Ep075 - BHA Rendezvous Wild Game Cookoff with Jordan Linger
In this episode of the Okayest Cook Podcast, host Chris Whonsetler chats with guest Jordan Linger about their experiences at the BHA Rendezvous, an annual event for Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. Jordan shares insights on the Wild Game Cookoff, discussing his North Carolina-inspired dishes and the cooking techniques he used with jet boil stoves. The conversation covers a variety of topics including hunting stories, the challenges of cooking for competitions, and future outdoor adventures. Listeners also get tips on participating in the Wild Game Cookoff, as well as Jordan’s favorite recipes like dove biscuits and gravy.
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Chris: All right. Welcome back to the Okayest Cook Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Whonsetler, and I'm coming at you from the office today. The kids have officially started school. I got a kindergartner and two twins, two twins, one, one set of twins that just started preschool. The sickness is about, it is all around the house.
I've kinda got a scratchy throat. To be honest, it's kinda, it's given me some good radio voice I'm thinking. So we'll have to write, you'll have to write in to let me know if that is the case or if it just sounds hacky and smoky. But anyways, I am not alone today. I have got a cool guest, Mr.
Jordan Linger. How are you today, Jordan?
Jordan: Good, Chris, yourself. Thanks for having me on.
Chris: Yeah. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. We're both East Coast guys. It's early, but not crazy early, right?
Jordan: No, not at all. I'm usually a 5:30 AM kind of person.
Chris: I'm still sipping on coffee, but you're over in the tap room.
Jordan: Yep.
Chris: Jordan, we met at BHA Rendezvous, and I'm super, super excited to dive into to some of the questions I had about. How we met in the whole situation and event revolving around that. But first, have you eaten anything cool lately? Anything, any notable meals?
Jordan: So we recently the North Carolina chapter of back country hunters and Anglers.
We recently had our third annual conservation banquet. Ooh. And it was in Charlotte, North Carolina this year. And our. One of our board members, he heads up the food and he is a. He's a cook and not by trade, but just, a home chef. Sure. Ordeal. And whenever he comes in, whenever he starts cooking for the big group the night before for everybody that's helping out and whatnot.
I always look forward to this because he makes a really good chili verde. Oh, yes. And he used he actually used wild hog this time.
Chris: Okay.
Jordan: And it's always something that I'll look forward to when when he's cooking a meal for all of us. Yeah.
Chris: That's awesome. Do you guys have hogs down there?
I'm assuming?
Jordan: Yes, we do.
Chris: Okay. Yeah. So probably fresh local pig.
Jordan: Yep. Yep. All right. So that was, and that hog, which the rest of it we actually ended up serving at the banquet. That was, that was harvested by one of our board members, Jamie Cameron. Outside of Asheville, North Carolina.
Chris: Alright. Yeah. Super cool. Yeah, we to this day no pigs that I'm aware of here in Indiana, but we one of our correspondents Andy Heiser, started the podcast with him. He has since moved to Texas. So he's my pig connection and one of these days, Andy is gonna bring me some pigs. Andy, you are gonna bring me some pig or I need to invite myself down to, or you just go down there and
Jordan: get some yourself?
Chris: I, yeah. Yeah. That's what I need to invite myself down to his house. And apparently you don't
Jordan: even need a license for that down there.
Chris: Yeah, I apparently it's just, it's free game, like no season. Year round. You feel like having some pig, you just go ask a farmer,
Jordan: right?
Chris: Yes. Yes. To be honest on that pig note I had a really cool bacon meal just the other day.
Okay. And I would say my notable meal of the week is some bacon pancakes that I made. I posted it over on my, from field to table Instagram account, that's that the outdoor side of my business. All lives there on, from the field to table. And I connected with old major market. They're a a butcher meat processing company here in town.
They do a lot of brats and sausages and bacon specifically. But the episode I recorded with the roll for sandwich episode we had some leftover bacon from that, so I just threw it on my cast iron griddle from lodge and poured some pancake bacon batter straight on top of that bacon and just, oh my gosh, it just.
Cooked straight into it and doused it with some fresh local maple syrup and it hit the spot. Just that sweet savory combo was absolutely everything I needed that day and sad. It's all gone. I'm
Jordan: a big lodge fan myself too.
Chris: Yeah,
Jordan: so I've got quite a, quite, quite a few cast iron pieces, old and new.
Chris: Nice. Do you have their griddle?
Jordan: So I have their. Not the actual griddle. I got one of the, Okay. One of the circular ones. Yeah.
Chris: Yeah. And I love the grid, like a use, I
Jordan: use the, go ahead, sorry.
Chris: Yeah. I was saying I love it because it's just, it's a big long, it's probably, two, two foot long, maybe about a foot wide.
And it's just perfect. Yeah. For making pancakes or smash burgers. I've had it on my gas range top. I've had it out on my smoker. It's, it struggles to fit on my gas grill. It's my gas grill's a little on the small side, so I guess I gotta upgrade. Bummer. But not just slapping that thing just about anywhere.
Campfires, yeah. Super versatile and cool. Yep.
Jordan: I have a number 12 and I use that on my Weber charcoal quite a bit. And that also my camping charcoal grill, which is a kudo traveler.
Chris: Nice.
Jordan: And I love that little thing.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I love how all the lodge stuff holds up. Yeah. Super cool. Absolutely.
We are not here to talk about lodge unless you used Lodge. We'll talk about that here in a sec. Do you wanna give listeners a little bio on, on basically who you are, what you do, and then you could end your story around rendezvous and we will
Jordan: Sure.
Chris: Pick it up from there.
Jordan: Yeah. I was born in Maryland raised in North Carolina. Grew up mainly around a fishing family. Never really hunted or anything like that until I moved to Ohio. When I was a sophomore in high school, my my dad took a job with a small liberal arts college called Kenyon.
And that was about 15 minutes out. The biggest town was Mount Vernon, Ohio, which is where I graduated high school. I've got some people in there, and that's where I started hunting. It's rural Ohio, so pretty much everybody hunts and predominantly everybody, everybody bow hunted.
So when I started in hunting, it was either shotgun or bo pretty much for deer and everything else. So there was no rifles, but I guess that's changed now a little bit. They have the they have the straight wall rule now.
Chris: Okay.
Jordan: But moved back to North Carolina about
15 years ago.
Chris: Alright.
Jordan: And then moved back to Charlotte, North Carolina and just continued doing all the outdoorsy stuff and whatnot. And then became a member found BHA in summer of 2017. And then ironically they. They initiated a North Carolina chapter in 2018. Oh, really?
Okay. And so I became pretty involved with them. And now I sit on the board as as vice chair. And was able to go to my first rendezvous and my first time to Montana this past summer in June.
Chris: Oh, okay.
Jordan: And got a, was able to to do the wild game Cookoff, which was a lot of fun. And then that's where we met.
Chris: That is where we met. Yes, sir. I, to be honest, I didn't realize the chapters were that young. You said it, it started the North Carolina chapter started in 2018.
Jordan: Yeah, so they're, they started the motions in 2017, which is right when I moved to Winston-Salem, which is where I reside now.
Chris: Okay.
I guess I guess I need to look into some of the BHA history and I guess I just assumed they were older than that.
Jordan: Yeah. If you think about it is it, in the BHA story is it didn't start until 2004
Chris: Really? Okay. I need to dig. I need to dig. Yep. Yes. We bring, we'll get the historian, the BHA historian on here to chat. Chat about the history. We're here to talk about the food.
That would be Hal
Jordan: Herring.
Chris: Halal. Yeah. Let's get him on. But yeah, if we can make a food related Yeah. We'll get him on here. If not, we'll have him on. Okay. Hunter. Yeah. Yeah. We are here to talk about the food and that's awesome. That Rendezvous was your first this year. Yes. 'cause it was my first rendezvous.
Yeah. And I've been talking about it like crazy here on the podcast, but it's all been centered around the field to table dinner, which was exquisite. Listeners, if you're not sick of. Hearing me say this, if you have not gone to the field to table dinner, you need to go. Super cool experience. I was. I
Jordan: was lucky enough to go to that.
Chris: Yes, dude. So much fun. It was so much fun. You didn't have to cook. It was so much fun. You just got like the full on guest experience, which is super cool.
Jordan: And it, I don't know about you, but I felt like I was slightly overdressed and I was hot.
Chris: I was not overdressed. No, I was in behind the scenes mostly.
Yeah. With the kitchen staff, watching that prep and photographing that prep and. I'm just living that up. Oh, awesome. But I snuck up every now and again Yeah. To snap some shots up there and, got some cool food delivery shots, cow delivering plates and whatnot, and, Oh, that's cool.
Just trying to catch the general atmosphere up there, which is super fun. But again, I was there for the food. Like I wanted to see all the chefs in action cooking and whatnot. But you, it was
Jordan: really cool to see the to see all the different blends of the food and different styles, because they had.
They had three different chefs.
Chris: Oh, more than that. Yeah. They had Jeff, Ricky, Jamie Morgan, or Megan, I'm sorry. I forget. Morgan or Megan, and then justin Townsend, Tom Healy. Gosh. Gloria. Gloria and her dad. I forget her dad. Yeah, it's, there's a bunch and I'm probably forgetting one or two. Yeah.
There were a ton of Adam Steel. He was cooking there. Yeah. So basically every dish, like every appetizer, had a chef. Every main course had a chef. The pallet cleansers had a chef. So yeah, basically like each dish was its own chef, which is super fun. Super cool. Absolutely loved that comradery, that collaboration.
Yeah. Worked out really well. But you are not a chef. Is that correct? Would you label yourself a chef?
Jordan: No, not by any means. I have a, I do have a a pretty extensive restaurant and bar background. Okay. I have had just about every single job in the restaurant industry except for being an owner.
Okay. And I was not gonna do that. But yeah I do, I did have some experience in that realm.
Chris: Nice. I have done dangerously little research on the wild game, Cookoff. Mostly because I can ask, so I can ask you those questions. And the listeners don't have to dig in and look into it, but the prerequisites for doing the wild game Cookoff, if I'm not mistaken you have to be not a professional chef.
Is that correct?
Jordan: Correct.
Chris: Okay.
Jordan: Or a, an active per active professional shift or, okay. Something along those lines.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So basically if you, if your job title is chef you, you cannot participate in the Cookoff. So they're looking for just this is for
Jordan: amateurs.
Chris: Amateurs, yeah. They're looking for real people making real dishes.
And they were top tier though, like you said. They, like all of you at that tent, knew exactly what you were doing. It was. Dynamite.
Jordan: It was, I was very impressed with everybody. Yes. Very impressed. It was funny because I think it was the Florida guys, when they got done, I went over to the wash station to to clean my knife.
And anybody that's been in the restaurant industry is you're walking behind somebody with a sharp knife and just say behind, and the guy turned around and looked at me and was like. Is it, is there a cheater amongst our MITs? I'm like, Nope nope. Not even close. Not even close.
Chris: That's funny.
Yeah. He knows the lingo just as much as you do. So
Jordan: Exactly.
Chris: The cheating goes going, you just add it
Jordan: yourself, buddy.
Chris: Yes. Yes. What is the application process look like for that? Let's say we wanted to go next year, represent Indiana. What do we have to do to contribute to that wild game?
Cookoff? Did you have to submit a
Jordan: portfolio or there's no there's no prerequisites or anything like that at all. It's like they just want to, they want to get people the. Registration was capped at 12 teams. Sure. And it's two person, two people per team per state or like a FI had a table.
Chris: Which was super
Jordan: cool.
Chris: I loved what they did. Like they basically took the whole nation and just kinda plopped it down.
Jordan: Yeah. I was really impressed with that. It was like all over the place.
Chris: Yeah.
Jordan: But yeah no prerequisites just get there and.
Make sure you have all your stuff ready to go and you have to supply your own ingredients and proteins and all that stuff. Sure. With which some of the stuff, if it's small or whatever like that, you can, run down to the local grocery store and pick it up right when you get there.
Especially if it's all the way across the country, like in Montana. Yeah. Which we had to go pick up some last minute things.
Chris: Yeah. Flying with meats. Yeah, that's, a lot, I know a lot of listeners have done that. A lot of listeners have not. Was that tricky? I assuming you just wanna fly with it frozen and try and thaw it out the night before.
Jordan: Yep. So basically what I did was I. The morning that I left, I basically had a soft cooler. Sure. And I threw it threw my proteins in there, like just frozen, and then threw some extra ice packs and then threw it in my check bag to get it on the plane. And, just hope for the best and make sure it doesn't burst or anything like that.
So yeah, it's,
Chris: it's pretty cold down there under the plane. So yeah, the risk of falling out, it's pretty minimal, I would say, but yeah, you're right. If it ruptures and spills everywhere, and that's not ideal. But I think Andy has talked about flying with meat, and I think he said as long as like you can fly with frozen things, but you can't fly with liquid.
It's like any ice you bring, right? It just has to be contained on a plane.
Jordan: Okay. So it, and I mean everything, if you check it, you're pretty much good. Yeah. But your carry on is where a lot of the liquids and stuff can Oh, okay. Can come into play and you can get into trouble.
Chris: Yeah.
Jordan: Because like I, I was flying with my own personal, like knives. Yeah. And so I threw 'em in my check bag and everything like that. And I'm just sitting there waiting for somebody to call me up. I was like, what's all this? But but that didn't happen, thankfully. Yeah. And everything got there safe. There was no delays.
Chris: Nice.
Jordan: So we were good there. Yeah.
Chris: Yeah. I flew with my bench mates as well. Equally nervous, but I was just nervous that they would actually get there. Like I just I didn't get someone like some TSA sneaky TSA or agent, like sneaking off with 'em or misplacing the bag and,
Jordan: oh yeah.
Chris: That was my concern.
Jordan: It was like, and I actually had a buddy he he is a knife maker in Boone, North Carolina, and he actually made me a chef knife. Oh, nice. For this event two. And and so I, put it in my knife roll and there was a kit deck sheath on it, like a kind of like slip sheath and threw it in my check bag.
And I'm just sitting there thinking, I was like, man, I hope nothing happens to that thing. Seriously. Yeah. Yeah, that's, nothing was way too nice.
Chris: Yes. Awesome. On site. I know they, they provided you with some jet boils, right? So you had to do all your cooking on the jet boil. Yes, but the pans and stuff like you have, did you have to bring all that as well?
Like all the cooking?
Jordan: So what they do is tools, so I should say this past year I can't speak for the previous years, but they provided a jet boil, Genesis two which are select each team, they're awesome, which I want one go bad, which. Yeah. And each team got given one, so you got to take it home.
You just got arm wrestle on who actually keeps it. Yeah. I was lucky where there was not much not much fighting because my partner, she actually already had one of the single ones. Okay. And she was like, you take that, and then Gerber actually donated the outdoor cooking knives that Awesome.
That were used. It was like a nice little set. Came in a, yeah, came in a case that doubled as like a cutting board and
Chris: super
Jordan: slick, like a little dish and stuff like that. So she took those and then I took the jet boil, which I desperately needed a new camp stove anyway, so it worked out perfectly.
Chris: Super cool. Absolutely love it. Also back to prerequisites for the events all the food is it required that it's all like local to your state? Because I know a lot of people had, they definitely said Hey, this is my state, here's, an invasive species from the state.
Whether it's plant or
Jordan: protein, I don't know. I don't know if it has to say. Say somebody from South Carolina could, cook something that was elk.
Chris: Yeah.
Jordan: But they harvested it in Colorado or Montana or something like that. Like that would be fine. Okay. I think. But it's definitely a good idea to, to highlight what's in your state.
Chris: Yeah. The judges really appreciated that. Personal spin, so from this stage, like they, they want to see what your state's all about, representing, at least in the dish. As an Indiana resident, like I might go and say Hey here's a tenderloin that I made outta whitetail.
So they want they want an Indiana spin. They like to see an Indiana spin. I guess we'll have to look at the regulations. Yeah. And see if it's an absolute requirement. But I would say every state did that. Like everything, everyone I heard at least was like, Hey. We're from Minnesota.
This is our dish. It's all min, Minnesota. So it was super fun. Yeah, I loved hearing everything, but on that note, I was bouncing around doing unofficial candid photography. I'm just interested in the cooking process, so I had to see what everybody was doing and how they were doing it, and I got to sneakily try most of the dishes.
With the exception of two and your dish, unfortunately, is one that I did not get to sample make the cut that super. I like someone else, like the tables right next to you were doing something crazy and the judges were here and then while you were doing like the actual final prep, back up, so how they do this thing, you said it's limited to 12 tables, 12 states basically, and Yep. You're basically in this huge semicircle. And they start over here on the right side. So that chef starts and what is it like 10 maybe ten five or 10 minute increments. So table one starts, let's say 10 minutes later, table two starts.
Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. So they'll start with table one. And you draw numbers.
Chris: Yeah.
Jordan: You draw numbers for what table? And they start at one. So I think we drew,
Chris: you're at least halfway through,
Jordan: maybe three quarters, seven or eight or something like that. And yeah. Which was good because you think you're not gonna get nervous, but you're gonna get nervous and you're gonna get, you're gonna get a little bit of the jitters.
Chris: Yeah.
Unfortunately, yeah. Like I said, by the time that you actually got started cooking. Table one's already like they're done, like the judges have tasted their food. Table two, table three's getting judged. Tables 4, 5, 6 are currently in the middle of prepping and here you are just starting, right?
So you almost need four or five cameras capturing the whole event. Like just trying. If you're gonna truly document correctly the whole event and not miss a whole lot, I would agree. Honestly, each table could use its own photographer. So next year at BHA? Yeah. We're gonna hire a big old crew.
We're gonna hire a big old crew to capture this thing properly. I'm sure they could get some volunteers or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. But thankful you, you did get your hands on some photos. I don't know if they're yours or just from other people watching what you're doing, but super, super pretty.
I love, yeah. What I'm seeing here, and again I'm super bummed that I missed that process. I did get the judges tasting your dish, which is super fun. But outside of that I missed a lot of the prep. And we will flash the, some of the shots here on, on the screen, but do you wanna walk us through.
What's going on? What'd you make?
Jordan: So after a lot of it, and Brian Berg, our cha, our chapter coordinator, he was the one that was egging me to do the wild game. Cookoff. Yeah. And none of the other people from North Carolina that were that were there really had the.
Had the time 'cause they had some meetings and stuff like that. And and I agreed to doing it be just because I wanted the whole rendezvous, BHA rendezvous experience.
Chris: Yeah.
Jordan: And so Brian Berg talked me into it and I was thinking to myself, I was like, who am I going to get to be my partner?
And I was like, this close to just flying solo.
Chris: Oh, really?
Jordan: And then which would've been super stressful, hunter, right? Oh lord. I
Chris: couldn't imagine. I can't imagine doing it with just one other person, but yeah, doing it solo. Oh my gosh.
Jordan: Hunter, one of our board members his wife Savannah, she was going with as well, and I knew that she did a lot of cooking.
And so I asked her to join and everything like that. And and she was 100% game Nice. So I was good there. I had an extra set of hands. We did a couple trial runs because, and at first I was gonna do, I was gonna do something with a quick smoke. Just from being North Carolina, it was like lots of smoked food.
Lots of smoked fish, barbecue, there's a whole debate on North Carolina barbecue and just barbecue across the nation. And, north Carolina's always thrown in that mix, but we weren't able to, we weren't able to smoke anything because you had to use the jet boil.
Chris: Ah. I guess you could throw some wood
Jordan: chips under there. And so what we decided on was that we used two main proteins one which being venison which I harvested during muzzle loader season the year before. And then we used catfish as the second protein. Which we, which was caught on jug lines from two of our other board members Phillip and Zach.
Oh, awesome. So if you've never been jugging for Catfish, it's, I haven't, it's a lot of fun. It's quite a quite a unique fun way to catch catfish. But we did a couple trial run trial runs, and we decided on doing a kind of a play on a poboy sandwich.
Chris: Nice.
Jordan: So we had homemade sourdough, which was made by hunter Owen.
Then the catfish which was harvested by our board members, and then my venison. And what we ended up doing. Was we seared the backstrap tried to cut it as thin as possible, and then we fried the catfish with just like we basically dredged it in like cornmeal. It got a real nice crispy crunch.
So that's what we settled on after a couple different styles of frying, then we toasted the sourdough we put a smear of homemade pimento cheese and then basically made a sandwich and cut, cut it in in quarter's best way possible for the judges. And then we topped it with we gave each judge a bottle of North Carolina state soda, which was cheer wine.
Chris: What you got a photo here of some orange stuff with, it looks like whipped cream. I know there's,
Jordan: oh yes. That was the
Chris: like whipped cheese.
Jordan: That, that was our side. North Carolina is well known for for two crops. One being tobacco and one being sweet potatoes. So we did mashed sweet potatoes with with a homemade honey butter.
Chris: All right. You didn't throw any tobacco in there for some extra flavor, a little extra flavor? No.
Jordan: I tried to find some as a garnish, but I couldn't,
Chris: I'll be honest. Adam Steel has some tobacco syrup and I don't know if it's I don't know if it's for vaping or if it's like for like legit, for like lattes and stuff, but it like, it had all that, like that sweet.
Sugar flavor, but it also had that tobacco flavor kick, which was super, super unique and strange. You might reach out to him Yeah. For next year. If you Okay. If you jump into this again and Yeah. You gotta like fully embrace the North Carolina vibe there with some tobacco flavored latte on the side.
Jordan: Yeah, for sure. And even the corn meal that we used we, it like came from, north Carolina. Yes. The pimentos and the pimento cheese. We use local cheese. And then of course, we use Duke's Mayo.
Chris: Yes.
Jordan: So that, that's also a North Carolina staple.
Chris: Absolutely.
Yeah. One of my favorite grain producers, marsh and Mill. Is your neighbor. They're in South Carolina. Yep. But close. Close enough, right? Geography might change some of the growing process a little bit, but, yeah, so you're super awesome. That's, it's close enough. It's close enough.
Don't tell Greg that he's pretty particular over, over his his weather and water and all that but I imagine yeah, your grains would be top-notch just as well. But so yeah, so that was the dish. How, talk me through like some of the cooking process. Like how did that go?
Did you have time to, to play with the jet boil before the Cookoff, or was that.
Jordan: If you were one of, if you brand new, if you were one of the lucky ones to to start later. I wouldn't say play with it. Just check to see if it works and Okay. Everything is properly ready to go.
I will say that getting to know that. Stove was a little bit tricky. Oh
Chris: yeah. It's a new stove. Yeah, that makes sense.
Jordan: It's a new stove and it's got a lot of give when it comes to the gas controls. Okay. Because it is propane. You can actually keep on turning it and turning it it'll go higher and higher.
But yeah, it was a it was real interesting to get it dialed in like just right.
But but it worked.
Chris: Yeah,
Jordan: Are,
Chris: it's, if you listeners, if you haven't looked it up, yeah. We'll throw on a picture real quick, but it's like a legit range top, like a portal range. Top
Jordan: it, so it's a full, it's actually got some pretty cool features to where they call it the jet link.
And you can actually link up two of those together. With just this like little gas line or you could go, yeah, you can make a three or a four or whatever like that.
Chris: Yeah. I've seen like the little satellite burners Yeah. To run your little, you your portable little guy. Yep. But yeah, it's all run off.
One propane tank, like one cylinder, right?
Jordan: Yep yep.
Chris: Did, do you feel like that affected the performance as well? Like the burner closer to the cylinder? Was it getting more gas or Not at all? Is it pretty equal? Really. Okay.
Jordan: Not at all. That's super cool. I see why those g those things get used a lot and like the the van Life people and stuff like that.
Yeah. And you can buy an extra connection to hook it up to a, to a bigger propane tank.
Chris: Oh yeah. Like a five gallon.
Jordan: Yeah.
Chris: Yep.
Jordan: So you do
Chris: have that
Jordan: option.
Chris: Yeah. It makes sense. Yeah. My, my guess grill, it's got four burners all run off one tank, so Yeah. Why can't. Why can't this little system and honestly, even too Yeah, like the Coleman burners. Yeah, that makes sense. I'd say these are quite a bit more robust. Like the burning surface looks a lot bigger than your traditional Coleman. Yep. But yeah, there's. I can see, the more I think about it, I don't know why I was concerned about running two or even four if you link 'em Yeah.
Off of one cylinder. Yeah. They That's super cool.
Jordan: Yeah. And even not e I actually used it this past weekend on a camping trip, but I was able to have a regular lodge cast iron skillet on one and then a, like a pretty large Dutch oven on the other with no, oh, sick space cramping.
Nice. So that was one of the benefits of it being more of an open design. Yes. And what Jet Boil supplied is that they made when they gave you the kit. It came in a bag. So it was all compact into one bag and it came with a pot and one frying pan, which we were able to use. And for the Cookoff you're allowed to bring one extra pan or pop.
Oh,
Chris: that's it.
Jordan: Yep. And then all your cooking utensils and, all that stuff. I opted for, I personally opted for bringing my little number six lodge cast iron skillet just to get a, just to get a really good seer on the, yeah, on the backstrap.
Chris: Love it. Yeah. Now, so as, as far as the cooking goes, were you allowed to like pre-cook anything?
Could you run the back strapp through a sous beforehand, or No. Okay, so it all had to be just raw. Everything cooked there on site.
Jordan: And you have one hour,
Chris: one hour. Ooh, one hour. Yes. Oh man. Which you
Jordan: think is plenty of time, but you,
Chris: I don't, I dunno if I would think that start
Jordan: You, you start checking your watching, you're like, oh crap, I gotta get this, I've gotta get that.
I've gotta get this.
Chris: Yeah.
Jordan: So yeah your brain starts getting the best of you a little bit,
Chris: dude. Yeah. I'm a fan of all those cooking shows, but I don't know if I could actually do it myself. So we'll see. We'll see. Maybe one of these years you'll see an Indiana crew and I might be at the helm.
But you bet, like I'd be wearing all my Okay. As cook swag, like letting everyone know, okay, we're just okay at this. There you go. We'll see. Dude, that, that sounds super, super cool. What was your experience with the judges like? Like the, their feedback, did it sync up? Oh, they were all great.
You were thinking.
Jordan: They were all great. They none of them except for maybe one had heard of cheer wine.
Chris: Oh, really?
Jordan: Yeah. Which I like I said it was, is our state soda. And I actually actually don't drink. And I figured that a lot of people were pairing drinks with like alcohol.
I was like, let's get, there were a lot of cocktails. Yes. A break. So glass bottle cheer. Wine is what they got to wash it down with.
Chris: I, I think I remember hearing them compliment you on that, like saying Hey, thank you for not boozing us up even more.
Jordan: Yeah. They they were like, that was a nice little touch.
Yes, we knew what a handful of judges who some of the judges were gonna be. But we didn't know that there was gonna be, we didn't know that there was gonna be two more and they didn't really say who it was until later on. And, i've the one judge I've known this guy or know of this guy for a while, but Josh Crumpton.
And he was such a cool guy. He was awesome chatting. Yeah. I am pretty sure he is the only one that has had fried catfish before. Oh, really? Out of all the judges. And when he took that first bite of the sandwich, he looked up and he was like.
Chris: Yes.
Jordan: Just not in his head.
I was like, yep. And he's from Texas, so he's a southern guy.
Chris: Yeah. So
Jordan: he
Chris: appreciate Yeah. He's got a super cool account. Yeah. He does a ton of cooking Yeah. On his account. So look him up. Josh Crumpton. Yeah. Super, super fun guy. Yeah, the, I forget the other judge's names. There, there's the meat eater trivia.
What was his name? Yep. Is it Brody curses the curse of the creative. I recognize faces all my life, but names are in and out. Yeah. And then there was a, there's a lady, and again, I could see her name. I could see her face, but not her name. And then
Jordan: Dre and Devon they are BHA their BHA employees and Okay.
They were the ones who were running it. And then, the colonel I think is what they call him, and he is a, like a three time, like wild game Cookoff winner.
Chris: Yeah.
Jordan: He had
Chris: some experience. Yeah. He was the one that was like sitting down and like diving into the dish Yes. Drilling you with these specific questions.
Jordan: Yes.
Chris: He was awesome. He was awesome. And then, yeah Ryan from Jet Boyle was another judge
Jordan: yep.
Chris: I'd love to have him on. I
Jordan: gotta chat with him. I got to chat with him on on Friday or Saturday a little bit. Yeah. And they had a booth there, and so I was actually able to take a look at the gear before, before we were nice.
We were able to use it. I was like, all right, that's all this stuff is good to know.
Chris: See what I'm getting into here officially. Yeah. Yeah. So you knew how many people you were cooking for. Did you have enough food? Like I don't think any judges or any states ran out of food, did they?
Jordan: No.
Chris: Y'all had enough,
It wasn't like a full on meal that you're giving each judge, but it needs to be a healthy portion. Yeah.
Jordan: Yeah. Also it is they're going through 12 teams. They so they're gonna be it's a lot of food for sure. So he, hence one of the reasons why I opted for the I opted for the soda instead of booze.
Chris: Yes. Th this isn't the great British Bake off. Yeah. We don't have to booze up the judges and
Jordan: Nope, nope.
Chris: It doesn't hurt, but, you gotta be a little different. You gotta step out from the crowd and do your own thing. So yes, I think it might've literally only been you, or maybe one other booth did not offer up a cocktail, like a legit, full on.
Boozed up cocktail. So
Jordan: that may be I'm that's probably true. I would say that. Yeah, that was def that's definitely probably
Chris: true. Yeah. That was a nice touch. Yeah. So trust your gut when it comes to these things and, don't be afraid to Yeah. Do something a little unique. Be different, try and stand out.
Yeah. A little bit. So would you do this again? Was it a good experience overall and
Jordan: Yeah.
Chris: Was it
Jordan: Absolutely. I would
Chris: Totally. Again, it wasn't so stressful that you were just like, you're not too scared to stay
Jordan: away.
Chris: The stress didn't.
Jordan: Yeah, the best you get stressed, you get jittery.
But would I do it again? Absolutely. It was a lot of fun and made some really good contacts and joking around with the teams. It's all comradery at that time and that's the whole reason why I got into hunting and fishing was more of the food aspect than anything else.
A hundred percent. Yeah. And 'cause each dish had a story and Yeah. Where it came from. How it was harvested, where it was harvested, what time of year was it, what was the weather like? Were you with your kid? Were you with your best friend? Were you with your dad? That's probably the majority of the reason why I got into hunting and fishing on that aspect was the food aspect.
Chris: Yes. I love like I said, the personalization not only to, to the state, but also to the individual. Like I said, if you grew up eating catfish and drinking cheer wine. Yeah. That's like childhood staple. Yeah. Kinda and like food and smells like they have a really special way to bring you back
In a way that like nothing else does. Yep. Just to to try and sample like some core memories from other people I think is super fun. And try and just try put yourself in their shoes and, experience, different, literally different cultures and different experiences across the states.
Jordan: And seeing a lot of the other teams of. Like what they used for ingredients, what was local to them? Yeah. Like you mentioned like invasive species. How can you incorporate that into a dish? How can you Yeah. How can you cook it properly to where it's gonna taste something that's familiar to the judges?
Yeah.
Chris: Yeah the Florida guys cooking up iguanas and that's the first time I've had a iguana, and I'm not sure about the judges. I didn't hear about them, but I'm confident at least a couple of them had never had iguana before that, and it was really good.
Jordan: It. I'm sad that I didn't get to try any, because I was very curious.
I always tell my family and friends like, I'll try anything twice. So
Chris: Andrew Zaur. Yeah. You gotta keep trying it. Even twice isn't enough. Like your taste buds are always changing.
Jordan: Yep.
Chris: How it's cooked, just as well as anyone else especially with wild game, like how it cooks really matters.
So if you have it cooked, overdone, it's not gonna be good. Underdone not gonna be good. It's like there's a sweet spot. And you gotta keep trying it until you find that sweet spot. Yep. Yes. Yes. So what words of advice would you have to someone else who wants to pitch in and, maybe participate in a future wild game?
Cookoff.
Jordan: Be creative, but not so much where you're doing too much at once, where it's going to where it's gonna end up. You're not gonna finish. And use your state's advantage. Know some of the local foods, know some of the maybe even some of the historical foods.
Chris: Love that.
Jordan: I've already got a plan for next time. Yes. With that being said, but don't spoil it and don't
Chris: You gotta go to rendezvous to, to see it.
Jordan: Don't skimp on presentation. Yes. That's probably one thing that we could have done a little bit better at, but seeing some of these seeing some of these other dishes on really nice, porcelain dishes and stuff like that. It was it's an experience and it is take and definitely take it all in. It's it's gonna be fun. You're gonna find out new ways to cook stuff. You're gonna walk away with some pretty cool gear. And you're gonna get great advice. So yeah,
Chris: a hundred percent super cool, dude.
I love that. What so what's coming up next outside of. The wild game. Cookoff, you have any fun adventures planned? You get, you draw any cool tags this year?
Jordan: I know we're gonna try and do, me and some friends we're gonna, we have put in for a tundra swan tag.
Chris: Oh,
Jordan: okay. Yeah. North Carolina is one of five states.
It's either five or eight where you can hunt Tundra swan and
Chris: have you tried it before?
Jordan: Yes, it is delicious. Okay.
Chris: How does it compare to like Canada Goose is, similar enough or is it more like Crane?
Jordan: I would probably more along the lines of like crane, like the whole rib eye in the sky thing.
Chris: Okay.
Jordan: But. These birds are absolute giants. Mean I've seen the photos.
Chris: Yeah.
Jordan: Yeah. If you
Chris: like Six
Jordan: Foot Wings fan,
Chris: something like
Jordan: that. Yeah. Sea and Flight doesn't do it justice. But even the even the juveniles, they're just, they're massive. That's good. But but yeah, so we put in for that. I'm actually.
Unfortunately, I'm probably I'm a upland hunter in the Southeast, unfortunately. I've got I've got English setters that I that I have trained myself. Predominantly we go after grouse and woodcock. Woodcock being more plentiful than grouse. Around in the mountains of North Carolina.
You'll be lucky to, have maybe five flushes in a season. Okay. So you're usually putting in a lot of miles. Yeah. Going after grouse and lots of steep hills and. Mountainous terrain, so keeps you healthy. Other than that, just basically deer hunting may take a little, may take an outta state trip, but I think we're gonna be definitely gonna try and do more duck hunting this year than I have in the past.
Oh yeah. Yeah, dude. So I just, I love duck meat and yeah, I just love it. I love the fat on duck. I love the way it tastes. That's one reason why I'm hoping that we pull this tundra swan tag. 'cause it's legitimately like a steak. It's absolutely delicious.
Chris: Rendezvous 26, look for the potential tundra swan at the wild game cook,
Jordan: man, that would be something cool that I, there probably won't be any leftovers on that meal
Chris: though.
Jordan: No, probably not. And that would probably be one of those meals where you know. Keep it basic, keep it simple because you got, you really want the you really want the flavor profile of that swan to come through.
Chris: Yeah. But dude, talking about like a legit like unique protein that not every state has access to I think that could be super, super cool.
Jordan: Yeah,
Chris: if you're looking
Jordan: at North Carolina
Chris: Yeah.
Jordan: Besides North Carolina, I think with Tundra Swan it's a lot of very, like random states where you can hunt. Like I think New Jersey has a tag.
Okay.
Jordan: Yeah.
Chris: We'll have to, we'll have to dive into that. Yeah.
Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's quite fun to, to see them fly and
Chris: dude just a bigger target I think I'd be a fan of.
Jordan: Yeah.
Chris: Because I don't practice enough and the little teal and mallards aren't quite big enough Yeah. For me to hit.
Jordan: Oh and going back to ducks is the, probably the most plentiful duck in North Carolina is wood ducks. Which I love. Wood ducks.
Chris: They're, there we go.
Jordan: They're really cool.
They're beautiful. And there's
Chris: a best tasting duck I've eaten. Yeah. Has been a wood duck.
Jordan: Really?
Chris: Yeah. I think teal, in my personal opinion. Yeah. And how I cooked it. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say wood, duck, teal, mallard. Divers. Yeah. I gotta figure out how to cook the divers better, but I gotta find the divers first.
Fine. We got, we're 90% mallards up here in central Indiana. Yeah. Where I hunt specifically. Yeah.
Jordan: That's, Hey I wouldn't take that for granted.
Chris: I'm a fan. There's just some better tasting ducks out there. They're not bad for sure, but there's, yeah. Wood ducks are way better I think.
Yeah, Zach. Jordan, I don't wanna take up too much of your day here. It's, we still got a lot of it to go and it's Tuesday, so let's crack that whip and keep working so we can keep hunting. Do you do you have any final thoughts or a recipe that you wanted to share with everyone as we sign off here?
Jordan: So a lot of my friends that, that know me I'm a big fan of. What I call utilitarian dishes something that you can pretty much use any type of protein. So I'm a big fan of like creole style dishes. Yeah. One of my personal favorites a lot of people talk about the squirrel like squirrel and biscuits and gravy kind of thing.
Yes. It's I do the same thing with Dove.
Chris: Okay. Yeah. Dove biscuit and gravy.
Jordan: Yep. So do a do a gravy and a I usually try and do like a whole plucked bird. So pluck the feathers. Nice to make sure you get make sure you have that, like that skin cap a little bit to get some rendered off some render.
And then spice it up a little bit, a little bit of jalapeno make the biscuits fresh. Of course, ho Home, make 'em, they're, oh, course, yeah, they're easy. So don't go to the store and buy Pillsbury. But but yeah lots of those I'm sure you've gotten a lot of people that say is chili is their thing and whatnot.
But I'm a big fan of gumbo and, we do that a lot with a with duck as well.
Chris: Ooh, nice.
Jordan: Yep. You just gotta be careful because you might end up with some number two shot or something like that in there.
Chris: Yeah. I'm a preacher of the the metal detector and I keep blanking on the brand.
Is it Garmin? They have the carrot stick. It's about yay high. It looks like a carrot. Yeah. It's a waterproof metal detector for looking for coins. A hundred percent. You need one of those. Yeah. If you're a waterfall hunter, like it finds all the steel. Yeah, you just gotta, you gotta dive in there.
You gotta look. But a hundred percent you need a metal detector. Yeah,
Jordan: all my all my shotguns are all sub gauges, so my main gun is a 20 gauge okay. That's that's what I shoot at geese and ducks and turkeys.
Chris: Oh, geez. Yeah.
Jordan: Everything.
Chris: Yeah. But
Jordan: yeah, a little bit less shot.
Chris: But still, yeah, the steel's not fun to chew on no matter how big it is.
Jordan: Nope, nope. I've got a couple chip tea chip teeth from it too,
Chris: oh, no. Yeah. Let's run back to that that dove biscuit and gravy real quick. Are you like legit putting the whole dove on the biscuit or is that are you cooking it whole and then pulling it or how are you presenting that protein?
Jordan: Clean it, like you would normally do, and then just basically cut up the center with with some shears or like a small knife or something like that. And then almost like spatchcock. Nice. And then, you can going back to the whole cornmeal thing, like I feel like it gives it a little bit of a crisper, so thinking it's like a Kentucky fried chicken kind of thing is like in, in some cornmeal and then a, do a flash fry because they don't take long to cook.
They do not. Yeah. And then what my family typically likes is that I'll actually make sausage gravy to go with it. Yeah. Okay. Double one up. Love it. Yep. Do that, with some regular sausage, or I've done for a little bit of extra heat for some of my friends, like I've done chorizo before, done chorizo gravy, which they like a lot.
So a little bit of spice, a little bit of is what I typically go for, but it's not overwhelming by any means.
Chris: Love it. Yeah. Yeah. We did a goose leg biscuits and gravy and
Jordan: Oh, cool.
Chris: We, we did an episode on that. I forget what number it was, but run back in the queue a little bit. And but it was, so we, I pulled it so I slow-cooked the legs and pulled the gra, pulled the goose leg and it just like texturally, it was a little funny, like just, having the pulled meat versus the sausage chunks.
Was it
Jordan: super stringy?
Chris: I wouldn't say super stringy, but I think I definitely could have diced it up more.
But, and that would've helped. Next time I'll do that, but I think adding, yeah, adding in some pork sausage, some spicy pork or chorizo, that, that would be the way to go.
Yeah. Just to add a little bit more body, just like the mouth feel, just to fix that up a little bit.
Jordan: I figured with those kind of things, like adding a little bit of extra fat could probably go a long way
Chris: in that aspect. No. Yeah, no. You need a fatty gravy. It's gotta be good. Yeah. Yes.
Jordan, dude, I appreciate your time. Appreciate what you did at the Cookoff. Definitely looking forward to next year, seeing what you got coming on for us and yeah, a hundred percent. You might've talked me into maybe trying to participate next year. We'll see. We'll see.
Jordan: Do it, man.
Chris: I like, dude,
Jordan: hey, worst comes.
The worst is if they have anything cool like they did this past year is like you're walking away with a new. With a new stove or camp stove, a grill or some new knives or something like that.
Chris: Yeah. I gotta sacrifice taking the photos though, and I almost like that just as much, just again, watching all you guys do what you do and just trying to learn, trying to absorb and tough to do that when you're actually participating,
Jordan: right.
Chris: It's a different kind of, enjoy. You gotta do it once, man. You gotta do it once. I gotta do once. Okay. Okay. We'll see.
Jordan: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: 26, 27. Yeah. We'll see one of these years. And now find the right cooking partner.
Jordan: Now if you, now, if you were to do it since you being from Indiana and I used to live in Ohio, so Midwest.
Yeah. It's what would you think about doing cooking wise?
Chris: Oh, so I've already thought about that. Flipping the script here. I've already thought about that a little bit. Obviously Tenderloin comes top of mind. So maybe a venison tenderloin. Definitely some sweet corn.
Like we gotta have some sweet corn elements. So either, I was thinking either like a sweet corn polenta could be really cool. Ooh. Or you just sweet corn bread. I don't know. Lots of things. Stewing around up here,
Jordan: You could possibly do like a, maybe a little play on that and doing like a.
Like a deconstructed like Mexican street corn kind of thing.
Chris: Ooh, I like that. That's some alote. There we go. Some sweet corn alote on a tenderloin.
Jordan: There
Chris: you go. Tomatoes. That's a tricky bit. 'cause you want all these cool, fresh ingredients, but it's, rendezvous doesn't happen when any of these seasons are happening.
So your tomato's gonna be like, freeze dried or. Old, the sweet corn's gotta be frozen and rejuvenated. Rejuvenated. So yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I dunno.
Jordan: Could be fun though.
Chris: Yeah keep your eyes peeled. If you see Indiana, check it out. No promises, no guarantees. I'm still too nervous. Yeah, we're still learning, but.
Go, Jordan, on that note, we're gonna take off. Where can people find you? First question, do you want people finding you?
Jordan: Yeah.
Chris: If you wanna give out your socials tell us where we can find you.
Jordan: Yep. Jordan Linger. I'm on Facebook. And then as mentioned before, I'm on the I'm on the board for NC North Carolina, back country hunters and anglers.
Yeah. And then Instagram is probably the best way to get ahold of me. If you wanna chat or have questions. My handle is tie dye and camo. Yeah. I'm a hippie who loves to hunt, so in, in those aspects. So big deadhead. We'll
Chris: link all that below for sure.
Jordan: Yep.
Chris: But definitely, yeah.
Keep your eyes peeled. Do you guys have any cool BHA events coming up down there?
Jordan: So we just finished we just finished our third annual conservation banquet.
Chris: Yeah.
Jordan: Which was a couple weeks ago. And it was a big hit. Then we had full draw film festival. In Raleigh, North Carolina at a at a archery shop in Pittsburgh called Yek.
Really good people. Josh is awesome. Check them out. And then, let's see here. We've got,
Chris: we can also just direct people to the
Jordan: website. Yep, that's true.
Chris: I ask those questions and then I'm in the back of my mind. I'm thinking I don't really know when this episode's gonna get published.
Jordan: We did,
Chris: These events could be come and gone.
Jordan: Right.
Chris: So check the website.
Jordan: So B-H-B-H-A has actually got this whole public land brew thing yeah, that they started to do every year and we recently. We recently had our brew day with Boones Shine Brewing Company in Boone, North Carolina. They're doing a pre-prohibition lagger. And then events wise in the spring of 2026 we are set to host mustard in the mountains.
Chris: Ooh, nice. I've been wanting to go to that.
Jordan: So the East coast version of Rendezvous is come out to the mountains of North Carolina. We will be able, you can go basically trout, fish just about anywhere. We've got. We've got a bunch of public land and a bunch of public water. It's if it's one thing that North Carolina knows is known for is, go catch some trout and go smoke it at camp.
Chris: Yes.
Jordan: So
Chris: that sounds awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Look into mustard. Yeah, that looks super, super cool.
Jordan: Yep.
Chris: Awesome. Thank you. Thank you again. It's a Midwest goodbye, so for the fourth time. Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate, appreciate you jumping on love the conversation. We I'm hoping to see a rendezvous again.
Yeah. I'm really praying I can make it back. And again, listeners, if you have not gone to BHA Rendezvous, why not? Yep. You need to go check it out. You'll have a blast. You meet a ton of cool people, eat a bunch of really crazy cool food. So check it out. Be there. We'll be there. You have a wonderful day.
Thank you so much.
