EP001 - Introduction
Introducing the Okayest Cook Podcast: Our Journey from Field to Table
In the debut episode of the Okayest Cook Podcast, host Chris Whonsetler, joined by co-hosts Andy Heiser, Colton Heiniger, and Cory Cole, introduce their new culinary venture as part of the Okayest Network. The hosts discuss their different backgrounds, shared passion for food, and the podcast's mission to explore cooking, hunting, and food sourcing. They emphasize the importance of education, the hunter-gatherer mindset, fitness and nutrition, and the spiritual practice of commensality. Join the crew as they seek to elevate their 'okay' cooking skills, share heirloom recipes, and create a community where everyone grows together.
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CHRIS: Welcome to the Okayest Cook Podcast. At the time of this recording, we are the newest addition to the Okayest Podcast Network, part of the Okayest Hunter, Podcast crew. We're joining up with a lot of really solid podcasts. Super thrilled to be in the landscape, with this class of individuals. I am your host, Chris Whonsetler.
I am joined by my co-hosts here and they are ranked by their likeliness to overcook a steak.
ANDY: Oh my God, you better be careful.
CHRIS: We have Andy Heiser.
ANDY: Oh my God.
CHRIS: Colton Heiniger and Cory Cole. I don't,
I.
COREY: Why do I have a feeling?
CHRIS: I'm joking. I am joking. We are all on equal playing field here. When it comes to the kitchen, we are all just, okay.
And that's why we're doing this podcast. We're here to learn. We're here to grow, we're here to share experiences. We all love to eat. We all love to hang out in the kitchen. We all love to explore and just. Try new things, try new dishes figure out this whole thing out. Turns out when you're an adult, eating involves cooking. It does. So like we have to do this ourselves. Yeah. So here we are, we're challenging ourselves. And again, we're gonna share these experiences and adventures with all of you. Definitely encourage and almost require you all to comment back your thoughts on what we're talking about here.
Help us grow. Tell us some of your success points and your failures as well. That's how we all grow. As a crew and, eventually, someday we might. Not be just okays cooks. We might be great cooks at some point, but until then, here we are. Yeah. So in this inaugural episode, we are gonna break down who the okays cook is.
Basically. Who are we? And I'm gonna talk about, we are gonna talk about what we stand for as okay, as cooks. So what are our four pillars that build the Okas Cook? Podcast. So I'm Chris Juan Setler. I am a local photographer here in Indiana and I do all commercial work. So it's essentially marketing, advertising, photography.
I don't really do weddings, portraits that sort, or weddings and senior portraits, that sort of stuff. But I love. Photographing food. I love connecting with chefs. I love collaboration between stylist and kitchen and myself. Plus anything you can eat or drink when you're done working with it is a pretty big bonus.
So again I love food. And it's been a dream of mine to photograph a cookbook for ages and it just, for whatever reason, it just hasn't happened yet. I love cooking as well, but I'm a photographer. I didn't go to culinary school. I probably will never have time to go to culinary school.
But I love eating good food. I love knowing where my food comes from which is what started my adventure down the hunting. Rabbit hole that it has become. So I know exactly where my food's coming from. I know that I am literally the only one that has handled, this venison or this duck.
It's like this meal in front of me. Like I did this with my own hands. But I'm just okay in the kitchen. I, like I said, I never foresee myself having the time or the energy or the capacity to go to culinary school, to like, to take this to the next level. And that's okay. Like I'm good with where I'm at and it's, birth to this podcast, for lack of a better words.
Initially I reached out to the Okayest Hunter guys and I pitched to them this cookbook. I was like, guys let's do a cookbook. Like I think your. Network of all your okays hunters.
Could really benefit from this. Like okays cook cookbook like, and I was thinking oh, like old school, like our church potlucks would always get together and every year the church would always put out like a photo album of all the members and then they would put out a member cookbook.
And it would just be this like hodgepodge, like some like really cool dishes, but some oh, you put beans in the SpaghettiOs. Alright, let's put it in the cookbook. So just this really weird mix of just heirloom recipes with just weird recipes and I just thought hey, like that'd be an awesome book to do with this.
Okays Hunter community and the guys O at Okays Hunter were like, that's a cool idea. What if you did a podcast and initially I was like no thanks. I'm a photographer. I don't talk real good. Pronunciation's not really my thing. So I just wrote it off, but then I stewed on it and I was like what if I kept thinking and then back up a little bit like my buddies and I started this.
Tradition we've done a couple times now and hopefully continues for quite some time. We did a wild game dinner where we all just had, a decent year in the woods. And again, we all like to cook. We all feel like we're pretty okay at cooking. So we all cooked up a dish, brought it over, potluck style, and we had this meal.
And lo and behold, it like became this like crazy friend group that I never really expected it to become. And all of a sudden we got this. Hunter's anonymous text chain going on, and we're like teenage girls, like up at all hours of the night, like texting theories and strategies and recipes and and here we are.
These are the dudes that I've chosen to sit down with and talk food and grow together. So who are these gentlemen? Colton, tell us who you are. Tell us what you do and what brings you to the table.
COLTON: Hey I am a husband, father of now a 10 month old in two days. So that leaves my time to hunt and cook minimal at this point.
But been there. Yeah. Chris is actually the one that got me into hunting a couple years ago, and I've always loved to cook. I've always loved,
CHRIS: I'm gonna interject. I was not the one that got you into hunting. You touched base with Ryan because you were hunting already and Ryan knew that I was hunting and he's you need to talk to Chris.
COLTON: Correction. I was,
CHRIS: I encouraged gold.
COLTON: Tried to hunt. I encouraged dabbling with hunting. Okay, there you go. And failing.
CHRIS: We'll take it.
COLTON: And Chris really opened my eyes to the kind of greater world of hunting too. Not just deer. Let's say Chris introduced me to waterfowl amongst some other things.
I'm sorry. But yeah, my wife does not love the amount of money that I've spent on hunting over the years.
ANDY: Yeah.
COLTON: But I am an accountant by trade, so I am very detailed. Which kind of spiraled into a love of cooking over the years, which is. Something I've always loved to do. So hunting was that next step to try to procure the food that I'm cooking and later spiraled into now gardening and my wife getting into bread making.
Yes. So yeah, that's a little bit about me. Love to cook, love to hunt, love to hang out with these guys and try good food together. And, looking forward to doing this podcast.
CHRIS: Yes. And you have chickens now quite the Yes, we do have
COLTON: chickens. Now.
CHRIS: What?
COLTON: Turning into your regular urban homesteaders. You're
CHRIS: on your way, friend.
That's perfect. I'm calling the HOA Andy,
ANDY: what do you got? Yeah I'm Andy Heiser and I actually I've known Chris a long time actually through our business circles. I am a marketer by trade. I own my own marketing agency where I work with a lot of small businesses on helping them compete.
I'm a big believer in good people with good products and services, being able to compete. So I try to find ways to do that and, I came into always, loved cooking in the kitchen. But like she came into hunting and this is where Chris and our relationship went to the next level outside of occasionally using him for photography.
I really got in during the, during COVID actually got really into a popular hunting television show. That has a phenomenal podcast as well. I've probably heard it, probably heard of it. And really fell in love with this idea of better understanding and having a better relationship of where my food came from.
And, really identifying a skill that I could develop and further develop. And I first rule of CrossFit is to always talk about CrossFit. And so I CrossFit and I really like a couple of the weight lifting movements that require a lot of finesse a along with strength. And that's where another friend of mine.
Really turned me onto the idea of compound bows and how a lot of those same principles apply. Went and shot my first bow at a archery dealership and fell in love and then started getting into hunting and really just dove into it head first and got reeled into wild game. And that's where I would say my cooking really took off because I think that one of my big things I love to do on this podcast specifically is.
A in cooking our hunting brethren can maybe grow a little bit from salt and pepper and putting everything into chili. And at the same time people who have never had wild game or said they've had wild game and said that they didn't like it, it was too gamey. A lot of that has to do with preparation and people not understanding how to treat the ingredients.
So what I'm really looking forward to with this podcast is diving into some of, a little bit of both of that, I wouldn't say that I'm great in the kitchen, just like we named the podcast suggests. I feel like I'm okay in the kitchen. But again, through some of our pillars that we're gonna cover here in a little bit, I really found a way to grow as a and as a individual.
And really not only provide great food for me and my myself and my family, but also. Just really take some of these dishes that are basic down to the next level.
COREY: Yeah. Corey? Yeah, so I'm I'm Corey Cole and I am a serial entrepreneur by. By heart.
ANDY: You are.
COREY: I have multiple businesses and I get the opportunity to speak and things like that.
And it's just fun. I just enjoy it. And Chris and I went to the same college. We did not meet there, but your wife
CHRIS: did. We meet,
COREY: we probably didn't.
CHRIS: Business again. Yeah. Yeah. It was, I remember now it was small, like little local makers.
COREY: Yeah. Deal noble. Yeah. But we actually, that's, were connected because Stephanie, your wife was my wife Jess's RA at iu, and so I was only a Indians for a year.
I couldn't handle the rules. So I
CHRIS: that's funny.
COREY: I've been hunting most of my life. From the time I was 15, so I was adopted at 15 and the family that adopted me lived on 180 acres that bordered the Hoosier National Forest. And, he, they had been hunting their whole lives and just got into it.
And I, they took this city boy from downtown Indianapolis and put me in the woods and I fell in love and, so I love and I would say like the rest of the guys, I'm an okay cook. I have no training. I have ran a couple kitchens out of force and need because I, somebody needed to step up and I don't know how to say no.
I'm terrible at saying no. So
CHRIS: a learned skill.
COREY: Yeah. And I haven't learned yet. So I just got into it, and I'm fortunate enough, I have two daughters, that are getting into it with me. My oldest daughter got to come out on her first hunt this year. I
CHRIS: love that so
COREY: much. And she hunts with a big boy gun.
She's got a CBA 44. Single shot savage. I'm super excited about it. I'm super excited about this podcast and just, I'm probably the least rule follower here at the table. I like to look at what it's supposed to look like in the picture, and then I just. And got them.
CHRIS: Sako does not use cookbooks, is what I'm hearing.
COREY: I have some,
CHRIS: they're good ideas.
COREY: They're good ideas. Rarely get
CHRIS: opened.
COREY: I will say that I will look at the recipe and then based off what I have in my kitchen, I just make it work. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's I feel like it's any other art
CHRIS: form, and cooking is an art form. A hundred percent. There are rules.
Air quotes, for those of you not looking on YouTube there are definitely rules, but once you learn and respect those rules, like they can be broken, they can be twisted, they can be. Cheated or adjusted. So
ANDY: I like to think it was more like a framework almost. There's a lot like we'll find with cooking is that, there's certain things that just they make sense to have as an equation, if you will.
But what's super cool about, if you look at the hardcore culinary side of what we are dabbling with in this hobby of cooking. Yeah. Like what's, where a lot of those, really cool new ideas come from is the breaking of a lot of these conceptions and rules.
But at the same time, it, once you understand them, it allows you to make yourself an okay cook.
CHRIS: Yep, for sure. Yeah. Yep. And eventually elevate you from that. Okay. Status too.
ANDY: Yeah, totally. Hey,
CHRIS: I'm pretty
ANDY: good, pretty good at this.
CHRIS: We might have to change the name of this podcast after a season or two.
Pretty good cook with a pretty good cooks. Now. We absolutely love all the. All the reasons we're at the table. I'm married to a woman who, who doesn't necessarily love the idea of wild game. I've got three, three young children who I'm trying to teach them where good food comes from and it's not necessarily the meat at the grocery store.
I don't know if that cow ever saw the light of day. I don't know if that chicken. Lived where it could spread its wings. And those details matter to me. Yes, I still buy meat from the store. I still buy chicken that I don't know where it came from. But if I had to pick between that chicken at the grocery store or a duck, that I went to the field and I saw it.
And I shot and I brought it home and I processed it. That duck, like literally was only touched by me. Like I would pick that duck over that chicken any day of the week.
ANDY: And when you approached me about doing this, one of my things that I think is because I also am married to a similar a lovely lady, both of our, all of our wives, they're fantastic.
Parts of our team, they're just not
CHRIS: the same as us.
ANDY: They're just not the same as, and that's very good. They are but I feel like in general in this country, we have a really weird understanding of our, like our relationship with food is a little messed up currently.
And
CHRIS: people don't like seeing where their food comes from.
ANDY: And that and that for me, this is the thing that my wife and I specifically have a huge different differing effect on our stance on this is that. I actually, because I know exactly where that meat came from, I feel that much better about eating it.
Absolutely. Where I have more questions and anxiety and question, just I question more about what happened to the, like the meat that we get from the store. Where did that come from? Because my wife often says that she doesn't like to eat the venison because she's seen that dear face.
Yeah I look at it a lot of a different way. I know exactly how that animal's handled from the day that it was harvested all the way through to where it was brown in my pan on my stove. And that part of it, I think, is a relationship with our food that we need to get back to. And again, like the beautiful thing about this country and where we live is that we have the ability to have food at the grocery store and where we can get that.
And that's a beautiful thing. I don't, no one here is. Questioning that being a great thing. I think it's a great opportunity for us to talk through some different ideas and maybe take a look at our relationship with our food and Absolutely. Question whether or not, we really feel good about where it came from.
COREY: Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. I would say I, one thing I have for you, Andy. When we did our first wild game dinner night, you had not hunted yet. Have you had you our very first one?
ANDY: No, I didn't.
COREY: You hadn't gone, you.
ANDY: I didn't, you brought me,
COREY: he brought, you know what he, I was going, didn't bring like wild
ANDY: food.
No,
COREY: he brought, he
CHRIS: goes, I was with you when I gild my first deer.
COREY: He brought
CHRIS: beer. That's true.
COREY: He
ANDY: brought beer. Beer. I brought beer and I brought beer tonight. I totally forgot about that. Okay.
COREY: Yeah. He had, he
ANDY: hadn't done
COREY: his hunt.
ANDY: That's fantastic. I love that. At that point. That's actually a great point 'cause that, you know why I talked a little bit about my, another hunting buddy of mine that got me into shooting a compound bow.
His name is Michael Perry and a phenomenal friend. He. Had, he and I had talked a bunch, and at that point I had been shooting, I had learned, I self-taught my, YouTube's a powerful thing. Please watch us on YouTube. But also that's where I learned how to shoot a bow. And then I went to go shoot a bow with this friend of mine who grew up like Corey had grown up hunting and had been doing it for years.
And I had worked really hard to be very good at this. And when I met you guys, I had all. Whole lot of ideals about what I was gonna do and how it was gonna go down. And it's, yeah it's a good point. Yeah. No, at the point, I hadn't know it yet.
COREY: Yeah. It's, I think it's pretty cool with the four of us doing this.
We all come from different experiences.
ANDY: Oh yeah.
COREY: And honestly, different commitment levels of time to get out, Colton's got a baby, and that's a lot, on his plate and he's starting a new business. That's a lot on his plate. Whereas our, your kids are out. Mine
ANDY: mine's 21.
COREY: Mine, mine are going with me
ANDY: right
COREY: now. I can't wait for those days. You'll be there soon. So we all have different experiences and different time commitment to it, and we're just okay at it. I didn't get to go waterfowl this year. I just didn't have time.
So I, I think that's a really great way to bring us all together Yeah. From
CHRIS: different
COREY: experiences.
CHRIS: The table does that. Yeah. Sharing meals. And, with that, we're gonna segue into, what are the pillars that will support this podcast? What what are our core values?
And those pillars are in no particular order. The hunter gatherer mindset. Education, fitness and commonality, which we will break those down here in just a second. I'm gonna have the guys take each pillar. Colton, tell us about education here. What what is education in the Okayest Cook Podcast mean?
COLTON: Yeah, so again, in no particular order, like Chris said, I think to all of us here, education for this podcast just means to do a little more research and be willing to learn about a, what we're putting into our bodies. This is about cooking, so educating ourselves on what makes a good dish, how we can take, the okay or average dishes to the next level.
And then what can we learn? What can we take from other people? Part of education is just getting opinions from those around you, which as Corey mentioned earlier, it's, we all have pretty different backgrounds, which I think has lended itself to just making us a pretty tight-knit group of friends that all have very differing perspectives that compliment each other in a good way.
CHRIS: Absolutely. Yeah. And just the way. We all view cooking. For us, hunting is a part of that cooking. Yeah. The not, let's not rule out like. Educating ourselves on the particular species we're chasing, or like Andy said, like learning to, to use a weapon.
To take animals safely and
ANDY: well. Yeah. That, and then what we talked a little bit about in, in addition to knowing where a food comes from, there's so many of our hunting brethren that, that talk about, or even people who've had other, forms of wild game that say they don't taste good.
Yeah. They don't like it. It's I I question how is it prepared or do you know how to handle that meat? I don't know how many people have told me that, goose is gross and I'm like so many, you've never had goose prepared properly. So many people. You've
COREY: never had Chris's goose pastrami.
ANDY: Oh yeah. You've never had goose pastrami. 'cause I'll tell you what, buddy, you'll, that you'll change your mind. And and a lot of that comes to education, right? Like how do you, what are you doing to get away from just salt and pepper as a hunter who's made chili his whole life? What are you doing from, understanding?
How do we prepare these things? So maybe. Foods that are fun to maybe sometimes catch from a hunting perspective
CHRIS: Yeah.
ANDY: Are actually delicious in a lot of ways. Yeah.
CHRIS: Corey, break down this the hunter gatherer mindset for us a little bit here.
COREY: Yeah. This goes back as, as far as time goes, like we haven't always had grocery stores and.
There's tons of countries that still don't have access to grocery stores and they're still very much a lot of
COLTON: neighborhoods.
COREY: A lot of neighborhoods. Even in Indianapolis. Yeah, man, Andy we have some food deserts, man.
But we're fortunate that we do, but we're also fortunate that we have access to land that we can go and not just hunt.
My kids love mushroom hunting. We love go foraging and for berries and anything like that. And it just gets down to. The very core of knowing where everything comes from. When you're gardening and it doesn't have to be fancy. I live in a neighborhood, I did a, my entire garden outside of my pumpkins.
Were in containers and 55 gallon drums that I cut in half and made containers out of. It, you can be creative. I grew strawberries out of a garden or out of a gutter that was screwed to the side of my house.
And so like you can be creative with it, and then when you get down and you get to be a part of processing your own.
Food and your own meat. I had the coolest experience ever last year of getting to, to spend 12 hours with my daughter as she stayed out there with me that whole time processing that deer. Now granted. All of my dear from last year just say, dear and the date on it so I know what nothing is. But she was a part of the process.
And then it was super cool at one o'clock in the morning when we got done and we cooked ourselves a little piece of that from all the hard work of processing that deer all day. And so we created memories. And core memories that hopefully she will never forget. I know.
I'll never forget. Because that was absolutely in the blind with me. When we took that deer and it was awesome. I think just,
CHRIS: Just the fact that she chose to spend that time with you instead of. It wasn't forced being on
COREY: YouTube
CHRIS: or No,
COREY: No. My little one didn't.
Dude, my little one was watching Bluey in the Blind. She's still little enough. She doesn't care too much. But, it's just that field to table, and I love that, Chris, you've used that moniker for several years now, from field to table and I love that.
And we've gotten to, not only have we had our own dinners, but we went out and we were part of a dinner in our community and got to meet other local
Hunters and gatherers.
And I, just. This idea of just being able to get out and do it yourself.
CHRIS: Yes.
COREY: We need to get back to that and we can go down a whole nother road of, I don't wanna say masculinity, but just being able to rely on yourself.
'cause it's not about masculinity skill. We have tons of female friends. It's a skill. Feel like it's a skill. Self-reliance.
ANDY: And it's one of those things where just understanding that the value of that skill Yeah. Is, the. We have a lot of luxuries in this world that we get access to.
And that's really, yeah, and that's, and this is not to poo on those things, but to have a better relationship with that and to have a right relationship with that, just to have a level of respect for the things that you're eating and things that nourish your body. As I know my pillar is fitness and nutrition I'm naturally gonna go that direction with that.
But that's, that goes to the mental side of things too.
COREY: Yep. Oh, absolutely. No, I think that's a perfect segue into, to the pillar, for you for, yeah,
ANDY: I guess Joe for Nutrition. Nutrition. As again, first rule of CrossFit is to talk about CrossFit. I got into CrossFit a number of years ago.
I competed in it at a local level. It was a lot of fun. It's a huge part of my life. Still to this day. It's a huge part of my training for hunting. I it's something that. Going and understanding how. Your body functions when you have the proper things. And I gotta go back to some of the luxuries that we have, we've gotten in this, in, in this world that we live in today, have come with some other things that aren't so great.
Some processed items that go into our food today because of shelf life reasons. Yeah. And people's lack of understanding of what is good for them because of propaganda. And I'm, I'm in marketing, so I'm a steward for some of this propaganda as well. Part of that and what I really wanna focus on from the pillar of fitness and nutrition is to understand the power that is involved with the food that you put in.
Like at the end of the day, fuel your food is your fuel. That is what's fueling you. There's two things that make you stronger, and that's food and rest. So your sleep and what you're eating are the two things that are complete controllables that really help people. Dial into nutrition and live a longer life.
And not everyone has to be a CrossFit athlete. Not everyone has to be a professional athlete, but to understand that the food that you're eating is important. So important to understand that the. That when you're, when you choose to prep your food accordingly, that you are you're setting yourself up for a lot of success.
Now, again, some people don't have the luxury of doing that. So if you're in a position where you have the luxury of prepping your food if you're in the luxury of going able to go to a grocery store and getting what you need to be healthy, that's not the case for a lot of people. And, but the other, when it isn't.
And when you're in a food desert and those types of scenarios, there's still understandings that you can have about how food works and how it works in your body that you can learn from that and make your choices and decisions from there. I really look at this opportunity to talk over you guys about we're gonna talk a lot about red.
Speeds. We're gonna talk a lot about doing a lot of the things, but my angle from it and that pillar is more like butter's awesome, makes things taste good. But at the same time, agreed looking at it from a standpoint that if you're starting with raw really good ingredients, naturally you're just gonna have a better, healthier life.
So it's really the pillar that I'm focusing on.
CHRIS: Yeah. You hit the nail in the head, like definitely understanding what we are eating. Like when you open up that. Snickers bar or whatever, it's like yeah. What's in this? That's what's fueling me? What am I getting addicted to?
And I, I feel like with what, like what are we getting addicted to when we go out there? It's the adventure. It's learning this new landscape where it's learning this new environment where we are going to find these critters, right? That, that fuels my fire, like essentially.
ANDY: Just everything from, Colton's eggs and from the chicken that he gets, the proteins that you're getting from some of these animals are just, they're magic. Yeah. Compared to the stuff that you get at the store or the stuff you get from the fast food. It's
CHRIS: literally a hundred percent natural.
ANDY: And natural. Not natural, not
CHRIS: organic.
ANDY: Yeah.
CHRIS: Like we can talk about that later. Wild animals are not organic.
ANDY: Right.
CHRIS: But. They're not force fed anything. They're not like, they don't have hormones or steroids or like they live vol, healthy lives. This deer is strong because it's literally fighting for its life every single day.
Right.
ANDY: And I don't know how many times I've had a conversation with someone who's had something that, where I've prepped, we've prepped field food properly and they've had that wild game for the first time or what have you, and they're like, man, I just, I feel so good. I'm like that's because you're getting is a, you're getting a straight hit.
Of the protein's? No. Red dye number 40. Yeah. There's no other junk in that. And that's what you're, that's what you're experiencing.
COLTON: Yeah. You'd be surprised. Next time you buy meat from the store, look at the ingredients and most processed meats from the store have additives that you would not believe.
It
ANDY: won't Just say cow friends. I promise you
COLTON: my favorite, as Chris mentioned, is the red dye and salmon. Oh,
ANDY: it's the most frustrating thing about being in the Midwest is being able to find fish. That isn't Atlantic, that's not a thing.
CHRIS: Well, honestly, too, it's like when you buy meat from the store, like when, like how long has that meat been in that package?
Where did it start? Who's touched this meat? They pump in that thing to make it look better. Yeah. How does it
ANDY: stay red for so long?
Because if you process any media ever in your life, you'll know that like within hours. Natural meat will change.
CHRIS: Yeah. Yeah. Oxygen touches the blood and it changes.
That's what does? It's chemical react changes oxidizes. It turns a little bit of an off color. It's not pretty, but it's natural. But I tell you, that's what
COREY: happens. There is something when you're looking at specifically that deer
And you can see the muscle mass
On that thing and see how lean that meat is.
It's amazing.
It really is, it's truly a pouting
ANDY: power that's being transferred from you Yes. From them to you. Yeah. When you're, when you think of it that way. Yeah. And then you think about what was this? Did this chicken like to you? Did they ever see the light of day?
Seriously, was there life a chicken or was there life of meat? Plant, like a crop if you will, for a lack of a better word. Yeah.
COLTON: And even the breakdown of the content within the meat is generally speaking, so much healthier. Coming from wild game. Because it's wild.
They're not trying to fatten it up. A lot of times there's less fat content. There's more flavor
ANDY: And don't get me wrong there, there's gr there are great butcher shops that do a great job of sourcing some phenomenal meat. So don't think that this is a, we're not lumping everybody. No, we're not lumping everybody in here.
In fact, there's some pheno. Even today, like I, I'm processing some meat coming up and like I got some of the additive for that from a local butcher shop, but I know where they get their meat because they're not afraid to have that conversation. So my point is just have the conversation.
CHRIS: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yes. I'll take it away here from say your, say, go ahead and say your favorite word. There's not really good segue into my favorite word here. This word. I'll be honest, I don't know if I'm pronouncing it properly. Keep in mind love it, mind. Keep it. I love it.
Keep in mind I'm a photographer and communication is not verbal communication is not my strong suit visual communication is I basically just searched the internet. I was like, I need a word that has this meaning. What is that word? And the word I found was Commensality. It is. Miriam Webster defines this as the practice of eating together.
So it's literally. Physically sitting down at a table and eating at the same place at the same time. Or in my mind, like I take it a step further and it's almost by, by using somebody's recipe, we've got a cookbook right here that was written, shoot, it's old. I don't even know. It's LL, it's the LL Bean Game and Fish Cookbook.
Probably published in the fifties or sixties, or I
COREY: now,
CHRIS: Cory's gonna look it up. Using a recipe from this book, like through space and time, I am like literally connecting with the author of said recipe.
So we are like sitting together like in spirit, like eating this meal, sharing this meal. And that's what I love so much about eating is like it's the physical connection.
Air quotes, it's a spiritual connection with somebody else.
Unless you're truly living like the survivor alone mentality where I'm living off the land, I'm doing this all by myself. I'm like literally connected to nobody. Yes. There are some
Avenues where like you could be solely by yourself. Most of the recipes you are using, either came from your family, came from your friends, came from a loved one, came from an unknown author that you've never met, but you're still like practicing commensality together, like you're sitting down.
Sharing this meal. And it's connecting us and I love that connection.
COLTON: Which is how we all became friends as well.
COREY: Yeah,
CHRIS: absolutely. Yeah. At the dinner table.
COLTON: Yeah.
COREY: So the book was copyrighted in 1983. 83, okay. It's newer than I thought, but hang on though. They're pulling stuff. From 1949.
ANDY: Okay.
COREY: Yes.
ANDY: And I go one step further. Both of I'm in the business of making businesses better. Yes. And so there is no shortage of. Of, of proof of breaking bread with people being a very powerful thing. Yes. And that's a biblical term. So we all know that's something from, it's a pretty popular book.
It's a pretty popular book. But at the same time the relationships you build over eating with someone is a real thing outside of going to battle with people. Tell me another way that people tend to. Connect with others that they don't know
CHRIS: it. It literally gives us life. It gives us energy and it's something we never think about.
COREY: You can even go another place with that and say, when, war time, what do they do? To come to peace. They break bread.
ANDY: Yeah.
COREY: It can level.
ANDY: Something everyone needs, no matter what your views are on anything at all, y'all gotta eat. Everyone's gotta eat.
CHRIS: What is it? Food, shelter, water.
ANDY: The three things. And if you want, that's something that all of us do. It's one of the things I think about a lot when you think about when you look at the moon, you look at the sun, there's the same sun and same moon that everybody on this planet looks at. Yeah. And every single one of us also has to eat true.
And if you do that with people, there's no way to not make a connection.
COREY: I think I really wish and I wish I, I could definitely do better myself, but I wish America in general would look more at Asian food. And time together. It is a process like you, you're not gonna go and eat real quick. In Asian culture,
ANDY: it's a.
COREY: It's a time of just being together, and you can spend an hour and a half.
ANDY: See? Now I would argue that's not even an Asian culture thing. It's a, that's a popular cultural thing that used to be in our culture.
COREY: But we live in such a fast pace. I want it right now, and I gotta go.
ANDY: Yeah. And look, I came from a family. So my, my, my son's 21 years old. He's a, one of the coolest human beings I'll ever meet in my entire life. But that kid ate a different meal for every single meal of his entire life than we ate. Like we did not eat the same thing, and oftentimes not at the same time.
CHRIS: Yep.
ANDY: But still the fact of producing food for him and, serving him. To do that. It brings you closer, no matter how you Oh, yeah. How you slice that. So I think that we spent some time in Italy in October, and it was a lot of fun, but even their meals are just ungodly long compared to us in America.
But I'm not gonna lie I can vividly remember the relationships and the conversations we had at that table. And this was with people that I knew and loved, and people that I didn't know I just met for the first time. Absolutely.
COREY: Because it's an experience.
ANDY: Yeah.
CHRIS: Yeah. Yeah. So next time you're out eating a meal, I challenge you guys to think about where did this meal come from?
If it's fast food, somebody made that for you. If it's a sit down restaurant, somebody still made that for you. If you're following a recipe, like somebody designed that recipe for you.
ANDY: For you,
CHRIS: so look at those names, figure out who's cooking your food. Look them in the eye, say thank you, say I appreciate you, like you're feeding me, you're giving me life.
And again you're prac practicing this funny word, this commensality they're you're connected. It's you can't argue that. They're literally serving you like old times. What do the servants do? They cook all the food
Take that with a grain of salt.
So in the future. Look for new cool, hopefully cool fresh ideas. Definitely a lot of talk about food. Definitely a lot of opinions about food.
We would love to build a community with you. I'm looking at YouTube, Instagram. Obviously hear wherever you listen to your podcast, we would love to hear from you.
So please, reach out with your opinions and thoughts on whatever topic we may be discussing. Please. If you've got heirloom recipes that you would love to share. Yeah. We would love to consume that. We would love to sit down at the table with you through space in time and, share a meal with you.
And this heirloom recipe that you may have. Share that with us. Ultimately, we're here for. A good time. We just, we love chit chatting, we love talking about food. We love hanging out. So please, yeah. Join the conversation. Hang out with us. And yeah, tell us what brings you joy.
ANDY: Yeah. In the kitchen. I think one of the coolest things about this network that we're on is that we're celebrating our fact that this is for us to enjoy. And while, today we really like the importance of this episode, we're to really dive into like why we want to do this.
We all hire jovial gentlemen and have a lot of fun. Yes. Yeah. So we, again, none of us take ourselves that seriously at this. That's the reason why we called it what we called it. Also with the amazing marketing opportunity that it is lies in there too. But at the same time, we are in a really good spot, guys, where we can like really celebrate and learn.
And I'm really excited about doing this with you boys, so let's be fun for
CHRIS: sure. Yeah.
COREY: Yeah. I think just because my head lives in the clouds. As an entrepreneur, I can't help it. How cool would it be if at some point we figure out an heirloom recipe that we share and then we'd schedule a date that through space and time.
Ooh, I see our listeners all make that the same time. Oh yeah, for sure. Maybe we do a, maybe we do a live feed or a live episode or something.
CHRIS: Yeah.
COREY: Cook with us.
CHRIS: Eat with
COREY: us. Cook with us and break bread. Yeah,
CHRIS: yeah, for sure. I'd love to break bread with all of you. Yeah. So where can you guys, where can we all be found?
Okay. Essentially, like if you want to be contacted directly, if Colton, do you wanna go first? If a listener wants to connect with us. We've all got okays cook.com emails. So definitely feel free to reach out to, Colton at Okays Cook. Andy, Cory, Chris. And mine is Cory.
C-O-R-E-Y-E-Y. Don't forget to you
ANDY: go. If you don't, if you leave out the e he won't get it.
CHRIS: No. Also the generic hello@okascook.com will also work. So outside of the Okas Cook, like where can we find you guys like Instagram, social media? What do you guys prefer? Colton, sorry. He's the, you can
COLTON: find me in person.
I currently am not on any social media.
What's
CHRIS: funny about that? Which I respect,
ANDY: which Yeah,
COREY: He's the youngest in the group.
ANDY: Oh yeah. He is the youngest in the group. And
COREY: he doesn't
ANDY: have social media. He doesn't,
COREY: all of us old guys on social
ANDY: media. Absolutely no.
CHRIS: If you call, if you all. If you wanna meet Colton, come to Indiana.
Come to Indiana, shoot me an email.
ANDY: Shoot an email, buy him coffee. He'll be there. Buy him coffee, he'll be there. Yeah. I'm at Andheiser, so it's A-N-D-H-E-I-S-E-R at on Instagram's usually probably the best way to find me. You can probably find me on Facebook too. But I, again, I am in marketing.
I I enjoy CrossFit. I enjoy hunting. I enjoy cooking and I like trucks and boats. So that's what you're gonna get on that handle, otherwise, okay. In the pup. In the pup, yeah. Okayest Cook is probably the best way to get us, but yeah. And at Anheuser.
COREY: Mine is. So I have a couple different pages, but I, my hunting side is the Rugged Hunter.
One of my companies is the rugged company. So everything, all my socials is always the rugged something. So the Rugged Hunter, my personal is the Rugged man. You can also find me at corey corey r cole.com.
CHRIS: There it's. And I'm Chris. Again, you knew that probably from the field to table is my Instagram.
I'm also at WhonPhoto, W-H-O-N-P-H-O-T-O for my commercial photography. But from field to table is basically the outdoor branch of my business, you'll see a lot of food, a lot of hunting adventures, and absolutely search, okays, cook on basically all the platforms. I don't really do TikTok personally, but I'm sure one of the four of us will download it and put some okays cook content onto that.
Cole's gonna take care of that one, one.
ANDY: Sit holding
CHRIS: on that one. But yeah, search, okays, cook just about anywhere and I can almost guarantee we'll pop up. Yep. So we'd love to hear from you guys. Definitely. If you don't mind, give us a review. We would love to see some stars. All the stars that will help us out.
Lots of stars. All the stars. Share us with friends. Any of your okays. Cook people people that might need to get better at cooking or people who just enjoy banter about food. Would love to. And learning
new
COREY: recipes.
CHRIS: Learning new recipes. Yeah. Sharing old recipes. Yeah. All of the above. Shares.
Pass around and join us next week when we come at you with brand new episode. Thank you.
