Speaker 1: 0:15

Hello, Hank, Welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here. I cannot wait to talk about your latest book. But first, how the heck you doing man?

Speaker 2: 0:23

I'm doing all right. I you know I'm pretty busy. Uh, it's, the book has just come out and I have been spending all my days Well, most of my days um, trying to get books, book tours, things ready, to try to make sure that the people who order the books are getting their books, and just generally trying to sell this thing, cause it's. I think a lot of people don't realize how hard it is to get people to know about a book.

Speaker 1: 0:45

The writing part's the easy part, but I'm doing pretty good, yeah, well, you know I was going to ask you about that too, and the idea that you know this is your fourth book there with H&H, and how did that first start, where you decided to make that journey? And then, of course, I'm going to dive into Borderlands and talk all about that. But yeah, I was kind of curious about how the publishing side of that went for you and going in and, you know, producing your own thing.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Uh, it was kind of a leap of faith. So my second book is a duck duck goose and that's a waterfowl cookbook and that was done by basically random house. It's a 10 speed is an imprint of penguin random house. And so big giant publisher uh, they were actually great people to work with, they were really good. And then I came with them with a proposal to write Buck Buck Moose and for some reason they thought it was too niche and that there wouldn't be a big enough audience for it, so they declined it. So they said no, and I don't blame them. If you don't think you can sell the book, then don't take the book on. So I kind of wandered around looking for other publishers and da-da-da, and that didn't really pan out.

Speaker 2: 1:48

So what I ended up doing was doing a Kickstarter in 2015 for that book and it raised enough money to make Buck Buck Moose and that book's been pretty successful and I realized very quickly that, yes, it's super high risk, super high reward, super high investment and it's a little bit of an adrenaline junkie kind of thing where you put a lot of money and time and blood, sweat and tears into a book and now you got to sell it. But I had been doing that with my first two books Hunt, Gather, hunt gather, cook and duck duck goose except I was getting like this much money off of each each book. Well, this one, I'm getting this much money off of each book. So I I it very quickly became apparent that even a moderately successful book is going to make more money and it's going to allow me to do more things and so that each book kind of allows me to, you know, do the next thing and then do the next thing and do the next thing. And that's been, it's been really liberating, it's.

Speaker 2: 2:49

I've been blessed with a team that, like my sister, laura, has designed all four of my most recent books, most of the photos for the books. Borderlands is a little different. She did a lot of the plate photos, but I did all of the not plate photos and I actually did some of the plate photos too. So it's been a kind of an interesting transition but super positive, very kind of you know. I mean it's not like I don't eat triple duck or stress sandwiches for breakfast, but it's paid off so far.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Well, it's a phenomenal book, man. I've read it cover to cover. I love that there is so much storytelling. That goes on as well. I mean, you have 125 recipes, over 300 photographs and, like you talked about, there's a lot of plate dishes but there's a lot of murals, there's a lot of the markets, there's a real sense of these regions and you know the book itself Borderlands, borderlands, recipes and stories from the Rio Grande of the Pacific, uh, six book here and it's, you know, obviously it's, it's out now and it's really kind of a love letter to a region, as you kind of said. And I'd love for you to. You know, for people who may not be familiar about it for the first time, before we dive into it, why don't you go ahead and, in your own words, talk about a little bit about what this book is for you and what you hope readers will get from it?

Speaker 2: 4:13

Sure, it is kind of the culmination of really two decades of traveling all along the border from the Rio Grande to the Pacific. And what I realized when it sort of started out as a straight up Northern Mexican book and that initial idea was there, because a lot up Northern Mexican book and I and I that initial idea was there because a lot of Northern Mexican food is kind of poo-pooed by food people in the United States. It's like man, it's just, it's just Tex-Mex and Tex-Mex sucks, which well, a it's not just Tex-Mex, and B Tex-Mex doesn't suck. So so those two things were like got me kind of got my dander up a little bit. I'm like, yeah, you know what, there's a whole lot more to this food than you might think. So I was going to set up to do that. But then as I wrote the book, I'm like realizing, well, you know what? I have spent so much more time on the American side of the border hunting and fishing and foraging and, of course, eating and talking to people and all that. And it just made it a richer book and it made it a more personal book. And it made it a more personal book and it made it a more fun book. So you know, I mean there's some pretty interesting foraging stuff and hunting stuff and fishing stuff in this book that wouldn't necessarily make the cut if it was a straight-up Mexican cookbook. So this kind of idiosyncratic journey, and we decided to structure the book like a journey. So you start in Brownsvilleville and you work your way to the west all the way to where tijuana meets san diego, and and we weave back and forth and back and forth across the border and you would.

Speaker 2: 5:34

It's. It's just a really super cool. It's really hard to explain how much this region is. It is in my heart, because I love the desert, I love fishing, I love hunting and hunting. All of this stuff is in this border region and there's something about the desert and the deserts are different. You know, there's the chihuahuan desert, there's the, there's the sonoran desert, there's the mojave desert and all of that all. They're all very different. They act differently, they sound, the foods are different from there and then the people are different. It's just this incredible, incredibly rich place that is neither fully American or fully Mexican. That is really really attractive.

Speaker 1: 6:19

Well, and I love how you kind of walk through all these places, talk about the histories, the culture, really, the legacy of the people, the foods there. I mean it's a historical book in a sense too. There's so many things I learned like, oh, that's from there, mattis Morris, the mini tacos, okay. Like there's so many things that I learned along the areas and those regions that I was just fascinated with to bring it back to cause you talk about. You know, the birthplace really of this book is there. You know, right around, uh, in Roseville, california, near Sacramento, when you're sitting down with Patricio Wise, owner of Nick's Taco, and you talk about how that was kind of, if there was a birthplace of this book, it's there. Why don't you tell me a little bit about that and how that was kind of started you on this journey that lasted multiple decades?

Speaker 2: 7:04

Yeah, so Patricio, he owns this restaurant, nick's Taco, just outside of Sacramento and he's a really good friend of mine and again, the original idea was for us to team up on the book, but he's a restaurateur and he's very, very busy so he really helped me a lot in that book. But the whole idea of it started in Sacramento and it's really also the first place and I lived there for 19 years it's really the first place I got a chance to do a deep dive into Mexican food, because in all the other places I've been sure there's Mexican food but nothing like Sacramento. So you could see the origin of that Norteño kind of cuisine in Sacramento. And then it just sparked a fire and soothed an interest. It got me to learn the techniques and working in Patricio's restaurant he taught me a lot too. So yeah, I kind of had to do a hat tip to Sacramento as just the just the birthplace. You know, it's like it's people who read the book are like what's up with Sacramento and that's that's why. That's why that's there.

Speaker 1: 8:11

Well, in there there was actually. You know, I've I've talked to certain uh, you know chefs before and ask them kind of well, what's your? You talk about the deathbed taco that you got from Patricio on your birthday. Why don't you tell me a little bit about that and maybe kind of walk us through a little bit of that recipe, if you don't mind?

Speaker 2: 8:30

It is the it's all it's. In some ways it's the platonic ideal of a Norteno taco. So so in the Northern Mexico and in Texas and in Arizona, beef is king, so and also flour tortillas are king. So I actually have a kind of something of a rant in the in the book about flour tortillas are real tortillas and flour tortillas are really mexican. They really are basic guys like at 400 years in, or are they allowed to be? Okay, to be mexican? I mean, I get it. Yes, corn is older, but still, you know, people change, things change. This is real.

Speaker 2: 9:04

So it was my birthday, I, I don't know six, seven years ago, and Pato, his nickname is Pato. He's like, I'm going to make you a really good taco. So like, okay, cool. So he has these really good thin flour tortillas they're not like Texas style, they're very thin. And then so he put a costra on it which is basically grilled cheese. It's like a grilled cheese tortilla. So you put some cheese down on the flat top and then you put the flour tortilla over it and you let it caramelize on the tortilla and so that you the base of your taco is flour tortilla plus melted crispy cheese On top of that he had, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 9:39

He had like 40 day old ribeye, you know 40 day dry age ribeye, that he grilled and then chopped up and put that on there and then he put roasted bone marrow on there and so like this is a fat rich bomb, right. But then he adds white onions soaked in lime to cut everything, and so the raw white onions soaked in lime, so it takes all that, that burnout, but you've got all of the crunch and you get the acidity. Then he puts a little cilantro on and then the kicker are green chili piquines. So Texans will know what chili piquines are, but if you're not from that region, they're a wild chili that's shaped like a little bullet, like almost like a .22 bullet, and they hit as hard as

Speaker 2: 10:22

a .22. So what you do with this taco is you place them in the taco. You need maybe three or four or five of them and you get one with each bite. So each bite of the taco that you eat has a chili piquin in it and it's like plus. It all works. It's beautiful, it's this I can think about it right now and a perfect one is four bites First bite's discovery, the next bites amazement, the third bites bliss. The fourth bites regret because it's gone.

Speaker 1: 10:54

That is so well said and I love the idea when you talk to about the. You know those, those peppers there that I think you described as like firecrackers in the book, because they're they're powerful but they're not something that's going to like leave your tongue raw and running, for you know some kind of dairy, it's like they're great.

Speaker 2: 11:11

Yeah, because it's, it's, it's, and they're small too, so it's not like you can. You can moderate your dose as well, as much as you want.

Speaker 1: 11:18

Yeah, no, indeed, no, we, my, my father, basically, I grew up with like a jalapeno as a pacifier and chili pateens were a big part of my youth. So especially with friends would be like here you want a candy and you know, run to the hose, right it's. But yeah, that was always fun times. The devil's tic tac, indeed, indeed. I need to get them in a little case there.

Speaker 2: 11:38

Oh, my God, that would be so rad. Just buy everything at Tic Tacs and just eat them all and then just put chili piquines in there.

Speaker 1: 11:45

Or just have the chili piquine like actual Tic Tac box, like maybe we need to contact them and be like guys, listen, you need to expand your universe. Here we're ready, we're ready.

Speaker 1: 11:53

Well, you know there was another taco too that I wanted to talk about. I think it was the Guarneros. That is, oh, guarnonunciation there. But you talk about that as kind of being a close second to your deathbed taco and like that. You mentioned ribeye is common, but you also prefer and as you do in the book, you talk about where wild game can be substituted. I think you've mentioned venison backstraps there and inside the book I'll just preface this too there's iconography where it talks about hey, you could use this here, or this type of meat, and so I like that. You have that idea of domestic, um, you know, wild game. You know there's, there's fish, there's so many different things that you can have, and there's a lot of vegetarian meals as well. But, uh, I'd love for you to talk about those tacos as well. And what region was that from? And you know, let's talk about that and the interchange, maybe, of that domestic and wild food in that particular dish.

Speaker 2: 12:46

Sure. So Gowanera is a what was the name of a bullfighter a Mexican bullfighter back in the day and then but he gave his name to a particular bullfighting move where you kind of drape the cape over the bull just to piss it off, but you get real close to it over the bowl as to just to piss it off, but you get real close to it. So there's a taqueria in mexico city actually, because tacos el califa that they are credited with having invented it, but it's super, super popular in monterey and in the north of mexico and that's where I learned it and it's it's. It's at its very core. It is a tortilla. It can be either corn or flour, but it's a tortilla. It can be either corn or flour, but it's a tortilla with a very, very thinly shaped piece of ribeye over it, and then that's it. So it's like it's not chopped meat, it's a very thin slab or sheet, or like a ultra thin cutlet put on the tortilla, and then that's what you get.

Speaker 2: 13:41

And then you go to the tortilla bar and you dress it up however you want, but the key is for that meat to be so tender. I mean, everybody who is listening to this right now has had a taco where they've bitten into the taco and everything comes out because, like it's too tough, your teeth just pull it right out. So that is the key with a galanera is the meat has to be so tender that you can just bite right through it, no problem. What I found was if you make a very thin venison cutlet, like so, you take backstrap and then you put it between two pieces of plastic wrap and then you pound it super thin, it makes this insanely good galanera, because it's thinner, it's leaner, you can bite through it much more easily. And then you top that with whatever it is that you want.

Speaker 2: 14:24

I do like a spicy pico where it's like regular pico de gallo, but I might put pequins in it, or I might put habaneros in it, or I basically want it to be a little bit more uh fuerte than than a regular pico de gallo. And then I actually like that costra as well, that grilled cheese underneath it, because it adds a little bit of heft. Or another fun one is you can spread refried beans on the tortilla and then put the meat and then put the toppings on it. So the refried beans act as kind of like delicious glue, so that when you eat that thing, it's just ah, it's such a good taco, it's so good.

Speaker 1: 14:59

That is. It sounds amazing. I mean, this is also a warning to all the listeners and viewers of this podcast. Do not, when you get this book, have an empty stomach, because it you will be growling man. I swear like there was so many times I was like, oh, I want to make this right now. Now I want to make this. It's, there will be drool all over your book. It just happens.

Speaker 2: 15:19

It's a. It's a bunch of craveable dishes is what it is Really. So if you're looking behind you, if you're watching this, it's the tacos on the bottom of the front cover with the blue background. Those are Gowaneras. Perfect, excellent, pointing job. I've been practicing. There you go, but yeah, I wanted to go.

Speaker 2: 15:36

I want to answer your second part of your question about the interchange between wild and domestic meat and all these things. So we started that idea with pheasant quail cottontail. So one thing I realized with PQC was that yeah, it's a pheasant recipe, but there's literally no reason you couldn't use a grouse or quail or wild turkey or rabbit. They all work together. So we decided when we made that book to do those icons, and so if you see it as a pheasant recipe, for example, but you see like a little bunny icon or a quail icon or something like that, you're like, oh okay, I'll use this with quail and it's going to be perfectly cool. And then so we translated that to Borderlands because we did it with both meat and fish.

Speaker 2: 16:18

So there are a few dishes that are like beef only, like, for example, the mollejas, which is smoked sweetbreads and that's. That's a texas dish, um, and that is a. That's something that I really think you can kind of only do with beef, beef sweetbreads and. But you know, I mean there's a, there's a great stew. There's a bunch of stews in there, like puchero or pozole or gallina pinta, and I almost always do gallina pinta. So that's a sonoran dish that, if you think about, puzzle everyone not everyone, but most people here have had pozole. If you think of pozole, but with beef and beans in addition to the corn and the chilies, that's gallina pinta and it's very sonoran and they will almost always use beef, but there is zero reason not to use like venison shanks or or shoulder or neck, and it's every bit as good, if not better, because it's a little bit leaner and less greasy.

Speaker 1: 17:12

Nice. Oh, good, good advice there. I'll be checking that out. You know I wanted to jump into kind of. You know we. You started off in Sacramento and of course there's nine regions. You you run through one in the Gulf. That I thought was a cool story. Was you going to the mouth of the Rio Grande for the first?

Speaker 2: 17:27

time so cool.

Speaker 1: 17:28

Tell me a little bit about that experience, you know, and kind of what happened there and kind of what you, you know you reeled in there. But I'd love for you to talk about that. And when was that that you did? This Was during this work on the book, or was this kind of during a trip. So yeah, why don't you walk through that?

Speaker 2: 17:43

it was kind of a it was almost to tie a bow on it a little bit. So I, that was 2024 that I was there, so it was just last year. So I went down there again because I've been down to brownsville a lot of times. I have a friend named, uh, mike ortiz, who's a good guy and a farmer down there, and so we hunt and fish together all the time and just generally eat lots and just you know, it's like time out for good, for bad behavior, if you know what I mean. And and so we were having a good time, and we were.

Speaker 2: 18:11

I've never been to the mouth like. I've been to all, like almost the whole length of the rio and I've never seen it dump into the goal. He's like oh, we gotta go. So it's because it's right near brownsville. So we went there and, sure enough, elon blocked us because SpaceX, if you don't know, is there. That's where it is. It's right above the mouth of the Rio Grande, for whatever reason. He has some weird arrangement with the cops there. When he's doing rocket testing, the cops block all the roads. He was testing one of his toys and so we're like, ah God, we couldn't go, we're all mad.

Speaker 2: 18:46

So we went and did all the things that day and that's uh, we found texas ebony. We ate a whole bunch of tacos. We just hung around. So then it was kind of getting towards the end of the day, like you know what, let's just try it again, maybe they're done. So we drive down there and we get past the checkpoint, like yes, we're there. So we get in and to just actually see the mouth, you basically drive on the beach all the way to the mouth. It's, you know, and you kind of got to be a little careful because even though they don't have big tides there, the tides will come up and in some places it'll come right up to the where you'd get a drive. That's that's no bueno.

Speaker 2: 19:19

So we go out there and we finally make it and there's like there's a border truck. That poor guy has got to be bored to tears because there's a guy in a border truck standing and sitting in his truck. Here's the mouth. And it's crazy because the mouth of the river is not A it's not really huge and B it's not really deep. On the Mexican side there's a whole bunch of people picnicking and fishing and having a great time. We wave and the border guy is like bored and there's nobody on the U? S, so it's just me and Mike, and so we're looking at I'm looking at the shells and taking pictures and it's just. This is it? This is super cool and it's really interesting to see how inconsequential the border really is, because it's just like those are the people on either side of the border having the same kind of fun, you know.

Speaker 2: 20:04

And so I'm thinking all these thoughts and Mike's like we need to wet a line, like, yes, we do. So he brought, he brought a couple of spinning rods and a little some some lures called the electric chicken and it's basically like a swim lure, like a bit of a swim bait, and it's just, you know, you cast out and jig it back and he's cast a few times while taking smart pictures. You know you need to say that you wet a line in the mouth. Real grand, like absolutely 100. I do.

Speaker 2: 20:33

So I grab, grab a line, tie an electric chicken on and cast out right in a good spot where I think it's a kind of like edge of a current, and it's literally like five yards in front of a mexican guy who's who's fishing from the other side. So he's waiting and I'm waiting, and so it's like we're. We're meeting in the middle with rods and reels and then I start to jig. I start to jig and I'm like, there it is, there's freaking fish on and I'm like, holy shit, it's a fish, so I'm bringing it in. I do not want to lose this fish. And it comes in and sure enough, it's a legal speckled trout. So it's like a. It's a good size, not huge, but I mean it's a good size speckled trout. I'm like that's amazing, like I caught a fish in the first cast. When does that ever happen? Like almost never. So mike's like we got to catch more.

Speaker 1: 21:17

I'm like no, we don't.

Speaker 2: 21:18

I'm gonna stop right now because I want the story where I caught a fish on my first cast and call it good. It's like. It's like a gambler being able to leave with your winnings Right. This is a super cool time.

Speaker 1: 21:30

Well, and you, you guys didn't have everything ready to kind of transport it back, so you release the bag there.

Speaker 1: 21:36

So you can catch it next time you go. That exact one, right? I think his name's Paco. I thought so too. He looked like a Paco. You have a great picture of him there, um, in the book, which I thought was pretty cool. No, it's phenomenal man, a great story. I love that you kind of included that there's so many different stories that you kind of bring up through all the different regions and we'll just jump to the next, like South and West Texas. There, what are some of the things that really stuck to your mind about that region and that chapter, and what is it that you really wanted to include to?

Speaker 2: 22:08

uh, you know your readers about that, I think the general public of the United States has a very blurry view of Texas South of I-10. I think they, I think a lot of people think that Texas stops at San Antonio. And there's actually a whole lot of Texas that's south of San Antonio, a whole lot. And especially once you get south of I-10, west of San Antonio, all the way out to El Paso, it gets wider, bigger spaces, wilder, drier, less populated. I mean, it is true that there's not a lot of towns between san antonio and el paso. So you get this real feeling of bigness, real feeling of kind of age. You know, it feels a little like the old west and it looks a little like the old west that you start to get into the chihuahuan desert proper and that's a really cool desert because it's it's kind of a yucca desert as opposed to the sonoran, which is a cactus desert. And so they, you know you really kind of get this. You know you start playing, like you know this, the theme song from good, bad and the ugly or something like that, in your head over and over again, and then you kind of drive and drive and drive and drive and you're just, you're kind of soaking in. It's mountainous too. This is.

Speaker 2: 23:27

The other thing that people forget is that that southwest texas is mountainous, there's like actual mountains, and then you get over one of these mountains and you see this glow on the horizon, and that glow is el paso and juarez. And it's just weird because el paso juarez their sister cities, like this isn is the thing that that I also try to talk about in the book is that virtually every town on the border has a mimic, so like it's piedras negras and eagle pass and huevo, huevo, laredo and laredo and so on and so forth all the way out to california. So the, the juarez and el paso sisterhood is a super, super strong and B is they're isolated through by themselves. So it's hours to another real city from El Paso. So you really get this kind of feeling of like, a like. If you're, if you're a Star Wars fan, it really makes me feel like Mos Eisley, where you know that's the, that's the place where, where Luke and uh and Obi-Wan first come off the farm in the first movie, and it's this huge, sprawling, slightly lawless, very independent place that is just in the middle of nowhere. And I love El Paso. I was shocked at how cool it is and also I think it needs to be said that Juarez is not exactly, you know, a resort area, but neither is it as dangerous as people say it is, and now it had been, but these days it's, it's fine, like I'd go to dinner, dinner there anytime across the border and do stuff there anytime.

Speaker 2: 25:06

I think another thing that's sort of the side note for people who read this book and think about Northern Mexico especially is that, generally speaking, the only way you're going to find trouble in Mexico is if you're looking for it. If you're looking for it like, if you're going to strip clubs or looking for drugs or getting super wasted at two in the morning at a bar, yeah you might find some trouble. But if you're just, if you're just minding your own business, it's no more dangerous and arguably less dangerous than being in an American city. So, yeah, there are places, like especially in Tomolipa south of Brownsville, that I'm not going to just drive around like a tourist, you know and but. But for the most part I felt pretty, pretty okay, pretty safe and I actually had one interaction with a cartel member.

Speaker 2: 25:55

I guess I was going to walk into a bar and this guy it was a great bar, but this guy. There's a guy at the door and he's dressed all super nice and I thought he was just like the you know the maitre d' or something. He's like you American, and he's dressed all super nice and I thought he was just like the you know the maitre d or something. He's like you, american. He says it's in english and because usually I speak mostly spanish in mexico but he says it in english because I guess I look american and he's like are you an american? Like yeah, yes.

Speaker 2: 26:19

And he's like, yeah, you know, maybe you shouldn't go to this bar tonight. And I said, oh, is like a private party or something. He's like something like that. And then he points to like another place across the street, like you should go there, it's a really nice spot. Like, okay, cool, thanks. So I knew exactly what was happening because I grew up in New Jersey and in New Jersey, where I grew up, every now and again you go to an Italian restaurant and the mob would be there. So there would usually be a guy be like yeah, it's private party. And then you just get the message and then you just move on. It's, it's no harm, no foul, but I a I was interesting to see that that rule applied there and be.

Speaker 1: 27:02

Uh, I respected the courtesy he gave to the foreigner. Yes, that's a gentle nudge in the other direction. Right, it's an important thing. Well, you actually talk. I wanted to mention too, because there was something that I thought was pretty remarkable when you talk about heading over those mountains, when you first see those lights of el paso, you said it's time to press play on a song, the soundtrack of driving into that. Will you please tell us a little bit about that?

Speaker 1: 27:27

down in the west texas town of el paso, I fell in love with a mexican girl, marty robbins but I'd love, I loved hearing like this idea of like a soundtrack there and I was like I kind of it. It made me want to ask you too about other soundtracks of the regions, that other ones too. So at some point maybe we'll have to do like a playlist of this I'm actually working on.

Speaker 2: 27:49

I'm wearing a two playlists for for this book that people can listen to when they when they cook from the borderlands. One's going to be like all kind of classic, either norteño mexican or classic old country, because I just thought kind of like that rich history of both the regions and then the other one, I mean there's an entire new genre of like psychobilly and sort of more modern, you know narco-corritos and stuff like that, where so there's the kind of the comforting and then there's the edgy and they both exist in that region and it's, I think it's sort of indicative of the feeling of being in the borderlands sure, no, I, when we go down to our ranch in south texas, there's a playlist of that region, of that area.

Speaker 1: 28:33

Man and it's I mean, it's always like my buddy's, like why are you listening to? Like tayhom music? All the time I was like what are you talking about? Why, that's what this is here, this is. I can't listen to anything else. You know, how can you not listen to selena South Texas? There you go, the birthplace right Of her, san Antonio. No, I'm Corpus, actually, right, yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:51

Yeah, yeah, I know, bitty, bitty boom while you're catching a snook in Laguna Madre, that's money.

Speaker 1: 28:58

Laguna Madre, too, you also pay homage to that area. Why don't you tell me a little bit about your, your trip there? Cause that place is so rich. I I mean there's so many amazing uh I mean things to do, places to go. It's a beautiful area, I mean it's very unique to united states and too it's uh, you know, with all the, the, that, just that little region, that pocket. I don't know if you can maybe paint a picture for people, if you don't mind so it's kind of the beginning of a very big barrier island chain kind of that.

Speaker 2: 29:27

I guess there's a little bit of it in galveston and then it's kind of the beginning of a very big barrier island chain kind of I guess there's a little bit of it in Galveston, but then it really sort of picks up in Corpus. But once you get to the border with sort of the Brownsville Matamoros area, you get this literally gigantic, the Mother Lagoon, laguna, madre. It's just this huge thing and it's got some separations to it. But it's unique in the sense that it is a unbelievably rich fishery and it's one of the very few places in the united states that you can catch snook on the regular. And now snook is a huge.

Speaker 2: 29:59

It's such a huge fish in in mexican cuisine and mexican culture that I have a mexican version of logo, my Hunter Angler Grinder Cook logo, and so the English language one has a salmon as the fish for the angler. The Mexican one's got a snook and it's robalo in Spanish and the snook if you don't know what a snook is, it's sort of a prehistoric looking fish but they're silver with a black racing stripe. They're vicious, they're tough fighters, gorgeous fish, kind of tough to catch because they're wily, they they're really good at like of swimming around something to break your line, um. But they're also arguably the most delicious fish in the gulf of mexico, uh, or gulf of america, or gulf of tecate, whatever you want to call it. That fish is amazing. So it's considered kind of a rare-ish sport fish in the United States.

Speaker 2: 30:55

So a lot of people just do catch and release, especially in Florida, which is another place you can catch them. But in Mexico you see them in fish markets and oh, it's so good, it's so good and there's crabs there, redfish, speckled trout, trigger fish. Then right outside the Laguna is some of the best tuna fishing and big game fishing you can get in the entire Gulf. So it's the duck hunting, the Laguna Madre duck hunting in the fall. I keep trying to. So one of these years I'm going to get down and get some whistling ducks, because I've not yet shot whistling ducks and I've always wanted to see what they taste like and I hear the. I hear good things about them. So there's so much like nil guy yeah, you know, they're a nil guy that come right up on the beach in some of these places and it's just wild have you hunted them in in this that region?

Speaker 2: 31:44

yep, I've, uh, I shot a cow nil guy um with with mike ortiz three years ago, four years ago, yeah, I think it was 2021 it was.

Speaker 1: 31:54

It's amazing me. It's some of the best. I absolutely love it. What so? That area there's so rich of so many things and I I love too when you talk about, like, obviously, like, bird hunting too. You bring in an element where you talk about dove hunting in a lot of the different regions that you travel, about how celebrated it is and sometimes dangerous. I think you and your friend kind of experienced some birdshot head in your way, but you know you really kind of pay homage to that and there's some some dishes there too, um, and it sounds like that's something that you have. It's kind of a you know, the opening season, that first day, is something that you try to get out to a lot. Why don't you maybe talk a little bit about that, if you will?

Speaker 2: 32:30

So, again, if you're in the northern parts of the United States, doves are kind of not a thing, partially because there's some really old, straight-up, bigoted laws that were set up in the Northeast about 100 and some odd years ago. Laws, um, that were set up in the northeast about 100 and some odd years ago specifically to keep people who weren't rich white hunters emphasis on rich um from having a good time, basically. So they, they pass legislation in the northeast to make doves a songbird. Well, they're not a songbird biologically and they're not a songbird legally in most states.

Speaker 2: 33:08

So outside of that, you, you know you've these dove seasons have been a tradition for I don't know, probably 200 years and it's just such a big social thing. It's, you know, you, it's, you can talk while you're doing it. You don't have to wear camo. Um, you know, there's a barbecue after each time and this is where that sort of the traditional dove popper comes in that most people probably listen to. This, know, or at least some kind of a popper. Basically, if you don't, it's the dove breast with cream cheese or something, a jalapeno or another pepper, and then it's all wrapped in bacon, then grilled and there's a good good poppers, actually not that easy to pull off. I've had acres of bad poppers, so the so doing a good popper is kind of a.

Speaker 2: 33:55

It's kind of a celebration in a lot of ways, but I just I love it. I just love it because they're hard to shoot, um, they're very delicious and in places like brownsville or Yuma, arizona or South New Mexico they're everywhere. They're the dominant bird in the landscape. So it's great for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that you get to have that very traditional Labor Day barbecue and sure, there's probably going to be steaks and salads, but but that dove appetizer or that, you know, I sometimes will do a dove main course it's, it's super special and it's a really regional slice of americana well, I have to ask you, when you say that you sometimes use that as a main course, what is it that you'd be making with that?

Speaker 2: 34:46

Um, so they, the poppers, are a traditional appetizer, but a lot of times I'll either grill doves I have a dish called doves a la mancha, which is in pheasant, grill cottontail, and that's kind of one of my signature dishes period like, let alone just for doves. But doves a la mancha is where you pluck the doves and if you're sitting out there raking your nose about plucking it up, once you get used to it you can do it in about 90 seconds maybe. Uh, the doves fly off the, or the feathers fly off the doves. It's really easy to pluck them and then you get that skin and fat. But the believe it or not doves can be fat, so that fat's delicious because all they're doing is eating seeds. So you get that kind of it looks like a tiny little chicken.

Speaker 2: 35:25

I mean, all the doves are red meat. You should know. I mean you know, but I'm just talking for real. And so what I do is I will stuff that cavity with fresh herbs like rosemary sage, really aromatic stuff. Then I'll paint the dove with either olive oil or bacon fat and then salt it and then grill it so that the breast meat is about medium, so it's still pink, and then, when it comes off, I'll hit it with salt or I hit it with pepper and smoked paprika and you just kind of sit there and eat them. You know, most people, if you can do like if you're a hungry hunter, you'll eat four or five or six, but most people you put three of those on a plate. That's a really good main course.

Speaker 1: 36:08

Oh, it sounds phenomenal.

Speaker 1: 36:09

Well, you know, that also kind of triggered my idea that I was going to ask you about too, and kind of like part one of your book and I should mention this earlier you have like part one where it's kind of like the basics, the essentials of kind of like what you might need to go ahead through.

Speaker 1: 36:19

You call it the basics and when you just mentioned herbs, there too there's a lot of inclusion about certain types of herbs of these regions, some that were kind of you know, I forget the name of the one, but it was kind of similar to cilantro, and you know, I know you kind of talk a lot about a lot of the different things that are included. Obviously you know different types of peppers and chilies and things there too. But as far as some of the herbs that you use a lot in some of these dishes, if you can kind of maybe run a little list of those just for people, and maybe we can kind of talk a little bit more about the basics of what should be in your pantry for making some of these dishes.

Speaker 2: 36:55

Sure. So with the herbs, cilantro is king and cilantro it's my theory Now, this is just me talking, but it's my theory that cilantro is so popular in Mexican food because there's a native herb that lives in the Gulf region called culantro, and culantro is it's also, you see it, as sawtooth herb, because the Southeast Asians have adopted it and they like it a lot. It needs kind of hot and wet. I've tried to grow it in Sacramento. It doesn't really grow that well. It won't grow up here in Minnesota, where I live now, because it's not hot enough. But it's a rosette plant so it'll set a taproot and then it's got all the big fat leaves radiating around it. But it tastes a lot like cilantro, really only used in the gulf region. So once you start to get west, it's all cilantro.

Speaker 2: 37:50

But the I think the the two herbs that are um requirements uh, the one that's 100 of requirement is mexican oregano. Like, if you want to cook from this book, buy yourself some mexican oregano, because it's everywhere. Um, it's not oregano, it's close, and you and no babies will die if you use regular supermarket oregano in these dishes. But if you really want to get that flavor and it's different, you'll find real Mexican oregano, and then you can find there's like four or five different kinds. Most of them are in the verbena family and they're perennials. So I have one. Actually, if I look this way, uh, my porch, I have a little potted one outside and it's two years old and it will come back every year. You can't, they're frost enough frost already, so you've got to bring them in before when it gets really cold. But it's floral. There's one that's almost like bubble gum. It's like it's so different and it adds so much to the flavor of these dishes and you can buy them in any Latin market. You can sometimes buy Mexican oregano in bigger regular supermarkets, but every Latin market will have it and it's usually dried. So that's number one.

Speaker 2: 39:00

Number two would be epazote. So epazote, a lot of people are going to know it right, because it has a very specific smell and it grows in like sidewalks. It's like it's one of the most unkillable plants on the planet. And, of course, this huge taproot, and it's just you can, it's the, it's the tammy winette of herbs, like you can beat on it and it just keeps coming back. It's just, it's not, you can't, you can't kill this thing. So, that said, somebody's gonna be like I killed one. I'm like oh, I'm so sorry your, your thumb is so black, but so epizote smells like like ozone. It smells like asphalt after a thunderstorm.

Speaker 2: 39:41

There's a very specific smell and I either like it or you hate it and in, but it's mostly used. There's sauces that put it in and you can put it in stews and stuff, but it's mostly used um with beans, and so it it flavors the beans and it is said to reduce farting from beans. Whether that's true I don't know, but it absolutely adds a good, good flavor. Use it like a bay leaf, like you throw a sprig in with the beans and you fish it out when you serve the beans. So that gets to some of the basics. You need beans and I really prefer dried beans because you can cook them to your own liking and you can get the cooler varieties. But canned pinto beans are fine. You need to learn how to make refried beans, because refried beans are really important to the order. Uh, and I have a great recipe for refried beans in the book.

Speaker 2: 40:35

If you have one, use yours, I mean this isn't one of those things that you have to use mine, no, it's, but I have a really good one, but just go ahead and use any. I don't love canned fried, refried beans. They're kind of gloppy, so that's a thing you would need. Find decent tortillas, so go to a Latin market. Some big supermarkets have decent tortillas and there's different tortillas for different things. So there's little corn ones for street tacos, there's the bigger corn ones for, like, tostadas. Then, with flour, you've got the texas puffy, puffy ones. Now texans don't think their flour tortillas are puffy, but they're puffy. Um, and well it's. You know they're like oh, it's just flour tortilla, like it's a texas flour tortilla and it's good. It's just different from a sonoran flour tortilla which you can practically read through and they, they're kind of amazing and I and I have a recipe for how to make those, so you don't have to make your own tortillas. It's great. If you really want to dive into this book, learn how, because it's foundational, but you can buy good tortillas and that's. That'll be fine. Um, you're going to want to really get to know the holy trinity of white onions, plum tomatoes and jalapenos or serranos. So those three ingredients show up everywhere and it's just, it's just a thing. Um, it's, you know, salsa bandera is, is is another name for pico de gallo, because the color is the mexican flag. You know, you can vary your pico any way you want, but it's uh, and it's obviously not the only salsa, but it's a great fresh topping. It's actually used more as like a fresh topping as opposed to a salsa, and I've got tons of salsa recipes in the book. Um, and those you know, that's a little bit more hot sauce-ish. The reason I'm doing this is because there's a lot of people who equate pico de gallo. That's salsa. That's what salsa is Right, and there's a lot more to it than that. So sauces are a really big deal.

Speaker 2: 42:39

Other sort of basics, if you can get it, good, good, plain beef jerky. Good, good, plain beef jerky, because the one super cool thing about the borderlands on both sides is the really rich use of both beef and venison jerky. It's very simple. It's usually only salt and chilies, or just salt sometimes, and there's stews with it. They will cook it with eggs. It's shredded and that's called machaca, and that's wild. I've never like when I first had it. Well, let me, let's get some machaca and eggs, whatever that is so they have a.

Speaker 2: 43:16

Historically, what you do is you take a piece of beef jerky and you take like a garlic clover too and put it in a basalt mortar and pestle a more mocha hete and you beat the crap out like you run the.

Speaker 2: 43:28

You run the big piece of beef turkey on a grill to like give it a little bit of grill-y flavor, and then you put the the uh, the garlic cloves down and a little bit of water and you just beat the crap out of it with your mocha jete until it's like shredded and it would and it can form like almost like cotton candy, looking like meat cotton candy, and they now have machines that will do it for you. But the net effect is this fluffy tender. It cooks faster Because if you do like a beef jerky stew and I have one in the book it's great. But it takes a little while for that beef jerky to sort of get pliable and tender enough to where you want to eat it with a spoon. But this machaca and eggs, that's a big deal and it's one of those things where it's not going to make you leave chorizo, but you might step out on chorizo for machaca.

Speaker 1: 44:17

Well, you also talk, excuse me, about chorizo, and that's one of the things if you can find it and it's authentic for me you have a bunch of resources in the back of the book too that you can kind of learn from. But you talk about there's some interplay and some inner exchange there where if, like, you can't find this, but there's certain stuff where you're like, if you're going to do this, you have to do this. And this particular meal no, pico, whatever it is like I love how you kind of lay that out as far as eating it traditionally for that region and maybe for that purpose of, like, trying to have a full, authentic meal. And you know, that was something that I really enjoyed about the book, kind of finding out what areas this is included, what areas the charro beans are next to the chili, how some of these areas that you know. I mean that's the right. The quintessential question too, like chili, is there beans or no beans in?

Speaker 2: 45:05

certain regions. I told you this is my theory right? So, like in Texas, where chili, as we know it, was invented, texans eat charo beans. So if you go down to certain places in Texas and order a bowl of red, you might also order charo beans, and it sits right next to it and the entire rest of the country is like well, that's dumb and pours it right in, but, like Texasxas, like no, get them separated go the wall between them all.

Speaker 2: 45:32

Yeah, go the wall between charro beans and chili there's a t-shirt here, man we got the tic tac the jeans.

Speaker 1: 45:39

I mean we gotta be amazing. We got a marketing wheel running here. I love it. I'm gonna get to work on these, no, but it's true it's one of those things, but it traditionally, you know it's one of those things, but it traditionally, you know, that's something that I've seen a lot of different places when I've gone across the border. When I was younger, my family's in the Rio Grande Valley like going and having a meal there that could be completely different than something that's on the flip side of the border.

Speaker 1: 46:01

You know, and that's I love to really dive into this book. I think that's something that's going to be very educational. Not only is it entertainment, because you kind of walk us through you know this prose of your, you know experience of going to these different regions. I love that there's nuances of each place that I think is really gives a very specific, whether it's like Sonoran hot dogs or just, you know, like these things that you're like I didn't think about that region being having this thing here that it's known for, but it's really enriching man. I really love that you dive into that so deep in this book.

Speaker 2: 46:33

It's been a journey, man, it's been, it's so it's. It continues, right. So I I decided I decided to write this book, because I needed to write this book and it'd been a few years since I published a book and I think I was ready, years since I published a book and I think I was ready. But that said, I guarantee you I could find another 125 recipes and to put in there and the cutting room floor on this book was profound, like there were so many dishes that I'm like well, it's great, but it's not necessarily going to make the first 125.

Speaker 1: 47:03

So I can imagine that that that's still a laundry list of amazing meals there.

Speaker 2: 47:09

Yeah, and I also wanted to balance it from east to west too.

Speaker 1: 47:14

No, that's true, that's true. Is there a particular region that you find yourself kind of going to? That flavor if you're like making meals, or do you kind of throughout this experience is there? You know, I'm sure that there's so many that you love, but is there one particular region If you were like, if I'm going to eat this, if you had one month to have the meals, is there one spot that you're going to?

Speaker 2: 47:37

depends on the, depends on my mood, but it's probably either sonora or baja and why is that what?

Speaker 1: 47:42

is it about those uh spots in that kind of cuisine there?

Speaker 2: 47:45

that really spoke so baja is so seafood centric and you know I grew up on the water and you know if you, of all the six books, the hook line and supper is my most autobiographical and I'm I'm a fishy guy, like if it's. If I had to choose between hunting and fishing, I would take fishing, um, just because it's been with me as a human being longer and I'm probably better at it. I mean, I'm a good hunter but I'm a pretty fishy guy, um, and baja is all about that, and there are some things about baja that are unique to baja. So the, the shellfish in the Sea of Cortez Now, you can't get that, of course, in Sonora because they're on either side of the Sea of Cortez, but that Sea of Cortez shellfish, the big game fishing in Southern Baja, it's.

Speaker 2: 48:36

The seafood centric nature of the place is really really exciting to me and it speaks to me. Food centric nature of the place is really really exciting to me and it speaks to me. Sonora is. The other place that speaks to me is the sonoran desert, and it's a weird desert in the sense that if you know what you're doing and you know your wild plants, you can get fat in the sonoran desert, like there's so much to like just wild food to eat there that it's just this cornucopia all the time and there's fruit and there's starches, and there's vegetables and there's game and there's even some fish here and there and it's it's. It's such an amazing region and I think the the separation between arizona and the state of sonora is fairly minor in terms of cuisine and you know even to some extent the people where new mexico and chihuahua are quite different.

Speaker 2: 49:29

They share a desert but new mexico has been kind of a thing since the 1500s, like it was a, it was an actual independent colony. I mean it was spanish but it was like new mexico was a thing and then underneath it was was chihuahua. So their cuisines have diverged and have they've had longer time to diverge, whereas in arizona and sonora it's kind of all of a piece and I like that seamlessness because you know if you slide across the border, food's a lot pretty darn similar, except everyone's speaking spanish well, I one of the things that you just pointed on too, yeah, the word unique, and there is some things that you have that I find very unique, um, and I'd love to touch on a few of those if you don't mind.

Speaker 1: 50:12

One of them is ari, the resin. It's made by ants and the chihuahuan reason. Why don't you talk about that and what that's included in? Because that was pretty fascinating okay.

Speaker 2: 50:20

So one thing you have to know about me is, with every one of my cookbooks there's at least one recipe that is super gonzo, weird, and hey, if you can't repeat it, that's not my problem. Like, uh, I mean, I have a like a venison tripe recipe in the deer book. I've got crispy fried fish skins and a client supper. I've got, uh, duck tongues and duck duck goose and like you name it. Like I have some, like I have some weird ass shit here and there. So, uh, in this one there's a couple of them, but the one that is truly I'm I had to put it in there um, even though it's damn near impossible to get in the united states is that re.

Speaker 2: 50:59

It's a, it's a resin that is secreted by ants on a particular set of shrubs in like where the tarahumara indians live in chihuahua, and it's it's essentially like chihuahuan msg. So it's, it's, it's as an enormous amount of umami savory flavor to whatever it's put into, and it's a little bit like honeydew, if you think about it. Um, but that's dried and it's it's got to be ground, very fine, because otherwise it's gritty, and so it's ground. You keep the little nuggets and then you grind them in a mocha hete or in whatever, and then that's kind of the beginning of your salsa or the beginning of your sauce. And my friend, christian dutoy, who is a chef in chihuahua, he uses it extensively and he's done some really cool stuff with it and I include a couple of recipes from him that use it in in the book uh, short version.

Speaker 2: 51:51

Uh, you're never gonna find it, you can't buy it online, um, but if you're ever in chihuahua you will find it. You know people sell it on the street and it's not cheap but it's. You know it's like 20 bucks for a sandwich bag, full American, but it's worth it and it's unique and it's just one of those things where this is Chihuahua and it's not Sonora, it's not New Mexico, it's not Texas, it's very unique to that region.

Speaker 1: 52:19

Well, there was something that and it's in the book, but it's just the question that I had that popped to mind. We were in South Texas hunting and we came across a Mexican wasp and these. The honey apparently that they produce is something that's used in regions around there and in Mexico. Is that something that you have come across and have you done any work in cooking with that by chance?

Speaker 2: 52:43

Not that particular wasp, but there's another set of stingless bees that live in southern Tomalipas, all the way out to Yucatan, and then that's a super cool honey. And you'll find mesquite honey in the Sonoran region, where it's not mesquite beans, it's the bees are going to the mesquite flowers and making honey from that and it's a kind of a golden. It has a very specific taste. Like you can, I can tell mesquite honey, and so there's a few of those all around the region and it all kind of really depends on the, on what the dominant flower is. But yeah, it's super cool, like, like there's wild food in in everyday Mexican food has a big. Let me rephrase that the wild element of Mexican cuisine is bigger than the wild element in an American cuisine. So you will, you will, you will see a wild thing kind of on the regular in all parts of Mexico.

Speaker 1: 53:39

Well, you know, when you just mentioned there too, about mesquite beans, about mesquite, there's something that you have is a lot of different things with mesquite bean syrups, uh, flour that's made. And then also, you know, we talked a little bit about, mentioned like cacti, and there's a bunch of different dishes there, whether it's tuna sorbet, tuna chews. There's cactus salad, barrel, cactus chula buds there's. That's another thing that I found very unique but enriching, because I know I've done a lot of stuff in experimenting with, like, the tuna from the prickly pear stuff that we have around Texas. But I'd love for you to kind of maybe touch that, maybe you know, speak about some of your favorites out of those lists that you created.

Speaker 2: 54:15

Sure, the foraging on the borderlands is amazing. I think people forget about that, like, oh, it's a desert. I just went to the Chihuahuan Desert Research Center not too long ago and that's in West Texas and there are so many edible plants that are delicious there and so many, and including the pink pine nuts. The only place you can get pink pine nuts in America is West Texas and they're sweeter and and it's just they're sweeter and they're pink because they're cool, um, but they're sweeter and they're they're the best pine nut, and so that's an example. But in terms of the cactus and and cholla and yucca and all those kinds of things, those are the plants that live there and there's, there are lots of ways to to eat them. And just because they have spines on them doesn't mean they're you know, it doesn't mean they're not edible.

Speaker 2: 55:06

And I find the the like it's really a testament to the ingenuity of the people who are from there. And you know the people. People will be like, oh no, you can't. They, they have spines. Well, you can cut the spines off, like oh well, they're slimy, well, you can deal with the slime. And sure, it's not, uh, you know, a loaf of white bread, but it's, it's, it's better, it's more fun. Um, it can be preserved. Uh, it's just. It's just a an extra set of things, and I think there's a lot of texans who, who get it like I. I know a bunch of texans who, who will eat prickly pear fruit, who will, you know, who eat the nopales, the young paddles in the springtime, and so that's, it's going to be more and more known by the general culture.

Speaker 1: 55:54

And I think that's a good thing of not only just foraging those areas, maybe cooking something that would have been eaten, or, you know, just along the lines of of, you know, that animal that you're, you're, you know, hunting or whatever it is, and that was something that whenever I do turkey dishes now, I always love to take the prickly pear fruit. I'll go ahead and kind of you know, there's also you you uh, graciously talk about ways that you can, you know, make sure that you're not left with a bunch of these invisible needles in your hands. I mean, there is a to-do list here of how to do this safely, but the the idea of that too. And I think you know you mentioned earlier there was something that you know tastes like bubble gum, and that's like I remember reading that you know, with these tunas, like, yeah, there is a taste of watermelon and bubble gum, and I remember like I was like that's unique, and then you taste it and you're like that's exactly what it tastes, like it was phenomenal and it's, you know, being able to do sorbets and things like that kind of making it this desert sweetness.

Speaker 1: 56:49

But also I love doing it with turkey, just having a little drizzle or something. A little bit of that color pop too. It's something nice about that. I think Makes a cool barbecue sauce too.

Speaker 2: 57:01

Okay, tell me about that. How would you prepare? So I've done a barbecue sauce where you take onions and cook them in lard, and that's your base, and then you add a shot or three of tequila and then kind of cook off the onion you or for the barbecue sauce.

Speaker 2: 57:15

Well, one's for me, but the barbecue sauce gets some as well, and so that's sort of your base. And then you know your sweetness, you can either add a prickly pear syrup or whole prickly pears, obviously taking the thorns out. So you, where's your sense of adventure? Gotta be terrible. So you get that, that red color, and then you've already got that basis for it, and then you add chili pequines or or chilled to bean chilies, to add heat, and then you just kind of tinker with the salt levels and it's a very light.

Speaker 2: 57:49

It's good for Turkey, it's like it's a good light barbecue sauce, because a barbecue sauce basically has a fat as something sharp and tangy. So in this case you would probably put put, um, probably the easiest source of acidity would be lime juice, uh. But you could also do, you could do a vinegar, you could do a vinegar of any kind, um, and then it's. You know, it's a fat element, it's a tangy element, it's a spicy element, and so your spicy element, chili piquins, and there's usually often some sort of a fruity-ish element, usually tomato and barbecue sauces, but it makes a really good. It makes a really good, very unique, very regional sauce.

Speaker 1: 58:29

That's great. I'm going to try that out. You know, and I know we're going to be wrapping up here soon, so I'm not going to dive into everything. There's so many questions I have for you and there's. I just wanted to make sure everyone checks out the dessert sections too, because you have so many amazing ones, and one of the ones there that I didn't really expect to read much about, but I was fascinated with the story, is there's a connection there to the Moroccan King and Dateland, and I'd love for you to kind of talk about that, cause that was something that I was. Again, another piece of history, delicious history to learn about, and I'd love for you to kind of talk to people about that.

Speaker 2: 59:00

Yeah, so that's so. Dateland is a town, well, town is really overstating it.

Speaker 2: 59:03

Dateland is a place in Arizona and I don't know, it's been a while. It might've been after World War II, but at some point in the 20th century there was like a date blight, like a date disease going on in Morocco and so the King of morocco basically gave examples of all of the best varieties of dates and there's lots of different varieties of dates and he sent them to this place in dateland in arizona to basically preserve the stock so that if it were to all die in morocco, they at least have the stuff over there in the united states. So that is one of those, one of the catalysts to start a date industry in Arizona, baja and Southern California where they grew up. Fantastic. So dates are a thing in that region of the world and first of all, okay. But there is a little bit of real, like unique, um, deep history. That goes why. So there's a the. The Washington palm is a native palm in that, in the Mojave region. So you'll find them in Baja, you'll find them in SoCal, I think you can. You think you can find them in Arizona, but it's definitely Southern California and Baja it's a native palm that in in all palm fruits are dates.

Speaker 2: 1:00:22

Just not all the dates are yummy. There's a bunch of them. There's a Canary Islands palm that everybody grows. You can eat them, but it's like the size of your thumbnail and then it's mostly pit. But this wild one, this native one that the indigenous people have been eating for a billion years, it's basically an edible date. It's the best native date that the indigenous people have been eating for a billion years. Um, that it's basically. It's an edible date. It's the best native date in the united states. So there's a kind of a. It's a little bit like the culantro cilantro thing. So there's a? Um, a native analog that this new date from, from africa, really just in me, it took it over and it became a thing. So the their date shakes. If you've never had a date milkshake after a dove hunt, you need to. Uh, and I do a dove popper, you know, sort of homage to, to that labor day dove hunting tradition and a sort of little arizona side on that.

Speaker 2: 1:01:18

Um, and then at baja you get these date cakes and they're a light cake and what's wild about it is I researched it and researched it and researched it and like no, they, they, they really do have mayonnaise in them. So a mayonnaise cake is a, it's an old school thing from like the 50s and it's like you. If you talk to people who are like good home bakers, like oh yeah, mayonnaise cakes the thing, and but I hadn't, you know, I'm a savory cook so I hadn't heard of it and it was really cool to see that and damn, that cake is good and like it's so good and you can add pecans to it or pine nuts and like pecans are also that's a thing there. Like Chihuahua and Arizona and to some extent, baja, they all grow pecans and it was cool to see that. Oh well, those apples and pecans are like a big Chihuahua thing. So it lends itself to a lot of different desserts, including that green chili apple pie that I put in there.

Speaker 1: 1:02:15

Dude, seriously, there are so many amazing desserts that I was just like going through that are just phenomenal, earmarking those because they're so unique. And I loved hearing about the region and the history of like, how did this become a date centric area? Like, wow, it was phenomenal. And I mean, they all look great. In the mayo thing too, I've my grandmother, I remember, rocked out some recipes with that. So I was like, ok, I remember seeing those, like wait, what are we doing?

Speaker 1: 1:02:38

Because, you know, growing up around Southern border, there's a lot of things that that you know were different and I but I just kind of took them as they were, man, and there was something that was part of our life, but that's something we've used as as some substitutions before as well. And, uh, when you need to, um, you know the one thing, I, I, I wanted that you know you're going to be doing a book tour and you're there's going to be some really cool experiences. I was reading through just before we kind of got on. Uh, you've added some other dates and some laundry list of all these amazing meals that you can get or places you can kind of go and, you know, pick up something, uh, you know, while you're there at Nice Taco and and you know to be enjoying some of the meals, these regions there too, and some of the things you talk about the book. So yeah, if you can just lay that out for the listeners, I appreciate it sure, after um, it's technically my sixth rodeo.

Speaker 2: 1:03:34

So once I have a book that comes out, um, it's really important to me to to basically spread, spread the word. I mean, that's sort of the core reason. But what has what has happened over the years is that what I've discovered is that people want to celebrate whatever the book subject matter is with a meal. I mean, they're cookbooks, after all. This book is actually the probably the first one that I could do in theory, a reading from you know, like the like you would go to a regular book signing, right. But I still love the idea of a party. It's just a party, and sometimes it's at a brewery and we just do a special. Sometimes it's a fancy dinner.

Speaker 2: 1:04:10

The ability to bring people to a spot to celebrate whatever the book is about is really what I want to do, and every market's a little different. So you know, there's some places where I'm going to do, you know, a white linen dinner and there's some places where we're going to be slinging tacos and some places where we might not even do that. So it's, I want people to be able to come to it too. So that's why I've been some of my earlier books I did more white linen experiences and I found those were great, but they were so expensive that not everybody could come to right, um, and so my goal is to a sell books.

Speaker 2: 1:04:48

Obviously this is my job, but also for people to have fun. And also also and this don't discount this there are so many people out there that that I either know online or I've met, you know, with previous book tours or whatever, and it's a chance to. It's like, it's almost like a you know, homecoming kind of thing, where I'll see these five or six people that I've come to every book tour event and or somebody who's driven this. This is the thing that just is wild to me. It is not uncommon for people to drive hours to my events, and so which is incredibly humbling and incredibly daunting in a way, because I wouldn't drive five hours to see me- but some people do.

Speaker 2: 1:05:34

But people do, and so it's really, really important for me to, when I discover that, to give that person at the time if they put that kind of effort in. I want to put some effort into connecting with that person, and so book tour is really the way to do that.

Speaker 1: 1:05:47

Well, and you haven't had one in seven years. I mean, covid kind of stopped the last one from happening. So it's kind of a chance for a good reunion of you know, friends, compatriots, to kind of get together and celebrate. And you know, the other thing I sensed a lot through this was you celebrating the culture, the land, the people, the food, the cuisine. I mean, there is so much that you celebrated the legacy of these people and I was curious about your own take on legacy. Is that something that you think about on you know, on a, on a day-to-day, or is that something that comes into your mind, like, as far as you've, you've created so much through your website, through you know these six books here, and I'm just kind of curious your take on, what your view is on your legacy and you know, maybe a professional and a personal setting.

Speaker 2: 1:06:35

I mean, I don't. I'll be honest, I don't really think too much about it because I'm kind of too busy, you know, being um, but I think when I do think about it it's it's about leaving people with something good. You know, I want to add to this world. I want to be a decent human, um, I'm trying my best and I want to, you know, provide whatever it is that I can add to the conversation, to the larger conversation, and be kind of a teacher. I wanted to be a teacher when I was a little kid and then I kind of got away from teaching in a traditional sense for a number of reasons. I'm a little too impatient for the academic world, which the gears of the academic world grind very slowly, so I kind of chafed against that. But teaching is still super important to me. Like I don't have kids, uh, and I'm single. So like what am I doing here?

Speaker 2: 1:07:31

I am, I am learning stuff, and then I'm like helping you learn stuff, and it's that, at its core, is kind of my life's calling, is to, and in the, the avenue through which it is, is a connection to nature and a connection to the wild world. It's to hopefully help people get a little bit closer to where we used to be a long, long, long long time ago. We live in a place with scary ai. We live in a place where, long time ago, we live in a place with scary AI. We live in a place where divisive politics. We live in a place where every year we seem to get less connected to nature, and I know it seems like I'm sticking my finger in the dam to try and block everything, but so be it If I am remembered for a guy who helped people in the early 21st century connect with nature. Just a little bit, that'll be good enough.

Speaker 1: 1:08:25

Well, I think you do just that and for those who aren't familiar yet on the resources of that, I'd love for you to kind of talk about your website real quick, substack. And then obviously, you know, I know you can get the books, all your books, there too on that. But if you can kind of go and lay that out where people should go and then maybe where people can follow you on socials as well, Sure, so I have two basic core places where you can find what I do.

Speaker 2: 1:08:50

And one is Hunter, angler, gardener Cook and that's a website I've been running since 2007. And that is huntgathercookcom. That's the easiest way to find that and that's mostly recipes, that's how-tos, it's news. You can use, it's information for your working on game and fish and edible wild plants and mushrooms. That's what that is.

Speaker 2: 1:09:12

But the other place I spend an enormous amount of time is a sub-stack called To the Bone, and To the Bone is really where I get to think big thoughts. Uh, it's where I write about the intersection between nature, food, uh, and really life. I've been writing a lot about sort of bigger things over the last couple of years and it's been very rewarding and I find very often that the things that I'm going through in my own life A have a connection to the natural world and B I'm not alone and the idea of being able to write about a breakup or a struggle that I'm having it often takes a form of there will often always be like a walk in the woods or a hunt or a fishing trip or just sitting there looking at my garden and then I can write about that and kind of open a vein in a way, and what I found over the last couple of years is that people respond to that. The idea of me not being alone in that thing has been incredibly rewarding. In that thing has been incredibly rewarding and I think that might be in a way, as important a legacy as the strict recipes and straight up knowledge. So I'm very, very grateful that that has become reasonably successful.

Speaker 2: 1:10:36

So those are kind of the two places you're going to find me. You can find all my books on Amazon. You can also buy the last four, so Buck, buck, moose, pheasant Quail, cottontail, hook Line and Supper and Borderlands. You can also buy them directly from me and that helps me out a little bit better and that's. You would find that on the website on huntgathercookcom and there's a shop and there's a new book stuff there.

Speaker 1: 1:11:05

but I mean, I'm not you know I'm not going to come to your house and beat you up. If you buy it on Amazon, amazon's fine. But even if you do buy it on Amazon or through you, make sure you guys go and leave an Amazon review and you know any place you can leave reviews. Those are very helpful for all the authors. Man, it's important. I really think that that's something everyone should do.

Speaker 2: 1:11:20

And social media wise. Uh, I am on Facebook. I have a Facebook group called hunt gather cook. It's I. I'm there every day, but I think the real action is on Instagram. And so on Instagram, I'm hunt gather cook and it's pretty obvious who I am, because I'm the guy with all the weird food. Um then you know holding a fish and stuff like that. But I'm on instagram every day and I do my very level best to answer anybody's questions there or on the website, because one of the things that I view is important to you know, I think calling my mission is a little over, a bit of an overstatement, but to what I do, like, why am I doing this? Is to help people be better with the fish in the game and everything, and so if you ask me a question, I'm going to do my best to give you an answer, as best I can.

Speaker 1: 1:12:06

Well, it's phenomenal. I suggest everyone go check out the website, follow the. You know the sub stack there to the bone. I love reading it. It's phenomenal. Make sure you get a copy of Borderlands in your hands as soon as possible and, you know, for you know, just kind of closing out, is there anything that you'd like to share about this book, or maybe to your audience and your supporters, as kind of a last word before we depart?

Speaker 2: 1:12:28

Yeah, I think this book is a great journey and I think you can see my journey in the book. You can see it will probably open your eyes to some things that you haven't seen before, and I think that's an important part of human experience. A lot of times we get in bubbles and I hope this book takes you a little bit outside your bubble and makes you think a little bit and say, oh, I hadn't thought of that or I hadn't seen that perspective, and you can use that experience for the next time that you might see your bubble getting pressed against and then you might be able to pop it yourself and say what is on the other side. And I think the path to healing in a larger sense is to talk to somebody like a human being, in calm, measured tones, who maybe doesn't agree with everything that you agree with, and figure out a place to sit in the middle. This is this is important right now, and I think a book like this can help spark that conversation in a number of ways.

Speaker 1: 1:13:30

Well said, Hank. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for sharing your talents with the world. I greatly appreciate it. I mean, these recipes are phenomenal. The story in this book of your travels and of the people, the culture, it's just so enriching and educational and entertaining and it's everything and more. And I, I, I know this is going to be your one of your most successful books yet, and just thank you so much for everything you're putting out there, man.

Speaker 2: 1:13:54

Thank you so much, thanks for giving me all this time and I really hope you like the book.

Speaker 1: 1:13:59

Good deal. Well, make sure everyone go check him out on tour. I will see you when you come through Texas, my friend, all right, you will Cheers. You take care, hank Bye.