Sirius XM Podcasts Hey, everyone.
It's Dan here.
And, as you may know, every summer we do an episode called Two Chefs and a Lie like two truths and a lie, where I interview three people.
I don't know anything about them.
I just know that two of them are real chefs and one of them is a liar.
And I have to try to guess and you can play along.
And we started thinking, everyone loves these episodes.
Why do we only put them out once a year?
Let's reheat one of them in January in the dead of winter.
And remember, this is a game show, and you are one of the contestants, so I want you to play along.
And I think even if you heard this one the first time, you're going to have trouble figuring it out.
Of course, if there's an episode of The Sporkful you want us to reheat, drop me a line at hello at sporkfulcom.
Tell me your first name, location, what episode you want us to reheat, and why.
All right, get ready to play.
Here we go.
Hey, Andres.
How you doing?
I'm doing well.
Good.
Here we are in the studio.
Yeah.
We're taping a show, and I have never prepared less.
Oh, wait, Dan, you don't have your prep?
I mean, I have a few random notes that you sent me.
Oh, sorry, hold on.
Oh, sorry, I forgot the prep.
Okay, here, I'll get you your prep.
One second.
Okay.
Normally my prep is like 15 pages.
Andres just handed me a piece of paper on which he wrote in Sharpie, two chefs and a lie.
Cue the music.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
This is The Sporkful.
It's not for foodies, it's for eaters.
I'm Dan Pashman.
Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people.
And for the second time in our show's history, we're turning this into a game show.
We're playing Two Chefs and a Lie.
And I am not really the host of this game.
I'm a contestant like you, dear listener.
We're going to play together.
And here's our master of ceremonies, his producer, Andres O'Hara.
So we've played this game on the show once before, Andres.
Tell folks how it works.
For sure, Dan.
So this game is sort of like two truths and a lie.
Here, we've got three chefs set up for you on Zoom.
Two are real chefs.
One is the liar.
Your job is to find the liar.
They're on Zoom, but we turned off video.
So I can't see them, just like listeners can't see them.
You're not biased by them.
Right.
But they're all here.
And your job is to figure out who are the two chefs and who is the liar.
Okay.
And what other rules are there?
So each of the chefs are going to give you a quick intro to tell you who they are.
And then you get to ask them questions.
But the rules are no Google, no internet, no phones.
And that goes for the folks at home too.
The last rule, you only have five questions.
Oh, I forgot about that rule.
Yeah, I didn't pick the liar last time.
And so, Dan, do you think you can redeem yourself this time?
I hope so.
So this is your second time around.
Do you have any thoughts on how you're going to approach these chefs?
A lot of it just comes down to kind of gut feeling at the end.
The real challenge is that, if you try to figure out whose story seems most outlandish or most extraordinary, Mm-hmm.
That can be a pitfall because being the good producer that you are, Andres, you didn't just find me.
I'm sure the real chefs are not just any old chefs.
You found some good chefs with some good stories.
So the fact that their story may be noteworthy doesn't mean that it's not true.
I mean, that could be true.
I could have found you chefs with a good story.
I could be a good producer, but you never know.
Maybe that's the lie.
Maybe that's the lie.
I've been the liar the whole time, Ben.
Right.
So let's meet our first chef.
Take it away, Angela.
Hi, I'm Angela Fortunato.
I'm originally from Youngstown, Ohio, and I'm still in Youngstown, Ohio with my entire family.
I've been a head chef at Bubba Netta's for 12 years.
When I was in high school, I started as a busser and I worked my way up and I held almost every position.
So I have no classic training, but I was trained there.
Okay, Dan, so you've got five questions for Angela.
Tell me about the history of the name of the restaurant, Bubba Netta's.
So Bubba Netta's is their grandmother, and they call her Bubba, which actually means old woman.
So it's a really, really flattering name.
But her name was Annette, so it's Bubba Netta's.
What's the address of the restaurant?
64 Cardinal Drive.
That's Canfield, Ohio, 44406.
I don't know.
Would a real chef give the zip code?
What do you think?
I don't know.
I mean, that's, yeah.
It's a real small town, guys.
I'm proud of it.
Okay.
What is your favorite thing to cook and why?
I'm counting that as one question.
All right, all right.
Your show, Dan.
A lot of loopholes.
Yeah, yeah.
A lot of loopholes.
I come from a long line of lawyers.
Okay.
My favorite thing to cook is brajol.
I grew up going to the Italian Fest.
It's called the Briar Hill Fest.
That's in Youngstown with my cousins.
And they have a stand there.
And so we'd always cook brajol.
And it's like overnight.
It just brings a lot of family memories back.
And my cousin is no longer with us.
So it's very special to me to cook that.
And I actually was able to put that on our menu at Babaneta's.
Explain to me in detail how you cook the brajol.
So you can use pounded beef filet.
We use that good old-fashioned skirt steak, baby.
And we pound it really, really thin.
And then we stuff it with...
Cheese, parsley, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil.
We rub that all on it.
And then we now put Italian greens inside of it as well.
But we put that in and we roll it together and we tie it up and we put it in our homemade sauce.
I can't give you the detail about that.
We just simmer it for a very long time overnight, and there was a lot of black velvet drank while we're cooking it, and then we put it in a— Wait, this is a quick sidebar.
This doesn't count as a question.
What's black velvet?
It's a whiskey.
Okay.
You've got to come to have a bonfire.
We just pass around a bottle of it.
While making the brajol?
Yeah, ooh.
No, I'm saying you have to come to my house for a bonfire and be nice and Midwestern, and inviting you to my home.
Oh, that's very nice.
Got it, got it.
Okay, thank you.
The cynical New Yorker couldn't believe it.
Right, right.
Yeah, I'm so sorry.
A lot of red flags being kind, I guess.
No, but we just, and we, and we just, and so we simmer that overnight.
And then we actually, we don't put it in like a fork and knife dish.
We put it in a hoagie.
That was all very believable.
Last question, Dan.
All right, here we go.
One more question.
Why haven't you gone to another restaurant, Angela?
My entire family lives in a 15 mile radius of my house.
And I don't want to be the monster of the family that leaves, because one of my siblings left and they are very frowned upon.
And I mean, they taught me everything I know.
When I got hired, the woman, her name is Phyllis Olin.
She works the front of the house.
She was like I, like people that have never worked anywhere else, because I get to train them exactly as I can be.
And so call it Stockholm Syndrome, but I really like where I work.
And wait, your brother who left, where did he move?
Like Cleveland?
No, it was my sister.
And unfortunately, she moved to Cleveland, but now she's in Charleston, South Carolina.
Okay, that's a whole other place.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's a whole other state.
Angela, thank you very much.
If your restaurant actually exists, it sounds fantastic, and I would love to eat there sometime.
Well, thank you for having me.
All right, Dan, those are your five questions for Angela.
How do you feel about your strategy after talking to our first chef?
I think it was okay.
I think the questions when you ask someone sort of about like a story or how they feel that stuff's kind of easy to fudge.
I think I should be asking a little bit more pointed detail type questions.
We got into a couple, the recipe for the brajol.
I just think that the whole story just seemed— believable to me, and the family details and being at this restaurant, it's just like you know it.
Just I would rate that one as pretty credible.
So let's go with chef number two.
My name is Jihae Kim.
I am a chef in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
My restaurant is called Miss Kim.
It's part of Zingerman's Community of Businesses.
Zingerman's, the famous Ann Arbor Deli, and that's also a restaurant group, is that right?
Yes.
Got it.
Go on.
I was born and raised in Seoul, Korea.
My mother was an excellent cook and still is.
Gosh, she's not passed away.
And I emigrated to New Jersey and I ended up in Michigan because I went to University of Michigan.
My food is inspired by Midwestern Michigan produce and ancient Korean cookbooks.
Hi, Ji-Hye, first of all.
Hi.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you, too.
Describe to me a dish you make that you think brings together ancient Korean recipes and Midwestern Michigan produce, especially well.
We have this dish called tteokbokki.
It's sautéed rice cakes.
We do several different versions, but the version that I think that brings the ancient traditions better is the royal style.
This is a sautéed rice cakes dish that originated from the palace and has many luxurious ingredients like mushrooms and vegetables, vegetables and eggs and different kind of meat.
And then it slowly evolves into braised, like spicy rice cakes that you see everywhere in Korea without those ingredients.
So at the restaurant we use Michigan mushrooms beets, sometimes asparagus, if asparagus is in season.
And we saute that traditional way, with soy sauce-based sauce rather than gochujang-based sauce, which is chili paste.
And then we serve it as vegetarian.
And I think that has become one of our most popular dishes on the menu.
I love ddeokbokki, first of all.
It's so good.
What is the secret to keeping it crispy even after it has been added to a sauce or broth?
That's question two.
Our version is sauteed really quickly with not that much sauce.
The sauce is intensely flavored, but it's not sitting in sauce and it's sauteed pretty hard.
So it's crispy on the outside and chewy and textural interest is still there.
So it stays crispy without the sauce.
I mean, it's a Hall of Fame food, dakboki, the rice cakes, crispy on the outside.
But usually when I've had it, I've had it in a stew and it does still manage to maintain crisp even being in a broth, which to me is part of its magic and something that I love about it, because you don't usually get crispy components inside the liquid of a stew.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you know, rice cakes are made 100% with rice flour rather than wheat flour.
It holds its texture a little better.
Right, right.
Right.
All right.
I'm just chatting here, Andres.
Just chatting.
Sure, yeah.
I didn't hear a question mark, so I let it slide, you know?
What's the address of your restaurant?
Are you going to ask this to every single chef?
Just checking.
It's 415 North 5th Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
No zip code.
No zip code.
Suspicious.
I'm going to mess with you a little bit.
All right, all right.
Who was the starting quarterback for the Michigan Wolverines last year?
Oh, I have no idea.
I don't follow sports but I do follow the dates because it does impact the business of the restaurant.
I think the last quarterback I know is Tom Brady from like 20 years ago.
Okay.
Of course it's okay to not be a sports fan, but I mean in Ann Arbor Michigan, home of the University of Michigan, it's a college town.
I would think, even if you're not that into it, you would just, through osmosis, pick up a few basic bits of information.
I'm going to risk it.
I'm going to take another question on the same vein.
Who are the Michigan Wolverines arch rivals?
Oh, Ohio and Wisconsin.
I don't know the team names.
Ohio?
Yeah, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Dan's looking a little disappointed.
He's writing.
Okay.
All right, so that's four questions in.
One question left.
I'm just confirming a fact here.
All right.
You said that your restaurant is connected to Zingerman's, the famous deli in Ann Arbor?
Yes.
Okay.
What is your favorite menu item at Zingerman's, not counting your restaurant, and why?
Oh, are we talking sandwiches or the entire product line?
Entire product line.
Okay.
The entire product line, Zingerman's Bakehouse have this bread called Country Mish.
They use locally milled grains and it's super crusty and the crumbs, the crumb is still soft.
It's the best bread in the country.
You could have Googled that, but okay.
Or did I?
Okay.
All right, Jihei, well, thank you so much for joining us.
And it was lovely to speak with you.
And if your restaurant exists, I would love to come there sometime.
Come on by.
Thank you.
All right, Dan, that was Ji-Hye Kim.
And you kind of tweaked your strategy a little bit.
You even did two questions about sports when you knew she wasn't a sports fan.
Did that tell you anything?
Was there anything?
As I said, I feel that in a major college town like Ann Arbor, Michigan—
Even if you're not much of a fan, you should have some – like just from talking to people coming to your restaurant.
You know from chatting with your neighbors in town you're going to pick up information, even if you don't really care.
So that's why I didn't ask complicated hardcore questions, just very basics like who is Michigan's rival?
Mm-hmm.
And she said Ohio and Wisconsin.
So that's not a great answer on two fronts.
First of all, it's Ohio State, which is not the same as Ohio.
And, I mean, you've got to know that.
And Wisconsin is, I guess, kind of a rival.
Michigan, Ohio State is one of the—it's like the Yankees and the Red Sox, the Dodgers and the Giants, Duke and North Carolina and college basketball.
It's one of the classic sports rivalries in America.
Uh-huh.
So—
The fact that she didn't know that right off the top of her head.
You know, like you don't need to be a sports fan to know that if you're living in the heart of it.
She also didn't give me a zip code.
Ooh, didn't give you a zip.
Okay, Dan, time to take a quick break.
When we come back, we've got our last chef and then the big reveal.
Who are the chefs?
Who is the liar?
Stick around.
Welcome back to another Sporkful Reheat.
I'm Dan Pashman.
Want to watch me walking my dog while ranting about some food-related issue that's on my mind?
Want to see what I'm cooking?
Want to see what I'm eating?
The best way to do that is to follow me on Instagram.
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There's a lot of fun to be had.
So please follow me on Instagram at the Sporkful.
Again, that's at the Sporkful.
Thanks.
Okay, back to the show.
And Andres, I turn things back over to you.
All right, Dan, welcome back to Two Chefs and a Lie.
We're talking to three chefs here on Zoom.
Two are real chefs and one is a liar.
Your job is to figure out who's the liar.
Dan, we've got only one chef left to go.
Five questions.
Are you ready?
I'm ready.
Hey, everybody.
My name is Shanti Yen.
I am calling from Canada's capital city in Ottawa.
And I've been cooking for about 20 years.
And I'm currently the chef to the prime minister.
What?
Oh, man.
Major curveball here.
See, this is like, on one hand, that sounds ridiculous.
But it also, like, you know...
Could be the kind of thing that you Andres would have been like.
I'm going to get the chef of the prime minister on the line.
And you can't make those things up.
Or can you?
Or can you?
Oh, man.
All right.
OK, this is intense.
All right.
So let's just recap the facts.
This isn't a question.
So Shanti, hi, nice to meet you.
Hey, nice to meet you.
You're from Ottawa.
I am currently residing in Ottawa.
I was born and raised in Windsor, Ontario.
And yeah, I've been cooking for about 20 years.
And you are now the chef to the prime minister of Canada.
Correct.
Who is Justin Trudeau.
Yes.
So Shanti, sorry, I interrupted you, but go on with your intro, please.
So I've been cooking in Michelin star restaurants.
I've cooked across the country and I'm also writing a cookbook.
Well, congratulations, if that's true.
I guess we'll have to find out.
Right.
Okay.
So, hmm.
You don't even understand that I'm smiling so hard right now.
I mean, this is a lot of questions rushing through my mind right now.
Okay.
Okay.
Let me think.
Tell me the story of getting this job that you have as the chef to the prime minister of Canada.
All right.
So I was in Montreal about to make a move to Vancouver, which is where my partner is from.
And I was outside and I received a phone call from an unknown number offering me a job to be the personal chef to the prime minister.
And I thought it was one of my friends making a joke.
So I entertained it and I accepted it.
And then a couple of months later, it came to fruition and I am now the chef of the prime minister.
Okay.
Okay.
Question two.
So you accepted the job, not knowing whether the offer was actually real?
Yes.
That's right.
It was a long process, but I ended up passing the criminal record checks for some reason.
And here I am.
What kind of socks was Justin Trudeau wearing yesterday?
Oh, I have no clue.
I would have to ask a housekeeper, I guess.
Doesn't even know the color of the socks.
That was a waste of a question.
Or was it?
Isn't he famous for wacky socks?
That's definitely what he's famous for.
Yeah.
All right.
All right.
So that's three questions down, huh?
Two to go.
Okay.
Okay.
We got to get serious here.
Ask him a sports question.
All right, Shanti, I'm going to say the name of another world leader.
And I want you to tell me what you cooked for this person when they came to Canada for a state dinner.
Isn't that like wrong?
Isn't that like against confidentiality?
Are you not supposed to say?
I wouldn't be able to.
I don't believe.
Really?
You can't say what you serve?
Mm-mm.
Oh.
I don't know if that's believable or suspicious.
It's too good to be true.
Yeah, that seems like an easy out, Shanti.
Yeah.
Can you tell me about some meal that you cooked in your job without referencing who it was for?
Absolutely.
So I made...
Details, please.
I made a blueberry cheesecake for an actor.
And that actor is vegan in Vancouver.
Vegan only in Vancouver.
And it was a very home-style blueberry pie with rock sugar topping.
How many questions have I used so far, Andres?
That's four questions.
That's...
I'm going to stick with the strategy that I had last time, which is to go deeper when I sense weakness.
All right.
I want to hear more about this blueberry cheesecake because how is it vegan?
And tell me more than just you put rock sugar on it.
Absolutely.
So it is a patch case, but made with vegan butter.
And it sounded like made up words.
And it was wild blueberry season in Vancouver.
So the blueberries were cooked down and tossed in cornstarch slurry and then crusted with a bit of rock salt, topped with smoked whipped cream.
Smoked whipped cream.
I mean, that sounds delicious.
It sounds like something that only a real chef, or someone pretending to be a real chef, would think of.
Those are the two categories.
Yeah.
All right, Dan, those are your five questions.
Shanti, thank you so much.
Thank you, Shanti.
Thank you.
So just to recap, we've got two chefs and a liar.
Angela Fortunato, whose restaurant Babanetas is in Ohio.
We've got Jihei Kim, the owner of Miss Kim's in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
And we've got Shanti Yen, personal chef to Justin Trudeau.
And just for a little twist, now I want each of our chefs to tell me who they think the liar is.
And we're going to tally it up.
Angela, who do you think the liar is?
Jihei.
All right.
Angela thinks Jihei is the liar.
Jihei, who do you think the liar is?
I think Angela.
Yeah.
Angela, ooh.
I don't know if she really thinks that of those retributions, but either way we can't think each other out.
All right.
All right, last one.
Shanti, who do you think the liar is?
I think it's Angela.
Angela, okay.
All right, we've got two for Angela, one for Jihei, none for Shanti, who is the personal chef to Justin Trudeau but doesn't know what socks he wears.
So Dan, after listening to these three stories, how are you approaching who you think the liar is?
A lot of it's just sort of a combination of gut and how they handle details.
Angela's story just sort of felt very kind of complete.
It was very simple.
It's strange to me.
I've never heard of a chef being in the same restaurant for that long from the time they started.
I'm sure it's happened.
Yeah.
But, like, you know, it's not the most stable career.
Like, usually you're bouncing around a little bit.
So that makes me a little bit suspicious, but still, like, it just—
She knew the address and the zip code right away.
Yeah.
It just felt very like kind of self-contained.
Yeah.
There was nothing that was a red flag.
Gee, hey, there's part of me that feels like I've heard of a place called Miss Kim's in Ann Arbor.
But, you know, I can't be sure.
Her not knowing that Michigan's arch rival is Ohio State.
Very suspicious.
Yes.
And then there's Shanti, who felt like he didn't have specific answers to much of anything.
Huh.
And is that because he's the liar or he's bound by state secrets?
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
It just felt like everything I asked him, he wanted to give the shortest possible answer.
Yeah.
And only when he was pressed did he reveal a little bit more.
Yeah.
In my experience, most chefs, if you ask them, how'd you make that dish?
They're going to tell you in a lot of detail how they made that dish.
Yeah.
All right.
And when I asked Shanti to talk about the blueberry cheesecake, he was like, hey, blueberries and rock sugar.
That's not a very chef-y description of a thing that you made.
Okay Dan, I want to give you and our listeners a moment to compose your thoughts and to figure out who you think the liar is.
Now it's time to tell us who you think are the chefs and who you think is the liar.
Who do you think the liar is, Dan?
After much consideration and deliberation, I think the liar is Shanti, the supposed chef to the prime minister of Canada.
Now, if the real liar can come forward and tell us a little bit about themselves.
Hi, I'm Emily Pendergast.
Oh, man.
I'm sorry.
It's Angela from Youngstown, Ohio.
Have you ever even been to Youngstown?
I have.
That's where I'm from.
And I'm the daughter that my family is now disowned because I moved to California.
Oh, so there's a kernel of truth in it.
Oh, there is some truth in it.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
G. Hey, I'm so sorry.
I feel awful saying that you were the liar.
I've been a sweaty mess over here.
Yeah, my name is Emily Pendergast.
I am an improv comedian at Groundlings.
One of the best.
And I started, it's the most fun, but I will tell you, I have 9,000 tabs open here.
And I have like screenshots of like say, food temperatures, because i was like, what is he gonna ask me?
Wow, that is impressive.
That's um thanks.
Well emily, you got me, you definitely got me.
I'm so happy, i'm so.
I've never been so happy to fool someone.
Is there like do you have any connection to like bubba netta?
Is that a real person?
Bubba was my grandmother.
Her name was Vicky Fortunato, but we called her Bubba.
And we are very Italian.
And like the whole Briar Hill, like the Brazil thing was real because I was like oh, I can pull from this.
I know what this is.
Right.
Right.
Smart.
Yeah.
And but yeah.
And I oh, man, when those Ann Arbor questions started happening, I was like, this is my.
Well, you did a great job, Emily.
Thank you.
I want to chat briefly with Jihei and Shanti.
Jihei.
Yes.
It's Ohio State.
OK, that's the right.
That's Michigan's right.
Just so you know, you don't have to care about sports if you don't want to.
You can like what you like.
But I'm just telling you, if you're chatting with customers and you want to make friends and have them come back, just be like yeah, Ohio State, they suck.
Ohio, Ohio State.
And how did you feel when Dan assumed that you were lying because you didn't know these sport facts?
Well, I didn't think it was going to come from sports trivia.
Yeah, I'm trying to keep you on your toes.
So Shanti, I'm sorry that I accused you of being a liar.
So you're actually the chef to the prime minister?
Yes, I am.
It's true that there is a lot that you can't say about the food, right?
Absolutely, yes.
Right.
You can't be like oh, Angela Merkel is allergic to pine nuts, because then someone's going to slipper some pine nuts and you know, half the Western world will go down.
Yes, absolutely.
I'm here to protect people.
Okay, good, good.
All right.
And do you actually not know what socks he wears or is that part of the nondisclosure agreement?
Oh, I do know some of the collection.
I told you the socks.
He knows about the socks.
He knows about the socks.
Yeah.
Well, I'm 0 for 2 at this game.
0 for 2.
My thanks to our MC for Two Chefs and a Lie Sporkful producer, Andres O'Hara, and to you, our listeners at home, for playing along.
This was fun.
Let's do this again next summer.
I think we should do this every year.
Also, a big thanks to our two chefs.
Jihae Kim is the chef and owner of Ms.
Kim's in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
She was a semifinalist in this year's James Beard Award and was named one of Food & Wine Magazine's Best New Chefs.
I thought I had heard of her.
I thought I had heard of that restaurant.
Next time I'm in Ann Arbor, I'm going to Ms.
Kim's.
Shanti Yen is, in fact, the chef to the prime minister of Canada.
He also has a restaurant in Vancouver called Nightshade.
And he's writing a cookbook called Recipes by Ye.
No affiliation with Kanye.
Ye was his grandmother's name.
That's coming out in 2024.
Finally, thanks to our improv comic, Emily Pendergast.
You can see her on the show live and local on the streaming platform Pure Flix.
And she's in the film Out of Office, which comes out later this summer.
This show is produced by me along with senior producer Emma Morgenstern and producer Andres O'Hara.
Our editor is Tracy Samuelson.
Our engineer is Jared O'Connell.
Music help from Black Label Music.
The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher.
Our executive producers are Eric Eddings and Colin Anderson.
Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
And this is Ellen Brady, from Peninsula Ohio, reminding you to eat more, eat better and eat more better.
This reheat was produced by Gianna Palmer.
The team that produces The Sporkful today includes me, along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern and senior producer Andres O'Hara.
Our engineer is Jared O'Connell.
Music help from Black Label Music.
The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts.
Our executive producer is Camille Stanley.
And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app?
Yes, the SiriusXM app.
It has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage.
Does your podcasting app have that?
Then there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more.
It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one.
And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXMcom slash Sporkful.
Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
