Comcastrodors, please welcome Atlanta food blogger Krista Miller, a close friend from way back who has risen as a voice of local cuisine and its intrinsic tie to Atlanta culture and politics. Krista is Director of Content Marketing & Strategy at Atlanta Eats, an Atlanta Journal Constitution food blog developed around Steak Shapiro’s weekly 30-minute television program devoted to sharing engaging, entertaining, and informative local food content with the inside scoop on Atlanta’s restaurant scene.
Maximüs Groves and guest host Matthew Queen talk to Krista about where to eat in Atlanta and think back to the “good” ole days. After some healthy debate and charity plugs, Krista breaks it all down for us from the extreme challenges of opening a restaurant, how food establishes the community, and what the Atlanta food community has that no one else can claim.
See more from Krista at http://www.atlantaeats.com.
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I’m good evening Internet Day dot com Castro Viva la to lose eon and his Maximus grow new queen this is the interview softball on comparison but we’re so glad to have welcomed our good old friend Crystal Miller of Atlanta to come talk about Atlanta. There may be no one who knows more about Atlanta restaurants and presto if you’ve ever eaten. If you have a date night if you like food at all man this can be the best podcast for you if you have a stomach. If you have a tongue or any of the tricks and he was Chris is wonderful you know like it was really a great story and he’s so good John Oliver represents everything that like I mean he really and he’s like the best journalist out there. Yeah I like it. Take what he did for the you know like engineers like that they said that. It’s America pageant was like you know that felt that was where the show like this when I saw his piece on for profit colleges. It really opened my eyes to just how sleaze they were I mean I always kind of had a suspicion I was like you know I don’t think these things are really worth the money. But then we see how they prey upon disabled veterans to just make sure they get more student loan checks. Well it’s almost as if The Daily Show is like boot camp. He gets to see everything he hates and he just keeps Alyson’s pockets like this I hate this i hate this seems like what we got a whole week to hate. Yeah like puppets. John I like The Daily Show is like the Army’s Boosh and then John Oliver the entree here it goes in there and really like Butters the cow in the cook’s mistake I love I love where we’re talking straight to food metaphors. I speak nothing which is the perfect way. Our our good friend Krista Miller liason com Castro welcomed me as well as we’re now becoming sort of a de facto food. It’s my life and there is a really great quote by God I can’t remember who but that basically says restaurants are the theater of Atlanta you know we don’t have a you know a great sports town we don’t have a great people do you agree with our town or anything like that but we do restaurants with the restaurants really well so restaurants are really how we entertain each other how we express our you know our passions and everything like that so I really think that restaurants are the the theater that they have come organic or is it like a sort of southern hospitality as nerd form perhaps or I think it does have a lot to do with like you know with the South you know I think that when you look at cities like Charleston and Savannah and New Orleans it’s the same thing you know we all grew up like at least I did you know when I moved down to the south it was and I moved from the west so it’s like a huge a huge you know flipping of a personality but it was you know somebody got married in a casserole if somebody died they got to throw their family if you know like any time I got sick my parents would give me food. Anytime I did well they would give me food you know and if your food was that way to you know express. Any kind of notion of them that was just the way that the phone is when I feel like numbers also something to do with it. I mean Atlanta is the biggest city in the south and when you think of the top restaurant cities and we’re always going to New Orleans for that one or it isn’t. What about Charlotte they don’t have a lot of people over there. What if they’re always like that’s like the core of the island world’s forever right. We’re the biggest cultural cultural figure out of the south where the biggest city in the south and it’s just why the Saints in the Balkans hate each other which despite the horrible season we had we beat the Saints twice. Well that is the back way and the theos fans though if we go Steelers you know you’re in good company here that. So well you know we don’t think it will beat the Ravens and we’ve had a good thing no matter what we had still to my A.F.C. team a choice I mean like it’s easy because like the Falcons play in the right after that. Often on Fox you’re going to find the Steelers and so we don’t step on each other’s toes too often so can you blame and you’re not sure we’re going to want to race and so there’s a fortune with a dollop of yours that I was watching it in a really long time that had like a dollar P.B.R.. Yeah absolutely. Ten years ago I was twenty nine I had none of the time we spent sixty dollars on top of the fish tacos. OK So here’s what we did the way we say let’s go with the man is the end. But it was the spicy Manet so we pretended that it was good that you know this is Tatarstan. But it was the theater of Atlanta community that brought us together as impoverished people living in color who has been a very day right. Yeah Yeah Yeahs and I got to fancy for its own good over there. Like that whole area over of a collar and ironic the color red jacket as Collier County originals like some the most fun I ever had because I mean you could just like live in that formerly ghetto place and then just walk over to Fox and hammered on Sundays or if you were stupid like me and Max you go do the centurion challenge yet see one time I did was that we did a shot of beer every minute for hundred minutes that’s done with a pole or seated or to identify a shot to be on a pull up right hand out Dr Fox announced enough that I definitely did. Yeah I like that area over there was like the new home park. Once I did that and it was Father’s Day And like everyone was from out of town I lived in town so like a I mean I saw my dad later and it was silly. They certainly do so dad after Centurion work oh yeah yeah. Although not a lot to say them’s to class here I pick up the other talk a place right by They’re called I’m thinking time period which is amazing there had been the bob. It’s like my comfort food dish you are up in a bottle is some good stuff I don’t have time at the Koreatown rate and I was going to Korea Town and that was I mean like it was like low carb high protein it’s like and super tasty. Her you know how to eat. They’d be really really do like anybody you like especially you know like if you’re a Southerner and you say that you don’t like Korean food you just have not had Korean like I cannot honestly believe you you know they you know they have this sour any of the fried they have the space they have everything that you want at the absolutely gorgeous cream so she’s crazy critical of all that. Yes it’s not good enough I can make it better myself. OK Well I’m sure if I moved up to like New York or something and had a biscuit up there like shit I can do this so much better at home. I hear that still persist for Chinese food. Like everyone who goes on to New York recently had them your Chinese a lot about you know I mean the likes of Lady Chinese but you know we’ve gotten good buddy Chinese Atlanta where I’m like I’m going to do the show on Saturday and it that some of the best freshman cooking outside of China that you’ll get to but the biggest problem I have a Chinese is that unlike Korean food they depend or at least most restaurants depend so heavily on getting you like a half pound of rice that you don’t get tickets. So if you know it like I walk out of there I was just feeling because I’m stupid I eat everything on the plate and walked out of there just feel like a bullet. Yeah well I mean the you know that Chinese of America is a radically different thing this isn’t a shocker it’s a radical I don’t thing that any kind of Chinese that you’ll get in mainland China. But it does have like some really great cultural roots especially if you look at like San Francisco or any kind of the railroad history that we have in America. That’s when you know the Chinese immigrants came over and if you think being with Italian food like Italian America. In Food is nothing at all as like what you would get in actual like Sicily or something like they would never cook with that much garlic I never ever ever like if you went to the Sicilian went to New York. If like I think they do but they don’t cook with that much garlic. Yeah yeah I can’t stand the food exactly. You know so I I actually really love you know when other cultures become a little American I asked because it’s a really cool little cultural shift that you can watch happen. I really enjoy those kind of intersections of London getting its first chance of what outside food is like a fun thing to do and sort of it’s like like if you went to if you went to Italy and you wanted Chinese food it would be a completely different experience than if you went to if you went downtown and here and got Chinese food because they because it’s an immigrant you know business owner or restaurant or you want to please your customers so you kind of bring in a little bit of their influence. So I’ve always found it just really there’s a really great documentary called Finding general sell. Yeah I don’t think it’s trying to it this one is trying to trace the history of that dish you know as fantastic as when I lived in L.A. I know who is an accountant like in the Big Four accounting firm like super professional you know I was talking and I was so you know OK so you’re clearly very Chinese humans. Chong Where are you from America she’s like oh yeah my my parents are fobs which means fresh off the boat and her parents started like they couldn’t speak the language that what they do they started a restaurant and it took off that that’s the thing about it is those small little Chinese or Mexican places if they’re if they’re well managed they are of your mitt and you can make a lot of money for that. Well I was just talking about Goosby Stroud and the lovely cup. All that run it but it’s the woman’s father that cooks and he as a father you know he in fact they close down for six weeks every year in order to four to six weeks every year for him to go back to China to visit family and it’s been incredibly successful like really if it wasn’t for Guus Bistro we wouldn’t be talking about beef or highway it would not be part of our vernacular it really was kind of a you know a pillar and that and that kind of explosion of ethnic cuisine and beef or highway or it’s like the most cultural and offshoot of the land and and because of that like you know it’s an incredibly successful restaurant. They’re opening up a dumpling place and at Crown Street Market in a few months maybe next month. So yeah I mean they can be incredibly incredibly successful. One of things I liked about it. Now I hate to go back to L.A. But you’re talking about American take on food. Whenever you have so many cultures coming together. Sometimes they’re very very straightforward about it. Like when I saw a Mexican Asian fusion first I saw a food truck they had a Chinese the Chinese food burrito and it was just Mongolian beef they replaced all the normal food and it was the same thing to Susan Rice a Mongolian Beef thrown into a tortilla and it was it was glorious I mean it was like they just made like the perfect food. Yeah I mean I really wish that we would have that we could have we could that Lee and I would embrace more things like that especially like the street food culture I think that is such an amazing Ike I love any community that has a great street culture like meat on a stick over a fire on a crowded street is probably my nirvana. Have you seen a difference so like the fruit tree culture another trying to give discrete permits and licenses for misbehavior. No And I think that this street that that the feed truck thing bad thing whatever that the Detroit community. It started off not well and it never really recovered in my opinion you know food trucks food trucks should be local cheap and fast and none of those things apply to food trucks in Atlanta for the most part one of the really great things like you know we’ve got the well food truck that is absolutely incredible but it really didn’t do well and then of course the legislative barriers kind of destroyed the momentum of the trucks and I don’t really see it like really latching on to Atlanta because our short lived love passion. Well there was a short lived trying to make it work. There was everybody wanted it to happen because it is like if you have a good time it’s fantastic especially all the summer festivals and Prince. Exactly yeah I mean but you know I mean I would love it if I was in my office and I could come down and you know get a taco for like a dollar fifty and they go back at about fifty maybe often. Yes and laugh but yeah I don’t really forsee that I mean what if the lobby really wouldn’t change the regulations and say hey for the church you can just stroll on whatever you know I think that it would probably I think the wind kind of is not in the sale in the window I got taken out of every failed so would it would probably happen but in a very slow manner I’d probably be another five to seven years before you know we became a tool like a level of you know any kind of prominence when it comes to paychecks. If everything happened perfectly which nothing ever does especially in a bureaucratic So you know we should do it we should buy drones and hot dogs and have hot dogs who ever directly to you via drone until the until the we’re going to remember this. We’re going to break the law. We’re going to get so big that we’re going to start hiring lobbyists dreaming we’re going to talk it was they could do that. Distributed pretty early puppies How do you do you know I kept trying to get in line to meet with right now if you could you could have help is delivered to your office. If I don’t it you could cuddle with them and they don’t have. Yeah right. Dogs did not in fact I saw on the from the Humane Society on get them get them adopted. Aren’t there other folks who are saying I promise when you turds puppies and now the app is completely blocked and I can’t get of this and what we’re going to do it’s because they’re not going to be harmed. My my my boss is like you going to get a puppy and I was like OK everyone. Puppies everybody month we deliver ice cream tomorrow. Sometimes yeah they and they do a lot more of those like that’ll probably be things you think that will probably be back on Valentine’s Day right. As of why did that and I don’t know that everyone you know going on Friday the thirteenth that’s out the cork at my gal Friday their team that I gallon times day that’s also when she’d write about Frank Sinatra you know and that way. OK that’s perfect because like if it was found a week day like you would need that whole like self-loading management delivery from over play exactly. Thank goodness that Hollywood is providing that exact need for the release of shades of gray in fact way serviceman’s Yes really good marketing I didn’t I don’t even know they were making a movie that reality how do you know they’re making a movie that I can so I was not dialed into the community the community of the world and I don’t judge if they can back out over the whole a good bit about how angry he was at the male casting. So what I was trying not to say that Scotch on my Maker is a haircut. So yeah you work for Atlanta eats right yes I do. Are you I don’t know if I can admit that now after after that after that conversation. Yes I am the My official title is the director of digital content marketing and strategy so anything online based I am it’s me. I during social happy all the writing all of the marketing the P.R. I do other P.R. So that’s me. So are you personally a super active on Twitter. Yeah I am actually I was one of the first users my user name is at geek so I was broke out because like you know like enough to get a really cool Twitter you know there was a guy who was his name and it was him right. Yet apparently it like if you have a so I know he’s young he is it was his turn from his entire life was ransom the way to have like his personal website. Own didn’t want to steal it from him. Yes in a weird I remember I read about him and I was like crap because they apparently like the wall value simple character Twitter handles at like five five figures. Yeah. Hey if somebody wants to buy my Twitter handle. Thanks I think years. Well yes hit me and I got it right. Yeah but what exactly do you want to offer me that we can check. We can chat a bit of the war against up old wiser for the attack on craft beer. Yes I think it is bullshit because one they have been very adamant about. They’ve been very active in purchase things like buying up craft breweries. You know they they bought Blue Point out of Long Island Goose Island and now a lesion out of Seattle who has a pumpkin peach beer called George oh my my. Find which is what the what they were afraid of them a full Super Bowl and then it was very tone deaf to me. And that and the fact that one of the three owners of the lesion did not want the sale at all and they are still dealing with the fallout from it as it’s very recent. It just was incredibly It left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouth. Well I mean it’s definitely the other big boy picking on the small guy I mean boy like everyone’s already chasing after them to try and get you know a sort of the liver of the market and inferred but wasn’t even acknowledge them it’s like dude like you know you know there are many levels pretty much Budweisers IMO to leave that to somebody else. But what’s really funny is that you know craft beer at all as a whole is bigger than Budweiser So it’s you know but I mean obviously each individual there is not another brewery especially not crap especially if they want to be you know label is cracked because that is a very there is a line there you know none of them are as big. But craft beer the whole is bigger than Budweiser and it’s growing at a much higher rate. So you know if somebody makes a commercial about you then they’re obviously special the Super Bowl it’s like McDonald’s now looks like poison everybody so they need to do this thing where you love your family by coming to a doctor. Yeah well that was you didn’t have like a dead kid. How do you know is there anything else that you bring up that doesn’t live Yeah well you know who would make you know who coaxed number one customer is McDonald’s and you know who just laid off like eight hundred people coke coke and the accounts gone it is gone through really tough times. Coke is gone through really tough times in some surprise like hey you’re trying to sell sugar water to an increasingly health conscious cussed public gets can be very tough so they came up with milk. Well you know it was almost like the recycling division the closedown of Coca-Cola. Oh yeah yeah yeah like I know from. Sources very close to the situation that Coca-Cola had a very profitable brewing if you will of aluminum recycling division because aluminum you can use like one hundred percent of where we put out you get right back out there making like eight million dollars a year of just pure profit. You know I know it’s a drop in the bucket for Coca-Cola but hey eight million dollars is nice. Whenever they laid off all the people in Atlanta they just got rid of the recycling division and now they’re focusing on milk. That’s crazy but you were talking him down so it’s really funny and I just read right about this McDonald’s like their number one driver of traffic and profitability is them a cafe. Like their breakfast program is incredibly popular incredibly profitable for them. But because of that their lunch and dinner has seen a depression because people like people are going at breakfast and the like and the partnership my body. Twice a day. Yeah you think it’s like people in the morning just need like the extra calories just to survive. Yeah and it’s really the coffee it’s driving it in the cafe like their coffee sales are off the chart because people the ones they’re not going to get twice. So they’re like really trying to figure out how to how to deal with that to keep the hate flowing on McDonald’s I just want to I want to clarify something everyone for years the Senate has said the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit was bull crap because this girl like spilled coffee on her lap and she burned herself and everyone’s like you know the copies are. I’m going to end it was an older lady and if she had third degree burns on her and they had Bruno had a higher corporate clients actually it was actually a shitty thing that McDonald’s did like this woman was absolutely not a fault like to take that even a step further. McDonald’s was on notice they knew that it was two people and told them for a long time like you know you don’t need to have your coffee to the point where it will blister your skin and they refused to change anything because they I guess they just purchased. A whole bunch of skillets that made the coffee super hot you know like here roll with it you know if I don’t do it live. Yeah exactly so basically I was speaking of the book as a thing so my dad was a listening to the show and he was so humiliated with his own parenting that I curse so often that he actually said you need to start a swear jar and I will match your contributions to it perfectly like one for one for all the money you put into what you swear so. Max is that we can do that with me to please what it’s like to read a charity fund now. So where we just spent like ten minutes saying fuck you to people we dislike and giving kitchen exactly with the giving kitchen like oh yeah all this is here yeah you should be giving pitches something that’s very close to my heart so it’s more about the giving actually giving kitchen was an initiative that started a few years ago and there was a chef that worked for Chris Hall Turner name is Ryan and he developed cancer and obviously anybody’s work in the restaurant industry knows that there’s not exactly a lot of health care. Run around in there and he and his very lovely wife Jen kind of realize that you know it wasn’t just his fight it was everybody’s fight and they decided to really raise money for all the other people who you know whether it was you know there’s a fire and to make him pay rent because of that because you know they’re you know like OK Cafe burned down a few months ago a lot of people lost their jobs and they have trouble paying rent or it’s getting a terminal illness and you can’t pay your medical bills. So we’re giving kitchen gives back to the people that serve us every day. It’s an incredible incredible organization that they raised. They gave away three hundred thousand dollars in grants last year. They’ve raised three hundred thirty three thousand dollars I believe this year and you know. As arrestor nomic Oh that’s incredible. Yeah it’s amazing I mean for second third year organization they’re raising a lot of money and they’re giving it all away I mean you know there’s not an overhead cost or anything and they’re opening up a restaurant called staple House headed by Ryan Smith who is an incredible incredible chef out of Empire State South firmly out of interstate south and he and the entire every bit of profit that Sable ass is going to make it’s going to go straight to the getting kitchen stuff that’s also going to give to the moment you can be given kitchen dot org. OK go ahead and contribute. Yes they are amazing. Oh how many times a person is upset and offended over that O.L. send out a bill with their invoicing dad like to each each like curse words like have a different denomination. That’s a good question. If you say fuck it’s worth like a dollar sort of like yeah exactly. You’ve got to come up with like an actual We have to come up with one that actually if I’m zero so if I say liberals out a quarter. It is liberal a cause for your dad when he has to pay a quarter for a liberal arts pay a quarter for a night I don’t know what are you hoping you can do you consider yourself a liberal I was kind of thought he was more like a senator I would guess I’m I’m of the party of the haters. We have to organize your contrarian Exactly. We haters have organized together simply hate to throw down hay where hate is to and where it’s not. That’s Newt Gingrich to a team he was outstanding at hate and then they put him in charge and it’s like well there’s what one guy actually runs here as a sports blog called hate math Steve Spurrier because we’re going to talk every day should be Saturday. Yeah what other bloggers is it hate nasty barrier and you’re wrong and you just trash talks every college team during the season except for on Thanksgiving when it’s. Well these are and I think that when it killed me was when he said I’m thankful for Mark record give it away. Two wins every year without getting a charitable deduction current amazing with that game. Yes yes I think we’ve referenced the tech U.G.A. game everything that I do whatever was left who is not a tech you don’t understand or I’ve mentioned the whole inferiority complex in an earlier conversation from like Falcons fan ship and it feels good. It it’s February and I’m still elated that we have it in November. He thing at Atlanta shuts down from snow once every four years but Georgia Tech winning less often less frequent. It’s big time for Georgia Tech they stole the T.V. what they stole the key and if they see U.G.A. Yeah yeah. Holy shit I just put those two things together I just stole a guy from U.C.L.A. today. Yeah that’s true. Yeah but finding they hadn’t told me C.L.A. was going to use a big defensive yard at the D.M.V. for one thing. Yeah just really just just we had season tickets yesterday. There you go. Also there’s a ruling back from you Do you just jump ship. Yeah yeah yeah. Chris thought he was dropping a secret on us even though the news had already said it weeks ago vs bubble ships and yet so that’s going to look really old. Well to say we’re like months in advance of these things you know. Sorry guys we didn’t get the script and it’s OK. We don’t pride ourselves on Spooks we pride ourselves on interesting conversation finding interesting people and really get into the core of you know what makes me think about my core is tacos I have everything good a cross-section of Kristen Miller chief get changed out she’s got she’s going to go I actually prefer guacamole if I’m out at a Mexican restaurant I’ll spend whatever you want me to and walk a mile. It’s a twenty dollars for a cup. Fine whatever. I hope it’s good. So what are they going to ask the taco place and say good luck most extreme. Yeah I know I got the more I get being extra because it’s kind of hard to make the sour cream being extra as a total freakin rip. I never pay for that. Yeah F. that. Now I I actually had like a monthly meet meet up with my girls and we just we’re ladies you K. so we love case that we go to every restaurant in town that has it and I mean there’s just something about melted cheese on a fried chip that is ridiculously good. Tell me if it was Red Pepper you know it was at the time but I long ago if you want to go like a look all over those text you for some reason you know my favorite is El Rey got a taco it’s on different highway. It’s absolutely out of this well that’s an almost twenty four hours and it’s up to like twenty one hours a day attack area they have incredible like looking what happens which is tongue their tongue talkers are incredible their cheese dip it’s great memories are strong and their shrimp cocktails like the Mexican shrimp cocktail is not to be missed. What’s the name of that again. El Rey Del Taco Bell radio talk I’m literally on techs that read the L R E Y D I know how to spell great I took Spanish High School. Right but you have these are yeah what if they can no abler Ada I think it is a it’s very indicative of the area of Mexico that he cooks from in northern Mexico region and he is really great I love leveler radio there. Molé sauces really fantastic So you were saying earlier that like restaurants are basically the theater. Well absolutely. Or oh god comedy or is that this tragedy what they are. That’s that’s a tough one. I’m always like so scared somebody asked me like what my favorite restaurant is. Because it like changes so often because there are so many new places and I’m always finding a new and like and A.T.T. food person. I think when I want to just like kick back and have fun and just really enjoy myself I’m going to be for highway I you know super and pretentious I like to just go into a random place that I don’t know I can’t read the menu and just ask the maid to bring me something amazing places there are a Del Taco is definitely one of them and then you go get an amazing like Korean but massage is amazing it’s just like it you know they’re all of my favorite all of mine. The best memories of my life are over food with friends and there’s laughter and in everything so it you know Buford Highway is my comedy. You always used to work and pensions for restaurants or yes I guess I worked in restaurants I was a waitress and then a bartender for a long longer than I am. But yeah it’s just it’s a fascinating world of you know being behind the scenes in a restaurant because I remember your words insane. You were taller or bullshit. Way too much more than what you deserve. Well I mean because it was probably left bullshit than I had at work. You know when you’re a bartender and especially at a college bar and you know you you deal with a lot of shit and especially if you’re serving dollars fifty beers you know it’s a different kind of crowd. I’m not sure if I would have been able to survive in the you know thing to cilia you know kind of a world where it’s like a really nice restaurant. You know you have to make it an amazing experience from beginning to end because that’s what they’re paying for that that the surcharge on the fish is the amazing experience and I don’t think that will play happen around you know exactly I don’t think that I would have been able to sort of survive in that I was much more subtle than to saying fuck you to book. Exactly exactly. But how do you know of course I know that a lot. OK So use of Mexican is comedy and I love that metaphor by the way because it fits. What’s the romance. Because I like obviously people who think French food but we’re going to tell you I was I was going to say Italian because I think that Atlanta has opened up some really amazing places so far in the last year especially things in Philly I just mentioned it in Buckhead accord fried pork fry J.C.T. number two for six the optimist he opened it just over a year ago. It’s right across from Phipps Plaza. It’s beautiful I mean the windows are you know these like sweeping things. They hand roll the pasta downstairs on a big wooden table. Their seafood everything is just meticulous it’s beautiful the cocktails are gorgeous the people are gorgeous I mean the experience is just flawless from beginning to end and I think it’s a very romantic place. But yeah I know I think Italian is absolutely you know we’ve got that we’ve got a story of a town in Roswell number two for sex like I just said in Decatur. Speaking of speaking of rocking them earlier or trying to call like that piece of employ a little little little Italian so Giovanni you opened up into COBRA which is that mad genius when it comes to marketing and business he just he just gets it and use it. Either he’s a great guy I mean he’s he has he really is like if you if you know him and I do you know he said he’s a very enthusiastic man affair that’s a very fair way to put a very enthusiastic but he’s a fantastic cook like you know he makes no matter what you think of him like that pizza is fucking On Hold it is originally was going to be a restaurant. Yeah yeah it can be all take out and she was going to ship it and I lived in the neighborhood when they were building it. He when he was building it out somebody came in and got it the place it was supposed to open in like six months before it actually dead. You know there was a great neighborhood wasn’t you know any of that or elsewhere you know the home part. Oh yes absolutely. People look back to colleges but stay away from like wow did you live where you know you did not. Yeah I’m not I’m a lot happier in my late twenty’s and I was in my early. I don’t completely agree with that one early twenty’s but I would not even if you paid me like no way. Nobody is like developing this big you know amazing place down there you know he opened up the energy is chicken which is really great like coastal chicken comfort. It’s OP as it did that’s funny because like all those property owners just we’re going to try to expand it. That’s why no one in this went on for another property just like this I think I don’t think they’re waiting for Georgia Tech to expand so much as they know there’s some get away maybe they know that they always have a base of customers. Oh I don’t that’s very irony of looking at it because legally speaking for Georgia Tech to expand you have to do eminent domain because there’s no way you can make a contract. Hundreds of owners I was waiting for a payout either to major development or anything like that I don’t believe in waiting for anything they just they’ve been soaked for so long that like there’s just plain I don’t mean to make them I’m going I’m OK like I’m always going to go. Thirteen hundred dollars a month for the ship should all have in us and that’s the thing they don’t have to care so they don’t the buildings are so old they don’t need foundations we had one that sank deeper a few inches into the floor every year you just pile of Tolar four by four underneath that the hole the corner of the last place I lived at in one park was actually like one of the nicer places and he actually like completely refer to it as I was moving out and I met a Russian architect who currently lives there and it’s just as crazy as it sounds Russian architect he had eighteen feet left and right and as much as you want to go up and down so he creates this very big deal it’s looking beautiful home in middle of home park and he manages to capture the sun somehow as it would if you’d like that one that’s like it looks like it’s made out of steel. Yes I’ve been inside my dog ran away from my house once and when I don’t like I know it’s prettier but I walk inside and it’s stunning like I was really done inside of it was big guy who owns it. So cute is a legitimate smart go to you know dressed up cute excellent He’s just older. It’s no more like what five ten years you don’t know if the talks. Oh yeah my beautiful dog days were good at the tender Well it’s been eight years. Well yeah let’s go to a concert when I was twenty one. Them so they can park. Well it’s facing pressure from all sides to get tech on one side and they have a somewhat booming area there like at the base of like where Hemphill meets fourteenth Street because well in addition I tell you also have that large burger restaurant that just it’s like a fast food place. Yeah it just happened when you can and then you got left midtown that I just had one of the better meals I’ve had in a really long time. Wes becomes really interesting but this is the development of Northside Drive kind of like antithetical to the developer of community like the whole thing is pure like you know fast food car based kind of situations. Yeah and I and I don’t know how long that’s going to last you know I I think they got to know when the property was low because a lot of those cards that you talk about especially one of fourteen it’s like a nasty repair shop like I would never take my car there and I got a nice car and I just don’t think it looks competent. You know what I mean what that town is I mean it’s booming especially in the restaurant scene like that. I had an incredible meal at a restaurant over there called cooks and soldiers last night a Spanish Basque food that’s just out of this what they call a wood fire grill cocktails I had a cocktail is made with whiskey and maple and balsamic vinegar reduction and then you know like a whole roasted fish and they get these little like pigs in a blanket that were just like one hundred steps up. So yeah I mean I think that like between that and then you know Atlantic Station area because they are you know definitely probing a lot of the restaurants in there and a lot of the living situations I guess going to like put a lot of pressure on that area and I don’t know what sort of survival skill Molly Moore can be. Natural sort of was for what they did they changed management like it with I think station didn’t start off super right and they didn’t put any influences on local not for a lack of hype and I remember before the ten years by the way I really like that that we did it really they just they wouldn’t shut up about it was going to be the live work play and it was simply the grace that we were studying it because I remember talking about that is like urban development urban renewal gentrification was not a word yet it was still urban renewal people like this time yet and now it’s like a war zone fielder suddenly they turned into a usable area and then whenever it opened up it had like top like chain restaurants and the like. Copeland that’s got a hero she had him believe that if it’s not you take that it’s like is it Copeland’s or Cheesecake Factory. How does Copeland’s Cheesecake Factory. Oh yeah. Right right. Yet both of them and they don’t realize the same thing we’re not going to Pizza Kitchen like but now like they’re starting to like not allow those places to renew their leases places places like brown eyes stores opening up a diet or they’re going to start courses and have raised by use on Top Chef and then put in the peril if you’ve ever been on the east side the shed is one of my dearest friends in town and huge They just opened up a it’s like half Rahbar half barbecue. Yeah Robert like sushi and fish and stuff and then the barbecue so it’s called the pink in the Pearl. Really great over there. So like you know I think that they’re really trying and they’re bringing in like local like merchants and everything too so I think that it’s going to happen. I think it’s on the up swing. I don’t I hope you know I know I can I can I understand why I need J.C. Penney or Dillard’s in there because you just from only anchor stories yeah from a development standpoint you have to be like OK who’s going to pay the rent but the same time there’s a for like when you put that much state money behind opening something like that out when you put taxpayer dollars toward it it seems like you’ll be a great opportunity to sit there and create another sort of like the cab farmer’s market scenario except now you have one on the west side so people on our end of the city can sit there and go and you know have really unique food in a like from there it’s going to spawn off that whole local you know local restaurant industry could just start moving from their weekend and now that it’s ten years later I think we’re actually finally doing it right because we’ve got it and I don’t know either Gallo that group and that street market. OK up a few months ago and it is I mean it’s my favorite place to go right now because it’s you know it’s a it’s a dining hall. You know you get you have all these amazing places and I am encouraged by hot city so you can go grab a beer. A cocktail or wine and you’ve got all these amazing restaurants that you can in each person your party and grab a different dish and you go sit at a communal table and eat it and drink and everything and then you got punted a market that’s opening up in a couple of months and that’s going to have a nationally renowned James Beard Award winning restaurants like Sean Brock’s restaurants can be opening it for me in the same kind of lay out those are two really interesting examples because like in the Krug So the market whole like Kirkwood area is definitely their main focus appears to be like community development. Yeah you know it’s sort of like trying to downplay the necessity of cars. Whereas a redevelopment Pont seems to be the exact opposite right. Like the city market it’s like a giant parking lot there about you know. But they’re also on the on the beltline you know the country market is true on the beltline but also you know like the parking situation that was already there you know there they were using a pre-existing structure. Yes that was an old Sears building that had all that parking in it. That’s true so and they’re also it’s also going to be residential and business. Yeah so you know an office space sorry which Congress Street is not the street is now as then to learn things that they did not need as much discharging. Well you know like complexes going to like to cater to me oh yeah like so like it seems I know it looks like the portal model was take away everyone’s access to cars right now that I’m like actually spur them seemed like solve the problem when a method is always standing completely at odds with the illness. Yeah well I don’t even think I see any animal they had Roulston went on record talking about his kids. SIDNER saying like you know he what he basically said you know my kids use goober in taxis all the time and he lives downtown with his kids during session and he’s been finally publicly the speaker of the house. This is basically owns half of Republicans saying we need to reconsider this. Yeah it’s also nice that transportation is kind of the topic is your house this year and well and you know there’s new transportation. There’s a new head of the transportation. Well Martin are all engineers the top three people in Georgia transportation are all for the first time ever. Civil engineers if you look back on it like how did that not happen. If I literally if I could get rid of my car tonight I would I mean I hate driving specially and I said can you divorce your current lawyer because at least some people can and I’m there I am super jealous of those people. I cannot there are too many places that I have to go as part of my job that I need a car. There is no way for me to get to get from Buckhead where my office says to Decatur where I have after reviewing a meal in enough time that it’s not just a complete waste of a day you know it seems to me that if you have friends at all you need a car I mean I live in Marietta. You live downtown you live in a bucket presumably you don’t have to say that. From Lawrenceville took like if you have friends you know who live around the other there’s no way to get from here to Luther you know he you know in your closets are like places like Roswell which has an amazing restaurant scene I would love to go out there more often but I don’t want to drive forty five minutes. I’d be more than willing to be in a train for forty five minutes but I think up there and drink you know some glasses of wine and then come back and it’s just it’s not feasible it’s not it’s not something that you know anybody really wants to do. You know downtown Woodstock actually popped up. Yeah much like Marietta Square downtown Woodstock century house they have to get there and there’s some pizza place up there it’s like a local pizza joint. They trying to be like they’re they’re just upscale enough that they’re better in Friday’s but they’re not pretentious enough to dress up you know if that’s what you want for a pizza joint you know it’s like they have money they make a good deal like it’s not a cheap it’s a place to dress up for neither would I and they made that choice you know it’s like you know we have one but we also have beer. It’s yeah anyway the point being that like even as far out as Woodstock you know you can find some fantastic food yeah that’s what I mean I was addict I was in and I went to a cabin this past weekend and I had some amazing barbecue like up there up and I want to say that you were told me that you had a personal chef where the writing about I was the as a chef right. He is that he is the chef at an amazing restaurant at the nice cop called common quarter fabulous fabulous chefs meet at the Castle a potent Lana called like a normal small town because this is completely like a five small towns in one it depends on who you’re with. But yeah but it’s like a complete coincidence we had two years it’s just like back to back. Yeah we’re all just old best friends right. Same industry you know a lot of the same people. Yeah that’s been a really great thing about my job it’s like getting to meet the people that I looked up to for so many years like you know it wasn’t too long ago that I really got into food and I really got into you know writing about food. Personally and then I got this amazing job and you know I’m getting to interact with people every day which is I mean it’s kind of. You can come to know what you actually e-mailed but dreams are something that Chris all touched on briefly and he didn’t go too far into it because it didn’t need to. This restaurant local three I know he’s moved on he’s doing a lot more than just that but when he started work with three you know that his dream is to start a restaurant and then it took off and it really took off and then he had a moment on the show last week you said you’re saying you know now what he had that moment. You know he’s gone to the top and now he’s And then he had to like think of a new goal and yeah and I thought I was kind of beautiful in a way to sit there and talk with someone who’s you know like kind of like maxing out what life can be you know like set a goal achieve achieve it so much that there’s you know now you have to like go conquer a new country. Yeah and it’s something that I like each you know Michael that I that I had set out for myself I’ve ever achieved one at a time in the last you know year and a half when it comes to you know this food industry and stuff. We’ll talk about that actually on the whole idea of trying to see yourself ahead like what’s your process for going from like a sleazy bartender to like renowned best friend of everyone here. Well I actually thought I was crazy I used to be like the pickiest eater. I mean I ate I think that like chicken bangers and tater tots and beer and I looked like it and then all five and then beautiful craft checks and then I dated a guy who fed me had cheese one night and I was like this this is incredible like what why have I been like scared of eating these like things that are off you shut your lying about you can not enjoy headcheese. I did I love Had she joiners my girlfriend’s parents they’re from they’re from Poland and they were like try some head cheese and it was it’s like the joke like I’m going to be one country like. Check for like if I didn’t like Southerners like give like Yankees like after and give it to them to help me out. Yeah laughs I’m always I’m choking it down so I can but it’s joint it’s my girlfriend’s father she gives me the head cheese and journals like you know it’s kind of warm and you know you don’t have to eat the whole thing of course I do. Madly man so I might even you know inwardly I like I’m trying like fight a gag reflex for fighting me trying to get out of life just to deal with it and I have no doubt if you’re going to start. Version get their head out of this world it’s flavored so beautifully. Other Person provision does a really good version of it but it looks worse. Let’s be honest. Petty’s book pâté all that fog all that shit looks disgusting awful like they all it looks it looks awful like it looks like shit but it tastes really good like there’s a reason why you know peasant food tastes good you know those are like the fatty or parts of the body those are you know the parts of the body that you know that has all the flavor which were approachable to consumer and stuck with what you’re given trashing they’re going to hurt. Yeah exactly so you know so I had that for the first time and then I started eating like you know like beautifully roasted vegetables and you know I fell in love with like brussel sprouts. How do you like a chicken heart taco and you know it you know it’s like level but be bit by bit by bit you know I fell in love with food. I fell in love with food at the same time as I fell in love with the city you know because I started really finding these like really incredible restaurants that were like love letters to the community you know like fourth and Swift you know it was it was just with love letter to the city you know he grows all of his own vegetables and herbs and tries to you know buys an entire animal and butchers it down and you know I kind of learn the processes and then I fell in love with that and that’s kind of I was kind of my entree into the perfect transplant cupboard. Yeah yeah I mean I hated Atlanta before that I was just so ready to get out and then I discovered the food community here and then drew me and has not let me go yet. So welcome primal about food I mean that something probably it’s like the most primal thing you gather around and talk that. Goes back to the beginning was the border interest as the travel documentary shows the news like all those interviews happen while you’re with them. Yeah I think so one of my biggest fight one of the things that I wanted to happen so bad because I’m such a big fan of Anthony Bourdain. I wanted him to interact with the piece that I wrote and he tweeted out a piece that I wrote last year and it was like I think I’m still high from it. Amazing he tweeted out I wrote a piece about him and Houghton Brown going to play around and he tweeted out a link to it and I guess it’s not like he had retreated it like he actually went through and read it and like I said this is the best night of my life and then sent a unique link to it. Like he spent time with us and that was probably yeah so I’m super super big fan of Anthony Bourdain and everything he’s done for like the restaurant scene. I was I was hoping the interview with Chris or become sort of like a Southern Kitchen girl financial reality. Little did a little bit with others. You’re right I mean there are so many like terrible terrible things that happen in kitchens but if anybody really said anything that happened in kitchens like people would stop going to Russia it was almost like your most comfortable shirt. I guess the thing I’m most comfortable sharing is like the amount of drugs like if you ever try to like a drug test a chef or anybody who worked in a restaurant you would have no more restaurant like you know there are certain places that you’d go for each kind of drug like you go into the walk and to smoke pot. Some of the places I was that that’s what you get you know the gist and like the amount of like I mean you’re you’re not coming into work till like four in the afternoon and then you’re not getting off work till two am and nobody goes to sleep right after work so you’re all drinking afterwards and you are. All have like a ton of cash and it’s just like you’re either like doing drugs or drinking or going to a strip club where often there was so much of what music kind of has built itself around the atom history. Like Jazz was based upon what you’re hearing as your high listening to it you know very much appeal to that is a good direction today like E.D.M. itself was an industry is actually propelled by the Mali sales they’re doing well yes elves like depends on the era of jazz but I see what you mean specially in the seventies and rock N roll how it’s psychedelic rock was all about the trip experience. So how can the huge cost of course and cocaine in the rock assume what a healthy brown is amphetamines. Yeah well David Chang who was a huge very influential at the New York he has he you know he’s been very open about his use of pot and how it inspires his dishes he goes and he gets really really high and he says Oh my God how can I create a grilled cheese sandwich that kind of tastes like Fruity Pebbles and he goes I mean he doesn’t he doesn’t like only babbles drops like you know this is the kind of the end gets really high and tries to make the best munchie food he can and then he puts it on the menu. So like you know any any chef who. Like most chefs who are worth anything have done drugs and that’s kind of inspired I think is that there are you know that countering that feeling anything. Why don’t you know that people can Castro vivo a lot of it was your own one of his collections grow the point where it is not about the Fortunately Anyway this is what you are talking with Christobel still the best restaurants are Leno and the latter onerous for that long I call a course description and you know we were kind of giving her we knew how bad she was hanging out with are we doing drugs or I don’t know and it’s very easy to get into the heart behind it. I mean after after you reach a certain age and you’re not just a loser like you start cooking for yourself it’s a natural thing and you know Max You know I mean I have a good liar but you know what I have to have a butler. Actually even if you did would you start cooking for yourself. Now now I know that’s right there at that. Might there be running and cooking as are my that’s my that’s are the things that you said to calm myself down but like when have you have you know eight ingredients and you have no money because this is our last twenty days ago I did was I just didn’t I didn’t buy macaroni and cheese I didn’t buy chips you know you keep a limited amount of alcohol around you know there’s going to come a day when you go to the fridge you’re like OK we got a block of cheese some you know some sort of a protein. Looks like we have three or four vegetables which is the wrong way and then you know you have to start getting real crew behind it and like that was the thing you made every day I said get the cheese goop. Yeah yeah. Imagine tacos with no tortillas or anything like like it was it was almost like I’m not sure I’m greedy and with no chips. OK Well you know I don’t like what you said I’m on the Paleo diet but I do the best we can. Yeah you know I lost my account of the Chris Pratt method where the first forty pounds were all cry. I’m going to mix forty were beer or lack thereof. You switch to scotch the eye for the eye so I switched to Bourbon and then I just wrote down everything I eat literally everything I eat and I try to get one hundred grams of protein in my body and that’s how life like sixty pounds. Or you know you said you do running. Yeah Ira I run you do a treadmill running or is it all outside outside when I can be it’s a beautiful city that we have that thing raining like Right yeah right now it’s a whole treadmill and then a little bit of plotting isn’t just a coincidence. I didn’t have time to work out there so it running over launch and it was twelve degrees outside so I ran on the treadmill and I was like oh I’ve never I’ve never really had a run on treadmills or profession or college I was like well let’s just do this again so I started pushing myself out of the comfort zone. Just got on a treadmill it’s so easy to do that you just you’re like well I’ll give you the numbers right in front of you and you can be like I could be any better. So much for just lifting your foot quickly. Yeah so I can be harder than when I go running through a trail. Yeah because I’m looking out like what’s comfortable like eight thirty minute mile I can do faster and we pump it up like eight minutes. Hall and I start to realize how slow I am I like on the trails of us be like a snail. Yeah. Another you should definitely check out flywheel if you really want like a crazy cardio workout that inside they like pumpin like crazy crazy music they turn off all the lights and it’s in the dark in the dark when you’re like I can’t really see anybody and it’s just like biking like crazy biking and the your score is on a big screen in front of you so like if you’re not doing well you’re like shamed in front of everybody. Outstanding. Yeah so I I do fly wheel and I’m like hi. I saw there’s actually like a place near the Highlands where they’re putting on some heavy metal yoga session some morning or the like but here it is ironic hardcore music and I’m not sure if they’re going for the some people find peace through the complete screams. Yeah you know you and you know my boyfriend is a huge metal metal had you know I’ve you bring you back up a few of the time a few I think you know I’ve definitely been to a few a few shows and stuff. OK fair enough. Ask me a question. Mastodon show us why you did I say no thanks guys. Well you know we see one of them in like little five where the other guys are freaking out. Did you ever see the commercial they did for Al. Yes Yes It’s amazing. I guy Those guys are off brown times who looks like he’s a star. He recorded a commercial for Elmer as if it was which is this delicious. It’s basically sort of Mexican right now make it a hipster break down and I want to run sixty two burrito. So it’s kind of scary to me down or whatever. Elmer is amazing and he filmed as if it was a prescription drug and it presents and so they had like all of these side effects that might happen as a result of the old mirror which was like forming a satisfaction general letter to the dad you know as a side effect from any sort of prescription drugs and they just didn’t have any place in the area. Team in Kirkwood oak or it’s like a huge back patio it’s kind of more like a family place but it’s really good if you like a big patio and it’s a great place to be in town. Yeah that’s the one that’s the one thing that the air the nicer climates I mean Georgia has a great spring summer and fall. But I mean like the winter sucks I mean January January was crappy You know this summer and they were going to go do we get more rain than Seattle in the summer and we get thunderstorms too they don’t get those in the West Coast and then you’re going on to get the worse the Midwest the worse of the far west the worst of the worst of what we don’t get many earthquakes you know blizzards we don’t get blizzard or we get ice storms on to get an ice storm once every four years our city collapses I have this theory that Atlanta is best known for its disasters. Oh yeah. All learning you know Sherman first notable historical event of Atlanta is its destruction and the Civil War and from then on. Leads into like modern day one if you go look at Atlanta in popular culture was known for the center of the zombie apocalypse and it keeps going like that the only time it’s like national press is when something screws up right. Perhaps like thank you Falcons for admitting that you pumped and fan noise and so on and stadium. Thank you Ted Turner for make an ass out of yourself yet again. Then in the ninety’s. OK. I don’t I don’t remember anyone they are not as very few in the background behind Chipper Jones waiting I mean you know what. But damn do I wish he fell and the brains like he way stop spending money which was not and now is now a financial group I don’t like the Midwest liberty and Liberty Media look at me like yeah it was a random tax write off but they ended up with a baseball team at the end you can’t play you can’t have a sports team for profit. I’m sorry like you can’t own a sports team in a corporation it has to be a hobby or a labor of love for some freakishly rich guy or do the Packers model those those are the two options. Soon as you start trying to make corporate you know ruthless decisions in the sports arena because then you start saying stupid things like we could save money if we just you know I don’t know don’t you spend money that’s the only I need to focus is to win the Atlanta Spirit. They own Philip sort of just like the scheduling has to do that now where they they on the hawks they used on the ground but essentially they’ve been trying to sell the team at several different points in the entire time the thing is that I want to sell the team and will still want to keep the stadium rights for one which nobody is cool with because everyone in the atmosphere is costly suing another member in their own organization like it’s the most dysfunctional organizing body in all of sports and family or something. But right now they’re trying to sell the Hawks and that’s when they had the thing like the only team in Atlanta worth rooting for right now is that I mean we’re not demanding like a new toy like a new place to play it’s true. Like it’s just it boggles my mind like that the Falcons are such so depressing despite getting two wins on New Orleans and the bars. My Steelers beat him in town. It’s OK Nobody is perfect in the Falcons and get as much cheer for this year. Well here’s the thing I love my football to a high standard. I like I hate frequently in Georgia Tech because I hold them to a high standard if they are that standard sometimes but the Falcons. Just like Georgia Tech is a school hating and failing their students as much as they can but the thing is we like gridlock because they don’t they don’t have any room to sit there and act all uppity and try to act ask for any Philips Arena because they just showed up. I mean Hawks history they had to can be Mattoon Bo and before that I guess they had some sort of a decent team like in the early ninety’s or something. Are you going to take like five minutes to live on the can because he’s donating to charity. He hasn’t donated anything as of yet. I mean long story short I barely to Campbelltown was much more core than John Rocker when it comes to asking for charity. OK so you have a lot of rehab where am I going to drive I get emails from this girl. Well I mean I work on getting John Rocker on the show and he how do you know. Brendan Cobb and we have we have many friends in common actually me and John Rocker and I just as well even even if part of that good old boy a kind of system that I I find very repellent. Well you were saying it might be an act you know you thought it would be you might be a result on Survivor. Nothing is an act with that exactly what you think you thought it might be effective that military guess if you like off thing which I thought would turn them like he was saying we’re going to bring some friends which instantaneously I think it becomes an episode of Eastbound and Down where Danny McBride gets too drunk at a charity golf like resort like RAM and golf carts are true to their science merges Oh my Go