Mashup - Exploring the Heart of Food and Love

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Reciprocity Podcast with AG. Your host is Andrew Gadomski, and the show is a compilation of shared thoughts and experiences that impact lives with grace and authenticity. AG spent 15 years residing as an interim workforce analyst for Fortune 500 employers who provide financial and or healthcare services, supply chain access, or consumer basic needs.

[00:00:23] In 2022, he swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and faithfully discharge his duties in the coveted role of a Senior Operations Research Analyst. AG is part of the mission to deploy cybersecurity and AI workforce skills and shed light on how these skills develop and benefit the American people, US citizens, its residents, and tribal nations.

[00:01:13] Welcome to the Reciprocity Podcast with AG. The podcast brings together different people and personalities, and each guest's experiences in giving and receiving knowledge, inspiration, love, and life. Your host is Andrew Gadomski. He is a data analyst, passionate about the interaction between people and professions, and a lover of learning.

[00:01:34] Hello, everybody. This is Andrew Gadomski, also known as AG. In today's episode, we'll be doing season one. I'll go ahead and volunteer my own. Thanks for listening.

[00:02:04] Jillian Snavely. First fun question. Okay. Tell me about food. And specifically, I want to know about a food that you make or you buy for others that you think makes them feel love from you. Now, at the same time, you could have received something like that that made you feel love from them. What's that?

[00:02:30] I mentioned my husband's a sausage maker. I love to gift charcuterie boards. I love to make them. I have the product right here in my front yard. Convenience. I have done a multitude of charcuterie boards. I actually did a 350-person wedding a couple months back, and that was my gift to them.

[00:02:50] You can imagine that in today's world, it's expensive to do those kinds of things. And this young couple in their early 20s, getting married very early, I gifted them this beautiful 350-person charcuterie tables. I did three tables. It fulfilled me in so many ways because I was able to gift them that. To see the people and their guests enjoy it so much and for them to get those compliments was super cool.

[00:03:18] I love that. I think that is fantastic, right? Not just the results of your friend, but of their relationships. That's so powerful. And you know that every charcuterie board is not the same. Each one has a unique way of designing it and building it. What type of food and cheeses do I put on it? And so it's my gift and art of the work. And it's special to them because you can't repeat it. That's fair. I love it.

[00:03:51] Travis Furlow. We're going to switch to food. So tell me about a food that you make or buy for others that you believe them makes feel love from you. Or tell me about a time where you got that from someone that made you feel love for them.

[00:04:12] This will go to my family, my mother. We are not Italian in heritage, lineage, or there's no Italy on Ancestry.com for me. But lasagna, ironically enough. My mom made lasagna for all birthdays. And you knew the lasagna was coming. Now, my mom also puts pepperoni in her lasagna, which is super delicious. Wow.

[00:04:40] And it probably makes it even a little less healthy. But it is a level of comfort food that realistically, I'd say I'll be 52 at the end of the month. So probably a good 40 of my 52 birthdays, there's been a lasagna involved. I love it. And it creates this feeling of the love she put into it. It's something that she could always give as a gift.

[00:05:03] And it was something that I don't even want to mess with trying to bake it for someone else because I would botch it. It's that experience of I always knew and everywhere I go, if I see a lasagna, go to an Italian place and have a delicious lasagna. There's always going to be the comparison to mom's lasagna, but it's beyond comparing it for taste or aesthetic. I know how much she loved us and loved me. And I'm blessed because she's still with us. And now I'm going to have to call her because my birthday's at the end of the month. I'm going to see if she'll whip up lasagna.

[00:05:34] And she will. It's not just the dish. It's the repetition and the expectation, that anticipation. And that reminds me of some things that my mother does for me when I come home to the house. There's always a couple of little things that are ready. And I don't ask for them. I don't carry. I'm not Mariah Carey where I have a writer that says there has to be white M&Ms in the bedroom when I show up. There's none of that. I get that.

[00:06:02] So we go on the fun side. Let's talk about food. Tell me about a food that you make or buy for somebody else or for others that you believe makes them feel love for you. Or tell me about a food where you receive that has done that for you. Yeah. So I'm not much of a cooker or a baker. I don't like it. And I also look outside for it.

[00:06:31] But I definitely receive food from others. I definitely like that. For me, all sorts of bread or dough and chocolate, which I'm really addicted to. That came to an extreme when I was in my third trimester with my little one. It felt so huge. So the most logical thing to do was to eat chocolate. So I just ate chocolate. And that's how I bet my addiction also to my little son.

[00:07:00] My wife makes homemade challah and she weaves in chocolate for dessert challah, which I don't think a lot of people understand how amazing that can be. But I totally appreciate where you're coming from. That's a heaven of a combination. Oh my God, you should invite me sometimes. Of course. Philip Dana.

[00:07:30] So the next one is a little bit more fun, but I think just as powerful. Tell me about a food that you make or buy for others that you believe makes them feel love from you. You said love, but in writing, you said comfort. And so I was prepared to go savory instead of sweet. Yeah, you can go love or comfort. Yeah, comfort. We'll do comfort, which, you know, kind of pretty close to love. So savory instead of sweet.

[00:07:59] I make a mean risotto and a phenomenal shepherd's pie. But my favorite is a huge crock pot of the people's chili. The people's chili? Tell me more about that. People's chili. If you've ever been over to my house as a guest or if you're coming from out of town or we're having a big football party, there's going to be the people's chili. And it's a secret, but it's always a clean pot at the end of the day.

[00:08:29] You got to show up to know what it is, right? Got to show up to know what it is. And yes, I do put beans in my chili. And we can have we can have that argument. But there's three types of meats and there's, you know, just creates a smell and an atmosphere in my house where it is pure comfort. And yes, maybe some love. That's awesome. I like beans in my chili, but my daughter is now allergic to beans.

[00:08:58] So inside my house, none outside my house. Prashaniya daramadasa. Okay. Food. Yes. Very tough. Yeah, I know. Right. It's a fun topic.

[00:09:19] So tell me about a food that you make or buy for others that you believe when you give it to them makes them feel love for you. Or tell me about something that you receive that makes you feel love from them. Okay. Well, I will give you two as a bonus. So as you know, Andrew, I'm British Sri Lankan. Very proud of it.

[00:09:46] And food is a huge part of my heritage, certainly growing up. And I think as I've now kind of discovered, I love nothing more than hosting dinner parties, especially at this time of year, you know, when you have your Christmas lights and all of that. And last year, actually, I invented a couple of desserts with some really new, interesting flavor combinations.

[00:10:12] One of them was a dragon fruit and blackberry Oreo cheesecake, which went down a treat. That sounds excellent because dragon fruit has got this unique yet mild set of flavors, but you're contrasting it with the crunch of the Oreo and that sweetness. And the sharpness of that blackberry. Yeah. And then the second one I stumbled upon just by accident. It's...

[00:10:42] Taking a bowl of vanilla ice cream and just drizzling some chili jam on it. If you haven't tried it, you absolutely should because it is a flavor combination quite like any other. So I would highly recommend that. That's a great one. I remember when Cher and I were in Sorrento years ago in Italy.

[00:11:05] And we were introduced to this concept of using vanilla gelato, then covering it with either very good balsamic vinegar or limoncello. Oh, sounds divine. And it's something so simple, right? Vanilla ice cream is global and simple and it's easy to make, but then it's what you add to it that creates that memory. Absolutely. And my second one, if I may.

[00:11:35] Yes. Is... It's my mom's Sri Lankan dry fish curry that she makes. And honestly, I don't think I could ever get it to that standard of perfection as she does. A fun fact, actually, I don't have any recipe books. I don't own any recipe books. Other than my mom's own one, which, by the way, she published at the age of 71, which we're all very proud of her. Growing up in Sri Lanka, I used to watch my grandmother cook.

[00:12:04] And as a child, I remember she used to put all of the raw ingredients and she used to get me to try and taste each raw spice, raw ingredient. And now, as a byproduct of that, I can pretty much differentiate most spices or most flavors in any dish. Oh, wow. And I can recreate those dishes just based on tasting.

[00:12:29] And so that's a unique gift my grandmother passed on to me. So, yeah, food is huge in my... And you just pass that on to a number of other people. That's a really great concept of understanding each individual ingredient. Sean Shepard. Okay. Tell me about a food that you make or buy from others that you believe makes them feel love from you.

[00:12:57] Or tell me about a food that you've received that did the same for you. Wow. To me, comfort food is leftovers. Growing up, we didn't have a whole lot. My mom would make a crock pot on a Sunday and we would eat that until it was gone. Sometimes three, four meals a day. So, when my wife makes a pot of chili on a Sunday, she'll have one bowl and I'll eat it all week. And she thinks I'm crazy. Right?

[00:13:24] That kind of stuff causes misunderstandings. But I think anything that is made by someone with you in mind the way you want it is special. I love that. I have dietary restrictions, for example, for physical reasons. There's certain things I can't eat and somebody recognizes that in advance. I won't bring it up. I'll just power through it or try to eat around it and not say anything. But if they do it proactively, that means a lot. That's awesome.

[00:13:54] I love that. It's being deliberate and planning around it. One of the things that Shara does is she's very conscious of what, not what's going to make people feel good, but what allergens or methods do they like to eat? And then this way, it creates that, especially given the healthcare situation our country tends to be in. You want help. And that's one of the ways to do it. Sugar is the enemy. Sugar is the enemy.

[00:14:22] I'll talk to you about corn syrup story after we're off recording. Tell me about a food you make or buy for others that you believe will make them feel love for you.

[00:14:48] Or tell me about a food that you've received where you feel love for the person who gave it to you. I have what I think are the most delicious chocolate chip cookies in the world. They're big and they're just very delicious, soft and delicious. It's a process to make these chocolate chip cookies. I really like to make them for my friends and to pass them out. I just, sometimes I do it for no reasons.

[00:15:17] I actually, another thing you probably didn't know, I entered the state fair with my chocolate chip cookies this year. Bingo. State fair and chocolate chip cookies. How would I know? Sadly, I didn't place. I'd like to meet these judges to talk about this. I'm sure the ones that won were delicious, but I'm going to try a couple little tweaks and stuff. And I might enter a couple variations of the chocolate chip cookies and stratify my opportunities there to win.

[00:15:45] The podcast and its series is powered by Aspen Analytics and how employers use Aspen to remove business risks they have related to AI, wage transparency and pay equity. You can learn more at aspenanalytics.io. And now finally, closing thoughts from our host, Andrew Godomsky.

[00:16:04] So as I think about food that emotes love that either I've received or I've given, I am fortunate to live in a home that has had a history of food that's been homemade and cooked. My wife is a fantastic chef and baker and her grandmother was the same. And my great grandmother made these amazing butter cookies.

[00:16:33] And my mother has made an amazing sauce, a red gravy sauce that was passed down from my grandmother and my great aunt. But when it comes to me preparing food that I want to use to show love, I'm a big fan. And this is provided that the person eats meat.

[00:16:59] I'm a fan of making someone a ribeye, a bone-in ribeye inside my own kitchen. We've got this open-air kitchen. And so we'll go to the – and it's not so much about the meat as it is about the process and the care of making the steak with somebody else. The idea being is that we go to the butcher together. So we get in a car, I drive them over there. You know, we go together.

[00:17:25] And I ask the butcher – and we've got this great grass-fed farm that's not far from here. And we'll go and not pick out the steaks as much as go to the butcher and have them cut the bone-in ribeye. And so I always tell them to make the bone-in ribeye two fingers wide. And we get a couple of those, and we bring them back to the house. And there's this entire process of making the ribeye. And like I said, we have this big open-air kitchen.

[00:17:55] And so there's the stovetop, but then there's a bar that separates the range of the stovetop from the kitchen itself. My guests tend to be on one side, and then I'm the one cooking. The process I actually got from my father, who sent me an article from the New York Times many years ago about how to cook a steak on a cast-iron skillet. And so the whole process takes maybe 15 minutes.

[00:18:23] But it's the concept of those 15 minutes of me preparing for the individual and having them watch. And then we talk, and we're talking about whatever, or I'm walking them through the process. So I figured I'd walk you through the process. First thing you do is you unwrap the steaks, and then you have to take a paper towel. And you pat the steaks to get some of the moisture that typically comes from it being wrapped in paper or wrapped in wax. And this is after you've brought the steaks out of the refrigerator.

[00:18:53] If you go and get them right away, you don't have to do this. But if you have them in the refrigerator, you want to bring them up, not quite to room temperature, but you don't want them to be as cold as a refrigerator. So you usually bring them out. You let them get a little warm, more towards room temperature. And then what you do is you take them out of the wax. And you have to be very careful and make sure you're washing your hands and you've got paper down.

[00:19:16] Sometimes I put down parchment, and that makes it really easy to throw things away so I don't have contamination on the counter. Pat the steaks with the paper towel on both sides. And then you use a fine salt, either a pink Himalayan salt or a regular kosher salt that's well ground up. And you put that on both sides of the steak and you wait a few minutes.

[00:19:42] And then what you do is you go and get a cast iron pan and you throw some canola oil on the bottom. And you get that on medium-high heat so it's nice and hot. Meanwhile, the steaks have now brought some moisture out from the salt. And so what you do is you pat them again with a paper towel. And so now what I'll do is I'll take a little bit of olive oil and I'll put them on massage both sides of the steaks, maybe like a teaspoon on each side.

[00:20:12] And I'll wash my hands again. And then what we'll do is I'll go get a mortar and pistol. And then I'll take peppercorns and I'll put them in there. And then really coarse salt, so white coarse salt. And then I'll go ahead and I'll use the mortar and pistol to make or fine mix. But I'm not going to do a rub. And so now what I've done is I've got the olive oil on both sides. And it's just there to hold the salt and pepper that I freshly ground. And there's this amazing smell of the fresh ground peppercorns.

[00:20:41] And so now what I've done is I go ahead and I have that. And then I put those into the cast iron skillet. And there's this immediate release of the olive oil and the salt and pepper in the air. And so I put them on and I cover it. So you have this great glass cover lid that you'd have to go by. And it's got little vents, so it's not completely steaming inside.

[00:21:08] And I put that on top and I let that sit for about three minutes. OK, at that medium high heat. And you go ahead and then you flip them over after three minutes. And now what you've got is you've seared it again. But now I take about a half a stick of butter and I cut that back up into little pieces. And then I throw that throughout. And now I've got butter that's congealing with meat. And we go ahead and let that go for another three or four minutes.

[00:21:36] Then what I do is I open it back up. And so the loose back on it, go ahead. And then I flip it for one minute on one side. And then one minute on another side. Then I turn off the heat. Then I flip it back over one minute without heat. And then flip it back over one minute without heat. And now I've done it and I've now moved it to a grate that I've got prepared with the parchment there. And I let that sit.

[00:22:05] And I go ahead and put an aluminum foil over the stakes. And it goes for eight minutes. So this is one stake. Eight minutes go by. Do not touch it. And then you gently move that after you take the tent off. Move it over to a board. And you cut it against the grain into these beautiful pieces. Obviously breaking the filet away. And you serve that and serve nothing else. Right? It's just that.

[00:22:34] The whole process takes about like this 15, 20 minutes plus the trip. But the idea was that you spent that time doing it with the person. And every time I've done that with someone, they're saying how amazing the steak is. But I'm not convincing myself that it's me doing it as much as that we're doing it together. And it's something that we built and cook together. And then we sit there. And of course, we're having side dishes that I might have made.

[00:23:02] But I've done that for years now. And I've really enjoyed having people at my table when I've prepared food right in front of them. And they see the care that I put into it. Thanks for listening to the Reciprocity with AG podcast. You can enjoy more episodes by favoriting the podcast at leading podcast platforms.

[00:23:28] On behalf of Andrew Godomsky and all our guests, we enjoyed the time spent with you and ask you to consider reciprocating powerful learnings to and from all you meet. Thanks for listening to the Reciprocity with AG podcast. You can enjoy more episodes by favoriting the podcast at leading podcast platforms. On behalf of Andrew Godomsky and all our guests, we enjoyed the time spent with you and ask you to consider reciprocating powerful learnings to and from all you meet. Thank you.