Episode 73 features Zach Martin, host of the Foodball podcast.
We discuss our cooking origins and inspirations, our cooking journeys, food is a part of that conversation, as well as the origin of foodball, cook vs chef, passion vs hobby, plenty of suggested viewing for those interested in more food things and much much more.
Throughout the conversation, we discuss:
- Cooking and food
- Cook vs. Chef
- The myth that food is fuel only
- Depression Era Cooking
- Chili
- Meal prep
- Cooking Origins
- PBS Cooking Shows
- Cooking Television
- What works for you
- Enjoying the process of cooking
- The Origin of Foodball
- A cautionary culinary tale
- Cooking: Time vs. Money
- The Cooking Spectrum
- The No Breakfast Club
- Eggs are great for cooking
- Pancakes
- No gadgets in the kitchen
- A division of labor
- Chef, the movie and The Chef Show
- Cooking and criticism
- Hobby vs. Passion
- Solo podcasting
- Sandwich construction
- Burger vs. Patty
- And much more
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Being Transcription–
00:00:00:01 – 00:00:21:23
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer.com. Black and blue is a bruising baseball history of the 66 World Series. The kids finally get their due respect in the kids in the Hall. Comedy punks and I have to be honest with you all. I’m pretty proud. That last episode, I didn’t use any. Put me in coach. References. This is The Palmer Files, episode 73 with Zach Martin, host of the Food Ball podcast.
00:00:21:32 – 00:01:12:32
Agent Palmer
Yes. Food ball. We discuss our cooking origins and inspiration, our cooking journeys. Food is a part of that conversation, as well as the origin of food ball cook versus chef, passion versus hobby. Plenty of suggested viewing for those interested in more food related things and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show!
00:01:12:37 – 00:01:37:42
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to the Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic. Also known as AJ Palmer. And on this 73rd episode is Zach Martin, host of the Food Ball Podcast and a person who has been sharing his thoughts on cooking for years before that podcast came to be Food Ball. Zach Show is all about demystifying cooking because it isn’t mystical at all, doesn’t need to be complicated, and isn’t just for one type of person.
00:01:37:47 – 00:01:58:13
Agent Palmer
Humans cook, and we’re all human. His show is about sharing that with you on its most basic level, by talking to different people and sharing different experiences in the kitchen and with cooking elsewhere, like on the grill. Perhaps what you are about to hear is very much a conversation about cooking and food. But it’s not all about cooking and food.
00:01:58:26 – 00:02:19:20
Agent Palmer
It’s also about the freezing of certain things. Is it a passion or a hobby? Are you a cook or a chef? Is it a burger or a patty? Plus some cautionary tales about not being able to cook. Finding our sweet spots and our comfort zones. And of course, we suggest plenty of food related content across the mediums for you to consume along with your food.
00:02:19:25 – 00:02:38:54
Agent Palmer
All of that and a whole lot more is coming your way shortly. But first, if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterwards, you can tweet me at Agent Palmer, my guest Zach Martin at Food Ball Podcast. That’s followed by Alpha Pod and this show at The Palmer Files. You can find more information about Zach and Food Ball.
00:02:38:54 – 00:03:02:51
Agent Palmer
Wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also follow Zach on Instagram at Food Ball Pod if you prefer that platform. Don’t forget, you can see all of my ratings and ratings on Agent palmer.com. And of course, email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s get into the kitchen.
00:03:02:56 – 00:03:14:18
Agent Palmer
Zach, I wanted to ask you straight off the bat, do you think that people confuse their relationship with food and their relationship with cooking?
00:03:14:23 – 00:03:46:09
Zach Martin
Yes, absolutely. I think the disconnect with at least American society, and I’m learning by talking to people outside of American society too, is food has been trained into our brains as being fuel only, and that in order to get the premium fuel, it has to be cooked or prepared by someone else that we are incapable of creating our own premium fuel.
00:03:46:14 – 00:04:08:40
Agent Palmer
I mean, I can agree with that to an extent. I, I’m a I’m a simple cook. And what I mean by that is like, I, I want the things that I do, I do very well. I have found that in my middle to late 30s, which is where I find myself, I have settled on dishes I would rather mess around with.
00:04:08:45 – 00:04:38:39
Agent Palmer
Then really expand my my my my my abilities. Right? Like I, I love eggs. I love eggs and I’m just always messing with them. And I, I love, because I was single for a while when I was kind of trying to save money at the same time. Those things are not always mutually exclusive, but because they were for me, I ended up being a very depression era cook.
00:04:38:39 – 00:05:00:12
Agent Palmer
Like, how much can how like, how much effort can I put in now to get me days worth of food like that? And, and that’s kind of maintained, right? Like I, I’m a big fan of, like, tweaking an existing thing, like, so, za’atar and like, dirty rice mix or jambalaya or whatever, like I will add as much.
00:05:00:14 – 00:05:24:43
Agent Palmer
I will double the amount of rice and the amount of other random stuff I put in it in order to make it last for four days. For like, you know, like like it’s not both meals the whole time out, but like, I’ve, you know, I do enjoy cooking, but I think when we get busy, and Americans are best when we’re, you know, we’re we’re not, do we?
00:05:24:43 – 00:05:39:43
Agent Palmer
If we’re not busy, we’re not doing something. I think when I’m busy, that’s kind of why I ended up doing it. Wasn’t really so much is like, I need to save money. It was, well, if I spend all this time, like, if I, if I cook all this on a Sunday, I don’t have to cook again until Wednesday.
00:05:39:48 – 00:06:04:47
Agent Palmer
Thursday. Like I. And now it’s fuel again. And it’s only like for my like when it’s family meals like extended family. Not me and my partner. Like it’s just like then, all right, now it’s time to put some thought into it. Or like special occasions I’ll make like chicken parmesan or something like. Otherwise I’m, I, I don’t know what that classifies me as because I also enjoy the process.
00:06:04:47 – 00:06:12:53
Agent Palmer
Like I’m not like, oh no, but like I’m a busy guy. I got passion projects like this podcast, like I can’t be in the kitchen all the time.
00:06:13:02 – 00:06:37:18
Zach Martin
And I and I understand that. I think, much like, I don’t know, politics and human sexuality and economics, there is a spectrum. And my biggest thing is to it is better to find yourself on the spectrum at all than worry about where you are on it. So you describe yourself as a simple cook. That’s better than not being a cook.
00:06:37:18 – 00:07:13:33
Zach Martin
Period. Okay. So something like a za’atar ends dirty rice mix. I would contend that a can of tomatoes, a bag of white rice, a handful of spices, and a protein of choice with a Dutch oven can make better food the same amount in the same amount of time that doesn’t have preservatives and fake ingredients, and, you know, ends up being more cost effective, too in the long run, because you can eat it for 6 or 7 days and then freeze the other half, and then you have it for a meal, you know, a couple of weeks later.
00:07:13:38 – 00:07:43:19
Agent Palmer
That’s. Yeah, that’s I mean, I, I do end up that’s what I do in the winter. For Chile, like for Chile, it’s very much here are the ingredients. Let’s figure it out I think I think my, my partner Stephanie and one of my close friends, Jason, also named Jason. Hate the fact that, like, I will make chili every weekend in the winter because I never make it like, I don’t.
00:07:43:23 – 00:07:58:37
Agent Palmer
I’m. I’m, I’m not. I don’t claim to be a chemist when I’m a cook, but, like, I’m very much a what am I feeling right now? A little bit. Oh, sure. It’s a little bit of that. So I’ve never made even my favorite chili. I’ve never been able to duplicate. No you don’t.
00:07:58:39 – 00:08:25:45
Zach Martin
You don’t make it. You don’t ever make it the same way twice. Because if you cook with feeling and even when even when I cook with the recipe like a chili recipe, I once followed the Serious eats Kenji Lopez greatest chili in the history recipe that he he ends up stating at the very beginning, this has an incredible amount of ingredients in it, an incredible amount of different techniques and steps, and it’s going to take you a whole day, but it’s worth it.
00:08:25:50 – 00:08:48:17
Zach Martin
And I ended up using as much of it as I could and doing as many techniques as I could. And, you know, it was pretty damn good chili. But I could also make 80% of that chili in two hours. Okay. Not 15. So yeah, but, you know, cooking like that, like you describe with with feeling and with passion and with instinct that is learned over time.
00:08:48:22 – 00:09:04:13
Zach Martin
It is tough to duplicate. You know, we had the same thing in my house with chili in particular. My wife loves it in the winter because we can eat it for five or 6 or 7 days in different ways, and then she has fewer dishes to do because I’m not cooking every night and something like that. That is a technique that you learn.
00:09:04:13 – 00:09:13:34
Zach Martin
If you are the kind of person who likes to meal prep and cook in bulk, some people it doesn’t work for them. Yeah, so it’s all about finding what works for you.
00:09:13:38 – 00:09:40:06
Agent Palmer
In preparation for this episode, I was trying to think of like, what my I know cooking origin is. I don’t know what it is like. I think to some extent, right. Everybody has helped out with cookies, either to a mother, a grandmother, a grandma, a baker in the family. We’ve all kind of helped out with cookies, but I don’t I don’t consider baking the same as cooking.
00:09:40:11 – 00:10:03:50
Agent Palmer
And so for me, I don’t know where it starts. I honestly can’t put my finger on it. But I do know, like, my parents, you know, I think it was like when I got to college and it was a comparison among others, like, oh, hey, like, you know, we’re in the dorm. Like maybe somebody can cook something and it’s like, well, I who knows what?
00:10:03:50 – 00:10:25:38
Agent Palmer
And I just, I don’t know how I got those skills because I don’t remember, you know, mom or dad being like, this is how you brown meat, right? Or this is how you make X or Y, like, I don’t remember any of it. I don’t I don’t know if I have one, but do you like, can you look back and find a cooking origin?
00:10:25:42 – 00:10:26:28
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
00:10:26:33 – 00:10:54:11
Zach Martin
My my family is from the Illinois side of Saint Louis. Very Midwestern. I was raised by my grandparents, who moved with me when I was about eight to Savannah, Georgia. And my grandma had always been kind of a an experimental cook. She was, a baby boomer who rebelled against the perception of women should work at home and only work.
00:10:54:11 – 00:11:16:43
Zach Martin
She had a job. She taught music. But she also understood that my grandpa couldn’t feed himself out of a bag of macaroni and cheese. So she had to. She she did have the the myth of trying to have a career and working at home. So she had learned over the course of her life, until I got old enough to help, to be a really well-rounded cook.
00:11:16:43 – 00:11:30:21
Zach Martin
She got books from The Frugal Gourmet. She had Julia Child, she had Natalie Dupree. We would watch the PBS cooking shows with Jacques Pepin. I say that very French. That’s.
00:11:30:21 – 00:11:42:06
Agent Palmer
Fine. You probably also had the, I’m trying to think because I have one from my grandmother. The, I can’t remember what Betty Crocker maybe with the, like, the plaid, the red plaid cover.
00:11:42:06 – 00:11:59:24
Zach Martin
And then there’s that one, and there’s the new basic cookbook that also has a red plaid that I. That’s the one book that I took from home to college. But when I was little, she had made the joke with my dad and my aunt that when they were little, she would just ask them, you know, would you like to help in the kitchen?
00:11:59:24 – 00:12:17:04
Zach Martin
And my dad always ended up saying yes. And my aunt ended up saying no. So my aunt now is a 50 plus woman, doesn’t know how to cook because she never bothered to learn. And my dad went too far and my dad’s a god awful cook. He fell off the map somewhere. I don’t know what happened, but.
00:12:17:04 – 00:12:32:56
Zach Martin
So she did the same thing with me, and said, you know, do you want to help? But I eventually I didn’t like, help all the time, but I was in the kitchen. I was around it. We watched, you know, those PBS shows. And then when Food Network started, we watched Food Network. We watched Emeril live almost every night.
00:12:33:01 – 00:12:56:54
Zach Martin
And then I started getting into Good Eats, in high school, because that’s right around where, where he premiered that show. And I was fascinated by the science behind food and how he made it approachable. And then I went off. So I kind of had that upbringing of the southern grandma making biscuits and gravy and eggs and, you know, broccoli cheese and rice casserole and crab casserole.
00:12:56:54 – 00:13:23:37
Zach Martin
But she was a Yankee cook cooking southern meals. My grandpa actually worked at a sandwich shop that Paula Deen frequented before she opened her very first restaurant in Savannah. Paula Deen is a hateful, racist, but it kind of is par for the course for that kind of group of people in the South. But I met her a few times as a kid, and she was obviously very pleasant to me.
00:13:23:42 – 00:13:52:41
Zach Martin
And I loved her cooking because it was unapologetically itself. You know, she never and she’s gotten fired for, you know, my my food is not healthy. It tastes good. And, well, I, I can kind of see where she’s coming from. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. At least they don’t have to be. And and one of the things that I, that I talk about that I’m passionate about is find what works for you.
00:13:52:46 – 00:14:19:30
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I very much think that I’m in a sweet spot now. I like there are moments when I’m like, I should learn to cook like something else. But I think the other part of it is, we grow and our bodies change and evolve, like. And I, for example, I cut out red meat at a certain point about a decade ago, and I look, I’m that would have been my early 30s, my late 20s.
00:14:19:30 – 00:14:41:34
Agent Palmer
Like, I had no reason to cut out red meat other than I just was like, well, I, you know, I don’t know if it was the media I was watching was of older people, right. Whatever. Like, you know, the it’s the whole thing. Any sitcom from like the early aughts, like there’s somebody in their 60s and they go to the doctor, they cut back on red meat, cigars and liquor, like, okay, well, all right, well, I’ll just I’ll just cut back on the red meat.
00:14:41:34 – 00:15:01:56
Agent Palmer
Right. And and so now red meat doesn’t like me anymore. And I understand part of that is just science. Like, I just I don’t prep my body, doesn’t process it, blah, blah, blah, and like tolerance, etc., etc.. So now you know all of most of my dishes, even tacos, Chile, whatever is chicken or turkey, which is fine, like you don’t notice the difference.
00:15:01:56 – 00:15:29:49
Agent Palmer
And maybe it is, or maybe it is and healthier. But there are moments when I’m like, I should probably cook something else. Like I should probably, maybe, maybe I should try and get out there. But I am also a very much like at, I think a lot of home chefs cooks. I don’t know, I, I’m just going to say home chef is a bit much for what I would but but as a home cook it’s very much put on music.
00:15:29:49 – 00:15:46:42
Agent Palmer
Get out cutting board and then you know something’s going to happen. Right? I’ll dice my onions, I’ll cut the tomatoes, I’ll cut some peppers and some at the end of it. Something will be edible. I mean, it’ll be great, but I’ll have had a good time listening to music and cooking.
00:15:46:46 – 00:16:16:52
Zach Martin
I’m sure. And I think even even what your, the situation and scenario that you’re describing is already leaps and bounds ahead of almost everybody our age and, you know, position and under because the, the main, the the impetus of really taking all this passion and knowledge of mine to be kind of be like condescending enough to think that people would want to listen to it on a podcast was a friend of mine who is 33, single.
00:16:16:52 – 00:16:45:53
Zach Martin
Has always been single, is living by himself, kind of a traditional gamer, you know, social anxiety type. And I love him to death. He’s like an adopted brother. And we were we were hanging out and he said, I spend $40 a day on Grubhub to deliver McDonald’s and other fast food places to my house because I am too lazy to go drive to pick it up, and that’s all I eat anyway.
00:16:45:58 – 00:16:52:25
Agent Palmer
But there was no so. So immediately you were like, wait, what? What? Don’t you don’t you have a kitchen in your apartment? Right?
00:16:52:25 – 00:17:12:04
Zach Martin
And I said, you do have a kitchen. I’ve been there. You have pans and at least one knife. What in God’s name are you doing? And he said, I just it’s not worth my time. And I and I, I’ve long thought that like our family is, is poor. Like we are poor, whether it’s from economy. My wife’s a teacher.
00:17:12:04 – 00:17:30:43
Zach Martin
Like we’re poor. We don’t have a lot of money. So my time that I spend dicing vegetables, for example, is worth not as much as my money. So I won’t buy pre diced vegetables that are more expensive because my money still has way more value than my time 100%.
00:17:30:43 – 00:17:32:04
Agent Palmer
I see, I see.
00:17:32:04 – 00:17:50:25
Zach Martin
This and to to my friend, his time was way more valuable because he has no children and no and no spouse. He has all disposable income. So I said, that’s insane. Not only is it just bad, not bad for you necessarily, but that’s all you’re eating and that’s all you’re spending all this money that you could be doing other stuff.
00:17:50:29 – 00:18:11:20
Zach Martin
So I said, what about just a plain chicken breast and some frozen broccoli? He said, well, it takes too long. I said, dude, get a rice cooker. Get a rice cooker. It is one button. You don’t have to measure anything. You put the chicken on the top, you put the broccoli on the top. With the chicken, you put the whole thing on, put the lid on it, hit one button and walk away.
00:18:11:25 – 00:18:30:34
Zach Martin
And in 10 or 15 minutes it’s done. It’s mechanical. It cannot break. It doesn’t have a computer chip. It can’t overload or think itself to death like my dishwasher. But it’s easy and eat that once a week. I said, you eat that one dinner a week and you’ll start to feel better. And that’s if you could do that for me.
00:18:30:39 – 00:18:55:56
Zach Martin
I will have considered that a success. So that kind of thing is, you know, it’s on that spectrum of cooking where, you know, and I made this set of rules because I, you know, want to feel important. But my final rule was kind of a cop out. It’s rule number six is know your food. You know, I think I’m getting I get from you that, you know, you stay in your lane.
00:18:56:00 – 00:19:05:26
Zach Martin
Eggs are a really good lane to stay in, by the way, because eggs are incredible and versatile, and you can cook them 5000 different ways. I, I like.
00:19:05:30 – 00:19:17:33
Agent Palmer
Eggs are all right, so I’ll. I’ll come clean to this. Rarely do I have breakfast. Like breakfast for me is basically a pot of coffee. That’s breakfast.
00:19:17:33 – 00:19:18:58
Zach Martin
Sucks. Breakfast sucks.
00:19:19:07 – 00:19:43:54
Agent Palmer
But eggs, specifically peppers and eggs will be either either in a scramble or as like a frittata that I put on, like toast will either be a lunch or dinner at least once a week because it’s just so. Or even just fried egg on a sandwich with like a side of corned beef hash or something just because it’s easy.
00:19:43:54 – 00:19:51:36
Agent Palmer
But like, I eat more breakfast for non morning times than I do at breakfast.
00:19:51:36 – 00:20:14:54
Zach Martin
Well, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t feel too bad about that. I have never been a breakfast eater in my entire life and my wife thinks it’s weird. My grandparents always thought it was weird. Like I never eat cereal. I’m not a fan of pop tarts. I’ll. I’ll enjoy. I enjoy like, homestyle breakfast food on a weekend. Like, I’ll have a stack of pancakes, I’ll make bacon and sausage and, you know, an egg.
00:20:14:59 – 00:20:21:00
Zach Martin
I have made many an omelet. Just kidding. I am really good at making western scrambles.
00:20:21:02 – 00:20:47:42
Agent Palmer
Western scrambles? Great. Western scrambles are great. I will say I my weak spot is pancakes. Like if I could get I there is just so I just cannot get them. They are either like like I just can’t get the consistency right. And that’s my problem because now I’m like my partner should wake up on a Sunday because I look, I it’s not like I can’t eat, I just don’t I’m not hungry in the morning, whatever it is.
00:20:47:42 – 00:21:09:52
Agent Palmer
Right. Like, but if there’s pancakes like I, I will eat them. I would probably eat them more if I cooked them. But because mainly because I get up earlier. So like, I, you know, I could, I could be that nice partner and like, wake up, like, make the house smell like coffee and pancakes. Except I cannot make it like I need to.
00:21:09:57 – 00:21:21:53
Agent Palmer
I like it’s something I know I’m deficient, like I need to practice at it. And the problem is, they’re not the great like a bad pancake is just. It’s. It’s a bad pancake.
00:21:21:58 – 00:21:41:56
Zach Martin
It’s depressing. It’s a soul killer. Yeah. It is, and it’s it’s interesting that you that you bring that up too, because, you know, I, I make the joke that the only reason my wife married me is because I’m a good cook, and she. Because she. Otherwise she wouldn’t be able to feed herself. But she, she has this mutant power.
00:21:42:01 – 00:22:05:22
Zach Martin
And that every pancake she makes is perfect. From the first one to the last one. The batter is never over beaten. Everything is always golden brown. And I have the opposite mutant power. And that I couldn’t make a real decent pancake if you had a gun. To my head. And I have done it. It’s like rice. I can’t cook rice in a sauce pan either, which is why I have a rice cooker.
00:22:05:27 – 00:22:16:05
Zach Martin
But these basic things like it’s just a blind spot for me. And so thankfully she is an amazing pancake maker so my children don’t have to suffer through a pancake loss. Childhood.
00:22:16:05 – 00:22:34:10
Agent Palmer
Yeah, rice I will say to to to rice took me a while like I can I can do it in a saucepan or in a pot on the stove because I don’t have it right. I’m very much, I would I for the record, I think I’m middle class. I think I think that’s probably where I would fit.
00:22:34:15 – 00:22:56:35
Agent Palmer
But I very much in the kitchen. I think I fall in that depression era style. Like, I don’t want any more gadgets like, I don’t, I don’t want any more gadgets. Like I want my in my pan and I have a crock pot. And when I say a crock pot is not a smart crock pot, it has a doesn’t even have a digital display.
00:22:56:35 – 00:23:18:34
Agent Palmer
It’s what it’s probably about ten years old. It has lights, it has LED lights. And it’s like high, medium, for like long and high, medium for short and then warm. That’s it. Right. And it’s to the point now where the button doesn’t quite work to switch between. But I refuse to get a like I a pressure cooker.
00:23:18:34 – 00:23:41:35
Agent Palmer
I don’t need one of those. All those all in one miracle pots that have like I don’t want a smart pot. No thank you. So like I for me, like. And I messed up rice plenty of times, which is how I got to a point where, like, I can cook rice, but, and same with pasta. I’m horrible at past.
00:23:41:35 – 00:23:53:45
Agent Palmer
I, I, I’m good at every like I can get it to where it needs to be, but usually I’m like, I this needs a, this needs another half a cup of water and another 15 minutes. How did I screw this up again? My.
00:23:53:45 – 00:23:56:11
Zach Martin
God, how are you messing up pasta that you need? I don’t.
00:23:56:11 – 00:24:18:04
Agent Palmer
Measure water. I don’t measure it, I just oh, my, I just I just put it in the thing and put it in the thing and put it on and look, I, I have some I have some things to learn. But I want as dumb appliances like just pots and pans for me. And while I’m cooking, I don’t want anything smart, because then I have to think more.
00:24:18:13 – 00:25:00:16
Zach Martin
Yeah, I, I 100% agree with that. And I think too many people think it works the opposite way in that having these smart run code as seen on TV, like people think an air fryer and an Instant Pot are like new hotness. No, they are not. Watch late night television any decade from the 1940s until now, and there has been wave after wave after wave of, quote, time saving, you know, efforts saving kitchen gadgets from the home rotisserie to the Ginsu knife to crock pot, which are slow heaters.
00:25:00:16 – 00:25:35:35
Zach Martin
They do not cook a damn thing. They heat things at a rate whether high or low. To the Instant Pot into the air fryer. Now, I will say I own an Instant Pot. I did not buy it. It was gifted to me. I did research on it after I received it and realized that I would be using it very specifically for a couple of things making stock okay, because I can cut up a chicken, I can cut up stock, vegetables, herbs, lemons, citrus, peppercorn, whatever, put all that stuff in the Instant Pot, lock it up two hours and strain it and it’s done.
00:25:35:39 – 00:26:03:23
Zach Martin
Two hours tops. I have also made stock the quote traditional way in a stock pot over the stove on low for 12 or 14 or 16 hours. It’s the same thing. It ends up in the same place. So having done that and knowing that by experience, I can justify using the instant Pot. I don’t make meals in the Instant Pot on 99% of the occasions.
00:26:03:23 – 00:26:25:17
Zach Martin
My wife uses it because it cooks chicken in like five minutes, but it isn’t very good chicken because you just put it in a locked box and it pressure cooks it for you. It doesn’t have input, there’s no input from the cook. So things like air fryers everybody loves air fryers. Also learn to use your oven appropriately like learn to flip things.
00:26:25:17 – 00:26:43:33
Zach Martin
Learn to like I discovered through trial and error, tater tots in the oven. If you cook them roughly twice the amount of time that the bag tells you to cook them, they will be perfectly crispy and you don’t have to flip them, which I am lazy, I feel I.
00:26:43:38 – 00:27:03:50
Agent Palmer
I can agree with that. I it depends. I we, shortages as they have been especially in frozen things means that we’ve been getting different frozen potato things, whether they be a different kind of fry or a different kind of tater tot. And they’re not all created equal.
00:27:03:55 – 00:27:04:32
Zach Martin
Like.
00:27:04:36 – 00:27:19:32
Agent Palmer
Somehow they’re not. So like, I’m still learning we had a fry that I could do that I knew how to cook without looking at the bag or thinking about it. It’s just like, okay, I got this. We’re good.
00:27:19:32 – 00:27:43:58
Zach Martin
And now I’m like, exactly seven. Yes, exactly 17 minutes, 12 seconds, now 327 degrees. And they’re perfect every time. Yeah. And that’s your. Yeah. And that comes from trial and error. Because you’re right. Every bag is different. Every brand is different. You know certain things. And we’ve when you grow older and you’ve grocery shopped and that’s another thing too is if you don’t grocery shop, you’re never going to learn how to cook.
00:27:44:03 – 00:27:49:09
Zach Martin
You have to be involved in the process as much as you can from start to finish.
00:27:49:14 – 00:28:05:09
Agent Palmer
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I, my, my partner does the grocery shopping now. I mean, that’s the deal we’ve struck. I make the list, she does the shopping and then I do most of the cooking. I was like, I was unemployed for quite a while, so like it was. And she was not like she had a job.
00:28:05:09 – 00:28:09:45
Agent Palmer
So it was like, well, you what? You’re you what?
00:28:09:49 – 00:28:13:14
Zach Martin
What are you contributing? What are you actually do something, cook do something. Right.
00:28:13:14 – 00:28:35:26
Agent Palmer
So and that and so I’ve, I’ve just kind of maintained the cooking and I don’t mind it, like, I don’t, I don’t see it as anything less because, you know, when I was living on my own, I cooked for myself. Then it’s actually, in fairness to your friend, it’s a lot more fun to cook for two or more than it is to cook for one.
00:28:35:30 – 00:29:04:15
Zach Martin
Absolutely. There’s there’s the old, you know, famous cookbook, microwave specials for one or whatever it is. It’s like from the 80s, but I, I admire you for being able to let someone else do your shopping as the cook because, you know, we’ve we’ve we have been married for eight years in August. And I still have to specify brands of things when I make the list to send her out to go get stuff, because she constantly gets the wrong brand of stuff, or not even just the brand.
00:29:04:24 – 00:29:38:36
Zach Martin
And I only I pick brands for quality, not for name brand. I’m not overpaying. I don’t own an Apple computer, for example, because I’m not going to pay 30 extra percent for a name. Yeah, I pick my favorite brands by trial and error, and most of them are generic. But, you know, I appreciate that you guys can do that because nothing screwed up our kitchen dynamic faster than when I stopped going to the store and she started going to the store and then when she started making the list and then just giving me stuff that she bought and goes make food and I’m like, I had no input in this list.
00:29:38:36 – 00:29:55:12
Zach Martin
Where’s the garlic? You know, where’s the gochujang? Where’s the fish sauce? Where is the rice? Where, you know, and she’s like, well, I didn’t know that. I said, yeah, because you don’t cook like you. You say meat to vegetable and we have a box of pasta. Like I can do stuff with that. But it’s not, you know, it’s not nearly it’s going to be.
00:29:55:21 – 00:29:56:49
Zach Martin
Yeah. Usually involved is you need a.
00:29:56:49 – 00:29:59:42
Agent Palmer
Few other accouterment, so to speak. Like to get it.
00:29:59:42 – 00:30:19:45
Zach Martin
Going into my, into my, you know, to my benefit. And I will take full responsibility. I forget to write those things down when I run out of them. So that’s my fault if I run out of, you know, the special kind of soy sauce that I use, it’s my responsibility to put it on the list, because otherwise she’s not going to do.
00:30:19:46 – 00:30:20:44
Zach Martin
Yeah, that’s not her fault.
00:30:20:49 – 00:30:44:03
Agent Palmer
Yeah, that’s fine, I so let me let me go back because we got a little a long way off. So you’re cooking with your grandmother? You know, do you maintain that cooking? And I presume, you know, at a certain point, you become a teenager. Do you maintain cooking because, like, that’s where that’s where my origin story gets blurry, right?
00:30:44:03 – 00:31:03:41
Agent Palmer
Like, I remember as a teenager and an irresponsible one. Mom, dad. I’m sorry. Like, like grabbing, like, some ground beef and making a burger, like, 3 a.m. as, like a 17 year old or whatever, because I was hungry and I wanted a burger, and I can make a burger on the stove and then eating it and going to bed.
00:31:03:53 – 00:31:26:00
Agent Palmer
Mind you, I didn’t clean up. So like, I understand, like, of course I was a horror. Like, I get it, sorry Mom and Dad, but I was a 17. I feel like they should have been happy I didn’t burn the house down while I was cooking the burger. But like, for me, it’s not until, really, I move out on my own, then I cook again.
00:31:26:00 – 00:31:48:26
Agent Palmer
Like, even when I was living with my parents, for a little bit post-college, I think I offered to cook occasionally, but not much like my. My cooking doesn’t really start until I’m living on my own again. So where are you? As you go through, you know, the high school years, the college years, etc.?
00:31:48:31 – 00:32:11:26
Zach Martin
I, I was in the kitchen with her pretty much all the way through graduation. You know, one of the. I was a latchkey kid of boomers, so I was never actually alone in the house or came home to an empty house, like, my grandma just was there all the time. So it was I was never pressured.
00:32:11:26 – 00:32:34:04
Zach Martin
Like I never felt pressure to cook for myself or starve. You know, she was always available, in that. Well, you know, if you’re there’s 47 things in the fridge that’s already done. And then I went off to school, and, you know, dorms aren’t exactly cookie havens. You don’t have stoves, you don’t have cabinets. Whatever. And everybody in college eats like garbage because of circumstances.
00:32:34:04 – 00:32:55:21
Zach Martin
But then second year of college, we moved into an apartment. We had for four of us boys in there, and we would take turns cooking because 1 or 2 of us had, cooking history and we had kind of experience in the kitchen. I just had I just had an interview with my best friend who was one of those roommates for my show.
00:32:55:26 – 00:33:19:45
Zach Martin
And we famously had a roommate who had burned six consecutive cups of easy Mac. The microwave. Yeah. Had water, macaroni and cheese in six different ways. He he burned them and messed them up six different ways, six different times. So my, my friend Jeremy and I took over basically the cooking duties. We were the house cooks for the four of us.
00:33:19:46 – 00:33:40:52
Zach Martin
Sure. Okay. And and we were we were on a serious budget, you know, we would get a pork tenderloin and, you know, a 1 or 2 pound pork tenderloin, and that would feed four of the four of us for a good 2 or 3 days. We would make a hamburger Helper because that was big. And, you know, we were cheap and poor and we were spending money on alcohol and not, you know, food.
00:33:40:59 – 00:33:41:45
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
00:33:41:50 – 00:34:06:05
Zach Martin
And so that, you know, I did that, kind of survived, came home after college, didn’t really have any particular reason. I worked and I started my first major job was at Cracker Barrel as a server. Okay. So I came from this house steeped in good Ole southern cooking into a restaurant that was all about good Ole other and cooking in the good Ole Ole South.
00:34:06:10 – 00:34:23:48
Zach Martin
And so that just kind of exacerbated it. I ate at Cracker Barrel 4 or 5 nights a week. Which is probably why I’m technically obese now. But then that carried through, when I was in the Navy and had my own place or even on the ship. You know, I kind of knew how to doctor up ship food.
00:34:23:53 – 00:34:46:43
Zach Martin
I served five years on the USS Eisenhower doing public relations, photography and journalism. So I got to sit down with the captain for a couple of dinners and eat real food while we were on deployment, sat down with a for a dinner with then Oregon football head coach Chip Kelly, who was an interesting dinner guest. Kind of a jerk, but we all found that out later.
00:34:46:48 – 00:35:13:41
Zach Martin
So when I was living kind of on my own in the Navy, I was thinking, I. Looking back on it now. Yeah, I thought I was hot crab then, and I definitely wasn’t. I was buying canned peas and got talked into spending $300 on frozen meat from a traveling meat salesman. I was eating tilapia 3 or 4 times a week and thought I was healthy and thought it was like, big stuff.
00:35:13:43 – 00:35:23:20
Agent Palmer
Yeah. But still, I mean, by comparison, you’re not, you know, it’s not McDonald’s is not Burger King’s, not Wendy’s is not Arby’s. I was like, you know, I.
00:35:23:20 – 00:35:47:39
Zach Martin
Was on the cook. Yeah, I was on the cook spectrum. And and I’ve made significant progress since then. And I would do things that my friends and people who stayed with me because being single and unmarried and of low rank in the military sucks. It sucks a lot. You’re poor, you know, you don’t have a lot of options if you don’t have a car or whatever it is that.
00:35:47:44 – 00:36:05:13
Zach Martin
So I would host. I would constantly have people over and cook for them. Make fettuccine Alfredo. That was bad. But I was actually in there trying so they, you know, basically treated me like it was a michelin star restaurant because I was the only one who could make even something remotely resembling Alfredo stars.
00:36:05:18 – 00:36:15:13
Agent Palmer
Nice. So why are you not, like, you know, your history in the Navy and, you know, what are you doing now?
00:36:15:24 – 00:36:25:01
Zach Martin
I work in digital marketing and social media. Production strategy analytics. Okay. Which I have done for 5 or 10 years, though.
00:36:25:03 – 00:36:37:40
Agent Palmer
So you and I are basically do do basically the same thing for our day job. But the question then would be, why are you not a chef like, or why are you not in a kitchen on a more, you know, professional basis?
00:36:37:45 – 00:37:14:32
Zach Martin
Like I said, I did, I spent about 15 years in front of house at restaurants, serving, hosting, and every place I went, whether it was a wonderful coffee shop, diner, independent place in Carbondale, Illinois, called Harbor’s or Cracker Barrel or Outback or, wherever else. Every cook and every line cook and prep cook was genial enough, but worked to the bone, you know, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100 hour weeks.
00:37:14:37 – 00:37:39:41
Zach Martin
And these are in chain restaurants and independent, really like small independent restaurants. So and I know the more I learned about restaurant culture and I watched a lot of like restaurant Impossible and absorbing all these different kinds of food media, I saw chefs that had a dream, sank all their money into it and suck. And then they lose all their money and all their hope, and they feel very depressed that that’s the end of their life, basically.
00:37:39:46 – 00:37:43:54
Zach Martin
Or, you know, you have people that are so stressed they’re losing their hair at 25.
00:37:44:03 – 00:37:49:30
Agent Palmer
Well, I guess so. I would interject and ask, like, food is a hobby for you, not a passion.
00:37:49:41 – 00:37:51:22
Zach Martin
Of course it’s the passion.
00:37:51:27 – 00:38:13:29
Agent Palmer
Well, I see, but here’s the thing. So I will, I will. I understand all of that about restaurant culture. Like I truly get it. And I think one of the things, one of my takeaways, because I was maybe not as enraptured as you, but I did get wrapped up in, you know, Good Eats and No Reservations specifically, and No Reservations turned me on to Bourdain’s books.
00:38:13:29 – 00:38:53:33
Agent Palmer
Right. When you read A Kitchen Confidential. Yeah. What’s the right word? You you read. You’re reading about suffering. Like, there I, I don’t mean to be, like, maybe grandiose. This is going to sound, but, like most chefs, no matter where they are, are kind of like suffering artists. They’re starving artists to a degree. Right? Like, and they’re not it’s it’s it’s very different because like when I say starving artist, you think of a painter who’s, you know, hoping to sell a painting so he can eat.
00:38:53:38 – 00:39:14:24
Agent Palmer
And they’re not like that, but they are because they’re cooking for a ten, 12, 18 hours. They’re on their feet. They’re whole time. And it’s not like they’re eating like, yeah, they’re around food, but they’re not eating all the time. So like, they you get the feeling. And I, I’ve read a few of his books and a few other like starving artist is that thing.
00:39:14:39 – 00:39:33:21
Zach Martin
I think I think the, the you hit the nail on the head with a very specific term. And this is how it all my, my whole argument about why I don’t have a restaurant or cook for a living just now coalesced into this brilliant gem of a eureka moment. I am a cook. I am not a chef, okay?
00:39:33:35 – 00:40:03:44
Zach Martin
A chef is someone who will sacrifice their body and their social life and their finances and their relationships because of being this artist that wants to create food and maybe not even necessarily share it. A cook is not that I am passionate about food and cooking up until the point of being at that level, that is a whole nother time zone.
00:40:03:44 – 00:40:20:10
Zach Martin
That’s a whole nother realm of existence. And I admire the living hell out of those people because I know that I couldn’t do it. If I had to cook professionally for other people’s criticism, I would lose my mind and never cook again.
00:40:20:10 – 00:40:42:51
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I think, I’m going to generally making a I don’t do this often, but like, if anybody’s ever seen the movie chef, not the latter half where he buys the, the, the food truck, but the first half where he goes mental on the critic. That would be my short career as a chef and I would never be heard from again like that.
00:40:43:05 – 00:41:03:03
Agent Palmer
That part of the movie is where my chef career starts and ends, and I probably just move on and I, you know, maybe I cook for other people like friends and family, but I’m never cooking like the food truck part of that movie is the fiction part for me because I’m like, oh, I get it. Oh, I get it.
00:41:03:16 – 00:41:07:44
Agent Palmer
And then he goes, and I, I don’t know.
00:41:07:49 – 00:41:29:42
Zach Martin
And it’s a side note, if you haven’t watched, if you haven’t seen that movie, please go see it. Jon Favreau is amazing. Second side note he actually made a cooking series, The Chef Show, based around the idea of it, which is fantastic. Yeah, introduced me to a lot of interesting, styles, and they don’t just make carnitas over and over and over again or whatever it is.
00:41:29:43 – 00:41:30:30
Zach Martin
Well, and so that’s.
00:41:30:30 – 00:41:34:55
Agent Palmer
And the other part to that is that I got introduced to Roy Choi.
00:41:35:00 – 00:41:36:14
Zach Martin
Who love Roy Choi, who.
00:41:36:14 – 00:42:07:31
Agent Palmer
I knew like, I he, I knew him from the credits of chef The movie, but I also knew him because he wrote the cookbook portion of the Beastie Boys Book. Which is a fantastic read as well. And I, you know, it’s it’s just a, like a fun little, little tidbit, but I didn’t I knew him more from that, really, because I had just read the book when the series had come out.
00:42:07:36 – 00:42:25:14
Zach Martin
Yeah, I think too, I want to I want to go around, go back to, you know, I, I bristled. You’ll be able to see this on the episode, but I bristled a little when you called, you know, when you said it was just a hobby. I think I react to the term hobby and a hobbyist, very kind of.
00:42:25:14 – 00:42:46:29
Zach Martin
It seems to me it’s presented to me. And not that you meant it this way, but it’s it’s oftentimes used in a derogatory and condescending way, like, oh, it’s just a hobby for you, or you’re a hobbyist. Like there’s some sort of, you know, we’re we’re not taking the next step. We’re scared or we’re unwilling or whatever. Like, I, you know.
00:42:46:33 – 00:43:06:10
Agent Palmer
I, I okay, so yeah, I did not mean it that way. Oh I know like and I, I it’s interesting that you bring that up because I would ask, you know, given your background in digital marketing and obviously you’ve done some content creation over the years. Would you consider your podcast a hobby? Because I.
00:43:06:10 – 00:43:17:37
Zach Martin
I as much, as much that I’m not actively making money for it. I just crossed $1 on my anchor ad, revenue after 100 and some listeners. So that’s exciting.
00:43:17:37 – 00:43:36:40
Agent Palmer
I mean, I, I write like, I know it’s still a hobby, like, I, I call it a hobby. I mean, I guess it would be better to call it a passion. I guess we’re minting words now, but like, I guess it would be more of a passion than a hobby. But like, you know, people don’t ask you what your passions are like.
00:43:36:44 – 00:43:46:46
Agent Palmer
But I think about the last time, like, if you and I were having coffee in the real world, you know, am I really going to be like, he’s like, what’s your passion? I’m probably gonna be like, now, what do you do? What do you do for fun? Right?
00:43:46:46 – 00:44:22:40
Zach Martin
Which is not the same as saying hobby. I think, you know, if you’re gonna use words, if you’re gonna mince words like mincing a shallot, do it right. Fair enough. You know, I think I think the perception of hobby is, you know. Oh, Grandpa John diddling around with his whittling or paper airplanes or whatever in, you know, and just because and the thing too, is, I think a good display of passion is I didn’t have to buy this microphone, I didn’t have to buy this boom arm and this audio software or this chef’s knife or this carbon steel walk.
00:44:22:44 – 00:44:45:35
Zach Martin
You know, I can get away with doing things without that stuff, but I want to do it well. I want to enjoy it. And I want to, you know, in the event that someone does happen to find it or eat it or whatever, you know, I want them to enjoy it, and I know that they’ll enjoy it better with higher quality, whether or not they pay me for it.
00:44:45:40 – 00:45:07:52
Zach Martin
Like in the last I’ll say about like, podcasting is my goal, with any kind of content creation that I do outside of my job is to become self-sufficient. And I think that’s an honest and achievable goal. Yep. You know, we’re not going to be the next Joe Rogan, God forbid. But, you know, it’s like I have a sports fan.
00:45:07:52 – 00:45:25:41
Zach Martin
So I know that, you know, becoming my kid, becoming a professional athlete, you know, he has a better chance of being struck by lightning, just like me. I have a better chance of being struck by lightning than becoming a, quote, food personality. And I’m okay with that. I’m not a rampaging narcissist. I’m not a guru of any kind.
00:45:25:41 – 00:45:57:49
Zach Martin
It’s okay. But I think you can you can still have passion for something that you’re not being paid for, and that doesn’t make you somehow less. Because not everything in life is about money. No, it’s about that fulfilling your soul. And so I would say I would say to anyone listening out there who, no matter where you are at in your life journey, if you have been everybody has a passion, everybody has a thing.
00:45:57:54 – 00:46:26:57
Zach Martin
And if you’ve been waiting for the right time or the right amount of finances or you know anything like that has been holding you back from doing something that you’re really passionate about, get off your ass and go do it. Like I have been a cook for my whole life. And I talk and I yak and I yak and I complain and I complain and I, you know, this restaurant’s bad or this food that my wife finally two was like, why don’t you go do something about it?
00:46:27:01 – 00:46:37:58
Zach Martin
You’ve already said you’re never going to open a restaurant, you know, what can you do to effect some change? You know, even a little bit. Even just getting your friend to be able to cook a chicken breast.
00:46:38:09 – 00:46:55:15
Agent Palmer
So is this a thing that, like, you know, your wife’s like, we’re having a dinner party and he’s cooking and now, you know, somewhere in between courses there goes Zach again, talking about how fresh the whatever is or absolutely so.
00:46:55:15 – 00:47:08:05
Zach Martin
But he wants to come. Nobody wants to come eat at my house because I make everybody stand in the kitchen with me and listen to me talk about what I’m making them, because otherwise I would spend the entire dinner party in the kitchen and not talk to anybody, which I learned that over the years.
00:47:08:05 – 00:47:16:00
Agent Palmer
So you so you’ve been you’ve been solo podcasting without a microphone for years now. Really.
00:47:16:05 – 00:47:19:14
Zach Martin
I like that. I like that concept. I’m going to run with that look.
00:47:19:14 – 00:47:45:53
Agent Palmer
I mean, because I’ll, you know, I think we all kind of especially any kind of content creator at all, like it’s not out of nothing like it. None of this comes from nowhere. I was having some of these conversations, like legitimately over coffee with friends or you were, you know, cooking and talking about food to, you know, whoever was around, right?
00:47:45:53 – 00:48:21:34
Agent Palmer
Like, these things don’t come out of nowhere. But you know it. I like the idea that people should do it now. And I think that the other thing is you should do it for you. And, like, this is a thing that comes up a lot because I do have a lot of content creators or people who are doing, you know, passion projects, but I’ll call them like, you know, if you’re doing it for money, there are ways to do it for money for somebody else or, you know, you know, really, if you want to do it for money, do it for somebody else.
00:48:21:34 – 00:48:52:43
Agent Palmer
That’s the first quick way to make money. But if you, you know, if you if you care about if you care more about the product than the paycheck, then you gotta do it for you. Like you, I if I’m when I do get to start making pancakes and I when I do run the trial, that’s for me. When I do this podcast that that’s that’s for me to really like.
00:48:52:43 – 00:49:17:21
Agent Palmer
I love the audience I’ve got, but you know, it’s it’s got, you know, if, if I’m not having fun, who, who the hell is going to listen? Right. And you know, when you’re cooking, especially when it’s cooking or baking, not, you know, we say cooking mainly because we’re not talking about baking. But cooking or baking like, you know, in the end you get to eat that.
00:49:17:31 – 00:49:23:54
Agent Palmer
So that is definitely for you. Like, it is definitely product over paycheck in that scenario.
00:49:23:54 – 00:49:43:20
Zach Martin
And something to that that you bring up to is you get you get to eat that. And sometimes you have to eat that if you have, you know, messed it up. I, I’ve done that several times with that fettuccine Alfredo that I tried once using. I tried once or that tried I had to I had to make it with skim milk because that’s the only thing that I had on hand.
00:49:43:25 – 00:49:55:37
Zach Martin
That is impossible. That is like trying to teach a cat to use the bathroom. But you bring up a good thing about having that kind of tangible result at the end of your expulsion of passion to get a little weird with it.
00:49:55:39 – 00:49:55:53
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
00:49:55:53 – 00:50:21:59
Zach Martin
No, but my my grandma, my grandma was a music teacher. She was an artist. She painted in oils. She, taught kids and adults the mountain dulcimer. She was always a creator of art. And I was always jealous because I didn’t have anything that I felt like I could produce as a tangible thing that would be lasting. And, you know, anything like that.
00:50:22:10 – 00:50:42:10
Zach Martin
And cooking as a home cook, you don’t really have that either, because it gets eaten. And, you know, so I think to one of the reasons I wanted to do this, because I’ve always loved writing, I tried my hand at a blog like everybody did at one point. Like, I’ve been on WordPress in various forms for 20 years.
00:50:42:15 – 00:51:06:14
Zach Martin
But something that I realized with cooking was I could be I could create a tangible thing that was different than just saying, hey, this is a recipe. This is how you mince an onion. Like you should know why onions are, you know, important and why they cost what they do. And maybe you should think about buying an organic onion.
00:51:06:19 – 00:51:28:33
Zach Martin
No, it’s not all B.S. science from hippies. But also no, you don’t have to use, you know, you don’t have to care about presentation because guess what? It doesn’t matter what it looks like on the plate, it’s going to taste the same whether it’s piled on top of each other or splatted on the bottom of the bowl, like it doesn’t matter.
00:51:28:33 – 00:51:38:07
Zach Martin
So that’s another reason that I would never be able to work at a restaurant, because if somebody told me how to do presentation, I tell them to shove it and throw the ball on the floor. I guess it doesn’t matter.
00:51:38:12 – 00:52:04:20
Agent Palmer
You know what? It’s funny. I, I don’t know if I ever the most I care. Okay, about presentation. I, I’ve thought about this for a moment. The best I’ve ever come to for presentation is not about looks. It’s about structure. And that’s when I’m making a burger. Now we’ve started doing veggie burgers. And if when you and and look, there are some veggie burgers that are good.
00:52:04:26 – 00:52:33:48
Agent Palmer
But I will be completely honest with you, a veggie burger is only as good as the toppings. So my presentation is all about structure for the pickles, the tomato, the onion, and whatever else. So occasionally, because I’m weird, I throw coleslaw on my burgers because that’s just wonderful. But like the presentation, it always looks good. But that’s because otherwise it will completely fall apart if you don’t build it properly.
00:52:34:00 – 00:53:01:05
Zach Martin
Sandwich sandwich construction of any kind is all about physics and chemistry. But I have a I have a paradigm shifting idea for you, and I just talked about this on my last episode. If you reframe the concept of that food that you’re talking about into a veggie patty. Yep. Rather than a veggie burger. Yep. It will change the entire experience.
00:53:01:10 – 00:53:09:22
Zach Martin
Because it’s not a burger. It is a patty, just like a fish sandwich is a fish sandwich, not a fish burger.
00:53:09:22 – 00:53:09:55
Agent Palmer
That’s fair.
00:53:10:09 – 00:53:35:44
Zach Martin
Okay, there is a there’s a little place in Tybee Island, Georgia that was the very first place that my wife and I ate at as a married couple after we got married on the beach. And they serve a shrimp burger, which is a ground up shrimp patty, like a Filet-O-Fish. It’s just made of off the boat shrimp. It’s not a burger because it’s it it’s not anything remotely resembling a burger.
00:53:35:48 – 00:53:59:34
Zach Martin
So I think and I talked about this briefly, like, I think the reason that veggie burger is have never taken off is because people, when they eat, get insulted if they think they’re being lied to because that’s not a burger. It doesn’t taste like a burger I don’t have it doesn’t have the texture of a burger, even if you’re not actively aware of.
00:53:59:34 – 00:54:00:38
Agent Palmer
It.
00:54:00:43 – 00:54:24:11
Zach Martin
You’re you’re subconsciously aware of it because your subconscious knows what a burger is supposed to taste like and how it’s supposed to behave. And even with things like Impossible and Beyond Meat, which I’ve tried, they are closer. But don’t insult my intelligence and my snake lizard caveman brain to say this is a burger made of cow. That’s fair.
00:54:24:11 – 00:54:49:41
Zach Martin
It is not. And it never will be. So call it a veggie sandwich. Call it a veggie patty, call it a plant based patty. Call it literally anything other than a burger. And I think they’ll be more commercially successful, like things and call things what they are. Yeah, because I think subconsciously people get offended that you’re that you think that companies and marketers that I say this as a marketer, marketers treat the public like they’re idiots.
00:54:49:54 – 00:55:01:43
Zach Martin
Yeah. And they and they and they react by or they react by behaving like idiots. And it’s a cycle continues.
00:55:01:47 – 00:55:06:34
Agent Palmer
You.
00:55:06:39 – 00:55:27:34
Agent Palmer
Not everything in life is about money. It’s about fulfilling your soul. And in the case of food, it’s about filling your belly. But food for the soul is more than just something to pass the time. It’s about engaging yourself on a deeper level. Zach does it in the kitchen and by empowering others to do the same, or at least to start to pick up some of those pots and pans.
00:55:27:39 – 00:55:48:33
Agent Palmer
I do it by creating this podcast and writing my blog and helping others create things. You can plant a garden, review a book, watch a movie, have a coffee with your friend, call your family. It’s that simple. Do what fulfills you and if you aren’t sure, try things out and if I might make a suggestion, start with a conversation.
00:55:48:38 – 00:56:15:13
Agent Palmer
You might be surprised if you’re talking to the right people. And by the right people, I mean those closest to you emotionally or spiritually. Now, I did want to keep this lighter, so I’m going to reiterate a few of the things we mentioned that can inspire you in the kitchen. You don’t have to go ingredient by ingredient or step by step, or even follow in the shoes of any of these people I’m about to list off, but take from them some measure of inspiration into your kitchen, chef.
00:56:15:13 – 00:56:42:07
Agent Palmer
The movie and the Chef Show, created by Jon Favreau, now of Marvel and Star Wars fame. The movie is great and the show should inspire you or at least make you hungry. Zach mentioned Good Eats that’s available on a streaming platform or two, and is a great way to learn more about food and the science behind food. If you’re interested in the culinary industry, especially restaurants, I can’t recommend enough the late, great Anthony Bourdain’s A Kitchen Confidential.
00:56:42:11 – 00:57:06:45
Agent Palmer
It’s just such an immersive look into professional kitchens and is relatable to many in the food industry. Even me, who only worked the fryer for a few years at Arthur Treacher’s. Lastly, outside of the shows, the movies in the books have a conversation with someone you know who likes to cook. So what’s your signature dish? What do you want it to be and what are you doing to improve your skills?
00:57:06:49 – 00:57:30:01
Agent Palmer
Since recording, I’ve attempted to start making better pancakes. These things don’t happen overnight, but with practice, we can all become better. Happy cooking and bon appetit! Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 73. As a reminder, all links are available in the show notes. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays.
00:57:30:05 – 00:57:50:18
Agent Palmer
If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can tweet me at Agent Palmer, my guest Zach Martin at Foodball Pod that’s followed by pod and this show at The Palmer Files. You can find more information about Zach and Food Ball wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also follow Zach on Instagram at Food Ball Pod.
00:57:50:20 – 00:58:05:16
Agent Palmer
If you prefer that platform, email can be sent to this show at the Palmer Files at gmail.com. And remember, you’re home for all things agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.
00:58:05:21 – 00:58:26:51
Unknown
You.
00:58:26:56 – 00:58:37:15
Unknown
Need.
00:58:37:20 – 00:58:42:23
Unknown
Me.
00:58:42:28 – 00:58:47:41
Unknown
Even.
00:58:47:46 – 00:58:50:07
Agent Palmer
All right. Jack, do you have one final question for me?
00:58:50:08 – 00:59:05:15
Zach Martin
I do, it’s one of my favorite questions, and I think reveals a lot about where you are on your food journey. What does real food mean to you?
00:59:05:20 – 00:59:35:24
Agent Palmer
Real food. First off, I think my my, my easy disclaimer would be, I would have a home cooked. It’s nothing against restaurants. But I feel like, being in the kitchen when it’s being cooked makes it somehow more real. You know, because we’re we’re not working in absolutes. So the food you get at a restaurant is real, but the food you get at home is more real.
00:59:35:29 – 01:00:00:56
Agent Palmer
And specifically, if I’m cooking it like, that’s, you know, you know, something a little closer to home, right? I got to, I don’t know, we’ll take chicken parmesan because I don’t cook it very often. So it’s, you know, I’m defrosting it, and maybe I’ll preseason it before I beat the hell out of it, before I bread it, before I put it in the eggs and then cook it.
01:00:00:57 – 01:00:24:12
Agent Palmer
Right. And and so to me, that’s real food because like, I’ve kind of been with it every step of the way. It’s almost like, there are other pieces. And I think it makes it more akin to art than anything else because, like a pot, right? Like you picked a clay and then you put it on the wheel and you like.
01:00:24:12 – 01:00:44:41
Agent Palmer
So to me, yeah. Is that cup going to hold coffee? The same as the other one? Sure. But this one I made from the very beginning. And I think for me, real food is that it does. It doesn’t matter what it is like. It could be eggs. I, you know, chicken parmesan is a little more, I don’t know, involved, so to speak.
01:00:44:46 – 01:01:05:03
Agent Palmer
But, you know, sometimes making a mess is fun. And, you know, to that extent, it makes it a little more real. And I also and this is this is a perception thing. If there’s a psychologist listening, tell me what this means. But I also think like the, the, the more work you put into it, the more real it is.
01:01:05:05 – 01:01:35:08
Agent Palmer
So for me, I bring up chicken parmesan because it’s a lot more work. There’s a lot more involved in the prep and the preparation. I which I count as two separate things. And then the, the, you know, the pan fry versus the oven, like, it’s a lot more as opposed to just, I don’t know, dicing my ingredients, throwing them in a pan, adding the eggs and doing whatever I’m doing to it, whether it’s a frittata and leaving it alone or scrambling it.
01:01:35:12 – 01:01:57:03
Agent Palmer
And so it’s it’s a little more there. I think the same thing would be true if I was a, a bread baker. Like, you know, having your hands in the dough and kneading it and then watching it rise and the kneading it again and doing what? All the all the stuff. Yeah. I think it’s about, you know, being with it every step of the way.
01:01:57:15 – 01:02:19:04
Agent Palmer
Which, you know, I think a lot of people love that. Otherwise we wouldn’t have so many like how to and behind the scenes like shows and televisions and podcasts and you name it, like people are so interested in the process. Well, for me, real food is when I’m I’m there for every step of the way. What’s yours?
01:02:19:09 – 01:02:44:08
Zach Martin
I have more of a pragmatic look at it. In. And I love what I think, what you’re getting at, the meat of what you’re getting at is food is emotionally investing and community. You have no connection to that restaurant dish that just comes and gets delivered into your lap. Yeah. You have less connection. Less connection?
01:02:44:10 – 01:03:06:19
Agent Palmer
Yeah. I mean, I guess, I mean, there’s there’s also a part of it too, like, I’m a, I keep saying this over and over again. Maybe because I don’t want it to be true, but, like, I’m a cultural Jew, I would very much like to be a spiritual Jew. But I’m a cultural Jew, and one of the things about spiritual and cultural Jews is every holiday is somebody tried to kill us, we survived.
01:03:06:19 – 01:03:21:13
Agent Palmer
Let’s eat. Right. And it’s show or or or and this is not Jewish, right? This is just kind of human. Somebody died. Let’s eat. Somebody was born. Let’s eat. So I feel like that part of it, too.
01:03:21:18 – 01:03:48:41
Zach Martin
Yeah. Irish. Our whole freaking country tried to kill us, with the famine, but I think so. I look at it more of a funny story. If you don’t know the history of the Irish potato blight. Please go read it. It’s freaking terrifying. And we are closer to a worse version of that than anybody will freely admit. But so real food to me real quick is, Michael Pollan, who is a cooking author, made a Netflix show.
01:03:48:46 – 01:04:11:10
Zach Martin
It’s kind of conflicted, really, into psychosis, psilocybin, and like, mushrooms and things. But he has a rule that’s like, don’t eat any food that has more than five ingredients. Don’t eat any food that has an ingredients list of things you can’t pronounce. And I agree with one of those things. Think something like a pre-made salsa that literally has more than five ingredients, but they’re all just listed on the pack.
01:04:11:10 – 01:04:42:46
Zach Martin
That’s fine, because you know it’s in there, but real food is, I would say, as short of a food chain between it and you eating it as possible. So if you can go and pick your tomato and then cook your tomato sauce and then eat it. That’s a very direct line. But if you’re buying a can of tomatoes that you don’t know where it came from, you don’t know how many trucks it was on before it got to that shelf.
01:04:42:51 – 01:05:10:31
Zach Martin
You know, if I buy canned tomatoes, I buy them from Bianco de Napoli in California because I know those people. I know that farm. I know that their quality is good and I know the chain, that it’s the chain of custody. Yes. You will. Yeah. From from it into my mouth. So real food is things that you can pronounce, things that you know, their origin, things that you know in and out and how to prepare and what not to do.
01:05:10:36 – 01:05:34:48
Zach Martin
You know, like Cheez Whiz is not real food, no matter how. You just fair. Yeah. It’s not real. Yeah, it’s really good food. Which is why I have rule number six. Every Thanksgiving I make my grandmother’s broccoli, cheese and rice casserole with two jars of Cheez Whiz and a can of freakin cream of mushroom soup, which is the only time all year I use either of those things because they’re god awful.
01:05:34:53 – 01:05:44:43
Agent Palmer
Occasionally they will make, like, I will make, kind of like the, the green bean casserole with it.
01:05:44:48 – 01:05:46:00
Zach Martin
Oh, God. Why?
01:05:46:02 – 01:05:49:19
Agent Palmer
Because I like it, I like it.
01:05:49:21 – 01:05:53:45
Zach Martin
It’s just as long as you can admit that. It’s just an excuse to eat the fried onions on top. That will.
01:05:53:45 – 01:06:12:51
Agent Palmer
Be okay. No, it’s not, and I’ll tell you why. Because I will just eat the fried onions like I get in trouble. And so I’ve hosted a Friendsgiving because my parents do a Thanksgiving and I, I go to that and then my parents will usually come over and have another Thanksgiving because I like having leftovers. So we have to cook.
01:06:12:51 – 01:06:36:35
Agent Palmer
And usually I’ve, I did a bird once since I bought my house and I’ve done like a turkey breast or two turkey breast depending on on me people because it’s just I don’t want to deal with the bird anymore. I didn’t want to say I did it fine, but no, I, I like green beans otherwise. Like I get in trouble for just eating the frizzled onions as I’m cooking so I don’t need to make the dish I have.
01:06:36:35 – 01:06:40:22
Agent Palmer
No, I have no qualms with just eating them out of the package.
01:06:40:27 – 01:07:01:43
Zach Martin
Okay, and that’s fine. But so real real food, like real food to me then, is I look at it pragmatically and scientifically like it’s it’s, you know, its origin, you know, how to prepare it. You know, you have a relationship with it. And you’re exactly right. You know, kids, you know, Marines tried to teach me. The Marines tried to teach me this when I was in school for the Navy.
01:07:01:47 – 01:07:33:13
Zach Martin
The famous joke that we had in our class was that he said a marine would eat a banana covered in dog crap if you told him that he earned it by doing something awesome because an earned banana tastes better. And I’m trying to raise my kids in that. You know, it doesn’t matter what you’re making. If you know, if you cook it yourself, it’s going to taste better because you invested your time.
01:07:33:17 – 01:08:01:25
Zach Martin
And in some cases, your finger when you cut wrong. Like I cut the top of my finger off making a video for you people the other day because I wasn’t paying attention and I cut the top of my finger up. But if you invest your time and your effort and, you know, sometimes your physical body into anything, it doesn’t necessarily matter as much the final quality, you’re going to be proud of it because otherwise you’re a monster.
01:08:01:29 – 01:08:31:26
Zach Martin
You don’t have a connection to what you’re doing. And so that’s why I feel it’s it’s so important for people to go out and do their passion. But as far as getting back to the actual question, real food is tangible, pronounceable, you know, do your best within your economic means. And I know people are in food deserts and it makes me angry every day that people in this country don’t have access to vegetables and to real food.
01:08:31:29 – 01:08:32:24
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
01:08:32:29 – 01:09:03:19
Zach Martin
And the more I learn about why that is, the angrier I get, because it’s not anything that wasn’t created by people. People caused this problem and people cause hunger, and it makes me so angry. So when I say real food, I don’t mean to sound condescending and hoity toity and bougie that you should only buy organic. Organic is expensive, I know that, but I know that it’s expensive because you have to pay to be certified organic.
01:09:03:24 – 01:09:28:03
Zach Martin
Yeah, so there are lots of local places. I’m lucky to live in the Midwest, where we have local farms, and I’ve asked people at our farmers markets, you know, why aren’t you organic? And they said, we are. We just are not going to pay tens of thousands of dollars to an hour to an agency to give us a stamp, because it’s not worth it to us people that know us know that we raise things in an organic and sustainable way.
01:09:28:08 – 01:09:54:39
Zach Martin
So learn. I feel like if people take agency in their food, they’re going to choose real food almost by default. Yeah, because they’re going to learn it’s better for them. It’s better tasting, it’s easier to cook in some cases. And, you know, I would go so far as to say, but real food is food that exists for food’s sake, which sounds really kind of out there, but food isn’t fuel.
01:09:54:39 – 01:10:21:47
Agent Palmer
I like it because, you know, if the the future of flying cars was also supposed to be the future of food pellets and who like and for for all of the it’s 2020 it’s it’s you know the year 2000 is the future. So the year 2020 we should have flying cars and the Jetsons took place in 2030. So where’s my flying car would also be where’s my pellet.
01:10:21:47 – 01:10:43:16
Agent Palmer
So I don’t have to worry about cooking anymore. And there’s a loss of we have a loss of community as it is right now. If we lose our our meals and go to the the that future, we also lose a bit of our culture too. So let’s not go because real food is also that, right? Like it’s all of the things you said.
01:10:43:30 – 01:11:11:22
Agent Palmer
It’s pronounceable. It’s, you know, the shortest chain and it’s you putting it’s made with love. I, you know, maybe more passion, whatever. And and it’s for community. It’s even if it’s you and your family or me and my partner or me, my partner, my friend, me, my family, for friends, whatever it is, it’s like communities. A definite piece of real food.
01:11:11:26 – 01:12:00:21
Zach Martin
And something to consider that I just kind of started thinking about in the shower the other day, when we all have our our best thoughts. You know, community and food is for almost all of our existence as humans in societies on this planet, food has been a community role and a community responsibility and a shared bounty. If you would tell if you could speak to an ancient Babylonian or a Roman or a Cro-Magnon, and you told them there is a big building, after you explain what a building is, there’s a big place where all the food is, and each individual family or each individual person goes to the giant food place, gets what the food
01:12:00:22 – 01:12:20:43
Zach Martin
they want, brings it to their own personal house and eats it, and then throws the rest of it away. They would look at you like your head was on fire, like that entire concept of the grocery store and us eating our own meals by ourselves at home is so out of the ordinary for all of human civilization. It’s mind blowing.
01:12:20:47 – 01:12:39:01
Zach Martin
So like if I if I made a lasagna tomorrow, our family of four and two small kindergarten aged kids are not going to eat a whole lasagna. I’m sorry if I went to every single one of my next door neighbors in my neighborhood here in Illinois and said, here I made some lasagna. They would look at me like my head was on fire.
01:12:39:01 – 01:12:57:41
Agent Palmer
Yeah, which is weird because the entire concept of that, like, it all goes back to like the 60s, the 50s and 60s where we get the Jetsons future. We also get the microwave and the microwave dinner and the the, the community aspect. I mean, it’s still still like that family home, kind of the.
01:12:57:41 – 01:13:05:18
Zach Martin
Door to door. The door to door casseroles in the 60s were because people were making Jell-O baloney molds and wanted to just give it away rather than eating it. Yeah.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).