You're in big trouble, though, pal. I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast.
You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?
No.
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Breakfast of Champions.
I'm Renee Floyd, a co-host of this episode, season one, episode one, and introduce yourself, sir.
My name's Parker. I am your other co-host on this journey of breakfast and champions.
That's correct. So for those of you that have never heard us before, it's impossible. This is the first episode.
But our podcast is all going to be about breakfast foods and violence.
This episode, I'm sorry, this series was a brainchild of Parker. He had this idea and I thought, this is amazing.
He is very involved in breakfast foods. I watch every violent thing I possibly can on the Internet.
Movies, fights, that sort of thing. And I think people really need to know about this information.
They need to know what the breakfast foods of champions are and also everyone's a champion and everybody enjoys breakfast.
So let's find out some of these stories from these people that we just know and love that are around our neighborhood.
So first things first, let's talk about a little bit of what we have here, donut-wise, this morning.
We are going to try to review donuts, breakfast foods, pancakes, restaurants, everything like that.
So Parker, there you go.
So Parker, will you tell us a little bit about your love of breakfast just kind of initially?
Yes. So I love all breakfast food. It's my favorite type of food. If I could eat it for all three meals, I wouldn't. Sometimes I do.
Right now, let's talk about donuts.
Sure. Yeah.
Cool. So we got donuts in front of us.
A big donut fan grew up eating lots of donuts. Central Illinois donuts. Shout out.
Mellow cream. Today, we're going to eat some shiplies donuts, though.
That's correct. I picked shiplies first. It is my personal favorite.
I go to a chain and get donuts, donut. Personally, my family, my nuclear family at home, my kids and I, we have donuts every Sunday.
We have done this for at least six years.
And we have two shops in Weatherford that we toggle between Hudson Oaks Donut Shop and Seuz.
Seuz is our go-to. Seuz is a lovely elderly lady that has a shop right on Main Street across the street from the 9th grade center up there.
And she just, she's so cute. She has the best aprons. They look homemade almost.
And so, yeah, in Texas in particular, there are some chains, but there are some really good mom and pop donut shops.
Did you grow up with any of those?
Well, so I didn't grow up in Texas.
I know you did, but I just meant, did you grow up with mom and pop donuts?
Yes.
So like in Springfield, Illinois, where I grew up, we had Mellow Cream, which I just gave a shout out to.
They were like the local small chain. And that was like the go-to.
We also had, I believe we had a Dunkin Donuts. We didn't have Krispy Kreme up there.
But Mellow Cream was like the go-to. It was family owned and local to that region.
So are you familiar with Texas's like mom and pop like donuts and how they are, I guess, I don't want to be insensitive,
but there's a lot of Asian communities that are owned and operated and are operating those donut shops.
Yes. Yeah. That was my first notice when I moved to Texas because in Springfield, we didn't have like pigs in a blanket or collochies,
which I take. We'll get into that later.
Yeah, that'll be a completely different episode.
But yeah, I remember the first few shops owned to their all mom and pop and they were generally Asian owned.
And actually the shop that is directly behind my house is K-Doughnut for Korean donut.
Right.
It's a husband and wife that own it. They're there. I see them get there about 2 a.m. every morning and start doing it.
They open at 5 a.m. and they've been there for years and years and they're awesome.
So I did want to touch on that, particularly on another episode, but I did want to shout that out.
Texas's their towns are pretty unique for having a mom and pop donut shop that's usually run by local Asian families.
And we love those shops. Those are our favorite shops.
That's why I shouted out Suze and sort of. So let's go on to shiples here.
I picked shiples. They are normally enjoyed warm.
These are not warm. That just got these about half an hour ago.
I figured when we grade donuts, we could talk about this back and forth.
But I wanted to get just a variety of donuts that they had, but I figured there is probably three donuts that we have to try if we try a shop.
One is the classic glaze. You just have to always have a classic glaze.
Yeah, that's your baseline consensus.
The other one I think you have to have is a strawberry or chocolate sprinkle of some sort.
Because you have to judge their frosting and also their sprinkle ratio.
And then I always go with a cake donut or an old fashioned donut.
Absolutely.
Because, you know, if they're not doing the first one right, then I just, you know, the zany ones that I brought today, this one is a cherry popping Skittles freeze dried candy donut.
I am obsessed with freeze dried candy at the moment.
Me too. My kids turned me on to it.
I have an order coming up to the shop later.
I send black gato candies, $25 a week, and they bring it up to me in a little black, almost like porno bag to the shop.
Sounds like a drug deal.
It's very much a high fruit toast corn syrup back alley drug deal.
Got to get that fixed.
Today's order will include caramel apple taffy.
Caramel apple taffy, red hot cinnamon discs.
And then, of course, I had to go.
Oh, gee, Skittles.
Yeah, you can't go wrong with the skittles.
So freeze dried candy is my issue right now.
And then this one is something I've never heard of before.
It's called a bullseye.
It's just a regular chocolate glazed donut, but then they like fill it with cream and then put sprinkles on it.
And so I just I thought that was interesting.
I'd never heard of or seen somebody filling the hole with cream with cream.
Right.
Family friendly to an extent.
Yeah.
I mean, use your imagination and what this brown donut looks like with white cream on the inside of bullseye.
It's a bullseye.
And then lastly, you know, I don't know how you feel about jelly filled donuts.
Are you a jelly guy or not a jelly guy?
I am a cream filled donut.
Cream filled donut.
OK, but a good jelly donut.
Like you can't really go wrong with a good jelly.
I in my tears, it would be cream filled first and then maybe like a lemon custard filled and then a jelly filled.
OK, interesting.
I am not a big filled guy.
There is one donut shop that does a pretty good filled in my opinion.
And it's because I just have such a massive sweet tooth and it's crispy cream.
They have a chocolate iced donut and they fill it with like white frosting.
OK.
And it is just like if you want to go into a diabetes coma, you just grab one of those.
And so do you want to try one of these?
You want to get into these?
Yeah, let's get into it.
So I say we're going to come up with a grading scale.
We are, you know, probably going to go with something like sweetness maybe is as one.
I would say texture.
And then I would say maybe like overall presentation would be a good a good grading scale as well.
So also something I think we should get into.
And this is just my nerdiness and we'll get into my nerdiness later.
But when you bite into it, does it spring back or does it go flat?
That's something I look at it every donut.
Is that yeast content?
It is the rise and if it if it's over approved or under approved.
OK, that's important stuff.
So let's go ahead and split this glazed right off the bat.
So that away like we'll lady in the tree.
Oh, that's right. Sorry, friends.
We have a sponsor Parker. Take it away.
Let me crack a cold one of this Mountain Dew Game Fuel citrus cherry with a blast of citrus cherry flavor and other natural flavors.
It's not sugar free. Let's go.
What's up, brother?
This is game fuel. I love it.
Cheers to get a little bit of game fuel taste that in your life.
OK, so here's a lady in the tramps split right down the middle.
OK, OK, very flaky.
First of all, so full disclosure, this is my first time ever eating a shipply's donut.
This is my thousandth time eating a shipply's donut.
This donut while you're eating because I just went ahead and went whole hog and put it on my mouth.
This donut reminds me of Sunday School Church.
This is like the dozen of donuts that your Sunday School teacher gets and brings to church.
And they got them at like 6 30 on their way in.
And you've been waiting, you know, it's 9 30 now you're all broken up in your classrooms.
And these are that that donut to me.
What are your thoughts on the sweetness of the donut?
The sweetness is perfect. It's not like too overpowering.
The glaze is not too sweet.
The donut itself is not too sweet.
Yeah, the sweetness factor spot on.
I think that shipply's does it right.
Like you were saying, if you take a look at this glaze here,
it's almost like there's not any glaze on the bottom of this this lemon filled donut.
Let me flip it over here.
And it's almost like their glaze is thinner and a little bit more runnier.
So if you know, if it sits in the box, clearly you can see it.
It kind of comes off. It also flakes off really well.
So as you're eating it, you're not just getting full glaze.
Sweetness.
What did you want to talk about? You said the spring back.
Right. So how was the spring back on that donut?
It didn't have a whole lot of spring back.
When I bit into it, it stayed kind of pinched.
It didn't have a whole lot of like airy pockets in it.
So in my mind, it I don't think it was under proofed.
I think I should get more than likely to just use a premade mix and just throw it together.
They're pumping out donuts fast.
Yeah. Like it was good, but the texture wasn't my favorite texture.
Agreed. I'm not I'm not impressed by this round of donuts.
I've had better shipplies, but I can see just looking at this donut right here.
It also looks like this may not have risen properly or correctly, but I agree with you there.
The other thing I did want to mention was we talked about sweetness.
Overall presentation. Anything crazy out of the ordinary.
I think this one is the only one that kind of blew my mind that I had just like I saw it in the case and I was like,
well, we have to try that.
Yeah. That one, the one with the freeze dried Skittles is the one with the best presentation.
The bullseye has a nice presentation too.
You know, that chocolate hole filled with cream.
Yes.
And the strawberry looks like a classic strawberry sprinkle.
I thought Homer Simpson would eat Homer Simpson.
Exactly. That is the gold standard.
Would Homer Simpson eat this? All right, cool.
I say we give this blueberry old fashioned a little try.
Let's do a little bit smaller, a little bit more dense,
and I'm only going to have like a smaller corner of it.
I think let's see it.
Blueberry cake is probably my second favorite.
Top tier for sure.
Yeah.
A lot of chewing dead air.
Tastes kind of artificial.
It does. I was about to say it tastes a little.
Tangy, almost as if it wasn't made this morning.
Yeah, I definitely get that.
The texture is great.
Yes, the textures great.
The sweetness is on point.
The overall flavor, though, is not the best.
Take. Yeah.
Tastes like somebody.
It's like almost you ever like box blueberry donuts,
where I would like the second direction is like.
Drain the blueberries.
Yes.
It's like somebody drained the blueberries into this donut mix.
It's like if you gave AI directions on.
What does a blueberry taste like here are the parameters to hit.
And then it created blueberry flavor.
Yeah.
Not my favorite blueberry cake donut I've ever had.
No.
Any other ones you want to care to try?
I think we have to try the strawberry.
Okay.
Just because I'm sure principle for homers sake.
Yes.
Okay.
So let's give it a shot.
And just for everyone at home, we are splitting these by hand,
lady in the tramp style.
We are crossing our.
We're intertwining our arms looking longingly in the other's eyes as we
start on one end of each donut.
I'm going to let you go.
I'll talk a minute and then you let me go and then you talk about it.
So there's not just that.
So I'm looking at this donut right now and there is a lot of the longer
sprinkles, not the tiny dot sprinkles, but like more of what if you were on
the East Coast, you would say like Jimmy's and shout out Jimmy.
Yeah.
Shout out to you, Jimmy.
Also, I'm noticing I'm looking inside the donut and there is a big air
pocket on the bottom and not so much any throughout interspersed.
Can you see that there?
There's a huge.
Yeah.
So again, we're talking about, you know, proofing, we're talking about
yeast content.
We're talking about the rise, you know, and so maybe like, like, like
Parker was saying, this particular batch was maybe rushed or pre-made or,
but it's just, in my opinion, if I open up a donut, that's kind of a weird
sight.
I'm going to take a bite.
Parker's going to top.
All right.
So my first thought on it, the sweetness content, it is not overly
sweet.
I really appreciate that about these chipleads donuts.
That's been my favorite thing about them.
I didn't get a lot of strawberry flavor on it.
It, I get sweetness, but not a lot of strawberry, not artificial, not fresh,
just not much strawberry flavor there.
The sprinkles are good.
The jimmies, again, the texture, it is somewhere in between a yeast
donut and a cake donut.
It's not super airy and tangy like you would expect from a yeast donut,
but it's not as dense as a cake donut.
I'm going to be in total agreeance here.
I am going to also say that I haven't had chipleads in probably five or six
years, maybe even eight or nine years now.
I will say they're hard to find in the area.
I had to travel to Crowley to this particular location.
The other one is a little bit further east of Fort Worth.
They used to be a little bit closer to everywhere, but they are dwindling.
I think that they're probably experiencing some of that dwindling
because clearly the recipes have changed since last time I've been.
They may be feeling the, the, the herd of COVID, maybe, you know, the,
the herd of inflation, the way that everybody else is.
It's not a Mandela effect.
I'm not remembering something different.
These donuts definitely taste different than whenever the last time that I,
that I was there.
And that's kind of why we're doing this podcast is because we want to talk
about where can you get great donuts?
Where can you, do you remember the last time you had a great donut?
And so that, that kind of is a great segue into like, let's do some host introductions.
I know we kind of dove right into this podcast, but let's grade these donuts.
Let's give them a, you know, like maybe we'll do some tiers.
You're like a video game S tier, eight tier, or we can just kind of do a simple
five star rating system or an out of 10.
However you, how many holes do we give it out of what holes?
Five, a dozen holes.
Oh, that's a lot.
A half dozen holes, half dozen holes.
So six holes.
Okay.
I would say on a scale of one to six holes, I would say sweetness.
I'm going to give it a straight five.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Five holes.
It looks like these things would be sugar shock systems, but the glaze is thin.
The, the flavoring is artificial and not as in your face as, as you might think.
So I'm going to say six, what are you, I'm sorry, five.
What do you think?
Sugar wise.
I think I'm going to go with a five to I was really expecting these to be overly sweet.
Like sugar rush immediately.
And I am pleasantly surprised that they're not like my teeth are not aching right now.
The mountain deal.
I'll take care of that later.
My body's ready.
Okay.
Spring back out of six.
What do you think?
One.
Yeah.
I was thinking one or two there, maybe a one and a half.
There was the thing that saving grace on spring back was the cake donut.
And that one doesn't have any yeast in it.
So it's a little bit denser, so it's not going to have any kind of spring back.
It's not going to have those airy pockets.
Like I'm looking at that strawberry one right now.
It is still pinched flat from where we.
Exactly.
So yeah, shiplies, maybe train your employees to prove just a little bit longer.
Maybe that could help on spring back.
I don't know.
No, no judgments from the non chef of donuts over here.
We had legit have an expert who crashed for me.
So the last one we were talking about is just overall presentation out of six.
What do you what do you feel?
I'm going to go like a four and a half, especially that cherry.
I forget the name of cherry one with the freeze your eyes.
Skittles.
Yeah, that one cherry popping daddy and the bullseye.
Like if I walked into the shop and I saw those and even the strawberry one looked great,
like those are going to look great in the case or eye catching.
You're going to sell them just because they look nice.
I like hopping on a trend as far as like a corporate kind of chain restaurant
seeing that like.
Tick tock is important, so let's throw a donut out there that kind of maybe you'll get like
the teen tween and below market.
That's already seeing these on tick tock.
Absolutely.
My kids would freak out.
I've got a nine year old and a 14 year old.
They would love something with freeze red candy on it.
Perfect.
So overall presentation, you said four and a half.
Yeah, I think four and a half.
I'm going to agree with you there.
I'm going to go solid four and a half presentation.
Also, let's take a look at this box.
I always like to look at the box that they come in, especially if they're not just a generic white box.
Oh, yeah, I'm a huge nerd for branding.
Yeah.
So again, this has changed.
This is kind of a newer rework on the older logo.
But these are classic colors, classic fonts for donuts.
We've got an orange box with a brownish gold donut on the front that says shiplies.
Now, what do you make of this D.O. apostrophe nuts?
Like is that do nuts?
Do nuts.
Yeah, I see do nuts as well.
Anyway, I give the overall presentation a four and a half solid old school company.
I'm looking forward to maybe revisiting shiplies in the future.
Another location maybe just to kind of maybe see if we can get a better representation.
But moving on, let's talk about our lives.
You mentioned you have kids.
So let's talk a little bit about your life if that's cool.
I'll kind of kind of throw you some questions about your life.
I don't want to give out too much personal information on a pod just yet.
But if you could share a little bit about how old you are, maybe your living situation and kind of where you're at in life.
So yeah, well, just a reintroduction.
This is Parker speaking.
I am 36.
I got a wife.
I got two kids.
Like I mentioned earlier, nine and 14.
I live in the greater Fort Worth, Texas area.
Been here for a while.
Yeah.
That's nice. Do you have any animals?
I got a few animals.
Yeah, we got three dogs.
Got a cat.
He's a real asshole.
He's really fucking cute though.
And then my daughter has a pink toad tarantula.
Oh, wow.
Named Gwen after Gwen Stacy, of course.
Oh, OK.
And then we also have two birds named Mary Kate and Ashley.
I love that.
Heather's idea.
So you you've been a veteran of the music scene for a while.
That's kind of how we connected.
We'll talk about that in the next episode more.
But we connected because we play in a band together called unspell.
Parker was based in that band.
He took over my spot whenever we lost our guitar player and I took over for guitars.
So how long have you been playing music?
Seriously, since like 2007.
So that's what?
17 years roughly.
I dabbled in music since the late 90s, but my first band started in 2007.
Very cool. Very cool.
Do you remember like your gateway into playing in bands?
Well, like was there a particular show or band that you love that just made you go?
I have to pick up an instrument.
Black Sabbath was my my dad played guitar.
My dad bought me my first guitar and bass there.
Dan Electro guitar Dan Electro bass and he taught me Iron Man on bass.
I was like, oh, this is easy.
I can do this.
But the first like in high school, I had friends who played in ska bands.
I was a, you know, really popular in the early 2000s.
For sure.
Lots of ska.
Wait, ska is still not popular.
I mean, ska is not popular now.
It's coming back.
Yeah.
Fifth wave, 200th wave.
But I had friends playing in like a hardcore adjacent bands.
The big one that all my friends were in was called nine volt invasion.
They took cues from bands like the Locust and blood brothers.
And that was kind of like, oh, whoa, this music is wild and it's attainable to do.
And so some of those guys, when we started our first band Travis from nine volt invasion,
he and I started the first band I was ever in.
That's what's up.
I love those names.
Now let me ask you this.
Do you have a particular breakfast routine that you follow or are you kind of free for
lately?
I've been eating oatmeal every single morning for breakfast.
That's solid.
Yeah.
Just oatmeal and a protein shake.
And I'm good to go.
That's what's up.
Sometimes I'll throw in yogurt.
If like, if I worked out that morning, need a little bit of extra protein, besides the
protein shake, I'll throw in like some yogurt or something.
That's, that's great.
Do you guys, your kids, do they, do they have a protein shake?
Do they, do they do breakfast or do they kind of just grab and go in the morning?
My daughter, it depends on the day.
Some mornings she's all, if it's cold out, she wants oatmeal.
If it's hot out, she wants cereal.
But some days she doesn't want anything.
My son, he wants like an omelet and fresh fruit every morning.
That's high taste.
Yes.
Yeah, I love that.
So what was your introduction into cooking?
Do you remember like, was it like, was it a family member or was it like just a circumstance
that kind of got you into like being a chef?
Well, the chef thing I fell into.
But cooking is something that growing up breakfast food.
My grandma, I grew up in Illinois and my family lived in Oklahoma.
And so I'd go spend summers with my grandparents.
My grandma made breakfast every morning, usually biscuits and gravy, which is my favorite breakfast food.
And so ate lots of breakfast with my grandparents, you know, eggs, bacon, biscuits and gravy.
That was like the standard go to at home.
My mom didn't cook too much.
We ate out a lot.
Both of my parents worked full time.
We didn't have a lot of time.
I was also in sports.
So at home, it was usually just cereal, cereal for breakfast if I ate breakfast at all.
But as far as cooking went, I was in like seventh grade.
This was probably like 1997 or 1998.
We got the food channel for the first time.
And I saw Emeril Lagasse and her food network, Emeril and like all those guys.
And I started watching chefs on TV and I was like, oh, man, that looks like so much fun.
I was also a very picky eater before this.
So I was seeing all these foods I'd never heard of because again, the internet wasn't really existing back then.
Like it was there, but we didn't have it at home.
So this was my first foray into like, oh, there's all these foods besides like cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets.
And like, I remember the first thing I saw, which once I get into where I've been the last few years, it's going to be funny.
But I remember seeing them eating chicken livers on TV, like deep fried chicken livers.
And I was like, I always thought that was gross, but those look delicious.
And we went to this place in Springfield every Friday night with some family friends called Westwood's best steak in Springfield.
Little like dive bar type place.
And I saw they had chicken livers and gizzards on the menu and I was like, I'm ordering that.
And again, been a picky eater for the last 12, 13 years.
My mom also a very picky eater nearly threw up at the table as I ate these chicken livers.
I scarfed him down.
I thought it was the best thing.
And then basically from there, it was like, OK, I need to learn to cook.
I need to see what these guys are doing.
I want to find all these foods.
I want to try everything.
Again, living in Springfield, Illinois, not a lot of options.
It was mostly bar food because it was cold most of the year.
So I went to the bar or it was chain restaurants.
Sure.
So it was that ratatouille moment where you like put those things together and your brain just exploded was the chicken chicken livers and gizzards.
Exactly.
I love that for you.
So a little bit about me.
We've done your your intro.
I'll just kind of go a little bit quickly about me.
I am 40. I'll be 41 this year.
I too have children.
I've got four.
I've got a 20 year old, a six, a 15 year old, a nine year old and a six year old.
We've got a pretty big cross section of young to old.
I work at Center, which is a local shoe store and like kind of like street street wear lifestyle shop.
I've been there just coming up on a year now.
Before that, I actually was working at a few different coffee shops.
I've done a lot of work at coffee shops and that's kind of part of my interest in breakfast food is the fact that coffee is a big breakfast foundational piece.
And so breakfast tacos at coffee shops.
Yes.
My first job actually ever in life was at the coffee bean area in the Hulun Mall.
I worked there when I was 16.
I've worked for a lot of chain coffees.
I've worked for your Starbucks.
I've worked at a Vodka here in town.
I've worked at a smaller place called Goldtree, which I love Goldtree coffee.
They were the last shop I worked for.
I actually just opened up a new location. It is in the same building as Chipped over here off Berry.
Chipped is a local place that does some very cool stuff.
They do what they call cookie nachos.
Hot cookie nachos.
That's right.
Their truck before they had their brick and mortar, their truck would pull up to the pool in my neighborhood and just like set up.
That was the first time I ever had Chipped hot cookie nachos.
If you don't know what hot cookie nachos are, if you've never had Chipped before, please look them up online.
Please go stop by and see them.
They're also all over like DoorDash, Grubhub, stuff like that.
So get you some hot cookie nachos.
They're pretty good.
And if you can go into the shop in that very same location as Goldtree coffee, they make great coffee, great energy drinks using green energy.
And they've got some great stuff.
Great breakfast foods there.
So I've kind of been in and around breakfast foods just about my entire adult life, working life.
I've done a lot of different jobs, but particularly I've kind of kept myself available because I'm a performer.
I too have been playing music for the better part of the last 20 years or so.
I play guitar.
I DJ.
I've got a big event coming up.
I'm excited about.
I just try to be as creatively open as possible to collaboration with other people.
I've got some really great friends in the area that are also artists that I hope to bring onto the podcast someday and kind of just talk about their breakfast lives.
But I'm going to be 100% honest.
We are 30 minutes into this podcast and I'm dropping a truth bomb on you.
I don't eat breakfast.
I do not eat breakfast.
Wow.
And it is the most important meal of the day.
I know.
You know, what's been crazy is the last, I would say, I don't know, maybe like a six to 10 years somewhere in there, maybe eight years or so.
I have just not really been a big breakfast eater and I have just not been a big eater until about, I would say two or three in the afternoon.
But what I do love is I love cereal.
Cereal has been a staple in my life for forever.
Mount Rushmore of cereal.
Oh, we have to do that episode.
Right now I would say Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Classic.
I would say Raisin Bran for me.
I love Raisin Bran.
It's so good.
Maybe the Raisin Bran crunched it like spice it up a little bit.
That bran keeps you regular.
Yeah.
There is a Fruit Loops with Marshmallows that I'm a huge fan of.
And then I would say Apple Jacks.
Apple Jacks.
We just had a huge box of Apple Jacks that we just went through and I just, I'm a cereal guy.
Seinfeld like informed a lot of my childhood and so I thought every adult should have it all of their favorite cereal on hand at any given time.
We keep at least two to three different kinds of cereals in our house at a time.
Huge cereal fan.
Like I said, my family also does donuts every Sunday.
We are a huge, probably maybe once every other week, once a week we try to do breakfast for dinner.
Breaner.
Yes.
That's another big thing in our lives is, you know, a good breakfast sandwich for dinner or my family loves Cracker Barrel.
They do pancakes and all that stuff.
They, you know, they're a big Cracker Barrel family.
So that's kind of where I'm at.
Right now I am working.
I'm DJing.
I'm playing guitar.
I'm hanging out with friends.
You mentioned your grandma.
My grandma just passed away and I just wanted to give her a huge shout out.
Her funeral is actually going to be on Monday and so I'm going to be out of town for that.
But another huge influence in my life when it comes to breakfast, like you said, you go to grandma's house for the summer.
She always had breakfast for us.
Always.
I mean, just, it didn't matter, you know, what had happened the night before the day of.
We're going to have a full belly at grandma's house.
So just shout out to grandma's shout out to them always just, you know, fill in our bellies with with good, good breakfast.
Is your family just straight up white bread or do you have any sort of like ethnic ethnicity to you?
I like to tell people I'm painfully white.
Painfully white.
My dad's side, we gone back a few hundred years and it's all like Dutch and Scandinavian and my aunt went back hundreds of years on my mom's side.
And it is all English, French, Scandinavian.
So yeah, all just as white as can be.
But in each of those, there is cuisine that is unique.
So, you know, like you said, French cuisine, Scandinavian cuisine, Dutch cuisine.
Boiled fish.
Boil everything in England.
That's my grandfather, his grandmother was like straight off the boat from England.
So that is like the closest high.
And the most recent seems to be English.
So yeah, boiled everything and beans and blood pudding.
So I'm, I'm half Hispanic, half Mexican.
So my grandparents, you know, are they they love chorizo con huevo in the morning.
My grandfather still puts a pot of beans on just about every single day.
And so it would not be, you know, anything for us to get manudo on Sundays before church.
I love all that, you know, Hispanic Mexican breakfast cuisine.
It really is one of those things that, you know, where my normal is not to eat breakfast.
But if I'm in town, you better believe I'm partaking in all that good stuff.
So that's that's the best.
My wife is also Hispanic.
So yeah, lots of beans, fresh tortillas.
Yeah, great.
Almost like a full, full fledged English breakfast, but Mexican style, right?
Love it.
So let's talk a little bit about you and kind of we hope we aim to have different chefs
and people that are involved in cooking, especially in the local area in the Fort Worth area.
And I'm just blessed to have a co host that happens to tick both of those boxes.
He's a, he's a local guy.
He is a chef, a cooker, just someone that is just moving and grooving when it comes to the local food scene.
Recently, he was at Spiral Diner.
He just opened up Dreamboat Donut.
They're celebrating their one year birthday, which it doesn't even seem like it's been a year since you guys opened up.
It has been a blur, but yeah, I can't believe it has been one year.
So May of 2023 is when we opened Dreamboat.
We started working on it in August of 2020.
So that does that also mean Maiden is almost a year older or.
Maiden opened, I think it was the very end of May.
So we also started working on Maiden in 2019, like late 2019.
Wow.
So if you're not familiar with the Fort Worth area, these restaurants that we're all speaking of are vegan restaurants and they're not just vegan restaurants.
They are their premier vegan restaurants of the area.
I mean, if you.
Yeah, Spiral Diner is known nationally.
Right.
So, lots of national accolades.
Amy McNutt, who opened Spiral, she opened it in 2002.
So Spiral Diner has been around for 22 years this August, which is crazy considering we live in Cowtown.
Correct.
And separately, I, you know, I've never worked at Spiral.
I've enjoyed Spiral.
I've gone through my vegan phases for sure.
But every time a famous person that I'm kind of in their purview or aware of comes to town and they just are even remotely vegan, they're coming to Spiral.
Yeah.
We had a location in Dallas and this, this is didn't age as well, but super talented cake decorator that worked at Spiral for a long time named Arlene.
She's now in Austin doing zucchini kill.
If you're in Austin, check out zucchini kill.
They're awesome.
But Arlene decorated a cake for Morrissey because he played Dallas on his birthday and he's vegan, a very famous vegan.
Shia LaBeouf.
Painfully vegan.
Painfully vegan, painfully right wing.
But Shia LaBeouf is eating at Spiral Diner.
I think we catered for AFI one time when they came through.
Steve Oh is a big fan.
Also very vegan and into pain.
I kind of rub shoulders with Felipe Esparza and his crew.
They are Hispanic, Mexican comedians out of the California area and they've come to town a couple of times and we've kind of gotten together pre-show and they definitely have gone to Spiral, have talked about Spiral.
He has been vegan for quite some time.
And so even on the road, people try to keep their vegan diets as close to possible.
It's one of those things where it is a lifestyle.
It is one of those things where you've got to seek it out if you're on the road.
And so having something like that and DFW has just been one of those things where it is a destination for people that are vegan.
It is a destination for people that are good food.
And it's also just kind of been a local staple of the area that you and I work and live in.
And so do you want to talk about your time there or you want to talk about Dreamboat a little bit?
Yeah, I'll do a quick overview.
Yeah, brief. I'll keep it brief.
But yeah, so I started at Spiral Diner 13 years ago.
Washing dishes is my second job.
I did a bunch of stuff there.
Yeah, yeah, did a whole bunch of stuff there in management.
Eventually became a sous chef.
And then when James Johnston went on to pursue a film career, I was promoted to the executive chef, handled all the recipes, all the ordering.
A lot of the day to day stuff, basically everything it takes to run that restaurant.
I have done in some capacity.
I helped open Maiden, which is a fine dining vegan restaurant is the first of its kind in all of Texas.
If you're familiar with Eleven Madison Park in New York, it's a similar dining experience to that.
But more affordable, but same essence.
It was kind of the idea.
And it's funny because we've been working on Maiden for at least a year before Eleven Madison Park decided to go vegan.
Eleven Madison Park is a Michelin starred restaurant in New York.
Really awesome place.
And then Dreamboat Donuts was originally going to be called snow nuts, snow cones and donuts.
It started as a joke.
And it ended up as a the first all vegan donut shop and ice cream shop in DFW.
We they use all organic flour, sugar and ingredients and everything.
Try and source the highest quality stuff.
I created all of the recipes for that.
All of the day to day stuff.
Open that from the ground up.
I love that.
What's your favorite donut at Dreamboat?
Strawberry Sprinkled.
I thought for sure you're going to say the J and J, but the JJ is a close second.
And that the JJ, I guess we can give a little bit of history on the sure.
Yeah, I'll try to do without crying.
You can cry. It's OK. We're here.
Yeah.
So the JJ the JJ is named after Renee and I's dear friend Jeremy Joel who passed away in 2020.
Jeremy worked at Spiral Diner for a very long time.
He was also a staple in the Fort Worth art scene.
He really helped along with, you know, like J Wilkinson and a handful of other people really put the Fort Worth art scene on the map nationally.
For sure.
One of the funniest guys I have ever met close friends with like his kids are around the same age as my kids.
So they kind of grew up together.
Amber is one of the best people.
And so yeah, we like close family connections, work connections, everything.
But yeah, he passed away.
And so I wanted to put a donut on the menu to pay honor to him.
And food, you don't know it has a donut called the ODB.
And if anyone knows Jeremy, they know that he loves Wu Tang and he is kind of he was Fort Worth's ODB.
The man also loved donuts.
That is a direct quote from Amber when I asked her about putting the JJ on the menu.
So it is a peanut butter frosted donut with Oreos, chocolate ganache and peanuts.
And I mean, it's probably one of the top top 10 things I probably ever put in my mouth in this area for sure.
Love that. Thank you.
Yeah.
So yeah, we'll we'll try those on a future episode.
Yeah, well, we'll definitely.
Did you have any donuts that you didn't get on the menu that you really wanted to get on the menu at Dreamboat like any crazy ideas that just didn't make it to the final cut?
I had a list of over 100 donuts and I think I maybe did 20 to 25.
But all of those notes have been passed on to the next person.
And so I'm no longer with Spiral Diner or Dreamboat.
I'm on to other things, but all of my notes I had a I had a running document that was 25 pages long of everything I ever did for Dreamboat.
And all of those notes were passed on to others.
And so they're still doing really cool, awesome flavors.
Danny, who is like in charge of all that, she's awesome and she's got all kinds of cool ideas.
So I'm sure like more to come.
Yes, more, more cool stuff to come.
That's one thing I did want to reiterate now that you're no longer with these places that we can expect them to continue on.
And we can expect we can expect to continue great things from them as far as what they're doing.
Just because you're gone doesn't mean that you're you're taking anything away from that.
But but we want to celebrate both of y'all.
Yeah, you you individually and the next things that you have going on but also all of these places that you touched because you guys, you know, you guys are kind of intertwined in your story.
But now you're kind of moving on to different paths.
And so please still go go visit Dreamboat Donuts.
Go go have some great vegan food at Maiden.
If you ever need, even if you're not vegan, if you ever just need a fancy date night that is just like kind of out of the box out of the regular.
I mean, it's it's not like you're regular.
Let's go to the Riyadh and sit on the rooftop and we're gonna have a good old time.
It is it's a different experience.
But that's something that people need around here is just the the the different.
Absolutely.
And with Maiden, it's like think of it as going to the theater or going to the ballet or opera.
Like it is if you do the full eight courses, you're going to be there for two hours minimum.
It's yeah.
And it is a full presentation.
Every plate is a work of art.
Amy McNutt, the founder, she has put a lot of time and effort into crafting what every single plate is.
So really, like, yeah, if you're need a night out and go check out Maiden, there's also other options if you don't want to.
If you're not trying to break the bank, you there's bar options or cocktail options.
There's a four course that is a little bit easier on the wallet.
And there's also a tea time that's like a true British tea time.
That's crazy.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
And they do that on the weekends.
I love that.
If you're not trying to be out late at night and go for like brunch time.
That's awesome.
Now, what are your thoughts on brunch because we are breakfast of champions?
Are you in favor of brunch or pro brunch?
Okay, pro brunch.
Okay.
So some people, they don't like the the combining of the foods, you know, they're they're very much.
I don't know if they just like McDonald's told them like no breakfast after 1030, but big daddy.
Yeah.
I'm a huge brunch fan myself.
Not a big drinker, but I do, you know, celebrate those that like to tie one on at breakfast slash lunchtime.
I think that that is fun.
It's it's completely acceptable behavior.
Just not too much, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
I mean, I get the appeal.
I also don't drink, but I totally I understand why you would want a mimosa or why you would want a Bloody Mary,
especially if, you know, it's Sunday morning and you were partying the night before, you know,
hair the dog, that kind of thing.
Also for non drinkers, there's this kombucha I found.
Hmm.
It's called alive and well.
Okay.
It doesn't taste like kombucha.
I haven't tried this yet, but I have a theory.
I'm going to try it soon.
It's got like micro bubbles.
It's almost like a sparkling wine and mixing that with orange juice would probably scratch that.
Mamosa itch.
Hmm.
We're gonna have to try that live on here.
Excellent.
So we've kind of talked a little bit about you.
Is there anything that you think that you that we might have missed as far as like your your chef life or your cooking life or how about this?
Who are some of your inspirations?
Do you have any any cooking in besides your grandmother?
Like do you have any like rocks that like it was Bourdain anything to you?
So my dad before I ever cooked.
So my my path in life, I originally from a young age until my 20s, I wanted to be a filmmaker.
Okay.
I went to school for film.
I ended up getting kicked out of UNT.
As we all do.
Yeah.
And I also hated the film program there.
And I around that time is also when I was playing music more and realizing I wanted to play music.
But I changed to philosophy.
And so my goal in life was to be a philosophy professor and teach at a college level, get a doctor, all that stuff, end up doing chef stuff.
But before when I was still in like film school and stuff, my dad gave me a copy of No Res or oh no, I'm blanking.
No reservation.
No, not no reservations.
Kitchen confidential.
Oh my God.
I pulled that out of my ass.
Yeah.
I haven't had any caffeine besides this Mountain Dew Citrus Cherry game fuel game fuel.
But but yeah.
So kitchen confidential.
My dad gave me a copy in like 2006 or 2007.
I was like, Hey, I think you really appreciate this guy.
He's kind of my age.
He grew up like in the proto punk era in the Lou Reed and all the like, which is all stuff my dad got me into.
Like my dad turned me on to a lot of cool music growing up.
He saw the Sex Pistols back in the 70s.
The Clash like that's a whole other episode.
But but yeah, so he was like telling me like, yeah, this dude is like, he knows cool music.
He knows good food.
So Anthony Bourdain was like the first after Emeril Lagasse, which is funny if you've read Kitchen Confidential and how much Bourdain hates Emeril Lagasse.
Anthony Bourdain was definitely like my biggest like inspiration.
Like, oh, that's just a regular dude.
He is a line cook and he's a every man's man.
And he takes all the spirit of like the 70s like rock and proto punk stuff into the kitchen with him for sure.
So yeah, Anthony Bourdain was huge.
I'm not not really a big like, oh man, I want to look at this chef and like praise the chef.
Because I don't want I've never felt I've got really bad imposter syndrome.
So and I assume that a lot of other people may have that too.
But I I'm more of a what's this restaurant?
What are they trying to say in that and stuff like that?
That's cool.
I just know that like I'm not a chef.
My dad is I like you relate in that way.
My dad, any cool music I know now is a really cool thing.
I know now is because my dad showed me and my dad was huge into cooking.
And my dad was not like the typical dad where he's like, mom cooks and I'm going to go outside.
But he he really my dad will get super nerdy about perfecting chocolate flambé, you know, moose or something like that.
And then he'll like do it 10 times until it's perfect.
And then we're just like, we got to eat all these.
But he has some recipes that he just kills.
I mean, just like put them up against anybody anywhere anytime and he loves cooking.
And so he did pass that along to me.
I do cook.
But I just know that Bourdain in particular is one of those people that even if you have no tie to the kitchen, he has that that something that makes you feel like you could also be a part of that culture.
You could you could cook if you tried hard enough, if you did enough traveling and experiencing life, if you appreciated food enough, you too could could could feel some of those same things.
And so I did want to mention that.
So we're kind of wrapping up.
But on the wrap up, I did want to talk about our goals, our dreams, kind of like what we see this podcast.
We kind of introduced it a little bit at the top.
This episode has been kind of introduction and breakfast heavy.
The next one, the part two is going to be a little bit more in the violence episode, and then we'll kind of go cohesively from there.
But I just kind of wanted to talk about what you saw in the vision for this podcast, what you want to get out of the podcast and kind of like any future dreams, dream guests that you may want to have on the podcast.
I mean, yeah.
Yeah, so this idea came to me in the walk in doing inventory at spiral diner one day.
And I was like looking at pancake batter and I was like, oh man, I love breakfast food.
And I just had a conversation with somebody about a violent incident and I was like, oh wait, violence and breakfast food.
Let's go.
But I have a few friends who are in MMA.
I think Renee you have maybe even more ties.
My wife, her family is like a Fort Worth boxing dynasty.
Her dad was a boxer.
She boxed as a teenager.
Her uncles, one of her uncles helped with the Floyd Mayweather fight at AT&T Stadium a few years ago.
So they're very well connected her on her dad's side and then on her mom's side.
Her grandfather was the trainer of all of the boys on her dad's side.
So, so yeah, like ties there.
But so, I mean, I'm not super I'm not as versed in UFC and boxing and everything as you are Renee.
I'm a casual spectator.
But I'm very intrigued by it and I've like taken Jiu Jitsu classes.
I've got friends who are like black belts and Jiu Jitsu.
One of which his name is Kevin O'Malley.
I'd love to have him on the show.
Maybe we can get his brother, Gene O'Malley.
He's a real character.
Yeah.
But Kevin owns Fort Worth Float Company.
They do sensory deprivation float tanks.
He does cold plunges infrared sauna or red light therapy, but he's a black belt in Jiu Jitsu and he's also a black belt in Judo.
That's very cool.
Yeah.
And he's been around doing it for as long as I've known him.
So I'd love to have him on the show.
Definitely.
I trained at frequency Jiu Jitsu for a while.
Kyle over there, his outlook on Jiu Jitsu, like his whole philosophy on it is really interesting.
So maybe we can get him on, you know, big names.
Sky's the limit.
Yeah.
Biggest name.
Again, I'm not as in that as you are.
Let's get Conor McGregor on here.
Yeah, we'll get Conor to call in and give us a little shout out.
In person.
In the studio.
Get him in the studio.
You're aiming high and I'm so into that.
So whenever you brought this idea to me, we had been kind of kicking around.
So we had, we put on spell kind of to bed and we had been kicking around just maybe hanging out together as friends and and also just maybe doing a project together.
But then this idea came and the second you said it, I was just like, I'm so into this because I think that.
I think that we both have a lot to learn from each other.
I think that you can teach me a lot about being a chef, cooking about what to look for and good restaurants and and good meals and good experiences.
Why breakfast is a very important meal of the day.
And I think that, you know, I can bring together a little bit of some of some of what I watch.
I personally watch just about every UFC event that there is.
And I have done so for probably about 10 years.
I also watch some of the other promotions that are out there.
PFL or tour.
There's bare knuckle fighting.
There's also, you know, we, we grew up in you and I kind of grew up in similar areas where we didn't have the internet one day and then we did the next and then for like the next, I don't know, 10, 15 years.
It was pretty much unregulated. So we grew up with stuff like Gore and or Rotten and stuff.
So we've pretty much seen all there is to see when it comes to like the internet violence, but we'll go back and touch on some of those, like maybe some of those classic internet fights, like maybe some Kimbo slice stuff, some stuff where in particular, if we ever talk about Jorge Mosvital, he kind of got to start in those backyard fights and has made his way through the UFC all the way to now.
He actually owns his own promotion and game bread fighting promotion and he puts on events that are, I mean, you know, it, you know, just as good, if not as as good as Bellator and some of those other fight cards.
So someone that kind of made his way from the backyard all the way to the CEO's office of a fight promotion.
My goals, I would love to get at least 100 podcasts that I had that number in my head.
Whenever we first started this, I would like to do 100 of these. I would like to have all of our friends that we know that are creative that have something to offer, especially in the Fort Worth area, just as a way to kind of highlight and advertise some of those unsung heroes.
I would love to have any and all chefs and personal nutritionists and anybody that can give us any insight into the science of breakfast or breakfast foods.
I would love to have, like you said, Jim Jim coaches owners trainers fighters in the area. There's one that you shouted out Conor McGregor.
I'm going to shout out Kevin Holland. He is a current UFC fighter and he trains and lives in Fort Worth.
He trains with Travis Looter, who owns a gym out here and who was also in the UFC some time ago.
And so I think that would be my first big get slash, you know, goal slash dream.
He's got a very close relationship with Dana White that give each other sneakers all the time.
And he's been to center. I've heard he's not been since I've been since I've been at center, but I've heard he's dipped in there once or twice before.
So Kevin Holland, if you hear this, please shout us out. Tell us what you eat for breakfast.
Tell us how a champion prepares for a fight. What do you eat on fight day?
I would love to know because to me, I would think you'd be so nervous or even so overconfident that you just couldn't eat.
What do you eat for breakfast on a fight day?
I'm curious about that, too, especially because you've been dieting. So after the weigh in, I mean, I kind of come from more of a powerlifting background.
So it's like, after the weigh in, you're going to carve up, you're going to eat a whole bunch of stuff.
So I'm wondering if that's the same thing or if you're going to go like full Jordan and have like a steak with some garlic mashed potatoes and green beans two hours before the fight smell real garlicky and beefy.
Yeah. That's that's I mean, we have to know.
So if you are a current fighter of any promotion of any level and you would like to reach out to us and tell us what you guys do breakfast wise, I'm with you.
They cut so much weight and then they have to put that water back into their body.
And then I just don't know. Does that make your tummy hurt? Does that make you not want to eat breakfast? Does it?
You know, and and kind of like, how does that work? I just I would love to know that.
So there we go. That's kind of our first episode.
Is there anything you want to mention before we kind of shut this down for this episode?
I had one last thought slash memory about ship leads donuts that I didn't mention earlier.
OK.
So when I moved to Texas in 2002, I moved to like North Fort Worth area.
It was one ship leads donuts. It was on 377 and Wattaga. That was the closest one to me.
But there was a band and I'm not sure you might remember them, Renee, called the Knockout Kings.
Do you remember them? When ties go with them?
Yeah. So Clink, who was a singer of the Knockout Kings, he lived like in the Keller Wattaga, North Fort Worth area.
And I remember my first like, I'd seen that ship leads donuts, but they went on tour and they took a picture with their van.
And the like trailer, they were pulling behind them with like the two bands that were playing outside of ship leads, like ganged up, whole crew.
And that was like, oh, man, maybe ship leads donuts is cool.
Still never want to make there.
What the fuck is that ship leads? Yeah.
But yeah, shout out Knockout Kings for for anyone who remembers them.
Brad Robertson, their bass player, bald guy.
Kim and I played trombone together in the marching band in high school.
And then their guitar player, I think was Jared Abraham.
And he went to high school with us too.
And so shout out Aisle High School Class of 2002.
I only really went there my senior year because I got in trouble at South Hills High School in Fort Worth.
But yeah, so I know those guys love Knockout Kings love ship leads donuts.
What a perfect memory and way to wrap this up.
I would like to give a few thank yous for the people that are making this happen.
First and foremost, let's thank Mountain Dew and their game.
Citrus Cherry, that was wonderful fuel for this.
Thank you to ship leads donuts.
This location was the location that's over off of Sycamore School Road.
And the Krali slash South Fort Worth area.
The people there that gave me my donuts this morning were happy, awake,
and those to serve me my donuts.
These donuts were tasty.
You can hear our scores earlier in the episode.
We will be back with another episode.
We will review some more donuts.
Stay tuned for part two where we come back to talk about violence.
Also, let's thank our families.
They allowed us to get out this morning and to get this done.
So big thank you to Heather.
Yeah, thanks, Heather.
Thanks, kids.
Thank you, Allie.
Thank you, kids.
And I'm really excited.
I can't wait to get back to you to talk with you especially about this violence
that we have coming up.
So love some violence.
Love some donuts.
All right, everybody, take care.
Have a great day.
Don't forget to eat your breakfast.
Bye.