The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 601: MeatEater Radio Live! Archery Elk, MeatEater Movie Club, and Hmong Wild Hog Sausage

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

Welcome to our brand new MeatEater Radio Live! podcast. Join Steve Rinella and the rest of the crew as they go LIVE from MeatEater HQ every Thursday at 11am MT! They’ll have segments, call-in guests, and real-time interaction with the audience. You can watch the stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel, or catch the audio version of the show on Fridays. Today's episode is hosted by Spencer Neuharth, Janis Putelis, and Randall Williams.   Guests: Chester Floyd, Cory Calkins, MeatEater contributor Pat Durkin, fishing guide Chris Weber, and chef Yia Vang of Vinai. Connect with The MeatEater Podcast Network MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meat. Smell us now, lady. Welcome to Meat Eater Trivia Meat Eater Podcast.

Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time on September 19th. And we're live from Meadeater HQ in Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host, Spencer Newharth, joined today by Giannis Poutelis and Randall Williams. On today's show, we're calling Chester Floyd for an update on his archery hunt in Montana. Then we'll review the 1996 documentary Project Grizzly for the Meadeater Movie Club. Followed by one-minute fishing with Pat Durkin in Idaho. Then we'll do some show and tell with items we brought into the studio. And finally, we'll interview Chef Yivang about monk cooking

and his newest restaurant. But first, we have Yanni Putellis over here, who's Googling whether or not he looks like Jerry West. Yeah, I'm looking at images of him, and he lived a long time, so it spans a whole lifetime. And I'm not seeing it, but I don't know. What do you guys think? Me and Randall agreed a little bit. A little bit.

I think you look like the actor who portrayed Jerry West in the HBO series about the Showtime Lakers. Now, Yanni just got home from an elk hunt. Yanni, did you kill an elk? Did not kill an elk. Okay. How close did you get to killing an elk? 70, 80 yards. And is that close in your book?

Not really. Okay. For a moment, I had like, there was a very high moment there when he was bugling. I was approaching him with my camera guy. I was trying to actually get the wind right so i was kind of going around high and i had to go across this super loud scree you know scree sometimes can be dense and other times it's very volcanic and kind of airy and that stuff is just like you know sold out but the wind was howling we got around him but we bumped a cow

just as we got around him and i don't know if he was with the cow or not. Again, the wind's howling. So when they bugle, you can't tell if they're 100 yards away, 200 yards away. Anyways, I pop over this little rise and I see him. He's got his nose to the ground like a bird dog. You know, he's- How big? Just a regular old five point.

Okay. Not big, probably a two year old. And we had just enough cover that we kind of like faded back just a little bit. And there's these smaller pines. And there was a little valley between the two of us. And I just gave him one cow call. And man, as soon as he heard it, he just lifted his head, looked right at me. And I'm like, oh boy. I'm telling Tyler, get ready.

It's on. And he put his head back down on that scent trail and then just kept going on wherever that cow went. We chased him down to Bugle a few more times, but never caught up to him again. Now this was the hunt with Dr. Seth Walk. That's right. Who had donkeys.

How did that go hunting with donkeys in the back country? It was great. They were very, is amiable the right word? Yeah. Amiable, friendly. Yeah. Just like pretty easy to take care of, packed well. And like you'd just be hanging out at camp at lunch and all of a sudden a donkey would just walk up and just stand there as if they wanted to just

hang out and join the conversation. We did have one donkey issue where while we were gone, one of the donkeys didn't want to be inside the electric fence, so we just let it free roam. But because they're herd animals, it wouldn't leave the ones that were inside the electric fence. It tripped,

walked on, don't really know what happened, but I came back to my teepee tent, and it had a third door in it, like a four-foot rip. That was the day before the big weather came in. Luckily, I had a tarp, so we were able to do a little tent city action, and we survived it. But yeah, Seth did get a shot. It was just still,

it was early season, right? So the bugling was half-assed. We saw half the elk we saw were just bachelor group bulls that weren't bugling. But he was just still hunting down a ridge and just had a bull cross right in front of him

that, you know, low 20s, 20 yards and hit a limb that he didn't see. Arrow just blew up. Did it make you want to add donkeys to the Giannis Putellis ranch? Oh, man. We discussed it a lot, you know? It's one of those things.

It's like any animal you have at your house. Even though they work for you, you have to have them because you enjoy them. It's like our chickens. We don't eat cheap eggs by any means. You might eat my cheap eggs because I just give you a dozen. I don't think I've given you some yet,

so I should bring some in for you. Same thing with the donkeys. It's like, okay, there's 11 and a half months or 11 months where they're just going to be around and you're taking care of them. So are you going to enjoy those 11 months so that you can have them to do your once or twice a year elk adventure and pack some meat out? I'll be honest. About 36 hours ago, I was on a half dozen donkey rescue websites. Oh.

Yeah. Inspired by what? The review of the donks. Our neighbor used to have some donks. They all went away. But yeah, I'm, you know, always interested in large animals that seem friendly. Yeah. Now I will say, remember how, when we interviewed Seth a few weeks ago and I was, I gave you a little bio about him and about how he had this little goal of his to kill elk every year public land with his bow but never hunt the same mountain range three times or same spot slash mountain range three years in a row and i think he was on like 11 out of 13 years

at the end of last year well two days after we got home he went out for a walk with his son in the evening and uh killed another bull in a new mountain range it's impressive uh-huh so what a killer yeah he's a mega killer and you know there's a little bit of that you know horseshoe stuck up his butt you know which some people just have they're just just magnets. I'm not saying... Not 12 out of 14 years. But it helps. Sure, okay. But no, for sure. Just straight up killer. And of course,

we hunt our asses off. We averaged... I don't have one of those fancy watches, but everybody else seems to have a watch. I can't believe you don't. Yeah, you seem like the type. No offense. I do for running, but I don't wear it every day. And so the guys were like, yeah, we're averaging 14 miles a day and about 3,000 feet of elevation gain, which is solid. For a week, that was a solid week of work.

So we busted our asses off, and Seth literally goes for a walk with his son. Okay. And he's like, yeah, I heard some bugling. We got a little closer, but they were kind of far away. I made two cow calls. And then my son's like, hey, there he is. He's coming. And he's like, oh, I had to knock an arrow.

And then he kept coming. And I shot him. So he earned that bull with you. And then got it with his son. Sure. Speaking of Alcons, our next guest is on one right now. I'm going to interrupt you, Spencer. Sorry to completely throw off your flow,

but I don't want to jump over this Jerry West thing because we've got people in the comments who agree and I just want to bring up a picture here. Oh, is that Yanni? No, that's Jerry West. Okay. That's a young Jerry West. Do you see it, Yanni?

I don't. I'd just like to say shout out Delamere and Hopkins. I see the comment there in the chat. Appreciate you guys. Chat, let us know if Yanni indeed looks like Jerry West. Now, speaking of elk hunts, our next guest is on one right now. Joining us on the line is our very own Chester Floyd, who's calling in from an archery deer and elk hunt in Montana.

Chester, welcome to the show, and tell us where you're standing right now. You don't have to be too specific. You guys are muted. What's up, guys? Can you hear us now? Yeah, we can hear you now. They had their phone muted because we were being so loud they were afraid that we were going to spook their elk. Well, we do have a bull bedded, like, I don't know. He's probably 500 yards away from us.

So keep it down if you could. I can't tell if that's real or facetious. So Chester, I didn't hear that you were going to be on a elk hunt with Corey. Last I heard, you were in eastern Montana hunting mule deer. And now you're magically with Corey uh in somewhere else in Montana hunting elk how'd that come about well Johnny I uh was out in eastern Montana and the deer hunting wasn't what I expected it to be chili actually came out there with me and we had one stalk on a nice like I don't know 150 150-inch mule deer, but it was super hot and windy out there.

We're roasting Wisconsin brats right now, so we're getting smoked out a little bit. Oh, nice, boys. Are those wild game or is that just straight-up pork from Wisconsin? Oh, you know it, buddy. I know what? Johnsonville all the way. Oh, yeah. That doesn't count as a Wisconsin brat.

Chester, are you hunting with a trad bow? Nope. Nope, that's all right. I'm just wondering. I don't judge if you're hunting with one or without one. All right, give me an elk report. You guys got a bull 500 yards away but uh are they bugling that's what everybody wants to know are they bugling uh so

we had some weather roll in yesterday it rained probably about an inch and a half um and it kind of shut them up it was pretty consistent before that i've been out here for a week seeing elk every morning hearing elk every evening but again that rain kind of shut him up a little bit it's made the hunting conditions great because it's nice and cool the grass is real quiet but we did get into a bull this morning 50 yards from the bull 10 yards from one of his cows and then another cow winded us I probably could have shot him at 50 but that's a long ways. It felt like he was going to come in closer. He was hot on that cow for a second.

So now we're roasting weenies. About as close as you can get to shooting an elk without getting them, I feel like. Corey even asked me at one point, he was like, do you want to shoot that cow? Definitely thought about it, but that bull was just right behind him so sure i think we made a call now now that you have uh chester joining you cory have you taken the position of the caller or uh how's that working well actually this group that we're on here i've been chasing i'm pretty sure it's the same group since last friday so it's been today's day seven uh chasing this bull around so chester's been kind enough to kind of let me keep trying to kill this one but again if there was an opportunity for a cow or a younger

bull i would let him jump in front of me and do some calling. So we've kind of been going back and forth. We did a little rock, paper, scissors yesterday to see who would get the shot, but the opportunity never arose. So we've been going back and forth depending on the situation. Are you guys bugling at him more or cow calling at him more? What's your tactic right now? Tell me what your plan is going to be for this upcoming afternoon hunt how are you going to kill him well we got eyes on some elk across this big canyon that we're on here um so what we'll probably do is kind of just work around this basin and he's been responsive to bugles but then you get in close and he kind of shuts up uh he's also been responsive to cow calls but again i i think i've bumped him three different times so i'm trying to be really um kind of tame and i don't want to bump him again

obviously so i think it's more let him bugle and we'll try and sneak in that's what we did this morning he was making all the noise and we set up and we got lucky we were right in their path just obviously not lucky enough so we're gonna keep an eye on this bull but we also have eyes on elk across the canyon so we got we got plan a through g going at the moment nice nice all right spencer's got a question for you cory how many more days of your hunter left um i should probably go home about sat. So what's today? October? Today is Thursday. If you want to follow along with Corey's hunt,

he's doing daily updates on MeatEater's Instagram channel. So you can check out his successes or failures over there. Randall, what are you doing over here? I was just checking which date was Saturday. Saturday looks like the 20th. I'm just looking at it here on our new. Oh, wow. That's in 2025.

That's next year's date. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Silly me. Silly me. Why do I have a calendar for next year at hand? Oh, it's the F'd Up Old Shitters calendar that will go on sale next week, I believe. Did you have a part in making that?

I did. I believe. Did you have a part in making that? I did. I did. I got to review all the photos of the various outdoor commodes. And then we had a fun afternoon coming up with captions with Steve. There was a writer session, me, Randall, Brody, Steve.

We had a regular old writer's room coming up with quips about toilets. For a calendar. Chester, any final words before we say goodbye and let you boys eat those Johnsonville brats yes actually I'd like to say one more thing before we burn these brats here um so since we have this we're lucky enough here at meat eater to have a platform where a bunch of people are listening to our content and whatnot. I figured I'd kind of do a little bit of

a ask for help type thing, which I know we don't typically do. But I have a buddy who's a go-getter in the outdoors and just in life in general. He's soon to be a father and he's been diagnosed with kind of a rare disease. And basically what's happening is his muscles in his hands and his arms, like forearms and stuff, are deteriorating. Like just going downhill and it's getting worse and worse. And, you know, he wants to be able to keep doing what he loves to do. And he's tried a bunch of different things like stem cells. He's been to Mayo a few times. And I'm going to just kind of let you know what this is a little bit.

And then I guess ultimately, if anybody has any info or has dealt with this or can point my buddy Devin in the right direction, that'd be wonderful. So it's called Hirayama disease, H-I-R-A-Y-A-M-A, also known as monomelic amyotrophy. Monomelic amyotrophy. And it's a rare neurological disorder characterized by progressive muscle weakness and wasting, typically in one arm or a hand, in his case, both arms and hands. Anyways, you know, he's really trying to just continue on doing what he's doing. And he told me some days he's worried if he can – one day he's going to wake up and not be able to go to work the next day because he can't pick up something or whatnot. Chester, send our thoughts to your buddy.

And if anyone has any feedback for Chester's buddy, hit up chester on instagram and he'll pass that along uh now the last thing here before we go cory uh there is someone in the chat named sarah caulkins who says he doesn't have to be home until sunday followed by another comment that says but he better not be empty-handed and since you're eating all the brats, you better have an elk. I got three more days and I better start hitting some grouse then. Alright boys, good luck. Corey, we will follow along on Instagram

with your hunt. Thanks guys. Thanks guys. Our next segment is Me Deeter Movie Club. This week, we're reviewing the 1996 documentary project. Grizzly. Project. Grizzly is a quirky and captivating 1996 Canadian documentary directed by Peter Lynch.

It follows the eccentric inventor Troy Hertubise on his obsessive quest to create a suit of armor capable of withstanding a grizzly bear attack. Inspired by a terrifying yet fascinating encounter with a grizzly, Troy's journey is equal parts poignant and absurd as he subjects himself to increasingly dangerous experiments to prove the efficacy of his invention In many respects the film provides an unsettling commentary on the absurdity of man's search for purpose in the modern world From a materialist perspective the film's brief mention of Troy's unused degree in resource management and his venomous disdain for so-called experts are revealing This detail speaks to a larger societal issue that has only become more pressing since the film's release, the disconnect between education and meaningful employment opportunities. And in a Freudian sense, the viewer can't help but wonder whether Troy's fumbling attempts

to create an invincible suit of armor derived from a need to eclipse his father's parallel Don Quixote-like quest, a bizarrely detailed recreation of an Iroquois village that forms the backdrop for Troy's earliest memories. We do not have much insight into the relationship between our eccentric protagonist and his mother, but in a telling aside, he notes that she has not said anything to him about his project in the seven years that he's been working on it. The documentary thus presents a unique perspective on existential angst set against the backdrop of the vast Canadian wilderness.

Troy's obsessive mission, while ostensibly about protection from bears, is really an attempt to cobble together identity and purpose in a world that doesn't seem to have a clear place for him. The bear suit, born from a refusal to see a chance animal encounter as meaningless, becomes a physical manifestation of his struggle against insignificance in a vast uncaring universe. And I'll conclude with this. Ultimately, Troy's inability to move in his unwieldy costume in an attempt to encounter a real bear underscores the tragic yet darkly comic nature of his quest. Wow. Is there anything left to be said after that? No. Well, in lieu of a hunt fish factoid spencer

i know that you have an exciting discovery to share with our audience yeah five minutes into watching this documentary yesterday i was like where is this suit now so i went to google uh and within a half hour i was speaking to the current owner of the grizzly proof suit which was the ursus what was it marks it's the mark seven mark six oh whatever it is the one that he uh has in the film i've tracked down the current owner of that on some future episode of media radio we're going to talk to that person and get all the details about how they came into possession of it well that's fantastic uh gentlemen i'm just curious for your initial thoughts on the film.

My initial thoughts. This isn't a movie about building a grizzly bear-proof suit. This is about some drinking buddies who take all their energy that normally among a friend group goes into hunting or fishing or golfing or gardening, and they just put that into building a RoboCop. That's what this documentary is to me. And you felt like it was a group of buddies. Like they weren't hired hands?

I would, well, okay, later on he says something about my research team. Which I think his research team are his drinking buddies. Yeah, I do have a note from Sidney here. Who are these effing people with him? Was Sidney's reaction to his buddies yeah

those are actually some of my favorite parts were when they're in the cafe just kind of shooting the bowl yes um but yeah i i could never tell if they were genuine friends or because of because i imagine to do what he did here, he had deep pockets. Well, I think he went into debt. Yeah, I will say the one man who's in charge of lobbing the explosives like grenades, he did refer to him as Uncle John. So I do think that they weren't all hired hands. Giannis, I mean, did you watch this with anyone or did you uh screen this by yourself uh jennifer

popped in and out of the room and she was captivated at moments once she realized what it was as you so beautifully described in the beginning it became a little more interesting you know that it was really a portrait of this person not so much about this this suit but even then i think that uh she's a busy woman and she decided that it wasn't worth her time well maybe she'll revisit that decision after hearing our uh our little summary here 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. Whew! Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The great features that you love in OnX are available for

your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about

OnX here on the MeatEater podcast. Now you, you guys in the Great White North can be part of it. Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services 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 x club y'all i'm curious uh out of the entirety of the film what about uh troy's odyssey sort of struck you as as uh resonated with you given your experience outdoors and in bear country like like yanni had just said my favorite parts weren't even related to the suit i just loved how canadian in the 90s this felt where they're uh you know ripping cigs in a diner um and they're like playing pool at a gentleman's

club they're tearing through mud puddles in a quarter ton pickup he has a turtleneck with short sleeves i had canadian friends in the 90s that wore berets oh yeah yeah and buckskins and at one point like it's like okay it can't get more ridiculous than him wearing a red beret and a buckskin jacket and then it cuts to him in a duster jacket oh yeah the duster i have thank you you outdid yourself yeah just all the stuff that's very canadian where he's he's lighting a cigarette with a blowtorch at one point, and how he acts like his wife is the old ball and chain. And like, I'm only allowed out every other night between 11 p.m. and 1.30 a.m. Otherwise, my bitch of a wife is just going to be so angry with me.

That was very satisfying, the sitcominess in a genuine way. He had, when he was shaving at the wilderness camp with his Bowie knife. And here on the screen now, our viewers will enjoy some of the experiments in which Mr. Herdaby's tests how well his suit works. Oh, did you make a little compilation? No, I'm just playing a little clip from YouTube. But he, when he's shaving with the buck knife, or the Bowie knife, you see there's a lit cigarette sitting underneath the mirror. So he could take drags in between strokes. I was actually impressed with his physical fitness.

He's somehow, he's doing something to stay in shape. There's like a short little beat where he's sort of getting ready to put the suit on. And he's doing some Tai Chi and he's flipping this cane around. And like, I don't know, if I tried to flip a cane around like that, I'd end up hurting myself. But I, I had, I bucketed that in like the bad part of the movie because it wouldn't matter if you put Shaquille O'Neal or Dolly Parton in that suit, it wouldn't matter. Like the results would be the exact same. So him thinking that his yoga is a crucial part of surviving this bear attack is just ridiculous.

I think he was just getting limber so that he could get into the suit, which was no small task in and of itself. That's right. Well, and he was also getting ready to face down a grizzly bear. He might have been just psyching himself up, getting the mental game strong. Now, I'll add that one of the parts of the film that spoke to me as an outdoorsman is coming up with the solution to every possible eventuality and then realizing that if you do what you think you need to do, you won't be able to undertake what you're actually trying to accomplish.

Yes. Uh, you know, I mean, I've always thought about bringing X, Y, and Z on my backpacking trip. And I think he has a sort of comically exaggerated version of that where he's not able to move in his suit i do have a uh a quote here uh i randall has eight pages of notes in front of him jesus christ i can't walk um and then there's another one where he says oh f quicksand f um so yeah i just i mean i feel like that's i feel like everybody has that voice within them quicksand F. So, yeah, I just, I mean, I feel like that's, I feel like everybody has that voice within them that's like, take this, add that.

You know, you'll be able to solve the problem, but at some point you just have to go out there and do it. Yeah. Two other parts I really liked. I trust that the suit was indestructible. If he were to get in a fight with a grizzly, he would survive without a scratch on him. The other one was,

I liked when telling his backstory about why he became obsessed uh with grizzly bears and he was talking about the encounter that he had uh that he openly said that he shit and pissed himself yes during that encounter that was that was a nice touch on his part good storytelling yeah they do ride into some big country which i I appreciated. Yeah. You know, those boys weren't scared of being out in some big time wilds. It says near Banff. At least what they portrayed as big mountains.

But yeah, the fact that he didn't think through being able to move and walk in the suit, and that his buddies didn't mention it, and the director of the film because it was a real letdown right i mean you're kind of getting hyped up and then all of a sudden it's like oh i can't walk and we're gonna abort i think i think the other part that really uh

made this special for me was once they're in camp and they can't encounter a grizzly bear, they, they all reveal that the grizzly, one of them says the grizzly doesn't even have to be there to get that edge. And there's the guy describing, uh, the hand grenade game that they used to play in Vietnam. He went to Vietnam because he wanted to travel a little bit for fun, travel and adventure, and to get a feel for what it's like in combat. But several of them all acknowledge that there's a certain thrill in putting themselves in this dangerous situation,

but it doesn't actually have to be dangerous. Just knowing that the bear is out there is enough for them. So yeah, that also spoke to something within me. Yeah. Last I have to say about about is you've already touched on it but the bowie knife stuff there at the end it really it sums it all up because it goes away from one crazy thing and comes over jumps over to another crazy thing which is he's equally crazy

about and he's even saying that his blokes are laughing at him about his the way i mean he's carrying this you know i mean that blade's got to be 10 inches and he's carrying it like not on his hip like most guys well no he's got one there as well he's got two different he's got three because there's one point where he's swinging two bowie knives and i was like oh he's got the one on his shoulder but where did he have the second one? And then I realized the other one was still in the shoulder sheath. So he had three 10-inch blades. He takes it so seriously that even – because most people that own a Bowie knife like that, it ain't sharp. Right.

Right? It's like a toy. He had it so sharp that he could actually kind of shave, which was impressive. Yeah. And then the fact that he could actually throw it, and I don't know how many takes it took, but again, in the film, it shows him sticking it into a tree. But he acknowledges that in a defensive situation,

he would have to be a certain distance to get the right rotation. And the best part about that whole scene is he justifies carrying knives by saying, this isn't for bears, it's because there's a lot of wackos out here. Which is just incredible. It'd be like if a terrorist was at a terrorist terrorist mixer and he was like some of these people in here just

don't have very good morale uh so it was it was perfect i thought um good morals yeah yeah good morals i thought the the knife thing was also interesting because he said everybody laughs at me but if i ever run into a real mountain man, a real mountain man who knows his salt, he's going to see these blades and think this guy knows what he's doing. So despite the reality that he encounters, he has this imaginary scenario in his mind that justifies what he's doing. Right. I thought it was a wonderful film. I enjoyed every minute of it. I probably hadn't seen it in 10 years or more.

I don't remember when it was that I first saw it, but it exceeded my vague memories of it. So I think it would be an interesting film to pair with Grizzly Man because they're two individuals, one's sort of a tortured, failed actor, and the other one is this dreamer. And they both have

very different relationships to grizzly bears and ultimately they both fail in uh their life's work yeah i i like one of my takeaways was that the suit wasn't that impressive um he had said at one point he's like it's 147 pounds which is relatively light and it's like no no it's not and he couldn't you know as as you discuss earlier Randall, he couldn't take two steps in the thing, which was an enormous flaw for trying to get attacked. Um, and then, and then, you know, another thing you touched on was just how he doesn't like experts. He'll like reference experts, but it's always in a very, uh, sarcastic way. Like he's criticizing, you know, what the experts think about grizzly bears. Well, he did have Minnesota rubber on that suit, which can stop a high-speed drill. Then there's a layer of titanium, then chain mail, then plastic, then more titanium, then more plastic.

So I don't know. You can't get all that stuff on without going at least over 100 pounds. Giannis, thoughts? I mean, in the end, do you guys feel that the drive just did come from sort of just trying to live up to his father's expectations yeah yes because he kind of says he's like the ghost is always there um and he's like sort of his his dad is almost a mythical person when he's talking about you know he he created all this by hand with a hatchet um you

know this this was like good for the community. It's, it's, he's trying to impress his dad. Who's not around. And I feel like he, he like kind of straight up says that it's. Yeah.

And it, but to the point that it drove him mad, he, he says in a revealing moment, my biggest fear is monotony, the fear of being average. And I think, uh,

if we view his quest in that sense, he achieved what he's looking for because he is immortalized in this classic documentary. Yeah. My final takeaway, watch the movie. Four out of five stars. Any outdoorsman would enjoy what you get in this 72-minute watch. Free on Tubi. And then I think in other parts of the world, it's free on YouTube. It's not for Americans. But Tubi is a free streaming app. watch free on to be and then i think in other parts of the world uh it's free on youtube it's

not for americans but to be is a free streaming app and i think that's where most of us consume to that all right phil we are about halfway through the show here give us some listener feedback what do the people have to say uh yeah just in um regards to project grizzly ryan just says it's another day in canada can chime in. Tell us what you think. He's the Canadian Iron Man, Dan says. Yes. Dan P. Poover. He looks like Buzz Lightyear, Brandon says. And then a different Ryan is asking

how do we know what the movie will be for the next episode, whenever we do a movie review? The week before on Mediator Radio here, I think it's usually the last thing that is said on the show. We will tell you what movie we're reviewing. Um, I think we don't have another movie review for two more weeks. And I think we already decided on that one.

It's going to be Escanaba into moonlight, which I've never seen. I'm sure that Yanni has probably seen it 25. I've never seen it. Okay. But this was a, a highly requested film. Yes. And, and we will always give you a one-week warning about what we're going to watch,

and we'll tell you how you can watch it as well so you can join us in the Mediator Movie Club discussion. I had to find out about that movie by some hunting clients of mine from Missouri. I hadn't seen it, and I was, I don't know, 25 years old, and they rolled in one year and had just quote after quote from this movie and couldn't believe that I hadn't seen it. And some movies take on a larger life, like long after, you know, they were relevant the first time. I think this is one of them,

the invention of social media and, you know, like the, the success of 45 second clips in our daily life has really like put this movie on a pedestal in a way that I don't think it was when it was released in 1996. I think that's fair. Phil, any other feedback at this portion of the show? Oh, yeah, we got some feedback. See, Josh says that you look like Teddy Roosevelt and you should be Teddy for Halloween. Okay, I'll take that.

Leandro's chiming in all the way from Brazil. He just listened to the last episode of Meteor Trivia and heard about Randall's fishing. I'm guessing your golf course fish. It must have been that big fish I caught. Word spreading. And this person has, they have a peacock bass as their profile picture.

You caught it out of a golf course pond? Four and a half pounder. Yes, we did, Yanni. You guys should have had some kids with you. We did. We had college kids with us. We let them fish. We let them fish all day, Yanni. You guys should have had some kids with you. We did. We had college kids with us. And maybe let them fish. We'd let them fish all day, Yanni. I'll find you a photo here.

Yanni's telling us how your reel feels. Fish in a barrel. Does Spencer actually work or just make up games for everyone at Meteor to play instead of actually getting real work done? Take this lightheartedly. You guys are the best. That is my work here. Yeah.

And he's very good at it. Thank you, Phil. That is my work here. Yeah. And he's very good at it. Thank you, Phil. And then last one here. Caleb says, will there be a trivia component to Meteor Radio in the future? I'm going to add to that because Phil is too modest. There are tons of people shouting you out today, Phil. But someone had suggested that Phil should host a live trivia pop culture and movie related. Yes.

So one of our future segments. I think it'll be a day when we've got like a Brody, Steve, maybe a Yanni or a Cal here. We're going to do Phil's trivia, which are going to be pop culture related questions. And we're going to find out just how little these boys know about what's happening in the world of sports and Hollywood and cinema and TV. And it's going to be very satisfying. Let's fire up that Phil cam for a minute.

Yeah, exactly. The audience is waiting for that. Come on, Phil. Hey, how's it going, guys? By popular demand. I see you guys shouting out in the chat. I appreciate you. I see you.

There are dozens of us. Keep fighting the good fight. You're worthwhile. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The Philistines. That's right. Anything else for now, Phil? I think that's it for now, but keep chiming in with some questions because we're going to do another round of Q&A at the end of the show.

So if you have any questions for the boys, put them in the live chat, please. All right, moving on. Our next segment is One Minute Fishing. Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk? Go ahead. Make my cast. One Minute Fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing,

and they have one minute to catch a fish. And if they're successful, we'll make a $500 donation to a conservation group. This week, our angler is Pat Durkin, who's on Lake Cascade in Idaho, and he's fishing for a donation to muskies inc pat welcome to the show hey spencer good to hear from you pat how has the fishing been so far i take it you've been on the water for most of the morning so far yeah i got i gotta show you what we got so far okay pat is uh going to what i assume is a live well wow that ain't no live well he has got a a live well of a uh a ton of jumbo jumbo in there these all look like the 13 14

inchers uh that have shoulders on them that's when you have a jumbo perch when they start to shoulders pat uh what have you been doing out there on cascade lake to catch all these fish i give all the credit to my guide out here chris weber chris is a fellow wisconsinite he's been guiding here i gotta tell you one of my funny things i think it's funny is if people ask me all the time why do you go fishing in idaho when you got perch in wisconsin now i think think Chris Webber here he didn't just come here fishing once he actually moved here from Wisconsin because of these jumbo hmm Chris tell us about Chris tell us about the tactics you guys are using out on the water today well right now we've been throwing Ned rigs and blade baits a couple different

different uh lures we got i got a ned rig right in front of me here that's gonna can we get a close-up of that i've never heard of that ed rig yeah it's just basically a chunk of uh it's like a three inch chunk of plastic and then my favorite blade bait you know this is the weber blade that i helped design works really good we've had a great morning so far we got 30 fish in the live well and uh hopefully pat can put it together in one minute it's a lot of pressure but okay chris is uh sharing all his secrets with us now we're going to see if pat durkin can put it into action pat your one minute of fishing starts when you make your first cast. Go ahead.

Alright, here we go. Right there, Pat. Now we have no idea on the lake where they are at. There is a lot of overcast back there and Pat has just made his very first cast. The music is a nice touch film. Did we get

new music? Looks like a pretty slow retrieve. Oh, a little jig. He's bouncing it off the bottom on his retrieve here. The water must not be very deep. Uh-oh, he's frozen. No. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Come on. Oh, he's back. He's back. Oh, I feel a strike coming. Pat, you have 30 seconds left. Work it, Pat. Work it. Feel it.

As a reminder, we have yet to have a successful angler for one minute fishing. Oh, he got the hook. He has one. Fish is on. Fish is on, ladies and gentlemen. Come on, Pat. Here's Chris with the net. My God.

That is a good rod bend for a perch. The net scoop is happening. It's at the boat. He's got the fish. A high five between Chris. That's a moment in media radio live history here. One cast is all it took. A beauty.

And it's a keeper. That is a jumbo perch of jumbo perch. Pat, well done. Thank you, Spencer. Sounds like it's time to head back to the boat ramp. You've accomplished what you set out to do. How big is that? Pat is our first ever angler

to be successful on one minute fishing. And that means we're going to make a $500 donation on behalf of MeatEater and Pat to Muskies, Inc. Now, Pat, tell us about that one minute. How did you think it was going to happen? I had about an 80% chance. I figured we were out here at about 8 o'clock. I got to show you a special secret here. Chris has been picking on me all

morning and fishing with my old mitchell 300 in the 1970s wow i let um chris tried earlier he tried to give a few cranks he says do you like this huh but the mitchell 300s these guys think they're old school, but I use them because they work. I've been using this for 40 years. The other ones are 50 years old. But anyway, that's the secret to my success. But also, Chris also picked on me because I'm using 8-pound mud filament

instead of a good braid, which I'll be sorry about. But yeah, this is exciting. Thanks which I'll be. But yeah, this is exciting. Thanks for having me on. Well done, Pat. The chat is very excited right now. I've seen people called you a hero,

a legend. And just someone said, all it took was to have a Wisconsinite on there. Could get it, get it done. Great job, Pat. Let us know how the rest of your day goes. We, we will check in with you after the show. Great job, Pat. Let us know how the rest of your day goes.

We will check in with you after the show. Thank you, Pat. Pat's having quite the couple weeks. He's coming right off the heels of a successful elk hunt in Idaho. Yeah, I don't think he was even planning on fishing, but he tagged out on the first morning or something and said he had to fill some other time in Idaho. Well, he's so into it.

His wife, I think, is flying out to fish for another week, just a week of perch fishing. I'm going to have to stop by Pat's place for a fish fry when I'm in Wisconsin. Sounds delightful. Boy, do I love Pat. 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.

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You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services 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. OnXMaps.com slash meet.

Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. All right, moving on. Our next segment is Meat Eater Show and Tell. Meat Eater Show and Tell. Meat Eater Show and Tell. Back to the Phil K. We can still see Pat celebrating on the boat. He just did a huge fist bump. Oh, Phil, thank you. We can just do 10 minutes of Phil's sound.

What a treat. What a treat. What a treat. Now, Phil, he said in the sounder there that I brought a rock. What else would you expect? And Phil was right. No. I truly didn't know. I brought a rock today for show and tell.

And show and tell is exactly what it sounds like. This is like if you walked into an elementary school on Friday. We're going to be showing you our favorite knick knacks from our home and then tell you about them so the first thing i'm going to go first here this in my hand uh phil can you can you do a tight on me at all i can do a single shot i can't really zoom in here right now this is a dinosaur bone uh and i actually brought dinosaur bones for you boys today you can you can have these one for rall, one for Yanni. You pick which one you want, Randall. This is from a duckbill dinosaur. I found it on the Montana-Canada border.

Is it the official state dinosaur of Montana? I don't know. I think it is a duckbill. There are a few types of duckbills. This would be the official state dinosaur. Or is it the official state fossil? I think it's the official dinosaur. Okay, I found this with... Corinne has something to say.

Oh, no, I was just going to say for our audio-only audience, can you describe in detail what it is, color, size, etc.? It just looks like a rock to me, honestly. I think it looks like a bone. You can like, I don't know, you see the...

It's a little porous on one side. Porous marrow-type structure. Now, a lot of people would ask, how do you know it's a dinosaur bone? How do you know what kind of rock you're looking at now with with dinosaur bones and most fossilized bones in general there's a really cool test you could do and this is not a trick it's called the lick test now i'll show you what i mean by the lick test if you take a fossilized dino bone and put it on your tongue it will stick to your tongue as though you have just licked like a frozen flagpole at recess

in the winter. So I'm going to show you what I mean. I have this dino bone. It's about the size of a quarter. Does it matter if you lick the porous or the non-porous side? It helps if you lick the porous side. The smooth side works too though. I'm going to press this against my tongue and you can see what I mean by the lick test. Here we go.

Oh wow. Screen grab that Phil. what is it that makes it do that um i i don't know i i don't know what the properties of it that makes it do it but if you're out in a place where you could legally collect fossils like this uh like you know a private ranch in montana like i was, and you find something like that could be a dinosaur bone, one way you'll tell is do the lick test. Yanni, Randall, you boys do the lick test. I just did. And it worked for you? Yeah. Hanging right on

their tongue. Yeah, the lick test. That's how you declare if something is a fossilized bone or not. That is my item today. Tastes like a dinosaur too. And also a hot tip off to it, so that's for free. That's a free one. Tastes like a dinosaur too. And also a hot tip off to it. So that's, that's for free.

That's a free one. Free hot tip. Yep. Yanni, what did you bring for show and tell? I brought this, uh, jar of elk teeth,

elk ivories. Um, looks like there's about a pint's worth of, of ivories in there. I'd say it's more like a half pint, like a cup maybe. Yeah, I'm sorry. Cup and a third maybe. You know, once I saw actually a pint of elk ivories, I was like, damn, dude, that's a lot of elk ivories, you know?

And the guy was very, it was Donnie the Wild Man McConnell, which I've talked about him before. He was a guy I used to guide with. Have I told you guys about him? No. I've never heard of this individual. It sounds fascinating, though. He would guide in a leather jacket that he custom sewed his own pockets into for his cigarettes, lighter, 44 Magnum, and his bunk had no sleeping bag on it.

He would literally sit down on his bunk and finish off his last Budweiser, which was probably into the double digits of the evening, put his cigarette out, take his boots off some nights, and then lay down with those leather jackets still on, sometimes with a pillow or not. And in the morning, he'd sit up, light up a cigarette,

and start drinking Cokes. And he'd go about half of the day with Cokes, and then the other half of the day with Budweiser's. Anyways, he had a full jar of these. They don't make them like him anymore. No, no. And I thought, man, I'll just start. This thing is roughly the size of a pint jar.

How long will it take to fill up a pint jar of elk ivory? Yep. I feel like, I don't know if they're shrinking, but I feel like I put a couple, sometimes four in here every year. And it's almost like my little pile gets smaller. Oh. I mean, it's-

You're going to have to check your daughter's room, see if they're thieving them, taking them to show and tell. No, no, no. Well, I doubt it. But I'm just saying that it takes a lot. Do you want to take a guess? I counted them when I got in here. Do you want to take a guess at how many pairs are in here?

I would say 15. Oh, I was going to say 14. Are we doing Price is Right rules? No no no What is it Yanni? 32 pairs Oh my goodness There's 64 teeth in here To get one cup of

Yeah 32 And if you can You know that they used to Indigenous of this land mass Used to have shirts that were completely sewed, you know, with a whole front of elk ivories. I mean, it must have been hundreds of animals that they used. Can you identify any of the ivories in there? Like, I know this one was from this bull.

No, I've thought about, you know, marking them like Steve does with a little, use a little whiteout and then write something on there. But I don't have many collections at home. Um, I'm not a big collector, but this is something that I do collect. I don't know. It's just a jar of teeth. Really? When you think about it, I probably won't be grabbing it in a fire, you know, and running out of the house with it. But, uh, it's one of the few things that I collect my little jar of ivories. Very nice addition to the Deedee show and tell. Randall, what do you got for us today? Well, you know, for the young folks out there, this is a point-and-shoot camera. Prior to the age of the

smartphone, you used to carry around one of these. It's about the size of a deck of cards. Yeah, about the size of a deck of cards. This is the Olympus Stylus Tough. And I was organizing my garage and found this camera. An ancient memory. And I thought that I would bring it in because that was the second time I found this camera. The first time

was after I shot my first bear in Alaska. Someone took a photo of me. And that person, if the Delamere and Hopkins crew is still on there, that person is Neil Potter. And we brought the bear back To the boat And he says Dude I don't have your camera

And I spent the rest of the summer Looking for that camera And I was just cutting down Devil's Club And all kinds of things Couldn't find it Got a metal detector, couldn't find it This was important. Uh, I, I wanted a photo and, uh, and so in any event, I went back the following May

to guide another summer. And when you go back to Alaska in the springtime, nothing's grown up. It's all just dead. So I walked right back there, found this thing. Uh, the waterproof and freeze proof claims are accurate, Phil, we have that photo. Hey, look at that. Very nice. Wow. And there's a second part to my show and tell. Did you used to be Amish?

No, that's just how my beard grows in. He is from Ohio. Actually, in that photo I have a... But the shirt, though. You're like really going for the look there. That's a denim shirt. I used to wear them all the time. That's a Delamere and Hopkins hat.

Shout out Delamere and Hopkins again. And that bear was killed with a 430-grain hard cast bullet loaded by HSM ammo out of the Bitterroot Valley. And because I didn't think I had a photo of it, I got my first shoulder mount. Okay, and he brought that into the room. So I have the bear right here so this is the only this is the only way I'd shoulder mount a bear of this size because I thought I didn't have a photo so that was an expensive unnecessary the picture made him look a lot bigger yeah I know it's kind of scruffed up where is that bear mount in your home it's just sitting out in the garage is

actually very close to where I found this camera. Okay. So usually we have him in a position of prominence and he wears a Santa Claus hat in the wintertime. That's my show and tell. Show and tell. Just to prove Phil Wright, I'm going to bring rocks every single time now. It was fun. Yanni brought 64 things to show and tell.

Randall brought three things to show and tell. And I also brought three things to show and tell. We'll see if we can top it next time. Moving on, joining us on the line next is professional chef, Yia Vang. He just opened his second restaurant in Minneapolis and is here to talk to us about Hmong cooking. Yia, welcome to the show.

What's up, dudes? How are the show what's up dudes how are you guys doing where's your anchor are you good good first thing you know the whole the whole lick test you guys are doing like dude i i got caught up in that once but it was in a van in an alley i guess that's a fossil it was weird the dude's like coming to my van i'm like, I guess that's a fossil. That's right. It was weird. The dude's like coming to my van. I'm like, okay. And they got him.

First thing, now the Minnesota State Fair, that just recently ended, second only to the Texas State Fair as the biggest state fair in the country. Did you go this year? Yeah, we have a shop, so it was there. It was our third year there the asterisk on the minnesota state fair being the second overall in the nation is because the texas state fair is 30 days uh and the minnesota state fair is only 12. so it's kind of a little unfair there but this year we had almost 2 million people come through in uh less in about 12 days wow okay what what

was the best thing you ate there that wasn't your own food um man you know you can do all the fry stuff if you want um you know but for me um man it's gotta be um friend dude i have so many friends there they're gonna be so mad at me but anyways okay here here this is like my try and true. No, no, no. This is my try and true. There's a place there where it's just like a beef tips kind of place. I forget the name of it, but basically you get a big pile of mashed potato and you just get some sirloin tips and then fried onions.

And I mean, it's just hits, you know? So it's one of my favorites. Now, can people find you at the state fair most years yeah we're there every year so state fairs it's kind of like run like the mob so blood in blood out so once you get in once you get in to get out it's like you gotta you know there's some stuff i kid you not in about 20 to 25 years netflix is going to do a show called like the truth behind the minnesota state fair right they're going to interview us and then i'm going to get really i'm going to tell you guys some secrets you know okay looking forward to that currently we're doing the meat eater tailgate tour but we think next year randall and i were talking it should be the meat eater

state fair to go to minnesota texas the best state fairs in the country it is the most ridiculous thing ever. You know, like I talk to my friends who aren't around from this area and they're like, that's cute. You guys have this like county fair. I'm like, bro, ain't no county fair. One of the Saturdays in one day, a 12 hour day, we had 258,000 people come through. That's amazing. Wow.

Now you tell us where you're standing today. I see an open flame behind you. Yeah. Now you tell us where you're standing today. I see an open flame behind you. Yeah. So we're at our brand new restaurant, um, V9. So this is, we have an open kitchen right here. Uh, our friend Ben, he makes these, uh, incredible grill called grill works. So there's these grills that, you know, goes up and down and we got this really cool setup back here. Uh, the, the, the wood we use is minnesota oak so it's from this guy named uh he's got a place here it's called paul's firewood i thought it was paul's hardwood if you type in google paul's hardwood something else comes up so um i found out that really quick

but minnesota oak man it's just everything we cook from you know it's a very uh cooking from wood fire is a very traditional thing with a lot of, uh, among food, especially with our people growing up in the mountains of Laos. Um, and this is how my father and his father and his father's before him, this is how they cook. So we were really excited about using this. And is the flame just for looks because you're on the podcast today, are you actually cooking something right now? No, I'm actually cooking something. So, you know, what's really cool is, uh, we do this, uh, the do this show on outdoor called Feral. And I got to meet my buddy, Chris, who owns Broken Arrow Ranch. And so down in Texas. And so they do access deer,

they do boar, they do everything. So it's almost like this traveling butcher shop they have. So we get our wild boar from them so we're gonna make so we're making like a wild boar monk sausage so basically it's wild boar and we threw a little bit of belly in there because we want a little bit more fat lemongrass ginger garlic fish sauce chili oil salt and pepper and what i love about using wild boar is the original hogs or wild or boars that was used in the mountains of laos here in america the wild boar here is the closest we get and what's so special about this dish is that it is the closest that i'll get to be making almost the exact same monk sausage that my father and my grandfather who

passed away during the war and i never met him this is what they did back in the old country in the mountains of laos which a couple years i got a chance to go a couple years ago i got a chance to go visit so so it's really special and it you know man it's so cool and be able to share that with my father and we were talking about this and you know how a lot of the uh the the the hogs they had up there were wild so it was they would go and they hunt it and then they break it down the whole village would call them they break it down they you know and they put all the ar and they hunt it and then they break it down the whole village and come to break it down They you know and they put all the aromatics in it and then to even eat sausage You know when you're in these poor villages is a special treat. So what they would do

Yeah, yeah, they had to make their own casings from those hogs too. I imagine well, yeah I mean they don't make the casing they pull the the casing out. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. So, well, but the, the, but the fast way of doing it, right. It's just, we, so what we did is, you know, we, we mix it up and everything. And then dad was just like, you know, they, they make just little patties, little patties. Yup. And then you kind of just like almost like burger patties. And then, um, what they would have is a little, like, like a little like rack, which I'm putting it on right now. But you put a patty, you put it on a rack like this. Yeah. So, you know, and then just throw it over the fire.

And the cool thing about this and what my father taught me was that it was always on the go, right? So you're out, you're hunting, and sometimes you got to walk hours and hours and then you hunt. I mean, you guys know what I'm talking about. And right away, you can break the meat down. You bring in little aromatics. You do that. You start a little fire. You use bamboos.

And then you would make a little rack like this. You put it on. You bring some sticky rice with you. And that was your lunch. You know? And so, go ahead. He just put these patties on the grill. How long are they going to be there now?

So, they'll probably be there about, I don't know, five minutes on each side. And we'll kind of flip them and go. But for you guys, we'll go real close right now. Lowering the grate. We don't do fake TV cooking here. This is real, you know? Things will burn. What makes your newest restaurant different than everything else that's in Minneapolis?

Well, you know, I don't really think that we're doing anything really new. What I really do tell people is the name V-Ni, which is the name of the restaurant. It's named after the refugee camp that our family came through. I was born there. My siblings were born there. My parents met there in 77. They got married in 78. And in 88, we ended up here in St. Paul, Minnesota. So Vinay hosted, from 75 to 92, hosted about 90,000 refugees after the war. When I say war, I mean Vietnam War, which is, you know, it's in Northern Laos,

so not a lot of people knew about it. It was actually called the Secret War. And it was a war fought by the American government and the CIA. My father, at the age of 12 and 13, he joined up. So he was part of the militia that fought for the Americans. And so after that, you know, the Americans pulled out. There's all these refugees,

thousands and thousands of people came through. And so this restaurant here, V-9, we just, I just tell people, it's a love letter to my mom and dad. You know, if you guys get a chance to come down here, every piece in this place has a memory, you know, dedicated to them. It's an emblem of them, you know. I mean, you know, you guys, you guys are hunters, you guys are fathers, and you guys understand what it means to leave a legacy you know and especially being uh conservationists too understanding of like let's we need to take care of something so we can pass it down to the next generation and for for among people when we came to this country we didn't have any land we didn't own anything and what we were able to what our parents and their parents were able to pass down is their legacy and for me as much as people you know look at like land and say hey this is my father's land

which is his father's land i look at it as like this is my father's legacy which was my grandfather's legacy which was his father's legacy and we get to do that man we get to do that with food and and the way that we make food and stuff like that so super exciting yeah i'd say that that backstory makes it different than everything else that's in Minneapolis. Now, Yanni said he might be passing through in a few weeks and he's real interested in stopping. What would you recommend Yanni order when he's there? You know, I mean, you know, I believe it when I see it.

You know, a lot of guys like, you know, big superstars like Yanni and Steve, you know, it's one of those I'll call you, don't call me kind of deal. I will, I will admit Cal came through here for an event and he, you know, DM'd me and he like, you know, he talked to me like, you know, like he remembered me from the, from the podcast show. So I'm like, oh, thanks buddy. Do I need a reservation? You know what? I mean, if you want to pull the celebrity thing that Steve does, you know your agent, your people to call our people. We'll set it all up. No, but I'm serious. Can I just show up? I'm asking for anybody. Do they need to call ahead to get a table?

We are very, very blessed to have right now being kind of newer. So we are kind of booked out to like the end of October-ish. But for you, buddy, I will kick out the lieutenant governor. I'll be like, all right, when Yanni is there, what should he order? What do you recommend? So, hey, Yanni, you get here, man. It's all about our grill, right? So we have some really great vegetables coming off the grill,

but we have this pork chop. It's a double cut pork chops, right? So that bad boy, about two pounds, two bones in there. And that bone part, that's the baby back rib right there. And then you have the tail end of the pork chop. There is like the top part of the belly. So you got that fat and you got that center cut. Dude, I go for that. I would also go for the fish. We have this fish that was butterflied out grilled right over the fire you know get some sticky rice you know um get some of our cocktails you know and stuff like that so i would say and then our crab fried rice man people have been killing about the pep right right it's been super cool no i'm gonna order one of each and i'm gonna bring my kit my well one of my daughters that's coming with me to hunt and so we'll stop in for

lunch on our way to uh if you come down here uh make sure casey you know comes with you too you know okay yeah i'll bug him yeah that'd be fun he's been traveling being so cool so he hasn't returned any much type soon now if somebody can't make it to your restaurant but they want to try some long cooking at home can you recommend like a meal that they start with or what ingredients should they have on hand? Yeah. Lemongrass, ginger, garlic, shallots, fish sauce, Thai chilies. Those are the basics.

They're always around. Those are our... Oh, no. We may have lost. Uh-oh. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Okay, am I good? You're back. You're back. Yes. Okay. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Okay.

Am I good? You're back. You're back. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So lemongrass, ginger, garlic, shallots, fish sauce, you know, Thai chilies, those are things around.

There's kind of the base of what we cook from. You know, I would say too, is you can literally YouTube, Google, you can do all that stuff right now. There's a lot of great food content creator that will walk you through the whole dish, the whole meal. A lot of vegetables, a lot of vegetables are people are agricultural people.

So we get to use some really, really cool stuff. My mom and dad actually has a farm that's like almost 10 acres. And every season they grow all the vegetables there. And then they give me a call and we will pick it up. And so a lot of our produce product, it comes from them. Yeah. You're making us hungry. Now, if somebody wanted to try your cooking, tell folks how they can find you in Minnesota. So, yeah, we're in Minneapolis. We have two locations or we have two restaurants,

Union Monk Kitchen, which is in Uptown. And then we have one in a food hall in North Loop. And that's more like, you know, fast cash, sit down, you know, think, you know, and then we have V9, which is in Northeast here. And so we're here. We're also in a food hall in North Loop. And that's more like, you know, fast cash, sit down, you know, think, you know. And then we have V-Night, which is in Northeast here. And so we're here. We're also in a bunch of the sporting stadiums, like the soccer stadium, US Bank Field with the Vikings, Twin Stadium. And then in the summer we have, whatchamacallit, we'll have the State Fair in the summer.

And so we're kind of all around, and we're very blessed to get to do what we did here. How do you spell Vinay? V-I-N-A-Y. V-I-N-A-Y. That's easy enough. V-I-N-A-Y. He's putting it into his

itinerary right now. He's pulling up OpenTable, trying to get a resi. No, I'm not messing with you, man. I'm definitely stopping through. I'm going to be there twice. Well, literally, just message me. And then, Yanni, in our Rezzy, we even have little tags on there.

So I'll put on like, the tag is a celebrity. I don't need that. Put in Latvian easy on the spice yeah you'll be fine man you'll be fine thank you for joining us

thank you get back to those burgers and yeah we'll talk to you appreciate it appreciate it man yeah yeah yeah

have a great day and just to highlight thanks yeah just to highlight he was on episode 480 Of the Meat Eater podcast With Steve and the gang

It's called Going Feral with the Mung Alright boys, that brings us to the end of today's episode But we'll get some listener feedback From Phil here before we say goodbye Yeah, not a whole lot of questions today I'm assuming just because everyone was so engaged With this incredible program But let's see. Let's see.

We have Gage is asking, will Dr. Randall ever become rooted against in trivia like Steve once was? He's been dominating as long, if not longer, than Ranella. Or is it more about personality than dominance? Oh, Gage, you're not paying attention, buddy. We're definitely rooting against him. It's just basically the world against Randall in this room. Rooting against him in a way that our most recent episode that dropped yesterday,

we gave all the players an enormous advantage over Randall, so you can go check that out. How'd you do that? You just got to go watch the episode. Speaking of, Corey says Randall isn't allowed back in Michigan after his T-shirt stunt at the big house. He's putting his photo up at the border. I mean, my apologies. Ann Arbor is a lovely place. I had a great time, loved getting to meet some students

at the University of Michigan, but at my core, I'm a Buckeye. And so we tried to, I tried to do something subtle, tasteful, and I tried to avoid any sort of confrontation, but I do appreciate the hospitality in Ann Arbor. Randall Warren, Ohio state university, uh, t-shirt to an Ann Arbor game. And I only showed it to the camera. And this is, this is like the one big, thick, meaty question that we got during the show. And it's, it's kind of, this is more of a a cow question but you guys are seasoned vets of the industry and maybe you'll have some insight

here but ryan says tech a texan hunter here is there any reason that state or federal government couldn't buy some of the giant ranches for sale and convert them to public land state parks is it just a lack of political will politics yeah i think each state is like sort of taken on and taken on its identity for hunters and anglers at this point and and uh that's just like not in texas's culture to have a whole bunch of public land to go hunt but i mean you're not wrong they probably could do that yeah i mean there's there's budgets for uh federal land management agencies to acquire lands and do land swaps and all kinds of stuff. There's no rule that says what's not federal can never be federal.

But yeah, it's a thorny issue politically. Some states are known for their opportunity. Some states are known for their trophy units. Some states like Texas are known for being heavily privatized for their game and fish. Yeah. And the last quick hitters here. Chase is just thanking Spencer for his child lock on his freezer tip from episode one from the Hot Tip-Offs. That's the kind of advice you can get from this here podcast.

Something he said his $9 child lock makes him sleep better at night. That's right. Thank you for writing in, Chase. Yeah, and we'll leave you all with some fighting words. Posterior attention says that the Minnesota State Fair has better cheese curds than Wisconsin. There's probably some

dude from Wisconsin that brought his cheese curds over there to sell them. I always trust an internet commenter with the handle posterior attention. Alright, that is it for this week's episode. We'll see you guys back here same time and place in seven days. Thank you, gang.

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