Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Ep. 70 Sorted Food - Ear Biscuits

Episode Date: May 22, 2015

Barry Taylor and Ben Ebbrell, two of the four founding members of one of the most popular food channels on YouTube, Sorted Food, join Rhett & Link this week to discuss the adolescent friendship that led to the creation of their channel, how interacting with their audience plays a significant role in setting them apart from other food-related entertainment, and the philosophy behind their “Lost and Hungry” tour where they’ll be traveling all over the world and eating food at places recommended by their fans. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Link. And I'm Rhett. Joining us today at the round table of dim lighting are Barry Taylor and Ben Ebrell, two of the four founding members of Sorted Food, one of the most popular cooking shows on the YouTubes with over one million subscribers.

Okay, now cooking shows, they're more popular than ever, but what sets Sorted Food apart is not only they are friends, but it's the way that they interact with their fans. They create more than just videos teaching people how to cook recipes. They tap into their fan base to create a social media platform dedicated to cooking, sharing recipes, sending photos, suggesting things for them to make. You like taking photos of your food, or you're beyond that?

Every once in a while, I'm tempted to do it. I feel self-conscious, but I still do it. You're self-conscious, but I think this conversation is like, oh, I should do it again. I should be unashamed, yeah. Unabashedly. The message behind Sorted Food is that, quote, "'Food brings people together,' end quote.

Unfortunately, we were not able to bring all of the Sorted Food members together today. Jamie Spafford and Mike Huddlestone, two other members, two of the other four family members, weren't in LA this time, but we had a great time sitting down with Barry and Ben. Ben is the resident chef of the crew, the only professional chef, so we talked with them

about what it's like to have the one guy who really knows what it's like all about food, and then the three guys that are part of the team. Angry about it. No, but that's what we explore. There's an interesting dynamic and it's also really rooted in the fact that they've known each other, not quite as long as we've known each other,

but for a very, very long time since they were kids, went to college together. We're gonna talk about how they came up with the idea for assorted food, it's a great, great story. We also talked about their Lost and Hungry World Tour. Just kicked it off here in Los Angeles. Pretty cool idea. I love the ideas that these guys come up with.

We talked about what goes into that too, but this idea is them literally traveling around the world and only going to places to eat that their fans recommend. Or, because we did open this up to Mythical Beasts, we will reveal where you challenge them to go. Speaking of touring the world, we wanna thank our sponsor that helps make Ear Biscuits possible, EF College Break.

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efcollegebreak.com slash Rhett and Link. We'll hook you up with an extra $100 off. That's right, for $100 off, go to efcollegebreak.com slash Rhett and Link. And now, on to the biscuit. So, how long have you guys been in LA this time? Three hours. Oh, really? So, I flew in from Seattle this lunchtime because I've been sort of running this whole kind of lost and Hungry tour on my own for a week up in Portland, Hood River, Seattle. Mike's been making his way to Austin. I'm

pretty sure you've come together back here for this. Okay. So you're sort of tag teaming in a little bit. So it isn't like everybody has to be together on the Lost and Hungry tour. We kind of work together in kind of waves, I guess we've got the last two weeks. We're all together. And then the past week, well,

Jamie has a baby and had to fly back to the UK to mother responsibilities. And the rest of us then had to continue with lost and hungry in their own way. Now, I mean, I'm such a big fan of you guys. I was telling rep because you guys, you, you approach your YouTube channel

and your brand presence, it's not just, okay, we're a cooking show, but it's, you guys approach everything with such professionalism and with kind of this network mentality that then, in terms of how you do it, everything you approach, okay, we got this new interesting series that people can get behind, and this is just another example in my mind

so just kind of give us the spiel of like how you came up with this what was the motivation and then how are you executing this this road trip thing yeah so um sort of in general it's um we started really as a we've known each other like you guys since would it be first grade you guys knew each other yeah major 12. Major 12, is it? Ish? Oh, like age six. Age six, so younger. Yeah.

Yeah, so we've been since age 12. Okay, going way back. All four of you? Yeah. Yeah. Through school. What was that, 16 odd years now? Yeah, it's a hell of a long time.

And when we all finished school, we went our separate ways to university and then kind of came back and bonded around food. And then starting making videos was something that we all just wanted to do. We're all fans of YouTube anyway. And it was just a natural place for us to upload the videos and share what we were doing the rest of the world. And as time has gone by, we've always pushed ourselves to see what types of content we can create to generate interest around food. We want to make food as fun and as engaging as possible.

Because there's lots of people making food stuff i mean it's all over television there's whole networks more than multiple how many networks food networks are they're just floating out there these days hundreds and hundreds of shows but they all have one kind of thing in common and that's where kind of all decisions have already been made and the point where they're publishing it it's kind of like decision made normally one chef or one person traveling the country experiencing food but this is kind of the only opinion that matters them and the production team behind them whereas the approach we've taken the last couple of years we sorted is everything's kind of been crowdsourced if i'm honest i ran out of recipes about two three years ago right um but actually the whole community

are always chipping in on suggesting what to cook next and how to cook it, certain tips and tricks on how to do it. So that was kind of what this tour was all about, was going, we've got this huge audience community of people who are loving food, talking to us on a daily basis about food. How do we maximize that and let them shine and showcase what they know in the best way it was getting out of the four-wall studio in london and coming to first stop america um but then on to the rest of the world to experience food firsthand with with them in control so they tell you what what you eat and you're saying you can't eat anything unless they tell you to eat it yeah two very simple rules we all know that's not true but no i've been it's been hideously true. So it started, so basically the only two rules, one of them is we will get kicked out of the country

in 90 days time because that's when our visa runs out. We're on day 26 at the moment, I think. And the only other rule is literally everything we eat has to be recommended by somebody. That has skewed slightly over time. There's been some great, I've been traveling alone recently

and a lot of the suggestions are coming in on YouTube, on Twitter with the hashtag. But also every time you get somewhere, you meet somebody who wants to share their story or their favorite food. Food is something

that just connects everyone. You can go anywhere. And as soon as you explain what you're doing, the first thing they want to do is tell you their favorite restaurant or their favorite farm or producer or my mom makes the best version of this or whatever.

So is that what they're doing? Do you find it more often than not that fans ask you to eat at places that they like or places that – because I know that we just got our fans to suggest where you should eat before you left Los Angeles. And, of course, they gave you a place that serves rattlesnake. And probably that's because they know the kind of things that we eat. Yeah. But you're getting actually good suggestions. It's not like a dare to, like, get stuff down.

It's a complete mix. I think it depends who they're trying to make suffer, I guess. If it's Ben, it's going to be some amazing food for him to try along the way. If it's any one of the three of us, they're going to make us suffer somehow. So it's a complete mix. So how have you suffered so far? Actually, so far it's been delicious. I've had some of the best food.

I didn't expect it to be so good so far. I came over to the States. We've been here before. We've been to LA, New York, sort of before. And in my closed-minded view, LA was California and California was LA and they were kind of interchangeable. And then we spent a week in LA

doing some great suggestions around here. And then we spent the best part of a week driving from LA up to San Francisco along California One. Phenomenal. Through vineyards, mountains, hills, savannah, beach, coast, you name it. Yeah.

That road had it. And all the food stops we stopped along the way and that was when it was like you begin to realize how awesome the food in this part of the world actually is we've had some dead ends though when people kind of gone what's the most popular isn't always necessarily the best food around so we came in the first week one of the top recommendations was to go to roscoe's well i blame it and so many people say oh yeah roscoe's chicken and waffles. Yeah. And you go,

that sounds incredible. But then you get, then you go, the theory makes a lot of sense, but it wasn't the best chicken and the waffles weren't great. Ooh. You're going to get me.

I feel like you're talking to some Roscoe's fans. I'm going to tease the resistance. Barry went straight in there. I'd have teased it in a little later. The chicken was dry.

Oh, which one did you get? Which combo did you get, bro? I went for the Obama. Okay. You got the Obama. The Obama, which is two chicken thighs. I mean, it's good enough for your president, but it's not good enough for Barry. Is that two chicken thighs and two waffles?

Or is it two chicken thighs and a waffle? I can't remember. I had the omelette. You got an omelette? With the chicken inside of it on a waffle my head. I had the omelet. You got an omelet? With the chicken inside of it on the waffle. Yeah. Well, nothing's bad. Well, what you gotta do at Roscoe's, next time you go,

now, because I've heard this. It's not gonna be a next time. I've heard this thing from a number of people, okay? Is there like, the waffles are nothing great and the chicken is dry. So I don't have a whole lot of sensitivity to dry meat because I'm a white meat guy. But what I do at Roscoe's is I take the waffle

and I take the chicken and I take the hot sauce and the syrup and the butter and I make a sandwich. So you got syrup and butter on that to kind of moisten it up, you got the chicken, then you got the hot sauce that they got right there at the table and you make that a little sandwich. I'll do a little bit of that too. And then I throw their cheese eggs on the side.

They've got this like diced onion in it. Oh, it's so good, man. I take my whole family. I'm like, kids, we're going to Roscoe's. They're like, yay! We were there on a Sunday lunchtime. We had to wait. Oh, Sunday lunch.

You can't do that. You've got that after church crowd from downtown When we were there on a Sunday lunchtime, we had to wait. Oh, Sunday lunch. We waited half an hour for a table. You've got that after church crowd from downtown and that is an incredible scene. You have to go at like a three o'clock. Women dressed to the nines with the big purple hats. We felt very underdressed in t-shirt and shorts. Oh, yeah.

That's quite an atmosphere. But you set yourself apart from network programming because you're so interactive. I mean, every step of this trip is determined by interactions. But there's also a lot of food shows just floating around on YouTube that are like YouTube first kind of thing. So they're also your competition. I mean, how do you look at that and how does that inform your strategy? Are they competition though?

I've never seen them. I'm curious. I don't know because it's the same. You could say in one breath you've got your Jamie Oliver's of the world who are what we grew up and we aspire to be like. And then suddenly he's on the platform that we kind of grew up on. Yeah. And people are saying, Jamie Oliver's now competition.

You go, really? That's amazing. That's a privilege to consider that competition. It's a great... Also, we're fans of all cooking shows on YouTube. So we are watching Food Beyond Belief. With Anna Pansino, who's also been here. Just seeing the script on your desk.

So you take inspiration from the way they produce their stuff. At the same time, you never see it as competition because I don't think that's kind of what YouTube is. But you have to be informed by your friends making cooking shows or other YouTube creators because, I mean, I have to assume you guys are still,

you've got to do something different. You've got to do your own thing, right? So you're informed by it. Yeah, and you're always looking for the next new thing, but it feels like there's plenty of space for food because food is so subjective yeah so we've got you know a phenomenal audience who love different parts of what we do and that's

why we try and do a little bit of something for everyone from an eye candy series which is just like food porn it's just food photography really um motion picture all set to music know how to's we do recipe how to's to teach you the basics on how to make whatever it is you want to make we do things like this we're out and about exploring food at the source and uncovering that so there is something for everyone so we look around all the other competition inverted commas and see what everyone else is doing but on the whole we just go with what we're told to do. We do feel a little bit like puppets sometimes. But we're the same as you guys to an extent.

Our USP is our story. That's what sets you apart from the Vine Brothers as well, is your story, is your background. And the same with us. No one can do what we do because no one's lived our lives. So it's different. Well, and you know, you guys, it isn't just about a show.

I think that's one of the things that I notice is you guys have this enterprise mentality that this is a, we are sorted food and you're gonna get not just one show that we're gonna do every single week that people might get mad if we change it up. No, we're gonna do this tour. We're gonna figure out what the best burger in America is or the world

or whatever the scale for that was. And where did that mentality come from? I think it's about we realized early on that food will never go viral. Food and viral should never go together anyway. It's sticky. It's sticky. Food is sticky, not viral. That's what we got to do.

And so we've never had a viral video ever. Right. The closest we got was a Up, Down, Dunk video parody of Bruno Mars' song. With donuts. With donuts. But at the same time, we've really struggled to make that go viral. So we have always had to push ourselves to work out other ways of spreading what we're trying to do and representing social cooking, which is what we're about in different ways um and also we know that food as a topic is you mean social when you say

social cooking you mean like for parties basically bringing people together it sounds really really kind of a bit lame but at the same time it's what we always say that food isn't the point of what we do just it's the heart of everything we do because it's what brings us a lot together. It's why we did the channel in the first place. So we want to do that for everything we do. Well, some of the most interesting things that are happening in the food world, like a touch point for me, are apps that bring communities together.

Like I've got the Yumly app on my phone. What does that do? It basically takes into account all your preferences. You put in your preferences or dietary restrictions at the beginning when you sign up, put in your age, you put in all these different things and it sort of learns you and begins suggesting these recipes that people have submitted

and places from online. And then also got the Delectable Wine app, which is like when you try a wine, you take a picture, you just take a picture of the label and then you give it a rating. And so then you've got like the professionals and you've got the amateurs like giving their wine tasting notes and stuff like that.

And it's, but it links directly to their feed, which is like a Twitter feed. And things like that, it seems like you guys were ahead of the curve on that because you kind of recognize that everybody has an opinion about food. Everybody has an experience with food and you guys are like connecting the dots. And that's what I see when I look at sort of food.

I see somebody who's connecting those dots and connecting people. Yeah, I think also it's everything, when you talk to someone about food, of food i see somebody who's connecting those dots and connecting people yeah i think i think also it's everything when you talk to someone about food everyone wants to share their food experiences and often that's down to one of two things either pride because it's something they're so passionate about and they want to share with somebody else and make sure somebody else has experience or it's kind of a bit of showing off look what i can do look at how amazing this food photography is of my dish and whether it's pride or showing off, we were getting hundreds and hundreds and hundreds,

if not thousands of stuff sent our way, whether it was full-blown recipes emailed to us or photos on Facebook and stuff tagged into Instagram. And it was kind of all over and people suggesting things we could change up. And it was kind of like, it was almost too much. So for us, it's kind of building the platform, sort of platform in that people could have their own profiles,

form their own identity around food, and it could all go into one place that made sense rather than all this desperate kind of information that no one else could access. We could see it because we've got access to our email account, but nobody else could see how sort of awesome some of the recipes that were coming in from all over the world. So it organizes it publicly.

Now we're talking about your app, right your website or is it both yeah so at the moment we're running the website you know the platform which enables you to set up your own profile and have your own identity around food and share your recipes or just engage with other peoples and then we're also sort of running the blog at the moment on a day-by-day basis just to keep up with the tour because there's so much stuff different happening with lost and hungry there's so much information that's the best place for that so the two are sort of running the blog at the moment on a day-by-day basis just to keep up with the tour because there's so much stuff different happening with lost and hungry there's so much information that's the best place for that so the two are sort of running side by side at the moment now here's an app idea so we've we've we've been working on our app for a while which basically allows people to upload their own recipes and so on so people are starting to track what they're eating what's

going in their body we know you can't this is a great idea. It's a great idea. And of course, with the launch of the Apple Watch and all these smart devices that you can now wear, you can now track how you're burning off this food. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But nobody has developed an app yet that tracks what you may excrete. But why? Because. Do you remember when we had the idea for Sorted around a pub table after a few pints? That was quite a good one.

This one was less good. Our doctor friend of ours tells us that you can pretty much diagnose anything. Anything? Oh yeah. Yeah, you can. Yeah, totally. It's the sign of health and vitality

is a proper poop. So therefore, there surely must be an app out there shortly coming out. You poop on the watch? Maybe. Or device you leave in the toilet. You stick the watch down into the fumes. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, if the watch is on your wrist to track movement, surely whatever device you have, it needs to be near the movement down there. So do you wear a sphincter ring? No, just leave something in the toilet for you to urinate on. to be near the movement down there. So do you wear a sphincter ring? Just leave something in the toilet for you to urinate on. The Apple sphincter ring. That's kind of what's going on. Here's the name. Oh, you already have the name.

Yeah, it's the name. He's bought the URL and domain name and everything. I don't think this is a rude word here, if not in the UK. It's going to be called the piss taker. Oh, okay. Because it takes the piss. Oh, I got it. You pee on the...

You have a device that you put in the toilet that you pee on and that then sends the signal to your watch or phone. Well, I was thinking just poop.

What's pee got to do with any of this? Both. Well, whatever you excrete. Excrete on it. You could start a new brand if you wanted to go the poop direction.

Crapple. Crapple. The Crapple watch. That sounds like a family board game. Hey, kids, let's play Crapple. Crapple. The Crapple Watch. That sounds like a family board game. Hey, kids, let's play Crapple. I think you can buy Crapple in the UK, can't you? You can, it's a drink. You probably can.

It's a drink over there. Crush that dribble. Huh. So I think one of the things too is, you know, a lot of people struggled, how do I turn what I'm doing on YouTube into a business? Because unless you just have a lot of people struggled how do i turn what i'm doing on youtube into a business uh because unless you just have a lot of content with a lot of eyeballs on it the adsense money doesn't really support a business um how have you guys leveraged this and you know

you've got a successful business at this point that's supporting you guys and employees how's that happening the thing is if you tell you to try and give somebody advice now is very different from what it was four years ago when we started um we the only reason we kind of managed to exist the way we are is this is a it's a family and friends business um we when we started playing around the idea um i actually went to my dad and said do you mind helping us out to publish your own book? He said, yeah. We started with copies. He goes, there's something in this. And backed us a little bit with,

gave us a bit of cash to kind of allow us to start up a channel. So from day one, it's always been a family-run business, which sets us apart from a lot of people. We've never had major investment from anybody. The company is completely 100% ours. And YouTube is,

the numbers from YouTube have never necessarily paid for all the bills at all. We've always relied on bringing in sponsorship. we've got a fantastic partnership with kenwood who supplies with all the um kitchenware stuff um so that's what keeps it going we sell books and bits of us in the background but it's um we've never we've never seen where we're making lots of money it's always just about investing it back into the company working out how we can create the biggest and best community possible. And there's no aspirations to try to turn this

into a TV show. It's just what are the aspirations? It's strange because several years ago, I'd say yes probably, three or four years ago we were sort of hunting down the perfect TV idea for a format or something. Whereas time and time again we were told

by commissioning editors or whatever that it wasn't quite right or it wasn't going to fit in the box they needed to tick and it never quite happened. As a result, we just said, well, it's a great idea. We're going to do it on YouTube anyway because the community will love it.

Our audience will love it. We're just going to fly at it. So we did a lot of that. And now it's almost come full circle that in the last year, we have had TV ideas almost pitched to us, but they've not been quite right. And again, we've always held off and just said, we're only going to make content if it's the right content and the kind of stuff that we know our audience will love.

The great thing about this tour is we're kind of getting a little bit best of both worlds because by doing this Lost and Hungry tour, which we're doing completely off our own back, just for YouTube, we're also doing it in partnership with the Today Show. Yeah, I saw that. back just for YouTube. We're also doing it in partnership with the Today Show. Yeah, I saw that. So you're on the Today Show and Matt Lauer and Carson Daly are like, we're sending these guys around the country. The crunchy country.

The country. They just take the mickey of how we pronounce things. We keep getting tacos and tacos wrong. Oh yeah, we saw that. He was like, could you say T-A-C-O one more time for me? So did you approach them or did they approach you? How did that work? We'd been on the show a few times in the past. The biggest and best thing I've liked about this today's show collaboration is we are still making all the videos ourselves.

It's our own team. There's still only, what, eight of us on the road producing this completely. And we haven't changed anything from what we do on YouTube for TV. So when we started, the whole thing was all about how can we aspire to TV? How can we create content as good as and one day maybe be on it? And suddenly now things come around

this full circle where we are producing content the way we always have done for the last three, four years and it's now good enough for TV because TV's adapted. So that's been a revelation for us. And the collaboration there, we know the scale of what TV can bring us.

And we want this, we want Sorted, the brand, and the community to get as big as possible over the next couple of years. So TV is an obvious route to go and the collaboration with the Today Show seem to make a lot of sense. Well, let's figure out, let's shift from business to personal a little bit i i'd love to hear kind of take us back through the story of if you're talking like 12 years old i didn't know you guys went back that far so take us back there where were you and what was up were you like riding bikes around the same rainy neighborhood what's up so we all went to the same school together and therefore we've known each other

for that whole sort of seven year period in high school or secondary school for us. Various different times we'd... And what's the town? Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. So it was Chancellor's School. Chancellor's School. So Barry and I were in the same form,

which meant that we would be in the same class for registration, AM and PM. And occasionally it'd be crossover with you'd do sports with Mike or Jamie and I would be doing music or Mike would be doing music. Is this like a smart kid school? You said Chancellor's School. Chancellor's. No, it's just a generic school. But it's just a school.

Okay. Very good school. It wasn't a posh school at all. But the weird thing was was i i kind of got closest friends with jamie things throughout school through drama mike through sports i didn't speak to ben once throughout school years even though we shared the same classroom the whole time he was the front occasionally you need help with your homework and you'd come over and right you were studious yes more so okay Okay. Actually, throughout school, Ben was a straight-A student

who had massive aspirations and could have been anything you wanted to be, but you chose to become a chef. Nothing wrong with that. But did you know that back then? Were you like, I'm going to be a chef. Let me help you with your homework. No. A lot of people were a bit confused when I said that was what I wanted to do,

but I always just wanted to follow what I enjoyed rather than what the railroad said that you had to do because you were getting these grades. I enjoyed maths. I enjoyed science. I did all of that. And I've got a sort of... Chess. Chess too? I did play chess, but that's become more of a myth than a...

So you shunned him. You guys weren't even friends because he was such a geek. Or a nerd. Or what? Yeah. Yeah, I feel guilty for saying it now, but no, yeah. Yeah, we did. Again, it was one of those things throughout school, I did every... My role in school was to become as popular as possible.

I was shallow. I only did things to impress people. That's all I ever did. How did that go? Not well. Not well. Not well. He came back crawling. Then when it got to sort of like sixth form, so the last couple of years of school, we were a lot closer because we were doing more of the same subject.

So Jamie, Mike, and I were in the same music class for ASU, and you were in the same drama class as the three of them. So there's a lot more overlap towards our later years, and we used to almost socialize together as well, didn't we? Almost. Almost. But then you said you went to different colleges. Yeah.

But then, so what precipitated getting back together? You guys all moved back home after college? But the weird thing about our friendship group is there's about nine of us overall as our friendship group. And we still nine of us overall as a friendship group. And we still meet up pretty much once a month now, all of us. And we've all kind of moved back to the same area. So high school friends, a group of nine. Yeah.

Oh, okay. So by like senior year, you guys were actually friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I got it. And even now, going back to that sort of same group, it's a really close group. Every month, you still get together now? There's a WhatsApp group that is probably buzzing in my pocket right now of everyone continuously chatting around.

All sorts, but it's the same kind of as if we were around the pub table. We're still taking the mickey out of each other continually and having a laugh as well. And even now, I think that the best thing we started this year was the whole concept of we are all getting a bit older and between us, we've got houses and kids and raves

and all sorts but we did say that we didn't want to grow up too soon so we're now actually every year we're doing a fake stag do so if someone in the group

isn't getting a fake stag do oh no you don't have stag do oh bachelor parties so a fake bachelor party whereas if a member of the group

it doesn't matter if anybody's getting married or not if no one this year is getting married then we still need to find an excuse to go away for a long weekend

and just do the thing that we've always done growing up so we just we chuck a couple hundred quid in a pot and say and whoever becomes

what's it called at the end of the trip king stag or king stag whoever was the best man of the match from the trip before then basically decides on the next entire trip okay that's fun right up to the point of the match from the trip before then basically decides

on the next entire trip okay that's fine right up to the point of turning up to the airport and being handed your boarding pass we've got no idea where we're going oh really

it's like a it doesn't matter where you're going because it's the group of friends you do it with so where have you gone we've done one so far and it was started last year we went to Eindhoven

where is that we didn't know either I don't have the brochure an hour south of Amsterdam so you took a road trip oh okay that was a short flight and a long weekend

drinking and exploring the city how big was your friendship group after school or was it just you two that's a good question because we had a we had a friendship group

that was there might have been nine or ten I think there was girls and guys 13 or 14 if you include the girls because it was about

half guys, half girls from high school that then we got together a few times while we were in college, but we don't really, they're the kind of people that if we saw them, we would immediately catch up with, but we haven't made. Nobody really has made, except the people who are still back in North Carolina, have made much of an effort to like stay together.

I think it could have happened, but I mean, neither of us are kind of the ones to kind of initiate. We're not good long distance friends. Yeah, we're not. If Link and I were on opposite sides of the country, we wouldn't talk to each other. But are they the kind of friends that you don't have to see them for an entire year,

but when you do, it's like there's been no time. It's like it was yesterday. Not anymore, sadly, because I think- It's just been too long. It's been too long at this point. It's been no time it's like it was like it was yesterday not anymore sadly because i think it's just been too long i mean yeah it's been like 10 years now but there was like the first few years out of these are high school friends first few years out of college there was still like that kind of get together every christmas thing but then it slowly faded away so it's not happening anymore do they get what you do? I think some of them. They will. I think their kids do. They do now.

I think they do now because we end up talking about things that they remember enough. Oh, we talk about them and they'll come out of the woodwork on Facebook. When we talk about our ex-girlfriends and stuff like that. There's a number of, there's some ex-girlfriends in that group. Leslie's mom called me on the telephone.

Leslie is our first girlfriend. She was my first girlfriend and his first girlfriend at different times. So like a month ago, Kay calls me and she's like, I met so-and-so in the post office or I saw so-and-so in the post office and her son is a big fan and wants a signed poster and like, you know, so we were like sending him something.

So it was like, oh, we finally made it big. That's right, in Lillington. Take that, Leslie. But you know, the interesting thing is- You missed your opportunity with both of us actually. It was a- In seventh grade. For us, it was a foregone conclusion that we were going to end up doing something together.

Even when we were 12, we were doing weird stuff like making blood oaths saying that we were gonna do end up doing something together. Even when we were 12, we were doing weird stuff like making blood oaths saying that we were gonna do something creative together. Did you guys talk about things like that? Like, we're gonna do something together, you know? Let's not do something regular. I had a chat with Jamie when, in the end of the school years, it was always going,

we don't know what we're gonna do in terms of our own careers. High school or college? Sorry, high school. Okay, yeah. We just said to each other, end of the day, we want to make a difference, have an impact on someone's life. He always wanted to do marketing and I wanted to go into design. And the point of it was exactly the same.

It'd be that if they're picking something up off the shelf that I've designed or they've seen an advert that Jamie's done, you've impacted someone's life somehow, no matter how small it was. That's all we bonded over. If we could work on anything, that tiny little thing there, we could see what we could form that into. But the rest of us, I don't know. So then how did it happen?

If it wasn't like a collusion of creativity. Well, it was literally just around a pub table, a table probably no bigger than this at the Admiral Bing, I like to name drop it. It was a pub in our local town we used to go to. It was the first pub you'd go to when you were old enough to drink, and we all went there. Are pubs over there like gift shops and museums here?

It's like you're forced to walk through them everywhere because that's what you guys make it sound like. You can't not walk into a pub over there like gift shops and museums here? It's like you're forced to walk through them everywhere? Because that's what you guys make it sound like. You can't not walk into a pub over there. There's a certain magnetism you kind of get drawn towards. I grew up in a village which had, I don't know, 500 people in the village, and there was one corner shop and three pubs. Really?

Yeah. More pubs than churches. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that the definition of like a hamlet which is like a small village is it has to have a pub to call it a hamlet i think so and then a village can be a village if it has a church and then a town and it goes up to cities oh really it has a cathedral so that i think that was part of the ah okay definition so what was the conversation like Literally just scribbling down recipes on the back of beer mats, sharing them out because I was trying to be a chef and these guys were eating sort of rubbish and kind of trash, really.

So we would share recipes. And although I was laughed at at the time, eventually they sort of caught on and then sort of... It's more the fact that when you're out, I don't know, you're cooking for a date of some sort and then you're in the supermarket and you go, right, what do I need to get now and then you start thinking i'm gonna text ben i've asked ben again for some help i was like a personal chef six or seven of you yeah when you realize that your friend's right it really hurts there's one of those moments and all of us were doing it

independent of each other so when we met up it was always kind of going so what did you cook this um on since we last saw you and so on. And then in terms of actually kind of getting something started, all we did was we saw we had something going on. We were all studying things that we could apply to work together on. So Ben was working as a chef. Jane was doing marketing. Mike was currently working at the school that we all went to

as a sound technician. Sound and IT technician. I was doing freelance photography and wanted to get into film at some point. And then we all said, actually, this is something we could all work on together. And that's kind of, we said, we did it as a hobby, as a way of boosting our own CVs to start off with, really, to create something. So we made a book, did it right. What's a CV?

Curriculum vitae. What do you call a CV here? The thing is, when you're a book, did it right. What's a CV? Curriculum vitae. Vitae. What do you call a CV here? You said boost your own CV. When you apply for a job. Like a midichlorian level or something? A resume. So yeah,

we were all studying stuff, but wouldn't it be cool if you could, for us, graduate with the qualification and an extra thing. And that thing for us would have been a self-published cookbook

because it had been a record of a load of cookbook because it had been a record of a load of my recipes a record a load of your photography and design jamie's kind of marketing angle on how he could push and promote all the pieces were there it's kind of like wouldn't it be cool if we could do that so it was the book first not the youtube yeah the book came a good year before that and then we had up as barry said we had some help to get a load printed self-published okay and then we had a shed load of them and we sort of worked out how do you how do you shift books how do you share this message how do we get people to sort of do what we love doing which is

sharing recipes on a bigger scale and video is the obvious one because you can get the friendship across much better in a video than you can on a written page so ben how did you how was that transition a guy who had made good grades and could do a number of different things? I mean, why food? I don't know. I just always came from quite a foodie background. My parents, although never trained or qualified in food, but they've always been quite foodie. I don't think up until the age of 18 I'd ever had a ready meal as such.

I mean, fish fingers maybe was as ready as a meal. You mean like a fast food meal? Like a meal in that you reheat at home right take out yes but not not in terms of buying a meal off of a supermarket shelf yeah everything was cooked from scratch right and every night and there was always great food in the house so i just always was surrounded by food and loved it and i've always wanted to carry that on and therefore was so confused when these guys sort of didn't know how to do it because it was almost second nature to me because i'd always been around food and what

kind of things were you making for yourself as a college student barry beans on toast with cheese on top maybe a poached egg if i felt fancy beans on toast with cheese on top baked potatoes yeah uh tuna surprise okay which was probably not tuna but still a surprise yep do you have hamburger helper over there no are you they like we've got rustlers rustlers which you think in the the burgers you get microwavable burgers no this is this is a packaged it comes in a cardboard and it's like pasta and seasoning and you're supposed to take ground beef and cook it, your own ground beef, you cook it and then you add these ingredients together

so you end up with sort of this like hamburger, pasta skillet, beef stroganoff kind of like, it's all these different flavors. And what we would do is, So bad for you, bro. We would take one of these and we would divide it between the four of us, the two of us, and then Greg and Tim, our roommates.

Cause it would literally be, you would make a pan. And so it would all be there. I never made it, cause I don't make stuff. But you or Greg or Tim would sizzle up the burger and then you pour in the pasta and you pour in the, like that stuff, looks like the stuff you get, like seasoning you get in a ramen packet.

Like taco seasoning. Like taco seasoning. And then you just mix it all together and then it kind of hardens a little bit. Well, it depends on which one you have. Some stay like kind of loose and then you, but there was one called, it was like called skillet sensation or something like that

that would make basically a big pie of burger and pasta and stuff and then you would cut it into fourths and we would, this is really not enough for a person to eat. Really. Especially a college boy. But we would do this because we were so cheap because that meal was probably like a dollar a piece. We ate that so often and that was the limit

of what we were cooking except when we would do the deep fryer with French fries, with ranch dressing, bacon and cheese on top of them. Because Greg was the one who was like, That does sound good. It was Greg's idea to buy a deep fry daddy. And then Rhett's on board with that. I just, I'll just, they make it,

I'll just sit down and eat whatever it is because- And if they don't make it, you're happy with cereal. Exactly. Yeah, and ice cream. And so I was just like, we were starving college students, but we weren't willing to spend money. So like we could each have eaten one of those hamburger helper things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we sat there and we would like meticulously divide it up into fours and that's all you got. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why didn't we just make two? I don't know. Because we didn't have two skillets. We had one pan, yeah.

But we didn't have a bin. My mom would make that stuff too, by the way. We didn't have a bin. We didn't have somebody who was attempting to rise above. So, you know, we waited until we got married. I haven't got to that stage yet. But I think that's what kind of kick-started this. We realized it wasn't just us that kind of were in that same situation.

We just wanted more and more people. I've always compared, and going from a very sort of chefy point of view there are chefs out there who make careers of having signature recipes and if you ask them what the secret recipe is it's their signature they'll never ever share it whereas i've been completely opposite if there's something i know that works i want everyone else to try it and i want everyone else to experience what i love about it and i think that's it's just the whole sharing mentality and that's where video and youtube and everything plays right social media plays right into that because it's it's very natural to share i mean you use the analogy of um food photography and you would never nowadays or 10 years ago you would never sit down at the dinner table get out out your camera, take a photo of it,

take it down to the shop to get it developed, bring it back, stick it in an envelope, post it to a friend and send it to say, this is what I've just seen. Yeah, that's a little involved. And yet now Instagram's doing that in seconds. It's that the sharing mentality around food and food is the most shared thing on Instagram. And not even what it tastes,

just what it tastes like, but what it looks like becomes, because that's the only thing you can really share. Everyone can connect with that. Yeah. You can just put like a lot of umms in there. Oh yeah, nom nom nom nom. Exactly.

Right, that's what everybody does underneath. So you started to, Barry, you started to experience Ben's influence. You're kind of going to him and asking him for tips. And that kind of, and then you guys realize that you've got these different pieces that come together the book happens then the youtube thing happens um how has the way that you see food and how you feel about your relationship with food changed because of

this influence and what you and now that is your life yeah i guess before sorted didn't really think twice about food it It was just there. I mean I was, unlike the other guys, I didn't go to university so I was doing photography freelance and I was living at home so mum was always just delivering me food every day. Only when I moved out then and started having to apply the recipes that we'd been creating together and testing them, I was like, okay, right. The bit that made it click for me was as soon as you found yourself not following a recipe and you started just playing and use it i i still once a week now i'll cook quickly for

therapy just sit there and you just i enjoy it and i have no idea what i'm looking to make apart from i've got some stuff in the cupboard i've bought some ingredients i like the look of let's see what happens that sort of sense of freedom and playfulness and then when you see the look on someone's face when you've given it to them as well i'm going you know what i haven't done badly here it's worth going you've given a go again that that sense of enjoyment of cooking and the socializing bit was what kind of made it more exciting for me to get into you just start caring more and then from that my girlfriend now she's obsessed with organic foods and healthy eating

and understanding exactly where food is sourced. Suddenly, I'm now caring about that as well. I never thought twice about it. But I think that's just kind of we're very much of the generation, that naive generation about food. And as time has been forward now with YouTube and social media, there's less and less walls to hide behind now. So people are just finding the stuff themselves, and they do find it, it's fascinating.

Well, one of the things that Link and I have been talking about is how, when you start getting older, your next meal is something you really put, you really look forward to it. You know, it's not, not to say that our lives are boring by any means, but I don't know, something about getting older and you start, you start kind of appreciating certain things

and you can plan a whole week around that trip to that certain restaurant, that meal that you're gonna have. And I mean, whereas when I think back to what we were doing in college and the way we were eating and the way we were thinking about food, I remember when I took my wife out,

the first date I ever like took her on, I took her out to Outback Steakhouse and I thought that I was killing it. I was like, she is gonna be so impressed because I took her to the Outback. And it's like, I think about that now, I'm like, I'm a little embarrassed. And I was like, what did you think?

And she kind of came from a family where they actually ate well and her mom was an incredible cook. And I was just like, what did you think? She said, well, I thought it was a little bit lame, but I really liked you. Whereas I'm like, now, of course I would take you to some place that was like a special place

that had some character that, you know, but I took her to a chain restaurant. I remember back then, I made up my mind, we probably having a conversation about this, you know, because I've been dating Christy for a while, you've been dating Jesse for a while, I think maybe you were coming to realization of what you're just talking about.

So one Valentine's Day, I was like, I'm gonna, yeah, Rhett's right, I'm gonna take Christy to a place for Valentine's Day that's like not a chain. And I found this place like using the Yelp of the time, which was like City Search or something. City Search, yeah. And so I go to this restaurant,

I can't remember what it was called, you'll remember, but I show up there, made reservations, and said, give me a nice romantic table. We sit down there and I had to drive almost two hours to get to this place. What? Never been there. It was in Durham, but had to drive almost two hours to get to this place. What? Never been there. It was in Durham but it took like almost two hours

to get there and then Christian and I are sitting there and she's like impressed and everything's going well and then after being there for like 20 minutes, I look over and Rhett and Jesse walked in the restaurant. Oh it was for Valentine's Day. You had made reservations at the same place. What is the name of that place? Paragon or something.

Parazad. Parazad. Parazad. Parazad. Same guy from George, George's Garage in Durham. He also owns that. He kind of took the wind out of my sails that like I'd done something really special. Totally independently that we just happened

to show up at the same place. Oh yeah, well he didn't tell me to come here. So that cheapened it a little bit. But one of the things that you start thinking about too, and I wanna get your guys' perspective on this, is like, food can serve a number of purposes. And one of them is to comfort you. A lot of people just stop there, right?

It's just like, food comforts me, and so I'm gonna eat exactly what my mouth wants. But then there's this sort of more foodie, more Anthony Bourdain mentality, which is like food challenges you. And I think that's something that, how does that phenomenon kind of enter into your philosophy and what you guys do? It's interesting you mentioned Anthony Bourdain because I love the guy. And I've read a couple of his books. And in fact, one of his books, A Cook cook's tour was him trying to experience the best meal

ever and it was more about the meal experience whether it was um a meal cooked in the middle of the western sahara desert surrounded by the camel caravan that got him there and it was a goat or whatever and he said eventually after this huge journey across the world the best meal ever was one they had in vietnam and that was what kind of inspired me to go to Vietnam last year and try and experience Vietnamese culture and food. But the one thing that food does is form an identity and connect people. It's probably the only, you can go anywhere in the world and whether you speak the same language or not,

the chances are you'll be able to communicate through music and food, whether you speak the same language or not. And that's- Math? More difficult. Let's sit down and do some algebra brother if you take an abacus with you you can probably get across the basics yeah right um but but food and music both of them you can form an identity around and both of them you can communicate with people and i think that's where fundamentally you go right back to basics

and it's just kind of that's why everyone gets it right and those other cultures i think that's one of the things too is that those other cultures foods are challenging to you know a palate people get grossed out by and you've got to be careful because it's a delicacy in one plate i had a do you ever have the fermented herring with you it's a scandinavian delicacy yeah it's a strumming yes that's the one and it is it's very expensive so when you are offered some you don't want to sort of turn it down or spit it back out or anything but it was revolting oh the smell yeah the smell was that the pewdie pie the pewdie pie yeah he opened we thought something had gone wrong and it exploded and

it was the worst smell i've ever smelled in my life. And we're, oh, of course, this is a bad batch. But it wasn't. It wasn't. That was the special. It was perfect. It was perfect. He told us it was perfect. We didn't believe him.

It's literally fizzy on your tongue as you eat it. And it's just, but it's somebody's delicacy. And therefore, you've kind of got to respect that without, you can have an opinion on food and stuff, but you've got to not to. Right. Well, it's interesting because when you talk about the challenge of kind of expanding your horizons, it's kind of a microcosm of kind of appreciating another culture. Yeah. But I think you're even thinking about bringing

that mentality into just your own way of life. You're like not being a picky eater. I don't know if you're cutting your eyes at me here, but. No, but I mean, you've changed significantly in the past 20 years of what you are interested in eating. Oh yeah. I have a natural disposition, which is I just like stuff. New stuff, you like new experiences.

I like the same experience. I eat a lot of different things and I enjoy, one night I'll be like, this is the best meal I've ever had, then the next time, like, this is the best meal I've ever had. I'll go to a new city and I'll be like, I want to live here,

and then next week, I want to live here. That's just my disposition, is just to want the next thing. But I mean, there's a hundred things that you wouldn't eat when you were 20 years old that you'll eat now. Oh yeah, I mean, I wouldn't drink milk or water. I would only drink soft drinks

until I was like out of high school. But I've actually started to crave sushi over the past four months. Like that's my new thing. I'm finally able to get there. Well, sometimes there's this little thing that just clicks with a food, right? But I wanna explore how,

when you've got a YouTube audience, you've got typically a younger audience and those people tend to be pickier, you know, because your palate hasn't matured yet. So how does that enter into the way that you guys present your content and what specifically you talk about the food that you're introducing people into? How do you kind of take in that take into account the internet fickleness that people have it makes a massive difference we know that if we want to get a viral video around food you're going to do something that is cupcakes cupcake multi-colored multi-colored cupcakes rainbow foods um but we know that every time we do anything that is curry based so heavily spiced or alcoholic or anything that, like you said,

a more mature palate, the views never seem to deliver on that sense. But we know it means when we do meetups, we meet the community, they're the things that they're cooking every day. They're the stuff that you go, actually, I made your, what's the one we'll use as an example, go and fish curry. The thumbnail of it is awful. It's very brown. It doesn't look very sexy.

It's not a sexy title to a video. It's everything that is destined to fail on YouTube. But the amount of people you meet who said, I made that recipe and it was brilliant. And I use it every week. And you go, okay, that's completely different from how many views or how many comments you get. So then how does that impact your approach then?

I think we've always said that food, we try and do something for everyone. So we always have a balance. We'll try and do food from as many different cultures around the world, as many different ingredients and styles and stuff so that we have ticked every box. Let's go back to the thing that was sorted. We try and get a problem.

We try and give a problem a solution we try and get it sorted and we kind of want there at any point if anybody was to come to the channel and was looking for something they have a problem they're looking for a particular dish or a particular scenario we hope there'll be a couple of options there that will get them sorted so they've got choice and we always try and tick every box but we also know that if you do sweet stuff and baking and homemade bread and things like that then they are more popular so you kind of pepper that in a little bit but if you could make the decision you could just say let's just you know what let's only green light things that are those big view getters the things that people want to see and why not do that it's um uh i think we're unlike most channels on youtube purely because most of our views come from our back catalog catalog i think people um there are people

discover us from our new videos that go up that are more viral suited and but once they're in they want to start cooking they'll look for our back catalog completely yeah it's always a surprise you do a meetup and you're there and you're chatting to people and the the integrity of the meter it isn't just about meeting people grabbing a selfie and moving on everyone there wants to show you what they've cooked or which recipes they've cooked or tell you their favorite dish and everybody is different there's not 10 recipes that keep coming up as everyone's favorite we've got 700 recipes and every time you do a meetup it's different people cooking different dishes. And that's what spurs us on to keep doing different stuff because it's the variety that keeps it and the integrity.

Going back to where it all started, it's not about fast food and baking and cakes and sweets and stuff. It's about a balanced diet and things you can cook quickly and cheaply at home on a day-to-day basis. So we always try and keep that sort of integrity through what we do as well as we all want to make a cronut video or whatever. But it's the best of both worlds.

What do you think about people who don't care about food? It's just not their thing. Food's not my thing, man. I think personally, myself and Mike probably can empathize in the most. Mike still doesn't really care that much sometimes. Mike, for the last year has been working on on sorted for the last five years and he still can't cut an onion because he his brain doesn't need none of us myself jamie and mike we don't aspire to become incredible

chefs we just we use it like everybody else we We want to enjoy the food. And I think we always... We've got a couple of friends from school who we didn't necessarily get along with who are... We always say they're the hardest cookies to crack. They're the people we... If we can appeal to... Certain characters.

Yeah. Martian Fod. Trying to hide the name. There's a character that we could use as an example. If we can appeal to... You're calling him Martian Fod? Martian Fod, who doesn't care at all about food, literally hates this stuff,

and also finds us a little bit annoying. How can we still make him like what we do? What's the answer? And get into food. For us at the moment, that's why we have so many different series as time goes by. Keep mixing it up. To appeal to different types of people. will make him like what we do and get into food. For us at the moment, that's why we have so many different series as time goes by

to appeal to different types of people. You're right, I think a lot of time on YouTube, if they don't like us, we have a bit of a problem. But then saying that

we have an incredible community all creating different types of food and on our app now we have people who have bigger profiles than us who are creating their own

types of food so that you should hire those martian fod yeah yeah yeah uh well i'm curious about the dynamic amongst the four of you then if i mean if if there's only one chef and the other three of you don't aspire to become chefs and one of you doesn't even aspire to cut an onion uh interpersonally how does that work on a team i mean you guys is there is there conflict is there kind of a okay you got a guy who knows his stuff and how am i valuable kind of thing how do insecurities play out i think right back at the start when we're writing you can't answer this you're the one who's got it all together they're honestly i think my dad said to me the other day, he goes, the only reason that we work as a friendship group

is because we are so harsh on each other. It works amongst our entire friends. I can't remember the last time I gave Ben a compliment. And any of us, anybody a compliment, we always should juggle down. So therefore, no ego is ever allowed to grow out of this at all. But we all respect each other massively about what we're good at and what we do. But if it's about food and you've got a chef, what it...

I really think back to... You can't answer your question. I was just joking. I'm going to answer it anyway. Back to the first time we wrote the first cookbook. And I would write down recipes. And the whole point was that that recipe was only 70% there because it then had to go through the sense check. Because I was writing it as a chef.

It needs to be dumbed down and demystified. And actually, it was when the other side... Dumbed down is a really bad word to use. Dumbed down. Yeah, thanks. Yeah. Down to his level. That was a statement of superiority.

See, that right there is where the conflict comes from. I'm anticipating this. But it's a mass market rather than people who aspire to be chefs or foodies. Translate it. Let's use that term. Make it relatable. Relatable. Relatable and accessible is a better word.

But when he says something like, okay, dumb down my recipe for the masses or for you guys. Are there fights? Are there arguments? Yeah, of course. They're mostly on camera. I think that's kind of the point. We give Ben a seriously hard time. There is no other cooking... Because you're inferior to him. I mean, is that the mentality? Because you don't know the food,

that's kind of the foil. It has to be. That's part of it. Every other cooking show out there, the chef is the man you don't mess with the chef whereas we're the only channel out there who puts him up and then knocks him back down

undermine and belittle completely because it has otherwise we're just being preached to but I'm not I'm not cooking a plate of food for somebody just to eat

we're doing it for a YouTube channel to share stuff so the skill sets so Barry initially in food photography and graphic design and stuff like that, I mean, we've had,

I say arguments, we've bickered over the fact that I've wanted to plate it this way, a plate of food, because that's how, if you're in a restaurant, that's how I'd want it plated. He said it doesn't look good on camera. That's not how we're doing it. Even down to that, it's like, we're using each other's skill sets to, and Mike is the absolute best

at just cutting through all the waffle and going but you just need to break it down like i'm a novice i need to know this i don't need to know that bit i need to know this bit right and even though he represents he represents the audience yeah and i having the sort of not scientific background but liking the science behind food and understanding how the food gets to that point that's the bit that i always want to to push into it and then you've got the sort of the creative left the other side and you need to balance over all of it because without it no one would work and are there was there a point where you guys divided up workload and what your roles were and i'm i'm even curious yeah it's like okay you bring the recipes you bring bring the script, so to speak,

but there's still a question of, is there a question of, well, is everybody pulling their weight kind of a thing? Even amongst the two of us, Rhett and I still have conversations about strength and different strengths and playing to our strengths and giving each other room to do things. Maybe if I've got an insecurity about something

and I overcompensate, like we have to have these conversations. I'm curious if you guys do. Yeah, all the time. I think we recently had to have a chat between the four of us about, for every video to go out, all of us had to sign it off and have a look at it.

And the system was a bit too kind of confusing at times because there were almost too many opinions on every single video um we we said look jamie you're the man to look at every single video that comes through and you're the person to sign off because he will respect everyone's opinion the best jamie's jamie's jamie's the people person jamie can uh we we say he's the king of emails because he'll never not respond to an email. And he's always the person who is, he's there to make people happy. It's a conversation.

Yeah, so therefore him in that role that's almost channel manager, really worked well for Jamie. Mike is everything content now. Mike had no background in production at all, but since kind of working and producing the videos he's almost become the voice of sorts to an extent he knows the tone that we need to kind of be putting forward in every single video he um works with a couple of editors now freelancers

and louise who's our kind of head of production who just basically puts every single video together now um ben looks like and and looks after everything through they've got um james who is uh he's our social media guru um but also is a trained chef with this university's ben um i'm the only one who tries to work out what i'm doing most of the time and so does everybody else but we kind of i think we talk very openly amongst a group about what we're doing are we doing it right and we're very open to shoot ourselves down and say, if we're not doing it right, we'll change it. It's YouTube.

We set the rules. None of us are looking for promotion here in a job. So therefore, we've got everything to gain, but also everything to lose if we're not careful. So we have to work as a team carefully. Essentially, because it really is the dynamic of like a touring band in a lot of senses, I would imagine, you know? You're like the Aerosmith of food.

Well, the One Direction of Cooking was the one that we were labeled with, which was dangerous. Yeah, well, I gotta say Aerosmith because they're breaking up. Let's talk about them at length now. Let's not. It's funny that I said Aerosmith.

The Aerosmith of cooking. Put that on the back of your DVD. Let me further date myself. Why don't you put my quote on the back of your cassette tape? Link said we were the Aerosmith of, I don't know why you have a cassette tape. So is there a, we talk about the fact that we've got this mentality

that we do not see nor really do have aspirations to go off and try things on our own. We're just like, well, as long as we're around, we're going to be doing things together. Is it like, okay, guys, sorted food, this is the thing? Or is it like, no, no, Ben, you want to go and be a head chef at a restaurant one day? You know, like what is the mentality and do you guys talk about that yeah i think we've all we all basically need we all know that what we're doing now is the best thing we can do right now and yet so when i grew up when i was trained to be a chef all i ever wanted to do was aspire to be a head chef in a gastropub somewhere creating menus on a regular

basis serving maybe 50 60 people a night. Because I didn't know this existed. Like what we're doing now, we've kind of forged our own way, the way sort of a YouTube production company, which didn't really exist five, seven years ago when we were sort of a university or whatever. We didn't even know that existed. And yet now we're coming up with recipes on a daily basis

with the community. So I've got like a million development chefs working with me to create the best recipes. And we're sharing them with hundreds of thousands of people a day, not 60 in a restaurant. So we are literally, or I am personally, living the best job ever. But that doesn't mean that occasionally you look out and see what other people are doing.

And you need to get that experience to make sure you're still on the... So you're leaving. So I've handed in my notice and I can't imagine doing anything different. Like, we've been doing it for five years now and it's not a job because you never switch it off.

It's not a nine to five. Oh, yeah. It's, you live and breathe it. Yeah. It's what we are. Yeah. I don't think any of us

really signed up to this at all. I think, I know, I think you had some aspirations of becoming back then a TV chef, I guess. But none of us really wanted to be on screen at all. It just seemed to be what was natural.

I think Ben's right. I don't think any of us really know what's around the corner. I'd love to say the Sorted community will one day outgrow us and become its own entity. And there'll be more than just the four of us to represent Sorted. It'll be a number of different chefs. Well, you got a Brazilian spinoff already.

Yeah. Congratulations on that. Thank you. That was terrifying to me. But that came from the exact same thing. It was kind of going, we are, food will never be viral. It's growing at a good pace

in English-speaking countries. But we know that YouTube and the food culture in Brazil and also Japan is thriving. So we thought, actually, we can open a sorted section in Brazil and see how that goes and ask some of our friends to say, would you mind running a channel under the Sorted Food brand with the same ethos the same yeah same community see how it goes at the moment it's going down really well um yeah i think it's

great it's been really weird to see everything we've worked on suddenly working so easily somebody else you go oh no i mean that goes back to what you're saying about this different series and stuff like that the fact that it's the fridge cam concept is so formattable as it were it's something that somebody else can grab and as long as they have the same attitude towards food and that's that's all sorted really is it's an attitude towards food and it's not about the we went for a meal um while we're in la a couple weeks ago suggestion it was the second highest rated thing we had to check out while in la and that was that was Korean BBQ and we went for Korean BBQ and it just sat around the table with a little sort of grill in the middle

and just picking up food and chatting away you think that is kind of, that's the epitome of what Sorted is, it's social food food happens to be there as the glue but it's more about the people you're with and the conversation and the fact that you can pick up something like FridgeCam and send it to another language on the other side of the world and the attitude and approach to food

is the same that's when it was kind of like the penny drops like actually this is really cool well you know i i think in this conversation i've been a little challenged you know the fact that you know i i've kind of it's been a bit of mine to be like you know i don't make anything i only make cereal because it's true i scoop peanut butter and I pour milk over cereal. But, you know, I mean, so what would you say to a guy like me, or just me because I'm here, and what's your challenge for me, what's your challenge for Rhett? And, Rhett, you can kind of give your cooking profile. That's mine.

So I think I can empathize with you to an extent because growing up, food was just a fuel. It was running faster and being fitter and everything else. And then I got lazy and I just kind of stuck to what I knew and it was just the comfort of things. Only in the last couple of years through Sorted, I've treated food as a fuel again, but in a sense of I know that I have to be working at my best at all times. And with what we've been doing, we've been pushing ourselves stupidly hard and i've cracked a few times so on life's pretty simple all you have to get right is sleep well exercise and eat well as well and surround yourself by good people the food bit was something that i was letting myself down with and exercise

as soon as i started to to look after my body and go i trialed different types of food and different things i could eat to see how it affected me as a person and how I didn't have to take any kind of extra nutritional drugs in the morning to get myself going. If I just ate well, if I, it sounds silly,

if I juiced in the morning and got my, that was like taking a drug for me. Suddenly I had so much more energy and I didn't have to eat as much carbs. And then I go, actually, what is,

I started eating more and more sushi and raw fish. And actually, I was even sharper in the evenings. Then it might die off and I might try something else. But I ended up... The best thing I did was test myself on different foods and see how my body, my head, everything else reacted off the stuff I ate. And that, for me, was something

that I just found really fascinating. I never seen sort of food as such an important part of the way you work and the way you live your life. So lay into me. Just let me have it. What's the challenge? Try something new. I think it's pushing the boundaries to try something new.

I've started trying stuff new. Once a week. I think my main challenge from you guys at this point is that I'm not willing to make anything. Like I'll try it if somebody else will give it to me, give or take. If you try something. But cooking it, preparing it. But takeaway is the essence of cooking being the chore part of it. If you make that the fun part, the plate of food happens to be the result.

But actually the fun part, the plate of food happens to be the result. But actually the fun part, the part that is more, back in the day we used to always go away in the summer and camp down in Bournemouth where Jamie studied. And we used to do big group barbecues and stuff. And it was all about sort of making the food together. And actually the fact that we had a big buffet of food at the end was kind of irrelevant. It was actually about the making of it.

The process. The process, it was more fun. And you've got the beers open, you're drinking, you're socialising, you're playing games or whatever. But it's actually and the process it was more fun and you got the beers open you're drinking you're socializing playing games or whatever but it's actually the make the process of it is more fun so all i would say is make that process as accessible and fun as possible get the kids involved get well yeah what's the what's the barrier because that's the thing i relate to that because i'm no i'm no great cook but i love love to cook and I have so much fun doing it. Like even when my wife is like, I'm just gonna leave you alone and let you do this thing.

I just like, there's like three or four things going at the same time. I'm just, I have a blast. And like you said, once it's, the meal's there, half the time when you've made it, you're kind of like, you guys can enjoy this. I enjoy food better when somebody else has made it for me, you know, but it's like, I had so much fun sitting there,

drinking a glass of wine while I, and pouring a little bit in there while I was making it, you know, that kind of thing. So what, for you, Link, what is the barrier? Is it like, I don't know that I could do it or I don't wanna spend the time to do it? Like, when your wife leaves you alone, takes the kids back to North Carolina or whatever,

and you have like a week alone, like Christy tells me, she's like, he'll just eat peanut butter and ice cream and cereal and he'll go to like to In-N-Out, but he will not make himself anything. So when my wife goes away, I'm like, what am I gonna make myself? That I don't have to force her to eat?

Yeah. Well, let me answer it this way. I'll reflect upon it. And in the meantime, I'll thank you guys for coming in here and create, sorting out this, your biscuit. And next time you guys come, Link will have prepared a meal for you.

Sounds perfect. Oh, no. Thanks, guys. We'll bring you some food next time. It was fun. Thank you so much. Thank you. There it was,

our ear biscuit with Sorted Food. Barry and Ben, let them know what you think about this ear biscuit. Hashtag Ear Biscuits with Sorted Food. Barry and Ben, let them know what you think about this Ear Biscuit. Hashtag Ear Biscuits. Their Twitter is at Sorted Food, just like it sounds. I'm not going to spell it because you already know. Also, leave a review on iTunes because that's helpful.

All right, so I left us hanging at the end of this thing. You did, you did. I didn't mean to make it a teaser like, ooh, I got some introspective thoughts. I didn't want to end the podcast with them talking so, I got some like introspective thoughts. I didn't wanna end the podcast with them like talking so much about myself. But it was to me. And I wanted to gather my thoughts. It was a little weird.

I'm just gonna be honest with you. It was a little weird to me. I can tell you thought it was weird. Because I was like, okay, we had this really good conversation going about food and then like, this is a challenging conversation and then you're like, I don't know, I don't like to cook. I mean, I don't cook for myself.

And then I'm like, why? And you're like, I don't know, I don't like to cook. I mean, I don't cook for myself. And then I'm like, why? And you're like, I don't know, I'll reflect on it. I was like, hold on, is it like a bad childhood memory? Like the one time you tried to cook a grilled cheese, somebody came and poured hot oil on your face or something? Like what is the, is there a story? The story is I was trying desperately to end the episode because it's Christy's birthday dinner

and I had a date with her and I should've just said, hey guys. It was really, it was very abrupt. It was like, it was as if I had struck a nerve. I was like, whoa, one thing I don't know about Link is- I knew I made it awkward. He has an emotionally charged reason why he doesn't cook. Which I know you well enough to know

that you don't have an emotionally charged reason for anything. So it's like, I know that's not what it is. Well, and that's what it was. Ironically, it was I was taking my wife out to dinner and I didn't wanna be late. And I should have just said that, but instead I made an awkward ending to the episode.

Well, I'll reflect on that. But in fairness. Well, reflect on it. Why don't you cook, man? I felt like if ending to the episode. Well, I'll reflect on that. But in fairness. Well, reflect on it. Why don't you cook, man? I felt like if I answered the question honestly, it would have been another 15 minutes. But now that I've reflected on it, maybe it'll just be another one and a half minutes.

That's what it should be. I think the simple fact of the matter is I have so many control issues that play into cleanliness that every aspect of cooking for me is, it's like a- A potential mess? It's a burden of the additional cleanup. And I've never seen it as a creative process or an outlet.

I've always seen it as something that will have to be undone. And I admit that's wrong. You know, encourage me. Maybe I can change. I feel like I should turn over a new leaf. I'm open to that. Well, I mean, I think the best way to overcome this is approach it from something else.

Like what else do you do in life that you enjoy that has to be cleaned up after? So I mean, you know, if you can latch onto that, then maybe you'll be into cooking. I'll just leave it at that. Well, that's a good point. And I'll look at it that way from now on.

Okay, good. I've cured you. Is it a disease? I think so. I think not cooking is a disease. And you don't cook a lot, but you do it as a creative outlet, that's what you said, right?

You get excited about it? I'm definitely not good at it, but I love doing it. And every once in a while I create something, I'm like, man, I'd give that to another human. It's funny that you say you do it when your family's out of town, but I didn't quite understand that. I wanted to unpack that for a second.

I mean, I will cook for myself. You know, when you've got kids, you can't just give them anything. They're already so picky, so you gotta be really careful about what you cook for them. So it's not the risk of someone else poo-pooing your recipe. It's practical concerns that you're not gonna like it anyway.

You wanna be more adventurous. It's easier when you only have to answer to your own palate. And I do, I cook for my kids and my wife pretty regularly. I mean, I don't cook as often as my wife does by any means, but you know, and there's a lot of tag teaming that goes on. It's I pitch in and take this dish or something like that. It's a relational thing. The way that I've addressed that relationally is,

I'm like, baby, you love to cook. That's, you enjoy it, so go for it, and I'll be happy to clean up anything that you're willing to make. Okay, so this is crazy. So you're only willing to clean up. Like, I don't wanna cook, because I gotta clean up,

but the only way that I've been involved in cooking in the past is cleaning up? But when I'm sitting there making the mess. clean up, but the only way that I've been involved in cooking in the past is cleaning up. But when I'm sitting here, when I'm sitting there making the mess. You're only doing the bad part. I'll admit that. I like cleaning up.

I'll admit that the reason that I choose not to cook sometimes if I'm alone and to go get something from a restaurant or have something delivered is the cleanup. It is the bad part, but I'm saying it's worth it, man. I know I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, but I think that when, and maybe I don't know, can I reflect on this some more?

Yeah, why don't you reflect on it some more? But I will say, I think that the active process of creating something I have to clean up seems counterproductive. But if someone else gonna do that, and then I enjoyed it, so now I'm gonna clean it. I'm not gonna make you clean all this up because I got to enjoy eating it

and I feel like I owe at least that much. I don't know, my mind's screwed up, huh? Yeah, well, yeah. You need to go see somebody about that or we could just keep talking about it. Yeah, it does feel like we need like a therapeutic addendum to this conversation. It's fun and you accomplish something and it's satisfying

and it tastes good when you get done with it if you do it right. But what if it doesn't? Maybe there's that fear of failure too. Wow, there's a lot going into this. And I was abused by food as a child. Okay, a grilled cheese sandwich. Oh man, has the music been playing a while? Yeah, hopefully. Because we'd be out by now.

Okay. Or we are right now. We're gone, we'll be back though. Thanks? Yeah, hopefully. Because we'd be out by now. Okay. Or we are right now. We're gone, we'll be back though. Thanks for listening, you know it's next week.