This is Episode 14 of the Ask DadLabs podcast. It was recorded on June 2 2021. It's simple you ask questions and dad's answer. When we need actual answers, we find the experts. Today we have clay from Austin, Texas. He has three kids ones in high school ones in college and one is in the Coast Guard. And we have Nick from Louisville, Kentucky. He has two kids, ages six and 13. And I'm Ben, I'm in the Detroit River just south of Detroit, Michigan. And my boys are 11 and 13. Let's get to the show. Well, I thought I'd change up our format a little bit cuz I was going through the garage and if you guys ever played what is that with the pollino the balls Bochy guys ever played by tree. Yes, I had. I had friends. I had friends in Ohio. We played adventure, Bochy, and we through we through these binary balls, there were there was no limit. So we we played in cemeteries and we were thrown patchy balls through these cemeteries in rural rural Ohio, like southeast of Columbus, okay. And like we throw them, you know, 50 yards, we throw the plane out, and then we'd have to throw these binary balls. So my friends got me these these chrome plated bachi balls. So I found those I saw those today and then thought all these other games I need to teach the kids like we've got, we want to teach them golf. But then we also want to teach them disc golf. We've got like frisbee golf, things that I picked up at menards you guys are looking at me like, Where's the punch line? Uh huh. And there really isn't. You know, we've got all these we've got all these games.
Well, I mean, we had, but dokes to start off last week, so I was waiting for the ball jokes. Yeah.
Yeah. That wasn't the that wasn't a joke. That was a story about distance mochi.
Yeah. Do you guys do you guys have games that you play out in the yard?
We do cornhole? Yeah. I have an excellent cornhole set that I made. That has an awesome painting of our 22 on one and a Jawa on the other. Yeah. Not quite regulation, because I didn't use two by fours, because that's heavy.
I don't get the whole regular thing with that. Yeah,
I don't care. Cuz I don't play it that that much or that? Well, so. Yeah, I don't need it to be tournament regulation. None of my friends are that crazy about it.
I wonder if you mean, like sitting in the plastic Adirondack chairs and drinking water. Ramen cokes? Is that count?
It probably does count. You know, actually, I did. Uh, you know, I've got that other podcast about my island. And one of the one of the episodes we did Season One was this thing that's called yard game Palooza. And so they play they cornhole and all those things. They actually play indoor over the winter, at a tennis facility, an indoor tennis facility. And so they play those. But so I was thinking about adding adding another game, to what we've got, I was thinking about, about doing doing Limbo, because when it comes to Limbo, I set the bar pretty high. Well,
I really, I didn't see coming. I thought maybe he wasn't going to do a joke, Nick. And so I totally fell for that. It was like, yeah,
hook, line and sinker. I
have to I have to strategize a little bit. So
Well, our first segment tonight is Memorial Day, we just passed Memorial Day. Who do you memorialize? When you think of Memorial Day? Who do you think of? Is there anybody in particular that you think of as having served the country? Well, or anyone in your in your family?
Well, yeah, Blue Star family. But we all know, Memorial Day is basically about, you know, this sort of somber kickoff to summer where we're, you know, all getting loaded on white claw and supposed to be thinking about the war dad, it is an interesting, it is an interestingly conflicted American holiday, isn't it? You know, we're really just all excited, especially this year, to be out and with friends and partners. And there's this sort of sense that, oh, we're supposed to be somber, and we have a lot of jokes in our family about, you know, having a having a somber you know, dinner and having a son. It's unfortunate that that the nature of the holiday and the place it falls in the calendar, you know, creates this kind of cultural dissonance, you know, really we all just want to be celebrating that the kids are out of school. And and we're, you know, supposed to be observing a reverence for those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. They kind of don't go very well. together. So, I mean, you know, in terms of me, you know, I reflect to look like my grandfather served in World War Two and, and he died at 70. He served in Pacific Theater didn't ever talk about a service to anyone. I actually requested his his service record, because he was an engineer and a colonel and he served in some areas that may or may not have been associated with, you know,
do you know what battalion he served with? Oh, I
can tell you, I believe he was stationed on Okinawa for for the latter part of his service, and, and so I requested his service record, and I was told that his service record was destroyed in a fire. So make of that what you will, and so I wasn't able to get his his service record. I know that he was, you know, a Bronze Star winner and, but never spoke to associate and I believe that he that part of, you know, that is why he he died young. So I think of him as someone who actually sacrifice ultimately, you know, part of his life for for having served that way.
We'll see my grandfather was was in the 34th and 13/41 combat engineers in the Pacific so I drove him to his world war two reunion is Pearl Harbor reunion every year for about 10 years. And got to know a bunch of the guys that that survived Pearl Harbor. And they they actually were fired on they were at Schofield airbase on the other side of the island from Pearl Harbor. They were shot at first so they they came through Schofield before they hit the hit the ships. So grandpa's got stories that that he wrote down about him eating breakfast, he was having a chocolate milkshake for breakfast that morning. When the air sirens, the their air raid sirens went off, and everybody hit the deck. So so he's got memories, and I met a lot of guys and heard them memorialize their friends and heard his his regrets from that period. And so that's that's who I remember, I remember all the guys that that were talked about over those years and and how they reluctantly went into service. They were, I mean, you can't you can't say this for everybody. But the general general feeling for those guys, because they're in the combat engineers. They weren't trained on how to fire guns, they poured concrete, built bridges, that sort of thing. But they were fired on a lot. And so they they really felt like they were hoodwinked because when they were when they were drafted, they were sent into, they were they were putting Cata cars going on the train from the East Coast out to San Francisco. And they took one step on San Francisco soil, they say and right onto a ship. And the President had just said that no, no soldiers would be leaving the United States. And they went to Hawaii, which was not yet a state. And so they they felt like they'd been they'd been, I don't know, kidnapped and taken over to Hawaii to do this to do the service. And then and then all the way through the Pacific they were shot at my grandfather was was back for his mother's funeral. And while he was trying to catch back up to his his group, they were massacred. As the the the Marines went pushed forward too fast. And the Japanese came around and got the engineers. And so he lost a lot of friends while he was burying his mother. And so but but honestly, it wasn't until he was about 90 years old that he didn't start talking about it. And so I completely get it. He never talked about it with his kids, but he would talk about it with his grandson. So I appreciate that time I had and I've got I've got his scrapbooks from all those times. So I have a lot of memories to put in there. But
I will also say that it's one thing to go and visit a cemetery, a military cemetery in the States. Because of DadLabs I was able to travel with people to people, and we visited Normandy and the cemetery over there. And it is still one of the most powerful and emotional things I've experienced. And because I didn't really know much about World War Two as far as from the European aspect of it, you know, from that side, that perspective, and we learned a lot and there Memorial Museum there is just, it's great, you didn't have you. It's a top notch facility and it was amazing and very emotional, very powerful to seeing the graves of like 3000 servicemen American service man on foreign soil, that that is something I recommend to everyone that do that sometime, if you're traveling Europe, visit the American memorials. And it's, it's crazy. It was very interesting and very interesting to see that from an old man point of view, traveling with a bunch of teenagers who, of course, didn't really, I don't think any of them really understood what they were, where they were what they were witnessing, because it's, it's crazy. So
well, maybe by now, you know, it's you get you get experienced with something or you get exposed to something down down the road, they may, they may have connected things together a little better.
So here's hoping, yep, and my niece, my niece just graduated Air Force basic training. Now she's going to Texas to learn how to be a medic. So good luck to her. ecstatic about her being getting into that.
Well, I'll tell you what, I got an interesting, you know, My son is obviously he's a military officer and the Coast Guard. So this is coverage, I got a text message from him a couple days ago, haven't heard a whole lot from him. He's He's a short right now. And the text message was simply photographs of sharks with lots of sharks. And the caption was, you know, dive with the sharks, and I was what, and I clicked on it. And it was a website for a open ocean free diving with the sharks service in Honolulu, Hawaii. So what I learned is that my son, my 22 year old son, had left his home in the Bay Area, and had gone to Hawaii and had gone swimming with the sharks. And I don't know if you've had like this his pants yet, where you really realize I no longer have any sign off on any of this shit. Like, he is now officially completely outside. And I realized this, I think when I sent him off to, you know, boot camp to be, you know, before going into the Coast Guard Academy, like I had to sign him away literally to the government. And
that's where his girlfriend's at, right?
Yeah, and his girlfriend is in
going to Hawaii wasn't the big thing. It was
kind of, you know, but I hadn't heard anything all I said, I just get a photograph of sharks, um, guy with sharks, dad didn't really get an opportunity to give him any like input about that. Don't be lunch, I didn't have to sign any forms. It was just
like, hey, at least he didn't ask you to go along?
Well, yeah, because I saw jaws when I was seven. And I'm totally scarred for life. Anyway, it was a pretty funny, it was a pretty funny check in, you know, from her job, getting the military. And I'll just say his experience, you know, although, you know, you could say, oh, Coast Guard, whatever, it's, you know, maybe it's not the Marines. But his experience there what it did for him as a young man, the opportunities, it's already provided him in terms of his education and, and the experiences having a float, seem to be pretty amazing. So as a parent, moral days of the day, when you really think about this, but, you know, my experience has been, you know, one of just immense gratitude for the opportunities that he's had, for what it's taught him how it shaped him as a person, and where he is right now, in terms of just doing the thing that he loves, you know, it's kind of what you really, as a dad kind of hope for. So, you know, it's, it's pretty cool to see. It's, it's fun to hear his pride when he takes you aboard. It's also weird, because their world is something that I don't know, at all. He can try. And I can be a fanboy and like learn, but unless you're in it on your way, in a crew in the military. You just don't, you can't really get it. You can't i can't get it. And so you can try to explain it to me, but I can't get it. And there's something about that. That's both amazing and also frustrating like I can I will ever fully understand his experience in that world. Yeah.
Well, going from feeding your family to sharks to family mealtime. Yeah. So we started talking about this after we after we recorded last week. We talked about family mealtime, and I think Yeah, I think our family's the only one that regularly gathers for a family dinner. Right?
Oh, no, we were family dinner most nice.
Oh, do you, okay?
So we are not we're feral. We all kind of eat kind of on our own. And, and I feel horrible about it. Because I mean, it's one thing if you've got teenagers, and you all just kind of eat what you eat whenever you eat, we've got a six year old, or have some form of schedule about making sure that she is eating and eating the right things. And she she's really good about asking like, she doesn't generally just go and grab food and junk food and everything. But like today, she ate really well. She ate like five different times a day. So she's going through a growth spurt, because she kept asking for food all day. But we have said time and time again that we need to do a at least once a week, if not two or three times, dinner at the table, all of us sitting at the table, when we do actually get back to that, that 13 year old is going to not want to do that at all. When we moved into this new house. The first probably six months, we were at the table two or three times a week, every week. And that was really nice. It was really cool as new house and everything but you know, it just kind of falls away. And yeah, we are horrible parents when it comes to family. We The only time we really all eat together is if we go out to eat. And we haven't done that as a family and over a year. Sure. So for obvious reasons. So it's always me all together at the same table.
So it seems like the classic time that families lose their meal time is with teenagers. So clay How did you guys survive having teenagers and sports? And you know, everything related to school and then still have some sort of family mealtime?
Well, that's a that's a good question. We, I mean, all the credit here because five is you know, kind of single handedly manage the family mealtime because, you know, she's the shopper, and she's the cook, I'm in the grill, we grill often. But she's a scratch cook. And we probably have meals at home at the table, you know, four or five nights a week, sometimes six. And, you know, our situation was a bit unique, because most of the kids athletic stuff was happening on campus, you know, close to where we live. So we were able to kind of manage that in the early days, you know, we we had access to the you know, we have the access to a dining hall. And so you know, in the early days, we would go do, you know, two or even three meals a day together, but in the dining hall, because you can take the kids, we had high chairs to them with their trays, and they would just you throw out food and they just went on and they had to like, you know, the bib with a trough and and snacks and the snack and you just take off a miracle of living on campus being a boarding school faculty member where you can take all that you took the tray and the bib, and you put it in the slot and they would run it through the washer. And the next day you would come out in the tray and the bib would be and so when the kids were little we use that. And we would do it for oh my god that's getting every day, as we
all mean it's
years and years when the kids were little, and that's totally cheating. And then, but what we found was as we got older, like we liked having a glass of wine with dinner, you can't really do that in the dining hall. You get like BYOB and like crack open a nice cab, you know with the dining hall Chicken cacciatore like they frown on that general. So we
can't pick out the right wine. You know, what do you pick out for Franklin bears? Well
with meatloaf well. And, you know, so we started, Kim really started making more meals at home. And honestly the teenagers liked it. Like there wasn't resistance to it. It was I don't know, I simply the way that we always did things. And you know, she made meals that they liked. And you know, kind of I think we even push them a little bit to try things that were a little bit unusual or and so I think the kids now have very adventuresome palates. Last night we went and got Ethiopian food I'm sure, Nick, you're a huge fan of Ethiopian and we've got Ethiopian food with my daughter, and she never had it before. It was kind of fun. It's like little pancakes and piles of interesting vegetables and Anyway, you know it's it really is a huge way to My wife who has had a career, you know, she's a working woman in a leadership role, you know, and still found time to shop and prepare meals. And you know, so I just tried to help out. And I honestly feel like it's it was a it was a really important thing. Love that time. I think the kids love that time. You know, everybody does it differently, Nick. I mean, everybody does it differently. That's the way that we chose to do it. I feel like it worked. It was a good thing. It is a good thing for our kids. Although now we're kind of stuck with it. Now. It really is. They show up with their fork and knife like as
soon as you as you transition to being, you know, empty nesters. Is that going to? Is that going to affect it? Has has that been happening for the kids? Or do you appreciate it for yourselves too?
Well, there have been a couple of things as the kids have grown up and moved away. One is the constant calls from my oldest like, Hey, Mom, how do you make that? Chicken piccata? Like, what's the chicken piccata recipe? She's thankful for what? Like, I've got six people coming over tonight. And I'm making everybody tell me how to do it. And he he has taken this on like he's become someone who loves to entertain cook for other people. And he's constantly caught his mom. And
it's like one of those Amazon Echo commercials, right? Right, Dad, I bring the chicken
asked me about grilling stuff he's got he's become a big griller You know, my daughter, I could start to see that, you know, happening with her a little bit. One of the problems is portion management, that, you know, now that the family has gotten smaller still, what happens is we put on a plate of food that could feed five people. You know, so that's been something I it'll be very interesting to see once you know, we're 355 days, not that I'm counting away from graduation or senior for our last child, you know, what is it going to look like when finally
approved? We'll have it well, the countdown. Yeah, it'll come with tears in about 200 days. So
I will also say that the kids seem to enjoy when we were doing yet the boy was, you know, 1011. So he was they'd never seem to really hate it. They didn't seem to enjoy it. And I would always try to ask, you know, open ended questions, you know, how was school today? Fine. You know, try to do a little bit more than you know, hey, what was something cool that happened at school today? Or what something that you learn? Tell me something? Tell me about your day. So yeah, I hope that we can get back to that a little bit. I think we can with the help of the six year old.
Well, you've also got if you've got a kid or a household, we've got food sensitivities, allergies is a versions, you know, you were dinner is complicated to do collectively, you know, I can see that some families have to make a choice to say, okay, we're on our own tonight, right? Everybody needs to do what they need to do, because everybody's needs are so different. And in situations where the timing is, is tough to make it all work. Yeah, in our world, it just happened to work most of the time, that pretty much everybody was kind of on the same schedule. And we had somebody that was willing to put in the work, wasn't me most of the time. And, and so that that's become an important family thing. And I think that it's something that I'm really hoping and looking forward to in the future. It's like once the kids start to get older, that what you start to really look forward to is those grown up meals together, where you know, where you're where you're having these adult conversations, and people and their expectation is that we're going to gather around the table, and then we're going to talk about important issues. And we did that we we had pointed political conversations often around the table. And I think that it's a it's a habit and expectation that I feel like the the investment in that the payoff is still out there because there are generational dinners and dinner tables to gather at in the future that I so look forward to. I can't wait to gather at the table with my adult children when they do the cooking. And I get to do the dishes or you know that we that we trade off. I really do look forward to that.
Yeah, that also that is another thing is having the kids cook or be involved as much as possible. They both I love to to get involved with whatever we're cooking. If not, with whatever we're cooking, if it's something that they really like, hey are all about, we do hamburger with WD shells and cheese. So it's basically hamburger helper. My son knows how to cook that. I know that when he moves out, that's probably all he's ever going to eat. That's it. But he knows how to cook that he knows how to cook that and how to do it safely and everything.
But then you're that you're the dad. Yeah, you're the chef. Right. Tell us about what we want to hear about this five o'clock operation? Well, so yeah. Now it started
before before we had kids because Deborah, she's, she is an engineer to the tip of her toes. And, and she has, she has lunch at 11. And she has supper at five. And it wasn't until just maybe two years ago that that we could bump that five back a little bit a little more often. And so it has it wasn't really revolving around the kids. It was revolving around my wife who you know, other people would call stubborn and I would have to call beautiful. She up
neurosis approved.
So, so she, she really set that. And so that's sort of our living expectation for the last, you know, whatever. And I've, I've had jobs where I've mostly I've either been home or I'm not going to be home for hours. Right. So so since we've had kids, my my job away, you know, until we got to Detroit was was the food truck, in which case I wouldn't get home until midnight. You know, I'd leave at like three o'clock in the afternoon and wouldn't get home till midnight. So, so whatever they do at home, you know, that's it. That's usually you know, something, something fairly simple that, that she doesn't feel challenged by she will, she will take on culinary challenges, but only on weekends and only for like holidays. So she'll do something for for cookies or whatever, actually, you know what I'm getting? She's gonna listen to this. But that's not why I'm gonna say that she's taken on things like she had me right. Well, a few years ago, I I took a programming class. And that ended at five o'clock in downtown Detroit takes about an hour, it took about an hour and a half to get home. And so I wouldn't get home until 630. And so she would cook. And I had to write down recipes for things I've never used a recipe for. And so we have, I think they're still on the refrigerator. And so things like chili, and they're all instant pot. We did things like I would pre pre baked pans, I would make aluminum foil pans with pasta, pasta sauce, cottage cheese, and then topped with cheese, that she could just pop into the oven for an hour. And it would thaw out and cook and be done. So that she didn't have to do anything from that point. So we did a lot of prep that way. But our dinners are usually dependent on two devices. And neither of them's a microwave. So the first one is the instant pot. And it gets you know, it's it's got so many fans on Facebook, that it seems like it's just silly. It's, you know, it probably has as many as as the air fryers do now. But the Instant Pot has changed. You know, we talked we talked a few weeks ago about my my little Facebook group about that instant pot cookbook. But I use I use the instant pot to make Hamburger Helper because the hamburger helper the big problem is it boils over you know and then it gets all clumpy and it's got all sorts of prompts. If you make it in the instant pot, there's no boil over it's done in about half the time and it doesn't take a long time in the first place but but it's all contained. There's no mess there's no splatter anywhere and it's awesome.
So so it's sponsored by well I use it
for things like that but then you know we use it for you know these these fancy things rice it's super easy to make rice it's super easy to make chili, it's it saves so much time. And so it's just it's just really helped with that. The second thing is is more foodie, and that is an immersion circulator. Right So the big challenge, so an emergent circulator for sous vide cooking. Alright so suevey is cooking under vacuum so you you take generally a meat products you know like a steak and use vacuum seal it in like a FoodSaver bag with some herbs or butter or whatever. And you cook it in water set at a particular temperature. Next for everybody who can't see us Nick is ever all this is going over his head. So the way that so steak steak doneness is determined by the temperature. Right. So if it's if it if a steak is is medium, it's like 135 degrees on the inside. Right. I mean, it's it's determined by color, but the color is determined by what temperature it's cooked to. And so what an immersion circulator does is it has a very, rather precise thermostat in it, that keeps the water at a particular temperature. So it's got a heater and a thermostat. And it keeps your water circulating. And in whatever bin, you've got it in a bucket or whatever, it keeps that water at, say, 135 degrees, 140 degrees, 128 degrees. And you can take a vacuum sealed packet of meat, you know, a steak, say, and put that in that water, and it will cook it only to that temperature. So you will never get it over that temperature. So if you want to, if you want to medium steak at 135 degrees, you set your water temperature to 135 degrees, you put your steak even if it's frozen, you put your steak in, in that water because it's in a bag so it doesn't ever touch the water. But it raises that temperature to exactly the temperature you want to cook that. So now if I'm grilling, I light up my grill, or I light up my grill in my house, or I get the oven open or get it up to temperature and I sear it so that I get that crust on the outside. Right if I want to butter basted or I don't do any of that stuff, but but if I want to slap it on the grill, I can do it with pork chops, it's a 145. And they're perfectly juicy and tender. They're just the right temperature. steaks come out just right. And it takes me so much less time. And I don't run a food. This is something I started doing from the restaurant. Because a steak that comes back you lose, right meats expensive. And if meat gets overcooked, you gotta you toss it and you lose. And so if the way to solve that is to cook your meat to exactly the temperature you want, get it grilled on the outside market. And and it's done and you're done in a quarter of the time because the searing doesn't take any time. And it's already cooked. And so that's that's how we did that. But I can cook pork chops. I can cook chicken I can cook you know we did I did crab legs, I took the the crab leg bags that we got at Sam's Club and put hot water into the bags so that the crab was sitting in that water. But I put the crabs at the temperature I forget what temperature we did. But they sat there and they got to that temperature and didn't overcook. And then all through dinner. If anybody wanted crabs, they went to that bag and fish their crab legs out of the water. So instead of having to steam them and then have them all go cold, they were they stayed just the right temperature the whole night. Okay, I've never overcooked.
Alright, tangent, I need to know what this is called again. Okay, it's immersion immersion circulator, emergent immersion,
Mr. M M, er si o n. circulator. And it's for a technique called suevey. s Lw s, vi, D, the most popular cvwd stick is a nova, a and o VA, you can get them at Target. And obviously, Amazon and all those other places.
And you can do so. I mean, I've done suevey twice. Yeah. And there's, these were both like during the pandemic, because during the pandemic, a couple of times, I had to just absolutely do something to please the crowd. And there's one place in Austin, Texas that's super iconic is called Franklin's barbecue. Oh, absolutely. Because barbecue makes some of the most famous brisket in the whole world. And during the, you know, during the pandemic, you know, used to be the only way you can get Franklin's barbecue as you would go in the morning and line up and wait for a couple of hours and hope that you got there early enough that you got some brisket or barbecue before they ran out. And you would just then they would bring drinks to people in the line and it's just the whole thing. But during the pandemic, they started to sell whole vacuum packed briskets and I wouldn't even tell you what that shit cost. But it was big. And but I was like, Okay, this is good. And the the miracle was that they had the perfect, you know, and Franklin's you know, barbecue is a is a miraculous process, which is fragile and perfect. And you cannot you know, it's very difficult to reproduce. And it it creates and I'm not kidding you. The hype is real. It's the best meat you have ever eaten in your lifetime. I guarantee it. Go. You know, come here to Austin. I'll take you there. Tell me I'm wrong. But in my experience, most people have a religious experience. So they'll pack that brisket in a vacuum pack then they give it to you and They give you suvi the instructions on how to rewarm it. So that you basically are taking this incredibly expensive, beautiful and perfect piece of meat. And you boil that fucker. And you know, boil it, but you basically are on or to reheat it slowly to the proper temperature. So they have you put hot water in a cooler? Well, now they you know, they give you heating instructions, you know, you basically have to find a big ass pot, and put it in there and monitor the temperature of the water that you're heating. Yeah. To get to the right temperature. Anyway, if you do it properly, what emerges is the real thing, like the perfect Franklin's brisket, just reheated in this in this through the cvwd process.
Yeah, but it hasn't damaged it. So like, if you were to slice it and put it in the microwave, it would taste rubbery, it would be completely different to exactly to what you're
passing, and you can't put it in the oven. There's no other way to bring this thing back to life, other than this process that you're describing.
Yeah. So so when you know, we we talked about what was that my anniversary dinner where I made prime rib in 25 minutes, right, that Prime Rib was in suvi. All day, it was in cvwd for like 10 hours. So it had sat in, it was probably 135.5 degrees. And we gave it plenty of time to get up to temperature that that time allows the meat to break down a little bit. It allows the collagen you know the connective tissue inside the meat to break down a little bit, which gives you a gelatin like thing, it gives you an unconscious flavor, you know, mouthfeel and then I'm a beer judge too. So I get to use all those words, right? You know, it does all these things that break it down and give you that high end Steakhouse quality thing. But you can cook it, you know, you drop some, I prepare my meat, I go to a butcher. And we put our meat in vacuum bags, as soon as we get it. Right, we do it with the chicken, we do it with pork, we do it with ribs, we do everything. So it's in the freezer, and it's already been spiced, right, so we've got spice mixes, we throw on it, we vacuum seal it, we put it in the freezer, when I want to cook it, I just drop it in the water in this tub that we've got, that's convenient next to the sink, fill the tub with water, throw that in there, set the temperature, and I can do that at noon. And at 430 I can go get it and then turn on our drill on our stove. And and have dinner done in 10 minutes. Because the meats already where I need it to be cooked. So I'm just doing it for appearance.
So it totally sounds like this is something that I could do and take this already established piece of shit dad that is not cultured in any form or fashion and have something cultured to talk at least seemingly cultured to say surveyed cooking. Well, I mean, it's okay, boiling bags, it's boiling stuff in exactly what it sounds like. And I am it is well established that I am a limited palette. And it is not a great one. It is basically meat and potatoes, whether it is fried in some form, or grilled or pan fried, whatever. But that's about it. And I'll
tell you this. So you know, the next topic is going to be about Father's Day. And I would say that the best thing you could do for Father's Day, if if you've got a traditional Father's Day plan, and you're going to get sent out to the grill, to cook say brought worse or worse steaks, the best thing you could do is get an immersion circulator set that thing to whatever temperature seriously has temperature guides for every kind of meat and any vegetable to and you so you set that temperature you get that set when you're ready to get the grill going because I always have trouble with charcoal getting lit, you know, and, and so when the charcoal is finally late, you got your grill up to temperature, you slice open the bag, you toss the stuff out there, you got five minutes at the grill, you haven't wasted anything, you're not mad when you bring your food in. And honestly, I mean, that's what it's about. It's not being mad when you're done.
And so that is on my agenda for this summer, is to get this very nice grill that my brother gave me out and use it, learn how to use it and and grill at least a couple of times because I swear I have a penis but I do not grill. It's just never something that I've had this big desire to do. So, but I have a nice girl. I have a really nice girl that my Brother got me. And it's kind of packed away in the garage and now
you've got the pool. So you've got a perfect reason to be outside. I
absolutely do I have I have a venue, I have the tools, and I just haven't had the suit.
So suvi makes cooking barotz like cooking hot dogs brought brought CF have to wait, you know, you have to you have to be careful, you can burn them on the outside and still have them on the inside. If you suvi those things to 150 they're perfectly juicy, they're cooked all the way through. All you got to do is get color on the outside.
I have a feeling that we might have a dad that has some cooking questions come in, in the next couple of hours. You know, you make
me want to start with a basic grilling super fun. And you know, start with simple stuff and dogs. You learn it. You try to learn how to Charles my I think my friend Charles
might have some questions. Yeah, I think we call him slick, don't we?
We, I don't know about you. But man, but you know, I've got both. I have a gas grill and a charcoal grill. I have a gas grill. I have a Weber gas grill and I have a green egg, which I use goodness. So every once in a while and, and probably three of the five dinner nights. The you know, the way my wife cooks is it's typically you know, she'll, she'll do a protein, vegetable, you know, a salad and and then, you know, often it'll be a grill. So, you know, tonight was an exception. She did like a shrimp scampi pasta. There was a tomato salad with a little like, green cilantro sauce. There were crostini with like garlic butter and
your daughter's home. So this is this is awesome kids. Right?
Yeah, that's but that's that's not a typical of the kind of, you know, that you produce that we would have, you know, earlier this week, she had it. We had a we went to, you know, a memorial day we went to one of the grocery stores here in Austin, which is called central market that has very interesting, great produce. And she couldn't help herself. We walked through and we found at Red Snapper filet. Which then, you know, I did in a grill basket on the gas grill. You know, and and, you know, it takes it takes some practice, it takes some work. But I think that it can be something fun that you do. Oh, and
just so that nobody gets the idea that we do super fancy dinners all the time. So tonight what we did, it's Wednesday, our Wednesday night is we order in. And this started when I started working for a delivery company and I worked on Wednesday. So Deborah started ordering. When I quit that job. We kept ordering on Wednesdays from the same company that I used to work for. And so tonight we ordered barbecue from across the river and had it delivered. And you know, so everybody ordered their own thing. Tristan got pizza, Dunkin usually gets this burger that has pulled pork and a sausage on it. And then a bunch of other stuff. onion rings to I think and then french fries that he never eats but this time he got chicken strips I got Deborah and I both got pulled pork just a dinner thing and that's what we did. And then Sunday's we order pizza from hungry Howie's which is I don't think it's a quite a national chain, but it's pretty big chain up here. And so that's what we do. So we we aren't super fancy very often, but we try.
Sounds like I need to step it up a little bit. Oh, we're certainly starving. No baby steps, baby. Oh, yeah, Nobody. Nobody. Nobody is starving for sure. Yeah, the boys wearing my clothes now. He's definitely gonna be taller than me. He might be taller than me now. I don't know. We haven't checked in a little while. Wow. That's my boy. Yeah.
All right. So Father's Day. So Deborah asked me after after Mother's Day. So Mother's Day We had a we had a dilemma. The boys I work on Sundays. I work at the village on Sundays. And so for for Mother's Day, I I said to myself, this was the mother's day that the boys were going to take charge of this. They were going to do it. They both know how to fry eggs. They know how to make pancakes. They know how to make muffins they can do they can do i mean they have a bread company for crying out loud. They're gonna get up they're gonna make her coffee. They're gonna get everything ready. And so she got up at you know, seven o'clock she's she slept in she got up at like seven o'clock instead of five. She made herself a cup of coffee. She made herself a second cup of coffee. Come nine o'clock. Maybe 930 tristin wakes up goes into the kitchen and makes her a cup of coffee. And then brings it to her third cup of coffee. Dunkin gets up at 1130 or noon, and makes her a cup of coffee. And so like, by one o'clock, they're okay, it's time to make mom breakfast. So Mom, how do we do this? And I've been through everything, we had everything set out for them to do. And she was pissed off. And she wasn't happy about it. So she says, What do you want for Father's Day? And, and so, so that's, that's what I got asked. So I'm gonna let you guys have you have you guys had to deal with that question? You know, what do you want for Father's Day? Do you want the kids to do something for you? Do you want them to give you a gift? Do you want to just ignore it?
I want my kids to not be a pain in the ass that day. For us right now the tradition is still play think it's Father's Day weekend. That's right. So the first three days before that, you know, we're doing Flow Arts and cooking out and, and roasting marshmallows and just, you know, camping out and whatever. So this year, we are getting a hotel because mom's gone. So it's it's a grand time. It's a fun weekend that has really nothing to do with Father's Day. One year as we were packing up, I think he was 1010 or 11. I leveled up, because I was screamed at as the worst father in the universe. on Father's Day. I am number one. So I want that to not happen. on Father's Day. I don't want to be the worst father in the universe. on Father's Day. I think we can pull that off this year since we're getting a hotel. But we shall see what you like,
Father's Day, I want to I want to hear from my kids. You know, I want to get out I want to get those calls. I want to hear how everybody's doing. You know, that's kind of where I am and my fatherhood. And it's definitely I mean, it's just, it's not about the stuff, right? Don't buy me anything. That's just, you don't need to buy anything. If you if you want to make my heart sing, write something down, you know, on a card, and send it to me. And I've had a couple of those over time. That just meant a ton. You know, be with me, if you can, but don't mess up your life to be with me. Right? Don't Don't move heaven and earth. This Father's Day, I'm going to be in Connecticut at a lacrosse camp for my youngest son. And I can no, I'm excited about that. That's a great Father's Day, right. I mean, one on one time with your kids is rare. It's easier, I think with the youngest one once the other kids are gone. But this summer is going to be that for me, it's going to be my one on one time with my youngest son. And so that Father's Day is going to be pretty cool. And I'm going to think about, you know what my relationship is with Cooper. Especially and and how it's different for every single kid. And how parenting dynamics change as you work your way through your birth order to your youngest, but I think it's gonna be a great Father's Day. And I think that, you know, what do we what do we really want? I mean, you know, just those authentic moments with the, with the kids in our lives, right?
Yeah, that'll be awesome. Well, for me, you know, I work Sunday, so I won't be there on Father's Day. But that weekend, we have a car show at the village. And it's it's just an incredible Car Show. I've never been IndyCar shows. But the car show that we have on Father's Day weekend has vignettes with decades represented by things like you know, 17 76/4 of July party with volleyball and, and Fife and Drum Corps that marches through every hour or so, and just just silly stuff and kind of fun. And so for the first time, we're going to go so I got tickets for that for Saturday. And that's that's my goal. And of course, this. What we haven't talked about this time is puppies. So our puppy is young enough that we can't just leave her at home by yourself. So we have to arrange for somebody to come in and let her out for a little bit. And that's that's the only thing standing in the way of that but we're going to try to try to do a car show for Christmas or car show for Father's Day. So that'll be a, that'll be a fun thing. Hopefully that works out. And, and we don't have any challenges, but I'm trying to do hands off. So the boys aren't responsible for anything. So
yeah, we had to do the same thing for play think with the upper, probably just going to find a place to board boarding for a couple of days. Friday and Saturday.
Have you done that before?
Now? We haven't gone anywhere. That's true. We've gotten the dog and we haven't gone anywhere. So yeah. And before, when times before, you know, 10 years ago when we had a dog that my brother would come over and let him out or whatever, even if we were gone for three or four days. But yeah, that's that's he, he will my brother will be at play think so. Yeah, my dog sitter is not going to be available. So we'll find out. I can see as totally figuring out away because I think the hotel picks, you know, allows you to bring pets. So we may end up doing something like that that would give the boy a reason to stay at the hotel. We haven't really discussed it. But as of right now I'm planning on just getting boarding the dog. The boy is not going to get to stay home by himself for two days. Not at 13 not yet. We can theoretically maybe let him stay at hotel for Yeah,
I'm a firm believer that your first weekend that you're home alone without your parents should be over Christmas. And people should be trained to break into your house.
Right?
As tradition.
Right? Yeah. And here's all you know where all the tools are to make all the traps.
Yeah, play has dropped out audio for a little bit because he's got a thunderstorm going through so I'm not
gonna if you guys can hear it. It's it's pretty crazy here. But I have to say, as far as dog drama, what have I got myself into? You know, we we go to the east coast for six weeks. That's kind of our to be with Kim's family. That's kind of our tradition. And and so we got this dog during the pandemic, trying to get a dog from Boston to Boston, guys. It's insane. bonkers. Trying to get me oh my gosh, can you get an Uber? No way. So what can I eat them? Can you get an Uber? Oh, Uber, I thought you were going to suggest that I SUV eat him. No, nice. Corgi we're not going to cook. He's a great dog. But he's too big to go under the seat. I don't have the time. I can't do a four day road trip just to get dog there back. It's like eight days, it'll be my whole vacation. Like I can't drive it. So it has to fly. Trying to get a guy's trying to fly a dog right now. In the middle of his madness. He's the airlines have totally they don't know how to do it. They've lost her mind. She's got to ship it like cargo. And it has to be the right kind of plane. And it has to go early in the morning because the temperature can be too high. But it's got to be the number of factors that it's taking me. It's this is the most complicated problem that I've had to solve in my adult life is getting my Pembroke Welsh Corgi named Dave
to Chatham. Good luck, Dave. Stay safe.
Sounds like a challenge for the Coast Guard.
I could send him by Coast Guard Cutter for helicopter. It's just it's bonkers. So I've got in order to get him there. You know, you want to fly direct, you know, there's no direct flights from Boston to Boston, on the kind of plane because it's got to be a pet friendly plane. It has the cargo that has pressurized and temperature. So it's got to be a Boeing play. So you've got to find the airline, that flight that takes dogs that will fly Boeing that's going from Texas to Boston, early in the morning. It's got to be early in the morning, but not so early in the morning that the cargo office isn't open, because you've got to be at the cargo office two hours before your flight to check the dog in. So you've got to make sure you've got the right plane, the right airline the right time. And so ultimately, I'm going to take the dog to Oh, you can see the lightning flashing over my head. You got to rent a car, drive the dog to Dallas, get on a bowling plane in Dallas, fly to Boston, and hopefully have the dog with me. That's my story.
Good luck, man. And you've got to do that. both directions. both directions.
Wow. Well, good luck.
I don't know. They won't let you so I've got my airline ticket but you're not allowed to book the dog until 10 days before the flight. So on Monday, I will call and try and that also is it's as expensive as an airline ticket to ship the dog. So I will call on Monday. I will find out if there's Seat available in the cargo hold for Dave according to fly with. If that doesn't work, I don't know what might
get a trench coat a trench coat and glasses with the mustache
or one of those? Parsi pumpkin.
This is why, Ask DadLabs is for these kind of solutions. Yeah, super helpful solution.
Absolutely. Like like reheating brisket while brisket and sneaking your dog onto an airplane. That's what we're all about is thanks to the nickels and Dawson families for sharing their dads with us. Ask DadLabs is produced and edited by me Ben fote and fote Media productions LLC. Like follow subscribe and share across the social media landscape. Wherever you find Dad Labs. Talk to you next time.
