Francis (2) 0:41

Good morning, mark.

Mark (2) 0:42

Hey Francis.

Francis (2) 0:43

How are you this morning?

Mark (2) 0:44

I am dynamite.

Francis (2) 0:46

You know what I wanna talk about?

Mark (2) 0:47

What do you wanna talk about? Dynamite.

Francis (2) 0:49

No, I don't wanna talk about dynamite. You know what I wanna talk about today is I wanna talk about this new phenomenon that's happening in Manhattan. More and more places we're seeing, we are trying to fly under the radar and stay under the radar.

Mark (2) 1:00

Yeah. There's an article in the Times about this just. Just recently as well. And it is an interesting phenomenon because,

Francis (2) 1:08

well, let's explain what we're talking about.

Mark (2) 1:09

Okay. Absolutely, please.

Francis (2) 1:10

So what we're talking about is, is restaurants who open with no press, they don't want any press or mostly this is happening a lot with cocktail bars. No press. Sometimes no sign,

Mark (2) 1:20

sometimes no phone number.

Francis (2) 1:21

Sometimes the unpublished phone number. And it's, it they're designed to be exclusive little places and everything from Grayden Carter's restaurant. The way really, in which, which is. You know, it's, it's doing the dry runs or it's doing, uh, it's not open yet. It's, uh, it hasn't had its official opening, so you can't get in except that it's open every night, you know? So, so it's great. It's who do you know to get in? That's, that's the one thing, two. A place like that's been around for a long time. A favorite of ours, A place called Milk and Honey. Which is an unmarked door in Chinatown that you gotta know where it is and you gotta know the number to make a reservation.

Mark (2) 1:54

Well, there are two things here going on, and I, I, and I wanna talk about both of the things that are going on.

Francis (2) 1:59

Yeah. Let's explain to people why a restaurant might choose to do that.

Mark (2) 2:02

And the first one is. You wanna be a place that, you know, just local people come to that, that just, you know, you don't want to get overcrowded with people who you don't know. You just wanna keep kind of a neighborhoody kind of place. And I think in New York City that that is becoming more and more challenging.

Francis (2) 2:20

Well, and I think that also a lot of these places don't want, gray and Carter doesn't want own neighborhood, neighborhood kind of place and, and in a lot of these cocktail, it's not that they want the neighborhood place, but they want people who want to go to a civilized bar.

Mark (2) 2:31

Mm-hmm.

Francis (2) 2:31

And have a quiet cocktail. And the thing about it is, if you have 30 seats in Manhattan to seat people for cocktails and you get written about as the coolest place for cocktails, you are gonna be

Mark (2) 2:42

inundated with new

Francis (2) 2:43

people inundated. And there's gonna be a line out the door and you know it's gonna be like Yogi Berry is set. You know, that place got so busy, nobody goes there anymore. Right. And so it, it leads more to a flash in the pan where I think a lot of these places the idea, because Sasha Petroski is the guy who owns a couple places in Manhattan, little Branch. He owns, uh, um, a Milk, milk and Honey Milk and honey in has a branch in London as well. But if you, if you talk to him, he's not trying to be exclusive. He's not trying to say, oh, you're are, you're cool enough to get in or you're not. He wants to run a civilized bar, and he wants to be here for a long time. And so he needs his regulars to be able to get in and to maintain, and not just regulars, but people who, you know, really are seeking out that sort of environment, not just following what the, you know, timeout New York says is the coolest new cocktail

Mark (2) 3:27

bar. And remember sometimes what happens in. In our business and certainly in the, in the hot trendy cocktail business.

Francis (2) 3:33

Mm-hmm.

Mark (2) 3:33

What will happen is your regulars will, will kind of become ensconced pretty quickly. Then the people who follow the trends will immediately follow those people. If they end up pushing your regulars out, well then your regulars need to find a new place to go. Yeah. And the trendy people

Francis (2) 3:51

are going, the next time something

Mark (2) 3:52

else is hot, the next, the next trendy thing that happens, they're moving to that. Well, now what have you done? You've pushed out your regulars, the trendy people have come in, and now the trendy people are gone. And what do you have?

Francis (2) 4:04

Right? You're

Mark (2) 4:04

empty, you're, you're passing fancy. That's all, that's all you are.

Francis (2) 4:06

I think the market forces in large cities, you know, I think that restaurants, especially restaurants in, in small cities like we have in New Brunswick, you're less apt to, to do subject cities, of course. But in, in New York City where the winds of, you know, Japanese tourists can, can slam your restaurant. Not that I have anything against Japanese tourists, but what I'm saying is the, the reach of the press is so far and so great. If you have a little 50 60 seat place, you're trying to run a civilized little place, you can be overwhelmed in no time. And a lot of these people don't want a lot. They don't want a velvet rope. You know, studio 54 was different. They wanted the line out the door and for you to feel lucky enough to get in. That's not the point of a lot of these places. I think it's just that they wanna be able to do what they do and keep doing it.

Mark (2) 4:43

And some of you're calling me from Japan and saying, Hey, I wanna be able to get in. Milk and honey. So it's a, this is a real phenomenon. This is actually happening. You know, there's, but there is a second side to this too, and I, and I think we need to discuss the second part of this. Mm-hmm. And the second part of this is there are people who are trying to stay under the radar. While publicizing that they're under the radar.

Francis (2) 5:06

Well, yeah.

Mark (2) 5:06

In order to use that kind of

Francis (2) 5:08

to add to the cachet,

Mark (2) 5:09

to add to the cachet, to, to try and be the under the radar place, that's not really under the radar.

Francis (2) 5:15

Well, now it, let's take away really in as an example, Grayden Carter, obviously a Vanity Fair magazine, a very important publisher. Um, you know, has taken the Waverly in, which is a very historic place, a very historic bar that was gonna close. He took it, renovated it, and now it's a great restaurant. It was always, you know, a great old bar. It was kind of a dive bar until he took it over. But now here you have a very public figure who's dining in his own restaurant quite often with, with major celebrities. Mm-hmm. I'm like, come on, you're,

Mark (2) 5:41

it is definitely a place to be seen.

Francis (2) 5:42

So you're not really doing what we were talking about before, but, um, there, there's a, there were a couple places, um. That one is called Death in Company on sixth Street in Manhattan. And, uh, I hear great things about that. They're getting a lot of great, I know a couple of bartenders who've gone to work there. Actually, I heard from one by email last night who gave me the number, so I'll, I'll let you know, but I can't give it out on the air. And I think they're trying to do that sort of a thing. But one of, I'll go back to one of our favorite cocktail bars overall, which has achieved it. There's no secret number that it's, it is just a door. It does have a name on the door. You can see the name on the door, but it's the Pegu Club, PEGU, the Pegu Club, owned by Audrey Saunders, very civilized. But even there, sometimes on a Saturday night, I'll, I'll avoid, I avoid going out on Saturday night, but I'll avoid, but I'll avoid the Pegu Club at nine o'clock or 10 o'clock on a Saturday night sometimes. Because it's not my regular haunt, but I think they're big enough to handle the winds of, of popularity.

Mark (2) 6:37

You know, and I, and I'll just do a little sidebar just for one second. One of the great things about being in this business is not having to make your night off be Saturday night the same night that everybody else has off. I, I think that most of the people listening to the show, I think you're, you're at a huge disadvantage because you kind of have to go, just like you have to sit, you have to get

Francis (2) 6:55

up on Wednesday morning,

Mark (2) 6:57

but yeah, just, but just like you have to sit in. In lots of traffic to get through the Holland Tunnel at eight o'clock in the morning.

Francis (2) 7:05

Well, mark and I go out to dinner at nine o'clock on Tuesday night. Right. We zip right in.

Mark (2) 7:09

No problem. And we, we don't sit in any of that. And what I'll call it is restaurant traffic. And it's a, it's a very, very different experience to go out to Pegu Club or to go to one of these hot, trendy places on Tuesday night. At midnight or one o'clock in the morning that it is to go out to them on Saturday night at 11 o'clock at night.

Francis (2) 7:27

Well, I, I also think that that one of the things, and I think Pegu does a great job of managing the expectations and, and managing the crowd and, and they're not being too much of a crowd. Most of the time it's on the second floor. It's a discreet little door, and it's, and the bartenders very much in control. The, if

Mark (2) 7:41

you're a passerby, you're not happening into the Pega Club. Exactly. You're going to the Pega Club because that's where you're going.

Francis (2) 7:46

Right. You think it might be a private club or something, even from the door. You don't even. See, but I think that what, what, what these places are trying to do is to figure out a way to maintain a consistent sort of low key. And believe me, as I get older, I look more and more for a low key place to go. Cocktail and consistent. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I, I think that there, there, a lot of people are sort of get put off by it, but I think there are legitimate reasons for this kind of stuff. If you wanna reference the articles in the New York Times on January the 14th, I

Mark (2) 8:11

also think there are a couple of illegitimate reasons for things like this.

Francis (2) 8:14

But if you wanna find out some of these places, you can go to the New York Times. The article is called, uh, come to Our Club or not whatever, January 14th. Check it out in the Times. And there's some, the names of some cool places that you can find out. We'll be back in just a moment. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, Our guest today is John Rowley. Now John's a pretty important food guy. After spending years as a commercial fisherman, he developed a fresh fishery for the king and sockeye salmon of the Copper River. He's also an expert on oysters and he started the Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition and he is also been called the ding of. Dirt for his advocacy and knowledge of composting.

Mark (2) 8:44

John, welcome to the show,

Jon 8:46

mark, uh, Francis. Then, uh, mark, I'm, I'm very, uh, very glad to be with you. Thank you for having me.

Francis (2) 8:51

You, you're a busy guy as far as food from the ocean to the dirt. You've really made a big difference on a lot of different things.

Jon 8:57

Yeah, well, as kind of a hobby of mine, I have an interest in, uh, trying to make things taste better, you know, so. That takes me out, out on the boats to, uh, improve the handling of the fish. And then, uh, you know, when you're talking about peaches or tomatoes, you know, it takes you to the soil. So, uh, so I, I go off on these four or five year tangents, you know, trying to learn. I learn how to make, uh, what, what makes plants successful? And it then comes down to organic matter in the soil. You know, compost

Mark (2) 9:25

sounds like your hobby's taking you about 80 hours a week.

Francis (2) 9:27

Yeah.

Jon 9:28

At least.

Francis (2) 9:29

Let's, let's talk about,'cause I found this to be a fascinating story. Let's first talking about, start talking about salmon. From, copper River. Now, when you first got involved in this, that the Copper River Salmon, by the way, today out there, I mean, we get some every year, all the best restaurants look for it. There's a limited amount. It's managed and it's widely considered to be. The best salmon you can get when it's fresh and you can only get it fresh for a very short period of time. But when you started looking at this, John all of the, all of that salmon was mostly canned or, and whatever was fresh wasn't very good. Is that, is that true?

Jon 10:03

Well, uh, there wasn't any fresh salmon coming to the market back then. That was quite a few years ago, about 1983 to be specific. It was all going into cans except for a small quantity that was being frozen, and that was all going to Japan.

Mark (2) 10:19

just for one second, let's talk about, you know, the, the marketplace and, and before you were bringing fresh salmon to the marketplace or caused it to happen or at least ate in that what, I mean, how long would a, a salmon gets fished out of the water? Okay. What would, why don't you go through how long it might be before that salmon appeared in your supermarket, refrigerator case and the process therein?

Jon 10:43

Well, it depends, and there was fresh salmon coming from, uh, Alaska. There's a, you know, they're caught by different methods. I used to have a salmon controller, which is a type of hook and line fishing, and that that fish was being, uh, shipped out. A certain amount of that was coming out fresh. But, it would, it could be you know, it just depends on the pipeline, but it could be you know, as long as a week before it's showing up in your, in your supermarket case, but under the, the best of conditions you know about. Uh. Three days. And then, uh, some of these promotions that I've, I've done where we've got a lot of razzle dazzle behind them. We put it on the plane and take it, uh, you know, and get, get it there the next day.

Mark (2) 11:21

Well, that's what's happening now. Tell us what was happening before

Francis (2) 11:24

in 1979. What, how was the fish being handled at the Copper River?

Jon 12:56

Uh, well, it was you know, it's cotton, uh, it's a gill net fishery up there. And so the fish was, uh, being, brought aboard the boats and they didn't have any refrigeration. And then they were put on tenders, which are these large scowls, which, uh, you know, the boats unloaded on. And then the scowls would go to town, to the canneries when they filled up. So there wasn't any, the fish weren't cleaned and they weren't refrigerated. And, you know, when they go into cans, the, the canning hides a lot of, what,

Francis (2) 13:22

you know, that doesn't

Mark (2) 13:22

sound a lot of misdeeds,

Francis (2) 13:23

that doesn't sound very appealing.

Mark (2) 13:25

any, I mean, any fisherman, anybody who's ever been out fishing, one of the first things you wanna do once you catch your fish and it's about to die, is you want to clean it.

Jon 13:34

Yeah. You wanna clean it and then, and it turns out that getting it into ice before it goes into rigor mortis is one of the key things to quality and flavor. mouth feel and how a fish goes through rigor mortis is, an important important thing. Well,

Francis (2) 13:49

now, now let's talk for a moment about that. That sounds kind of morbid, but it's actually, it's actually, uh, pretty important. So the fish comes out of the water and you want to gut it and bleed it right away. Is that correct?

Jon 13:59

Yeah. Well, well, maybe I could just walk you through a great, a perfect fish scenario.

Francis (2) 14:03

tell us the, the ideal fish catch, like how it gets from water to plate?

Jon 14:08

Yeah. If we're going to, uh, if we're gonna produce a perfect quality fish, yours. Uh, we're, we're out on the boat and, the first thing we want to do is make sure the fish, uh, comes aboard alive. when a fish dies in the gear, it, um, it just doesn't, it doesn't taste right. And, and, and I don't have the, you know, the, the background to explain it

Speaker 14:27

doesn't

Mark (2) 14:27

matter why you need to, it doesn't taste right. That's all we really need to know.

Jon 14:31

you want the fisherman gets the fish out of the gear alive. And then ideally, uh, he stuns it, with a little club just right between the eyes, you know, and the, and then the fish doesn't flop, so it doesn't bruise itself. And some of these kink salmon are quite large, you know, between 25 and 50 pounds. Mm-hmm. And then, um, it's still alive. And then you you open an artery up and it it bleeds itself and then it dies, a relaxed, uh, death. And then ideally you eviscerate the fish as soon as possible before it goes into rig mortis. And that's so that you can ice it before it goes into rig mortis. the ultimate flavor of that fish and the mouth feel of that fish. It it depends on how it, it goes through rigor mortis. And the best the best thing that can happen is you get that fish into ice. And then what happens? It goes into rigor mortis very slowly. And it stays in a long time.

Mark (2) 15:24

So you kind of slow the whole process down by icing it.

Jon 15:26

Yeah. And it comes, you know, and then it comes out slowly. Now what happens, what makes fish taste good is this it's this chemical called Zyme Monophosphate. I think I, I have that right and it, and it, it starts, um, it starts being manufactured in the fish when the fish goes into RGA mortis. So what, what makes fish taste good? Actually happens after the fish dies.

Francis (2) 15:48

Really?

Jon 15:48

Yeah.

Francis (2) 15:49

Huh.

Jon 15:50

Uh, and the longer it's in rigor mortis the more of this this substance the fish has.

Mark (2) 15:57

So your idea is to slow the process down so that it stays in rigor mortis for longer,

Jon 16:02

right. And then, uh, the best time to eat a fish if you have the, if you're lucky enough to be able to, be there when all this is happening is right when it comes out to rigor mortis, because that substance starts. Going away as soon as the fish comes outta

Francis (2) 16:17

Well, let me ask you two questions. How long does it take for a fish normally to go into rigor mortis?

Jon 16:22

If you're on that boat and you let the fish go through rigor mortis and ambient temperature it can be in and outta rigor mortis in you know, three or four hours.

Francis (2) 16:31

And when does it start? How soon does it start?

Jon 16:33

It starts, it depends on the, the water temperature and the air temperature and things like that. But usually, you know, from three to five hours after it comes out of the water.

Francis (2) 16:42

And now when a fish is iced properly, how long will it stay in rigor mortis. And when does it start to come outta rigor mortis

Jon 16:48

if you don't need to handle the fish, you know, to ship it or things like that. And if once you ice the fish down, it can be in rigor mortis for, um, four or five days.

Francis (2) 16:58

Absolutely fascinating.

16:59

And

Jon 17:00

that's, it's counterintuitive, but that's when the fish would be you know, extraordinary is if you could keep it in rigor, mortis without you know, without handling it. Uh, and just, and then as soon as it starts to relax, eat it. Right. At that point,

Francis (2) 17:13

when we come back from the news, we're gonna talk with John Rowley about another, another topic of mochi as an expert. We're gonna talk about oysters and wine. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, today. Our guest is John Rowley. John is a very important, uh, fish and food guy. We're currently talking with him about. Uh, we were talking in the last segment about the salmon fishery that he basically established the. fresh fishery for Copper River Salmon, which is the most sought after salmon in the world. We get some at our restaurants every year, and we throw a little party when we do. you're also very into oysters, correct?

Jon 17:41

Yes, oysters and, uh, I do a lot of work with oysters,

Francis (2) 17:45

Well, you started the Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Festival. What's that all about?

Jon 17:49

Well, it Pacific Coast is the oyster wine competition. And, and what happened? I do, uh, consulting in the, restaurant business and I was doing a lot of work with getting restaurants, started with oysters, uh, some years ago. And, and I was finding myself recommending French wines, you know, chais and mus, Sade, you know, to go with oysters and these oyster bars we were setting up.

Francis (2) 18:07

Fair recommendations.

Jon 18:09

I started. Look. Yeah, they're good, but. I, I started looking up and down on the west coast at all the, you know, the, the wine industry here and it's, and it's pretty substantial. And I said, geez, we have to have some you know, wines that go with oysters, but

Mark (2) 18:19

I bet you were right.

Jon 18:20

And but the only way to find out what they are,'cause we don't have that, you know, that that long tradition of you know. Certain wines being identified with oysters is that we had to eat a lot of oysters and drink a lot of wine, so,

Francis (2) 18:33

oh, you poor fella.

Jon 18:34

So we set up this competition to find out, uh, which wine's made on the west coast go best with the oysters. And it's, uh, you know, it's kind of a month long ordeal

Francis (2) 18:43

now who's, who judges this stuff.

Jon 18:45

Well, uh, I have, uh, a group of, of preliminary judges here in Seattle. There's about, uh, you know, we have, uh, some, somewhere around 160 wines entered every year. And we have five judges that go through every, every wine with, uh, with an oyster and narrow it down to 30 and then to 20. And then we have panels in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle of about 12 judges each and they're writers and restaurant people. And, people, like that. It's partly a marketing, marketing deal, but, but we get a good, uh, a good sampling and it's, uh, and we come up with 10 equal winners. There, there aren't many wines that go with oysters, you know?

Francis (2) 19:23

Well, especially new, especially new world wines. There aren't a lot of new world wines that go well with oysters.

Jon 19:27

Yeah. Even, uh. Well, there's, there's probably more wines per bottle of wine in, in Europe that go with oysters than there are

Mark (2) 19:34

There's certain mineral characteristic in my wines that I like to go with my oysters.

Jon 19:38

Yeah, definitely that. And then, uh, I like something that's dry crisp and then it has a, a clean. Finish to it. When you eat oysters, you take them, you know, uh, one after another, you know you have an oyster and then sort it down and then. Have a sip of wine and then go to the next one. So, I don't like to have any lingering after tastes when I go to the next,

Francis (2) 19:58

but you want, you want something really profitable.

Mark (2) 19:59

I, I generally eat my oysters one after another. It's

Francis (2) 20:02

one

Mark (2) 20:02

after

Francis (2) 20:02

another and after another and after another

Mark (2) 20:04

exactly dozen or two at a time. I

Francis (2) 20:06

have a, I have a, you know, there's a sauce. There's a sauce called the classic, one of the classic accompaniments with oysters on the hash shell is, uh, Mette sauce, right? Which is, uh, red wine vinegar, red wine shallots, um, black pepper, and, uh. We, we used to throw a party every year. Mark and I, we would, we belong to this lunch club, and every year we'd have a barbecue. We'd go out to lunch 11 months of the year. And then in August we'd have a barbecue and, uh, somebody would invariably show up with a box of oysters and a shucker. And I remember, I remember one, one year we had a friend of ours opening the oysters on the, on my back porch. And this guy's actually now an instructor at CIA. And, uh, he was opening the oysters and he had a little bit of Mette, but it was a very hot day and he kept sweating into the ettes. And I said, you know, the sweat Mette, I'll leave on the side. I'll just have, I'll have my, I'll have mine plain, although I'm sure it's lovely with the oysters, but, uh, yeah,

Mark (2) 20:54

certain added a certain brininess to the oyster that I didn't

Francis (2) 20:56

have have

Mark (2) 20:56

prior to that.

Francis (2) 20:57

No, John. You're in the restaurant side as well as the production side where oysters on the half shell are in. American culture has really changed. I mean, you have real oyster enthusiasts today on the east and the west coast, but in the seventies that wasn't the case. Most oysters were either fried or put in a can or, or served relatively

Mark (2) 21:14

new development

Francis (2) 21:15

or served with cocktail sauce. What? Give us the take on what's happened in American cuisine with raw oysters. Oysters on the half shell specific varieties of oysters.

Jon 21:23

Well, I think, uh, what's happening is, you know, oysters used to be a huge thing in this country, back a hundred years, 150 to a hundred, years ago. I mean, it's a huge thing.'cause they were widely available and they were inexpensive and. As soon as the railroads uh, started reaching out across the land, they carried the oysters and they were everywhere in the country. You know, oysters were oyster restaurants and oyster oysters on the menu were, was the most common food almost.

Francis (2) 21:48

Mm-hmm.

Jon 21:48

and then they went away for, a number of of reasons about, you know, right after the prohibition and then we entered into what I refer to as the American Oyster Dark Ages, Uhhuh. And, and, and that lasted until you know, kind of the early eighties.

Mark (2) 22:03

What was the cause of the Dark Ages? Let's, why don't we talk a little bit about

Jon 22:05

that? Well, I, the reason oysters went out of our culture back then was I think a combination of, we had the prohibition. Uh, oyster houses were very convivial, uh, places, and they had, uh. Beverages were part of the experience. And then when the prohibition came a lot of those big grand oyster houses, uh,

Francis (2) 22:26

they couldn't make it selling juice with their oysters.

Jon 22:28

No.

Francis (2) 22:29

Yeah.

Mark (2) 22:29

I, I

Jon 22:29

think

Mark (2) 22:30

perhaps that's why I like oysters so well.

Francis (2) 22:31

Yeah, exactly.

Jon 22:31

Cider didn't work and you know, like Chicago was a huge, uh, oyster city back before the prohibition. Then after the prohibition. A lot of those, uh, oyster houses shut down.

Francis (2) 22:41

Do you know what they say? And I, I remember, uh, reading it that the oyster, you know, the, the way that human beings work is, uh, and they say, you know, the, the Native Americans who lived on Manhattan Island were huge. There were, there were piles, there were mountains of oyster shells.'cause they used to love to eat the oysters. all of all species look to gain calories and nutrition from food more than they have to expend in order to get that. The oyster is one of those few things that for early man in particular, it took more energy to get an oyster than you got from the oyster calorically speaking. And so it's really just about taste, and I think that's really a, fascinating thing about the character of the oyster.

Jon 23:19

Well, actually, I read in Mark Lansky's book, he, he said that there was not much nutritional value of the oyster, but I, I, I disagree vehemently with that. There, the oyster is actually a very nutritionist food about, the only thing they do don't have is fat. Mm-hmm. But they have uh, they're just full of minerals and, uh, a very good source of protein and lots of vitamins. And they're just they're just a very, uh, almost a perfect, food.

Mark (2) 23:45

Well just want, as long as we're talking about Lansky in his book. One of the things that I, that I wanted to touch on was, the fact that most oysters are very similar except for the waters from which they come, and you're a big proponent of, of making sure those waterways stay as clean and, and as clear as they possibly can.

Jon 24:04

Very important. And that's one thing we have out, out here. We have a political climate you know, out, out here that that is facilitates the kind of, regulations that it takes, you know, to keep the, keep the waters clean.

Mark (2) 24:16

Well, without pristine waters, you won't have pristine oysters.

Francis (2) 24:18

Well, but hold on a second. Not only do we do, we have to protect our waters because if we're eating those oysters that we have to protect the food that we eat.'cause oysters certainly are filters and they concentrate, uh, a lot of whatever bad things are in the water. But also, um. Oysters work to clean up areas of water. Right. I mean, they're, they're, they're huge filters, right?

Jon 24:37

They do.

Francis (2) 24:37

How does that work? How does it, how does seeding an area like in the Puget Sound, I know that the Olympia are a, famous oyster that are from Puget Sound. How do oysters work to clean up a water.

Jon 24:48

they go through, uh, 50, 60 gallons of, of water a day. And so they're, taking, you know, a lot of food out of the water. So what happens when you have a lot of fertilizers and things like that going into the water? More than you know, when you get more nutrients in the water than, than the, Local ecology is, is used to then you can get overloaded and, you got too much algae in there and it blocks of sunlight and, things start dying on the bottom and that, that sort of thing. So, uh, if you have a lot of shellfish in the water filter feeding and it helps, uh, you know, it just helps keep the system healthy and that they're very beneficial. The more malice you can get in a, in a bay you know, the better. Better everything. Better off everything is,

Francis (2) 25:27

It's funny, one of the things that I, that I love about the oyster is that it's definitely a raw oyster. On the half shell is a totally a love it or hated proposition. I mean, the people who love raw oysters like I do. I mean, there's a place called Blue Ribbon in Manhattan that to me, still has the best oysters in New York. They're open till 4:00 AM I can be there from, from leaving my restaurant to Blue Ribbon. I can be at the bar with a beer in my hand and oysters in front of me in 37 minutes.

Mark (2) 25:50

Part of the reason they have the best oysters in New York though, is'cause you can get one at three 30 in the morning.

Francis (2) 25:55

But that's my own personal, uh, my own, my personal formula is that the oysters do take taste better later in the day. Uh, and but the other thing is when you look at whoever had the first oyster,'cause if you look at it, it's really not appealing. And whoever decided to, to, to eat one. I think that oysters and beer also go so well together.'cause to get your first oyster, you should have a couple of beers before you attack the thing so it becomes a little more palatable.

Jon 26:18

Well, the beer, beer is very, uh, to my oyster wine judges. Uh, that's after they do their, uh, wine judging. Everybody wants a.

Francis (2) 26:25

Uh, you know, I and, and some

Jon 26:26

more oysters.

Francis (2) 26:27

I, I completely agree, and I wanna be invited to be a judge of the next competition. We're gonna talk more in just a moment with John Rowley about oysters, and we're also gonna talk to him. He's the dean of Dirt, and we'll be talking about dirt in just a moment. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, We're talking today with John Rowley. We've been telling about salmon and oysters, which are two subjects on which he is quite knowledgeable and quite an expert. But recently your attention, John has turned to, composting to dirt, to where things come from to well, manure. But what, let's talk about you've been called the Dean of Dirt. Why is dirt so important?

Jon 26:57

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know where you found that, but on

Francis (2) 27:00

the web, sorry. I can check it out. Google yourself. See, because

Jon 27:03

dirt is not, uh, that's not such a good word. How about the dirt? Is what you find out in the. Playground. How

Francis (2) 27:10

about, how about the master of mulch

Jon 27:11

soil?

Francis (2) 27:12

Soil

Jon 27:13

stuff? Yeah. You, mulch and you compost. Then you get humus. And when you got, humus, then you got good soil, they grow flavorful. Tomatoes.

Francis (2) 27:22

So how did you get involved in in, and what do you, what do you advocate? I, I read somewhere that, uh, and you can tell me if this is true or disabuse me of my misinformation, that for your most recent wedding that Julius Child sent you as a, a wedding present. A banana peel.

Jon 27:35

Yeah. Well, we, we sent invitation store a wedding. It was a compost wedding. we had a wedding in the community garden where I was the site coordinator and we. My wife and I met on a compost and mulch forum, actually

Francis (2) 27:47

that's, uh,

Jon 27:48

it's

Francis (2) 27:48

kind of kinky, I guess,

Jon 27:50

on the internet. So we invited our guests instead of, uh, presents to send us, uh, ingredients for this compost we were gonna make as part of our wedding vows, so we got about two cubic yards of very thoughtfully selected. Garbage that people sent us. Like Julia Child sent us a, a banana peel and Sheila Luin sent us her dryer lint and so forth.

Mark (2) 28:09

Well, it's very personal.

Jon 28:13

50 pounds of fresh buffalo manure from friend in Colorado.

Mark (2) 28:16

Very nice of

Jon 28:17

that. On and on and on. You know,

Mark (2) 28:18

can you, can you get in trouble for ship for shipping? That I can't imagine that.

Jon 28:22

Uh, well, the, the FedEx and UPS guys, they were very amused. They wanted to know what we got every day.

Mark (2) 28:28

Interesting.

Francis (2) 28:29

You know, I, I, I have you, the one thing about the, you give somebody a gift like that, you know, they can't return it.

Mark (2) 28:34

You know, when I was a kid. My, and

Francis (2) 28:36

they can't throw it away. It's already been thrown away.

Mark (2) 28:39

Uh, my dad had a little farm in upstate New York, in Liberty, New York, and it was, you know, a nice spread of property, but we farmed about an acre of it. And what one of the things that, it was very important to that little. Garden, we'll call it.'cause it was less than an acre even, uh, was the compost pile and, you know, it was the late seventies, early eighties. And I, I guess my dad was kind of a, in, in front of the curve or behind the curve, depending on from where you look at it. You know, as far as the, the. Early, people farming, he was behind the curve. But as far as people today, he was ahead of the curve. And, but we composted in that compost pile and obviously we did all those things that you need to do to a compost pile as far as rotating it and narrating it. And then we used that in the garden. And I will tell you that, that some of the foods we got from that garden. We're the most satisfying tastiest foods that you've ever gotten. Now, some of that I'm sure is because when you wait three years for a piece of asparagus, you, you have a greater appreciation for it. But at the same time, I mean, I can even tell you that the potatoes that came outta the ground, you know, white potatoes coming outta the ground had more flavor to them.

Jon 29:46

Oh, ab, absolutely. It, it's miracle and, and magic, you know what, what compost does in the garden. Or organic matter that things, you know, the, the secret of the whole business is just letting stuff, uh, rotten going back to the earth. And it is what drives the system and, and what the reason why. A lot of this agricultural this industrial agriculture, the food that's, uh, grown that way with fertilizers and pesticides and whatnot, is that, uh, depleted the organic matter and, and, uh, a lot, a lot of that food just doesn't have, just doesn't have flavor anymore. It's, uh,

Francis (2) 30:19

well, you know, I mean, and that's just the point. It's the same thing and, and we, we see it most severely in wine making, which is why you see almost all the wine makers have abandoned this sort of industrial agribusiness kind of way of doing business because it the food is not as flavorful. Eventually you wind up with, you know, hydroponic tomatoes are beautiful, but they don't taste like anything. You know, I

Jon 30:36

use a,

Mark (2) 30:37

they taste like hydra.

Francis (2) 30:38

Yeah.

Jon 30:38

I use a, a refractometer, to, measure, uh, the bricks of, tomatoes and carrots and

Mark (2) 30:45

measuring the sugar levels in

Jon 30:46

everything because how much, uh, you know, the bricks levels in these, in the plants tells you how successful the plant.

Francis (2) 30:52

And do you find that stuff that's grown with organic compost? Normal compost gives you a better quality of.

Jon 30:58

Yeah, I did a very, um, you know, a good experiment in this. I have 130 gardeners in this, uh, garden where I was the community garden where I was the site coordinator there. And so we, we had a bricks log in, the tool shed and people, uh, would come in and, and, and they had a refractometer there and they would measure the bricks and they'd entered in this log,

Mark (2) 31:15

So I guess you just, uh, take'em out to the tool shed and whip'em with the bricks log then. Huh?

Francis (2) 31:20

Anyway, John, we have to leave it there. I want to thank you for taking the time to be on the restaurant guys with us. You've been great.

Jon 31:25

Thanks for having me.

Mark (2) 31:26

Thanks John.

Francis (2) 31:26

We'll be back in just a moment talking more about, I don't know exactly what, but it'll be fun. We to the restaurant guys, I think it was very interesting to talk about composting. It's not exactly the most appealing topic to talk about on a food show. But

Mark (2) 32:07

it's an important part of the, the whole thing. And that's what we talk about here at the restaurant. Guys. We talk about the whole thing

Francis (2) 32:13

and you can talk about, uh, and you can have at home. A compost pile in your backyard if you have a backyard. That I have a number of friends who are gardeners who use a home compost pile. And look, it's not about just that, that's a great way to keep some mass out of our landfills, but it's a, it's a way to make your tomato taste better because that that kind of rich soil really. Makes a difference on the plants that you grow.

Mark (2) 32:36

You know, one of the things John was talking about at the, at the very end of the last segment is he's, he's talking about using a spectrometer which measures the, the sugar levels in fruits and vegetables, and using that spectrometer in order to, to measure the difference between his composted fruits and vegetables. And non composted fruits and vegetables. And one of the things he found is that that bricks level, that sugar content went way up as he used composted materials to fertilize.

Francis (2) 33:02

Well, and, and that just makes total sense. You know, there, there, uh, there was a writer who wrote about, the sort of fascination with you know, animal shows and animals from far places and strange animals. And he said something along the lines of, you know, if you wanna see, a bunch of strange stuff, get a microscope, go to a hobby shop, get yourself in inexpensive microscope, and you can even hook'em up, up to your computer now. And, uh. Take. If you have a compost pile and you have good, healthy soil, take a teaspoon full of the, of the of the rich soil from your own backyard and you'll see a bunch of different stuff up there, some of which doesn't have names yet and that sort of micro flora and microfauna that. Is much better than having a sterile environment from spraying a chemical on, on a field or on your, your tomato garden and killing everything that's

33:48

on.

Mark (2) 33:48

Well, that's, and that's the idea of, of a lot of the pesticides and, and things that we use out there and fertilizers that we use out there. The idea is to kill everything in the soil and then use these manufactured products. Uh, we don't believe that's the best way to do it.

Francis (2) 34:00

And when you talk about, people talk about fixing nitrogen, for example, in the soil, the reason that a sustained, you know, system of life, of living things in the soil keeps nitrogen in there all the time, is it slowly keeps putting nitrogen in the soil. If you spray a nitrogen fertilizer on your soil, the next drain washes it away. And plants use those things a little bit at a time to make the great food that we love to eat. Hey, we have to leave you there. Hope you've enjoyed the hour. I'm Francis Shot.

Mark (2) 34:23

And I'm Mark Pascal.

Francis (2) 34:24

We are the restaurant guys, central Jersey 1450 times 12 noon.