a lot of teaching in the industry. Of course, Dave traffic, Phillip Preston is also going to come in and do a talk. And Allie Romero. There you go. Super excited. So we have a lot of returning people. But then we also have a lot of new new folks like Allie who we were just introduced to and we're really excited to be able to bring them together as well.

And I think But most of those people I know, and they're already really engaging online, which is what I love. I mean, they're the kind of people who I followed on Twitter. I mean, I think James, I first met, probably close like 10 years ago on Twitter, you know, one of those guys who you could just ask questions and have really great conversations with so it seems like you've gotten the people who really want to be part of that community. I'm sure there will be a lot of follow up after the conference with them online.

Yeah, we're doing some live Q and A's leading up to the event, which should be fun. I did one with Dave transphobic. Last week, I think and then we're doing one or two a week leading up to the event to kind of get them some time in front of our community and let our community you know, pick their brain some and it's, it's, that was one of my big takeaways from the event last year is just how nice a lot of these people are. That you know, David transit works for the largest subida manufacturer, Gerard and AJ, you know, consult at three star Michelin restaurants and know more about sushi than probably anyone on earth and they're all like, down are really nice people that are just happy to, you know, just shoot the breeze with you and hang out and have a good time. And it was really refreshing to meet these really talented people that are just so nice.

I've gotten to know Rich rosendale really well. So I have the benefit has places like half an hour from where I live. And the best barbecue around like I you can fake a lot of barbecue shoulder and stuff like that. But brisket is one of those things and his brisket is unlike any that I can get around here. But you know, it always surprised me this guy is a certified master chef. I mean, he's got, you know, all these accolades but Cousteau are and all that. And he's in his place. Maybe it's just when I go but like literally every time I go in, you know, you can just hop in on a Tuesday at three and riches there. And it's like, I don't even think people in this area know who he is. and understand how big a deal that is that you just like stopping this like roadside barbecue place. And this you know the guy who led the culinary team and as a master chef is like in there and I can just roll it and have a conversation with him. Yeah,

so blows my mind. I went down to meet him and I learned don't ever go meet him on a Monday because this restaurant is closed on Mondays.

Sadly, sadly, I've driven out there forgetting that as well.

I learned that lesson, but he's just and with a lot of these people and like you're saying, I mean, he's so accomplished. And he's done so much. And he's a he's a name that so many people know this the most down to earth guy ever. You can just sit and have a conversation super friendly. They just really have enjoyed getting to know him. And and, you know, we're really lucky. I think that was sort of the turning point for me. And I think Jason would probably agree with this too. When we first started this thing, our initial, our initial focus was like, hey, let's go connect with people in the industry, most of whom Jason knew because I'm an event planner. And let's pitch this idea and let's just bring some people together onto a committee to to sort of help form this, because this is not about me and Jason, this is about the Sunni community and getting people like James and Dave, who I mean, gosh, Dave's traveling all the time, maybe not right now. But you know, he's at the biggest food shows ever he is in Milan, Italy and, and all this and he's like, you know, I have no time. But I'm gonna make time for this because I think this is important. Seeing the people step up to two that said, Hey, I want to be a part of this was was really the first moment I was like, you know, this is, this is something that's going to be good. This is something that that the community needs that people are going to be behind. And I just feel really, really lucky to have been sort of at the onset of it. And I'm, I'm so excited to see where it goes over the next few years.

Yeah, I've got to get Dave on the show. He and I have been going back and forth about schedule and it's like you're sitting at home now Dave, what are you gonna do? And then rich the same thing because he's got this build out of this new place. He's gonna work On. But hopefully those are two guys. Maybe I can get them on the show before your conference and get a little extra plug in there.

A little poke in the ribs.

A little a little poke. But yeah, I mean, the same with Dave. I mean, Dave and I have had a couple phone conversations. I mean, I think one was like an hour and a half one day and, you know, more than willing to share his knowledge on things. So yeah, great guest I love the idea of community building. It's the same with, you know, my chefs without restaurants. I literally thought when I started it, it was gonna be like four people I knew. And we have like this little group of independent chefs. And now looking back at a community where we have literally thousands of people across all platforms, with different level of engagement, and then a podcast where people are asking me to come on the show, and I feel like you know, I'm punching above my weight class, like, wow, this, you know, really well known person wants to come on my show. It's kind of cool that I get to now sit down and interview people who I admire. Because again, I thought it was just gonna be like, my friends and Frederick who advocator and company who I'd have on the show, and especially With the zoom, it's so much easier to be able to then just reach out to people anywhere in the world and have them sit down for this.

I can relate to that. When I first reached out to Jason, I'm like, Okay, this dude's a celebrity. He's like, a Soviet celebrity. Yes, you are. He, he doesn't say it. But he certainly felt like one until I got to know him more. But it's you know, it's amazing to see, food is just a great unifier. Like, if there's one thing our world needs right now. It's this. It's getting together, eating good meals, stuffing our mouths, so we can't talk to each other and just, you know, coming together and being together, you know, and I think I think there's a lot of good movements that are kind of putting that together. But the more of these little niche communities that we can bring together and support each other. I mean, that's what's going to make a difference in everything that's going on right now.

Hmm. And I do think having a Like you said, a niche community where you know I think sometimes you see things and they're way too broad but you I mean you guys narrowed in on surveyed something super specific. And it sounds like you have a lot of people in your community

where it's it's amazing how many people can be in a, you know, quote unquote small niche community that there's a lot of passionate people out there about a lot of obscure things and you can build a really good following just with focusing on something that you really enjoy doing.

So YouTube, the only ones kind of doing all the legwork on all this or do you have a team?

So last year, it was it was mostly just the two of us with a lot of I would say as far as like doing the work building the conference. Certainly like Dave was instrumental last year and of course, it's been helpful this year with a lot of things but he made the connections with Cray, as you know, so many, and several of our other sponsors. That's how we got introduced to rich and several other people this year. We're really lucky have had a few people who really had a great time at the conference. And we're like, you know, I want to get more involved. I want to help. So let us press and release. The keys are two bloggers that are, I don't know, if lettuces, if she'd call herself a blogger, but she was one of our MCs last year and did a session talk. So they're kind of heading up the marketing front. They're hoping to interview some of the speakers ahead of time and, you know, just do a lot of work company in the marketing plan together, because that is certainly not my background. And Jason and I have a lot of other stuff. And then Seth is is another person that we met last year who really was like, I've known Seth for a while,

but yeah, Seth was in Boy Scouts with me 30 years ago. Yeah, my earliest memories of Seth there. I have to just share this because you'd be mortified. It's when we were in Boy Scouts and him being so homesick and crying So he was two years younger than us and just going, Oh, this kid is such such a weenie. And now 30 years later, we're still really good friends working together.

And when I'm an eagle, I'm an Eagle Scout myself. So I'm done my time out in the woods, out of out of

my league here. I was gonna say which one of you guys ended up in the military?

Seth did so we need the one that was crying. Yeah,

yeah, no, he's, he's awesome. And, to be, to be perfectly honest, I went to one session at the conference last year, because I was so busy. At my own stinking conference, I got to see one, one talk. And Seth had noticed and I was like, Look, I really enjoyed this. I enjoy he was helping Jason out in the booth and then he kind of helped with some of the other stuff and it's like, I actually really enjoyed this I'd love to help out on the logistics side. So he's gotten really involved in kind of helping to run all of that and and you know, when we were doing the in person thing, get involved with a hotel. So, both of those, both of those sort of subcommittees within our general committee, if been just instrumental, and certainly, you know, we just did the recipe contest. We've had a lot of people, a lot of our committee members volunteer to judge for that and go through. So it's a team effort for sure. I mean, it's it's a lot. It's a lot of stuff. And, you know, we're grateful for everybody that's kind of come to support it and help out.

got to start somewhere. I mean, you could have a star chef size conference at some point, right. I mean, last year, I mean, it felt big last year. I mean, you had multiple rooms, multiple things going on. At the same time, you had your little area out front where people could look at things and try some food. So I mean, it already felt like a big conference for year one, in my opinion, because I've been to a lot of smaller conferences. Yeah, we

were pleased with the field that we had about 140 hundred 50 people there and it was a good amount that it felt There was a lot of people, but it didn't feel overwhelming. And especially at the receptions and with the food, everyone could really mingle and talk with everyone and all the speakers came out to the receptions. And so you could, you know, hang out with all these big names that were there, and they were happy to have a drink and, you know, hang out and chat, which was given a really good intimate feeling to it.

Yeah, I don't want to get to the point where our numbers are so big that it feels like a trade show. You know, that's, that's not what we're in this for. And so I think, certainly we want to grow we have we have great aspirations for where this is going to go, but our focus and all of that is okay, how do we do it measurably? How do we make sure we don't lose because I've done a lot of conferences and seminars and they're really I'm not saying this because it was our thing. They there was just something special in the community last year that that I felt, and I think a lot of other people shared that they felt as well and I don't want to lose that. So you know, we're We're doing a lot to figure out. How do we promote that? How do we keep that? And how do we, you know, grow without losing it? Yeah,

yeah, I always find when I go to those things, I have as much fun and learn as much from the other attendees as the people presenting, right? Because you're all there for the same thing. You all have the same passion. And I'm sure you have a lot of people who made friends with each other. Actually, there's a lot of people that I became friends with who I've kept in contact with, after that from last year. So that was really cool. And some of them we talk a lot on Instagram. Now, one of my friends that I went to culinary school with, traveled from Puerto Rico to come to your conference, which was insane, because I hadn't seen him in Well, since we graduated and like 98. Yeah. And then he was randomly there. He's like, Oh, yeah, I'm really into this. He's got a restaurant Puerto Rico, and I guess my wife bought him, you know, take it to whatever, nursery or something. But yeah, that seemed crazy to me. Like Huge that he came up for that and I was glad that I was able to catch up with him while he was in town.

Yeah. And then he brought a friend of his who I think was the director of culinary for like Planet Hollywood in in Dominican Republic or something. Yeah, he was great and his wife was was so fun to deal with. Like, she was wonderful. That was a she was so excited to surprise him with us, you know, and and I mean, that's the it's a it's a big community, but it's really small at the same time, like there there's a power in building friendships with people you know, and and I think that's why it's important to do these things outside of just you know, sharing recipes online and whatnot. That's, that's, I think what these bring to the table.

Yeah. Do you guys have anything else you want to talk about as far as suvi your conference or anything before I jump into a couple like closing rapid fire questions.

But I would just say we're doing we just did a our first recipe contest, which was sueded comfort foods and we announce the winner so that yesterday, which we got about 30 entrance and giveaway a couple circulators and had about I think 450 almost 500 people voted. So we're doing another one that we launched this morning that is sushi barbecue. meatheads, one of the judges on that next month is going to be sushi cocktails. So we're, we're pretty excited about those, if anybody has recipes that they'd like to get out there and, and, you know, try to win one of these, these awards, we'd love to have submissions for that.

And I would say if you're out there and listening and you're interested in to read, just give it a try. You can do some really interesting things with it. And it's just, it's just one more tool, you know, to make you a better chef and help you do what you want to do. It's not replacing anything necessarily. It's just teaching you one more thing that you can use to manipulate food and whatever way you want to to get the desired result so give it a try, you know, check out our stuff, send us questions, watch our live Q and A's and you can you know, shoot people like David transit and Michael Kelly and email and they we more than happy to, you know, help get you started and give you some ideas on how you can use it in whatever type of flow your kitchen has.

We have really comprehensive show notes so there'll be links to all of your websites, social media, all that stuff so everyone will be able to reach out and connect with you guys and I share this everywhere so awesome. Thanks, Chris. So other than yourselves and your your resources that you have I just kind of like to see what other people are into. So let's start Do you guys have favorite chefs one or two?

Oh, that's a hard question. There's so many. I really James for Sarah has been someone I followed for a while. I have the flavor matrix. I love what he does just I'm a weird food guy. Like I love I love just experiment. In stuff so he's certainly somebody that I've enjoyed following

trying to think he

you know, a really I followed a lot since since the summit last year and I I followed a lot of food before but not a lot on the pro side and I think I've been pretty impressed with a lot of people that we that you know joined us last year and follow it out but but James is one that I probably watched the most.

I should probably follow more chefs. I tend to not have enough time to consume as much other food media cuz I'm busy writing my own recipes and doing stuff. But I do follow you know, the the chefs that follow the ISV and have done stuff with us, but nothing jumps out, uniquely off the top of my head which is really too bad.

No, not at all. And how about resources? Do you have like websites that you love cookbooks? Like anything to point people in the direction again, other than yours, because you have a lot, but what are you looking at? And what do you recommend people check out?

I use a lot of the poly science resources, especially for sushi. They have some great videos and recipes and guides. So I've really, I really like the stuff that Dave puts together there. I follow. It's not super specific, but ideas and food is, you know, they've been at it for 1520 years every day.

I was really surprised like they took it looked like a month off not too long ago. And I was like, You guys were the ones you've blogged every single day for, like 15 years. But I mean, you know, there's obviously a lot going on right now. I was surprised that they did it as long as they did. And now it's picked up. I mean, they're a couple of my very favorite people. And when you talk about people who are like open books as far as sharing information They have been amazing. And actually my first kind of like break in the professional ish industry like with food media was they gave me credit for something on their website one day and it was like the first time I'd ever been mentioned in any food media. I mean, I've been cooking professionally for like 20 plus years, but I felt like I finally made it when I got like a little credit on one of their blog posts. That was one of their more popular ones at the time, because I helped them with some recipe development and tried some things out. And they link to my website, and it was the first bump where I got a lot of traffic to my website. That's awesome. It's awesome.

Yeah, I push everybody to Jason's website and I don't say that because he's my partner. He's that's where I started. And like I said, I've bought 15 copies of his modernists cooking made it easy book. Because it I literally don't think there's a better place to get started with subida my book, I mean, I really honestly don't.

I appreciate that. And if you're a chef and you're interested in really like from scratch Start to Finish understanding the suvi process and want to implement it in your kitchen. Or if you manage restaurants you want to figure it out. Korea does have a three day sushi cooking class, cooking classes, the wrong term, it's sushi, just everything class, I took it last year. And it's takes you through a lot of the science behind it, as well as how you can use it in your restaurants, the safety considerations and how to put it as part of your cooking flow. And it's a really comprehensive and expensive but if you are looking to implement suvi in your restaurant long term, like that's a great, great thing that you can go do for three days and come away knowing more about sushi than most of the other cooks out there.

They also do a three day pass of course, which I think is one of the barriers that really keeps people from keeps, you know chefs from bringing this into the restaurant. They work with health departments all over the place. So they're available for consulting and their chief scientist is Dr. hunger. So who invented the methods? You know, so if you can't learn from from better people

that you know, that has a plan is so it's so hard because a lot of department is departments of health. I mean, like, yeah, where I was working in Maryland, Frederick counties a little more advanced, like we have volt downtown. So that's maybe more common. But I was working in Carroll County, and like, I don't think anyone was doing it, you know, and we had a vac machine and all this and they come in, and they've literally never seen it. And it's like, what's the starting point? Because it's new to them, and they instantly want to say like, shut it down. Don't use it, you know? And it's, it's a lot of legwork to get that approved. And that's why there's a lot of secretive use of these things. I mean, I'm not calling anyone out, but I we all know people who have like vac machines and circulators that are kind of like hidden and they take them out to do their thing when nobody's going to catch them the same with like the charcuterie in the closet, you know?

Yeah, it's, I mean, we did a food conference in Dallas. are trying to sue me 300 pounds of beef and we went through some of the same stuff and it, it ended up working out. But yeah, it's it's just, it's new it well, it's not new, but it's new to them. It's something that they don't know a lot about. So, you know, there's a lot of resources like that that are

helpful. Have you guys had any notable fails like something that you really thought you could do suvi that at the end of the day was not worth doing. But you know, you just wanted to try

the biggest fails that I normally have, or because I do a lot of testing of circulators and I'll use some of the inexpensive ones. And so I I experimented accidentally by seeing what happens if you cook a tri tip at boiling temperature for about half an hour because the thermometer in the circulator went haywire and it just was boiling the water is not good, as you might imagine. That's the majority of the fails that I've had. Let's see.

I was trying to do a duck Benedict because I have a farm that that does duck eggs. Decades don't cook exactly the same as chicken eggs I realized very, very quickly. So, you know, that took me a little bit. I think my most disappointing result honestly and this sounds hilarious and I'm going to say another benedicta unfortunately, but I had this alpaca shape that I was like, so excited to cook alpaca for the first time. And I'm like, Oh, it's a shame. It's like lamb, you know, 24 hours, this will work out really well. And it was like shoe leather. It was so tough that you know it. I was so disappointed that morning that I didn't get to have my nice alpaca Benedict. Sure. There's not a whole lot of resources for cooking

alpaca, where do you even get alpaca I mean, it is it like a special order through Cisco kind of thing.

Now there's a there's a there's a couple there's a few places, but there's I got that one. I think it fossil farms. New Jersey stakes in game in Texas is another one I just saw that's another person I like watching justice Stewart with gourmet deconstructed he does a lot of those who say justice great he does a lot of fun like he's done everything from Sichuan jellyfish to you know deep fried Python nuggets and also this is camel short ribs he did yeah and you know he taught us these amazing camel short ribs and then I can't buy camel short ribs anywhere like the supplier that he used doesn't have them anymore so I've gotten camel before uncooked but it was just ground Yeah. short ribs that I wouldn't even think of camel having short ribs but I guess yeah, there's a I have some camel burger patties in my freezer actually to try but he did some antelope ribs a couple weeks ago that I instantly was like I am so making those bottom from staking steaks in game and I'm just waiting for figs to come in because they want to do a big barbecue sauce on them.

But I just see weird things sometimes like people talking about like making a cake suvi No, I'm just kind of like what are you doing? Like, just put your cake batter in a pan and throw it in the oven. Like, I don't feel like you need to try to do everything sushi. And I don't see any benefit to do that. It's like 25 minutes in the oven. What are you doing?

Yeah, there's definitely some things. I especially in my group, I always encourage everyone to explore the method because that's my facebook group is exploring sushi. So it's all about seeing what seaweed can do. And there's a lot that you can do with it. But like most things, it doesn't necessarily mean that you need to do it every single time. I think it's good to try stuff, but it's, you know, like I like scallops to bead sometimes. And it might change the texture a little bit and make it a little bit easier. But like I had scallops last night and I just pan fry them because they were just gonna be just as fast to do that because I didn't have my circulator set up. So it's, you know, there's some things like that, that I think can give you a convenience and some people really like using suvi for it and my answer to that question. Then use it and there's other people that don't. And my answer is great, don't use it then. But there are things like I use my speed machine to make oatmeal all the time. And it's like

asking why why is that? Is it because you got a better texture? Is that a convenience that you can do like a bigger batch?

It's because every single time I do it on the stove, I don't pay attention and it boils over on the stove. And with the suvi that never boils over. I don't know if it tastes any better, you know, but it's, I'm not cleaning up my stove every time I do it. So I use speed for it and it's some people would say it's stupid, but like that's the reasoning behind it is makes sense and that's why I use it. So it's, there's some things like that, that I think personal preference could come into come into play

makes me think about grits because I do a lot of grits you know, like you'll do shrimp and grits for like 15 people and that's the same thing. It's like, if it's in a pot and you have that much you're going to burn you have to store all the time. The same with doing like a polenta like it. Maybe it's a better idea to just throw it in the circulator. And not worried about it cuz you're not gonna get that contact burning.

A lot of that you can remove a lot of that variability to that, you know, no matter unless you have like a control freak or something your stove is never the exact same temperature the evaporation is going to happen differently depending on the humidity and like yeah, it's part of being a chef right is knowing that and watching it and using sight and sound, but if you're doing something that you don't want to have to pay attention to, then it's going to be in like a sealed mason jar, you know, or a sealed bag that there's no evaporation you know exactly how much water how much salt how much grain that you need to put in it and you're gonna get a consistent result every time which there's definitely value to that.

Cheese cakes, another one like that, that I do cheesecakes all the time in the little mason jars and they don't crack they don't dry out. They're phenomenal. And you know, any of those kind of customer desserts work really really well. I would never think of doing a cheesecake in there. Oh, it's are you doing mini like mini individually Yeah, it's like a four ounce mason jars. I mean, you know, I've definitely toyed with the idea of doing an eight ounce mason jar because you know, why not, but it's like I've mixed in. You know, I'll make the cheesecake powder and you know, just a little graham cracker crust. And I've mixed in Oreos inside it or done an Oreo crust I've mixed in chopped banana just dropped it in with the batter and made a little banana cream. I mean, the The possibilities are endless. And it it's so just light and creamy and and phenomenal.

One thing that a lot of people forget is that at its most basic sushi is just maintaining a specific temperature over time. And there's a lot of things like cheesecake and like making a holiday sauce, temporary chocolate yogurt that you're holding something at a set temperature and we do a lot of things with, you know, double boilers and you know, putting, you know, in a paint in a pan with water in it in the oven to kind of maintain the temperature that we were trying to like kind of change And you can use suvi to accomplish a lot of those things. That's what it's designed for. And you might need to finish it in a different way or, you know, do something at the end. But if you're holding something in your kitchen and you're like, every time I do this, I'm holding it a specific temperature. That's something that is a good candidate to kind of explore with su v to see if it can accomplish that in a much easier manner for you. Yeah,

yeah, I do a lot of individual cheese cakes and a lot of cranberry lays, so probably good. Good thing to check out. I've never actually done either of those movies. So I'm gonna put on my

list. Just one our comfort food contests like that was the winning recipe. And she molded it. I couldn't believe it. I've never seen a molded crimper lay before. It was

pretty fantastic. I wouldn't even dare I don't own unmold my Kimberly. I don't unmold my panna cotta is like they're gonna go in the container that they're made in. And that's how I'm serving them. Yep. This has been great. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Guys. I loved having you. I hope you enjoy it. Coming on talking about CV and your conference and everything

out for really appreciate you having us. Come on. This is great. And it's always fun chatting with you. You're so knowledgeable and you know, you're passionate about cooking it. I always really enjoy our conversations.

Yeah, I love sharing culinary knowledge. And you guys do too. I mean, people always ask me like, Can I get the recipe for this? And when I say I'm going to share people are so surprised, because I think they think all chefs have like secret recipes. And what's the point of that? Like, I don't see not sharing what I know, with everyone. So even if you're a customer, I mean, you're not gonna not hire me to do a dinner for you. Because you now have my recipe. It's not about that. It's about the convenience of not having to do the work. And yeah, so I always, yeah, I always want to share so I'm hoping that I have a lot of non professional people listen to this podcast and can point you point them in your direction.

I appreciate that.

Absolutely.

So to all our listeners, this was the chef's without restaurants podcast. As always, you can find us at chefs without restaurants. dot com and.org and on all social media platforms, Thanks and have a great week.

Alright guys, thank you Transcribed by https://otter.ai