(light music) - This program is brought to you by the members of WCNY.

Thank you.

- Nationwide, Hungry for History markers from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation highlight unique foods and traditions, including salt potatoes and Berry Dairy Days, available through grants for communities and nonprofits.

More at wgpfoundation.org/tv.

- Syracuse sits in the heart of New York State, with access to the Finger Lakes and the Adirondacks, from city vibes and great local eats, to live music and festivals that roll on year-round.

Four seasons for everyone.

- Liberty Tabletop has been crafting flatware in America for over 20 years and is dedicated to supporting our community and preserving the craft of flatware manufacturing.

Liberty Tabletop.

- "Spatchcock Funk" is in the house, our house and your house too.

You know where the party's at?

Wherever you're at.

We're gonna teach you how to throw the best parties, the best dinners, the best get togethers.

All you need is the people you love, and we'll take care of the rest.

"Spatchcock Funk," dope food, strong drinks, great stories.

(rock music) Business and money might make the world turn, but it's art and culture that make life worth it, that's real.

Creative (bleep) art, music, that's what builds a culture, and it doesn't happen by accident.

Someone worked hard to make something you can feel, and we feel that, baby.

So feel this.

Way to fuel that fire, showing mad respect and much love to creators, especially before they get big, when they on the rise.

They don't call 'em starving artists for nothing, and we're here to feed 'em.

See that music, that art, it's crafted by someone.

A human being grabbed a guitar, maybe a record and a turntable, and worked until their fingers bled, just so they can forge something that hits you different.

- You ready?

- Yeah, I'm ready.

We're crafting up some dope food and strong drinks for a recording session with a local outfit we love.

We dig them and love to party with them.

So today we're throwing it down for them.

The amps are turned up and so are we.

Time to shred, y'all.

- Come on, let's go.

- This is disturbing the peace.

(energetic rock music) (upbeat music) Yo, we about to rock some cocktails, y'all, for some rock stars.

If you want to drink and party with rock and roll people, rappers, those things, a big thing to drink, whiskey, y'all.

We got a bottle our friend gave us, which is really great, the candidate, it's beautiful.

We're gonna set this thing aside.

We're making something special.

You wanna make people feel creative that are creative, get creative with the food and the drinks.

This drink is called the Dirty Pickle.

You shouldn't always play with dirty pickles, so we're not using a lot of protection here, but this drink goes pretty hard anyway.

But before we even get into the cocktail, the Dirty Pickle, let me show you another way to get down with whiskey and pickles.

This is called a pickleback.

A pickleback is something that, you know, you're rocking through the day, or a night, or a set, and it's typically a shot glass that's half full of whiskey and half full of pickle juice.

The pickle juice we're using actually was given to us by a federal judge who likes the show.

So honorable drink, honorable man.

(chef gulps) That keeps the party going.

Now let's rock this cocktail.

Like I said, whiskey, the active ingredient, going about two ounces here.

At the party, we're probably gonna make smaller glasses because people like to rage when they're raging at a party.

Then we've got a healthy splash of the pickle juice.

This gets you some electrolytes so you can trick yourself into thinking you're being healthy.

But it really adds a really great flavor, because what we've also got is a soda, a peppery soda, so to speak.

It has almost two dozen different flavors and spices in it.

We put that in there, and then we're gonna top it off also with a little bit of olive brine.

Like a dirty martini, the Dirty Pickle has pickle juice, soda.

We're also gonna garnish it with a red cherry licorice because it looks cool, we'll get to more of that in a second, and then also a little pickle slice.

So we like the red licorice thing, because you know what?

It's a good stirrer for the drink, but also it's something cute about seeing someone you like across the plane, they have a little bite of that.

You know what I mean?

If you get my drift.

Let's take a sip of this bad boy or girl.

It's rock and roll, it's gender free, baby.

But this drink, off the charts.

(gentle guitar music) When you're supporting musicians, man, at open mic night or just at the club, remember, a lot of this stuff comes from the South, a lot of the style of music, whether it's hip hop in the dirty south, you got that country rock, southern rock, all that stuff.

The South has a lot to it.

And what we're making now, man, is hush-your-mouth hush puppies, y'all, a classic hush puppy to really have in your hand while you're rocking and rolling.

You got one hand up like this while you're rocking your people out.

But the key to it though is usually a killer dipping sauce.

This dipping sauce is a honey mustard sauce unlike any other, y'all.

It's like when you see one person that just shreds a guitar right up and you know you're never gonna hear something like that again, that's how good this sauce is.

And I ain't lying about that.

Every time I've made this, someone's been like, "Yo, where'd you buy this?

Where's this from?

This is great," because it's that good.

So we start with a whole mess of mayonnaise, I go as much as a cup sometimes.

It's honey mustard, so we got a whole mess of honey too, super tough but sweet at the same time.

So I just put in some Dijon mustard, some regular classic yellow mustard, about the same amounts, and then some lemon juice.

And I just keep stirring this thing up until it's really, really, really evenly mixed.

Just like you're recording an album, you want to have the best remastered mix you can.

Then we put it in the fridge for at least 10 minutes.

Batter up, y'all.

Time to make this awesome hush puppy batter.

Now hush puppies have a special place in my heart, 'cause the first time I had one, it did not go well.

My dad and I went hiking in the Adirondack Mountains.

It was pretty cool.

On the way back, went to a restaurant, had some hush puppies, and they did not sit well with me.

So ever since then, when I have hush puppies, my first thought is these aren't gonna be good.

So I made sure these are gonna rock.

It starts out with our dry mix.

We've got a bunch of cornmeal and then also all-purpose flour.

We've got some smoked paprika, which I love, a little bit of baking soda.

Now, the baking soda and baking powder, they're both going in here, more baking powder than baking soda, allows it to get some aeration in it as the carbonation releases as it's frying.

So it creates that fluffiness you want.

Also some Parmesan cheese, really finely grated, good parm cheese, and then some granulated garlic.

These are our dry ingredients, so I'm gonna whisk those things together first.

(whisking tapping) Now our wet mix, this is important.

We're gonna first start with one egg, and we're gonna lightly beat this.

Don't beat it too much, right?

There's some things you can beat enough, but not too much, right, like rented mules.

Then buttermilk.

(liquid sloshing) Buttermilk is a killer ingredient here, important in the wet parts of it.

We've also got finely-diced shiitake mushrooms.

As it fries, this puts more moisture into it, so we're not gonna dry these things out.

I also took a little bit, maybe a quarter of a white onion, and I shredded it on a box cheese grater.

I did the same thing with some Serrano peppers, so we've got some heat in that too, but it's not, it's more peppery than heat.

So for me, because of all the goodness in here, and the saltiness, and the fat that's gonna happen from frying and the buttermilk, I'm gonna put a little bit of shakes of hot sauce and make sure we balance out the salt, acid, fat, and heat.

Gonna mix this wet thing together a little bit, the wet mixture.

(liquid sloshing) Put our wet mixture in, stir it around, then lightly beat it until it gets lumpy.

And then it goes right in your fridge for at least 20 minutes.

Our oil is at 350, y'all.

Get that thing frying up, but not hotter than that.

Try to make uniform sizes.

So I'm gonna try to basically, for me, put about three quarters of this thing full, and I'm gonna drop 'em into the oil.

(rock music) After three, five minutes, they're looking golden brown and perfect.

We got our trusty spider out here.

Shake 'em out.

(pan clangs) Then we hit 'em with some sea salt right afterwards, right outta the fryer.

Let 'em sit and cool off for a couple minutes.

Hit it a little parsley, 'cause that always looks cool.

When they're done right, you break it in half, you're gonna see the dough is cooked, perfectly crispy on the outside.

That honey mustard, mm.

Get these hush puppies in your mouth.

(reverberating guitar music) Whether you're learning to cook or support some artists, or do anything, y'all, we're about an immersive experience, hands on, roll up the sleeves, getting them hands and fingers dirty.

We're gonna use those fingers today with our guy Shaggy.

(electric guitar music) He's here to teach us how to use the guitar and really appreciate music.

If you wanna listen to it, know how the thing works, y'all.

- What's up?

- You know I love partying, going to concerts.

When I was a kid, I played the violin a little bit.

But man, show me the guitar, dude.

- Well, welcome to backstage, and this is where the fun happens- - Hell yeah.

- And the pain.

- And the pain, baby.

- Okay, so we're gonna do the blues today.

- Let's go.

- I got the blues.

(chef imitates guitar chords) Yeah, exactly.

And so we're only gonna work on two fingers.

- Okay.

I like two fingers.

- First fingers, second finger.

- Okay.

- Third finger.

- Yeah.

- Fourth finger.

- Okay.

- So we're gonna use first finger and third finger.

- Okay.

(Shaggy yells) - It's almost rock and roll.

- Almost rock and roll.

- Okay, and we're gonna do two strings, the one that's closest to your head and the next one, the top two strings.

(guitar strings strumming) Good.

Okay, so.

One finger in the air.

- One finger, yeah.

- Like you just don't care.

- Yeah.

- And then we're gonna put that on the second fret in, one, two.

- One.

- Yep.

And then, yeah.

- Okay.

- And then that string right there.

- Okay.

(guitar strings strumming) - Then stop when I stop.

I just taught you how to stop at the end of a song in a band.

- Yeah, okay.

- You gotta stop together, baby.

- Let's do it again.

- All right.

- Okay.

- Ready?

Yeah.

All right, I'm just messing with you.

- All right, all right.

- Okay, so let's- - I need it.

- Let's do some more new stuff.

- Yeah, babe.

- So we're gonna take our third finger, one, two, three.

- Yep.

- Then we're gonna split it.

Yeah, leave one fret in between that.

That's good how that fits your hand like that.

And then it's the same exact string.

- Ah.

I think my fingers might be too short, dude.

- No, they work.

We do this with kids all the time.

- Okay.

(laughs) - Okay, let's try strumming that one.

- Okay.

(guitar strings strumming) - I can feel you trying to do a blues riff already.

- Yeah, dude, I'm feeling it in my veins.

- If you can learn all of this, at the end of the lesson, I promise we'll do the blues riff.

- All right.

Okay.

- We're gonna try it all together.

It's not gonna be pretty at first, maybe we just power through it.

- Okay.

- Okay, ready?

- Yep.

- Go.

♪ One and two (guitar strings strumming) You're so close.

Doesn't have to be perfect every time.

♪ And two and one and two and one ♪ I think you're ready.

Here's our final finished product.

- Let's do it, babe.

(Shaggy exhales) - Take a deep breath.

- Okay.

- Okay, here we go.

♪ One and two (guitar strings strumming) ♪ And three and four ♪ Two and off then on ♪ And off then on and off One more time.

♪ Off on Ready?

- Yep.

I got the blues.

- Big ending.

(guitar strings strumming rapidly) - Nice.

Perfect.

- Yes!

Love it.

- Perfect for a first lesson.

- Awesome, dog.

- You did great.

Welcome to rock and roll, baby.

- Thanks, bro.

(rock music) - You wanna rock and roll and make a great protein for that, y'all?

Catfish burritos, baby.

Burritos, rock and roll, catfish, rock and roll.

Now the catfish, one of my favorite fishes to work with, fries well, roasts well, we're gonna do that today.

Does everything, it grills well, it's just awesome.

And people give catfish a hard time 'cause they call 'em bottom feeders.

And that ain't cool, man.

A lot of things come up from the bottom.

A lot of musicians, a lot of artists, a lot of craters come up from the bottom.

Oscar Wilde said, "We're all in the gutter.

It's those that look at the stars that go forward."

And that's what we're looking to do today, baby.

And this burrito is catfish and power forward.

And it starts with a baller marinade.

We got a bunch of olive oil.

I'm making a cilantro lime marinade with some garlic.

I'm not gonna throw the jar-lic.

So I got a whole bunch of olive oil in here.

I'm gonna put in a bunch of jar-lic I'm using today, 'cause I want some of that oil that's in there.

I have the juice of three fresh limes, a whole mess of cilantro, some cumin for an earthy flavor, or cue-min, but it's koo-min.

And then also for the heat, some chili powder.

We're gonna mix that together and then pour that over our beautiful catfish.

Now here's the deal when you're marinating fish.

I love to take things like chicken, if I'm frying chicken up, get a buttermilk marinade, I do that overnight.

However, with fish, when you are gonna use something like lime juice in fish, do not do that longer than an hour.

It'll start to degrade the flesh of the fish.

Like when you make ceviche, ceviche is not raw.

Ceviche actually has a chemical reaction where the lime, the citric acid, impacts the muscle flesh and partially cooks it.

So that's why this should go no longer than an hour.

So one hour, then we're gonna roast it in a 400-degree oven for 19 minutes.

Time to build these burritos, y'all.

And the catfish out of the oven, look at this beauty.

Man, wish you could smell it.

It is fantastic.

Let's build this thing out though.

We've gotta a burrito and you gotta watch me carefully as I fold this because folding is not my strong suit.

When I was in college, I got a summer job that was awesome at The Gap, met a lot of cool people, if you get my drift.

But the one thing, problem I had was good with customers, not good at folding.

The first thing we're gonna layer on this though, every burrito should have at least two ingredients, one of which is rice.

This is long-grain white rice we just made with amber beer, Cajun seasoning, and butter.

So we got a layer of rice.

In addition to all that rice, the other key ingredient to burritos, to me, are beans.

And these beans are stewed black-eyed peas, 'cause I feel like they don't get enough love in the world.

I just took these with some chicken broth, a couple bay leaves, some garlic, some onion, a little bit of beer, and stewed them for about an hour.

Now comes the star, of course, the fish.

I'm gonna break out and flake a little bit, so we've got some bites in there and it's flaking out just the way a catfish should.

And you can tell when your catfish is done, there's three ways to tell, there are three key things.

One, it flakes like this, so it's still moist in there.

That's number one.

Number two, you feel like it's got some darkened crust on there.

And number three, it's not meowing anymore.

Layer that on top of our other protein, the beans.

We also got some pickled onions.

I love these in almost anything where you're having like a protein, you want a cold topping to it.

Pickled onions, sliced thin.

Then we heat it up on a stove top, white vinegar, little bit of water, apple cider vinegar, sugar, honey.

We also put a little garlic in there, some green onions.

So we've got our pickled onions on there.

We've also got Monterey jack cheese, y'all.

Rock and roll, California style.

Then we got that garlic lime sour cream.

I'm gonna put a little dollop on there.

Okay.

To set this thing off right, we also have sweet chili tortilla chips.

This provides more crunch and texture, and then another layer of flavor too.

But as Alex taught me too, you wanna break 'em up because you don't want to have the pointy end, like this, break through the end of the tortilla.

After a couple tries, I got it semi looking good.

Now we're gonna heat it up on a flat top, get some sear on it, babe.

(upbeat music) Burrito crisped on both sides, feeling good about it, a nice angle cut.

And that's what I'm talking about.

Look at that.

This is a great looking burrito.

I'm about to take a great bite.

And Alex has a great business idea for the funk.

I really can't share with you, but I'll give you a hint.

We're gonna be slinging these babies all across the country.

Catch one as I'm catching the vibes, as we're checking out our band, y'all.

We can't wait to see these dudes.

(feel good music) If you're gonna support some hard rockers, and that's what these guys do is play hard rock, you need to go hard on dessert, y'all.

So we're going bananas, baby, B-A-N-A-N-A-S on this thing.

It's important, right?

Banana pudding is an American classic, and we're putting a whole mess of rock and roll into this thing.

The first thing we've got though in this mixture is two cups of ice-cold milk.

We've got one package of instant vanilla pudding mix.

(packaging rustling) And then we're gonna whisk this for two minutes straight, straight for two minutes.

We've also got a can of condensed milk, which as a dessert, it's a flavor in general that I think is absolutely magical.

I got some pure vanilla extract, also got some honey.

(whisk scraping) Now, one of our two secret ingredients for this, over the classic version, is brandy.

So I'll put like a tablespoon or so of brandy in there.

All right, now to thicken this up a little bit, we've got one and a half containers of frozen whipped topping.

I let it sit out for a couple minutes, but only a couple minutes.

Using a big old spoon, I'm gonna mix that together 'til I can get that as mixed as possible.

After we mix it evenly, we put it in the fridge for at least 20 minutes, it can go overnight.

Now it's thicker and that's important.

And you can't have banana pudding without bananas.

And then we're gonna cut 'em into slices, as thick as you like.

(knife tapping) So how we're gonna make it is a single serving.

I got a whiskey glass.

You can also use the little plastic liquor glasses too.

Those work well, we might use that at the party.

But we start with this.

You can use larger containers too.

But how this thing works out (packaging rustling) is in layers.

So we have vanilla wafer cookies that we've pulverized.

So we're gonna make a layer of that at the bottom.

Put our fingers or whatever you want in there, a spoon, and kind of make like you're making mashed potatoes, like a hole in the center.

We're also gonna put in some crushed cashews, our other secret weapon in this, because cashews go incredible with vanilla, but definitely with banana.

Then a layer of bananas.

We wanna press the bananas down a little bit so we can create a barrier to try to prevent it all looking like one same color down the side.

But if that's how it ends up anyways, that's okay.

We add in a layer of the pudding itself.

And then repeat the process.

Banana pudding, that's what's up, Puddin.

I cannot wait.

This is three of my favorite things, well, four, cashews, vanilla, bananas, and booze.

This dessert rocks, and so does this party baby, so does the band too.

(percussive rock music) - Your show is all about love and friendship.

- You know it.

- And hanging out with your people and being good people.

- Hell yeah.

- At the same time, right?

- You know this.

- And I love your whole concept, man.

And I'm very glad to have met you.

- You too, babe.

- I'm super happy that you support my bands for a lot of years.

- Yeah, man.

- And I'm really happy to support you.

- Yeah, we appreciate you, man, big time.

- I appreciate you too, brother.

So I was thinking, what can I do to repay this cat for all the nice honors that you've thrown at me?

So we wrote you an anthem.

- What?

- Yeah, man.

Well, you're nationwide, brother.

- Rockin', dude.

- So we're not messing around here.

- Hell yeah.

(person laughs) - So I know you love The Offspring.

- Yeah, baby, punk rock.

- That's right, so I threw something down here that's kind of on that vein.

- Yes, dude.

- So got some little words here to kinda go with your show.

- Yeah, baby, let's hear it.

- So gonna I'm lay it on you.

- Let's do it - And my boys are gonna jump in here.

(chef grunts) (punk rock music) ♪ Stir it up mix it up shake it up fry ♪ ♪ Time to give Spatchcock Funk a try ♪ ♪ Dance around twist around get with the funk ♪ ♪ Spatchcock's gonna put junk in your trunk ♪ ♪ Getting with friends creating the vibes ♪ ♪ Rocking with Spatchcock will better our lives ♪ ♪ Learn to cook all them recipes ♪ ♪ You'll have the crowd on their knees ♪ ♪ Three four (punk rock music continues with guitar riff) ♪ Can you smell it ♪ Can you taste it ♪ Do you want a big chug ♪ Life is so tasty when you're watching Spatchcock Funk ♪ ♪ Life is so tasty ♪ Spatchcock Funk Spatchcock Funk ♪ ♪ Spatchcock Funk Spatchcock Funk ♪ ♪ Spatchcock Funk Spatchcock Funk ♪ ♪ Spatchcock Funk Spatchcock Funk ♪ (crowd cheering) - All the stuff we love, books, movies, albums, they were made by someone, and that someone worked their tail off just to get a shot.

So give 'em a boost, make 'em a drink, or buy 'em one, drop off lunch, man, just a kind word sometimes, tell 'em you appreciate their art.

Kind words go far.

And for most artists, they had to go far and walk a long way just to get that music heard, that art seen, and get that show on TV.

Support creativity by rallying around artists in their early stages.

Respect the grind.

And we know a little something about that grind, y'all.

It takes a lot of work to make something look cool.

If you wanna make an omelet, sometimes you gotta break a few eggs.

You wanna make a record, sometimes you gotta break a few guitars.

Give these people the break they deserve.

Refuel 'em on their mission.

Smashing success takes effort.

Be there for 'em.

(objects breaking) (object beeping) - Seriously, bro.

Is that all you got?

- My bad.

Be smashing.

(booming rock music) - Hungry for History markers from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation shares stories behind regional dishes and local food festivals, including Smith Island Cake and Spiedie Fest, available through grants for municipalities and nonprofits.

wgpfoundation.org/tv.

- Syracuse sits in the heart of New York State, with access to the Finger Lakes and the Adirondacks.

From city vibes and great local eats to live music and festivals that roll on year-round.

Four seasons for everyone.

- Liberty Tabletop has been crafting flatware in America for over 20 years, and is dedicated to supporting our community and preserving the craft of flatware manufacturing.

Liberty Tabletop.

(bright music)