#325: How To Create An Immersive Italian Foodie Experience In Your Home By Way Of Storytelling w/ Al Dente Tastings' Jessenia Rojas

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

tours people italy cheese shorts slap story table champagne rome experience place big blindfold food gelato water buffaloes sweat carbonara home

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Here we go. sweat equity podcasts in streaming show. The number one comedy business podcast in the world.

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Let me hear it, Liz. Oh, no, wait. Yes. Did you watch that video I sent you. Oh, no, I got it. But it's a bit jarring suck my pussy from behind. Yeah, pragmatic entrepreneurial advice was a real raw dog talk like Liz apologizing for that body shaming, suck my pussy from behind. I love her. She's my favorite from now on my favorite cloud is for sure. 2020s best small medium enterprise business advisory podcasts in the US of A and we're 2020 ones best podcasts in streaming. Entertainment studio, Eastern USA media innovator words 2020 hosted by corporate vision magazine. Some people call me cool, Eric. Yeah. Listen to us on iTunes Apple podcast. We went up about 15 five star reviews in the last week. What? Spotify? All that stuff. Google. Google podcast. Yeah, Amazon podcast.

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All those things Stitcher. Your mom's Sony Walkman. That's yellow from the 80s say, laughable. laughable. But that one I don't know if they're still in business anymore. I Heart Radio. This episode is bright. Oh, yeah, I Heart Radio app. But we're on all this stuff. If we're not let us know. Go to sweat equity pod.com and hit the Contact Us button. It's this episode sponsored by ExpressVPN. Try ExpressVPN comm forward slash sweat get to three months free off an annual plan, a virtual private network. That's what a VPN is. It's like a computer in the sky. Don't get trapped in the sky. Yeah. In the cloud don't get trapped by big data. I want to log in through a Swedish network. So my IP is tracked so I can watch whatever Netflix shows are on over there. I can go to try expressvpn.com Ford, Ford slash sweat or you don't want to be tracked by big data. All the companies try Express vpn.com forward slash sweat and cloak your IP address. Let's get it going.

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That

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way.

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Windy.

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Windy.

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Windy.

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So we're gonna do a part two, if you haven't listened to the first part. That was Episode 319. And we had to kind of break it up because it was we're getting too long in the tooth on the story. You had to leave. I believe it was well, yeah. I had things to go. I had to go embarrass myself in a comedian's wedding. I had to fly out and take care of all those errands before I left the day before it was Aaron's not flight. Well,

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yeah, but the flight was at like 7am on a Sunday. I had to like get a bunch of stuff done. Plus, you know, I was tired of you guys. You guys smell I know. We lost her attention. Just Welcome back.

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I believe. And you guys correct me if I'm wrong, where we left off.

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A guy named guy from Belgium.

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And that's all I got.

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And can you reset the table? Me? I'm not the historian for that. Cuz someone had too many sounds. Oh, I just don't remember what you're talking. Someone got that real rock girl? Yeah. guy from Belgium. That's a real person. Yeah, I didn't make that up. Right. You didn't

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die from Belgium is I received a box. He asked me for my address. And I was ready to give it to him. But I did.

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It was actually my friend's story was it was a story.

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No, and he sent me a box full of chocolates. He worked for this. And it was like a Michelin style chocolate box with like a booklet to each box. And each chocolate was like one was Coca Cola. And one was like hazelnuts. But it will tell you where the hazelnuts came from in the forests of like Piedmont in Italy. And it was really neat. Very cool. So yeah, that's guy. Let's pause that. I want to make sure we get your plugs in there in the beginning of this. So explain where people can find you to hire you explain what your this is because it's a little bit unique. I want to make sure we get that plug in the beginning, and then we can get back into the story. So for those of you that maybe didn't hear the other part one. My name is just just Enya. But everybody calls me Jess. I have started what's called identity tastings, which pretty much means that I go to people's homes, usually events but even

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Just a simple gathering, I go to your home and I take you down a two hour food journey of Italian meats, cheeses and wine. And it's it's quite the extravaganza as I like to say, and we good job introducing yourself law of spaced on that.

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You know, I have my my senior citizen moments, but I want to do the show notes. You know, it became a cheat code for this show, just to let let the guests do it. So I don't have to butcher it. Yeah, that's true. Because all you do it just scindia is a name that took me about five months to really understand how to say it my head. And Eric would be like, just say, Jess. No, I can't do that. I didn't do it. But I'm out into tastings. Wow, that site looks good. Who did that? Me? I didn't. Hmm.

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And the branding. Yeah.

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So we don't have a slogan yet. I was just gonna see if we can pitch one out. I don't know. And I'm really not a tagline. Nothing's come out nothing organically. Well, I mean, I'm not the boss. I'm looking at me for some reason cuz I'm like, wait.

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I don't see it on the logo behind you know, or the map and I was just trying to think while you're saying is like bring Italy your house and place one way over? Well, I mean, that that could be as of right now. That's it. You're right. When you're here your family that's already taken. Yeah. By all garden. business card says one place one way right, which I say a lot on the tours. When I go to people's homes. It's when I'm taking you down this journey. Perfect one place one way I want to ask what that means? Of course you do. Yeah. What was it mean? So um, I don't know if you've ever seen like, on a wine bottle even at Publix on like, the head of the wine bottle. There's like a sticker really fancy. Like, you're playing down to me not being a wine Oh, and you're like, you could get it at your shitty grocery store. Any, any, any Boone's farm bottle, do whatever. Honestly, when I was younger, I remember seeing this label and thinking, Okay, I'm going to somebody's house, I'm going to pick this bottle just because it looks fancier with this label, we'll come to find out years later that that label means a lot. So that label is pretty much the same label. It's on champagne. And I don't know if you know, for anybody that doesn't know. But champagne can only come from the region of champagne in France.

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So it's one place one way so it has to start and finish there from the beginning to the end from the cultivation of the grape, the procedure, the history, all of its protected, the whole nine yards. So I call it one place one way and Same goes with botany johnetta gentle the cheese, the Italian cheese,

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mozzarella di bufala kiante. But all the wine, they're all protected one place one way and really it goes up throughout Europe. So in England, you also have Stilton it's protected one place when what Well, I guess I can't really go for England anymore because I guess they're out of Europe. But you have all of the other Well, I mean, I'm not really sure I know that there was a controversy with that they weren't sure if they were going to keep the cheese's protected because it's a European rule regulations context we don't know that's

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gonna let you just try to figure that out by yourself.

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But I would say no, I'm just trying to give examples actually really hurt the economy over there. But their trade really suffered but the cheese guys the cheese, Brexit cheese. Okay, um, I'm curious now any other foods or booze? That has to be from a certain area? There's there's a ton to be to be it, whatever it is. Absolutely. There's hundreds. I mean, you've got port in Portugal, you've got Botha, manga Hmong, you

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have fed out this week, Portugal. Is that what that shortfall? Is it really well, I mean, it comes from Porto, which is a city in Spain, but sorry, in Portugal, I've had a port though. That's not

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the symbol because that sticker I'm sorry, that sticker that I'm talking about, and sometimes on like wine bottles, it looks very similar. But then it changes obviously on cheese's and different things because it has it but this stamp, when that stamp is on something, the government has controlled us. So that means that it can't be touched by for example, the US. Right, right. Right. So you can make a generic version of it without the stamp called a port. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Without the sandwich means that it doesn't have to follow the rules and regulations. And it's like the the cheap champagne isn't really actually called champagne. They've really worked around some of that name. Sometimes they'll just made it a bottle that looks like a champagne bottle. Sure. Well, I know that you can't actually call something champagne, especially with a capital C. But the idea the idea is the low like me who's just and just goes Oh, that bottles cool. Not reading it, and not realizing it's not actual champagne, but it's pretty close. Oh, yes. I love that. You just said that. That's the that's actually the reason that I usually say

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Champagne because everybody knows champagne and a lot of people like to look at a bottle that's bubbles Exactly. A lot of people that that see bubbles right away say I'm having champagne tonight. I add champagne tonight, but in all reality, it's way more specific. For example, like you said, Eric Prosecco for the sake of something. It's the let's call it the champagne of Italy. Right. But it comes from a very specific region in vanadyl. In Italy, which is

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located right here. So if it were for the audio listeners, if it's the boot of Italy on the map, it's good. The top of the boot. Yes, yes. On the top right. Take the foot in Yeah, over here. Yeah, we're gonna slip it in the back. You know, depending on if there were kind of leather long, like my long boots, you know? Yeah, I know.

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Those were my the garter belt makes me feel red pants. Well, that was a red thongs but yeah. What? You got to show off this ass. That's the moneymaker of the show. I gotta say those shorts. They're out point. The shorts right here. Yeah.

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They're a little too long. They're seven inches. I think five inches is now my inseam. I've been looking all this stuff just to wear be annoying. And we're short dad shorts, man. Well, they're not that shorts in Italy. That's why I like them. Because in Italy it's very rare to find a guy wear long shorts. Like they're always going to be pretty short and pretty on the tight side. Yeah, it became a thing

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for me, it doesn't make me look any taller. When I'm wearing shorts to the eye you start to look like a baby when they get to. If you start to get that baby well, you know I have a thing that I hate shirt t shirts that have sleeves that go past the elbow you know because it means look like a child. Yeah, you look like you're wearing your dad shirt. Like some people are like that's cool. NFL football jersey. Yeah, exactly. Have a man who's 10 years younger another man on your on your back. I just believe clothes to fit a man. Oh, yeah, sure. But my legs don't necessarily fit into anything though. They're a little bit I have the body of a T Rex. It's short arms, bigger legs or like a midget if you just stretch it out like a little anyway.

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Bad

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little people sorry little person.

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You know, Eric's very sensitive to we knew what you meant to slurs like that.

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Back to your stuff. Okay, so called a flirt. Got a guide guy named guy from Belgium. Okay, bring us back to where you're at with that. You got two chocolates? I did the I enjoyed them for a very long time each and every one sometimes I take a bite put it back because I kept in the fridge just to keep it but yeah, they were delicious. I hope this is relevant. There was no one that was linear timeline of the story. Absolutely not. That's pretty much where it ends it ends with my last bite was a bacon one that she made this and I say she because I remember the the company was a woman but it seems very Belgian me to give chocolates as a gift kind of hack. They were like Michelin so for foodie like me. They were like very descriptive. It would tell you each and each night there was like no cola inside of it. Well, it was it. It was there was one I remember it was called Coca Cola. There was another one that was wasabi and actually have it but you could. And it was and I remember there was like a three rule ingredient in that. I don't think she used more than three ingredients in one chocolate. And that's that's a big rule. And in a chef's world in general, even in the world that I teach. When I do my tours, contrast the meaning putting too many things together, you end up losing the flavor. So a carbonara here in the States has like nine things in it. Not really I don't know how many but a lot more than three, which in Italy. It's only three, no more than three ingredients in a carbonara. That's a great tip. So it's an example let's extrapolate that, that that gift out through as a through line to what you're talking about. You're a big believer in the food you're you're procuring in and and describing for everybody. It's all about the story behind it. Right? It's not you're not just going to deliver a plate to a dinner party at someone's house and just go Alright, I'll be in the kitchen. You guys need anything. There's presentation totally with?

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Well, it's up to them. We're default. I know we're just saying like,

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what's on the table when I put a piece of for example Padme Jannat agenda cheese in front of you, which I do for my guests for the tours that I do. I can't just see you eat it, you have to know that it's over 900 years old, they used to put it underground during the war. I mean,

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you know, like they used to use it as gold is I mean, it's a big deal that cheese and then to tell them the description of the cheese for example, the crystals that you feel, you know that you taste coming through, which is you know, the fact that crystallized through time. These things are important because then you eat it and you experience it in a different way, which is what I like to bring to the table. No pun intended.

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To

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like you set it up.

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Okay, so where are we now? What years in our timeline?

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With this Belgian guy?

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Wow. I mean, I was just trying really curious, is this guy relevant at all? You know, I was, I was just trying to look through the last show notes and go, where do we stop? Okay, and I'm trying to I get this story back on on on its heels. I mean, because guys pretty important in that, let's say it sums it up in that he came back I believe, two if not three times to do my tour in Rome. And when I have, you know, people that have done my tour more than once, it becomes quite special for them for me, you know, to see them again, after five years, maybe because I ended up doing it for quite some time. So there would be some times where people would come back after two, three years, and I'd be able to see them again. And guy was one of those. Okay. Okay, so all right, wherever we left off from last time.

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Where are we now? Do you remember where we left off? I mean, I know that you both kind of wanted to know more about possibly some of my,

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let's call them memorable. Experience. Tours. Oh, yeah. I mean, I remember that was one thing. You were like, No, we can't cut it off now. Yeah. Tell us about?

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Yeah. Yeah. Tell us tell. I mean, you tell which whatever one you think you can tell. But I mean, there's the reason that that came up was because it's a big question that I got on tours when I was in Rome. I want to go with almost every tour would ask me, what's the craziest thing you've seen? What's the craziest thing someone said or done? Etc. I've had from, you know, really happy moments, which I'll share those as well, too. Oh, man. jaw dropping is

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dropped. Oh, yeah. Wow. Sorry.

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So spoiler,

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I would say this is the one that

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just remained and grave in my mind, forever and ever. And it's probably been engraved in some other people's minds after I told them the story, but

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it was actually one of my first tours and that it was, let's go with the first three to six months that I was doing, working for the Roman food tour. What are your eu 2013 I believe 2014 All right.

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And I had 13 ladies from California all over the age of 65. That had also a gentleman there Italian that spoke both English and the time that was chaperoning them coming through. So it was it was a private tour. pretty intense. I'm just gonna go with that word. The tour goes on it ends at gelato, where it always ends. And they always my clients always get their own gelato. But this one woman that was kind of problematic throughout the tour, and I'm not saying means obviously, I would never say any names but I don't remember her name. At all. I just remember what she was wearing. Um, you purposely probably forgot it. I don't. Because I remember one of the lady's names that she was such as we are we kept in contact but so we we get to the gelato place I end up always like humming and humming on this part because I don't know how to keep going.

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Everybody gets their own gelato. This one woman asked me to get her gelato for her. And because she was tired, she sat down. And I said of course I'm gonna get your gelato. He said these are Americans, right? I'm older. What is 65 and over women are women Americans. Oh, yeah. But California is important. Yeah. Because I could see this guy. Very smiling Country Club feet hurt, you know, kind of thing. Yeah. Well, and, and they were wearing heels You know, it was it was it was an interesting group, but it's not smart either. Yeah. Um, and so they all asked for that. She asked me to get her gelato. She's sitting down at this point. I of course, I allowed everybody else to go ahead because even though I'm the tour guide, I'm not going to just, you know, go ahead of all the other ladies so I let them go by and the woman saw that I didn't get her gelato immediately. So she stood up and gave me a nice little slap on the face. Who's fixing your mic? Don't worry.

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There's a little hot. Gone. You're good. Sorry. And so she gave me a little slap on the face for not getting her gelato quick enough slap in the face. Yeah, yeah, sorry. That's

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fine. It was a slap in the face. Okay, what were we talking about? It was it was enough to get the attention of the other ladies. Were in Italy. No. Okay. We're talking laps are real over there. If a pin slap is all the way back and through, right, that's smaller. Yeah. I need like a like a one. What is one hand clapping sound like but your face is in the way

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Yeah, it was half the hand kind of thing, you know, not not, but it caught people's attention, but it wasn't like a good job. repat some

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It was like, I can't believe you didn't get my gelato first. And I kept my calm and I was like, okay, Jess, you know, you, you're almost done. You can get through this. It's okay. You know, people have days, it's fine. So later, we go outside of the gelato place, and I start saying bye to everybody. I'm kind of standing in front of everybody saying bye. And we're in a building, mind you, that's five stories or six stories. And all of a sudden, as I'm saying bye to them. We all here and I want everybody to know, and there's this ends, well, I know the person and she was okay. But we heard a big.

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And I run because you can see it is on right on the other side of the building. So I run by myself. And sure enough, someone had tried to commit suicide and she

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Okay, to the store. I know. Nobody does. Okay, so and again.

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I don't ever get to use it.

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For that inappropriate of a situation. I have to reiterate with the fact that this young lady is okay. She was okay. Everything turned out fine for her. Because otherwise, I would not say this story. But I think the worst part was the fact that the same woman that gave me the little half hand slap, decided to immediately run with her phone and take pictures. Well, and that that part probably? star was around. Yeah, I was. I couldn't even talk. I was no cool person, right? Sounds like a nice lady. How do you do? How do you deal with these kind of people? I don't have patience for that. Apparently.

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I apparently have a lot of patience. I did major in psychology. And I always told tours that my major Did you know, it's paying off because what I do working with people, because people are people, we're all different. Because then I'm going to go with the happier end of the story, meaning this one doesn't have a happy ending. That's how it ended. And that that was it. I was just I had nothing to say. And I was just shocked. But one of the best ones I had, for example was these two women that came on the tour from the States. I don't remember from where in the States, but they were two women that were 65 and had been friends for 61 years. So since they were like four years old, okay. And had been planning this trip for like 58 years together. And they were holding hands under the table meaning to come to Rome together to finally elope and then I got to be a part of that. You know?

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They were best friends. They were holding hands. They made the whole table cried when they told their story about how they see from behind a couple of gifts going at it. Oh, sorry.

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That's very cute. Yeah, we wrote that cute story. I had to like, say a cute one after that other one because that other one was pretty intense. So I did live it though. So 2013. Let's take let's try to move it a little bit forward. You're still working for someone else and doing tours, right?

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You're in Rome. I was up until 2020 for the same company. But yes, in Rome, since 2013. Any other wacky weird stories that sound like that movie crash where it's just a bunch of weird stuff going on around you at all times? Oh, man, it's tough to top. I mean, what do you want? Well, no, I had so I always tell slapping them. I always don't. Well, they're not related. That's what makes him I know. That's why the stories I mean, you can't be tough to beat is one and then when you got your wits about you, even if you got slapped, and you're like, I gotta say something to her. It's like that just destroys any of the other thing you're trying to take care of. In a weird, weird way minimises you getting slapped in the face? And shows how gross she is. Wow. I mean, again, people are people. What I'm seeing in the moment, I'm sure your attention was like, holy shit, and not even thinking about that until later. So slap until later. Absolutely. I didn't think Well, once that other thing happened. My mind went, yeah. Why are Americans so gross overseas? I know. There's only three people or people so I can say that. I've had some of my best tours were Americans. Some were Germans have my best words somewhere, you know, because I got I got people world line right away. Well,

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according to Hi, love to my German clients, because I love to speak very clearly. And they liked that about me. And I'm also extremely precise and I like to get I mean, you just asked me about that stamp.

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I got a little in detail. So they like that.

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You know, but but I did I loved them. But Americans know that you have you know, I had some of my best words were American somewhere.

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Fuzzy?

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Yeah. What you don't have any, any opinions? Any any? I mean, it's a stereotype for a reason. Like we, we know it as Americans that never I knew it before I even went outside of the country, you know, like, who so I guess so if you had to ask me because you kind of just answered it by saying something you just said. But one thing I did notice is that out of all of the clients that I had from all over the world, and not really all over the world, but

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in terms of my largest clientele, meaning either from America, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, the US was the were the ones that I noticed, maybe traveled the least, or the shortest amount of time. For example, in Australia, I know that most people get three to four weeks off. So they would take off a good month, and they would stay in Italy or within Europe for a month. And so traveling becomes different. Well, and they're on an island that has that's as big as the United States, but has only like 30 million people. It's mostly on the coast. So the middle of that continent countries dogshit they are the furthest though they it takes them like 24 hours to roam. And they would tell me and and then and then in the United States, we I mean, we are the United States. So it is this thing of like, we have so many different personalities across the country. I think a lot of people, myself probably included, like

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there's a lot to see here before I might go out and venture outside of the country and try to knock everything out. You know, I feel like if you grew up in Europe, it's it's right there. Right. You know, it's not too hard.

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Well, I mean, you're absolutely right. And having come back after nine years of being away.

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without really having ever come back to the US. I came back a couple times, but for very short time periods. Now that I'm back, honestly, I've been considering doing the whole RV life and like traveling and seeing the United States seeing where you know, where I was born and seeing these places that maybe I haven't seen, because there's so many gorgeous places to see in the United States that I haven't seen. For sure. Yeah, I did it for stand up to our for what do we do 90 days, like 75 shows in like 27 states, I think was I would have to be done to

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be set up like a like a comedy tour. Yeah. And something like that. It was one of those things. I quit my job in the recession to do a tour before that and just didn't work that much. And then did another one. But it was like the bet I was 25 is the best thing I ever did. Even though it was you know, it was tough go It was tough sledding to make it happen. But I got what am I gonna go to Idaho and go to Yellowstone and what am I gonna go hang out in Hastings, Nebraska. We're for Morgan guest, Nick cough. an opener for player, the Cable Guy, Nick. Skip Hastings But well, it's the birthplace of Kool Aid. Did you know that? No. And Tom Osborne old football coach. What? Yeah. Got it. Got it impacted as full full of Hastings facts. But when would I ever go? Yeah, when would I ever go to Champaign, Illinois, stuff like that. Dude. You know, now it's even better. We had a little dongle, like sprint, kind of Wi Fi, wherever there are cell reception. And we had an okay, but nowadays you can have, you can have Wi Fi anywhere kind of work from anywhere, except your stuff. You kind of need to be you kind of need to be in the place where people are. This is not a remote option. Yeah, no, no bigger cities, bigger city. This is where I'd be hitting. So.

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So from 2020.

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And if there's anything else you kind of wanted to get in about your experience of doing this. Is there anything you wanted to touch on? I mean, I guess if I had to think of something that wasn't related to maybe the tourist aspect of it.

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What the best part about what I was able to do in Rome for the last nine years was work alongside people that were if not just as passionate I was gonna say as me if not more passionate. So and what I mean by people is the stores that i would i would visit with my tourists with the clients that I was with in Rome, I we would go to these different venues. So a pizza place, a gelato place, a restaurant, and all of these different venues and vendors were very, very close friends of mine. Some of them were extremely close friends. Some of them were masters at what they did. So I was able to work alongside and learn. And, you know, just really watching asking every day because I worked with them for seven years, every day, twice a day, six days a week sometimes. So that part

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To me is something that I love that I, I can't say lost because it's you know, I'm gonna go back to Rome it's in the cards but

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that was something that that I love to be able to possibly give here is all of that knowledge and experience and

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you know you can't you can't. I have my Stefanos because there's two Stefanos that I really learned a lot from but I call them my teachers nose. Yeah, there's two of them. So it's one is Stefano and there's it's so Stefanos plural. Stefano is the name but Stefanos would be too. Okay, but I just kind of made that up. Yeah.

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So how do you bring that experience to a place? It's not Italy? How does that work? That's what I love doing. So one thing that we do have is I do have visuals. So a map, because I have to show you where you're eating it from why it possibly comes from some, you know, from place because if you can see down here, I can't allow to happen. What happens down south in Italy, to happen in the north? So so for example, the euphemism literally in the south. Yeah, it's just for example, like water buffaloes. What was it the animal that produces water buffalo mozzarella, they're they're located near Naples, Naples region in Italy.

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And I couldn't put those water buffaloes up in Piedmont up north all the way up north in Italy, I couldn't put those water buffaloes up there, they would die. It's way too cold, because that's near the Alps. So they're producing something else, you have other animals that can can live in that climate that produce a different type of cheese.

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So in turn, I bring that to you. So whether or not and it's nice, because you I did that in Rome as well. I didn't have to we weren't necessarily Yes, we were sometimes visiting some stores that I could never bring that to you.

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But I can come very, very close to bringing all of your senses there when you've seen it a little bit around like the the region of Italy to Well, I don't Italy does, which is nice. Okay, so and I don't know, can I give you an example, you said that I probably but I couldn't take it. As I know, it's gonna go over my head. And I know

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that it's good. It was something that was very genuine and authentic. But we're so sarcastic one or the

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other, those good. People are always scared. They're like, just you're so serious about food sometimes because you know, I do study it I have studied in my life. So I what I do on the tours is bring a twist to that I'm not gonna let him give you a test afterwards. But I do bring you bring lots of knowledge. But going back to Italy, comic book nerds can talk to me about comic books I don't give a shit about but if they're really into it, either. I'll listen, you know, I'll be into it. So like, passion bleeds through, you know, brand strategy advice, you didn't ask for that. That's really your, your unique value you bring to the table, it's you getting it's you have a genuine passion for it. You're always doing continuing education research. You're an expert in the field, and you've got the experience of doing it for a while. So that has to bleed through. And if you're not explaining all that in your face lights up like a pinball machine every time you talk about all the food that's from the area, that that is all part of that brand experience that that customer experience, that that cx all that stuff, so go ahead. Well, no, because you mentioned like, is it regional? And I said it's not a me thing. It's an Italy thing. And there's something that I say on all of my tours. I think I've said it for really the last seven years, but and I will continue to say it. So if anybody doesn't want to hear they'll hear me say this. And I say it every time if you were to and I don't literally mean this, but it's a good way to have people understand what I mean. But if if you were to blindfold an Italian person, child, if you were to blindfold the grown up, oh, yeah, sorry. I will I always do that. And then it becomes weird because I was about to say then you just put them together. Let's make them adults.

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Wow, I need to I haven't seen that actually forever. And I've just mentioned yourself blindfolding an Italian child.

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Well, you know why? kid playing jacks. Now the reason I say that is because as a child growing

34:25

up

34:26

as a child growing up in Italy, you learn about food at the dinner table. People are talking about food, where this came from why when you eat it, and you just kind of live it and see it. So that's why I say children because even a child could do what I'm about to say, which is you could pretty much place a blindfolded adult, Italian person anywhere on this map in Italy. open their eyes, and when they open their eyes, they're going to have a dish of wherever you put them anywhere. They are a specific dish to that region. They open their eyes, they look at the dish and they're going to know where they are

35:00

literally put basil in front of an Italian and they're gonna know where they are because basil comes from a very specific city in Italy, when it's protected and it comes from somewhere very specific in Italy. So we take someone from

35:12

Milan, blindfold them, take them to a malfi kind of

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work and I show him what oh my god, I would bet you're probably going to see either goto later. So it's going to be like a fried fried steak type thing. It's really healthy. Or the result or zafferano so risotto you're always gonna you're if you see risotto in general, you're gonna know you're in the north of Italy. But risotto with saffron is a big one in Milan, and it's really yummy. Okay.

35:45

No, Gorgonzola is not far try to stump her, huh? No, you can say anything. Yep. Sounds good. I, I'm such an adult with all this stuff that you know, I eat first, I eat out of survival, mostly. But when you have a good meal, it makes even better.

36:01

So where are you going from here? So what what's the next? Y'all are working on this this brand? Currently? What? What's the next steps? What's going on? Well, I know. Especially from my experience with the psychology behind when people do things I know that what I call my season should really open up for me right now because people just started school so people are settling back down at home starting to do more home gatherings. The holidays are coming up. So that's a big one. People are going to have events. They're going to want me there. I you know, I thought you I thought about this. This is so weird. And I don't know where this whole child thing is coming from. You know how

36:41

parents. You guys hire clowns for your child's parties? How I feel for adult parties? Sure.

36:53

Yeah, I guess it's not that cool. But I really felt like it was calling yourself a clown.

37:01

I do like to make people laugh. I try it. You know, I try to make people laugh when I'm there. I try and make it an experience again. So you can make you can make an argument. It's it's the hardest at home entertainment. Because I think we brought up strippers last time you're on another at home entertainment thing that you're you're doing it with being a rock and tour, you're doing it with the story you're doing with the food and the story behind it. So you I can make a case I think we can make an argument. Probably the hardest, like in home kind of entertainment to be able to do. Yeah, I can't think of anything else. Well, I mean,

37:37

stand up show. I've done it. It's not true. But it doesn't go well. So I know I'm saying but at least just as food to write people have the food that was one of the best parts is because you're bringing a table together. So it could be a birthday party. Which What did you come with me? I've we've been to a few. But I've done birthday parties anniversaries. But when you have these birthday parties, you know sometimes the birthday party of the birthday person doesn't know that I'm coming, which has happened. And it's really nice, because then everybody's sitting at the table. We're going one by one from softest flavor to strongest flavor. And everybody's commenting. Sorry, that was me. Okay.

38:17

But they're all commenting. So somebody might like it. The other person might not right. But nobody's right. You know, it's a palette game. We all have different palettes and getting to know your palette is so much fun because you can have more fun in the world once you get to know it. Yeah, mine's a lunchable palette. No. How do we test that? That well, United States?

38:39

prep for this this episode we will. Okay, we will because I have a couple of events coming up. Actually, again, the seasons opening up. So do little mini little mini charcuterie. Yeah. What I want to see is I'm going to bring a couple of cheeses, and I'm going to watch you guys well, everybody's gonna watch you guys eat them side by side. There are two cheeses that are very, very popular and people like to confuse them for being the same cheese when you guys eat them. You're going to with your faces. I will lady in the tramp you'll see you're gonna see people are gonna realize how different they are there is finally

39:17

a song a new song I could say what are

39:21

you talking about lady in the tramp?

39:25

Yeah, I didn't think it through. Yeah, he's a funny gentleman.

39:31

short trip mouth right now. Start out really when you leave. We're getting string cheese fridge time together and really going Greco Roman wrestling on it.

39:43

What So okay, so you've got it's August as we record this late August. You got things working in, in a seasonal way for you. You got people back in school, you got the holidays coming up, which a lot of people were probably going to, you have one thing that's kind of in your

40:00

Vantage as we might have a more lockdown kind of society again, not quite what it was 2020 spring but

40:09

you know, I fear might be there. I think a lot more people are going to be looking for entertainment at home. And y'all have a real good opportunity probably in September if I'm putting put my marketing strategy kind of hat on. You got September to make the campaign to really push to get those bookings. Oh, yeah. Is that what y'all are doing?

40:32

A couple of September. Good. Yeah. And well, you you mentioned he's videoing them? Nah, no, zero Brown. But we're gonna get some other Oh, we got other stuff that, guys everything you do well as a marketing opportunity. Tell me like, I don't know, we're set at 4000.

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also working with like, I don't know, when the last time I took a picture of myself, literally, I think maybe actually, for the website. That was the last picture I took of myself. I don't take selfies. I don't take pictures of myself. I'm not very social. You're typical to a lot of girls. You know, a lot of women do it in their car.

41:09

For some reason, yeah. I get it. You did your makeup in this dropped out mirror, whatever. But when they're thinking about it, only if somebody is good. The light is on is pretty good, too. Yeah, um, but yeah, headshots are important. All that stuff's important.

41:27

Whatever you can do while you're out there, get reviews. See, if you I bet this this business is a good one. To figure out how to make them advocates for you. For every everybody else, you know, refer a friend, but on maybe a classier level. Yeah. No. I mean, it's my touching on stuff. I mean, it's Yeah, that's easy. It's literally like unsolicited, right from a lot of the people. A lot of the work I do get is word of mouth. Because once you see what I do,

42:00

it just becomes easier to want to share with other people then then you can slowly creep up that price on if you put a schedule out there. I just got a thing I need to send you that was dynamic pricing on a calendar for scheduling stuff. I want to do that for consulting work. Like if you want to, you want to hire me on a Sunday for an hour, right? It's gonna be three times as much or whatever. Yeah, Christmas morning. All right. Yeah, they gotta gotta pay for that choo choo train. So yeah, another thing I don't want to forget to mention is other than me coming to people's homes and creating an experience for two hours, going down meats, cheeses, wine, the whole nine yards. I've also added catering. So I will bring chicoutimi boards to your homes already. So cheese board, Salamis fruits, I have one that's a Corsini board where you can then create your own Cassini's will have different toppings for it. Christina, let's go with like the bruschetta style, so a piece of bread. And then then I provide different toppings for the bread. So there are different platters that I've created. For your martini on the end of something means it's tiny.

43:13

Okay, that's a good, that is actually very, very

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end, you just reminded me, you know, this experience is probably great, because you know, it's coming. I think one of the worst things that I have no patience for in my head, I don't really do is when they do a charcuterie board. And then they spend 20 minutes explaining everything. I'm like, Yeah, well, we're not half of us aren't even listening. We're not like you don't know you're getting the spiel, what with what you're doing, you know that it is like an immersed experience kind of thing.

43:49

And it's very, very much so guided

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customers at at the most excited point, right. And, granted, I have so many tours, where not every single person at the table wanted to be there. But it is my job to make every every single eyeball that's at that table. happy and excited. And yeah, and interested, really, because you're right. I'm standing in front of them for two hours. And I'm trying to keep their interest but it does come natural for me having done it for so many years, but also being so into what they're about to experience each and every time because I could literally do it every day. And it's new to me because the people in front of me haven't done it with me yet. And even if they have it's still it seems to be a new experience for people even when they redo them with me but yeah, so it's fun. people haven't done it yet. That's all that's all third

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party.

44:45

Yeah, well, you got Eric property you up. You know, his thing, his skills around everything else. That's not the experience of it.

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Y'all make a good team, I'm sure

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Well, you, you know, you've

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got to take credit because I taught you a lot of the stuff. You know.

45:07

I taught I mean, here's a video, go watch that guy know.

45:11

Google it. fuckface you say to me, that's my favorite lesson of all time. Let me Google that for you. Anything else? We didn't get to? Part Three coming up with food. Try not to eat on the mic. Yeah, no, we're gonna do now we'll be right on these mics. I'm trying to give people the experience through the cameras meaning through through watching you. And I mean, I guess I'm just gonna bring a couple of cheeses, but just that those couple of cheeses people will understand because it'll it'll be your reactions that it'll say. Maybe we live event it. Yeah, promote that. Yeah. Because Yeah, we will. All right. We could do that. I don't know that.

45:52

Okay, yeah.

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Give some give a reason and have people do it live. Sit in and watch appointment viewing, as they call it. And maybe they can ask questions. Sit down. Sure. Yeah. All right. Nice. I'm good. You got him. Wow. Wow. I got another day tastings Comm. Check it out. Number 1036935611. And if you have any questions on though, the stuff is on the website, we're still working on the website. As far as pricing goes and, and things like that. We're adding everything on there. But if you have any questions at all, you can just email. It's custom pricing dynamically charged to your party. Yes. And by the way, I just said email, but the quote the phone call that was that uncle's email, it's all on there on there. So any questions anybody has and if people are outside of the Tampa Bay area, they can call you? Yeah. So I do. I do travel outside of the Tampa Bay area within Florida with a traveling fee. So they just have to contact me. Let me know where they are. And we can figure it out from there. All right. Yeah. What about my sweat equity?

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