Good Day Google+ - Life is What You Make of it

Oh, Chef.

I have been wanting to do that for a while. This is not my first Friday the 13th show, and I wish I had some dramatic music to start it with. That's going to have to do. Like I said, Amazon did deliver on time today for my official Friday the 13th.

Ah!

So I'm going to have to, you know, it's going to— it probably might not be a good thing But I'm probably going to have to wake Lisa up in the middle of the night with that.

God bless you.

Oh, that's bad.

She may call off the wedding after making me wait 17 years for it. So yeah, news for everyone, you know, I always refer to Lisa as my wife and she refers to me as her husband because we've been together for so long, but we were never official. So actually now she decided it was time and we're going to be married on April 10th.

Congratulations!

At Disney, of course, because we love Disney and she thought that would be the magical place to do it. So I learned, I'm old enough to know, don't argue with the bride. So I got married at Disney. So thank you all for joining today. It's a beautiful day in Florida and it's a good day on Google+ because even if it is Friday the 13th, we're here with a bunch of friends to just relax, have a nice talk, and listen to some good music. So I'm going to introduce introduce everyone right now and say hi, and then we'll get on with it. And if anyone has any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comment section of the show, and we will get to them. So first, let me introduce Sherry Valentine. And how you doing today?

Hey, Chef Dennis, I'm great. Thanks so much for having me on the show. I've been really excited and looking forward to this.

Oh, my pleasure. And I'm glad we finally got to connect here on this, and I've been enjoying your shows, and it's just Great to have more people doing HOAs and YouTube shows is what we call them now because people seem to get disgruntled with Google sometimes. They were all thrilled to death, they thought we were dying but anyway we're not. Thanks for being on today and we'll be talking more in a little while. Then next to you I have Christine DeGraaff and Christine, it has been way too long since we've chatted and I'm glad you could come on.

Thank you. Yes, it's been a while. I don't know how long it's been.

It's been at least a few months. I think I was on one of your music shows back maybe January.

Well, that's a year.

Yeah, might have been longer than that. Timing just hasn't always been right to join in. Weekends I've been trying not to do too much on social media because Lisa's off, so I've been trying to devote more time to her.

That's a good thing.

Yeah, I thought so. Moving over.

Maybe that's why she's now marrying you.

You know, it might be. Although I think it was, she did mention she wanted to make sure she got married before her nieces finally did, who were originally, when she bought the dress 16 years ago, were going to be flower girls. So they can't wear their flower girl dresses anymore because I have them. Moving over, I have Raymond and Laura. How you doing today?

I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me on the show, Dennis.

Oh, it's my pleasure, and I'm so happy you could join us. And we got all the kind of kinks worked out for your first official HOA, so hey, and now we can do a lot more. And you're a native— you're not— are you a native Floridian or you live in Florida?

28 years, I think that's almost a native. Actually, coming from Sarasota, 14 years, but we were just named number 1 beach in the United States last week by TripAdvisor.

Woo-hoo! Very fun. There are some beautiful beaches on the Gulf. I mean, I personally prefer the Gulf because my first experiences living in Texas were the Gulf. And when they moved me, forcibly moved me up to New Jersey, and I had to go on the Atlantic— that's not the prettiest Atlantic up there. Down here is a lot better. I still prefer the Gulf. The first time we went, I must have been in the water an hour, and Lisa's like, "You never go in the water." Yeah, this is the Gulf.

I'd like to give a shout out to all my family in Connecticut though that I think are still digging the ice and snow and everything off of their houses and their driveways. It actually warmed up, but I think it got cold again.

I did see on the news in Massachusetts, they showed like the snow icebergs, like mini icebergs hitting the beach, all that were washing ashore. That's just insane.

It is.

That would have been a good polar plunge. But anyway, let's move on. And then last but not least, I have Ryan Fabry joining us, and he's coming in from Los Angeles today, and he's gonna play some songs for us. Yeah, good morning.

I'm good. Thanks for having me on. This is my first It's my first time on your show and actually first time on a Google Hangout.

Well, I hope you enjoy it and you get to see the value of performing here. You know, I luckily had met your mom at ShiftCon and we became friends, and she's actually done a couple demos for me. And then I was on her page and I saw you playing, I went, oh wow! And then she told me you were really good at pickling food too, so I thought that was fun.

In my spare time, I definitely like to make make my own sauerkraut and such things.

Very cool.

I wish you had mentioned that. So how about if you open the show for us then with a song?

Yeah, sounds good. Here's a cute little tune for you. Oh, actually, let me go into studio mode like you said.

Absolutely.

Make sure you can hear me okay. All right, everyone still hear me all right?

Yep, yep.

All right.

When I gave up hope, I finally found it. If you need me, call me and I'll come running. I'll come running, I'll come running to you. I'll come running, baby, I'll come running. You just call me and I'll come running to you. If you're down, I'll pick you up. If you need loving, I'll overflow your cup. If you trip, I'll be there to break your fall. If you're just having a bad day, baby, when All this nonsense is driving you crazy. Don't you know, all you gotta do is call. And I'll come running, I'll come running to you. I'll come running, baby, I'll come running to you. You just call me in, I'll come running to you. I'll come running, baby. I'll come running to you. You just call me in. I'll come running to you.

Woohoo!

Nice! Excellent!

Excellent!

Thank you!

Awesome job!

That was great!

Love them there. Yeah. Sounds like we're getting a little feedback now. Ryan, can you get it back to voice mode?

Is that better?

Let's see. Yep, that did it. OK, great. Very good. So yeah, so voice is definitely the way to go when we're not playing. So thank you. So tell me about that song. How did you come up with it? And it sounds like it might be about something personal, or was it just a happy tune came into your head?

You know, yeah, I got into songwriting a few years ago when I was in Tucson. That's where my family lives. And I had a lot of downtime, and I just had been playing the guitar for a while, doing some singing. And this was one of the first 5 songs that I wrote. And yeah, it was just a little— the chords are pretty simple. It's just a little simple tune that popped into my head, that the chorus part came in. It was one of the few songs that I wrote in just about one sitting. You know, sometimes a song comes and it just flows and you write the whole thing right away. Other ones take a few times coming back to it, but this one was just very organic. It flowed really well and it came out. And yeah, nice little simple tune.

Very cool. And since being in Los Angeles, are you— I think your mom said you're doing some acting too. You've been on Have you been on anything that we might have seen?

Right. I've been out here for a few months, and I got to be an extra, which is what a lot of people do, you know, the background actors. I was on Glee. I did How to Get Away with Murder, the new show.

Did you really? What were you on in that? I love that.

Yeah, yeah. I was in one of the courtroom scenes. I think it was the 12th episode. And so I'm the family of one of the accused, so I'm sitting in the front there with the lawyers and stuff like that. So that was a really good experience. It was really fun being on the real set, the courtroom set. It was really cool to see. So I've had lots of cool opportunities like that, getting my feet wet, getting some experience.

Well, it's great. I'm going to have to go back and watch it. I don't even know if we're up to episode 12 because we tape it and we actually watched one last night, so I have to see where we are in that. But so cool, I'm going to have to look for you now.

Yeah, I'll send you like a little screenshot or something.

Oh great, so I know what I'm looking for. Yeah, yeah. Mark is saying, where can we find more? So do you have any music up and out where we can get some?

I'm still towards the beginning of getting myself out there, especially online and stuff. I have a YouTube channel that I can link to in a minute, and then right now I don't have any recorded music, so I'm still looking for a way to do that. And I have some friends that are doing that, so hopefully I'll be able to get that soon and get my stuff out there.

Great, I know. Well, see, you've got an audience already, people clamoring for your music. That's a good thing.

This feels like a Friday tune. Yeah, that's cool.

I'm glad.

Well, we will come back to you, and please feel free to— yeah, Christina, I saw that, it feels like a Friday tune. I'm sorry I didn't pull it up. We will come back to you, and feel free to chat with us if you have any questions about anything else we're doing, you know, jump in the conversation. So, Dennis, right over from you, and we're gonna move to Laura. And Laura, we're gonna let you take over for a little bit and tell us about what you do and what interests you have and anything else might be on your mind today.

Oh gosh, it's a shorter list if I tell you what I don't do. I don't sleep very much. I have a ton of interests and actually left the corporate world in 2006 really to never look back. I was in the insurance business, workers' compensation. Woohoo! That's exciting, right? Compared to food and travel and writing. So I just started doing photography, and I've always had a love for food. Really got into it kind of when I was in college, and my roommates liked what I was making and actually said, can we pay you if you cook for us? So that's really when I, you know, started experimenting way back when. So, you know, fast forward to about 2010, decided I needed to find a way to write off all my passions, which are food, travel, and photography. So I looked on the internet, and food and travel are still— it's interesting, they're very separate, which is very interesting even today, because almost everybody I talk to, food is such an important part of travel, and travel is such an important part of food. It's, I mean, Nobody thinks of doing anything without, you know, asking what are we eating or where are we going to eat or what part of eating, you know, will be part of our whole experience. So I really wanted to have something on the internet that was an alternative to just review sites. So if you think of really destination, anything food, you know, whether it be chef stories, their recipes, bed and breakfast, really cool little hotels, I want people to be able to discover those places through their food. So Destination Cuisine is kind of forming into that, but now fast forward to even really to today, and I'm actually putting an Iron Chef Throwdown together, which is really cool. I'm bringing in, you know, Chef Joe Arvin from— he was just on The Taste, Cutthroat Kitchen, Big Brother 14. He's our MC, and just lots of really cool stuff kind of happening from that. It actually— Destination Cuisine in November took me to the World Food Championships, and I went there actually to try to just cover it, you know, to get some great stories, maybe look for sponsors for my Throwdown, and I ended up competing quite unexpectedly. And oddly enough, we won the category. They have 9 categories, and we actually won the sandwich category, had the highest scoring sandwich appearance and taste and everything. So we actually— so that, um, that lead won $10,000, Kelly Cochran. And then we went on to compete a couple days later for the $100,000 round, and it was really cool. Robin Leach was there as a judge, Louie Anderson, and, you know, they had 9, you know, very kind of, you know, celebrity status folks on the judging table. So that was cool. And then when I met you, of course, just a few weeks ago at the Florida BlogCon. I was part of and a finalist in that conference for the best food blog, and I won.

You won, yeah!

Yeah, so the last 4 months or 5 months have just been insanely good, you know, in just lots of different areas. And Ryan, I love that song, by the way. It's, you know, there's— again, you know, I can't do anything without music on. I don't know about you guys, but I actually Dennis Littley. So thank you for sharing that. That was really wonderful.

Yeah, good. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yeah, I'm the same way. I need something on while I'm working so that, you know, it really helps the process and it helps something catchy.

Absolutely. And I actually have different music on depending on what I'm cooking. I also develop recipes as well, so depending on what I'm cooking, it may be, you know, Andrea Bocelli if I'm making Italian, and maybe Zizi Top if I'm doing some major throw-togethers. They go together so well.

Or George Thorogood if you're doing some heavy drinking, right?

Especially alone.

Very good. I love it.

Well, you know, the World Food Championships are coming to Florida, and they're going to be actually in Celebration, and that's coming up.

Yes, in November, very exciting. We had over, they had over 400 competitors last year, so this year is going to be, you know, the field— Vegas was really cool, but Celebration is going to be really cool.

You faded out there just a little, Laura. Does everybody else hear that or no?

Yes, she faded out.

Okay, all right, well, when she comes back— are you there?

I'm here.

Okay.

Hey, Dave Pipe actually posted Ryan's YouTube channel, Chef.

Bring that up on the screen. Yeah.

Oh, great.

Thanks, Dave.

Thanks, Dave.

There's a lot of people in the house. Dave Pipe's here, Candy's here, and she also threw it up there. Jasmina is here. Hi, Jasmina. You're a little late, but that's okay. Michael Thomas is in the house. Hey, Michael. Kate Bauer is here. How you doing, Kate? And here is Nazim Beltran asking if William Rock is feeling better, and I hope you are, William. We know you had a little bit of an accident with your hands, so hopefully things are better for you. So sorry we lost you there, Laura, but getting back to it, yeah, the championship's in November, and we'll be— hopefully I'll be able to do something with that. I'd love to see more. I don't want to compete, I just want to film it a little.

It's so much fun to watch. You know, what people don't realize is food sport is really coming a long way. And in the last— the World Food Championships has been around for 3 years now. And as far as just the number of competitors, the amount of money going into these competitions, it's actually bigger than fantasy football. And, you know, I hope to help them actually kind of get that out into the media. Because so many people compete, but the world doesn't know enough about how it is to watch people compete with foodsport, and it's really, really fun. It's just, you know, there's so many things that happen. This one woman was actually running to the judging table, for instance, and her pants were falling down. You can't put anything down on the judging table. Like, you can't touch it. You can't set it down on the judging table and then fix a couple things. So she puts her food presentation on the ground and pulls up her pants, and she's literally got like 5 seconds left before she misses their opportunity to turn in. She's like running, her pants fell down, she drops it, puts her foot on the ground, on the pavement, pulls her drawers up, and then off she goes to the judging table and barely makes it. So there's a lot of drama in a tape to watch.

That kind of reminds me of a story. I was selling food for a while. Being a chef, I thought, of course, the grass is always greener on the other side. I was selling food, and I was selling on the Jersey Shore. I was doing Wildwood, Cape May, and Ocean City, and all that. I walk into one of my really big restaurants in Wildwood that was a really good customer. I walk in, and as soon as I walk in the door, here's one of the chefs, and he's got an apron on. And nothing else.

Oh boy.

Bare-ass naked. And the owner had met me outside, and we're walking in, and he goes, "Oh, don't mind him. He's pissed because I won't get him any more uniforms." Everybody else is working along like it was just another day.

That's a good story.

I would have liked to see OSHA come in, or the Board of Health at that point. That would have been interesting. Yeah, the food world can be a little crazy, and the people involved are always a little bit over the top. Gotta love it. Alright, well, let's move on from that story. Segue to my friend Christine DeGraaff. How you doing, Christine? And what's— I know you're busy with Circuloscope, refining that and getting that all ready. And did I hear there's a wedding coming up for you too?

Well, we'll see. Somebody's echoing. I've postponed it now 2 or 3 times. I think I'm like your fiancé. I don't know. We've been engaged for 2 years now. We've set 2 dates. And then, you know, I'm just not a good planner. I procrastinate. So the date starts getting pretty close, and I'm like, well, I don't know. I'm going to have to really rush it to make that date. I think we need to push it. Eventually, one of these days.

One of these days, well, it's okay.

It's gonna happen, just, you know, I'm in no hurry.

That's what Lisa kept telling me, it's been in the making but now it's time.

I actually, I was so close to a date that I actually got a wedding gift and then pushed it. Some of the perks without having to deal with the actual Yeah, if I set enough dates, I'll probably just get a bunch of gifts and, you know, it'll be good.

There you go.

Yeah, I don't know how I'm going to top these stories. Let's see, we've got a musician living in LA who's been on TV shows, and we've got a celebrity chef blogger in the house that's, you know, so I'm not sure what story Sherry's going to tell next, but I don't have anything quite that good.

So talk to us about CircleScope then and what's been going on.

Yeah, well, let's see, we relaunched in June. Things are stable. We've been in a long beta period. For anyone who doesn't know, CircleScope is a circle management tool to help you manage your circles here on Google+. And basically we're just, you know, working out the last little kinks, adding some new features, making tutorials, blog posts, stuff like that. And, you know, it's going along.

It is a fantastic tool. I mean, I—

I can tell you from our user base that Google+ is not a ghost town. We have plenty of people using it, so that's a good thing. I've been doing the Music Hangouts every month Just having fun, hanging out, listening to music. I like doing that. And really just trying to enjoy life, I guess.

Well, that's the best thing. At least if you can have a good time doing what you're doing and enjoying things, that's all that matters.

Yeah. Christine, do you play music yourself on the Hangouts?

I don't.

Holding the space and bringing the musicians in.

I'm just a fan. I am so musically challenged. I can't sing, I can't play, and people would say my taste in music, although I like a lot of music, but like Metallica is definitely my favorite still, and some people are just like, you have no taste in music. I'm like, what? It's Metallica, come on! But it's fun.

There's definitely worth in Metallica and music like that.

I'm with you.

Definitely. Yeah, I'm learning— actually have, through the Music Hangouts, I mean, I've met so many great people, made so many friends, and have opened up to, you know, country music, which I really, really hated for a long time. But I'm really starting to like it now. It's not bad. So I'm expanding.

Yeah, when I first started listening to country music it was difficult, and it got to the point where I could actually use the line from the Blues Brothers where I listen to both kinds of music, country and western, you know. So it took a while to get there, but I, you know, I think all types of music are almost— I shouldn't say all types because there are a few that pain me, but almost all types of music have a time and a place, and I enjoy listening to them. Although I think as you get older, you kind of revert to what you grew up with. My father was always listening to Glenn Miller, which also made me love Glenn Miller, which which was a good thing.

Yeah, I still love the things my mom listened to, the Beatles, stuff like that. I mean, everybody does. I don't know if there's anyone in this world who's not a Beatles fan. I can't imagine anyway.

Nah, they had a great impact on the world.

Bandit, my dog, took the stage again on Wednesday. My dog does Hangouts. So he has now been— the only guest, the featured guest on 2 Hangouts. This is my dog. To talk about what a great Google+ dog influencer he is. And it was a lot of fun.

I saw the recent comparison with Bandit and Guy Kawasaki.

Yes, well, that's the whole thing. That's what everybody wants to talk about. So he's getting, you know, just great engagement. He sold a t-shirt. Dinavite, they're a company here on Google+. He was plussing all their posts, and they sent him a big gigantic box of all these dog treats and goodies and shampoo and everything. And I'm like, it was so weird to get a UPS for my dog. That has never happened before. He's like, band it. And I'm like, what? My dog is getting influencer gifts here. This is crazy.

That's funny. You need to start a blog for Bandit, I think.

Definitely, yeah.

I'd read that.

I would read that.

I mean, pets get famous. You know, like look at the cat. What's the cat's name? Grumpy Cat? And that's not even a real cat, right? It's a cartoon.

Yeah, well, pets have a special place in our hearts, so, you know, we kind of make them a little bit more than they are sometimes.

Anyway, I have to give a shout out to Jasmina, and she wants to know what Laura would cook while listening to Metallica.

Oh, wow. I probably would do a pork shank. Really? Why? Yeah, I know, crazy, right? I get down and dirty with my pork shank. It takes so long to cook. I do it low and slow, so it's usually the other sides that I get crazy with. Like I said, I consider myself more of a freestyle chef. It's difficult, actually, for me to make a recipe because I have to stop and measure. That's why Metallica would be like, "Let the pork shank go, and then let me do my polenta and mushroom polenta going, and maybe some broccoli rabe." I would just fun it up for sure.

I know what to cook when we listen to Pink Floyd, and that would be some Colorado special brownies.

You were gonna say that. I saw that.

We saw that.

I didn't.

Gotta love Mile High. So on that note, let's move over to Sherri and let's talk to Sherri about what you do. And maybe you can use some of your positive energy and help us out here.

I don't think any of you need any help. You're doing just fine.

So hi, I'm Sherri Valentine.

I'm from— I live over in New Hampshire. I'm on the East Coast. We have 18 miles of coast in New Hampshire, and I'm fortunate to be on a sliver of it. I'm an energy healer with a shamanic perspective. I have a Hangout on Air, Tappy Break, where I use emotional freedom techniques, and we tap on challenges to release the energy and the stress that's in our bodies and our minds and our thoughts so that we can be more expansive. I love music, so this is great. I'm married to a musician. He actually spent like 30 years doing the traditional corporate gig, but thankfully he had his music to fuel him, and he finally was able to— he left that back in July, so he's been out playing live in the local area. So I pretty much work to live music all the time because he's always playing and practicing.

What does he play? Sherry?

Well, his natural, I think, for himself, that he tends to write with more of a kind of traditional folk rock style on his own, but he collaborates with quite a few, so he does a bunch of recording with some younger guys, which is more like alternative rock. So it just depends who he's playing with.

And he's pretty—

he plays guitar mostly. He plays piano also and bass, but he plays mostly guitar, and he's a singer. He writes, and he— I mean He got together with his friend last— two weekends ago, Friday, and Sunday came home with like 5 original songs that they wrote and recorded in the 3 days. It just blew me away that he can just sit down and spin that stuff out. It's crazy. But he's pretty good. He's got a really nice voice. He's a really nice guy. So he's just— I think he sort of envisioned he'd go out and play music all the time, and he's realizing it's a business like anything else. So I think he's starting to realize he's got a few local gigs that he just loves to do, and maybe that's enough. We both want to travel, so I'm thinking that's enough. We got invited to Hawaii. I could be in Hawaii right now, and he had 3 gigs in March, and they were just all so close together that it didn't allow us to go to Hawaii. So that sort of got us both thinking about how much music does he really want to play out so we can have those opportunities to travel more and not be so tied down. So that's it. I don't know, I don't have any really good stories. I mean, I've got somebody who's created Circuloscope, and we've got a chef and a music, and there's just me. But I love to cook too, so it's really funny. I just think the connections are really great. My husband calls me a jazz cook because I just throw stuff together. Like, I could never write a recipe ever, and I can't follow one for the life of me. It's just— I will— if I want to cook something and I've never cooked it before, I'll go online and read 3 or 4 different recipes to get a sense of how it's cooked, and then I sort of just do my own thing. And it's wonderful if I remember what I did.

That's the whole point.

Most of the time I don't, so you just never know what we're going to eat.

I'm not even sure where the kitchen is in my house, honestly. I don't cook. I just don't cook. I quit. I cooked for I have grown children now. I cooked for 20 years, and then I just said, you know what, I quit. I just quit. I'm not ever cooking anything ever again. And basically I haven't. So, wow. Beyoncé had to take over.

That's funny you should mention you don't know where the kitchen is, because in my apartment I know exactly where it is because it's just a couple feet from my bed, actually. That's city living for you. I got the studio apartment, but I don't have much room in there, but enough room to throw some stuff together. I'm the same as Sherry a little bit, just kind of throw some stuff together, sort of jazz-chapette, like you said.

Yeah, when I did cook, I would throw things together. I never— I I've never baked because I don't measure, and I really did realize that when you bake, you really need to measure. I mean, it just doesn't work, "Oh, how about just dump the flour, dump the baking soda." It's more of an exact science, I think, than like spaghetti sauce.

Oh, it totally is, Christine. I don't bake either for that reason. It's just too measured, and you really have to stick to it. It's like science. It's a science project. Project, and I never liked science.

That's why I really admire chefs that do it professionally, because it takes a lot of hard work and training and practice. It's similar to music and other creative avenues because of how much practice it takes, I'm sure, to get a pork shank that's really perfect. You don't get it on the first try, I'm sure.

Nope. And yeah, absolutely. And a funny story, I actually, the first cooking class that I did, we ended up, I was going to max it out at 10 people, we ended up with 16. And needless to say, I did not account for how much longer the pork shanks would have taken with a very full room. So our 3-hour class turned into a 5-hour class, and I was calling taxis for people on the way home because it was open drink and But everybody had such a wonderful time. And, you know, I'd love to share this story because it really touched my heart. Several months after that class, I got a call from a woman that was in the class, and she said that the woman that organized the 6 of them coming by, or coming to the class, had passed away. And she said there were so many things that she could have done. That was her last night out and feeling up enough to do it. She said, "I just want you to know that she chose the class for us all to go to, and she said she couldn't stop talking about it, and said that she just had the absolute time of her life, so she wanted to share that with me." It just goes to show you the power of food and how it affects people in their own lives, really.

I like to eat, just don't like to cook.

We all like to eat. I think that's the problem.

I know with me.

In fact, I am on a very regimented, strange diet right now trying to lose some weight because since I've been in Florida— I read something. People say that TV puts 10 pounds on you. Well, I've decided that Florida puts 20 pounds on you. It just never ends. What's left other than good food after a while? I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs.

No.

I chase women, but I can't run very fast anymore, so it's just I never catch her. Other than eating, that's the only thing. Food doesn't move. Being a jazz chef like you described, I think that's the best way to be, actually. I think you create a lot of things, and that's how I cook for the most part. You talk about writing things down. That was in the restaurant when my memory was really the Shark too, and I was working all the time at that, I could remember most of the time. But every now and then, you'd have to really think, or you'd forget if you didn't make it enough times. And usually when I created a recipe that I was using in the restaurant, I'd make 40 or 50 of them that night, or maybe over 2 or 3 days if I ran it, I'd make 100, 150 of them. So it would get ingrained in me and what it was. But if you make something for dinner and it's that one time and you go back to it and try and remember what it was, Well, that's a whole different story.

I take pictures with my phone if I'm trying something different and it's something I haven't done and I'm really trying something new. And I saw— I bring all the ingredients and I take pictures of my phone because I know I'll never remember the next time. But then I go back and I look in the phone and I'm like, why do I have these pictures? That doesn't even help me.

Well, I do that with dinners for my blog. I'll take pictures of them and I may not blog about it for a for a month, and then I have to sit there and think, alright, what went in it? What went in it? You know, usually I'm pretty basic with how I cook, so I don't—

You could just make it up, Chef.

Well, yeah, but then if someone else— it's got to be accurate. You know, I don't want someone to say, well, I tried that and it was completely wrong. It's just always— and again, I'm a very basic person, and I cook with very few ingredients for the most part, so it's usually easy for me. I've been doing this so long that I know what steps I'll take to put what in, in general. That's the only good thing about it. Baking is hard because if I've gone by a recipe or I've adjusted a recipe and I didn't write it down, then I have to go and figure out what I did. Like you said, that's a science. You have to be accurate.

Laura, have you done any cooking HOAs?

No, I haven't, but I would love to. I would absolutely love to. And I'm just really— thank you, thanks to Chef Jen for introducing me to this whole scenario of Google+ and HOAs and Hangouts. And I just think it's an amazing way to bring the world together. I mean, we have so much to learn from each other. And yeah, so I definitely want to explore that avenue.

Definitely.

Yeah, that would be fun.

Yeah.

Here's a comment from Dave Pipe. He says, baked items? That's what my local bakery is for. I haven't got enough patience to wait for the darn thing to bake properly, hence most of my cooking is stir-fry. Stir-fry is not bad though, Dave. That's a good one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Love stir-fry.

Hey, Chef Dennis, can I give a shout-out to Andi Lyons?

Oh, absolutely.

She is the reason I'm in the Hangout world, and I just want to just really send my gratitude and love to her. It took her a year and a half Dennis Littley to get me to actually come in here. I'm hooked. I just love, I love that I can, I love doing the Hangouts, I love guesting, I love watching them. I actually watch more Hangouts than I do anything else now. I literally just cook at night and I've got the screen and I'm just going through all the Hangouts. I love it because I feel like I'm meeting people that, even if you're not in the show, you get to, we're all talking and you tell about who you are and you get to see the personality. It is, it's like a whole new world and I just love it. Thank you, Andy.

Andy's the best. I really love her. I sat there and watched her many times, and lots of times Shannon Hernandez and I would be chuckling like 13-year-old boys over the topics of her last series.

You know, she just said, you know, we'd be typing back to each other.

She's a courageous woman to do what she was doing for a while.

I loved it. You know, it was never a dull moment with her, and she is just so bubbly and just such a wonderful person. Gotta love her. Well, I'm glad to hear that though. So let's, uh, how about if we go back to Ryan for a little bit and have him play a couple more songs for us?

Yeah.

You up for that? This will be good for that, and anyone that may have missed you coming in late will get to hear you now.

Can I ask Ryan what kind of guitar that is? I can't tell with the—

It's a Taylor The 114 CE. That actually has a cool story behind it. Well, it's kind of a long story, but the short version is my family and I, when we lived in Colorado, we had to leave our house because of a serious mold problem. So we left all of our stuff because it was contaminated. We left my first guitar, so I was without a guitar for a little while. My friends at high school in the drama program that I was in, they all pitched together and bought me this guitar.

Wow, how nice.

Yeah, so it's really, you know, it's I have a couple other guitars, but this is the one that I always go to because I have a special bond with it, sort of.

Yeah, cool, you should.

Yeah. I'm going to change your sound settings before we start too, Ryan, right?

Yes, thank you for reminding me.

No problem.

Does somebody have parakeets?

Yeah, I know, that's mine. I'm right next to the window. The birds outside are just singing. They heard me singing, so they're trying to follow along.

Cool.

Alright.

See if everyone can hear me okay still.

Yep. Yep.

So this song is actually one that I wrote last week, I think last weekend. And it was another one of those songs that I just sat down, I played a couple chords, and a song came out of it all in just one sitting. And I hope other people can relate to this song. It's about— well, it's called "Not Backing Down," so it's about staying strong.

step. I know I'm just one step away. Try and talk me down, but I'm taking off anyway. And I'll keep fighting until the day I'm dead. You try and break me, you push me down to the ground. But I'm coming back strong and I'm not backing down. I'm on a roll, yeah, now I'm really cruising. Losing, but it's still an uphill climb. I still get bruises, but I'm stronger than I've ever been before. And I know that it's just the beginning, and no matter what I do, it's never finished, but I've had enough. Enough, and I won't take anymore. You try and break me, push me down to the ground, but I'm coming back strong and I'm not backing down. I'm Not backing down, not backing down. So when I'm staring down the barrel of the gun The water's rising and everything's come undone. I will stand my ground, I'm not backing down. I will stand my ground, I'm not backing down. Not backing down.

Wow!

Thank you!

Wow! Thank you!

That was phenomenal.

That has a big personal meaning for me. I'm sure you can tell. But yeah, I'm very excited to get to record that song sometime. Yeah, it's one of my new favorites. So would you like to hear one more?

Would like to hear one more? Hear one more? Another song? Another song?

Yeah, sure. Here's another fun one to sort of end with.

I can see you there sitting on the couch with a big frown on your mouth. That's something I just can't stand. So I turn some music on. I know all your favorite songs. Baby, give me your hand. Get up and come dance with me. Get up, I wanna dance with you tonight. Yeah, move your body to the music and sway. Dance all your problems away. Get up and come dance with me tonight. It's been a long It's been a long day, better make that a week. And that list of things to do just won't end. Let it go, get up on your feet. I can see you nodding your head to the beat. I know all you want to do is get up and come dance with me. Get up, I want to dance with you. Tonight, yeah, move your body to the music and sway. Dance all your problems away. Get up, come dance with me tonight. Tonight, it's just you and me. Let the music set us free. How can I be up when you're down? Come on, you got nothing to lose. I know the perfect way to cure those blues. Just start moving your hips right now. Like this. Come on, get up and come dance with me. Get up, I wanna dance with you tonight.

Yeah.

Move your body, dance with me. Move your body to the music and sway. Dance all your problems away. Get up, come dance with me. Oh, get up and come dance with me. Won't you, won't you get up and dance with me tonight? Yeah. Move your body to the music and sway. Tomorrow is a brand new day. Get up, come dance with me.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

I appreciate all the love.

That was beautiful.

That was beautiful.

If you can change your sound.

There we go.

Great. We had a lot of nice comments from you. Rain Dow saying kudos, great voice. Sherry's even posting from here. Ron Sneeberger wanted to know for the link, and we did post it again. Dave Pipe Applause for Ryan. Jasmina, beautiful voice, I got goosebumps. She also says she will dance with you anytime.

Thank you, yes, I like to dance, so anytime, if you're ever in LA.

So is LA really a big party town?

I think so. You know, there is the California stereotype of very laid back, just like, chill out, man. I've seen that around a lot. I've been out a few times. I went to this cool— a friend had a birthday party. There was this bar in Hollywood that had a— it was like a 1920s speakeasy. And so the guy out front, the bouncer guy, had a top hat, and he had, you know, the the jacket and the really nice shoes and all that. And so it was pretty cool. I haven't seen a whole lot of it, but from what I have seen, there's a nightlife here, that's for sure.

Different than where you're from, from Arizona or Colorado, I guess.

Right, yeah. A little different than Tucson. Not to bash Tucson at all. It's a great city, and I love it. There's lots to do there too, but LA's a little bit bigger, I would say.

A little bit different. A little more cosmopolitan, I guess, but that comes and goes with it. Well, we're getting close to the end of the show, so what I'm gonna do is we're gonna go down with everyone, and if you have any calls to action, anything you'd like to share with us about what you'll be doing next, or shows or concerts or anything like that, and people are already asking when you're gonna do your next HOA concert, Ryan, too, so you have to start thinking about that.

I'm hoping he'll join me on Wednesday for the open mic if he's around Wednesday night.

Yeah, no, I look forward to it. That sounds really cool.

Great, okay.

Yeah, you meet a lot of new friends that way too.

Yeah.

So while we're talking then, Ryan, do you have anything coming up, or can people in the area find you anywhere performing?

Well, like I said, I'm still towards the beginning of the whole getting out there with my music and stuff, so I don't have anything planned right now, unfortunately. I put the YouTube— my YouTube channel, so I think I'll be posting a video or something here pretty soon and then maybe keep people updated through that medium. Yeah, we'll see what happens.

Well, I know people would love to hear more from you, so if you can do that and work that out until you can find a recording studio, I'm sure you'll start to gather a following of your music, so that would be great.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. This has been really—

My pleasure.

Yeah, great find, Chef, definitely.

Well, we can thank his mom for that. She's—

she—

You got the introduction going by posting, so two stars from that family so far. Wait and see if she's got any other— you have any other talented siblings that are ready to break?

Actually, there are 9 of us. I have 8 brothers and sisters.

Wow!

We're not exactly the von Trapps, but we're pretty close, actually.

Now that would be fun, just to have you sing the The deserts are alive with the sound of music from Tucson.

The sand is alive.

The sand is alive. Alright, well thanks, Ryan. And then Laura, I know you've got your Iron Chef coming up. Anything else? Tell us about that.

We do.

It's actually going to be held April 17th and 18th at the Suncoast Barbecue Bash. We have 8 teams competing. And 5 spots still open, but every day more chefs are signing up. And we've actually got a chef coming over from Ormond Beach for the sole purpose that he wants to qualify for the World Food Championships. So it is a World Food Championship qualifying event. In addition, it's kind of like an event within the Suncoast Barbecue Bash event. It's also a bluegrass festival as well. So we're really hoping for crowds of hundreds on Friday night, and the Iron Chef will kind of be the big draw for Friday night. And then Saturday will be the final showdown. So Friday we'll have 2 rounds of 4 teams each, and the winner of those 2 go on Saturday to compete at 3:30. And it's a $500 prize, but then again, that qualifies them to go on for the $100,000 at the World Food Championships. So we're pretty excited about that. The Suncoast Barbecue Bash will be in Venice, Florida. And you can go on actually on to destinationcuisine.com to find out about specifically about the Smoke and Iron Chef competition, or you can go to suncoastbarbecuebash.com to find out about the festival in general. And again, you know, Chef Dennis, thank you so, so much for having me on the show. This has been great. And if anybody knows anyone that just needs a little extra, you know, blogging love or social media, I love to feature people on my blog, whether it's anything connected with food. So if it's music and food, if it's chefs that just need to get a recipe out there or tell their story, please send them my way because it's a great forum. And chefs work really hard. And one of my favorite articles last year was called Pain and Passion, and it was about Doug Payne, spelled P-A-I-N-E. And, you know, chefs just devote their entire life, and at the risk of, you know, time with their family and, you know, growing with themselves, you know, really to share their love of food with their restaurant, the world. So anyway, chefs really need a lot of love, especially. So, and I like to give them a lot of love. So I always used to tell the servers that, but now I can't. Everyone needs love. Thank you again, Dennis, for having me on.

Oh, my pleasure.

I'm glad you could join us. And Christine, what do you have coming up? You have your show Wednesday, so what time is that?

It is 8 PM Eastern. Usually runs 2 or 3 hours, and I hope you'll join us, Chef, and anyone else who's here.

I will definitely try. I don't think I have anything on the books for Wednesday. It is hard for me sometimes weekends and nights because I've been trying to be a good boy. I used to spend so much time on Google Google+ and the internet.

Right, yep. I'm redesigning my website. I just had it yesterday, and so I stayed up all night. I actually didn't go to sleep last night because I just couldn't stop myself. It's like I got started, and I'm like, well, I'm on a roll here. And then it was like 7:00 in the morning, and I thought, well, if I go to bed now, I'm going to miss Chef's show. I'll just keep working. And so I'll probably be sleeping soon.

Very soon.

Except I have a Hangout at 3:00, and I have a Hangout at 10:00 tonight. So maybe I will.

I don't know.

Maybe there's some espresso in your near future.

Yeah, maybe. I'm going to do the Michael Daniels game show Hangout tonight. I love that.

Nice. A lot of fun. I like Michael. Well, thanks for coming on. And thank you for having me. My pleasure. And we'll have to not wait so long to do this again.

So sounds good.

And Sherry, thank you so much. Any— you're one of your— one of your shows and any other calls to action?

Got a couple things. So the Tappy Break is every Thursday at 11 AM Eastern Standard Time. It's live. I open the green room up before and after, but I don't broadcast anyone, so you don't have to worry about what you look like. I'm not going to put you out there when we're tapping. So, but it's been great. I love doing it, and it's just been really fun. I've met so many people just doing that. And I've got a couple things. So I'm doing a combination, like a workshop, a workshop with my daughter who's a holistic nutritionist. So on just healthy weight loss, we're combining EFT We're doing that next week just as a conference call. She offers these cleanses, which is just all whole real food and teaching people how to get back in their kitchen. We're going to be combining that with the EFT. That's coming up really soon. Then I've got a class I'm going to teach using the Hangouts on developing your intuition for confidence in growing your life and your business. A few things I'm looking forward to doing.

Dr. Pompa: Very cool. We'll look for those. And please, all of you, if you want to leave links in the comments section for your websites and shows and everything, please do so. And thanks to everyone for showing up today, and for everyone in the audience, thank you very much. You're welcome. Have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy yourself. Get out, and the weather's breaking pretty much everywhere. It might be getting a little colder again in some spots, but get out and try and enjoy it. And happy Friday.

13.

Oh wow.

See you all soon. Yeah, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.