(light music) - This program is brought to you by the members of WCNY.

Thank you.

- Nationwide, Hungry for History markers from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation highlight unique foods and traditions, including salt potatoes and Berry Dairy Days, available through grants for communities and nonprofits.

More at wgpfoundation.org/tv.

- Syracuse sits in the heart of New York State, with access to the Finger Lakes and the Adirondacks, from city vibes and great local eats, to live music and festivals that roll on year-round.

Four seasons for everyone.

- Liberty Tabletop has been crafting flatware in America for over 20 years and is dedicated to supporting our community and preserving the craft of flatware manufacturing.

- Spatchcock Funk is in the house, our house and your house, too.

You know where the party's at?

Wherever you're at.

We're gonna teach you how to throw the best parties, the best dinners, the best get togethers.

All you need is the people you love, and we'll take care of the rest.

Spatchcock Funk, dope food, strong drinks, great stories.

(country music) Like Wu-Tang said, life is hectic.

Things get complicated, and if your Facebook relationship says that, it's already over.

Staying in the moment, trying to find that balance, sometimes, goes up like a puff of, "Well, you know."

Social media, work, family drama, all that keeps coming in waves, and it don't quit, but neither should you.

Remember, even good stress is still stress.

If you wanna take the world on, you got to take a day off every once in a while.

Engines run best when they're well maintained.

Our mental health, our bodies, muscles, all need recovery time, and that's what we're all about today.

We reach out to some of our super dope homeboys.

(person greets) What's up, guys?

- What's happening?

- And we're unplugging from work and the world.

Look, baby, as you're grinding, like every day, it's easy to lose sight of all the good things you got in this world.

So staying in the moment is critical.

Trying to catch that perfect feeling, it's like trying to catch smoke.

Sometimes, it just passes through your fingers.

Remember how when you were a kid, some almost just seem magical?

That's because as a youngin, you were staying in the moment.

- Yo, be magical, and grab the boards, man.

- That's what this is all about.

Be present.

For us, gathering up the fellas, getting away from all the noise helps us reset, and get ready to go back to the world and crush it.

We're recharging our batteries and refueling our fire.

This is "Up in Smoke."

(country music continues) (country music) (item pops) When you're trying to unplug, unwind, sometimes, it helps to get unhinged, y'all, and we're making a cocktail that cannot be beat.

This legendary bartender named Dan Lee invented what we're about to do in New York City in around 2007, but we are gonna do what's called bacon washing bourbon, and that makes this old-fashione the porkiest of old-fashioned, and when we're hanging out, playing cards with the fellas, having a good time, we get a little porky, if you get my drift.

Now, the key ingredients, two parts bourbon, and we're using a toasted bourbon.

so it's got like a real like smoky flavor to it, and then bacon.

So we made candied bacon, and candied bacon is bacon, we took a pound of it, cut it in half, covered it with brown sugar, some paprika, some cayenne pepper, and some salt and pepper, and then threw in the oven at 350 for about 25 minutes so it'll crisp it up, then let it cooled off, but we saved the grease.

I've got that grease in this pan.

So next, we take a full bottle, about 750 milliliters, of a great bourbon, and we like using a plastic tub.

Use anything plastic, 'cause this is going in the freezer, but it's wide, and we can really do some stuff with it.

Now, we take this bacon grease.

This is where the science project really comes at work, and that Dan Lee mad scientist, and we're just trying rep his game.

So we're gonna just pour in all that, and we're gonna hold back the solids.

Now, there's a little bit of solids and grease in there.

So I'm gonna take a strainer, and I've got some cheese cloth, but you can use a coffee filter here, and then strain out the last bits of it, and just catch any solids.

From there, stir it up, get it evenly mixed.

We're gonna let this sit for four hours at room temperature, minimum four hours, then we're gonna put some saran wrap on the lower level, Saran wrap on the top level, and put it in the freezer for at least three hours or overnight.

We got this bacon washed bourbon out of the freezer, and I can see all the bourbon down here, but the fat and the solids have solidified.

So next, we are gonna break through the ice, baby, and this is ice made of bacon fat.

So I want to get that out of my tub, and, you know, it could be a good candy bar, actually, someday, but we're just gonna get rid of that.

We still wanna make sure that all the solids are out, so we can get the best drink possible.

So we got our strainer back out.

(country music continues) (liquid trickles) Now, to get our glass ready, we got a beautiful rocks glass, but even better, a big Spatchcock Funk ice cube.

Put it in our glass.

The big cube actually keeps your bourbon cold without diluting that much, and we don't wanna dilute this because the flavor's great.

Now, I am 205 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal.

This is 750 milliliters of bacon washed bourbon, and that's beautiful.

To mix this thing up, get yourself a shaker of ice.

We're gonna put in, for each person, two ounces, but I'm a big drinker, and I got someone on the set's gonna have a drink, so I'm gonna put four or five ounces of this bourbon in here, then we're adding in a teaspoon per drink of brown sugar simple syrup, per drink, about three shakes of some bitters, shake this thing up.

(ice rattles) Strain in your glass, (country music continues) and the garnishes here, man, we are getting luxe, y'all.

So we got one of those dark red cherries we're gonna put in here.

We're also gonna take in a big, fat orange twist, 'cause it just looks cool, y'all.

We wanna look cool while we're feeling cool, and then the last one is a piece of that candied bacon.

Boom!

To all the peeps you unwinding with, uncork one of these baddies.

Ooh.

Bacon for days.

(country music continues) (upbeat music) You're hanging out with your boys, your girl's away for the weekend, like we're doing, make sure you come correct.

We had a great cocktail.

Now, we're making a great meal, and it starts with a great salad, and trust me, great salads are very hard to come by.

Salad's usually what my food eat but this salad is for real, y'all.

This is the shipwreck wedge salad.

So called because, you know, like the wedge, it's a wedge, right, but we use iceberg lettuce, the best, hardest one since the one that sank the Titanic.

Getting this puppy started, it's pretty easy.

A bunch of halved cherry tomatoes with some olive oil, some fresh lemon juice, kosher salt, some black pepper, then just toss that together.

Let it just chill together a little bit.

Now, comes the dressing.

This dressing, we got from our friend Mason Hereford, who's the author of the James Beard nominated cookbook, "Turkey and the Wolf," and we like using it, obviously.

Got a bunch of blue cheese crumbles in here, man, sour cream, y'all, mayonnaise, buttermilk, more fresh lemon juice, garlic powder.

Got some onion powder, celery salt my homie Danielle made for me, and celery seed, too.

Getting all the celery and fresh garden up in here.

Poppy seeds, so be careful if youre taking a drug test, 'cause there's a lot in here, then fresh kosher salt to taste, and then more of that freshly ground black pepper.

Now, we're also gonna add in a little bit of hot sauce, and by a little, I mean like at least a teaspoon, because this hot sauce is not gonna make the thing hot at all.

It's gonna bring out all this fatty, cheesy, salty goodness, and really combine with things to make it just work out really good.

Mix it all up.

After you mix it up, set it aside for at least 10 minutes.

Chill it.

It'll come together, but this blue cheese sauce, for wings, whatever you're gonna do, and this crew we're hanging with, man, for this trip, they're willing to do anything, y'all.

We could be in kayaks.

We could be in a hot air balloon.

These dudes like to party.

So you're gonna make a dressing that parties hard.

We about to crash this ship with no survivors.

Take your head of iceberg lettuce, smack it, cut off the bottom, cut off the top, cut you into some wedges, y'all, and if you got a little older one, like this, you can get some smaller ones.

So sometimes, we might do, instead of the whole quarter wedge, get a small baby like this, cut a half wedge, then we're gonna hit it with some salt and pepper.

We wanna see a mountain of the dressing, 'cause let's face it, the lettuce and the leaves are never the star of a salad, and if you think they are, no one's ever made you a really good salad before.

You want this thing to pop, you need more poppy seeds, onion, garlic, all that stuff.

So we've got everything bagel seasoning, 'cause we want this salad to be everything.

We wanna add more color and flavor to this baby.

So we're gonna add in some of these beautiful halved olive oil cherry tomatoes.

The thing that makes this salad fantastic, any wedge, salad is the bacon.

You can use bacon crumbles, and that's fine, and that's a way to learn this thing up, but to me, man, it's lardons, bacon lardons.

These are pylons of pleasure.

In fact, my favorite cut of pork is the bacon lardon.

After that, the final thing to keep this thing fresh and healthy, like salads are supposed to be, we've got some freshly cut dill.

I'm about to go down with the ship, y'all, 'cause, sometimes, if it's worth it, I'm always going down.

Get some tomato, some bacon, and a lot of that blue cheese on here, a salad to die for.

(upbeat music continues) - The guys are outta town for the night, so time for us to take over, and when we do that, we like to do something a little bit different, change it up a bit.

No better place to do that than the Smash Room.

- So you guys need to put on eyeglasses and face shields, then do disposable gloves before you put on work gloves.

These are like for smaller hands.

These are for large hands.

- Okay, talk to me about the- - Are there sizes for these or are they just one size fits all?

(laughs) - No, there're sizes.

So you're gonna go right in here on the tags.

- Okay.

- There's little white tags.

It's like small.

- Awesome.

- And then it goes up to four XL.

- Talk to me about the helmets.

Do we need both the face shield and the helmet?

Is that optional if we're kind of feeling the helmet vibe?

- If you want the helmet, you're gonna wear one of these instead.

They're more of like a backup option for us.

So we prefer you to wear the eyeglasses and face shields.

- Okay, yeah.

- Yeah.

Do you have other questions?

- No, not yet.

(people laugh) ♪ I can make you break your neck ♪ ♪ I can make you break a sweat ♪ I can make you break, break ♪ Break, break, break, break, break ♪ - Okay, we are right in here, but you have questions so far about anything?

- Well, I'm wondering about this vase, because I have a matching one at home, and I'm wondering if this one came with the lid.

Mine's missing a lid.

(person laughs) - Might have.

You can look in there if you want.

- Can I take one of these home with me?

This is a very cute cut.

- Would that be okay?

- As long as it's not broken or has a sharp one on it, you can, yeah, but with the tools, just make sure you spread out as much as possible, so that way, you don't get injured while you're here as well.

- Okay.

- Any questions?

- I don't think so.

- No.

- No, you guys ready?

Yeah, all right.

- I guess so.

♪ Break, break, break, break, break, break, break ♪ ♪ Roll the windows down, yeah ♪ I love to hear the sound (item bangs) ♪ Of the bass in my face ♪ Yeah I like, like, like it, like it, like it ♪ ("Break a Sweat" by Rex Banner plays) (banging continues) ♪ Real loud ("Break a Sweat" and banging continue) ♪ I like it real loud ("Break a Sweat" and banging continue) (items shatter) ♪ Can you feel it?

♪ Can you feel?

♪ Can you feel?

- Yeah, ah.

(laughs) (country music) - We about to get creamed, y'all.

We are serving creamed spinach as the side.

Now, there are a lot of famous ways to pair things with steak.

I mean, you got potatoes, but since we're drinking a starch, we're good enough here.

There's all sorts of things that just feel good with it, too, but what we really want to do here is make a really classic banger, and that is creamed spinach.

This version is hard to beat.

Let's get started.

Put in a whole mess of butter.

Get that all melted up, add in some sweet onion.

Get that going, and remember, we're gonna season as we go with some salt and pepper, because we like a depth of flavor, and you know we're gonna get deep smoking them cigars and drinking that bourbon around a fire, so we wanna make sure we're getting it going, and we're gonna do this for at least five, six minutes until we got the onions real translucent and clear, and the butter's all melted up, some minced garlic, both jarred and fresh combined for another few minutes on here, and get that browned up.

Now, it's smelling right, y'all.

That garlic's fragrant.

The aromatic of it is just awesome, and you can't have ameeed spinach, y'all, without some heavy cream.

So let's make things heavy, y'all.

Cream in there, stir that up 'til it starts to simmer just a little bit.

Put some cream cheese in here too, baby.

Now, we're getting the cheese going on it 'til that gets melted up.

Split it up, stir it up a little bit, whole mess of freshly grated, really good Parmesan cheese.

These are our really good friends y'all.

So gonna use the good stuff.

Stir that around.

(country music continues) Get it all melted, and we're gonna add in some extra sharp shredded provolone, too, that we shredded ourselves.

Shred by hand, and get it going.

A big healthy pinch of nutmeg, get that all mixed up with the cheese.

Once we're making sure there's no chunks of cheese in there and they're broken up, we're gonna add in about a pound and a half of spinach.

You're gonna notice there's more cream and more cheese and more butter than spinach itself.

So don't be fooled.

When you order cream spinach, if it's done right, it ain't that healthy, and if you thought it was, we just took that away from you.

So put in all that spinach, (country music continues) and as you mix it, we're gonna put in another big dose of salt and pepper.

They say to taste, but, again, we're gonna be okay.

You're not gonna oversalt this.

So mix that up until you start seeing it a nice green across the board.

Add in your salt and pepper, and keep stirring it until it's an even color, even light green.

If you need to, I'm gonna put a little splash of more heavy cream in here, and then let it cook for a little bit, and it'll solidify a little bit more, but we like it kind of runny and got the cheese going on it so it just sits in the plate, and kind of makes sure the whole world feels it.

Now, this is a spinach that Popeye himself couldn't handle, man, strong, cheesy, powerful, and our friends, which are awesome and great humans, they can be powerful in life, but they're also cheesy sometimes, too.

That's what makes this thing great and makes our friends great, too Oh, smells so good.

Got my pocket fork.

Always has some good friends in your pocket and a fork, too.

Let's try this out.

May be the best side to have with meat anywhere in the world.

(country music continues) (country music) You know how, sometimes, when you're hanging with your peeps away from the world, things just get heavy in conversation?

We're making a heavy duty protein, y'all.

This is heavy metal steak.

So called, because we use heavy metal to cook it, y'all, on cast iron.

This is restaurant quality stuff done at home, that easy, that fantastic.

Now, the heavy metal steak, besides the cast iron skillet, is a big beautiful rib eye.

This has been sitting out for at least a half hour.

You want this big, beautiful rib eye, about two and a half inches thick and heavily salted.

You cannot oversalt it.

This is gonna bring the moisture to the top of the steak, and when we sear it, it's gonna have this nice, crisp edge to it, that beautiful awesomeness, the Malliard effect, the steak ready to go.

We're also gonna make a compound butter that just melts beautifully, and this is one of those gourmet tricks you see at restaurants that you think you can't make at home, and you certainly can.

I also have a little cabby savvy here, a really nice wine from Cali.

Whenever we serve a steak, we drink wine with it.

Whenever we cook 'em, we drink it, too.

So I've got one stick of unsalted room temperature butter.

That's important.

I'm gonna throw in a bunch of paprika, about a tablespoon.

I'm gonna throw in half a teaspoon of table salt, and set it aside for a second.

I've also got a couple tablespoons of fresh rosemary that I picked from my garden.

I'm gonna chop it up as finely as I can, and then I'm gonna mix that in there, too.

Now, I got my favorite knife, about to cook for some of my favorite people, make one of my favorite things, but the compound butter adds a level of complexity and like more fatty goodness on top of it, and that just makes me feel special.

When you give someone something like, "Man, why go to a restaurant?

Like I just eat here with you guys."

That's what you want.

That's the idea why I love to cook.

My mom taught me that, my grandma, making food for someone is showing 'em how much you love 'em, and that's what's important.

That's why I love cooking.

That's why I love drinking.

That's why I love partying.

That's why I love giving hugs, shoulder shrugs, mean mugs, all that stuff.

Put our rosemary in here.

Now, we're gonna mix this up, and a compound butter is really this room temperature butter mixed with different flavors you wanna bring together and compound the flavors.

Take the back of a spoon, and just press it down, and keep pressing it and mashing it.

Using a spatula every once in a while, they'll poke it off to the side and keep twirling it and mashing it up until you get this evenly really kind of red color.

You'll see as we mash it out.

That is what we're talking about.

You can just put this on bread, on some toast.

It's awesome, but to get it the way we want it to, we're gonna take a piece of parchment paper.

We're gonna roll it into a log.

Put it in the fridge for at least two hours.

Now, gourmet compound butter.

Time for steak.

So first, sip our wine, then preheat your oven of 415 degrees.

Then the cast iron skillet, Get it pretty hot on top of your stove, like pretty hot.

Throw in a bunch of butter, two and a half minutes each side, then in the oven for four minutes for rare to medium rare.

(pan sizzles) Sizzling of the oven.

Time to rest this thing up.

Our compound butter, out of the fridge, looking beautiful.

We're gonna put a few tabs on that on top of our steak before we rest it, tent and rest it.

So we out in the woods with our buddies, this guy's in the woods doing some camping.

So we're tenting this thing up, tent it, and let it rest for five good minutes.

Maybe have some more wine while it rests.

Time for the moment of truth.

(country music continues) Medium rare, that's just how we like this, y'all.

Take a big old bite of this beauty, 'cause we're serving our friends, man.

We want them to be happy and feel good, 'cause that's what its all abou Here's to unpluggin and hangin out with your friends, smoking cigars, just living the life right.

(rock music) - This is where it's at.

This is the wilderness, camping.

I'm down, man.

- I wouldn't quite call this the wilderness, but this is my style of camping.

Yeah, I'm gonna sleep in a bed tonight.

I have a bathroom with a toilet.

- Flushes.

- I don't have to go in the woods, yeah.

- Have you ever been to real camping?

- Real camping, I wouldn't say that.

I went camping once in fifth grade.

That's it.

- Yeah, yeah, no, that's why I don't go real camping anymore either.

I've been once, too.

- Yeah?

- It's more of a hike.

- Mmm.

- Went with a bunch of friends, convinced me to go last minute.

I regretted it the entire first day.

We had one expert.

He calls himself an expert of hiking.

We were gonna hike into a mountain, go up this mountain, come down.

So I was like, "Let's go."

So we go in.

It was like a nine-mile hike to even get to the mountain, and you're like jumping on rocks and you're like, I mean, dangerous stuff.

- Yeah.

- I mean, you know.

- Yeah, I've done it.

- So... - I didn't complain about it as much, but I've done it.

- Yeah, so we get in, and one of our buddies decided to bring a grill.

- What?

- Which, yeah, I mean, he's never been either, So he packed a... Ricky packed a grill.

- Yeah, Ricky would.

- With hot dogs, and the hot dogs stayed in his pack for like, you know, probably warming up a little bit for the nine-mile hike.

- Yeah.

- So we get there to the base of this mountain, and we're trying to find a lean-to, No lean-tos available.

- Lean-to.

- Yeah, it's like a wooden thing that you sleep in- - Ah.

- It's awful.

- It's like a box, but like a house... Imagine a house that doesn't have one wall.

So it's one wall is open, but it's a shelter.

- I don't wish it upon anybody.

- So not a house.

- It's a bunch of wood, someone- - It's like the thing they built on Survivor like that- - Yes.

- Yeah, like that dock.

- Yes.

- It's kind of what you would be sleeping on so.

- Okay.

- It's cool, whatever, but these father and son let us sleep with them, six people like packed tight in this- - Well, they were probably afraid that you guys were gonna kill yourselves if they weren't there so.

- It was pretty clear I was not having fun.

I made it pretty clear.

So then we're sitting there getting ready.

We're going to kind of like put all of our stuff away, and Ricky's out there on the dock with this boy scout tribe.

- Troop.

- Troop.

- (laughs) The tribe.

(people laugh) - So Ricky's out there cooking hot dogs for 'em.

- That's awesome.

- And our buddy, who was the expert, said, "Dude, like, you can't cook hot dogs on a grill.

Like the bears are gonna smell it."

- Yeah.

- And then I was like, "There's bears?"

Like I would've never... I assumed a couple snakes, which I don't love either, but there was bears.

- Okay.

- So the troop leader was really upset that Ricky was doing this.

- Yeah.

- So me and my other buddy, Nick, were like, "We gotta hang..." "You have to hang your stuff over a tree so the bears don't get it."

Apparently, bears.

- Yeah, that can climb trees.

- Yeah, it's tied up for that.

- It's a bear bag.

- So in the tree, you find a high branch, you throw it over the top, because the bear get up there, and it'd be too heavy to get onto that branch.

So it keeps the food away from it.

- It's a little bit of strategy, yeah.

- What makes it a bear bag?

- It's a bag that you put your stuff to keep the bear- - No, I get that, because our... So anyways, we hang this bag or stuff.

I don't even know if it was a bag, but it was just like, really expensive rope, hang it over this tree, come back the next morning, pitch black out just to get our stuff, 'cause you have to wake up early when you go camping, too, which sucks.

- Naturally.

- If you go to sleep.

- If you go to sleep.

(person laughs) And this stuff was just torn to shreds.

So this bear bag's supposed to be helpful in that situation, it was not.

- I think that was probably user error though.

- Maybe, but I had no instructions.

- Yup.

- So the bear tore all of our stuff to shreds, and we were kind of pissed at first, like all of our food's gone.

All of our stuff's like... It wasn't my stuff.

It was like the pots and pans that you go camping with.

- Well, nine miles into the woods, you're in the bear's house so.

- Oh, yeah.

- I can't really blame that.

- So we were, like it's pitch black, this bear could be above us.

It could be still here.

- Well, he's around there somewhere.

- Yeah, so we just left all the stuff laying around.

- Well, hold on, but they're black bears, right?

So black bears, you don't have to be scared of those.

Just don't be around the cubs, but you make loud noise like, "Hey!"

(whacks item) And the bear is gonna run away.

- Not a chance, dude.

I can fight... - I was out of there.

- I can fight a black bear.

- No, you couldn't.

- Easily.

- I was out there as fast as- - Have you fought a black bear?

- I have not, but I've scared a lot of 'em off, and I'm usually like, "Hey!"

(person talks indistinctly) - (indistinct) you're fighting a black bear.

- I could easily fight a black bear.

- Well, we didn't fight the black bear.

I got out of there.

I ditched the father and son, and I was like, "We're going to the car," and that was the end of the trip.

- I'm glad you survived.

- And I'm never going again.

Yeah, it's a fun story now, but I never chance, like this is the- - Guys, we gotta check in on the father and the son, (indistinct).

- Yeah, we do, see, I wanna hear their version of the story.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - Yeah.

(people laugh) - When you're spending time with great friends, stay in the moment.

Be present in good times and bad.

When you take care of the little things, the big things take care of themselves.

It's like building a fire.

You need a strong base, plenty of airflow and oxygen, and room to grow.

So do yourselves a favor, feed the fire, feed your soul, and then feed the people.

- Hungry for History markers from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation shares stories behind regional dishes and local food festivals, including Smith Island Cake and Spiedie Fest, available through grants for municipalities and nonprofits.

wgpfoundation.org/tv.

- Syracuse sits in the heart of New York State, with access to the Finger Lakes and the Adirondacks.

From city vibes and great local eats to live music and festivals that roll on year-round.

Four seasons for everyone.

- Liberty Tabletop has been crafting flatware in America for over 20 years, and is dedicated to supporting our community and preserving the craft of flatware manufacturing.

Liberty Tabletop.

(bright music)