Behind the Kitchen Door: Missouri’s Comfort Food Scene

Arnold Stricker: 00:00:00

If you're traveling around the state, you need a place to eat, whether it's the Southwest, the Southeast, Central Missouri, Northeast Missouri, Northwest Missouri. There's plenty of places locally that you should find out and we're going to find out more about Those today on St. Louis in Tune. Welcome to St.

Louis in June and thank you for joining us for fresh perspectives on issues and events with experts, community leaders and everyday people who make a difference in shaping our society and world. I'm Arnold Stricker along with co host Mark Langston. Greetings to you, Mark.

Mark Langston: 00:00:45

Greetings and salutations to you, Arnold.

Arnold Stricker: 00:00:48

I haven't heard salutations for a while.

Mark Langston: 00:00:49

I know. I don't know. That might be a word for the day sometimes. What is salutations?

Arnold Stricker: 00:00:54

It means like a salute, like a hi, how you doing?

Mark Langston: 00:00:56

Okay. Howdy.

Arnold Stricker: 00:00:57

What's going on? What's shaking?

Mark Langston: 00:01:00

Tip of the hat.

Arnold Stricker: 00:01:01

Yeah, tip of the hat.

Mark Langston: 00:01:02

I know.

Arnold Stricker: 00:01:02

Not the Cardinal's hat.

Mark Langston: 00:01:04

Yeah.

Arnold Stricker: 00:01:04

I won't go there, though.

Mark Langston: 00:01:05

I don't know when you're listening to this, but we're getting ready for the World Series and the Cardinals aren't even. We were just talking earlier. Former Cardinal players are in it. Many.

Arnold Stricker: 00:01:16

Right. There was going to be a Cardinal, former Cardinal player that's going to win a World Series ring.

Mark Langston: 00:01:22

That's going to be nice. Good for them. Too bad the rest of the city can't win.

Arnold Stricker: 00:01:27

Well, we can celebrate a return to civility and we always encourage people to be civil. And this one happens to deal with our theme today.

And it says this at a restaurant, assume that the host is trying to find you a table as quickly as possible.

Try not to keep asking every five minutes if something is available or glaring at the host until they call your name or shaking your watch or looking at your watch.

Mark Langston: 00:01:55

I'm bad in a different way, I have to admit, because I don't like sitting next to the bathrooms. I don't like sitting next to the front door. I don't like sitting next to the kitchen where there's all that activity.

Arnold Stricker: 00:02:09

Now I like to look into the kitchen, like when they have a counter set up. I don't mind. That's fun. You get to see what chef's doing.

Mark Langston: 00:02:15

I don't know why I'm that way. I just don't want a lot of people.

Arnold Stricker: 00:02:18

Now, the restroom, I understand.

Mark Langston: 00:02:19

Yeah.

Arnold Stricker: 00:02:20

Next to a restroom on a bus.

Mark Langston: 00:02:21

And the front door. I've sat by those, especially in the winter time. And a waiting list. Then they're all standing right next to you.

Arnold Stricker: 00:02:28

Oh, yeah. That's annoying.

Mark Langston: 00:02:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to go into it too much, actually.

Arnold Stricker: 00:02:33

You have some experience with that, Mark?

Mark Langston: 00:02:34

Yes, I have. And I just like. I know. So that's my pet peeve.

Arnold Stricker: 00:02:39

Okay.

Mark Langston: 00:02:39

Yeah.

Arnold Stricker: 00:02:40

At a restaurant, folks assume you that the host is trying to find you a table as quickly as possible. And we're going to be talking today about food recipes, places, food traditions in the Show Me state. It's kind of Missouri comfort food.

And on the line is Portia Moran. She's an author and market communications professional.

And in the parking lot right now is Matt Unger, who's an author and a director of food service. Portia, welcome to St. Louis in Tune.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:03:10

Hi. Thank you for having me.

Arnold Stricker: 00:03:12

I know Matt's on his way. His directions were a little cloudy, but the sky's clearing up and he's on his way in. Looking at your background, first of all, I have a question.

Did you go to Homewood Flossmoor High School?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:03:26

Yes, I did.

Mark Langston: 00:03:28

Wow.

Arnold Stricker: 00:03:28

Okay. So I knew you were you're from Chicagoland, you're from Homewood, and I think there's only one high school area up there, Homewood Flossmoor.

I was a little familiar with that. But you've done a lot of things as it relates to marketing online. And I had a question about the her magazine that you started.

That's an online magazine, is that correct?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:03:50

It's a print publication. Yeah. There's some digital elements as well.

But yeah, I was me and another person started the magazine and I'm glad that it's still going and it seems like it's going strong.

Arnold Stricker: 00:04:04

And is that based out of Jeff City or where's that based out of?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:04:08

Yeah, it's out of Jefferson City. It's part of the News Tribune, which is the paper in Jefferson City. And her magazine has been offshoot of the newspaper.

Arnold Stricker: 00:04:19

And what was the impetus for you getting behind writing, going from Chicago to Mizzou?

I know Mizzou has a wonderful journalism school, but what was did you just all of a sudden start reading newspapers when you were growing up and you were like, yeah, I'm really getting into this. I like doing this. What was that start point for you?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:04:39

Well, I've always loved writing. For as long as I can remember, I've loved writing. I started out mostly doing creative writing when I was younger.

I would just write stories and make things up and write stories and always had a notebook and pencil and pen with me. And then I would even in junior high we had the little newsletter. And I would write restaurant reviews of local restaurants.

And then when I got into high school, I wasn't really sure, like, how to make writing a career. I really had no idea of how I could do that.

So I got on the school newspaper and that's how I got more into the journalism side of things and was an editor on the school paper. And then like you said, Missouri has the best journalism school are one of the best.

And that's what brought me to Missouri was just the great journalism school.

Arnold Stricker: 00:05:30

And you've worked in a variety of papers. You've. You have worked in Jeff City area, mid Missouri. You were actually also a. What was it working for the Boone County.

The Boone county prosecutor or the Boone County City.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:05:45

Oh, yeah. So my first job out of college was as the PIO and like grant writer for Boone County. So basically like their public relations.

And I was the first person to have that position.

Arnold Stricker: 00:06:01

So that's an honor. It's a way to really establish some new territory there. There's no expectation because nobody's done anything and you just can run with that.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:06:11

Yeah, exactly. Like, I've had several positions like that throughout my career where I was the first person to do it and got to establish some things.

Arnold Stricker: 00:06:22

Now how do you get outlets like Forbes and USA Today and NBC News to pick up something that you've written? How does that happen?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:06:30

I worked. I did some freelance work for a website called Investopedia. And there's like a lot of financial, like, personal finance stories.

And so that's where a lot of those articles were picked up from. And I didn't really have anything to do with it. I think just that website just got a lot of attention. And are they. Maybe they pitched it out.

But yeah, that's where those articles are picked up from.

Arnold Stricker: 00:06:55

And so as you started to. I read that you were contacted about this book and because of individuals at Reedy Press, had read a lot of your materials in the Missouri Life.

And Missouri Life's a great, great publication. We've had some folks on about that. And so now you're right. You've written this book in Missouri comfort.

And tell us a little bit about your place in how you worked with Chef Matt, who just sat down in the chair across from me and did he give you, like, here's my recipes. This is what I like. Now write it. Is that what he did?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:07:34

No.

Arnold Stricker: 00:07:36

How did you go about doing that?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:07:37

A lot more of a collaborative process than that. But yeah, Matthew and the publisher knew each other already. They were working on this idea.

So when I came in, they already had a basic idea of what wanted to do. But we collaborated to come up with how we wanted to format everything.

And the original idea was to include recipes from restaurants around the state. And as we started to go down that path, we realized that was not really getting the best response.

It was difficult with restaurant owners have a lot on their plate, a lot to do, they're short staffed all the time. So it was difficult to get a lot of traction on that direction. So we decided to go more into the different categories.

Categories, different ethnicities, different categories of food, and just build out the recipes around those categories and have Matthew create his original recipes from that.

Arnold Stricker: 00:08:34

That sounds good. And Chef Matthew, welcome to St. Louis in Tune.

Mathew Unger: 00:08:37

Good morning. Good morning. Sorry I was running late there.

Arnold Stricker: 00:08:40

No worries.

Mathew Unger: 00:08:40

To add on to that. Yeah, I like the concept that the finished product of the book better than what we had originally anticipated.

We still give recommendations for all the restaurants in Missouri.

You could still go try some of the food and then you have the option of making it yourself because there's eight to ten recipes per chapter on this as well.

Arnold Stricker: 00:09:01

In looking at this Mark, there's restaurants and folks, you gotta get the book because if you're traveling around the state and let's say you're down in Cape Girardeau, you can find restaurants down in Cape Girardeau that are listed in here. And I guess my question for both of you is, how did you find. Did you travel around and go, okay, I need to find the best this.

And this is what I've heard. And then you checked it out or how did you do that?

Mathew Unger: 00:09:23

So we conquered and divided. Portia lives on the west side of the state. I live in St. Louis, east side of the state.

So I was very familiar with a lot of things locally and travel quite a bit on the east side of the state. So I'm very familiar. But also we have.

We're lucky that we live in this age where there's the Google machine and we could do a lot of research that way.

Mark Langston: 00:09:43

I love the book, honestly.

Mathew Unger: 00:09:45

It's a fun concept.

Mark Langston: 00:09:46

It is a fun concept. It almost is like a St.

Louis book or a Missouri book, because every page, honestly, Matthew, and it's just amazing, as you page through it, you just stop. There's Italian, there's St. Louis, the pizzas, the beef and the pork and the ragu. And they're all those St.

Louis dishes that I've grown up with that I love. And I'm looking at them going this is great. And it gives a complete recipe for.

Mathew Unger: 00:10:13

Them, and you hit it on the head. They're Missouri recipes, they're St. Louis or Missouri recipes. So they're not necessarily traditional Italian recipes per se.

When people immigrated here, there weren't all the same recipe or all the same ingredients. Even the proteins were a little bit different with what they used in Italy.

So the original Italian recipes were morphed into these types of recipes that are truly, if you will, Missouri Italian recipes.

Arnold Stricker: 00:10:41

Yeah, I appreciate that. You really chose a lot of ethnicities. German, Italian.

You get into some Irish, you get into some soul food, some African American food, and then some. The Cajun stuff. Mark. I'm just all over that stuff.

Mark Langston: 00:10:58

It's amazing. It's a great place.

Mathew Unger: 00:10:59

The food in Missouri is. It's ever changing. What we decided to do was get a base of this is where we are right now. And Portia and I were discussing just recently.

We don't have Mexican or Thai or some of these that we're seeing come into the marketplaces right now, but we're not seeing as big of an influence of what it has built in Missouri. This book, written in 20 years from now, will have two or three more chapters at it.

Arnold Stricker: 00:11:26

Much different.

Mathew Unger: 00:11:27

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So this is where we are right now.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:11:29

We have a chapter at the end of the book talking about the evolving food scene. So it's almost like a preview to what things might be in the book, like Matthew said, if we did this 10, 20 years from now.

Arnold Stricker: 00:11:41

Yeah. And I want you to both go into that a little bit, because St. Louis, for, oh, gosh, 20 years now, has been a great food scene.

It's been, I don't want to say dissed by nationally, but it's been passed over. Gerard Kraft got the James Beard Award, But Food and Wine has had several St. Louis chefs. Kansas City is getting their due.

They have a great food scene up there. Talk about the Missouri food scene and where you think it's going to go. I'm going to start with Matthew, and then we'll go to Portia.

Mathew Unger: 00:12:10

Sure. I think it's especially in St. Louis, and I'll talk about that because that's where I live and what I know the most and what a lot of your listeners.

Where a lot of your listeners are from. I challenge anybody to go to another city and find as many good restaurants as we have and talented chefs that we have in St. Louis.

It's taken for granted. I was just out west and ate at an Italian restaurant that was supposed to Be very good. And they thought so, too, by their prices.

But it was not as good as most of the Italian restaurants here in St. Louis. And it's just the quality that you're getting is unbelievable. We're a gem that nobody knows about, and part of me wants to keep it that way.

Arnold Stricker: 00:12:52

Yeah, I get that.

Mark Langston: 00:12:53

I do. I understand that.

Arnold Stricker: 00:12:54

Portia, what are your thoughts on that?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:12:57

Yeah, I think that was one of the things that was exciting about writing this book was looking at some of the national recognition that the state is starting to get. Like, you mentioned Food and Wine magazine, and they had had an article about their readers naming St. Louis the next great food city.

And there were some other national awards and recognitions that I found that I mentioned in the book that restaurants around the state have gotten. And James Beard Awards. Several restaurants in the state have gotten those. Yeah.

It's exciting to see where Missouri is going, and I think that people are starting to see that it's not a flyover state and there's lots here.

And I think people should definitely, if they're not familiar with Missouri food, even if they live in Missouri and they're not familiar with what's available across the state, definitely explore and see what we have to offer.

Arnold Stricker: 00:13:47

Yeah, it'd be like, show me comfort food.

Mathew Unger: 00:13:50

Exactly, exactly.

Mark Langston: 00:13:52

I know it's got fish in here, you know, like trout. Things to do with trout.

Arnold Stricker: 00:13:58

Yeah.

Mathew Unger: 00:13:58

You know, and the one chapter is all about food that's indigenous to Missouri. So. Yeah, rainbow trout down in southern Missouri. Nothing better than getting it fresh out of the water.

Mark Langston: 00:14:09

No kidding.

Mathew Unger: 00:14:09

Right away.

Mark Langston: 00:14:10

No kidding.

Arnold Stricker: 00:14:12

This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston of St. Louis. In tune, we're talking to Matthew Unger and Portia Moran. Do you go by Portia Moran Murphy or Portia Moran?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:14:22

I go by mostly Portia Moran Murphy or Portia Murphy.

Arnold Stricker: 00:14:26

Okay. All right. So we're talking to Portia Moran Murphy, and they're here talking about their latest collaboration, Missouri Comfort.

And it's a great book on food. It's available from Reedy Press. Mark, I bet these two, maybe they realize this, but they have a couple things in common.

One is California, and another one is London.

Mark Langston: 00:14:46

What?

Arnold Stricker: 00:14:46

Okay, so here's the thing, okay? And you guys, correct me if I'm wrong, okay? Like, Portia has a distinct familiarity with California. Missouri. Okay?

And Matt has a distinct relationship with California because that's where he went to the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America, not the Central Intelligence Agency. Okay? I'm not saying he's not intelligent. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. And also London.

Matt went to school in London and Portia spent a semester of school in London. Now did you guys both know that you had this London, California connection?

Mathew Unger: 00:15:22

Had no idea. Had no idea.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:15:23

No, I did not.

Arnold Stricker: 00:15:24

You learned these things on St. Louis and Tune.

Mathew Unger: 00:15:26

That's why we're here, to learn.

Arnold Stricker: 00:15:30

Now I want to give a couple other things. Portia has her own media company. And describe that a little bit because then I'm going to get into Matt's background.

You like matter Matthew, whatever you want to call me.

Mathew Unger: 00:15:42

I've worked in kitchens for 25 years so I've been called all kinds of things.

Arnold Stricker: 00:15:47

And we haven't worked in kitchens and we've been called all kinds of things too.

Mark Langston: 00:15:51

We still are being called all kinds of things. Right.

Arnold Stricker: 00:15:53

Tell us a little bit about PRN Media.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:15:57

Yeah, so I, like I said before, my background is in lifestyle journalism and I've done a lot of food and travel content and other lifestyle topics. And so I that's no longer like my main or my full time job. I do, I'm more into marketing and I do a lot of healthcare IT marketing now.

But on the side I still do freelance work in the kind of that lifestyle journalism arena. And so that's my freelance business.

Arnold Stricker: 00:16:26

So how does someone see your work? Do they hear your work? Do they, Would they know that it's your work or that you're just contracted through a third party?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:16:36

Yeah, so I write for some different publications like Missouri Life, done several things for them over the years. In the past I've worked for Inside Columbia magazine.

I write articles for some magazines that's like the Ozarks and my name is on those articles so people would know that I wrote those.

Arnold Stricker: 00:16:58

And you've just not started doing this. You've been doing this for 10 plus years.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:17:03

Yeah, I've been doing it for quite some time now. So that's a lot of bylines out there.

Arnold Stricker: 00:17:10

A lot of bylines and that's good. And Matthew, Mark, you know what's interesting about him, he's just got a varied background. He was a great stockbroker.

He went to Missouri State, got his business marketing degree, went to University of London, went to the Culinary Institute. Then he was Mark, I bet you didn't know this. He was executive chef at the Mac. No Missouri Athletic Club.

Mark Langston: 00:17:34

Did not know that.

Arnold Stricker: 00:17:35

For a little more than seven years he had his own restaurant, Matthew's Kitchen on the Hill. Now he's working and I love this. He's Director of food service for a group that it's.

Mathew Unger: 00:17:49

It's Midwest Petroleum, which is weird, right, for a chef to work for a company. Right.

Arnold Stricker: 00:17:55

But it's a favorite restaurant down there in Cuba. Is it?

Mathew Unger: 00:17:58

We don't have a restaurant in Cuba. We've just opened a new concept, okay. In St. Louis here, which is.

Which are smash burgers made to order out of the convenience store so they can go in, pay for their gas, grab whatever else that they're gonna get, and order a burger. And we make it fresh. Takes about five minutes, and it comes right out to you.

And if you look at convenience stores, when I came on with them, it was an interesting. Why would a chef be interested in that? But it was interesting to me to build the program from scratch.

So I've been doing this for them for about eight years. And we have 60 stores. We have food in 30 of them, kitchens in all the stores. So we're making it fresh in the store.

And then this new concept came up a couple months ago, and it's just been going crazy. The worst problem is keeping up on making the burgers. So we're going to be. You're going to see four or five, six of these more in the St.

Louis metro area in the next year and a half to two years, because we're really starting to build those out. But what really makes it is the blend of the beef. We, you know, we sell burgers and fries, and we. So we said we're going to.

We're going to sell burgers and fries made to order, and we're going to do that. Right? And so we do. We have a blend of chuck, brisket and short rib for the ground beef.

And it just gets nice and crispy on the flat top and just melts in your mouth. The reviews on all the burgers go online and you can look. Everybody says I had to wait a little long, but those are the only negative things.

Nothing negative about the burger itself, everybody said. But the burger was amazing. Melts in your mouth and. Yeah.

Arnold Stricker: 00:19:39

Is that the recipe that's in the book here? A similar one.

Mathew Unger: 00:19:42

The one in the book is very similar in style. We have. It's a smash burger.

Arnold Stricker: 00:19:47

Right.

Mathew Unger: 00:19:47

And the process of how to make the smash burger, the one in the book's a little special in that we do a bacon jelly on top and bacon jelly and goat cheese with the beef. And it is.

Arnold Stricker: 00:19:58

Ooh.

Mathew Unger: 00:19:59

Yeah, it's amazing. It really is good.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:20:02

It is very good. I luckily got to have it from Matthew directly, so I Can bounce.

Mathew Unger: 00:20:08

Yeah. We were doing the photo shoot, so I was making some of the food. And Portia, everybody got to try a piece of it. But that bacon jelly, you could.

You could put it on this book. And the book.

Arnold Stricker: 00:20:18

Bacon cardboard is so good.

Mathew Unger: 00:20:21

So good.

Mark Langston: 00:20:21

And Matthew, why didn't you bring anything for us to try?

Mathew Unger: 00:20:24

You know what? I will. Gosh darn you making me feel bad now I'm gonna have to go slobbering all over. I'm gonna drop some. All later this week.

Arnold Stricker: 00:20:33

I will drop some Midwest Petroleum. People wouldn't maybe know Midwest Petroleum.

Mathew Unger: 00:20:38

No, they don't have the Midwest. You're right. This station, it's in Sunset Hills on the corner of Lindbergh and Graboi. And It's a Phillips 66.

Mark Langston: 00:20:46

Okay.

Arnold Stricker: 00:20:46

Okay.

Mathew Unger: 00:20:47

So we have all our stores are either Phillips 66 or a local branding, which is ZX. Okay, so we have a number of ZX stores. But yeah, this one's at Gravois and Lindbergh. Big intersection, very busy.

And our next one will be out by Lindenwood College in St. Charles. And that'll be in January.

Mark Langston: 00:21:05

Okay, I know there's some other gas stations that are doing this. They're getting a full kitchen and doing.

Mathew Unger: 00:21:10

Right.

Mark Langston: 00:21:11

Fresh pizza or whatever.

Mathew Unger: 00:21:12

The big boy here in town, obviously is qt.

Mark Langston: 00:21:14

Okay. I didn't want to say, but if.

Mathew Unger: 00:21:15

You go to go out to the west coast, there's a number of. There's people that go into Wawas and Sheets out in the west coast or East Coast. I'm sorry. And they'll get lunch and not buy gas or anything else.

And we're seeing that with this concept. It's new to the market, but people are coming in and getting a burger and fries and a soda and leading.

Mark Langston: 00:21:37

I know, I noticed it at wallies.

Mathew Unger: 00:21:38

Out on 44 wall does a ton of food. And you're going to see that. And it's convenient. What I'm trying to do is make the freshest chef's perspective food in the.

Mark Langston: 00:21:52

Store, which is great.

Mathew Unger: 00:21:53

And so you're not just going there getting something because it's there, but you're actually going there to get that. And yeah, you might get gas or whatever else you need there, but they're going there for the food.

Mark Langston: 00:22:03

I wrote down Phillips 66, Gravois and Lindbergh, and I'm going to go, I.

Mathew Unger: 00:22:07

Will bring you a burger, but that's all right. But I challenge find a better burger in stock. Louis. And I love the guys down at Stacked. I love the guys At Max, locally, these guys are all.

They have great burgers. Ours is better.

Mark Langston: 00:22:20

So you're going to start a restaurant then.

Mathew Unger: 00:22:23

So down in Redbud, Illinois, we have this concept and we have seating and waitresses and so forth with the burgers and so forth. But no, I think we're going to stick with. Put them in the convenience stores and have people buy them to order.

Mark Langston: 00:22:37

Seems like a best way to go. Yeah.

Mathew Unger: 00:22:39

Yeah. If you're trying to get a quick lunch and knock out a few things at the same time, and I hate.

Mark Langston: 00:22:44

To say it, I miss Steak n Shakes. There was a big uproar. I don't know what happened with the franchises here, but we could do a.

Mathew Unger: 00:22:50

Whole show on what happened to Steak and Shake.

Mark Langston: 00:22:53

But, yeah, I mean, it was always a great one of those steak kind of burgers. This sounds like way better.

Mathew Unger: 00:22:58

And this is. Honestly a chef. Sometimes you try, you work really hard on a project and it just doesn't work out. And then sometimes you're trying to.

And in this case, you're trying to recreate kind of what Steak and Shake had. And then this blend came up of the burger blend, and it's, wow, this is better.

Mark Langston: 00:23:18

Yeah.

Mathew Unger: 00:23:19

And it was nothing I did. It just happened. Lucky.

Arnold Stricker: 00:23:22

Yeah.

Mathew Unger: 00:23:22

And so we're going to stick with it. We think we got something special.

Arnold Stricker: 00:23:25

That's cool. That's cool.

Mark Langston: 00:23:26

It's wonderful.

Arnold Stricker: 00:23:27

You know, kudos to both of you because, you know, what you do individually is outstanding.

But the fact that you both collaborated on this book, and the reason I say this individually, because, Portia, you are able to work at home, you're able to, you know, get your work out, not only regionally, but nationally and internationally, and you can do that on your time. When things are working out for you, it. Family is important. And Matthew, I know restaurants are big.

I know a lot of chefs in town here, and it's a crazy business. It's a tough business, and people think it's, oh, I can do this. But family is always seems suffers.

And you made the choice, I'm assuming, to move out of that kind of venue, still use your chef background and spend more time with your family. And I know a couple chefs that have done that and they've done well. And Chris Bollard, who we had from Bollards, did the same thing.

And kudos to both of you because you're keeping some good priorities in your life. You're not letting the career kind of interrupt what's happening in your lives.

And I just wanted to mention that to people that people on their deathbeds don't say, gee, I wish I would have spent more time at my work.

Mathew Unger: 00:24:40

Exactly. And that's where we were. My wife was in the restaurant all the time, helping, and it was truly our restaurant. And the kids were there.

If they weren't in school, and we both had to be there. We had a table in the kitchen for them. And they were growing up, but as they were getting older, it was harder and harder.

Our lease was coming up, we had renewals and stuff, but we made the decision based on that. And as the kids were getting older, we needed to figure out how to spend more time with them and be more of a normal family, if you will.

And it's worked out great. I have my daughters just started at Corey Zoo and my son's at De Smet and both doing great. I had the best Saturday afternoon ever. Last Saturday, my.

The girls went to Halloween deal over in St. Charles, and I sat in the backyard with my son and we talked about colleges. And there you go. His direction.

I wouldn't be able to do that if I was at the. At a restaurant all the time.

Arnold Stricker: 00:25:31

And Portia, the fact that technology has worked so much now you can do what you're doing at home and you're not having to go into, quote, unquote, a brick and mortar building and meet with other people and be on a staff, et cetera like that, that has probably made your life a lot easier.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:25:46

Yeah, for sure. It's been great to be able to get into the more remote work opportunities, and it gives you a lot more flexibility.

I'm a pretty early riser, so I can even knock some things out early in the morning, and that works well for me. And then also, what's been really cool about some of the work that I've done is my husband's been able to join me.

I used to do some research for Midwest Living magazine, and they would send me to different places to research restaurants and attractions and different lodgings and things. And my husband would get to come with me and be a part of that and other stories that I've done.

He's been able to come with me sometimes, so that's been really nice.

Arnold Stricker: 00:26:25

That's outstanding. We're going to talk more to our guests. We're going to take a brief break. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston of St. Louis in Tune.

Scott Heritage foundation in: 1857

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The Dred Scott Heritage foundation is requesting a commemorative stamp to be issued from the US Postal Service to recognize and remember the heritage of this amendment by issuing a stamp with the likeness of the man Dred Scott. But we need your support and the support of thousands of people who would like to see this happen.

To achieve this goal, we ask you to download, sign and share the one page petition with others. To find the petition, please go to dredscottlives.org and click on the Dred Scott petition drive on the right side of the page.

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Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:28:21

I want to welcome you back to.

Arnold Stricker: 00:28:31

St. Louis in tune with Arnold Stricker. That's me. Moi. And Mark Langston. That's TO Yeah.

Mark Langston: 00:28:39

You can't see me.

Arnold Stricker: 00:28:39

That's two.

Mark Langston: 00:28:40

I'm the man behind the curtain.

Arnold Stricker: 00:28:41

Yeah. We both have faces for radio.

Mark Langston: 00:28:44

Matthew and Portia. I opened the book and there's three recipes right off the bat. Ham and beans.

Arnold Stricker: 00:28:51

Oh, yeah.

Mark Langston: 00:28:52

Oh, my gosh.

Arnold Stricker: 00:28:52

Yeah.

Mark Langston: 00:28:53

Chicken pot pie. That's gotta be a St. Louis favorite.

Mathew Unger: 00:28:56

That's a big one. I made chicken and dumplings out of the book last night.

Mark Langston: 00:29:00

And then a gooey butter cake.

Mathew Unger: 00:29:01

Oh, yeah.

Mark Langston: 00:29:02

That is so St. Louis, I can't even tell.

Mathew Unger: 00:29:04

Can't get any more St. Louis than that.

Mark Langston: 00:29:05

I know it. What a book.

Mathew Unger: 00:29:07

Unless you're a toast ravioli.

Arnold Stricker: 00:29:10

Okay. You probably get asked this question all the time. What's your favorite recipe?

Mark Langston: 00:29:14

How kids are going for your favorite kid?

Arnold Stricker: 00:29:16

Here we go. Yeah, exactly. Portia, what's your favorite recipe in here?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:29:22

One that I really liked was the grilled Caesar salad, because I'd never heard of that. I love Caesar salad, but I'd never heard of the grilled version. And that was really good.

And also fairly easy because I'm not a professional chef like Matthew. So I do like that. In the book, we have a variety of recipes, recipes that can fit every skill level of cooks at home.

Arnold Stricker: 00:29:46

And you may get to be like Mark and myself. I love to cook. It's a fun thing for me. And I'm going to try these.

Mark Langston: 00:29:53

Oh, yeah.

Arnold Stricker: 00:29:54

Because you go through these recipes, it's great to do that.

Mathew Unger: 00:29:57

And Portia brought up a great point. None of these recipes are too difficult for the beginning cook.

As you can see when you're looking at that, there are not a ton of ingredients, not a ton of steps. Virtually almost anybody can make these recipes.

With that said, for someone like yourself who has a little more experience cooking and likes to cook and is in the kitchen, you can use these recipes and say, I don't really like oregano. I'm going to put basil in its place. Or you can tweak them a little bit to your liking. And so it's good for everybody.

Arnold Stricker: 00:30:28

And there are chef's tips in here on each recipe. And I happen to be turned to the cast iron filet mignon.

Mathew Unger: 00:30:33

Oh, just flipped open to that.

Mark Langston: 00:30:36

It's just page after page, though.

Arnold Stricker: 00:30:38

So what's your favorite one? Here's bacon jelly flatbread.

Mathew Unger: 00:30:41

That's not a bad one. My favorite is because they're all my recipes. Which kid do you like the most? And my daughter. No.

Arnold Stricker: 00:30:50

Did you hear that, son?

Mathew Unger: 00:30:51

Yeah, sorry. Sorry, Eddie. The two recipes, the two sections that really stick out are the German and Irish section, because that's my heritage.

So some of those recipes, the soda bread recipe, the chicken and dumplings, Grandma's recipes, Right?

Arnold Stricker: 00:31:06

Yeah.

Mathew Unger: 00:31:06

And then the German side, the chicken paprikash and the beef stroganoff or Grandma Unger's recipes. Those go back all the way to my childhood. Now, I had to put them into terms that people can read. Not a pinch of this.

Cook it till it's done and use the. So that's what Grandma's recipes were. But making those, not even eating it, but just making those kind of brings that back to me.

Arnold Stricker: 00:31:27

And that's the memory thing, Mark, as I read through this, and you were talking about your grandma's recipes, and are those. Could you. Do you remember the smells? Do you remember what was going on? Did you stand by her? And she goes, now, did you ever.

She asked you to help or anything like that.

Mathew Unger: 00:31:42

I really didn't. I was young when I was having these dishes, so I didn't cook so much with them. Although I remember on St.

Patrick's Day, Grandma would make soda bread for everybody, make a loaf for everybody to share, and then she'd make a loaf for me to eat by myself. Those are the type of memories I make.

I remember going to Grandma Unger's, and whenever I got to choose what she made, I would choose meat stroganoff. Now, I was a little guy, it called a meat stroganoff. It's beef stroganoff. But still today, when I taste those dishes, it brings back those memories.

It's really awesome.

Arnold Stricker: 00:32:17

But then you had a sister at Notre Dame when you were nine. Okay.

Mathew Unger: 00:32:21

So, yeah, that was my first experience in cooking. My sister, my.

We lived up north in Florissant, and my mother signed my sister up for a cooking class down at Notre Dame High school, which was 45 minutes away. She said, if I'm driving there every day, you're. You're going, too. So I. She. You know, she was seventh grade. I was probably fifth grade.

I was two years younger. So I went and I loved it. She hated it. And I made banana bread. That was the first recipe I made.

And I came home and I made banana bread, and everyone liked it. And I was like, wow, I like doing this. I like making people happy with food. And that's still, to this day.

The reason I cook, it's not necessarily to eat it or get kudos or. I like making a good meal and people saying, wow, that was amazing.

Arnold Stricker: 00:33:08

That's a true chef statement. That's when you can tell somebody's a true chef.

Mathew Unger: 00:33:13

Yeah. Honestly, you have to have the money to survive. Right. But I'm not in it for the money. I'm really. The reason I'm in food is to make people happy.

Arnold Stricker: 00:33:21

Yeah, that's great. Portia, what do you remember about growing up and food and that kind of situation?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:33:30

Yeah, I was talking about this earlier with Matthew, but my dad's side of the family is Creole, so that was a lot of the dishes that we would have at home would be like gumbo and jambalaya and. And we would travel down to Louisiana at least once a year. When I was growing up, having that chapter in the book was really special to me.

And my dad and my grandfather are coming to visit me this weekend, and I'm like, maybe I should make the chicken and sausage gumbo that Matthew's recipe for them. And See what they think. That was really nice.

And then on my mom's side of the family, my grandparents are from Alabama and Mississippi, so we ate a lot of that soul food. And that was really a big part of things that I ate as well. Got to have a little bit of both of that in this book. That was nice.

Arnold Stricker: 00:34:17

That's great.

Mark Langston: 00:34:18

Why are y'all not on the Food Network?

Mathew Unger: 00:34:21

Oh, my gosh.

Mark Langston: 00:34:22

I'm not kidding.

Mathew Unger: 00:34:23

That seems like a lot of work.

Mark Langston: 00:34:25

Like I said. Yeah, I have to do it every week. That's true.

Mathew Unger: 00:34:27

I don't like to work that hard.

Mark Langston: 00:34:28

I know, but these recipes would be great. I mean, what I've seen on the Food Network, this is, like, fun. This would be fun.

Mathew Unger: 00:34:36

We've done some things here locally on some tv, and it's fun. I actually helped a buddy of mine, Father Dominic, who has been doing that for long time.

Again, I don't want to age him, but 20, 25 years and helped him out with some things. And we're always. I'm always willing to go on and help people with that. But if the opportunity arises, we'll. We'll look at it.

But I'm pretty happy in the situation I'm in right now.

Mark Langston: 00:35:01

Yeah.

Arnold Stricker: 00:35:01

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I get that. Because it's more time and you wanted to spend that family time.

Mathew Unger: 00:35:08

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Mark Langston: 00:35:09

Yeah.

Arnold Stricker: 00:35:10

That's huge.

Mathew Unger: 00:35:10

But going to the Food Network, you know, the diners drive ins and dives inspired the portion where, you know, we put recommendations of restaurants to go in Missouri to try some of these foods.

Mark Langston: 00:35:22

Oh, good.

Mathew Unger: 00:35:23

So in that, without that inspiration, I don't know that we were gone in that direction, but I really like that aspect. To support local restaurants and some of these great cuisines that we have here in Missouri.

Arnold Stricker: 00:35:35

Yeah, that was a great idea. Go ahead. Portion.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:35:38

I was going to say, obviously the book is focused on food, but it's a travel book in a way, too, because obviously we want people to try the recipes and explore things in their kitchen. But also, it's like a travel guide to Missouri.

You can just drive around the state and see what's in every region and hopefully inspires people to explore outside of their comfort zone where they live.

Arnold Stricker: 00:36:01

Yeah, absolutely. Because there's, there's times when people will either go to the southwest part of the state, southeast, up north, central, kc.

Mathew Unger: 00:36:09

Sure.

Arnold Stricker: 00:36:09

And we always look up. Okay, if we're going to spend the night there, where would we want to eat?

Mark Langston: 00:36:13

Oh, yeah.

Arnold Stricker: 00:36:14

And because we want to eat at a good place and you've already done a lot of. Some of the legwork there.

Mathew Unger: 00:36:19

Laid it out. Sure. Again, traveling with kids say we have to go up to Columbia, Missouri for a basketball game or something.

A lot of times it's, we'll eat it fast food or whatever.

Mark Langston: 00:36:29

Shakespeare.

Mathew Unger: 00:36:30

Yeah. So now it's okay.

There's some great restaurants there and if you know where they are, you're going to eat there instead of eating at Applebee's or whatever it is. And you're supporting local. You're getting good food and probably pretty close to the same price.

Mark Langston: 00:36:45

So I want to do the Kansas City because I always look for barbecue, but I want to look for something other than barbecue for a change.

Mathew Unger: 00:36:51

There's a lot up there. There's a lot up there.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:36:52

Yeah, yeah.

Arnold Stricker: 00:36:54

Our daughter lives.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:36:55

I think also the point about. Oh, sorry, I was going to mention the point about supporting local businesses.

We also talk in the book about supporting local ingredients and getting your eggs, your meat, your cheese, bread from local businesses that make it local farms. And so I think that's something to think about as well. The farm to table scene is very big in Missouri.

And so just thinking about that, when you choose where you want to eat or when you're cooking at home, if you can include some local ingredients, that's really nice too.

Arnold Stricker: 00:37:27

That's a great point because there are a lot of restaurants that do advocate and advertise that way, farm to table. But you can actually sign up with farmers and have produce delivered or go pick it up.

And I will say it's a thousand percent better than many of the local grocery stores. Some of the local grocery stores, I don't know where they're buying their produce, but it's sure not from.

Seems like farmers that are delivering things to individuals.

Mark Langston: 00:37:56

How about bacon jelly flatbread? Yeah, if you put bacon in anything, I think I'm good for it. You got it right there. Is that where you were going? We're all kind of like.

I know we're all pulling that way.

Arnold Stricker: 00:38:07

We're both on that.

Mark Langston: 00:38:08

But I'm telling you, anything with bacon in it, I'm okay with that.

Mathew Unger: 00:38:12

Absolutely.

Mark Langston: 00:38:12

Yeah, absolutely.

Arnold Stricker: 00:38:14

Now there are some presentation and book signings and I don't know if both of you or individually are going to be there, but October 26th, that's this Saturday at the Kitchen Conservatory. And this is the new location on Manchester. So don't forget that, folks. They were located in Clayton on Clayton Road, and now they're in Brentwood.

ll. Excuse me. On Manchester,: 9011

Meet in three. Say hi to Ricky for me.

Mathew Unger: 00:38:46

Talk about a great chef. I mean, yeah, super talented guy. Just great, wholesome, down to earth guy. And I, I try to go there whenever I can.

I know it's right down the street from here, but man, great place if you haven't been there yet.

Arnold Stricker: 00:38:59

Catfish and the chicken.

Mathew Unger: 00:39:00

Yeah, the. The chicken is my go to all the time.

Arnold Stricker: 00:39:03

Yeah. But be. Be prepared if you really want hot.

Mathew Unger: 00:39:07

Yeah, the.

Arnold Stricker: 00:39:07

You can do it.

Mathew Unger: 00:39:08

The hot is very hot.

Arnold Stricker: 00:39:09

Yeah.

Mathew Unger: 00:39:10

Too hot for me.

Mark Langston: 00:39:11

My youngest son, Matthew found that place and just took us to it. Yeah, yeah, he's a foodie.

Arnold Stricker: 00:39:17

It's great stuff.

Mathew Unger: 00:39:18

Rick's a great chef.

Arnold Stricker: 00:39:19

Yes. They're going to be November 15th, Friday at Bartolino's Osteria. That's the 15th of November.

Here are some other dates and we'll post these on the podcast. And they're on the west side of the state at Holt Summit Public Library, November 16th.

Also November 16th at the Southern Boone County Public Library in Ashland. Ashland's a great little community there. And at the Callaway County Public Library, Tuesday, December 17th.

We'll post that, but check that out and would be a great time to pick up a book, get it signed. Talk to Portia and our Matthew about that. Are you both going to be at those or individually or how.

Mathew Unger: 00:39:56

We kind of. We can split them up every. Everything on the west side of the state she's been doing.

I've been doing everything local here, but yeah, you grab a book and Christmas isn't that far away. So if you have someone who enjoys this type of stuff, great time to pick that up and we can sign it personally to them.

Arnold Stricker: 00:40:11

There you go. And you were both at the Missouri Book Festival in Washington.

Mathew Unger: 00:40:14

We were.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:40:15

We were, yes, we were.

Arnold Stricker: 00:40:17

We did a show on that. That's a great festival.

Mathew Unger: 00:40:19

Oh, it's so much fun. We did a demo on Kansas City. Burnt ends and what to look for and the process to go through them. And it. It's always a good time out there.

What a great little community.

Arnold Stricker: 00:40:30

Yes. Talk about that Burn 10 process for a minute there. Now you got me going.

Mark Langston: 00:40:35

Sure.

Mathew Unger: 00:40:36

Burnt ends are the cap or the top part of the brisket. The flat is the other part of it. So the flat's used for brisket and then usually the cap is used for burnt ends.

Now when restaurants do them, typically they'll cook it all together and leave all the fat on because they're selling you the fat as well? Because they can. In the book, it shows how to trim that piece off and smoke that separate or cook that separate.

And you have to leave some of the fat on, but it does render out. And when you get that final product, it's lean, just melt in your mouth. You got to cook it a long time, but it is. It's absolutely delicious.

Arnold Stricker: 00:41:16

If you want good food, you really have to take your time with stuff you do and not rush it, and you do. Now, Portia, I've got this question that's been burning in my brain here. Did you started collaborating with Chef Matthew?

Did you start to up your game a little bit, or did you start to change up some recipes a little bit because of. Of what you guys were working on?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:41:39

Not really. I'm just so busy. It's hard to do a lot of cooking or spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

So currently, I really try to do things that are a little bit quicker, But I'm really excited for the holidays when I have a little bit more time, try to incorporate some of these recipes into what I'm doing for the holidays, and I hope other people do that as well. But, yeah, like I said, I got to try some of the recipes directly from Matthew, and they were amazing. And, well, there's a solution. I enjoyed eating.

Mathew Unger: 00:42:11

You just need to move closer because we eat like this all the time at my house. You just pop in.

Mark Langston: 00:42:17

How are you not a ton? How do you not weigh a ton?

Mathew Unger: 00:42:21

That is difficult.

Mark Langston: 00:42:21

I bet it is.

Mathew Unger: 00:42:22

Portion control.

Mark Langston: 00:42:23

Oh, no, not with you.

Arnold Stricker: 00:42:25

So my question for both of you, apart from the book cook, what's your go to food? Portia?

Mark Langston: 00:42:31

Oh.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:42:32

Oh. Oh, gosh.

Mark Langston: 00:42:34

I don't know if I could answer.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:42:35

I love pizza. You mentioned barbecue earlier. I love barbecue. I'm more partial to Kansas City barbecue.

Arnold Stricker: 00:42:42

Sorry, Matt.

Mark Langston: 00:42:45

Yeah, that was. It's going so well.

Mathew Unger: 00:42:48

It really was really good. It really was like.

Mark Langston: 00:42:51

All right, Portia.

Mathew Unger: 00:42:52

Joe's is good. I know Joe's. Joe's is very good. It's almost as good as Hogarts or Pappy's.

Arnold Stricker: 00:42:58

Yeah.

Mark Langston: 00:42:59

You like thin crust, thick crust, pizza crust? Okay.

Arnold Stricker: 00:43:03

Yeah. All right.

Mark Langston: 00:43:04

There might be.

Mathew Unger: 00:43:05

That's the right answer. I don't know if she was telling the truth, but she said the right answer that time.

Arnold Stricker: 00:43:10

All right, Matthew, what do you. What's your go to food?

Mathew Unger: 00:43:13

As you can see, I'm not the pickiest person in the world, man. I like it all locally here. I like to do. I like to Do Italian. There's a couple Mexican places I like to go to.

I like you said, I love grace meat and three love their chicken.

Mark Langston: 00:43:25

Yeah.

Mathew Unger: 00:43:25

I really just love any food that's done. I hate. I really hate when I have.

Have a meal, and it's because I'm hungry and I just ate something to eat it, because then I feel like I wasted a meal. So I always try. And as I'm eating breakfast, thinking about what I'm eating, gonna get for lunch.

Arnold Stricker: 00:43:40

Okay.

Mark Langston: 00:43:40

Bacon Mac and cheese. Here we have another bacon recipe. I love this book.

Arnold Stricker: 00:43:46

I looked in here. There was a mention about lobster Mac.

Mathew Unger: 00:43:50

Yeah.

Arnold Stricker: 00:43:51

Oh, But I didn't find it in here.

Mathew Unger: 00:43:53

No, the recipe's not in there. Lobster Mac is something that I've done a number of times.

But, you know, to find that good quality lobster here locally right now is tough or very expensive. So we tried to keep things that are pretty easy to. To find.

Arnold Stricker: 00:44:09

I'm looking for that from my wife. Yeah, there used to be a. It was called Max down on. What's that street down there? Gosh.

Mark Langston: 00:44:18

Hands on those buzzers, please.

Arnold Stricker: 00:44:20

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Gotta get Cherokees. No, Chippewa.

Mathew Unger: 00:44:25

Okay.

Arnold Stricker: 00:44:25

And it's a biker bar now. And he had. Man, it's great Mac and cheese. Huge portions. The salads were unbelievable. The drinks at the bar were horrible.

And he went out of business, and it's now like D.B. cooper's.

Mathew Unger: 00:44:39

Okay.

Arnold Stricker: 00:44:39

And he had. Oh, my gosh. The Mac and cheese was great there. We had lobster Mac and cheese there. It was really good.

Mathew Unger: 00:44:45

Yeah.

I did one with gruyere cheese, which is a really strong cheese, which I think that because lobster has a pretty strong flavor, so it could battle with the flavor. And so you're enjoying the Mac and cheese and the lobster. Yeah. Great dish, but hard to find good quality lobster here in Missouri right now.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:45:03

I wanted to do a recommendation for bacon since we mentioned it.

Mark Langston: 00:45:07

Yes, please, anytime.

Arnold Stricker: 00:45:09

Go for it.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:45:09

I live in California. Missouri. So here we have Burger Smokehouse, and they have excellent bacon. And you can find it in, I think, most any grocery store you go to.

I would definitely recommend trying their bacon and supporting a local Missouri producer.

Arnold Stricker: 00:45:25

What's it called again?

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:45:27

Burger Smokehouse.

Arnold Stricker: 00:45:28

Burger Smokehouse. Bacon.

Mathew Unger: 00:45:30

Yeah.

Mark Langston: 00:45:30

How do you cook that bacon? Do you do it on a pan in the oven?

Mathew Unger: 00:45:34

I think the oven's the cleanest way to do it. So I typically bake it laid out on a sheet tray. Put parchment paper down, easy clean up.

Mark Langston: 00:45:41

Parchment paper?

Mathew Unger: 00:45:42

Yeah. For easy cleanup up, we use tin.

Mark Langston: 00:45:45

Foil or aluminum foil.

Mathew Unger: 00:45:47

You Could. Yeah, that would work fine.

Mark Langston: 00:45:48

And I think the parchment paper, that's an interesting twist.

Mathew Unger: 00:45:50

And it's easy clean up real even cook on it and less chance you're going to get those spatters that come up and burn your arms and so forth.

Arnold Stricker: 00:45:57

You don't render in the pan with water or anything like that.

Mathew Unger: 00:46:00

No, just bake it straight on a sheet pan.

Arnold Stricker: 00:46:02

Okay.

Mathew Unger: 00:46:03

And I agree, burgers is that's. We use it at Kitchen Conservatory. We sell it in some of our stores at Midwest Petroleum.

The quality of bacon you're getting there is quite unbelievable.

Arnold Stricker: 00:46:16

We're getting some major tips here, folks.

Mark Langston: 00:46:18

I'm writing that one down, too.

Arnold Stricker: 00:46:19

Yeah, you ain't kidding.

Mathew Unger: 00:46:21

You won't be disappointed.

Mark Langston: 00:46:22

Can you get burgers here locally?

Mathew Unger: 00:46:24

Yep. Chinooks has it. I know that for a fact. I don't know where else has it, but yeah, definitely.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:46:29

I think they have it at Walmart. And yeah, pretty much any place where you have wasted bacon, you'll probably find it. Hy Vee has it.

Arnold Stricker: 00:46:37

High vein. Kansas City.

Mark Langston: 00:46:38

All right. The Lake of the Ozarks.

Arnold Stricker: 00:46:40

Yeah.

Mark Langston: 00:46:40

Osage Beach.

Arnold Stricker: 00:46:41

Yeah. A great product from California. Missouri. Wow. All right.

Mark Langston: 00:46:46

And that's something right here.

Arnold Stricker: 00:46:47

We love it.

Mark Langston: 00:46:48

And the Show Me state.

Arnold Stricker: 00:46:49

I want to thank you both for coming.

Mark Langston: 00:46:52

Don't let them go yet. When you wait. When you barbecue.

Arnold Stricker: 00:46:56

Oh, he's got a lot of questions. Now.

Mark Langston: 00:46:58

Brisket. Do you do briquettes or do you use gas or is there charcoal?

Mathew Unger: 00:47:03

It depends.

Mark Langston: 00:47:04

Weber grill?

Mathew Unger: 00:47:05

It depends. I have a Weber and I have a gas grill. I also have a wood fire pizza oven.

Mark Langston: 00:47:10

We just got our first pizza oven.

Mathew Unger: 00:47:12

Yeah.

Mark Langston: 00:47:12

We're still learning.

Mathew Unger: 00:47:13

They're fun. Yeah. It takes a minute to figure out, but once you do, it's really great.

And you can cook a number of other things in there too, but it depends if I'm barbecuing and smoking food. Smoking product.

Mark Langston: 00:47:23

We got a smoker, too.

Mathew Unger: 00:47:25

I'm gonna use briquettes and chunks of wood. I like that better than the chips. I think that they last longer and they give it a deeper flavor.

But if I'm just going to grill some chicken or something fast, I just throw it on the gas grill.

Mark Langston: 00:47:38

Yeah.

Mathew Unger: 00:47:38

Because the flavor is going to come from the seasoning you put on.

Mark Langston: 00:47:41

We just started putting wood chunks on the briquettes and it makes a big difference.

Mathew Unger: 00:47:47

Absolutely.

Mark Langston: 00:47:48

And we've got a smoker, too, that we just got going in the last year. And that's fun to do.

Mathew Unger: 00:47:53

Absolutely. And now it's to the point where you know, everything's on your phone. You could. It keeps the temperature exactly where you need it.

Arnold Stricker: 00:48:01

Yes.

Mathew Unger: 00:48:01

Traegers and stuff. And it's amazing. It's like you're not even cooking. It's. It's more of a science project than anything else. But yeah, however you want to do it.

Mark Langston: 00:48:09

It's those wood chips is what makes the difference or whatever they call them.

Mathew Unger: 00:48:13

Yeah, they use the pellets.

Mark Langston: 00:48:14

The pellets.

Mathew Unger: 00:48:14

Wood pellets.

Mark Langston: 00:48:15

Thanks. Yeah.

Mathew Unger: 00:48:16

And it does a great job. But if you're gonna. If you want a barbecue and have a few adult beverages while you're doing that and have make a day of it. Yeah.

That Weber works great.

Mark Langston: 00:48:26

Yeah. We've got four different things out on our back deck.

Mathew Unger: 00:48:29

Yeah.

Mark Langston: 00:48:30

To cook with.

Mathew Unger: 00:48:31

Yeah. It just depends. To me, it just depends on what you're cooking and how much time you have.

Mark Langston: 00:48:37

Pizza oven is an interesting and fun thing to do though.

Mathew Unger: 00:48:40

Absolutely.

Mark Langston: 00:48:40

Yeah. I can't wait till we get that mastered too.

Arnold Stricker: 00:48:42

They become very popular.

Mark Langston: 00:48:43

You got to make them hot, right?

Mathew Unger: 00:48:45

Absolutely.

Mark Langston: 00:48:45

Yeah. We didn't make our first round hot enough.

Mathew Unger: 00:48:48

So do you have a wood. Wood fire or is it.

Mark Langston: 00:48:50

We have one that does both.

Mathew Unger: 00:48:51

Okay.

Mark Langston: 00:48:52

It's a duel. We've done the gas. We haven't gone to the wood yet. We have a friend that has a wood and he loves it.

Mathew Unger: 00:48:57

So the wood, especially for six hours, you have a fire in there.

Mark Langston: 00:49:00

Yeah.

Mathew Unger: 00:49:01

And then when you're cooking it pretty much you could take the fire out because the. The stones are so hot.

Mark Langston: 00:49:05

Right.

Mathew Unger: 00:49:05

Just cooks in a minute.

Mark Langston: 00:49:06

Yeah. And it is that fast.

Mathew Unger: 00:49:08

The other. The gas ones, a lot quicker and a lot more convenient. But then you don't get that smokiness of the. Of the wood in there.

Mark Langston: 00:49:16

Yeah.

Arnold Stricker: 00:49:17

Now don't you want. Portia, don't you want to do that thin crust pizza in one of those wood fired ovens?

Mark Langston: 00:49:21

Oh, yes, you do. Yes, you do.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:49:22

Yeah, it would be great. I wish I had one in my backyard again.

Mathew Unger: 00:49:27

Sounds like you just need to move to St. Louis.

Mark Langston: 00:49:28

I think so too.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:49:29

Yeah.

Mark Langston: 00:49:30

Everybody makes a pizza Porsche and then we all share it. We all cut it up.

Arnold Stricker: 00:49:34

We'll all be over to eat.

Mark Langston: 00:49:35

Yep. We have a lot of different ingredients. It's a fun day.

Mathew Unger: 00:49:39

We can share some of the best barbecue in the state by grabbing it from some of the local places here in St. Louis.

Mark Langston: 00:49:44

We'll put you for sale. Come on, get over here now. Wow. We're almost out of time.

Arnold Stricker: 00:49:50

Yeah. Thank you both for coming.

Mark Langston: 00:49:51

I'm not kidding. We are almost out of time.

Arnold Stricker: 00:49:53

Greatly appreciate it. And folks, don't forget, you can get the book at Reedy Press.

It's Missouri Comfort Recipes, Places and Food Traditions in the Show Me State by Matthew Unger and Portia Moran Murphy.

Mark Langston: 00:50:04

Highly recommended.

Arnold Stricker: 00:50:05

Highly recommended. Yes. You need to try them out.

Mark Langston: 00:50:07

Come back again and see us.

Mathew Unger: 00:50:08

Absolutely. I got to come back and. And drop off some burgers.

Mark Langston: 00:50:10

Yeah. And Porsche, we want you. Yeah.

Arnold Stricker: 00:50:13

Watch for Porsche's reviews and articles in state magazines, Missouri Life, etc, etc. Portia, thanks very much.

Mark Langston: 00:50:20

Okay.

Porcshe Moran Murphy: 00:50:21

Hey, thank you for having us, Matthew.

Arnold Stricker: 00:50:23

Thanks very much.

Mathew Unger: 00:50:24

Thank you.

Arnold Stricker: 00:50:25

Okay, Mark, let's just sign off here, I think.

Mark Langston: 00:50:28

Yeah, I know. All right, let's do it.

Arnold Stricker: 00:50:31

We really appreciate.

Mark Langston: 00:50:32

Oh, yeah.

Arnold Stricker: 00:50:33

Oh, we're busy there. Thank you all for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, you can listen to additional shows@st.lintune.com.

consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast, Podchaser or your preferred podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and continue to grow. I want to thank Bob Bertha Cell for our theme music co host, Mark Langston.

And we thank you all for being a part of our community of Curious Minds. St. Louis in Tune is a production of Motif Media Group and the US Radio Network.

Remember to keep seeking, keep learning, walk worthy, and let your light shine For Saint Lucien Tune. I'm Arnold Stricker.