The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 228: Venison is the New Kale

Episode Date: July 6, 2020

Steven Rinella talks with chef Michael Hunter, Brody Henderson, Corinne Schneider, and Phil Taylor.Topics discussed: The omnipresence of dandelions; gas station diner to big time chef; the irony of applying preservation techniques to food and then eating that food right away; Steve overriding his own “first in, first out” freezer rule; woodcocks dropping bowels; cattails; vegans both protesting and supporting your restaurant; accidentally outing the butcher shop next door; counter-protesting by butchering a deer leg in your window; Steve wanting prominent blurb placement on Michael Hunter’s new book; hosting illegal dinners and then founding Antler Kitchen and Bar; wild game laws in Canada; when a guy shows up with a bag of mushrooms; chicken on the menu as a “just in case”; turkey wing and first buck tattoos; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google Play Store. Know where you stand with Onyx. So we're out in the woods, kinda, in your classic like close to town, down by the river, people walking dogs, beer cans laying here and there, down by the river spot. Someone running some kind kind of yeah what is he doing like that kind of spot some guy driving some screws into something down there building a stand unclear if he's on his own land or not uh and we're in what what i would regard as the foraging off season and our with brody henderson and chef michael hunter i don't know if you disagree or

agree with foraging off-season but by that i mean um folks that like to i find that your general folks that like to hunt and fish a lot have a couple wild edibles they know about the number one being morels i would agree so in the spring you look for morels and then that ends and then you kind of act like there's nothing to do until you can maybe go pick a berry in the fall and that's like the season yep so i would put this firmly in the off season meaning the berries aren't ready yep and the morels are gone the morels are gone all like the the prime edibles i would say are gone easily identifiable easily identifiable uh but there's a whole slew of herbs and little plants that are not really you know choice but they're still kind of fun to look for

and do you uh tell people just up front we'll get into this in greater detail later but tell people up front like about your restaurant and what your like your your food philosophy so my restaurant the name my restaurant's antler um and we just want to incorporate all things wild into our menu as much as we can so we rely heavily on forgers um that that sell us wild mushrooms uh wild plants uh we do a little bit of foraging ourselves. We only sell wild sustainably caught fish. And we sell farmed game meat just because we can't sell actual wild game meat. So we just want to embrace the outdoors

and share that with our customers. So that rule is the same as it is in the U.S. and Canada? It's set for Newfoundland where where they get a little leeway, and they're actually allowed to sell wild game. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Can you buy it from them? Yep.

Well, I think you can. It's dine-in. I don't know if you can actually purchase a steak to take it home. And I think it's only certain animals. Moose, I don't know what else. They're allowed to do some ducks and pheasant, upland birds and stuff. But the big one is moose I don't know what else they're allowed to do some ducks and pheasant upland birds and stuff but the big one is moose they they have more moose than people in their province and I think it was it was allowed through tourism it was what it was one of the sort of pushes to to get people to go to

Newfoundland got you when you walk out dude i gotta know what that dude's doing when you walk out uh yeah is he putting up a tree no when you walk out this time of year like look hey you're at a disadvantage because you're from a couple thousand miles away yeah so this is not like when you look are you like oh yeah i'm gonna tear this place a new one or you're like i don't know what we're gonna find i have no idea we're gonna find okay and we saw some dandelion we saw some dandelion omnipresent so right now like back home when i'm you know walking my dog or taking a hike or fishing along the creeks uh i'll find stinging nettle which is incredibly high in iron no so a lot of people make stinging nettle tea a lot of people put it in pastas um you can make a soup with it

um so that's a really neat one it's really neutral kind of like spinach doesn't have a lot of flavor but it's it has more iron than spinach i think it's more iron than any plant is that right stinging nettle um so that's a neat one it's got more thorns than any plant it does so yeah gloves like must um and so stinging nettle watercress along the creeks is kind of neat um and it's really spicy look the leaves are smaller than the stuff you can buy in the store yeah um but uh and it's really really hot and spicy while ginger is out right now it's a really neat one um it's not actually in the ginger family but it just tastes like ginger um and it's a root you kind of have there's these heart-shaped leaves everywhere and you got to dig it up And it has more of like a floral

Flowery taste but it still has that ginger heat And we use that in ice creams and desserts. Oh really? You can also make just teas with it, but that's a neat one What else we got? Sumac, staghorn sumac It's different than Middle Eastern sumac, but still has that lemony taste to it so that that's sort of almost all year I think summer is sort of the best time to pick it because then into the fall and spring it's kind of eaten and chewed up by bugs and worms and stuff like that that's one of the things we have here is you might still find it now what's getting a little bit late is oyster mushrooms yep which get ripped up by worms.

And then the dried saddle, which gets wormed up. But we saw dandelion. There's mint, wild onion. We'll just have to look around. I've never actually looked in this spot. Yeah, cool. So we'll see. Let's see what we can find.

What did you find LVM's little brown mushrooms. There's a neat one that's called Shaggy mains. Oh, yeah, we have those. Yeah, so those are those are like golf course mushrooms. There's randomly around those are those are super tasty But those aren't shaggy means no No, we get shaggy mains we get those a little bit later yeah always in disturbed places like packed down ground and shit i find those just in grassy fields people's backyards in the city and stuff it's really funny inky caps yeah this is wild rose oh cool but doesn't have a so when later this will have a hip on yeah yeah neat we're right now we're doing a rose hip ice cream

oh you are yeah okay so we don't have a patio so our restaurant's still closed so we're uh we're doing all things takeaway so we're doing a line of wild ice creams right now oh yeah so we're doing a rose hip we're doing a wild mint and chip chocolate chip um your wild blueberry and then a strawberry wild ginger you ever hear is there anything to do with horsetail? I've never heard of anybody eating horsetail. Scouring rush? I don't know. I've never heard of it. I've heard of horsetail, but it looks different than that.

Yeah, we have a handful of kinds. This kind they call scouring rush. It's good for scrubbing pots. I think the horsetail I'm thinking of, it looks almost like asparagus. I've heard you can pickle that. There is a stream here, very near here, that has watercraft, but it's a private property place.

We tried to catch a beaver for a guy and never caught it. Even all this... That had watercraft in it. All this dandelion would actually be good unless you're worried about people's dogs. No, I don't care about people's dogs. Because they don't have... There's no flowers on them, so before they flower, they're not as bitter. Oh, I think you're worried about people's dogs oh i don't care about people because they don't have uh there's no flowers on them so before they flower they're not as bitter oh i think your post flower for here oh really he's already flowered oh gotcha yeah they flower

earlier so michael do you ever eat um you know like dandelion is an interesting one because everybody has it everybody's sort of kind of aware yeah that you can eat it but why is it not more popular that's a horse tail too yes so that's the ones that we i see more of that stuff like this in the cretaceous these were 80 feet tall i'm not saying this was yeah this is an ancient kind of tree neat i didn't know that 80 footers man that's crazy dinosaurs gnawing on them so uh anyways dandelions like why how come they never took off maybe because it's just too common they're in everyone's backyard um it's also it's not exciting

i think um unless you like that bitter kind of rapini flavor it's not really your thing so they're better you're saying that before they flower they're less bitter they're less bitter before they flower i didn't know that uh marsh marigold's another one that's really neat um it grows in swampy creek kind of stuff um and it's really bitter like you're like rapini as well but that one you have to actually blanch um it's not you're not supposed to do it raw yeah that is a bitter green man yeah i'm gonna try it before it flowers some last year's rose yeah there's wild rose so how do you uh when you do rose hips like that what do you do with them so we'll we'll uh simmer them with the custard so we'll we'll simmer them with

the milk and the sugar and then whisk them into the eggs and then we'll let them kind of soak in the custard and then puree it and strain out the seeds i was in argentina and they uh had jars of jam that they were making from rosehip oh cool yeah but just seemed like a painstaking process to get all that those like seeds oh yeah they got all the outer shell off yeah someone wants to just spend hours yeah yeah i like to like boil them and then like crush them up or put them in a blender and then just strain up in september you'll find grouse that with their crops and the seeds are like stones like they're not even you can't even chew on them see this right here would

be a good morale spot yeah like big cottonwood these aren't big but cottonwoods especially damaged cottonwoods down stumps it's not a hard and fast rule but there's typically grass yeah you know this would be like a kind of shady kind of yeah a little bit of sunlight yep mixed i would sniff around in there for sure if i was looking for them one of the guys i was working for came in off his mountain bike because we used this restaurant i worked at was across the street from a huge provincial park uh-huh and he came in with a handful of mushrooms and said here check these out and i was i was 17 or 18 at the time and I was just like totally fascinated by oh like you can actually go into the wild and pick stuff you know like and then uh he told me sort of where to find them

and I went across the road on my lunch break and came home with three pounds of uh oh seriously yeah it was it was it was awesome then we came and we sold them uh we featured them for dinner that night no shit it was really really cool yeah and those those are neat because those are black morels and they grow um i found them on this like cedar hillside just like kind of sandy mossy soil um and they were just everywhere they're really neat yeah when i was reading your bio with your cookbook that's coming out uh i didn't realize how early you got started cooking yeah it was really bizarre i um i was a 13 year old kid and i wanted to uh make some pocket change to buy skateboards and stupid t-shirts that said profanity and stuff my mom wouldn't let me buy and i just wanted my own

money so i wound up i rode my bike to this local gas station. I applied to pump gas and the guy said, you didn't need any help at the gas station, we need help at the diner. So that's it. I was just, yeah. You're like, okay, I'll become a lifelong chef. I'm in, you know? And it was, so I started washing dishes.

I would fry the hash browns and butter toast. And it was one of those like greasy spoon diners with a lineup out the door on the weekends. And yeah, I would bike there at 6.30 in the morning on weekends as a kid. And it was just uh one of those things i just i cooked at home a little bit um i grew up single mom so my mom would work late and she would call me and tell me how to start the chicken and stuff like that so i

just i already knew a little bit about cooking and i loved as a kid i would like always hungry always like just into food we'd go to a party and there'd be like oysters or lobster and just things that i wanted to try new stuff so food is always a really big thing for me as a kid um and then it just stuck i i worked at a golf course in the summers all through high school um and then when the golf course would close in the winter i wound up working at this little kind of fine dining country inn and that's where um was like my first real culinary mentor yeah to say and then you know he we we made everything from scratch so we'd make bread we'd make pasta we'd make all the you know in-house charcuteries and

salamis and stuff like that um and that was the fascinating thing for me was the pressure preservation stuff so how people would survive before they had a fridge yeah you know and like there's all this trendy charcuterie stuff people are doing but it's really just old school like it's not it's nothing new you know same with hunting and fishing and foraging like it's it's not new you know what we're doing it's it's it's just forgotten about that's the interesting thing about charcuterie is that now a lot of it seems like all these extra weird things you're doing to end at a product yeah and you lose sight of the fact that like well no this is all like shit people came up with so stuff didn't rot yes to survive like confit you know so now like to make a batch of confit and turn around and eat it that night people would probably been

like no no no way too much work no that's like for way later man when there's nothing to eat we'll eat that exactly that's like we're not eating that tonight yeah it is funny yeah i always catch myself doing that man and and i have a thing too like uh just for instance the other day we caught some lake trout yeah and i usually have a thing where um first in first out freezer yeah in the for freezer management but so we like i come home with these lake trout fillets yeah like oh i'm gonna freeze them yeah i'm like well hold it like like so i'm gonna put this in the freezer and take some other shit out of the freezer and eat that to reinforce my policy or would i just eat the damn fish?

It's like here right now, I'll just eat the fish Plus certain kinds of fish don't even freeze well I literally caught myself in the freezer door going like put this, I mean this is the stupidest thing I've ever done man We'll eat this now, yeah I'm like I'm gonna save this for later You hear that pheasant? Just heard him crowing a very short woodcock migration oh you do yeah that was cool yeah that's the thing I missed from growing up we didn't put a ton of attention into it but

you would get them they're tasty little birds yeah and the whole do you know cooking them with the guts yeah did you do that I've never done that I did why do people like to eat woodcock guts so I think it's just the fact that it's I think it's one of the only birds every time they fly they drop their bowels yeah so there's no actual shit in their intestines and I think it's just has that like kind of depth of flavor it's just different do you did you enjoy it I thought it was interesting I don't know if i would really do it all the time but it was it's sort of like a delicacy do they flush it foie gras because he just they just eat worms man yeah in old cookbooks you'd read about eating the guts on woodcocks but i never knew what i couldn't even picture what

they're talking about yeah i don't know i don't know uh you know how they discovered that um but it's just it's one of those sort of European delicacy things. You guys call them timber doodles where you are? No, I never heard that. You ever see their flight, their mating flight? No. Well, I know they're hard to shoot. No, they go way up in the air.

Oh, okay. Woo, like crazy noises. No, I never see them do that. Oh, it's incredible. That's neat. It's incredible. We would get them and they would just come through very briefly, but now and then you'd get into

shit loads of them, man. You'd walk into a little kind of like wet. Yeah, Aspen area Yeah, and just be like Bombing out. You hit the migration. Yeah, then you go back a week later like now I'm gonna get them. They're all gone Oh, I remember eating my first one and being like holy cow that tastes like liver, you know, I got 12 years old Man, it is now I think i'd appreciate it more it's not a good one for introducing people yeah yeah yeah they're funky would you get them in the funk growing up yeah yeah and you were you in michigan as well pennsylvania northwestern pennsylvania near lake erie i actually just googled it because i wanted to see how far it was and it's it's only

like three and a half hours to drive from toronto to detroit which is kind of neat oh yeah i guess i knew that yeah yeah usually like i'm more i drive to the states more through buffalo um and even the border for me is only an hour and a half we used to drive up to toronto because you could drink there when you're 18. yeah i drank i drank underage in a canada bar yeah 17 yeah that's early yeah i would let my kids do that uh yeah you know i lived the reason i knew that when i said i knew that is i lived in sioux saint marie michigan okay which is sister cities of sioux ontario and there was a lot of uh kids up there that would go to school and stuff in toronto Toronto and they were always bouncing back and forth. That's a hunting fishing paradise. Yeah, the Sioux, yeah. That river is unbelievable, man. That's a great fishing river. You guys got a lot of beavers where you live? We do. Yeah, they can be a bit of a problem. So we can't hunt them, we're only allowed to trap

them. Yeah, same here. Unless there's like... Unless you're in Yeah, so we can't hunt them. We are only allowed to trap them. Yeah, same here Unless there's like unless you're in Colorado then you can only hunt them causing like damage on your property Then you can shoot them. We had a farmer call us We hunt deer on his property. He wanted some help getting rid of beavers same here. It's a fur bear Yeah, so you can't hunt it. Here's the thing. They voted trapping out in Colorado. Okay, so what state do they like? Okay, I'm fine. It's just oh then it's just the need to sun them yeah instead so they're great oh you dumb by the beaver sausage you guys made oh yeah we did up how many pounds we do 40 40 pounds were spicy Italian beaver sauce have you ever eaten the tail rodents oh yeah that's good I got a couple in my freezer. Yeah, rodent sausage, man.

We didn't put our muskrats in there, but it was going to be a rodent medley. That's one thing I haven't eaten yet is muskrat. I want to try it. So, yeah, a friend of mine, he... So, there's two different kinds of trapper's license. There's like a recreational one where you don't have to have a registered trap line. That's what I'm going to look into. Yeah, we don't have that. I know you guys have that system. We don to have a registered trap line oh that's what i'm gonna look into yeah we don't have that i know you guys have that system we don't have a registered trap line system you have to fill your quota and actually take the first auction and report

your earnings and it's it's very uh if you don't have to have a registered one what happens when two dudes are like here like if you cross pass it's an honor system right now and then they do it differently like like for instance there's a real famous horicon marsh in wisconsin um real famous like very valuable high-grade muskrats and they divide horicon marsh up and then they auction off the auction off the rights but in general it's just like honor system so they get it gets ugly yeah even like at the level I trapped it would get ugly yeah people were getting fights I remember being at a fur buyers one time and I was young in the fur buyer saying to another guy on the phone talking about opening damn muskrats and he goes anybody fucks and

you shoot him I didn't know he was joking I was like Jesus man I hope I'm not trapping that spot but now I later got to know the guy and realized that he was just having fun yeah when you're young and half scared of other trappers you know you recognize that i don't know what that is it's on a stick it's like a fungus or yeah black knot yeah that grows on cherry yeah we have some friends like i always heard about on a stick but i didn't know it was real you guys get cattails yep for cattails you can actually eat the shoots in the spring or you pull them and it's like the root not necessarily just above the root there's like

you peel away the outer layer and there's like a nice white kind of like starchy yeah so you can pickle those yeah i've taken those and pickled them that's pretty good man yeah pickle cattail shoots are neat um And then I've actually heard of people making, they dry them out and make flour with it, which I thought was really, really interesting. I've never done that. I've heard of that as well. A bit laborious for me. There's a cattail right there. Yeah, there is some old. That looks like it might be this year's cattail. Who wants to get wet yeah

Go there grab that bro There's the call Brody a colleague he's gonna go over and use that bridge You know we used to do cat tails we were little as we'd like to Know we'd like to dip the head in gas. Oh shit, and then like that on fire and run around And one time we were doing that with the fire chiefs kid and he got real mad the fire chief It's unbecoming the fire chief I would imagine it's unbecoming I'm a fire chiefs kid make cantile torches what I'm doing is I'm curious now this is a good crayfish cream yeah I haven't seen any raccoon leavings of crayfish claws and I smell mint you smell it right here

where I'm stomping that's where I take a will good spot to look for it right by the creek it's reeks of mint I just can't find it someone's in it maybe Corinne's in it yeah got stirred up somewhere overpowering mint odor right now smell on top out now I know do you get do you guys smell there's just I don't you don't smell mint right now smells are in the sign of COVID are they no but dude my mint patch in my garden i gave away about a bushel of mint last night i think they're stopping are you guys stomping on mint i don't think so i don't see any i just got like two big strong whiffs of it god i can't find it oh there you go go Corrine. Hold it. Right there. Where? Isn't this mint?

This guy? No. Well that's not a mint? No that's not a mint. Damn it. Phil are you walking on mint? I don't think so. Michael do some foragers have the same urge as some hunters to jump a fence like that one over there and go onto private property. About 100% I think. Absolutely. If you know there's morels somewhere, I don't think... Oh, it's tearing me up.

Oh, oh. There it is. I found it. It all stung. Oh, yeah. I found it. Look at that. I found it.

A couple more under your left arm. No. Is it right in the water? i found it look at that there's a couple more under your left arm is it right in the water no it's just right above the water oh now i can really smell it now if someone was smart they'd dig that up and bring that home oh see that looks different than my mint so we got oh there's there's a bazillion kinds man see that one the leaves are sharp and and jagged yeah that's a or difference mint man no home is that not it doesn't smell like mint because where is it I thought that was there with a purple good look at the red the red stalk and the green leaves son of a bitch that's not an experiment

no that's not it you said you could smell it yeah this is bizarre it's just thick and there's a lot of shit growing in here oh I thought for sure that was it when I looked at it that purple is down yeah you find the mint do you guys smell it over there? I don't smell it anymore. But you were smelling it. I got a whiff of it. No, not that tall.

I feel like I'm smelling it right now. I think it is on that side. You're right. Damn it. Sons of bitches. It's so strong smelling we can't find it. Sitting down here with my nose down on the ground smelling a bunch of shit. It must be really small.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. It's not grown up enough yet, maybe. I feel like that happens a fair bit. Like the other day we were, not the other day, but a little while ago we were getting mushrooms. We got several kinds of good mushrooms and i kept smelling mint and was sort of like like making a half-assed attempt to locate it and didn't locate it because i couldn't tell where the smell was blown in from no that is not it find it phil Nah, that fucker's not in. Find it, Phil?

I'm sorry to report, but I did not. Phil's really pouring the coals to the ground over there. Should we keep walking a little bit? Let's do it. Corinne? Yeah, we gotta find something. We found all kinds of shit. You want like a major discovery?

We want a meal. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes and our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking a high-end titty there, OnX is now in Canada.

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handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all okay now that we're uh sitting here in our beautiful studio um do you kind of see what i'm saying about like at least from my perspective about the off season oh totally yeah i uh because the berries agree yeah the berries aren't in and like mushrooms are gone.

Yeah. It's not like a hot mushroom time. It kind of starts, you know, gets summertime. Yeah. But, uh, you can still tell there's like a ton of possibility. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's kind of like hunting, you know, it's, it's every time you go out,

you're not going to come home with, with, uh, you know, the trophy let's say. Right. So it's, for me, it's, it's, uh, it's just good to get out there and be in country and hang out with your friends and, you know, hope to find something interesting. But what I, uh, what it did reinforce is that outside of the big marquee things that people know, like picking, you know, wild blueberries, wild strawberries, whatever, uh, and picking the really nice mushrooms, that there's these two sort of

ubiquitous wild edibles. Yeah, like dandelion greens and cattails. Dandelions and cattails. It's like foraging 101. You know what I mean? Like you're out in the woods starving, whatever, dandelions and cattails, man. It'd be a bitter meal, but you can make it work.

So later you're going to, Brody here, he's telling me that you guys are going to like cook something. Yeah. So I've cleaned up the cattails. We'll use the cattail hearts and I'm going to do a little dish with a venison loin and a spice ash recipe from the cookbook. So the, I've only ever pickled those. What are you going to do with them, I think I'm just gonna saute them in a pan with a little olive oil. Oh, does that work?

Yeah. Just saute them. I think you gotta clean them really well. Um. Like get down to the soft stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Just peel out the outer layers.

Sort of like the, the last kind of foot of the cat tail, uh, you know, not, not the frilly stuff on top, but the, like the, the 12 inches of the meaty stock at the bottom, just cut that the frilly stuff on top, but the, like the, the 12 inches of the meaty stock at the bottom, just cut that off and then peel the outer layers of the green stuff. And you get that white heart. Do me a favor though, do something with the

damn dandelions. We could definitely do a side dish. Billions of dollars are spent trying to get rid of dandelions. I feel like you have to go and do a little bitter little salad. A neat little trick though is garlic and chili flakes really kind of take away some of that

bitterness. Oh. So if you pick enough of them, it's like spinach, like it wilts to nothing. You know, steam them or blanch them first, squeeze out the excess water and then saute it with a little butter, garlic, and chili flakes.

And it really just takes away a lot of that bitterness. Is that right? Yeah. Like rapini, same thing, rapini. And, um, one thing I mentioned, uh, marsh marigold is a good one too for, to treat like that.

You know, I had a little surprise, a negative experience where the lettuce in my garden this early, for us it is still early for gardening uh didn't bolt okay it's early bitter is really oh interesting bitter i wonder why that is dude i never had yeah and i had one of those seed blends so it's like 80 kinds of yeah just really disappointing you don't know what's what no it's like, I feel like the shitty kind did real well in my garden and all the good, it's like, you know, it's like a thousand different kinds of seeds. You just throw it down and take what you get. Yeah. Not a good approach, man. Interesting. You shouldn't be

allowed to do that to people. Yeah. The bitter mix. Yeah. It was like, yeah, here's a mix of a bunch of stuff that won't germinate except for the super bitter kinds will be all over the place in your garden, and your kids won't like the salad. With that behind us, again, Chef Michael Hunter, I hate to do this to you, man, because you've probably had to tell the story so many times, but you've got to start out just for context. You've got to tell the story know when you got super in the

news the vegans yeah the vegans because this will probably like people will be like oh i've never heard about this yeah that was not something i ever expected was gonna happen opening a restaurant um so that was when you opened no that, it was actually two years after we opened. Yeah. So it wasn't right when we opened, but just not one of the, like opening and running a restaurant is hard enough. And that was, that was probably the most difficult thing I've had to endure as a chef and a business owner. And just as a, as a person, because they were, they were trying to shut us down and, uh, you know, basically just attacking us.

So this is like, it gives people like where you're at. So my restaurant Antler is located in Toronto. Uh, we're, uh, just sort of out of downtown. We're in this little pocket called little Portugal and we had a chalkboard sign out front. We're a tiny little restaurant. We're 45 seats.

And was that your, was that your first restaurant? tiny little restaurant. We're 45 seats. And. Was that your, was that your first restaurant? The first restaurant that I owned. Yeah. That's what I mean. Yeah. So. I know you'd been in the restaurant biz for a long time.

But, uh, so we had this chalkboard sign out front that said, venison is the new kale. Dude, I had a really nice kale salad last night because my garden kale is kicking my ass. Kale's awesome. Do you know chef, do you know Do you know Jesse Griffiths? I don't. He's a chef in Texas. Okay. He does a lot of game.

I look him up. Oh, you should. You guys be like nuts on a dog. He makes this really good kale salad. And I called, texted him to be like, how do you make that shit? And I made mine. It wasn't as good as his. But anyways, it wasn't even kind of like even close to his.

I don't get it. But so venison was the new Kales. What, what did it and the cyclist rode by and she was a head organizer of a group, uh, like a grassroots organization. I think they, they have a couple, but it was pig save or, um, I forget the actual name of pig save, so they would protest slaughterhouses. Oh, good. And that was there an animal rights group,

uh, PETA funding, um, type thing. And the organizer of this group rode by on her bike and was offended. And how do you know that happened? That's what they basically wrote on their site. And then they had, they'd had interviews. So that that's how we found out exactly how it happened. Um, and just one night, uh, I think it was in November, they showed up and we

actually got tipped off by a large corporation that, uh, they also target. Uh, I'm not going to name names, but so they, this corporation has their own security division that just handles these vegan groups because that's interesting. They, they try and hurt your business. So we actually got tipped off and they said that this group's coming that here's their Facebook page. Um, their Facebook page was private, but they had sort of some Intel, I guess they have some fake members of the group. Sure. Yeah. So we got wind of what was happening and we didn't really think much of it. We just said,

okay, business as usual, let's just try and ignore it. And they sent us a letter of sort of their demands. Which were? They wanted to have a meeting with us to change our menu. And they wanted us to put their slogan, you know, one of their slogans in our window. Oh, but they got a guy to give in and do that too. Oh, they've got many. Because they're relentless. Like they'll take, you know, they a guy to give in and do that too. Oh, they've got many. Because they're relentless.

Like they'll take, you know, they take photos of your children and put them online and they just do terrible stuff. Really? We had, yeah, we, they eventually stopped because a couple of them got restraining orders because they slipped up. That sounds illegal. Yeah. Were they, do you know if they were targeting your restaurant because of its connection

to wild game? A hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent. So they said that we were lying to people because, you know, we were hunting and serving the game meat ourself and that's not something we've ever, you know, claimed that's totally

illegal. You know, the thing with the game farms is, is I want to sell game because I love to eat it and it's the only way I can. And a lot of these, these little game farms, they're little family run operations. And I know the farmer and we know what they eat and you know, how they're raised and we can go

visit the farms if we want. And you know, it's just a really great way to do business for us. So they, they call it the humane meat myth. So they were going after small businesses that were farm to table also because they say that it doesn't matter how the animals raised, meat is murder. So they say that people are tricking the consumer when they say it's a healthier alternative if farm to table. Yeah, that's a plausible argument.

I can understand it, I guess. I can see someone hitting on the idea that, um, wait a minute, I don't think you should ever kill an animal. Exactly. And sure. If you're nice to it,

like you're still killing it. I mean, I could definitely see someone arriving at that. Yeah. But you know, that animal has a better life than, than, you know,

some of the alternative that's out there. Yeah. But, but there are arguments floating around out there that I don't get how you arrive at them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, I was like, I don't, I don't have to have the tongue. Yeah. But there are arguments floating around out there that I don't get how you arrive at them. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

I mean, I don't have to have the opinion to understand how one might get there. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

And it was just baffling to us the way it would happen. So we actually wrote them back once and said, listen, you know,

we actually already have a couple of vegan dishes on the menu. You know, vegetarian food and like foraging and just wild ingredients is something that we're really passionate about. We invited them to take them foraging, you know, if they were interested and just have a dialogue. And I think they wrote back something kind of

nasty and they didn't want to have, they weren't into that. So we just stopped. When you wrote them a letter, do you mean you like wrote a letter? I think it was an email. It was over email, that one. So they said to you, they come to you and say, we're going to show up, protest the shit out of your place.

Yep. Unless you change the menu. I imagine by change the menu, they mean like full on. Full vegan. Why are they out at your place and not out at Arby's or something? Well, the funny thing was. Not that I'm hacking on Arby's. I don't know what Arby's does.

I'm assuming they kill all those animals and cut their meat up real thin. I accidentally outed the butcher shop across the street because I think I said in an interview or something, I said, there's a butcher shop across the street. And then they went and protested them. So I felt bad. But like, seriously, like there's like the meat morgue, like across the street, you know, slaughtering more stuff than we are. Yeah, I've seen the – okay, so keep telling the story. I like that deal where they put the sticker in the window. That's bad.

I would not want that sticker. No. No, neither did we. The sticker basically says like assholes working here. Yeah, meat is murder. I can't remember. It was just bizarre, their slogan. So we just thought, okay, let's ignore this

and it'll just go away. So it didn't go away. So then they were protesting us once a week. How many people? Five to 10 would show up. Oh. So it was lame. It was totally lame.

What group? Was it PETA or was it? No. So they called themselves, it was a grass root, grass Toronto. But there was like several little, the only one I can think of is Pig Save because one of them just actually got run over by a pig truck. That's interesting.

Yeah. They're protesting. Oh, so it wasn't total like weirdness. No. Oh, cause they're protesting. I thought they were like checking their mail and got hit by a pig truck.

I would find that to be like, I don't know. Irony's not the right word. The only reason I'm thinking of it, cause it was just in the news again, but one of their groups was pig save. And it jumped on from a pig truck. Yeah. They were protesting. They wouldn't know. Irony's not the right word. The only reason I'm thinking of it, because it was just in the news again, but one of their groups was Pig Save. And it jumped out in front of a pig truck. Yeah.

They were protesting. They wouldn't move. And I guess the truck didn't stop. The pigs would eat them. Pigs would eat them. My dad always said, if you lay there long enough, that pig will eat you. And eventually I just got fed up. I would always leave because I knew I was going to do something stupid if I stuck around.

So five to 10 people. Five to 10 people. And they're hooting and hollering. They're like, hey, hey, ho, ho. Banging on our windows, huge signs, screaming at our customers coming in and out. And I was, you know. Was it bad for business or good for business? In the beginning, it was bad.

And so. I'd have gone in there. I was just about almost said I would have gone in there guns a blazing. It's hard. As an expression. I would have gone in there and a blazing as an expression. I would have gone in there and had dinner. Yeah. Yeah.

So I eventually, I had to be there one night. I forget someone was sick or away and I had to work. And because it was just so upsetting. I didn't want to be there when they were there. What night of the week was it? Thursdays. They picked Thursdays. Thursdays or Fridays.

And so we get whole deer delivered once a month. We generally get one to two animals, um, that would last us the month. Um, and we break down our own stuff. So I went down, we had a delivery that morning. I got so upset. I saw a customer come in, uh, visibly on a date and the woman was almost crying because she's being screamed at with a megaphone murderer murderer, like FU, you know, just horrible stuff. So this woman I saw come in was like almost crying and I just said, okay, enough's enough. And I went downstairs, chopped off the whole

back leg of a deer, got a red cutting board. I think I got some like sanitizer and stuff. So it would be safe if I got called, like if in case the health department were called, I had like safety stuff around me. And I plunked the leg down in the front window and started to just joint and butcher the back leg in front of them. And that was sort of my protest back. Like, you know, you're going to offend me in my window.

I'm just going to offend you, excuse me, right back. From within your window. From within my window. And I had every legal right to do it. But they filmed the whole thing. And the police came in to talk to me because I said, you know, they're calling the health department.

I said, that's fine. I'm within my rights. They said, yep, okay. And then, you know, they kind of had a chuckle with me because they were on our side. They were taking police resources away from the city to be there

because they're there to keep the peace. And you guys never called the police on them you guys never called the police on them. We never called the police on them. They were there to keep the peace because they would bang on our windows and do stuff that is illegal when the police weren't there. So I butchered this deer leg in the window. They filmed the whole thing. I go back, cook up a piece of meat in the kitchen and come back and I ate it in front

of them. That was my protest. How did it become like a major like international news story? They filmed this whole thing and they sat outside with this big sign, meat is murder as I'm hacking up this piece of meat. That's a good album, a good Smith's album though, man.

The cover shot is cool. I go about things the wrong way. I'm human. Keep going, Steve. So they posted this video footage to all of their mainstream vegan sites. And it started to blow up and go viral around the world. But not in the. Not in a good way.

Not where you being the hero. No, not in a good way. Because you became the hero. We became the hero after a weekend of being the devil. So our like Google ratings were getting attacked. Our Facebook – anywhere where you could rate our restaurant was being attacked by vegans giving us one-star reviews. I got rotten food and everything you could think of. People started like just digging into my social media, pulling pictures of my family, putting them online.

Really? Oh, yeah. Just like attacking you in every way they could online. And then when the mainstream media got it, it was, so this happened on like a Thursday, Friday. So all weekend, this stuff's like floating around the webs and we're just kind of shit in our pants. Like we're screwed.

Like I screwed us. And then the mainstream picked it up and wrote like a really positive piece for us saying that, you know, we're sticking up for our business. You know, these people have no right telling us what we can and can't serve. Um, you know, we care about our ingredients. We, you know, try and serve ethically stuff, ethically sourced stuff. And it was really positive towards us. And just the general public opinion was all in support of Antler. And then it, it just went viral. I have no understanding.

Was that good for business? That was. That was. And we were nervous about talking about it because it was, they protested us still once a week for 11 months. They tried to close our business. You're shitting me. I swear to God.

So it was. Tenacious. It was emotional, man. It was stressful. They tried to close our business. You're shitting me. I swear to God. So it was. Tenacious. It was emotional, man. It was stressful. They continue to protest you. They continue to protest. And then, so because, because it went viral, they got a lot of support on their end too.

So these protests of five to 10 people turned into a hundred outside a little 40 seater restaurant. So it sucked. It was not fun. Like afterwards it's fun to look back on it. Why did they eventually quit? I don't know. They just stopped. Did you put the sign up they want? No, no, we refused. I said, no, like no way in hell. My business partner, I was actually considering it. And my business partner was the one who actually said like, no effing way are we doing anything

to help, you know, their cause or support what they want so and that was that was good for me to hear because i was kind of think i was getting tired of it you're getting ready to capitulate yeah it was uh it was emotional like it was hard so uh because we care so much about what we're doing and it's it's our life's work it's our passion um and then to have people trying to physically shut you down and hurt you, uh, it was tough. It's funny how people attack. This happens in a lot of facets of, of life where people are more inclined to attack something that leans in their direction.

Like when they look at a spectrum of like, let's say that there's a thing they hate. Okay. So they hate, like, like they don't thing they hate. They don't like animal abuse. They don't like violence toward animals. That's a spectrum. Oftentimes, when someone doesn't like a thing and the thing is part of a spectrum, people want to attack the thing that has the most most adjacency to their position right not always but often like like the same way that i imagine like you you take someone who whatever you take certain christian denominations right and you'd be like so they they like they don't like evil right so

you think they would be like hyper focused on devil worshipers yeah but they'd be like they'd be like hyper focused on mormons very very similar right but they're like so be like why are you not mad at devil i would think that you'd be mad about devil worshipers in your town yeah not people of the mormon faith in your town who sort of are like like very in line yeah with what you got going on they don't deserve it you know but but like they can't even begin to deal with the devil worshiper end of things. And so you get something close. And so here you have like a restaurant that sort of say you're like leaning into ideas of sustainability and leaning into ideas of animal welfare.

Yeah. And so then they're faced with like, let's go after the guy that seems to kind of talk about some of the things we're trying to talk about and make an example out of him how dare you sort of be right yeah we are yeah we we have the same problem it's in a weird way like i always thought we'd get like like our company i always figured oh we'll get attacked from the left yeah that's right like i'm like fairly conservative yeah uh always anticipated that i would get attacked from the left we attack like from the right wow like you know you go on tv with everybody's carrying guns around and you spend a career making shows where people have

firearms and you promote firearm usage and put it you you know, but it's like, ah, I got a feeling these people don't really like guns. They don't like guns enough for me. And, and, and so then you become, you know, it's just bizarre. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, it's wild. But also it's like, there are many ways to agitate for change.

It feels like this is kind of like a, I don't know, a manipulative relationship. Totally. Where one makes demands. We're not the ones that make the laws around, because we actually agree with a lot of their beliefs. Like I don't think slaughterhouses are

typically a great place for animals to be. You know, and it's illegal for the farmer to slaughter the animal himself and sell it directly to the restaurant. So all animals have to go to this not so great habitat of where they have to spend the last days of their life. So there are things that we agree on, but they should be protesting the government to change the laws to make slaughterhouses a more humane place, I guess. That's not fun. It's a lot more fun to go out in front of a restaurant trying to destroy someone's job.

And because it went viral, for every hundred for every hundred, you know, supporters we got, you know, they got maybe two. So like their movement grew at the same time, even though it was all negative for them in the mainstream media. You know, they, they gained a bit of support for their, their group. So I think that's what, you know, fueled them for so long is because they were, they were milking it. They were getting all kinds of attention when no one had ever heard of them before. I'm surprised they didn't respond to your email back. You know, your outreach for conversation. Invite them to go mushroom picking.

Yeah, let's go. So they actually did start responding. And at that point, you know, we had to hire a PR crisis person to help us deal with it. And then so they advised us just to not talk to them at all. That's what those people always do. Yeah. Next time you want to go call a crisis management place, don't. And just be like, I'll tell you what they'll say.

Don't engage. Yeah. Well, it was good because they did steer us in the right direction with some things. It was a friend's company that I knew. So they, you know, it was pretty affordable for us. But they gave us some really good advice because I wanted to talk to them. I wanted to argue with them and try and get my point across. Did you ever have a sit down?

No. Because they would just publicly post whatever we say and they twist things. They cut things out. They twist it. They would take pictures of our restaurant at like five o'clock before we had any customers and be like, our, our movement's working, Antler's empty. And it's like, well, yeah, we're not open yet. Like, or it's like, there's like a, you know, in between, you know, we have diners come in at five, six o'clock and then another rush at eight. So, you know, there's this weird time when tables are flipping that, you know, there's half, we're half full.

So they'd post these photos, say Antler, antlers losing business on a Saturday night. You know, they're only half full. Do they partially, do you feel that they partially hated you? Cause you embraced it. Like you called it antler and like, do you kind of like brace the connection with animals rather than having it be that it's like you have a clown with red hair and he sort of is the face of the yeah like wow it's like you know a nice clown he's nice to kids and they don't talk about what they're serving in there yeah yeah like a little even if there's not an actual connection to hunting there's like the idea that that we're promoting

it yeah and that you enjoy a point yeah that's a really good that. That we're promoting it. Yeah. And that you enjoy it. That's a good point. Yeah. That's a really good point. That might've been what pissed them off. Yeah. Did you get to, did the same group of people show up over the course of that, that you got to know them? Know them by face. Like, Hey John and Mary, how you doing? I wouldn't talk to them because I just knew the stuff coming out of my mouth

wouldn't be friendly and I just knew, you know, don't. But it was the same core group of people. Same core, same like five people, the organizers. Yeah. And especially the ones, because they were the ones taking pictures of my kids and I could see that they were posting them and stuff. So there was one guy that it's like, if I got within three feet of him, it would have been ugly. Yeah. So it was just like, I'm not going anywhere near this.

Yeah. But that's next level low. Yeah. And it's, yeah. Just incredibly frustrating. Like I didn't have the, the, the tools to deal with what, you know, facing them would be like, so I just knew don't go near them. So it eventually fizzled out.

It just fizzled out. You know, um. Did your, did your, did your restaurant maintain the momentum? Um, we did, we definitely saw like a spike, you know, um, we were getting phone calls from all around the world. People were emailing us from all around the world, like literally people sending us the articles from New Zealand, from South Africa, from Singapore, from England and Russian. It was just bizarre. You see about these stories and things going viral and then when you experience it yourself is just just bizarre you know you have a you have a cookbook coming out i do yeah talk about that very proudly yeah tell about the cookbook but then my question is did you did that did this whole thing sort of put you in a position where you got to do a cookbook or do you think you would have done a cookbook

anyways no so the cookbook was actually what started the restaurant. So, um, I was working, you know, I grew up working as a chef, as a, as a young teenager. Yeah. I got started way young. I got started at 13 at a diner. Yeah. I wanted my. Did you grow up poor?

Not poor. It was sort of up and down. You know, I grew up with a single mom and there were, there were a lot of times she had her own business. So there were good times and bad times. It was, uh, you know, not, it wasn't very stable.

Um, but I just, I wanted to have my own, I wanted to buy skateboards and t-shirts and, you know, stupid, stupid stuff as a kid that your parents would say no to. So you had to go get your own cash. And I liked it. I really liked having money. So I thought that was cool.

And I liked the work and I was very food motivated. I loved to eat as a kid. So I found it really cool learning how to make stuff. So did you ever do any kind of schooling or anything around cooking? I did. Yeah.

So I, I did, uh, it's a, it's a formal trade apprenticeship. So I did my apprenticeship trade, got my red seal certification. Went to, uh, I went to college, a community, like not a community college, but a college for trades. Um, and yeah, I got my, I got my chef papers, uh, in my early twenties. So just career. Career chef. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I got my, I got my chef papers, uh, in my early twenties. So just career. Career chef. Yeah.

And what really motivated that was, um, I had my daughter really young, so I had my daughter when I was 19. Wow. And, uh, that really. How old is she now? 16. That'll date you. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm 35. Figure that out, bro. So that was really my driving force. So you had your own restaurant in your early thirties, man. Yeah. Yeah. It was wild. So. Working your ass restaurant in your early 30s, man. Yeah. Yeah. It was wild.

Working your ass off. You had a kid when you were 19? I had a kid when I was 19. And that just motivated, like I find it does one of two things. Either it motivates you or people run. And I chose to stick around and stick with it. And yeah, I think, you know, my daughter like saved my life in a lot of ways. Like I was, I had a hard teenage kind of growing up.

I was a troubled youth kind of kid. And having a kid really focused me into having an amazing work ethic and just being a solid dude, you know, because I wasn't really solid before. That's interesting. Yeah. That you wound up feeling that way. I mean, it's typical, but that's a young age to hit that. I think the older you are, the more likely you'll hit that feeling yeah because i meet some people now and then

that don't get that feeling yeah i did that kid having yeah does not not help does not necessarily make one lean in i remember my buddy a buddy of mine mo one of our old camera guys he talked about having a kid and he said like it made him want to get up in the morning and get like a fedora you know and get like a briefcase and like put your hat on in the morning and march out the door you know with your briefcase to conquer the world man you know he's like that's what he felt like he ought to be doing i'm like shit a lot of people don't feel that way yeah you know i i didn't have a dad growing up for the most part my dad moved to la when i was very young from where he moved from toronto toronto la yeah when i was like three or four what was he doing why did he do that uh he married he married a woman down there i think it was just he himself had like alcoholism problems and stuff like that

so he he i think just wanted to start a new life and i have two two half sisters in the city as well um did he wind up having anything to do with you yeah so i would go visit did he write you after he saw the article? Yeah. No, we've, we're actually, we're very close now. Oh, okay. You know, I'd go visit him on the summers and stuff as a kid. Oh, okay.

But yeah, so I think a big part of it was I didn't, I didn't want to do that to my kid. I wanted to really be there is what, is what really motivated me to work hard. Uh-huh. So. That's great. You know, when, so when a lot of my friends are partying when they're in their twenties, I was working.

And that's, I think that's why, um, you know, I was able to open a restaurant when I was 30 because I was so focused. So you're, you're getting ready to tell us about how the, the, the cookbook led to the. Yeah, the cookbook. Um, wow. We got off track there.

No, you're fine. So it's all stuff I needed to know. So I was, uh, the cookbook. Wow, we got off track there. No, you're fine. It's all stuff I needed to know. So I was passionate about food and I had started hunting and foraging in my late teens. Family friend, I'm not going to say who you are now, took me out turkey hunting. And because I was cooking professionally, we went turkey hunting and it was still to this day, one of the best turkey hunts I've ever been on. I was so blown away by the flavor of wild turkey

because I had something to compare it to, you know, like with, with deer, you don't grow up eating farmed deer, whereas, you know, turkey, I'd have turkey at Christmas and Thanksgiving and all these holidays. So it was like eating turkey for the first time. It was, this is like, wow, this is what turkey is supposed to taste like. And that other crap that we've been eating from the grocery store, I don't know what that is anymore. Like that's just garbage. And I think as a chef, you try and source the most

amazing ingredients possible. So for me, it was, okay, I don't want to eat that other shit anymore. This is what real food is, is this wild food. And the more I got into hunting and learning about wild foods and foraging, the more interested like my friends and family became. And they wanted me to teach them or take them or talk to them about it. So the idea of the book was really just, I wanted to teach people about hunting and foraging because it's something that I think has just been lost in our culture. When did you start working on the book? I think I was 20. We've been working, I've been working on the book for, and I say week, my business partner got involved. Um, I think I was 27 or 28. So I went and bought a camera and, uh, I had worked for a famous chef at the time and he handed me a cookbook and I thought, okay, if this guy can do it, like, why can't I do it?

Who was the chef? Scott Conant. He's out of New York. He had opened an Italian restaurant in Toronto. And he did a cookbook. He's done a few. Yeah. So I worked for him.

It can't be that hard. Well, I just thought, you know, like Scott was a down to earth guy and I related to him on a lot of levels. And I was like, okay, like, you know, this guy inspired me. It was like, yo, he's got a book. I can, I can do a book. And one of my sister actually said to me, she's like, you're like the hunter chef. Cause like, that's our last name. So, and I was like, that's a great name.

So I trademarked the name and just, I'm going to write this book and teach people about this. Cause everyone was asking me anyway, I was so passionate about it. And I was like, this is going to be, you know, I want to inspire other people to eat better and eat healthier and learn more about this. And then, you know, I started talking to my family about it and this is what I'm, this is what I'm doing. I'm working, I'm going to work on this book. I bought a camera.

I like photography anyway. My sister's, it's a weird connection, but my sister's husband's step-mom said to me, she said, oh, my, my son is, is taking cooking classes and he's a documentary filmmaker. And I'd met him occasionally at family events. And she's like, he's a photographer, you know, you guys should talk. And then, um, we talked and he was telling me he was taking cooking classes for fun, uh, at a local college. And, uh, our, our deal was he'd help me with the

photos for the book and I'd teach him how to cook. Uh, and that's, that's how the book started. That was seven years ago. And you got to put some time into it. So we got sidetracked, you know, we, we started taking photos for the book and then we thought, okay, let's, let's do some parties. So we, we do some parties for these food photos. We wanted to make all this food for photos.

And then we had, we had all this food kicked lying around. So we're like, well, we'll have a game dinner with our family. So we started having these game dinners and then we thought, okay, we'll have, we'll have a game dinner with our family. So we started having these game dinners and then we thought, okay, we'll have, we'll have a game dinner, um, and sell tickets to it just to pay for some of the expenses. Um, so what we've wound up finding, cause I knew you couldn't sell game in a restaurant, but I wasn't really sure the

law is like, you can't sell game period. So I got, I got a visit from the ministry of natural resources saying that, you know, we can't really do this. Um, and I had to prove that we didn't really make a profit because we only did one that we sold tickets to and we kind of got in trouble. So we promoted that. We called it the illegal dinner because we were doing it out of this condo and not a restaurant. And a large paper bought a ticket and they wanted to write a story about it. And I thought we'd get this little blurb, you know, in this big paper. And we ended up getting like this two page spread with photos and this write up about this dinner we were doing.

Cause it was so different. You know, no one does stuff like this. And that got you a visit from the. That got me a visit from the, uh, the ministry of natural resources. Came to visit and, and we, you know, they were very, very nice, but I had to provide receipts and, and, uh, you know, we, cause we,

we had bought rentals. We had to rent plates and tables and chairs. And, you know, we did this we, we had bought rentals. We had to rent plates and tables and chairs. And, you know, we did this little dinner for 15 people. Uh, we had to buy a lot of food. So at the time you were just ignorant of the rules. I was, I was ignorant of the rules. Like there's, cause in Canada, there's, there's, well, at least in Toronto, there's two laws. There's, there's the Ontario public health where you can't sell meat that hasn't been

through a slaughterhouse. Yep. Um, and then there's the wild game laws, which I was unaware of that you can't sell game for profit at all. Like, you know, even to your neighbor, you know,

whatever. We have a, we have a very similar suite of laws down here. So now I know. A thing about talking about like when talking, you know,

I don't know if this, I don't know if this is reciprocal, but like many people in the U S view Canada as being like almost like a facsimile. Yeah. And then when you're talking about the, the rules earlier as being like, almost like a facsimile. Yeah. And then when you're talking about the, the rules earlier, we're talking about like gun laws.

I'm like, yeah, that's right. It's a different country. Very different. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of the game laws are really similar.

Yeah. The gun laws are totally different. We could spend a quite a, quite a while talking about that too. We started getting all this publicity around this book that we're doing and this, this, this idea of wild food and, and the restaurant where I was working, they, they said to me, they said, Hey, you know, we noticed this

article in the paper said, we don't really want to be involved in this. Like if you do stuff on your day off, that's fine, but like, we don't want to be mentioned in these articles. And so we kind of thought, well, you know, this, we're getting this promotion. It's not going anywhere.

Back up. I got, I got. I'm confused. The restaurant where you were working didn't want it to be known that you worked at that restaurant. Not because they didn't want to be associated with hunting. Because they even said to me, we don't want vegans protesting our restaurant. They called it. They called it. Really?

They just had a feeling. They just said, we don't want PETA outside. So they just said, if you're doing this hunting and foraging, fishing stuff, like, that's great. But, like, we don't really want to be a part of it. And that was a big thing. It was hard for me as a chef because I wanted to serve game dishes in the restaurant. And, you know, they didn't really want to. So a big part of Antler was just me being able to cook what I wanted to cook without anyone telling me no.

So when you go to do a restaurant, is that like financially, man? That's risky, right? It's very risky. I think it's like 50% of restaurants fail within the first year of business. What causes that? It's a lot of mismanagement of money. And. And it's, it's a lot of there's, you don't need a license to open a restaurant. Like you need a business license, but you don't have to actually, you know, take a business course or, or, or be licensed as a chef.

You don't have to have like a chef license. I do because it was my choice to go and get it. Um, but like, if you want to be a hairdresser, a barber, you have to go to school and do safety course and get a license to be a barber. Whereas the restaurant industry, at least in Canada, it's, it's, it's a little different. Um, so there's a lot of people that are just going and opening restaurants because I think it's a good thing or idea to do.

And they don't necessarily take the business courses that go along with it. Yeah. I think. But when you hear about the failure rate on restaurants, is it because they're assuming that every seat is going to be full all the time? Or are some of them so mismanaged that even if every seat was filled all the time, you still wouldn't be okay? I think it's a little bit of both. You're dealing with product that can go bad.

Um, you're, you're dealing with like a party scenario. So if people are treating it like their own personal party, having their friends over and drinking and giving away free food, um, can be the case. A lot of it's, it's just like managing of the business itself. So we actually learned that we actually have to

overbook our restaurant because the amount of people that don't show up. So because we're so small, you know, if we, if we fully book ourselves at, you know, we say we were going to do two turns a night, so flip the table twice. So say we book 80 people. Well, 20 of those people don't show up.

That's a huge lack of sales that we could have had. So we actually have to overbook and take into account because stuff happens. People get sick or they forget or whatever it is. So people don't show up. So you have to account for that. And there's tons of stuff like that.

Theft is huge because you're dealing with food and booze. People like to eat and drink. You mean theft from employees. Theft from employees sometimes. And then you got robbed three times in one year. That's been a problem. Yeah. Like old-fashioned theft. Old-fashioned. Smash in the window, run in, year. That's been a problem. Yeah. Like old fashioned.

Old fashioned. Smash in the window, run in, grab as much stuff as you can and run out. So there's that. Fortunately, it doesn't happen a lot and they didn't really steal very much. But that did happen. When does the book come out? October 6th. That's a good looking book.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Did you have the recipes all figured out when you started and when you were 27 or was it a work in progress? No, it was a total work in progress. And things changed even up to like, you know, the very last date I had to get stuff into the publisher. We're like, okay, we're going to tweak this and fix that. And there's still like, you know, another 50 recipes that now I'm like, oh, I want to put that in there.

And it's, it's too late. How many did you get in there? There's a hundred recipes. Oh, wow. Yeah. So we're, uh, we're really excited. It's, it's, uh, I think four main categories. There's fish and foraged, there's small game,

large game, and then there's a dessert and cocktail section, which is really cool. Cool. It's really fun. Yeah. Tell people some of the kinds of things you serve at your restaurant. So we like to incorporate all things wild,

you know, things that you'd find in Canada and the United States. So wild mushrooms is a big part of that. Chanterelles, morels, black trumpets. You know, if I go foraging, we'll take those pheasant backs we spoke about and shaggy manes and some of the other kinds. And you buy that from, we'll take those pheasant backs we spoke about and shaggy manes and, and some of the other, other kinds. And you buy that from, you'll also, you'll buy

mushrooms from professional pickers. Yeah, totally. And there's. What's that industry look like? Like you're just kind of like, they just show up. Yes and no. Like some of them show up and I'm a little sketchy around those people, but a lot of

times we'll get emails or there's some bigger ones that are more well-known that I've used for years. Um, and, uh, you know, they pick themselves and they also buy from pickers. So, cause they're in Ontario, we buy BC mushrooms. Um, and it's, it's an interesting market and it's, it's, uh, and it, the, the, the thing is

stuff's expensive. And there's, there's no, there's no rule against someone, um, like just Joe Blow, like just any dude off the street can show up and bang on your door with a sack of morels. Yep. And you can buy them and serve them. Yep.

In some places it's not. Like I've heard of other states and provinces where they cannot go to a farmer's market and buy food. They have to buy it from a licensed supplier. We don't have those laws where I am, but I hear they do exist, but just not for me. Do you do transactions like that?

I have in the past. Yeah. Some people have shown up and they've had beautiful ramps or also called wild leaks, for instance. And they say, you know, these are huge patches at my cottage. Are you interested?

And they were beautiful. And I said, yeah, sure. You know, here's a hundred bucks or 150 bucks and whatever. We got this bushel of ramps. So it does happen. Then you turn around and put them on the menu. Turn around.

We have to clean them and chop them up and all that stuff. But yeah, we turn around. It's, it's, I, I love those ingredients because you can't find them in a store. Oh. And they just taste so much different than anything you do find in a store.

So it's, it, even, even some of the mushrooms that you, or things you can buy in the store. So it's, even, even some of the mushrooms that you, or things you can buy in the store when you buy them or you pick them yourself, there's more of a connection to it, but they're just fresher. They taste better when they're like two or three days old versus the store. You don't know how long it's been in there. I was talking to my kids about this the other day,

because the difference between the strawberries that we grow and the ones you buy, I don't understand what goes wrong. Why are they huge? Well, wrong why are they huge well yeah yeah why are the ones in the store like the size of an apple and tastes like nothing like I don't get like if you told me how is it easier to grow one that tastes real good like if you told me to grow like a shitty strawberry I wouldn't know where to begin yeah I mean anytime I've ever grown them, like growing up, I had them. I've had them in a couple of houses where we started strawberry patches. They always are good. They're a little tiny.

But like, what is it? How do you, why is it so hard to make a bad strawberry? And why are there so many bad strawberries for sale? But I'm saying like, even things you can get in the store aren't as good. Tomatoes are the same way. Oh, man. Well, I mean, GMO, like you have like arctic fish introduced to strawberries to make shelf

life longer. That's gross. It's Frankenstein. I mean, GMO being that you can do that to wind up having strawberries that live forever. Right. And taste like shit. And they're probably like, you know, I've heard

of like, oh, they gas them. They do all kinds of things to make them turn red. And, you know, who knows? You got to wonder if hydroponic stuff hasn't fit, like not being in the earth. Not pulling as much flavor. And like the crop rotation, like if they're

just planting the same thing over and over and over and over and over again in that same soil, like how's it going to taste good? Yeah. I don't know. All the above, man. Yeah. God, strawberries taste good when you make

them yourself though. Anything that you have in your own garden or you, like it's, you know, you pick a straw, like tomato, like you said, and it's warm from the sun and then you cut that up and just put salt on it. It's amazing. Yeah.

It's incredible, you know? So I think, you know, as a, as a chef, that search for the, the purest ingredients is really what led me to hunting and foraging and fishing. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join,

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Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. What do you do for fish in your restaurant?

So we only sell wild fish, um, and it's only from, uh, you know, Canada. Um, and so we, you know, we're lucky we have the Great Lakes. Uh, so there's perch, there's whitefish, um, you know, rainbow trout, and then, um, you know, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean.

So we have, you know, um, Arctic char, um, you know, the Pacific ocean, the Atlantic ocean and the Arctic ocean. So we have, you know, um, Arctic char, um, you know, halibut, salmon, uh, rockfish, um, you know, crabs. You guys will sell perch? Yeah. I love perch. What do you do with the perch? Uh, either fry it or, uh, you know, just, you

know, two or three fillets for an order kind of thing, but I like, I like frying it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, spot prawns. Yeah. Spot prawns. I love spot prawns. They're incredible. And what do you guys do with the venison you

have in your restaurant? So we do a couple of different things with venison. We do, one's really fun. We put it in our burger meat. We do a mix of that though, of wild boar, bison and deer. Okay.

We do these venison patties, which are really cool. What do you put for fat in there? So for the burger, it's the, it's the boar, bison and deer. Okay. We do these venison patties, which are really cool. What do you put for fat in there? So for the burger, it's the, it's the boar. The farmed boar is kind of fatty like pork. Got you. The meat's still different. Like the meat's very dark.

But, and then I kind of like, it turned into a signature dish. We do, we do venison two ways. So we do a stew with the neck and the shanks and stuff. And then we put that, we pair that with a steak from one of the primal cuts. Um, and then for that, the steak, we do an ash

spice, which is this really kind of flavorful, um, sweet spice. Um, we do cinnamon, star anise, juniper, uh, and cloves, and then we toast those till they're super dark and black. Um, and then we grind those up and then put them through a, a sieve to get all the large chunks out in this really fine black powder.

Um, and then we, so we, we roll. Hence the ash. Hence the ash. Yeah. And we roll that, uh, you know, the steak in that and then, uh, just sear that nice and rare. So it's, it's cool when you cut it, it's got like a black line and then red and then that

goes on the stew. Um, it's kind of neat. So, cause we, we, like I said earlier, we buy whole deer. So we get all these off cuts. We have to figure out something to do with. When do you want to buy a whole deer from a deer farmer?

What is the cost of that? They're, I think it's like eight bucks a pound or yeah, he charges eight a pound. When you're saying deer, are you saying red deer? We're buying red deer. So they're big, they're about, we're, you know, clean. Like our elk.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're very similar in size. So we're getting those deer, they're anywhere from 120 to 150 pounds. And they'll charge you like eight bucks a pound for that. Yeah. We got to break it down.

Including the bones. Yeah. So there is a lot of, and then we make stock with the bones and, you know, we don't waste anything. So we use every little scrap of it. It's really neat. Yeah. So there is a lot of, and then we make stock with the bones and, you know, we don't waste anything. So we use every little scrap of it. It's really neat.

Early we were talking about, we got on the subject of restrictions that you deal with in Canada. And we talked about emerging gun laws. Like you're kind of vocal about this, right? I'm very vocal about it because it's affecting me personally. And the gun laws aren't doing anything to help crime, which is, which is a problem. Cause that's the thing, like a thing that people are aware of. I think that like, you know, talk about this sort of like perception of, if you're in the U S you have a perception of what goes on. Yeah.

People are aware like oh canada you know their gun laws they suck they're terrible what is it so like what can you let's say you just want to let's say you're a canadian citizen yeah and you want to go out and just buy uh um you want to buy a rifle you want to buy a deer rifle put a scope buy a deer rifle, put a scope on it, bolt action rifle, put a scope on it. Do they make that difficult? Yes, it's difficult. You have to do a safety course, which I think is a good thing. But after you do that safety course, you, like my wife just waited seven or eight months to get her license in the mail.

And it's only supposed to take 45 days. So there's like a 45 day mandatory waiting period, which sure, maybe that's a good thing. You're pissed off. You just do your safety course. You have a grudge or something and you have to wait 45 days to go buy a gun. Maybe that's a good thing. You get so mad at someone. Yeah.

You go down and take your safety course. I hope I'm mad for 45 days. So like I think. You got to write, you got to put a note on your fridge. Stay mad at Bob. So I think, you know, there are some common sense of like a safety course. Sure. That's a good thing.

I think everyone that owns firearms should have to take a safety course. Um, that wouldn't fly here. No, but. Yeah, because the, what the problem is once they pass those law, like we don't have a right to own firearms in Canada. So I think that's the problem. That's what you're saying. Like you wish that you had an equivalent of the second amendment.

That's the problem because. So they never like codified anywhere. No. That to some extent you. No. So it's a privilege. There's no opening. There's no like, there's no sort of foundational

understanding. So in no situation, can you roll down to the gun shop and walk away with one? No. Now, once you have your license, your non-restricted license, you can. Okay. Like pistols and ARs, well, ARs have just

been banned. So- Oh, but walk me through, because I still, I want to get to that bad. But walk me through the first, like- So to get a rifle, you have to do a safety course. Does that involve proficiency?

No. Well, you have to handle some dummy firearms that have had the firing pins removed. Okay. So safety, you know, working the action, loading, unloading, you know, dummy bullets, all that stuff. And how long does it take to do the class? It's a weekend course. So it's kind of like going to hunter safety.

Exactly. And then they're like, you are now a safe person. And they hand you, and then they mail you a thing. They mail you a thing, you know, eight months later. Is that course, like, is it cover long guns and handguns or is it specific to a type or? So that is specific to long guns. Okay. So that's anything over 18 inch barrel, I think is the 18 and a half inch barrel.

So that's, you know, your shotguns and your bolt actions, you know, break action, stuff like that. They just show you, they have the different styles of firearms on the table and they teach you how to work them and unload them and all that stuff. And, you know, I think that's a good thing. But where the issue is, is now they've created all these new laws and they're taking away people's property that aren't part of the problem of what's going on. So, you know, we have, you know, gang shootings in the cities

and these people aren't following rules. They don't have licenses. They don't go into stores and buy guns, but that's going on. So, you know, we have, you know, you know, gang shootings in the cities and these people aren't following rules. They don't have licenses. They don't go into stores and buy guns, but that's the perception of people that don't own guns. Like when COVID hit, gun stores were actually posting that people are going to gun stores

trying to buy a gun because they're worried about looting and, and, and, and being unsafe. And then they get laughed at by the store owners that say, you need a license. And they're like, what? They weren't even aware. People aren't even aware. You're like, it's just the perception that,

oh, you know, to get a gun, you just go buy a gun in Canada. And that's not the case. So criminals, uh, they're not like, dude, I'm, I'm fixing the committed crime, but I'm waiting for my. Yeah. Waiting for a license.

Yeah. So that's, that's where I take issue is because they've recently banned over 1500 different firearms in Canada and criminals, they're not going to get in the license. They're not registering these guns and they're committing, committing the crimes. And it's, it just sucks.

And I'm personally losing some, some weapons that I've, or firearms that I've hunted, hunted with. Like you'll need to go down and hand them over. That they haven't worked out the details yet because this is so new. It happened on March 15th, but that's in two year, we have a two year amnesty where we can

either hand them over or they're going to grandfather them is what they've spoken about, but that's not, there's no details yet. How, with you owning a restaurant, is that, is that your primary like livelihood? Yes. Your restaurant's your primary livelihood. Yeah. restaurant is that is that your primary like livelihood is yes your restaurant's your primary livelihood um how tied in like let me give you uh mcdonald's i don't know the first thing about

the ceo of mcdonald's yeah okay i don't know what he thinks about anything yeah okay i think the most people it's safe to say most people that go to m that go to McDonald's will go there with no knowledge of what McDonald's stands for politically. Yeah. In fact, people will, when I was talking about getting an attack for various things, we'll always hear from people on social media like, I can't believe you would associate with such and such because they're not a this person they're not pro-gun enough yeah i'm like who made your phone like you're typing this on a phone tell me about the ceo of the phone company that you're using like are they do they Do they pass your muster? Right? So do you find that people will suss out with your restaurant like, oh, here's a person who's vocal about gun rights,

and then reward or punish you? Or is your sort of social media self very different from your restaurant self? I try. I definitely keep it separate. Is it risky for you to engage in cultural? I think, yes, it is for sure. And it's something that my business partner is very concerned about. He's like Ixnay on the Unzgay.

Yes. We've had several chats. So, yeah, I try. the opinions expressed are my own. Like that's on my Twitter. So it has nothing to do with the business because there's a lot of other people at the business that run the business. And it's not fair to punish them because I'm in Canada pro-gun, let's say. But the big problem is our judicial system and they're not punishing these criminals that are committing these crimes. Like someone's caught with a gun in there. So let's talk about restricted guns. So that's pistols and semi-automatics with a

shorter barrel. So in Canada, for me to transport my pistol or for me to use my pistol, I have to have a separate license, which is called a non-restricted gun license. And then the only place I can shoot that pistol is at a gun range. And then if I want to transport that pistol, I have to have a separate license, which is called a non-restricted gun license. And then the only place I can shoot that pistol is at a gun range. And then if I want to transport that pistol, I have to have a trigger lock on it and then in a locked case. So it's double locked and the ammunition is separate. That's our laws for pistols. So we have people walking around the streets of Toronto with pistols in their pockets that aren't double locked and loaded and they get arrested and they get arrested and they make bail and they're out on the street in two days or 24 hours they're on bail walking around

again that's what i think frustrates a lot of people about when you get into the gun control debate is it seems that the same um the same sort of political persuasion that would favor restrictions on firearms not scenes like this is like generally true an individual inclined toward restricting access to firearms probably not even probably like is inclined toward not punishing crime yeah as as yeah it'd be like i want to make more things illegal but do less to people who do illegal things it's unfortunate and the other thing is unfortunate is you know i have these views about guns because i'm a hunter and i use guns but so then then I'm, I'm, I'm like a far right extremist all of a sudden. Like my wife got chewed out at like a family party by like one of someone's neighbor.

Oh, your husband is, he's so right wing all of a sudden. And it's like, I'm not necessarily right wing. I have some right wing views. I have some left views as well. Like I'm. That's too confusing. It's too confusing for people. It's like, I'm, I'm, i'm pretty middle road with a lot of stuff and um yeah and it's just funny because because i'm a hunter and

because i i have these views about guns now i'm this right-wing extremist all of a sudden and i'm like well it's not really true not true at all as far as save a pig goes you are yeah yeah yeah and it's it's just they did put you there yeah it's i know it is a little bit painful like that and it's it's winds up being a thing i don't think it's going away anytime soon this idea that um there's all these litmus there's like these litmus tests and depending on a person's sensibility they they all have varying litmus tests, but they'll take like your stance on X and then extrapolate out from there to make a bunch of judgments about how you feel about a ton of things. Yeah. And different people use different litmus tests. You know,

you could ask someone a question, like you could ask someone a policy, you know, like a policy question, your answer to the policy question, um, would then indicate, uh, you know, that you're a racist or not a racist, but he's like, but hold on, I thought we were talking about like a specific policy question or that, like, how do you feel about firearms? If you're like, if you'd like sort of look at the legal structure and you're uncomfortable with restrictions on firearms, that they want to then sort of like neutralize your voice by painting you into some kind of like radical element where nothing you say can be trusted because you're radicalized yeah uh it's unfortunate the degree to which that's starting to happen i'm sure it's always happened a bit but it seems to be happening more and more and more now it's like the time you become yeah you become it's more likely to be that you'll you'll be crucified

for some um portion of what you think yeah but crucified on a wide scale level oh made yeah made to pay in a lot of yeah like made to pay in a wide way yeah i find myself running the other direction of it man and trying to be more um uh even things that i'm like personally that i feel really strongly about um you know land issues and conservation issues and habitat issues right uh even when i hear someone that would that would say something that violates my like deeply held feelings about it and i'd be like i would normally think like that's it what you just said is evil i will now assume that you're evil and everything about you is evil i now i'm like hold on man don't do to this guy what you

would hate to have done with to you that's a good point you know and they'll say i think the government should give all that land up. No one should ever go on it ever again. I'm like, all right, man. You're probably a good guy. So let's talk for a minute about that and not commit the same thing that I hate. That's a good point. That's very mature.

Well, I don't know. I'm halfway to 90. The fact that I eventually got to a point where I would like try to attempt to engage with people in a debate the way that I would like them to approach me. It's hard to be a nuanced thinker, I think. You know, it's like. Well, it's not encouraged politically anymore, right? Oh, definitely not at all. It's one or the other. You know, do I judge you to be on my side or not?

Are you a threat to me or are you safe for me based upon whatever my own individual calculus is of that? And I think that really undermines all of us. mind emailed me an article late last night that's in the it's in the papers now that the museum of natural history in new york was like oh you know we're taking down our theodore roosevelt statue and the statue in question is like theodore roosevelt he's like up on a horse sort of you know it's like a very virile conquering horse thing. And sort of behind him walking is a Native American on one side. And I don't know if it's an, I shouldn't say an African American, someone of African descent on his other side, kind of walking behind him while he's up on this horse.

And you look at it sort of like he's leading the charge. I look at it, my initial, like I whatever the hell leading the charge i look at it my initial like i go through all these things where i look at i'm like and i was pissed right at first because i'm because i'm thinking well how now are we gonna now are we gonna throw out the father of american conservation you know are we done with that now like that he was so contextually he was so ahead of his time that most politicians haven't caught up with the guy 120 years later like a real controversial putting his neck out for wilderness and wildlife and so then i'm like are they really gonna piss that away but then like read the article which is not what I initially, I didn't read it until the next, I got all mad.

Then the next day, read the article. It turns out they're going in and naming, in the museum, they're actually naming extra shit after Roosevelt. They're doubling down on Roosevelt. They're just saying this particular statue is problematic like this depiction is problematic do we think that the man is problematic no in fact we're gonna go name more shit after him his father was like a founding member member he has this like great history but you got to get down to the bottom of the article to get there. But I was already too pissed. Yeah. Because the headline.

Right. But Roosevelt also has some things you got to question too. Things that, viewpoints that he held, you know. So is Abe Lincoln. Well, I get that. I'm just saying. You're never, you're never, Brody, you're never going to kill them all. Oh, I know. I'm not saying we,'re never, you're never, Brody, you're never going to kill them all. Oh, I know.

I'm not saying we, that's not my goal. I'm saying that people are just more aware of that type of thing. This is way beyond the scope of what we talked about. Yeah, we can go back to food. No, real quick. I want to go back to food. I want to go back to food. But real quick, man, I'm going to choose my words carefully here. I get very uneasy around applying a modern lens in all cases to people who, to individuals who, especially individuals who at the time were beginning to poke holes in,

in question, the thing that they're now being condemned for. And to, in the positioning in front of the natural history museum, the natural history museum isn't called the, the, the, the colonialism museum. No. It's about a commitment to conservation yeah i feel like if i was at if i was involved in that debate i'd be like oh i don't give a shit take that one down let's put up a different one of the same person there right like it's it's not it's not i don't care about like this particular,

you know what? That statue, I don't know if you caught this, Corinne, that was made by the guy who carved the Buffalo head nickel. Oh no, I didn't. I was literally.

James Fraser. Okay. He did the Buffalo head nickel off a Buffalo in a, in a, in a, um, a Buffalo in a zoo in New York. People were real disappointed with his nickel,

but he, yeah, it's kind of like, he thought that everybody thought it was like a shitty looking morose looking buffalo but um yeah same sculpture that did this this roosevelt statue in question it's like i don't maybe i'm naive or whatever i'm like juvenile but i don't like i need certain i think that like certain heroes are helpful to have. I sit on the board of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which puts its ass on the line all the time, you know, for wildlife and habitat. So now, is it like, are they bad? No.

I don't think I was ever saying that. I don't think you were either. I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the air behind you. There's optics that are being exposed these days that people are questioning. Here's part of a press release. Roosevelt as a, quote, devoted naturalist and author of works on natural history, the statue also, quote, communicates a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing. So I understand how folks who disagree see the Native American and African man flanking Roosevelt as modeled in a position that's subordinate to him. And I can also understand how folks might

see them as proxies for people of color today. You know, symbols can be very powerful. You know, like the, if we look at the origin of the word monument, it literally means calling to mind, like something, something that reminds. So I recently heard this interview on NPR with a historian who was addressing Confederate statues, and he offered up what I thought to be a unique idea in addressing them. And he was saying that he thought the statues should stay where they are, but come with, I think his wording was, come with a footnote of epic proportions. So what I took that to mean was that there is some kind of an additive process. So you keep the statues where they are and either with a placard or, you know, you can

take a lot of artistic license and representing something additive to the statue to put it in context and to kind of address its place in time as we see it today. Yeah, or here's another fix. Have someone make his compatriots on bigger horses. Honor them. Put them on pegasus like winged horses that are way bigger than roosevelt's horse i don't care i'm just reluctant to uh the number of the

amount of people who've been inspired by him and what he did the amount of people that have been inspired to engage in the environmental battle and to engage in wildlife conservation have been inspired by the image. Watch the – how much damage are you – like how much damage are you inflicting to people's understanding? I'm not the guy to make up these. I'm not the guy to like to answer these questions. It's like what we were talking about earlier. You know, it's like picking one issue. Like you can't,

whatever the guy was like, he was still a great conservationist, right? Like that's a fact. Yeah, but man, beware the teeter-totter. Now that's not the word I'm looking for. What's it called when something swings and comes back?

The pendulum. Pendulum. But where are the pendulum? You're going to move away. You're talking about moving away from where you live now. I don't know. I got to consult my wife with that one, but, uh, it's, it's hard because I just feel hot in Toronto. I mean, hot, like politically hot.

It's getting a little politically hot. Uh, you know, we do have our sites on, on BC where, where she's from. Um, it's, it's a Mecca for hunting and foraging and fishing out there. I have lots of friends there and, and, you know, it is a dream to, to open a restaurant there one day. For sure.

If you factor in the trouble with the vegan protesters, the animal rights protesters, issues around firearms and stuff that you might get in trouble for. Do you find that it's generally been advantageous to be, to self-identify as a hunter and to be vocal about that from a business standpoint? Or do you feel like you would have especially kicked ass if you hadn't been so vocal? I don't know. Like I've, uh, I think I was just raised,

uh, to, you know, be yourself. And I, I just like, I cook what I want to cook. Uh, I say what I want to say. Um, you know, and I, I, you know, in terms of food, I just hope people enjoy it. And, you know, your customers are the critics, um, you know, with, with food. Um, but, but my voice, you know, I, I do my best to try and keep it separate from the business as much as I can. Um, but, you know, we, we do get a lot of hunters that come, uh, to talk to us about hunting and we'll get a lot of guys that come and say, you know, I've never had a deer steak taste this good. You know, you gotta give me the recipe for the spice or whatever. Uh, you know, it's really like hunters will come and bring me hats from like their ducks unlimited chapter or whatever it is. And. Yeah, that's cool. You know, it's like hunters will come and bring me hats from like their Ducks Unlimited

chapter or whatever it is. And it's, it's cool. You know, we get, we certainly get a connection with a group of people we may not have had a connection with if there wasn't the hunting aspect to the business. Who came up with the idea to call it Antler? That was a group decision.

So there was originally, there was supposed to be three partners. One ended up backing out because they were having a baby and didn't want to risk it. Um, uh, but my, my business partner, Jody Shapiro and I, and another friend, we had a, you know, big whiteboard and 300 names on there. And we were just, you know, picking and

choosing and, and. Did you guys ever consider like big, huge antler? Yeah. We, I forget some of the earlier names. We've actually got some photos of the names. Like there's, but there were some funny ones. But antler was supposed to just represent also like a shed antler on the ground.

Yeah. And we actually have one on the restaurant wall when you walk in that was from. Yeah, if it was antlers, it'd be different. Yeah. It's just from Jody's Cottage. Well, there is a place called Antlers in the UP. I've researched and found out. Do you have a, do you have a bunch of, uh,

like mounts and stuff or is it like a hunt lodge feel or? There's only one. So we didn't want it to be like super hunting lodge. We just wanted to be like cabin in the woods feel. So there is a, there's my first buck Euro mount

that I did myself on the wall above the chef's table. And then there's the single antler when you walk in. Um, we, we have a couple more new additions. There's a black duck now my friend shot. He was moving and he was like, here, take this. I don't want to move it.

So we have his, it's this beautiful black duck mount on the bar, above the bar. And then what else? There's a couple like some pheasant feathers, I think, tail feathers coming out of a vase somewhere. But it's not like super in your face. Yeah. We shoot things.

How much does it cost? You probably know this in US dollars. Like what's the cost to go eat in your restaurant? It varies. So like we have a burger that's, you know, 18 bucks or something like that. It's not, you know, it's, it depends what you want. Like you can have, you know, a burger and a beer and leave for, you know, under 30 bucks if you want.

Uh, our bison ribeye, those things are a bit more pricey. I think that's like 45 bucks. Um, just cause like the game stuff is also a bit more expensive than the run and run of the mill. Um, or even like nice beef, uh, are, are the bison's always more. Yeah.

More money just for me to even buy it. So. Do you feel like your restaurant is also a place where people come in and ask you questions about game and hunting and learn a thing or two?

Yeah, it's neat. We had a lot of people eating game for the first time. Like, we had chicken on the menu when we first opened, like, just in case

someone on the date didn't want to eat deer, you know? And we just ended up eating it all the time before it went bad because no one ordered it. You know, people were coming to try new things. And then, we just end up eating it all the time. So before it went bad, cause no one ordered it, you know, people were coming to try new things.

Um, and then we have a lot of fish too. So people aren't into red meat or game. They have fish. So, um, and that's something I love and I, we joke around it all the time. I wish I could sell more fish. And then I was like, you know, hurting on the servers one day being like, you know, guys,

why can't you sell the fish? And they're like, I don't know, dude, you named your restaurant antler. Like, can't help you, man, why can't you sell the fish? And they're like, I don't know, dude, you named your restaurant Antler? Like, can't help you, man. So we have a couple of fish dishes, but I would love to do more. But it's just not what people are coming for. Do you guys do any like butchering classes

or anything like that? We were too small. Like I would love to, people do ask me all the time. But it's like, I also have two kids and my wife and it's, you know, it's hard now finding that balance between, you know, being a chef and having a family. Yeah.

Do you ever get. So you have a second kid after the one that you have when you're 19 or two more? No, I have two kids. So, but yeah. So my son was just born six years later. So there's six years between them. Yeah.

Oh, that's not bad. Yeah. Yeah. When do you get time to hunt and fish on your own? So now just because we, we wanted to, we opened the restaurant and it really, we stopped working on the book. So we thought, okay, we'll have the restaurant. It'll be like a playground to shoot the book.

And that was totally not the case at all. So the book is real front and center through all this. So, and, and, you know, we, we had to hire more staff. We thought, okay, we're going to get this book done. And then we hired, it's called like a chef to cuisine, like a head chef to run the place. So now he, he's really in charge of the menu. You know, he, he, there's a couple of things that are kind of signatures that don't leave,

but for the most part, it's, you know, it's his menu. He'll, he'll come to us with new dishes and, and, you know, sometimes I'm a part of them. Sometimes I'm not. And that, that was really a, for, for us to be able to finish the book, but also I get to spend more time with my family now and, and focus. that was really, uh, a for, for us to be able to finish the book, but also I get to spend more time with my family now and, uh,

and focus. So there's other things, you know, I'm, I'm working with some outdoor brands now, um, some hunting companies, stuff like that, which, which I love. And, and I just think like the older I'm getting, the more time I want to spend outside. And it's, it's a really hard struggle for me.

Yeah. You realize your time outside is running out at a certain point. I miss it. And I get, I get edgy if I don't go into nature once a week or something like I'm just, um, and you know, I want to pass this on to my kids now and I want, it's really important for me to teach them about hunting and fishing and,

and now I'm bringing them out into the field more. My, my daughter has her licenses. Uh, you know, my son is itching to get his hunting license when he's 12 and it's, it's, uh, it's, it's really cool. Do you, uh, do you want your kids to go into, to be in chefs and go into restaurant business or do you advise against doing that? No, it's, it's whatever makes them happy, right?

Like if, if they want to take on the business or get involved, uh, you know, that's great. If they don't, I totally support whatever they want to do. Um, because it's a tough business. It's really tough. And it's, uh, it's backwards, you know, you're working when everyone else is off. So it's, it's, it's tough to have a family. It's tough to see your friends. Um, you know, because it's sort of a backwards industry, there's a lot of drugs and alcohol abuse and stuff like that within the industry. And it's, uh, it's a tough one and it's the, the, the financial reward for the amount of hours you put in, uh, doesn't pay off for a very long time. Um, you know, people see chefs on TV and they're making tons of money and it's like, yeah,

well, there, there also been chefs for their entire lives, you know, and you're, as an apprentice, you make minimum wage at best and you can't make a living off that, you know? So it's, it's, uh, it's a, it's like I didn't start making a decent paycheck. I think it was like a 10 year mark for me where I made absolute shit for a long time. And then, you know, after 10 or 15 years in the

business, I actually got like a decent paycheck and was like, wow, like I'm actually, I'm getting, it was my first head chef job and it was like, whoa. That's similar to being a writer. Yeah. You, you know, a lot of people, you got, you stick with it for a decade.

Yeah. Before it turns into anything. Yeah. Like if you're good. Yeah. A lot of people stick with it a decade, never, but very few people launch. It's like, it's a long commitment, man.

Right. It seems like that's common in the food world. Yeah. Anything that touches on art. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a total artist's type of, of lifestyle. in the food world. Yeah. Anything that touches on art. Yeah. Yeah, exactly, art. It's like, it's a total artist's type of lifestyle.

So it's tough. And yeah, so I support my kids in whatever they want to do. My daughter, I think she's taking an interest in environmental sciences or political, yeah, no, environmental stuff. And she's looking at a university where they have a strong, like, environmental program. Well, man, I hope the vegans leave you alone. Thank you.

Sons of bitches. I got to ask before you go. I got to ask about that. You ever notice that, Steve? I was noticing it looked like turkey feathers. I got a turkey wing. What are we looking at? I got deer in my antler.

That's the coolest tattoo I've ever seen. Thanks, man. Hold on. Let me get a better look. I knew it was turkeys. That's a turkey wing. Oh, you did the whole wing. Hold on. Let me get a better look. I knew it was turkeys. That's a turkey wing. Oh, you did the whole wing. And then my wedding band has antler in it, which is neat.

And then I got the first buck I shot and tattooed on my neck. Oh, I got mine on a water bottle. But it wasn't the first one I got. Yeah. So. I'll lose that bottle. You're not going to lose that. Let me see that buck again.

So it's actually funny. It's like a seven pointer and the antlers broke. So it's kind of funny. Oh yeah. Does your wife like that? I think she does. Yeah. Did you ask her?

Yeah. I think she likes it. Yeah. I had it before I met her. So. She had no say. She had no say. Yeah.

I wonder what she's, I wish I was, she was here. So we could go. Next time. I love, like I flew in and this, this, this state's beautiful. So I definitely gonna have to come back with her and spend more time. So.

Yeah. Next time. She's really, she's into the outdoor lifestyle. So. Good. So she'd get along with everybody here. Good. Well, thanks for coming on, man.

Thank you so much for having me. I hope that people leave your restaurant alone. Well, unless it's good for business. I don't know. Well, you know. Maybe they should come back. Head on back over to Antler and protest. They have your restaurant alone. Well, unless it's good for business. I don't know. Well, you know. Maybe they should come back. Head on back over to Antler and protest. They have left us alone.

But you know what? The funny thing was we were getting vegans coming in for dinner to support us because they said they didn't want. Because we have vegan stuff on the menu. Like it was just so bizarre. Yeah, I feel like that should be applauded. Yeah, we welcome everybody. And that's something else I want to say. Like, you know, whether you eat kosher or halal or's something else I want to say like you know whether you eat

kosher or halal or vegan like whatever you eat like you're welcome and that that's what was so bizarre for us was we didn't understand why they singled us out but yeah I'm glad you

survived thank you for having me that's how I took no to you and those old-ass news now but that's when I was like wow that's interesting and thank you for your you know

your quote in the back of the book oh yeah if nothing else buy the, your quote in the back of the book. Oh yeah. If nothing else, buy the new book. Tell people the name of the book. We haven't done that. The book is The Hunter Chef. Tell people to buy it. Buy the book just to read my blurb.

Yeah. Steve Rinella in the back. Nevermind those hundred, hundred recipes. Yeah. And that's so October 6th coming up, but the pre-sale link is, uh, I'm going to go up thehunterchef.com, uh, June 29th. Are there way better blurbs than mine? No, I was very honored by what you wrote.

So thank you very much. Yeah. I was very touched by that. Are you going to put my blurb on the outside or the inside of the book? I don't have any say where stuff like that goes. I find when they bump you off the cover, it's not good. From what I saw. When your blurb gets like bumped.

From what I saw, you're actually, I think your quote is on the back cover. Like on the outside. That's what I wanted to be. Good. Yeah. Because if they put it on the inside, then you're like, eh, something went wrong. Someone wasn't happy. Yeah.

So thank you very much. And it goes on sale? Goes on sale June 29th, thehunterchef.com. There's a pre-sale link. You know, Amazon. Oh, June 29th. June 29th, the pre-sale link goes up. Oh, the pre, okay.

But the book ships. The book ships October 6th is the main release date. The Hunter Chef. Just in time for hunting season. Just in time for hunting season. You gotta send me a bound one. Okay. I had the one unbound.

I think you got a digital copy. No, no, no, no. Okay. No, no, no, no. I did. I didn't like it. They sent me an unbound copy. No, no, no. Okay. No, no, no. I did. I didn't like it. They sent me an unbound one. Oh, really?

Oh, okay. It's just too hard for me to picture. I need to like, I'm not like creative enough. I'm not imaginative enough to. Oh, you got a bunch of loose pages. Yeah. I can't look. You'll get the actual book.

When people want to send digital, like I have to, like I have to. I don't like reading. You need to like hold it. Yeah. I can enjoy it, but I don't like reading. You need to hold it. I can enjoy it, but I can't really... For something like that, to give a quote for the book, I was like, I just need to see the damn book. Or kind of like a version of the book.

It can't be just me scrolling through PDF files. Yeah, that's weird. It doesn't make me feel like I'm there, man. I don't like reading eKindle stuff. That's weird. Anything else, Brody? No, I'm good. Phil?

Thanks for coming. Phil didn't say nothing. Phil got his hair cut, though. He did. I like him a lot better. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Yes, Teddy. Old Teddy.

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