"What Are You Thankful For?" (THANKSGIVING PODCAST!)

Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the biz to biz podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Larry Zonka of payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. And we'll be providing you educational information about fintech, small business payment processing, and the technology businesses are using in the world today. And in today's podcast, it's a special podcast, we'll be, uh, giving thanks and just, you know, talking about Thanksgiving.

Yeah.

And stuff we're thankful for. So, uh, not much, you know. How you doing, man? You're leaving today, the big day.

He's—

yeah, Allen— well, not today, but Allen is— Allen's last day in the office for 5 days, 4 days.

Yeah, if you don't miss Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, then it's a holiday. Thursday and Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and back Monday.

There you go. That's a nice—

that's a nice break from the office. Yeah, that's a good break. It's needed.

Man, when I was sick, I, you know, we had, since I've been, Milwaukee was the last time I had like a day off.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? So it's like, and then I got sick a couple weeks ago and I was at home for that week. But dude, when I was out for the count, bro.

Yeah, you were done. Samantha was sick a couple of days. Sean was sick a couple days.

That respiratory thing that's going around.

Yeah, Anna got sick. Her husband got sick. I had it, remember? I was the first one to get it.

The respiratory thing. Anyway, this one woman I know, she was in the hospital.

I was out. You guys were yelling at me, don't come in here coughing. Get out.

I know, that's like the day when Samantha came back last Thursday. I looked at her, I'm like, what are you even doing here?

Yeah, you can work at home. She missed us, you know. We have a, you know, we have a good dynamic.

When you sit at home for so long too, like, you get— I get stir crazy. Like, I get, you know, there's only so much I can do inside of the house. And yeah, and when you're feeling good— bad, like, you can't really, like, do strenuous stuff like work around the house. So I You know, I just end up going nuts. And so, so you have to come and do so.

What's this Thanksgiving like? Like, what's the special thing like you make or your family makes? Or maybe something your mom used to make when you were a kid, like for Thanksgiving?

Yeah, you know, uh, my mom never made anything, sir.

Oh, okay. Well, what does your wife make?

Uh, yeah, my wife makes homemade mashed potatoes that I really look forward to, but that's not like a— so I mean, that's why these, these types, you know, Thanksgiving episodes are a little tough. You know, I didn't have the same traditional upbringing, right? Like, my grandma tried as much as she could to have like Thanksgiving dinners and stuff, and she held that together for many years, but Yeah, I miss her. We used to— my little cousin used to call them bouncy balls, and what they are is Brussels sprouts.

Okay.

So I look forward to Brussels sprouts every year for Thanksgiving. But what do I— I don't eat meat, but I love to cook, so I'm always in charge of the turkey. So I usually try to like switch up the turkey every year. So Last year I think I used like a teriyaki type glaze for the turkey.

That's interesting.

Yeah. And then, you know, I had some like Asian type vegetables on the side.

Okay. You know what I mean?

To go with the flavoring. It's not just like, so, and I myself seeing that I'm vegetarian, I always, I used to, I used to just cop out and go to the Chinese spot and get Chinese food for myself. Okay. That's what I would do for Thanksgiving. It was actually kind of a tradition of one of me and my brothers back home in Milwaukee. We used to do that on Christmas and Thanksgiving. That was our thing. We'd go get our food and, you know what I mean? Like while everybody was enjoying their food, we could still enjoy our food. We didn't have to cook anything. No one had to cook us anything special. You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah. So, you know, that way I'm giving thanks to them and just being, but yeah, yeah, man. I mean, our, Thanksgiving is very regular schmegular, dude. I mean, we don't have this— no one eats pork in our house, so there's no like ham. My dad might bake himself a small, you know, honey glazed ham or something.

Yeah.

Uh, but yeah, so we got the turkey, we got everyone. My wife makes these green beans. Whatever she does to the green beans, bro, like even kids eat them.

Oh, that's good.

So They're obviously not healthy, but they're just delicious. So they got the— and I— well, the other thing that I can't not have is real cranberry sauce. Like, if you put a canned cranberry sauce on the table, you're a heathen.

Listen, my dad used to like the gel. That's—

in little balls?

No, that comes in a can. And he would—

that's what I'm talking about.

You push it out.

You're a heathen. No, he's a heathen.

And then my dad would slice it up. That was so disgusting.

You still have this?

It was gross.

You still have the, like, the, the impression? Yeah, be all jiggly on the table.

No, my dad would slice it up. It was so nasty.

All you have to do is buy a bag of cranberries.

Yeah.

And boil the shit out of them and add a crap ton of sugar, some orange juice, or some orange peels. Some orange peel. I threw an orange, like a cut, a slice of orange, and a stick of cinnamon. Yeah, and call it a day, bro. Like, you'll, you'll thank me.

Yeah, exactly.

It's not going to be so tart. It won't be so—

it'll—

you can make it even as sweet as you want.

Yeah, you don't have to put so much sugar. No, do a little. You can use Truvia too.

True. Yes, you can. But dude, please don't My dad used to eat that.

He used to gross everybody.

My grandma, they're— I think it's just like that older generation. They're like, I'm not boiling no cranberries while I'm baking a turkey, of a ham, etc.

Let me tell you something else. So like, so you know, my Thanksgiving, like, you know, I remember like when I was a little kid, you know, we would have Thanksgiving. My mom would make the disgusting green beans with the canned mushroom soup with the green bean casserole. It was So disgusting.

So like, yeah, I used to enjoy it.

No, I'm just saying, like, I remember enjoying to eat that.

My dad actually can make a really good one. I'll bring you a small piece of it if he makes it this year.

Okay. So that, you know, and then, you know, I was a chef, right? So we would be making Thanksgiving for hundreds of people. I know I was telling you a story about cooking like 80 turkeys one time for this big homeless thing. But we would, you know, make so many turkeys. Like, I worked in hotels and country clubs and, you know, we'd have buffet. That's why it gets so boring, right? Huh?

It gets so boring, right?

What, cooking a turkey? Yeah, that's what the people wanted. And we'd make ham and we'd have roast beef, you know, we'd have tenderloin, you know, filet mignon, whole filet mignon.

Before I stopped eating meat, that's when I started getting funky with like cooking weird stuff on Thanksgiving.

And then, you know, everybody wants the traditional stuff, the sweet potatoes. So one year I remember at my house I took whole sweet potatoes, baked those off. Then I put— I made like a hole, I scooped out the inside of the sweet potato, mix it up with butter, cinnamon, sugar, put it back in, then put marshmallows on them. And then you make candy yams? No, but I baked it inside the actual sweet potato.

Oh, you put the stuff back in there?

Yeah, I cooked the whole sweet potato, then I cut it open.

I got you, I got you.

Scooped it all out, stuffed it back in, then covered it with You know, so you try to do different creative things.

You know, I'm gonna actually say, tell my daughter about that because she wants to make sweet— she wants to be in charge of the sweet potatoes this year. I'm not going to eat it.

I mean, it was a lot of work, but you know, you cook them the day before, then scoop it all out, make the mixture, stuff it back in there, spread it open a little bit, and then everybody gets an individual sweet potato. You know, you got to get a bunch of smaller—

yeah, nice medium size.

So, you know, I always try to come up with creative stuff to do. You know, like creative type vegetables?

Yeah, I mean, it's been difficult since we moved down here and like, you know, 'cause we having 6 kids and basically everyone would come to our house to eat. Like my daughter just said it, we was in the car this weekend. She was like, "Dad, do you miss Sundays?" 'Cause it was Sunday.

Yeah.

And on Sundays would be, I would just barbecue.

Right.

So I would go to the grocery store early in the morning And I'd buy sometimes 50 pounds of meat, bro, just because I felt like feeding the fam, you know what I mean? And then I'd shoot the text like, yo, come through, I'm barbecuing. You know, if you want something special, bring it, but you don't need to bring nothing, right? And I mean, there'd be times when I'd have 150 people in my backyard.

Wow, that's a lot.

Yeah, dude. I guess, but you know, that's— it's— it was fun, right? When I think about it, but I tell her, like, do you do realize, like, me and your mom funded these Sundays for years, like, with zero help? You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, no one would give us money for all the money that we would do. Like, there'll be a couple hundred dollars on every weekend.

Yeah.

So like, yeah, so I mean, cooking for me is different because we don't— I don't I stopped cooking for so many people, right? It took me a really long time to like cut my recipes down. So like my food wasn't tasting the same and all this other stuff. So now I'm got kind of in a bit of a groove. So I don't know what my, my wife bought these turkey cutlets. Yeah, but they're not turkey, right? It's vegan. I love them like for a quick dinner, but I'm not really 100% sure I wanted to have that for Thanksgiving. So weird.

And I remember like when I had my restaurant, I would make Thanksgiving, we'd make stuff. We would cater for a few people because I had limited amount of ovens, you know. So we'd have a few people, I would do like their whole Thanksgiving, they would come and pick everything up and take it to their house. Then I would have one or two Thanksgiving settings in the restaurant, and then the last one was my whole family. Dude, it used to be really funny. So back in those days, like my Uncle Bernie was still around, my stepdad Jerry was alive. There would be— my mom would invite some of her friends, so these guys would come in the kitchen, you know, and I would have cooked, let's say, 20 or maybe 20 or so turkeys that day, right? They'd come in the kitchen, they'd just be like, oh, where's the pupik? Where's the pupik? And my dad told me when I was a kid that that was the belly button of the turkey, but that wasn't what it was. It was the butt, right? And they would eat the butt. They would eat those, and they would eat the— and they would— they were like, oh, where's the turkey necks? And they were all in there. My mom would come in there and go nuts. What are you doing? Do you know how much cholesterol is in those things?

Oh yeah.

And they would be in there. They would be— they would be in the kitchen, you know. Oh, where's all the tuch? Where's the— where's the pupiks? Where's the pupiks? And I would be giving it to them, and I'd give them all that because, you know, people didn't want take that home with them, the turkey necks. But I remember I worked for— I remember one time, this is one of the people I catered for, they were like, oh, we want the real giblet gravy, right?

I don't know what that is.

Oh, well, the giblets is like when you get the turkeys. I don't even know.

Oh yeah, no, I know.

And they put all the heart and the liver and the whatever.

My grandpa, that's how he ate his stuff.

So they would have it all in a bag.

He would get pissed if you threw that stuff away.

Now, now when you buy turkeys, it's not in there all the time. It's not.

That for some reason, like, they don't give it to you anymore because they've got smart. They sell, they sell turkey necks on the side. Yeah, they sell turkey.

Well, no, the neck is in there usually and the puppet, but not the, the, the giblets. Sometimes it doesn't come with it. So I would take the— I don't know. So I know, so I remember I bought turkeys one year and there was no— the giblet bags weren't in there, right? So I called the guy up, I go, bro, I said, I have a— I got a— you know, called the meat company. I said, I got this client, they wanted me to make them the real giblet gravy. You gotta go get me the stuff, right? And that's— I wouldn't eat that. That's gross. You gotta cook all the stuff and then chop it up and throw it into the mixer, throw it into the gravy, you know, and make the gravy. Yeah. Most people want like a— nowadays people want a light au jus. They don't want like that thick brown gravy. My kids love that No, but we used to make it like when I worked in Georgia and Texas. Everybody wants the thick brown gravy.

Country gravy, man.

Country gravy. Yeah, you got to make the real country gravy. Make a roux with flour and butter.

And my dad, add in the drippings. I was making gravy one year for Thanksgiving. He came in the kitchen and I was pouring a pack in there and he got so mad at me and he was like, step to the side. And he It's like, watch this. And he literally whipped up some gravy in like 27 seconds. And I'm like, oh, that's it? He said, yeah, man, that's it. Stop buying that shit.

Yeah, we used to make like—

you're right, I'm not ever buying that again.

No, but like at my restaurant, you know, or even at the— I get the hotel, forget it. We would have 500, 600 people. We had like a huge steam kettle things and we would buy, you know, 100 pounds of cranberries and make cranberry sauce.

Oh, and people— and when we had people begging, she starts boiling it super early in the morning for me.

Yeah.

And I just love the way it's almost like a natural potpourri. Yeah, it's so good.

And people used to want to take some of it home and all that, and I used to have to make tons and tons of it. My one time my boss came in, he's like, what the heck are you guys doing with all the— the, you know, he saw like all the boxes of fresh cranberries. He's like, what are you doing with all that? So we gotta cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving. Gotta cook it, you know, it's gonna take the whole day to make this thing, right? And he's like, why so much? And I was like, because people ask, we have orders for like, I don't know, you know, like 6 32-ounce containers. We had orders for like 100 of those. So I had to make like 2 huge batches. Yeah. 'Cause you know, once you cook it, it cooks down.

I mean, you need a lot of cranberries.

Yeah.

I mean, when I say a bag, you gotta get yourself 2 bags cranberries.

Yeah, it was crazy, but it was 2 pounds or whatever, whatever.

Just get yourself 2 big bags of cranberries, you'll be good.

And then this year, then my mom, you know, she didn't want to make Thanksgiving anymore. And, you know, so we had limited Thanksgivings a few years unless one of my brothers showed up.

Mary Jane, uh, when my grandma got too old to take over, uh, to, to cook for Thanksgiving, my Aunt Mary Jane took over. And we would go to her house. Yeah. So no, this year, shout out to Aunt Mary Jane, Uncle Dan, my cousins Danny Jr., Samantha, Melissa. I love you.

So this year my brother's coming in with his wife and two of his boys, two out of three boys, and then me and Jacob, and we'll all go to my mom's and we're getting it catered because my mom said, you're not cooking in my house.

You guys choose Whole Foods?

Yeah, Whole Foods. And then some they're going to get some items from kosher.

I was going to tell you too, but it was— you— I've— I couldn't. Um, Doris's has an organic, uh, and my mom's all into the Whole Foods. I hear you.

And it's right there.

And that's the only place I shop. Well, not only, but that's where I shop.

I mean, the best place to get— like, you can get— so there's a place in— in, um, I guess that's Hollywood on 441. It's called Delaware Farms. And they actually have that before. They actually have fresh turkeys in there. So like when I used to cook for, you know, like when we would make it at home and even at the restaurant, I used to get fresh turkey. Why did a vendor for fresh turkeys? But you could get organic fresh turkeys at this Delaware farm, organic fresh chicken, $200 a pound. It's some stupid price.

It's how do you spend that? Dead turkey at Whole Foods is expensive.

Don't get a kosher turkey. One small kosher turkey— someone posted a picture today— it was like $80.

Yeah, I believe it.

Yeah. When I asked my rabbi about Thanksgiving, he's like, we don't do Thanksgiving. He goes, every Shabbat on Friday night is like Thanksgiving. It's like Thanksgiving.

I used to tell my kids that every— all the time on Thanksgiving. I was like, we just had Thanksgiving on Sunday. Like, literally, that's how— like Sundays, right? I'm like, we especially during the summertime, bro. Oh my God.

Sometimes 3 days a week when my kids were little, we used to have like Sunday night dinner. My, my mom would come over, my uncles would come over. If my cousins were in town, they would all come over and then I would cook for everybody, you know, and I would have 50— I would have neighbors over and I'd be cooking for 15, 20 people grilling or making, you know, whatever. Pot roast, brisket. Yeah, we used to always have turkey and a brisket.

I was the kid that would bring up like the Native American stuff on Thanksgiving, so no one would want to— Justin, just relax. Why are you going to ruin everything? Why do you got to bring that up? I don't know. I'm just saying.

I was watching a TV show last night.

It was— I was always a jerk that way. I'm not going to be today, though.

No, I was watching a TV show last night and there was a guy on there who was a native— what?

I wanted to tell you I watched the Shaq thing.

Oh, you watched the Shaq thing?

Oh, on HBO.

So let me just finish. So there was a guy who was a Native American and it got very uncomfortable because people were saying some stuff. And then the per— and then he was having a conversation with somebody later and he said, well, You know, he goes, some people say things and they don't understand what they're saying. And I was like, and it just—

wait, because you can— so I had therapy yesterday. It's very interesting that you said it because like I'm trying to learn how to communicate but without the intention of hurting someone's feelings, right?

Yeah.

So that's really hard, like if you've been traumatized or, you know, if you want to bring up something that hurt you, right? You don't want to have that conversation and then you end up hurting that person, right? You just want to communicate how you felt and how these things have altered your life, right? But you, you don't want to scar them. So you, you got to be careful with words, bro.

No, and the person said, oh, why didn't you get mad at the guy who said something about the comment was like, oh, now we're going to be off the reservation, right? They probably didn't even know the guy was a Native American.

But right. And also, is that the right wording to—

they were just— they get— they made— it was in a general comment of they were going on—

this group was going on a trip and was going to be off the reservation.

So it was a general comment. The guy said, my Native American brothers, the guy said he didn't find it offensive. But then the girl he was talking to, she goes, oh, well, you didn't find it offensive from a white guy, but you find it offensive that I called you— she called them something else. And then he's—

I think we're going way left.

I don't know, whatever. But the native— no, the name—

listen, all I was saying was like, what happened to the Native Americans? And we have a celebration dinner on the, you know, around.

Yeah, it's crazy.

It's nuts. And, and you know what? Yeah, I love all my people. Some people— we're running out of time.

Okay, so the Shaq thing.

The Shaq thing was cool. Um, I think the first episode, the first whatever, was the best one.

I didn't realize how big he was when he was like 12 years old.

Yeah, he was massive at 11 years old when he was in Germany standing up against all those kids. I was like, oh wow. That's— that had to be tough for him.

Yeah, but he was massive. People thought he was an adult.

I just— I didn't— I always knew because I mean, I'm a hip-hop head, so I always knew that I knew the song, My Biological Dad Didn't Bother, right? So it was cool to hear the story behind all that.

Yeah. So it was like weird because he said like this coach from the guy who was the coach at LSU happened to be in Germany. He went up to the guy and the guy said, How old are you? No, he said, he said to him, he said, what do I have to do?

No, he said, Coach, I'm 13 years old, or I'm 11 years old. And then he said, the coach was like, the next question I have is, where's your dad? And so they walk back to the— but I said, yeah, but you wanted to get— I wanted to say was that it was really good, and I think that if you haven't watched it I think that if you grew up, especially in my era, if you're 40 plus, like 40, 44 years up to 44 years old, you've literally watched Shaq grow up, right? Like that. Like what? Reading the Sports Illustrated for Kids, hearing about him in Texas.

Yeah.

Going to LSU, getting drafted. Like when he played with Orlando with Penny, dude. Oh my God.

You know what I mean?

Then he went to the West Coast. Like these, it just, it brought me back to a time when I, I don't want to get too deep, but when I still enjoyed basketball.

But you know what was cool? He had the LSU coach like helped him with like exercises because he wasn't coordinated.

Yeah.

He was having a problem and he gave him these exercises.

He was a giant. The kid's feet, he was wearing a size 15 at 11 years old.

I actually saw a video of him where there was a kid who couldn't afford shoes. And he went and found— he saw the kid post on— Shaq does that stuff all the time, like on social. Yeah, when he got the kid, found him and found the shoe store, took him to the shoe store and got him a whole bunch of shoes and a suit for the prom and all kinds of stuff. And the mom was crying. Yeah, she never had any.

Shaq is, uh, definitely paid it forward.

I mean, I saw a video— I see videos of him all the time. He'll be in Walmart buying stuff, which is weird.

I mean, it's all set up.

No, no, but he just goes there to go for Oh yeah, he goes looking for that. Yeah, that's what I mean. He sees like a kid in there and he says, oh, your mom can't afford a bike? No, my mom can't afford a bike. Okay, I'm buying you a bike today. You need a bike, a helmet, you need some shoes, and he just, you know, hooks it all up.

The one thing I forgot, I forgot that he was really a cop.

Yeah, he was. He, he was a cop in Miami. I know, he's some— he must have went to school for that. He did. But the funny—

no, he went after that, like when, when he when he was— anyway, and he has watched the documentary. Stop talking about him. Shaq, you're great. We love you. Thanks for all the stuff you've done. Shout out for winning some championships in Miami, and good for you, bro.

I'm the one thing in the video that sort of— well, it didn't— well, it kind of surprised me was when Penny Hardaway, he kind of admitted that—

stop, you're ruining the whole documentary for everybody. He's in it.

Okay, whatever.

I didn't like Penny Hardaway's I didn't like his— the way he— he was a hater, right? He's just a hater anyway. Well, he watched the Shaq documentary.

He repented for it a little, maybe.

Maybe. We hope so. It's none of my business.

No, we don't know.

I don't care.

No, it was a very good documentary about Shaq.

Yeah, it was cool. So, man, uh, before we wrap up, we, uh, usually, you know, give thanks and, you know, talk about the stuff that we're thankful for. This year for me, man, was, uh, was a very hard year. Um, mentally I have, uh, was, you know, I was going through a lot and, uh, actually it's just, it started last year. Um, so the past like couple years has been like really hard for me. So I'm really thankful for, uh, having the opportunity to, to explore that and, and, and heal from, from the stuff that I've been going through. Um, it's been a long time coming, man. Um, I have a lot, so many things to be thankful for. Um, I'm thankful for my wife, my family, my kids, my dad, my mom, you know, I'm thankful for all the regular stuff. I'm thankful for Allen, you know, Thank you. He's definitely helped me along this journey. Without him, you know, I wouldn't say none of it would be possible, but, you know, he's definitely been understanding and worked with me to help me get better. So I appreciate you, sir. I'm very grateful for that. I'm sure you know that. I tell you that often. I'm thankful for, you know, Being here, dude, like just being alive in general. I tend to self-sabotage. Okay. I tend to tell myself I can't do things. I tend to say I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. I don't deserve it. I'm not smart enough. There's a lot of things I went through, you know. Growing up, I never really had somebody telling me or encouraging me to explore the things that I dreamt of doing. So I stopped dreaming. And I've recently started feeling like I can dream again. So I'm extremely, extremely grateful for that.

That's good.

Um, so I'm grateful that and thankful that, um, my dad is still here. He had a stroke, you know, um, that was really kicking my ass. Um, there's just so much to be thankful for, man. You know, I'm thankful that we don't have to be worrying about bombs getting dropped on us. I mean, I could keep going, bro. There's so much to be thankful for, man. There's really a lot. Um, I'm really thankful for this Wisconsin Badgers hat from, uh, Ebbets Field flannels. Y'all are the dude. I'm thankful for the Big L shirt. Rest in peace, Big L. Shout out to DJ Premier. What are you thankful for, man?

I'm thankful for having the opportunity to be in the business that I'm in. I'm thankful for been doing it for a really long time. And in the last couple of years, getting a lot of recognition for things, you know, whatever. I don't think, you know, whatever, being, being, having opportunities to write articles, do the podcast, hear from people how they enjoy what we do, enjoy, you know, helping business owners every day with their business. You know, even I'm going out of town. I could have told 5 people today, no, I'm not going to help you till I get back. But I helped every one of them figure out some sort of problem and got somebody approved and nice, get their machine out to them today. So it's, you know, I'm thankful for this business and the opportunity to give me all the relationships that I have with the people who work in the office with me and all the vendors that we work with. You know, thankful for, for all of that. Thankful for my kids. Going to go visit my daughter. And, you know, it's always good when you see your children succeeding, you know, and they start to flourish. And sometimes that's a challenge when you— with, with, uh, children today. But both of them, like, you know, my son was hard to deal with, but now I watch him flourish in life.

Shout out to Jay.

Yep. And I see my daughter flourish and grow in her life and all the wonderful things that she does and gives back to the community and, and all the different things that we do. And I enjoy giving back to the community because we get, you know, we get things, and then it's important to give back to the community and all of that stuff and take care of the people who take care of me. So I can take care of— take care of the business. And we try to take care of our clients. And we're thankful for all the clients that we have and, and the ability that we have to take care of them and serve them and, you know, be part of their growth of their businesses. And I wish everybody a great Thanksgiving and holiday season and all that. Happy Thanksgiving, happy holidays for all the holidays. Indeed, indeed.

Well, thank you guys. I hope you guys have a great holiday weekend. Enjoy your time off from work, and if you don't have time off from work, burn that place down.

Not everybody.

I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

Listen, when I was a chef, I worked—

I'm kidding, but I'm not kidding.

No, no, but I every holiday as a chef. And now I don't have to work holidays, so it's all good.

Put in the work and you won't have to work. Well, that's it. So we love you guys. Peace. Peace.

Carpe diem.