FoodTruckLeague

Episode 297 – Salt City Barbecue

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Jeremy is still recovering from covid. It seems to have completely put him down, with 5 days in bed, and still trying to recover, we have him join us remotely for this show and Julia is off on another fun trip. Bre tells us about the death of her biological father, and recounts the funeral and amazing new found family she has.

The bulk of the show is devoted to our guest though, Rusty Monson, the owner of Salt City Barbecue. He is also cohost on The Pitmasters Podcast. We get to talk a ton about his business, but before that we hear more about his life. Being our age, we all wax poetic about the awesome 80s and 90s in the Salt Lake area. I’m real happy because we get to nerd out on Magic The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons with Rusty.

In talking with Rusty we find out how much he really does love his cooking and his state. He wants Utah to become a place people can find truly amazing barbeque even if that isn’t really the case right now. What he won’t say about the other locals, the hosts of the show don’t back off from. While Utah has an amazing food scene, barbeque is one area we don’t have a large selection of, and are certainly not known for. Rusty wants to change all of that.

Rusty started doing competition barbeque, before deciding to open his own catering business and food truck. Now the truck can be found wandering the Salt Lake Valley and delivering amazing nachos to everyone. Long term the dream is to open up a great brick and mortar restaurant and teach everyone who wants to know how to make good barbeque.

We will ALWAYS love your “likes” BUT don’t forget to click that little SHARE button (or retweet) *sharing IS indeed caring* You can find us and subscribe on Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Itunes, IHeartRadio, Google Play, and TuneIN. Leave us a review and Follow us on the Twitter @tnupodcast, Instagram @Tnupodcast, or on Facebook The New Utah Podcast

Episode 245 – Culinary Evangelism

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Episode 245 is all about food. No seriously, we didn’t really spend any time on other things. We started with Food Tucks of Salt Lake City, but quickly moved on to former Chow Truck worker and owner, Chef J Looney. He is a self proclaim culinary evangelist and has the business and website to prove it.

Chef J Looney (https://theculinaryevangelist.com/)

We talk about his love of food and how it all started with his father doing institutional food work as the food services director for LDS Hospital when he was younger. No joke, Chef Looney fell in love with hospital cafeteria food and is now a self taught private chef.

From his church sponsored vacation to Argentina as a young lad, Chef Looney really wanted people to understand the cultural aspects of food. We really dive into ethnic cuisine and the fusions that those things create. We talk about the diverse food culture in the state of Utah as well.

(Kathy Stephenson, Salt Lake Tribune)

We talk about Ethiopian food in big detail. Chef tells us that Utah has a number of great Ethiopian places to eat and things people should try that spicy food. But we also have a large Vietnamese population and the diversity doesn’t stop there. In fact, Salt Lake may have a more diverse food scene than most major cities in the United States.

It is interesting that America is one of the few countries in the world that don’t eat clean naturally. That is part of what has inspired the chef to go private and do meal planning and private meal prep for a select number of VIP clients through his new business. Eating local and eating clean is the responsible thing to do.

If you don’t leave the episode hungry and wanting to try something new, then I’m not sure you were listening to the correct show.

We will ALWAYS love your “likes” BUT don’t forget to click that little SHARE button (or retweet) *sharing IS indeed caring* You can find us and subscribe on Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Itunes, IHeartRadio, Google Play, and TuneIN. Leave us a review and Follow us on the Twitter @tnupodcast, Instagram @Tnupodcast, or on Facebook The New Utah Podcast