[Music] welcome to ear biscuits I’m linked and I’m Rhett joining us a day at the round table of dim lighting our Barry Taylor and Ben ebrill two of the four founding members of sorted food one of the most popular cooking shows on the youtubes with over 1 million subscribers ok now cooking shows they’re more popular than ever but what sets sort of food apart is not only they are friends healthy but it’s the way that they interact with their fans they create more than just videos teaching people how to cook recipes they tap into their fan base to create a social media platform dedicated to cooking sharing recipes sending photos suggesting things for them to make you like taking photos of your food or your beyond that every once in a while I’m tempted to do I feel of self conscious but I still do it self conscious but I think this conversation is like a shame yeah unabashedly the message behind sort of food is that quote food brings people together end quote unfortunately we were not able to bring all of the sorted food members together today Jamie Spafford and Mike huddle Stone two other members two of the other four family members weren’t in LA this time but we had a great time sitting down with Barry and Ben Ben is the resident chef of the crew the only professional chef so we talked with them about what it’s like to have the one guy who really knows what it’s like you know all about food and then the three guys that are part of the scenery about it but there’s an interesting dynamic and it’s also really rooted in the fact that they’ve known each other not quite as long as we’ve known each other but for a very very long time since they were kids I went to college together we’re gonna talk about how they came up with the idea for sort of food is great great story we also talked about their lost in hungry world tour just kicked it off here in Los Angeles pretty cool idea I love the ideas that these guys come up with we talked some about what goes into that too but this idea is them literally travelling around the world and only going to places to eat that their fans recommend or because we did open this up to mythical beasts we will reveal where you challenge them to go speaking of tour in the world we want to thank our sponsor that helps make ear biscuits possible EF college break the travel experts EF college break create amazing affordable travel experiences all over the world for people aged 18 to 28 college not required everybody knows the hardest part about traveling is planning reserving flights and hotels figuring out what to do when to do it how to get from place to place who to blame when it doesn’t become as fun as you hoped it would be because you’re I don’t know someone you don’t like planned it dealing with cancel reduce planet yourself poorly and you didn’t hate yourself all it takes is one thing to go wrong the entire trip can fall apart and you hate yourself or the person who planned it why take that risk when you can let the travel 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won’t be alone EF College Break groups you with other travelers you’ll get to share this amazing experience with so do it head over to our special URL EF College break.com slash rhett and Link we’ll hook you up with an extra hundred dollars off that’s right for a hundred hours off go to EF college break comm slash rhett and Link and now onto the biscuit so how long have you guys been in LA this this time three hours oh really so I flew in from Seattle this lunchtime because I’ve been running this whole kind of lost and hungry tour on my own for a week up in Portland Hood River Seattle Mike’s been making its way to Austin and could you’ve come together back here for this okay so you kind of let you sort of tag-teaming in a little bit so it isn’t like everybody has to be together on the last and huh not to work we kind of work together in kind of waves I guess we’ve got the last two weeks we’ll all together and then the past week well Jamie has a baby it had to fly back to and the UK to mother responsibilities and the rest of us then had to continue we’ve lost and hungry in their own way now I mean I’m such a big fan of you guys I was telling rep because you guys you you approached your YouTube channel in your brand presence it’s not just okay we’re we’re a cooking show but it’s you guys approach everything with such professionalism and with kind of this network mentality that then in terms of how you do it everything you you approach with okay we got this new interesting series that people can get behind and this is just another example in my mind so just kind of give us the spiel of like how you came up with this what was the motivation and then how are you executing this this road trip thing yeah so I’m sort of in general it’s we started really as a we’ve known each other like you guys since first grade you guys need a room yeah major 12 is it ish oh like age six a six yes we’ve been since age 12 all four of you yeah yeah yeah 16 odd years now yeah and a long time and we em when we all finish school we went our separate ways University and then kind of came back and bonded around food and then starting making videos was something that we all just wanted to all fans of YouTube anyway and it was just a natural place for us to upload the videos to share what we were doing the rest of the world and as time has gone by we’ve we’ve always pushed ourselves to see what types of content we can create right interests around food we want to make food as fun others cuz there’s lots of people making food stuff I mean it’s all over television there’s whole networks is more of it multiple how many networks food networks are they’re just floating out there these days they all have one kind of thing in common and that’s where kind of all decisions have already been made and the point where they’re publishing it it’s kind of like decision made normally one share for one person to travel the country experiencing food there’s it’s kind of the only opinion that matters them and the production team behind them whereas the approach we’ve taken the last couple of years resources everything’s kind of been crowd-sourced if I’m honest I ran out of recipes about two three years ago right but actually the whole community are always chipping in on suggesting what’s cook next and how to cook it certain tips and tricks and how to do it so that was kind of what this tour was all about was going we’ve got this huge audience community of people who are loving food talking to us on a daily basis the mountain food how do we maximize that and let them shine and showcase what they know in the best way in was getting out of the four wall studio in London them coming to first stop America and then on to the rest of the world to experience food firsthand with with them in control so they tell you what what you eat and you’re saying you can’t eat anything unless they tell you to eat it yeah two very simple we all know that’s not true but it is true so started so in basically the only two rules one of them is we will get kicked out the country in 90 days time because that’s when our visa runs out right we’re on day 26 at the moment I think and and the only other always literally everything we eat has to be recommended by somebody and that has skewed slightly over time there’s been some great I’ve been trapping alone recently a lot of the suggestions are coming in on YouTube on twitter with the hash tag but also every time you get somewhere you meet somebody who wants to share their story or their favorite food food is something just connects everyone you can go anywhere and as soon as you explain what you’re doing the first thing I want to do is tell you their favorite restaurant or their favorite farm and producer or or my mum makes the best version of this or whatever see so is that what they’re doing you find it more often than not that fans ask you to eat at places that they like or places that because I know that you know we just got our fans to suggest where you should eat before you left Los Angeles and of course they gave you a place that is service rattlesnake and prawn that’s because they know the kind of things that we eat yeah but you’re getting actually good suggestions it’s not like a dare to like get stuff down it’s a completely make something depends who who they’re trying to make suffer I guess if it’s if it’s been it’s gonna be some some amazing food to him to try on the way if it’s any one of the three of us they’re gonna make yourself or somehow so it’s a complete mixing so how have you suffered so far actually so far it’s been to be so good so far I came over to the to the states with we’ve been here before so we’ve been to LA New York on sort of with sort of before and in my closed-minded view la was California in California was LA and there were kind of exchangeable yeah and then we spent a week in LA doing some great suggestions around here then we spent best part of a week driving from LA up to San Francisco California one phenomenal through vineyards mountains hills savanna Beach Coast you name it yeah that that road had it and all the food source we stopped on the way and that was when I saw you begin to realize how awesome the food in this part of all it actually is we’ve had some dead ends though when people kind of gone what’s the most popular isn’t always necessarily the best food around so we came in the first week when the top recommendation of Scott Ross goes well I mean so many people say oh yeah Roscoe’s chicken and waffles yeah that sounds incredible but then he gave then ego theory makes a lot of sense but it wasn’t the best chicken the water was working was was dry mmm Oh which one did you get which which combo did you get mama okay at the obama obama which is a two chicken thighs it’s good enough for your president but it’s not good enough it’s two chicken thighs and two waffles or it was it two chicken thighs on or a noir but as you got an omelet with the chicken inside of it awful yeah well nothing’s bad what you got to do at Roscoe’s next time you go now that because I person this man next time I’ve heard this this this thing from a number of people okay is there like the waffles are nothing great and the chicken was dry I so I’m not I don’t have a whole lot of sensitivity to dry meat because I’m a white meat guy but what I do at Roscoe’s is I take the waffle and I take the chicken and I take the hot sauce and the syrup and the butter and I make a sandwich so you got syrup and butter on that to kind of moisten it up you got the chicken then you got the hot sauce that they got right there at the table and you make that a little Sam I’ll do a little of that too and then I throw their cheese eggs on the side they’ve got this like diced onion in it oh it’s so good man my I take my whole family my kids but going to Roscoe’s they’re like Sunday lunch after church crowd in the downtown and that is gonna be doing Rhetta bull scene we have to go three o’clock women dressed to the nines with the big purple hats we felt very underdressed in t-shirt shorts oh yeah that’s quite an atmosphere but you you set yourself apart from network program and because you’re so interactive I mean every step of this trip is is determined by interactions but there’s also a lot of food shows just floating around on YouTube that are like YouTube first kind of thing so you they’re also your competition I mean how do you how you look at that and how do you how does that inform your strategy are they competition though I’m serious I don’t know because they same of them you could say in one breath you got you jamie oliver’s the world who are what we grew up and we aspire to be like and then suddenly he’s on the platform that we kind of grow up growing up on yeah and do each other you know and people are saying Jamie Oliver is no competition you go it’s a great it’s a great I’m just I’m also with fans of all cooking shows and YouTube so we are watching food on beyond belief as well in your desk and so you take inspiration from that the way that the way they produce their stuff at the same time you never competition because I don’t think that’s kind of what you do there but you but you have to be informed by your friends making cooking shows or other other YouTube creators because you I mean I have to assume you guys are still you you got to do something different you got to do your own thing right so you’re informed by it yeah and you’re always looking for the next new thing but this it feels like there’s plenty of space for food because food is so subjective yeah so we’ve got you know and a phenomenal audience who love different parts of what we do and that’s why we try and do a little bit of something for everyone from an eye candy series which is just like food porn it’s just food photography really a motion picture all set to music know how to’s we do recipe how to’s to teach you the basics on how to make whatever it is you want to make we do things like this time around about exploring food at the source and uncovering that research there is something for everyone so we look around all the other competition university-commerce and see what everyone else is doing but on the whole we just go with what we’re told to do we do we do for a little bit sometimes but we the same as you guys the extent is our USP is our story it’s we’re not hmm that’s what I said I says you apart from the fine brothers as well as your stories your background and the same of us no one no one can do what we do because no one’s lived our lives well in you know you guys it isn’t just about a show I think that’s one of the things that that I notice is you guys have this enterprise mentality that this is a we are sorted food and you’re gonna get not just one show that we’re gonna do every single week that people might get mad if we change it up but now we’re gonna do this tour we’re gonna figure out what the best burger in America is or the world or whatever the scale for that was and where did that mentality come from I think it’s about what we’ve we realized early on that food will never go viral food and firewood should never go together anyway it’s sticky food is sticky not viral that’s what we got and so we’ve never had a viral video ever right the closest we got was a up-down dunk video parody of Bruno Mars song if donuts with donuts at the same time it’s it’s we’ve really struggled to make that so we have always had to push ourselves to work out other ways of spreading what which ones are doing and representing social cooking which is what we’re about in different ways and also we know that food as a topic is you mean social when you say social cooking you mean like for parties basically bringing people together sounds really really kind of Bittle aimed at the same time it’s what we always say that food isn’t the point of what we do just it’s the heart everything we do because it’s what brings us not to give us why we did the German first place so we do that for everything well some of the most interesting things that are happening in the food world it’s like a touch point for me are these are apps that bring communities together like I you know I’ve got the young Lea app on my phone what does that do it basically takes into account all your preferences you put in your preferences or dietary restrictions at the beginning when you sign up but in your age you put in you know all these different things and it sort of learned you and begins suggesting these recipes that people have submitted and the places from online and then also got the delectable wine app which is like when you when you try a wine you take a picture you just take a picture of the label and then you you give it a rating and so then you’ve got like the professionals and you’ve got the amateurs like giving their wine tasting notes and stuff like that and it’s in but it links directly to their their feed which is like a Twitter feed and things like that like it seems like you guys were ahead of the curve on that because you kind of recognize that everybody has an opinion about food everybody has an experience with food and you guys are like connecting the dots and your that’s that’s what I see when I look at sort of food I see somebody who’s connecting those dots and connecting people yeah I think everything when you talk to someone about food everyone wants to share their food experiences and often that’s down to one of two things are the pride because it’s something they’re so passionate about and they want to share with somebody else and make sure somebody else has experienced or it’s kind of a bit of showing off look what I can do look at how amazing this food photography is of my dish and whether it’s pride or showing off we were getting hundreds and hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of stuff sent our way whether it was full-blown recipes email to us or photos on Facebook and stuff tagged into Instagram and it was it was kind of all over and people suggesting things we could change up and it was kind of like we was almost too much so for us it’s kind of building the platform such a platform it and people could have their own profiles perform their own identity identity around food and it could all go into one place that made sense rather than all this desperate kind of information that no one else could access we could see it because we’ve got access to our email account but nobody else could see how I’m sort of awesome some of the recipes that were coming in from all over the world so it organizes it publicly now we’re talking about your app right not your website or is it both yeah so the moment we’re running the website you know the platform which enables you to set up your own profile and have your own identity around food and share your recipes or just engage with other people’s and then we’re also sort of running the blog at the moment on a day-by-day basis just to keep up with the tour because there’s so much stuff different happening with us and hungry there’s so much information that’s the best place for that so the two are sort of running side by side at the moment now here’s an app idea so we’ve we’ve we’ve been working on it for awhile which basically allows people to upload their recipes and so on so people are starting to track what they’re eating what’s going in their body well you can’t a secret idea and of course with the launch of the Apple watch and all this smart device now you know where you can now track how you’re burning off this food yeah yeah yeah but nobody gets delivered developed an app yet that tracks what what you may excrete but why because because remember I had the idea for sorting on a pub Taylor yeah table after a few pints that was quite good one doctor and tells us that you can pretty much diagnose anything anything and you know yeah yeah you can tease right yeah totally it’s the sign of health and vitality is a proper poop yep so therefore you surely must be an app out there shortly coming out you poop on the watch maybe leaving the toilet and you stick that you stick the wash down towards the into the fumes yeah yeah I mean if the watch is on your wrist to track movement surely whatever device you have it needs to be near the movement down there – Rick what’s though just just leave something in the toilet for you to urinate the app or spider ring oh you already have the name yes the name I know you our own – may rename it I don’t think this is a rude word here it’s not in UK it’s gonna be called the piss taker yeah because it takes a piss I got it did you pee on you have a device there you go you put in the toilet let you pee on and that then sends the signal to your watch off well I was thinking just poop what he got to do with it well whatever you is crazy but green you could start a new brand if you wanted to go to poo Direction crapple the crap was like a family board game hey kids let’s play crap it’s a drink over there huh so I think one of the things too is you know a lot of people struggle how do I turn what I’m doing on YouTube into a business because unless you just have a lot of content with a lot of eyeballs on it the Adsense money doesn’t really support a business have you guys leveraged this and you know you’ve got a successful business at this point that’s supporting you guys and employees how’s that happening thing is if you tell you to try and give somebody advice now it’s very different from what it was four years ago we started we their own reason we kind of manage to exist in mobilize this is a piece of family and friends business we when we started playing on the idea Oh actually been to my dad and said you might help us out to publish your own book he said yeah we start a few copies you guys there’s something in this and back to us a little bit would gave us a bit of cash to kind of allow us to start up a channel so from day one it’s always been a family-owned business which sets us apart from other people we’ve never had a major investment from anybody the company is completely 100% ours and YouTube is the the numbers muted never necessary paid for all the bills at all we’ve always relied on bringing the sponsorship we’ve got a fantastic partnership we’ve kenwood this applies at all the em kitchenware stuff that’s what keeps it going we sell books and bibs in the background but you we’ve never we’ve never been making lots of money it’s always just about investing it back into the company working at how we can create the biggest and best community possible and there’s no aspirations to try to turn this into a TV show it’s just what are the aspirations it’s strange because like several years ago I’d say yes probably like three or four years ago we were sort of hunting down the perfect TV I did for a format or something whereas and time and time again we were told by commissioning editors or whatever that it wasn’t quite right or wasn’t gonna fit in the box they needed to take and we’d never quite happen mm-hmm as a result we just said well it’s a great idea we can don’t YouTube anyway because the community will have it our audience will love it we’re just going to fly it so we did a lot of that and now it’s almost come full circle that in the last year we have had TV ideas almost pitch to us but they’re not being quite right and again we’ve always held off and just said we’re only going to make content if it’s the right content and the kind of stuff that we know our audience will love the great thing about this tour is we’re kind of getting a little bit best of both worlds because by doing this loss and hungry at all which we’re doing completely off our own back just for YouTube we’re also doing in partnership with this is a shame yeah I saw that you’re on The Today Show and Matt Lauer and Carson Daly are like we’re sending these guys around the konschak country the crunchy country finish the country they just take you how we pronounce things we keep getting tacos and oh yeah we saw that he was like could you say TAC oh one more time for me so did you approach them or did they approach you how to network and we’d be on the show a few times the past biggest and best thing I’ve loved about this TV show collaboration is we are still making all the videos ourselves it’s our own team there’s still only what eight of us on the roads producing this completely and we haven’t changed anything from what we do on YouTube for TV so when we started the whole thing was all about how can we aspire to TV how can we create content as good as and one day maybe beyond it and suddenly now things come full circle where we are producing content the way we always have been for last 3-4 years and it’s now good enough for TV because it’s TVs adapted yeah so that’s been that’s been a revelation for us and the collaboration there we know this this scale of what TV can bring us and we want to be we won this we won sorted the brand and the community to get as big as possible the next couple years so TVs an obvious way to go in the flavors at the end of the day show seem to make a lot of sense well let’s figure out let’s ship from business to personal a little bit I’d love to hear it kind of take us back through this story of if you’re talking like 12 years old I didn’t know you guys went back that far so take us back there where were you and what was up were you like riding bikes around the same rainy neighborhood what’s up so we all went to the same school together and therefore we’ve known each other for that whole sort of 7 7 year period in high school or secondary school for us and various different times we in works for town put us part of hartfordshire it was chosen school Chancellor school so Barry and I were in the same before which meant that we would be in the same class for registration AM and PM and occasion that be crossover with you do sports with Mike or Jamie and I would be doing music or I might we do music it’s like a smart kid school you said Chancellor school I mean I know but it’s just a school ok very good school wasn’t positive at all but the weird thing was was I I kind of got closest friends with Jamie’s things throughout school through drama Mike through sports I didn’t speak to Ben once throughout school years even though we share the same classroom the whole time he was the front of the homework and you’d come over and write next year students yes more say ok family members actually for our school Ben was a straight-a student who had massive aspirations could have been anything you wanted to be but you chose to become a chef but did you know that back then were you like I’m gonna be a chef let me help you with your homework no I was a lot of people were a bit confused when I said that was what I wanted to do but I was just wanted to follow what I enjoyed rather than what the kind of the railroad said that you had to do because you were getting these great I enjoyed math I enjoyed science I did all of that I’ve got a toy chest I still like chess – I did play chess but that’s become more of a myth so you shot him you guys weren’t even friends because he was such an eye geek or a nerd or what yeah yeah I feel guilty for saying it now but no yeah yeah we did okay again it wanted things at fresco I did every my role in school was to become as popular as possible I’m shy was shallow I only did things to impress people that’s all I ever did how did that go – not well not well like six forms to the last couple years of school we used to be we were a lot closer because we were doing more of the same subjects so Jamie Mike and I were in the same music class for ASU in the same drama classes and three of them said a lot more overlap towards our later years and we used to almost socialize together as well didn’t we almost but but then you said you went to different colleges yeah but but then so what precipitated get him back together you guys all moved back home after college but the weird thing about our friendship is about there’s about nine of us no overall as a forensic group and we still meet up pretty much once a month now all of us and we’ve all kind of moved back to the same area so high school friends a group of nine yeah okay so by like senior year you guys were actually friends yeah yeah okay I got it and it’s that sort of same group it’s every month don’t still get together now oh there’s a whatsapp group plays pretty buzzy in my pocket right now of everyone continuously chatting around but it’s the same kind of as if we were on the pub table we’re still taking the mickey out of each other continually and Ronal off as well and even now I think that the best thing we started this year was the whole concept of what we are all getting a bit older and between us houses and kids and raves and all sorts but we did say that we didn’t want to grow up too soon so we’re now actually every year we’re doing a fake stag do so if someone in the group is working a fake Stang don’t know you just eggs you have Oh bachelor personal product apart so a fake bachelor party where if a member of the group it doesn’t matter if anybody’s getting married or not if no one they should get married then we still need to find an excuse to go away for a long weekend and just do the thing that we’ve always done growing up so we took a top hundred quid in a pot and say and well whoever becomes YC cold by the end of the trip King stack or mistake whoever was the pillar man of the match from trip before then base T decides on the next entire trip okay and that’s why right up to the point of turning up to the airport and being handed your boarding pass we’ve got no idea where we go oh really it’s like a we know because it’s the group of Fringe you do so where have you where have you gone we’ve done one so far then you started last year we went to find Haven where is that damn so you took a road okay that was a short a short flight and along weekend drinking and exploring the city how big is was your friendship group after school was just you two it’s a good question because we we had a we had a friendship group that was it might have been nine or ten I think there was a girl thank God 13 or 14 if you include the girls cuz it was about half guys half girls from high school that then we got together a few times while we were in college but we don’t really there’s kind of people that if we saw them we would immediately catch up with but we haven’t made nobody really has made a set the people who are still back in North Carolina had made much of an effort to like stay together I think it could have happened but I mean neither of us are kind of the ones to kind of initiate or not good long distance friends yeah we’re not if link and I were on opposite sides of the country we wouldn’t talk to each other but they the kind of friends that you don’t have to see them for an entire year but when you do it’s like there’s been no time it’s like you was like it was yesterday not anymore sadly because I think it’s just been – no I mean it’s been like 10 years now but there was like the first few years out of these our high school friends first few years out of college they were still like that kind of get together every Christmas thing but then it slowly faded away so it’s not happening anymore get what you do I think some of them they well they think they’re kids do they do now I think they do now because we end up talking about things that they remember enough oh we talked about them and they’ll come out of the woodwork when we talk about our ex-girlfriends and yeah there’s a number of there’s some ex-girlfriends in that group and Leslie’s mom called me on the television is our first girlfriend she was my first girlfriend and his first girlfriend a different yeah so a month ago kay calls me and she’s like I meant so-and-so in the post office where I saw so-and-so in the post office and her son is a big fan and wants a signed poster and like you know so we were like sending him something so it was like oh we finally finally made it big in Lillington took that Leslie but you know the interesting thing is your opportunity with both of us actually it was an in seventh grade first rate for us it was a foregone conclusion that we were going to end up doing something together even when we were 12 we were doing weird stuff like making blood oaths saying that we were gonna do something creative together it did you guys talk about things like that like we’re gonna we’re gonna do something together you know let’s not do something regular chat with Jamie when in end of the school year always going we don’t know what we’re gonna do in terms of our own careers high school of gosh sorry high school okay yeah we just said to each other in the day we want to make a difference have an impact on someone’s life I wanted it he was the one to do marketing and I want to go into design and the point of it was exactly the same maybe that if they’re picking something up off the shelf that I’ve designed or they’ve seen an advert that Jamie’s done you’ve impacted someone’s life somehow no matter how small it was that’s all we bonded I was a desk if we could work anything that Tyler thing there so we could we could see what we could form a into and so then how did it happen if it wasn’t like a you know a collusion of well it was around round a pub table a table probably no bigger than this at the Admiral Byng and like in name-drop it was a um a pub in our local town we used to go to it was the first pub you go to when you were old enough to drink and we all went there our pubs over there like gift shops and museums here it’s like you’re forced to walk through them everywhere because that’s what you guys make it sound like you can’t not walk into a pub over there there’s a certain magnetism yeah I get drawn towards like I grew up in a village which had 500 people in the village and there was one corner shop and three pubs really yeah but pubs in churches yeah yeah and I guess isn’t that the definition of like a hamlet which is like a small village as it has to have a pub I think in a village and be a village if it has a church and then a town and a city oh really it has a cathedral so that I think that was part of the definition so what was the conversation like literally just scribbling down recipes on the back of beer mats sharing that because I was trained to be a chef and these guys were eating sort of rubbish and kind of trash really so we would share recipes and although I was laughed at at the time eventually they sort of caught on and then some on the fact that when you’re out other than cooking for a date of some sort and then you’re in you’re in the supermarket and you go what do I do now and then you start thinking of a text been asked been again for some help I was like a personal chef so when you six or seven of you yeah when you realize that your friends right there’s one of those moments and all of us we’re doing independent each other so when we met up it was always clang so what did you cook them on and so on and then in terms of actually kind of getting something started all we did was we saw we had something going on we were all studying things that we could apply to work together e1 so there was work as a chef James doing marketing Mike was currently working at the school that we went to as a sound technician sound an IT technician and I was doing freelance photography and wanted to get into film at some point and then we were selected something we can all work on together and that’s kind of we said we did as a hobby as a way of boosting Rosi these two start off with really to create something we made a book did I write what’s a CV curriculum vitae B tie the thing boost your on CV when you when you apply for a job like a midi-chlorian we were all studying stuff but wouldn’t it be cool if you could for us so graduate with the qualification and an extra thing and that thing for us would have in a self-published cookbook because it’d have been a record of a load of my recipes and record whoever your photography InDesign Jamie’s kind of marks in England how he could push him from all the pieces were kind of like do that so it was the book first not the YouTube yeah the channel book came a good year before that and then we had up as Barry said with some help to get a load printed self-published and then we had a shitload of them and we saw worked out what we love doing which is showing recipes on a bigger scale and video is the obvious one because you can get the brain ship across much better in a video than you can on the written page so then how did you how was that transition a guy who had made good grades and could do a number of different things I mean why food I just always came from quite a food your background my parents although never trained or qualified in food but they’ve always been quite food we’ve I don’t think up until the age of eighteen I never had a ready meal as such I mean fish fingers maybe was me like a glass fast food meal like a meal in that you reheat at home right takeout yes but not not in terms of buying of a meal off of a supermarket shelf yeah everything was cook from scratch right and every night and there was always great food in the house so I just always was surrounded by food and loved it and I’ve always wanted to carry that on and therefore was so confused when these guys so I didn’t know how to do it because it was almost second nature to me I’d always been around food and what kind of things were you making for yourself as a college student very nice beans on toast with cheese on top maybe a poached egg beans on toast with cheese on top yeah tuna surprise okay which was probably not Gina but still a surprise yep do you have Hamburger Helper over there yeah we’ve got rustlers rustlers which you thinking the bookies you get microwave for burgers this is this is a packaged it comes in a cardboard and it’s like pasta and seasoning and you’re supposed to you know take ground beef and cook it you your own ground beef you cook it and then you add these ingredients together so you end up with sort of this like hamburger pasta pastas skillet beef stroganoff kind of like it’s all these different flavors and what we would do is so badly we would take one of these and we would divide it between the four of us the two of us and then Greg and Tim are roommates because it would literally be you would make a pan and so it you know would all be there you’d I never made it because I don’t make stuff but you know like you were Greg would yeah or Tim would sizzle up the burger and then you pour in the pasta and you pour in the like that stuff looks like the stuff you get like seasoning you get taco seasoning packet and you just mix it all together and then you it kind of hardens what depends on which one you have some stay like kind of loose and then yet but there was one called it was like called skillet sensation or something like that that would make basically a big high of burger and pasta and stuff and then you would cut it into fourths and we would this is really not enough for a person to eat really obviously a college boy but we would do this because we were so cheap because that meal was probably like a dollar a piece we ate that so often and that was the limit of what we were cooking except when we would do the deep fryer with french fries with ranch dressing bacon and cheese on top of them Greg’s idea to buy a deep fryer yeah and and then retz on board with that I mean I just I’ll just they make it I’ll just sit down and eat whatever it is because I’m happy with cereal right exactly and ice cream and so I was just like we were starving college students but we weren’t willing to spend money so like we could each of eaten one of those Hamburger Helper things yeah but we sat there and we would like meticulously divided up into force and that’s all you got yeah Mike why don’t we just make two I don’t know cuz we didn’t have one pan yeah but by the way we didn’t have a bin we didn’t have somebody who was attempting to rise above so you know I think we waited til we got married but I think that’s what kind of kick-started this we realized that it wasn’t just us that kind of were in that same situation we just wanted more more people so i’ve always compared them going from a very sort of sheffy point of view there are chefs out there who make careers of having signature recipes and if you ask them what the secret recipe is they’re saying sure they’ll never ever share it whereas I’ve been completely opposite if there’s something I know but that works I want everyone else to try it and I want everyone else to experience what I love about it I think that’s just the whole sharing mentality and that’s where video and YouTube and everything plays our social media yes right then because it’s it’s very natural to share I mean use the analogy of them food photography and you would never nowaday you’re taking it 10 years ago you would never sit down at the table get out your camera take a photo of it take it down to the shots get it developed knowing your back stick it an envelope post it to a friend and send it to say this is what you say yeah that’s a little involved and yet now instagrams doing that in seconds it’s that the sharing mentality around food and food is the most shared thing on Instagram right now and not even what it tastes just what it tastes like what it looks like becomes because that’s the only thing you can really share everyone can connect with that yeah you can just put like a plot up mm-hmm oh yeah exactly right that’s why it everybody does underneath so you started to experience arted to experience Ben’s influence you’re kind of going to him and asking him for tips and that kind of and then you guys realize that you’ve got these different pieces that come together the book happens then the YouTube thing happens how has the way that you see food and how when you feel about your relationship with food change because of this influence in which now that it’s your life yeah I guess before sorta didn’t really think twice about food it was just there you know I don’t know guys I think in university sorting photography freelance and I was living at home so Mama’s always just delivering me food every every day I mean when I moved out then South having to apply the recipes that we’ve been creating together and testing them okay right the bit that made me kick for me was as soon as you found yourself not following a recipe and we started just playing and use it I still go once a week now I’ll cook goodie for therapy just sit there and you just I enjoy it and I have no idea what I’m looking to make apart from I’ve got some stuff in the cupboard I’ve bought some inquiries that I like the look of let’s see what happens that saw a sense of freedom and playfulness and then when you see the look on someone’s face when she’s giving it to them as well okay you know what I haven’t done badly here it’s worth going to give it a go again that that sense of enjoyment of cooking into socializing that was what kind of made it more exciting for me to interrupts you just start caring more and then from that my girlfriend now she’s obsessed with organic foods and healthy eating and understanding exactly where food a source suddenly I’m now caring about that as well I never thought twice about it but I think that’s just kind of we’re very much other generation that naive generation about food and as time to move forward now with YouTube and social media there’s less and less walls to hide behind them so people are just finding their stuff themselves and I do find it it’s it’s fascinating well one of the things that we Lincoln I’ve been talking about is how when you start getting older your next meal is something you really put you really look forward to it you know it’s not I’m not not to say that our lives are boring by any means but I don’t know something about getting older and you start kind of appreciating certain things and you can plan a whole week around that trip to that that certain restaurant that meal that you’re gonna have and I mean that’s whereas when I think back to what we were doing in college and the the way we were eating and the way we were thinking about food I remember when I took my wife out the first date I ever like took her on I took her out to Outback Steakhouse and I thought that I was killing it I was like she’s gonna be so impressed because I took her to the Outback and it’s like I think about the now I’m like I’m a little embarrassed and I was like what did what did you think and she can I came from a family where they actually ate well and her mom was an incredible cook and I was just like what did you think she said well I thought it was a little bit lame but I really liked you whereas I’m like now of course I would take you to someplace that was like a special place that had some character that you know but I took her to a chain restaurant I remember back then I made up my mind we probably having a conversation about this you know because I’ve been doing Christy for a while you’ve been dating Jessie for a while I think maybe you were coming realization for what you’re just talking about so one Valentine’s Day I was like I’m gonna I’m gonna yeah Rhett right I’m gonna take Christy to a place for Valentine’s Day that’s like not a chain and I found this place like using the Yelp of the time which was like City search or some City search yeah and I go to this restaurant it was I can’t remember it was called you’ll remember but I show up there made reservations and said give me a nice romantic table and sit down there and I had to drive almost two hours to get to this place what never been there it was in Durham but it took like almost two hours to get there and then Christy and I was sitting there she’s like impressed and everything’s going well and then after being there for like 20 minutes I look over and Rhett and Jessie walked in the restaurant oh it was Valentine’s you made reservations at the same place what is the name of that place Aragon or perizaad perizaad perizaad and same guy kinda George with George’s garage and Durham Ollie also kinda took the wind out of my sails it like I’d done something really special independently that we just happen to show up is the same boy yeah he didn’t tell me to come here correct cheap and do a little bit but one of the things that you start thinking about too and want to get you guys perspective on this is like you can food can serve a number of purposes and one of them is to comfort you a lot of people just stop there right it’s just like food comforts me and so I’m gonna eat exactly what my mouth wants but then there’s this sort of more foodie more Anthony Bourdain mentality which is like food challenges you and I think that’s something that how does that phenomenon kind of enter into your philosophy and what you guys do it’s interesting you mention I people dying because I love the guy and a red cup of his books and in fact one of his books a cook’s tour was him trying to experience the best meal ever and it was more about the mean experience whether it was a meal cooked in the middle of the Western Sahara Desert surrounded by the camel caravan that got him there and he was a goat or whatever and he said eventually off this huge journey across the world the best meal ever was one they had in Vietnam and that was what kind of inspired me to go to meet an arm and loss last year and it’s trying experience Vietnamese culture and food but the one thing that food does is formal identity and connect people it’s probably the only you can go anywhere in the world and whether you speak the same language or not the chances are you’ll be able to communicate through music and food whether you speak the same language or not and that’s math more difficult let’s sit down and some algebra brother if you take an abacus with you you can probably get across the basis yeah but food and music both of them you can form an identity around and both them you can communicate people I think that’s where fundamental you go right back to basics and it’s just kind of that’s why everyone gets it right in those other cultures I think that’s one of the things too is that those other cultures foods are challenging to you know appalling people get grossed out by and you gotta be careful their food is it’s a delicacy in one place I had do you ever have the fermented herring yeah strumming yes that’s the one and it is expensive so when you are offered some you don’t want to sort of turn it down or spit it back out but it was revolting no the smell yeah the beauty he opened we start something had gone wrong and it exploded and it was the worst smell I’ve ever smelled in my life and we all course this is a bad batch but it was it was perfect it was told us it was pervy I wouldn’t believe it it’s literally fizzy on your tongue as you eat it it’s just but it’s somebody’s delicacy and therefore you’ve kind of got to respect that without you’d have an opinion on food and stuff but you could be careful not to write so well it’s interesting because when you talk about the challenge of kind of expanding your horizons it’s it’s kind of a microcosm of kind of appreciating another culture yeah but I think you’re even thinking about bringing that mentality into just your own way of life you’re like not being a picky eater I don’t know I don’t know if you’re cutting your eyes at me here but no but I mean you’ve changed significantly in the past 20 years of what you are interested in eating oh yeah you know I have a natural disposition which is I dislike stuff new stuff you like new experiences so I like the same year a lot of different things and I enjoy one night I’ll be like this is the best meal I’ve ever had then the next time like this is the best mode ever had I’ll go to a new city and I’ll be like I want to live here then next week I want to live here it’s justice my disposition is just to want the next thing but I mean you there’s there’s a hundred things that you wouldn’t eat when you were 20 years old that you lean now oh yeah I mean I wouldn’t I wouldn’t drink milk or water I would only drink soft drinks until I was like out of high school and but I’ve actually started to crave sushi over the past four months like that’s my new thing I’m finally able to get there well sometimes there’s this little thing that just clicks with were the food right but I want to explore how when you got a YouTube audience you’ve got typically a younger audience and those people tend to be picky ER you know cuz your palate hasn’t matured yet so how does that enter into the way that you guys present your content and what specifically you talk about the food that you’re introducing people into how do you kind of take in that take into account the internet fickleness those people have makes a massive difference we know that if we want to get a viral video around food you’re gonna do something that is cupcakes cupcake multicolored multicolored cupcakes rainbow views yeah but we know that every time we do anything that is curry based so heavily spiced or alcoholic or anything that like you said a more mature palette the views never seem to deliver on it but we know it means when you then we do meet ups do you mean the community they’re the things that are cooking every day other stuff that you guys do made your what someone was just example Goan fish curry mm-hmm the thumbnail of it is awful it’s very Brown doesn’t look very sexy it’s not a sexy title to a video everything days would is destined to fail on YouTube but their mouths do you me who said I made that recipe and it was brilliant I use it every way can you go okay that’s complete different from how many views or how many comments you get so then how do you how does that impact your approach then I think we’ve always said that food we we are we try and do something for everyone so we we always have a balance we’ll try and do food from as many different cultures around the world there’s many different ingredients and styles and stuff so that we have ticked every box that let’s go back to the thing that’s sorted we try and get a problem we try and give a problem a solution we try and get it sorted and we kind of won there any point if anybody was to come to the channel and was looking for something they have a problem they’re looking for a particular dish or a particular scenario we hope there’ll be a couple of options there that will get them sorted so they’ve got choice and we always try and tick every box but we also know that if you do sweet stuff and baking and and homemade bread and things like that then they are more popular so you kind of pepper that in a little bit but if you could make the decision you could just say let’s just you know what let’s only greenlight things that are those big view getters the things that people want to see and why not do that yes mmm I think we run like most challenging YouTube Peter because most of our views come from a backlog catalog I think people know people discover us from our new videos that go up that are more viral suited and but once they really want to stop cooking they look for our back – Oh completely yeah it’s always a surprise you do a meet-up and you’re then you’re chatting to people and the the integrity of the meter isn’t just about meeting people grabbing a selfie and moving on everyone there it wants to show you what they’ve cooked or which recipes have cooked or tell you their favorite dish and everybody is different there’s not ten recipes that keep coming up as everyone’s favorite we’ve got 700 recipes and every time you do a meet-up it’s different people cooking different dishes and that’s what spurs on to keep doing different stuff because it’s the variety that keeps it and the integrity we go back to where it all started it’s not about fast food and and baking and cakes and sweets and stuff it’s about a balanced diet and things you can cook quickly and cheaply at home on a day to day basis so we always try and keep that sort of integrity through what we do as well as we all want to make a cronut video or whatever but right it’s the best of both worlds what do you think about people who don’t care about food it’s just not their thing food not my thing man and I think personally myself and Mike probably can empathizing the most Mike still is doesn’t really care that my sometimes he he M he’s Mike Alessi has been working on unsorted for the last five years and he still can’t cut the onion because he his brain doesn’t need it none of us myself Jamie and Mike we don’t aspire to become incredible chefs we just we use it like anybody else we want to enjoy the food and I think we always we them we’ve got a couple of friends from school who we didn’t listen to get along with and who are we always say they’re the hardest cookies to crack there are people we if we can appeal to mm-hmm certain characters yeah Martian odd trying to hide the name there’s a character that we could use as an example if we can appeal to your calling and Martian five and what who couldn’t and who doesn’t who doesn’t care at all about food literally hates this stuff and also finds us a little bit annoying how can we stay okay yeah like what we do what’s the answer into food for us the moment that’s why we have so many series as time goes by keep mixer Hill with different ups of people and you’re right I think I’m on YouTube if they don’t like us we have a bit of a problem but then saying that we have an incredible community all critten different of the food and on an app now we have people who have bigger profiles than us hmm so who are creating their own types of food so you should hire this well I’m curious about the dynamic amongst the four of you then if I mean if if there’s only one chef and the other three of you don’t aspire to become chefs and one of you doesn’t even aspire to cut an onion interpersonally how does that work on a team I mean you guys is there is there conflict is there kind of a okay you got a guy who knows his stuff and how am i valuable kind of thing is how do i insecurities play out I think right back at the stop right so you can’t answer this you’re the one who’s got it all together honestly I think my dad’s didn’t everyday there’s any reason that we work as a friendship group is because we are so hot in each other we are it works in most our entire friends and we I come the last time I gave better compliment and any of us anybody compliment we always should give a down so therefore the no egos ever allowed to grow out of this at all but we all respect each other massively though what we will be good at and what we do so but if it’s about food and you’ve got a chef but that’s what it I really think that you can’t answer you know it’s also any Black’s over the first time we wrote the first cookbook and I would write down recipes and the whole point was that that recipe was only 70% there because it then had to go through the sense check because I was writing it as a chef it needs to be dumbed down and demystified and actually was when the other side is down yeah yeah that was a statement of superiority see that that right there is where the conflict comes from I’m anticipating this but to mass market rather than people who aspire to be chefs or translate it and excuse that make it relatable relatable that’s a better relatable and accessible it’s a better word and but when he says something like ok dumbed down my recipe for the masses or for you guys do are their fights or their arguments camera we give Ben a seriously hard time there is no other cooking because you’re inferior to him I mean is that because you don’t know the food there’s that that’s kind of the foil it has to be a part of it every other cooking show out there the chef is the man you don’t mess where is where the only channel out there who puts him up and then knocks him back down undermine and belittle completely otherwise you’re just been preached to but but I’m not I’m not cooking a plate of food for somebody just to eat we’re doing you for a YouTube channel to share yeah right so the skill sets in say Barry initially photography in graphic design and stuff like that I mean we’ve had I say arguments we’ve bickered over the fact that I’ve wanted to plate it this way a plate of food because that’s how if you’re in a restaurant that’s how I’d want it plate it he said it doesn’t look good on camera that’s not how we’re doing it really even though it’s like we’re using each other skill sets to and mike is the absolute best at just cutting through all the waffle going but you just need to break it down I’m a novice I need to know this I don’t need to know that bit I need to know this bit right even though you represent he represents the audience yeah and I having this sort of a lot scientific background but liking the science behind food and understanding how the food gets that point that’s the bit that I always want to to push into it and then you’ve got the sort of the creative flair the other side you need to balance of all of it because without it no one would work and are there was there a point where you guys divided up workload and what your roles were and I’m even curious yeah it’s like okay you bring the recipes you bring the script so to speak but there’s a there’s still a question of is there a question of well is everybody pulling their weight kind of a thing you know even amongst the two of us retina I still have conversations about strength and different strengths and playing to our strengths and giving each other room to do things maybe if I’ve got an insecurity about something and I overcompensate like well you have to have these conversations I’m curious if you guys do yeah all the time we we recently have a chat with between the four of us about we for every video to go out all of us had to sign it off and have a look at it and the system was a bit too kind of confusing at times because they’re almost too many opinions on every single video and we said look Jamie you’re the man to look at every single thing that comes through and you’re the person sign off because he will respect everyone’s opinion the best Jamie’s Jamie’s Jamie’s the people person Jamie can we say he’s a king of emails because he would never not respond to an email and he’s always he’s always the person who is made he’s there to make people happy it’s an obsession yeah so there for him is in that role that’s almost channel manager really well well for Jamie and Mike is everything content now Mike had no background in production at all but it’s only since kind of working and producing the videos he’s almost become the voice of sorta to an extent he knows the tone that we need to kind of be putting forward in every single video he works with a couple of editors now freelancers and Louise who’s off of her production who just basically puts every single video together now and been looked at and and looked after everything through they’ve got James who is a he’s our social media guru and but also as a trained chef where the scene universe has been and I’m the one who tries to work out what I’m doing most of the time so does everybody else but we kind of I think we talk very openly amongst a group about what we’re doing are we doing it right and we’re very open to shoot ourselves down and say doing right will change it it’s YouTube no I went none of us set the rules none of us looking for promotion here in a job so therefore we’ve all got everything to gain but also everything to lose if we’re not careful so we have to work as a team essentially because it really is the dynamic of like a touring band in a lot of sense that I would imagine you know you’re like the Arrowsmith of one direction of cooking whoa I gotta say cuz they’re breaking up let’s talk about them at length now that’s not then is there funny that I said Aerosmith put that on the back of your DVD let me further date buzzer why don’t you put up put my quote on the back of your cassette tape link said we were the Aerosmith of I don’t know why you have a cassette tape so is there a you know we talked about the fact that we’ve got this mentality this that we we do not see nor really do have aspirations to go off and try things on our own we’re just like well as long as we’re around we’re gonna be doing things together is it like okay guys sorted food this is the thing or is it like none of then you want to go and be a head chef at a restaurant one day you know like what is the mentality and do you guys talk about that yeah I think we will basically need we will know that what we’re doing now is the best thing we can do right now and yet so when I grew up when I was trained to be a chef all I ever wanted to do was aspire to be a head chef in a gastropub somewhere creating menus on a regular basis serving maybe 50 60 people a night because I didn’t know this existed like what we’re doing now we’ve kind of forged our own way that the way the sort of a a YouTube production company which didn’t really exist five seven years ago when we were so University or whatever and we didn’t even know that existed and yet now we’re coming up with recipes on a daily basis with the community so I’ve got like a million development chefs working with me to create the best recipes and we’re sharing them with hundreds of thousands of people a day not 60 in a restaurant so we are literally you’re I am personally living the best job ever but that doesn’t mean that occasion you look out and see what other stuff people doing and you need to get that experience to make sure you so you’re leaving competition so so I’ve had that in my notice and I can’t imagine do anything different like we’ve been doing it for five years now and it’s not a job because you never switch it off it’s not a nine-to-five it’s you live and breathe it yes it’s what we are I don’t think any of us really sign up to this that’s all I think I I know I think you had some aspirations of becoming Factory and a TV chef I guess but none of us really wanted to be on the screen cat oh it just seemed to be what was natural and thank Bears right I don’t think any of us we know what’s around the corner I’d love to say the sorts of community well one day outgrow us and become its own entity and had there’ll be more than just the four of us to represent sort it’ll be number of different chefs well you got a Brazilian spin-off already yeah congratulations on that thank you terrifying to me that came from that Lee the exact same thing you started going we are food never be viral it’s growing at a good pace in english-speaking countries and but we know that YouTube and the food culture in Brazil and also Japan is is thriving so we thought actually we can open a sorted section in in Brazil and see how that goes and ask some of our friends as they would you mind running a channel under this sort of food brand with the same ethos the same you know same community see how they go at the moments going down really well but yeah I think really great it’s been really weird to see everything we’ve worked on suddenly working so easily somebody else thing about this different series and stuff like that the fact that it’s the fridge cam concept is so formattable as it were something that somebody else can grab and as long as they have the same attitude towards food and that’s well that’s all sorted really is it’s an attitude towards food and it’s not about we went from meal and more in LA couple weeks ago suggestion it was the second highest rated thing we had to check out one LA and that was Korean barbecue mm-hmm and we went for Korean barbecue and he just sat around the table with a little sort of grill in the middle and just picking up food and chatting away you think that is kind of that epitome of what sort of it is social food yeah food to be there as the glue but it’s more about the people you’re with and the conversation and the fact that you can pick up something like fridge cam and send it to another language in the other side of the world and the attitude and approach to food is the same that’s when it was kind of like the penny drops I actually this is well you know III think in this conversation I’ve been a little challenged you know the fact that you know i-i’ve kind of it’s been a bit of mine to be and I don’t make anything I only make cereal because it’s true i scoop peanut butter and I pour milk over cereal but you know I mean for so what would you say to a guy like me or just me cuz I’m here right and what’s your challenge for me what’s your challenge for Rhett and Rhett you can kind of give your your cooking profile that’s mine so my I think I can empathize in extent because I felt growing up through which is to fuel was well they’re running faster and being fit or anything else and then I got lazy and I just kind of stuck to what I knew and it was just the comfort things go in the last couple years through sorted I’ve treated food as a fuel again but in a sense of I know that I have to be working at my best at all times and with what we’ve been there we would push ourselves stupidly hard and I’ve cracked a few times so on life is pretty simple we have to get rise sleep well exercise and eat well as well and surround yourself by good people the food bit was something that I was let myself down with an exercise as soon as I started to to look after my body and go I try all different types of food and if things like any to see how it affected me as a person and how I didn’t have to take any kind of extra nutrition or drugs in the morn to get myself driving if I just err well by Sun City for juice in the morning and got my that was like taking a drug for me suddenly I was so much more energy I didn’t have to eat as much carbs and then I go actually what was I started eating more and more sushi and more fish and actually I was even sharper in evenings any might die off and I might try something else but I end up the best thing I did was test myself on different foods and see how my body my head everything else reacted often suffer yet and that for me was something I just found really fascinating I never seen so food is such a important part your the way you work so lay into me just let me have it what’s the challenge try something new I think it is that it’s they pushing the boundary to try something new now I’ve started trying stuff and once once when I haven’t start I think that I think my main challenge from you guys at this point is that I don’t I’m not willing to make anything like I’ll try it if somebody else that will give it to me I think you can retake you try something so but cooking it preparing it but but take away so that is the essence of cooking being the chore part of it if you make that the fun part the plate of food happens to be the result but actually the fun part and the part that is more we back in the day we used to always go away in the summer and camp down in Bournemouth where Jamie and studied and we used to do big group barbecues and stuff and it was all about sort of making the food together and ash the fact we had a big laugh I have food at the end was kind of irrelevant it was actually bout the main process and the process it was more fun and he got the beers open you’re drinking and socializing playing games or whatever but it’s actually the make the process of it it’s more fun so all I would say it is make that process as accessible and fun as possible get the kids involved oh yeah what sneaking what’s the barrier because wait that’s the thing make it I just I relate to that because I’m no I’m no great cook but I love to cook and I have so much fun doing it like even when my my wife is like I’m just gonna leave you alone and let you do this thing I just like it there’s like three or four things going at the same time I’m just I have a blast and like you said once it’s once that’s the the meals there half the time when you’ve made it you’re kind of like I you guys can enjoy this I’m I enjoy food better when somebody else has made it for me you know but it’s like I had so much fun sitting there drinking a glass of wine while importing a little bit in there I was making it you know that kind of thing so what for you link what is the barrier is it like I don’t know that I could do it or I don’t want to spend the time to do it like what it when your wife leaves you alone takes the kids about in North Carolina or whatever and you know you have like a week alone like Christy tells me she’s like he’ll just eat peanut butter and ice cream and cereal and he’ll go like to but he won’t we will not make himself anything it’s like when my wife goes away I’m like what am I gonna make myself that I don’t have to force her to eat yeah well let me answer it this way I’ll reflect upon it meantime I’ll thank you guys for coming in here and create sorting out this your biscuit and next time you guys come link what I prepared a meal for you there was our ear biscuit with sorted food berry and Ben let him know what you think about this air biscuit hashtag your biscuits too what their Twitter is at sorted food just like it sounds I’m not gonna spell it cuz you already know I also leave a review on iTunes cuz that’s helpful alright so I left us hanging at the end of this thing did I did I didn’t mean to make it a teaser like oh I got some like introspected though I just want to end the podcast with them like talking so much about myself but it was you know wanted to gather my thoughts it was a little weird I’m just gonna be honest with you it was a little weird to me because I was like okay weird we had this really good conversation going about food and then like we’re like this this is a challenging conversation and then you’re like I don’t know I I don’t like to cook I mean I don’t cook for myself and then I’m like why and you’re like I don’t know I’ll reflect on it like a bad childhood memory like you won’t the one time you tried to cook a grilled cheese somebody came in poured hot oil on your face or something like what what is the is there a story the story is I was trying desperately to in the episode because it’s Christie’s birthday dinner and I had a date with her and I I should have just said hey guys it was really it was very abrupt it was it was it was like it was as if I had struck a nerve I was like whoa something one thing I don’t know about Lincoln’s made it awkward he’s a has an emotionally-charged reason why he doesn’t cook which I know you well enough to know that you don’t have an emotionally-charged reason for anything it’s like I know that’s not what it is well that and that’s was ironically it was I was taking my wife out to dinner and I didn’t want to be late I should have just said that but instead I made an awkward ending I reflect on that but in fairness will reflect on it don’t you cook I felt like if I answer the question honestly it would have been another 15 minutes but now that I’ve reflected on it maybe it’ll just be another one and a half minute that’s what it should be I think the simple fact of the matter is I have so many control issues that play into cleanliness that every aspect of cooking for me is it’s like a potential mess it’s a burden of the additional cleanup and I’ve never seen it as a creative process or an outlet I’ve always seen it as something that will have to be undone and I I admit that’s wrong you did you know encouraged me maybe I can change I feel like I should turn over a new leaf I’m open to that well I mean I think the best way to overcome this is approach it from something else like what else do you do in life that you enjoy that you have to be has to be cleaned up after you know you can if you can latch onto that Wow then maybe you’ll be into cooking I’m good at that well that’s a good point and I will I’ll look at it that way from now on okay good we are cured you is it a disease I think so I think not cooking as a disease and but you don’t cook a lot but you do it as a creative outlet that’s what you said right right you get excited I’m definitely not good at it but I love doing it and every once awhile I create something I’m like man that’s I give that to another human it’s funny that you say you do it when your family’s out of town and but I didn’t quite understand that I wanted to unpack that for a second I mean I will cook for myself you know when you’ve got kids you you can’t just give them anything that they’re they’re already so picky so you got to be like really careful about what you cook for them so it’s not the risk of someone else pooh-poohing your recipe it’s it’s practical concerns that you’re not gonna like it anyway you want to be more adventurous it’s easier when you only have to answer to you you know and I do I cook for my kids I mow my wife pretty pretty regularly I mean I don’t cook as often and my wife does by any means but you know and there’s a lot of tag-teaming that goes on it’s I pitch in and take this dish or something like that it’s it’s it’s it’s a in the way that I lay tional the way that I’ve addressed that relationally is I’m like baby you love to cook that’s you enjoy it so go for it and I’ll be happy to to clean up anything that you would okay so this is crazy so you’re not you’re only willing to clean up like you’re like I don’t want to cook because I got to clean up but the only way that I’ve been involved in cooking in the past is cleaning up but doing them the bad part I’ll admit then I I like clean I’ll admit that the reason that I choose not to cook sometimes if I’m if I’m alone and to go get something from a restaurant or have something delivered is the cleanup it is the bad part but I’m saying it’s worth it man I know I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth but I think that went and I maybe I don’t know I need can I reflect on this yeah why don’t you reflect on it some more but I will say I think that the active process of creating something I have to clean up seems counter and counterproductive but if someone else gonna gonna do that and then I’ll you know I enjoyed it so now I’m gonna I’m gonna clean I’m not gonna make you clean all this up because I got to enjoy eating it I feel like I owe at least that much I don’t know it’s my mind screwed up huh yeah yeah you need to go see somebody about that we just keep talking about it yeah it does feel like we need like in a therapeutic addendum is this combination and you accomplish something and it’s satisfying and it tastes good when you get done with it yeah what if it doesn’t maybe there’s that fear of failure – hmm well there’s a lot going into this mm-hmm and I was abused by food as a child okay a grilled cheese sandwich oh man has the music been playing a while hopefully cuz we be out by now okay or we are right now thank you will be found this one you notice next week [Music] [Music]