00:01good how are you thank you so much got some beignets here for you one of our favorites a bunch
00:18so tell me how did you become a chef what inspired you well there's a pretty long story
00:24of that my mom says I was cooking since I was two but what really made me become a chef
00:28is
00:29I had to do an externship in high school and to get out of it I went to do it
00:33with my uncle
00:33he was a chef and then I started cooking with him and I just fell in love with it
00:38wow is your uncle a chef too yeah he went to the CIA in New York and so he's a
00:44really great chef
00:45I think he's retired now but he might be dabbling still in it when did you know you wanted to
00:49own
00:49a restaurant I wanted to own a restaurant all through my 20s and I said I was going to own
00:54a restaurant by 35 and I accomplished it yeah it just happened to kind of work that way I started
00:58here as a day line cook because I had my daughter full time and I just that's the only time
01:04I could
01:04work and then I worked my way up to GM and then I ended up getting the opportunity to purchase
01:09it
01:09so that's beautiful yeah it was really I'm sure there's so much more to your story a little bit
01:13more but I want to speed up so how was everything how was all the food that you had everything
01:17was
01:17delicious delightful I'm so full we try to get most of our ingredients from places like small gardens but
01:24like you know I have a friend that used to be the uh farm manager here his name is Rama
01:28he has a
01:29small small farm in Marshall we try to get some of our herbs and all those things from there
01:32our flowers come from this nice flower farm lady
01:45how's it going guys we got piapinos oysters some golden oysters and some lion's mane today
02:05yeah I grow mushrooms for the blackbird um we've grown about 43 different varieties over the years
02:11I try to bring as many as I can to Mike he seems to appreciate the diversity that I bring
02:15find
02:16something creative to do with almost everything I have yeah what he does lets me do what I do and
02:21it's kind of like a beautiful symbiosis we kind of like it okay how long have you been growing
02:24mushrooms uh about five years now will you tell me a little bit about the variety you have sure
02:30these are piapino mushrooms here these darker looking ones um growing up I didn't like mushrooms
02:35very much so I was kind of surprised to find these because they taste more like meat than any other
02:39mushroom I've ever encountered so if you want something that's kind of meaty and crunchy and good
02:43they actually fit the bill same as some of these others like golden oyster mushrooms which are like
02:48canary colored beautiful lion's mane mushrooms which are super healthy and beneficial yay and amazing
02:55flavor wise too great for a steak right or jerky for sure wow what a privilege it is to hold
03:03your product
03:04oh they smell so good smell fresh a little sweet not too earthy I try to harvest the day of
03:11or the day
03:11before we bring them in so they basically look like they grew right in front of you or were set
03:15down in
03:15front of you from above okay am I able to eat this one raw no you want to cook everything
03:21that we grow
03:21oh okay I was gonna throw it in you're gonna you're not gonna get any nutritional benefit from it
03:26everything we have is made of chitin so basically you're gonna want to cook it so you get the
03:31nutritional value out of it but then it's full of all kinds of beneficial things like vitamins and
03:35minerals and beneficial polysaccharides okay do they have protein oh yes okay there's some of the only
03:42produce you can get that actually has um protein and vitamin d so okay nice so you cook a lot
03:50of
03:50mushrooms what's your favorite mushroom dish um black king oyster mushrooms okay you'll you'll leave
03:55other stuff on your plate but you won't leave your black kings they're just absolutely decadent it's a
03:59king oyster mushroom crossed with a black trumpet um made the uh the regular king oyster mushroom much
04:05softer okay so you have this really decadent rich dark cap when you slice it it's like its own kind
04:10of
04:10meat okay like there's pork chicken beef and then there's black king oyster mushroom it's its own
04:15thing now i like to let mines marinate do you ever do that um actually i've been uh talking to
04:20a lot of
04:20my uh my chefs about cooking in uh water oh which is interesting because it seems kind of counterproductive
04:26because mushrooms have a lot of moisture content yeah but if you'll actually simmer them in water what
04:30they'll do is the juices will come out onto the mushroom itself and then they'll uh condense down
04:37and you'll get a better maillard reaction and it create changes the texture so for people who are
04:42like i like the flavor of mushrooms but i don't really like the texture right it'll actually
04:46drastically change it for those people wow okay i can't wait to try some i have some i was gifted
04:53some of your lion's mane you could not be in a better place you could not be in a better
04:57place
04:58for someone to know exactly what to do with everything that i'm so excited about it
05:02you
05:02you
